Mayfair Manor

[XCandy and LunacyX]

You think I'm not serious? At the corner of the table opposite Cian, Courtland smirked at him, all wicked suggestion. That's cute. If you're not careful, I could take advantage of that oversight. Antha wouldn't mind.
At the end of his short speech, there was a small round of polite applause, a number of beaming smiles, and abruptly Antha yanked him back down into his seat, laying a brief, chaste kiss upon his lips and keeping her hand around his beneath the table as she motioned for silence. "Alright, alright, let's shift the spotlight already. Uncle Barclay, do you have the agenda?"
"I do," the man said, popping open his briefcase and taking several sheets of paper from it, announcing the first matter of business. Trivial things mostly, things that the members of the family should have been able to resolve themselves but had brought to Antha to settle instead. The only matters of any gravity, besides the question of admitting Cian into the family, was the choice for director of Mayfair Medical---which, as predicted, had Antha and Julien screaming at one another from across the table for a solid ten minutes before he relented, fearing she would bring the roof down around their heads with the way the room shook, and anyways Vittorio and Barclay were steadfastly on her side---the claim from the younger cousins that non-mainstream Mayfairs should be granted a larger allowance---though Antha merely laughed at this, dismissing the matter as ridiculous, they made more than most people in the city without ever lifting a finger for it---and the matter of Dolly Jean and Vittorio's impending marriage, which Antha openly dared anyone to oppose, and which they reluctantly did not.
After a little over an hour, Antha called an end to the proceedings and the Mayfairs all rose at once, all of them taking their time except for Antha, who bolted straight from her seat and moments later leapt onto Dorian's back, hitching her arms around his neck and pressing a fleeting kiss to his cheek. "What on earth do you mean slinking in here halfway through a family meeting as if it's no big deal? If it was a different age, I would have you whipped for insolence. Unfortunately, they frown on that sort of thing these days." She sighed, as if it were a terrible shame, but could not help the wicked grin that spread across her lips.
Antha had never made much of a secret of the fact that Dorian was one of her favorite cousins, though the act was unconscious. He fit the same general niche as the others while varying just enough from them to make him truly interesting. For this reason, the cousins did not leave them alone for long, only Courtland hung back to speak with Sera, confident in his position as her other favored cousin, as the others crowded the two.
"Dorian," Pierce purred, "It's been a while. I was just telling a story about you earlier..." He gave a dark, sharp grin, grabbing Liesse's shoulders in one arm and Rynn's in the other, as they had already dragged them over. It wasn't safe for them on their own around the entirety of the family just as it was not safe for Malakai alone in a room with Sera. "Have you met Rynn and Liesse? And Cian, for that matter---you weren't at the wedding, after all, you wicked boy---have you met him yet?"
Antha answered the latter question for her cousin, vehemently nodding her head as she pouted and cut her eyes sharply at him. "He was horrible to him, he kicked him."
"You kicked Cian?!" Jack repeated, staring in affront at Dorian.
Courtland finally appeared at his shoulder then, grinning wildly. "It's true, I saw the whole thing, I thought Antha was going to lynch him for it." He paused, turning his gaze to Liesse, and said very sternly, "Stay away from Dorian, he's a very, very bad man. Pierce is probably worse, but Antha loves Dorian more so we tolerate him less." Pierce only cut his eyes at Courtland, scowling.
"I should have," Antha murmured meanwhile, punching Dorian on the shoulder, "But here I forgave you, and you still didn't come to my wedding! I'm tempted to not love you at all anymore, you horrible creature."
"Speaking of Cian," Courtland interrupted, casting a gaze out over the lingering crowd of Mayfairs, "Evie, darling, I think he's getting mobbed by girls." The girl made a small shriek of alarm, releasing Dorian and bolting back across the room all at once, shooing the crowd of eyelash-batting vultures away from her husband.
Rynn was harder to save. With Rowan at their forefront, the younger Mayfair girls had managed to slip between him and Pierce and steal him away, all smiling and chattering away with idle questions. But this was something the cousins had foreseen and Antha had instructed them to prevent, so they did not have him for long before Courtland and Jack had slipped through their ranks, Courtland clearing a safe perimeter around Rynn as Jack threw his arms around the boy, pouting fiercely. "Move along, harpies, he's in a committed, monogamous threesome."
"Oh gawd, you dirty little liar!" Rowan shrieked, glaring at her older brother, and then casting a gaze out across the room called, "Mother! Jack's telling lies and won't let me speak to Rynn!"
But Claire-Marie had found herself in a curious little gathering of the older Mayfair women who had filtered in around Cian and Antha as the younger girls had fled from them (incidentally finding themselves in the group around Rynn), flinging questions at Antha as they all reached without permission for her stomach, which the girl was none too pleased about. Rather, she looked as if she might snap and fall into a murderous frenzy at any moment. Those who were not preoccupied with Antha, meanwhile, offered Cian brief, warm words of congratulations and welcome, passing by and shaking his hand, patting his shoulder, or in Remy's case, ruffling his hair. "That's lovely, darling," Claire-Marie had called back distractedly, her focus still raptly upon Antha's abdomen, and Jack had grinned wildly with triumph at that as Rowan scowled fiercely, objecting as Courtland and Jack finally managed to spirit him away, back to his sister.
Either Liesse was easier to guard, or Pierce was a better guardian. Courtland and Jack liked to think it was the latter, as the boys of the family---excluding them, of course---were much less ruthless in their advances than the girls, which was hardly surprising in such a hard pressed matriarchal family, and rumor had spread of Rynn's aggressive over-protectiveness of the girl, due in part (or probably completely) to the fact that Antha had mentioned it. Repeatedly. Pointedly.
Nearby, Suzette bustled past the cousins with Malakai firmly in tow, pausing only briefly when she spied Dorian to smile and greet him with, "Dorian, sugarpie, you're here. I had just assumed you were rotting in a cheap motel room where a harlot had stabbed you. What a lovely surprise to see you here." Courtland, Jack, and Pierce were either biting their lips on or snorting their laughter, idly watching Malakai as he helplessly tugged on his wrist, as if he thought if he just pulled it in the right direction, it would slip unnoticed from Suzette's vice-like grip and he could escape. "We really must have a chat soon, sugarpie, so you had better be at Mayfair Manor when I come calling. At the moment, unfortunately, I have a dinner engagement with Mrs. Astoria and, as her granddaughter Sophie must accompany her, I thought I would bring my sweetpea to keep her company."
Courtland absolutely could not contain the snort of laughter at her words, though he attempted to hide it behind his hand, murmuring very lowly, "Yeah, that's the reason..." He shrieked in the next moment, as Suzette's delicate gloved hand popped him in the back of the head for his smart mouth the second time that day.
"What was that, lovebug? I didn't quite catch it."
"Nothing, aunt Suzette," he murmured, rubbing the back of his head and flinching slightly as she raised her hand to adjust her glove.
"Well then, carry on children, I shall see you tomorrow," she excused herself breezily, continuing on as Malakai gazed helplessly at them, knowing that help would not come.
"I guess you'll just have to stay the night," Courtland purred, turning his attention back to Dorian, "Unless you want to be on aunt Suzette's bad side. And let's face it, she's scarier than Antha when she wants to be."
"I thought you were going to move back in," Jack murmured, glancing curiously at him, "Antha said someone was moving into Eleanor's vacant room tomorrow. Supposedly it's a 'he,' and a Mayfair."
"I didn't hear anything about it..." Pierce pouted, and then narrowing his eyes at Antha as she wandered up with Cian in tow, "Evie, who's moving in? I want that room, damn it!"
"You can have Vittorio's room, after he and Dolly Jean move out following the wedding. Until then, you seem to be perfectly at ease with Courtland and Jack."
"I'm not sure 'ease' is a good descriptor," Courtland said, grinning suggestively, as he hung over Jack's shoulder. "Who's moving in, then?"
"You'll see," the girl dismissed it easily, her eyes settling on Lawrence as he approached the group. "Ah, Laurie. Business, I assume?"
"Only a little," he assured her, adjusting the knot of his tie with a soft sigh of exhaustion, "I wanted to know if you'd come to a decision yet regarding the notice we received yesterday. Michael said he would leave it to you, as it would be best not to separate them."
"Ah, right. I was a little torn about it, but Rynn's behavior today has convinced me. A tutor simply wouldn't be adequate." She turned, her eyes narrowing very seriously as she regarded Rynn. "Your social graces are disturbingly lacking, and since we're being pressed to provide you and Liesse with some form of education, you start next week."
"Start what...?" Jack questioned, slowly, as if he didn't dare to imagine the horror of what she was suggesting for the twins.
Antha only smiled. "High school, of course. As far as social skills are concerned, it's practically boot camp."
Lawrence cleared his throat, nodding with her decision. "Sacred Heart, I presume?"
"Of course. What do you expect them to learn in public school?"
"Very well, then," he concluded, pulling out his phone and rapidly typing out a note to himself, "I'll have the uniforms delivered tomorrow, in case they need to be altered."
"Tres bon. We'll see you then, Laurie," she said, and with a nod of his head Lawrence was off towards the elevators and his office downstairs. Antha turned to Rynn, smiling even as she braced herself for him to lash out in indignation. "You're going to hate it, but it'll be good for you. Now---" She glanced at the clock, noting the time, and firmly grasped Rynn's hand, "We're going to have to have your training a little early today, and we have an errand to run beforehand. Come along, you can yell at me in the car." With that she yanked him after her towards the elevators, pausing only to give Cian a brief kiss and murmur, "I'll be back by dinner. We have a deal, after all." And then, shoving Rynn into the elevator before her, called sweetly, "Bonsoir! Don't let the girls near Cian or I'll beat the living daylights out of you! Oh, and Dorian, you're dead if you're not at the house when I get home! Bye~!"
The cousins only stared as the metal doors closed on Antha and Rynn, blinking in silent confusion. It was Courtland, with a little thoughtful sigh, who broke the silence, turning to Liesse and announcing happily, "You're going to look like a little doll in your Catholic schoolgirl uniform! I'm going to have to come pick you up from school everyday to make sure the perverts don't try to follow you home. Not that they would survive, if they did. Oh, what fun this is going to be! James~!" He turned, running after the boy and clapping his hands firmly down on his shoulders, explaining to him very seriously that he was counting on him and the other cousins that went to school with him to show Liesse around and keep an eye out for her. "Oh, and Rynn too, I suppose. And by that I mean protect the other students from him."
"Well," Pierce sighed, glancing around at his cousins, "Shall we return home? I don't like our chances if we stay too long, one of the girls could make off with Cian, or Dorian could make a run for it, and then it would be off with our heads."
"Yes, let's. Those chances are horrible."

In the elevator, under the muted tones of Mozart, Antha fell momentarily silent, her posture a little more easygoing, and cut a knowing glance at Rynn. "Alright, out with it. You have precisely twenty minutes before we reach the Talamasca motherhouse in which to tell me how much you loathe me, how I'm ruining your life, or whatever it is you imagine I'm doing. Oh!" She paused, giving a brief, easy smile, calm as could be, and in a particularly good mood at that. "But I didn't tell you we were going to the Talamasca motherhouse, did I? Let me remedy that. We're going to see the Talamasca, because they have something that I need and something that you need, and you terrify Atticus a great deal more than I do and that's half the point of this errand---to terrify the living hell out of them." The girl smiled, and despite the tranquility of her eyes, it was absolutely chilling. "Speaking of which, your tutelage today is going to be a little...different. You have a taste of the magic which put Nero down from Cassian, and it shall continue to fester within you until it comes to fruition, but you're not powerful enough yet. Fortunately, there is a certain...experiment, which I am eager to begin. All I need is what the Talamasca took from me. Nothing to do with you, before you start imagining me cutting you open, but it will be a good learning experience for you. And besides...it might help you to understand what Liesse underwent before you encountered her in Satis House the other day. But that is tomorrow's business."
The dial above the doors chimed lightly before they opened, Antha taking Rynn's hand and leading him outside where the car was waiting for them. She didn't completely trust him not to run. "Eighteen minutes," she amended, noting the time as she turned down the deafening volume of the stereo and threw her foot down on the gas pedal, hard, "You may begin."  

[Okimiyage]

Cian squeezed Antha's hand quickly, one short burst of pressure before he released her. There was scant time before the end of the meeting to coddle his nerves. And she had her own affairs to settle. She was a lioness in embossed black velvet, roaring down any and all objections Julien could bring to the table before a single opposing argument could be raised. Cian made a mental note not to start any arguments with Antha in the near future, as a result.

At the end of it all, as they exited the room, Rynn found himself at the end of a stream of cousins with Belle. He watched the sash of Liesse's lilac dress disappear into the crowd--no doubt chasing after the family's approval just as Cian did.
Unexpectedly, he realized that he was staring at the small, lace-trimmed bow in Belle's hair. He heard himself say, distantly. "What's wrong with purple?"
He had caught her attention. Rynn watched her swing around like a puppet, her brow half-furrowed in confusion. "You asked me earlier. It's an aristocrat's color, did you know? --common men could be killed for wearing it, once. And it was to match--" he inclined his head in the direction of the path Liesse had taken.
They'd used to do that--match-- all the time, when they were small.

First it was because they were twins, how charming~! So the endless stream of nursemaids and nannies had treated them like dolls, dressing them up together in sailor suits and fur-trimmed coats. At night, they'd slept wearing the same striped pajama sets, next to identical teddy bears, though they held tightly to one another instead.

Then, it was because nobody had thought to go out and buy new clothes in so long, and the nannies and nursemaids had been discharged by then, and Liesse's hemlines began to rise above her ankles as she grew. When, eventually, a tailor had been sent for, Liesse had asked for nothing else but the same garments made new again. And Rynn had humored her, and it had become a tradition after a time. He had never wondered--never even thought to imagine whether she longed to wear lilac party frocks instead. She could have just asked.


Dorian nearly buckled under the unexpected weight after Antha lunged at him. "Lor'!" he croaked, his slim frame bending like a reed. Was she wearing a suit of armor under there? The crowd closed in around him. He could almost hear the audible clank of shackles. Family was suffocating, crowds a nightmare that he could hardly bear. The mix of the two was Dorian's personal hell.
Within his own mind, the boy let out a silent groan. You ran away for a night--a single night, out in the woods, a few heavenly college students at your side, and the family treated you like you'd been gone for months.
Although even for Dorian, last night had been a hell of an event. Those college girls had been loaded--all of them, tall, sylvan types, long-legged and henna-haired, decked out in glittering club clothes. He should have gotten their numbers! But it didn't matter, he remembered the address of the manor they'd taken him to. They'd gone drinking in the woods beforehand, dancing through rows of trees, crushing mushrooms beneath their bare feet, whooping and laughing. There had been drinking and music, but he couldn't remember the name of the band…and the party had lasted for hours, well beyond when he'd expected to see sunrise. But it didn't matter, did it? He'd made it in time for the main event.
Then, his attention was brought back to the matter at hand by Antha's accusation. He could forgive all defamation of his character from the cousins--and frankly, Cian had deserved the kick, in Dorian's opinion--but he didn't care for the way Antha had called him 'horrible creature' at all. "Hey!" he protested, rubbing where her punch had landed. "How was I supposed to know? No one told me you were inviting that--hooligan-- into the household." With an indignant sniff, he turned away. Admittedly, he'd dropped his phone in the woods last night and it was most likely irrevocably lost. But if he'd known Antha was going in to tie the knot, he wouldn't have minded leaving the party early. "I expect the celebrations are to last the entire week, then? --and tell me you saved a slice of wedding cake for me, even though I'm deplorable and horrible and any other adjective you please. Call me whatever you desire, I want my sugar fix."

+++

Liesse looked downright giddy upon being informed that she was to attend school. She even clapped her hands. High school! It was an essential part of her American upbringing, or so she was told.
Rynn was somewhat less enthused. "You've enrolled us in school," he repeated, doubt coloring every word. "A normal! school!" interrupted Liesse, excitedly.
Rynn gritted his teeth. A normal school. With halfwitted teachers, and homework, and bullies, and gym class--all the horrible, boring toxins of every-day life. Under his breath, Rynn suggested, "Could we not simply hire a tutor? Some kind of--home-school program, perhaps." but his mutterings went totally unheard beneath Liesse's delight. "With home-coming dances and bake sales, sports games and chess club and detention? All of it?!"
"Liesse, how are you such an authority on this subject?" Rynn demanded, more than a little annoyed by her enthusiasm.
His sister had the grace to appear embarrassed. "Oh--" she began vaguely. "I heard about it somewhere or another. Maybe from a book, or--"
Rynn's glare silenced her. He could still tell when she was making up stories. Bashfully, she confessed: "Aedan told me. He wanted to go to college, you know--he'd sent off for a G.E.D. test, whatever that is--"
"I simply don't see what we'd ever learn in high school that we don't already know--"
It was then that Liesse rounded on him, turned in the manner of a house-cat which had suddenly discovered its claws. "Social skills, Rynn, you heard as well as I what Antha said! As you of all people should be aware, since you are sorely lacking in that department!" she snapped.
Rynn's cheeks slowly turned red.
Liesse had never yelled at him, before--had never been anything but humble and kind in his presence. It was like being bitten by a dog you'd known all your life.
Rynn fell silent. He let Antha lead him into the elevators. She prattled. He didn't listen--until the doors had shut, and she had silenced, and the new tone in her voice startled him out of the shock.

Surprised, he glanced over at her as he settled into the passenger seat of her car.
"It may sound funny to you, admitting this, but I don't hate you."
The engine ignited; heavy power rock chords hit the interior like a brick as the audio system switched on. Rynn found himself having to shout over an electric guitar solo. "But I do take offense at they way you've integrated my sister into your family hierarchy. She is not a Mayfair, Antha, though you have placed her in the body of one. I do not say that I would rather see her dead, because this is--far preferable, and I am grateful to you for her restoration. But I am afraid for her."
Rynn paused. He'd never driven before, only taken a handful of taxis in his lifetime, but didn't the red lights mean 'stop'?
His seat shuddered as they drove over another one of the potholes which were a trademark of Osiris City streets; Rynn felt his spine quake with the vibrations. "She is not the sister that I knew before." he said, in a voice that was almost lost within the bass of Antha's speakers. "Day by day, it seems we grow more separated." It was too shameful to admit this, but Rynn was afraid. Not of death, not of Antha's wrath, but of being alone. He could only too well imagine how he would stagnate and fade away in a singular apartment of his own, without any reason to go out beside the acquiring of his monthly rent. "She was innocent before. I could sacrifice everything I owned for her, without a second thought, because I loved that about her. No matter how corrupted I became, no matter how befouled our name, everything was for her. So that she could continue in purity." And he laughed, thinking at how naive he had been--to think that their fragile world of cobwebs and ghosts would survive any encounter with the outside world, the world of flesh and bone, salt and iron.
That house had crumbled a little further every day, the hierarchy disintegrating second by second. But still Rynn had clung to it, to the moldering pillars of his ancestry, to the tales of their glory days. The more it had decayed, the more energy he had devoted to its support.
"I realize now that it was folly, to think that I could resurrect our bloodline. I wish I had never--" never invited you into our home.--never designed that mad scheme, to sacrifice the head of Osiris City's reigning family to supplement the pyramid scheme of Calais ancestry. He cut himself off from the tirade before it began. If anything that Antha had said had stuck, it was that he was in sore need of social skills. This included the ability to censor himself."If anything, I owe you an apology." he said, with surprising clarity. "There was nothing left for me in that house. But all the same, in the outside world, there is nothing for me here, either."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha had thought for a long time on Rynn's words, quietly regarding them as they were whispered with such haunting resonance by the occasional sidelong flash of her eyes. But she said nothing until they were free of the Talamasca motherhouse, and even then not until they had made their way back out of the woods and onto the city streets, where she had pulled without explanation into a corner gas station and gone briefly inside, coming out with a little brown paper bag closed in her hand, and continued on, bypassing the turn that led towards Mayfair Manor and driving instead to the city park, which was dark and deserted at this hour, the cicadas making a low, collective drone, the wildflowers rustling in the cool spring breeze. "Get out," she said, very softly, before she slid out of her own seat, taking the paper bag with her, and moved to sit on the hood of the car overlooking the forest before them, motioning for Rynn to sit beside her, and dumped the contents of the brown paper bag on the shiny black hood of the car, revealing two cans of syrupy, sugary, chocolate-flavored coffee and a pack of cigarettes. She handed Rynn one of the cans silently, and in the same manner packed the cigarettes and drew one out, putting it to her lips, before setting it on the hood between them. "Don't tell Cian," she ordered him shortly, the first wisp of smoke curling from her lips with a dreamy sigh of satisfaction, popping the tab on the can of coffee open, and for a few more minutes sat in silence, gazing out over the dark, rustling woods and the handful of glittering stars scattered above them, just barely escaping the city lights.
"I never thought there was any point in being out in this world," she murmured at long last, gently, her eyes flashing with some distant remembrance as she sat watching the smoke drift lazily up into the sky. "I wanted so, so badly to be free, and I took the first opportunity that came to me. I escaped, I killed my father, and for a while I just sat in the living room and let the realization hit me that I had nothing. I was the Designee to the Mayfair legacy, of course, I was aware of that much, and that I had a truly massive family waiting for me, coming to get me even as I sat there, dripping in blood. But I didn't want that, any of it. It was an annoyance, a burden, I hated the very thought of it, and for a while I really and truly hated them. He'll never admit to it now, but when I was first brought to that house and made to live with my unfamiliar family, I tried to suffocate Nicolae, because he was loud and annoying and he would never leave me alone, I couldn't escape him."
She gave a small, low laugh as she remembered it, sitting for another few moments in silence as she flicked her partially-smoked cigarette down onto the pavement and watched it smolder, and then finally an arm came around Rynn's shoulders, squeezed him lightly, her lips pressing a brief, gentle kiss to the crown of his head as she pulled him towards her. "It's bad enough that you get so caught up in the past, but you focus far too seriously on the present. Right now, Rynn, you're probably at the worst stage in your life. That's to be expected, when you're sixteen---what a godawful age, truly---only you have so much more to weigh on you. I don't even know how to properly stress it enough, but things will get better. You heard me before, don't pretend like you didn't, your social skills are atrocious, and that's why I'm sending you to school. It's a good school, don't underestimate that, but more importantly there are people your own age there and you'll have no choice but to find a way to interact with them and they'll have no choice but to deal with you, because that is where the horror of high school begins, and eventually, unless you are totally hopeless, you'll find ways to get along with these people and you'll make friends, and they'll never fully understand you because that is one of the curses of being an extraordinary person in this world, but eventually you'll realize that it's enough, that they don't have to perfectly understand, it's enough to be loved, to have companionship. And then you'll graduate, and because it's you your transcript will be riddled with remarks on your unruly, rebellious, dour behavior like the bubonic plague, but you'll have good grades because you aren't to be outdone, I don't think you could ever allow it. And then, because you have Mayfair connections, you'll be able to do just about anything you want to. You can be a doctor, or a lawyer, or you can go to South America and help make maps of the wild, if that's all you really want to do. Ah, but I've gotten too caught up in the details and my point is this: this isn't how your life is going to be forever, Rynn. You'll have to make the effort but, with time, things will get better."
The girl leaned back, sighing gently, and gazed thoughtfully up at the stars. "I wonder if you've ever actually lived your life for yourself? I can't imagine what it's like, suddenly not having the responsibility of heading a family, but whatever troubles that come along with it, it's a sort of freedom you've never had. And I really want you to think about that, Rynn, that you have the option of being whatever the hell you want now." A light sigh passed easily through her lips, her eyes glancing idly down at the coffee can in her fingers. "Even when it doesn't seem like it, or you simply refuse to believe it, I'm always looking out for you, Rynn. It's basic human compassion. And besides..." Her fingers briefly pinched his cheek, the teasing glimmer dancing in her eyes with the grin to match. "You're just like a puppy. You run around destroying everything and barking incessantly as if you rule the world, but we forgive you for that because you're just so damn cute, and one day you'll grow up and even out."
Another brief silence, though it was a calm, easy sort of silence that seemed perfectly natural on the mild spring night. "I can't say much regarding Liesse. I understand you, to a certain degree, because you are dreadfully like me, but I can't even begin to fathom the workings of a mind like hers. However..." She hesitated, seemed to search for precisely the words she meant, because it would be terrible to misspeak where Liesse was concerned. "I think she just wants to be normal," she murmured, still gazing distantly up at the sky, "Don't you? It's not an opportunity she had before, locked up in Llyr's Court. She's a sixteen-year-old girl, and she probably has the best shot at being halfway normal of all of us. And normal for teenage girls is high school, and flirting, and branching out from who you were and what you knew as a child. As much as you love her, Rynn, can you really try to deny her that? I'm not saying overprotective brothers aren't useful---lord knows I had one, and if Nicolae wasn't the one corrupting me then it was not to be tolerated, over his dead body and all that---but they're very acutely frustrating, and you know it's coming from love but you still can't stand it, you want to rebel against it, even when they're right you just hate it that much more." She laughed once, lowly, and murmured, "Not that she'll ever escape that anyways. Don't get me wrong, my cousins are terrible, dreadful, incorrigible beasts, and they're going to flirt with Liesse because that's just what they do, it's how they interact with people, but Jack was quite serious when he said she's their fairy princess. They loved her instantly for the same reasons they love Malakai so well, because they see all the good and the light in her and they're not about to let anyone go spoiling that. And you? They love you because you remind them of themselves, even if it isn't nearly as apparent as their love for Liesse. You and Liesse are not Mayfairs, we know that, we aren't tricking ourselves into believing otherwise, not trying to turn you into such, but you are family. Cian is a Mayfair, if not by blood, that's done, so as his siblings you belong to the great, vague conglomerate of family that is both Mayfair and not. Your blood, by way of your brother, runs in the veins of my children alongside mine. You belong to us, and we to you, and there's nothing to be done about it. You could run, leave as Dorian does, often, but there's no changing it. You're family, and you'll get used to it one day."
In the distance, a clock tower chimed the hour and Antha smiled gently, turning her gaze lightly on Rynn. "Just a few thoughts, mon ami. Come on, we should be getting home, we still have work to do. But I'll take it easy on you for tonight." Antha climbed back in the car and, with a last wayward grin, purred, "You still haven't told me how my middle names remind you of a pastry. Come on, it'll make you feel better."

As usual, the house was lively, and that was not necessarily a good thing. Belle had followed the cousins home, and though she had said there was no reason they all knew it was because she was waiting for Malakai. When Antha arrived, Courtland was preoccupied tromping around the parlor on all fours, Belle clinging to his back and demanding, "Faster! After him!" as Pierce watched them with a raised eyebrow, slowly inching backwards as they headed laboriously in his direction.
Thorne, who had also followed them home because he was bored, was draped across the couch with the back of his hand across his eyes, drifting in and out of sleep. Armand was drinking gin, caught deep in conversation with Dorian as he explained that, no offense, but one of the characters in his latest novel was based on him, and he died horrendously at the end. The others had been making fun of him for a while---"Oh poor, dear Dorian, what have you been taking? The wedding was over a week ago."---but they were over that now, seeking other amusement. Jack, Vittorio, Dolly Jean, and Lawrence were seated around the tea table in the far corner by the windows, using it for its intended purpose, with Liesse between them, giving her the run-through of her new high school. All of the Mayfair children had gone to Sacred Heart for at least a little while, they explained, though the many of them had dropped out in favor of private tutors. "Never, ever eat the pizza," Jack was warning her profusely, his eyes very serious despite that familiar shine of his usual drugs, "Or anything, if you can help it. Just have Jacob make your lunch. And don't ever join the AV club, it'll kill your social life, or the cheerleading squad, they'll turn you into an anorexic speed freak. And don't ever talk back to the nuns, they'll smack you with rulers." Wincing, he scratched idly at the palms of his hands as if he could still feel the sting.
"You'll do fine," Lawrence assured her lightly, sipping his tea, "Teenagers are obsessed with anything that's bright and shiny and new. And whatever you have trouble with, James and the other younger cousins can help you."
Vittorio made a small sound, which did not seem to have a predefined meaning, staring at the table in passing. "Don't go beneath the bleachers, that's where the burnouts linger."
"Ahh," Jack sighed with renewed excitement, falling into a dreamy nostalgia, "That takes me back. To what I'm not sure, it's all a haze, but still. Oh, and the back stairwell! We called it the 'kissing corridor,' we'd ditch classes and hook up there."
"Jack," Lawrence sighed, shaking his head, "Don't tell her something revolting like that. Especially considering how many times you and Courtland were suspended for both of those, skipping classes and acting indecently in school. It took a small fortune to keep you two from getting expelled."
Jack beamed. "They were always the angriest when it was us together. They made us sit through special lectures about the sin of sodomy in detention."
Lawrence sighed yet again. "That Antha and Nicolae were never caught in the act at school is nothing short of a miracle. Of course she was at Sacred Heart Middle School then, but it was right next to the high school. But once she was there...oh good lord, the trouble she caused. There was always something odd happening that no one could quite explain, random fires or moving chairs or someone's clothes tearing in embarrassing ways, things they could never pin on her but she was always right there, grinning. But sShe was wildly popular, I'll give her that, all of the girls wanted to be her and all of the boys...well, you can guess that part. And a good number of them did, from what I could tell. But that always caused fights, sometimes just between her random lovers but often between them and the cousins, Courtland or Jack or Dorian or Pierce. And she was always getting caught doing that. Good lord, Julien wanted to sue over how many times they called her a Jezebel and a harlot."
The conversation stopped abruptly when Antha and Rynn returned, the few cousins involved in the reminiscence glancing innocently off, afraid to look Antha in the eye as she crossed the room to take Armand's drink from him, telling him lightly that it was still early and he'd had enough.
Belle, noticing that her aunt and uncle had returned, hopped off of Courtland's back as if she were bored of the game (Courtland collapsed on the floor then, panting and whining in whispers that she was getting too big for this) and ran up to Rynn, staring up at him with those enormous, inquisitive blue eyes. She took a moment to look at his clothes again, considering them, and then blurted out in her usual straightforward tone, as if she had been giving it serious consideration while he was gone, "Uncle Rynn, why would you want to dress like aristocracy? Everybody hated them, and they were always killing them. Teacher told me so in class." She added the last very seriously, evidence that it must be true, and then as if she were bored of that too, turned and pulled a book of fairytales out from the small pink bag hanging at her side, holding it out with both hands to show him. "Look, look! Malakai bought me this today, because I got a good reading grade on my report card." She paused just long enough to crack the book open, flipping rabidly through the pages until she landed on Rapunzel, and held it out for him to see. "Uncle Rynn, will you read me this one? There's a princess and a dragon and everything! I had aunt Antha read it to me once, but it was different and there was no dragon and she threw it on the ground and said I shouldn't read such rubbish."
"What kind of story gets rid of a dragon?!" Antha exclaimed, as if she were still irritated by it, reappearing in the hallway and nearing the two, and turning her head called over her shoulder, "Cian, if you ever read our children a story with a princess and no dragon, I swear I'll go outright poltergeist on you!" She shook her head, taking the book from Belle and skimming the pages, "Or at the very least a wicked witch. This is why I don't agree with Cinderella, it's all fluff. At any rate, can he take a rain check, Belle? Uncle Rynn and I still have some work to do."
The child pouted fiercely, her hand unconsciously grasping the leg of Rynn's pants as if she would not let him go, but finally she relented. She adored her aunt Antha as a real, live, fantastical princess and she would not go against her.
"That's my girl," she said, giving her a bright smile and a pat on the head before she picked the odd box up from where she had set it down by the door with the others, turning and seeking out Jacob to call, "Jacob, would you take these boxes up to the attic for me? Put them somewhere safe." The boy did as he was told and Antha took Rynn's hand, the two vanishing upstairs.

Suzette and Malakai returned less than fifteen minutes , and to Belle's great dismay, they were not alone. They had with them two women, one nearly as ancient as Suzette in the same old fashioned, regal attire, though her expression was much more dour, and a younger girl that trailed behind the old women with Malakai. The cousins stopped what they were doing, crowding the doorways as if they could be inconspicuous so that they could get a look at her. She was willowy, a delicate flower of the southern belle variety, with a great deal of fair hair so pale that it was nearly white, and easy, gentle eyes of pale blue, her porcelain skin fair enough to nearly blend with her modest white sundress.
"Suzette," Julien greeted the old woman in the hallway, suspiciously eying the rest of the party, "What a surprise. What are you doing here?"
Suzette smiled serenely, as if she were totally innocent of any plots. "Julien, you will remember Mrs. Astoria." He greeted the old woman formally, still eying Suzette. "This is her granddaughter, Sophie. The Astoria family has a great deal to do with the gardens and parks in this city, you know, and I thought they might like to see the garden here. Only...oh, dear, I seem to be more tuckered out from dinner than I thought."
"Yes," Mrs. Astoria concurred with a small nod of her head, "Taking a walk through the gardens is absolutely out of the question. But we did come all this way, it would be a shame if Sophie did not get to see them."
"A terrible shame. Malakai, sweetpea---" The boy was staring pointedly at Suzette, as if to tell her he knew exactly what she was doing and eh didn't appreciate it. "Why don't you take darling Sophie for a walk out in the garden yourself while we rest here and have a little chat."
Malakai made an uncomfortable face, the girl blushing vaguely beside him, her hands clasped demurely behind her back, but Malakai was nothing if not a gentleman and so silently he offered her his arm, which she took with the sweetest smile, and showed her the way outside.
Seconds later, half of the cousins were scrambling after them, only barely halted by Suzette as she turned severe. "Now you leave the children alone and let them get acquainted."
"But!" Courtland stuttered, gazing after them, "Come on, aunt Suzette, this is too good to miss!"
Pierce, meanwhile, was trying to catch sight of them through the window out in the darkness, murmuring longingly, "You can't bring a girl like that into this house and expect me not to pounce, aunt Suzette. She's like milk and honey, she just screams 'prey'."
"I said stay!" Suzette hissed with alarming authority, and the boys reluctantly backed off. Dolly Jean, watching from the table in the corner, only offered a wispy sigh.

Upstairs, oblivious to her brother's predicament downstairs, Antha was introducing Rynn to Marguerite's lab, explaining Marguerite herself as she went around flipping switches and gathering various instruments and jars. "She was my great grandmother, but we all call her mad aunt Maggie. She fancied herself a scientist as well as a witch. Revolutionary stuff, really, if she wasn't so utterly off her rocker. She never thought there was a price too high to pay for science, so she went around abducting vagrants and stealing infants from slaves and, well..." Antha made a small gesture around them at the shelves of dismembered body parts and gnarled infant bodies stuffed into jars of sickly yellow-green ooze. "But there was nothing to be done, she was the Designee, and when she died they locked this room up and pretended none of it had ever happened. Can you hand me that sheet, darling?" The sheet was new, she'd brought it in earlier that day, and now she laid it across the examination table beneath the box, which she handled with the utmost care, as if it might shatter at the slightest wrong touch. "This is going to be excruciating to wait through, truly. But there's no help for it, it's a rather complicated procedure, it takes time. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention..." A slow smile crept across Antha's face, her eyes narrowing dangerously at Rynn as she said, very carefully, "This is to remain a complete secret until it is finished, understand? The only one who can know is Malakai, because we'll need him for the final steps, but it will just frighten him unnecessarily if he finds out too soon. Here we are." Her eyes lit up again with that exhilarated happiness, her mood pure elation as she finally managed to pop open the box and the sides of it slowly came away, giving way to a jar of innocuous clear fluid, fed into it by way of a number of tubes connected to the walls of the box which she unhooked before laying her hands lovingly across the top of it, eyes dreamy as she murmured with a great deal of feeling, "Alistair..."
Marguerite's curiosity had been piqued before, but the shade of the old hag appeared now in full force, craning over the container which housed the still infant body with a great grin of yellowed teeth, her eyes electric, and Antha narrowed her eyes at the woman, grabbing the jar up possessively in her arms. "What do you think you're doing, Marguerite? Get out, I don't need you, and I don't want you interfering."
Marguerite, unperturbed, only continued to grin at the girl, reaching one ragged, filthy hand out towards her cheek as she murmured, "Ah, the things I could have done with your power..." And then she was gone and Antha, scowling, adjusted the container and began to work of disassembling it, speaking as she did so, "I should explain. I can't recall if I told you I was born a twin, but either way, I was. My brother, Alistair, he died hours after birth, my father didn't care enough to see to his health and my mother was too preoccupied with her heir to pay any attention to him. I suppose she was dying as well, but that's hardly an excuse. Anyways, my father buried him in the backyard, and the Talamasca dug him up, and now that I know I can, I'm going to bring him back." She went with the container to the sink, which was all rust and suspicious stains, and holding it over the drain she undid the last screw that sent the liquid flooding out, letting the pieces fall with a clatter into the basin as she gently extracted the small, rubbery corpse from inside and took it to the operating table, gingerly laying it out. It was then that she stopped, going very still and gazing across the table at Rynn, her serious eyes dark beneath the bright glow of the single lamp overhead. "Do you have any idea what it was like, seeing Liesse in that other place between the living and the dead? I felt sorry for her, of course, but I never knew what happened to a single dead twin. I never knew my own was suspended as she had been until I saw her and I went looking in earnest for Alistair. But horror aside, that's what allows for such an easy resurrection." She returned to motion, slowly stretching out the tiny limbs until they were straight, and continued to talk. "But Alistair won't be quite so easy as Liesse. Her body was destroyed, so her vessel for resurrection was living, the only trick was getting one soul out and the other in, to get her to take to it. But Alistair's body is still preserved, which is what makes it so complicated. The first step, which is our work for tonight, is purely the physical aspect. The body has to be reanimated before we can attach the soul, and forcing physical development following this isn't exactly a breeze. It'll be fine once we get the process started, it will progress on its own given time, we just have to..." She had been preoccupied setting up things from a medical cooler that she had procured from Vittorio, IV bags and portable versions of the machines they used at the hospital, meticulously hooking the small corpse up to them, but following that she had thrown a switch on one of Marguerite's machines, which hummed ominously, the two receptors at the top bandying a few brilliant threads of electricity between them, and Antha fell gleefully silent. "Part of me always wanted to be a mad scientist when I was a child. I think I would have been good at it, don't you?"
In the rest of the house, which did not have the laboratory's protections against power surges (in fact there were three generators in the house, and only one was even capable of providing the rest of the house with electricity) the lights flickered several times in succession and the cousins collectively blanched, glancing towards the stairs all together before moving silently into the parlor as a group. They didn't know what Antha was up to, and they didn't want to know.  

[Okimiyage]

It was going to take weeks to straighten those books again, if their number was anything to judge by. Rynn had stared ruefully at the piles in the Talamasca offices, remembering how it would have disturbed Aedan to see such an act performed. He'd always been the most meticulous of Rynn's brothers, with a mind like a carefully laid snare. It was difficult to lie to him--he remembered everything you said so clearly, and could bring snippets of conversation from months ago as though he were a recording device.
Antha still had not explained what she meant by 'training'--or why any member of the Talamasca should be nervous of Rynn, when Antha was in the room. He did not have much to compare himself to in the way of witchcraft except Antha, who outranked him by miles. To an ordinary mortal, his powers would have seemed quite unreal--but it had been over a decade since Rynn had interacted with ordinary mortals, outside of those who saw his arrival however-many-weeks-ago at the headquarters in which they now occupied. None of them really ran in the ordinary circles of Osiris City, even the Mayfair clans. For Rynn and Liesse, Cian had been the closest thing to their representative of 'the real world', with his countless scores of one-night-stands and barside alliances.
So much had changed about their lives. And now--Rynn glanced wonderingly at the box which Antha had so relentlessly demanded. It looked like something out of a science fiction novel, all gleaming metal angles and odd knobs. He couldn't imagine what use Antha would have for such a thing--it would have looked incredibly incongruous with the rest of the Mayfair decor.
Anyways, he had much more important issues on his mind, mulling over Antha's advice. Sometimes she seemed much, much older than her years. He wasn't sure he was prepared to fall in line with the rest of her lackeys just yet, but he had to admit that what she had said made sense.
There was one insult that he couldn't let go of, however.
"I wasn't going to say anything," he admitted, as he followed her into the car, "But then you crossed the line. If I'm a puppy, then you're a cream puff. And at least puppies get to grow up and become ferocious Rottweilers..."
Rynn took much longer to drink his coffee-flavored sugar beverage; he was still sipping well after Antha had tossed hers away. He didn't have much of a tolerance for caffeine--the most he ever took was milk and tea--and by the time they got back to the house, his foot was shaking with the buzz.
Antha sounded like a downright hellion from the way they talked about her. Liesse listened attentively, nodding upon occasion and making mental notes. She was perched upon one of the enormous plush ottomans in the salon downstairs, paying rapt attention to the gaggle of cousins and their questionable advice, when Rynn and Antha strolled in. She gave a guilty start when she noticed him watching through the doorway, and then abruptly attempted to pretend that she had only been half-listening to their tales of accomplishment at Sacred Heart.
The most important question was, were the uniforms cute? This was extremely important to Liesse, or at least had been highly emphasized in Cian's stories.
Cian had headed upstairs as soon as they'd arrived in order to shuck his coat. It was far too fine of a day to remain stuffy, no matter how much the elders of the Mayfair clan enjoyed their finery. Unbuttoning his sleeves, he began to roll them up to his elbows as he glanced out the window. He didn't really expect to see Antha pull up so quickly--but that was sort of foolish to think, wasn't it? with the way that she drove. Nevertheless, he perked up immensely upon catching sight of her sleek black sports car pulling into the drive. If he hadn't trusted Antha so much--if the entire family hadn't supported her like the army supported Caesar--something would have had to have been said about the way she drove. 'Think of the children', and all.
He watched as she led Rynn into the house, a brow lifting inquisitively. He couldn't imagine where they had gone, or what it was that Antha carried under her arm. At least they were spending more time together. Maybe it meant Rynn would stop behaving so hatefully towards his new sister-in-law.
Dorian was sulking somewhere in the kitchen, extremely annoyed that he'd been met with mockery. He'd been expecting to have his accomplishments well-lauded when he strolled in, not laughed at. He should have just stayed at the party--it had still been going on when he left, and he'd had to practically sneak out to get away from those girls. Now, he was regretting it. It seemed like everyone in the family had decided all at once to play an enormous prank upon Dorian en masse. He loved a good revenge tale just as much as the rest of them, but this was too much. It had been a hell of a party. High fashion model types and gritty punk kids with hair all the colors of the rainbow had mingled alike. No charge for the booze. There had been denizens at that party, men and woman who looked like they had known no sleep for weeks at a time, and you'd have to give a special code at the door.
Honestly, he was a little regretful that he'd left early. And now the whole family was telling him that Antha had gotten knocked up and wed and was already showing in a single night. Dorian couldn't fathom it. The whole scene did not make a lick of sense.
He watched Malakai guide his lily of a betrothal prospect through the garden and thought dimly back to when he'd been pursued for the same, before he'd been declared 'incorrigible', or something like that. She was a fitting match for little Malakai--just as bland and pale, anyways. Dorian loved Malakai dearly, but sometimes thought that the boy needed a tad more backbone.

Above all the others in the house,
Rynn found himself ushered into the strange old laboratory without any sort of preamble, and stopped short awkwardly at the threshold. What were they doing here? Was this really part of the house?--more like a dungeon. It felt like the lair of a mad scientist. Or some sort of twisted medically-themed S&M playroom. His presuppositions fell into logical order after Antha explained about her departed aunt. 'Possibly both' was the best answer. The whole place smelled like formaldehyde and ancient chemicals. The decor would have been rather sterile back in the day, before everything was covered in a thin layer of grime and cobweb. You could see where Antha and her cousins must have moved things over the years by the imprints in the settled dust.
Ordinarily Rynn was on guard about these sorts of things, but when Antha commanded him he started moving without any thought to it. This felt like, if not the heart of the mansion, one of the very vital organs. Some sort of digestive system, perhaps--yellowed by years and filth. He tossed the sheet over to her, and then followed it as he crossed the room to stand at her side. "If we're in this together, then I want to know what you're doing, at least." he demanded, glowering at the fetus-in-a-jar as though it could provide answers for him.
Rynn was quite accustomed to spirits, hags, ghouls and all sorts of creatures from beyond the grave. It was the speciality of all Calais, you could say. When Marguerite appeared before them, baring her teeth with glee, it was all he could do not to snap at her. It was awfully rude to interrupt--you would have thought someone from her generation understood that.
But Antha banished her quite quickly instead, and Rynn did not even have to life a finger. Instead he fell silent as she explained her plan to him, and he realized for what reason she had selected such a creepy piece of memorabilia from the shelves.
"…Are you sure this is a good idea?" Rynn couldn't help himself from asking, after she had explained herself. He could sense her start to stiffen, next to him. He had to talk quickly to stop from being interrupted--Antha didn't like being questioned, just as much as Rynn didn't.
"How old are you? Twenty? At least. But you've had twenty years to adjust, to grow up in this world. If he died during birth, all he has known--his entire life--is darkness, and neglect, and the slender red thread that holds him, pierced and pinned, between this world and the next. He's a soul as old as yours, with all the power of your birthright, but years of oblivion in place of your experience. You know--they do that to prisoners, in maximum-security facilities. Solitary is the worst punishment they can dish out. It drives people out of their minds. And this twin of yours--Alistair--he's had just as much--more-- than most hardened criminals." Is this really a soul that we want to revive?
But he didn't ask that last part; he glanced over at Antha instead, and softened his tone. "If you insist--if you still want it--I'll help you. I know what it's like, family. When Liesse died, I felt as though I'd lost limbs. I would have rather lost limbs. I wanted to kill myself to join her, but--I wanted to kill you more." It was funny to hear himself say that now, in this low and calm voice, as he stood next to Antha and summoned his power to support her rite. "But you brought her back, and I owe you for that. I don't think I could deny you the same favor."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Ah," Courtland sighed dreamily, meandering up to the others in the parlor as he rolled his shoulders, "Those uniforms are the stuff dreams are made of, don't you worry about that."
Dolly Jean, pausing briefly to flash Courtland a disapproving frown, turned to Liesse and smiled with her usual gentleness. "Don't worry, they're very cute. All of the girls in the family used to wear theirs around for a while after school. I wanted one so much."
"But the teachers are Nazis about those damn uniforms. They have to be impeccable, clean with no wrinkles, everything perfectly in place. Oh man, the trouble we used to get into for that," Jack began, laughing beneath his breath, "I always got in trouble for wearing jewelry, and because I wouldn't take my piercings out. And Courtland would get the ruler because his shirt was always untucked and he would get rips in the knees of his trousers, and every day they had Antha get on her knees and she would get the ruler because her skirt didn't touch the ground, not by a longshot, and her shirt was never buttoned all the way up, and Pierce got it because he never wore his sweater, he said it was dorky and he hated the shade of blue, cerulean or something like that."
"It was dreadful," Pierce agreed grimly, taking the seat beside Liesse with his usual languid, careless grace, brandy in hand, "That was before I dyed my hair and it was auburn and the shades clashed horrifically. It should look good on you, though. It suits your fair complexion."
The front door creaked and the cousins all fell deathly silent, listening the soft voices that drifted down the hallway in eager anticipation.
"They're such lovely roses. You tend them yourself?" They didn't know the voice, but they assumed from the soft, airy cadence, the sheer easy sweetness, that it was Sophie Astoria.
As the door closed, Malakai's voice answered with a subdued, "Hmm? Oh, yes. My cousin Dolly Jean helps sometimes, when her health allows."
"That's lovely. I can't say I know many men who grow flowers."
Courtland and Jack, each pressed against the other, went with silent proficience up to the doorway, peeking out at their cousin and the girl. The others were content to sit avidly staring at the door, listening.
"Well...someone had to, I suppose."
Pierce snickered, almost silently. "He's such a poor, awkward little creature," he whispered, quietly enough that even Armand could barely hear him across the tea table, "How red do you think his face is?"
"How long do you think it'll take Dorian to swoop in?" Armand added, just as quietly and with a vague hint of concern.
"A valid question. Say what you will about us, at least we'd never steal a girl from Saint Malakai. It's too low. Do you think Dorian's adopted? He certainly doesn't have the family camaraderie of a Mayfair."
Across the room, Courtland and Jack scrambled backwards and ran back to the table, shushing their cousins with the frantic whispers, "Shut up! Suzette's coming!"
By the time Suzette, along with Mrs. Astoria, entered the parlor with the children in tow, Malakai shuffling along with his gaze on his feet, they were all pretending to act casual, which looked anything but with such a group. "And I told him I wanted nothing to do with his intrigues," Courtland was exclaiming airily, his voice a little too high, sipping on his tea like a dapper gentlemen while Jack nodded along in agreement, sipping his tea in the same manner. "Furthermore, his wife is a terrible old hag and I didn't want her on my ca---OW!"
Pierce was glaring at Courtland, tight-lipped, his hand still stinging from where he had smacked Courtland in the back of the head.
"You'll have to excuse my various nieces and nephews," Suzette murmured gracefully, sparing them a single sweeping glance, "Very few of them are quite right in the head. But as I was saying---Malakai! Come along sweetpea, don't be shy---we Mayfairs train our children in all the arts from an early age. Malakai always had a great aptitude for such things. How about Mozart's Sonata number twelve?"
If the older women noticed Malakai's reluctance, they did not show it. It was his cousins, narrowing their eyes as their innate protective instincts as Mayfairs kicked in, who saw the way he stiffened, the dark flash in his eyes as he hesitantly took the piano stool and lifted the cover over the keys of the grand piano stationed in the opposite corner of the parlor.
Malakai hated a spotlight, really he did. He hated being the center of anything really, having eyes on him only made it worse, and the way he was being thrown from one thing to the next like a show dog had him nearly at his limits, his nerves were wracked and he felt deeply humiliated by all of this. He knew Suzette had good intentions, he knew that, this was all necessary because of who he was, his horribly important position in the family and the obligations that came with it, but Suzette didn't know when to leave well enough alone.
But Malakai was a good boy, so he played as he was told, his fingers sweeping deftly across the ivory keys, and the old women smiled to hear such a beautiful performance. It wasn't difficult for him by any means, it was true that he was a proficient musician, but nevertheless he could feel his cheeks color, the rising heat, there were too many eyes on him.
"What about something a little more cheerful?" Suzette suggested, because this was not a particularly happy tune, and Malakai stiffened, "How about---"
He hadn't expected to be saved, not in this house, without Antha or Nicolae around, so he was surprised when it happened.
"May I?" He blinked up at Sophie as if he didn't understand, but she only smiled serenely and gestured at the spot on the bench beside him. Warily, he slid over and she took the seat, as well as half of the keys, and before he knew it there was another composition by Mozart being tapped out, this one for four hands, and with a start he took up his end of the keyboard and added the other half of the piece. Suzette beamed. Even Dolly Jean, though she knew she it would be traitorous, clapped her hands together in delight and rushed towards the piano to hear it better.
This went on for a little while, perhaps five minutes, before Jacob's voice sounded from the hallway, informing the Mayfairs that dinner would be ready in ten minutes. "Why don't you two stay for dinner?" Suzette began cordially as Malakai and Sophie retreated from the piano, politely complimenting one another on their skills, "I know we've just eaten, but it will give us all a chance to better acquaint ourselves."
"That would be lovely, thank you," Mrs. Astoria accepted with a nod of her head, turning to head into the hallway.
As she left, Suzette paused only briefly to tell the cousins very sternly, "You behave yourselves tonight or there will be consequences."
Left alone with the Mayfair cousins, who swooped in like birds of prey, Malakai was left awkwardly clearing his throat and making introductions, naming off the Mayfairs and Liesse. "Everyone, this is Miss Sophie Astoria."
Sophie smiled, a radiant vision of lily-white angelicism. "It's a pleasure. I hope we can all be friends in the future."
"Oh yes, very good friends indeed," Pierce purred, laying a kiss on the back of her hand, and the undertones of his voice were such that Malakai hurriedly led the defenseless girl away after her grandmother and Suzette.
Courtland, pursing his lips, considered all that had just happened and finally said to Liesse, "She's pretty and pedigreed and all, but she doesn't have any of your spark, none at all."
"Malakai doesn't have any spark," Pierce pointed out, rolling his eyes.
Courtland narrowed his eyes. "Exactly! If you put someone with no spark with someone else with no spark, nothing good can come of it. Someone has to have the spark in the relationship."
"I'm not sure I agree with your logic." This from Armand, lounging on the couch, "What if both parties have a spark? You and Jack both have spark, even if you are the one with the spark, and Antha and Cian both have spark."
"As long as someone has spark. God, Armand, stop trying to be difficult!" Courtland declared in exasperation, turning with a dismissive gesture and heading towards the dining room, Jack dutifully at his heels, laughing.
"He is right though," Pierce mused thoughtfully, "She's like vanilla ice cream, there's nothing particularly interesting there. You would at least have candy or something, maybe cookie dough. If you were ice cream, that is."
"Cookie dough," Armand agreed cheerfully, rising and going to plant a loud kiss on Liesse's forehead before he headed towards the dining room, "Liesse would most definitely have cookie dough."
It did not escape the attention of the cousins as they headed one by one into the dining room that Malakai was down the hall with Sophie, leaving the passersby just out of earshot, and they were speaking in very serious, hushed tones. It seemed like an abrupt change, one that was against Malakai's character, and as they settled at the table the cousins all bandied suspicious glances between themselves, though they said nothing on it.

Michael, roused from his nap on the back porch, had wandered in the kitchen only to find Dorian hiding there, sulking about something or another. "Did they drive you out, Dorian?" he asked, with a trace of a good-natured smile, milling around preparing tea, "You can't blame them, though. You wound their delicate feelings. Here they are, slavishly devoted to one another, utterly convinced they need no one outside of their own ranks, and there you are running around the city spurning their company. It's not your fault, of course, it probably makes you the most psychologically sound member of your generation that you do not wrap yourself in your cousins as if they are all that matters in the world---good lord, that is a frightening thought---but you can see where they are deeply hurt by it."
Michael continued to smile, punctuated by a demure little yawn as he took his tea and laid a hand on Dorian's shoulder, murmuring, "Come, sit. Drink some tea," and pushing the teacup across the table to him. Silence then, for at least a few minutes while the ruckus of laughter and teasing went on in the parlor. "Though they might forgive you all that out of sympathy when Antha disowns you entirely. Personally, I never thought I'd see the day, you've always been one of her favorites. But she is viciously protective of Cian where the family is concerned, she loves him the best her fickle heart can. But that's life for you, she's growing up so fast in so little time and the cousins are following suit, in their own ways."
Michael sipped his tea and sighed, thinking that he had not spoken so much at once in a very long time. He was a man of fewer words than that. But it was hard to let these things pass without commenting on them because he didn't think anyone else would, and that didn't seem quite fair to Dorian. "Things are changing so fast around here, it's like a time vortex, and you've been standing outside of it all the while. I can't imagine it's easy to adjust. But your cousins don't see it that way. They see it as abandonment, that you do not love them as they love you. Just look at all of the crucial pieces of their lives you've missed entirely. Courtland is to have a son shortly after Antha bears her twins, did you know that? And Dolly Jean and Vittorio are to be married soon. Life is defined by two things, my boy: the moments that set everything else into motion, and the people who are there for them." He paused, glancing up the stairs, and murmured lowly. "Antha isn't doing well, Dorian. Not physically, not psychologically, but she refuses help because she has such little time left. She puts on a very convincing front and I don't believe anyone else has noticed yet, but..."
He fell silent, glancing out the glass doors for a while to quietly observe the gardens, and remarked simply, "I think it will rain tomorrow." He said no more, only sipped his tea and stared outside until Jacob called for dinner. It wasn't his place to meddle in the lives of his nieces and nephews, and anyways he feared such endeavors, only to offer notes on his quiet observations because Michael saw everything. One could never forget that he had been a Talamascan before he was a Mayfair.

"Ow!"
Antha grimaced, putting her finger to her lips, and narrowed her eyes at the scalpel that had nicked her. She couldn't understand how Vittorio spent all day around these things, throwing them around like toys, and did not come home covered head to toe in cuts.
Not that she wasn't skilled with such medical instruments. Her fingers were suited to dextrous tasks, and it was hardly her first time using them, though that was a different, darker matter.
"Alistair's situation is not quite the same," she murmured as she worked, hooking a number of IV tubes into the small, dead veins of the infant, "He may never have been alive, but Alistair was always watching. You remember I said I was locked in the attic of Satis House until I was nine? Alistair was there the entire time. He's probably the reason I never broke down entirely. Before I escaped and broke the seal on the house, he even had a form, a shade of what he would have been, that grew as I did. Back then, I learned everything from the spirits that were trapped in the house under the seal, how to walk and talk, how the world worked outside the attic walls, and Alistair learned it all with me. But even when the seal broke, he was always there, watching. I waited for something to happen, to feel him go mad or vengeful, but he never did. But if that is the case when he's in the flesh..." She smiled darkly, as if it pained her, glancing up at Rynn. "...I'll take care of it."
A few minutes passed silently, Antha setting things up as she thought about what he'd said. At length, when everything was ready to begin, she stood staring thoughtfully at him for a few minutes and finally rounded the table, taking his face in her careful hands and laying a brief kiss on his cheek. "We are never going to get anywhere with anything if we keep thinking about our interactions in this way, Rynn. Who owes this and who owes that...it's all nonsense by now. We have grievously wounded and assisted one another over and over again in violent cycles since the moment we met, we've kept our tallies and marked whose turn it was. At this point, Rynn, what does it matter? You are my protege, and you will be at least until you are strong enough to put Nero back in his coffin when I am dead. That's why you're here now, why you're going to help me resurrect Alistair and why I'm going to teach you the magic that shall accomplish it. Now...shall we begin?"
The first stage of the procedure lasted roughly an hour, though there was no clock for Antha to check. It might have been quicker, but she had brought Rynn into this for a reason and so she instructed him as they went about it. This was not dead magic, as flowed through Rynn, it was something so obscure that she wasn't even aware of a name for it, something between science and magic, Marguerite's life's work. "Can you see it?" she prompted him, in the lowest whisper, her hand laid over his, laid across Alistair's cold, smooth forehead, "Those dead little cells, all of their shriveled and petrified parts? They're what you have to resurrect. Focus your magic, your power, feel it creep right down here..." Her finger traced a line from his shoulder down his arm, to the very tips of his fingers, and at that moment the machine nearby gave another small jolt, sending a faint electric current through the corpse. "And there. See the brain cells, watch them light up and wrap them in it, the electricity and your power, until..." She could see, in her own mind's eyes, the sudden spark, the throbbing of those microscopic cells as if they were gasping, taking in anything they could. "And now the heart. Focus until you see the cells and..." She fell silent at the next jolt from the machine, watching, and with the first pull on the blood bag connected to those veins by IV, Antha grinned as if she were immensely pleased. "There we are. With the flesh it has to be done section by section, skin and muscles and bone, one arm and them another, the chest and stomach and back..."
But because Antha was a creature of terrible impatience, she set to work alongside Rynn, watching the pieces of the corpse as they slowly began to flourish, heat beginning to wash over it as color returned to the cheeks, the rubbery texture of the skin turning soft.
"The next part is a bit more...delicate," she continued when a live, if inanimate, infant laid on the table before them, beating heart and all, turning to switch off Marguerite's machine. "It's the only process known to safely accomplish what we need it to. And believe me, plenty of people have tried. Marguerite perfected it with cats and dogs and flowers, but she failed when it came to humans, she always mangled them. I had to be the one to fix that. It's the same process of focusing in on the cells, but rather than forcing them back into animation, you force them apart. Do you see the nucleus, that big, dark spot off to the side? You have to break it open and find the chromatids in it---those long, spindly things---and tear them all in half and force them in opposite directions. After that, it pretty much takes care of itself, the cells divide and form new cells, multiplying. And as long as there's proper materials---" She patted the IV bag of clear fluid nearest her, one of several dozen all clustered on racks and feeding into several tubes that delivered the contents into Alistair's veins, along with a number of other blood bags, all Antha's, which she had been building up for weeks. "---they'll keep multiplying for a while, depending on how much power you've pumped into them. But I've worked that all out, it's not a terribly difficult formula."
This took another hour, and by the time Jacob called for dinner Antha was cleaning everything up, leaving the process to work itself out. "It should all be done tomorrow evening, and that's when the real witchy business begins." Tossing aside the towel she had dried her hands on, Antha took Rynn by his own hand, grinning as she murmured, "And then you'll get to see what Malakai can do, as an heir to the core Mayfair blood. He doesn't share the very same blood as me for nothing, you know." She was still smiling as she led him back to the bolted door, pausing only to whisper with a single finger pressed to her lips, "And remember, not a whisper of this to anyone."

The Mayfairs were just settling down at the table when the last two sets of footsteps sounded on the stairs, the cousins all breathing sighs of relief that, thank God, they were both out of the laboratory alive and hadn't even caused a massive explosion to utterly destroy the house. They hadn't known what to expect, Antha and Rynn working together on anything, but it was frightening.
Antha was still in her suspiciously cheerful mood, meandering into the dining room with a little more spark than usual, humming happily to herself and pressing an affectionate kiss to Cian's lips on her way to her chair, but that all stopped about the time she reached her chair, when she laid eyes on Sophie. Her eyes flashed darkly, her face momentarily blanching, and the only way to stop her from standing beside her chair staring at the other girl all wide-eyed and confused, was for Michael to gently call her name, asking how her evening had been. "Hmm?" she began with a start, glancing dazedly over to him and finally taking her seat, "Oh. Yes, fine, thank you."
Suzette made the effort to introduce Sophie and Mrs. Astoria to Antha and Rynn, but Antha stared in thick preoccupation at her plate, mumbling out her name curtly. Sophie just continued to smile.
The cousins were all in a silent uproar. First Malakai and now Antha. What power did this lily-white girl have that was making them act so strangely? They didn't get an answer all through dinner---Malakai spoke openly and congenially with the girl, which was terribly strange for him, and Antha said almost nothing at all, eating very little and only staring at her plate, which was almost unheard of for her. She only stayed as long as was necessary, excusing herself quietly and fleeing the room so quickly no one was exactly sure in which direction she had gone until the back door slammed. Malakai assumed, quite rightly, that she had gone to sneak another cigarette in the gardening shed. These were special circumstances, she needed it.
When dinner formally ended, the adults drifted off to the back porch to chat, as old people liked to do, and the cousins went into the parlor, dragging Sophie, Liesse, Cian, and Rynn with them. Courtland stuck steadfast by Liesse's side, all full of righteous indignation. Jack was half expecting him to go fashion himself a 'Team Liesse' shirt and start tromping around in it.
Malakai remained by Sophie, returned to his usual easy manner, and that astounded the cousins. Pierce was lingering nearby, watching her, looking for his opportunity to pounce. It was Armand, after a long silence, who finally ventured to ask, "So, Miss Astoria...tell us about yourself." Despite his polite words, all his cousins heard was, Tell us what kind of demonic power you have over our sweet Malakai and Antha the divine.
There wasn't much to tell, she assured them sweetly. She was twenty-two, went to art school, she had an older brother---"Oh yes, I know him," Courtland murmured with a grin---and she helped her mother run her various garden charities.
The adults returned shortly, the Astoria women and Suzette pardoning themselves and taking their leave. Julien and Michael headed off to their rooms, at which point Malakai collapsed in exhaustion on the couch, and only then did Antha dare to return to the house, peeking cautiously into the room and then hurriedly assaulting Malakai with a magazine she grabbed from nearby. "How could you bring that girl into this house!" she shrieked, pouting fiercely, her eyes gleaming with indignation. "You are a terrible---terrible---terrible big brother!" She struck him with the magazine for every 'terrible' she shouted at him, until he fled and sought cover behind Armand.
"What the hell, Evie?!" Courtland demanded, grabbing her around the waist and dragging her away from Malakai, "Exactly what kind of power does that girl have over you?"
"What?!" she replied shrilly, eyes wide with panic, swiping at Courtland's arms, "I don't know what you're talking about! Nothing! Shut up!" Only Malakai did not blink at her in either shock or suspicion, which made the situation all the more suspicious. "Courtland, lemme' go!"
"Not until you tell me who the hell that girl is to make you two act like this!"
"No one!" Antha shouted as Malakai murmured, "Just a girl." The cousins were unconvinced, but the siblings weren't about to crack so Courtland released the struggling Antha to run to Cian, taking his arm as she glared her brother down. Malakai stared at the floor, guilty and helpless.
"I'm going to bed," Antha announced with a sigh, her gaze sweeping the room as she announced, "And anyone who comes within ten feet of my door gets the rubbish room. Got it?"
"Got it," they muttered in unison, some sulking and others grinning as she seized Cian's hand and made off with him.
"We're going to need earplugs tonight, aren't we?" Jack asked Courtland with a broad grin, elbowing him, only for the other boy to tackle him to the floor, leaning suggestively over him.
"Not if we drown them out with our own noise." He grinned and the boys laughed together, Jack's arms wrapping firmly around his neck.
"Good heavens, Courtland Mayfair, are you propositioning me? I'll have you know I am an angel, monsieur Mayfair, an angel."
"Angels gotta' fall sometime," Courtland said simply, shrugging, and the boys rolled around in one mass, laughing.
"Wait a minute," Pierce interrupted, eyes glimmering deviously as they turned on Malakai, who paled expectantly, "Hold on just one second here, we still have one question that needs answering here. Can this possibly mean that Malakai...has a girlfriend?!" Courtland and Jack rose from the floor just long enough to grin at the boy, who had thrown a hand up over his face and was groaning his frustration.
"I'm going to bed," he announced shortly, skirting his cousins on the floor and fleeing expertly to his room.
In all this time, he had still managed to avoid looking directly at either Liesse or Rynn.

Up in her room, Antha did not shut the door, she slammed it. And then kicked it, just for good measure, before going over to collapse face down on the bed. "So close...we were so close to Malakai never causing me trouble in my entire lifetime. Damn it, Suzette, you old relic!" She swore briefly under her breath in French before finally giving up with a sigh and turning her gaze to Cian. "You did well today. Astoundingly so. Even with Rowan, the little airhead made all of batting eyelashes. It's a good thing, too---they already put your name on the family tree, and they don't take kindly to having to whitewash over it. Ah, but we had a deal, didn't we?"
The girl smiled innocently---and if that was not a red flag then nothing in the world was---and in the next second had pounced him, knocking him to the floor and pinning him on the lush Persian carpet as she purred sympathetically, "I am sorry about Dorian, though. He wasn't horrible to you again, was he?" She laid a light kiss on his nose, where Dorian had kicked him on their first meeting, and then drew a line of them down his neck. "But never mind him, he'll be gone before long I'm sure. More importantly---" She rose, sitting on her knees with her back to him, lifting her hair and glancing over her shoulder, "---for the love of God, get this damned dress off of me. I've barely been able to breathe all day."  

[Okimiyage]

Liesse's brow furrowed as she tried to comprehend this. So, uniforms were important enough to get beaten for? But not so important that they'd kick you out for what a teacher would have described as 'insubordinancy and repeated negligence'. Liesse couldn't help but find it fascinating. From the sounds of it, the Mayfairs had a history of enjoying popularity in public spaces. They enjoyed delinquency, too, for however little it seemed to matter to anyone. "I'm not much of a seamstress, but… I'm sure I'll find some way to adjust," Liesse murmured thoughtfully, plucking at the hem of her own ruffle-edged hemline. In comparison to the men's meticulously tailored suits, she wondered if it was a little too childish, a little too 'soft'. If Liesse was going to be going to school now, perhaps she needed to behave more like an adult. "But you had friends, right? Like--there were cliques and things. It can't have been too bad, even with--clashing hair." And she laughed a little at that, imagining how it must have irritated the stylish Pierce to inadvertently commit such a faux pas.
But her laughter froze in the next moment, as she heard Malakai's voice down the hall. The cousins made fun of him. Liesse felt her cheeks heat in sympathy. When the two lovebirds were ushered in, and directed to the piano bench, Malakai's face held the expression of a man who was facing his own firing squad. His playing was stiff and unemotional at first, however technically precise. He'd obviously studied the instrument for years, but the tension carried in his shoulders did not melt away until Sophie Astoria sat down beside him. Only a very observant person would have noticed the way Liesse sat up straighter, then, and the faintest of lines appeared above her brow. If she was totally honest with herself, she had to admit that she would have liked nothing better than to march over and push Miss Sophie right off the bench. Instead, she kept still until the end of the performance merited polite applause.
Still, despite her immaculate restraint, Liesse was secretly pleased to hear the cousin's snark afterwards about Sophie. The girl did seem…somewhat off-putting. She reminded Liesse of a beautiful bisque doll, all painted eyelashes and china-white skin, but hard and hollow as any porcelain toy. She expected that was what the cousins meant by 'vanilla'. Following the crowd, Liesse perked up at the mention of ice-cream. They'd had a wooden bucket-contraption at home which, by the means of a hand-crank, could produce this fabled dessert. Rynn would haul it out from the kitchen a few times every summer, and Liesse would put together the ingredients, and pick blackberries to add flavor. She hadn't cared for plain old vanilla, either. Thinking about the new girl made Liesse anxious, and she tried to mask her worry by adopting a cheerful smile, filling the silence by exchanging opinions with Dolly Jean on their favorite flavors of sorbet. No matter what expression she wore, though, she could not ignore the unusual ease with which Malakai had taken to his new companion.
Her chest ached.
So this was why Rynn had been worried for her. Now, it was hard to blame him.

+++

Dorian, nursing his wounded ego, glanced up upon noticing Michael's approach. "I wasn't gone for that long--I don't see how they even noticed!" he protested, trying to keep the sulkiness out of his voice. When his valiant efforts failed, he gave in, embraced the sulkiness, and added, "Anyways, I'm not being 'driven out'. I'm excluding everyone else, on the grounds that they're all intolerably jealous bastards. Can't stand that for once in my life I might have one-upped any of their tales of excessive revelry--you have to admit that's pretty impressive as far as feats go. How many months was it again? Thanks." Accepting Michael's proffered morning refreshments, Dorian twisted his mouth up and glared at his reflection in the dark liquid. His hands turned the cup counter-clockwise while he answered the older man. "Anyways, Cian's bigger than me. He can defend his own dratted honor without his--Antha." He'd nearly said 'wife', which didn't bear thinking about. Dorian had been filled in on what he'd missed out during the car ride back from Mayfair & Mayfair--which he'd pretty much been forced into, nobody had wanted to let him out of their sight-- "in case you run off again". Taking a sip of his tea, Dorian raised his eyebrows in a conspiratorial sideways glance. "Anyways, I suppose berating my discourteous behavior will be a good distraction for her. She certainly doesn't need to worry about Cian--if the general reaction in that meeting was anything to go by, he's already been initiated into the cult. And their children will be red-headed demigods to strike terror into the hearts of the entire city, which I'm sure Antha thinks sounds like a delightful prospect…"
Giving a great sigh, Dorian let his shoulders slump and leaned forward to rest his chin in his hands. "The one thought I can't stomach is the fact that they seem to think I've done this all out of spite, and with absolutely no justification. I'm not that heartless. Well--only to outsiders. But look, if I had been doing this all out of spite, why on earth would I have chosen now to come back? I'm told we had family from three states away at the wedding, if only to get shamefully piss-drunk at the open bar." Although Dorian was almost certainly being unfair to that branch of the family. Dorian had a tendency towards snobbishness, if his thoughts went unchecked. He pushed a hand through his hair and leaned his forehead into his palm, turning his bangs into spikes and tufts that stuck out between his fingers.
It was not right to discredit Michael's opinion, however, he could not deny this. Michael gave advice so seldomly that, when he did, it was considered gross mistreatment to leave it unheeded. "I know it sounds insane, but it doesn't feel like time has passed at all." he muttered, more to himself than to Michael. There were fragments of tea leaves floating in his cup. He felt like a half-rate fortune-teller, attempting vainly to discern the future from their patterns. "She's going to make a martyr of herself if she keeps on like this." If Antha was on the verge of a breakdown, was little wonder. Very few besides a Mayfair could even conceive of the stress factors in Antha's life. In Dorian's opinion, she deserved more breakdowns--besides, they were usually incredibly entertaining for the rest of her posse. If she'd been anyone else, with a few less responsibilities, maybe she would have been right alongside him last night. Last couple of months? Dorian didn't know how to refer to it anymore.

+++

Rynn gave up, with an enormous and exasperated sigh. She'd take care of it. Right. Antha always took care of these sorts of problems. Never once did she imagine that this answer might not wholly silence the concerns of others, no matter how omnipotent her powers seemed. Even Antha was mortal, and her protection was not eternal. Rynn could not help but think longingly of his inherited (now long-lost) thaumaturgical architecture, guarding the Calais bastion of necromantic tradition. If only the Mayfairs had such a system in place…
But then again, Antha would probably be satisfied with simply haunting them all until the end of their lifespans. Rynn wouldn't have put it past her.
He let her guide his hands to where they needed to be. His fingers were tense at first; Rynn was not in the habit of using his magic quite like this. His specialty was the realm of corpses and ghosts, but this--now, looking at it in a different aspect--this seemed in some way relevant to his talents. He could see within the body, witness as lighting flashed neuron-to-neuron, igniting a seething roil of activity in its wake. Atrophied muscles, stiff with rigor mortis, flexed after decades. Finally, weakly at first, the baby's heart began to pump blood through its veins. Rynn felt each pump as though it was a drum-beat inside his skull, and he had to force himself to draw back, to keep from sinking too much of his power into the small corpse.
But that was not enough. It was a shell, no more: a living body, but hollow inside. The brain within the infant stuttered into life, about as responsive as a coma victim, just aware enough to draw shallow breath.
Rynn couldn't resist touching one of its tiny hands, now rosy with blood, as Antha transferred him to another table. The fingers flexed responsively; Rynn couldn't help but smile, elated by their success. Just causing the thing to draw breath wasn't enough, though. Rynn expected more of a challenge from Antha--and he wasn't wrong, as the two of them huddled over the body for more than an hour further. Antha was twice as quick as he was to stimulate growth, but even so, it took far longer than Rynn expected. His focus had to be razor-sharp at every moment; Rynn had never worked at such a microscopic level before, and even the slightest waver of his attention could have drastic consequences. By the time they were finished, Rynn was seeping cold sweat from all over his body, and his hands were shaky. It didn't help that he'd half-skipped breakfast this morning in order to chase after Malakai, little good that it had done. His mouth was dry, and the words felt thicker than felt when he forced them out. "Have you thought about what will happen--? Now that you plan to bring him into the world. It seems like it hurts, being half-way there and half-way not. I suppose, in a funny sort of way, some might consider it fair. As his soul clung to yours for all your life, you might end up clinging to his." For as much as a decade or even longer, depending on the age this 'Aleister' survived to. "I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." mumbled Rynn, as exhaustion prompted a yawn. He barely kept from mis-stepping his way down the stairs by holding onto the banister. When they arrived in the dining room, the cousins didn't seem at all surprised to see them together. Rynn guessed it was already common knowledge that Antha had adopted him as her 'protégé'.
Rynn scratched the back of his neck bashfully as he entered. He wouldn't have been surprised to receive a consensual evil eye from the entire table, but everyone seemed distracted. Only Liesse motioned for him to join her at the end of the table, where--ah, that would be why--they had an uninterrupted view of the new lovebirds. Rynn pressed his lips together in disapproval. He'd almost felt guilty about going after Malakai this morning, from the way that everyone else had defended the boy's character, but now he was starting to suspect that his actions had been entirely justified. And they'd told him the boy was different…ha!

+++

Cian felt like he'd been excessively well-behaved today. He even stayed for the whole of dinner, making polite conversation with Suzette on inoffensive topics like the weather and the trouble with young people these days. When Antha came back inside, he could smell the cigarette on her fingertips, but he didn't say anything; if she was stressed enough to smoke in her condition, then being chastised for it was most likely not going to make her any happier.
Her response to Sophie's presence, however, was curious indeed. He'd never seen Antha so worked up over apparently nothing. When Courtland at last released her into his arms, Cian swept her up into both of them and gave the rest of the room a look that meant trouble if anyone followed the two, although his unspoken threat was perhaps superfluous in combination with Antha's.
Across the room, Rynn was giving Malakai an arctic stare which was being pointedly ignored. Cian could feel the accusatory thoughts, uncensored, damn well sleeting though his head. Liesse wasn't looking up at all. Rynn had come in on the brink of exhaustion, but for some reason their roles had shifted. Now he was the one carrying all of Liesse's nervous energy, while, beside him, she knit her fingers together and made her eyes a blank wall.
He wanted to know what this was all about, but if Courtland's inquiry had proved anything, it was that this was not the sort of dirty laundry suitable for public airing. He kissed Antha gallantly upon the temple and, when she squirmed, gently set her down and took her hand instead. "You all heard the lady." The house had better be on fire before anyone even thought of knocking. Cian didn't often have the opportunity to share spare time with Antha; if demand was a manner of approximating value, Antha's free moments could have been measured in diamonds.
Upstairs, Cian plucked out his tie-pin, loosened the knot, and followed inside their room. He had just enough presence of mind to lock the door before turning his attention to Antha. "Well, that was an interesting din--oof!"
It was a good thing that the rugs in the Mayfair house were about three inches deep, which helped compensate for the impact on his spinal cord when Antha bowled him to the ground. "Waitwaitwait," he protested, trying to get his breath back after having the wind knocked out of him. "Not fair. You can't just--distract me like that." And he laughed, sitting up, and kissed her thoroughly on the lips before allowing her to turn. He fiddled with the zipper for a moment, then opened it to the small of her back and leaned in close to the curve of her spine. "There you go. Seriously, though...I'm pretty sure that I'm not the one you have to worry about. Are you okay?"
His arms encircled her waist, crossing his wrists to rest comfortably upon the swell of her stomach, as he pressed his lips to her collarbone. "I don't see you upset often. I have to admit…I'm a little curious." He paused for a moment, then added, "If you don't want to talk about it, I won't force you. But it would certainly help me to rest more easily if I knew what that was all about."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Malakai had been gone only moments when the front door admitted yet another guest, this time in the form of a baffled Lawrence. "What on earth are the Astorias doing walking out of this house with Suzette? And at this time of night, too."
Armand, who was not quite as busy as the rest of his cousins puzzling over the strange situation, was the one to answer, "Suzette was forcing the girl on Malakai, as she likes to do. I suppose they're dating now, since they took so well to each other. That's how these things work with arranged marriages, right?"
At this explanation, Lawrence did not react as expected, his confusion set straight, rather he appeared all the more baffled. "Sophie Astoria?"
"Yep."
"That's just not possible."
The cousins stopped their whispered theories, all glancing in Lawrence's direction as his brow furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean, Laurie?" Pierce called sharply.
Lawrence, his head cocking slightly to the side as he considered the situation, said very simply, "Not to sound crass, but...that girl is as gay as the day is long. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, she spent the better part of a year stalking Antha."
From the solemn hush that had been the parlor, sound suddenly exploded, the cousins exclaiming their surprise en masse and turning to confer with one another. "That would explain why Antha was so panicked to see her here, in her very house," Armand murmured thoughtfully, on his back on the couch, staring hard at the ceiling.
"Ah, poor Malakai," Courtland sighed sympathetically, shaking his head, "He just can't catch a break with the gir---wait a minute." The other cousins all stopped to look at Courtland with this, his expression going gravely serious as the gears of his mind turned.
Jack was the one to pick up on his train of thought, managing to carry it a little further with the murmur of, "When Antha was yelling at him about bringing her here, didn't Malakai look a little...guilty? Like he knew just what he'd done?"
"You're saying what, that he knows? Why would he play along with all of this? Especially if this girl was stalking his precious baby sister."
"Courtland," Pierce began, turning totthe boy with a dark gleam of understanding beginning to spark in his eyes, "What do you do every time Suzette tries to play matchmaker for you?"
Without hesitation, Courtland drew a firm arm around Jack's shoulders and pulled him hard against his side. "I tell her that I am in a loving, committed, occasionally monogamous relationship and to step off, Courtland Mayfair needs no help with the lovin'."
"Right, because the only way to stop Suzette is with an obstacle. Specifically, an already present lover. So if, say, Malakai were pushed to his limits with Suzette's matchmaking, if he were utterly sick of it and suddenly a girl came along, a girl with absolutely no interest in him at all and a reason to want to stick around, such as a burning desire for Antha...what's the cleverest thing to do?"
Silence again, for the briefest moment before Pierce, Courtland, and Jack went clambering from the room at the speed of light, their clumsy footsteps beating on the stairs above the garage followed by the slam of a door and Malakai's short cry of shock before something hit the floor.
"Why do I ever step foot in this house?" Lawrence groaned with exasperation, massaging his temple as footsteps sounded again on the stairs, another thud in the hallway, and eventually Malakai clawing at the floor as he tried to wriggle out from under the dog pile the three boys had made atop him.
"Guys, I can't breathe!"
"We can't help it!" Courtland squealed, shaking Pierce off of him as he rose just enough to pull Malakai into a suffocating embrace, misty-eyed and grinning ear to ear, "You've never been sneaky before! You've never had a single plot in your entire life! I'm so proud I can't even stand it!"
Malakai, struggling helplessly out of Courtland's hold and scrambling across the room and behind the couch, hoping it would serve as a barrier, stared at his cousins in sudden panic, exclaiming in a quick, quiet whisper, "Shush! He'll hear you!"
The boys lowered their volume very reluctantly. "Who?"
"Julien!" The boy glanced towards the stairs as if the man might appear like a looming phantom who saw and heard all, "If he finds out, he'll tell Suzette and it'll be worse than ever! It'll be girls everywhere, Suzette lurking behind every corner to drag me off to meet another one, everyone going on and on about marriage, and I won't have any time for the garden and I'll never get to eat bread again and---!"
Pierce smacked Malakai once across the cheek, the sound echoing vaguely through the room, and his panicked babbling ceased all at once, the boy dropping into a nearby chair and taking several deep, calming breaths. When he had regained his composure, Pierce asked very slowly and seriously, "Why didn't you just tell us?"
"Because none of you can keep a secret," he murmured slowly in response, rubbing his stinging red cheek, "And anyways, you'd just make fun of me."
"I take offense to that," Courtland retorted, and he really seemed as if he might, then continued as he pointed a finger at Malakai, "If we're going to make fun of you for anything, it's what's happening on your feet right now. Are those bunny slippers?"
Malakai hurriedly tucked his feet under the chair, glancing away and murmuring an obstinate, "No."
"We won't tell," Pierce responded, the air around him unusually serious, "We understand, okay? God knows Antha is going to rage, if you really brought one of her stalkers into her own damn house, but even she wouldn't tell."
"Of course not," Courtland scoffed in agreement, as if he were offended Malakai had even considered such a thing, "But what I don't understand is, if you were going to have a fake girlfriend to shut Suzette up, wouldn't it have been easier---and freaked Antha out a lot less---to enlist Liesse's help? She's the one who said you'd make a good match."
Malakai flushed rapidly and deeply, glancing up at his cousin as he exclaimed in a slightly higher pitch than usual, "Are you trying to get me killed?!" His mouth clamped shut automatically, eyes glancing off to an empty stretch of floor nearby as he mumbled, "I'm going back to bed."
Courtland, picking up on the boy's suddenly morose mood and getting a clearer picture of what had happened that morning to drive him out of the house in such a state, popped up almost instantly at Rynn's shoulder, pinching each of his cheeks. "Oh come on, how can you be afraid of such a baby-faced little puppy like Rynn! He just barks too much, that's all. Kind of like Laurie."
"I do hope, Courtland, that you realize you are comparing Rynn and myself to dogs and at some point in the future, there will be a price to pay for it."
Malakai ignored the banter, stalking off towards his room in his bunny slippers and slamming the door. He hadn't even had time to finish putting his pajamas on before they'd ambushed him, his shirt was discarded on the floor.
No sooner did they hear the door close than the cousins, with the exception of Lawrence, closed in on Rynn, eyes very serious, as Pierce growled, "Tell me you didn't threaten Malakai."
Dolly Jean, lingering at their backs, murmured an uncertain, "He was just protecting his sister...right?"
"Protecting her from what?!" Pierce snapped, glancing back at her so that she shrank, "Malakai? Please! That's like trying to protect her from a goddamned Care Bear!"
"She has a point..." Jack mumbled, standing by looking at his feet.
"And if Antha didn't kill him outright for it---" Courtland began thoughtfully.
Pierce interrupted with the quick hiss of, "Yet."
Whining, Courtland threw his arms around Liesse and hugged her tightly to himself, glaring at Pierce as he exclaimed, "Will you stop picking fights?! You're going to give Liesse anxiety issues!"
"Liesse can handle herself, she's not as delicate as all that," Pierce shot back, still glaring at Rynn.
"That's not the point!"
"Oh good lord," Lawrence sighed, shaking his head, "It's not like he killed the poor boy. Was it appropriate to threaten him? Certainly not. But threatening Rynn in turn isn't going to accomplish anything, is it?"
Armand, roused from his languor by Lawrence's sharp words, turned onto his stomach to watch from over the arm of the couch, eventually calling in a low, slow candor, "Do you feel better now, Liesse?" The boys glanced at him, curiously, and so he elaborated, still staring inquisitively at Liesse, "Earlier, with everything that was going on...you were jealous, right? Is it better now that everything's all ironed out?"
"Armand," Lawrence murmured once in warning, and he shut up, turning back over and settling onto the couch for a nap. "At any rate, before we see dawn out the windows, may I?" He proffered the white paper bag he had been holding, emblazoned with the name of a clothing store in golden script, and removed from it two stacks of clothing all in white, black, and Pierce's dreaded cerulean. He handed Liesse her uniform first, the white knee-socks, pleated blue plaid skirt, button-up white blouse, black tie, and blue sweater emblazoned with the school crest. He handed Rynn his next, all the same except for the black trousers, thumbing through both stacks of clothing to be sure everything was there. "Go try them on, we'll see if they need to be tailored." Beside him, gazing at the twins with wide, misty eyes, Courtland bit his lip and made a small sound as if he might cry. "For the love of God, Courtland, they'll just be going to school. Not even tonight, but Monday."
"But they'll be leaving me!" Courtland cried, growing decidedly weepy, "I'll have to send them off every morning with their little bag lunches and their backpacks and---oh! I promised myself I wouldn't do this!" He fanned himself, rapidly blinking his eyes as if not to cry.
"Alright, mama bird," Pierce sighed, laying a hand on his shoulder, "Settle down. If it's this bad now, what are you going to do on your son's first day of school?"
Pierce regretted the remark instantly as Courtland burst into tears, openly sobbing and falling into Jack's chest, weeping against his shirt as he moaned, "My little Adair, all grown up! Nooooo~!"
Jack, patting his back, tried to soothe him with the whispered, "There, there. He's not even born yet, Court. Shhhh..." He glanced towards Pierce, eyes narrowing in accusation. "See what you've done now?"
Pierce, taking that as a challenge, offered offhand, "You know, it's only going to be six years before Vanessa and Sebastien go off to school." Courtland sobbed all the more hysterically at this, which earned Pierce a book thrown at him by Armand while he stood smirking in self-satisfaction.
"Go," Lawrence said to the twins, shaking his head, "Quick, before he gets any more emotional. Come back when you're changed so Pierce can see what needs to be done."
Distantly, Courtland was blubbering, "Gonna' leave me...all grown up...they're just babies!" as Jack continued to stroke his back and whisper soothing words.

"I am not upset." Antha pouted fiercely at the accusation, even as she eased into the warm circle of Cian's embrace, her head resting gently on his shoulder. "I was surprised. There's a difference." A difference that, in her legendary obstinance, was of monumental importance. But she dropped it at that as he continued talking, staring at the window with distant eyes, lost in thought.
Eventually, with a little start as if she had only just managed to drag herself from her memories, she gave a defeated sigh and said finally, "Sophie's in love with me. Or at least I assume she still is. I haven't seen her in a while, not since Nicolae scared so her badly that she finally stopped stalking me, but I run into her brother enough to know that she still says she is. God, I would have had an easier time moving mountains than getting rid of that girl. I didn't want to make her simply disappear, she's horrendously innocent and even I have my morals, she just went a little crazy when I was bored of her. It happens sometimes, particularly with the girls." At length, after several long moments of staring at the window, Antha sighed and gave a small shrug of her shoulders, as if it didn't matter. "But never mind all of that, it's not important. Just a minor lapse in sanity on Malakai's part. At any rate..." Antha turned, pressing Cian onto his back and laying a brief kiss on his lips, murmuring as her fingers worked their way down the buttons of his shirt, "I hardly think this is worth wasting such valuable time discussing. And you still have to be punished for hurting my feelings, you know. How should we go about it?" Antha paused, pursing her lips and touching a finger thoughtfully to his chin. "Nothing too serious, you're too pretty to go scarring up. But do have to pay, of course."  

[Okimiyage]

Cian went hrrrmmm and nodded sagely. It wasn't fair to say that he'd been acquainted with stalkers in the past, but--er--there had definitely been one or two individuals who had gone to rather desperate efforts in order to get the attention of either Cian or one of his mates. Most likely, the only reason why Antha didn't have the problem on a constant basis was because the Mayfairs kept one another exceptionally secure. They were as tight-knit as a wolf pack, if a wolf-pack also had a host of lawyers and cohort of supernatural creatures at their beck and call. Antha turned back around then, and he allowed his approval to show with an appreciative grin as he lifted her dress up and over her head. A black cloud of tulle hid her from view for only a moment, and then was cast to the side, and he caught her up by the small of her back and drew her close while she undid his buttons. He remembered thinking that Antha's perfume smelled like summer nights at dusk, out in the garden--not that he'd spent much time appreciating that scent, which was perhaps why it remained distinctively associated in his mind. Now, it enveloped him. Her skin was velvety smooth beneath his hands, beneath his lips as he bowed his head in against her collarbone. His teeth grazed her throat, passing over the faint white welts of old scars. Dull human teeth, sure, probably not what Antha was used to, but none of his lovers in the past had ever complained. The vibration of his vocal chords could be felt against his skin when he murmured, "Of course you weren't. You just did an awfully good impression of an offended cat. Rather sensitive princess, aren't you?" He was pushing his luck, and the spark in his eye told Antha that he was fully aware of this. Antha had promised him a night to remember. "You'll have to pardon my faulty memory, but which slight am I being punished for, again? I suspect you've let me get away with rather a number of them." Least of all, my grievous brat of a little brother.
Cian's fingers massaged their way up her spine--her entire back was knotted with tension, or perhaps just the strain of being poured into her dress all day. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was just stress--Antha certainly had enough on her shoulders. Finally, his fingers crossed paths with the clasp of her brassiere. Cian was an old pro at this part. It was easy to tell how much experience a guy had by the time it took him to undo the clasp. With his record, Cian could have passed for one of the cousins.
She'd promised him a night to remember, and in return he got to keep her until he said when. Cian intended to take full advantage of this agreement. As long as he got to keep his dignity intact.

Dorian wandered into the parlor after the crowd. Nobody had spoken to him during the meal. He supposed that was his punishment. He'd taken the opportunity to spike his fruit juice beforehand, however, so that at least he could enjoy himself, even if everyone else was busy being sour and Antha was busy being terrified of Sophie Astoria (he liked the full name. It just sounded poetic to say. And Dorian was a sucker for romanticism). As soon as she'd fled, everyone else in the room had fallen to gossiping. Nobody asked for his opinion, and he didn't venture it, but it went as followed in the privacy of his own mind: Malakai was being used. He liked the idea of having a defense against the elder's badgering for him to get married and was willing to take whatever amenable prospect came along, no matter the consequences.
He was being an idjit about it, too.
"It's not often that I say this, but I wish divorce upon the union," Dorian murmured under his breath. "And annulment payments for the rest of his life. That'll teach him." Not that the Mayfair funds wouldn't take care of themselves.
If anyone was watching Liesse, they would have noticed how her entire face turned a gradual pink, then red throughout the conversation, as slowly as the sunset colored the sky. Then, when the conversation turned to her, it all abruptly drained away, leaving her white as a sheet. Liesse's skin was so transparently pale that it was easy to read her emotions. Rynn was as stoic and pretty as a mannequin, as usual, although Dorian could see his lips tighten when Malakai was dragged back into the conversation. It looked like an expression which thought, how dare he. Playing around with Liesse's heart like that? It was no wonder Rynn was mad. When Pierce and Lawrence and Courtland left the room, Dorian took the opportunity to dash after them at top speed, and separate himself from what could potentially be a rather icky situation. While the cousins tackled Malakai, Dorian clasped a balustrade to steady himself. "It's not often that I say this, but I'm rather appalled by all of these romantic entanglements that've sprung up while I'm away. I hope we raised you with more empathy than this, Mal."

Rynn raised himself up to his full height when the cousins turned on him, and his scarred left hand clenched into a blood-draining fist. "I'm not ashamed to admit it." Liesse went scarlet--"Rynn!"--and he rounded on her. "Please! Give me a second." Glancing over his shoulder, he grabbed Pierce by the shoulder and all-but-dragged the taller man behind him into the parlor, where they could shut the door, at least.
Outside, Liesse glanced upstairs. Her brow furrowed with concern, and then knotted with determination.
Inside the salon, the hissed conversation went as follows:
"You laugh when I say that I'm trying to protect her. But Liesse has never had a lover before, never even dated. Of course I'm worried! She'll fall for the first man who makes eyes at her, and look at what's happened--he hurts her the next day, without so much as a word of explanation or excuse. She's not used to the way your family makes and breaks alliances. And besides, she's about to enroll in high school. She doesn't know what she wants yet; the men of your family are the first available bachelors she's ever met in her life, how could she? Give her a second before it's decided who to marry her off to. You're about as considerate of her feelings as a bunch of kids playing dolls."
Involved in his tirade, Rynn didn't notice as Liesse quietly came into the room and shut the door behind her. She leaned against it, and her cheeks were colored with nervous pride at his words. Rynn was perhaps a little overprotective, but he meant well.
Now, what happened made sense.
"They're right, Rynn." she announced. Her voice was quiet, but it held a steady power that interrupted her brother's speech and caused him to whirl about like a spinning top. "Liesse!"
"Well? I'm not as delicate as all that. You do me a disservice, you forget what I've helped you do."
It was the first time Rynn had heard the shout of anger in Liesse's voice since--well, a long time. He blanched; blinked rapidly, his eyes suddenly hot.
"I was jealous," she answered Courtland, slowly, but did not yet turn to look at him until the moment after. "But if this is what Malakai wants, then let him be happy. Perhaps Rynn is right. I know nothing of love; maybe this is just some--" she laughed, as she was passed her uniform in turn, "--some school-girl crush, a brief infatuation. I must seem pitiably naïve, mustn't I? He's right, I've never had a lover in my life." She found that suddenly her eyes were wet, and, having nothing else, she pushed her black lashes into the skirt of her uniform. All of the cousins were so much more experienced than she was; she couldn't pretend that they would understand how she felt, how nervous she was. "Sorry," she hiccuped, pushing out of the room again, shoving past Rynn as he tried to intercept her, dashing toward the sanctuary of Dolly Jean's bed and the other girl's unquestioning comfort.
Rynn turned around at the door, held out arms which still clutched various items of their uniform, and glared at the cousins in silent accusation. This is what he'd been trying to avoid.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Downstairs, it took both Pierce and Jack to hold Courtland back from running after Liesse. "Let her be, Court! Just let her be." Mama bird was not terribly off the mark, as far as Courtland's nicknames went. He hovered, worrying obsessively about those he took under his wing. Liesse was one of them, and he felt the burning urge to go and comfort her. But Pierce and Jack were wiser in these things, so they held him back as Dolly Jean slipped by and ran up the stairs after her, locking the door behind them.
"Don't be sad," she whispered earnestly, in the way that children comforted adults, going to take her hand in her own. She waited a while then, in order to let Liesse settle down, stroking her hair before she glanced to the floor and murmured with a nervous blush, "I'm probably more naive in these things. I wasn't supposed to think of things like romance, it wasn't supposed to be an option. So the cousins protected me, in their own way. That's what they do." They hover, Antha had explained it, soothing Dolly Jean in much the same manner as the girl was now soothing Liesse. "It's not a terrible thing, being inexperienced. It hurts, but...it's beautiful, that first crush. Even Courtland and Pierce had their firsts, when they were naive and didn't know what they were doing or how to go about it." She paused, glancing off and thinking that perhaps it would make her feel better to hear about them. "Courtland was only nine when he had his first crush, but he was terrible about it. He pushed the girl down, called her names, threw rocks at her, and then came home in tears because she hated him and he didn't understand what he was doing wrong. I don't think he even realized he liked her for a while, he just knew he wanted her attention all of the time. It went on for months. Pierce's first one was his sixth grade teacher, and he was always mad about how she looked at him like a little kid, but he wasn't a little kid. Even Nicolae, the biggest playboy of them all, he was an idiot about his first crush. It was Antha, and she haaaaated him. No really, she seriously despised him, she wanted him to drop dead. She ignored him for a long time, until he pestered her too much and she called him names, yelled at him, pushed him down stairs, one day she even tried to smother him with a pillow when she'd had enough. But Nicolae just kept on like an idiot, crying to Louis every time she did something mean to him. And he hated Malakai so much, because Antha loved Malakai instantly and totally. It was so cute, she'd hold onto his sleeve and follow him around like a baby duck, eat when he ate, nap when he napped. So Nicolae tried to imitate Malakai, and Antha beat him senseless for it. Oh, and when we were thirteen, Vittorio, he gave me a rock. It was so gross, but he told me it was cool and then ran off. It took me six years to realize he was flirting with me. And only then because he told me he was. Everyone's an idiot with a crush, even the ones after the first."
Dolly Jean smiled, taking the uniform from Liesse and laying the articles of clothing out neatly on the bed beside her. "Malakai didn't mean to hurt you. He was trying so hard not to. When Rynn yelled at him, he thought it was because you thought the same way as him. He thought he'd scared you when he confessed all that stuff the other night, or that you thought he was like Courtland and Pierce and all of them. He was so upset about it, he couldn't bear to be in the same house, he was afraid to look at you in case you got the wrong idea. He was really hurt. Oh, but...he doesn't know I know that." The girl flushed, looking in paranoid fashion around herself before slinking to her dresser and pulling out a book bound in red leather, flipping through the pages. "He left his journal in uncle Barclay's car, and aunt Suzette dragged him off so quick that uncle Barclay couldn't give it back so he asked me to do it. I know I should have given it back, I know, but...I thought it was his old poetry, so I looked at it, but..." She showed her briefly, Malakai's delicate, curling script on the page, his pretty words,
We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
"I just wanted to read it, I didn't know it was like a diary..." She glanced at the page again, sighing, and then snapped it shut. "They are right about him. It's so mean to say, but they are...he's helpless. He has no idea what he's doing with any of this, he wanders through life wishing he was in the garden taking a nap, that everything was that simple." A quote from Antha, because Antha understood better than she did. As far as Dolly Jean was aware, Antha was omniscient, she understood everything without fail.
The girl shook her head, concerned, but turned to Liesse's uniform instead, trying to distract herself. "Here, try it on. It'll be fun, like playing dress-up. I'll do your hair for you! And I know I have a necklace this color from sissy somewhere around here."

In the parlor, meanwhile, Courtland and Jack had settled down enough to take control of the downward spiral the situation had become. They had thrown Pierce and Dorian out of the room, ordering them to go cheer up Malakai---"Go pretend that you care for once, Do-ri-an."---and then forcefully sat Rynn down on the couch, Armand passing him a cup of tea. "There, there," Courtland cooed, stroking his pretty brunette locks, "Settle down, Pierce is just in a foul mood. He hasn't had his nap today. We're not happy about you threatening precious Malakai either, but we won't yell at you about it. It was for Liesse, after all, however misguided it was."
"Liesse will be fine," Lawrence murmured, unusually reassuring, "She is a sixteen-year-old girl, they're all brimming with emotions we can hardly begin to understand, as men. It's all part of the long, terrible process. If he weren't so frightened of you, I would suggest speaking to Malakai about it. He knows about all of it---pubescent younger sisters, all of those twin things that the rest of us can't possibly understand. But Michael should be a good alternative I think, if you ever need advice."
"Michael would know what to do," Jack added in agreement, "He was the father figure to most of us, he dealt with all of it---teenagers and girls and twins and all."
"This is turning into a real mess rather quickly," Armand agreed meanwhile in a murmur as Jack spoke, stretching out on the opposite couch, "You see, this is what happens when Antha lets you drug-addled runts run around doing what you wish. I'm including you in that, Rynn. You all make such a mess of things, you need Antha-voiced filters in your heads before you act."
"Unless you are offering a solution, Armand---a real one, that is---" Lawrence began, settling down in a nearby armchair, "I suggest you close your mouth. You're hardly helping."
"Yeah," Courtland agreed as Jack nodded his head, "Shut up, Rynn needs to try on his uniform. Here, I'll help!" He yanked kindly on Rynn's shirt, choosing in his infinite charity to help him with the unbearably tedious task of stripping, before Lawrence snapped at him.
"Courtland Mayfair, this is textbook sexual assault."
"You goddamn lawyers," Courtland muttered, hands dropping abruptly from Rynn, "Always quoting laws at people. It's stifling!"
"I doubt Rynn sees it that way."
"Throwing in my two cents," Armand called quietly, halfway to dozing, "I'd rather not see Rynn less than half dressed, if you please. Thanks."
"Rynn," Lawrence called, sighing, "Use the bathroom out in the hallway, straight to the left. Even Courtland can't pick that lock."
"You don't know that."
"Oh shut up, Courtland."
"Never."

Out in the hallway, Pierce had given a groaning sigh and lit a cigarette, leaning against the wall. "I suppose I'm still being hazed for being gone so long," he sighed, glancing over at Dorian, "You're just trapped in a never ending period of hazing, as often as you're gone. I'm not sure how long you thought you were gone for, but...the funeral was weeks ago, Dorian. The wedding was a week ago." He paused, glancing thoughtfully at his cousin. "You didn't take any little blue gel pills, did you? Because you lose days with those, trust me. But then, I guess you wouldn't remember if you took them or not, would you?"
Pierce shook his head, sighing, and pushed away from the wall. "I suppose we should go apologize to Malakai, the delicate little flower, if we ever want anyone to forgive us. Or at least you should---I'm in exile for offending Rynn, the poor little devil child, not Malakai." He shrugged, putting a hand on Dorian's shoulder and steering him towards the stairs, "But whatever, come on."
It took Pierce a full five minutes to pick the lock to Malakai's bedroom when the boy wouldn't answer the door, and he found him curled beneath hsi sheets with Amadeo, hidden away in a little ball. "Oi! We're here to make you not want to kill yourself and such. Wake the ******** up." He kicked the iron frame of his bed, which rang metallically, and Malakai finally roused, glancing out from a thin slit between the sheet and the mattress.
"Dorian?" he questioned groggily.
"I said 'we,' didn't I? Come on, get up and get to spilling your guts already."
"There's nothing to spill," he muttered obstinately, turning over beneath the sheets.
"There's plenty to spill, Malakai. You're plotting stuff, Liesse is upset, Anth---"
"Liesse is upset?" The boy rose slowly, peeking out of his nest like a groundhog waiting for spring, "Mff...why do I keep doing this?"
Pierce, seizing the opportunity, settled down on the edge of the bed and continued talking. "It's Rynn's fault, he keeps filling her head with all this nonsense as if you're just like one of us."
"He thinks so, I'm sure," the boy muttered darkly, picking nervously at a loose string on his blanket.
With a hard sigh and a good, long look at Malakai, Pierce ventured the hesitant question, "Now don't get me wrong, I adore Liesse immensely, but...why her? With all of her confusion and sheltered experience, and Rynn always glaring over her shoulder, it hardly seems worth it. Sophie's not an option, I get that, but why...?"
Malakai shook his head as if he didn't have an answer. "I don't know. It's the light, that's all I know, the light calls to me."
"The light? Malakai, are you letting God bully you? Because we don't tolerate that sort of thing in this house."
"No, it's not...nevermind, forget I said anything." He fell briefly silent, gazing narrowly at a point on his blanket around his knees. "I can wait, if that's what it takes. I can be patient. Just so long as nothing's in the way, I can do that."
A glimmer of understanding began to shine in Pierce's eyes, narrowing at his cousin. "By something, you mean Suzette's attempts to marry you off." The boy nodded mutely. "And then enter Sophie, your key to keeping Suzette off your back and your romantic path clear."
Malakai only nodded. Plots just weren't his strong suit, but he couldn't see another option.

Upstairs, the incessant noise was driving Antha nearly over the edge. She was not the sort of person to hear her family hollering and carrying on without intervening, she was too much of a micromanager, and it showed at the moment. But Antha was astoundingly good, she didn't run off to meddle at all, she remained faithful to her promise to Cian. She was through the door and wouldn't go back out until Cian said when.
"You have a point," she purred, grabbing his hands to stop them with a little pout, "You've been dreadful to my poor, delicate feelings. How should I punish you for so many slights?" The girl hmmm'd, glancing down at her arms. There were still traces of the laboratory on her, despite the fact that she'd washed off afterwards. "Ah..." She took his arm, smirking with dark satisfaction as she dragged him up and after her into the bathroom where she shoved him still half-dressed into the shower, turning the antiquated brass handle for the hot water. Antha had an unusually high tolerance for things like hot water---it was all the vampire blood and whatnot, her skin was like armor against such things---so she had no problem turning the temperature up past what would likely be comfortable, pressing Cian against the mosaic tiles beneath the falling water, trapping him between it and herself as her lips closed over his. "It's nearly soundproof in here, you know," she murmured, her lips brushing his, giving just enough space for the water to cascade between them, down their chins and necks, "That's the beauty of these antique leaded tiles, I could make you scream with all the breath in your lungs..." She trailed a slow finger along his jawline, brushing back his soaked hair, that dangerous glimmer sparkling temptingly in her emerald eyes, "...and no one would ever know. Ah, but that makes it a little hard to keep my word about not scarring you up, doesn't it?" Her teeth pressed into the skin of his throat, briefly but none too gentle, leaving scarlet imprints in their wake. Antha observed it with that devious curl of her lips before they met Cian's again, whispering lowly, "There, I've marked you. You're mine, for the rest of the day, week, month, year, life."  

[Okimiyage]

In Dolly-Jean's room, Liesse's mewling white kitten took the opportunity to toddle over and sprawl comfortably upon Liesse's thigh. She took to purring like a professional. Liesse had spent ages selecting the kittens She's specifically looked for the ones which seemed the friendliest, and this one seemed determined to prove its (metaphorical) stripes.
Liesse was trying very hard not to cry. This didn't mean that she could stop from tearing up, but she'd figured out how to (mostly) silence her sobs, except for the occasional shuddering intake of breath. It was enough to make conversation. She wanted to hit Rynn. "Boys are so--so stupid." she whispered, bowing her head so that her long hair fell around her face like a veil. "Rynn, for jumping to conclusions, and--and Malakai for listening to him! He didn't even ask me before…" Her heart wrenched; her head dropped again. She stretched out a hand to the kitten, who turned on its back and clung to her fingers with tiny pinpricks of claws. It licked her palm enthusiastically, purring all the while. It didn't even seem to mind the tears that fell on it.
As soon as Dolly-Jean laid out the white uniform blouse, Rynn's kitten, with the uncanny attention of a black cat magnetized to anything on the opposite end of the value scale, wandered over and plopped down.
Then, he began grooming himself with satisfaction.

Downstairs, Rynn frowned uncomfortably as the cousins plucked at the buttons of his mandarin collar. It was starting to get tiresome to think of them all collectively as 'the cousins'. It might as well have been the name of a gang, with the connotations that the term now held to Rynn. "I'm not drug-addled or a runt," he protested, although some part of him knew it was in vain. Antha's solutions weren't so great all the time, either. He still wasn't totally satisfied with her answer to the situation above-stairs--but she'd told him not to mention that. Jerking away from Courtland's prying fingers--"I can manage buttons by myself, thanks,"--and took Lawrence's advice.
Once in the bathroom, which was a lavish affair of marble and cerulean silk, Rynn finished the task which Courtland had started for him. He wasn't prepared to admit how hard his heart had risen to hammer in his throat, after he had felt the brush of the other man's fingers. He'd been grateful for Lawrence's interference although it was difficult to know how to thank someone for a thing like that.
The uniform was smart, he had to admit that. The cousins defamation of its character had not prepared him for this. The blouse was sharp-collared, and Rynn made his black tie beneath into a Windsor knot. His sweater was somewhat ill-fitted to the boy's slim frame, but Rynn admired the gold embroidery of the school's crest with no less pride than if it had been an immaculately tailored blazer. High school. Something about the phrase made him nervous and excited at the same time. So much was made out of this brief period of time. Preoccupied with his own problems, Rynn was totally unaware of the debacle that his actions seemed to have caused amongst everyone else in the house.

For instance, in Malakai's room:

"I didn't take anything," Dorian snapped, answering Pierce. "All I had was what was in my hip flask. And I paced myself the whole night." As attractive as those girls had been, he didn't want to get any of them pregnant. They'd tried to push drugs on him, food and wine that they'd assured him 'was better than any in your cellars'--but Dorian had only laughed and told them they didn't know what they were talking about. It wouldn't have been the first time some enterprising lass had planned to worm her way into the family legacy by poking holes in a condom. But it was worthless to try to explain this to the rest of his cousins, who were well aware of his reputation for partying and probably all thought he'd taken a long vacation in the caribbean with some kind of sleazy sugar daddy type.
Inside Malakai's bedroom, he continued to conduct his argument in toxic hisses of speech.
"They're not married yet," Dorian pointed out, . What on earth did they think Suzette was planning for them? Internships? "And if you think that meddling hag is going to leave it at this, you're all far more optimistic than I took you for." Giving a theatrical sniff, he added, "Anyways, I don't see why you're worried about our dear houseguests right now. I'd be more concerned for the person whose stalker you've just given a free and legitimate excuse to visit at any time. I know Suzette's a terror, but it doesn't get much more selfish than that." He resisted the urge to shake his finger. Dorian knew he was getting dangerously lecturing, which he suspected Malakai wouldn't take at all well. But it didn't make a damn lick of sense. It was plain to see that Rynn had terrified the boy; his actions were those of someone in a blind panic, all forethought or caution thrown to the wind. "You should engage the boy in a sordid and theatrical duel," Dorian declared. "With any luck, you'll kill him and win your lady love in a single stroke. If worst comes to worst, at least you'll all provide us with an opportunity to show off our best duds at the spectacle."

Dorian slipped back into the room, his face guarded against the disapproval of the cousins, and caught their attention by the clearing of his throat. He'd taken the opportunity to brush out his rampant bronze curls while he was in the bathroom; a hank of brown hair fell over his eyes, now, and his scarred hand hid nervously in the pocket of those crisp black trousers. He was every inch the prep school ideal, if perhaps a tad feminine compared to the football team.
"Well. How do I look? I expect this is how you'll see me for the next couple of months, then."

Above, in Antha's bathroom, Cian's back pressed against the cool porcelain mosaic. He could tell, from the steam hissing around them, that the water pouring on Antha's back was indescribably hot, but she bore it without even so much as a grimace. His mouth fell against her throat, against the wet red curls which plastered to her shoulder and breast. He could not stop himself from hissing with pain when the hot water fell on his hands, as they crept around her shoulders. " You do me an injustice," he whispered, in a voice that was almost indistinguishable from the hissing for the shower faucet, "if you think that I am to be driven off by a bit of pain. Do you truly think I lived under the same roof as Rynn for all these years, sanity intact, without developing something of a masochistic streak?" He could see from the gleam in her eyes that, no, she nearly expected it, and Cian laughed, then, throwing back his thread to expose the gleaming white expanse of his throat, and dragged her down by her scarlet curls into a kiss that stung, and tasted like copper and blood. The water, as Antha's body unshielded him, stung and burned--at times he could neither feel heat nor cold, just the insatiable needle-pricks against his skin, scalding his nerves. Cian's nails raked against Antha's skin, unable to keep his hands from tensing against her flesh, as the burning water fell around them. He would not have been surprised if he came away with blood beneath his short nails, but did his best to resist the urge.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Kitty, no!" It took mere seconds for Dolly Jean to notice where the black cat had settled down and in a flash she had grabbed him up in her hands, holding him at eye level as she said very sternly, "That's a bad kitty, you stay off of that!" But she cradled him in her arms when she was done scolding him nonetheless, scratching his ears and cooing to him as Liesse changed.
"Boys can't help being stupid," she murmured as she set to work on the girl's hair, the black cat set down on the bed beside his sister, "Antha says testosterone is like lead in boys' brains. She says they're easy to deal with, once you accept that. You just have to lead them by the hand, or beat them." The girl smiled, just a little guilty, finishing the loose braid she had made with half of Liesse's hair and moving to the other side. "I don't know if they ever change. Some of them do, I think. Look at my brothers, they're all grown up and Cyrus isn't so stupid, but Armand is. And it's the same with Uncle Michael and Oncle Julien. It's the worst with big brothers, they think they're helping. Armand went and punched Vittorio for my sake, and that was after he found out we were going to get married. I think you just have to sigh and overlook it when you love them. Ah, there, finished!" She stepped in front of Liesse to admire her handiwork, the loose braids framing her face and trailing down over her shoulders, a few loose tendrils of hair on her cheeks. "Sissy taught me how to do hair when I was younger. Oh...but you weren't here to meet sissy during the wedding. She works in fashion, she's living in Paris right now. She's Pierce's mother, actually, which is why he's so fashionable. She's always sending me things like this..." She drew out a necklace from her jewelry box as she spoke, a wildly glittering quartz crystal of blue to match Liesse's uniform set in a delicate, intricate silver setting, holding it up to catch the light before gently looping it around Liesse's neck. "She doesn't approve of me always wearing our mother's necklace, she says it's too old and plain." The clasp snapped closed and Dolly Jean stepped back to get the full picture, clapping her hands together in delight with a broad smile and sparkling eyes. "Oh, it looks so pretty with your eyes! You should keep it, I never wear it. It can be a good luck charm from me, for your first day of school. Come on, let's go show Lawrence!"

In the parlor, the boys were still bickering over nonsense when Rynn reappeared and all eyes set on him, giving him the appraising up and down for several silent moments before finally, Lawrence gave a little approving nod of his head. "The sweater will have to be taken up a bit, but otherwise it looks good on you."
Armand, glad the inane chatter had died down, roused enough to glance up over the arm of the sofa and agree with the murmured, "Very sharp." Not to brag, but Armand considered himself to be something of a connoisseur of dressing sharply.
Courtland's lip quivered, the boy sniffing as his eyes misted over again, and Jack had to pat his shoulder to settle him back down.
But the main authority had not given his opinion yet, which the cousins knew would eventually be a problem, and as if he had sensed he was needed, Pierce strolled in moments later with Dorian in tow, having been kicked out of Malakai's room so the boy could sleep. At once, Pierce was not his usual self, his face smoothing out into a hard, thoughtful expression when he caught sight of Rynn, eyes raking over him in a sharp series of observations as he strolled over to him. He was nothing short of professional as he gently took hold of one of Rynn's arms, holding it out in a straight line, then the other, observing the fit of his clothing. He pinched the loose fabric of the sweater until it was a proper fit, calling instructions out to Lawrence who took down his words on a small pad of paper. "Sleeves..." He took Rynn's hands, rolling back the hem of the sleeves a half inch and then gradually more, until he was satisfied, "Half an inch." He removed the sweater very neatly, as if it was upon nothing more interesting than a mannequin, and inspected the fit of his shirt, calling out notes on the collar and the hem. The waist was fine, he said. And then he was on his knees, pulling at the hem of the trousers, and called out the specifications for how they should be taken up before getting back up, walking twice around Rynn and picking precisely at the cloth before he was satisfied that no more adjustments needed to be made. "That'll be it. Now..."
The boy snapped back into himself all at once, leaning languidly against the back of the couch and lighting a cigarette, glaring hard at Courtland. "I went up and soothed Malakai, are you satisfied? I didn't even molest him or anything, which was difficult."
He was cut off by footsteps on the stairs, Dolly Jean beaming as she led Liesse all dressed up into the parlor and presented her. Courtland, only just recovered from his misty-eyed pride, broke down immediately into teary squeals of delight, running at Liesse and throwing his arms tightly around her. "You're so cute!"
Again, the boys all took a moment to inspect the clothes on her, ignoring Courtland he rocked her ecstatically in his arms, and offered their praise. "Very lovely," Lawrence murmured with a small, kind smile.
"Indeed, absolutely adorable," Armand said in agreement.
Pierce, grinning, added, "Courtland might have to chaperone you to school after all, cutting this kind of figure." And then he was all business again, inspecting the precise fit of the uniform on her as he had with Rynn and calling off alterations to Lawrence.
"Very good," Lawrence concluded, snapping the notepad closed and filing it away in his briefcase, "Alright, now take them off and bring them back to me, I'll take them to the tailor first thing in the morning."
Courtland whined, grabbing Liesse clear off of her feet and turning as if to hide her from Lawrence. "But she's so cute in her uniform, how can you take it away from her?!"
Lawrence only groaned, shaking his head, and hissed, "I'm only taking them to be altered, Courtland, as per Antha's instructions. I'll have them back Sunday."
Pouting, Courtland reluctantly released the girl to be taken back to her room by Dolly Jean. When they had changed and brought the uniforms back to him, Lawrence folded them neatly and returned them to their paper bag before excusing himself, saying he had a great many things to take care of in the morning. "Rynn, come walk me to the door," he called, politely but with no room for refusal.
At the front door, which he had walked to in silence, he laid one firm hand on his shoulder, inspecting him with those unnervingly sharp eyes before murmuring just quietly enough that the cousins could not hear him, "I used to live here, you know. Just for a little while, when Belle was born and my mother was feeling overwhelmed, between her and Rowan. I know how it is under this roof, particularly when one does not quite mesh with the likes of Courtland and Jack and Pierce, it isn't easy." In a very practiced maneuver, his fingers reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and drew out a business card with his name and information printed upon it, an address inked in at the bottom in a very sharp, precise script, and pressed it into Rynn's hand. "This is my address, I live alone in an apartment downtown now, close to the Mayfair and Mayfair building. If you ever need breathing room, you're more than welcome to hide out there. Really, don't hesitate, if you ever feel as if you're getting overwhelmed...those boys can push a sane man over the edge faster than they can blink an eye, and they don't even have to try." With that, he stiffly patted the boy's shoulder and bid him good night, taking his leave.
Within a split second the door swung open again, Vittorio sliding inside as he bid his quiet farewells to Lawrence. He was still in his lab coat, which was splattered with blood, his black hair all messily pushed back, filthy with dried sweat, a lab cooler pressed under his arm. He glanced briefly at Rynn, eyes as stoic as ever, murmuring a brief, "Good evening," and then began down the hallway.
Dolly Jean met him at the foot of the stairs, flitting down them all aglow. She managed a brief kiss on his cheek before he gently separated her from himself, murmuring about the blood on his clothes and how he needed a shower. It had been a long day at the hospital. Undaunted, the girl took his arm as they headed off to his room---theirs now, technically.
The other cousins were not far behind, drifting off in their usual fashion, loud and exuberant, calling good night to one another. Armand, who technically did not live at Mayfair Manor, was snoring on the couch.

Jacob called the usual half hour warning for breakfast up the stairs at ten the next morning. Antha's stomach woke her at such promises of food, nagging her about her hunger, and her eyes fluttered open begrudgingly to the faint glow of sunlight against the blinds behind the bed. Groggily, she glanced at the room around her.
It was wrecked. The bedside table was turned on its side, the roses from it scattered in scraps across the floor, and the small bookcase beside it bore all of its tomes in disarray on the carpet as if they had gone tumbling from the shelves. The painting nearest the bathroom door had been knocked askew, and beyond the doorway there were still standing puddles of water on the antique tiles. The comforter from the bed was in a knot on the floor, one ripped corner still clinging to the foot of the bed, the sheets all tangled around her legs, and there was the faintest stain of miniscule blood droplets on the bed beneath her. Blinking her bleary eyes at the scene, Antha ventured a small, "...huh."
The girl dismissed it. Nothing appeared to be irreparably damaged, and these were the sorts of things the family paid Jacob a small fortune to take care of anyways, so instead she laid her head back down on Cian's shoulder---her back ached as she moved, stinging with the pain of mending skin, and she could feel the bruises strung around her neck and shoulders---her arm tightening around his chest as she inhaled deeply and let it out in a hazy sigh.
"Cian," she murmured in a sleepy sigh, gently shaking his other shoulder, "Cian, breakfast is almost ready." To Antha, this was of dire importance. She had hardly eaten anything at dinner, what with all the shock and unease, and anyways she had done enough the previous night to work up a generous appetite. "Ciiiiaaannn," she called in a whine, turning her head and sinking her teeth lightly into his shoulder to wake him.
When he stirred, she smiled with satisfaction, lifting herself stiffly and sliding over his chest, pressing an affectionate kiss to his lips. "Bon matin, mon cheri," she whispered, laying her arm across his chest and resting her chin upon it, scrunching one eye closed against the sunlight and staring up at Cian with the other. "We might have gotten a little carried away last night." Her more than him, if their bruises were any testament to the matter, and a guilty little laugh fell lightly from her lips for it. "I don't envy Jacob for having to clean up after us, poor soul. We'll have to do something nice for him to make up for it."
Jacob had said half an hour and Antha took advantage of the small space of time, exploring the light damage she had done to Cian's body with the skim of her fingertips and the gentle press of her lips before finally rising with a sigh to take a quick shower, stepping over the spilled bottles and containers from the counter on her way.
By the time Jacob called that breakfast was ready, Antha was hopping back onto the bed, her curls damp and her sleep shirt draped over the majority of her bruises, leaving only a few dark blotches on her neck exposed. "We can do this one of two ways," she said, settling back against his chest, "Either you can get dressed and give me permission to leave this room and we can go down to breakfast, or I can pout so pitifully that it will wrench your heart and you'll have no choice but to relent. I suggest the former. Besides, think of the children, Cian! Your children! You're starving them." She gave a little pout at that, imploring him with puppy dog eyes. All for the children, of course.
The fact that she was not running as fast as she could to see how Alistair was doing said worlds about her patience, and she was proud of herself for keeping her word to Cian despite all of the things that demanded her attention. Maybe she was starting to get a handle on this whole wife thing.  

[Okimiyage]

Annoyed to be removed from his chosen nap-place, the black kitten yawned, exposing an enormous pink tongue, and moved further up the bed. After Liesse removed her white kitten from her lap in order to stand, he was shortly thereafter joined by his sister.
Liesse's eyes went round as blue-china saucers to look at herself in the mirror. She still was not used to seeing herself in another person's body, but had to admit that Antha had chosen a lovely female specimen for her to inhabit. Liesse had lost perhaps an inch-and-a-half in height, and the new body had longer legs than she was used to, but she had gained a shorter torso with high, round breasts, and pale skin with a tendency towards bruising. It felt strange to admire herself like this, knowing that some other soul had grown to fruition within the shell she now wore. With the ruddy gold hair pinned out of her face, she could admire her own elfin jawline and high, artistically arched eyes. Her face was heart-shaped, now that all the hair was pulled back from her browline, and Dolly-Jean's enterprising ventures with her braids left them swinging a good four inches past her collarbone. It was all she could do to keep from gasping when Dolly-Jean drew out a glittering bauble from her treasure trove. "It's beautiful," she marveled, reaching out a finger to set the crystal jingling and sparkling in motion, as it hung suspended between Dolly-Jean's fingers. "It must have cost a fortune. The setting alone--" Liesse had remembered seeing some of her mothers jewels, locked away in a safe, when she was in the house. Aedan had known the combination. But those had all been grand, Baroque rocks, chokers with rubies the size of pidgeon's eggs, strangling blood-stones, diamond cuffs and brooches. Liesse had made the mistake of touching one of the rings, a massive emerald encircled protectively by great spiked brass brambles, and had near screamed the house down when it had showed her the way its last wearer had blacked the eye of a housemaid, raped and choked her with those gem-studded fingers, and then thrown the body down the old well. Inanimate objects did not have a good sense for time, but Liesse had been able to tell by the clothing that it had been decades and decades ago. She did not like to think of being descended from that tall, grizzled man whose clothes had been decked in gold brocade.
But this thing gave her quite a different feel, as delicately made as snowflake lace. Before she could protest, Dolly-Jean had seen her delight and bestowed it upon her, and so it was to the tune of Liesse's "oh no I couldn't it must be worth so much--it was a gift from your sister, you'll hurt her feelings--" that she was towed from the room and down the hall to be presented.
In Dolly Jean's room, the black kitten cracked an eye as soon as they were out of the room, as though sensing that his shenanigans were no longer being observed. Rising awkwardly to a sitting position, the kitten set to work disemboweling the needlework on Dolly-Jean's pillow-cases with his immature front claws.

As Dolly-Jean led Liesse through the house, in the parlor, Rynn was tugging awkwardly at his sleeves, rolling them up to the prescribed length. He didn't like the idea of being thought gauche by any of the cousins, and ill-fitting clothes certainly gave off the scent of it. Dorian encircled him appreciatively, making cooing noises much as Courtland had done. When he tugged on Rynn's clothes, though, he had his hands slapped away and was glared at. "Grumpy little witch!" he exclaimed, laughing and darting away before further blows could be made, and Rynn scowled. As expected, he bristled protectively as Liesse joined them to experience an onslaught of praise, but at least had the sense not to say anything. Instead, he joined in with Dorian, clapped his hands and admired as she twirled, making the modest plaid skirt flare out in pleats and exposing long white thighs. Then came Lawrence's request, diverting Rynn's attention. "Of course," he answered, automatically, and fell into step alongside the older man as they exited the room. Rynn had the good grace to hold the door, and although the other man's grasp on his shoulder made him flinch, he did not let go. It was really too much to expect that he would find someone who sympathized with Rynn's position; but he could not deny, as the offer was made, that there was a part of him that wanted to call out, "This instant!" in response, and race through the halls to pack his bag. Instead… Rynn swallowed, nodded, and bid Mr. Lawrence a good evening. And then shut the door, looking at his feet and thinking, What am I staying for?
An hour or two ago, he would have said it was for Liesse. But it was clear, now, that she didn't need his interference and didn't want his protection. Maybe he did need 'breathing room'. So caught up in his thoughts was Rynn that he nearly didn't notice Vittorio's greeting at first. His polite "Welcome back," was nearly cut off (blanching) as Rynn noticed the stains on his coat. If it had been any other household, he would have assumed that they were purely theatrical and perhaps for a costume party. In the company of witches, however…he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd been told that Vittorio was bringing in body parts to make his own version of Frankenstein's monster, after what he'd witnessed upstairs.
Loosening the knot of his tie, Rynn glanced down at the embossed business card, and found himself tucking it in his pocket as he strolled towards the bathroom where he'd left his clothes. He made certain to transfer it to the pocket of his dress pants when he changed again--just for safekeeping, he wanting to hold on to Lawrence's generous offer.
Liesse was waiting for him when he came out of the door, although she'd already gone and changed into her night-gown. He wasn't prepared for the sharp look she met him with, upon turning around, and he yelped with surprise at her presence and stumbled back into the doorframe before he could stop himself. Liesse had been prepared to shout at him, but this caught her off-guard, and she leaned in instead. "You," she hissed, "need to apologize." She was prepared to leave it at that, but she saw the way his eyes widened and he began to stammer out, "Liesse, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"
"Not to me! To him!" And she pointed at the staircase to the second floor. "You had no right, Rynn!"
She wasn't doing a very good job of whispering. Taking a deep breath, she pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and tried again. "We're not in the old house anymore, Rynn, and you don't get to pick whoever I--marry, or fall in love with, or date! Even if that's one of the Mayfairs, at least trust my judgement enough to let me choose for myself." And she sighed, letting her face fall into her hand as she lifted up her palm. "Look, let's just--go to bed. It's late, and we can talk in the morning, but…it wasn't right, Rynn. You know that, don't you?"
Rynn moved a little further back into the shadow of the doorway, where you couldn't quite see his full expression when he said, "Yes. I know." Having Liesse shout at him was like being bitten by a dog you'd known all your life. It hurt all the more because it was unexpected.
"Here, I'll take those." She was still clutching her uniform, carefully folded in neat blocks of fabric. Rynn took it for her, and left it in the salon for Jacob to take care of when he rose. He did not want to face the uncomfortable silent walk together back to Dolly-Jean's room beside Liesse; this was as good an excuse as any to avoid it.

The night passed uneventfully, although outside the boundaries of the house, something paced the streets restlessly, and watched the lights of the city flicker on and off with a brittle, acidic green gaze.

In the morning, the visitor was gone. Dorian had dreams about a colorless city, ruled by a mayor as old and heartless as Ozymandias, and a woman who kept him in her vast and escher-like maze of a house like a captive parakeet, and rose at 6 A.M. to try to desperately jot his impressions of their story into a poem.
Cian woke once, early, to the chirping of birds in their nests, and rolled over to clasp Antha against his chest. Distantly, nestled against the snow-white of the sheets, he could see a spray of red droplets, like flowers caught in a sudden frost. Wasn't there a fairy-tale that started the same way? Blood on a snow-white sheet.
Came the grim thought, and then the death of a queen, yes. It was appropriate in that aspect, too, but he hated the morbid humor in him which had made the comparison.
He eventually tired of his own thoughts, felt them fade away, and fell back into unconsciousness.
It was another two hours before his wife rose as well, showered, and beckoned for him to join her.
Cracking open an eye as Antha pounced on him, he groaned when light slitted into his awareness, blinding, summoning stinging tears. How late had they stayed up? He hadn't thought to check the clock. Then, his eye opened wide as he grew cognizant of what he recognized through it. Cian sat straight up and surveyed the damage of the room with a low, appreciative whistle. "I thought that at least half of that had to be a dream." he murmured. Guess not.
He collapsed back onto the bed. Antha only gave him an artful look, leaning over to reassume her place against his chest, queenly as a feline. Her husband glanced sidelong at her and chuckled, with not just a trace of embarrassment. He would be surprised if anyone else in the house had gotten sleep last night, either. "You've been very good, darling, even I have to recognize that. But you know, in order to get dressed I have to be able to get up, first." And as though just to prevent her from allowing him to do such a thing, he snaked one arm around her back and squeezed appreciatively to bring her closer in. Nuzzling in against her collarbone, he breathed in deeply and let out a long sigh. He couldn't imagine a nicer way to wake up.
But it wasn't long before Antha began to squirm and protest, and he laughed and released her obediently, although took the time to kiss one of the bruises on her thigh before he let her get away totally. It was nice to hear her laugh, he wish he could make her do it more often. But she had made her point quite clear--Antha had eaten like a bird last night, and in her condition, it was downright inhumane to keep her waiting now. Cian finger-combed his hair, dashed through the drawers to find a pair of boxers& trousers, and donned one of the white egyptian cotton undershirts from a seemingly endless drawer in his bureau. The style looked deceptively simple, but examining the embroidered label on the collar placed each one as originating from a legendarily expensive French manufacturer. Cian was by no means a stranger to wealth, but it still felt odd to have this privileged lifestyle so nonchalantly displayed, all at his fingertips. At least he could assume that this sort of thing indicated the Mayfairs were not too conscious of their class to mind seeing him in his under-shirt at the dining room table.
Rynn would have said it was natural to assume that Cian was speedy at undressing, but one might not have expected that he would have been equally as quick in the reverse. But Cian had slept with enough married women in his youth that he'd perfected the art of dressing in haste, and it wasn't more than three minutes before he was clapping Antha around her shoulder and sweeping her through the door. "Come on, you need to keep up your strength. Can't have the lady of the house going hungry, Rynn would think me pathetic."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Most of the Mayfairs were already gathered in the dining room by the time Antha and Cian ever set foot out of their room, few of them any more clothed than Antha was in Nicolae's shirt. Courtland had very pointedly placed Liesse and Rynn beside him while Jack nodded off on his shoulder from the other side, instructing Liesse in the proper construction of scrambled egg and toothpick soldiers that he then hurled at Pierce. Malakai, the buttons of his shirt mismatched, was openly napping on the table and Courtland kindly explained that Malakai was not a morning person, it took him no less than half an hour to properly wake up, and that was only with caffeine. Vittorio, surprisingly, seemed no more or less alert than usual, despite the dark circles beneath his eyes and his poor complexion, both of which Dolly Jean fretted over.
"Rough night?" Pierce questioned his cousin in passing, "You came in later than usual."
Vittorio gave a small start, glancing over to Pierce, and answered in a low mumble, "The ER was short-staffed, so I pitched in. It was fine until this junkie's heart just---" He made small gestures with his hands indicating an explosion, and a messy one at that, "---all over me."
"Bring any of his personal effects home for us?" Pierce continued with a sly grin, which earned him a brief glare from Julien as he skimmed the morning paper.
When Antha and Cian tromped in, more than one set of eyes strayed knowingly to them, Courtland and Jack trading a sidelong glance before they set to snickering quietly amongst themselves. Antha ignored them, taking her seat with a demure yawn and snagging the first pastry she came across.
Courtland, theatrically clearing his throat, put his eating utensils neatly down on the table and turned to Jack, proclaiming loudly, "I'm surprised that anyone got any sleep at all, what with that tornado last night."
Pierce, perking up at his words, followed suit and asked in the same mocking tone, "Tornado, you say? Tell me more about this tornado."
Courtland glanced sagely around himself, continuing very matter-of-factly, "I'm sure you heard it, it raged for hours. Luckily, it contained itself entirely to Antha and Cian's room. I can only imagine the damage it left in its wake, what with all the screaming Antha did."
Down the table, Jack snorted his orange juice with the failing effort not to laugh while beside Antha, Pierce touched a finger to a bruise just beneath the hem of her shirt, murmuring with that teasing gleam, "Looks like it caught you."
"Oh no!" Courtland squealed, jumping up and running to Antha, falling to his knees to inspect her legs, "Vittorio, quick! The tornado got her! You can still see the bite mar---ack!" Antha kicked him square in the chest, sending him tumbling over himself in peels of riotous laughter. Down the table, Jack and Pierce joined in with their own laughter and Malakai jolted awake at the sudden explosion of sound, blinking bleary eyes around him in confusion.
"That'll do, children," Julien murmured in irritation, eyes still scanning his paper as he took a few idle bites of his toast and sipped his coffee. "Seems you've found yourself on the front page of the society section again, Antha."
Antha, who had already devoured half of her plate and was still picking apart a croissant, only glanced at him, sitting demurely back in her seat with legs crossed, unfazed. "What is it this time, Julien? Black magic in church? Pagan orgies in the park? Please, I'm just dying to know."
He glanced briefly at her, his pupils dangerous pinpricks, but shockingly held his tongue, answering stiffly, "An article on your wedding."
The girl's cool demeanor shattered all at once, leaning forward with her hands on the table as she called, "Gimmegimmegimme!" Julien handed the section over to Armand, who handed it to Jack, who scrunched it up and sent it sailing through the air down the table to land with a clatter on Antha's plate. She merely brushed the eggs off of it and smoothed it out, pouring over the extensive article.
"Anything about the Calais family?" Courtland asked, as if they had already discussed the possibility that the paper might look into the family and had been waiting for it.
Antha tilted her head curiously, giving a vague shrug of her shoulders. "Doesn't look like they found much. 'Ruined aristocrats,' 'orphaned children,' 'multiple fires'...nothing too incriminating. They called Cian 'a god among men,' to make an honest woman of me. Who exactly wrote thi...oh. Right, I slept with him."
"Antha Evelyn," Julien scolded her in exasperation.
Antha only glanced up at him, blinking large, innocent eyes. "What? You wanted me to get a better handle on the paparazzi."
"Anything about the bodies?" Courtland continued casually, again as if they'd been discussing it.
Antha shook her head, eyes still scanning the article. "They did a brief investigation, but all of the remains were too badly damaged, they're assuming the bodies were all from the tomb. Apparently there were 'strange occurrences' that tampered with the investigation, so they called it quits early. Ha. I don't ******** doubt it. No wonder they gave up custody of Rynn so quickly. They know when to leave well enough alone, in this city."
"You can only expect so much from humans," Julien murmured, his interest waning as he continued scanning the pages before, without warning, his lips curled into a scowl and he began in loud, angry tones, " 'Hedonist House, so tagged by the media, was raided last night by local authorities. No less than twenty persons under the age of twenty-five were arrested for possession of illegal drugs. Authorities say...' Oh, good lord. Jacob!" The boy came when he was called, peeking out from the kitchen, and Julien barked irritably, "Call Barclay, tell him I want every trace of Dorian's involvement scrubbed from the record. Do what he has to---bribe them, threaten them, I don't care, we do not need this sort of publicity."
Still scowling, Julien angrily slapped the paper down before the boy in question. Pierce, leaning over to glance at it, offered simply, "It's a lovely picture of you, Dorian, really."
"We're only fortunate you weren't present during the raid," Julien murmured angrily, opening up the comics section as if to take his mind off of the subject, "Because the next time we get a call from the police, I'll be content to let you rot in jail."
Antha, sighing as if this was all becoming tedious, offered in passing, "Don't worry, Dorian, we'd bail you out. We just might let you sit there and think about things for a few hours."
Julien's eyes cut at her, burning with irritation. "Because he's learned so much from his other brief encounters with the justice system."
Antha smiled serenely in return, blinking her great eyes at him as she said airily, "Well I thought about arranging an exorcist---you know, to purge all of those pesky demons from him---but the entire house might burst into flames if that ever came to pass, so I suppose we may as well just let him be."
Michael, quietly observing his eggs as if nothing were going on around him, looked up long enough to offer, "You know Dorian, as long as you are home, you may as well stop by the hospital to let Vittorio have a look at you. You can never be too careful these days, and you are getting to that age..."
Julien and Antha fell abruptly silent, the former hastily quitting the room in a silent huff and the latter grinning for it before she turned to Vittorio to ask curiously, "Tori, did you get what I asked for?"
Vittorio gave another start, turning to blink at her before answering slowly, "Oh, right. It's in a cooler in the fridge. If you don't use it tonight, move it to the freezer, blood doesn't have a very long shelf life. You asked for type O, didn't you?"
Antha only nodded, politely dabbing her lips with her napkin before folding it and laying it on her empty plate. "Don't worry, I shall. Big brother---" Malakai lifted his head, blinking at her as if trying to keep himself awake. "---I'll need your assistance tonight, so don't run off anywhere."
Malakai furrowed his brow, staring at her with incomprehension. "You need me? For what?"
Antha merely smiled, eyes twinkling, and excused herself from the table, laying a kiss upon Cian's lips and rising to leave. "Evie, wait!" COurtland shouted, halting her two steps from her chair as he hastily swallowed his food, staring at her with dire urgency, "You haven't heard my plan yet!"
"Your plan? Good lord, Courtland, nothing good can come of any of your schemes. It never does."
"This one can!" he protested, pouting as he threw his fork down on his plate, "It's utterly brilliant, I assure you."
Antha narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, murmuring, "Well?"
He grinned, satisfied that he was being taken seriously, and sat back crossing his arms. "I've been thinking very hard about this, because it's becoming a real problem. Since Rynn doesn't like us---"
"Doesn't like you, maybe," Armand muttered, smirking, "But can you blame him?"
Courtland made a face at him, slamming his hand down on the table as he hissed, "Shuddup. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..." He cut his eyes briefly at Armand as if he were waiting for another interruption, but he threw his hands up in innocence and motioned for him to continue, "Right. So, since Rynn doesn't like us, and that's getting real old real fast, I came up with a plan."
Leaning against the back of Cian's chair, her fingers idly skimming through his hair, Antha urged Courtland on with an exasperated, "And?"
Courtland, glancing around to be sure he had everyone's attention, nodded with satisfaction and finally explained, "From this moment on, we have to smother him with so much love that he has no choice but to love us back."
For several moments, no one said much of anything. They stared oddly at Courtland, as if he had lost that last grain of sanity, not least of all Antha who finally said, "That sounds like a terrible plan."
"Shut up, it is not!"
"He'd be ready to kill us in three days," Jack agreed, nodding, and Courtland glared at him in outrage for his treason.
Armand laughed dryly. "One day, tops."
Malakai merely rose from his seat and drifted groggily out of the room and into the kitchen.
Childishly, Courtland pouted his lips and slammed his fists down on the table, hissing, "It's a great idea, and you all have to help me, goddamn it!"
But his cousins continued to laugh at him, which put him in a sour mood. Antha, shaking her head and grinning, rose again to leave, stopping only briefly with a thoughtful flash of her eyes to stoop down and press an exaggerated kiss against Rynn's temple, then walked up the stairs still chuckling.
Courtland, sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed childishly, cheeks puffed out, murmured, "Well at least someone is a team player."

Antha had been so patient that it physically hurt her all morning. She had played her part, sat through breakfast and made the usual banter, but she had hardly been able to think about anything but Alistair. Now, closed in Marquerite's lab, she was so anxious she could hardly breathe.
She took things one at a time, forcing her breathing under control as she checked the IV bags and turned to observe the silhouette beneath the sheet. It certainly wasn't the infant she had left on the table last night. Peeling the thin paper sheet back, she felt the immediate burn behind her eyes, that stutter of her heart as her breath caught painfully in her throat.
Alistair.
He looked astonishingly like her at fourteen, which was roughly the age he had progressed to. His eyes were to the same massive scale---and the same hue, she realized when she carefully lifted his eyelids to be sure they were dilating properly---his face as round as hers with similar delicate features, only a bit more masculine, and that same flawless porcelain skin. She supposed he resembled Malakai and Nicolae too---after all, the resemblance between all of them was uncanny, what with their highly inbred genes---he even had their same slender, leanly muscled build, but he was much more like her. He even had her beautiful scarlet curls, all tangled in a cloud around him.
"Alistair..." She sat gently on the edge of the steel table, her fingers brushing his cheek as if she were afraid he would break like glass. She hardly even noticed the tears on her cheeks until one was flung away as if by an impatient hand and she glanced into nothingness, wiping her cheeks with a fragile smile and murmuring, "These are good tears, mon moitié. Happy tears." Something quivered vaguely around Antha then, like a second skin, and she laughed gently at the radiating concern. "You'll learn."

After breakfast, Dolly Jean had taken it upon herself to abscond with Liesse out into the garden. It was a glorious day, the sunshine warm and golden, the breeze soft and consistent, the flowers were all turning beautifully vibrant, and Dolly Jean wanted to show her around. She started with the pool, just because it was right there, and then moved on to the orchard, listing off the types of fruit that grew in it and urging her to take any she wanted any time. "That's the statue of Suzanne Mayfair," she continued, pointing at the worn figure, "She was the first 'Mayfair of note.' That over there is the tree house, it was built a few generations ago, and you've already had tea with us in the rose garden over th---ah!"
The girl stopped abruptly, throwing her hands over her mouth. She had been so preoccupied and moving so quickly that she had hardly noticed the sheet strung up between two young, closely placed trees between the orchard and the rose garden, and had almost run straight into it. "Oh, Malakai!" she scolded him, placing a hand over her hammering heart in relief, but the boy only stirred vaguely from his nap, nestled comfortably in his makeshift hammock with Amadeo stretched lazily out across his chest.
He was a pretty boy, no one could ever deny that, his eyelashes endlessly long, black as ink to match his soft hair, resting against porcelain skin, a faint rosy blush to his round cheeks, lips almost as full and shapely as his sister's slightly parted as he breathed deeply with sleep. Even his limbs appeared delicate, long and graceful, his waist slender, but there was a firmness beneath his skin that hinted at lean, toned muscle. Dolly Jean had no problem admitting she had doodled his name and some hearts in notebooks when she was younger, watching him wander through the garden from windows as she sighed wistfully.
"Now that the weather's nice again, you can usually find Malakai out here if you need him, somewhere or another. He's a lot like a cat. He has his usual napping places, like the rose garden and the porch---anywhere there's shade, really---but sometimes he works on the flower beds."
The boy stirred ever so slightly, as if he knew he was being talked about, but ultimately only sighed unintelligible words beneath his breath as he plopped over onto his stomach, one arm falling over the side of his hammock so that his fingers brushed the lush grass. Amadeo, alarmed by the sudden movement, jumped and took a moment to suspiciously observe him, but then quickly climbed onto the small of his back and turned a few circles before settling down in a tight ball, stretching his jaw in a great yawn and falling back asleep, his chest thrumming with a contented purr.
"Oh no, kitty, you're going to get fur all over his nice white shirt!" Dolly Jean murmured frantically, reaching for Amadeo, but before she ever touched him the cat gave a low, threatening growl and the girl retreated cautiously. "Ah, well, I guess cat fur is nothing compared to grass stains, and he certainly doesn't seem to mind those..." Malakai had never been that sort of proper fellow, with his grass stains and the rips in the knees of his jeans, dirt smeared on his worn converse shoes.
Dolly Jean led Liesse away by the hand, happily flitting to the next section of the gardens to show her. Michael, having observed them from the porch for several minutes, ambled easily over, following after them without a word as if he were vastly curious as to what Dolly Jean had to say about the flowers. "It was Eden who had the sunflowers planted, wasnt it?" he ventured quietly, inspecting the towering thicket of green stalks and blindingly yellow flower petals.
"It was!" she confirmed, beaming in delight, and Michael smiled softly to see her so pleased. "And the swing over on that oak tree, she had it put up when she was pregnant with Remy. She thought it was better than a rocking chair."
"Antha should make more use of it," Michael murmured thoughtfully, gazing out over to the swing, "She could do with the fresh air. I'm really beginning to worry about her health."
Dolly Jean gazed curiously at Michael, who towered over her, her brow furrowed quizzically. "But she looks wonderful, she's glowing!"
Michael only smiled in his usual kind manner, gently patting the top of her head as he murmured, "The inside and the outside are two very different things, Dolly Jean. One does not always reflect the other."  

[Okimiyage]

Liesse wordlessly passed a nearly-full pot of coffee over to Malakai, upon settling at the kitchen and pouring herself a cup. She was not herself used to the beverage, but had heard of its miraculous restorative properties.
Some mad adult urge had made Liesse drink a huge gulp of the bitter drink on her first go. Her face screwed up in alarm and disgust at the taste and it was all the girl could do to stop from spewing her coffee all over the dining table. After a tentative moment, she gave in and swallowed, her expression that of a child being force to take foul medicine. Rynn gave her a sideways glance of amazement. Liesse was so sensitive to these things. Wordlessly, he passed the sugar and milk in her direction, and began by dowsing a heaping spoonful of the former in her mug. Soon, the color of her coffee was pale caramel rather than black.
Cian, for his part, did not pay much mind to the jeering of the cousins. He made his polite 'hellos' to the folks around the table, sat down beside Antha, and began to take his meal. Cian had endured enough terse table 'conversation' within the Calais household (when he had been there) to last a lifetime, and as a result had developed kind of a protective obliviousness when he so desired. Anyways, Antha could fight her own battles in her own household, and even rather enjoyed it, Cian thought.
He did take the time to shoot a brief message across the table at Malakai. From what he'd been hearing, the boy was rather making a mess of things. Voicing his thoughts aloud probably wouldn't have even merited a twitch from the boy, but as an adept telepath, Cian didn't have to bother with that sort of formality. Fixing the younger boy with a pensive eye, he announced, for what it's worth, you have the approval of at least one of her remaining brothers. One out of two isn't bad odds. Ought to be more confident in yourself--and don't worry, I'd stop Rynn from killing you if it came down to that.
Maybe that wasn't the most encouraging thing to say. Cian took a huge bite of eggs. Oh well~
"They called him a 'god among men'?" Rynn demanded incredulously. The paper snatched itself away from Antha and fluttered across the table into his outstretched grasp. After briefly scanning the article in question, Rynn's face went white. His lower lip disappeared as he bit down on it.
After a moment, Liesse gently took the paper away from him, and it was a mark of Rynn's improvement in character that he did not resist. It was a mark in his favor that he did not stand up, turn the newspaper into a smoldering flame of embers, and march with it to the writer of the article in order to burn his home to the ground. And then the editor. He wanted to throw a fit. He wanted to promise murder. They'd made the family sound like inbred cultists.
After a short, icy moment, Rynn pushed his chair back and exited the table.
His sister, just finishing her speed-read of the article, called after him, "It's not that bad, Rynn, really! Just a little--"
But he was already out of earshot, disappearing down the hall.

Dorian slouched down at the table. His attire did not match his posture; he had come to breakfast elegantly clad as ever, in black silk pajama pants and a matching velvet smoking jacket. If one looked closely, they could see that the silk lapel and cuffs had a crest of rampant lions embroidered in black brocade around the button-holes.
He had adopted a posture of distinguished nonchalance, since nobody seemed in the mood to talk to him anyways, at least until his name came up in print.
It was a quite flattering photo which they had chose. Dorian had to wonder if the newspaper editor was queer, by any chance.
The other photo was a spread of the home's exterior, the perpetrators all being led away. Dorian frowned slightly. Now that he saw it in the photography, the house did not look as he remembered it. The party he'd been to was at a mansion, wasn't it? There had been lights and a garden, a live band, a pool in the back…this place was decrepit. He didn't recognize any of these people from the photos, either.
Their clothes, on the other hand--well, Dorian had always had an eye for style. There had been a girl in a gold tasseled flapper-gown (so short you could almost see her panties, and great tits) hadn't there been?--and well, there was her brassy gown--
but the woman who wore it was withered, thinner a crack whore, must have been at least thirty but looked double it from the lines in her face.
Dorian groaned, passing a hand over his face, and slumped back into his chair. He must have been slipped something after all. "I don't know how they got word that I was there," he muttered. "I didn't see the paparazzi, but hell, they get all over the place--damn insects like they are…"

Liesse looked over at Courtland, her brow-line an inverted 'v' of worry. She didn't say anything--Courtland, in particular, had been so kind to her that she absolutely had no desire to cause him worry--but her hands, folded around her coffee-mug, began to fidget unconsciously, and her mouth pursed with concern. This might not be the best time to confront Rynn with their unconditional devotion and love, as valiant a gift as it was.

But then Dolly-Jean dragged her away from the table, and Liesse allowed herself to be taken--gratefully for the escape, in fact.
For a long time, while Dolly-Jean rambled, Liesse said nothing, and looked at Malakai. It was not because she disregarded Dolly-Jean's rambling, as others often did, but because she was paying close attention. Dolly-Jean often mad comments in passing which it might have taken others years of observation to notice. Others might have called her 'simple', but Liesse was beginning to believe that there was no such thing as a simple Mayfair.
But when Amadeo jumped up on the bed of Malakai's torso, it was all she could do to stifle a laugh at Dolly-Jean's distress. "Let him be," she said softly, as they continued on. "He has so many white shirts, I'm certain, but there is only one cat such as that in this household. Besides, a warm bed-mate like *that* is certain to keep him from catching a chill."
But when Michael drew near, her merriment quieted, and she drew near with an almost reverent gaze.
Liesse had heard a great deal about Michael's experience in matters of the family.
What advice would he had given her? On Rynn, or Malakai? 'Let nature run its course--follow your heart--' or something to that effect, she expected.
It was barely mid-morning, but already she felt the inclination to re-trace her steps and join Malakai in his nap. Sleep was a kind of escapism. While dozing off, you didn't have to face the real world and all of its associated concerns.

Turning her attention back to the conversation just in time to catch Michael's cryptic comments, Liesse's forehead worked as she struggled to catch his drift. After a moment, she gave in. "What do you mean by that, Oncle Michael? Antha certainly isn't sick, is she?" But then, catching her mistake, she colored and interjected herself before he could answer. "Oh! I hope you don't mind--if I call you that, it's just that--"
And she couldn't think of why it was, exactly, that she felt already so much a part of the family here. They'd all been so welcoming. And it was true that her body was a former Mayfair, they were technically blood even if her soul was still tied to Calais heritage. "I suppose it's just this body's memory," she excused it with, finally, after a good ten seconds of stammering.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Michael fixed Liesse with his usual kind smile, laying his hand briefly against the top of her head. "Life is too short to spend so much time fretting over things that come naturally, don't you think?" The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly, betraying his age, as he smoothed her fair hair out. Antha's voice whispered through the gardens from inside the house, drifting through the windows, calling Cian's name through the chain of massive rooms, and Michael spared a glance in the direction of the house, smiling all the more for it. "See there? That's how easy it is. Antha brought Cian into the family and there was no more to it, really. Even if the cousins had hated him, if Julien had opposed it, it wouldn't matter. Family...it simply happens, without rules and restrictions."
A board on the porch creaked and Michael glanced towards it, watched Antha as she leaned against one of the whitewashed columns and folded her arms, barefoot in an unusually colorful floral print sundress, narrowing her eyes at him. "You know, don't you?"
Again that smile, easy as pie as their older aunts would say. "That Liesse is a little more than one of Cian's old friends who just so happened to be a Mayfair? I'm sorry to say you lot didn't keep your secret well."
Antha sighed, almost imperceptibly, and then shrugged as if it were an irrelevant ruse to begin with. "Have you seen Cian?"
Michael shook his head. "He was still at the table when I left."
The girl stood still for another moment, leaning languidly against the column and thoughtfully clucking her tongue before turning on her heel, traipsing back into the house calling for Cian. The house was annoyingly large, sometimes.
Dolly Jean, meanwhile, was staring between Michael and Liesse as if she wasn't quite sure what she had missed in the previous conversation, but Michael smiled and put a finger to his lips for silence and Dolly Jean lit up, happy that she was privy to some secret, even if she wasn't sure what it was. She continued on about the flowers then, pointing out different varieties in different plots. In one of her brief pauses, while Liesse was turned away looking at the flowers, Michael quietly put a hand to the girl's shoulder and pointed behind Liesse before slipping away with Dolly Jean in tow.
"Was she giving you the tour?" Quietly, his eyes still hazy and half-lidded, Malakai padded up beside Liesse, Amadeo cradled happily in his arms, belly up and legs splayed. "We'll have to tie her down before the wedding to keep her from running through the rose bushes in her gown. Girls are particular about that sort of thing, right?" Though the boy bore no particular similarity to Michael in appearance---how could he when they shared only the faintest, most distant genes in their family tree?---there was a very marked likeness in his smile, that easy kindness, when it spread across his lips in the next moment. Genes or no, Malakai was still Michael's son and children tended to pick these things up from their parents.
His eyes flashed to the house, where Antha was yelling for different reasons now, mixed chaotically with Julien's own shouting. "Is that why you woke me up?" he murmured, glancing down to Amadeo in his arms as he scratched his fuzzy ears. "Evie can hold her own against Julien. I rather suspect she likes arguing with him, actually..."
The cat, unconvinced, roused himself from his contented listlessness, kicking his legs until Malakai turned him around and set him on his feet to trot off into the house, tracking the sound of Antha's voice. The boy glanced out over the rambling expanse of leaves and flower petals, idly ruffling his sleep-tousled hair. "I can be patient," he murmured, almost as if it were to himself except that his eyes found Liesse's in the next moment, locking her gaze with a gentle certainty, "I can wait, if that's what it takes. Weeks and months and years, if I have to." The briefest moment passed, that quiet earnesty glittering distantly in his eyes as he brushed a loose white-blond tendril of hair behind her ear, before he brought his lips gently against hers.
It was done quite purposefully this time, no blaming it on Pierce, that was for certain. None of the drunken clumsiness of the last time, none of the sudden flustered panic realizing what he'd done. It was soft, as one might have expected from someone of Malakai's gentle disposition, careful. He was hardly a master of these things but he at least knew what he was doing from his encounters with Sera and, though he'd never admit it---there were really a lot of things that would never be admitted in the Mayfair household, from one end of the spectrum to the other---Courtland had given him lessons once, against his will, while Pierce held him down.
"I guess I stole the second one too, didn't I?" He smiled wryly, drawing away as he pressed a folded piece of paper into her hand, "I'm not sorry, though. Even if Rynn does try to kill me."
New voices echoed from inside the house and Malakai glanced briefly towards them, eyes flashing. About the time Julien called his name, the boy vanished like an expert ghost, the rose bushes nearby wavering faintly. The only thing to mark that he had actually been there was the small square of folded paper in Liesse's hand---his 'pretty words,' as Dolly Jean called his poems, inked in his delicate, looping script.

Antha had spent little more than ten minutes in Marguerite's lab, only as long as it took to be sure that everything was progressing smoothly. She didn't trust herself for any longer than that, she was an impatient creature, but Alistair's vessel wasn't ready yet.
Paperwork was a bust, her attention was elsewhere and being locked up in the study made her antsy. The phone call from the headmaster of Sacred Heart didn't improve her mood. ("Exactly what, may I ask, have you heard about Mr. Calais? How curious. You do remember, sir, that Rynn is my ward, don't you? And as such, you can see how I would take any slander against him quite personally, I'm sure. Yes, I'll have them prepared for placement testing first thing Monday morning. Thank you, au revoir." Self-righteous jackass.) Eventually, she gave up with the slam of Julien's antique fountain pen upon the tabletop, leaning back in the disgustingly expensive leather office chair and glancing out the windows, glittering with dazzling sunlight. Spring was upon the city in full. People would be crowding the parks in full force, carts squeaking down the walkways peddling trinkets and morsels and...
Ice-cream.
Something in Antha clicked, some gnawing need she had never known. She could recall, vaguely, strolling through the park years ago with Nicolae, Courtland, and Jack and the ice cream cone Nicolae had bought her, no less than four different flavors buried under heaps of chocolate chips, nuts, gummy bears, and caramel sauce. The memory of it haunted her, taunting, and she knew suddenly, without the faintest shadow of a doubt, that if she didn't get another one immediately then she would fall over dead.
Or maybe it was just that whole 'pregnancy cravings' thing she'd been hearing about. Best not to take chances, when her life was on the line.
"Cian!" She was out the door of the study in seconds, stalking the halls and calling her husband's name. She stepped briefly outside, long enough to know that Michael hadn't seen him in the gardens, and then returned to the hallways just in time to run nearly headfirst into him. "Ah, there you are. Get dressed, we're going to the park. Be quick, it's a matter of life and death, I assure you. And God help the snack vendors if that ice-cream cart isn't there."
By the time Cian returned, Antha was already in the midst of a tantrum, stamping her foot and yelling at Julien. "I am perfectly capable of driving my own goddamn car!"
"That was debatable before our next Designee of the Legacy depended on your discretion in matters of safety," Julien hissed, the car keys jingling in his hands, "As of this moment, Jacob will drive you whenever you need it."
"What am I, a child?! I don't need a driver, I can drive myself!"
"Absolutely not," Vittorio said sternly in agreement with Julien, passing through the atrium with Dorian forcefully in tow, murmuring as they walked, "I think a toxicology test is in order. And a physical, while we're at it. An STD test, for certain. We'll go from there."
Julien and Antha were still arguing when the doorbell rang moments later, bringing all eyes upon the front door with suspicion. Jacob answered it, because none of the Mayfairs present dared to do so---Antha took the chance to snag her car keys from Julien while he was preoccupied, though---revealing Sophie Astoria on their doorstep beside a tall, muscled boy hardly older than her, a cashmere sweater stretched taut across his broad shoulders, his brown hair swept carelessly back from his face.
Antha bristled like a cat threatened with a bucket of water, her muscles tensed as if preparing to run. "Sophie."
The girl smiled radiantly with relief, as if her every prayer had been answered, stepping gracefully into the atrium and breathing, "Antha." Then, as if she were only just able to collect herself, continued. "Lovely to see you again. We didn't get a chance to talk last night..."
Julien, clearing his throat, said that he would fetch Malakai and took his leave of the room. Courtland, hanging languidly on the banister, gave a great Cheshire grin, calling to the man at Sophie's back, "Looking good there, Gerard." The boy tensed, his jaw clenching, sparing Courtland only the briefest passing glance.
Antha's eyes shifted momentarily to him, darkening as she murmured flatly, "Ah, Gerard, you're here too. Fabulous."
"Been a while, Antha," he muttered lowly, sighing as if he were bored of the visit already, "Three years, I want to say?"
"Wait a minute," Courtland interrupted, stepping hastily forward to look back and forth between Antha and Gerard, "Wait, did Antha sleep with you before me? Because I'm going to have a problem with that."
Gerard, his cheeks flushing as his jaw clenched again, only muttered heatedly, "Shut up, Courtland."
"Damn it, Antha, every time!" The boy threw his hands up in surrender, turning on his heel and stalking down the hallway.
Antha stood still for several moments, her gaze roaming the room uncomfortably before she gave a long, low sigh and announced, "Well, this is wildly uncomfortable. I'm just going to take my husband---" She plucked Cian's hand pointedly from beside him and closed it in her own, tugging him towards the door, "---and be on my way. Pardon." They were gone before Jacob could wave.
Malakai appeared moments later, caught pretending to take a nap deep in the rose bushes and dragged into the house by Julien, who then abruptly left for his study. "Sophie," he greeted her politely, and then turning his eyes to her brother, "Gerard, I didn't expect to see you here. Did you come to see---"
"No one," he interrupted hastily, shaking his head, "I didn't come to see anyone. Grandmother's old-fashioned, she insisted Sophie have a chaperone."
"No she didn't, Sophie countered sweetly, her serene smile never wavering, and Gerard elbowed her sharply, murmuring in a furious hiss, "Fifi!"
Malakai smiled politely, glancing between them before settling his gaze on Sophie. "You know, it might be best to warn us before you come by. Antha is only barely playing along with this as it is, I think she might like to be prepared."
That was what made Sophie's smile waver, cocking her head slightly to the side as she murmured, "But then she'd run."
No one said anything. Stalkers only responded to stalker logic, and no one wanted to out theirself as a stalker. Malakai just smiled uncomfortably and changed the subject. "Tea?"
"That would be lovely," Sophie replied, Gerard nodding uncertainly beside her, before they both followed him into the parlor.
Jacob gave a great sigh, heading into the kitchen to prepare the tea. There was no such thing as an easy day in Mayfair Manor.