Mayfair Manor

[XCandy and LunacyX]

When Cian entered, Antha glanced up startled and dazed, throwing a hand over his mouth as soon as he started to speak, one finger to her lips for silence. She would move heaven and earth before she would wake any one of the babies because all four would be up and wailing in no time. It was particularly difficult because she wanted to stroke their sweet little wispy curls and kiss them goodnight, but damn if they didn’t wake up at every little thing.
With one last longing look down at them, and the inner promise that she’d make everything alright, for them, she took Cian’s hand and quietly slipped back outside. She made it as far as the stairs before sinking down, sitting on the top stair with her head leaning against the banister, Ginsberg placed sleepily in her lap, sighing as she cast a watchful eye over her cousins. “I keep telling you, but you just don’t listen,” she murmured after a moment, with a depreciative half-smile to her husband, “There’s no rest for the wicked. And this night, in particular, seems to be far from over.”
Taking Cian’s hand, she pulled him down beside her, moving her head from the wooden spokes of the banister to his shoulder, nestling in with her arm slipping through his, fingers lacing. “You see that?” she murmured, pointing to a spot a few stairs down, a little worn scuff on one of the spokes, “That little mark there? We all used to sit right there in the middle of the night. Me, Malakai, Nicolae, Courtland, Jack, Dorian, Pierce, and whoever else was living here at the time. The older generation would be right in there---” She pointed to the rear parlor door. “---Stefan and Suzette and Louis, while he was alive, and their siblings and cousins. They’d push the furniture up against the wall and roll up the rug, like it is now, and they’d turn on Louis’s old Victrola, the one I just gave to Courtland and Jack, and they’d dance for hours and hours. And we’d sit right there, in our pajamas, with our stuffed animals, and we’d watch for hours, until we all fell asleep one on top of the other. We thought we were sneaky, that we were quiet little mice spying on them, getting a glimpse into the adult world, what they did when they thought we weren’t watching. I think I was eleven or maybe twelve when I finally realized that every night we fell asleep down here and woke up in our rooms again, they had carried us back to bed. They knew we were there, watching them, they let us. We were part of it all along, this middle-of-the-night ritual, we just didn’t realize it.”
At this moment, Lawrence’s phone rang and he discreetly stepped aside to answer it---there was clearly nothing odd to him about receiving calls at nearly midnight, it was actually quite routine when your job was taking care of the Mayfair family---and almost immediately, his face tensed. “Ah,” Antha murmured, with a little wan smile, “There it is…whatever it is. Whenever I feel something pulling at me, some event, some new catastrophe of moderate proportions further in the night, my best bet is usually just to watch Laurie. Poor soul.”
True enough, his face was stricken when he hastily hung up, eyes glittering with unease as they turned and sought out Antha. When he found her, he rushed towards her automatically, his movements stiff but hurried, glancing once over his shoulder (his gaze landed unusually on Courtland with unease, making sure he was preoccupied) before stopping in front of Antha and Cian. “Evie, there’s been…” He hesitated, searching for the words. “…there’s been a development.”
“I don’t think you could be more vague if you tried, Lawrence,” Antha told him, curiously cocking her head.
The boy groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger as if he was loathed to say anything more specific out loud. “There was an incident,” he said finally, in a strained whisper beneath his breath, terrified of being overheard, “With a Mayfair child…at the orphanage.”
Antha barely got the chance to react, going stiff all over and eyes narrowing as she demanded in disbelief, “What? ” before she was interrupted.
“Orphanage?” Lawrence was immediately the pallor of ash, turning and casting a horrified gaze on Courtland, who stood at the foot of the stairs like magic, honest-to-god murder in his eyes. “Who said orphanage?”
“Courtland---” Lawrence began, filled with mortal dread, but his composure and logic fell flat against Courtland’s demanding gaze in this exact moment and he finally broke down, muttering ruefully, “There was a fire. It seems one of the boys was involved…a Mayfair.”
Courtland had turned on his heel instantly, jaw clenched, irritably throwing off his jacket. “Oh,” he began, with an enraged sort of delight, purring like a lion about to devour an enemy it had been watching for the longest goddamn time, “Oh ho ho….that ******** b***h.”
“Courtland!” This time it was Antha calling him, as panicked as Lawrence had been, jumping up and sprinting after him down the hall, “Court, please---for the love of god, please, take a moment to calm down.”
“Oh no,” he hissed, striding to the door with purpose, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. The cousins, who had no idea what was going on, were all instantly filled with mortal dread when they saw him. They’d never been so certain that he was about to commit murder. “No. Oh no. I’ve been waiting for this day, Antha. Waiting. You said she’d learned her lesson---” Pausing, he wheeled around and pointed at the collected members of his family, eyes wild and burning, “---you all said it wouldn’t happen again, but what did I tell you? What did I <******** tell you?”
“Court!” Antha repeated, desperately, digging her heels into the floor and clasping his arm with all her might, trying to restrain him, “Listen to me---Courtland!” But he’d already managed to shake her off and darted through the door, running past Dorian as if he hadn’t even noticed him and out the gate, vanishing into the darkness of the street. Antha paused for one moment on the porch, groaning helplessly, a hand clenched in her hair. “Mon dieu, he’s really going to kill a nun.” She was gone a split second later, chasing him down the street, screaming his name. Jack, having heard her frustrated murmur, pieced at least enough of it together to panic and go running after the two of them.
Lawrence remained behind on the porch, looking between the gate and his cousins at a loss. “I don’t know how to keep him out of jail if he kills a nun,” he stuttered finally, panic settling in, “Guys, I…really, I don’t know how it could be done.”
It was Alistair, who knew the situation through Antha, who stepped forward and gave him a hasty shove towards the stairs, hissing, “Go! For the love of god, go! Stop him!” Lord knows he would’ve been right on Antha’s heels, except that someone had to stay and guard the house while there were fairies afoot.
After a few moments in stunned silence, it was Lucy---she and Pierce had finally emerged from the sitting room at this latest racket, noticeably disheveled---who voiced their collective confusion. “I don’t understand, what’s happening?”
Alistair glanced once at her over her shoulder before turning his gaze back on the dark street where his cousins had disappeared and said lowly, with an uncharacteristic seriousness, “You know Courtland grew up in the orphanage, right?”
“Right…”
“They knew he was a Mayfair,” he continued, with a reverent sort of hush, sympathetic, “The nuns. They recognized Julianne when she left him there. But they kept him and they never said a word to the family because they wanted to ‘take the devil out of him’. They tortured him because he was a witch until Stefan finally found him and brought him home. And now there’s been an ‘incident’ at the orphanage concerning a boy they apparently knew was a Mayfair.”
“They had one of ours there?” Armand demanded, echoing the thoughts of his cousins who were all suddenly up in arms, “A member of our family? Again?”
“He’ll kill her,” Pierce said in conclusion, with absolute certainty, “The mother superior. He will. He’s been plotting it for years, Antha’s barely been able to keep him from going through with it. But if another Mayfair child is in there, suffering what he did…Courtland’s going to kill her.”
Cyrus, who was entirely uneasy just considering it, forcefully turned his attention elsewhere, and that’s how his gaze landed on Dorian. “So you have a son now,” he said, determinedly, trying to force a cheerful tone, “Two daughters and a son. That’s…well, it’s a good thing you have an entire family of babysitters.”
Following his lead---because really, they were all frightened---the cousins tried to divert their attention to Dorian, echoing Cyrus’s half-congratulations.

Down the street and some blocks over, the cousins were profoundly right about Courtland’s intentions, but the boy himself was finding himself faced with his first obstacle in the form of a massive iron gate in front of the orphanage. When Jack came upon him, and Antha a few seconds later, he was absorbed entirely into kicking it, rattling the bars and screaming at the top of lungs, looking like he fully intended to claw his way through the metal.
“Court, you have to calm down,” Jack said desperately, trying with all his might to restrain him, but Courtland just threw him off.
“You get out here and face me!” he screamed, glaring at the unreachable front doors, “You hear me? Get the ******** out here and face me, you miserable old hag!”
“Courtland, please calm down!” Lawrence begged desperately when he had caught up, out of breath and looking nervously around the dark, sleepy neighborhood.
Courtland only continued to attack the gate, flailing and screaming. “---you mother of a ******** she-devil in black---I’ll burn your goddamned chapel to the ground!”
Finally, Antha gave a heavy sigh and seized him by the scruff of the neck---he didn’t stop flailing, but at least he was held in place---turning narrowed eyes on the building in front of them. Long ago it had been a church, all gray stone and cathedral windows, generations of ivy climbing up the walls, an iron cross topping the spire, but in the years since it had lost some of its spiritual luster. The stained glass had been replaced by regular glass, the stones stained with age, and the perimeter marked with a tall iron fence, clearly intended to keep all parties on their respective sides of it. Above the doors, a worn and rotting sign marked it as ‘St. Grace’s Orphanage’ in large, somber white letters. Unusually, considering it was nearly midnight, most of the lights were on.
“Antha, can you please find a way to send him home?” Lawrence begged, eyes pleading, “He shouldn’t be here---”
Despite the pain of Antha’s nails dug into his neck, Courtland turned and faced Lawrence, eyes shining with the fires of hell itself. Unexpectedly, he didn’t speak at first, instead going to unbutton his shirt and pulling it aside to display to faint but distinct shiny scar positioned directly over his heart in the form of a cross. “This,” he hissed finally, and for at least one moment, Courtland scared him every bit as much as Antha ever could, “This, Lawrence. This is why I’m here, why I’m not leaving. She did this to me. I’m here because that b***h thought it was the right thing to do when she branded a four-year-old with a hot iron for Jesus. Because when I was three, she strapped me down on my bed and performed an exorcism. Because for two years, every time the older boys cornered me and held me down and used me like their own personal sexual experimentation toy, she chopped off my hair, doused me in holy water, and locked me in a small, dark closet without food for a whole day because I was a demon who had tempted them to sin.” His hands closed violently in his cousin’s collar, their faces a breath apart as Courtland’s livid eyes bore into Lawrence’s terrified ones. “Because for the seven years that this place was my home, it was the closest anyone will ever come to hell and no one ever paid for it, and now there’s another little boy just like me in there. Do you get the picture yet, Laurie?”
The boy said nothing, wide-eyed and mouth agape, petrified in terror as Courtland nearly lifted him off his feet. Finally, Antha interceded, calling sharply, “Courtland!” He dropped his cousin like the feel of him was unbearable, still glaring at him as he moved to button up his shirt. “This isn’t about you, Court. Not tonight.”
Begrudingly, he turned his gaze to her, taking deep, measured breaths. “You’re right,” he said, very slowly, trying to get a rein on his rage, “Not tonight.”
“The point,” Lawrence continued, with shaky breath, “Is that they’ve locked us out. Legally, we can’t---”
He was cut short as Antha faced the gate, the metal snapping until it clanged violently open. “We are well past the law right now, Laurie,” she said quietly, her eyes narrowing at the front door as it creaked open and produced a sharp-eyed, wrinkled old nun fully dressed in her habit, shuffling forward and locking the door behind her.
“Take one more step and I’ll call the police.”
For a moment, Antha looked at her as if she was astonished. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was laughing. Fully, loudly, mad with amusement, she laughed until she was breathless. “I ******** dare you to!” she screamed, leering at the nun with cold, furious eyes, “Go on, do it! I fully intend to call them myself in the morning, you’ll save me the trouble!” Behind her, Lawrence let out a deep, resigned sigh. Before her, the nun momentarily paled and then flushed with responding indignation. “The rules have changed, you demented old b***h. You work in a government facility now, the police can barge in all they want.”
“I do the Lord’s work,” the nun bellowed in response, her hand going to her heart. There was an old rosary wound around her fingers, clutched as tightly as a lifeline. “He hath sent His children to me, and to save their souls---”
Antha made a sound, something like a groan only more irritated, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose. “I forgot how much I ******** hate it when you talk.” So instead of letting her continue, the girl stalked forward, towards the door. The nun backed up, putting her shriveled old body between the witch and the entrance. But Antha sneered at her, threatening lowly, “If I have to break down your door, I’m not buying you a new one.” When she didn’t move, Antha swatted her aside as easily as a fly, forcefully prying the key from her fingers in the process. “Courtland!”
Rushing after her, Courtland paused, turning and towering over the old nun to taunt viciously, “Wanna’ hear something ******** hilarious, Sister Mary Agnes?” The old woman was looking at him like the devil himself, with infinite wells of disgust and horror, holding the rosary between them like armor. “I like men---I like them a lot---I just married one, in six months I’m going to have a son out of wedlock, and I ******** my siblings. And you know what? God still loves me more than you.” For good measure he crossed himself and then turned and followed Antha into the orphanage. After a moment, when she had somewhat recovered herself, Sister Mary Agnes shuffled as fast as she could after them.
Yelling ensued, obscenities and prayers and all manner of accusations, then the unfocused hollering of children roused from their beds. Lawrence stood on the sidewalk with Jack, the latter shuffling anxiously from one foot to the other, waiting in case he was needed. Lawrence ran his fingers over and over again through his hair, mumbling wildly to himself every law they were breaking, including one felony, and that he didn’t know how he was going to smooth this over. They were all going to jail tonight, he just knew it, and the papers would be all over it in the morning and for months to come.
He might be fired. If any single thing in the world could get him fired, this was it, right here, what he had just let happen and didn’t know how to handle.
Inside, they had found all of the orphans already awake. Rather than their screaming, he thought it might have something to do with the scorched wall and cinders in the dormitory. But none of them were witches, much less Mayfairs, so he continued stalking through the halls, the mother superior and three nuns at his heels, screaming. They stopped when he reached a closet near the chapel, all of them falling deathly silent as he yanked furiously on the doorknob, not entirely surprised to find it locked. “Give me the key.” The nuns didn’t move, Mary Agnes still furious and the others suddenly terrified. “Give me the key!” he repeated, hand outstretched, screaming wildly, and one of them broke, fumbling with a little bronze key and all but throwing it at him.
Antha, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the commotion Courtland was causing and slipped unnoticed down another hall, to a door marked ‘Office’. Being short on time, she physically broke the lock and ran inside, shuffling wildly through papers and drawers in the dark, gathering various ones up and stuffing them in her pockets. When she left, she found Courtland standing in the hall on the other side of a group of terrified, whispering nuns, standing in the door to a closet absolutely shaking with rage. Pushing past the nuns, she found the source of his renewed rage very quickly, in the form of a trembling boy, perhaps six years old, balled up in the floor of the dark, narrow closet, his eyes large and tear-stained as he stared up at them, terrified.
After a split second of being too shocked to react, Antha hastily reached over and fumbled in Courtland’s pockets, seizing his phone, and switched on the video camera, pointing it at the child and then turning to the nuns and back. “Who’s calling the police, again?” she asked the mother superior, tersely, shoving Courtland’s phone back at him and then stepping into the closet, grabbing the little boy up in her arms and then turning to leave, shoving her way through the nuns. The boy, once he realized that he was being rescued rather than further punished, put his arms around Antha’s neck and clung with all his might, burying his face in her shoulder.
“Courtland!” Antha barked, threateningly, turning to look at him as he took up a nearby iron cross in his hands, eyes narrowed psychotically at Sister Mary Agnes. “Don’t. ” It took all of his willpower but, slowly, Courtland put the blunt weapon back down and hurried after his cousin outside.

They had been gone all of forty-five minutes when the iron gate creaked and the cousins converged in the hallway again, expectantly, just as Jack opened the door with Courtland and Antha at his heels. The little boy was still in her arms, clinging to her for dear life, while Courtland was still outright shaking with rage.
“Where’s Lawrence?” Pierce demanded, panicked, but Antha just shook her head.
“He stayed to call the police.” She’d left him with the video on Courtland’s phone and the stern order that she wanted the b***h in handcuffs by morning. “He’ll be back soon, once he gives a statement.”
“Is this…” Alistair began instead, looking at the child in her arms.
Antha put one hand on the back of his head, protectively. “Henry. Henry Mayfair.” A tremor ran through the boy and Antha took him into the parlor. She tried to set him down on the couch but found he had to be physically pried off of her, and even then kept his trembling fists clutched in the hem of her shirt. “Airi, get me the first aid kit,” she said quietly, sitting down next to the boy.
Now that they could see him properly, the cousins were all aghast. Nevermind that the boy was filthy, they were more concerned with the bruise on his cheek and the traces of blood on his shirt, the skin on his knuckles scraped and bloody. “We found him locked in a closet,” Courtland said, hissing between clenched teeth, “The ‘punishment room’, dripping with crosses and mirrors. Not enough room to move, to breathe---”
“Calm down, love,” Jack bid him desperately, soothingly stroking his shoulder and hair, “Please, please, calm down. She’s going away, they’re going to lock her up.”
“Henry.” Cautiously, the child looked up at Antha with the invocation of his name, calming just slightly as her gaze softened, her fingers gently stroking his matted hair. “Do you know who we are?” Slowly, hesitantly, the boy nodded. “Do you know who you are?”
Again, he nodded, his cracked lips opening and moving for a few moments before a thin but surprisingly sweet voice came through them. “Mayfair. Mayfair witch. Mother Superior said it.”
“You’re not going back there,” Antha said hastily, as direly as if someone had suggested otherwise, “Never. You shouldn’t have been there to begin with.” It was this more than anything that seemed to finally calm the boy, at least slightly, his outright trembling turning into a low tremor. “What happened? Why did they put you in there?”
The boy swallowed, his eyes gleaming with fright, but answered obediently. “John woke me up. And Carlton was there, he held me down, and I---I didn’t start the fire, I promise, I didn’t mean to, I just screamed and---and---”
Antha shushed him in the middle of his panicked stuttering, pulling an arm comfortingly around his thin shoulders and laying her head across his. “It’s alright. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Oh good lord, you poor child,” Cyrus whispered, sitting quietly down on the other side of him with wide, terrified eyes.
Courtland was still shaking, his hand to his forehead and eyes and teeth both clenched. He remembered, all too vividly, what it was like, these sorts of assaults and the punishments that followed them. Helplessly, Jack wrapped his arms around him and stroked his hair, murmuring reassurances.
Alistair returned then, with the first aid kit in one hand and a plate of food in the other, offering the first to Antha and the second to Henry---he was visibly malnourished, the poor child---and then sat down on his knees in front of them, anxiously taking the boys hand and setting to work disinfecting his scraped fingers while Antha tended to his other small wounds. The child, now that the cousins were looking at him properly, was very pretty beneath his obvious mistreatments. He had the flavor of Mayfair magic around him, but more than that, he had their bone structure and those telltale china-blue eyes rimmed in thick, long lashes. He had their fair skin and willowy limbs, his haphazardly sheered and tangled, filthy brown hair with just a hint of a curl to it.
They were just finishing patching him up when Lawrence dragged himself through the door, visibly drained, massaging his temples and thrusting Courtland’s phone back in his fingers. “I took a picture. Consider it your wedding present.” The boy was notably happy to see it, going still and somewhat calm. “The kids and the other nuns didn’t hold back, they told the police everything. I think they were scared of getting in trouble---no, actually, I think they were scared of you.”
“They should be,” Courtland hissed.
Lawrence ignored them, going over to one of the loveseats and collapsing laying a hand across his eyes. “The police will come by for statements tomorrow, she’s in custody for tonight.”
“You should’ve let me kill her,” was all Courtland said, eyes narrowed at Antha with accusation. But she shushed him, her hands over Henry’s ears and a stern look in her eyes.
“Do we know where he came from?” Armand asked meanwhile.
Antha, as if she’d just remembered, reached into her pockets and started pulling out fistfuls of crumpled papers. “I broke into the office and stole anything relevant, but I didn’t really have time to look.”
Sorting through the papers as they fell on the couch, Alistair took one up and straightened it out. “It says here his mother left him at the hospital after he was born. They never got her real name, but she told the nurses his father was a Mayfair. She put his name on a birth certificate, Henry Alexander Mayfair, but none of the parent information.” Glancing over it again, he turned his eyes gently on Henry and asked, with utmost sweetness, “You’re six, Henry?” The boy nodded.
“It could’ve been nearly any of us, in that case,” Pierce murmured ruefully---really, he seemed to regret that fact. “Me, Armand, Vittorio, Jack---”
“I keep tabs on my conquests,” Courtland said sharply, before he could be added to the list, “For exactly this reason.”
Pierce kept listing, skipping over Courtland. “---or Dorian, but that would be a hell of a coincidence, tonight. He could even be Nicolae’s, he’s old enough. Or it could’ve been one of the uncles, or a second-rate Mayfair. Really, the only men in this family we can count out are Alistair, Malakai---Courtland, apparently---Cyrus because he was still married back then, Uncle Michael, and Uncle Barclay. And anyone under the age of, say, twenty.”
“Unless he’s Armand or Pierce’s, or from a lesser branch of the family,” Lawrence muttered, exhausted, “There’s no hope of telling who his father is. All of our DNA is nearly identical, a paternity test is useless.”
“It’s okay,” Antha said softly, soothingly, stroking the boy’s hair, “Even if we can’t figure it out, it’s alright. He’s with his family now, that’s what’s important.” And then to Henry, who seemed uncertain, she said clearly, “You’re our family, we’re adopting you.”
Without warning the boy burst into tears all over again, clutching desperately at Antha’s shirt and burying his face against her neck. Armand, immensely oved by the scene, turned to look at Lawrence and asked, casually enough, “Are there any laws leftover about hanging? I’d really like to see the old hag hung, if it’s possible.”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” Lawrence groaned, “We can’t hang people anymore.”
“Ahh,” he sighed, “That’s a pity. Antha, you probably should’ve let Courtland kill her.”
“Those children are traumatized enough without witnessing murder,” she murmured, her arms around Henry, gently rocking him, “And I’d rather not see Courtland arrested. But never mind that, it’s done now, it’s taken care of. Cian, darling, can you draw the poor boy a bath? Airi, see if you can find him some fresh clothes.”  

[Okimiyage]

Cian let her lean her head against his shoulder. After a moment, his own head dropped in reciprocation, and his hand wound gently into her curls. He liked hearing her talk about her past, seeing her eyes reflecting long-ago memories into the house like a projector lamp. Even as kids, the Mayfair children had probably been a coven worth reckoning with.
But it didn’t last long. These moments never did. And when the mood changed—Cian could see it in the tense set of Laurie’s shoulders—Antha reacted like a cat who’d had scalding water tossed over it.
Courtland was the first to react, but Cian wasn’t far behind his wife as she bolted upright.
The rest of the family pack, all clustered around the door, wasn’t private to the hushed conversation between the trio. As soon as they saw Courtland, though, they knew something was up. Liesse squeaked when she felt Rynn’s urgent tug back into the fold of bodies, as they were abruptly barreled through by Court—and shortly thereafter, screaming his name into the night, Antha. Cian nearly followed her, before he felt Dorian seize his wrist, in an odd mirror image of their previous entanglement. “Stay,.” he said, sharply. He didn’t know all of what was going on, but he knew enough. With both Courtland and Antha skidding off into the night like that, there was no telling what was happening. Cian, whatever his intentions, couldn’t keep up with both of them, and would most likely only get in the way.
The crowd exchanged wide-eyed looks amongst themselves.
Luckily, before anyone else could ask, Lucy voiced the question they were all thinking. Probably with a lot less expletives than the cousins would have chosen.
Whoever the ‘she’ that Courtland had mentioned was, she was in for a world of trouble. None amongst them would envy the night that she was about to have.
“How does a Mayfair end up in an orphanage, anyways?” Rynn asked. With Liesse safely rescued, she had quickly turned to cling to Malakai, and Rynn was trying to distract himself from being a huffy brat about it. “Or, if you’d prefer, how did we not find out about it until now? You can’t just—make a child disappear.”
“We disappeared,” Cian reminded him, quietly. “And we were way more than just one little kid.” The governing factions of Osiris City were far more lax than one might imagine, at least where witches were concerned. It was the sort of thing that required a long, twisting trail of bribes, threats and political cajoling, but it wasn’t impossible for the Calais, and certainly not for the Mayfairs.
Dorian rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck ruminatively. “We all thought that was the end of it. We promised it wouldn’t happen again. If he kills that wrinkled old hag, trust me, it’ll be a better end than she deserves.”
They had all heard Courtland’s stories, after all.
Then, at Pierce’s insistent change of subject, the red-haired woman cleared her throat.
“Well. I must admit that while It’s…charming to see your protective instincts in action, I cannot tarry for long. Dorian?”
The man jumped a little at hearing his name, his attention diverted abruptly again to the previous affairs of the evening. Just when he thought he was off the hook…
Turning out to face the darkness, he stepped out onto the porch and peered into the fog. Dimly, a small figure could be seen at the end of the street, clutching a familiar wad of cobwebs, head turning back and forth as she glanced over her shoulder nervously.
The red-haired woman followed him, and beckoned with a black-tipped arm.
Slowly, the figure approached. Like her fellows, she was robed in almost a monk-like fashion, but the fabric twinkled with golden threads as she neared the light which emanated from the open door. Long curls spiraled from out of her cowl, the color of rust and autumn leaves.
The red-haired woman gave him a little push on the small of his back.
Hesitantly, Dorian made his way down the creaking porch steps of the house.
The brief murmur of conversation could be made out as silence fell through the streets again.

After what seemed like an eternity, the bundle was passed into Dorian’s arms. The robed figure bowed her head as it left her grasp, and her entire posture seemed to sag, the woman all but crumpling into herself. When he turned to walk back to the house, the figure tottered a few hesitating steps after him. She lingered longer than the others; in the red-haired woman’s face, looking out at the couple, an expression almost like pity could be witnessed.
“It’s always the hardest to let go of your first,” she murmured, although none but a vampire’s keen ears could have caught the almost imperceptible words on her breath. “They will both learn.”
Before Vikteren could ask her to further elaborate, she turned on her bare heel to face the assembly. “For the moment, our…negotiations seem to be finished, here.” The woman stepped backwards, white skin silhouetted in the darkness. “Rest assured, we will be watching.” It was uncertain from her tone whether this was meant to reassure or threaten.
With that, the darkness began to spread. Starting at her soot-stained fingertips, it rose like floodwaters across her white skin and gauzy garments. The last thing to disappear was her scarlet smile, chesire-like, which kissed the air in their direction.

When Antha returned, Dorian was sitting on the steps of the staircase inside, with an array of cousins flanking the door. They were all quiet, just as much out of respect for the small, sleeping bundle in his arms as much as in silent dread of what story Antha would return to regale them with.
Instead of a story, though, she brought a child. Which really told them all as much as they needed to know, after Alistair’s explanation.
Cian was at the forefront of the crowd, but Rynn pushed through to join them, bleary-eyed Liesse not far behind, and Vikteren backing up the small battalion of Mayfairs like a shadow.
When Cian saw the familiar figure enter through the door, his breath came out of him in a whoosh of relief. “Good god, Antha, you scared me—“ he began, before he noticed what was in her arms. Who was in her arms. “Jesus.” If the boy flinched at the sound of the familiar vulgarism, it was hard to tell on account of how hard he was shaking. Cian’s eyes had gone wide and aghast.
“What on earth—“ Rynn clamped down on his arm, hard, and Cian reluctantly swallowed the question. This wasn’t the right time to ask, his little brother was right, but he couldn’t help but be shocked by the condition of the child. A bruise bloomed purple and gold across his cheek, and the hand which clutched at Antha’s collar was so thin that he could see the tendons sticking out like twigs. Liesse let out a whimper when she saw him—of course her tender heart would clench at the sight—while Rynn went stiff as a rod. Vikteren—Vikteren was unreadable, as always, but he caught a glimpse of the child’s face, buried in Antha’s red mane, and recognized a familiar look. It was the expression of someone who had been prey for most of his life, so much so that he had forgotten what it was like to live without hiding. It was an expression that no child should ever wear; seeing it on the six-year-old boy that Antha carried gave even the vampire discomfort.
“Let them through,” he said, in a low voice, pulling the other guests to the side to clear a path to the parlor. Dorian looked up for only an instant, just long enough to feel cold and numb at the sight of the child Antha had produced. He knew what went on in that orphanage, they all did. They just never thought it would happen to one of their own again.
The crowd swirled around the entrance to the parlor; there weren’t enough seats for all of them, but that didn’t stop them from pressing in where they could. A seat was found for Dorian, on account of the burden he carried, but he denied it, explaining that it would be quieter outside for Briar.
That was the name he had decided on, after many suggestions from the cousins. The game of choosing a child’s name had been a good distraction for them—a better game, at least, than speculating on the outcome of Antha and Courtland’s rampage. It went with the floral theme, at least.
Liesse had stayed with him, partially on account of the baby, and partially because…”It feels like my heart will break, just looking at him,” she whispered to Dorian.
“I know.” he said, softly as he could. It was honestly a miracle to his mind that the Mayfairs even backed the church, after all the abuse the witch family had encountered in their name. “But don’t worry. If there’s such a thing as justice in the world, it’s embodied in Antha Mayfair.”
“I can’t help but worry,” came Liesse’s hushed protest. “He’s so skinny, it’s not right—“
“We should have burned that place to the ground when we had the chance,” Dorian told her, in a razor-edged whisper. Then, with a stifled laugh, “Courtland couldn’t ask for a better wedding present than to see it ruined like this. I hope he got to spit in that bloody Mary Agnes’s face.”

Inside the parlor, Cian pulled a chair close to sit at Antha’s side. He still couldn’t quite process how small the boy—Henry, Antha had called him—was. All around him, whispered conversation filled the little room, but for now, he was quiet, almost reverent.
Rynn glared at Pierce, who had the poor taste to bring up the subject of the boy’s parentage. “The question of paternity can wait, Pierce.” The story of the fire should have been enough to convince any who doubted his lineage. “For now, it’s enough that he’s here, among his family. We’ll find a place for him.” There it went again, the slip of the tongue, that unfamiliar we—Rynn including himself as part of their clan. Almost as soon as he’d said it, he felt like biting his tongue—but it was true enough, wasn’t it?
“It’s enough that he’s here.” Cian quoted his brother, with an amused chuckle. He’d never expected to hear Rynn so unconcerned by a witch’s parentage. His hand moved to cover Antha’s as she stroked the boy’s hair, giving her palm a light squeeze. There’d be enough time in the morning to regale her audience with stories of the rescue, but for now, well—the boy had stopped shivering, at least.
Without planning it, Vikteren found himself at Nicolae’s side, on the edge of the room.
“Do you think it’ll work?” he asked, his question barely discernible amongst the other carrying-ons.
“The orphanage. The church protects their own, and even if those responsible are disgraced, there will only be other just like them to fill what roles they leave empty.”

At Antha’s request, Cian kissed her forehead, rose, and gave her a smile. “Bring him upstairs in a few minutes. I’ll get things ready.” After what the kid had been through, a hot bath wasn’t going to fix up the boy, but it was a start. They could at least have him presentable before—well, Cian wasn’t privy to the machinations of the Osiris City gossip mill, but he was pretty sure that an orphanage bonfire was enough to get their notice. Most likely, there’d be a perfect storm of media representatives outside by morning. To be frank, he wanted any excuse to get the boy out of the crowd; after what Cian could only imagine had been his experience of the night, it wasn’t unusual to expect that the unfamiliar batch of onlookers must come across as overwhelming.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

One thing was made very clear very quickly: Henry wasn’t going anywhere without Antha. He refused to let go of the hem of her shirt, even when he’d calmed, and when Courtland tried to take him for his bath, the boy had tensed and made himself very small, drawing as close to Antha as he could. “Alright,” she said gently, managing to shift his hand from her shirt to around her fingers and leading him out of the room. He was perfectly happy to go with Antha though, Ginsberg scrambling after them.
Cocking her head, Lucy noted, “Animals and kids are really into Annie.”
While Pierce nodded along in agreement, Cyrus had turned to Courtland, aghast, eyes full of terror. “What were those boys doing to him that he set a fire?”
He shrugged, somewhat uncomfortably. “I didn’t want to ask. In my experience, the older boys holding you down in the middle of the night meant one of them had a wet dream. Sometimes they got it in their minds to perform their own exorcisms, but that was rare. One time it was because the other boy thought he’d never get adopted with me around, so he’d decided to make me less pleasant to look at. That was the first time I started a fire, because no one messes with this face. But it could’ve been anything. You put a bunch of orphans together under strict religious and disciplinary conditions, they all go a little psychotic, it’s hard to tell what they’re thinking.”
“How is that place still operating…” Armand murmured, shaking his head.
Lawrence, tired as he was, deigned to answer, in his usual strict and factual manner. “It’s one of the few orphanages left operating in this country, most of the others have closed in favor of the foster care system. But they’ll be closed within the week, if Antha has it in mind to shut it down. Courtland’s testimony wasn’t enough to shut down a Church operation the last time, and Julien didn’t want the bad press, but we have evidence this time around, and enough influence to see it through. The Church will wash their hands of Mary Agnes and claim ignorance of her behavior to save their own skin once the story’s out there, she’ll be tried on child endangerment and the orphanage will be shut down, the kids all sent to foster homes.”
Courtland’s eyes narrowed intently at his cousin. “I want that building,” he said, sharply, “As soon as it’s shut down, get me the deed to it. I don’t care what it costs, I’ll spend my entire savings.”
Lowering his hand from over his eyes, Lawrence looked back at him, brows furrowed. “I can probably manage that, but…why?”
The boy’s eyes gleamed, with the same psychotic intent as they had when he’d picked up the cross at the orphanage. “I’m going to burn it down.”
No one said a word.
Antha was gone for twenty minutes. In that time, Cyrus made his quiet excuses and left with his sleeping daughter and Lawrence had stepped outside with his phone and another urgent matter, all business this time. Alistair was on his phone, his fingers flying rapidly over the screen and brows furrowed. “What does a winking cat emoticon mean?” he asked, glancing around at his cousins.
“They’re called ‘emojis’,” Pierce answered, amused at the teenager’s baffled expression, “What are you doing?”
“A friend from school talked me into getting on the Facebook. Seriously, what do I do with a winking cat?”
“Is it from a girl or a boy?” Lucy cut in, putting a hand over Pierce’s mouth and reaching for Alistair’s phone with the other, perching on the arm of Pierce’s seat, “Here, let me see.”
“It’s from some girl at school. I have no idea who she is, the little window just popped up.”
Lucy held a finger up for him to wait, lips pursed as she scrolled through the message. “Ah, she’s flirting with you. Pretty explicitly, too. When did you make an account?”
“Last night. Tyler walked me through it.”
Now Lucy’s brows furrowed. “You got this many friends in one day? One day?”
While Alistair blinked, uncomprehending, Pierce glanced at the screen of his phone and then narrowed his eyes at the boy, irritably shaking his head. “I think I hate you now.”
“Well you knew he was going to be popular,” Lucy pointed out, handing his phone back over with a little laugh, “You just underestimated how popular.” When Pierce just continued to brood, she grinned and pinched his cheek, purring, “Aww, cheer up. He’s cute and pretty and charming and all---”
“I don’t like this conversation at all.”
“---but you’re dark and dashing and suave. ” The two looked at each other for a moment, Lucy smiling reassuringly and Pierce watching her suspiciously, before very suddenly they were both in the chair, tangled together.
“Oi!” Courtland exclaimed, shocked, “There’s kids around, do I have to turn the hose on you two?”
They parted only enough to look at Courtland, innocently, before they were at each other again. Rolling their eyes, Armand and Courtland set about forcefully separating them. “Not that I’m against it,” the former began, restraining Pierce by the shoulders while Courtland held Lucy around her waist, “But when did this start, exactly?”
“There was a tape,” Lucy explained, Pierce’s cheeks flushing pink as he shook Armand off, “From a couple of years ago. He was drunk and confessed his love. It was hilarious.”
“Hey.”
“But cute,” she amended quickly, with a little teasing grin, patting the top of his head and laying a quick kiss on his cheek. “Did you all know? I’m shocked no one blurted it out.”
“He would’ve murdered us in our sleep,” Courtland murmured with a sigh, and then stopped as Lawrence tromped back in, irritated. “You’re as busy as Evie, Laurie. Someone get arrested?”
“I only wish,” he groaned as he shuffled through papers in his briefcase, which was saying something, “No, this is Antha’s business. Just when I thought she was done with her ten million adjustments to her will, she wants it revised again.”
“Is that all? It doesn’t sound so terrible to me. It’s just a piece a paper, why all the fuss?”
Lawrence sighed irritably, casting a handful of papers back into his briefcase and pausing to look Courtland dead in the eyes, stressing the gravity of the situation. “Antha’s will is the direct fate of one of the largest fortunes in the world and half of this city, it’s more valuable and more delicate than the goddamn Mona Lisa. I can’t just pull it out of a drawer and adjust it, we keep it in a steel vault with armed guards, changing a single letter requires a dozen attorneys signing off on it and a government stamp.”
Courtland seemed to ponder this for a few moments, his unusually serious eyes darkening. “But she’s making you go through all this trouble to change…what, exactly?”
“I don’t know, she wouldn’t tell me. Usually it’s some ancient artifact she overlooked, or some bond or secret foreign bank account she was hiding from Julien, or some business or building she traded away for something. But I thought we’d taken care of all that.”
“And she usually tells you?” Courtland pressed, deep in thought.
Lawrence just sighed, fed up. “Not if it’s one of her secrets. Antha’s bursting at the seams with secrets, we all know that. Why are you giving me the third degree?”
But Courtland, seated in a nearby arm chair with his fingertips pressed together, withdrew from his ruminations with a dismissive smile. “It’s nothing.”
Alistair, pocketing his phone, surreptitiously leaned in close to Rynn, whispering in his ear so that no one else would hear, “Courtland knows.” It was unfortunate, but probably unavoidable. Courtland loved to play the fool, but he was unavoidably clever, and he knew Antha better than anyone.
They could hear her coming down the stairs, pausing to talk to Dorian. “You know she’s his mother, right?” Lawrence said meanwhile, nodding at the stairs to indicate Henry, “I don’t mean biologically of course, but after she took him out of that closet, the moment she told him he was staying here, she became his mother in his mind. You can see it in his eyes.”
Courtland shrugged. “It’s not terribly far off,” he murmured, gaze distant, “Ezra would’ve been about his age.”
“You think she made that connection?”
For another moment, Courtland sat quietly thinking, and then gave a small start and turned his gaze on Lawrence, his voice low and serious. “You never had a child die, Laurie. It leaves this little hole in your heart, and you know it can never heal and it can never be filled, but still…you spend the rest of your life trying to do it, to replace that child. It comes so very naturally.”
While the cousins glanced off, sympathetically, Courtland’s eyes flashed pointedly in Alistair’s direction, their gazes locking, and inwardly the boy gave a sigh of relief. Of course he understood. Courtland had watched five of his children die, he had suffered through them all. His thoughts were the same as Antha’s, that he would spare Cian that pain if he could.
“Is it just me,” Armand began thoughtfully, in a pointed change of topic, “Or does Henry look a lot like Uncle Michael?”
“You noticed that, too?” Jack purred, grinning.
“I can’t imagine it,” Pierce said, shaking his head, “Uncle Michael hasn’t been with a woman in, what, ten years? He doesn’t have one-night stands, and he never goes on dates anymore. That’s why his hair started turning gray, I’d stake my life on it.”
“Can we leave this discussion for tomorrow?” Antha interrupted, appearing in the door sighing, “His paternity is hardly going to change overnight.”
“Did you get him settled in all right?”
“I put him in Julien’s room for the night, since he’s out,” she answered, nodding, “He was out like a light before I even tucked him in.”
“Antha, I just spoke with the security company,” Lawrence began abruptly, before he got distracted, “They can let me into the vault tomorrow. Call me when you’re ready and we can meet in my office.”
“Good,” she answered, nodding with satisfaction, “And on that note, I think I’ll go to bed. Court---” He glanced up, barely catching the heavy hotel key hurled at him with fumbling fingers. “718 Dauphine Street, the room number’s on the key.”
The boy grinned, in his usual impish way. “How thoughtful.”
Antha rolled her eyes, teasingly. “No one needs to hear you two go at it all night.”
Courtland just laughed, waving as she turned and began out the door. “Bonne nuit, ma belle.” She waved once as she vanished from the doorway, and then her footsteps creaked on the stairs. Turning to Jack with a little amused grin, rattling the key in his fingers, he asked, “Shall we?”
Armand and Lawrence walked out with them with exhausted murmurs of goodbye, Pierce and Lucy outright vanishing elsewhere. Taking advantage of the moment, Alistair seized Rynn by the sleeve and stole him away to the dark and silent kitchen, pouring himself a cup of lukewarm leftover coffee. “We’re going out,” he said abruptly, downing the few gulps of caffeine, “With Ty and Holt. We did the family thing today, we were very responsible and everyone’s very pleased. But now we’re going to be teenagers.” Grabbing his sister’s spare keys from the drawer, the boy gave a rare roguish grin, eyes shining---the look fit him as well as any of his cousins, dangerous and alluring---pausing for all of a split second as he walked past Rynn, jingling the keys pointedly. “We’re only young once. Break out with me.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn watched Cian and Antha retreat with the child upstairs. Above their heads, the old pipes of the house moaned as water began to flow through them. He couldn’t say that he understood the situation entirely; then again, it had been a very long and eventful day. Three new babies in the house would have been bad enough even if they weren’t half-elf, but add a marriage to scandalize any god-fearing citizen in the city (what few remained, bless them), an encounter with an ancient spirit in Antha’s ‘airship’ construct, and the adoption of a six-year-old boy who had apparently just set fire to one of the city’s oldest charity institutions, and…hell, what else could happen?
Vikteren couldn’t help but exchange an uneasy glance with Nicolae. If Lawrence promised that he could make it happen, he probably was true to his word, but…the church was not exactly known for being a pushover. The Mayfairs were used to having their way in this city, but so were the Catholics. They’d sweep everything under the rug quietly enough, if that was possible, but that didn’t mean they’d be happy to see the antiquated building go up in flames. Would that even help? Vikteren didn’t know—he supposed it was a symbol to Courtland, a reminder of bad times and old injustices. Maybe that building had soaked up all the ghosts of the fearful children, like Court, who had passed through its doors; maybe burning it down was just a final ‘******** you’ to the institute that he had escaped from.
Still, nobody dared to question his plan. If that’s what the groom wanted for as a wedding present, that’s what he’d get. The Mayfairs would probably toast marshmallows on the inferno, hell.

Liesse quietly retreated to the kitchen, picking up various abandoned plates and taking them to the sink to soak. In the parlor, Vikteren stretched and dropped, cat-like, into one of the seats which had been emptied as guests slowly trickled out of the house. He supposed that he should feed, while he had the chance, but honestly—after the events of the past few weeks, his body occupied by that blood-lusting demon, he couldn’t say that he was particularly eager to do so.
Rynn, peering over Alistair’s shoulder, looked thunderstruck by the introduction of ‘Facebook’. “There aren’t that many kids in our whole school, surely. What is this? Is it like…e-mail?”
Vikteren couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, to which Rynn reacted by shooting the vampire an offended glare. “Is this something I’m supposed to know about?” It couldn’t be that important, he reasoned. Someone would have told him. Vikteren merely shook his head in something like wonder. “I hadn’t realized that there was a human alive who wasn’t already plugged into the social network.”
At least, not one of Rynn’s age. Every human seemed to have their little computers with them, these days. “Well—I never needed one, before.” The Calais boy huffed, only a little defensively.
Luckily, before Vikteren provoked him into demanding a step-by-step tutorial from Alistair on how to set up his own account, something else distracted them both.
“You did introduce four new children to the family only this evening,” Vikteren pointed out, in response to Lawrence’s sigh of malcontent. “Certainly, that must complicate the will a little. At least until Henry’s parentage is ascertained, the trust would be expected to provide for his care and upbringing.”
Rynn gave Courtland an uneasy look, noticing the vague smirk he wore. When Alistair leaned in to confirm his suspicions, Rynn wasn’t surprised in the least. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready,” Rynn stated, but his voice held the ring of uncertainty. Antha probably would take at least some of her secrets to the grave; expecting her to air all her laundry before she went would be too much. A lady had to have her secrets, Cian had always said.

Upstairs, after the boy had bathed and been wrapped in a fluffy towel, Cian drained water made grey by grime out of the lavish tub. He must have been exhausted; he was falling asleep in Antha’s arms before she could even get him tucked into bed. “Poor tyke,” Cian murmured, shutting the door and turning to Antha with a light sigh. “It’s been a long night for all of us, hasn’t it?”
He checked in on the nursery before joining Antha below. Dorian was stretched out across one of the couches, one of the white-shrouded bundles carefully tucked into the crook of his arm. As mangled as his reputation had become amongst members of the family, Cian couldn’t help but feel a little sympathetic towards the other man. He reminded Cian too much of himself, or how he had been—continuously chasing the next party, the next drink, the next piece of a**—until it all caught up with him. It was only now, with the whiskey far from his reach, the moonlight falling across his cheek, turning his blonde hair to white gold, that it was clear to see just how young Dorian was—especially for a new father, who was expected to raise three children without a mother in sight. No doubt, Liesse would be only too delighted to step in as a surrogate. Whether Dorian would allow it—well, Cian wasn’t certain yet. Pride could be a powerful incentive for change, but it could also be a handicap—especially in a man of Dorian’s tender age.
They’d have to wait and see.

After the events of the night, the cousins seemed as though they could have gossiped until dawn in the parlor. But before further speculation could be conducted, Antha returned to the parlor, dangling a set of keys from the tips of her fingers. Liesse had long ago dragged herself down the hall and fallen into bed, but Rynn was still perky, tapping his foot restlessly against the polished floors of the parlor. Vikteren wasn’t the only one to notice, apparently, as Alistair was only too keen to drag him away from the rest of those who remained awake. Glancing towards Nicolae—who still bore a trace of his former foul mood, written across his face—Vikteren gave an exaggerated cough to get his attention. “I expect you might stay here, if you wish,” he began, purposefully letting his eyes drift across the china cabinets across the room, lingering on the old Victrola in the corner and its daffodil-like trumpet. “But if you would forgive the cliche phrase, ‘the night is young’…? We have ample time before sunrise, and I am certain that there is much elsewhere in the city to occupy ourselves with.” Truth be told, Vikteren wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but he’d always been under the impression that acting as coven-master over an entire city was a rather taxing position. Even though Nicolae had asked for his support, he’d yet to fill in the older vampire on what the position entailed, exactly. It was most likely very dull and laborious work, issues of governance and territory and the like, but it was better than leaving Nicolae in the house to mull over his fight with Antha while she and Cian slept soundly in the same bed. Vikteren didn’t much enjoy the prospect of such an evening, either. If Cian hadn’t been so well-loved by Antha, he would have probably been marked as an assassin’s target by one of her jealous ex-lovers by now.
Or maybe it was less that Cian was such a lovable rogue, and more that everyone knew that sending an assassin to kill someone in the Mayfair household was a) a waste of money, and b) certain to result in the long and painful demise of both employer and employee.
The point was, it was in bad taste to give in to one’s own jealousy when the subject of it seemed to be such a picturesquely perfect couple.

In the kitchen, Rynn found himself hovering behind a determined Alistair, who seemed to be taking the duty of living up to his sister’s reputation very seriously. “With Ty and Holt?” he repeated, doubtfully screwing up his face. He almost asked at this hour?, but decided that question might come across as juvenile. Rynn chose to replace it with: “Where are we going?”
He’d already decided that Alistair was right; they had been good this evening, they deserved some time off. Rynn and Antha hadn’t snarked once at one another, although this was possibly less to do with Rynn’s newfound restraint and more that she had hardly sat still for long enough to fight with throughout the entire day…even if Nicolae had somehow managed to work his own match with her into the party schedule.
“Is this something to do with that Facebook thing?” he asked suspiciously, as he followed the sound of Alistair’s jingling keys out the back. He was tempted to suggest bringing Liesse along, but he could feel her distantly in his head: fast asleep. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was curled up on Malakai’s chest like a kitten, and that was one scenario that he didn’t want to walk in on. She’d probably bite his head off for disturbing their cuddling, anyways.
Above, as they crept through the gardens, Rynn could see the lights of the house winking off, one by one, as its various inhabitants prepared for bed. By the time they reached the driveway, it was almost entirely dark, save for the dim glow of shuttered lamps through the parlor windows.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

When Antha and Cian were alone, walking the quiet hall to their room, she gave a massive sigh of exhaustion, one hand idly rubbing the side of her neck. “If Courtland ever remarries,” she said, casting Cian a weary sidelong glance, “Don’t ever agree to be his best man.”
Throwing open the door to their room, she gave a small sound of surprise to find something crackling beneath her feet, glancing wildly all around herself to find the floor littered with little scraps of paper. She was less surprised, once she had realized what they were, to find a figure reclining languidly on the loveseat by the windows, his legs thrown over the armrest. He was as fair-haired and gracefully-limbed as any of the Mayfairs downstairs, his disheveled garments elegant and outdated. There was a circle of little white scraps of paper piled up around him on the floor, one arm thrown over his eyes in a manner strongly reminiscent of Lawrence, his full lips slack. Antha’s gaze stayed sharply on him as she tiptoed her way carefully across the paper minefield, kicking her shoes off beside the bed and then sitting quietly down facing the figure.
He stirred, casting her a bleary gaze, and after a moment a little hazy smile crossed his lips. “I feel like I’ve waited an eternity.”
Antha simultaneously crossed her arms and legs, watching him with a strange look on her face, before finally she said, “You’re in the wrong room.”
A half-laugh spilled through his lips, dazed and weary. “Does it matter? Here, there, elsewhere…it’s always the same.” His hand fell, fingers skimming the sea of little papers until they grasped one, waving it in her direction. “Especially these. They never change.”
“That’s your doing.”
Another smile, as if he was amused, setting her in his china-blue gaze. With his face unobscured, he bore a striking resemblance to Julien, and thereby Courtland and Nicolae as well. “You have something of him in you, I think. That…” He paused, gazing up at the ceiling lost in thought, and then finally laughed beneath his breath. “…that’s enough. So many pretty children sharing my blood and his, together…it’s enough for me.”
Antha blinked, and suddenly James and all of his paper fortunes were gone without a trace. Tilting her head, she murmured, “Ghosts are really peculiar creatures…” Finally she stood, setting about changing her clothes. “Augh, I don’t want to think about ghosts! It’s been an alarmingly long day, and tomorrow will hardly be easy. I---augh!” Frustrated, she gave a massive groan and turned, falling on Cian so that they both toppled on the bed, Antha sprawled across him like a particularly careless cat. “This sweater is mine now, by the way,” she muttered, childishly, pulling the sleeves down over her fingers, “You can’t have it back, I’ll fight you if I have to.”
Sighing, she adjusted herself more comfortably against him---it was too much effort to move---basking in the peaceful silence of the house. “I keep expecting someone to burst in,” she murmured softly, ruefully, “We never get a moment alone like this. Do you know I almost bought that house down the street that’s up for sale? That gothic mansion with the stained glass? I love that house. I was going to demand that we move into it and not give any of the cousins a key. But then they’d just be banging down the doors every hour, breaking in, bothering us more than ever because they miss us. Besides…if Uncle Michael doesn’t get up with the babies every once in a while and let us sleep, I might go crazy.” Pausing, she thought it over again. “Maybe I should’ve after all. There’s five babies now, they’re ganging up on us.”

Outside, Alistair rolled his eyes at Rynn and seized him by the arm, darting into the bushes in the shadow of the house. “I told you, we’re teenagers tonight,” he whispered sternly, “Teenagers can’t just waltz out of the house on a Saturday night, we have to sneak out. We’re shadows, quiet as the grave.” True to his word, the boy put every skill he had to use sneaking through shadows and bushes, soundless, until he could make a break for Antha’s car, slipping in and shutting the door as quietly as he could. “But seriously, look at me,” he said when they were both safely out of sight in the pitch black of the car, turning to Rynn and cupping a hand around the back of his neck, eyes serious, “We’re teenagers tonight, and that’s all. Not witches, not Mayfair or Calais, just sixteen-year-old boys, alright?” With that said, he switched off the headlights and started up the car, inching out of the driveway and into the street before turning the headlights on and hitting the gas.
The address Tyler had sent him was a little bar at the docks, on a pier over the river. He heard his classmates before he saw them, distinguished mostly by Tyler’s British accent, thicker now that he was drunk. He was the first to see them, leaning over the wooden railing of the patio and waving, bellowing, “Oi! Where’d you get the ride?”
Alistair laughed, smiling guiltily. “It’s my sister’s, I…borrowed it.”
Tyler and Holt both fell into peels of laughter. “He steals cars. That’s great.”
“Borrowed!” he insisted, pattering up the rickety stairs so that both boys slammed into him briefly embracing with manly slaps on the back that made him stumble. “How drunk are you guys?”
“Not enough,” Holt answered, shaking his head and motioning at the waitress, “Hey, sweetheart! Another round!”
“She’s going to do unspeakable things to your drink,” Sid murmured lowly, leaning languidly against the banister nearby, eyes narrowing at Alistair and Rynn. “You didn’t tell Rowan I was here, did you?”
Alistair shook his head, making a zipping motion across his lips. “I don’t talk to Rowan if I can help it. Family habit.” Holt snorted a laugh, taking a new pitcher of beer from the waitress while Alistair smiled at her, bringing a flush to her cheeks. “We’re together,” he told her, motioning at Rynn and handing over his credit card, “Can I get a Guinness and, ahh…let’s say a dozen shots of tequila.”
“Bloody hell, mate,” Tyler murmured, eyes going wide, “Is your liver made of iron?”
“I’m buying a round of shots,” Alistair answered, rolling his eyes with a little teasing grin, “Tosser.”
Again, he fell into peels of laughter. “Ahaha, that’s the spirit!” he bellowed, throwing an arm around his neck. “You guys know everyone, right?”
“These guys?” He made a gesture at the small, buzzing crowd of teenagers around them, “Yeah, I think we met them all the other day at school.” Smiling, hands on Tyler’s arm firmly held at his throat, he said, “Hi, Gretch.”
The girl didn’t respond at first, stomping up and punching Tyler in the gut. “Stop headlocking people, goddamn it!”
“I was playing!” he whined, releasing Alistair and clutching his stomach, “Oi, I’ve got too much liquor in here for all that…”
“My cousins used to come here,” Alistair murmured meanwhile, looking around himself, “When they were our age. They never carded.”
“When getting drunk means you might fall in the river,” Gretchen pointed out, motioning at the banister, “You can’t really turn away paying customers.” And then, her attention suddenly captured by something across the bar, she elbowed Alistair and demanded, “Hey, see that guy by the bar? With the black hair? Go find out if he’s gay for me.”
“Why me?” Alistair whined, eyes wide, “Make Ty do it!”
“Because you’re the jailbait!” she argued, shoving him by the shoulders in the man’s direction, “Tyler’s okay and he has the accent and everything, but no gay guy is going to not make a pass at you. Just go check for me!”
“Ahhh, stop pushing me!” he pouted, slipping out of her range and nodding in the man’s direction, “That’s Michael, he’s straight. He used to date my sister.” Though, ‘date’ was a somewhat inaccurate term for what they’d done, but Alistair didn’t think he should say that.
“Cheers to ******** that,” Tyler muttered as she scampered off, intent on her prey, taking two of the tequila shots from the waitress and downing them one after the other, chasing it with the rest of his beer. “I bet he doesn’t have a sexy foreign accent…”
“Neither do you,” Holt snickered, patting his shoulder, “Cheers, guys. You especially.” He said the last to Rynn, taking up multiple shots and shoving them in his hands. “You’re too uptight and it’s bumming me out, we need you drunk right now.”
Alistair stifled a laugh, intently shaking his head. “Nah, Rynn’s fine, he just has a serious face. And we’ve had a long day---Courtland and Jack got married.”
“We heard about that!” Holt shouted as if he’d just remembered, wincing against the burn of tequila, “The Mayfair gay wedding. That’s awesome.”
“You should’ve brought pretty Mayfair girls,” Tyler muttered meanwhile, still watching Gretchen irritably from the corner of his eye, “There’s no girls here. It’s your fault if I try to make out with you at the end of the night.”
“He does that,” Holt warned, nodding, “He damn near mauled me one night. Gave him two black eyes and he was still trying to shove his tongue down my throat.”
“I’m sixteen and warm-blooded,” Tyler argued, “I’ve gotta’ do something with my hormones! Have a little sympathy!”
“You’re both idiots,” Sid murmured, casually sipping his beer.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian leaned back against the mountain of pillows, toeing off his shoes and crossing his long legs atop the covers. Tangling a languid hand in her hair, he suddenly became aware of how late it was, and how good it felt to be off his feet. He felt like he’d been running around for hours. “It might not be a bad idea,” he murmured into the top of Antha’s head, breathing in her perfume, “The kids can’t occupy a nursery forever, after all. They’ll need their own space soon enough.” He paused, winding a long tendril of her hair around his finger. “If you have time tomorrow, we could check it out together— see who owns the place and if they’d be willing to sell. We could take the kids, even; break out the stroller, bundle them up in those parkas you ordered, the ones with the…animal hoods…before it gets too warm for them to wear.” They’d have outgrown them by this time next year, after all. But Cian didn’t want to mention the future, not right now.
He probably should have responded to the ghost in their quarters in a more startled fashion, but to be honest—he couldn’t be arced. As a Calais, ghosts were as normal as…as silverware, as coffee cups and teaspoons. But it was only natural that the spirits of the house would act up, after all the energy which had been expended today; emotions running high, an abundance of guests on which to feed…it was a miracle that one of them hadn’t popped up while the party was in full swing. Then again, it was nearing the witching hour, wasn’t it…?

Outside, Rynn gave a small yelp as Alistair dragged him into the shrubbery, all but impaling him on a row of holly bushes. Small pin-pricks of blood bloomed on his shirt as he detached himself from the thorny leaves. “Ow.” Twisting his head, owl-like, to glare at Alistair, he at least acknowledged the demand for secrecy by lowering his voice to a hiss. “Do you honestly think it matters? The only one who would dare stop you at this point is Antha, herself…”
Pulling a holly sticker out of his arm, he added, “The rest of ‘em? Probably would cheer you on, even if they did notice. Sneaking out is like a rite of passage, when you’re a teenager.” At least, that was what Cian had told Rynn whenever evidence of his own forays into the night was brought up. “And you didn’t answer me—where are we going, again?”
Rynn had a way of being unreasonably keen of memory when it came to what he clearly considered to be an important question. Alistair seemed intent on providing an answer by means of demonstration, however, and so Rynn dutifully strapped himself into the seat of Antha’s luxury car. At least Airi didn’t drive like his sister—there was that to be grateful for. “You’re lucky I trust you,” he muttered, slouching into his seat. “Otherwise, you’d be behaving rather suspiciously.”

A short, cautious jaunt later, Rynn found himself in unfamiliar territory once more. The bar was a well-known landmark around the city—at least, to those of its citizens who wished to indulge in underage drinking—but the Calais scion hadn’t imagined he’d be visiting so soon. Climbing the rickety steps to the patio, Rynn hoisted a hand in a dutiful wave and gave the small group a wan, tight-lipped smile. Alistair was right—Rynn did have tendency to develop resting b***h-face when he wasn’t thinking about it, but this was something else. New people: awkward. Especially when they were people you’d already met, but forgotten the names of. His best bet was to keep quiet and refrain from referring to anyone by name. That was what ‘Hey, you’ was for, right? “Hope we didn’t keep you guys waiting,” he greeted the rest of the group.
Rynn settled against the railing, wondering if maybe he should get a phone to tap on during these kinds of moments. Either that, or he could just start carrying around sheets of bubble wrap to pop whenever uncomfortable pauses in conversation occurred. Cian wouldn’t have had this problem, but then again, this was probably one of Cian’s old stomping grounds. The funny look that the waitress gave their group when she approached was enough to confirm it for Rynn; he never considered the possibility it might be because their group was made up of exceedingly attractive individuals.
“Oh, s**t,” His head swiveled to follow Gretchen as she moved off through the room, crowd parting around her like water around a shark’s fin. Temporarily distracted from his own social malaise, he lifted an eyebrow at Alistair. “Well, there that one goes. I hope you're already thinking of how to make amends with that poor man after siccing her on him.”
Rynn wasn’t allowed to worry for long, though; Tyler pushed two shot glasses into his hands, and they would’ve shattered on the floor if Rynn hadn’t played along. “Uptight? You think I’m uptight?” he asked, his eyes flashing in mock-offense as he rounded on Tyler. “The top two buttons on my shirt are unbuttoned and everything. Uptight?” If Rynn ever needed a drink, it was now. Extending one of the shot-glasses to clink against Tyler’s own, he promised, “I’ll show you uptight. See, this is why I drink: for comments like that—“ He tossed back the first shot, clenching his teeth through the burn of the liquor as it hit the back of his throat, “—and because it’s been a long ******** day.” The second shot glass followed with the second reason, and clinked resolutely as Rynn upended it, emptied, on the table next to its mate.
Rynn felt cool for about 2.5 seconds before his face started to heat up, and the blush began its steady creep up his partially-unbuttoned collar. As he worked a third button out, he added, “See, we could have brought girls, but that would have been a little cruel to both them and you. Mayfair girls are premium. They’d eat you up and spit you out in a single night, and then you’d be left staggering around the streets, dribbling love poetry and howling at their gates every night. You should really be grateful. Anyways—“ He glanced over his shoulder, where Gretchen had all but draped herself atop her prey. “If your hormones are as illogical and self-destructive as they seem, there’s always…” Whatshername. Turning back to the group, he jerked a thumb in the direction that his gaze had been previously pointed. “Or would that destroy a beautiful friendship?”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha said nothing concerning the house for a while. It was a pipe dream and she knew it, for the reasons mentioned and ones she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. It was only one month, and he could hardly handle two infants by himself when she was gone---three, god willing.
Aloud, she murmured, “I think this is one of those flights of fancy that will blow up in our faces if it was ever put into action. Trust me, I’ve learned to tell them on sight watching Courtland all these years.” She rolled over, stretching out the length of his body, legs tangled with his and chin resting on his chest. “But let’s take the kids to the park tomorrow. We’ll put them in their little bunny and bear outfits and I can lord it over the other mothers how much cuter my babies are than theirs.” She stiffened briefly, realizing she’d said too much out loud. “I mean…swings. We can take them on the swings. I want to see their little eyes light up when they go sailing through the air. And we can take Henry. He’ll be overwhelmed by lunch if we don’t get him out of this house for a little while.”
Through the window, lights flared into life on the street and Antha gave a little laugh. “Ah…he thinks he’s sneaky. How cute.” Grinning secretly at Cian, she explained, “Our little brothers snuck out to go to a bar. Somehow, Airi thought I wouldn’t notice.” Of course, that hadn’t been the point. He wanted the feel of it more than the reality, to sneak through the bushes and pretend he was breaking the rules, like a normal kid. “Rynn has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.” Alistair was wolf enough sober, she didn’t entirely trust him around Rynn when he was drunk.
But that was their problem.

The boy in question had, in fact, made his new classmates very uncomfortable. Tyler’s cheeks had flushed at his suggestion, the boy bellowing irritably, “I don’t even like her!” before turning and stomping away in a huff. Holt was carefully not looking at Rynn, lingering for a moment with an awkward look on his face before turning and drifting elsewhere. Sid was just watching Rynn, curiously.
Alistair only smiled, as disarmingly as he could, holding up a finger to excuse them and seizing Rynn by the shoulders, shepherding him off to the side. “Rynn,” he sighed, exasperated, “Seriously. You can’t explode on people like that. Just---” At a loss, he grabbed his hands and shook his arms, gently. “Loosen up. He was just teasing you. To be fair, you do walk around with a look on your face like Medusa.” Smiling slightly, reassuringly, he clapped his hands on Rynn’s cheeks, pressing them teasingly up. “Smile! The day is over, the wedding’s over, everything’s over, we’re free right now. We’re here to have fun! Make friends! And whatever you do, try not to tell anyone else they’re inferior to you.”
“Oooiiii!” Tyler called meanwhile, slurring slightly, “Al!”
Alistair whirled around, his face briefly pinched in a pout. “Don’t call me that, I hate it!”
Tyler outright giggled, amused, before returning to his point. “C’mon, we’re dancing!”
“There’s no music,” Allen protested.
But Tyler shook his head, going over and seizing Alistair’s hands, positioning them both in what he thought was a good salsa position. “Everybody dance!”
“I didn’t think he would handle rejection well,” Allen was murmuring, watching as he watched his feet and tried to dance, “But this is…”
“Weird?” Holt offered helpfully.
“Yes, exactly, it’s ******** weird.”
Holt just shrugged, casually offering Allen his hand. “But we get a chance to show him up. How often does that happen?”
“Let’s do it.” The boys spun out onto the floor beside Tyler and Alistair, laughing and stumbling around just a little more gracefully than them.
“Hell no,” Alistair said suddenly, brows furrowed, “No, this is a declaration of war. No one shows a Mayfair up with dance. Ty--” Suddenly serious, he took the other boy’s hand more firmly in his, taking the lead, spinning him expertly around.
“Bloody hell,” the boy stuttered, swaying slightly as he went still, “I’m too drunk for tha---oh, I’m going down.” He collapsed where he stood, laughing riotously on the floor.
“Oh good god,” Gretchen groaned, coming to see what all the fuss was about, “You stupid, drunken British ********. Come on, get up.”
The boy whined, brushing her off when she’d pulled him to his feet. “No, you just---you go hang out with your old guy.”
Gretchen rolled her eyes. “He’s in college.”
“And I’m just---I’m gonna’ hang out here. With my mates. You go---go make out with your college guy.”
She turned on her heel, scoffing. “You’re a goddamned idiot.”
As she left, Tyler mocked her with a high-pitched, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyaaah!” before sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry. “I don’t care. ******** it, aye? I don’t care.”
Alistair just gave his best disarming smile, sympathetic. “One more and I’ll believe you.”
“I don’t even care, Alistair, you just---you don’t even know how little I care.”
“Alright, buddy,” Alistair agreed, catching him as he stumbled.
“That’s right,” Tyler said, clutching his shoulder to steady himself before glancing up, looking intently at Alistair. “…wanna’ make out?”
He smiled, politely, patting his shoulder. “Maybe next time, Ty.”
The boy shrugged, falling into a chair. “Kay. Hey, what happened to the music?”
“Don’t worry about him,” Holt said meanwhile, making a dismissive gesture at Tyler, “He’s British, he’ll be fine in half an hour.”
“Cheers to that,” Alistair murmured, the boys clinking their glasses together.
“Onto better things,” Holt agreed, “I estimate there’s about five girls here, excluding Gretch. Come on, I’m using you as bait.”
“Why am I always bait…?” Alistair pouted, putting up a halfhearted resistance as Holt seized his hand and tried to drag him off in search of girls.
Sid, watching everything unfold in easy silence, sipped his beer and cast a quiet gaze on Rynn. “What about you? Not interested in girls? My own interest is slight---my girlfriend has that effect on people. She’s your cousin, I’m sure you know.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn looked completely baffled by Ty’s reaction, but it took a while for his smile to fade even after the other boy stomped off.
Glancing back at the group as Alistair herded him to the side, he turned an expression of abject horror back to Alistair.
“It was all in good fun!” he protested. “I mean, I thought we were just kidding around—he was teasing me, I tease back—“
He never should have opened his stupid mouth in the first place. Rynn let his head drop in defeat. “They all think I’m a colossal d**k, now, don’t they? You don’t have to say anything. Just nod.”
It took a firm grip to manage to pull him upright, and work a smile into his cheeks, but Alistair managed. Rynn nodded, then squared his shoulders, and mentally determined himself to fix the smile which Alistair’s thumbs had wrung out of his face for as long as possible.
Somewhat predictably, he’d made a mess of things again. How did this always happen when he went out to bars? “You go on,” he waved a hand, shooing off the departing dancers as they left him at the table. It was better to watch from a distance for the moment, anyways; the British boy was making a fool of himself, could hardly stand. When the server passed by again, Rynn made a discreet request for some water to be brought to their table. Any more drinking for Ty, and they’d spend the rest of the night having absolutely no fun in an emergency room.
Then again, the other boy seemed to think he’d be fine in a half-hour. This seemed scientifically impossible to Rynn, but what did he know about the British, after all?
Still, if he wanted to impress his lady, the boy’s aim was a long way off. Even Rynn, a complete novice to romance, could see that.
After they had drank together, Alistair and the other boy sped off into the press of bodies in order to search for girls. Rynn rolled his eyes, and exhaled a sigh which made his bangs flutter. “Poor Airi. If I know him, he’ll come back with all five in tow, we’ll have the whole bar mad at us.”
Reaching across the table, he stole a sip of Alistair’s beer and swallowed before he answered Sid’s question. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not—“ he paused, waving the beer-bottle about indeterminately. “i’m not against girls or anything. But I’m not looking for anyone right now. I’m perfectly happy being single. Maybe I’m saving myself—I don’t know. I just don’t see the point of picking up someone at a bar at random, you know? I want it to be…” His eyes drifted across the floor, gliding across the cluster of bodies where, even now, Alistair had gathered a small circle of groupies around him. “…special, I guess. Someone in particular.” Then, Rynn realized abruptly how transparently his words might be taken. Clearing his throat, he returned to the topic at hand. “So—my cousin, and yourself. How long have you been dating? She sounds rather…stony, from your description.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Sid, quietly following Rynn’s gaze, gave a hum to himself and then sat back in his seat, lax, cradling his beer. “Special,” he repeated, thoughtfully, “Isn’t that what Alistair said? I’m sure it was. A noble goal, but especially difficult to pull off. I think it was Shakespeare who said---”
“No,” Allen interrupted, dropping into the seat beside him already shaking his head, sorting through empty shot glasses until he found a full one, “No ******** Shakespeare tonight. We’re at the docks, Sid, can’t you be a little…I don’t know, edgier?”
Sid scowled slightly, but didn’t continue. Instead he addressed the question he had been posed, with a quiet sort of bitterness. “Rowan’s a b***h,” he said flatly, sipping his beer, “And she ******** anyone that’ll have her. Hell, she was throwing herself at you right in front of me. And she talks---god, incessantly.”
“Then break up with her,” Allen said, stating what he thought should be glaringly obvious, “Be done with it and stop making us listen to you b***h about her.”
“Too much trouble,” Sid answered, shaking his head, “I’d never hear the end of it. Besides…I tried once. She ignored it until I gave up.”
“Sounds about right,” Allen sighed, sitting back and kicking his heels up on the table, “It’s hard to believe they share blood.” He pointed a thumb at Alistair, who was all charming, innocent smiles and sparkling eyes, surrounded by the handful of women present at the bar. “They look similar, but he’s all sunny and sweet and everybody just loves him.” Noticing the glances shot his way, Alistair looked back in their direction, briefly shooting Rynn a secretive smile, vaguely awkward, like he knew how ridiculous his current predicament looked.
“You sound bitter,” Sid noted, “Right there at the end. People might like you too if you weren’t such an a*****e.”
“I am what I am,” Allen muttered, glaring at him over his beer.
This was followed by Tyler’s dazed laughter as he stumbled and fell into a seat, swaying slightly even sitting. “You are a right wanker,” he chuckled, slurring, before an alarmingly serious look of strain crossed his face and his head fell on the table, hands clasped on the back of his neck. “I want to ******** of the boys present rolled their eyes, sighing at his redundant problems. “Just go grab Gretch and end this already.”
“I don’t want to ******** her,” Tyler insisted stubbornly, “I don’t even like her. I don’t even care.”
Sid sighed, sliding out of his seat with empty glass in hand, visually seeking out the waitress. “Love is unfathomable.”
“I don’t even like her.”
“Then shut the hell up about it already,” Allen groaned, shaking his head, “And lay off the alcohol. Ty---give me the beer.”
“No,” the boy protested, childishly, cradling the glass to his chest, “I paid for it, it’s mine.”
“You’re cut off. Here, hand it over.”
They fought for a few moments, fumbling over the glass, before out of nowhere, Alistair’s fingers plucked it out of Tyler’s grasp, the boy taking a long drink of his newly acquired beer. “What’d I miss?”
“Ty doesn’t like Gretchen. At least that’s his story.”
“Of course not,” Alistair agreed, mockingly serious, “No one would ever question otherwise.”
“Exactly!” Tyler shouted, making firm gestures at the both of them. “It’s stupid. Stupid! I don’t even care, Alistair.”
“I know, buddy,” Alistair cooed sympathetically, gently stroking Tyler’s hair as his head fell on his shoulder.
Tyler pouted indignantly for another moment, before a thought seemed to strike him. “Guys, let’s start a fire. A bonfire.”
“That’s an idea straight out of my sister’s mouth,” Alistair said, briefly alarmed.
“Your sister is a wise woman,” he said with a little nod, reverent.
“Ty, we’re not starting a fire,” Allen scoffed, shaking his head.
But the boy just pouted, intent on his idea, and then stood without a word, turning and fiddling with the phone in his hands. “Wait a minute,” Alistair began, feeling his pockets, “Ty, that’s my phone! Who are you calling?!”
He held up a finger for him to wait, the phone to his ear, before his eyes lit up and he said with determination, “Oi, is this Antha Mayfair?”
“Ty!”
He waved Alistair away, darting out of reach around the table, circling as Alistair gave chase, “Yes, hello, I’m friends with your little brother and I need to start a fire. I hear you’re an expert, so where could I do this?” He listened intently for the next few moments, fending Alistair off with one arm and another elbow. “Thank you,” he exclaimed suddenly, grinning with smug, if dazed, triumph, “You are way more helpful than Rowan lets on.” Finally, Alistair stopped fighting him, sighing in defeat as Tyler continued listening. “Eh? Sure, I’ll write up a list. I can probably get some of it on tape, she talks a lot and doesn’t pay much attention---”
Finally, with Tyler’s defenses lowered, Alistair snatched his phone back and put it to his ear, stating indignantly, “Evie, I’m in bed asleep right now, okay? Forget all about this moment, you don’t know anything about it.” He nodded as he listened---Tyler could just barely hear her trying to contain a laugh on the other end of the line as she spoke---finally turning and murmuring surreptitiously into the phone, “Thanks, Evie. Je t’aime.”
“Holt!” Tyler called meanwhile, waving his arm in broad arcs over his head, “Oi, come on, Antha Mayfair told me a good place to start a bonfire! Let’s go!”
“Antha Mayfair?!” He was there like magic, eyes wide and intent, clutching Tyler’s hands crushingly hard in his own, “Where?! When?! Why did you get to talk to her?!”
He smiled, chipper as could be and just a little smug. “Because I stole Alistair’s phone and called her.” To the boy I question he said, teasingly, “She calls you Airi. That’s adorable.”
“I could probably take you in a fight right now, you know.”
“Forget that, what did she say? For the love of god, how did she sound?!”
Tyler pursed his lips, thinking for a moment. “Sleepy,” he said after a moment, nodding decisively, “Then kind of amused. There was a guy groaning all sleepy-like in the background---her husband, I guess. I probably woke them up.”
“Is it possible you misinterpreted it?” Sid asked thoughtfully, “Maybe you interrupted…other things.”
Sharp-eyed, Holt seized his collar, hissing direly, “Don’t ruin my imagination.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn carefully avoided Sid’s gaze after the mention of Alistair.
“Yeah, uh…I guess I heard it from him. Stuck in my mind, for some reason.”
Unexpectedly, a new face appeared. Rynn’s brow creased with the effort of concentration. What was his name, again? Something with an A. Arthur? Alfred?
Whatever his name, Rynn merely nodded politely at his induction into the group. He’d figure it out when the time came. “It sounds almost like you’re betrothed to the poor girl,” he commented, on Sid’s behalf. “You’ll simply have to…what was the advice they used to give…? ‘Lie back and think of England’?” He shrugged, and emptied one of the shot glasses close at hand. “It could be worse; at least she’s rather fetching.”
Glancing up at Alistair, Rynn gave an utterly unapologetic smile and a wink. Most men would have loved to be in Airi’s situation right now; it was almost charming how Alistair looked in it, playing the ingenue in contrast to all of the attention that he was being lavished with.
Abruptly, Tyler joined them—not by taking a seat, as was de rigeur, but by falling directing on top of the table. Luckily, Rynn had moved the remaining shot glasses to the side before Ty’s impact could send them flying into a dangerous glittery rain.
Plus, it would have been a waste of liquor.

Just in case any more unexpected impacts occurred, Rynn drained one of the shots. By now, the blush was beginning to make its way into his cheeks. All he needed was a case of the hiccups, and he’d be the perfect caricature of a drunk.
Alistair rejoined them at the table, orbit of women hanging back. Rynn was briefly reminded of vultures circling their table. Seizing his cuff, Rynn pulled him decisively down into the open seat at his side, and pushed a shot-glass in his direction.
But Alistair, patting his pockets, had more important things than his next drink to worry about. Rynn’s eyes went wide as he heard Ty, from behind him: “Oi, is this Antha ******** much for subterfuge.
Rynn shoved his forehead into his open palms as Ty and Alistair played ring-around-the-rosie, using their table as a court. Alistair’s fangirls made for ardent cheerleaders. Still, he couldn’t say anything while Ty was on the phone. The last thing Rynn wanted Antha to know was that he’d accompanied her little brother out on his post-midnight escapades. “Christ,” he muttered, as Alistair regained control of his phone and finished off the conversation. “You’re all lucky, you know that?” he asked, raising his eyes to glare around the table. “You could be toads by now. You oughta be toads. I’m surprised your head didn’t explode.” Then, letting his own head roll back onto the support of his shoulders, Rynn stretched. “So where are we going? What are we setting fire to? Is it a church? That would be cute.” It was better than how Rynn had sort of half-expected this night to end, with Spin-the-Bottle and alcohol poisoning.
Then again, the night wasn’t quite over yet.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Alistair gave an amused half-laugh, downing the rest of his beer. “Settle down, we’re not Courtland.” He set the empty glass down with a decisive thump, taking his check from the waitress and fluidly scribbling his name across the bottom. “By the way,” he added, rising from his chair with everyone else, “Evie says to not turn the headlights back on until we get further down the street, they shine in her window. Remind me next time.”
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Tyler hurried them, clattering down the stairs, “Let’s go!”
“Go where?” Allen demanded, echoing Rynn.
“Harbor,” Tyler hiccuped, pointing down the riverbank, “The part for the little boats. Pick up any rubbish you think’ll hold a flame.”
The place wasn’t terribly far-off, a little concrete inlet sloping into the river from both sides, deserted as far as the eye could see. “The hell is this?” Gretchen demanded, looking around the empty lot with knitted eyebrows.
“Little boats and kayaks dock here,” Alistair said, tossing a wooden crate he’d found to the middle of the lot, “You can pull them right out of the water and hook them up to your car.”
“It disturbs me that you know everything,” she grumbled, shaking her head, to which Alistair stuck out his tongue.
“He looks normal,” Holt said, clapping his hands on either side of the boy’s head, ruffling his hair with a grin, “But he has a freaky mutant brain in there.” Sliding an arm around his shoulders, he turned to Gretchen and reprimanded her sternly, “Don’t knock it, we need an evil genius around here.”
But Alistair shook his head, elbowing him in the side. “Never trust an evil genius.”
“You guys are no help,” Tyler whined, flinging little scraps of wood and cardboard into a haphazard heap.
“Are you surprised? We’re not helpful people. Ah! Sid, what’d you find?” The boy came up to the group, pulling a handful of little liquor bottles and a big bottle of rum out of his leather jacket. “Ahahaha,” Holt laughed delightedly, unscrewing the rum, “You have a minibar in your car. That’s great.”
“Do we need to sing sea shanties?” Gretchen asked, eyeing the label before taking a swig.
“I don’t know any,” Holt responded thoughtfully, helping Tyler set the junk up in a pyramid for burning ease.
Alistair hummed, taking the bottle as it was handed to him and taking a long swig, handing it over to Rynn, before beginning suddenly in a little sea shanty, eyes narrowed as if he was trying to remember the words as he sung them. When the others stared at him, he paused and finally broke into a little grin, explaining shortly, “Black Flag.”
“Great,” Tyler murmured, standing up straight with his hands to his hips, “Did you play any games about starting fires? I’m outta’ my league here.”
“Here, I got it,” Alistair sighed, crouching down by the would-be bonfire and searching for scraps of paper.
“Speaking of pirates,” Gretchen began, like she’d just thought of it, “Did your sister really steal a cargo ship? Or is that just another urban legend?”
“It was Courtland,” Alistair answered hastily, arranging twisted pieces of paper beneath a layer of twigs, “And he blew it up. Evie was just an accomplice.”
“Who blows up a ship?!” Tyler outright shrieked, falling into peels of laughter.
“They were drunk and trying to get the black market absinthe on board.” Satisfied with the setup, he started striking matches and setting them on the mound of paper. “Ah…we have fire.”
“Hurray~!” Tyler cheered, arms thrown up over his head, “Fire! Airi, come dance with me!”
The boy pouted, dramatically. “Who said you could call me Airi?”
“Rynn calls you Airi,” he pointed out, defensively.
Alistair rolled his eyes. “Rynn’s family, there’s no helping it.”
“Well Alistair is too long to say, so it’s Airi or Al.”
“What? That’s too lazy!”
“I’m very lazy.”
Alistair thought about that for a moment, deep in thought---watching the expression on his face shift, the others were beginning to feel anxious---before all of a sudden he sprang onto Tyler, arms around his neck. “Full name! Say it!”
The boy shrieked, in ways that made the others burst into laughter, fumbling to get Alistair off and then suddenly running in circles, dragging Alistair behind him. “Get off! I’ll throw you in the river, I will!”
“I’m taking you with me!”
“They’re too spirited,” Allen sighed, taking a stick and poking the burgeoning fire as the boys collapsed on the pavement and rolled around, wrestling. Looking at Rynn, he added, “What about you, are you normal?”
“No one that lives in that house is normal,” Holt pointed out, stretching out beside the fire with the bottle of rum, “It’s cool, normal is boring.”
On the other side of the fire, Alistair whined, “Did you just bite me?!”
“Augh! That was my spleen!”
“Hey!” Gretchen yelled suddenly, turning sharp eyes on them, “Jackasses! Can you tone down the boy fight?”
They both stopped stark-still, and finally slunk away under her gaze. “She doesn’t get it,” Tyler concluded decisively, nodding at Alistair as they both sat beside the fire.
“I get that you’re an idiot.”
“You’re the idiot…”
“You want to fight, Ty? I’ll give you a real fight.”
“Oh, everybody just shut the hell up and sit down,” Holt sighed, plopping down where he was, “I demand ghost stories. Rynn, what d’ya got?”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn glanced around the niche as they began the operation of putting together a fire, the beginning sparks of which illuminated every piece of gang graffiti and trash that had collected within the alley. It was hard to imagine pretty Antha Mayfair in a place like this. Nonetheless, he kicked a plastic crate over into formation just like everyone else. His legs poked out like a scare-crow's limbs as he hunched over his set, picked up a long twig, and began to poke restlessly at the fire until it finally crackled into life, casting flickering, mask-like shadows across the faces of his companions.
“Ghost stories, huh?” he said, quietly, almost to himself. Little did they know that they had hit the jackpot. He thought about it for a moment—almost unconsciously, his eyes slid across the circle’s to meet Alistair’s, doubtfully. Then, just as quickly, they slid away again, and Rynn tossed his stick into the fire.
“It’s not a story, per se—at least, it’s not in the right format, because I don’t know how to explain all of it to someone who wasn’t there. And it’s not very scary, but it’s true.”
Well, how to start? Rynn had never gotten into a habit of telling stories; he’d never had an audience.
“Behind the house where I grew up, there was an old maze.
I don’t know how many generations of my kin tended to that labyrinth, but it was long enough that, by the time I was born, the hedges had already grown to twice a man’s height. And ever since I could remember, late into the night…the maze ’talked’. It wasn’t always talking—sometimes it was moaning, or singing, or wordless sobbing. We had ghosts in the house already, I figured, but not like this. The house ghosts were…friendly, in a way. You’d hear them pacing through the halls at night, like sentinels on their rounds, or catch glimpses of them turning corners, or hear their voices and the echoes of long-ago parties from empty rooms. They were as common as—as seeing dust motes.”
His eyes seemed to catch some of the reflected sparks from the fire, and for a moment, gold flecks glowed within them like embers. “The maze was a different story. Even in broad daylight, when the sun was directly overhead, it was always cold, and dark. On more than one occasion, I found small birds or rabbits strangled in its thorns, pierced through the throat like a shrike’s victim. And although we had all wandered the gardens as children, the maze was the one place that none of us could learn by heart. At least…not then.”
Rynn hesitated, searching the ring of rapt faces for some reaction as the bonfire grew. His story-telling was…clumsy at best, he knew. He’d never thought he’d have a need to exercise the talent.
“Even though I didn’t understand it, when I was young, I knew that there was something wrong with the maze. My brothers told me that nothing within it would harm me, though—because I was family, I was of the blood. But even they wouldn’t go in there after sundown, you know? So I knew something was up, even if nobody would talk to me about it.” Rynn’s shoulders had begun to relax as he talked, and his manner altogether was slowly shifting, becoming less formal. All they needed was a pack of beer to divide amongst themselves, and it would have been a perfect setting to begin a horror movie with.
“I guess I must have been about…twelve, maybe?…when I actually worked up the balls to go in there after dark. Which probably sounds totally stupid, after what I just told you, but—“ Rynn gave a half-grimace, spreading his hands. “I was twelve.”

“Anyways, Liesse was supposed to stand outside the maze, holding this ball of yarn that we’d unraveled a whole sweater to make, and I’d hang on to one end and follow it to the entrance if I needed to get out. Even then, I knew how things shifted around in there. But I went further and further into the maze, and nothing happened. I was beginning to grow confident, until I thought: the yarn never went taut, and I never stumbled across my own trail. I’d been walking for maybe forty-five minutes, so that made me feel a little freaked out…but when I turned around, that’s when things started getting odd. It was the most uncanny feeling in the world, like someone standing right behind you, taking great pains not to touch you or make a sound, but you can still feel their breath on the back of your neck. Everything else in the maze was quiet--no crickets, no wind, no singing, no talking. So the fact that there was an echo to every step I took--on grass--that stood out. I was terrified, but I kept walking as if I hadn’t noticed—that was the only way I could keep my nerve. I remember thinking that something, whatever it was, was following me out.
Liesse told me later that I’d been in the maze for about ten minutes before her end of the rope went slack, and she went to get help. I don’t know what would have happened if I had tried it alone." That was a lie, but it was also a story for another time. "The yarn never went out—somehow, my oldest brother found me before that happened.” A smile twitched at the corner of Rynn’s mouth. Liesse had apparently woken up the entire household in tears, bawling that Rynn had been eaten by the maze and shaking even Cian from his bed to demand that he contribute to the rescue attempt. It had been one of her rather more valiant moments at the time.
“He’d never tell me what he saw behind me in the maze. Hell, I might have chalked the whole thing up to a bad sleepwalking experience—except that the next day, looking out into the back garden, I saw something roll out of its entrance. It was the yarn; wound into a ball, exactly as we had done, and none of it cut or snared or snagged—nothing that would have explained why it had gone slack last night, and nothing to explain why it was returned now, in perfect condition. Afterwards, I petitioned that we burn the whole damn thing down, but…” He sighed. “My brothers protested. The hedge-maze was planted atop our family vaults, where our dead had been buried for generations. Mazes are a…symbol, to our family, of the journey into the afterlife, a passage to and from the realm of the dead. It was no wonder that the dead objected to us tramping around in there like children—but we were their children, and so we escaped the punishment that trespassers might ordinarily face.”
Rynn spread his hands, and let them drop. “It’s not a particularly exciting tale, I know. I should have thrown at least one headless horse-man in, shouldn’t I?” He sighed deeply. “I was really considering it. But you all should be grateful.” With a childishly sly grin, Rynn went on, “I left the bar low so that the rest of you wouldn’t be intimidated. Who’s next? Alistair’s sure to put us all to shame, so I’d advise you all to get your best shots in before he does.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

The teenagers were at least courteous in listening to Rynn’s story (which is more than could usually be said for their kind), passing the bottle of rum around until it was nearly tapped. They were quiet for another moment when he finished, thoughtfully, until finally Gretchen sighed and said, flatly, “You live in the Mayfair house, and you chose a story about…haunted shrubs?”
Stretched out on the ground beside her, propped up on his elbows, Holt gave an irritated tsk. “It was a maze, Gret-chen. Listen before you criticize.”
“It had a poetry to it,” Sid weighed in after a moment, thoughtfully tilting his head, “Mazes and children and burial vaults. Quiet horror.”
“We’re in a sketchy harbor around a fire, no one signed on for poetry here.”
Quietly, with a little half-cocked smile to his lips and twinkling eyes, Alistair purred, “Let’s see one of you do any better.”
They tried, he would give them that. He would even commend them for knocking the usual campfire fare up a few bloody, hatchet-wielding notches. But by the time Holt, hunched over his knees with his face close enough to the fire to cast flickering shadows over his features, concluded with, “---but when he went to open the door…there was a bloody hook stuck on the door handle!” he was struggling not to laugh. It was one thing that he had heard the stories a thousand other times, but he had seen things far more terrifying on a regular basis. And they were all so intent on their stories, so serious about their old tales.
“What about you?” Sid finally asked, gaze settling quietly on Alistair. He himself had told an Edgar Allen Poe story, assuming quite rightly that only a couple of them had ever read it before.
“I don’t know,” Holt purred, teasingly, “Rynn hyped your talent for horror up too high, we’re bound to be let down.”
Alistair just smirked---he knew he was being goaded, but had no reason to second-guess himself. “Alright,” he said finally, nodding, “Settle in, this is going to be a long one. But someone take him first.” He motioned to Tyler, passed out with his head in the boy’s lap, and Holt obediently took custody of him, dragging him onto the pavement. When he was removed, Alistair shifted, pulling his legs up beneath him until he was crouched in front of the fire, arms folded on his knees, glancing around at all of the rapt faces with serious eyes. And then, unexpectedly, his head tilted and he was looking up at the black sky, prickled with sparse little dots of light. He waited until their gazes had followed his before beginning, quietly, like a secret. “Once upon a time, there was an airship that haunted the skies.”
“An airship?” Gretchen echoed dubiously, looking back down at him, “You mean a zeppelin?”
“No interrupting,” he snapped, sharply and with enough threatening authority that she momentarily blanched. “Now…on this ghost of the skies, old and rusted and rotting, there lived a group of children.” He was looking down again, looking at each of them through the flames with sharp, darkened eyes until they looked back at him, and they all shrunk back almost imperceptibly under the force of that gaze.
No one could ever accuse Alistair of not knowing the craft of telling a story. He gave them precisely enough details for the story to make sense without it being perfectly logical, which made it particularly creepy. He told them of the hierarchy, the ghosts---though in his story, they were the ghosts of the adults who had perished on the airship---and the madness that spilled across the children like waves on the shore. He told them about the deformed imps, with no explanation as for what they were of where they came from, simply that they existed, and then launched into a long and complex narrative about the various activities of the demented children. He covered the system of games demanding tribute, how each child tried to sabotage the other, and the punishments for failing to complete the task---the onion sack, the rubbish room, the fish tank, and all of the various punishments that Antha and Nicolae had dreamed up, each one crueler and more bizarre than the last. Not that he gave names or claimed any stake in the story as Rynn had, judging it not only unwise but as lending a foothold for skepticism.
“After an eternity in the skies, the little girl finally felt ground beneath her feet,” he whispered, low and lilting, “Felt it but couldn’t see it, couldn’t touch it, bound and blindfolded. But it could no longer give her hope. It wasn’t the airship doing these terrible things anymore, they were free of it, it was them. She could hear the other children whispering, chanting, that old familiar rhyme she had whispered herself, and she could hear the scrape of shovels in the dirt growing closer, closer…and just when all went quiet and she thought herself alone, when she thought they might have come to their senses---” Abruptly, he slammed his hand down on the ground and the entire circle jumped, eyes wide. “---a hand slammed into her back and she felt herself stumbling, falling, crashing into splintering wood. The other children sang again as she started screaming, drowned out by the patter of dirt falling on the lid of her coffin until, finally, she heard nothing. All was still, and she knew in that moment that this wasn’t merely a punishment. They would never, ever come to dig her out. She would die alone, bound, in a dark, silent little box in the ground.”
Slowly, silently, Alistair sat back down, folding his hands in his lap, before all of a sudden a curious expression overtook his face and he asked, as casually as ever, “Holt…where did you get that cat?”
The boy, eyes still wide, clamped his arms tight around the filthy, wriggling creature, blurting in a helpless whine, “It passed by and I needed something cuddly to make the world feel alright again!”
Nodding, an expression on her face like she didn’t know what to feel, Gretchen agreed lowly, “Goddamn, dude…”
“You might be mentally disturbed,” Sid murmured, intently looking at the fire and not anyone else or any of the dark places around them, “At least as much as Poe.”
“If we wait here,” Holt began, mind working fretfully, “And we keep the fire going, it’ll be dawn in a few hours. We just have to wait out the darkness.”
Giving a little silent laugh to himself, Alistair murmured, “Chickens.”
“That was unbearably creepy!”
“Who was it that challenged me?” Alistair purred, chin in his palm, eyes gleaming, and Holt paled, realizing his mistake. “Anyways, I’m not bunkering down here until dawn. And these two---” he gestured at Tyler and Allen, both passed out, “Are already done for. And Sid’s not far behind.”
‘I’m fine,” the boy protested, but was somewhat undermined by the following yawn.
“Well you can’t leave us,” Holt countered, “And we can’t go back to the dorms until daylight or we’ll get in trouble for being out after curfew. And even if we could…I’m not lugging that British lug all the way back to our room and tucking him in. I’d sooner leave him here for the sailors to find.”
“I’ll sleep in Sid’s car, I don’t care,” Gretchen yawned, scratching tiredly at her neck, “But I’m going to pass out soon. You can’t stop me.”
Alistair sighed, briefly lost in thought, before casting Rynn a brief, apologetic glance. “Alright,” he murmured, hoisting himself to his feet, “Come on, you can crash at our place. I’ll get the car, you guys put out the fire.”
“I’ll put it out when I see headlights!” Holt whined after him as the boy vanished into the darkness, “********, how many parts of him are obviously made out of steel?”
“He’s not a pansy like you,” Gretchen scoffed, rising unsteadily to her feet and stretching before taking up one of the boxes they hadn’t gotten around to burning, “It’s just a story.”
“Literally the creepiest ******** thing I’ve ever heard in my ******** life,” he argued, releasing the anxious tray cat and idly trying to rouse Tyler (who was not having it, clinging fervently to sleep with the drowsy kick of his feet in Holt’s direction).
“And yet still just a story,” Gretchen repeated, dipping the box carefully into the shallow river water and then hurrying it over to the fire, dropping the entire thing on top of it. “Jesus---Ty, get the ******** up or I will kick you in your unmentionables.”
“Oh, give him a break,” Holt sighed, relenting and sitting back down beside him, a hand laid across his back, “He’s full of alcohol, we’re not getting him up.”
Gretchen just scoffed, grumbling as she took up the empty rum bottle and hurled it as far into the river as she could. Alistair pulled up at about then, leaving the headlights on as he climbed out. “Sid, you’ve got a car, can you get sleeping beauty?”
“Yeah, yeah, we got him,” Holt sighed, hoisting Tyler to his feet with Sid’s help and half-dragging him towards Sid’s car, Allen shuffling sleepily after them.
“Good. Follow us.”
“I’m riding with you,” Gretchen declared, dropping one last wet box over the smoldering embers and then dashing after Alistair, following after him and Rynn into Antha’s car, diving into the backseat and slamming the door shut before Holt could even dream of joining them. “So this sister of yours…” she murmured thoughtfully while they waited for the boys to get Tyler loaded in Sid’s car, perched on the edge of her seat with her chin on the shoulder of Alistair’s seat, “I mean, she’s not seriously as hot as everyone says, right?”
Alistair chuckled, resisting the urge to tease her for being jaelous. “Haven’t you ever seen her picture in the paper?”
“Well yeah, but…I mean, some people photograph really well.”
“Evie doesn’t photograph very well at all.”
Gretchen wrinkled her nose, pouting irritably. “Damn it.” And then hurriedly added, “Because you know, Holt’s going to make a total a** of himself.”
“Well, there was no helping that.”
Gretchen grinned. “You’re not as butter and cream as I thought you would be.”
His eyebrows briefly knitted. “I…I’m not actually sure what that means.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Gaze shifting thoughtfully, she looked at Rynn and added, “And you. There’s all these rumors about how terrifying you are, but you’re actually kind of a dork.”
“Well that’s just not nice, Gretch,” Alistair said sharply, giving a little pout as he shifted the car into drive and started out of the lot.
“What? He is. He’s no worse than Ty. Not as loud, though. But then, nobody’s as loud as Ty.”
Alistair grinned. “Oh, I can’t wait for you to meet Courtland…”
“The one that got married today?” He nodded as she was jostled back into her seat, pursing her lips as she settled in. “Are you sure these people are real? I mean, I hear so many stories about them, I’m pretty sure they have to be fairytales.”
“They’d better be real. Otherwise, Rynn and I are about to have some serious problems.”
“You know, we never gossiped half as much about the socialites back in Manhattan as the people around here do about your family. There were whole websites and papers devoted to those people, but nothing as extreme as the way things are here.”
“The stories aren’t as interesting,” Alistair pointed out, glancing at her in the rearview mirror with a little sly grin.
Gretchen gave him a dubious look, crossing her arms. “This is a strange ******** city…”
“You’re drunk, just go to sleep already.”
“I’m not walking into that house unless I’m fully alert. If I fall asleep in this car, you just leave me here.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn settled with some small satisfaction after Alistair’s story was finished. To say that he took pleasure in the terrified faces around the fire was rather an understatement. After having his own story put down, he felt that the rest of them could afford to be terrified. The difference between campfire and ghost stories was that the former tended to be more ‘shock and terrify’ and the latter—if they were true—were merely unnerving.
It would have been slightly more impressive if he’d known that Alistair was making it up out of his imagination. As it was, Rynn could only smile faintly. The airship wasn’t that creepy nowadays, at least—now it was all the children who had graduated from its moaning belly that they had to worry about. “Personally, I find ghost stories rather uplifting,” he commented, after Alistair had trotted off into the darkness in search of their vehicles. “After all, it’s somewhat disappointing to think that nothing after this life exists, that our soul shuts down with our body. Ghosts are proof—if you can call them that, even though they lack the evidence to impress any scientific community—that there’s somewhere else to go.” Rynn got slowly to his feet, and nearly tipped over in the process. He hadn’t noticed it while he was seated, but those shots had started hitting him hard; the bottle of rum being passed around the circle had just added fuel to the flame.
“A'right,” he said, steadying himself with some effort. “Where’s my jacket?”
Somewhere during the course of the night, the fancy blazer which Alistair had loaned Rynn had come off, his cuffs unbuttoned, and sleeves rolled up to the elbows in concession to the heat of the fire. While he searched in the darkness, and the fire smoldered, gleaming embers shimmering like rubies under a blanket of ash, the rest of their group attempted in vain to resurrect Ty and the others. “We could always throw them in the river,” he suggested, only slightly serious. “I mean, a very shallow part of it. Just in case they start drowning.”
Luckily, the others were able to manhandle the prone bodies of their comrades over to the vehicles without having to resort to such measures. Rynn was still searching for the jacket when Alistair returned—and beginning to grow a little frantic, in truth, because he still couldn’t find it, and it wasn’t his.
Luckily, when the car pulled into view, he spotted a gleam of silken lining slung over the front passenger seat, and breathed a sigh of relief. His shoes were muddied, his shirt creased, his hair was rank with soot and his breath smelled like liquor, but at least he hadn’t lost Airi’s jacket.
Stumbling up against the car, he gave Gretchen a faintly suspicious stare as she joined them. Rynn might not have been the most socially-aware of his siblings, but even he knew there was something off about how eager she was to join them on the way home.
Settling in his seat, he twisted around in order to keep giving her a suspicious death-glare. Normally Rynn would never have displayed his reaction to someone with such brazen ire, but he was drunk and in a decidedly un-sympathetic state of mind after she called him a dork. Sitting up, as stiffly as he could while as inebriated as he was, Rynn turned about to face the road. “Never claimed to be ‘terrifying’, sweetheart.” he said, flatly enunciating the sweetheart just to emphasize its falseness. “Though I’d like to know where you heard that from. We’ve barely been in school for a day and already we’ve started rumors, it seems.” He glanced toward Alistair with a humorless chuckle. Reckless, yes. He could see that. A little bit intense? Maybe. But terrifying? It made Rynn want to laugh.
“If we were fairy tales, we’d all have happier endings,” he commented, upon Gretchen’s next tangent. “Mayfairs don’t get to ride off into the sunset with their one true love.”
Then, twisting around, he added, “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, anyways. Doubtless, gossip-mongering is a very amusing past-time, but most of it seems grossly inaccurate.” Returning his eyes to the windshield, the starry chrysanthemum field of the city lights faded into the rear-view mirror behind them. “Isn't it commonly said that truth is stranger than fiction, anyways?”

They pulled into a drive at a little after three; the witching hour. It was the most active hour of the ghosts—Rynn was half-inclined to wish that he could summon one forth, just to give the girl—Gretchen?—a real story to remember.
Almost all the lights of the Mayfair manor had dimmed; the front parlor’s were still lit, perhaps inhabited by the vampires that Rynn had seen earlier. No matter. Lugging himself out of the front seat, he began the long walk across the drive and up to the porch. Then, having a sudden thought, he whirled around and stage-whispered across the lawn: “AIRI! Should we head in the back?”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Inwardly, Alistair sighed. It showed on the expression in his face, the sidelong glance he shot Rynn, the whisper floating from his mind to Rynn’s---She was saying that she likes you. She was trying to be friends. Granted, it could be a little hard to tell with Gretchen.
But it was too late now. He could see it in her eyes, the way she looked at Rynn like she would dearly like to physically strike him. Instead she said, sharply and with infinite disdain, “You never had to. The entire city’s calling you some occultist murderer, sweetheart.”
“Gretch!” Alistair exclaimed, distressed. Everyone had done such a good job of not mentioning that, for the most part…
But she continued without pausing. “Hell, maybe it’s true. If it’s not, maybe they just say it because you’re such a rude little ********. I know I suddenly don’t care who trashes you.”
“Alright, enough,” Alistair said sharply, turning the car with enough force to jar the both of them and squealing to a stop on the curb, throwing it into park and throwing it into park. “You were careless with your words,” he stated, swiftly and forcefully, like a scolding parent, pointing at Gretchen before he turned to Rynn in the same manner, “You grossly overreacted. Now you’ve both got your feelings hurt over nothing and you’re acting like children, shut up and get over it.”
Gretchen scowled for another moment, eyes flashing, but eventually caved, sitting back in her seat with arms crossed. “Alright, fine. I guess you have a point. But if he mocks me again---”
“Gretchen. ”
She clamped her mouth shut, sulking, more upset about Alistair realizing her feelings were hurt than anything, just as a tap sounded at Alistair’s window. “Car trouble?” Holt asked, grinning as he brandished a wrench.
“Where’d you get a wrench?”
“It was in Sid’s glovebox. I didn’t want to ask questions. Gretch, scoot, I’m getting in.”
“The hell you are!” she hissed, seizing the door handle and holding it shut, “You’re going to get all in my space.”
“You can either share this backseat with me or go get in Sid’s car with Ty blacked out all over you.” The girl wrinkled her nose but finally relented, releasing the handle and hopping over to the other side. Holt grinned as he climbed in, purring tauntingly, “You know you would have loved it.”
“I am so close to punching someone right now, you have no idea.”
All Alistair could do finally was sigh, defeated, and pull back onto the street with Sid following him, listening to the two bicker all the way back to Mayfair Manor. The night had come to close to ending well…
When they pulled into the driveway, the others spent several moments standing very still beside the cars, staring up at the house uncertainly. Alistair, elbowing Gretchen in particular for her usual skepticism, pointed out teasingly, “It’s just a house.”
“Shut up, I know.”
“Then come on.” He grabbed Rynn’s hand as he passed, pulling him the rest of the way up to the front door and into the hall, making gestures for everyone to be quiet and follow him into the parlor. They did so slowly, eyes roving the darkened halls---they were in the belly of the beast now, the epicenter of most of the city’s tales of horror. “I’ll be right back,” he murmured, and pausing to look at Rynn added sternly, “Don’t pick any fights.” He returned moments later with mounds of blankets in his arms, plopping them down in the middle of the floor and then helping set up pallets on the carpet. They managed to get Tyler on one of the couches and let Gretchen have the other---sometimes she didn’t mind exploiting the fact that she was a girl---and then promptly all passed out, their shoes kicked off into the floor.
Alistair gave a sigh of relief, flicking off the lights and nodding for Rynn to follow him into the kitchen where he set about making tea. “You,” he began, leaning over the counter towards Rynn with an amused grin to his lips, “Really don’t have any social skills to speak of. This being the case, I should warn you that usually when you call a girl ‘sweetheart,’ she will physically hurt you. And so will all the others in hearing distance.” Flicking off the electric kettle, he poured two glasses of lavender tea and pushed one towards Rynn, affecting a more serious disposition as he did so. “But really, why the overreaction? You already knew there were terrible rumors about you, and you were the fifth person she called a dork tonight. She called me one at least three times.” Sighing, he leaned his forehead against his, purring teasingly, “You can’t pick a fight with everyone who teases you, you’ll be bickering every moment of the rest of your life.”