Mayfair Manor

[Okimiyage]

Cian struggled not to laugh, when she stuffed his mouth with bread, but after a few moments of industrious chewing he managed to swallow the toast, and grew somber again. “You know, you’re the bossiest woman I ever met.” he answered, with a half smile. “I have to worry. I married you, I love you, and the idea that I can’t protect you…seems pretty intolerable, at times.” He looked down at the plate between them. His fingers folded around the handle of the fork, twiddling it back and forth between his knuckles like a coin. “I know this is set in stone. I’ve been trying to prepare for it. I didn’t think it would be so difficult to manage my feelings about it, when the time came.” Clearing his throat, he stabbed a piece of french toast on the prongs of the fork and raised it to his lips. “I should just appreciate these moments that I have left with you, I know. But it shook me, hearing you talk to Rynn about the end like that.” Taking a bite, he chewed in silence for a few moments. Then, swallowing, he asked, “Antha…why did you choose Rynn? I don’t know if I’ll understand the reason, but I have to ask. He hasn’t been exactly…on your side, before.” That was putting it lightly. “I would have thought Airi, or Nicolae, or someone like that would have been your first choice. I mean, I love Rynn, but he can be…capricious, and this is an enormous responsibility. Especially because he’s—something of a unit with Airi, these days. And Airi…” Thinking of it, he couldn’t help but smile; a sad kind of smile, one that he quickly tried to cover up with a jovial tone and a broad grin. “You saw his face, right? When Rynn stepped into the bathroom. Did he get that from you, that protectiveness? Does it just run in the family? Am I going to have to stop Sebastian and Vanessa from trying to implode politicians in their sleep to protect the entire damn city?” He was trying to make a joke, but it was a half-serious question. Cian wasn’t exactly a great role model. If Sebastien and Vanessa decided to take a stand against the corruption that was rife within Osiris’s various labyrinthine bureaucracies, he had a feeling he’d only be able to applaud. It wasn’t a hydra he’d ever had interest in challenging, for certain.

Rynn stood as well, following Alistair to the coffee-maker and taking down a cup of his own. For a moment, they were both quiet; there was nothing but the sound of liquid pouring into their cups, the clink of silverware against ceramics as Rynn stirred a cube of sugar into his, and the open and close of the refrigerator door as he returned the creamer to its place. He leaned his hips back into the counter, and raised his mug to his lips. “I think you should. After last night, Alistair, Magnus would have to be a blind imbecile not to know that something weird is going on in this house. And while his English may not be perfect, he’s not an idiot. He’s most likely figured it out already. If he so much as dropped your family’s name at the hotel bar, he’s heard the stories. They don't tell them around your crowd, but Cian brought plenty of them home--how do you think I even knew Antha existed? I honestly don’t know why she was so desperate to hide it from him. He worships her; he’d worship her if she was a cannibal leading a murder cult, probably. And finding out what’s going to happen to her will probably come as quite a shock to him. Knowing that you’re still here…” he sipped his coffee, quietly, imagining what Magnus’s reaction would be. “It’ll probably be a relief, if you think about it. Like he’ll still have a part of her. You were there, inside her, for all the time that they were together. You have her memories of him, even if it’s not in a body he’s familiar with.” His eyes twinkled mischievously over the rim of his cup. “You could always perform the ‘lamb dance’ if he needs convincing. I have to admit, I’m pretty curious, myself.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Unusually, Antha’s face took on a look of alarm, blurting immediately, “What have you heard? It’s not true, they can’t prove it. And Courtland doesn’t know anything, he was on like five different drugs and a bottle of scotch---” She shut her mouth abruptly, narrowing her eyes at Cian’s face. “…oh, you were making a joke, weren’t you? Nevermind.” Turning her gaze back on the plate, she set about busily chasing down the dark, watery little specks of caviar. “It has to be Rynn. The only others powerful enough, with compatible magic, are Airi and Nicolae. But Airi is connected to me, we’re a singular being in two pieces, he physically can’t sacrifice me. And Nicolae…Nicolae just refuses to do it. I’ve tried, but he’d rather see the world in flames than have any part in my death. Courtland would be next on the list, but his magic isn’t compatible, it’s life and whimsy and warmth. We need cold, darkness…death. Rynn is the only option I can even remotely trust, he’s powerful enough, his magic is compatible, and he has the stomach for it. It’s…not easy. Even if he’s not the one killing me, to hold the last spark of someone’s lifeforce in your hands and throw it into a spell until it’s extinguished isn’t an easy thing. Not that it’s an excuse for Nicolae---” There was a brief flash of bitterness in her voice that betrayed years of arguing they’d done on the subject. “But I wish I didn’t have to put that on Rynn.”
Finally, she sighed very deeply, irritably chewing a piece of French toast, and changed the subject. “Don’t blame me for Airi’s romantic tendencies. He gets it from Julien, and Julien gets it from his great-grandfather, James. It goes back to Petyr Van Abel, the founding of the family, and there’s always at least one in every generation. Nicolae and Courtland have it as well, and it’s a safe bet that at least one of our children will, it’s always strongest in our direct line.” Giving a sudden start, she mused, “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if Dorian inherited it as well, given everything that’s happened lately.” But she shook her head, acknowledging that it was impossible to tell, with that one. “When they fall in love, it’s immediate, and they fall so impossibly hard. I don’t think Rynn actually knows what he’s gotten himself into, it’s secretly a commitment for life.” But she shrugged, as if it was too bad. “Too late now. But god help you if Bash has it, with his power and what we know of his personality---that is, that he’ll take after me. I several times actually heard Uncle Michael thank god that I didn’t inherit it, he seemed to think I would destroy the world or something.” Another shrug. “He’s probably not wrong. Luckily, Airi has a much less volatile personality. Assuming that Rynn can ever tear himself away, which I doubt.” It was the smile…she couldn’t even begin to imagine the monster who could resist that smile.
“But that’s a completely different issue from killing politicians and protecting the city. That’s just keeping the balance of power in our favor. And, honestly, the simple fact that we can. Or a god complex, whatever you want to call it. You may as well expect it from Sebastien, we know he’s going to take my place ruling the city, so there’s no way around it. Vanessa…probably not, she doesn’t seem to take after me like Bash does. I don’t know what the hell is up with Ciel, he could be the most Machiavellian of all of us or the most harmless, you’ll have to tell me how that one turns out.” She smiled, making a joke of it in an attempt to hide the horrendous stab in her heart at the thought that she would never know her own son, her youngest child, not even a little.
“It’s not the end, love,” she whispered finally, setting her fork down with a small clink, and taking his face in her hands, “Not really. A body is just…flesh. As long as Airi is alive, I’ll still be Antha Evelyn Mayfair, I’ll still be out there somewhere. And my blood will survive in our children, and everything it carries with it. Part of me will always be here, Cian.” Her lips brushed his softly, her fingertips sifting back through his hair. “You know, it’s utterly inappropriate and there’s the bruises and all, but I think it’s absolutely crucial that you ravish me right now.”

Alistair sighed, slumping with his head tilted to the side. “He probably would still love her is she led a cannibal cult, but not without consequence. He’d be disappointed in her, and that’s really the point. You’ve…never had anyone close to you who judged you solely on yourself, have you Rynn? Someone who didn’t know anything about your powers, your family legacy, all of your terrible deeds in the name of magic?” Ambling around the counter, he retook his seat and patted the chair next to him for Rynn to join him. “Imagine being Evie. Imagine being so powerful that it’s all most people see, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of you. Imagine the stress of running this entire messed up city from the shadows, and this huge and even more messed up family in plain sight. Magnus used to be a safe harbor in all of that. He saw her without the shadow of her power and her actions hanging over her.” His fingers raked back through his hair---his locks caught the early morning light, giving fiery glints and settling back in gorgeous disarray. It was difficult to believe sometimes that he didn’t do these things on purpose. “It’s difficult to give that up. Once he knows, he’ll never look at her the same. Or me, for that matter but…well, I’ll be making the leap from ‘childhood imaginary friend’ to ‘ghost of dead infant brother reanimated into walking abomination.’” Like his sister, he smiled thinly to divert from the ugly truth of his own words. “Accepting magic is one thing, Rynn,” he whispered, folding his hands at his chin, “But I’m something else entirely. And even though he knew me, he thought I wasn’t real. Imagine if…if the Easter Bunny just popped up in front of you. Maybe you wouldn’t be afraid---though you should, because a giant bunny that wears ribbons and hides eggs is terrifying---but would you even know how to handle it.”
Finally, he shook his head, giving in to the fact that he wasn’t prepared in the slightest. But, leaning over very close, he whispered in Rynn’s ear in an oddly sultry tone, “And you’ll see the lamb dance over my cold, dead corpse.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn was reluctant to admit it, but finally he sighed and said, “No, you’re right. Except for perhaps our schoolmates…and I wouldn’t count them as really ‘knowing’ me, in any case. But I understand what it’s like to not want to disappoint someone, to live up to the idea of me that they have instead of who I really am.” He didn’t say it, but it was clear enough that he was thinking of Liesse. As vindictive and cruel as he had been, in his younger years, she had always looked up to him like—like a dog looked up to its master, perhaps. Dogs might not understand good or evil, but they had an astonishing grasp on the concept of love.
“It’s…exhausting, honestly. Even if you’re doing it for someone else—especially if you’re doing it for someone else, because then there’s always a fear hanging over you that they’ll somehow be able to see through the act. If you hadn’t been in Antha’s head that whole time, watching over her shoulder…” He shook his head, crossed to the table, and sat down, his back to Alistair. He didn’t know if he would have been able to be honest with Airi, about everything that Rynn had done and everything he’d put his sister through, if he hadn’t already known. “Like it or not, whether you’re proud or ashamed of what you’ve done in the past, our actions define us. It’s one thing to own up to the mistakes you’ve made and say, ‘I regret it’, but it’s another to pretend it didn’t happen. And you can’t keep it up forever. Hell, we barely kept it up for two days.” He took a sip of his coffee, then glanced over his shoulder and wrinkled his nose with a cheeky smile at Alistair. “We should have taken bets on how long the act could last. I’d be walking off with a mountain of cash right now.”
He turned his chair then, so that he sat in profile, and put his cup into his lap, cradling it in both hands. It was partially because he didn’t feel right sitting with his back to Alistair, partially because he wanted to keep an eye on his expression.
“But…I think, if I were Magnus, I’d want to know the truth. Sooner rather than later, because…if he loves her, he’d understand why she tried to pretend that she was still the same, for his sake. But the worst disappointment, with…what’s coming next…would be for her to go without him ever getting to really know her as an adult, because she was too afraid of disappointing him. He’s been waiting for years to see her again. Surely she owes him that much.” Besides, it wasn’t like Antha had to tell him everything, unless the man had a few weeks to spare. The Adventures of Antha Mayfair was a series that could have filled a small library. But while Magnus might have been a keen audience, Rynn somehow suspected that they did not have that time left to them.

Cian needed no invitation; his fingers had already begun to trace the milky curves of Antha’s skin when she made the suggestion, carefully circumnavigating the dark bruises that marred her. He was not rough, but there was a sense of urgency to their love-making, this time, acutely aware that this might be the last time he held her, and it was a miracle of sound-proofing that their mingled voices did not awake the rest of the house. For all that, he took his time, and the sun was high in the morning ascent when they were done, the sheen of sweat making both of their bodies luminescent. He held her for a while after that, stroking her hair until their breathing steadied, and fell in sync. They normally talked at this point, made plans for the day, spoke lightly of the future, but for once, Cian was quiet. He did not wish to touch upon the pseudo-morbidity of the conversation he had begun, before, but could think of little else. Every movement, every sigh of contentment that she made, only reminded him of the transience of this time together. At last he sat up, swung his legs off the bed, and went to the window, shifting aside the curtains to peer out upon the grounds. The sky was a blank slate of robin’s-egg blue, smudges of dark storm clouds marring the horizon in the distance. “It’ll rain today,” he said, with a witch’s certainty, although for now the light that splayed from the window-panes made a renaissance painting out of the curves of his ribs and the muscles of his torso and back. “But we should make use of what time we have. Would you want to take the children out? We could ask Jacob to rustle up some strollers, go for a walk in the park if you’d like. It would be good to get out of the house.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha struggled to get her arms through a sweater, eager to veil the bruise that stretched from the top of her arm to the base of her neck and the deep teeth marks embedded at the heart of it. (Her memory flared with the feel of sharp teeth sunk into her skin, the blood gushing around them, her fingers clutched in thick, coarse fur.) The other bruises were still visible, just barely beginning to yellow, but none so prominent. Had she been anyone else, her shoulder would have been disabled permanently. “And a wheelchair for me?” she asked with a hint of amusement, casting him a sidelong glance, “Oh, the things that people would say! You’d be painted as a drunken brute by teatime.” Laying back again, she settled comfortably against the pillows and continued softly but seriously, “We have time, Cian. I won’t lie, it’s not much, but…we have some days yet, darling. There’s no need to panic just yet.” Gently, the floor to ceiling windows covering the wall cracked open and all parted onto the yard, the cool breeze rushing in and stirring everything from the curtains to Antha’s curls to the pearls hanging from the vanity mirror. “We don’t get a lot of time like this, cheri. Peaceful, quiet…everyone sleeping off last night, too focused on the new, raging werewolf to bother with us.” She reached her arm out across the bed beside her, more command than suggestion, a pout crossing her lips. “I’m injured. Coddle me, damn it.”
When she’d coaxed him back onto the bed, unabashedly snuggling herself up in his arms, she was silent for several contented minutes before beginning softly, “Did I ever tell you about the time I locked myself in my room for three weeks?” A self-derisive laugh fell from her lips, feather-light. “It was after the Nicolae…thing. I was living in the room above the garage then, the one Malakai’s in now. I don’t think you’ve ever been up there, but it’s all by itself at the top of this narrow flight of stairs, and it only has those half-length windows, just a few of them. I loved it. I was fourteen and all I wanted was not to be here, not to be anywhere around Julien, not to have adults ‘taking care of me,’ or older cousins trying to tell me what to do. Well, one night, after I’d gotten completely blackout drunk and taken god knows how many pills with Courtland and Jack and Dorian and gotten chased out of the club by the cops for starting a fire, I was completely convinced that I’d figured out the meaning of life---there was none. I believe my exact phrasing of the philosophy was ‘******** it.’ Oh, it was such a pure nihilism. So I hoarded up about ten grand worth of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes and locked myself in my room for three weeks. I had…some idea of what I was doing at the time, or at least I thought I did. I spent all my time chain-smoking and cutting words out of classic novels in the dark while I listened to Nine Inch Nails. I nailed them all up too, in these nonsense sentences on the wall. And then Courtland and I stole a skill saw from one of the neighbors and cut the whole section of the wall out. Oh god, Julien was so furious.” A maliciously sweet laugh trickled from her lips at that. “Courtland was the only person I let in even once for those three weeks. He’d come scratching at my door, so drunk he couldn’t walk, and rhapsodize about Jack---beautiful, marvelous, cruel, horrible Jack, who wouldn’t admit that he wanted him to ******** him. It was terrible. I mean there I was, so religiously convinced that everything was meaningless, and there he was crying and whining and caring so goddamn much about things, feeling so much. I couldn’t convert him at all.” She didn’t mention, in the following moments of amused silence, that he’d come to use her as a substitute. It was the hair, he said, she and Jack had that same gorgeous shade of red hair, and he just wanted to pretend for a little while. Pierce wasn’t good enough, his hair was ruddy, auburn, and his back was sprinkled with freckles, nothing like Jack. Antha’d never pointed out the obvious tragedy that Pierce was in love with him, and Courtland had never noticed, he was too wrapped up in his own hopeless love. “Those people are parents now, or about to be,” she murmured, with something between wonder and amusement at the horror of it, “Me, Courtland, Jack, Dorian, Pierce…we were those people not five years ago, and we have tiny lives depending on us now. It feels like…like being a different person. Like I don’t even know that girl anymore.”
You’re such a grim little thing, she remembered Courtland saying to her at the time, in a rare moment of lucidity, sitting naked on the edge of the bed with his wrists on his knees, in a haze of smoke from the cigarette in his fingers. Heaven help me, I made you. He’d grinned then, cunningly and regretfully all at once, like his extra four years gave him all the wisdom in the world that she yet lacked. No matter what you break, Evie, it’ll remake itself. Nothing is ever gone, it just changes.
Somehow, Courtland usually ended up being right.
“Tragically, I think I understand him now,” she whispered into Cian’s shirt, her eyes distant and full of regret, “Courtland at eighteen. He made me. He saved me from myself, but it twisted me all up into something terrible. I never blamed him, but he blamed himself enough for the both of us. Is that what I’m going to do to you? Twist you up so much with grief that you’re something new, something ruined?” And what would that leave their children? No mother and whatever scraps of their father that she hadn’t destroyed? “I was weak. You have to do better than me, Cian.”

Alistair listened quietly for several minutes, his head tilting slightly to the side, that usual smile on his lips occasionally flashing strained. Finally, rising gracefully to his feet, he went over and slammed his hands down on the back of Rynn’s chair, his arms trapping him on either side. It was a violent gesture, but there was no sense of anger coming from Airi, he hadn’t even gone black.
Slowly, painstakingly stressing his point, he whispered, “I’m. Not. Antha.” For however much they shared, and regardless of the seam where they’d once been joined as a single being, Alistair was Alistair, and Antha was Antha. “I do, occasionally, have my own concerns.” Antha’s relationship with Magnus was her concern, and Alistair’s relationship with him was his. “And I need you to sometimes be able to tell the difference.” To be able to prioritize Airi’s concerns over Antha’s, to tell know that they were not always the same, but he didn’t say that directly. In was in that flash in his eyes, the sad strain that flitted across his lips.
One more time, leaning close to whisper in his ear, Airi reiterated, “I’m not just another side of Antha.”
“Poor little lamb,” Courtland cooed sympathetically from the doorway, closing his teeth ruminatively on the mouthpiece of an old pipe he’d long since salvaged from the attic and often used for drugs. “You really did get a raw deal, didn’t you? How often we utterly forget the part of you that’s the same as Antha, that knows what she knows and bears a power on her level. And yet how quickly we all forget that you’re your own person. The absolute worst of both worlds.”
“Court,” the boy sighed, rolling his eyes at his cousin, “I’ve had quite enough of you being right for today, thanks.”
His eyebrows shot up with interest. “I was right? When was I right?”
“Years and years ago, it doesn’t even matter anymore. Do you mind?”
Courtland waved his hands, dismissing the entire situation. “Ah well. If you see Jackie running around, will you remind him that the blue pills have gone off and if he’s taken more than three, he should purge them immediately?”
When he had ambled off, Airi gave a sigh to himself. “Why is it impossible to have a quarrel with the person you’re trying to quarrel with in this house? They’re all conflict leeches, I swear.” He turned back to Rynn, a new glimmer of weariness in his eyes as he repeated a final time, “I’m not Antha, Rynn. Let Cian worry about her problems, I need you to worry about mine.” It was quite possibly the only thing in the world he really, honestly needed. Everyone else could forget, they could brush his problems aside in favor of Antha’s, but not Rynn. It was the one thing he couldn’t allow, because Rynn was the one thing that was his.  

[Okimiyage]

It was the first time that Airi had come close to scaring Rynn. It was apparent in his eyes, however quickly it vanished, however quickly they narrowed, darkened, and became opaque. His heart was beating high and hard in his chest; it wasn’t so long ago that they’d been in this same position, except Rynn’s wrists had been pinned to the mattress of Alistair’s bed. But there was a difference between fear and arousal that Rynn was acutely aware of. And he hated having his words misinterpreted.
“I know you’re not her.” he said, quick enough that the sadness in his voice sounded like anger.
“I’ve never forgotten that you’re…your own person. But I know that you care for her. I know that what happens to her affects you, even if you don’t say it. That’s what bothers me; that’s why I even bring it up." His next breath came in a hiss, a quick intake of air that came out in a sigh, after a few moments.
“Am I just supposed to ignore it?”
He raised his eyes. There was something confused and pained in the way he looked up at Alistair, as though he expected the reflection in his eyes to give him an answer. But if he expected to find the right words there, he was disappointed; he’d have to make his own. They came out soft, and low—
“You’ve always been yourself. I've never doubted, that, but-- perhaps that’s why we both know what it’s like to grow up alongside a twin, someone who’s like you but not-you, always feeling that comparison, always wanting to protect them, in some ways always wanting to stay the same, to experience the same course of events, so we’ll always have someone who understands, so we’ll never be alone. But…” his voice grew stronger, slightly. “Our experiences change us along the way. Souls aren’t supposed to exist inside of a vacuum. If we did, we’d just grow up…hollow.”
His face reddened. “We’re not just ourselves, we have to remember where we came from! Who are we if we don’t care about that? Who are we without the experiences that’ve shaped us? You’ve always shared those experiences, since you were born. You’ve never had autonomy over your own life, not until this year. But now you can’t share those experiences, not like you did before. And…you shouldn’t. Be yourself. Achieve what you want, make mistakes, don’t just—“ His voice broke, and the words came out in a whisper: “Don’t hang around in someone else’s shadow. But by god, if you don’t care about her, care about yourself. Care about how it’ll feel to see someone who raised you, inside her skin, pass away without ever knowing what really happened, what he really meant to her. Can you tell me truthfully that it wouldn’t weigh on your conscience?”

After a moment, he sighed, and rubbed his open palm over his face ruefully. "I want to convince you that this matters, but maybe it doesn't, to you. Sometimes I feel like I'm just...when I'm talking, when I'm trying to prove a point, it's like I'm throwing a ball into darkness, and I can't see what I'm supposed to be throwing at, but occasionally one comes rebounding back. And it means all the world when I see it, even when it might be on a trajectory to hit me in the face, because it means that there's something out there. It's not meant to be rude, it's not that I want to hit you. I just can't fathom where to aim. But I can't stand beside that darkness for long without wanting to fling myself into it, like the feeling you get standing next to a cliff when you start to think it would be so easy to step off. L’appel du vide." His brother had used that phrase once; 'the call of the void', he'd explained it as. The appeal of nothingness. Rynn could now understand, after seeing that otherworldly sanctuary in the middle of Llyr's Court, why Aedan had such a love affair with the concept.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Alistair sighed, his intensity melting away into nothing. “Alright, settle. I hate it when you turn into an afterschool special.” His lips pressed to Rynn’s, not passionately---not even romantically, really, more as a sign of peace---before he dropped back into his seat. “I worry about Evie constantly, Rynn. I worry about her more than myself most of the time. I don’t need company in worrying about her, I need someone to worry about me, before I’m utterly forgotten even by myself.” Laying his arms across the table, he rested his chin on the backs of his hands and cast a glance at Rynn. The front door opened and footsteps sounded on the stairs, but he ignored it knowingly. “Philosophizing is always screamed into a void, Rynn. It doesn’t clear anything up, it just thickens the void.”
Another sigh crossed his lips as he propped his head up on his palm, continuing evenly, “Don’t lecture me on feelings, I’m the most self-aware person you’ll ever meet in your life. And don’t urge me to think about how Antha’s death will affect me, Rynn. It won’t destroy me, I don’t think, but it will be a very near thing. Thinking of it now…it only poisons what’s left before the dark day with no benefit to be seen.” His eyes flashed at the stairs, down which came drifting the faintest sound of voices and clattering. “And it taxes poor, deceptively perceptive Laurie so.”
Feet pounded on the stairs and in the next moment Lawrence appeared in the doorway, freezing at the sight of an audience, his pallor blanching an extra shade. He’d likely come straight to the manor from his bed, barely stopping to dress. “I---” He attempted words but immediately clamped his mouth shut again, clutching a bolt of white fabric desperately in his fingers.
Alistair made hardly any note of him, only sitting up straight in his chair and sipping his coffee, calling calmly as his cousin began to inch back towards the hall, “It won’t stop it, you know.”
Lawrence’s eyes went wide, wild, wringing the fabric desperately in bloodless knuckles. “It’ll change it. If I burn this---it’ll change.”
“Not in any way that matters.” A whisper this time. Soft, sympathetic. Alistair understood his cousin completely, he just knew better, he wasn’t grasping at straws. “You can ruin the aesthetic if you like, but it won’t change the result, Laurie. The ending never changes. It didn’t change ten years ago, you just didn’t see it until it happened, you presumed. You know the ending now…burning a dress won’t change it.”
Lawrence’s jaw clenched and he stood for several moments, pale and deeply pained, before his fingers loosened and finally, quietly, he set the fabric on the counter and turned, leaving without a word. Alistair waited for the door to close before he rose, going over and smoothing the fabric out on the marble. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he murmured to Rynn, his fingers skimming the white satin and crinoline. His eyes had gone dark. “Did you know that Laurie foretold Antha’s death ten years ago? He thought she was dying then, but he hadn’t seen the whole thing---Nicolae pulled her from her grave before she was gone. And then he saw her true death, beginning to end. And this…this is the dress she wears to her death.” His fingers stilled on the fabric and then pulled away. “In another time, he would’ve been a prophet, our poor Laurie. He sees those grand things that are beyond the rest of us. But he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to be right, and he doesn’t want to see it. All he wants is to change a little of it, to make it different from what he sees…” His eyes flashed and he turned, returning to the table, cool as could be. Only someone in his head would be able to tell he was rattled. “He doesn’t understand. It’s not the picture that matters---it’s what it means. It isn’t the dress, it’s the blood on it.” And what a vision Lawrence had of it, this poor little dress in tatters, made red on every inch.
Alistair looked up, his hands laced beneath his chin, and gave a very neutral smile. “Shall we go practice the spell? It won’t be long now, if Laurie’s dreaming about it. Best to be prepared.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn opened his mouth to begin a protest, sourly—“I do worry about you, though—“ before abruptly being interrupted by Lawrence’s appearance. His lips shut like a trap.
He had no opportunity to say what he wanted to. For all that Alistair professed to be master of his feelings, he wasn’t. Nor did Rynn want for him to be. It was a relief, sometimes, to see that Alistair was as human as he was, was as susceptible to temper and grief as much as any other person. There were times when Alistair was too perfect—like Rynn felt as though he had fallen in love with a doll, or a robot, something engineered by science to be faultless and immaculate. It was an ugly feeling, because it threw all the errors in Rynn’s own personality into sharp relief, and made him both ashamed and envious.
He had almost started to rise, compelled by Lawrence’s horrified expression, before he noticed the dress, shroud-like, clutched in the other man’s white-knuckled fists. He didn’t have to guess what it was. Why was it that these women were always buried in white? His mother, his sister, and now her.
When the dress was laid on the counter, he went to it as though drawn by a string. He laid his right hand on the bodice, the innumerable pearl buttons of the back tripping underneath his fingers, and found himself distracted by its luster for a while.
“I would have thought it pretty if you had not told me what its purpose was.” he said, inexpressively. It was not clear whether he still thought it pretty, knowing what destiny it held. “The dress would not change much, would it? There’s always something else she could wear.”
His eyes darkened, although he raised his chin and tipped his face towards the light. “No, it would have to be something much bigger. Something your Laurie would never dare do. Not that it’s ever a wise idea to interfere with prophecy. It drives people mad, seeing one reality and living through another.” Maybe it explained why Dorian drank so much. Maybe it explained why Cian seemed sometimes like a completely different person. They’d all envisioned a future for themselves that was nothing like what had come to pass.
There was a part of Rynn that wanted to believe that there was still a way to get her out of this. Not because he had any particular love for Antha—gratitude, yes, but that was a different emotion altogether—but because of the way Alistair talked about what was yet to come. The grief that he wouldn’t acknowledge was fast approaching, and which would hit him all the harder when it did.
Rynn knew that was only a fantasy, though. The part of him in the back of his head that judged and hated and produced only venom was looking down on him now and whispering, you just want to be the knight in shining armor, don’t you? riding in to save everyone whether it kills you or not.
It wasn’t that far off from what Antha was doing, after all. Only Antha had made her peace with death, apparently, and everyone knew it. Rynn had not.
He picked up the dress, and draped it over both forearms so that it would not drag on the floor. “We should return this to wherever Lawrence stole it from. But yes, by all means, let us practice.” Rynn lifted his eyes to Alistair’s, and it seemed for a second as though they sparked, like flint to steel, when they met. “It’s like a wedding dress, isn’t it?” he said, softly. “I’d have thought something black was more fitting.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

“I don’t think we can blame him,” Alistair murmured as they turned into the hallway, starting up the stairs, “I don’t think we’ve ever seen the future like Laurie has---real prophecy, metaphorical but clear as crystal. How maddening it must be, seeing it so vividly, over and over, but not able to do anything about it. Maybe a dress wouldn’t really change anything…but who knows how desperate he is just to see something different?”
Stopping at the end of the hall, he rapped his knuckles against Antha and Cian’s door, hanging the dress gently from the doorknob without giving a word, and then continued up to the attic. “Go get that chest there,” he said, pointing to a particularly old, ornate metal box by the window with a suspiciously new lock, a shiny rectangle of brass without a keyhole, “Put it by the table.” Alistair, meanwhile, had taken up a stick of chalk and set upon the open expanse in the middle of the floor, drawing a circle. “Antha worked out the real thing, she’ll draw it up when the time comes, but for now this will do.” He stood up straight, gesturing out over the circle. His eyes had gone intent, the usual good cheer wiped off of his face, all business now. “She’ll choose the place---has already chosen, I should think---somewhere away from the city, where he can do little damage and no one will see what happens to him afterwards, how he’s bound or where he’s taken. Beforehand, she’ll draw the sacrificial circle around the place, one to match the one here, and link them.” Going to the chest, he ran his fingers along the keyless lock, the metal fittings behind it clicking and grinding. “Another of Antha’s designs. Only she and I know how to open it. She likes to be so very particular where these things are concerned.” When it popped open, he withdrew a doll from within, with a familiar mop of curly scarlet hair. “You’ll use this, her surrogate. It has her hair, her blood, her skin, it will complete the connection between the two sacrificial circles so that you can work in one while she dies in another.” Returning the doll carefully to the chest, he drew out a bundle of wispy fabric next, again producing it for Rynn to see. “But to kill her, Nero must also be in the circle and it will trap him. This is his surrogate, the shroud he was covered with when he was first put down. It laid on him for centuries, it has his blood and skin, once they are both in the circles, any magic worked on it will work on him as well.”
The floorboard by the stairs creaked and Alistair looked up, narrowing a gaze at his twin. She looked like such a broken, beaten thing, black and blue, moving around broken bones and sprained muscles. She had hidden the worst of it, the largest, darkest bruises, beneath one of Cian’s baggy sweaters, but had not bothered to cover her legs. One of her ankles was still swollen and red, a black bruise running up her thigh, her knees scraped.
Collapsing in the armchair nearby, she pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and put it to her lips. “Give him the doll, Airi.” Her brother obeyed reluctantly, putting the ragged thing in Rynn’s hands, and stepped back. “Sit down, Rynn. Close your eyes.” The smoke came from her lips in a dense stream, her eyes narrowing at Rynn, watching his expression for the first flicker of discomfort. “There. You feel it, don’t you? My injuries---like a veil at the tips of your fingers. Don’t fight it, move towards it, go further. Work towards it until you begin to feel a thrum of warmth.” Though his expression gave no indication, Antha felt it when he’d broken through. “That’s what you need from me…my lifeforce.”
Quietly, Airi took Rynn’s hand and stretched out his fingers, placing a knife in his palm. “During the actual ritual, you’ll use this to stab the doll. Symbolically, to perform the sacrifice with your own hands. More practically, it will open the barrier holding in her lifeforce and bring it forth.”
“So macabre, Airi.”
“He needs to know.”
Antha’s eyes flashed at her brother-in-law, literally holding her life in his hands, and gave a thin, wan smile. “I think Rynn has a better sense for this than you give him credit for. Don’t forget how we met him, dearest one.” Turning her attention back to Rynn, she made a gesture to pass over Alistair’s concerns. “You remember what you learned in the airship, from Cassius? The ritual you saw? You’ll have to enact it alone. Once I’m gone, you’ll have to act fast---the window of opportunity to use my death is fleeting. It will empower the circle and trap Nero, but it will burn out if you don’t take charge of it.”
“Evie---”
Ignoring her brother’s uncomfortable protests, Antha slid down to her knees on the floor before Rynn, her fingers carefully closing around his on the doll. “You know what death feels like, Rynn. And as surely as you hold life in your hands at this moment, it will turn into death.” Her gaze caught his, eyes narrowing intently. “Wield it. That’s why it has to be you, no one else could possibly weaponize death.”
“Not anyone willing, anyways,” Alistair muttered bitterly, “Not your death.”
A breath came from Antha’s lips, not quite a sigh, whispering so that only Rynn would hear her, “He may never forgive Nicolae for forcing you to shoulder the responsibility alone. Or himself, for being too deeply connected to me to do it himself.” She shook her head, sighing and forcing a smile. “But that’s irrelevant. Whatever the reasons, it has to be you.”  

[Okimiyage]

It ached to hold the doll. Rynn had known that it would. Perhaps in someone else's hands it would have been a hapless and harmless, but in his--
He could feel the bruises on her body, the stirring of pain in her muscles, bones and skin as she moved. His hands tensed as he clutched the poppet, but did not tighten on the doll's arms—he knew what effect that would have produced.
He wondered to himself if Cian would hate him, knowing how he was partaking in the sacrifice of his wife. But Rynn pushed that thought to the back of his mind, pretended it wasn't there, pretended he hadn't been dwelling on the thought ever since he'd known Antha's death was imminent, and shut his eyes. Right now, he just wanted to follow orders. It was simpler than thinking about what the consequences of those orders would be.
Rynn's mind was a verdant maze, and the place where Antha's spirit sat was crisped and burnt. He didn't have to search for his way to her, he just went--climbing over the smouldering, ruined hedges and patted out the embers as he went, stinging his hands with dulling fire. The doll was sitting in a patch of flickering coals at the heart of the hedge-maze, and its porcelain face was charred with smoke.
He looked down, and the knife was in his hand.
Rynn opened his eyes.
The knife was still there, and the doll. And Antha's hands were clasped around his, chapped and heated, in a position that would have seemed to be that of a supplicant if he did not know better.
Rynn's head dipped, staring at the items of ritual in his hands.
Then, shakily, he lowered them to the floor, and raised his hands to fold about hers, and met Antha's gaze straight-forwardly-- her emerald green to his dusky gold and moss. Firmly, he said, “I do not know if this is the time for goodbyes, but if there is no time in the future for it, then I would regret not making use of the minutes we have now. I do not know whether to speak tenderly now and say that I will miss you, as all of us will, or whether I should be proud of you for where you now will go and what you face. It is a little of both, I think.”
His breath hitched; he wanted to turn his head and look away from her, but he forced himself to endure even as he felt heat brimming at the edge of his eyelids.
“I am very glad to have met you, Antha Mayfair.” Rynn said, quietly. “And I will do whatever I can to make it certain that our meeting was worth the trouble it caused you. I remember the ritual. No sacrifice should ever be in vain.”
Then, looking up towards Alistair, he spoke with an unusual sharpness in his tone—not unkindly, but like a captain giving orders. “We need to make the circle. There isn't much time left. Where have you designated the space for the ritual? Is it cleansed?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For several moments, Antha simply met his firm gaze, her own glimmering with something like curiosity. After a while, a little crooked half-grin slid across her lips. “You say what you’re thinking now,” she murmured in quiet revelation, giving a shake of her head, “Some of it, anyways. What a remarkable transformation.” Her gaze shifted, throwing a glance at her twin across the room as the undoubted catalyst of change. He continued to stand still, gaze unwavering. “Well…it was bound to happen sooner or later, once that knotted mind of yours started to untangle.” Sitting up on her knees, she took his face in her hands and pressed the smallest kiss to his forehead---so very slight, enough that Black Alistair wouldn’t stir, because she wasn’t entirely sure she was safe from him where Rynn was concerned.
“I’ll keep the location of the larger circle to myself. Once the words are spoken, there’s no telling what harm they could cause. It’s better I take it to my grave.” Alistair rolled his eyes. Wasn’t it so like Antha to take the location of her grave to her grave? “The smaller circle will be right here.” Her finger traced a circle around herself in the attic. “It’s the safest place. We don’t know enough about what will happen, whether he’ll have allies or---god forbid---catch onto what we’re doing. He knows I’m plotting against him, but not what. He doesn’t even know that I know about the particulars of his long slumber, and I doubt it would ever occur to him that I might sacrifice myself. Selflessness is…not exactly something that comes naturally to him. If he catches on to the particulars of my plans, he’s bound to try and stop it. Anything is better than the slumber, to his mind, to the endless darkness, the hunger, the lack of agency. You have to be protected, in case the worst happens, and this is the safest place for you. And…for after.”
Unusually, Antha was briefly hesitant, her gaze darkening as it wavered from Rynn to the window. “You have to be prepared, Rynn. You all do. The others know what to expect, at least a little, but you were never in the thick of things. My death might buy you a few days, maybe even a week, out of respect or confusion or being ill-prepared, but no longer, and more likely it won’t even buy you a day. The family will be weak, the alliances I built will fracture, and they’re going to come for it. The vampires, the werewolves, and especially the witches. The witches will come at you the hardest. They want our power, our position, our fortune, and most of all our secrets. And you more than anyone---the successor to the Calais legacy and an inductee of the Mayfair family, and my perceived apprentice. You and Alistair will be the grand prizes for the taking when I’m gone.”
“We’ll be ready, Evie,” Alistair cut into her grave warning, folding his arms across his chest, “We’re not blindsided. We’ll be ready.”
Nodding once (there was no point in arguing with him), Antha quietly returned to her feet, brushing the dust away. “Cian doesn’t know,” she added as an afterthought, gently, “That I’m to be sacrificed. No one does. They know that my death is inevitable, but not that it’s a sacrifice, and I’m not inclined to ever let them find out. I’ve kept it this way very particularly, because the truth is such an ugly thing, it can only do harm. This situation doesn’t need any more tragedy into the mix, don’t you think?” But she shrugged, sighing beneath her breath. “Of course, I can hardly do anything about it after I’m gone. Not that I ever had much luck keeping that mouth of yours under control to begin with.”
Seating herself on a nearby carved oak chest, Antha lit another cigarette, exhaling the smoke in a heavy sigh. “I have the sneaking suspicion that my death is going to make hardened adults out of the both of you.”
“Evie, we’re hardly---”
“You’re still children, the both of you. It’s the way it should be. Not enough of us get to experience childhood. But to paraphrase Corinthians…” She tilted her head back, her gaze roaming to the beams in the ceiling, seeing past them. “It’s time to put away childish things. Dark days are coming, mon cher.”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn cocked his head to one side, slightly, and picked up the implements that he had been offered--the doll and the knife. "Dark days," he repeated, looking down on the two objects in his hand with a faintly quizzical smile. "They say that the history is like a pendulum. The farther it swings to one side, the farther it is carried by momentum to the other. All we can do is hope that, if the dark days are inevitable, something good will follow in their wake."
He looked at Airi, first, after he said that. There was a kind of glimmering hopefulness in the glance--something that was trying to think of those days in the future, that prayed that the phrase 'time heals all wounds' was true.
Then he looked to Antha. The glimmer was only visible for a moment, when he saw her face, and then his eyes turned grave.
"Childish things, for me, were something like this knife. Childish things for most might be something like this doll. And in that way, you are right. It's time for both to be...shelved." Not necessarily discarded--even childish things like knives might have their uses one day. He held out both towards her, and gestured with a flick of the knife-point for her to come forward.
The tone of his question felt more like a demand; like he was saying, get it over with. Like cutting a goodbye short because dragging it out hurt worse than conducting it with a wave and a smile, like you'd see one another the next day instead of never again.
"What must I do?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

“Hope.” Antha repeated the word dryly, giving a little sigh. Her eyes closed, head tilting thoughtfully. “Mon dieu, how I loathe that word. It makes one feel safe, does it not? As if the universe will eventually set itself right again if you only wait it out.” She paused, her eyes sliding open and focusing quietly on Rynn. “We’re witches, Rynn. The universe is very cruel to witches. But I don’t need to tell you that…you know it at least as well as I do.” Her fingers slid along his, turning his hands over, and her gaze dropped studiously to his palms. “I tried to fix things last time. I think it went rather well---as well as it could in the end, for all of you. But this time, you’ll have to go with your original instincts. You’ll have to fight. From the moment my death overtakes this city, any moment of happiness or peace you want will have to be carved out of the chaos with your own hands, and it won’t come easily.”
“It sounds a lot like Sleeping Beauty, when I hear you talk about it,” Alistair murmured dreamily, leaning against the wall with his gaze on the window. “Sixteen long and terrible years and then, suddenly, the golden prince and the rosy princess rise to power, and the court basks in the sun all over again.”
Antha looked her brother dead in the eyes, briefly seeming to consider his words, before asking simply, “And how is it different?”
“We take the prince and princess for granted in fairytales,” Alistair said in reply, carefully, “In the real world, they can be killed before the happy ending.”
“An ending I refuse to consider.” Antha smiled dangerously at that, a clear threat, “Given the prince and princess in question.”
Quietly, she smiled and withdrew, returning to her feet and wiping the dust from her legs. “I should return before anyone realizes I’ve gotten up, with these injuries.”
“Cian didn’t notice?” Alistair asked wryly, casting her a narrowed glance.
But Antha just smiled, the picture of innocence. “Would I have married him if he couldn’t keep my secrets?” Giving the vaguest laugh, she added musingly, “Apologies, brother mine. The ability to keep secrets seems to pass selectively in the Calais blood.” Lightly pinching Rynn’s cheek, she turned and slipped out of the attic again before he could argue with her, a faint laugh trailing through the stairwell after her.
“Is it just me,” Alistair sighed when she was gone, his head dropping to the side as he unfurled himself from the wall, “Or is her behavior getting a little more…ghostly?” Like she was preparing herself. “Don’t take it personally. I like you more than Cian even if you can’t keep a secret.” And he flashed a smile similar to his sister’s, only softer.
Taking up Antha’s vacated spot on the floor, he sighed and stretched himself out, laying down on his back. If he minded that he was lounging on a ritual circle, he didn’t show it. “Haven’t you learned by now? In this house, you get teased when you look grim. And you, my darling one, have a look on your face like she’s already dead.” He could imagine how much Antha would despise that, but didn’t mention it to Rynn. “Come on, lie down with me. We have time, more than enough time, and you have that crease---” He drew a short line down between his eyebrows with the tip of his finger. “It’s very pronounced today, and I don’t think you’d appreciate me resorting to drastic measures to smooth it out again. Relax. Magic needs a clear head.”

Downstairs, Antha slipped soundlessly back into her room before anyone noticed her, meeting Cian’s gaze from across the room with an apologetic, unabashed little smile. “Like a thief in the night,” she purred, turning the lock and climbing back onto the bed. Briefly meeting those concerned eyes of his---guilt was still new to her, she wasn’t used to caring if other people were worried about her---her expression softened and she continued quietly, “It couldn’t be helped, your brother needs a great deal of hand-holding when rituals are involved, and Airi is too soft on him.”
Stretching out, carefully, like a lazy cat, she laid her head to rest against his stomach, sighing softly with relief to be resting again. “I wonder what it is…” she murmured then, drowsily, her fingers idly brushing along his shirt, “What he saw in Rynn that first time. That jolt that passed through him like lightning. I think I envied it.” She gave a little start, her attention focusing just long enough to reassure Cian, “Not that you weren’t charming, darling. But you were on a great deal of drugs, and tied up in his whole plot to kill me and everything. Not that any of that mattered to Airi. He was caught the moment he saw Rynn.” She shook her head, sighing at the hopelessness of understanding it. “There must be something wrong with his head after all. Imagine, preferring anyone over you…how foolish.”
Not that Rynn wasn’t pretty enough. He even had his own peculiar kind of charm. But being in love with him seemed exhausting, and endlessly frustrating. “What was it Louis used to say? ‘It takes all kinds.’”
Abruptly, the air zinged with a cold magic, quiet and sharp. Across the room, seated in the gold and cream damask armchair, the ghost of Louis shook his head. “Did I tell her that? Lord have mercy, I said the most irresponsible things to those children.” He flicked his cigarette in a practiced gesture, scattering ghost ash on the carpet, smoke winding around his head like gray serpents. His blue eyes---bluer than any Mayfair to date, as if they’d been crafted from the waters of Capri---turned and settled on Cian, his full lips spreading slowly in a charming smile. Before, he’d shown Cian the man that Antha remembered, old and snowy and withered. Now he was as he remembered himself, young and handsome and dapper, with a striking resemblance to Julien and Courtland.
“Don’t mind me,” he said delicately, choosing his words, “I’m only preparing. It will be time to collect her soon.”
And then, just as abruptly, he was gone without a trace.  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn watched Antha depart with half-lidded eyes. His spine had straightened throughout the course of her speaking, lifting his head to a tilted angle where he could regard her underneath his lashes. When the last echoes of her footsteps on the attic stairs had disappeared, he sighed – the straightness of his back collapsing into a curve – and sat down heavily on top of a brass-bound trunk, the impact of his descent making a cloud that hung in the sunlight like fairy dust. “We have to hope.” he said, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “Otherwise there's no point to any of this. We have to hope,” he repeated, “Even if it's only to fool ourselves.” His eyes shut, and slowly, he drew one knee up to his chest and embraced it. “Magic takes belief to make it work. The books my brother read said it was so. Right now - “ His free hand traced a lazy circle in the air, and motes of dust settled upon the invisible ring in the path he had made. “ - I have to believe in the threat that exists, though no-one can see it in this world – and I have to believe that I can best it. Hope is the belief things can get better. If I don't believe that, the only alternative is to accept the world for what it is - as terrible as it is...” His eyes flicked up at Alistair, the gold specks that spun in front of him like a wide golden bangle reflected in his irises. “I, and Liesse, are the last of the Calais bloodline. It would be a disgrace to all those who preceded us to go gentle into that good night.”
He took a deep breath, and let it go with a whoosh of air. The dust-ring in front of him disintegrated. His voice was quite level when he said, “I admit, I am afraid. But without fear, we would never recognize courage. I am, also, ready.”
Rynn's raised foot dropped to the floorboards with a bang, and he stood. He circled the perimeter of the drawn chalk outline where Alistair lay, and then took pause as he came to stand above the other boy's feet.
When his left foot crossed the line of chalk, there was a noise like steam escaping a vent after long confinement. The circle hissed at him like a cat. Rynn's eyes widened only briefly with alarm before he took hold of himself, and allowed his right foot to follow. As he sank slowly to his knees, over Alistair's prone body, and leaned forward to place both palms flat upon the inscribed wooden planks of the attic, he muttered aloud, “I suppose the point is that it doesn't like me.”

Below them, Cian found himself caught off-guard when Antha entered the room. Her footsteps had been utterly inaudible – like that of a gho -
A ninja, he repeated to himself, mentally. A ninja in the night. It might have been easier to cope with the anticipation of her death if he had grown up in a family that had drilled the belief that ghosts weren't real into his head, but no – he had to be born into a family of necromancers.
Cian had been sitting on the bed before Antha entered. There was an open book in his hand – a little red, leather-bound volume with a matching red silk ribbon for a bookmark, and nothing but blank pages within. A word had been marked on the cover in gold gilt paint: Diary. It had been among their wedding presents, one of the few that Cian had opened and thought to take personal possession of. Most of the gifts were still in their boxes; toaster ovens, silver-plated napkin rings, sets of expensive china, things the Mayfairs had no need for, or already owned superior versions of. Seeing Antha in the doorway, he flipped it shut and laid it aside, swinging his legs up and leaning back on the bed to make room for her to join him. “I can't imagine that any of us in these families are easy to love,” he murmured, as her cheek settled into his chest and his arm came up automatically to encircle her shoulders. Cian certainly hadn't been easy to love, although there were been more than a few women alive who had tried. “Admittedly, he was a horrible brat of a little brother, but I wonder if you would have made the same choices as he did. If it came down to it - if it was a choice between saving Alistair's life and his, before you knew any of us, would you have - “
His question was interrupted by the ghost of Julien, fading into view like a Polaroid photo developing in 3D. Cian did not display much alarm – just lifted his brows at the other, faintly transparent man. Incredulously, he asked, “Do you mind? I am trying to have a moment with my wife, if you'll forgive me.”
There was little point to asking – Julian was only there for long enough to utter his less-than-cryptic message – but he felt the better for it. “Your Mayfair ghosts are uppity,” he told Antha, forcing light-heartedness into his voice. “If my parents had thought there was any chance one might invite themselves very suddenly into the bedroom like that, I very much doubt they would have had as many children.”  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Alistair gave a hazy blink at Rynn, moving languidly on the floorboards to reach out towards him. “Antha never liked hope,” he sighed, “Neither did I, I suppose. Hope let her down so often as a child---it only kept getting worse, and worse, and worse. We’d say ‘This is rock bottom. Five years old, chained to an old radiator in a dark, cold, leaking attic, literally starving to death. It can only get better from here.’ And then it would get worse. Somehow. Seemingly impossibly.” He sighed, glancing once up at the ceiling---his eyes flashed distantly, some echo of a trauma most people were not likely to fathom---and then back at Rynn, his lips stretching into a smile. “I envy you the capacity for hope. It’s such a lovely thing. But Antha and I only trust in what we can do with our own hands, what we know.” Drawing his shoulders up off the floor, he crossed his wrists behind Rynn’s neck. “No one’s trying to take your hope away, Rynn. We just can’t understand it.” Brushing a lock of Rynn’s hair back, he gave a little wry smile. “And you’re forgetting a few Calais, aren’t you? You do have a living brother with two, soon to be three, children. They may be Mayfairs first, but they’re not going to forget that half of them is Calais. Your family legacy still runs in their veins.”
There was a moment of silence, Alistair’s expression suggesting he was listening to something, before he suddenly gave a little chuckle beneath his breath. “We’ll never see eye to eye on this, it seems…” he whispered, pulling Rynn down to press his lips to his, “Darling Evie. She’s the most intelligent person I know, and yet she can’t comprehend your charm.” His fingers trailed down over the front of his shirt, catching the hem between thumb and forefinger. “But I won’t argue. I’d only erupt into cold, homicidal rage if anyone else saw you the way I do. Best to leave them in the dark.” Another brush of lips, breath mingling. “For what it’s worth, I have faith in you, if nothing else.”
His lips curled, giving the sort of devious smirk that very few were ever allowed to see in his perfect cheerful mask. “Have you ever tried more lively magic?” he asked, a snake whispering to Eve, “Calais magic is so cold. All that death. Magic should be hot, bright, alive---” His fingers wandered lower, slipping past Rynn’s belt. “And in the end, your blood runs hot, cheri.” His other hand stretched out beside him, slamming down on the floorboards, and the circle around them gave a reverberating shiver. Something from it shifted, washed up over them, through them, from one to the other through their physical contact, and then flowed back out to the chalk markings with an indelible impression left upon it. It was as Alistair had said, hot and lively. Expectant.
“You can’t even imagine what it can do in medias res.”

“Ah, but that is the difference between Rynn and me, isn’t it?” Antha mused drowsily, comfortably settled against Cian, “I would never accept an ultimatum. If it came down to him or Alistair, I’d save them both.” A rule that stopped short of her own life versus the original vampire, unfortunately, but she didn’t mention that. No need to dredge it up now, not yet.
On the cusp of sleep, shifting so that her cheek pressed to his chest, her ear against his heart---bah-bump, bah-bump---she gave the wispy murmur, “You were never hard to love, darling. It was the easiest thing in the world. You were just waiting for me. It was never any good without me.” And then she was asleep.

Antha was in the garden. She was small, the rose bushes looming over her head, the scarlet flowers as big as her tiny hands, the white skirt of her favorite childhood dress spread around her on the grass.
Just like the flowers.
A petal was placed on her palm, red as blood.
Our family fed them, for generations, on blood and magic. Larger fingers closed over hers, crushing the petal in her little fist. They built this house with everything they’d accumulated over generations---knowledge, money, magic, heirs. They built it to mark the two branches of our family coming together. It was an achievement.
She repeated the word somewhat uncertainly, staring at the crumpled petal in her hand.
Yes, precious little one. He smiled at her, in that confident, pleased way that made her flush with pride. An achievement, just like you. She fixed her big eyes on his with rapt attention. You’re the most important thing our family ever created. The flowers will wilt and die, the house will rot and collapse, but you--- He laughed gently at the look on her face, the absolute trust and intensity in her doll-like features. ---you’ll burn bright like the sun, young blood.

Antha woke with her heart racing, her eyes already wide open, a searing pain in the back of her mind. She reached out and touched Cian’s arm, reassuring herself that he was there, clenched the sheets in her fingers, reassuring herself that she was awake, and then laid silent for several moments, waiting for the sharp pain to fade.
“Too close,” she murmured, passing the back of her hand over her eyes, “It was too close that time. The door trying to open---” She shook her head, swallowing and taking a deep breath to steady herself. “All the terrible things I’ve seen in my life…I don’t want to know what my mind tried to shield me from. That door is better closed.”
And then she turned thoughtful, her brows knitting, eyes dark with concentration. “…why now?” It was a whisper, only really intended for herself. “He’s been gone for so long, why is my mind bringing up---”
Antha stilled, silent, for several moments before abruptly sitting up, a hand going to her side to dampen the sharp stab of pain. “…I can’t believe I didn’t realize it.” For several moments, she wore a rare look of true bewilderment before it melted away into regret and vehemence. “I’m such a fool! Days, he’s been doing this, days! How did I not notice?”
Turning a fleeting look on her husband, she shook her head and said regretfully, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I even have the words to explain it. I’m not even sure you’d believe me if I did. It’s something you have to see---tonight. I can’t let it go on any longer.” The girl shook her head, massaging her temples, whispering sharply to herself again. “How did I not realize? No, it should’ve been impossible---how could I have anticipated the impossible? Oh god, this is a panic attack, isn’t it? I’m having a panic attack. But are we saved or are we screwed? I can’t decide, it could equally be either. Or both. My hands are numb, I need to get rid of the excess adrenaline before the fight or flight turns into hysteria.” And then, again to her husband, said abruptly as if she’d just thought of it, “Stay with Liesse tonight, when it unfolds. Dinner, I’ll do it at dinner. Honestly, I’m afraid for her, unless she’s more resilient than I think. Could we leave her out of it?” She thought to herself for a split second, only that, before shaking her head. “No, it would only make it worse. She has to see it. Right. Adrenaline. Cian, your clothes. Off.”
Her fingers clutched his shirt but, in doing so, gave a long, fine tremble before latching on like iron. Her eyes, wide and frightened, caught his, giving him an imploring look. “Please,” she added, calmly this time, quiet...desperate, “Just for now, please---no questions, no talking about it, just distract me. I'll explain everything when I think I can, even if I'm wrong, but please, for right now, darling, just do this for me.”