The Voice in His Head (Original Urban Fantasy)

[jldew93]

Jldew

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Bethany did in fact, try to poison both of us that next morning. After our attempted murder, she had Emily create a guest list for the party. Reginald and William were at the top of list. The other entries were surprising.

"Olivia and Tiberius Lockwood? I didn't think you got along with any legacies."

"Olivia is usually a study partner when I'm in the other dorm, and where Olivia goes, Tiberius follows. They're Gemini twins." I grimaced. There were half a dozen other names I vaguely recognized.

"Theodora Chrissenbloom, really Emily?"

"You don't like Theodora because she gets higher marks on defensive magic then you do."

"And you don't like Juniper Robbards because she's your alchemy partner, but we're not going there." I replied.

"She put aconite in the same potion as nightshade. I almost died from the fumes. She's an idiot. Plus, Robbards was expelled, so she's a moot point." Emily said. Our conversation stalled for a second.

"What about Selene Lovelace?" I asked.

"That airhead? No. Her and Penhallow are both barmy."

By the time we were done, there were almost a dozen classmates on the list. Emily handed it to Bethany.

"I'll send out the invitations and contact the caterers today." She replied.

"Now, I want both of you to go to the island, conjure targets, and run through whatever drills Merlin has you perform." We went up to our rooms, grabbed our gear, and left for the island. We spent most of the day drilling.

For the next two weeks, our days were filled with endless practice of our spell work and tutoring with Amy. We did a deep dive into poisons and various venoms. Manticore and Chimera venom. The drought of endless slumber, a combination of banshee's breath, hemlock and toadstool that would put the victim into a catatonic state. Mordred's breath, a horrible potion that would turn the blood into a black sludge that would then eat the victim's organs until they died of systemic shock. We probably wouldn't ever run into these kinds of poisons, and Amy skimmed over them. But Bethany wanted me prepared for whatever form the trial would take.

Since we had access to the vast stores of the townhouse's alchemy lab, especially the toxic ingredients, I secreted away a fair few vial of the venoms and other more dangerous reagents. Along with some of the more explosive potions we kept. I'd placed them in my alchemy kit. My pouches were getting cumbersome.

♦♦♦

The night of the party arrived, and we dressed in our finest to mingle with the crowds. As was custom of these kinds of parties, not only had the children been invited, but so had the families. In addition to these guests I caught a fair few Fae, a couple of dwarves, and a trio of goblins muttering over their drinks. There was even a trio of wild looking men that felt like the earth against my senses. Judging from the yellow streaks in their irises, they were probably therians.

Vincent was present, for a change. Bethany was wearing an extremely fashionable blue ball gown that brought out the gold in her eyes. Magical Society was oddly patriarchal, and Vincent was playing the part of the host. Bethany, Vincent and Emily were essentially holding court in the grand ballroom. A series of wards had been activated that separated the public areas of the house from the private. I'd never been to a magical party, so the spectacle that awaited me had me in temporary awe. Waitstaff carried food, while other trays floated through the air carrying drinks. A pair of swans made of ice cavorted through their display in an endless chase. There were tumbling Fae performers, and a therian fire breather, and a half dozen different extravagant displays.

I saw Amy navigating the crowds. Bethany had given Emily and I each had a small patch under our ears that was practically invisible. These allowed for instantaneous communication. Eli arrived fashionably late.

I spent an hour pilfering hors d'oeuvres from the trays waitstaff passed, playing the part of host. I finally saw a familiar face.

"William!" I exclaimed. We quickly tapped wands.

"Mr. Lowe, Mrs. Lowe, I welcome you to our humble home. Be welcome as guests of my house. For this night, may our roof shelter you, our gold feed you, and our wands protect you." Guest rites were important in magical society. Each person here had received an invitation guaranteeing protection from conflict under our roof for the duration of the event. It was why you could have a therian and a vampire in the same room without hell breaking loose. I knew that our waitstaff were agents of Vincent and Bethany, and would probably put a swift end to any conflict, but to offer guest right to a group of guests individually, would ensure that if any harm came to them, it would be dealt with swiftly. The Lowe were the only mundane attending, and their safety was paramount. The parents stood out. Mages had a certain look about them. An inner glow that paled their skin. Hair every shade of the rainbow from using their magic, and the eyes glowed with power, almost like a cat in the dark. These black haired mundanes would be easy prey in a room full of predators. Bethany tended to dress conservatively, but High Magical fashion, even though it had distinctly Victorian air to it, was flamboyant. Dresses made of flickering flame. Suits made of shimmering diamond, these were part and parcel of the foppish dance magical society wove at each gathering.

"Children go and play. We'll greet our hosts and find you in a while." Mr. Lowe said.

William shot me a look.

"Stephen, is there a place we can talk privately? With my siblings." He said. I nodded and touched the place beneath my ear. Bethany had given me and Emily each a small patch that looked like a clear band-aid to communicate. It had blended into my skin and was invisible.

"Bethany, I'm taking William and his siblings up to my room." I said.

"Don't be long." She replied.

I took him upstairs. The watch I wore acted as a key through the wards. We entered my bedroom.

"What's wrong?"

"My dad's ship has been reassigned. He's on temporary leave right now, but my entire family will be moving to Malta, specifically Valletta. My grandfather owns a flat there. He wants me to transfer from Coventry to Goeteia." Da Luz was an awful school.

"That's a nothing school. Their dueling team didn't even make regionals last year."

"I know, that's why I need your help. I know you have psychic abilities. I need you to compel my father to let us stay with you, or at least stay in Coventry."

"Us?" I asked.

"Show him." William said.

Cass did something, an odd twisting gesture with her hand. There was a spark of dark purple in her hand, a small flick of power, and then there was a large crystal. No, a diamond in her palm. She made a second gesture, and one of my journals began floating from an unseen gust of wind.

William nodded at Edward. The boy closed his eyes, pointed his pointer and middle fingers toward each other, and made a twisting gesture. A small ember of vibrant orange flame hovered in the air between the four points.

Finally, Evelyn made a twisting, flipping gesture with her hand. I felt the water draw itself out of the air and coalesce into a ball of water. Her hand glowed pale, almost white blue.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"I don't know mate. When I came back from Coventry, the first time we were all alone, they had me perform a little bit of magic, and then something sparked in them." I gave them each a second look. I could see small strands of Evelyn's hair turning slowly white, and there was a glint of deep purple and amber in Cassandra and Edward's eyes that hadn't been there before.

I sat down on my bed. This. This was bad. The pyromancy was fine. But if the Italians got ahold of a Tremisimancer? The British? Gods forbid the Germans? Fucking hell. The magical economy was built on these individuals. Wars could literally be fought over Cassandra. Not to mention she had the power of Aeromancy. One elementalist in a family was rare, but four were unheard of.

I tapped the side of my neck.

"Mum, Amy or Vincent, I need you to get up here now. We have a situation." I replied.

"This is Amy. Heading up." I heard a voice say.

She was upstairs and in my room inside a minute.

"What's the issue?" She asked.

I nodded my head toward Cassandra, who still held the diamond, the perfectly shaped, quarter pound diamond in her hand.

"May I?" Amy asked, reaching for the diamond. Cassandra let her take it without a word.

"Did you make this?" Amy asked. Cassandra nodded.

"God's Blood." Amy swore.

"Bethany is on her way up." Amy said. She arrived a few minutes later along with Eli.

Bethany instantly accessed the situation and tapped the side of her neck. I realized that she must have been speaking sub-vocally somehow, because I heard her voice in my head.

"Beta. I want redeployment. Top of the stairs. Shift server duties off to Delta. Gamma. Be prepared to activate kill boxes and deploy auto turrets. Shift all internal and external to yellow. Vincent."

"I've already deployed Epsilon to cover the Lowe family. . We need you back down here, Beth."

"I'm aware. What I wouldn't give for a trio of Khopesh right now." She muttered, out loud.

"Ma'am. We've got an intruder upstairs." A voice I didn't recognize said.

Bethany instantly straightened.

"Where?"

"They're gone. Some sort of shadow walking."

"Run surveillance. I need identification and find out how they picked my wards. Find them, I want a tag and bag."

"I'm the Andrews' attaché. Their right hand. The master would like to be here, but unfortunately, they are both busy with the party down below. Appearances must be preserved. Eli Winters, nice to meet you." Eli said, and offered his hand.

"You're here for your safety Mr. Lowe. There are guests downstairs that could mean each of your children harm. Your daughter is a Tremisimancer. A novitiate one, but one, nonetheless. Do you know what that means?" Eli asked. His glamour was on in full force tonight. He had taken an appearance similar to what Bethany took while out and about in mundane London. Tall, dark hair, deep blue eyes. Utterly mundane.

"No, I don't."

"Your daughter can control and create diamonds. That ability is very much sought after in our society. An ability like that, until a person is well trained enough to defend themselves, will lead to near constant attempts on their life. That coupled with your son's abilities, and the sheer power your other son and daughter will be able to bring to bear, and your family will be sought after as soon as word of these abilities reaches the wrong ears. You've heard the story of Helen of Troy, I assume?" Mr. Lowe nodded.

"She was the first Tremisimancer in history. Troy did not fall because of her beauty. It fell because of her power. She remained in chains and under compulsion in Athens until the end of her days. The Romanovs died because of Anastasia's power. If I were you, I'd allow our men to put your house in Plymouth under watch and allow it to be warded. I'd also send your children here for the winter holidays so that we can try to train young Cassandra in the basic arts of her power. You will do that, won't you Mr. Andrews?" He said. I heard the melodious power of compulsion behind those last few words, and the Lowe parents nodded.

"Excellent. I'm glad we could reach an accord. Now, feel free to enjoy the party. You must try the salmon mousse. It's exquisite." Eli said. The guards returned the family to the party.

"Eli, will they be safe?" I asked.

"Your guardian has excellent guards, and we're dispatching a team of her private warders as we speak."

"Were you telling the truth, about Helen and Anastasia?"

"I am Fae, we cannot lie. I'm sure you've learned about Troy in Transmutation class. As for Anastasia, Bethany and I fought on opposite sides during the Great War. We fought at Yekaterinburg the night the Romanovs fell, among half a dozen other places."

"Then how did you end up on the same side?"

"She ended up saving my life in Sharqat during the last days of the war. In a way, she helped me regain my honor. For that, she has my eternal allegiance. There are two beings that I willingly serve. Bethany is one. And her Grace."

"Her grace?"

"The Fae Queen of Winter. I dare not say her name. That would gain her attention, even a vassal such as myself would be courting folly to summon her forth. Now, return to the party, Stephen. Do your duty as a host. Your friend and his family are safe."

I did, but the evening had been ruined for me. As I threaded my way through the crowd, I filled Emily in what had happened telepathically. I spent the remainder of the party prowling the crowds. Reg and William were on opposite sides of the room, and I went back and forth between the two of them and for the rest of the evening. The night wore on, and the guests began bidding us farewell. Soon the last group of stragglers had left. Bethany's smile vanished from her face. She looked at Amy.

"I want a complete sweep of the premises. Did you ever find out what our intruder was?"

"The Thaumatic signature indicates vampire." Amy said.

"The nearest vampire Master is in Manchester; did we torch him?" Bethany asked.

"Her sire is Evangeline Gray; we didn't want the whole Midnight Court coming down upon us." Eli replied.

"And torching one of the leader's spawn would certainly do that." Vincent mused.

"Well, get our agents inside her headquarters. See what information you can gather." Bethany said.

"Our shadow mage traced the trail to Leeds." Eli said.

"How interesting." Bethany said. She began pacing.

"I thought we'd taken of the situation in Leeds." She said softly.

"As had I." Eli responded.

"It's not like him to use vampires." Amy said.

"No, it's not. There's something going on here. It's like we're searching for a puzzle piece in the dark." Vincent said.

"Would you please tell us what's going on?" I asked.

"Do you remember the creature that Eli and I fought last winter?"

"The Leshi?" I asked, and she nodded.

"The queen of Winter Fae was having us deal with rogue elements in her court. We thought we had dealt with all of them. Their headquarters was in Leeds. Apparently, we were wrong."

"Bethany, you don't think Camille's ilk has aligned themselves with Puck, do you?" Amy asked.

"Doubtful. The Midnight and Seasonal Courts do not align their interests." Eli said.

"It's a coincidence, nothing more." Eli replied. Bethany sighed, and with a flick of her wrist, changed her appearance. Her fancy clothes vanished and were replaced by a comfortable pair of pants and a shirt.

"Bethany, can you change me as well?" Emily asked. A wave of her wand, and our party clothes were switched to night clothes. They'd show up in our closet later, freshly laundered.

The other three quickly changed through magical means.

"We'll be in the study. You don't have a set bedtime tonight. Tomorrow will be a free day, and treasure it. When Monday dawns it starts a whole other level of hell regarding your training."

"When are we going to be allowed in these meetings?"

"When you can fight all four of us at once to a standstill." She replied.

Emily and I, as was our nightly custom, went to raid the library. We'd had some success in picking the wards of the library. I knew I needed to delve into my own Tremisimancy, but I had other things I wanted to learn first. Teleportation. Perfecting my portals, and to expand the rudimentary healing I knew. We didn't speak about a lot that night. The party, Cassandra's newfound abilities. We settled into an easy silence. Both of us knew when the other didn't want to talk, and both of us knew when words were not needed. The bond we had sworn to each other, gave us an intuition about each other.

"Why did you send me that letter?" I asked. She stopped and put her book on runecraft down.

"I don't know. I wasn't sure if William could respond. Reg didn't seem right. But you, despite our differences, I knew you of all people would pull through. I think part of it was the vision I had of us."

"When we met?"

"No, it was a couple weeks after we found Merlin's room. There are four of us. William, I think Edward. You, and I. We're fighting this mage. She had hair like fire and controlled these creatures. They looked like animals. Except. They were twisted somehow. Made of metal, and their eyes glowed with this blue fire that I can't even describe. We were losing. Badly. Edward was bleeding out. William had at least broken an arm. You and I were the only ones still standing. I could hear the sounds of battle all around us. Men and animals dying. I had a dozen different smaller wounds. You taunt her, and throw a spell out, and then my vision goes black. I woke up screaming, and it stayed in my head. It's like a cold I can't shake Stephen. No matter how much I try. It sticks to me, always in the back of my head." We'd both sat at one of the wooden tables that were scattered around the library.

"It might be your psychic abilities kicking in."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, some psychics have clairvoyance. This might be a vision of things to come."

"But we weren't that much older than we are now." She said.

I bit my lip.

"What?" She asked.

"Bethany informed me last winter that one of her seers had a vision about me. That I'd undergo a test sometime in the next year. We weren't sure when the test was going to happen. We figured Yule at the latest. It's part of the reason why we're training so hard. We don't know what the trial will entail, and we're going to be as prepared as possible. Do you remember anything from the vision that could help us?" She closed her eyes.

"We were all dressed in armor that was definitely medieval." She said. I nodded and went to the shelves. I took a pouch off my belt. It was empty. It would not be for long.

"Bethany, borrowing books. Don't know when I'll have them back." I sent off a telepathic message to her and received the mental equivalent of a nod.

"Vocare, books about the printing press. Vocare. Books about wilderness survival."

"What are you doing?"

"Raiding the library for books on the printing press. Blacksmithing. Medicine. Anything that could give us an edge. Anything that will help us in a medieval society." I said. Emily nodded.

"Vocare books on naval warfare." We begin a raid on the library. Books of steel smithing, On gunpowder and firearms. Railroads. On early magical architecture and both types of warfare. On farming and irrigation. on paper manufacturing. Anything we thought of, we took those books and duplicated them. It was well past two when we were done. We both crawled into bed.

It was almost noon when I woke up. I dressed in mundane clothing, after showering and running through my morning routine. After a quick brunch, Emily and I left a note for Bethany telling her we were going out.

Our first stop was London's magical district. We each converted a decent chunk of our cash to mundane bills and went on a spending spree. We bought dozens of live magical plants and seeds for alchemy and food. Along with a dozen animal, and alchemy ingredients placed under stasis that we would need for alchemy. We used my Phosphomancy and Audiomancy to sneak into a mundane hospital where we spirited away morphine, and disinfectant, gauze, thread and needles. A quick jaunt again to East Anglia for seeds. Potatoes. Wheat. Corn. Staple crops. Another portal to the South West for cows and chickens that were shrunk and placed in stasis. All of this was placed in an expanded traveler's trunk that cost us about a thousand aurei. This coupled with the small house we had outfitted the trunk with, and the massive amount of food we stored in it, and we were out roughly a tenth of the aurei we'd taken from Merlin. We withdrew another tenth of the gold we had access to, and placed that in a warded section

When we returned, we spent the better part of the rest of the day had putting our books in the library and organizing our stores.

The next day and our training resumed with a frantic edge that had not existed before. We spent time in both the temporal chamber and on the island. Bethany drilled us in firearms and magical combat. We'd begin in the early morning and continue until the sun had long since set. This left me with little time for experimentation with my typewriters, or really any of the magical designs I had sketched in my journals. It was exhausting, and utterly grueling.

The last few days of June burned and blurred into July. Emily won the dueling tournament with ease and was invited to the European Cup in the Spring, and July turned to August just as quickly. Soon, we embarked on a quick trip to Emrys to gather supplies for school. More clothes, a stationary store. Alchemy supplies. We each bought copies of the remainder of the baseline curriculum for the year. Our shopping completed, we left for home.

Before we left for the fall term at Coventry, I raided the townhouse's armory. If Bethany noticed the missing Thompson submachine guns, or the grenades, or the half dozen lodestones that I'd placed in my trunk, she didn't comment on it. The small house disguised as a trunk was shrunken enough to be small enough to be added to my pentacle as an extra charm, and I hid it with an anchored glamour.

Voice and Oh-Em had managed to learn how to speak to each other, and most of the time, they preferred each other's company over ours. Overall, we were well prepared for the upcoming year, and whatever it brought.

 

[jldew93]

We returned to Coventry and settled into an easy routine. This time, we were the ones taking potshots at First Forms. Our dorms had been upgraded as well. They weren't the austere grey. These actually resembled living quarters, and we each had our own rooms. Our first night back, the four of them snuck into my room.

"I'm going to see Merlin." Emily said.

"Whatever he's doing to stretch time?" I asked.

"Among other things. I did some research over the summer. I have questions about Leanna." Emily said. I withdrew the key from the pouch that I had placed it in. I kept most of my possessions on me. Whatever the upcoming trial was. I was being borderline paranoid about having everything I might need at easy reach.

I gave her the key, and she walked to my bathroom door, and unlocked it. The room awaited us.

We entered the room and Merlin shimmered into existence.

"Welcome back, how was your summer?" He asked.

"It was fine, but I have questions about you and Leanna." Emily said.

"What kind of questions?"

"Why are you placing us in a temporal distortion field when you train us."

"To learn the skills, I've been teaching you this past year would have taken roughly five. In the time I'm from, this was not just a school. It was an Academy of War and Magic. We trained Knights and Paladins as surely as we trained Battle Mages and Enchanters. Once, this school was threatened at least once a year, and defended from all who attacked not by the strength of wards, but by the sorcery and swordplay of our students. An archer's arrow can kill as swiftly as a spell. A kite shield can defend as easily as a ward.

You each have so much potential, that I would be remiss to allow you to squander your potential. Should you continue my training regimen over the next seven years, there are few if any mages that will be able to defeat you in combat.

"We'll have just aged thirty years." Reg replied.

"Do you appear to be five years older now?" Merlin asked.

"No."

"See, Mages are a funny lot. We're powerful, magic allows us to experience wonders and change reality on a whim. There is not one magical household that lacks for food, or creature comfort. Not one starving trueborn mage.

There's so much you could do, and know, yet very few of them think outside the box.

Coventry's expanded day allows for students to study more. The wards I wove around this fortress protect and condense the school. But, when you bring up temporal magics, you think you'll age quickly. There is a point of reversion. There are pockets of reality that can be anchored and shifted to allow for temporal dilation. Have you never heard of Fairy Circles? A drunken reveler steps into a circle for a few moments, and when he leaves a hundred years have passed in a blink. Why couldn't the reverse happen? Separate worlds do exist. We've seen it. Chatwin's Theory of Universal Parallels covered this.

I imagine that there are worlds that are just a whisper removed from us. When you are in this room, you may experience time differently, but when you leave, you will return to the age you were before. You'll simply retain the knowledge and spells I've taught you. If you wish, I can stop using temporal dilation."

"What do you think? If it allows us to gain knowledge quicker, I'm game for it." William asked. I wondered if this was his natural curiosity, or a drive to protect his family.

"I'm all for it." Reginald said.

"I agree." I said. I could always change my mind after the Trial.

"We've already been undergoing this dilation. Let's continue with it, on the caveat that Merlin answers my next questions." Emily said, and I gave her a look.

"Calem?" I asked.

"I agree with it."

"What questions?" I sent. She certainly hadn't told me about anything.

"You'll see." She replied.

"Merlin, I did some reading over the summer. Leanna Pendragon, after her retirement as Headmistress from Coventry, moved to York. She had a family. Three daughters and a son. Using Bethany's library, I managed to trace a son from York, through the ages until I hit the genealogical equivalent of a dead end. However, my question is, where is Excalibur?"

"Excalibur was lost to time. It was rumored that one of her daughters took it to a distant land on a mission. Elizabeth died before she could return. Her other two daughters were ungifted, and her son was disowned."

"Damn." She said.

"Since you all are here, do you want a training session?"

"I've got nothing better to do." Emily said. We all nodded in agreement.

"Good, now. I'd planned on teaching you this last spring, but your elementalist abilities got in the way."

With a wave of his hand, he conjured targets.

"Begin." He said. The five of us launched into the spells we knew. The five of us launched into practice. We spent the next few hours practicing our magic against stationary and static targets.

At the end, I carried through with the next part of our plan. It was one of the only things Emily and I had for our goals this year.

"Now that that exercise is over, Merlin. I have a request. I made a deal with the dwarves. I want the rest of the currency that is currently being stored."

"What for?"

"I made a contract with the dwarves for a very lucrative deposit agreement."

"And I assume the greedy tunnelers want the money stored in my vaults?"

"Well, I do." He gave me a look.

"I suppose you want four more trunks?"

I produced one.

"Nope, I've got that! Thanks for offering!" I said with a grin. He growled, and glared, but he produced the money and placed it in the trunks.

"Is there anything else, young mages?"

"When we found you, there were two other rooms. Where do they lead?"

"They don't lead anywhere. One is Morgana's keep. Her final resting place. The other is Lady Leanna's armory. You need a key for that."

"Morgana's body is stored there?" Emily asked.

"Her petrified body. Yes. You see, Morgana was an immortal, and once the school was set up. She left on many adventures. One day, she returned, a curse was burning through her body. One that turned her to stone eventually. It was rumored that it was linked to a curse a certain male sorcerer had placed on her, and only he could free her. To this day, she sits on her stone seat, waiting for the sorcerer to make amends. As for the armory, Lady Vivienne went on many adventures, to different worlds. She stored the treasures she found in that room. When she vanished, Lady Leanna placed wards around the room to stop anyone from attempting to open the door and plunder it. The room was originally for Lady Leanna, but she had married by then, and her interest in the school was beginning to wane."

"I want to get into that room." Emily said.

"You would dare?"

"I would." She replied.

"Produce the door to the bowels of the school." She said.

"Don't do this." Merlin said.

"My name is Emily York, by right of blood. By purview of conquest. By passage of birth. Merlin, I order you to open that door." Merlin froze, his image flickered and twisted.

He spoke in a monotone.

"Heir override, recognized." He said. Then the door swung open.

"Is there anything else you need?" He asked.

"No, that should be all." She said and walked out of the room.

We followed her.

"Emily, what was that?" Reginald asked.

"A hunch." She said and opened the door. It swung open, and she stepped back. Then she walked into the room. It was dusty, but the objects in the room seemed well preserved. A weapons rack taking up the right side of the room held swords, and daggers, and the occasional polearm.

In the center, there were a dozen mannequins wearing leather armor. All of it was enchanted heavily. I could tell from the shimmer and the runes glowing on the armor. A second weapons rack on the left side held bows and crossbows. In the front of the room there was a branching shelf that held at least twenty different pouches. Next to the shelf, there was a wooden desk with a shelf above it. These shelves held plain leather books. Besides this desk, there was a series of trunks.

We looked around in wonder. Reginald looked at the armor.

"This armor, it's Dragon. Styxian black. My grandfather has a set."

"Styxian?" William asked.

"Styx dragons eat magic. They've been hunted to extinction. Each set of this is probably worth a thousand tremissis." He said and wandered over to the weapons racks. He murmured a spell.

"These weapons are enchanted as well. I'm not sure what some of the enchantments do, but it doesn't appear that any of them are cursed."

"No, they wouldn't be. Now, this ledger is quite interesting. It appears to be an inventory of sorts for this room. I should offer each of them a set of this armor." Emily thought*.* She was seated at the desk. I strengthened my mental shields. My mental abilities were growing, and I had to actively suppress my latent telepathy.

"What are you reading Emily?" I asked.

"It's an inventory ledger of this room. It lists the enchantments each weapon has, along with what the armor is."

"Should we take these? We can have Io or Ganymede carry everything." I sent. She made a sharp backward motion with her head.

"They'll find out sooner or later. We don't have to tell them we're bonded. Just act like they're normal imps."

"Good point. Me or you?" I asked.

"You."

"Io." I said, and then thought. "Appear as an imp. Do not give away anything about how we are bound." I said.

"Pack this room carefully in the place you are housed. Do not destroy, damage, or endanger the contents. Keep the organization as it is."

I told him. In less than a minute, the entire room was packed.

"You have an imp?" Reg asked.

"Bethany gave it to me." I said, and he nodded.

"So, now that you have everything packed, what are we going to do with this room?" Calem asked.

"Leave it for time. There's nothing here." Emily said, and we exited it. We returned to our new pod and settled into an easy peace. A peace that Emily and I filled with plundering Coventry's library for everything it had. My newfound skill in Phosphomancy was enough to ensure that we avoided detection. I had some slip on my grades, but nothing that couldn't be made up in the next term. Emily assisted me on the nights we didn't practice in the room.

The books on Mundanes were avoided. I had enough of those already stowed away in my library. I paid special attention to books on alchemy, on transmutation and conjuration. Tomes of runes were joined by treatise upon treatise on enchanting. The few books on Scrying and the mind arts were placed in a specially warded section of the trunk.

By the end of November, Emily and I had thoroughly plundered anything of interest. I wish I'd been able to gain access to the upper years building, but that was on the lower end of the island, and completely off limits to Students below apprentice level. Other than that, nothing of note until the week before Halloween.

After our daily training session in the room, Merlin made an announcement.

"According to my calendar, Samhain is fast approaching. I'd like you each to perform your first rituals. If you perform them in the room, the refractory time will be reduced."

"What will the ritual entail?"

"It is intensive. It requires a ritual drawn in the casters blood. And reagents depending on the runes chosen."

"You're talking about the ritual of Triskelic Harmony." Reginald said.

"You know this ritual?" He asked.

Reg nodded.

"Usually the ritual is performed in my family on their 21st birthday. It's a borderline dark ritual. The council might not condemn it, but they certainly frown upon it."

"What do we need?"

"I happen to have the unicorn hair brushes and gold dust in my stores, along with the silver syringes. but I need seven ounces of blood from each of you so that the runes absorb into your body."

"Absorb?" I asked.

"It's a bit of thaumaturgy in the ritual. A triskelion painted on the floor with four ounces of your blood. Then you grind up the reagents for the runes you are imbuing in an ounce of blood each. Then you use that to paint your backs with an alchemical symbol or rune. You choose three symbol you wish to paint. One rune for the body, one for the mind, and one for the soul, your magic, to absorb. Then you stand in the circle and invoke the rune."

"Absorb?" I asked.

"It's a bit of thaumaturgy in the ritual. A triskelion painted on the floor with four ounces of your blood. Then you grind up the reagents for the runes you are imbuing in an ounce of blood each. Then you use that to paint your backs with an alchemical symbol or rune. You choose three symbol you wish to paint. One rune for the body, one for the mind, and one for the soul, your magic, to absorb. Then you stand in the circle and invoke the rune."

"Mercury, Salt, and Sulphur?" Reg asked, and Merlin nodded.

"Since painting the symbol would be tricky, I can do it for each of you. I am a being of magic, pure magic. I won't affect the spell. You need to consider each rune and reagent carefully. This ritual will change you irrevocably for good or ill." Merlin motioned to the shelves that appeared behind him.

"There are books on rune craft, and gemstones on that shelf. Generally, the ritual is performed with two gemstones, and a plant essence. Choose these carefully. Make your choices today. Write them on a piece of paper and tell me. This ritual has more power if you don't tell anyone what reagents or runes, you're planning on using." From my knowledge of runecraft, I knew which runes I wanted. I quickly scanned books and made my choices. I wrote them on a piece of paper.

"Interesting choices." He said. Then he produced a syringe.

"Draw your blood. You might feel lightheaded, but you'll recover quickly." He said. I drew my blood, fighting back the sudden vertigo that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Construct, I give you this blood for no other purpose except to hold it in stasis until the time I need it." I said, handing Merlin the paper and the syringe. He nodded, the rest handed him their reagents, and we left the room. On Samhain night, we entered the room. Four separate booths had been created.

"This ritual is best done sky clad, with no magical instruments or implements on your person. This will throw off the magic of the ritual."

Emily and I shared looks.

"Should we?"

"I'm not playing with infernals." I replied, and she nodded.

As one we began undressing until we were down to our underclothes. We shook our wrists, and the bells appeared on our wrists. We quickly unwrapped them and dropped the bracelets on the pile of clothes. We entered our booths, and I painted the alchemical symbols on the ground, as I did, they began glowing emerald.

Every ritual required either three ingredients, or seven. This one required the six reagents, plus my blood.

For the mind, I had chosen peridot, for clarity, to prevent compulsions and the Algiz rune for protection. I levitated the brush and fought to not flinch against the soft heat of the mixture of blood and peridot.

The second rune, the one for the body, I chose aventurine for healing, and Sowilo, for the life force. With that set, I was hoping to boost my healing factor.

The third and arguably most important was the runes that would affect my soul. These were the ones Merlin had questioned. The first was ground up leaves from the rowan tree. It was my wand wood and known as the moon tree. I thought it was a nice counterbalance to the runes and gems I used that embodied the sun. The rune I chose was Laguz, renewal, what I would hope would boost my magical strength. As the final rune drew itself into my skin, I felt the air around me gain an almost static charge and felt more power than I'd ever felt before flowing into me. It took my breath away, and it seemed like the world had gained a new edge, and suddenly, I felt a dozen different pops across my body, and fell to the ground. Injuries that hadn't been totally healed with magic suddenly fixed themselves. I felt several pops as poorly realigned joints righted themselves, and then I knew no more.

After waking up a few hours later, I opened my eyes. As I came back to consciousness, reality assaulted me. Everything looked sharper, more vivid. A blaze of color when everything Then my other senses kicked in. My nose was assaulted by half a dozen different scents I didn't recognize, and my ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noises. It was like the worst hangover ever. I immediately closed my eyes, covered my ears, and curled into a ball. But it did nothing. In addition to this, my latent telepathy came roaring forward. In a school of almost two thousand, it was like wrapping my mind in static. I concentrated, trying to bring up my mental walls and block the noise out.

Eventually, I heard a voice cut through the endless noise.

"Stephen." The voice said.

"Go away!" I said.

"Stephen, you need to focus. Your shields are down. Bring them up. Bring your mental wards up. We need to get your telepathy under control first." I dimly recognized the voice as Merlin's.

I felt another mind brush against mine, and it felt familiar.

"Stephen, it's Emily. You need to let me in so I can help you." I heard Emily's voice echo through my head, and I managed to drop whatever one way shield the ritual had erected.

I felt her Ego brush against my own, and she helped me draw my mind back into my own head and rebuild the mental walls that I had built. When it was done, she withdrew from my mind, and I let out a sigh of relief.

The ritual had been successful. I looked down. My blood and the regents had been burned to ash. As I got up from the floor, I noticed a change. My limbs moved exactly how I wanted them to. I hadn't realized how uncoordinated I was until that movement. As I dressed, I noticed I had a sense of balance and grace that wasn't present before.

I gathered my implements together.

The three of them had already dressed and were waiting for me.

"Are you okay?" Emily asked.

"I'm fine." I said and stretched. That was when I noticed another enhancement. I could sense the magic in them. From Reg, I noticed something wild, and untamed, like the sense of an old growth forest, or a wild cat on the hunt.

From William, I felt a sense of steady calm, a whiff of clay and fresh wheat.

From Emily, I felt her mind, a calming presence, the quiet of a library. The smell of old books, and just a hint of rot.

"What's wrong?"

"Stephen, your power." Emily said.

"What about it?"

"It's like sensing seeing the world all at once. Like, a rush of a hundred colors."

"I wonder, if we can sense each other, can we sense what kind of spell is being used?" William asked.

"Merlin, can you conjure a dummy?" I said. He winked into existence. "Certainly." He said and conjured a gnoll that simply stood there.

"Light?" William.

"Possibly." I replied, the magic felt twisty, like just out of place.

I raised my hand, opened my palm, and called forth a ball of light. I noticed then that my mental construct of the orb was wrong and fixed my perception of that. A ball of brilliant green light hovered in my palm, as bright as a small sun. I lessened the flow of power going into it, and it lowered in intensity. Before, my magic was a trickle from a spring, and now it was a mighty river in full flood.

"Not light." William said.

"You're an illusion?" Emily asked.

"Excellent observation Miss York." Merlin said.

"It's Andrews now." She replied.

"Oh?"

"Stephen's guardian adopted me." Emily replied.

"Interesting."

Reginald looked at the dummy. Then he flipped his hand through a gesture. A spear of force flew through the air and bisected the dummy. The force spell felt clean, like a summer breeze across my skin. That would make sense, because force was one of the purest forms of magic. I could also feel the rune and power structure of the spell.

I tried recreating the force spell from the energy I felt Reginald manifest, and it coalesced for a moment before vanishing.

"Your power flow is wrong." Reginald said.

"Can you conjure that spell again?"

He did, and held the spear, I cast out my senses, and I saw where I'd gone wrong.

Then, I conjured my force spear perfectly. It was like I'd gained a new sense. If magic was music, where before I could hear it and then try to recreate it, this was reading the sheet the music was written on and having perfect pitch.

For the next hour or so, we started working on a baseline of how the rituals enhanced us. The ritual had a baseline apparently. We all had increased hand eye coordination, which resulted in better reflexes, and it seemed as our magical senses had been enhanced. After that, we left the room.


What did everyone think? If you liked this chapter, please consider giving me an upvote, or a like if you're reading this on Questionable Questing. This is an already completed work, and each post will be a chapter (or half chapter) of the first book in the Aether Cycle. I'll be posting these chapters every week. If you like what you read, and want to support the author, and don't want to wait for updates, please consider purchasing The Voice in His Head from Amazon or Audible, or supporting me on Patreon.
You can discuss this chapter below, or in the Discord. If you're a Troper, the Aether Cycle TV Tropes page can be found here. This needs Wiki Love, so if you like doing that, and you're a fan, be my guest!
Finally, I'm going to be starting a newsletter shortly, and you can find the signup form for that here! Anyone who signs up for my newsletter will gain access to an exclusive short story from Bethany's point of view.
Once again, thank you for all your support.

 

[jldew93]

Three days later, Malcolm Grey and Calumn Thorne decided to escalate their antagonism. We were walking down one of the hallways one day when they bumped into us. Our animosity hadn't faded since our first encounter. Reg and William, and Calem were talking about some sort of plant. Grey bumped into us, and Thorne sneered.

"Have you still not learned to mind your betters?" He asked.

"You bumped into me you wanker!" Emily exclaimed. Thorne looked at her like something he'd wiped off her shoe.

"You know York, you'd get more attention if you stopped dressing like a dyke. Honestly, the orphan finally gets money from doing gods knows what in that crawler orphanage. I can understand that crawler bitch adopting the nameless bastard. But, you? You're just riding his coattails. What do you do, suck him off for your essays?" Thorne asked. Emily snarled, and raised her wand.

"Emily, don't." I said, and she looked at me.

"Yes Emily, don't." Thorne sneered in a mimicry of my voice. I realized that while I'd gotten my first growth spurt over the summer, Thorne was still small. I raised my own wand.

"Let the little dogs yap. It's just bad breeding." I said.

"I agree. If there's something wrong with the pup, there's usually something wrong with the bitch." Reginald said. He had calmly drawn his own wand, and I noticed that William had his own raised as well. Calem had drawn a dagger of all things from his belt. I wondered what he got up to over the summer.

"You're one to talk Coldwood, you and your ridiculously moonsick mother. Tell me, has she set any more houses on fire?" A voice said. Two older
legacies stood behind us. Both of them were at least fifth form. Then the first spell flew, from behind. I felt the dark edge to the spell, and saw it collide and spark against Williams shield, and then the other two Legacies dropped their glamours. Hell broke loose.

Emily lashed out with a wave of telekinesis, and Grey blocked it, firing off a spell with a slash of his wand. Emily could fight her own battles, and I unleashed a bone breaker toward one of the fifth forms, followed quickly by a one-syllable explosion spell. He blocked them both, and I sent out a dozen daggers of ice. A spell hit me, and it seemed like the world slowed to a crawl.

"Fulminas hasta!" I heard Grey yell in slow motion, a lance of lightning shot from his wand and I saw his smirk. I backpedaled, it felt like I was moving through syrup. I know I needed to raise a shield of earth around me to stop the bolt from frying me.

"Contego Duro!" I heard Emily say distantly, and white lightning met the sapphire shield and was stopped.

"Fractae!" I heard a voice say, it could have been William and then the world went back to normal speed. I snarled, drew my daggers with a mental flick and sent death spiraling toward the direction I felt the spell coming from. I heard a meaty thunk. Suddenly Grey went flying backward and then sideways in a curve, where he collided with a statue. He fell to the ground in a boneless heap.

Thorne took a step backward and I pressed my advantage, unleashing one syllable spell after spell. Finally, his shield chant broke, and I shot off a binder. His limbs were bound, and I pocketed his wand.

I turned toward my companions. One of the fifth forms was down, my daggers pinning him to the stone wall. Two were on the backstep, and Emily had the other on the ground, savagely kicking him over and over. Calem's dagger was still in his palm, but it glowed a sickly orange, and he was muttering a spell under his breath.

I rejoined the fray. A wave of telekinesis slammed into them, breaking their shields finally. Reg bound one with thorny looking vines, and William knocked the last out with a vicious right hook. I went over to Emily.

"He's down." I said. She didn't stop. I wrapped my arms around her, and lifted her up. It was no easy feat.

"I'm going to kill them; I'm going to kill them all!" She snarled. Kicking at me, and scratching my arms.

"Emily. Calm down." I said, sending a wave of calm through our bond. She stopped kicking, and almost immediately burst into tears. She embraced me.

"You're safe. No one is going to hurt you." I said, over and over. After a few minutes, she stopped and sniffled.

"We need to go to a Professor. Or a Dean." Reginald said.

"Go, I'll stay here." I said. They left, and they reappeared in a few minutes with Dean Stephenson.

"Oh my." He said. She tapped her necklace.

"Could Dean Blackthorn, Assistant Headmaster Locke, and Nurse Collins please report to the fifth floor. There's been an altercation." In less than a minute, the staff members were present.
Nurse Collins let out a gasp.

"What happened?" She said, drawing her wand and began a series of diagnostic spells. She started with the one pinned to the walls with my daggers.

"Ambush." The fifth form gasped out.

"I saw everything, professor. These five attacked Grey and Thorne. Then they turned on us." He said.

"I think that it would be best if we headed to my office." Assistant Headmaster Locke said.

"Yes, I think that would be best. I'll inform their parents, or lack thereof." Dean Blackthorn said.
In half an hours' time we were seated in his office. Bethany wasn't present, neither were Reginald's parents or William's. However, the two fifth forms parents had arrived, as had an older severe looking woman that could easily pass as an older, female version of Thorne. She was dressed in a suit, and her arms were bare. There was a string of bells tattooed on each arm, along with two hanging from each ear.
Nurse Collins had arrived and quickly recapped the injuries we had inflicted on our classmates.

"Mr. Andrews and company, what do you have to say for yourselves?"

"With all due respect, I think we all stand firm when I say I won't be saying anything until our guardians arrived."

"It's a shame about that, you see, my fire message was returned unanswered to your townhome, Mr. Andrews. Reginald's father is out of the country on a sudden assignment from the Council Majeure, and Mr. Lowe's family has been hidden away. No trace of them exists in our file systems. As for Mr. Robére, well, his Aunt told us to deal with him as he saw fit. Simply a shame." Dean Blackthorn said.

"Yes, that is, isn't it?" A voice said. Bethany walked into the room. She was flanked by a severe looking older woman, who I recognized as Agatha Coldwood and a middle-aged bespectacled man. The man stepped forward, and offered his wand to Assistant Locke, who tapped it.

"Terrance Selwyn of Selwyn, Duke, and Hawthorn. I am the Andrews family barrister." He said, offering his wand.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Now, why would your clients need a barrister? This is an informal meeting."

"This is just a precaution." Terrance replied.

"If they get to involve their barristers, then we should as well." Thorne's mother said.

"Oh, sit down Irene." Lady Coldwood said.

"Agatha, nice to see you, how is your daughter in law?" Irene Thorne replied.

"I wish I could say the same, and she's fine." The older lady said.

"Mrs. Coldwood, I believe we should all sit down." Assistant Locke said. With a wave of his wand, he conjured chairs. They all sat.

"I'll be representing the afflicted parties." Irene Thorne said.

"Now, since your charges attacked first, House Thorne wishes for House Coldwood to withdraw their Heir from Coventry post haste. We want the mundaneborns to be bound."

"That is a harsh demand." Selwyn said.

"Harsh actions demand harsh responses. If you agree to these concessions, along with the forfeiture of the runic schematics for the spatial expansions used on the Emrys train, per House Grey's request we will not press this matter to the Council Majeure. House Valmont is demanding that House Andrews pay for the medical care of their Heir, and that they forfeit a quarter of the gold currently being held in the Andrews vaults." Thorne replied.

"House Andrews refutes these demands. We wish for full memory and analysis of the altercation scene." Selwyn said.

"Should the evidence support my viewpoint, I will press this to the Council." Thorne replied.

"I do happen to have a reliquary on hand. Whose memories would you like to view?" Assistant Locke said.

"I volunteer mine." I said.

"I object, that boy is a telepath. He would be able to alter the memories he offered." Irene said.

"How would you know that, Irene?" Bethany asked.

"That is unimportant. I have it on excellent authority that Andrew's boy is a telepath, among other things, as is the girl. I would like the donor to be Reginald, or my child."
Emily and I shared looks.

"How does she know that?" I sent to Emily and received a mental shrug.

"I agree to this." Selwyn said. Assistant Locke nodded and tapped a spot on his desk. A large cauldron appeared.
The memories were extracted, and the adults watched them. After watching the altercation twice, they stopped the projections.

"This appears to be an ambush." Selwyn said.

"So, it appears." Thorne demurred.

"House Andrews will be demanding a weregild of five hundred aurei per house for our charges and vassals. House Coldwood will be demanding the same." Selwyn said.

"That's quite a lot of aurei for a school yard altercation." Irene said.

"You were just demanding that our Heirs effectively be removed from magical society. We could easily demand the same under the terms Duello. This was effectively an ambush. The Scions of House Andrews and House Coldwood could have been killed. One could almost make a case for destruction of lineage."

"You demand above your station." Irene said.

"Will the council think as much? Will Analise Brennan think that about the attempted murder of her daughter's betrothed? Will Samson Coldwood and Yasmine Penhurst think the same about the attempted murder of their grandson and cousin?" The old lady, Agatha, said. I looked down in my seat. I had avoided Tanya for the entire year so far.

"Make no mistake, with those four votes, the council Mineure will have the necessary attention to force a motion."

"Yes, but you need a majority to push it to the Majeure." Rosalyn Thorne said. Selwyn produced three scrolls from thin air.

"These are signed Letters of Adjunct from the Heads of House Duke, Selwyn and Hawthorn. Should this be pressed. The Council Mineure will have motion approved and motion granted. This will push to the Majeure. The Ether scans will prove that you are guilty of attempt line destruction at minimum

"That Coldwood is the youngest in his family."

"His line has been cursed with the Peril of Sapphic. He is the only male born of the line in his generation. Since it cost my Cavanaugh his fertility in the ritual to break the curse, that would pass to me, dear sister." Agatha said.

"A clear-cut case of lineal destruction is enough to bring the Majeure's destruction down. The Reese purge wasn't so many years ago. You think they don't remember what they dispatched their Hunters to do not even a decade ago?"

"You dare conflate a school yard exchange of hexes with the horrors of Encausse and Reese?"

"I dare and did. The lines are drawn so cleanly, aren't they? Even now you wear the infernal bells like a mark of pride. I would see that town you so cherish in ruin. Agree to our terms, sister, or the Thornes will burn. Apostate will be declared, and your son will be the first to fall under the Coldwood wand."
There was a tension filled pause in the room. I could practically hear the magic crackle as these two entered a staring contest.

"I agree to the terms." Irene Thorne said finally.
Selwyn flicked his hand and another scroll popped into being.

"This is a contract with the agreed upon details. I shall give each party time to return to their barristers so they may have their copies scanned for any irregularities. I shall give it a week before Couriers are sent to collect the signed copies. Madam Thorne. Your barristers are still the Perry's?" He asked. She nodded tersely.

"If there are no other issues, I must take my leave." Irene Thorne said. She and the two fifth form parents swiftly left.

"What just happened?" Emily sent me.

"I think we were just used." I said.

"Samuel, it was nice to see you again. I do wish it was under better circumstances, and issue of weregild aside, if you could give me the mirror script for the Valmont and Davies families, I'll be willing to pay for the cost of their children's medical care." Bethany said.

"You'd do that?" He asked.

"I know this economic downfall the Untouched are experiencing affected the Valmont's interests, and I'm also aware the boy Emily beat is a Mundane-born. From my understanding his father is a banker who is currently unemployed. Were it not for Coventry's scholarship program, Mr. Davies wouldn't even be here. While I am not admitting that my charge was guilty of anything besides self-defense, I would like to extend this offer of peace." She said, Assistant Headmaster Locke nodded.

"And I would like to pay for the treatment for the Falcone and Medici boys. It is only fair. Those four had their loyalties used against them." Agatha said.

"I'm sure you know as well as I do the Medici's and Falcone's do not need charity." Locke replied.

"No, they do not, but this bout of hostilities was directed at our four children. Those fifth forms went along with it, but that was only because of where their familial alliances lay. They shouldn't have to pay the consequences for their superior's failure to plan."

"I agree, and I thank you for the gesture. I will contact the families and make them aware of their offers. I can pass along your contact information if you wish. If that is all, I do believe there is just one more issue at hand."

"What would that be?" Selwyn asked.

"These five defended themselves, but the manner in which they did was brutal. Unrelenting. Such actions need to be punished. You're all suspended from the dueling class until the end of the year. You're all also disqualified from the Winter Tourney."
We were all silent. The points gained in dueling matches were what Emily and I both used to keep our edge. Academics were a non-issue, but that punishment would seriously hurt our standing in Alpha Squad. At minimum, Emily would be losing her position as head.

"I have plans to enter the international junior league potioneer's tournament. Dueling is not where my talents lie, am I disqualified from that as well?" Calem said.

"No, just dueling. If there are no further questions, I believe we're done here." The Headmaster said.

"Stephen and Emily, I'll be seeing you over Yule. Try not to get into too much trouble, and mirror home once in a while, will you?"

"We will." Emily promised. We left the Assistant headmasters office.

"Great job, York." Calem sneered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She retorted. A couple of third forms were staring at them.

"I mean I'm through with you, York. You and your crazy brother can fuck off." He said, I stepped forward.

"Leave it." Emily sent me instantly. I gave her a look.

"That could have gone better." Will muttered.
Emily shot us a look and flashed us a grin. Then she walked away.

"Would someone tell me what exactly just happened?" Reg asked. As I watched Emily walk away, I found myself wondering the exact same thing.

<BR>
To my Patreon supporters; early updates will start next thursday, I promise!
What did everyone think? If you liked this chapter, please consider giving me an upvote, or a like if you're reading this on Questionable Questing. This is an already completed work, and each post will be a chapter (or half chapter) of the first book in the Aether Cycle. I'll be posting these chapters every week. If you like what you read, and want to support the author, and don't want to wait for updates, please consider purchasing The Voice in His Head from Amazon or Audible, or supporting me on Patreon.
You can discuss this chapter below, or in the Discord. If you're a Troper, the Aether Cycle TV Tropes page can be found here. This needs Wiki Love, so if you like doing that, and you're a fan, be my guest!
Finally, I'm going to be starting a newsletter shortly, and you can find the signup form for that here! Anyone who signs up for my newsletter will gain access to an exclusive short story from Bethany's point of view.
Once again, thank you for all your support.

 

[jldew93]

As the weeks remaining in the fall term burned away, we spent time outside, enjoying the outdoors before being blocked in by the deep snow, and I found out how the ritual had affected me. The sun, despite it being nearly blocked by overcast skies, seemed to invigorate me in a way it never had before. It was like the sun itself fueled my magic. The first night of a full moon, I found sleep hard to come, and I paced my room restlessly, like a caged animal. Sleep was impossible to find. The next day, despite an entire night of no sleep, I was filled with energy.

After the ritual, I found it easier to focus. My spell casting was more fluid before. Before it was like I was wading through water. Now every spell was motion, and motion that came as instinctual as breathing. Before, even with the Librum spell and the nearly eidetic mind that all Psykers possesed, I had to actively work to recall and memorize knowledge. Now I could read something, even glance at it, and I'd recall it instantly.

Before, my mind was a house, I was outside and there was a door standing between myself and the knowledge within. Now, my mind was an auditorium and the information I was looking for came washed over me like a symphony. This, and the new healing factor we all seemed to possess, meant our training sessions gained a new edge, and our skills seemed to increase exponentially. The days passed in a blur, and soon we were a few weeks away from Yule. We were eating breakfast when Reginald got the letter from his family.

"My dad's been invited to speak at a conference in Brazil again. This time, they're going to be gone longer than Yule break. Can I spend the hols in London?" He asked me.

"Let me ask Bethany, but I'm sure it won't be an issue."
I took the mirror from my pocket and traced her runic code across the surface of the mirror. She appeared after a couple minutes.

"Stephen, to what do I owe this honor?" She said, and I realized that I'd been lax in communicating to her.

"Reg was wondering if he could spend the holidays with us?" I asked.

"That shouldn't be an issue, is there anything else?" Bethany asked. She seemed distracted.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"I'm dealing with the repercussions of this summer. The Majeure isn't happy with how we handled that situation. That, and the incident earlier in the year, means my plate is quite full." She replied.

"Will we be safe?"

"We should be, if not, I've got the wards being refactored every few hours." Bethany said.

"That's good." I replied.

"Stephen, I'd love to talk, but I'm in meetings for the next few hours. I'll call you when I'm done." Bethany said.

"Okay, bye." I replied, and she cut the connection.
I looked up at Reg.

"You'll be fine. You can come home with us." I said, and he smiled. Breakfast was almost over, and students were filing out of the hall. As we did, we ran into Calem and the twin idiots.

"Andrews." He said stiffly.
I frowned; I could sense his magic now. It smelled like loam, and just a taste of iron. I wasn't sure what that was.

"Calem, how have you been?" I asked with a smile.

"I'd be better if you moved out of my way." He said, and I frowned.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He seemed different; they all did. Perhaps they had worked a ritual. I stood aside.

"About time House Andrews learns its place." Thorne sneered.

"Calumn Thorne, I will have words." Emily said, her tone all venom and bite.

"You wouldn't." He said.

"For shallow words, deemed an insult on the Peer and Personage of House Andrews, I find you coward." You could have heard a pin drop as everyone heard her voice. I frowned. Why was she calling a duel?

"Stop it right now you grimy dyke!"

"As the listener of these words, I call thee craven."

"You wouldn't dare you little unbred crawler."

"As the Speaker of the Peer and Personage of House Andrews, I deemed thee contested!"

"Thrice and done mage, throw thy gauntlet or leave my presence." He acquiesced. Knowing any other phrase would have branded him a coward.

"As a Member of the Peer and Personage, I demand a duel, to death or disarm, using naught but what magic has gifted us, with no accoutrements, save the wands bound to us. At Noon, December 19th. Name thy second, bitch." Emily said. The crowd around us gasped.

"Calem Robére, Vassal of House Thorne. Name thy second, upstart, motherless challenger." Thorne said, Emily smiled, a sharp smile, that was all teeth and glittering purple-sapphire eyes.

"Elijah Coldhollow, Slender and Sworn Vassal of Lady Selene, Ice Queen, Grand Mauwlkin Slayer, Bringer of Wind, Mouth of Darkness, Mother of Rebirth, May her Reign Last Eternal." She said.

"Such a long reach for such a new family. It's a nice bluff, liar, but I will call it."

"Brother dearest?"

"Yes, sister, mine." I ground out. I didn't want to play this game, but I would.

"Call Uncle Eli on your mirror and inform him of the challenge that House Andrews has deliver, with the tantalizing bounty of-"
She looked at Thorn.

"What shall you wager?"

"The entirety of my trust fund, for the entirety of yours."

"Of a trust fund, and shall we sweeten the deal?"

"With?" He asked.

"The victorious house will also surrender Quaestiones in veritate and favors three."

"Dealt and Done." Thorn said.

"With that as well." I sighed and decided to have fun.
I dialed Eli's code, and his face popped up on the glass.

"My my, Stephen, to what do I owe this pleasure."

"Uncle Eli, Emily has entered into a contest with House Thorne, for insults dealt, to death or disarm. With naught but wand. The additional bounty will be the Trust Fund on the losing party, in addition to Quaestiones in veritate and favors three from the House of said losing party."

"Uncle, huh nephew," I could hear the leer in his voice.

"I hadn't realized we've progressed to role playing. That's quite a bounty she'd reap, and quite a loss House Andrews faces. Would both of them go for the kill? When would this duel take place?"

"Both parties would agree to this. December 19th."

"Oh, this will be a show, put me on Projection, would you dearie?" I did, and his visage appeared on the screen, from his circlet, tapered ears and pale features alone, you could tell he was Fae, and somewhere in the line of succession.

"I, Elijah Coldhollow, Ally of House Andrews, Sworn Vassal of the Winter Queen, and her deminese, accept this honor from House Andrews, and my wand shall be theirs for the duration of this contest." He said and cut the connection.

"What say you?" Emily asked.

"I apologize my lady, for the slight against your second. I accept the duel with the terms agreed. On my magic, I swear it." Thorne said.

"I accept thy oath and swear one in return."

"I will bury you alive and burn your house down around your ears," She thought.

"I will accept thy unspoken oath. Shall next we meet?" Thorne asked.

"Shall next we meet indeed." Emily said, and they turned and walked away from each other.
Later that night, I cornered Emily in the Room. She had set up a dueling doll, and set it to nearly the highest setting, and Emily easily parrying if not outright disrupting it, with naught but silent gestures, and a few spells flying with nothing but eerie, still silence. She was immensely talented, and had I fought her a year ago in the corridor, I wasn't entirely sure I would have won.

"Do you plan to kill him, or just seriously maim?" I asked.

"I certainly plan to maim something vital to his ego." She replied. I noticed for the first time; her voice was slowly changing. The cockney in her voice was slowly fading.

"That could be construed as Line Destruction." I replied

"It would be fixable, just shorter than before, by half." She replied.
I winced and reminded myself to never piss her off.

"And?" I asked.

"His salvation is entirely dependent on his courteousness during the duel."

"Ouch." I said.

"Now, Stephen, I have practice. Unless you plan on joining me, I want you to leave."
I grinned, and dropped my stuff into Io's bell, then I stripped down to my short sleeves.

"Each other or them?"

"I would like some live, thinking, practice." She said. I walked ten paces, counted to ten, and opened fire. Her shield caught my bone breaker and broke on the emerald dart of a shield piercer. I whirled away from the flesh-eating spell and winced as a flayer caught me on my off hand. An auric purge, followed by hasty nerve-veins-skin and forget hair knitter put my hand in semi working order, though I pitied Reg when he healed it.
I healed, just in time to use a small telekinetic shield to block a burning ball of phosphorus. I took control of it with my pyromancy, ripped away the oxygen, added hydrogen, and flung the heat away from in a shimmering haze of searing air. As Emily blocked that, I shattered the ball into razor sharp shards of ice and sent them flying away from me. She smirked and ordered the heat I'd just sent her way to melt until the ice changed to water. She fed that fireball with the oxygen and hydrogen and sent it spinning toward me.
I knew she had a ploy. We could keep up this game of cat and mouse transmutation all day. Then I felt the small magical signature inside the fiery ball. It was an organ freezer. It flash frozen your organs, and since I was already drawing on the cold, the spell would work that much faster. Add in the fact that I was pushing my inner fire away, to combat the flames already coming my way, and that spell may have well killed me.
I threw out a general-purpose null magic screen, and then spun that into a null magic net, designed to temporarily still magic, followed by a rope to chain spell. It would have effectively caused her to be chained inside her own body by her own magic, a process that would continue until her core was drained. She easily side stepped them, threw a trio of knives and I let out a grin. The game was on again, and we lost ourselves to the dance of the magic inside of us.

<BR>
As always, thank you to everyone that's read so far. In anticipation of the sequel, which is finished, I'm wondering if my readers are more likely to read this if I continued posting on Friday, or if anyone is interested in a pre-order?

 

[jldew93]

Author's Note: As we approach the end of the first book in the Aether Cycle, I'd like to thank my readers. There's over five-thousand of you that have read this, and thanks to each and everyone one of you for giving me the motivation to continue posting. I've always wanted to be a writer, and for the longest time I was afraid that my writing was total garbage. You guys are helping my dream come true, and that's the best feeling in the world. I love all you guys

There's about three more chapters left, and then I'm going to take a month and polish the second book. I won't be posting chapters during this time period, but I will be posting artwork and interludes that never made it into the web serial and book.

December 19th, 1930.
Coventry School,
Unknown location, United Kingdom.

A few weeks had passed since Emily challenged that idiot to duel. She should have named me her second. I understand why she chose her second, but it should be me. But it still irked me.
After a barely eaten breakfast, we approached the dueling field.

Emily was dressed in her Onyxian armor. Wand in its holster, dagger sheaths and vial bandolier emptied. In white, on her breast, she had painted the sigil for House Andrews.
Thorn was dressed in something similar. He was also wearing the dragon leather armor, a Netherland Green, but his sigil had a bright carmine rose painted, a line of Summoning bells dripping down the bottom curled petal. They sent in their seconds.

"Calem, we both agree that this duel is unnecessary." Eli said.

"But we don't agree that trash should be burned." He said with a pointed look.

"Another barb like that, Calem Robére," I said, forcing a touch of magic to my invocation of his Name, using our former bond of friendship, "and there will be two duels this day. Sanctioned or not." He let out a stiff nod, and I grinned.

"Can we compromise, and let this be a by-gone?" Eli asked.

"Absolutely not." Calem said.

"Our discussion is over then." Eli said, and walked away. He stopped by Emily, and she put a letter in his hand, and nodded."
William turned around.

"Ten paces and go." I said. They walked their spaces and paused.

"Ten seconds start."

I counted to ten aloud, and yelled.

"Go!" I yelled.

Emily immediately rolled out of the away and to the left as Thorne unleashed a bonesaw spell with a careful runic script, and a loudly shouted.

"Carnificare!"

Emily spun on her heel, keeping low, and unleashed a blood-boiler and some sort of teeth coring spell that was downright evil, but barely Dark.

"My, my, Thorne, still at novice level with your casting."

He blocked them both. Then he yelled out.

"Percutio!" With a sharp jab of his wand. She easily dodged that spell.

"You really should get a start on learning that." She said.

"Emily. Stop playing with your food." I said.

"Foci Exorus!" He said, sending a disarmament spell her way. She dodged the spell, and smirked. He growled and said.

"Arsenia Sagitta!" A nasty looking arrow shot from his wand and Emily dispelled the magic holding it together. He followed that up by a disarming spell.
She smirked and went with it, allowing herself to be disarmed, and letting her wand loose.

"Yield!" Thorn said, Emily smirked, and unleashed a wave of force that sent him flying backward. She followed with a fireball spell that he blocked. I clicked my tongue, instead of absorbing the energy, he ground it out, wasting both the energy from his reserves.

He sent out a skin flayer that Emily ripped to so many auric shreds, and while she was delayed with that, sent a spell that would cause your bones to explode. She dodged neatly, and then unleashed a trio of wandless, silent spells, that she followed by a gesture-less invisible curse that he must have felt incoming, because he sent out a null-all shield.

She had him on the defensive, and kept up a steady stream of nasty curses, he kicked up the snow in the dueling ring, and unleashed a flurry of icy shards. That took her off guard, and the null-flame area shield blocked her attempts to burn away the storm. She resorted to rolling away from the shards of ice. She was still playing possum. I'd seen her easily block that same maneuver from me. All she had to do was using a magical fracturing curse. What was her game?

She played this cat and mouse game with him for at least ten minutes, always keeping him spinning in a circle, wearing himself thin.

That was when she made her move. She threw out a trio of spectral daggers meant as a distraction. A second spell, a metacarpal fracture, would have broken his dominant hand, and it did. He fumbled with his wand, grabbed it with his off hand, and brought up a hasty shield to block her gangrene spell, which was followed by a series of three slashes of her main hand. Two of the cutters clipped his already injured arm and he bit back a scream.

She yanked her wand back to her hand and intoned.

"Extorquio." There was a pop as that much abused arm's shoulder popped out of the socket.

"Catenis." Sapphire-purple chains ripped their way out of her reclaimed wand and bound his arms together. He had just enough movement to still make sparks with his wand.

"Do you yield?" She asked.

"I do not."

"Fertilis, sectum." She said, aiming at his groin. The spell ripped through the dragonhide armor, and he screamed.

"Do you yield? The next spell will take off a limb."

"I yield." He said, and Emily released the chain spell.

"I accept your surrender, let the affront against my house be forgiven."

Eli and Calem began discussing the details of the bounty's transfer, and I took that opportunity to lightly brush my magic against Calem's. I still tasted iron, but the smell had turned to old books. Visions of a blue and darker blue checkered blanket, much loved and long frayed at the edges 'neath an old maple tree. Midsummer, and the sound of children's voices. I realized that I'd accidently dived into his mind and withdrew. I wanted to know what was happening to my friend, not rummage through his innermost thoughts. Then, as I withdrew, two twinkling stars in the sky. The one on the right just a bit lower than the other. I shook my head.

No, that's had to be impossible. The implications of that were, frankly, disturbing.

I shook my head. It was hours before Yule Break, our midterm exams had been set. At the end of the year, we'd take our journeyman tests for the next part of our time at Coventry. I was hoping to go into the Alchemy, Enchantment, and Transmutation Circles, but I knew the Alchemy professor didn't like me. So, I was going to focus on the enchantment circle. My things were packed, and everything was safely stowed away in the Bell. Now we were waiting for our portal to open. Dean Crestwood walked up to where we were sitting.

"All four of you are portaling to the Andrews' Manor, correct?" She said, surveying the slate in front of her.

"Yes, Dean." I replied. She nodded and moved to the next group.
Soon, our departure time arrived, and we left Coventry behind.

<BR>
What did everyone think? If you liked this chapter, please consider giving me an upvote, comment, or a like if you're reading this on Questionable Questing. This is an already completed work, and each post will be a chapter (or half chapter) of the first book in the Aether Cycle. I'll be posting these chapters every week. If you like what you read, and want to support the author, and don't want to wait for updates, please consider purchasing The Voice in His Head from Amazon or Audible, or supporting me on Patreon.
You can discuss this chapter below, or in the Discord. If you're a Troper, the Aether Cycle TV Tropes page can be found here. This needs Wiki Love, so if you like doing that, and you're a fan, be my guest!
Once again, thank you for all your support.

 

[jldew93]

When we arrived home, the first thing I noticed were the wards. Instead of the usual static tingle I was greeted by an almost painful electrical charge, and the feeling that something was downright hungry. For battle, or energy I wasn't quite sure.

I also noticed that there were more guards. Usually there were one or two of the black armored soldiers prowling around the townhouse, now there was one at every door and stairway. I knew that our security was heightened because of the vampires, but I didn't realize it was this bad. Bethany was waiting for us, as was Vincent.
She stepped forward, and greeted Reginald first.

"Greetings, child of House Coldwood." She said, offering her wand. Reg tapped her wand.

"Merry Meet, Matron of House Andrews, I ask for guest right for the duration of my stay." He said.

"And so, shall you have it. I grant you the guest right, while under my roof."

"You have my gratitude." He said and bowed.
Then she turned to William.

"Son of Vassal Lowes I welcome you and yours home." She said.

"I accept your welcome, and all that it implies."

"Now that formalities are exchanged, William and Reginald, our staff has prepared a welcome dinner for you two. William, your siblings arrived earlier. If you'd like to go, Master Andrews will show you the way." She said. Will and Reg took that for the dismissal it was, and Vincent led them out of the library. When they were gone, Bethany secured the library's door with an anti-eavesdropping spell, a misdirection rune, and an anti-radio wave(?) spell.

"You may cast your own if you wish." She said, walking over to one of the tables Emily and I had spent so much time at. I drew a few glyphs in the air, guided them with the spells I wanted them to reinforce, and murmured my own suite of security spells. I followed this up with an auditory misdirection spell, and anti-scrying spell.
I looked at Emily.

"Honestly, if I casted anything else, we may as well carve the library its own reality."

"That's not a bad idea." Bethany said.

"Can we do that?" I asked, thinking of all the ways I could enhance one of those fancy suitcase apartments I'd seen in Emrys.

"The reality wash spell would be hard to do. You'd need to nest it inside the runes, and make sure it didn't kick off an Etheric cascade."

"Why don't we have a reality wash on the manor?"

"We did. We simply don't have the magic to fund that now."

"Oh?" I asked. I wasn't aware of anything we needed that much magic for. The Ether Font in the townhouse's basement was substantial.

"Is the Font translocating?" I asked. Fonts did move occasionally.

"No, nothing like that. Our resources are currently needed elsewhere. We're at an even pace right now, we don't have any to stockpile, but we aren't drawing on any outside our production."

"Can we please focus? What did you want to tell us?" Emily said, running her fingers through her hair. She only did that when I was really irritating her.

"Our font's status is part of the conversation dear. Do try and keep up." She replied.

Emily flicked her hand, throwing up a turn-away ward, and a sudden nausea spell that would make anyone trying to eavesdrop think they were suddenly violently ill. I smiled and nodded my head.

"Remind me to think about that one next time." I replied.

"Back off Stephen, it's mine." She said, and I put my hands up in a surrender gesture.

"As I was saying," Bethany said.

"Our stockpile is at a steady pace, and our stockpile has zero addition. So, we redeployed our guards to make up for the lack of security.

"But the wards are stronger than ever."

"We've got a family magical artifact powering them." She replied.

"And would that family magic possibly be?" I asked.
She gave me a look.

"It's possibly none of your business." She replied.

"Returning to the topic at hand. Due to that, and since we've got a member of a different House currently staying with us, and a novitiate Tremissis, we've ramped up security a bit. There's also a new magical artifact in the residential floor's study."

"What kind of artifact?"

"An unanchored mirror. We're not sure where it goes quite yet. We found it while dealing with a situation in Manchester."

"The vampires?" I asked. I'd followed the news, and I knew that Bethany killing Goodfellow's line had kicked off a power vacuum among the Midnight Court.

"To an extent." She replied, and I raised an eyebrow.

"We're taking care of the situation." She replied.

"So where are Amy and Eli?" Emily asked.

"Since his Lady permanently stationed him here, or at least until the current situation with the vampires is resolved, Eli is off doing what he does best here. He's draining my wine cellar dry and occasionally appearing to make a witty comment no one wants. Amy is currently in the security room." She said.
I nodded.

"Why aren't our stockpiles growing?" I asked.

"We've had two of our secondary, and one of our tertiary sources attacked. We're attempting to reclaim them." I was only aware of one tertiary source.

"So, the island?" I asked. I had claimed that as a sanctum of sorts over the years.

"Is intact. We had to actually shift it out of phase to prevent capture."

"Who's targeting us?" I asked.

"The usual sorts." She said.

"But, don't worry, everything is under control." She said. I bit out a groan of frustration. I'd been living with Bethany for almost five years, and she still wouldn't tell me everything about what our family did.

"It's not my house, so I'm not going to answer questions only to receive a riddle as an answer." I finally replied.

"But it will be, one day." Bethany replied.

"And when that day comes, I'll be a lot more older, and far more responsible, and I'll have Emily to help me, isn't that right, Em?" I asked.
She didn't reply.

"Emily?" I asked.

"Hmm?" She asked.

"You'd help me. Right?" I asked.

"Of course. Someone has to do the thinking." She said, and I shook my head at her snark.

"There's one more thing." Bethany said.

"What?" Emily said.

"Irene Thorne is going to address the Vox at the next meeting. My sources say she wants to press charges for your treatment of her Spare. She's going to push for a sanction. You'll both be required to attend." Bethany said.

"She's pressing charges for her spare? I barely wounded him." Emily said, and Bethany gave her a look.

"Your conduct in that duel was unprofessional at best, and I think you know that Emily." Bethany said.

"His entire existence is unprofessional." She retorted.

"Be that as it may, you still gravely injured a disarmed opponent. There very well could be repercussions for that." She said.

"In case of an emergency, I'm going to give you each a way to communicate with me that magical scans will not detect." She said. She pulled a small box about the size of a box of chocolates from the pocket of expanded space anchored to her ring and set the box on the table. The case was black and made of weird rugged looking plastic I'd never seen before. It looked vaguely like a briefcase. She undid the fasteners and opened the case. Laying in the case, in a series of foam nests, there were five objects. The first object I saw was two silvery looking pistols. These weren't the Colt M19s Bethany had trained me with. Where those were blocky, and black. These looked like strange, slim artifacts. The profiles were the same, in the same a tree branch had the same profile as a wand, or a steel gauntlet had the same profile as a silk glove. The other two objects were small boxes that also had the same silver look to them. These were about the size of a jewelry box, but there were much thinner. The fifth box was about the size of a pack of short cigarettes,
She took two of the clear band-aids from the party, out of the box, and handed one to each of us.

"Before you put these on, I'm warning you. They're permanent, once you put these on, you won't be able to remove them." She said. I took mine; I appreciated a discrete way to communicate.

"Are we marketing these yet?" I asked, and she shook her head.

She helped us place them at a spot just behind our ears, and as she flattened the piece of plastic against my skin, I felt a sensation like cold water soak into it. I touched the spot, and the band-aid was gone.

"Just touch the spot, and think "comm" followed by my name, or Vincent's, or Amy's, or each other's, and the person will hear your voice in their head. It does have a couple of other features, and I'll show you how to use them before you return to school. Now, go to dinner. Your guests are waiting," She said.
The small piece of plastic caught Voice's attention.

"Kid, since these are linked telepathically, ask her if that means me and Oh-Em will be able to communicate with anyone wearing them as long as you are?" He asked, and I repeated the question.

"That's actually a good question." Bethany asked, and then touched the same spot behind her ear.

"Stephen and Voice, can you hear me?" I heard.

"Yes, I can." Voice said, his tone was filled with happiness. In that moment, I felt bad for him. Aside from me, and lately Oh-Em, he had no-one to talk to.
Bethany gave me a funny look.

"Well, this will certainly be interesting." She sent. With that, I grabbed the box and handed it to Emily. She would spirit it away to the shrunken trunk she held on her wrist. We went to dinner and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. I didn't plan on unpacking. I had more than enough clothes, and my homework was done. That night, as I drifted off to sleep, I experienced the strangest dream I had so far.
I was in a castle. I don't think it was Coventry's main building. The castle was far too dusty, and where Coventry was brightly lit, and airy, this castle was gloomy and long abandoned. I was in a study that wasn't too dissimilar to the one I had claimed at the townhouse. I caught a glimpse in a dust covered mirror. I was about the same age I was now, maybe a few months older, judging from how much longer my hair was. I was dressed in Coventry's jacket and pants. I looked around the study. It was empty aside from the mirror and oak desk that had seen too many years.
I caught a glimpse of a woman walking past the door. It could have been Emily.

"Emily?" I asked. She mustn't have heard me, and I followed her. She was always a few steps to far away from me, and she seemed to ignore my calls. I followed her through the castle. It was dimly lit, and the gloom forced me to walk slower than I usually did to ensure I didn't trip on the rough stone underfoot. She led me through a maze of hallways, until I came to the entrance of what looked like the entrance of a courtyard of some sort. There was an arch of runes glowing brightly. I recognized some of them, and realized it was some form of protection. I saw a dying tree in the distance. The floor ahead was dirt. A bright orb of light cut through the gloom. It enveloped the courtyard in a wash of bright blue-green, pale yellow, and the emerald of my aura. As I stared at the orb, it shifted and changed, until a woman stood in its place. The woman's appearance changed and shifted like it couldn't settle on a single form.

She was young, and then in her twenties, and then wizened and hunch-backed. She held a staff in her hand. This changed as the woman aged and reverted. First from a wand, then to a staff, and finally into a walking stick.
The power coming off this woman brought me to my knees, and I let out a gasp.
She looked at me and gave me a small smile.

"Rise, child." She said, her voice was childlike. I felt the power fade from an endless wave to a warm caress.

"Who are you? Where am I?" I asked.

"You'll find the answers you seek soon enough." She said. This time, her voice was decidedly that of a woman. It still had a youthful tone to it, but you could hear wear age had honed the voice until it sounded like a half-forgotten melody.

"Is this my trial?" I asked. My wand seemed to be missing, and I couldn't feel the cold silver of my pentacle against my chest.

"Soon." The woman said, and this time, she sounded old. Her voice had grown ragged and raspy, and it sent a cold shiver down my spine.

"Where is this place?" I asked again.

"You'll find out in time." The woman said, speaking with the voice of a child again.

"Why have you brought me here, spirit?" I asked.

"This is a warning Stephen Oliver Andrews." The woman said, and I felt power wrap around me as she used my Name.

"Your trial is coming, and the golden kingdom looms on the horizon. All your training has brought you here, and you must walk the broken road to find what you seek. I bring you warning, I bring you comfort, and I bring you advice." She said.

"Your warning is thus. Even kings and lords go to war, and royal blood will be spilled." the child said. A wind kicked up, flinging up dirt and grit.

"Am I going to have to fight?" I said, and she ignored my question.

"Your comfort is thus. You won't find him, but he will find you, and what you seek so desperately will be found before your road reaches its end." The woman said, and the strange wind gained an edge and rose in intensity. I sighed, I was tired of answers wrapped in half-truths and riddles.

"Your advice is thus. Home is not what surrounds you, but what will. His birth is a gift, and time with him will be fleeting. His sleep will seem eternal, but he will awaken." The crone said, by the time she had finished speaking, the wind seemed to surround me. I heard the crackle of lightning, and the crash of thunder, and felt the lighting surge into me before my vision faded to black.

<BR>

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and if you liked this chapter, please consider giving me an upvote, comment, or a like if you're reading this on Questionable Questing. This is an already completed work, and each post will be a chapter (or half chapter) of the first book in the Aether Cycle. I'll be posting these chapters every week. If you like what you read, and want to support the author, and don't want to wait for updates, please consider purchasing The Voice in His Head from Amazon or Audible, or supporting me on Patreon.

You can discuss this chapter below, or in the Discord. If you're a Troper, the Aether Cycle TV Tropes page can be found here. This needs Wiki Love, so if you like doing that, and you're a fan, be my guest!
Once again, thank you for all your support.

 

[jldew93]

I woke from the dream with a gasp and lurched up to a sitting position.

"Stephen, are you okay?" Voice asked.

"I'm fine." I said, out loud.

"It's just a bad dream." I replied.

I could still feel the sudden sear heat from the lightning. I called my wand to my hand and checked the time with a muttered spell. It was near the witching hour. I shook the dream from my head and decided to grab myself a cup of hot chocolate from a kitchen imp.
I exited my room and walked down the steps just as Emily's door opened. She looked at me.

"Bad dream?" I asked.

"How did you know?" She asked.

"I had one myself. I'm about to get a cuppa from the kitchen, do you want to join me?" I said. She nodded her head. We walked down the steps and saw William exiting his room.

"Bad dream?" He asked. We both nodded. Without another word, he joined us in our journey to the kitchen. It was quiet, aside from a couple of guards on break, it was empty. I walked over to the floor to ceiling cabinet where our food was stored. The room inside was as big as the kitchen and covered in stasis spells. I walked over to the jug of hot chocolate, still almost steaming, grabbed it, and walked back across the tiled floors. I exited the room and closed the door behind me. Emily had grabbed a trio of cups from the shelf next to the sink.
I took a seat at the table, and we each poured ourselves a cup. We sat without speaking for a few moments, just enjoying each other's company and the steaming velvet liquid in our cups.
William was the first to speak.

"Did the two of you dream of an old castle?" He said finally, and we both gave him a look.

"How did you know that?" I asked. Then Emily spoke.

"I think we all had the same dream." She said. Her voice was tight.

"The girl?" I asked.

"You mean the woman." William said.

"No, she was a crone. Or maybe she was all three?" I asked. The dream was already fading to gloomy shadows in the back of my memory.

"So, if we shared the same dream, what does it mean?" He asked. I frowned. I had never studied dreams. My nightmares were a subject I preferred to avoid if at all possible.

"Last year, mum told me I'd be facing a trial. I wasn't sure what it would entail, and that dream gave me more questions than answers. Emily and I spent most of the summer preparing for just about anything that would happen."

"So, you think that whatever this trial is, it involves me and Emily somehow?" William asked.

"I know it involves you. My mum told me as much." I said.

"I'm with Stephen." Emily said simply, I shot her a grateful look.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, giving me a sharp look, like it was my fault he is getting pulled into whatever this was. I felt horrible, and I felt a blush work its way up my checks.

"I was going to during the first time. I just never got around to it." I said.

"Well, I'm glad you at least told me." He said, draining the last dregs of chocolate from his mug.

"So, are you with me?" I asked.

"Until the very end." He said, and I smiled. We washed our cups and went back upstairs. That was when we saw Cassandra.

"There you are!" She said.

"Were you looking for us?" She asked.

"What do you mean, us?" William asked.

"Edward and I, we've been gone for hours. I thought you'd at least been looking for us."

"Cassandra, what are you talking about?" He asked.

"We left around three. Neither of us could sleep. We went exploring, and I found this mirror. It took us somewhere, and he vanished. I met the nicest man. He was made of metal, like those one of those robot thingies Weird Tales."

"Cassandra, what are you talking about?" He asked, and then he performed the time spell. It was barely half three. He showed her the spell results, and she shook her head, a look on her face of pure confusion.

"It's a good joke, you had me for a second." He said with a smile.

"William, I'm telling the truth." She said. I expected my lie detector to tell me that she was lying, and it was silent.

"She is." I said, and he looked at me.

"Cassandra, how did you get to this place?" I asked.

"Through the mirror at the end of the hall." She said.

"In the second-floor study?" I asked, and she nodded. I gave Emily a look and sent her a message.

"That's where mum said that odd mirror was." I sent.

"How did she get past the wards?" She asked me.

I cast out my senses, and realized with horror, that the hungry edge I'd felt early was gone, the wards had been somehow turned off or deactivated.
I smacked the side of my head, just below the ear.

"Comms, Bethany." I thought. Her sleepy voice answered me.

"Stephen, what is it?" She asked.

"Mum, the wards are down." I sent back.
There was a brief silence.

"God's Blood." I heard her swear, her thoughts echoing through my head.

*"Who's with you?"*She asked, and I told her.

"Get the rest of the Lowe children, and Reginald, and meet me in the library." She sent. I wasted no time, quickly I explained what was going on, and we rushed to wake William's other siblings and Reg.

"Stephen, what's going on?" He asked.

"Our wards are down. We're going to our safe-room." I said, and in an instant, the sleep deprived schoolboy was gone, and the son of two Council Majeure Hunters stood in his place.

"Let's go." He said, and I led them to the Library. Amy, Bethany, Eli and Vincent were present, as were a squad of the guards Bethany employed. A hidden door in the library had been blown off its hinges. Inside the door, were the shards of what was once the main lodestone of the library.

"This is what you get for crossing the House of Thorne!" She said, a gleaming crazed look in her eye. She struggled uselessly against his grip.

"Uppity crawler bitch, you'll finally get what's coming to you!" She said.

"What do you want me to do with this trash?" Eli asked.

"Figure it out." Bethany said, she was in the room, examining the lodestone.

"This room doesn't even have protections on it." She said and kicked a piece of diamond futilely. That was when the mirror activated, and I drew my wand.

The squad of guards backed away slowly and raised their guns, aiming at the mirror. Then, a squad of Fae soldiers wearing the bright green and yellow of Summer, marched through the mirror, and into the townhouse. They were followed by a massive creature armored in bone. It was at least ten feet tall, and sharp, dangerous looking antlers grew from its head. It let out a roar, and it took every bit of mental discipline I had to stop myself from quivering.
The Fae in the lead wore the odd glassy armor the Fae used. A dripping scarlet cap sat jauntily atop its head, and he grinned at Bethany in a sharp, feral parody of a smile.

"Well, well. Look what the Leshi dragged me to." He said.

"Puck." Bethany said in a growl.

"Now now, I don't think you're in a favorable position, Andrews. It doesn't feel so good when someone is barging into your home unannounced, does it? Give me the Tremisimancer, and I'll let you live." He said.

"Like hell." Bethany snarled. Then the doors of the library banged open, and in marched two squads of vampires. Three of them were mages, and their skin was already dancing with scarlet light. I drew my own wand.

"Last chance." Puck said merrily.

"Go fuck yourself." She said and threw a javelin of ice at his heart.

"Attack!" He screamed, and all hell broke loose. I raised an emerald shield just as Reg sent a vampire killing spell towards one of them. The vampire's mage blocked the spell, and the rest opened fire, but a kinetic barrier of sapphire-purple blocked the projectiles, and Emily nodded.

"Get them out of here!" Bethany yelled, making a gesture. A rod of transmuted iron sprang into existence and disemboweled one of the Fae. Eli twitched his hands twice, and his skin rippled. His face elongated, and two wings made of shadow ripped out of his back and towards the Leshi, who blocked it with a yellow-green spell.

Vincent made a clawing gesture with his hand, and one of the vampires erupted in flames. Amy sped towards the vampires, and as she did, her body twisted and elongated, her arms forming and shifting into blades that neatly cut two of them down in half vertically, their blood sacks spilling a gush of crimson unto to white carpeted floors of the library. Emily's shield faltered, and cracks began running through the construct.

"Mum!" I yelled, and Bethany turned around to look at us. She fired off a blast of golden flame towards one of the vampires and raised a shield of ice to stop the bullets coming our way.

"Bethany, we need to up our game a bit, don't you think?" Vincent asked, ruthlessly cutting down a vampire with a pull of his trigger.
Bethany nodded.

"Amy, take the kids and go. We'll hold them off for as long as possible." She said. Amy nodded. Another vampire rushed forward, and Amy cut it down with one of her arms.

"Stephen, when this is over, I will find you." She said.

"Mum!" I said. She hugged me close.

"I did it once, and I will do it again." She whispered in my ear, then she let go.

Then twin suns exploded. Bethany's gold, and Vincent's white shone forth. Then where Bethany stood, there was a fiery golden furred humanoid wolf. Vincent's place was taken by a statue of pure diamond, aglow with white light.

The diamond statue, Vincent ran forward and launched himself in the air, jumping on the Leshi's back. Stabbing and wrestling the creature to the ground. Bethany rushed forward, grabbed two vampires and slammed their heads together.

She dropped them and let out a spine-chilling howl.

"We're going. Now." Amy said, and we ran. A vampire met us at the outside the library and I let loose a jet of true fire. The vampire mage blocked it with a shield and rushed forward, swinging its sword. Amy blocked it with her arm, and then her body flowed down the sword. I was momentarily shocked. The vampire released its hold and Amy kicked the vamp backward, hard. As she did, another blade sprouted from the bottom of her foot and impaled the vampire, and jerked her leg down, bisecting the vamp from stomach to groin.
Then three more vampires joined the fray.

"Stephen, take them through the mirror in the study!" Amy yelled. One of the vampires grabbed her and threw her down the hall. She was back up a second later, and in that time Emily and I had unleashed a wave of telekinetic force that the vampires completely blocked.

"Thrice and done, mageling, give us the girl, child, and we'll leave." The lead vampire said.

"Thrice and done, go fuck yourself! Lux, Lux Aeterna!" I shouted and unleashed an emerald blossom of death. The vampire mage threw up a shield, and I heard a snarl of pain.

"Run!" I shouted, and we did. A vampire rushed out of the shadows as we hit the hallway and Emily threw him backward. We took a right and ended up in the study. I swung the door behind us shut with a bang and threw out every locking spell I knew. That mirror stood there, ominously. It rippled, like a stone thrown into a pond, and a soft purple haze covered it.

"Through the mirror." I said.

"Are you serious right now?" Cassandra asked.

The door shook with the impact of spellfire.

"Deadly! I'll cover the retreat." I threw out another wave of locking spells.

"Stephen. We don't know where it leads." Reg said.
That mage was good, he was picking my spells almost as soon as I laid them, I layered another series of spells, and pushed back the dizzying wave of vertigo that swept over me. We didn't stand a chance against these vampires.

"Those vampires are too strong. We need to go."

Then we ran through the mirror.

<BR>

I'll be posting the epilogue tomorrow. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and if you liked this chapter, please consider giving me an upvote, comment, or a like.
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[jldew93]

We found ourselves in a forest. I turned around. The mirror's twin stood behind us. Unlike the one back home, this one was still and silent. Like its job was done. Wherever we were, it had been a long time since anyone was here. We were in a clearing, but the woods were thick, and even here, the grass was overgrown and green in a way that grass back home wasn't, a grass covered stone path ran through the center of the clearing. I tripped over a rock and fell. I quickly regained my footing.

"Where are we?" Emily asked. William was staring at the ground. He bent down and picked up another chunk of rock. This one was black, and jagged. He looked at it, and his face went white.

"What's wrong?" I asked, at the same time, Cassandra pointed at something hanging in the trees.

"Look." She breathed. I looked up and where she was pointing. Nestled in the trees, nearly rusted to bits, was the unmistakable skeleton of a destroyed mundane airliner.

"Mate, this is asphalt." He said. I looked down, and I could see the rocks scattered throughout the path. It was clear, however, that it was a road that had long ago been overtaken by nature.

"I think, the more appropriate question isn't where we are, but when we are." I said, and I realized that my trial had begun.

<BR>

No promo message for this post. You know the drill. Thanks for reading.

 

[jldew93]

Author's Note: This chapter takes place after Chapter Seven.
Lady Bethany Andrews
February 12th, 1925.
Saint Michael's School for Boys
Hampstead, London

As I translocated away from my home, thoughts whirled through my head. Alexis. Stephen, my brother, not the boy we failed who was currently in my infirmary.

I needed to know what happened on that ship. There were three people that could tell me what had occurred. One of them was sleeping down the hall from me, and that was a hope I hadn't discarded. The other was missing. The third I'd buried with the help of Bartholomew ages ago.

Tonight however, tonight was about getting even.

I arrived outside the orphanage and gave the place an appraising look. It had been a country home once. Even in the moonlight, it was evident the plaster or painting coating it's walls had seen better days. A brick courtyard surrounded it, and two large wrought iron gates closed the courtyard and the entire property off. I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. As I did, the scents of the mages that had visited this place and used magic filled my nose.

The strongest scent was Stephen's. It was a pungent mix of cedar and wintergreen that made my nose burn. Following that, there was the smell of pine and dust books. That would be Eli. Then there was a wisp of gardenias that I knew was Alexis' magic. I was satisfied that this place hadn't been discovered and placed under surveillance by a different mage. So I called my magic and went to work.
I didn't bother with trivial things like wand movements or motions. As I told my new charge, wand movements, runes and invocations meant nothing to a well trained mage.

Alexis Bonaparte had been many things. Nearly psychotic, powerful, a mage without equal. She was also a damn good teacher.
Space twisted around me, and I stepped through the gap in the wrought iron fence and walked up the driveway. What few lights that were on were dim. One of the bits of advanced technology I had at my disposal that I passed off as magic, a Heads Up Display linked to a contact lense, let me know that there weren't any mundane security measures in place. Not that I was expecting any.
Then I brought the mastery that had served me so well during those first fraught years in this world to bare. I ripped away the oxygen and hydrogen. I rearranged the carbon into javelins, and I transmuted the rest of the elements into energy and used that to place a sleep spell on the children in the ramshackle building. Waste not, want not.

From an outsider's perspective, it appeared that the door ripped itself off the hinges and changed into a trio of projectiles, and a billow of golden smoke wafted into the building. It would put everyone except those I wished into a slumber. I knew at least two of these so called Brides of Christ were complicit in my nephew's torture, and there were only six nuns.

I recombined the hydrogen and oxygen around me into lances of water. I ripped the heat away from that, and they formed a trio of icy javelins. I ignited the heat, and a trio of flaming spears joined the javelins. This gave me nine projectiles to unleash on who I wished, and I would.

"Phobos." I called. The imp must have caught my tone, and my demeanor, because he settled on my shoulder and gave me a cool look.

"Yes, Mistress?" His voice was almost a purr in my ear.

"Hunt." I murmured. He let out a simian screech and leapt into the air, winging towards the opening. I flashed a grin that proved I was Alexis' apprentice, and Jacob's daughter. I'd show these mundane what befell those who dared harm those of my House. I stalked into the orphanage and made my way into the building. The transmuted weapons trailed me like eager dogs.
I translocated to the office, and cursed Alexis under my breath for putting him here. Mother Superior enjoyed a spacious room off her office that was a level of luxury that was closer to my life than a pious nun overseeing an orphanage. I swiftly bound and gagged her. Then I dragged her behind me, and manhandled her into a chair. Ropes sprang into existence with a thought, and wrapped around her arms and legs like a thick serpent.

Phobos grabbed one of the nun's, Sister Agnes. I found Sister Mary Margaret in prayer. I bound and silenced her. I let Phobos have his fun hunting the rest, and took a measure of joy from the screams. I wasn't like Stephen.

My Stephen, not the one I'd just adopted, had always taken intense joy from terrorizing his foes. He enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, and I had a strong suspicion the war had gone as long as it did because Alexis and Stephen both enjoyed the game of war a little too much. I disliked what I was about to do.

But, I'd learned the lesson my father and mother had taught us well. Nothing came before family, and heaven and hell both help those who crossed us.

If it was Jacob or Monica Andrews who had just seen the after effects of torture? If it had been William or Lana Valentine who saw scars on their nephew's back? If it had been Alexis fucking Bonaparte who had been told her son was molested?

Had any of the old Keepers heard the broken tone in his voice, and seen the skittishness, the avoidance of touch? Small things like the Perdition that kept Magic and Mundane separate would have been trivialities.

Even Bartholomew, for all his harsh words and proclamations, would have burned this world to ash and glass because of the violence they had inflicted on Stephen. Damn confluence, prophecy, and the role this world played. No one harmed one of ours and lived. It took all my reserve to not order that. I'd order worlds ruined for lesser crimes.

When he was done having his fun, I had Phobos assemble them all in the office, gag them, and tie them all to chairs. Then I sat on the desk like the Queen I'd once been.

For those few moments, I let the mask I'd spent the last two and a half centuries cultivating fall away, and the Queen of Ice and Flame lived again. My glamour dropped, and I spoke.

"You harmed one of mine." I said, and the nuns looked at each other. Maybe it was the utter lack of accent, maybe it was the way my aura glowed like a small sun in the room and danced in jagged fractals across my skin. Maybe the molten gold sparks dripping from my hair that were slowly singing the desk made them quiver in fear.
With a snap of my fingers, the gags vanished. All the nuns began talking at once.

"Silence." I said, letting just a bit of Power into my voice. This added a bit of a basso to my voice, a low thrum that caused them all to stop.

"Hail mary, full of gra-" The Mother Superior began, and I interrupted her with a sharp bark of laughter.

"Oh, Mother. I'm god here." I purred, and slid off the desk. I walked over to her, and I began shifting subtly. I allowed my nails to elongate into the sharp claws of my wolf, running a talon in a vertical line down her face. She whimpered as the blood came.

"Saint Michael-" I swiftly cut Sister Agnes off from the exorcism by gagging her again. It would not have removed Phobos from my control, but the prayer would have caused him pain. There would be enough of that tonight.

"Now, tell me which one of you hurt Stephen Bonaparte. Which one of you was responsible for his "education"?" I asked.

"It was Agnes!" One of the nuns, I didn't bother ripping her name from her mind, shouted. I nodded. I knew that, but it was always best to have a signed confession.
I nodded at Phobos, and sent him a mental command. He leapt onto her shoulder.

"Escort her home, would you?" I asked the imp. He shot me a savage monkey grin and translocated her away minus her habit and
clothes. He'd take her to a cell in the basement. Hopefully someone had cleaned it after the last inhabitant.
He arrived back in moments. His forked tail made an infernal scarf around my throat. This intimidation tactic was something we had long since mastered. Fully changed therian and imp stood where a woman had been moments before.

"Who else?" I asked, giving them each a look. They remained silent. I nodded sharply. Phobos leapt off my shoulder and landed in Mother Superior's lap. Then he looked her in the face and unleashed a hungry-sounding screech.

"Mistress, let me eat this one first. She's so plump." He called gleefully.

"Oh, Phobos, you know how I feel about you eating trash." I replied jovially, looking down at her. I was almost seven feet tall in this form, and rippling with golden furred muscle. My voice came out as a low growl and I could smell the fear coming off all of them.

"Mary-Margaret!" Mother Superior yelled, and one of them flinched.

"I told them not to do it. I told them to drown him like all the re-" She stopped suddenly, and looked up to me.

"What, was that, Mother?" I asked her, and licked my muzzle. She whimpered again.

"He isn't the first mage that's come across my door! You lot are all the same. You are all abominations in His sight! Your sorcerous power
will not stand. Repent, witch." She spat, a sudden streak of rebellion in her eyes.

"Thrice and done then." I smirked. I snapped my fingers, all for show. One by one, Phobos translocated the nuns away minus their clothes. By morning, after spending a night at the tender mercies of my imps, each of them would see the errors of their way, or they'd be replaced by my glamoured soldiers and would feed my friend Audrey's greenhouse. This was the last time any of them would even think of harming a child.

This continued until they had all vanished except Mother Superior, who sat in an empty office, surrounded by empty chairs, and matching habits.

"Now, Mother. You have two choices. Tell me everything, and I won't cause you pain. Or, meet the same fate as your nuns." I snarled. She told me everything.

She told me about their crusade against mages. Long experience had taught Mother Superior what a child with a sudden change in hair or eye color meant.

Any child with the gift was always subjected to the torture they had put Stephen under. Eventually, they broke. If they didn't, they were
met with an unfortunate accident. A sudden fall down the stairs, or a mysterious disappearance. If all else failed, there was a pond behind the orphanage, and children were oh so reckless, weren't they?

As she told me all this, I could feel my anger rising higher and higher. What hell had Alexis consigned my so- Stephen to? Why had she chosen this orphanage, of all the places to leave a child?
Who did these imbeciles think they were, playing god?

"Was that enough?" The sister asked. She had finished telling me about their other ventures aside from their crusade against magical society. How they'd lined their pockets by selling the orphans to certain male and female clientele for unspeakable acts, about the money squirrelled away under her mattress.

I looked around the opulent office once more, and remembered the rags Stephen had come to my home with. The messily patched rucksack he guarded so carefully, and the haunted look in his eyes after I asked about the scars on his back.

"Who is Father Murphy?" I asked finally.

"He's the priest in charge of the orphanage. If you'd like, his address is in the book on the desk, along with all of my papers." She said
hopefully, and I nodded. By this point, Phobos had returned and had assumed his perch on my shoulder. I released the spells binding her, and she stood on shaky legs.

I settled a long furry arm on her shoulder, and grabbed her in a soft grip.

"One last question, Mother." I said in a low growl. There was hope in her eyes.

"Did you know that death doesn't need to be painful?" I asked. I let the question settle. I saw the hope die in her eyes. Then I stepped aside, and let the spears fly. She was pinned to the wall in a parody of a crucifixion. She'd died instantly. I kept my word. I dismissed the rest of my spells and sighed. Then I released my wolf form, and let my aura die away. I walked over to the desk and sat at the chair. I had special plans for Mary-Margaret and Agnes.

Stephen needed new target dummies, and the priest would round out a trio of targets.
I fished through the desk and pulled out two very large ledgers. I pursued them for a few moments before using the Librum spell to capture the knowledge and upload it to my brain. Mother Superior kept very good records. Every man and woman in these books had used the orphanage for services that made my stomach churn just thinking of them.

From the little I read of the journal she'd kept, and her desperate confession, the entire staff was in on these acts. I'd dispatch a team to take their place while I searched for qualified people, and Amy forged a paper trail to put the orphanage under my control.

"Phobos, it appears we have some hunting to do." I said. Over the next few weeks, one of our shell companies would begin funding this place properly, and every single person in these books would die and be replaced by my staff. I'd ruin them completely and utterly, and I'd make it look like it was all done by their own hand. I did love it when vengeance was profitable. Everything I funneled away from the accounts held by this scum would be used to fund this place. I'd make sure every child was well treated, and any mages that came here would be trained properly.

When Stephen reached adulthood, I'd give him the choice about what to do with the building.
I had very few morals, but children were a line that should never be crossed.

My work at the orphanage was done, but I still had miles to go before I slept. I translocated back to my study. Amy was lounging on the couch I had off to the right. Her eyes were shut, and she had the appearance that she was asleep, but Amy didn't. She must have sensed my presence, or the wards informed her I'd arrived, because she stood in a single fluid gesture.

"How's Stephen?" I asked.

I poured myself a glass of brandy and went to grab a pack of cigarettes from their drawer in my desk. Amy didn't speak until I was situated.

"He had a panic attack after you left. I gave him a sleeping potion, and his vitals are stable. But, I did do a few passive scans, and those are troubling."

"How so?" I asked carefully. I noticed Amy was choosing her words carefully. She was the most intelligent being I knew, so whatever she was trying to tell me would upset me.

"Amy, I'm a big girl. I can handle it."

"I did a full spectrum scan on Stephen. I scanned for auric, psionic, magic, and tachyon residue. Aside from the spell residue from the magic that's been used on and around him from being present at the town house, and trace residue that matches Alexis' auric and our temporal signature, he doesn't have any active magical or psionic traces.

Both of those would be evident if Voice was a spell or a mental ingram. I did a second scan when Stephen indicated Voice was active, and those scans still showed nothing amiss.

I scanned for harmonic frequencies that would indicate if Voice was a copy of Stephen from an alternate reality or timeline because of the Nova incident in 2023. Because we're so close to the 1945 confluence, and Stephen is a powerful mage, those incidents are bound to start occurring soon.

Bethany, that leaves one possibility. Stephen has had a traumatic childhood. He was sexually abused multiple times. He's been subject to extreme repetitive physical, and emotional abuse. Voice could be a coping mechanism."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"Without further information or testing it appears that Stephen has a textbook case of dissociative identity disorder." She stated. I gave her a look.

"What?"

"It's a psychological condition where-" I raised a hand.

"I know what it is, Ames. How do we know it's that? Voice, felt metaphysically different then Stephen. I trust my senses," I said.

"Yes, but which Stephen?" She asked.

"My ward." I said carefully.

"Could this be a latent precognition ability?" I asked after a moment.

"It could be. I'll prepare an elementis test, but until he performs that ritual, my working hypothesis stands. There's one more thing."

"His ley nodes are different. While they're the same width as a typical juvenile Lord's, they're thrice as thick, and his biology shows signs of genetic engineering. If I didn't know better-" Amy reclined.

"Broken Bells, I wish I could get drunk." She muttered after a moment.

"My working theory is that someone created a Legionnaire sleeve from Alexis and Stephen's DNA, and altered it to thrice the magical strength of a Lord."

God's Blood. Why? Why would she do that? That wasn't having a child, that was building a weapon. Why would she place such a child in this time frame?

"Is that possible?" I asked carefully.

"She led the Legionnaire project, and she had a copy of Mom's notes. If anyone could, it would be her."

"So I adopted a possibly mentally ill juvenile super-soldier."

"In a word, yes."

"Well. Fuck. Is there anything we can do?"

"Short of desleeving him and transferring his aura to something less likely to be able to lift small vehicles when he's older, no."

I wouldn't desleeve Stephen, that experience was always traumatic. Besides. I didn't have the resources to do that here.

My financial resources were already being repositioned to safeguard us against the impending financial collapse. I'd need tools to build tools, and I'd been focused on magical infrastructure. Even the technologies I was selling to the mundane governments would require at least another two decades before I'd have the technological base needed to build a Cradle.

"And how would consoling work?" I asked. Amy moved her head back and forth, a very human gesture from something that had been pretending to be human for perhaps a bit too long.

"I'm not sure it would. I don't think Stephen would trust anyone enough to speak to Voice about them, and I think any trust we built would be ruined if we got a therapist behind his back. Best case scenario, he never trusts us again. Worst case scenario. He runs away and we have a talented, powerful mage with a complete distrust in authority figures running free researching whatever he wants. He has exactly enough knowledge to be dangerous now.

If it came to that. If he ran away, and was unwilling to return, our options would be limited. If he garnered too much attention, which lets be honest, he would, the Hunters would intervene. We know how they deal with rogue Lords and Ladies in this time."

I briefly flashed back to Yekaterinburg, Vincent's last apprentice, and that god awful night.

"We do," I whispered.

"Fuckin hell, Ames. I never wanted kids."

My parent's political responsibilities left them with three kids that had been raised close by, but by a revolving door of tutors and instructors. I didn't want that for a child, and when Morgan had wounded me in the war, I was almost thankful that my fertility had come at the cost of my life. It was something that could be fixed, but I never did.

Vincent had his own reasons for not wanting children, and even with all our years together, that had never changed. Our fathers had been brothers in all but blood, and they had identical views about parenthood. Personal tragedy that wasn't mine to speak of added to that.

"I know."

I was going to adopt Stephen through a third party. I was going to send him to a far-off family that would keep him away from vampires, and fae, and political rivalries that put my life under constant guard.

Then I'd seen my brother's eyes in a tiny face, and some part of me broke. The last time I'd seen those eyes, it had been the hologram at his memorial. That had been reconstructed from archival footage. It had been almost two centuries since we'd draped that flag over his coffin, and that memory still brought tears to my eyes.

"I need you to shift Mu and Ro-Two to the orphanage on infiltration and espionage duties. They'll find everything they need to know at the orphanage. They have all the information they need. Then contact any Karcist or Nueromancer who wants to make a few extra diamonds and give them the list of people they'll find. You can use your imagination."

"How bad was it?"

I gave Amy a flat look.

"If there weren't children living there, I would have burned that place to the ground. You have two new experiments in your dungeon, and I'll be gathering you one more tonight. Do what you will with them, but Stephen needs training dummies for tomorrow."

"Well. That's fun." She remarked.

"Did you have any luck finding that mirror?" I asked.

"I traced it to 1800, and I hit a dead end. I've got feelers out in the Fae, but who knows when we'll find it."

"It would be ideal to have it within our grasp soon."

"We'll gather as many as we can. We've still got thirty years. We'll get them."

"I know. I just feel like time's slipping through my grasp, and I'm not sure if I like that."

"That's a feeling everyone gets."

"I'm not everyone," I muttered.

"You can't be perfect."

"Watch me try."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

<BR>
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I'll be posting interludes over the next month while I prep the second book for publishing. If you like this, please leave a comment or upvote/like

 

[jldew93]

Notes from Bethany Andrews

Let me begin by saying, or writing, that I hate keeping Journals. I only began keeping this series of writings because of Matilda's apprenticeship, and there was so much I learned as a Mistress teaching her apprentice. I have had the fortune of gaining the tutelage of brilliant mages. These tutors and instructors guided me down the path of becoming the witch I am today. Now I stand, nearly three centuries of age, a lost crown, a trek through the Angles later, and a mother of all things. My life has taken twists and turns, and I have seen and lived through adventures that could fuel stories of narrow adventures, and regained time, and two lonely souls finding each other across time and space. Alas, I have been lax in chronicling my adventures, and aside from Amy's careful records of my recollections, my adventures are known only in my memories.

These brief entries alongside Stephen's own stories are meant to serve as a bit of backstory and an explanation of events from my perspective. I have found that my charge has a certain flair for the dramatic in his writing. I do not have the time, patience, or motivation to perform such feats.


April 12th, 1925



This entire day had gone to shit. I was already in a mood after our conversation the previous day. I'd felt hurt that he thought I sent him back to the orphanage. I was worried about those damn test results. I was at the start of what should have been my first vacation in the decade, and I was already exhausted. I never knew parenthood, of all my nightmares, would be the thing that kept me up and worried the most.

After dropping Stephen off at the suite I'd gotten us for the day, I'd visited the local Court of Knaves Hotel. They had these locations in every major city, and it was rumored that it was one hotel with multiple entrances. It was superbly decorated for the times, a little gaudy for my tastes, but overall the place was nice. I'd never spend the night here, and I loathed even entering this place. The hotel, the Maeve, was named after the former Winter Lady, and like all Court of Knave establishments, I was required to wear a magic inhibitor bracelet to prevent any rule breaking.

After an exhaustive security sweep at the receptionist desk, I was issued a bracelet and watched as I put it on. I felt the enchantment on the bracelet caging my magic close to my body. These bracelets would be easy to break for a mage with enough power. The hotel hosted the Kings and Queens of Faerie and the occasional Demigod. It was all just part of the show.

There were three rules for a Court of Knave's establishment.

Don't destroy hotel property. Don't kill another guest, and no active magic was allowed except for the staff. Not even the grand Court of Knaves, with half a finger in every criminal pie in the world, would think of separating a mage from their enchanted objects, foci or god's forbid their bells. Once a demon is summoned and bound in a silver bell, they are forever linked with the summoner. To separate a mage from their bells was like handling another's foci. It was not done. So, I did have options. Phobos alone would give the mages I was about to meet with a run for their money.

This established a neutral meeting ground for magic users and beings to meet without fear of hostility. As I walked through the bar, this was evident. I had to dismiss several alerts from my HUD because several mages and beings I'd crossed in the past and designated as "high priority enemy" were present.

The bar was divided into a series of thirteen large round pillars and tables that were scattered around in a random pattern to disrupt magical energy. The pillars were marble with a core of cold iron. As such, each was impervious to magic. It was brightly light, and done in soft colors. It had a closer resemblance to a tearoom than a smoking room where the magical underworld gathered.

I walked through the bar towards my destination and noticed the patrons. A summer fae was seated at a table with two vampires I recognized as Masters of their respective cities.

The werewolf Alpha of New York City, was seated at a table with a Winter Fae I'd spoken with at one of Audrey's parties. They both gave me looks and nods as I passed and I returned them.

The Emissary of Fall, a portly man dressed in a suit in a bowler hat who I'd crossed wands with once or thrice, nodded at me as I passed. I returned the nod. I noticed his compatriots as I passed. One being resembled a mummy wrapped in black cloth. A Master Necromancer. It wasn't outlawed in the states, but they were playing a risky game being out in public. The other was a Summoning Mistress. Her cloak was made of silver bells that jingled with each movement, and her wrists were wrapped in black ribbon and silver. I sent a message to Amy to inform Eli that Fall was recruiting muscle.

Two karcists, mages without enough power to be recognized by a Council Majeure, sat at another table. They were hovering over a piece of paper and carefully checking off letters as they assembled them into a rune. Sigil magic. I had to fight myself from grimacing.

I could tell they were karcists because they were both in mundane clothes, but each had a series of bracelets and bangles hanging from their wrists that faintly glowed with enchantments according to my HUD. I could tell the enchantments sewn into their clothes were all homebrew sigil magic and kitchy-witch shit the Majeure had outlawed for a reason.

They were dressed in mundane clothing, but everything about them screamed mage. Except they lacked aura coloring their hair and eyes except for a few streaks of color, and I could barely feel power coming from them. It settled in my mind that it was the duality that made them stand out. They didn't separate the mundane from the magic in their lives. They were out of place in both worlds, but claimed them as their home.

If this had been London, Court of Knaves or not, I'd have brought both of them in for questioning as a matter of principle.

This wasn't bigotry, or anything like that. Those mages were children using reality as puzzle pieces. Nothing good came of backroom dabbling.



After passing by another trio of tables hosting various supernatural creatures undergoing negotiations, I found my booth.

Two more karcists sat on either side of the booth. They wore suits and careful glamours. I'd see two vaguely menacing goons, and not really be able to recall their faces later. Someone had paid a lot of diamonds for the matching enchanted watches on their wrists. They were flanking a gentleman dressed in a dapper grey suit and hat.

Charles Luciano was known by Mundane authorities as a rather affluent rum runner. He subsidized his income with the procurement and sale of magical artifacts. He also kept several Karcists on his staff. He was an experienced mage himself, but he was mostly self-taught.

I took a seat. I didn't bother offering my wand. That was seen as an insult to a Karcist. They relied on true wandless and scoffed at wands as a crutch. They were right, but it was just simple civility or supporting an existing regime. It was a cultural norm they had ballooned into an affront against themselves.

Instead I reclined slightly in my seat and nodded at him.

Yes, the Andrews family had businesses that were less than legal, but it was a way to funnel liquidity between the magical world and the mundane, and I did occasionally practice magic the Majeure would frown upon. But, we stuck to victimless crimes, and we didn't resort to breaking knees or other such forms of intimidation. I wouldn't even bother with scum like Luciano, but I needed this mirror.

"Hello Charles." I purred. This was a tone reserved for political opponents and business negotiations.

"Hi, Beth." Luciano said easily. He leaned back in the booth.

"I'll be blunt."

"Aren't you always, doll?"

"I'm searching for a mirror. it's a special artifact, and I heard that you might have access to a seer, or a way to find it."

Charles leaned back in his seat. It was morning, but he had half a crystal glass of vodka. There was a splash of orange juice as a nod to the time. Prohibition didn't mean much to the Court. Not when half the rum runners and bootleggers on the east coast were managed by one of their own.

"You want the Gallowglass? What do you want with one of those old things?"

I was well aware of the knife on my belt. Caladbolg, the two-faced blade, had saved my life more than once.

"I'm just interested in history."

"Just collecting artifacts then?"

"Charles, skip to the point. I'm only in the city for a day. What do you want?"

"Just a few lodestones, doll."

I didn't care for pet names much, nor did I care for the ignorant self-absorbed boys pretending to be men that used them.

"Charles, you know me. You know my history. Just tell me where the mirror is, and your fee, and I'll be on my merry way."

"Fine, a dozen lodestones, fully charged." He said.

"Four," I replied.

"Eight."

"Five."

"Seven,"

"Half dozen, not one less."

"Seven."

"Half-dozen or I walk." I replied. I wouldn't. If he demanded seven, if he had demanded a hundred, I would have paid it.

"Deal." Luciano took a piece of paper from one of his henchmen and handed it over to me. I read it carefully, and recognized it as translocation coordinates.

"Those'll take ya to a warded warehouse I store merchandise awaiting buyers. The mirror is the only thing there. When can I expect my lodestones?"

I opened my mirror, and traced the runic code for my office in New York. A receptionist answered, and I placed my order with instructions for delivery to the Maeve. I gave Charles a nod, and dropped the bracelet at reception, and left the hotel. From there, I translocated half a dozen times to various safehouses I had in range, and then translocated to the warehouse. With any luck, I'd be back to the hotel in time to take Stephen to lunch and Central Park. I really wanted him to see the menagerie they had.

I knew something was amiss when I felt the circle trap snap into place. With a frown, I sent out two mental commands. The first was a message to Vincent stating that I might be in trouble, but I'd keep him apprised of the situation. The second was for my HUD to analyze the runic schema holding me prisoner.

The floodlights that attempted to blind me were my second clue. I had my shield up then. The soft whine of two ether cannons charging and firing at me half a second later was my third. I let out a breath and time froze for a few seconds so I could analyze my predicament. I nodded, and then bent space and light around the two beams of energy about to strike me to instead return to their origin.

I probably could have tanked two beams of energy five feet thick, but it would have fried my shield bangle and I really didn't want to rework those enchantments.

Beams of energy taken care of, I let my eyes adjust and noticed the two tommy guns about to fire on opposite sides of the ether cannons. I nodded, appreciated the setup for a moment, and then threw up two walls of force. If I was attempting to kill me, I'd enchant the rounds about to be fired. I'd need to break the circle, and Time was starting to begin again. I quickly analyzed the schema, and then noticed that I was on a tarp of some kind. It might be a minefield, it might be an ingenious invention. I wasn't finding out which. I looked up, activated the twin bangles that allowed me to temporarily ignore gravity and jumped up into the air.

If they were good at their job, they would have done a dome instead of a circle. Instead I perched on a rafter and watched the show. I had to figure out who just tried to kill me, and who I needed to kill.

I released my now tenuous hold on time, and allowed it to resume. The ether cannons exploded and killed their operators. So they didn't have limiters or backflow capacitors, and that meant it was the Hunters. That was good. I could continue to have a public life.

The Tommy guns fired and instantly pierced the two walls of force I'd conjured. That meant someone with an enchanter or artificer on staff. Unless Charles had employed one without the knowledge of any Majeure body, it wasn't him.

So he was the middle-man. Interesting. I sent a note to Amy to order those lodestones immediately tracked and retrieved.

The surviving five men wore non-descript black clothing, so nothing there. The Enchantments on their gear were professional, but it was new. This might be some moron trying to make a name for themselves, but Luciano wouldn't sell me out for some moron out to make themselves the latest entry on the "Reasons Why We Don't Fuck With Bethany Andrews." list.

Winter didn't hurt one of their own, and Summer wasn't stupid. Except for Puck. Fall wouldn't risk a treaty their emissary helped bring about. Spring kept to themselves unless other courts were at play. One of the minions began breaking the circle. I had a few seconds before I lost my advantage.

I was dealing with vampires or werewolves. Lovely. Well, it was time to see which it was. I was glad for the gloves I wore as I carefully drew a sheathed silver dagger from my bottomless clutch. I could feel the imaginary heat from the blade. I hated silver with a passion, and could never understand how my mother managed to wear those bracelets and necklaces of hers. I bent space, and took a step as I activated the bracelet that would bend light and surround around me.

One moment I was in the rafters, the other I was behind one of the machine gunners. I stabbed the dagger into the base of his skull, and was shocked when the body failed to immediately turn to ash. Fuck, I was dealing with mages.

I tossed his body aside and pulled the trigger on the Thompson. Bullets enchanted to shred flash and magic alike flew from it's barrel and shredded the two men in front of me. I noticed one raise a pistol, and fire. I raised an arm, releasing the trigger as I did. A bangle took the bullet. I was by his side, breaking his neck and unleashing Phobos with a thought.

I stepped across the room, and killed the fifth as Phobos bound the sixth. One more step, and then I raised my hand, and forced gravity to obey my wishes. He floated into the air and flipped upside down.

"Talk." I growled.

"Fuck you!" He shouted back.

"I can make this easy or hard. Take your pick."

"I'll give you something ha-" I silenced him and watched him scream expletives at me for a moment.

"Are you quite done?"

He proceeded to launch into quite an imaginative description of what Phobos and I did while we were alone. Honestly, some people have their mind in the gutter.

"Phobos, eat his ear." My imp leapt from my shoulder and unto the man's body. He screeched in the man's face, reached one monkey's paw to his left ear and ripped it away. He sat on the man's chest as he devoured it, and allowed the blood to drip onto his face.

"Let me make it perfectly clear. You tried to murder me. I am going to kill your boss, and his boss, and everyone who was involved in this decision. You're protected by a rule that doesn't even exist yet, and aside from the missing ear, you will make it out of me questioning you alive. If you do not cooperate, I will let my imp eat you piece by piece."

Phobos was now hovering beside the man, occasionally poking him in his side or leg. The man whimpered, but he held firm.

"Phobos, start with his toes."

"But Mistress. They're so bony. Let me starts with his nose. Please, Mistress." Phobos mewled. Phobos touched the man's nose and the man tried to shy away.

He was laying it on a little thick. I'd never let him eat someone alive.

I sighed.

"Sorry about my imp, travel always makes him hungry, and he gets especially peckish after someone attempts to murder me. Phobos, you may begin." Phobos grabbed the man's nose and he screamed.

"Stop! Stop! Get this fucking Caco away from me and I'll tell you everything."

I let out a sharp whistle, and Phobos settled onto my shoulder. I dropped the minion and scratched Phobos on the head. He let out a soft purr.


"Who hired you?"

"No one did! It was all Lucky! He got the orders, and then he told us to set this little meeting up for you."

I kicked him hard in the ribs. My patience was starting to wear a little thin.

"Fine! Fine! He's workin with some fellow down by Rio, something about you and that mirror! But that's all I know! I swear!"

God's bloody buggering fuck. La Muerte. Of Course. Charles had sold me out to that old bag of bones. I sent a message to Vincent that the situation was handled, but active.

I recalled Phobos and translocated back to the exterior of the Maeve. I breezed inside.

"Madame Andrews, welcome back. Let me prepare a bracelet for you." I was already heading towards the bar.

Two of the doormen appeared in my path suddenly.

I turned to the receptionist.

"Madame Andrews."

"Before you continue your idle prattle, I will remind you that I am the Popularis of London. You know my name, you know my history, and you know damn well how I respond to enemies. If your doormen do not remove themselves from my path, the Court of Knaves will relearn just what that means."

"You should choose your battles more carefully."

"As should you." Could I face the Court of Knaves in open combat? Not likely. In a game of shadows, hidden blades, and sudden strikes?

Well, I had contingencies for every current player, and they were one of the bigger names on the board. I'd put the copy of the Bellopheron Archive I'd brought with me to good use, and while current events were drifting away from the events it detailed, it was still a valuable resource. I'd burn time to fix any mistakes, and give me a week of sleepless nights compressed
into a linear day, and I'd show the Court of Knaves what it meant to cross me.

But, I'd reached a certain level of infamy during my adventures on this planet, and that infamy brought rumors and fact and muddled it together into a pseudo urban legend about my capabilities and the level of sheer destruction I was capable of unleashing on my enemies.

In these moments, that reputation allowed me to get away with these moments of being a human battering ram.

The doormen moved aside. Charles was still holding court. I moved the table in front of the booth in one quick, careful, gesture, and then I grabbed Charles by his lapels.

"Charles."

"Bethany." He matched my tone.

"You know what happens next."

"Not on hotel property, and I just rented the penthouse for a month, doll."

"Good thing the rules don't say anything about kidnapping!" I said, then I threw him over my shoulder and hauled his greedy, weaselly ass out of the Maeve and into the bustling streets of New York City.

 

[jldew93]

I slammed Charles into the ground and let out a growl.

"Bethany, we can talk this through!" He pleaded.

"Charles. You sold me out to La Muerte! The discussion is over."

Then I felt the rush of a spell against my back and dodged. I spun on my heel and deflected a second spell that his bodyguard shot off.
The other bodyguard had drawn his pistol and was drawing a bead on me. I stepped, drove a kunai into his gun hand, and slammed my pointed steel-toe boot into his knee.
He fell, and I was already moving toward the second guard. An enchanted Ankh bracelet blocked the barrage of spells Charles shot toward me.

This guard was a geomancer, and he flicked his wrist and the ground around me rose. I jumped out of the way of the cocoon with the assistance of a small gravity manipulation.
Then I increased that force around him by half. He fell to his knees. Then I felt violence and desperation of the spell coming towards my back even as Charles unleashed a heart-stop hex.
Torn between the two spells, I ripped the heart-stop spell to auric shreds and felt the dark magic unleashed against me cut down my leg. I let out a hiss of pain. The spell felt dark, not black, so I'd be safe in the short term.

I killed the guard that had sent the dark magic toward me and turned my attention to Charles. I summoned a dozen spears of ice and prepared to fire them off when I felt the combined magic of a squad of New York City hunters translocate in and surround us. I cursed my anger and brash behavior. I really didn't need this. I felt the Psyker in their squad attempt to breach my defenses and parried their strike. They dropped their invisibility and then there was an entire squad of black armored battle mages surrounding us, each wand aglow with auric energy. I had no quarrel with the Hunters.

"Unknown mages! You're surrounded. Stow your foci and surrender peacefully. Charles and I traded looks. Then he smirked and threw down a small glass bead. He vanished along with his compatriots. I dropped the spells I had running and set my enchantments to passive mode. Lunch was no longer an option, but I'd be able to hopefully take Stephen to a nice dinner before we left the city. The lead hunter grabbed my arm roughly and we translocated away.

When we rematerialized, I recognized my surroundings as a holding cell. It didn't appear to be any different than the ones at Hunter Command in London.
As Popularis of London, the Hunters were out of my purview. I did visit the command center once a month so they could appraise me of any supernatural threats the city might be facing. Each major city held a legion of Hunters known as the home guard. These were organized by squad and led by someone called a Praetorian.
I looked at the Hunter who'd grabbed me. The single star above the wand on his chest indicated that he was rather new to the force. I contemplated my next words for a moment before I began speaking.

"Am I under arrest?" The Hunter laughed.

"No, you aren't Madam Andrews. Your attaché notified our Praetorian regarding a possible situation. With all due respect, we'd rather not have you dueling in the streets."

"My reputation precedes me, it appears."VThe Praetorian chose that moment to appear.

"Your reputation for accidental widespread destruction?" He asked. He was a tall man with a handlebar mustache. He was dressed in the deep black six button tunic and pants that passed as a command outfit in the hunters. He was glamoured to appear mundane.

"Hi Henry." I smiled. He flashed me a quick grin before his face grew serious again.

"Popularis Andrews. Welcome to New York City."

"Thank you for the kind welcome, Praetorian Fountain. I wish it was on better terms."
His face was a careful mask, but I'd known him since he was a boy. I could see the annoyance hovering below the surface.

"As do I," he replied. I quirked an eyebrow. I wondered why. Had this been my Praetorian, he would have simply mirrored my office and explained that we had a visiting dignitary in a holding cell. But it took time for files to be pulled, auric records to be verified, and red tape to be cut. Henry sighed and ran a hand through his dark shoulder length hair.

"Unfortunately, My Popularis is requesting that we hold you until we can get a magistrate."

"Why?" I asked. Henry looked around the room and then he nodded to his guard.

"You sure boss?" The guard asked. Henry looked at me and then back at his minion.

"The bond between a master and her apprentice is sacred. I trust Madam Andrews to abide by the rules of hospitality."

The guard left the room and Henry grabbed a sheaf of papers from his coat's outside pocket. He dropped a sheet of paper at each corner and twisted his hands over each.
The paper gained a copper sheen and Henry nodded in satisfaction.

"True Wandless and Sigil magic? Who are you guarding against?" I asked.

"Half the men in my legion are on the Court of Knaves cut. As soon as you landed in my holding cell, Lucky was informed. I'm trying to get my Popularis to let you go, but it won't be happening tonight."

"Henry. I need to leave. My son is alone at my hotel." Henry gave me a long, pointed look. "Bethany, I really don't care how you've gotten yourself mixed in with the Knaves this time, but why'd you bring a child into it? When did you have a kid?"

"It's been a couple months."

"You left an infant alone!?" Henry exploded.

"Oh, relax. He's eleven. I adopted him, but it's crucial I get back to him."

"You adopted a kid? I thought you and Vince were done with apprentices?"

"He's my brother's son."

"He's Bartholomew- Oh! He's?" I nodded once.

"Beth, that's amazing!" Then I saw panic flash across his face before he reigned in his mask.

"Beth, I'm being strong armed into tossing your hotel."

"No! Henry, that can't happen. Stephen would panic, and that wouldn't be good."

"He's just a kid."

"A kid strong enough to burn my chi points when I funneled away a spell that had gotten out of control." Henry ran his hand over his face.

"I'll hold off the warrant for as long as I can, and I'll see about getting you out of here. Beth, I've gotta warn you, word on the street is that the Knaves are making a play for more control of the city."

I frowned at that. The Court of Knaves had a long reach, most of the magical criminal activity on the East Coast was under their purview. I'd run them out of London at the end of World War I. There were a couple of fronts in my city still, but I tolerated their presence. How could they be expanding? The pieces clicked together suddenly. What I knew about future history, the magical world, and how the court worked spun together into a clear crystal thought.

"The Knaves are expanding into mundane crime, aren't they? They're using Charles as their cat's paw." Henry glared.

"One day you'll tell me how you do that. In the meantime, let's see about getting you out of town. It might be another hour or so. Please don't escape or I'll be forced to issue a detainment order."

"I'll try not to."

He avoided mentioning the fact I was already casing the cell. He translocated away and I surveyed my surroundings. It was four plain white walls. There was a bench that had been built into the room. A commode and sink sat off to the left. A single glowing scone in the ceiling lit the room.
The white paint on the walls hid a series of self-contained wards I'd help artifice. Runed pipes beneath the cell funneled liquid ether to and from the various pools of magic in hunter command. This had the happy side-effect of blocking ley line access to their prisoners. That meant my magical communications were blocked. It also meant that if I needed to escape, I'd be working with whatever magic was in my core. I was at about half strength.

I was magically talented, and a child of two of the strongest Paxian Lords in history. But the energy requirements of working with time and space were enormous. If I saw further combat today, I'd be limited to elemental manipulation and battle magic. I needed to tap a ley.

I paced the cell and thought about the day. La Meurte had a good idea about my weaknesses, and if he'd been a bit smarter, I'd be dead.
His involvement could mean many things. He was a rogue necromancer. He didn't answer to Selene or the Scholomance. He was impossible to capture because gods knew what abominations he had left over from Encausse. It was rumored that he was the cause of the current hostilities between the summer fae and the vampires shadow war in Rio. I'd expect there to be vampire involvement, and the sun was due to set in a few hours. I had to get Stephen to a safehouse before they hit my hotel.

I weighed the pros and cons of breaking out of the cell. If I did, it would cause an international incident that could result in the end of my political career. Amy and Vincent were already in Rio. I didn't want to use Eli for anything major, and most of my allies were on the opposite side of the pond.
Most, but not all. And I wouldn't consider the person I was about to contact an ally. Perhaps a useful enemy.

I sent a message to Amy to contact Thomas Sterling. I'd offer everything we knew about Kuhikugu in exchange for his assistance getting me out of this predicament. He was the highest ranking official I knew on the East Coast, and he'd snatch the information I was offering.
She sent a message a few moments later that she'd completed a phone call and he'd take the offer. Sterling was a fellow inventor and treasure hunter, and we'd developed a less than friendly rivalry. He'd love the chance to hold this over my head, and that was a cost I'd be willing to pay. I'd been in the holding cell for about four hours, and I was tired.
Mages require magic for life. Being without constant access to a leyline was slowly fraying my nerves, and after another hour of pacing I sat down to preserve my sanity.

I couldn't heal the wound that started to turn into a steady throb because that required taking off my dress. I slugged back a Perry's and a pain-killer potion. That would stop the magic from taking hold, but I'd need to heal it soon.

Henry appeared suddenly, breaking the slight meditation I was in to pass time. He had a look on his face. One of worry. There was fear at the edges of his mask. It was how his jaw was set I think, or the way his eyes darted around a room thought to be safe.

"Well, apparently. One of those bodyguards you wounded was Charles' kid. I bought you time, and I'm translocating you out of this cell, but you need to get your kid out of that room. I'd say you have an hour, maybe two."

Henry offered his hand, I grabbed it, and we translocated to the public front of Hunter Command to New York City. I immediately tapped a ley-line and let out a breath as my connection with magic renewed itself. I grabbed a mirror out of my pocket and dialed Eli's runic code. He had his own business in the city, and he'd planned to join us for the summer to continue Stephen's tutelage.

"Ah, Bethany. My world hasn't exploded in a day or so, so I was wondering when you'd call." He had a half-grin on his face I wanted to smack off. I was out of patience and running short on time.

"I need a favor." His expression changed instantly.

"Was that just a friendly favor, or do you wish to make a Deal?"

"I need you in a car at my hotel in twenty. I've got the Court of Knaves on my ass."

"Gods dammit, Beth. Not again!" Eli moaned. I had to bite back a grin at his theatrics.

"Fine, I'll be waiting with a car for you and the niblet." I cut the connection. Then I translocated to the hotel and I immediately took stock of the room. It was as neat as I'd left it. I noticed Stephen had a book in his hand and internally shook my head as his thirst for knowledge. That was something he'd inherited from both his parents.

"We'll be leaving shortly." I told him.
I hobbled into my room, threw up wards to prevent Stephen from feeling the spell I was about to use, and gritted my teeth.
I'd pulled off my dress and was breaking the dark spell slowly starting to rot my leg when I heard him call my name. It was a small mercy that he sounded different than my brother had at that age. Some days it hurt to look at Stephen. I'm not sure what I'd do if I had to hear that voice and know it wasn't him.

"Go away, Stephen." I might have been harsher than I intended, but I was tired, and I needed five minutes to myself to recharge and regain my bearings.

"What's wrong?" I let out a sigh. I wasn't going to tell him everything, but he'd need to learn the spells necessary for field medicine eventually. I didn't give him any details of the night, but I walked him through the steps to heal a wound. We left the hotel and I got into the back seat after greeting Eli. I lit a cigarette and settled into the back seat. He'd drive us to an abandoned lot and we'd portal to Rio.

With any luck, this little misadventure would just be a blip on the radar, and I'd be able to enjoy my vacation in peace.
<BR>

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[jldew93]

Before I explain the situation I was currently in, I feel the need to explain something. Steel isn't magically resistant like cold iron. Steel is immune to magical energy. When a spell strikes the side of a tank or a vehicle with enough steel in its composition the spell will end upon impact.
Before Amy and Vincent entered the field, Eli and I had created a barricade of ice and had leaned our backs against it. We were taking turns reinforcing the barrier while the other popped up from cover and kept up a steady stream of fire.

I had my pair of kinetic pistols and Eli had an old Portuguese Mauser he'd enchanted to all hell. We'd managed to take out the broom rider, but since most of the kill squad had bunkered down behind the steel behemoth blocking our magic, this was turning into a firefight. They were using enchanted rounds, and I didn't favor getting filled with bullets that could explode or worse.

This was usually the point of the conflict where I'd warp space, twist time and unleash golden power. I really didn't favor another six hours in a Hunter holding cell, and those types of magics left signatures that would leave no doubt about who called them forth. Plus, the bangle that shielded my aura from detection had been destroyed earlier.

As the submachine gun fire from the Court of Knaves continued to assault our position, I felt the magical signatures emerging from the portal and allowed myself a grin. Eli felt the signatures a second later and a similar predator's smile crossed his feature. Then a blur shot out of the portal, jumped over OUR barrier, and landed on the roof of the car. There was a shriek of metal, and a sudden scream. Then Amy kicked one half of the vehicle towards half the group. She flicked her fingers and a dozen small metal spikes shot from her hand and struck each of their targets. She whipped around, and sent a spear of silver metal at one of the Knaves attempting to flee. I felt the blast of energy being unleashed from the other broom rider and diverted that. As I did, I heard a soft whine behind me. I turned to Vince as he raised his hand and beam of white energy as thick as his wrist flew into the sky. The beam struck the broom, showers of wood and gore rained down over the field.

With that, the battle was over. I released my hold on the transmutation and ice became water again.

"Well. That was fun." Eli muttered jovially. I glared at him.

Vince gave me a look, and then we were together. A soft kiss on the lips, and my love held me in his arms. I melted into his embrace for a second, leaning my head on his chest and breathing in the sharp scent of his cologne and the feeling of his linen shirt against my skin.

We didn't use words to explain how much we needed each other, but this man had been mine for centuries, and would for centuries more.

We'd brought others to our bed, and we'd turned away from each other for a time, but at the end of all things, we had and always would come back together. My other half wrapped his arms around me, and for those few seconds, life was perfect.

"Stephen told us you were under attack. I'm pretty sure he would have come with us." I looked up from his embrace.

"Of course he would have. He's an Andrews," Amy said.

As she approached us, vents on her arms opened and a fine mist of nanites rose out of them. These took flight and went to work breaking down the scene. When they were done, the area was clear of evidence. A pool of silver liquid oozed over to Amy and slithered up her wrist and slurped back into a vent. Then she fell to her knees. She let out a scream of pain that made my ears ring.

"Bethany. We need to go. Europa's dead." I was running toward the portal before I was aware of my actions. The portal closed behind me to reveal another battleground.

The wide bay window of my apartment had been blown inwards. Shards of glass peppered the carpet. Two wide gouts of blood splashed the room. I saw the spots where Europa's wings had been ripped off. There was a headless furry form laying a puddle of bone fragments and gore laying further in. A half dozen knives were stabbed into the far wall. And Stephen was missing. I was dimly aware of another portal opening.

Amy ran to Europa's form, and I had to shudder. If that had been Phobos laying dead on the ground, I'd have been apoplectic. Europa was his sister, and she'd been a natural born imp.
Amy could resummon her, but there was always the chance that something would be lost in the binding. Amy looked up from her imps body. To anyone else, the clinical look in her eye would mean she was calm and collected. Alexis and my aunt Lana had been thorough in her creation. She was fully capable of emotions. I'd seen her lose her temper once, and a world had died.

"Bethany. Do it." Amy said. I hated myself for what I was about to do, and it was something I'd only invoke if Amy needed it.

"Disengage Third Law Protocol, Emotion Subset. Deactivation code Bethany-Aquamarine-Bravo-Echo-Alpha."

Her eyes flickered once, and she nodded.

He was gone. He was gone. It was all my fault. Again.

I took a breath, counted to ten, and appraised the situation. The vampires had come in from the window. Stephen had fought, and he'd wounded at least one.
The ether reservoirs below the floor had been in standby. They had activated upon my arrival, and I had immediately set the wards to siege mode. Were it not for the illusions protecting this place, the full might of my ward schema would have formed a golden dome encasing the building.

That townhouse was supposed to be safe. It was funded through a half a dozen organizations, and I'd made sure to perform all renovations through a trusted, and discrete, third party.
I had a mole in my organization. My brain was already running into overdrive. My brother was due to arrive with his family in about half an hour. They would be arriving in London and then portaling from there to Rio, and would arrive at the scene of a kidnapping.

"Amy, we're Red across the board. I need you to contact Henry and tell him to put Lo- Nope. I can't do that. That's already locked down because of Bartholomew's insane security needs.
Phobos. I need you to shadow to the townhouse, inform the imps about the situation and then delay my brother as long as possible. Place the hallway in Labyrinth mode. That'll buy us enough time to make this place presentable. Amy, start analyzing forensics. See if we can get an auric trace, or even a shadow trail." My imp shimmered away with a nod.

"Bethany, if it's La Muerte-" Vincent began.

"I'll burn his fucking house down." I snarled. I was hurt, angry, and stressed. The wolf fed on these emotions, bringing it closer to the surface. I made another effort to calm myself.

"Fine. I'll only mostly kill him."

"Only just mostly?" Eli dithered. I glared at the Slender.

"Who do we have among the vampires?" Eli asked.

"How did this become we?"

"When Summer sent Luciano to assassinate an emissary of Winter." Eli snarled.

"Now your lady thinks of me as an Emissary?" I asked. Winter and I had a mixed relationship. My father had dealings with them, and despite the fact his birth wouldn't occur for almost a century, did not mean the debt didn't exist, and that I didn't inherit it. It was at these moments I hated time travel.

"Selene does, My Queen doesn't. Not yet, or not yet again. She wasn't clear about which. But, you are one of our interests, and Luciano is one of Summer's. This vampire plot reeks of something Puck would use." I frowned at the name of the Summer Prince. He preferred games of misdirection and distractions. He'd only make his presence known once he was sure the game was over.

"He's using the vampires to get to me, isn't he?"

"What vampire would be dumb enough to trust a summer fae?" Vincent muttered. We locked eyes.

"Amy, I need you to find out where La Meurte's toy is."

"On it." Amy was already pulling out a mirror to trace the vampire.
Cortés. It had to be. There was only one vampire in Rio that had the balls to charge into my home.

"He's gone dark. His mirrors went private yesterday," she said.

"Cut them. Kill any communications we have access to." Amy was already tracing a steady array of runes on her mirror.

"Done."

"Dispatch teams to their compounds. Get me an attack solution and we'll strike."

"I need time to arrange teams. I need to portal squads from London."

"Why don't we have people in Rio?" Amy and Vincent traded looks.

"It's fine. We've got it handled, Beth," Vincent said.

"Don't do that. Not right now."

"We've had several malfunctions with the wards in Columbia. We needed the extra manpower while the wards were being rebuilt."
I cursed under my breath. It all came down to effectively managing the resources I had on hand. I needed Servitors and Dragonflies and half a dozen other things that would have made my life so much easier if I'd built the infrastructure necessary for their redevelopment.
Right now, I was suffering from a shortage of manpower.

"How long?"

"Eight or nine hours to arrange for redeployment from non-critical duties. Another four to ensure they're armed and armored. I'm working on pinpointing Cortés' location as we speak. We can summon Stephen, but we'd need a blood ritual. Unless Bartholomew and Trey are willing to lend their blood, we don't have enough related mages for that spell."
Twelve or thirteen hours. Twelve or thirteen hours of leaving my son to whatever tortures Cortes' whore could devise. I couldn't use the temporal chamber at the moment. I had no choice but to wait.

Even if I did the ritual, it was blood based. I knew Cortes had wards protecting him from that school of magic, and I told them as much.
I began pacing back and forth. It would take Bartholomew three or four hours to navigate the labyrinth I'd enchanted into the expanded hallway that connected my house to my operations center.
He'd be pissed off, but I didn't need his particular brand of control freak at the moment.

I looked at Eli and he immediately shook his head.

"It's not happening. I can offer a squad of changelings, or maybe a couple of gnolls. But She'll lose her mind if I authorized direct force. Not in Rio." I growled. It made sense. Selene would have been fine with it, but She, for I feared to even think that name, had issues with balance.

All things being equal, I could have asked for a fae assassin to strike against La Muerte. If he had the same ranking in the Summer Court as I did in Winter. But he didn't, so my help from the Court would be limited without taking on further debt. I'd almost cleared my ledger with Winter, and I didn't relish taking on the task of owing them a further favor.

"If you'd like, I can visit the informant I have and return." I nodded. Eli left in a swirl of silver bells and hoarfrost. Then I turned to Amy.
Before I could speak, she lifted her hand to speak to me.

"There's not a lot you can do. I'd suggest you take a nap and let me work on arranging troop movements."
I gave her a look.

"You've been up for almost forty-eight hours without sleep. You've barely eaten in that time, unless you count nicotine as a food group. You're no good to Stephen, or us, exhausted. Tap a ley, and place yourself under a two-hour sleep spell. It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

As much as I wanted to act like a petulant child, I knew how this argument would end. So I nodded, grabbed myself a meal bar, and went and curled into a ball. I woke up a couple of hours later. There wasn't any news. Vincent or Amy had repaired and cleaned the apartment. I didn't detect either of them, but that didn't mean Vincent didn't have Talos, his imp, keeping an eye on me.
I sat on the balcony and looked out at the city below. Stephen should have been here to marvel at this.

We were supposed to be in Rio for the majority of the summer, and I'd refrained from decorating his room. I'd wanted him to have a summer project. I shook my head as I lit a cigarette. I'd fucked up so bad this time. There was a soft knock on the balcony door. I dropped the privacy spells, and made a gesture.
Vincent was there, trailed by Amy. I realized that I'd never changed out of the clothes I'd left London in.

"I found Hernan. He's in the jungle. I'm waiting on surveillance to map his compound, then we'll strike," Vincent said. I perked up at this.

"Do we have eyes on Stephen?"

"Not yet. It's exclusively staffed by his progeny."

"It's a hot extraction then."
Vincent nodded.
That's when my Master Ring flashed emerald green. I looked at it, and then at Vincent and Amy. The ring glowed once more.

"Tear us a hole through those wards." Vincent called as I felt the magic of the Heir and Master rings take hold. I had enough time to combine light and sound into invisibility before I was summoned. As the magic of our house swept me through centuries old runes, I unleashed a soft whisper of energy that would guide them along my trail.
I appeared in front of them as Cortes monologued. I'd observe for a moment to see if I could gain information.

"I would believe that. Fae kind do assume all ages and shapes, and only someone with great skill could kill someone as powerful as my Consuela." That adorable smirk on his face reminded me of his father, but God's Blood, Stephen had killed Consuela Cortes? I'd crossed wands with her more than once. She was a demon in battle. Hernan had sent her to get my charge? I felt my blood boil.

"Yes, it would take someone with great power to defeat a vampire such as her. Or someone with an enormous amount of luck." Hernan matched his grin with one of his own. What game had Stephen just lost?

"There is one detail you have forgotten, street rat." Hernan grabbed his hand and it was all I could do not to rip his head from his body then and there. That leech dare touch my child? This nest would burn. But first, I needed to get him to safety.

"You wear the heir ring to House Andrews. You are just a gutter rat. One that idiotic woman has raised above his station. But at the end of the day, you are a street rat, adopted by Bethany Andrews, and I'm not afraid of Bethany Andrews."

"You should be." I flashed Hernan a grin as my cloak dropped. I called my pistols into my hand and unleashed hell on the room, calling forth gravity and destruction in equal measure. I was only dimly aware of Vincent and Amy's arrival as I struck down Hernan's guard. I need to get Stephen his wand. Then get him free.

"Hernán, let my charge go, and we won't have an issue. I don't have any interests on this continent aside from you. Let him go, and it will be like none of this happened."

"That's twice said, mage."

"I can't believe you're that stupid, Hernán. Thrice and done. Do we have an accord?" I noticed the shifting light of a poorly done invisibility spell and pointed my wand at the target.

"Tell your bitch to stand down." Amy said. She was my right hand, and I knew she was guarding my flank.
A half burned corpse revealed herself and unleashed a lance of black magic. I deflected the spell as Stephen unleashed a pulse of telekinesis that fractured his chains. He made a grab for his wand. Cortes grabbed him and slammed him into the ground. I heard something pop. Cortes hissed, slamming his fist down on a sudden shield again and again. The shield vanished in a spray of emerald sparks. Then my son jabbed his wand into the face of a Master Vampire and screamed.

"Fuck that. Iactus!"

Cortez exploded in a shower of emerald light and gore. Stephen scrambled to his feet as another lance of black greasy light flew across the room. I made a grabbing gesture to shorten space between us. I saw the light slash through his shield as the vampires in the room began burning to ash.
I grabbed a portstone off my necklace and threw it to the ground. We vanished in a flash of hazy light.
I began calling up sigil magic to temporarily reinforce my wards.

"Beth, my back." Stephen croaked. Then he toppled forward.

I grabbed him as he lost consciousness. He began seizing, and I was aware of myself screaming as Amy took him from my arms. A bloody froth began roiling from his lips, and she wasted no time. She tore off his shirt and placed her hand on his chest. When she moved her hand, there were five pin pricks around his heart. She placed a thumb at his neck, and he began calming.

"His core's depleted. He's not magically exhausted but it's close. I need to neutralize the spell killing him."

Then she went to work. Her fingers were a shifting blur as she began invoking True Wandless hand movements at a speed only an intelligence and mage of her caliber could cast. She invoked and cast nearly a dozen spells in a few seconds before stopping. She flicked her fingers, and a spray of red sparks flew from her hand. Then she resumed her casting. Auric burn and exhaustion were the two limiting factors to true wandless. Amy was uniquely suited to this school of magic, and her performance showed. In five minutes' time, she'd purged Stephen's aura of the black magic trying to kill him and placed him under an enchanted sleep.

"I need my clean room. He's going to be out for a dayish while I repair the damage done to his body, but he should make a full recovery."
There was something else. Something she wasn't telling me. I could tell by the clipped tone of her voice. Amy tried to maintain a human facade whenever possible.

"I'll stay and run clean up. Get our boy back home," Vincent said. I smiled. He translocated away.

"Can he travel by Mirror?" She nodded, and we medevaced him home.

We mirror portaled home. As expected, Bartholomew, his wife Vanessa and their son Terrance, Trey, as he preferred, were waiting for me in the sitting room. Trey was thirteen, and if life had been normal, I'd have him teach Stephen some spells as a way to hone both their skillsets.
There were also three squads of men dressed in Leviathan class armor. A single suit would have bankrupted me. They noticed Stephen's condition and all stood.

"Is he okay?" Vanessa asked, she brushed a wave of long black hair out of her eyes. I nodded my head and scratched my ear, and she gave a minute nod.

"A vampire tagged him with a spell. He'll be fine. He just needs rest." Amy said. Vanessa and Bartholomew traded looks.

"Does this mean we aren't going to Mexico?" Trey asked. He was no stranger to magical injuries. Bartholomew was teaching him the same way I was teaching Stephen. Vanessa was a pure pyromancer. If Trey displayed that talent, she'd teach him.

"Nah buddy, you guys are going. Stephen and I will go next time. I promise."

"Vanessa, if you want, take Trey and the Dragoons. I'll be right behind you." Vanessa ushered Trey to the mirror and the guards were quick to follow.

"What's the situation?" He asked. His tone, much like Amy's, was clipped. Bartholomew always knew when there was fuckery afoot.

"I got burned by Lucky and Stephen got kidnapped. He just killed Cortes and his right hand."
Amy was floating Stephen away to her operating suite.

"I'll be there shortly. I just need to activate the med-bed and I'll meet you in your study."

"I think that's the best solution. Let's go, Beth." Bartholomew said.

We went to my study. While we were walking, I had the distinct impression that I was being escorted to the principal's office. Or walked to my father's study to discuss the mischief I'd gotten into this time.

We took a seat in my study. I sat at my desk, Bartholomew sat at one chair. I offered him a glass of Verdant Brandy, which he took a large tumbler of.
In about an hour, Amy had set the Med-Bed to whatever surgeries it needed to perform to heal Stephen and had arrived in my study. I engaged my inner ward suite. When I was confident we were free from eavesdropping, I nodded at the two.

"Before we begin, Bethany, re-engage my protocols."
I did so.

"Could someone please tell me what the fuck just happened?" Bartholomew asked.

"I got a lead on an Interdiction a month or so ago. While we were in New York, I went to meet the seller. That turned into a trap, and in the aftermath, Hernan Cortes attacked our holdings in Rio De Janeiro. He kidnapped Stephen. There was an altercation of some kind, and Stephen managed to kill Conseula Cortes."

"Broken bloody bells." Bartholomew exploded.
I laughed, a nervous "fuck my life" laugh, not an actual laugh.

"It gets better. Stephen managed to kill Hernan Cortes, or at least disembody him."
Bartholomew brushed a hand through shoulder length silver hair.

"How? How? That's not possible."

"Oh, it gets better."
We both turned to Amy.

"What." We said in unison. In the same tone.

"I did a full auric scan on Stephen. Then I did a full-spectrum elemental scan. I neglected to do this last time because he'd only manifested psionic abilities. I found something sketchy."

"Sketchy?" I lit a cigarette. It was my second in an hour, but I was beyond the point of caring.

"I've been scanning his aura weekly. With his circumstances, core spiking might occur more frequently. It's not something we have to worry about until he enters puberty, but I want a baseline so we can determine how much strength he'll have at maturity." I nodded.

"Is this because of his parents, or because of something else?" Bartholomew took another long pull from his glass.
Amy and I traded looks. She was the one to speak.

"Alexis tampered with Stephen's genome. He's a cosmetically altered Legionnaire."
Bartholomew swore. Several times, and in ways I wasn't aware was possible. He finished his glass, refilled and drained it, and filled it once more.

"When were you going to tell me Crown property was running loose?"

"Call my son property one more time, and I'll see you dethroned." My wand was in my hand. A sheen of frost suddenly covered Bartholomew's off-hand.

"Bartholomew. Bethany. Calm down or I will use your Names." Amy said. We traded looks, and stopped. We felt the threat in her words, and released our magic.

"As I was saying. I did my scans. He has traces of recent dark magic exposure and usage."

"What spells?"

"Someone used the Remembrance curse on him." I had to take several deep breaths before I resumed sanity. The remembrance curse was a pain curse I'd never used. Every past pain the victim had experienced, every cut and nick, every scraped knee, broken bone would be felt and continue to be felt until the curse was lifted.

"He was caught by an organ rotting spell. I managed to localize the damage to his back, and he'll be healed, but if I hadn't been there he would be dead right now. Finally, there was the dark magic usage I found on his aura."
Dark magic was like a stain on the aura. It would come clean, but a heavy dark magic user would have an aura that was black as a dark night.

"What spell was it?"

"Has he had access to those parts of the library?"
I glared at my brother and shook my head.

"He's barely trained. I'd never let someone of his age alone with books on that sort of magic."
He raised his palm in surrender and I shot him another glare.

"Fine. What spell?"

"The blood fire spell."

"Oh gods. It's him. It's really him. He's back." Bartholomew looked terrified for a second before hiding his expression. Amy froze.

"There's more. There's always more." He made a go-on gesture before laying his face against my wooden desk.

"Since Stephen flushed his core and ley nodes multiple times with magic use, I was able to get a more accurate reading on power usage. You were right Beth. There's multiple auric presences at work."

"Multiple auric presences?" Bartholomew raised his head from the desk.

"At least two."

"So, our gay brother had a child with Alexis. They both died at the end of the war, and then this kid pops up out of nowhere. Did anyone think that maybe the two necromancers had a contingency plan, and we've got a time-bomb in our midst?"

"Calling our brother a necromancer is misleading," I said.

"Calling Alexis anything but a mass murderer with half her sanity intact is underselling." Amy stated.

"I'd like to know where he got that spell from." I reclined back in my chair. I'd warded the library to only allow Stephen access to a specific booklist. This would expand as he got older, and I'd eventually allow him to browse it at will. All of the books I'd chosen were beginner and novitiate level. None of them contained those spells.

"And what about Iactus?" Amy asked.

"Does he know Iactus? You taught him Iactus? Beth, what the fuck!" I shot him a look. I knew the origins of that spell as well as he did. It was better to let him believe Stephen learned it from me.

"Deadly force and blood fire. Well, there goes any doubt our brother was incapable of reproducing." Bartholomew shook his head. My head hurt. I was tired.

"How long before he's awake?" I asked.

"He probably won't be awake until tomorrow morning, at the earliest. You've got enough time to grab a meal and get some sleep before he wakes up." As good as food, a bath and bed sounded, there was still work to do.

"We have to check if Hernan survived this mess." If he did, it would involve me paying him a weregild to make things right. If he had not, well. That would make Summer the default supernatural power in Rio. My brother and his family would be fine. They weren't the ones that dabbled with Winter and Slender.

"Amy, Vincent and I will do it. You need your rest," Bartholomew said. I fought back a smile at the sudden concern. Before. Before life, before Time and Alexis and all things in between. We'd been as close as two siblings could be. My parents had called us two halves of the same coin. Now and then, that bond we had came back.

"Are you sure?"

"You're my sister, and I know when you're tired. Sleep. I'll keep watch while you rest." How many times had I heard and said those same words as we'd flipped the pilot's chair back and forth? I nodded my head. I was getting gloomy, and these were memories that ended in tears. I left the study without a word. I traveled to my room. By the time I'd thrown my clothes into a basket and turned on the shower to steaming, I was too tired to think of food. I showered, dried, and fell into bed.

<BR>

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[jldew93]

From the Journal of Bethany Andrews
September 25th, 1925.

When Stephen touched his hand to the crystal embodiment of our family's magical source, several things happened at once. He fell to the ground, slumped against the tree, and screamed. He glowed, his aura didn't cover his skin, there wasn't a shimmer of light, his entire body was encased in an emerald sun. The light was so bright we were forced to cover our eyes. This lasted for a second, maybe two, or three, and then he stood. His eyes were still aglow, until he blinked and they weren't. Then I noticed the gleam in them. Stephen, despite his past, still had an innocence about him. He still had hope that the future would be bright, and was ignorant that life wasn't moments of calm between storms, but decades long storms between fleeting moments of peace.

These eyes were void of that. They were two flat emerald chips with a dangerous edge.

"No, you're gone. You can't be here." Bartholomew breathed. Stephen, not the boy, but the brother that never returned from war was in the room with us.

"Liz?" He asked. I knew it was him. It had to be him.

"Stephen?" I asked. Then the tree changed into a three trunked rowan. Bartholomew looked between the boy slumped next to our family font, and our the magical embodiment of our family on Earth.

"It appears the House of Andrews lies in Rowan once more." Bartholomew drawled. His mask was a careful frown. It was the mask he used when he was inspecting his troops or engaging in a cabinet meeting. I knew my brother. The tense way he held his shoulders, the way he was surveying the room for threats. He was scared. I wasn't relishing that conversation.

"Are you okay?" I asked Stephen. He blinked, once, then twice. Then my brother was gone, and my adopted son was back.

"I'm fine." He gave me a look. Gods forgive me, but I didn't want that. I didn't want him to say I'm fine. I wanted him to lip off Stephen's last security code, and his temporal pass phrase. I loved the boy I adopted, I loved him with a fierceness that words cannot describe. But I wanted my brother back.

"What happened?" I asked. I wasn't sure what I felt at that moment. Hope, fear, resignation. Mostly exhaustion. I needed to put on a good front. Stephen was perceptive about these things, and he needed as much positivity as I had the bandwidth to give. He looked exhausted. The emotional toll of claiming the Heirship always exhausted the new heir.

"What did you see?" He replied. I ignored the demanding tone in his voice, and put on my best mask.

"You dropping to your knees and screaming bloody murder." I replied.

"Why did the tree change?" He asked.

"The font reflects the birthwood of the Heir. Yours is Rowan. I'm not sure why it's twined like that, usually that means there's three heirs of the House."

"Could it be counting Voice?" Stephen asked. I looked at the tree. Both of my boys were born in January. Could the wards be counting all three of them as heirs to my house? That would mean that Stephen was alive. My brother was out there somewhere. Alive. And if he was out there, mom and dad might be close by. My family could be whole again, the walls of silence and half-truths and reluctance to talk about what mattered most would be broken down between Bartholomew and I. I'd have my brothers back.

"I'm not sure. I'll add that to the growing list of topics I need to research." I was careful to keep my tone neutral and to avoid letting any of the excitement show in my tone. He was highly sensitive to emotions, and I didn't want anything to leak through. Stephen wasn't ready for all the secrets and history following his footsteps. He wouldn't be for decades. I'd get us past Confluence and then worry about Paxia and ancient future history.
Dinner that night was a silent affair. Amy and I traded messages on our HUD. She'd need to leave after dinner to attend to business on the continent. I had a regional meeting in the morning with the Populari of Dublin and Paris. I was also reviewing the plans for the addition to the mirror portal. We were finally starting to test text functionality on our closed system. Text and words, and then I'd be able to build a magical internet.

I'm sure Stephen was wondering why we were being so quiet. Part of that was my busy business life. A large part was the pending conversation with Bartholomew. He was silent for the meal, only speaking to ask for something to be passed. After dinner, I put Stephen to bed and ordered Phobos to watch him until we were done.
Bartholomew and I went to my study. I got us two glasses on the highest proof liquor I had and we sipped the beverage in silence for a few more moments. I desperately needed a buffer and my usual ones were gone.

Amy wouldn't be present for this conversation. She'd already left for her lab. She had an assignment from the Biomancer's Guild. Audrey had taken a sabbatical to train her own son. Since Amy was Second Chair for the guild, she'd be taking over some of her duties. Audrey's son would be in Stephen's year. Reginald was a gifted biomancer, although Audrey had told me that he still needed work on breaking out of his shell. The boy was painfully shy.
Vincent was checking our less than legal businesses on the mundane side. He'd be in London for a month, and he'd be spending most of it ensuring that our businesses were functioning correctly and overseeing our laundering operation.

Bartholomew sat at my desk. It was a power play, and I'd let him succeed. He needed to feel like he was approaching me from a position of power. He did have that, in the grand scheme of things. But on Earth, it was explicit that I was the Lord and Master of the House. Taking a seat at my desk meant he was subtly challenging my position. Let him try.

"When you left home, I thought you'd be back in a few years. I thought you'd travel the Hinterlands, or dabble with time, and then come back and take your place. Instead, you decided to stay on this world for centuries. You've broken every rule our family has had about time travel. I decided to let you. I've been lenient. That's changing."

"Let me?" I scoffed.

"You've had your adventures, and every time you've run into a problem you couldn't buy your way out of, or make a Deal to fix, I've come running. I've done damage control and sent reinforcements. Bethany, New Mexico and that business in New York City were clusterfucks that you would have died from. I've covered your ass without question for centuries. Whenever or whatever that boy is explodes, I'm not saving you."

Okay, I'll admit, that business in New Mexico hadn't been my finest moment. But that had been almost a hundred years ago! I wasn't sure what event he was referring to in New York. I'd had several adventures in that city. Stephen was just a child. One capable of destroying a Rosen scale test before his second core spike. I'd avoid telling my brother that. It would just add more fuel to his fear. Instead I chose to be sensible.

"Amy has scanned him with every spell and bit of technology she has at her disposal. Aside from the enhancements a legionnaire would have at that age, and the additional auric activity, he's fine."

"Except Amy has missed her creator's handiwork before. Surely you remember that." I had to take a breath. That bastard. Of course I remembered that. Your first love only turns to ash in your arms once. I had to fight the tears that threatened to form in my eyes at the memory of Gabby's eyes as her body bur- I pushed that thought back behind my shields.
Bartholomew knew he'd hit a nerve. He stopped for a moment.

"I shouldn't have said that-"

"It's fine."
"Be-"

"I'm fine." I snarled.

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

My brother gave me a long look and shook his head.

"I didn't mean to use her as ammo."

I nodded. That was as far as I'd willing to go with that conversation.

"I'm worried about you. He's using Stephen's spells, he called you Liz. God's Blood, Bethany, how don't you see it? He's a failsafe or a timebomb or some other final fuck you from Alexis. I should take him home. He'd be safe from his mother there." I scoffed. Like that hadn't been my first thought. I'd have loved for Stephen to be raised in the city he was born to rule. If it had been possible, I would have withdrawn from Earth and whisked him across time and space to keep him safe.

"What's so funny?"

"He's native to this time period. It was one of the first things I checked." I took a careful sip of my whiskey.

"So he's time-locked until Confluence passes. If I brought him to Atlantis, he'd die. Trapped between eight and forty-five indeed. Well, she planned this well. Didn't she?"
You have no idea brother dearest. You have no idea the trap Alexis layed and the plans that she pushed into motion regarding him.
I'd derailed most of it. That day I'd adopted him had been one for the books. I needed to find that Interdiction. I needed it now more than ever.

When I came to this planet, I was following her temporal trail. I'd hunted for her through the years. I'd found breadcrumbs, and clues, but I never found her. If it weren't for Eli, I wouldn't have found Stephen.

"He's an Aether." I said finally. Bartholomew visibly recoiled.

"No he fucking isn't. It's not possible." Even after all these years of Alex and others proving the Edict false, Bartholomew still clung to the old beliefs. I understood why. The first time we saw her in battle, she destroyed an entire legion of Servitors and Khopesh in moments. She'd called forth Pyromancy, Psionics and Technopathy to rip them to bits. Then she used the biomass of the soldiers that piloted the suits to unleash a biomantic plague that rendered the world inhabitable.
There weren't many Aethers left alive. Over the years, because of war, Michael, and Morgan and half a dozen other foolish schemes, they'd become endangered. On this world, there was one, and he was sleeping down the hallway from me. Aethers bred true. Always and forever.

"Bethany, look at the world you're raising him on. They haven't even figured out proper magic yet. This backwater is no place for a child." Of his potential went unsaid. I knew that. I was doing the best I could to bring this planet up to the level it would need to be, but I was running out of time. I noticed the way his tongue slightly bulged against his cheek. He was putting the clues together.

"You're trying to create an obelisk network, and all that entails." I wanted to smile, for a moment. To hug my brother. His eyes narrowed, and a cloudy look crossed his features.

"Despite this world's history, you still insist on mucking about with events. Despite what it could do to us. No matter the cost, no matter the repercussions, you still insist upon using this planet as what? The head of your own empire? Your artificing playground? Broken Bells, Beth. What is wrong with you?"

"You don't understand." And I can't tell you. Damn that Oath. Damn my brother for thinking the worst of me. I was silent. I didn't bother fighting against it. There wasn't a point. That Oath had been sealed with my Blood and my Name. It would kill me if I broke it, and necromancy was a path I refused to travel down.

"Very well. At your will, Popularis." He made the title demeaning. It was a dismissal of everything that I'd worked so hard to build. I should have told him everything then and there. I should have told him my theories. My fears about the temporal journey I'd sent myself on. The plan I had for getting our family back. The hope that we could be reunited. Would it always be this? Where were the two who'd always had each other's back? Where had my twin gone? I gave into those feelings of inadequacy, of betrayal. If he thought the worst of me, so be it. I'd show him.
Like every time I'd fucked up our relationship more, or gotten myself into a jam, I let my temper get the best of me.

"He passed the test, you know." I knew I was almost yelling. I didn't give a flying fuck at the moment whether I was heard or not.

"That doesn't mean anything. He's still a boy, Beth. Still a boy with barely a decade behind him! The things he doesn't know could fill libraries!" My brother matched my tone, and I glared at him.

"Like hell Alexis would want him in this pre-spire hell." Bartholomew's lip turned upwards. My father would have slapped such a look off his face. My mother would have given him a half grin. I let a bit of the wolf fill my gaze. He was posturing. He was unsure of himself. I needed to throw him off the scent. Let him think I was being a child. Let him believe that I was being spoiled and self-centered. Let him believe anything he wanted of me. He already did.

"We were nearly his age when we faced Morgan. That boy is an Aether."

"That's impossible and you know it. That power only runs through the female line. It's why Alex was so weak and Alexis so powerful. Why else did the Quorum elect her as reigning queen?"
Because her father ruled Phantas with an iron fist and a fleet of dreadnoughts. Because Alexander Bonaparte ensured his family's success from Beyond. Because the so-called Quorum was terrified of a girl with barely twenty years to her name and the power of a goddess at her fingertips.

"I know the history of that family as well as you, we both learned at her knee."

"She always favored you, and you know this. It's why you left on this fool's errand and I took the throne!" A fool's errand? Everything I'd worked for was just, what exactly? A day dream? How did she favor me? She broke my bones less than she broke yours? She left me to die once instead of twice? I still had the mental and metaphysical scars from her training. Alexis never believed in favoritism.

"Yet I don't see the royal circlet on your head, why is that?" It was a low blow. I had to keep him off balance and keep the conversation away from obelisks.

"I assure you, in our time, not this pre-spire hell you've consigned yourself too, I am very much the Ruler of Fire and Ice. Mother and father would have dragged you home by your head if they knew what you were attempting." No they wouldn't have. My father would have given me pointers on how to succeed, and my mother would have complained about my dreadful ward work.

"Mother and father are dead. A hundred and twenty years hence and the same from now! Confluence is coming. It must succeed." Read between the lines Bartholomew. For all that's holy. Realize what I'm saying. Just let me get past '45 and I'll come home. Before I'd found Stephen, I was planning on just that. That changed when I determined he was time-locked. I couldn't leave him alone. Not yet at least. Give me time to train him and prepare him for the future to come.

"You wish to alter the world history of one of our closest allies in the galaxy, for what ends?" He said. And there was the rub. I couldn't tell him. Not yet. He'd think I was crazy on top of everything else. I'd need proof before I told him my theories about this time.

"It wasn't right, what happened." I muttered. Let him think this was still a hang-up leftover from mom and dad. Let him think I was still obsessed with finding them and Stephen. I was, and if I could fix that, I would. But that's not why I was still here.

"Wasn't right? You play with time and space like a petulant child and his toys because of poor outcomes?"

Don't you lecture me about Space and Time, Bartholomew Oliver Andrews. Don't you dare.

"Bethany, we are the last of a House that spanned worlds. Wasn't right doesn't even begin to describe the outcome of Morgan's Offensive. The Confluence must not be altered. There are too many forces at play. The use of atomic fire in the prelude to rapture, and the Fomor in the denouement were horrific. But, regardless. It happened." I knew our history as well as he did. The events that allowed our parents to take their rightful place and gain their Pendants would come to pass. If what I did mattered. If I was right, it didn't.

"Did you place eavesdropping wards?" Bartholomew asked suddenly.

"Why would I?"
He crossed the room in a flash and pulled the door open to reveal my son, dressed in pajamas. He had the most adorable sheepish grin on his face. Some days he reminded me so much of his father it hurt.

"He probably heard our entire argument. We should wipe his memories." Bartholomew said. He was only half-joking. I didn't want Stephen to learn his family history from half heard conversations.
Then my heir, my little lion, drew his wand and stepped into a textbook en pointe guard. I had to bite back a grin at how serious he looked.

"He certainly has our brother's drive for suicidal maneuvers."

"I've killed a master vampire. I'll give you a run for your money." Stephen snarled, there was even a bit of a growl in his voice. I saw one of Bartholomew's fingers twitch, and felt the subtle magic of a binding begin to coalesce.
I drew my own wand and called my magic up.

"Bartholomew, if you even think about harming my charge, I will see you bound." Bartholomew looked between the two of us.

"I believe it's time I left, sister." Bartholomew said. Then he decided to show off. Without a word, he moved space and time, and opened a portal directly to his sitting room in Atlantis. It was a maneuver I didn't have the Time for, but it was a pittance to the crown.

"I believe you're right."

"Move out of my way, boy." He said. Stephen stepped aside. Before my brother left, he looked at my son.

"The next time you confront someone, make sure your supposed strength isn't luck about to run out." He said. The portal closed and Stephen turned to me.

"Is he mad at me?" I shook my head.

"Bartholomew and I had a disagreement. It doesn't have anything to do with you." I prayed my shield held against the lie detection ability Stephen had. I checked the time. It had to be getting late.

"Why are you up so late?"

"I was hungry." I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Boys. Some things were constant.

"Well, how about we get you something to eat, and then we get you back to bed?" I asked.

Stephen nodded, and I fixed him a snack. I got him back to sleep and returned to my study to enjoy one last cigarette before bed. Phobos appeared on my desk and settled himself.

"Mistress, I'm sorry he overheard you. I needed to solve a conflict between two of my brood." I scratched his ears affectionately. I wasn't mad. I should have activated my wards, and that argument with Bartholomew was always going to end like that. I didn't expect him to make contact for a year or two at minimum. When he did, I'd have to keep him and my son separate. His attitude toward my brother was warranted. I loved both my brothers. I also knew that my older brother would have never done anything to hurt me. I was always the baby sister, but Stephen had been so tainted from dark magic near the end.

The only reason I'd ruled for the brief time I did was because Bartholomew refused the crown. He wasn't much older than Bartholomew and I, and Stephen struggled with both forms of Mancery my parents had. Bartholomew was a prodigy at both. I'd long since mastered the two principal elements that they had, but my true talents lay in space and time. I'd learned to shift space and store time long before I'd been able to call fire or water. I'd suspected that my father was secretly disappointed in the fact that only one of his children could call forth a rainstorm or a blizzard as easily as he could. My mother only cared that her children were magically powerful.

Stephen must have picked up on something, some trace of that disappointment, because he constantly pummeled Bartholomew under the guise of training. He'd always make sure my brother was healed before my parents saw him. My parents weren't abusive, but they were absent. A prince only gets so old before he stops listening to the staff and starts ordering them around. For Stephen, that age was about a year before we were born.

There was always a rivalry between my two brothers. It began as bullying, but when Bartholomew learned to defend himself, it turned into true tests of combat.

If Bartholomew got the fists and the hidden daggers, I got the sunshine and smiles. I could do no wrong in my brother's eyes. The first and only time I saw disappointment in his gaze was during those last fraught months of the war. I still wondered, had I rejoined the cause as a soldier instead of a diplomat, would Stephen be alive? Out of all the questions I had about his death, and the destruction of Midnight's Heart, that was the one I kept going back to.

My Stephen was innocent. Even if he was a child, if he'd been possessed by a being or turned into a weapon, I would have dealt with it. The act would have broken me, but I would have kept my family safe. I'd made that mistake in the past. I'd gotten people close to me killed. I'd almost died myself.
I let out a frustrated sigh. Sleep wouldn't come tonight. So, I'd make the best of it. Phobos moved from my desk to my lap, and I sat back in my chair. Then I pressed a small button under my desk, and a display winked into existence.

"Open file, Alexis B." A message popped into my HUD almost instantly. It was from Amy. She was my computer network after all.

"Down this rabbit hole again?"

"I might find something new." I got a notification that my message had been delivered, read and seen.

I set my music player to play one of my dad's old playlists I'd managed to salvage. Music that would be popular among teenagers in eighty years, give or take, filled my ears, and I lost myself in the library of data I'd acquired on my old mentor.

I didn't trust Alexis, but if anyone could tell me what happened in the first and last days of the war, it would be her. I just needed to find and bind her first.

<BR>

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[jldew93]

Author's Note: This chapter takes place Summer of '1930. Emily and Stephen are in the library swearing an oath to each other.

I left Stephen and Emily to their devices and entered my study. I engaged the ward suite with a thought, and sat at my desk. I flicked my wrist. A notice in the corner of my vision popped up informing me that I'd engaged a security lockdown. Then I placed my hands on my head and stared at the leather mat on my desk.
I thought about this evening. I had read that ledger, and knew that there was only one SG with that amount of Tremisi. Silas Goodfellow was London's Master Vampire. Amy walked into my room, followed by the bite of Winter and Eli's arrival.

"What are your plans?" She asked instantly. She had a look about her, it wasn't exhaustion from sleep, just weariness at life. The look was gone quickly.

I always forgot how old she was, even though her body was barely twenty. She had followed my parents into battle more times than I'd count decades before I was born.
In a way, with Bartholomew's estrangement, and Vincent's shadow games that he played on the continent, she was my only link to my old family. Now. My new family had been threatened, and I was throwing myself into the fire once more.

"I want a drink first." I said. She nodded, and sat at a plush leather chair.

"Orion." I called.

In an instant, an imp appeared before me. They were small creatures, and fine black fur covered a lean three-foot tall body. A pair of black leathery wings sprouted from his back, and a small forked tail hung from his back. They were also a security staff of sorts. Most houses didn't have a nest in their attic. I blamed that one on Amy's research. The upkeep on them cost me more gold than strictly necessary. Phobos was off running errands.

Without a word, the imp conjured a drink. Verdant Brandy. On the rocks. Home in a cup.
A bottle of this cost more than what some people on this planet made in a decade. Normally I'd sip such a drink. Today I swallowed it in one long gulp, and savored the heat as it coursed down my throat and settled in my belly.

Then I took a packet of cigarettes from my desk and lit one. Eli took one as well. Smoking was a bad habit. One Vincent despised. I knew he had his own vices. Our interests in Columbia and the hotels we owned in Thailand were part of it. The less than legal activities he used his magic to perform funded our information networks. I turned a blind eye as much as he turned one to my habit of adopting orphans and inhaling tar.

"That boy is going to be the death of you," Amy muttered. She didn't need to eat, or drink, but she took her own crystal glass just the same. Eli did as well.

"I'm healing." I said. I blinked and pulled up the display that showed me my physical health. This informed me that the Perry's had healed most of the injuries I'd received. There was nothing Medispray wouldn't fix. I opened my desk drawer, grabbed the small black tube that resembled a travel can of hairspray, and covered my wounds with the mist. In a few moments, my limbs were back to new.

"Do I need to remind you about what a vampire is capable of after it has consumed Paxian blood?"
Eli knew most of our secrets at that point. He'd inferred the rest, and he'd taken a secrecy oath to preserve them. Despite our differences, and his other duties, he was my closest ally in the Winter Court.

"Like the one my father got bitten by in Rio? I'm aware." I said. That caused me to shudder a bit. We had come way too close to that when those vampires had captured Stephen a few summers back.

"We need to strike tonight, if we're going to do anything. I sensed shadow magic at play in that house. No doubt one of Silas' wolves has already told him what occurred at that pit." Eli said.
Amy had gone over to my bookshelf and spun the holo-lock. These were invisible to anyone without an augmented display.
A panel slid aside revealing three dozen lodestones glowing with untapped magical energy. She placed her hand over one.
Amy had been rebuilt twice in her life. The first time was after my aunt Lana had gone on an adventure and returned with a treasure trove of technology. The second time was at the end of the War.

The artificial node system in her body activated, and she absorbed the magic. In her first body, she was unable to use magic. Her origins allowed her a massive advantage in computing runic schemas and deploying them or breaking them. She'd never be an extremely powerful mage, but her other advantages balanced that out. Her crystalline plasma reactor could power her functions indefinitely. But her magic needed ley line energy to use. We were still working on electrical energy to magic conversion. Since she was unable to actually tap a ley-line, she fed her magic with lodestones.

"We're not giving him that chance." I said, flicking my ashes away. They would vanish instantly, as would the butts.

"We're meddling with Time tonight?" Eli said.

"Is there any other way to strike against one's enemies, then hours before they know that something is amiss?" I asked. I checked my display's chronometer. It was now approaching midnight.
Time came with a cost. It could be bought and sold and traded with vast amounts of Tremisi, but it required a toll to generate. After centuries of studying my craft, I only had a decade and a half at my personal disposal. I could use this to stem or reverse age, or erase wounds. I was able to restore what time and the elements had withered and weathered to dust. Best of all, I could travel back and forth across time within limits.
Tonight would be expensive, but it would be worth it. Amy closed the bookcase panel, and we entered the Time Room. I set the runic array for Five PM, and we were sent backward in time.
Time travel was the most expensive use of this Power. From midnight to five, there was seven hours. Except, I'd need seven more to insulate my body from being ripped away or being shredded by entropy. Then, I'd spend this twice more. Once for Amy, and once for Eli. Speeding up Stephen's training had cost me dearly, and I'd burned through almost a decade of time to use the chamber as much as I did.

Just now, Stephen should be breaking his Euclidian bubble, and be teleporting home. I sent myself a message telling myself to send him directly to the dueling room. I attached my temporal pass phrase and current security codes. The me of a few hours ago would recieve this message and follow along with the plan.
I used Time infrequently to travel. The day I'd adopted Stephen, I'd sent myself back three times. As the Confluence approached, I could feel Time tightening it's noose on this period. Time travel would only become more expensive as the event neared.

We grabbed our cloaks and translocated to the Silken Veil's public entrance. Emrys would have never allowed a vampire operated establishment in the city. The Veil's exterior was currently located in the West End. The establishment offered everything from massages and intimate liaisons to information. It was rumored the Knaves had a broker stationed there.
For a nominal fee, the elite staff could acquire your vice, and keep it on hand for your visits, and do so with a confidentiality that was ironclad. The lower level of the club was open to anyone who was pretty enough, or powerful enough, or stupid enough to walk into a blood house. The upper levels were guarded and only VIPs had access. This was one of those clubs that junior karcists and dabblers would frequent to gain more information about the magical world. There were a dozen of these clubs scattered throughout my city. I was fortunate that the crowds wouldn't arrive for another few hours. Silas had owned and ran the establishment for over six hundred years.

I walked into the club and took in my surroundings. A pair of malnourished looking guards with red eyes hung around a maître d' station. Their crushed black velvet suits matched the drapes hanging from each wide bay window. Glowing multi-color lightstones hung from chandeliers. These painted the room, a series of black leather booths along the walls, a matching pit couch in the center with a pole disguising a support column, darkly gleaming polished floors, and shimmery grey walls, in a swirl of lights. The bouncers were the dumb muscle of the vampire world. If you supplied them with enough blood, newborn vampires would follow you anywhere. That gave me an idea.

"This place would be fun if it wasn't horrendously depressing." Eli remarked.

"Or just horrendous." I muttered.

"How may we help you, Madam?" One of the bouncers asked.

"Eli, work your magic."

That was when the Slender at my side twisted two fingers on his left hand. I felt the almost invisible thread of power wrap around us, and then unleash its spell on the guards. They each shivered as my friend's compulsion rooted in their brain and placed them under his thrall.

"I need to speak to Mr. Goodfellow," I said.

"And who may I ask is calling upon him?"

"A fellow member of the Undertown Council." I was taking a gamble using that term to describe myself, but any other names or titles would have meant I'd be fighting my way up to Silas.
The bouncers traded looks, and then one of them pulled a mirror out of his pocket. One of my mirrors. I narrowed my eyes. Who was selling the vampires my magitek? I'd have to audit my vendors. I'd have to audit my entire supply chain. Oh I did not need this right now. The bouncer was speaking into the mirror, and looking at me. He put the mirror away, and then nodded.

"Right this way, Madam. We'll have to ask your guests to stay downstairs."

"Absolutely not," I let a bit of Power out, and the vampires blanched but nodded. Newborn vampires could be so stupid. The three of us followed them to a hidden elevator, which took us up to Silas office. He had a throne room pretending to be an office.

There was a long black laquered table in front of a matching chair that could only be described as a throne. Two smaller chairs were facing us. A black werewolf hide sat under the table and throne. It's head was mounted above it. This smarmy fuck hadn't spoken yet and I already wanted to kill him.
Two crossbows hung on either side of the room, and there were suits of samurai armor below them. There was a map of the hotel on Silas' desk, and other than that and a sheaf of paper, the room was empty of paperwork.

Silas, well, hell. His long hair and pale patrician features screamed vampire. His eyes, two full black orbs, meant he'd fed recently. The rings on each of his fingers hummed with power. So did the necklace and bracelets he wore. The suit, unsurprisingly black, shimmered in a way only ethersilk did. His preparations, including the circle trap hiding under the skin, were cute.

"Which one of my illustrious fellow council members am I addressing?" He asked after the guards left.
I lowered my hood.

"Madam Andrews, how nice to finally make your acquaintance." He said. Silas was a creature who oozed sexuality. Words tumbled off his tongue like silk. The connotation of the word acquaintance was almost explicit.

"What can I do for you? I must admit, I didn't think I'd see you in my humble abode. Your husband certainly, but not you. I'm sure whatever desire you have, we will be pleased to perform. Please, sit wherever you'd like."

"I'll stand, thank you." I asked. I had a feeling that the circle trap was triggered by those chairs. I nodded my head, and Amy and Eli lowered their hoods and stood to my left and right.

"And who do we have here?" He purred.

"This is Amelia, my secretary."

"And the Winterborne is your pet?" He said and let out a soft laugh. I smiled. If he ignored how sharp the grin was in favor of admiring how wide it was, that was his fault.

"I do have a favor to ask you, and I'm certain that you're the only one that can satisfy my needs." I replied in a breathy half voice I'd learned from years of royal intrigue. Silas made a sound that did something to his lips, while he leaned forward a bit more. The barely visible shirt showed his rippling abs.

"You see, I need you to stop selling fucking children." I replied, my voice turning into a growl at the last bit, and he suddenly leapt back in his chair, the tension in the room suddenly gaining an entirely new edge.

"I assure you, Popularis Andrews, I don't know what you are talking about." He replied. There was a slight downturn of his mouth, but other than that there was no indication that the words had any effect on him.

"One of my charges was kidnapped by your kind a few days prior."

"Oh dear, that is such a tragedy. I wish you the best of luck finding them, but I'm not quite sure how that has anything to do with me." He replied.

"Silas, you know as well as I do that vampires in London don't so much as take a piss without your saying so." I replied, and he let out a soft laugh.

"Normally that's true, but there are rogue elements in every society. You for example. You're the Popularis of London. If your charge went missing, you should have contacted the Mineure and arranged for Hunter search parties. Instead, you came here, slinking up to my office like a common street whore. Are you looking for a backdoor solution to your problem, madam?"

"Dear god, did you learn to speak from a bodice ripper? You're a piece of work, Goodfellow. No, I came here to inform you that as the Popularis of London, I have confirmed your involvement in a smuggling ring that encompasses forced prostitution, kidnapping, and the wholesale enslavement of my citizens. You will cease and desist immediately or we will be informing the Sanguine Court and the Council Majeure and you will fall under Hunter-"

"This is preposterous!"

"I agree." I said and produced a copy of the ledger.
I handed it over to him, and he flipped through it. He softly sighed, as if he had just seen a bad article in the London Eye instead of a ledger of the damned.

"You caught me. I admit that I do, on occasion, dabble in the flesh trade. But I have Carte Blanche from both your Council Majeure and the Sanguine Court."

"But you do not have permission from the Ice Queen to trade her people. Nor would The Queen of Flowers allow such a trespass through her demesne." Eli said.

"The pet speaks, what other tricks do you know? Had a fae girl crossed the Night Market, it would be something that would be dealt with harshly. Had the girl been a halfling, she would have been free." He smiled.

"The issue here is that you've attacked one of my charges. Thrice and Done. You will make amends for such a situation."

"Thrice and done indeed you upstart mage," he said with a laugh, "I grabbed a senseless orphan chit off the streets. Had I known that she was enrolled at Coventry, or that she was one of yours, I would have avoided her. The Council and Court will turn a blind eye, and you might get a weregild." He replied. They probably would.

World War I had seen a reversal of fortune for the vamps. Men died in droves in trenches, and a fair few of them had agreed to be turned. The Reese family's attempts at raising a zombie army during that time, and Encausse's shadow war lead to a lot of the Council Majeure's battle mages being killed in action. Had this been a regular mundane born mage, she likely would have been forgotten. Right now Brittania as a whole didn't have the Battle Mages to face the Vampires on an even field. We'd need another half a century before we reached that level of strength. That was without factoring in the war looming.

"Before you do something hasty, I'd like to give you my solicitor's card." Goodfellow said, and produced a card. There wasn't a number on the front, or even a name or address. Instead, engraved, in red, was a diamond. A shiver trailed down my spine.
I knew the symbol, and I'd fought this organization before, during the first World War. I knew Eli and Amy had seen the card, and they both would know what it meant.

"I'm a Senior Broker for the Court of Knaves. I'm untouchable." He replied, a wide grin on his face, and I caught the razor edge of his smile. Then I dipped into the supply of time I had, and froze the building.

"Solutions?" I asked calmly. I wanted to cut this creature in half and figure out the rest.
We technically existed out of time at the moment. We could discuss what to do next without worrying about time constraints. I was going to do something regrettable if I didn't.

"How are we handling this?" Amy asked.

"I'd say chip him, but I really think he should die." I muttered.
Eli scratched his stubble with his off hand. He was thinking. I didn't like it when he thought. That usually got me in trouble.

"This could represent a significant boon for us. If we played our cards correctly."

"How so?"

He gave us both looks.

"One of Selene's apprentices was kidnapped earlier this summer. She was studying in the city. We found traces of vampiric shadow magic at the apartment, but nothing concrete. In addition to this, the Court of Knaves has organized several recent forays into Antarctica. She would agree to cover your ass, for a favor."

"So it's a Boon to your faction."

"We stand to gain through the Right of Conquest. Silas' men kidnapped a Coventry student. That will enrage the Board of Governors. That would give us Grey, and you can count on the Coldwood block in the Mineure and on the Vox for a vote. That's if our dealings with him come to light."

I did the mental math, twelve out of twenty-one. That would do it. I'd have the leverage to push it to the Majeure, and I could call in a favor with two of them. Two more would settle their votes for favors or advanced artificing. It would take a great deal of political capital, and at least a thousand Tremisi. My war chest would be gone, and I would have to dip into my liquidity, but I could manage it.

"I'll need to ask Agatha to back date a Defense Order. Amy, chip him, then pump and dump when we're done." Amy moved into position, placed her hand at his neck for a moment, and stepped away. She nodded, and returned back to me. We resumed our positions and I unfroze time.
Silas suddenly smacked the back of his neck.

"It appears that you are not." I smiled back. He let out a small laugh, and scratched the back of his neck.

"Before we continue this charade, I have a question for you." I said.

"Oh?"

"Yes, how often do cerulean skies end in crimson tears?" That was the activation phrase for the control chip Amy had just placed on his brain stem. I didn't use this option. Ever. But, Silas was a special case. Silas suddenly froze. I saw the fear in his eyes. I nodded at Amy and she allowed him to speak.

"What did you do to me!" He screamed, or tried to, it came out as a regularly spoken phrase.

"I placed a bit of artificing in your brain that lets me control your actions, your speech and how often and if you are allowed to use your magical and vampiric abilities." Amy stated.

"Your council will Still you for this. The Court of Knaves will rip down your wards and murder your family and your vassals in their beds, and all you know will burn."

"Oh, pity. You missed the part where they're going to kill my little dog too.
The Court of Knaves will not act against the Southern Queen or one of her agents. They know the stakes. Now, tell me where everything you know about this hotel, your financial holdings and any information that may seem pertinent. You will keep sending psionic all clear messages to your underlings. You will not attempt to misguide or misdirect us about anything you speak of, and you will not attempt to escape." He froze, and nodded.

He told us of the hotel, and how it changed locations, and could be connected to any door via a key. The key I took from his neck. I also took the various foci he had on his person that would activate and deactivate the hotel's defenses and placed all of these in a magically neutral bag. Then I had him open his safe room, deactivate his wards, and I emptied that into a pouch.
Then I had him write down everything there was to know about his businesses via a transcription spell. After I was done plundering all the useful knowledge from his brain, Amy performed the neuromancy necessary to encapsulate the entirety of his knowledge into a small glass orb.
A tendril of silver snaked from her wrist and plunged into the orb. It took her but seconds to relive centuries.

"He has the mirror." She said after a long moment.

"Where?"

"There's a Court of Knaves archive in Manchester. It's one of their rainy day depots. He has sole access to it and he's been storing all the archives he hasn't gotten around to cataloging or studying yet. Apparently he has several of these buildings around England. Our research teams just got years of work."
I gave him a long look. If I let him leave, he'd cause problems down the road. If I killed him, he'd possess his nearest progeny, or I'd end up accidentally wiping his line out. That would cause me no end of problems if I was found responsible.
I had him order his clientele to vacate the premises. After that, I ordered all the vampiric staff down to the lobby. Then I used his key to refactor the wards and placed them under my control. From there, I engaged the hotel's security lockdown.
I led Silas downstairs. A dozen vampires met us. A good half of them instantly reacted with low hisses and growls, and one almost charged us.

"If anyone so much as twitches, I will kill your sire. Do I make myself clear?" I said. I heard the whine of Amy's weapon's systems as they primed themselves. Any vampire attempting to attack me would be greeted by a beam of perfectly aimed molten slurry.

"What are you going to do to me?" He asked.

"Silas Goodfellow, by the authority vested in me by the Council Mineure, as the Popularis of London-" The following events happened in a few seconds time. One of Silas's brood conjured a spear of stone and hurled it into Amy's chest. The spear lodged in her midsection, and there was a sharp whine as her weapons systems went offline. That distracted her hold on the control chip long enough for Silas to unleash a wave of psychic energy.

I felt the second pulse of energy as centuries of magical power met the same of technological strength. Silas broke his hold over the chip long enough to lunge towards me. I spun space around me as a taloned hand nearly grazed my face. I felt the magic of his core spike, and knew I needed to end whatever spell he was calling forth.

"I'll kill you!" He screamed.

"Encausse said the same." I replied, and then I sent a cutting spell outward. Nothing happened for a moment. and then Silas was bisected laterally.
Two halves of him slid to the ground with a squelch. That was when the screams started. Silas, much like Cortes, had lacked the mental faculties to create a phylactery. The screams were his brood and the vampires of his line dying as they burned to ash in front of us.

"Well, fuck." I said.

Eli laughed. A laugh that sounded like snow and broken glass.

"Well, fuck is right."

"Good job Beth, you just devastated London's vampire population. Rio, London, The Andrews Family is on a roll. If this keeps up, the vampires will be extinct by 1940."
I groaned. This had just turned into a massive cock-up. It was one thing to kill a vampire temporarily. They'd be stuck in their phylactery until a host could be found among their spawn. Vampires were strong, and fast, but they were vulnerable to light and fire, and were pretty squishy when it got down to it. They fell between a human and a mage on the endurance front. A phylactery was practically a natural defense system!

"Oh, fuck off."

"We need to do something about the surviving staff." That was Amy. She'd ripped the stone spear out of her chest, and the wound had already shrunk to the size of my fist. The ash from the vampires was already sloughing into puddles of dirty gray ectoplasm, but the hotel did employ multiple staff and 'entertainers' for their clients. I agreed. We'd worried about the repercussions after.

We went back up to the office, summoned all the surviving staff down to the lobby and I looked over them. Most were women, but there were quite a few men. There were also multiple staff that looked far too young to be in this line of work. There were also quite a few mages among the staff with uniforms instead of underwear or a robe.

"Raise your hand if you want to work here willingly." Those that did, I ushered aside. Amy would dispatch a team to get those here against their will to somewhere safe, and while not luxurious, comfortable, that they could stay at until we got them back home or on their feet. The young ones without would find homes among my people, education, and therapy. Some of them would end up staying in Stephen's old orphanage, which had improved and leaps and bounds since I'd taken it over. I planned on taking him to it over christmas break.
We'd test them all for magical ability and recruit any that wanted to learn. I'd keep the hotel, and after some modifications and adjustments to the clientele list, I would reopen it to the public. I'd anchor it to a door in the hotel I was developing in Mayfair.

An hour later we stood outside the building where the Silken Veil had once been anchored.
Amy had layered the main load bearing supports of the building with plastic explosives, and used a spell to rapidly transmute the air to gas. There were other rune slates scattered around the building that would explode in infernal flame as soon as the air caught on fire. This needed to look good.

The Silken Veil had been the main base of operations for the London vampires, and had a dedicated sub-basement that held an armory, library, and alchemy lab. This, coupled with the ridiculous amount of information Silas had stored in his office, along with the diamonds and we'd crippled the London vampires in the short term. We'd use this information in the coming weeks. I had already sent a message to Vincent explaining the situation, and he'd be sending our agents out tonight to rain hell down on them.

"Are we done here?" Eli asked. I had enslaved the detonator to my display. I nodded, and sent the command. A mental twitch later, and the building exploded. The infernal fire would destroy all traces of magic. Silas and his hotel would be gone. A new club catering to Mundanes and Karcists would appear on the scene and I had another invisible business to add to my portfolio.
Amy activated the runic equivalent of a magnetic pulse, and half a dozen pops sounded in the night. The bomb would destroy our auric residue, eliminating any trace we were ever here. I didn't need to involve the council in this.

I did love when vengeance was profitable. I'd fought vampires across half a dozen countries and across three centuries of combat. You couldn't trust them. Vampires only respected themselves or their supplier.

We translocated to my bedroom, after making half a dozen extra jumps to break our trail. We dropped a pulse at each one that detonated after our departure. It was now just before we left.

"I'll be returning to Tir Na Nog tonight. My Queen will need to know what transpired tonight, and what to expect from the coming days." Eli stated. I nodded. He vanished in a swirl of snow and jingling bells. Amy and I sat on her bed.

"First, I have an idea and I need figure it out before we delve into that. Start researching synthetic blood. If we could convert enough newborn vampires to our cause, we could gain disposable assets and gain an edge on the competition."

"That idea shows promise. I want to look into it. Do you want to tell me what happened tonight, aside from throwing us into another Knave plot?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"There are thousands of ways you could have averted killing Silas. You could have frozen him, or suspended him. You could have simply bound him."

"He was about to kill me."

"If self-defense is the excuse you'd like to use for the evening, so be it. But you know you just caused us more trouble."

"Where's this coming from?" I asked.
Amy was silent for a moment.

"You've been more aggressive these last few years. I understand that you're worried about finding the Interdictions, and that we've running out of time. But you need to think about the example you're setting for Stephen. You also need to think about what happens when we get past Confluence. It doesn't matter if we win if we don't have any allies left to share the victory with."

"You're worried I'm isolating myself?"

"No, I'm worried that you're losing the forest for the trees. You've been focused on day to day operations for so long, I think you've lost track of the bigger picture. We're spending diamonds like water to search for the Foxfire Mirror and the entrance to Kuhikugu. Our treasure hunting expeditions are running into the red.
Bethany, our finances are holding, but as we drift further away from the Bellepheron's temporal database, I'm slowly losing my ability to manipulate the markets how I want based on foreknowledge. I think we're focusing on the wrong technologies. I understand the need for our automated forces, and the Khopesh will be useful in a few years when things start getting weird. But I think we need to shift some of our assets staff to begin releasing rudimentary computer technology to the mundane population. As soon as we can create a planet-wide intranet and start encouraging banks to digitize, the better. Confluence is but one step, and we need to start thinking a couple ahead. "

One more year Amy, one more year and I can tell you everything.

We had been more active these past few years. Our work with Winter was a constant source of busy work. Our illegal mundane activities had changed since the days of rum running, and we'd progressed from selling bootleg gin to half a dozen activities that required manpower and time. This had caused burnout as I ran into manpower issues. The fragile mundane economy hadn't helped matters.

I was still six months out from being able to deploy the half-legion of Servitors and the duet of Khopesh that I'd only been able to build because of Amy. When those came online, my manpower issues would be a thing of the past.

"I agree. But, we're close to finding the city. If we can find that as an independent party, our finances will be set for the future. We know the city exists, and it's general location. I plan on leading an expedition there next summer."

"Is Stephen ready for it?" To be honest, I didn't know. I'd take all the precautions I could, and I'd make a Deal with my brother if necessary.

"He will be." Amy nodded at that.

"I started telling Stephen the truth." I replied.

"About?"
I sat back on the bed, conjuring a pack of cigarettes and lighting my second one of the evening. I lit it with a focused burst of will and took a long drag.

"Part of the war."

"Which part?"

"Near the end. When you were… When you were trapped."

"You mean when Morgan had imprisoned my engrams and threw my old body out an airlock," She replied, and I nodded.

"Yeah." I replied.

"What of it?" She asked.

"When that happened. Lana's Folly was still a harsh wound. We lost three fleets that day. Nocturne and Evera were in open rebellion. We were losing on half a dozen fronts, and the war was taking a turn. Not for the better. When King Vincent and Queen Allison died, in the same battle we lost Uncle Will, and Gabby and Watson and a million other people.
We lost a million others to protect that system while they were evacuating, running, from Morgan's machine horde. We needed a flag to rally around. Avalon Station was that flag. Atlantis. Terris Morn. Lycanos. We'd lost them all. Year after year. Day after day. Battle after hopeless, pointless, bloody battle.
Amy. You were gone. Both sets of my parents were gone. My aunt and uncle were killed in front of me. My entire family was scattered to the wind. I gave up. I traded my armor for dresses. My blades for stylus and diplomacy. Avalon needed a Queen, and it was something I'd been trained since birth for. I wasn't Vincent's ideal partner, but we made due.

Stephen and Alexis took the rest of Sword Fleet, every Warmind, Khopesh, and Servitor we had, every able-bodied soldier, battle mage, and psyker and threw them into that hopeless meat grinder. All so I could entertain at parties and give our citizens washed out circuses and moldy bread. All so they could stop someone-" I collected myself.

"Oh Amy, I had her. I fucking had her. All I had to do was drive Caladbolg into her heart and it would have ended before it began. Gabby, I killed her twice. You know? I killed when I let Morgan free, and when I hugged her that last time."

"I know." That wasn't an accusation or recrimination. I'd tortured myself like this before. I always turned back to those events. If I could have been there as I was now instead of the scared girl I used to be, everything would have been different. The blood of worlds was on my hands. No how many good deeds I did. No matter how much I drank. That stain would be on my soul until the End of All Things.

"Paxia was in tatters. The Crown Planets were in chaos. The ruling families were scattered to the winds, and in some cases killed to the last. Our golden kingdom was tarnished in the blood of billions, and I sat in my dresses and sipped my wine, and let it happen." I brushed the tears away from my face. I was still in my blood covered leathers, and I knew that this blanket and this entire bed would need to be cleaned, if not replaced.

"We don't know that they're dead." She said, I snorted, and smiled through my tears. This was an old argument, and we'd been having it since I'd first found my Stephen. The little boy who picked up strays like I did. Stray voices. Stray children. He had a good heart.

"Alexis? Alexis is probably wandering the cosmos following whatever plan she's cooked up this century. I know she was your creator, but Amy, you didn't know her. You didn't know her when she met me and my brothers. You certainly didn't see her when she fought Morgan in the skies of Terris Morn.
Alexis was mad, mad at the universe, mad at herself, and just barely coherent. If she showed up tomorrow, she's as likely to kill Stephen as she is to recognize him, and I saw the wreck of Midnight's Heart.

That ship was a ruined mess of superheated mythril and tritanium. There was nothing aboard that could have survived. Don't you think, if one of them had lived, they would have made contact? Why would Alexis leave the Crown Prince of Phantas in a mundane terran orphanage? Why would Stephen let his son exist in malicious squalor? I know she hid him, and I don't doubt she's probably alive, but I only felt her magic on the remaining wards." I replied.

"If Alan even caught a whisper of him before he could defend himself." Amy said.

"Stephen would die. I know." I bit back. I didn't care about the decisions of a boy who's diapers I'd changed. I'd done worse to lesser men. I'd fought in wars with less motivation. Stephen was the future of my House. Of everything my parents had fought for, and my brother had died saving. If he was ever threatened, I would use every ounce of gold, every glittering diamond in my coffers, and every favor and second of time at my disposal to save him. Bethany Andrews would go away again, The Butcher of the Binary Stars would take her place, and the heavens would tremble.

"And he still doesn't know about his origins. His purpose?"

"That he is the son of my brother, and my mentor? Yes. He knows."

"You know what I mean." She replied, and godsdammit, I did. The Confluence was a decade and a half off, but I still felt its effects. I needed to tell him about his origins. I'd been hiding that secret long enough. It was time he knew.

"I'll tell him. Everything." About his heritage. About the changes his mother made to his DNA, and the power he'd one day be able to bring to bear.

"And what of his status?"

"As an Aether?" I didn't need to see the nod to know that's what she meant.

"I'm going to tell him more, during the holiday break, before he can get himself into more trouble. For now, he knows enough to keep his mouth shut. The Council of Dames would have our heads if they knew," I said. That bunch of old biddies. I was thankful that the Paxia I knew was two hundred years, and two million lights away.

"Bethany, if they knew, they'd do more than that." Amy replied.

"I'm aware. Alyss, Esmerelda and Teresa would raise themselves from the Grand Crypt and burn us and our holdings to ash. The boy would have his elements bound, his magic stripped, and his soul obliterated. He would be made Anathema. Disparate. I'm aware of what they would do. I learned those lessons." I replied bitterly. I would avoid going down that path, if we ever reached those battlegrounds. I would avoid subjecting him to the persecution his namesake had been threatened with. The Crown Planets would suffer a war that Morgan would only dream of if a hair on my son's head was harmed.

"Of that we're in agreement. That poor boy. The fate of the galaxies lay on his shoulders, and he doesn't even know." Amy said softly.
From habit, we had shifted so that we were sitting on each side of the bed, and we lay so that our heads were a few inches apart. It was something I'd done with my mom when I was a kid, and something Amy had done with her as well. This small piece of home warmed my soul.

"Bethany, have you thought of giving Stephen a field kit?" Amy asked suddenly.

"After tonight, I think I'll give them both one over the holiday." I muttered.
We would make it through this storm. Vincent had a contact with the Knaves, and they could be dealt with or paid. I'd use my influence to stop the vampires before they made any more moves against us, and I'd ensure my staff was loyal. Nothing would harm us, and nothing would harm me in my home. Stephen would never have to flee in the night like I did, and that silent promise alone would allow me to sleep at night.
We sat in silence for a while, until it was time for us to reappear.

<BR>
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[jldew93]

Mage King Bartholomew Andrews. Emperor of Atlantis, Grand Alpha of Lycanos.
Earth, May, 1931.
Andrews Townhouse, London.

"Elijah. The next time you live at my house for an extended period, You are not allowed to play finders keepers with the liquor cabinet," My sister said. A flash in her golden eyes promised violence if she was disobeyed.
Eli smirked.

"But, Bethany, that's my favorite game." He snapped his fingers, and a portal began shimmering into existence.

She shook her head, and I had to smile inwardly. A woman known in some circles as the "Butcher of the Binary Stars", playfully arguing with a fae, a Slender, something she had glassed a planet of, of all things. It boggled the mind.

"Do it again, and you'll be playing finders keepers with a very blunt object." She said, and he gave her a sideways leer.

"Don't threaten me with a good time." He jumped into the portal, tipping an imaginary cap as he did. The portal closed with a snap of energy.

"That man." She growled. She lounged in one of the library's leather recliners. Then she summoned a mostly empty Verdant Brandy decanter.
She poured herself two fingers, and offered me the last, which I took. I would savor this. That had been an amazing vintage.

"So he's always?" I asked, unable to phrase my sentence politely.

"An incurable leachorous ass." She replied. She Dismissed the decanter back to whatever likely empty shelf it had been summoned from, and after taking a sip, attempted to summon a packet of those paper covered nicotine sticks she adored. When none appeared. She frowned and snapped her fingers twice more.

"Mistress calls?" I could hear the creaky-door voice of Phobos, Bethany's bound imp, before I saw him appear with a shimmer.

"Phobos, is my humidor, perchance, empty?" She asked.

"Yes Mistress." Phobos said.

"Arrange a transfer between here and Rio, and while you're there, grab Rodrigo and tell him I
want that runic schematic. But, before you go, grab my emergency kit."

"As you wish." The imp said, shimmering away, and appearing seconds later with a small leather briefcase that was warded to the gills. Only to vanish again.

"That's a pretty well trained imp you've got there."

"Well, when you save someone's family from a murder of gargoyles, you get that kind of reaction." She replied.

I could see some of the runes had been scorched by magical backlash. She shook her head, conjured our mother's dagger from the spatial storage anchored to her wrist, and tapped the button that would open the latch twice. The case sprang open to reveal a full decanter of brandy, and an entire carton of those cigarettes. She grabbed a pack, let the suitcase fall, it would catch itself, and hurriedly tore the paper box open. She took a cigarette out of a pack, lit it with a bit of wandless, and handed the pack to me. I shook my head. I knew my sister had picked up her share of vices, but I had no idea that it was this bad. I wondered, absently, what was next? Amphetimines?

"Don't give me that look. I'll quit when I'm good and ready." She said. I held up my hand.

"Fine fine. It's not like you don't have enough to be worried about." I said, she nodded triumphantly and leaned back in the leather chair.

"Sooo, how's things been?" She asked, after taking a few drags. Even now the fake british accent she assisted on effecting draining away to Atlantean Native which sounded almost midwest United States to the untrained ear.

"Honestly Beth, I was wondering when you'd quit that bit of theatrics." I replied.

"It's part of the mask." She said flatly, and there it was. With that bit of nicotine, and those few sips of highly alcoholic brandy, Bethany, my Bethany, the woman who'd saved my life more times than I could was back. The woman who had fought besides me, and then left me to die the first time my back was turned was in the here and now. Gone was the faux posh and proper Lady of the manor that would have had my father curled in flashbacks from one too many days at Eton, and my mother ready to plot witness-free manslaughter. After the Battle of the Eye in about eighty years or so, our family had transplanted from London to the boring beaches of Lake Michigan.

If my parents saw her in this semi-industrialized hell, they would turn in their empty crypts. On the other hand, because of the reason she was here, they'd probably be throwing her a parade.
Honestly, he hadn't been Stephen's first bastard. Then I saw the shocked look on her face, the sharp stab of pain to her heart, and then the look of complete victory. I froze. I looked down at my glass. It was empty. Suddenly suspicious, I ran my tongue up against the roof of my mouth, and found that it coated in a thick milky substance. Fuck. She'd just drugged me!

"Bethany, my dear sweet sister. I know we've been playing this game of human chess for years, but did you really have to drug me?" I asked.

"Yes." She replied.

"Well, now you've certainly got my interest peaked, and I think that was part of the ploy." I replied, and she smiled that wolf's grin that had sent her almost all her childhood suitors running. In that moment, she looked like our mother, and I fought the icy combination of fear and inadequacy that had been the highlight of my childhood.

"First, how's Vanessa, and the kids?"

"Vanessa is off on another humanitarian tour. The kids are good. Trace is well, himself." I replied.

"Just like we were at that age, all full of fire and self-loathing?" She asked with a smirk.

"Some of us never left that stage, it appears." I said, gazing at her second cigarette in ten minutes. She glared at me. Not only was that jab meant to take her off guard, it would also allow me to determine what kind of potion she held me under. If it was a submission potion, I wouldn't have been able to talk back to her.

"You know, we can play the game of 20 barbs and you'll guess the potion, but I guarantee you'll still be under its effects, and maybe it's a two step neurotoxin. Atlantis' doctors can fix a case of the brain dribllies, right?" She asked, and I fought myself from saying another retort.

"Or, orrr, I'll tell you what kind of potion it is, and offer the antidote when I'm done. Because that potion will wear off in about two hours, or about twenty-four. I don't quite remember. We both know how much information can be gleaned from a willing subject in that time, Barty." She took her time saying it, just because she knew how much I hated being called that.

"Fine. You win." I replied, and she smiled.

"I always win." She smirked.

"It's a truth serum. You must exhibit complete honesty about a subject while under the effects of the potion. It's a nifty bit of alchemy Amy whipped up. You'll be good in about an hour." She said.

"What are the two subjects?"

"Both are a bit of column a, and a dash of column b. Do you want me to tell you what I want, or what I'm offering you?"

"Usually you get the better part of any bargain you strike. So, you can list your demands first, and we'll talk about prices."

"I want two cases of defensor bracelets, and the same quantities of VAR-12s. I need them configured to run on ambient and static charging. I want four cases of Wasps, a disassembled Raven with quad cannons, and a half legion of servitors. I also want a decade of time, and then a half-month of it per year."
"Well, I'm glad you've made your Christmas list. Maybe if you're a good girl, your Slender will give it to you."

"You haven't heard what I'm offering."
I raised an eyebrow at that.

"What could you possibly be offering me?"

"The use of the Mirror, twice a month, in perpetuity. I'll also be providing a license to use the Mirror and the Two-Faced Blade's runic and enchanting schematics. In exchange for the constant supply of Time from your Crown's coffers. I'd also want a similar wish-list each year. I can even offer a sweetener."

"Oh?"

"Yes. How does a quarter ton of weapons grade ley-charged tremisis sound?"

Like Christmas and my birthday at once. A quarter-ton of tremis of that caliber was worth a king's ransom, no pun intended.
Because of the way our weapons system worked, we required charged tremisis for most of our weapon's energy production. The optimal solution was tremisis that had been naturally formed and charged with magical energy.
This could be made, and grown, but that was a time consuming process made more difficult by the need for the diamond to interact with liquid ether.

At current production levels, we had a surplus. Peace had been a blessing. But there were also rumors, there always rumors, from the boundaries of the known worlds about possible threats.
Unfortunately, rumors were sometimes fact. We were preparing to shift our production footing to produce the next generation of ships in response. This came at the perfect time. The Ministers would see my sister's "contribution" to the throne, and since it equaled the amount I was about to authorize, there would only be a few murmurs.
This put a bandage on the problem of Bethany's continuous absence, and it solved an issue I'd been reluctant to press. I was the king, but I did act with the will of the people. I could occasionally act against it, but this was not the time for that.

"I'm agreeable to these terms, but I'd want to see the tremisis, and the runic schematics beforehand."

"I can provide you the schematics, but I don't have the tremisis quite yet."

"Beth-" she held her up hand to cut me off.

"I promise you, I'll have it by the end of summer. But I need the equipment I've listed to retrieve it."
I gave her a look.

"If this is the nonsense about that lost city you've been hunting for, it doesn't exist."

"The Mundanes found it."

"They found empty ruins. Not a city of gold, or one filled with the things you've described. Bethany. I think you've been chasing rumors."

She'd been chasing this city since she went to New Mexico. She was convinced that it existed. I wasn't sure, but she'd seemed to have gained a new eagerness about it since I spoke with her last.

"Why are you so hellbent on finding this city?"

"A friend of mine went missing trying to find it. I want to know what happened to him," she said.

There it was, the very thing that had dragged us into trouble, time and time again. Bethany's "finding people" thing. Maybe it was because our parents were still listed as MIA after almost twenty-years of peace. All the scans we had said they should have died. But it wasn't the first time my parents had survived something that should have killed them. Maybe it was because we'd buried an urn instead of my brother's body. There were too many empty coffins from the war. There were too many mysteries still trapped behind quarantine and stasis fields. It would be centuries before all that Morgan wrought was unraveled. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

"You've researched these two Interdictions to the point that you can reliable provide runic schematics? I thought the mirror was broken." My sister had a shifty look in her eyes. If you didn't know her, it would have been just a subtle glitter, a trick of the lights. I knew that was the look of a trapped wolf.

"Beth, what did you do?" She shook her head and sighed.

"Damn, I thought you didn't notice. I used the rest of my Time and had Amy decipher the two artifacts and how to operate them."

"But the Mirror was broken after he came back through. How did you fix it?"

"The destruction of the ward conduit in the library caused a thaumic surge that caused the mirror to randomly activate. After it's activation, it fried a runic capacitor that we had to replace. Amy made the repairs while studying the mirror. I can show you those right now." I shook my head. My sister had done the impossible, what she had was priceless.

"So you've managed to get them to work. The Two-Faced Blade and the Foxfire Mirror are united again. Or is that for the first time?" Her eyes lit up. I shook my head at her glee at actually succeeding at derailing history. However, if she had managed to reverse engineer them, which I didn't doubt, the production of these artifacts could change everything for the Kingdom's intelligence program.

She snapped her fingers, and a manilla folder appeared. I took the pages of printed paper and leafed through them. I knew runes, and enchanting, but these schemas were works of art. I'd have to pass them along to my Artificer's guild. This was followed by pages of the chemical and alchemical composition of each artifact. Finally, there was a list of the spells Amy had analyzed and dissected, along with their probable incantations and the order and the runes they'd been applied.

"Plus the city is a great payday, in addition to the tremisis. I'll be running the op as an independent party. I'll be splitting the profit with the other two financiers, but I'm willing to split my cut of everything."

"Who are the other two financiers?"
She gave me another look.

"Well, you see. I ran into an issue last year with the Court of Knaves." I groaned. Of all the hornet's nests for her to kick.

"And?"

"To soothe their hurt feelings, I'm allowing them access to the dig site. After we take our cut. But, I'm taking a squad of operatives as a good faith escort."

"The last one?"

"Sterling Investments." Of all the people. Of all the morons she had to fall in with. Thomas Sterling was many things. A brilliant inventor was one of them. His ability to invent and reverse engineer technology could be described as magical in some circumstances. From my understanding of our operations on this planet, Bethany had been in a rivalry with this man for twenty years.
We were broke? Was that what this was? Had she speculated on the wrong market? Had Amy somehow made a drastic miscalculation and caused them to go into the poorhouse?

"Why?"

"Because he's the third foremost expert on Kuhikugu in the world. I'm the second, and the first went missing trying to find this place."

"So, you need equipment, because you made a deal with the devil. I think I'd like to rework your offer. I'll take the Time off the table."

"Then I'll be taking my artifacts back." She snapped her fingers and the folders vanished.

"You still don't get it, do you?" She asked, and she shook her head.

"Bartholomew. This is the planet." She said.

"You keep using those words! If you explained it to me, I'd listen. Beth. Just tell me what's going on."

"It's not that I don't want to. I can't." She said, and I frowned.

"This is that damned oath again, isn't it?" I asked, and she nodded. Honestly, that decision was one of her stupider moments.

"Anyhow, about the money. We have plenty here. We might have significantly less or significantly more after the events of this summer. That's all dependent on luck."

"You can have your Time." If those schematics were real, my sister had just changed the game. It would be well worth it.

"You can have your artifacts."

"So, I'm assuming this will pull all of you away from the businesses for the summer?" She nodded. Amy ran most of our on the books operations, and could probably do so even from wherever this dig site was. Vincent took care of the less than legal operations. Bethany had an iron grip on both. She had a massive intelligence network and had been running our operation for so long, the Karcists and various other groups knew that she would be keeping an eye on things from afar. No one wanted on that list.

"But the finances, they're steady? They'll hold for the time being?" I asked, and she nodded.

"So, this city. Let me see it."

"I'm waiting on Phobos to bring me the last rune schematic. Bartholomew, I don't just want your opinion. I want you to come with me." She said, and I gave her a look.

"You want me to come with you to a city filled with necromancy?" I asked.

"Yes."

"This isn't just any city is it." I asked after a long moment.

"No, it's not. I need you there, you're the best Wardsmith I know. So please. Help me. I'll add in another boon if I need it." She said.

"Oh?" I asked, and she conjured our mother's dagger again, and offered it to me hilt first.

"You'd really give me that?" I asked. It was one of the last items we had left from our Mother. All the heirlooms and books had burned in the fire. I savagely pushed those thoughts out of my brain. I was nowhere near the proper state of mind to ride that train of thought.

"It's the only thing I have that's valuable to you." She said. Outside a possible horde of tremisis it was. She wanted to conquer the world, and I was in charge of an empire spanning them. Short of war, and the clamoring of the people to see her again, nothing could sway me to any request she had. Honestly, if I wasn't offered those two artifacts, I'd have walked away from the table and portaled home.

"You'll be bringing your wards, I presume?" Trey had enough training to join me on this little jaunt. It would be a good field exercise for him. Plus, he'd get to meet his cousins.

"He's your nephew, you know, any way you spin it. Emily isn't that bad once you get past her walls. I'm getting there, but that'll take time."

"I know." I stopped. I ignored the sudden catch in my throat, and the tears in my eyes. I waved away her cigarette smoke to excuse my sudden appearance. My parents, my brother. Those were wounds that would never heal. That was grief to deep to name and to terrible to speak of. I didn't talk about the war. I didn't think about those dark days, and the ones after. The days where I stood against the world alone, where I was the only Andrews to name. The days of a dead brother, an absent sister, and the weight of worlds on my shoulders. All because of that boy. One with emerald hair and a defiance that few could match, and less could stand against. I know I resented Stephen, both of them. I know I had unresolved trauma, and anger, and all of it was directed at that child. That damned boy who looked so much like his father it was scary, and the one who could call his mother's power so easily.

"Beth, he's getting in trouble at school, throwing himself headlong into insanity, and not even dragging his friends, but motivating them to join him. I don't know how you live with him." I said, but then again. Even though Bethany and I were twins, those two had always been closer than I was. If you threw in a heady mix of sibling rivalry, magical power, and court politics, and I'd been the quiet, studious child who merely saved our kingdom while my brother and sister saved the rest of the galaxy. So, maybe my relationship with his father wasn't the best, and he had left me a few emotional scars that still hadn't healed. Even when he'd been dead nearly twenty years.

"I lived with our Stephen for eighteen years and I never died. I'm sure I can pull that trick off again." She replied.

"I'll go with you, and we can reach a deal. But, first, tell me about this little adventure Stephen had. You never told me what happened, exactly." It would probably make me want to throttle him, but it would be an interesting story, nonetheless.

"I'm still trying to get the full story, but I can tell you what he's told me so far." She flashed me another wolfish grin.

"Let's begin, shall we?" She said, and told me about Stephen's adventure through the mirror.

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Paxian Weapons Supplemental.
Raven - A sleek troop transport designed to fit a squad comfortably before expansion spells. Ravens are typically armed with four 180-degree tilt quad-cannons. The Raven is not an air superiority vessel, it is a well-armored troop transport meant to securely deliver troops and payloads where they need to go.

Wasp- Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles designed for surveillance and counter-espionage tactics.

VAR-12s- Variable Ammo Rifles with auto-targeting and sentry function. These are designed for terrestrial and low-grav combat. They are the standard issue weapon for the Atlantean Dragoons, the Royal Guard of the Twin Crowns.

Defensor Bracelet- Issued only to the Royal Family and their guards. These are arguably called the defense variant of the Atlas Brace.
This bracelet is an engineering and artificing marvel that combines the protection of deflecting most incoming energy and kinetic based attacks and the security of a full Nuclear Biological and Chemical screen. Each bracelet also has health monitoring. Although a high-powered weapon or spell can disrupt the field, these bracelets have saved the Royal Family's life multiple times.

Servitor- An Atlantean autonomous combat unit. They are designed as field troops and augment force projection for rank and file military. Each has a built in weapons suite and has multiple autonomous operations procedures and protocols hard-coded into its control unit. These are usually commanded by field commanders and the occasional Warmind.

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Stephen's adventures continue on November 23rd, 2021.​