Osiris City Streets

[Okimiyage]

Rynn growled, "Let go of me," and jerked at his arm uselessly. But there wasn't any point; even if he'd been a circus strong-man, he would have been no match against a vampire. So instead he went limp, letting himself dangle by Sirius's grip; and arranged for one of his legs, as it slid out from under him, to kick the vampire sharply on the shin.
But when Vittorio and Jack entered the bar, Rynn scrambled to attention. The boy was an awful lightweight; he was swaying (if only slightly) after two shots of bourbon. And now, instead of Sirius holding on to him, he clung to Sirius's arm, holding the vampire in front of him like a shield between himself and the Mayfairs. "Of course it isn't," he said, with an ugly little smile. "Cian's always had a knack for self-preservation, no matter who he has to sleep with or what conscience ha has to betray." Their blood wouldn't die with him after all; the thought made Rynn's brow wrinkle, his mouth shut trap-like into a frown. He should have known better than to leave his brother alone in the same room as a girl--even a Mayfair witch--for more than five minutes.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"He seems even less thrilled than Antha," Jack whispered to Vittorio, a little less than secretly.
"Look," Vittorio shouted, his frustration rising, "It's a delicate situation, we all get it. But right now, we've got to get him back to Mayfair Manor."
"Mind if I tag along?" Sirius asked, following behind them as they hauled Rynn to the car and climbing into the backseat with him. "Don't worry," Sirius said, puffing on his pipe, "I won't let them keep you like a pet."
Jack gave a short snort of laughter from the front seat. "Talk to Antha about that."
"Jack---" Vittorio began, threateningly.
At the same time, Sirius asked, "Why's that?"
"She likes him immensely," Jack said, very matter-of-factly, turning to face the vampire. He and Sirius had always gotten along well, not surprisingly. "She may intend to let him run along and never come back, but she won't. She'll keep tracking him down and dragging him back to her. If you hadn't called, she would have sent us out to get him in a few hours anyways, I bet."
"Jack, shut up," Vittorio said sternly, pulling into the garage of Mayfair Manor.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian had taken Antha's advice, when she had told him to leave the house. He was familiar enough with the workings of witches to follow orders. That, and Antha's wishes had been fortunate enough to coincide precisely with his own. The house felt...different, after the cousins had gone, and he did not like hush of the halls. The quiet only made the house's strange creakings more noticeable. He was hardly the type to go chasing shadows--the ghosts of his own ancestral residence were enough to teach anyone better--and so he had retreated from the house, taking a rain-jacket from the coatrack as he went. He stepped out into a street made all but opaque by a noxious yellow fog, colored by street-lamps. The air was chilly enough to warrant a turning-up of the collar before he set off, and a cigarette to heat his lungs with smoke. He didn't know how long it would take Antha to fix it, whatever game it was that she was playing at in that attic room. An hour or two, perhaps--Cian didn't mind the wait. He'd often gone on long walks, when the infighting amongst the occupants of Llyr's Court had been too much to stand. He'd walk all night--to the river and back--chain-smoking like he needed nicotine more than oxygen, and stumble back home so tired he could barely put one foot in front of the other. But it was worth it. With a tiredness like that, there wasn't any span of time between when one laid down and when one got sleep. And now--his sigh made a white plume of smoke in the chilly air, like a dragon's breath--Cian didn't have much to run from, anymore. No more cross-city treks at midnight to escape that damn house. He was even looking forward to getting back, to recovering Antha from the attic and her coven of cousins. He was beginning to feel optimistic about the future.
He very nearly did not notice his brother's presence. Rynn had always been good at hiding his intentions, but this time he was careless--or perhaps Cian was, for letting Rynn get so close that it was his silhouette that gave him away rather than his magic. Cian stopped short when he saw the slim, shadowy figure ahead. His cigarette dropped from his lips, smouldered on the pavement--he didn't move to pick it up.
Rynn did not seem surprised that he had been noticed. He would have expected any brother of his to do so. He was mildly annoyed by the expression Cian wore--they were still blood kin, even if Cian had decided to throw his lot in with a clan of murderers. He'd always been the most obliging of Rynn's brothers.
Rynn's brother made a noise like he'd been punched in the stomach, and said his name.
"Cian," Rynn acknowledged, coldly. "Glad you haven't forgotten me already."
"No--no, I could not do that." Cian eyed his brother warily. He had not seen Rynn since-- since he'd run off at Satis House. It seemed awfully long ago. This stranger in the mist was thinner than he remembered his brother, his cheekbones sharp as knives beneath his skin, and his eyes moved like a cat's intent on prey. The adonis-like beauty he had possessed had grown rough-edged and grim. "Have you come back to--?" "No." Rynn cut his brother off before he finished the question. "Mayfair lapdog doesn't suit me. I have found employment elsewhere." Cian had to do something to stop his hands from balling up into fists; he settled for fumbling for lighter and cigarettes in his pockets. "She would help you, you know. She wanted to help you, if you would only have let her. She's not as bad as you t--"
"She destroyed our family, you little fool." Rynn hissed. "The blood of your brothers is on her hands, and you let her play you with those filthy fingers like a marionette, can't you see it?" Cian had gone white as the smoke that he blew from his mouth. "No, Rynn," he said, evenly. "You destroyed our family. You are the one who engineered every bit of that disastrous mess of a sacrifice, because you couldn't stand paying the price that the ancestors demanded--"
"I was trying to save us!" Rynn roared, his features contorting in a snarl. "Not that you would know--you were never lucid enough to experience the fear the rest of the family felt. No, you'd rather prowl the streets all night, never face facts, and when events don't work out in your favor? You cling to the heels of whoever is idiot enough to shoulder the burden of your existence. Traitor."
Cian took another drag of his cigarette, and felt his trembling fingers calm as he inhaled. "If you find my actions unworthy of the Calais name, then declare me disinherited. One less member of our lineage to defame our 'noble ancestry' won't matter, right? You can have the whole ******** house to yourself! Alone at last!" And he laughed, too loud and too bold for such ugly words. Cian was reckless because he was angry; seeing Rynn had launched his heart into his throat. He'd hoped for a reunion. Rynn didn't seem to have the same goal in mind. His brother did not respond immediately, but lowered his head as the mist dragged about his ankles possessively.
"I am afraid that I have other plans."
Cian did not see what came for him, the bank of fog that opened behind him like a crocodile's jaws. He only had a split second's warning--the whine of something approaching, fast enough that it made the air hum--and then that something flashed past his cheek, sharp, and his cheek was suddenly sheeting blood. He didn't finish his cigarette--just threw it and ran. He had seen something in Rynn's face darken and change. He knew that the man before him was not the soft, milk-sweet boy that he had once called brother. He was grateful for the cover of the fog, although he knew that Rynn could sense his mind as easily as a dog could track his scent. But it made it easier not to look back, to see his brother's face grow obscured by smog and his shape disappear into the distance. The hum again--he threw himself away from it, instinctively, and felt the air next to his left ear stir as something flew by. He heard it thunk into a tree trunk; he glanced up to see something silver and pointed buried in the bark. Elfshot. Cian touched his cheek. And it was already in his blood, making his head swim, his vision double. He had to keep going. He had to make it back to the Manor. Surely, there they would have boundaries even Rynn must respect. But whatever it was in the fog pursued him to the very point of the property, where the yellow mist put tendrils about his chest as though they were arms with which to hold him, and drag him back into the loving embrace of the all-concealing fog. His heart was hammering like it wanted out as he pounded up the steps and stopped, breathing hard, to finally look behind him.
The fog was gone. The street was empty. Cian pushed a hand against his forehead, through curls damp and heavy with dew. "********," he breathed, as he took away his hand to see smears of blood where the side of it had brushed against his cheek. Groping for a cigarette, he discovered he'd lost the pack somewhere in the fog; his anxious fingers, deprived of their customary activity, tapped across his cheekbone, where the elfshot had split a red path. Pulling his hair down concealed the gash inefficiently; he tried it only to swear once more under his breath when his curls sprang away. He didn't want anyone to see him like this--he didn't want the questions. Pressing his palm to his face to staunch the bleeding, Cian crouched down on the edge of the porch, and waited for it to clot enough that he'd be able to sneak in and search for bandages without too much conspicuousness.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

It had been a while since Antha had been to the park---excluding, of course, her brief visit the previous night with Rynn, and earlier that day when she'd chased Malakai into the woods---and she was beginning to remember vaguely that she used to be very fond of it, in what seemed like another life. But it wasn't the time for nostalgia...she was on a mission.
It took nearly twenty minutes to find the ice-cream cart in question, though one might have thought it was tickets for free wishes for the dire single-mindedness with which she hunted it down. It was only then, taking the nearly overflowing paper bowl from a bewildered salesman in a quaint little paper hat and red bow tie that looked cartoonish against his pink and white striped shirt, that the girl returned to any semblance of her usual self.
"Don't say a word," she warned Cian very seriously, turning and taking her first massive bite of the candy and cream confectionery, her eyes cutting at him in warning as she continued very matter-of-factually, "Tori said it himself, I have to completely indulge any and all cravings, and this is the only vendor that makes this kind of ice-cream---it's sea salt, or something, I never really paid attention. So really, I had no choice but to mercilessly hunt this ice-cream down to the ends of the earth. It was my duty to our children." She nodded to herself, satisfied that she had properly explained how the entire thing was unavoidable, and managed to tear herself away long enough to force a glob of it in his mouth, grinning to herself as she did.
"I suppose, since we're already here, we should do something with the day. I'm not of the mind to bother with business today anyways." The girl glanced around herself at the vibrant colors, all vivid green grass and brightly colored flowers, people dressed head to toe in spring and summer palettes. She could remember---from a sort of drug-addled fog---that there were carnival rides down one path and around the corner of the forest, and flowers gardens in the opposite direction, and down yet another path was a bazaar full of shiny trinkets that she and Courtland had been quite enraptured with during their less lucid excursions. "You know," she murmured, tapping her pink plastic spoon thoughtfully against her lips, "I suppose this would be our first date, wouldn't it? I don't believe we've ever been out of the house alone together. The closest we've had was...well, our wedding." Shaking her head slightly, Antha gave a small laugh at that. "Mon dieu, we've gone about this terribly out of order. Oncle Louis would be proud of the oddness of the situation." And then, abruptly, the laughter died and Antha grew pensively serious, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow. "What exactly do people do on first dates? I can't say I've ever had a proper one before." She shrugged, taking another large spoonful of ice-cream. "Then again, have you? Your history doesn't exactly strike me as full of proper first dates. Ah, I should have asked Armand, he does these sorts of things. I think Vittorio did too, once. Maybe."  

[Okimiyage]

((MAN I THOUGHT I ALREADY POSTED A RESPONSE UGH RE-TYPING ALL DESE WORDS YARR SHOULD'VE SAVED MY DRAFT))

Cian had the self-preservation to refrain from commenting, but the way he lifted his eyebrows at her and grinned was worth a thousand words. He supposed he should have expected the thrust at his face, but he wasn't properly on guard and his reaction time was slow. Half of Antha's ice cream attack ended up on his chin, the other half on his pristinely white collar. Jacob would be pleased to see the new stains. Cian sputtered, nearly choked on a gummy bear, and swore vengeance. But before he could set off chasing her down, the ice cream vendor interrupted.
"You plannin' on paying for that?"
Oh. Right.
Cian pulled out the deceptively fat leather wallet that he'd had the good sense to go back for before they departed the house. It was mostly empty inside--far too many pockets for business cards and identification, etc., that Cian had no clue how he planned on filling--except for a slender sheaf of bills, crisp as though they'd been ironed, and held with a rubber band. He pulled one out and handed it over. The vendor looked at him suspiciously, took his money, and marked on it with what appeared to be a pink fluorescent highlighter. After a second, during which Cian took the opportunity to swipe an enormous handful of napkins, the vendor looked up with an expression of distinctly newfound respect. "Mister, I ain't got change for this…" "Call it a tip." --as he scrubbed uselessly at his collar. "Oh, and I'll have--what's that flavor? The green one--mint? That one." It looked like it had ammo--er--chocolate chunks in it.
Afterwards, bowl of ice-cream in hand, Cian joined Antha in strolling down the path. He could see why Antha had insisted they come here; even after the affront to his dignity, it was impossible to be in any sort of bad mood with a full mouth of ice cream.
They made a picturesque couple together; other visitors to the park took the opportunity to crane their necks and stare. Actually, that might have been because some of them recognized the two from the papers. Cian was prone to forget that he had apparently become a person of interest overnight.
"Well, I'm not a total newbie--I've been on a few first dates. Not many during the daytime, though, I have to admit." He swiped a bite of Antha's ice-cream, and gave her a look which begged to be challenged. "I don't know I can call them 'proper' in all honesty, either…" There had been some pretty improper acts committed, during some of them. "It's good to have something to do--a performance to watch, music to fill the silence--just in case we can't come up with anything to talk about. Not that I think that'll be a problem--that's the great thing about going out-of-order, right? Skip all the messy awkward bits."
A sidelong glance at Antha pre-empted his spoon pointing down the path ahead, as Cian suddenly brightened up. In the distance, the great spoked Ferris wheel of the carnival flickered into neon life. "Imagine being on that thing right now. I bet it's quite a view. Come on, I bet we had time for at least a couple of rides before the entire household collectively falls apart without us."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For a brief moment, Antha was silent, eyes flashing sidelong at Cian. It wasn't like she could say anything---they lived in a house full of men she had slept with, some of which she had had real relationships with, and they were always running into other ones. So her possessive little heart ignored it, glancing around her instead with a thoughtful sigh. "The messy, awkward bits are important, too. Though granted, I haven't had to endure them since high school." She glanced at Cian, and very suddenly gave a small laugh. "You're looking a little green along the edges, darling. Here, let me help." Her lips pressed to his, briefly, and came away with the trace of green ice-cream that she licked errantly from her lips, that wild, teasing glimmer sparkling in her eyes. "Hmm. Minty. Needs caramel, but to each their own, I suppose."
When he pointed out the rides, she stared out over them wistfully, stabbing her spoon somewhat uncomfortably into the last bit of her ice-cream. "Tori says I'm not allowed on rides anymore. He's frightfully strict about all of this, and Tori always knows when we're disobeying doctor's orders." A light sigh dropped from her lips before she took her last bite of ice-cream and dropped the empty container in the trash. "Technically, I'm supposed to be watching how much sugar I eat, but..." She gave a small, guilty grin, shrugging her shoulders, and then narrowed her eyes thoughtfully behind him. "I have another idea, though..."
Taking his hand, Antha all but jerked him off of the path, running through the grass and down a slight incline to another path, a little ways down which the bazaar was set up with dozens and dozens of stalls and tents. "I want a candy apple. Shut up, it's only a little sugar." It was only when she had procured the glossy red sphere on a stick and had bitten happily into it that she continued explaining her purpose in dragging him to the bazaar. "Jacob's getting all the nursery stuff, but we should get Vanessa and Sebastien something ourselves, don't you think? Lord knows they'll have more heirlooms than they'll know what to do with, but...they should have something from us, together. We won't have many chances before..." She stopped abruptly, shaking her head, and then smiled as if to pretend she hadn't almost said the forbidden thing. "So what do you think? I'm leaning towards an amulet. We can cut it in half and if they ever lose each other, they can use the amulet to find each other again."
Laughing, Antha took Cian's hand in her free one, chewing with a decided crunch on her candied apple as they walked between the stalls full of their shiny trinkets and used oddities. "Hey, Cian...look at this." Brows furrowing, Antha made a beeline for a particularly odd little stall, draped with colorful, threadbare tapestries and cluttered with a number of antiquated knickknacks. It was here that she thrust her candy apple distractedly into Cian's hand, taking in her own a medium-sized box of worn wood with gilded edges and faded mosaics, the lid set with golden figures and miniscule sentences painstakingly carved and inked in.
"A music box, madame," an old woman informed her, stepping out from behind one of the faded drapes, "Very old, but it works well."
Curiously, Antha lifted the lid to reveal two things, winding the little key in the back as she did so. First, a ballerina and a finely dressed man in masks locked together in dance, the figures spinning slowly around in a slight indentation made of rectangular pieces of mirror that reflected the image a dozen times over. Second, a scene on the underside of the lid set up like a stage, the frame made of red curtains, with a grand backdrop. Between the two, several thin cutouts of jesters and ballerinas and lords and ladies in masks bobbed up and down, left and right, by way of nearly invisible strings. As the figures all stirred into life, a tune began to chime, sweet and haunting all at once.
Antha was instantly in love.
"You have sharp eyes, madame. Most would not notice such an inconspicuous item from so many, not so quickly."
Antha glanced up, eyes narrowing. "Where did you find this, exactly? If I may ask."
The old woman smiled, settling gracefully into her seat behind the counter and pulling her shawl a little more securely around her shoulders. "Oh, I get my wares here and there during my travels. That music box has been with me a very long time."
"Looks Russian," Antha commented in a murmur, eyes sharpening at the old woman, "Feels rather like it's been through a great deal. Romanov treasure, if I'm not mistaken. Or perhaps I'm just not in the habit of trusting Romani."
The old woman continued to smile, though her eyes sharpened quite suddenly. "Quite alright. I'm not in the habit of trusting witches, so we are even."
The two stared at one another for several brief moments before, without warning, Antha laughed. "Touché." The girl turned to Cian, the box held open in her arms. "What do you think? I love it immensely. Julien will probably say it's too creepy for children, but...they're our children, so it can't do much more harm than what their genes already have."
"It makes a fine lullaby," the gypsy woman added, nodding her head, "Creepy is all from perspective, after all."
"Either way," Antha concluded lightly, "I want it. How much?"
The woman looked her up and down, taking her measure, and then did the same to Cian. "Not cheap. Not for you two."
Antha gave a small chuckle, shaking her head. "That's fair, I suppose." Turning, she took from Cian's pocket her own wallet, which she had slipped him before they left, and pulled out a number of large bills that she tossed onto the counter.
The old woman's eyes widened as she thumbed hesitantly through the wad of money. "You are a reckless child, aren't you? Carrying this much around with you."
"I take it that will suffice?" After a brief moment of hesitation, the old woman nodded and Antha cracked a sweet smile, folding the music box up in her arms. "Excellent."
"You are an unusual girl..."
"You have no idea."
The old woman smiled as if she were amused, glancing between Antha and Cian. "What an unusual pair you are...but you suit one another."
"Oh?" Antha gave a small, sweet laugh. "I like to think so."
"Newlyweds, I take it?" the old woman questioned, gesturing at the ring on Antha's finger, and she nodded to confirm it. "I thought so. You're hardly more than children yourselves, the both of you. You shouldn't marry so young, you know, it leaves far too much time for far too many children. You have another twenty years before you will have time for one another."
Antha smiled gently, but said nothing for a moment, eventually thanking the old woman and turning to take her leave.
She could honestly say she had never given a hypothetical future for herself much thought. There had never been any point in it, what with certain death looming so near. And she had always focused so hard on Vanessa and Sebastien, of longing to raise them, that she had never really considered what the old woman had mentioned.
It was probably for the best. The sort of future the old woman had assumed...that would probably have never happened. Even if Antha had lived, well, she was still a Mayfair. She could be good for Cian because there was so little time left, but if her life had continued? Even angelic Eden had born her husband another man's child, and Antha was no angel.
"I have an idea," she purred suddenly, taking Cian's arm and giving a broad grin, "Let's play a game. Since we've gone about this all in the wrong order, in a very short amount of time, we've sort of missed out on all of those silly little details you pick up about people over time. So, here's how it goes: I ask you a series of questions, and you have to answer them in order. For every one you forget or answer in the wrong order there will be a punishment later. Then it'll be your turn. Got it?" And then, without waiting for him to agree to play, only her usual sly grin, she began. "What's your favorite color? How old were you for your first kiss? What was your best school subject? What's your favorite animal? What's your favorite food? What do you hate more than anything? If you could change one thing about yourself, physically speaking, what would it be? Aaaaannd..." She paused for a split second, that grin turning all the more teasing. "In your entire life, what's the single thing you've done that's gotten you in the most trouble?" And then, abruptly. "And absolutely no depressing answers. And no lying, that's an extra punishment."  

[Okimiyage]

The woman wrapped Antha’s music box in brown paper, and Cian carried it for his wife, carefully enclosed within his broad palms like a secret. He didn’t want to think about how much the trinket had cost. Antha had tossed bills at the woman as though they were nothing more than leaves fallen from the picturesque tree-lined avenue. He had to admit—it was a beautiful souvenir. It troubled him to think of what the memento represented, though. This night, the stars that twinkled overhead, the lights of the carnival winking off and on in the distance, and Antha beside him. Transient, evanescent time—a time which was soon coming to an end. Cian was self-aware enough to realize that they could not stay like this forever, no matter how badly he wanted to halt the hands of the clock for an eternal second. He knew he would never look at the box in the same way as his children would, with mechanical wonder reflected brilliantly in their eyes. Instead of the tinkling, metallic tune issued from within, he would always hear the gypsy woman’s words: “What an unusual pair you are…but you suit one another.”
Like socks that held the same hue, but not the same pattern. Alike but distinct, an inseparable set. Inseparable to all except fate, it would seem.
What inconvenient vessels their souls lived inside of. They needed so much to keep these bodies fueled and in satisfactory shape. Cian sometimes thought fondly of what it would be to touch without hands, to travel without legs, to think without a head to trap his thoughts inside.
Eventually, the two of them found their way to the park’s playground. The equipment was a blend of rusted architecture and cartoonishly bright plastics; taking hold of the riddled-red chain link supports, Cian had barely a moment to sink into the seat of a child-sized swing before Antha settled beside him. Propping his head up in a palm, he peered up at her through slitty cat-blinky eyes
“You like games where punishment is part of the end result,” he protested, before she even had time to launch into her barrage of interrogation. “Carrot and stick, you know? If I mess up, it’s natural to expect justice. But equally, if I perform flawlessly…” he raised an eyebrow expectantly. “What do I get then, hmm?”
Nevertheless, he was prepared to entertain her. Despite the copious quantities of marijuana which Cian had imbibed in his youth, he still had the vestiges of a near picture-perfect memory available to him. Nevertheless, Antha’s super-speed version of twenty questions gave even he a moment’s pause. Cian’s lips moved briefly before he spoke, eyes raised heaven-wards, and then he turned his full attention back to his young wife, like a searchlight beacon straight to the face. “My favorite color is yellow—not just any, but the yellow you see in certain stouts and in fields that are ready for the harvest. My first kiss, I was seven, and I bet Aedan’s governess that I could catch one of the maze-ravens with my bare hands—she said she’d bet me anything, and you can’t break promises to a witch, a Calais holds others to their word.“ Cian had, even at that age, reckoned up enough knowledge about the romantic ties between woman and man to hazard his own experiments. “I never went to school, none of us did, on record we were all home-schooled. In reality, we had tutors, but they were more like educated nurse-maids than real teachers.” Everyone had known Rynn was the heir—the only person who held more sway than he was the oft-absent head of household, their father. No servant ever had the balls to challenge any of the sons, considering such circumstances. “Aedan was so much superior to the rest of us—at least as far as academia was concerned— that it’s difficult to remember myself as ‘good’ at anything. But I could see patterns that he couldn’t—in behavior, in constellations, in entrails. A warren of rabbits once lived beneath our hedge maze, cultivated for this purpose, and for a long time they were the only animals that I knew intimately. I suppose they were my favorite—I remember that I hated seeing them die, at least. My favorite food—” this gave him more than a moment’s pause, as he tapped his chin. “Does wine count? There’s fruit in it, at least.” Which, all things taken into account, wasn’t surprising. All the scions of the Calais name had been rail-thin—family time at the dinner table had never been emphasized. When he was younger, there had been a few scraggling remnants of staff to equip the kitchen with. The quality of their service had been sub-par, and now it was difficult to remember what had happened to them—likely the most elderly had passed away, and Rynn fired the rest. “If I could change one thing—wait, no, I’m forgetting—“ He stopped, and his eyes flickered towards the stars as their corners and his brow creased in thought.
“Ah—right. It’s hideously unfair to say, ‘no depressing answers’ and then ask me what I absolutely loathe. Er— if you’re looking for a material target, public transit. I used to walk down-town rather than ride the bus, even when I had the fare. And I’ve had way too many unfortunate experiences in the back-seats of taxi cabs. Subways are at least quicker than the other options, but dealing with the crowds can be a nightmare. I suppose I should be thankful that I don’t have to rely on that any longer. Similarly, it’s hard now to think of something now that I would change about myself. When I was younger, Aedan and Erin used to tease me about having curly hair—they said that it was because our father was unfaithful. Maybe they were right. I once stole a hair straightener from a one-night-stand because they ragged on me so much for it, but I think knowing that it bothered me only encouraged them. And now, well—even if our father was unfaithful, he wouldn’t have been the first. And he had at least the good grace to raise me as his proper son, rather than shunt the unwanted b*****d off to some foster home.” There was such easy contempt in his voice when he suggested the idea in reference to his upbringing. His whole posture went through a kind of tensing, a drawing-in, which—after a deep sigh—Cian forced himself to pass through, and relax again. He spoke of it lightly and rapidly, but it was difficult not to recall how immensely it had affected him in his childhood, when the most important thing in the world had been to belong to the family, to do their parents proud, when Faye had not just been some bitterly weeping ghost in the tower but a real woman, watering the roses, smiling down on Cian fondly, both guardian and goddess to her children. The idea that she had not been his was enough to make Cian knock his brothers down on more than one occasion. He put it out of mind quickly. No depressing answers, after all.
“Aaaaannnd…” he gave an equally dramatic build-up to the final answer as she had given her final question. He was about to go into some charming and dramatic legend, dredge out some oft-recited tale of a rooftop escapade or being caught in bed with another man’s mistress, but just as the words were about to launch from his lips, he tripped over them. Unexpectedly, he found himself speaking the truth. She had said no lies. And if Cian wasn’t talking about physical experiences, what he hated most in the world was being lied to—no matter how often he had deceived others over petty trifles. It was his own greatest hypocrisy. “I would have been about nine years old. I suppose—it wasn’t my fault, per se, but I could have stopped it. Any of us could have stopped it, but I saw the omens.” He had to stop the sigh from creeping back into his voice. Keep it brief, light—jovial, even. It didn’t matter. It was so long ago. Keep telling yourself that. “We watched the West Wing burn, knowing our father and foster mother were inside, when we could have raised the alarm and saved them. I was the first to wake up. I wanted Mary to burn, too. It would have been easier, I knew, if she had died then. Everything around—everything about her was wrong. The others couldn’t see the patterns, they just knew that they felt like cats petted backwards when they were around her, or her mother. If the fire hadn’t…well.” Cian stopped himself from finishing the what if. The issue had been beaten to death a million times inside his own head, there was no need to dredge up the miserable corpse for Antha to witness. “…Let’s just say it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Not just me.”
Stubbornly, he refused to dwell on the topic. “Now! You have to answer some questions of your own. Starting with, what exactly do you plan on punishing me with? You make a lot of threats, Mrs. Mayfair, but you need some specifics if you plan on striking fear into my heart. And I’ll need some specifics of my own—starting with your favorites. Whatever hues you think are the best, even if it’s the whole aurora borealis—and which authors you cherish the most, and why—your favorite word, your favorite holiday, your favorite instrument so I can teach Sebastien to play it. I want to know where you’ve dreamed of honey-mooning at so that I can take you there, because god knows we deserve it, no one could blame you if you disappeared for six months like that young cousin of yours— and I want to know when you think it’s appropriate to lie, what about white lies?—and does the house have any secret passageways? And what your favorite flower is, and what makes you brave when you’re nervous, and what you look for in a lover, and when’s the last time your heart was broken?” And how to run the household when you’re gone? What do I tell the children when they’re old enough to ask? Who can I trust in this family, who among us is a snake in the grass? How will the social dynamics get on without you? And—more than anything— what can I say to stop you from going on with this damn fool suicide mission of a battle plan?
But all the important questions went unasked. Cian didn’t want to spoil the mood.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For a moment, Antha said nothing, only sat very gently swaying in the sling of rubber and chains, one corner of her lips curled up into a sharp grin. "The reward is your turn. Do you think I give up even trifling details so easily?" The girl shook her head, scarlet curls swaying gently around her pale face. "Not even to you, darling. This---" She tapped the side of her head once, gently, still grinning, "---is a vault."
She listened idly as he rattled off answers, kicking off her shoes and trailing her bare feet through the fine white sand beneath her. When he was finished, she graced him with a single devious grin. "Oh, you got it all right. Pity...I do love punishments. But a deal's a deal, so..." She glanced off, her gaze sweeping the rapidly darkening playground and then lifting up to the scattered glimmering of stars like diamond dust in the deep blue fabric of the sky. "I can't say I have any defined set of punishments ever in mind. I think it depends more on my mood at the time of execution. For the same misdeed I once broke Julien's pen and blamed it on Courtland and shoved Nicolae off of the balcony, simply because I ran into Nicolae while I was in a much more vile mood." She paused, glancing to him from the corner of her eyes as the slow, guilty grin played across her lips. "I was an awful child, truly." And then, with a small shake of her head and the lightest laugh, continued. "For you...I don't know, I might lock you in a room alone with Courtland for an hour, or tell Julien you would be fascinated to hear his theories on why---precisely, in excruciating detail----the Roman emperors were not all witches, as our kind tend to believe. Or I might revisit my idea the other night, with the scalding water...I particularly liked that one. Sometimes I like to send the punished off to Suzette without their knowing---her sharp tongue is all the worse when one is not expecting it---but she seems particularly fond of you, honeybee, so I don't think that's a proper option." Her shoulders shrugged, abruptly cutting off the answer since she was not sure, and then continued. "My favorite color is red, nearly every shade of it, my favorite authors---some of them, anyways---are Kafka, Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, and Oscar Wilde. I like strange, dark things. I very rarely enjoy the romantics, but I'm quite fond of modernist and surrealist works. I was wild for Edgar Allan Poe when I was young, too, and I still like the idea of his work, but it became too trite for me as I grew older---sweet, gruesome nothings." Her musing tone turned a sharp corner then, picked up in the same rapid tone with which she had fired off questions at him, taunting him with the display of her sharp memory. "My favorite word is egregious, my favorite holiday is Halloween---Courtland and I had such fun with it when we were younger, we spared nothing---my favorite instrument would either be the violin or the piano, it's hard to say. I think I liked the piano more, but Malakai was such a glorious prodigy that I always ended up playing the violin in duets when the family forced us to perform for guests, so I became a little more comfortable with it. If I could go anywhere---which I can't, I never could as Designee of the Legacy---I wouldn't even know where to begin. In the back of my closet in Satis House, hidden behind all the boxes, there's a map of the world with stars marking the places I'd like to go." She paused for a split second, giving an errant little laugh. "Make no mistake, the entire thing is a sheet of stars. But I suppose, if I had to choose, I'd want to go to Paris. We're a French family, after all, and Louis lived there for a few years in his youth, he used to tell us stories when we would gather at his knees before bedtime. All in all, I don't see an issue with white lies, or the sort of very important lies that keep people from making very dire mistakes. The only egregiously important rule is that it's never alright to lie to me, I never tolerate it. I wouldn't say the house has any secret passages, exactly. There's Marguerite's 'secret' laboratory, and the entrance to the airship in the attic, but that's the extent of it. My favorite flowers are roses---red ones, specifically, though I like most hues. What makes me brave? Ah...necessity, I suppose. When you are in a position where letting your nerves get the best of you means death as often as I am, you learn to be heedlessly brave against anything. When my nerves do get the best of me, in less life-or-death situations...you know, I don't actually know how to deal with that. Someone always had to come along and soothe me from panic attacks on those occasions. With lovers, I was always sort of split. I wanted wild, pretty boys to sweep me away, to make me forget myself, or else I wanted the lily-white little delicate flowers like Sophie Astoria. I loved to corrupt them. And then there were the difficult ones...I could never turn down a challenge, I loved proving that I could seduce absolutely anyone. And I suppose it was a nice change of pace every once in a while, being the pursuer rather than the pursued. It didn't happen often."
Abruptly, as last question flashed in her mind, Antha fell silent. She had been very good at keeping her answers light, at trying to keep the atmosphere cheerful, but there was no way around this one without lying so Antha stalled, staring down at a dandelion that had popped out from the sand by her feet and gently rocking herself back and forth on the swing. "For all of my various romantic entanglements, I'll only say I ever had my heart broken once." She paused, smiling somewhat ruefully despite herself. "Nicolae. Terrible, terrible Nicolae. We were only children, looking back on it---fourteen and eighteen respectively, though I daresay I was the more mature one. And we were foolish children, at that. We were going to run away, you know? We thought...I don't know, that if we went somewhere that no one knew us, that if we used different names, we wouldn't be siblings anymore. I didn't particularly care about everything else---our home, our cousins, our fortune, all of my responsibility as Designee of the Legacy. I was hesitant to leave it all, but...Nicolae was my first love. My first everything, really. So that day, when I walked in and found him with Vera...nothing else classifies as heartbreak to me, compared to that. I wanted to die at first, but then I found my rage and I wanted him to die. Not immediately, I wanted to hurt him first---I slept with Courtland, and then defended him against Nicolae when he found out and tried to kill him, I set the imps after him in the airship, I took every last thing he owned and made him watch me burn it, I sent the cops after him and tried to stop Michael from bailing him out. I wouldn't talk to him through any of it, I only screamed sometimes, and that finally drove him to slitting his wrists in the bathtub, but I sent Pierce in to stop him at the last moment. It seemed too easy, letting him take his own life. By the time I had calmed down enough to even think of punishing Vera, because she had done it so purposefully, she had already fled across the Atlantic to escape me. Ultimately I had to settle for a short phone call explaining that it would cost her her life if she ever set foot on the same continent as me again. By the end of it, I had miscarried our child. I hadn't even known I was pregnant until Michael was rushing me to the hospital, covered in blood. A boy, they said---five months, almost old enough to warrant labor. I was too upset to even guilt Nicolae with the knowledge that he'd killed his son. Not that it would have made much of a difference...he was monstrously deformed, just like the others. An aberration of inbred genes. It took me years to get over it all---wild, wild years. Ask any of the cousins, I turned into a different person overnight. It was Courtland and Pierce's influence, mostly. They took me under their wing, threw drugs and alcohol at me, then themselves, then they threw me at other people. Luckily, I took to it quite well. I liked the electric bliss of the drugs, liked to be so drunk I couldn't even be bothered to act appropriately. And I liked to let strangers steal me away, back before half of the city recognized me from first glance, to be utterly inconsequential. You can't imagine how many times someone tried to kill me in one of those cheap, seedy little motel rooms, thinking I was just some foolish, reckless little girl. Poor Courtland...I always called him to help me dispose of the bodies. He would shudder and squeal like a girl." The atmosphere vanished as if it had never been with Antha's abrupt laugh, shaking her head at the memory of it. "Julien and Michael were at an utter loss, they hadn't been expecting it. I had always been a wild child in my own right, terrible and terrifying, always sure to get my way, but I don't think they ever expected me to fall victim to the same lifestyle of wanton abandon which my cousins were so dedicated to. And then it wasn't enough, I had to have more---I had to have the entire city. There was some logic in it, some idea of creating order out of chaos, or protecting the factions that I wanted protected, but mostly I just wanted to have everything. So I took it all."
Finally, the girl only shrugged her shoulders. It was ancient history, and a tale that had too often been told anyways. Instead she began, in an unusually soft, even tone, almost wispy, "The house is going to fall into chaos when I'm gone, and it will probably be a while before order is established again. In all likelihood, it's Courtland who will come out on top. As for Vanessa and Sebastien, they won't need explanations that you can't give them. They understand. They'll ask you about me, how I looked and moved and talked, what I was like, but they know what they need to. And if anything should ever happen, anything at all, you can always trust Courtland---he's loyal down to the very marrow of his bones. Jack will follow him, as he always does, but he doesn't do much of anything. Pierce is trustworthy when he doesn't have a personal stake in matters, but he'll always put himself first. Malakai will always be trustworthy, he just doesn't have Courtland's backbone to go with it. Julien will do what he feels is best, which is usually wrong, and Michael will always strive to make peace. Dorian can't be trusted---he doesn't like you, and he has the least loyalty of any of us. Lawrence will do what you ask him to, without choosing sides, you just have to get to him first. His father, Barclay, is more or less the same except that he will always side with the main branch of the family, which will be you and our children first and foremost. Vittorio has his certain tasks, and he'll do them loyally, but he tends to go rogue outside of that. Armand and Cyrus are good for advice, but Armand can't be relied upon for actually doing anything and Cyrus is incredibly cautious. And Nicolae..." A moment of silence, only the faintest breath of a sigh dropping from her lips as she shook her head. "Never, ever trust Nicolae, do you understand? He'll have some shred of affection for Vanessa and Sebastien because they are a piece of me, but ultimately he'll never forgive them for not being his, and he will never for one moment forget that you got everything he wanted and he'll never forgive you for it. He won't actively move against you, the rest of the family stand in his way, but if you give him the opportunity, he'll take it. The social dynamics? Again, everything will fall into chaos. My cousins, the family as a whole, the city...I never really planned for what would happen when I was not around to keep order, and there is very little that I can do to keep things stable when it happens. But one day, years and years for now, everything will fall back into place. The family will forget the pain of losing me, they'll turn all of their attention upon the new generation, and as she grows up, Vanessa will keep them in check. And then, while everyone is still bickering and fighting and struggling against one another, Sebastien will gather himself and he'll conquer the city as I did years ago. Everything comes full circle, eventually. As for me..."
Antha rose, turning to grasp the rattling chains of Cian's swing in her pale fingers, staring very seriously down at him. "There is nothing else to be done, Cian. I've pored over every possible option for years, I've looked at every available path, but ultimately it comes down to either me, or everyone else. I've made my decision---my life for everyone else's. My life to put Nero back down before he comes for the people I love. I've made my peace with it. As long as I can bring Rynn up to the level he needs to be at, as long as I can force him to master the magic they used on Nero all those years ago, it will be alright. Life will continue, only short by one brat princess. So simply put...nothing. There's nothing you can say to stop me going on with my damn fool suicide mission of a battle plan. Was that it?"
She smiled, unusually gentle, and bent down to press a soft kiss to his lips. "Don't ever worry about what will happen to you. You are the father of the next Designee of the Legacy by blood and by law, no one can contest it and no one has chosen to. No one can touch you, no one can oust you from your place, I've made certain of it. And before you know it, you'll be managing perfectly on your own and you'll all but forget me, I'll hardly be more than a memory of your youth." Then, with a small, dark chuckle. "With our children, I'll be surprised if you have the time or energy to think of anything else at all. They'll make sure of it. They've already ordered that you are never to date or---God forbid---remarry so long as you live. I've tried talking sense into them, but they assure me that they will sabotage every relationship you ever try to enter into so that you are all theirs. And, to their strange logic, all mine."
Antha paused, thoughtfully pursing her lips, and rather than try to explain any further, took his hand and laid it across her abdomen, opening up the walls of her own mind so that he could feel those two other small, chaotic consciousnesses that thrummed behind them. As if to reinforce what their mother had conveyed, they reached out with wordless thoughts, raw emotions of love and pure, jealous possessiveness. He was their father, and their mother's husband, and no one else was allowed to have him. Not women, not men, not even their aunts and uncles. "They'll grow out of it," Antha assured him, doing her best to hold back the small, amused smile as the unstructured voices whispered vehemently that it wouldn't be so. And then she dropped his hand, willing the children to be calm.
Again that smile, gentle and oddly melancholy around the edges, though she did well to disguise it, murmuring musingly as she raked back Cian's tawny curls and cupped a gentle hand over his cheek, "Where were you four years ago, I wonder? How many times did we pass each other by and never know it? We probably circled around one another for years in all the same bars, with people who knew one another." Another light kiss, longer this time, before the girl straightened herself out again and glanced at the landscape around them, slowly growing deserted and dark.
"We should get home, they'll be worried about us. Even with Sleet and Cyrus dead, my enemies are in no short supply. Come along." She held out a hand to help him up, grinning as she did so, "I'll let you drive, if you like. As a reward."  

[Okimiyage]

Cian tried to laugh, tried to pass off the response which she had stirred up within him as—trifling, not worth the choke in his voice. But he could not keep it entirely at bay when he said her name, full of mock reproach. “Antha.”
A pause.
“And here I was, trying to keep away from morbid topics. Well—I won’t let it spoil the mood if you won’t.” He took a deep breath, and then let it out in a huge sigh. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, Antha. I mean, they say single mothers have it hard—I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like. Twins.” And if they had even an inkling of Antha’s power, the two of them would doubtlessly be natural hellions. He raised his eyes heavenwards. “At least the family will be around. I don’t think your aunts would accept a word of it if I tried to stop them. I know I’ll manage, I just can’t imagine it right now.” He stretched out his hand towards hers, tangling their lean fingers together. “I didn’t expect to be a father for at least another decade, you know. Rynn was supposed to be the first to marry—being heir, it was his duty as well as right. Isn’t it odd how things work out? The way things are now, he’s more likely to retreat into a hermitage.”
Sometimes Rynn’s pride was admirable to Cian. Even when circumstances were desperate, he never faltered—at least, never before an audience. Other times it made Cian want to box his ears. Some part of him knew that his little brother would be alright; even if the cousins did not share Antha’s goodwill towards the boy, they were all bright enough to respect her wishes even beyond the grave. (Although he had absolute faith that Antha would make an excellent vengeful spirit if needed.) He worried about his little brother more than he cared to admit. Cian knew enough about Rynn’s personality to guess that the boy would never really be satisfied until he had regained his independence. He needed something of his own to look after—to take pride in, again. At one point, it had been the Calais name, his family, their home. To a certain extent, Rynn also considered Liesse to be ‘his’—to look after, like a prized breed of puppy. But the Mayfairs had taken that, too, from him. Little wonder that he snapped and snarled at them all like a caged tiger. He didn’t put stock in his own power anymore, overshadowed by Antha as he was—if the same situation had occurred in their own family, Rynn would have been nothing more than a reluctant pawn, and he knew it. He didn’t expect anything more from the Mayfairs than he would have done, himself.
Without thinking of it, Cian idly began to turn the crank of the music-box in his hands, only a half-inch at a time, so that the tinkling notes came slowly and with an odd dissonance. The wind was picking up; across the playground, on the other side, the chains of an iron-link climbing net rattled and groaned. “I had a feeling, you know?—about Nicolae.” he said, suddenly. “He’s behaved himself, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes I catch him looking at me as though—“ he’d like to peel my skin off, wear it, and play my part like a role in the theatre. Cian scratched the stubble growing in along his jawline thoughtfully, trying to figure out how to put things. “Well—I can’t imagine we’ll ever be close. Although I’m sure Vanessa and Sebastien…” he trailed off. Cian could hardly picture what effect the immediate dynamic would have on the children. One uncle? A ne’er-do-well modern casanova, head of the most influential vampire coven in the city, and their mother’s former flame. The other? A sullen warlock obsessed with his own family name—and their mother, responsible for its destruction. At least Liesse would most likely be a stable influence. Cian would have to talk with his brother about—that—before the time came where the children were old enough to absorb his venom. If they hadn’t already, anyways—they were certainly precocious enough to acquire knowledge of the family’s social structure in the womb. He still didn’t know what Rynn’s response would be. On the one hand—they were half-Calais, right? So at least he probably wouldn’t try to kill them. But, like Nicolae, he would most likely never forgive them for the impurity of their blood.
‘Probably’. Not that they would necessarily need the support of their family—twins were like that. Rynn and Liesse never needed anyone else, before. They came into the world ‘belonging’ to one another already. Vanessa and Sebastien were lucky that way. “Whatever magic you need out of Rynn—I’ll warn you, it’ll be a struggle to dredge it out of him. Especially on your own. He’s more stubborn than a mule. But—admittedly—you manage to give him a good reason to fight, and he’ll be your man until the dying breath. He’s old-fashioned. Too much, sometimes.”
If Cian had bothered to pay attention, he might have felt eyes on his back at this point. Something crept along the edge of the lantern’s light, leaving no footsteps, not even a shadow, and scattering no leaves. It was a distant, lonely presence, like the eye of the moon settling on their backs. Intention was indiscernible, and whatever it was—whoever— kept well at bay, observant rather than intrusive. Cian was incapable of noticing anything beyond the feeling of Antha’s hand in his, the presence of his wife beside him. These rare moments were precious to him; short of an earthquake, there was little that could break his focus.
But Antha's 'ears' were always sharper than his. And if she had listened closely, she might have heard a prayer, beneath breath, statick-y and whispered.
surely--he will save you, from the fowler's snare, from the deadly pestilence. he will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. you will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. surely--he will save you, from the fowler's snare...
Over and over again, a phonograph skipping on the record.
There was something fervent in the words, something holy-above-holy on a tongue that was rich in corruption--but also a sibilant hiss that twisted the syllables, a trace of mockery in the way that it was said. Similarly, the purpose of the presence was divided, split neatly in twain. Part of it wished forward to snuff out light, to throw a blanket of darkness over the woods and have whatever way it willed while night remained. The other part was chains, made of spiderwebs stronger than steel, trapping smoke within the nested mind, and the steady drum/heartbeat of resistance.

The children were trying to make conversation. Cian could dimly feel the jostle of their minds, the powers and emotions they had not yet learned to censor, and it made him chuckle to feel the insistent press of their unified will. No flings, no girlfriends, no men, don’t even attempt it. “I’ll try not to disappoint them. They’re lucky I’ve already had time to experiment in my ‘wild youth’.” Although, really—come to think of how a majority of his ‘friends’ from that time had ended up—Cian had not been as wild as he was perceived to be. Or perhaps he was just better at surviving those circumstances, relatively unscathed—perhaps it was all in preparation for surviving her.
He’d promised that he wouldn’t spoil the mood, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think that Antha was incapable of picking up the direction his mental processes were beginning to point. Accepting Antha’s hand up, he stood and brushed sand off the legs of his trousers. They fell into step together, wandering down the gravel path, and Cian let his arm drape around her shoulders as they walked, and pulled her against his side. When they got to the car, he ran ahead to open the door for her, pulling an unexpected gentleman’s move before he could resist the impulse. Being with Antha made him (stupid) eager as a puppy to please her. She made him want to be better—a better husband, lover—a better father. (A better driver, certainly. Cian actually paid attention to traffic lights, despite Antha’s unspoken opinion that they were really for other cars, not hers.)
The presence from the park followed them for a little while, but disappeared a few streets before they made it back to the house.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"You'll figure it out," the girl said to his concerns, smiling softly to reassure him, "Of course you won't know what to do in the beginning, but the family will be there to pick up the pieces you can't manage. And eventually, everything will come naturally to you. I promise." As he stood, her fingers curling familiarly around his without much thinking about it, the girl glanced off distractedly, murmuring as she thought. "A decade, you say? I never thought I would have children at all. After all that I tried, after all of the miserable failures, with time running so short...I had given up on it, resigned myself to dying childless and being the ultimate ruin of the family. I told Rynn as much the night I brought the two of you to Satis House." She paused for a fraction of a second, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, and then very suddenly laughed. "The night I conceived our children, that is. I still remember what he said. 'Use Cian, or myself if you'd like.' And you know what? I outright laughed at him. It seemed...utterly ridiculous, at the time. I think I called him a child---it's hard to say, I was still quite angry at him. Ah, but then..." Antha grinned wickedly, cutting her eyes at Cian as she tugged on his hand, her steps carefully measured as they made their way back to the car. "Then this terribly charming boy all wrapped up in dapper trimmings came clattering through the door, unleashing himself on me without a word. As I recall, I'd made the mistake of leaving him alone with my bourbon and he liked me because I reminded him of my cat. I was almost offended, being ranked beneath Amadeo, but...well, he was terribly pretty, and I think we both would have lost it if we hadn't had a warm body beside us that night." Then, thoughtfully as the car came into sight, her voice a touch more serious, "But then I ran away, because I was terrified of how he wouldn't say a word. In the haze from everything that had happened that night, I decided that it was my fault. I kept thinking, 'If he never says another word again in his life, it's because of me, because of what I did. I've scarred him, ruined him, I've taken something important from him.' Surprisingly, I ran to Rynn. I didn't care how I might have scarred him, he deserved it. But you can imagine how that turned out---thinly veiled insults before I was so sick of him that I decided I'd rather be kidnapped by Sleet than stand around listening to him." They came to the car and Antha paused for a split second as he opened the door for her, turning just before climbing in to regard Cian thoughtfully, tapping a gentle finger to his chin. "I was afraid of that for a while, you know. That that boy would never speak again, all because of me. He didn't even propose to me out loud." Leaning across the door, her fingers gently brushing his hair away, Antha pressed a brief kiss to Cian's lips. "But that's probably not the story the children will want to hear. We'll have to make up some sweet fairytale for you to tell them when they've grown enough to ask for it. I'll be the princess, you'll be the prince, and Rynn and Julien can be the dragons."

Not much escaped Antha's notice. Not the presence that lurked in the darkness---her gaze swept the area when Cian was not looking, eyes narrowing sharply at the treeline made dark and foreboding by the descent of night. Gibberish, she thought, that low hum of a whisper. Nonsense only made logical in some fervent, crazed mind. Not her crazed mind, but another.
She chose to ignore it. It could have been one of the demonic voyeurs of the city, and even if it wasn't...what was she to do, challenge it with Cian present? She wouldn't risk his safety, not for the unknown, not for...not for much, actually, and that was surprising. Risking the safety of others was something she did quite often, without a thought to it. The list of people she wouldn't ever put in danger pretty much just included Malakai, Michael, Vanessa and Sebastien, and Cian. How it had grown lately.
In the car, when Cian had pulled it onto the road, Antha demonstrated quite plainly why the cousins chose to put up with her wild recklessness behind the wheel rather than drive themselves---she was the most godawful backseat driver in the history of the earth. With every red light, no matter when the color had shifted, she whined to Cian, "You could have made that!" With every car that did not move as quickly as she would have liked, she urged him to slip around them, or sometimes just hit them when they were 'asking for it,' having the gall to slow down with the intention of turning in front of them. She reached over him to beat mercilessly on the horn, and on one occasion when they passed a man wasting the talents of his little sports car, hardly paying attention to the road for the cellphone clasped in his hand, his screech could be heard along the whole block to find the phone inexplicably crumbling in his fingers, Antha's eyes narrowed dangerously at him through the window before she turned back around and plopped back in her seat, sulking as she glanced at the odometer. No one had road rage like Antha.
When they pulled into the driveway of Mayfair Manor, Antha was reprimanding Cian with, "I have no idea where you learned to drive. It's like you're not even a witch! I'll have to give you lessons, that's all there is to it. The car will be yours soon after all, and I can't let you go neglecting its talents. Do you have any idea what it's capable of? It's one of the rarest, most powerful sports cars that's ever been on the market."
And then, as he rose to exit the car, her fingers came rapidly out to clasp his wrist, detaining him as she sat quietly in her seat, eyes boring holes into the dashboard before the slow, apologetic smile came uneasily to her lips. "I ruined it, didn't I?' she murmured lowly, a musing, and then glanced to him with a quiet, guilty smile. "There never seems to be a time to say these things...everyone is always so preoccupied, pretending I'm not to die very soon as if they think that will stop it. It's very difficult to impart these last important things to people who refuse to acknowledge that you are about to die..." And then, shaking her head as if to erase her own words, giving that quiet smile, turned to him and murmured, "I thought if I made peace with it, if I accepted it, then everyone else could. But I forget sometimes...for me, it'll be over. It's everyone else who will have to suffer from my death." Her fingers released his wrist abruptly, going instead to clasp the door handle and push it open, stepping easily out onto the worn flagstones as if she'd never said a word.
She paused when she spied Remy's car on the curb, glancing curiously to it before a bang sounded from inside and she froze, turning sharply to the house. "Was that a gun?!" she shouted, turning with rising panic to Cian before she was off, clamoring up the stairs and bursting through the front door.  

[Okimiyage]

It felt odd to hear Antha admit what Cian was not proud enough to expect—that it was him, his tabula rasa of a tongue, which had driven her to escape the house that night. He’d never had trouble talking, thinking of the right things to say, to charm or please or provoke as he wished.
But after the fall of the house, for all his natural talent, it felt like he’d been robbed of his voice. That Rynn still stood and spoke made a statement about his ability. Cian, who had been in the room, watched alongside his brothers, but made no plea for Rynn to cease, no move to stop him—perhaps the ancestors considered it fitting punishment for his negligence. He’d felt the fall of their house in his bones. It made his jaw ache and ears ring. His language escaped him in that instant, like air hissing from a popped balloon, and no matter how you clawed there was no way to hold it in or stop the leak. Cian had often been ‘homeless’—wandering from bed to bed, staying up all night when there was no place to sleep, mortal lovers trailing in his wake. But it had all been a game, hadn’t it? He’d always known that there was a place waiting for him, a fine house with a filthy underbelly. He could feel the ancestors chiding him for abandoning his duty as soon as he stepped through the gates—which was why he had returned so rarely. But it was startling—eye-opening—to think of their meeting through Antha’s eyes. He wouldn’t have come home at all that evening, but he’d been drunk and high and Rynn had summoned him for the ceremony with an urgency that normally Cian was not important enough to warrant. He remembered the way her mass of red curls had glowed beneath the flames of the chandelier. He remembered the dress she’d worn, clouds of black tulle obscuring the white line of her leg, and he’d thought—in any other situation, I’d ask her to go dancing with me. But now is not the time. Now was never the time.
And now her time was running out.
He wanted to sweep her into his arms, cradle her to a slow jazz lullaby, the kind with a full orchestra all in ivory suits. He wanted to cup her throat in gems. He wanted to open doors for her, to make her arch her brow and curl her lip and purr, ‘What a gentleman’ in a way that mocked the title. And he didn’t have the time. Neither of them did—with all their obligations, it was a wonder they’d even found the time to sleep.
He found that he was exceedingly patient with Antha the drive home, even if she wasn’t. He took his time. As impassioned as she was, all he could do was grin and shake his head, because the whole time—all he could think of was how he wanted to stretch out this moment, their time together, for as long as possible. She had no idea how he’d drive in order to get rid of someone—girls from a bar, more often than not, too drunk to control their tongue and yammering the whole time about history with Jamie or Steven or that dumb b***h--whoever she was.
But this, with her, just being near her—it was one of the few times that Cian considered his own time as a source of pleasure. And when finally they parked, he turned around and let it show, in a slow and stunning smile that stretched his whole face. In the sharp creases around his eyes and mouth, you could see how he would age—golden until his death. “Blame Rynn,” he said, cheerfully. “He never bought a car, always took taxis. I have absolutely no appreciation for automobiles beyond their ability to transport me from point A to point B. You’ll have to educate me.” Although he had ridden in some very rare and expensive foreign imports before. You’d be surprised who you’d find ‘slumming it’ downtown on certain nights.
Then, Cian’s gaze softened to velvet, and—as her hands closed about his wrist, he extended his palm to her. “You ruined nothing.” Her fingers felt thin in his palm, the bones as frail as a bird’s. “You’ve left a legacy. It’s funny to think—ordinary people seem to have so much of an easier time, not knowing when they’ll pass on. At least we can arrange for afterwards. In certain lights, it seems like a privilege.” In others, it seemed like a curse. But Cian didn’t voice that aloud, as he stepped outside after Antha, conscientiously locking the door behind him and holding out the keys to Antha. They didn’t make it to her before the shot that echoed through the street, turning his spine into a ramrod and Antha into a speeding bullet. She ran up the flagstone path, and if the door hadn’t already been unlocked she might have broken it in her desperation. Cian was two steps behind her, and it was funny to realize that, amidst the intense fear that bloomed in his breast, there was also adrenaline-fueled anger. A threat in his house, to his family. It didn’t matter whether the threat was internal or external—it summoned up a kind of paternal wrath that easy-going Cian had never before imagined himself capable of. He wanted to defend his home, alongside Antha, from whatever could possibly invade.

Vikteren lifted his head, in streets far away, and listened to the city’s howl. The room he inhabited was painted crimson, red as blood. There were no windows, no furniture aside from the wrought-iron bed, frame and mattress.
Her skin was white as snow, drained of blood, pale as her platinum-blonde hair. The sheets were spotted with rust-colored droplets, now dried. He did not know her face, but he could recognize her age. An innocent by even the standards of the church. At least this one had its clothes all on. Where had she come from? The gold necklace she wore spelled out a flat cursive, “Sarah”.
His fingertips traced the punctures on her throat, closed them with the clench of his fist. And that, too, he did not know how had been accomplished—none of Cyrus’s spells had ever healed, he had no interest in covering up the evidence of his crimes. But it was there, somewhere, in his head, like the runes that now spilled over his tongue, eked through the closed gate of his lips when he did not even realize that he had spoken—
Vikteren felt the world tremble around him, shudder and then shake. The vampire’s lean body collapsed, the ceiling split like a peach. For a moment he thought that there was screaming. For a moment, he heard the fire of guns all across Osiris, gang fights and crimes of passion and accidents and nothing but shot after shot after shot. The room was red. No—the world was red, filled with an evil light that deformed the proportions of all things.
A vampire’s undead body did not require breath, but for a moment, Vikteren remembered what it was like to choke.
And then he staggered, gasped raggedly for breath, and fell—or almost fell, but caught his open palm on a steady surface in time.
His fingers studied the texture of bark beneath them, and Vikteren opened his eyes to see the steady, yellow and familiar glow of Mayfair Manor windows at night.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Rynn called her name, but Antha didn’t quite hear. It passed in one ear and out the other as she drove, staring pointedly ahead at the dark, ragged streets. She was trying too hard to focus on what was ahead, not…
Not her thoughts. Not what Fenrir had said. Not Rynn. Especially not Rynn, she drove his very name from her head like the plague. Because it was too easy to get dragged down into the root of her irritation, some dark and twisted place deep down that he had stirred and Fenrir had agitated.
It was probably Pierce’s fault. He had been the one to spark that first flicker earlier that night, when she had first brought Lucy out of the bathroom and convinced her she needed to lay down. Do you want to know what worries me? He really had seemed deeply concerned, catching her by the arm in the hallway with furrowed brows while no one else was around. He had looked at her like she might break if he said the wrong thing. You don’t even admit it to yourself. With anyone else you would laugh at it, at yourself, but when it’s Rynn…
Fenrir, in his endless meddling, his constant need to upturn some raw, secret place in her, had picked precisely the wrong moment and subject. He’d picked exactly the wrong word---jealous---just when she’d thought she could take a deep breath and act normally. Instead she had retreated to the bar just to not to have to look at either of them. The words in her head were too petty to merit even a moment of consideration, nagging at her since before she’d ever set foot outside the house. You’ve never looked at me like that. It didn’t matter. She didn’t even know why it bothered her---Pierce had his theories, but she wouldn’t entertain them, there was no point in it.
The street she pulled onto was particularly desolate, most of the street lights broken and buildings abandoned, settled on the furthest end of the quarter where the lavish French architecture gave way to crumbling, dilapidated Creole structures doused in filth and shadows. It was quieter than most of the city, perched precariously close to the swamps and populated by the corresponding insects that sang bleakly. There were a few other whispers in the darkness, shady figures doing shadier business, and the very distant call of drunkards from other streets. She parked in the shadows, in the general vicinity of their target, and cut the engine, staring straightforward out into the dimness.
“Don’t you?” There was no hesitation in her voice, no uncertainty. She spoke as if it could have been anything, except that bitter little undercurrent that she couldn’t quite contain, like a petulant child. Briefly, her eyes were very distant, her lips moving as if she was talking to herself. “The alternative there is apathy, and that…that’s so much worse.” Her eyes flickered with something and then, abruptly, were dark and unreadable, her voice falling carefully flat. “Do you know what I’ve realized, Rynn? It doesn’t matter. I tried. I wanted…something else, something to make up for us trying to kill each other. But it doesn’t matter.” Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel, unnoticed, until her knuckles were white. “Because by the time you’re over it---by the time you’ve even begun to forgive me for every wrong you imagine I’ve done to you---by the time we could be friends…I’ll be long dead. So what exactly is the point in trying so hard…?”
She moved very abruptly then, her fingers curling around her keys and yanking them out of the ignition before she all but jumped out of the car, like she couldn’t be away from him fast enough. “We’ll walk from here,” she said shortly, motioning for him to follow as she stepped onto the sidewalk, “The less attention we draw, the better.”
Not that attention was avoidable. Not by a longshot. They were leered at from alleys and windows by the few inhabitants on the sketchy stretch of street, watched like rabbits wandered into the fox den. They only physically passed one group, some half dozen young men drunk and keyed up who had stared at Antha like something to be devoured, one of them going so far as to lay a single hand on her as they passed by. The girl had stopped, her every muscle stiff with the urge to retaliate, but had willed herself not to react. In the end she only shot him a death glare, which had made him go very pale as his companions cackled amongst themselves, but only made them walk a little more quickly. She breathed deeply, determined to be calm, but allowed herself the thought that if he ever crossed her path during less delicate situations, he was dead.
If he wasn’t before then. Glancing over her shoulder a minute or two later, she spied them all rigid on the sidewalk, a new figure standing some feet away with a gun in his hands. She didn’t interfere, if only because she knew the mugger didn’t have any bullets. But the tourists didn’t know that, and Antha was satisfied to watch them fumble and quake and hand over everything they had.
The same couldn’t be said for Rynn. As Cian had predicted, he was easily mistaken for a call boy and considered by a few people that they passed by. Only one ventured to approach the pair---an outsider surely, everyone else was kept at bay by the sight of the Mayfair emerald around her neck---laying a hand on Rynn’s shoulder with the rather insistent invitation to join him, but in the end Antha could not entirely keep her cool over that. She scowled at the old man, well past his prime with white hair and pale, papery flesh, reaching out to grab Rynn by the front of his sweater and yank him away. “He’s taken,” she muttered abruptly, and turned to leave with him.
The man was not so easily dissuaded, grabbing him again by the shoulder and offering a better deal than whatever he was getting from her. But Antha had grabbed his wrist in a hold like iron---he was so frail, the muscles beneath his skin withered---and stepped between the two, clutching possessively at Rynn’s sweater with her free hand. “Take a goddamn hint already, will you? Turn around and get lost before this gets very, very ugly, old man.” For a moment he winced, his hand shaking in her hold, before she dropped it and he finally backed away, skittering back into the shadows. “Christ,” Antha had sighed, abruptly releasing Rynn and running a hand back through her hair, “He reminds me horribly of Julien…”
She said nothing more as they walked, passing in and out of the few yellow halos of light. No one else bothered them, though in passing there appeared to be several people in narrow alleyways who would have liked the opportunity if not for the signature emerald and the telltale shade of Antha’s hair. The dregs of the city feared her far more than her societal adversaries---they heard things that no one ever mentioned in polite society.
The apparent destination was a small old shop at the opposite end of the street, narrow and splintering, which Antha halted before, her quick gaze methodically noting the rowan branches tacked above the door, the brick dust sprinkled across the threshold, and the glow from a black candle in the grimy window. For a moment she stopped and turned, her eyes locking to an attic window across the street that appeared at first to be empty. It was only on intense inspection that one might notice the distant reflection of eyes, the slightest movement in the darkness. Antha’s own eyes narrowed, expression serious, and anyone who had ever conducted any sort of shady business in their life would have understood the look. We were never here. With the smallest clang, the wooden shutters closed hastily over the window and Antha turned back to the shop as if it had never happened.
“This must be the place,” she noted to herself, head cocked slightly to the side, observing the shelves of ingredients displayed in the window. Dried herbs, bone meal, brick dust, eggshell powder… “Hoodoo’s a dangerous game, not many people play it this openly.” The girl stepped forward, turning the dented brass handle and pushing the door open to the clatter of bells and animal bones strung up on the back of it. Just as soon as she had moved to step inside she stopped, straining, as if moving against a water current. Irritated, she briefly halted to glance down at the faded red line of powder directly at her feet before pushing against it again, finally passing over with some difficulty and stepping into the shop. “Brick dust,” she whispered quietly to Rynn, “It prevents anyone intending harm to the resident from crossing over it.” Luckily they did not come intending harm, only keeping in mind that violence was a possibility.
The room smelled overwhelmingly of rancid spices and ash, a faint musk of animal skins and bones permeating through it all. Antha, used to it after all of her time with Atticus, gave not the slightest wrinkling of her nose, instead striding with purpose through the creaking pathways between shelves towards the back of the store where a counter was set up. Reaching out, her fingers took hold of a small jar without looking, bringing it with her to the counter where she sat it down just loudly enough to alert whatever resided in the back room, the floorboards creaking with movement.
After several long moments a figure emerged from the doorway behind the counter, slipping through a beaded curtain to shuffle heavily up to the antique cash register. Though the old woman that greeted them would have been completely unfamiliar to Rynn, Cian might have recognized her from weeks earlier when she had been set up in the park bazaar, peddling curious trinkets.
The two women looked at each other for the span of several moments, rather like they didn’t know what to say. Not quite testing one another, and neither seemed the least bit surprised, only…at a loss. The old gypsy pulled her shawl more securely around her shoulders while Antha tapped her fingernails against the counter, the black polish catching the light in a patent leather shine.
Finally, it was the gypsy who spoke, in the soft, hoarse cadence of her kind. “You passed the brick dust.”
Antha paused for a moment, nodding slowly. “I did.”
“The gossip of the city fails me, if you did not come to destroy me, Antha Mayfair.”
“The gossip of the city fails to take exceptions into account.” The girl sighed, some of the rigid tension seeming to ease from her shoulders. Just a bit. “I was hoping we might talk.” Her eyes narrowed, the next words coming very seriously. “About Nero.”
“It’s true then?” The enmortal likewise tensed, her clouded old eyes glancing down at the countertop between them as Antha nodded. “Come, then…let us speak.” She turned, ducking through the beaded curtain into the backroom, and after a split second of hesitation, Antha tugged Rynn by the sleeve and followed. “You are possessed of far less souls than the last time we met, child,” the old gypsy said as they followed her into what appeared to be a sitting room, a couple of worn chairs and a couch arranged around a shabby coffee table, the fireplace crackling off to the side.
“I tend to leave the other two at home with their own bodies these days,” Antha murmured, faltering briefly before following her gesture to sit on the couch opposite, “It wasn’t a choice I had at the time.”
“Did they like your gift?”
Again that hesitation, Antha’s eyes narrowing at the old woman like she wasn’t sure if she should be listening for hidden meaning. But when she could find none, she answered slowly and quietly, “My daughter likes to watch it, the ballerina and all the shiny moving parts. My son looks at it like he’s trying to understand it.”
The old witch chuckled, settling back in her seat and falling thoughtfully silent. At length, moments before Antha was compelled to speak simply because they didn’t have all night, she continued. “I was there the last time they put the dark king down, did you know? Not in Rome, no, elsewhere in Romagna, but I could still feel it. Miles and miles and miles away, I could feel the heat of his anger before they put him to sleep.”
“Nero isn’t a force to be taken lightly,” Antha said quietly in agreement, and then quite suddenly gave a start as if she’d only realized something, “You were there. Back when it happened…you were there for it. So you would know---”
“If he’s the original?” The gypsy sighed, casting her gaze sidelong at the fire. “Oh, yes. The rest of his kind have forgotten over the millennia, but they all sprung from him like your kind from that midwife of yours. Suzanne, I think it was?” Antha nodded, only half herself, her teeth closing anxiously on her bottom lip. It was one thing to listen to legend, to rumors, to be mostly certain…it was another to know for sure. “He was old before I was ever born, but his story was new. My kind spoke of him often, whispering the threat he posed. We were all tribes back then, through the northwest. There was civilization to be found of course---the great African kingdoms, the aged Sumer on its deathbed to the east, Rome rising rapidly to the south---but we tribes kept to our own. Except for the wars. Someone was always after my kind---the precursors of your kind, witches before magic could be embedded in blood. They feared us more than one another, with their shoddy weapons and armor. So you can imagine how alarmed we were when the stories came to us of this Gaul, a soldier who had gone up into the muddy Carpathian Mountains and come down years later, dead but animate, clinging to his soul. He made his own army, crafted them from humans with his own hands, the power festering in his blood, and he slaughtered our kind. It all happened long before my birth, but word traveled so slowly in those days and he moved so quickly.”
While she paused, Antha interrupted, her voice low and husky with dread. “He hunted tribes of witches until he learned his own power, and then he abandoned his army and began wiping entire civilizations clean because they had been too heavily infested by the unholy scourge of witches.”
“Precisely,” the old gypsy murmured mournfully, “To the point that the entire modern world is formed around the religions spawned from tales of his horrors. But it was too much, in the end. At the pinnacle of his triumph, when he had overtaken the empire that he had besieged in its early days, his generals came together and did away with him in the only way they could without destroying themselves. And I’ll credit them with this much, it worked for nearly two millenniums. Until…”
“Until me,” Antha finished for her, as if responding to an accusation, “Until, in this world of thinned blood and waning magic, someone came along who reminded him on the old days, the old witches. Someone who was actually a threat.”
“You know far more about the workings of his mind than I would dare to, child.”
“But you can see where I’m concerned.” The two witches sat staring at each other for several moments, trading looks instead of words. “When the vampires put him down before they hid him, safe from harm, but did not block him. He was still connected to the spirits, to the rest of the world, and that’s how he found me, how he woke up. This time, I want him completely cut off. I want him in a dark, secret place where he can’t see or hear anything, alone in his own head, and that’s where you come in.”
The woman tensed, eying the younger witch suspiciously. “You ask a great deal from me, child. If I were to agree, to be involved in this, and your spell did not work---”
“It will.”
“Don’t think I haven’t had at least a glimpse into his head, Miss Mayfair. He invades yours, I’m sure, but even I have had a look into that mess of his thoughts. Do you really think you can override his feelings with magic? He hungers for you so badly, consumed with obsession, with hatred, the burning desire to watch the light fade from your eyes. At a certain point it’s rather like love, only stronger, more crazed. You cannot simply break past that.”
“I don’t intend to,” Antha said shortly, flatly, without offering anything specific.
“And do you have any idea the sort of sacrifice such a ritual requires?” the enmortal, master scholar of sacrifice, pressed. “Two-thousand years ago, his children sacrificed a portion of Rome to enact their spell, hundreds of lives surrendered to the fire. You do not seem like the sort of ruler to offer your people up in such a way.”
“I won’t,” Antha confirmed, sitting very rigid in her seat.
“Then how do you expect any of this to work? Without the proper sacrifice, you cannot---”
Antha cut in abruptly, her voice a little sharper than necessary. “Me.” The old witch went very still, very silent, her eyes at once widening and sharpening as Antha took a sharp breath and forced herself to continue, as hard as the words were to speak. “Don’t you get it, I’m the sacrifice, me. My blood, my power, my life.”
Silence. The gypsy looked at Antha and Antha stared hard down at the table, her teeth closed on her bottom lip until she tasted blood. “Yes, that will surely do,” the gypsy said at length, quietly, when her mind had finally wrapped around the idea, “You couldn’t ask for a more adequate sacrifice. But…”
“You saw it yourself,” Antha interrupted, her voice gone low again, eyes only glancing at the gypsy, “His obsession. His longing. After all those years in the dark, in the solitude of his sleep, I’m the only thing he sees, the only thing he ever remembers wanting. He’s never going to stay down until he’s satisfied that he’s wrung the life out of me, that he’s consumed me body and soul. I could try---I could put him to sleep with all of that still in his head, and sacrifice hundreds of lives to do it. But…” Briefly, she seemed to choke. And then, as she always did, she pushed through. “But I won’t. He wants to kill me, so we’ll let him do it. We’ll let him perform the blood sacrifice with his own hands. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect sacrifice---the very blood meant to trap him will be coursing through his veins.”
When Antha fell silent, the gypsy said nothing for a while. She only looked at the girl, astonished and a little unnerved. “And the boy,” the enmortal said at last, in a quiet change of topic, gesturing at Rynn, “He’ll be the one to enact the ritual?”
“He will,” Antha said lowly, “I’m teaching him myself. He has the power for it.”
“I don’t doubt it,” the gypsy murmured quickly, her gaze settled steadfast on Rynn. There was something in her eyes that gave away her nature, something ancient and hardened that seemed to pry deep down into his soul. “You’re not a great witch, child,” she said to him when she had thoroughly taken his measure, her eyes narrowing seriously, “Not yet. You don’t know or trust yourself, but beneath all of that, deep down inside of you, there’s power enough for you to be one. Power enough to perform the ritual on your own, even if you cannot freely access it, of that I am not concerned.”
“Then why are you?” Antha pressed harshly, “He can do it.”
“Can he?” She glanced between the two before her gaze settled direly back on Rynn, pressing him for the truth. “Look at me, child. Tell me, when the moment comes, can you go through with it?” Beside him, Antha had gone stiff and was beginning to show the first signs of panic as the gypsy gestured at her, realizing what she was about to ask. “When it comes down to it, can you sacrifice her life with your own hands?”
“That’s not what this is,” Antha protested abruptly, trying to cut her off.
“Yes,” the gypsy countered, the air between them beginning to thicken, “It is. You can try to dodge it, try to hide it from him, but when he’s sitting before the ritual you’ve taught him, when Nero is wringing the life out of you and he’s feeding off the power of your death, he’s going to realize the truth of the matter and I need to know that he can go through with it.”
Antha stood so abruptly that the table clattered, the nearby fire roaring vividly with new vigor. She was losing her cool, obviously, but did much better to diplomatically hide it than anyone could have imagined. “He knows I have to die. That’s always been the deal.”
The gypsy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, leaning forward in her seat. “Miss Mayfair…perhaps I should have a moment alone with the boy.”
“I’m not leaving him on his own here,” she refused quickly, as if the woman was mad to even suggest it.
“I’m only asking you to wait in the hall,” she replied shortly, gesturing at the door nearby, “So that I can have a moment to speak with him, so that he can speak for himself. I won’t hurt him, it would do me no good. I want to be rid of Nero every bit as much as you, and I suspect if I put even a scratch on the boy, you would be the death of me in an instant, Miss Mayfair. Just give me a moment to speak candidly with him.”
Though it was a great struggle, which showed in her eyes, Antha managed to get herself under control. “He can speak for himself,” she said, in a painstakingly constructed calm, “Without my removal.”
The enmortal sighed heavily, turning her infinitely serious gaze on Antha as if relinquishing any attempt at being delicate. “No, child, he can’t. You won’t let him, because you’re in love with him and afraid to hear him say it out loud.”
The tension in the room died as quickly as it fell into silence, Antha standing very still and staring at the gypsy, wide-eyed, the color blanching from her face. The old woman stared back at her, sympathetically, watching her entire world crack apart in her eyes. Her chest heaved, one strangled breath blowing through her lips, and then Antha was simply gone, leaving only the slamming of the door in her wake. Her quick footsteps stopped just on the other side of it, in the cool, dark hallway, waiting for any sign of trouble.
The enmortal sat back in her seat, pulling her shawl up over her shoulders and sighing heavily. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a more complex soul than that one,” she murmured, glancing ruefully to the fire, “Even if she didn’t have the power to kill me even for considering it, I think I would be rather afraid to take it. It’s too heavy a burden. And startlingly like yours, when I look at it.” She cast another of those gazes at Rynn, like she was seeing some other part of him, his very soul. It was the same power Malakai possessed, if she had to work a little harder at it. But then she grew very serious all over again, her gaze shifting so that she was looking at Rynn himself. “But I would hear the truth from you now child, before she recovers herself, because you prove more of a mystery to me.” She paused, mostly for effect, trying to stress the importance of the situation. “Do not mistake the situation you are in, for that would be fatal. She will talk around the truth of the matter to her dying breath, deny the essential core of it, but if you do this, if you are the one to cast Nero down…you will be killing her every bit as much as him. That’s something you’ll realize when it comes down to actually doing it. So can you go through with it? Can you sacrifice her to save everyone else?”  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn closed his eyes in the long silence that followed his question.
It seemed silly in retrospect, but the words had already made their way into fresh air.
There was no taking it back now.
They drove on, through endless streets, lit by the dim yellow glow of her headlights.
Eventually Rynn glanced towards her. Not for long. She would not give him the dignity of a response, and therefore—he would not give her the dignity of his attention.
Just long enough to take in the clench in her jaw, the tight, forward stare that she gave the road ahead. She did not blink. It was difficult to discern whether the glitter in her eyes was borne from emotion, or from dry sockets.
Eventually, they made their way into the slums. Neighborhoods which had once been the homes of the town’s nouveau riche had now deteriorated into blackened, gutted husks, withered shadows of their former glory.
Rynn turned his face towards the window, watched the bums and gutter punks stare at the shiny, fancy car cruising into their neighborhood.
Then they saw her license-plate, and blanched.
Even down here, Antha Mayfair was nobody to be ******** with. Rynn could have left the doors unlocked and still returned hours later to find the car untouched, nary a scratch on the sleek toy, standing all out of place amongst the functioning wrecks that they parked beside.
She turned the engine off, and finally gave him a response to the question he had asked nearly a half-hour ago.
It distracted Rynn, at least, from the squalor which they found themselves surrounded by.
He didn’t have the chance to answer her assumptions, or deny their inaccuracy. She slid out of the car like she wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.
If that’s what she thought of him, he didn’t blame her for keeping her distance. He only wondered why she’d brought him along in the first place.
The walk between the car and the shop was only a few blocks, but it felt like hours. Rynn formulated his thoughts on the way there.
That, more than anything, was what made him reach out, stopping her at the threshold over which she was prepared to cross. His hand clamped into her shoulder, hard enough that she could not shrug it off and continue. It might have left bruises. Rynn wasn’t sure he cared.
“Look,” he said, spitting the word out like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“I know you don’t like me. I don’t blame you for that—I tried to kill you.”
“But now, you’re married to Cian. I have obligations that I can’t help but recognize—as blood, as brother, as uncle.”
He dropped his head for just a second, and when it came back up the expression on his face was hard and brittle as glass.
“And for my sister…for Liesse. I would have—I would’ve killed you for her. I didn’t know you then, but then—she was more important to me than my own life, than the lives of everyone in this <********> city.”
“Instead, I ended up murdering her, practically with my own hands.”
A hoarse, hollow laugh came out of Rynn’s mouth, for only a second—he swallowed the sound as best as he could. A laugh sounded somewhat similar to a scream, these days.
“The fact that you gave her back to me—that means— something. A lot of it.”

“You may not believe me, but I can’t deny it. I’m grateful to you—
in fact, I admire you.”
Antha had lead her family like Rynn wished that he could have led his own—into glory, the prying daylight eyes, into a position where her name would be remembered in hushed dignity. And this was thrown into a light more unforgiving than ever, as she lead the two of them through these narrow streets, where even the lowest of citizens went pale at the sight of the green stone swinging against her chest.
Rynn gave her a wan smile, and released his grip before she had an opportunity to shrug off his grasp. Turning away, he gestured—allowing her to intrude, first— and them walked through the wards that stretched across the shopfront as though they were ancient cobwebs.


Inside, a hollow bell jangled out across the dim, empty space.
The whole place smelled of mothballs, mildew and…
Rynn couldn’t quite place the third quality he was thinking of, but he knew it well enough. It lurked in the books that Aedan had so desperately tried to piece together. “Forgotten-ness.”
It was a good disguise, for an enmortal. Especially in a place like this—where any whiff of ‘power’ made one a target to his or her peers.
Antha spoke briefly to a woman whose face reminded Rynn of nothing so much as a tea-stained, crumpled-up parchment, un-crumpled again and tossed over a skull as though it was an appropriate replacement for skin. Antha followed the withered gypsy through a door-way made of beads; Rynn stepped behind her like a shadow, his eyes sharp as he glanced from side-to-side. After where Antha had led him the first time, he couldn’t help but be wary.
But it appeared that this enmortal preferred a solitary retreat. There were no guards flanking the walls of her parlor, no wolves at her beck and call. She did not seem interested in such grandiose displays of her power, and Rynn immediately liked her all the better for it. She settled into a velvet armchair streaked with dust, silvery as her eyes, and gestured for them to join her.
The boy took a seat on the couch opposite, alongside Antha. There were teacups on the table, the porcelain cracked and gilt tarnished, but of an expensive pattern that Rynn recognized from his own cupboards. He looked at them while the two witches conversed, but while he may have seemed occupied, in truth he was keenly focused on the topic at hand. Most of the history went over his head, he’d admit. There were names sprinkled in there that meant nothing to him, but he could sense their import by the way Antha sat, tenser and tenser, as the dialogue wound on.
He absorbed it the best as he could. Even if Rynn did not understand now, he could recognize that these words would have meaning later. He needed to remember.
At least until the woman brought the conversation to a screeching halt, and sent Antha bolting like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Rynn’s head jerked up, but he was keenly aware that showing the expression on his face to Antha would just make things more awkward (if that was even possible).
Finally alone with him, the enmortal turned searching, empty eyes upon her guest.
But no, they weren’t empty, were they? Like a spider’s web—mostly space, but that was what tricked the insects into flying into it. And the glittering grey thread that seemed so fragile at first was stronger than an iron chain…He found himself looking back at her, his gaze trapped in hers…despite his original intent to remain stoic, the words came all too easily, truthfully, slipping from his mouth like a drunken confession.
“I don’t know what it will take,” he said. “And I think, after all that you’ve said, I would be a fool not to be afraid.”
His gaze slipped aside to rest, ever so briefly, on the door that Antha had exited through.
“It’s…what she wants, isn’t it?” came the uncharacteristically hesitant question. For the first time, the boy seemed less-than-certain. In the forgiving light of the fire, the hollows in his face smoothed away; for just a second, one might remember that he was still in the summer of his adolescence, despite all of the burdens that he had carried. There was a strange mournfulness in the way Rynn spoke, then, in the cramped set of his shoulders.
“I saw his city burning. If that’s what what we’re fighting against, if this is what it takes to get rid of his…legacy, this curse—“
Then he set his jaw, his fingers folded tight into the ragged sleeves of his borrowed sweater, and there, there was the look in his eye, the promise of the man that he would grow into.
“I know what it’s like to make sacrifices. Nothing in this world comes free. The more there is to gain, the higher the price to pay. And this, what we are doing here…we are gambling with the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands, if not more. It’s not about us anymore.”
“If this is the war that it feels like, we have to set aside our emotions. I can do at least that much, for her sake.”

There was something different about Antha ever since she had come back from the hospital. Rynn wasn’t entirely certain how to describe it, but it was as though she had an urgency now that she hadn’t before. When she first came to his home, it was as though their halls had never heard laughter before. It was as though she was playing the whole time, immune to his own necrotic curse, while the rest of her play-mates were all sick with fear.
But now, this plan hatched of desperation—it was as though she was afraid, without knowing how to express it. The look in her eyes was that of a caged tiger, an animal who had won many battles before, and never once imagined that claws could fail to contend against a bullet.
Even the most powerful predator would fight to the death, or die, defending her cubs.
And Rynn thought: Antha did not love him, no matter what the gypsy woman said. She loved his brother, she loved her children, her family—and they loved her back. Rynn was an interloper, who had done little more than bring her grief since the day he entered her life. Perhaps that was why she had chosen him for this task, knowing that no other had the will to carve the heart from her well-beloved breast. And that, he could do that much for her. Not because he wanted to, but because he owed her. It was the one favor she had ever asked of him, and he could not possibly refuse.
A Mayfair paid his debts.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

The gypsy woman looked at Rynn for several more moments, sitting back comfortably, without concern over one of the most powerful witches in history just outside her door, waiting for trouble. “Perhaps I underestimated her,” she murmured at last, thoughtfully, “She did well to choose you. She does well to teach you---to push you down a nobler path than you might have chosen on your own. But I digress…our business here is finished, for the evening.” Her back straightened, her entire posture adjusting as she prepared to call Antha back.
And then she stopped, and she looked at Rynn again with conflict in her eyes. It was not in her nature to simply help people, without gain, so she wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to do so now. Maybe she thought it would help, because certainly they needed to be honest with each other for the trials set before them, of which she was now a part. She didn’t know, but she did it anyways, lowering her voice and murmuring confidentially, “I’m not sure you see that girl truly when you look at her. It’s easier for me, to be able to look at the shape and shade of souls, but even so…I don’t think you see the way she looks at you, how she gravitates around you. I think you expect her to feel about you as you would, in her position, but that child’s mind is one of a kind. I’ve seen the shape of her thoughts concerning her children, and certainly they are the vast majority of the world to her, and I’ve seen her with her young husband, whom she surely loves. But you…you’re something uniquely, intensely precious to her. And if you don’t believe me, you should ask her, because misunderstanding will work against you in the time to come.”
The door swung open then, untouched, and Antha spared a flicker of her gaze inside, taking pains to compose herself. “Are you finished?” She herself was leaning against the wall, arms folded, waiting.
“Nearly,” the enmortal murmured, almost apologetically, “Of course I’m eager to have Nero put away for as long as possible, but there is the fact that my involvement will prove quite a risk to me, and if you want me gone from this city when it is all over…” Antha reached into her pocket as if she had been expecting this, pulling out an envelope with several loose slips of paper which she handed over to her. Taking a moment to look them over, the woman’s eyes narrowed, one corner of her wrinkled lips crooking upwards. “Quite generous of you, Miss Mayfair.”
“Only a small token to prove how eager I am for this to go well,” Antha responded, as if she’d said the words so many times that they rolled automatically off her tongue at this point, “Do we have an agreement?”
“Yes, I think we do.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ve yet to speak with your intended partner---Wu Fang, by name---” The gypsy’s eyes flickered with recognition, and maybe a hint of nostalgia. “---but I intend to tomorrow. When we’ve settled our terms, I’ll be in contact.”
“Very well. Good night, Miss Mayfair. Mr. Calais,” she bid them in farewell, inclining her head and trusting them to see themselves out.
Antha was only too happy to do so, seizing Rynn by the sleeve and turning abruptly on her heel, headed for the door. When it clattered closed behind her, she stood still for several moments, eyes closed, taking deep, calming breaths of the stale air. “Rynn, I---” As abruptly as she had spoken, she stopped herself, eyelashes fluttering as she struggled to compose the words. It culminated in a few more sounds that were nearly words but ultimately she abandoned, before a frustrated sigh dropped from her lips and she gave up, murmuring instead, “On the one hand, I’m wishing I hadn’t brought you after all. On the other, as I thought, your presence was utterly necessary. And…you handled yourself well, at any rate.”
She took a few steps as if she was finished, moving out of the light of the shop and into the darkness of the street. They walked nearly to the car, then she stopped again, every movement belying a sort of quiet anxiety. Her fingers caught the loose fabric of Rynn’s sleeve, holding it tight, the green of her eyes nearly vanishing as her gaze turned to the pavement. “Rynn…” She seemed momentarily lost for words, catching the corner of her bottom lip fleetingly between her teeth. Courtland could have told him it was a nervous habit which rarely manifested itself anymore. “If I didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be in this city. You would be exiled, or dead. If I really thought badly of you, even a little, if I held any kind of a grudge…I wouldn’t have brought you home. Not for Cian, not for Liesse, not for my children, not for anything or anyone. Honestly, I…” Her gaze shifted uncomfortably, running across the pavement at her feet. “I forget about Llyr’s Court sometimes. Most of the time, actually. And the cousins, the rest of the family…they don’t even know. They asked for a while, because they didn’t understand, but no one’s said anything about it and now they’ve forgotten, too. I think you underestimate our ability to move past these terrible, horrible things. What we’ve done to each other…I almost made Courtland kill Jack once, did you know that? You know how those two are, how utterly inseparable, how in love, and I had Courtland bashing Jack’s head in with a metal pipe, and he deserved it. But then, everyone moved past it. But you and me? We had a fight, Rynn…a very bad fight, that’s what it amounts to. But it’s over now. It’s not like it never happened, the scars are there, but it’s over.”
Her fingers fell from his sleeve as quickly as they had grasped it and Antha stood still for another few moments, looking at nothing in particular. She drifted over to the car, walking around it, her pale fingers skittering on the hood, gleaming black to match her nails. Then she paused yet again, staring down at the reflection of the sliver of silvery moon on the paint. Her words were light as air, quiet, painstakingly restrained. “Do you know, Malakai thinks we ******** up the universe.” She did look at him them, at long last, her large, doll-like eyes calm and particularly vivid against her pale skin, likewise reflecting the moonlight. But there was a directness to them, a vague sense of purpose, of trying to stress some point she hadn’t made yet, and didn’t actually intend on saying in so many words. “He thinks we’re soulmates. Something about the way our souls look and feel, how they fit together…anyway, he had a whole spiel about it. He thinks that first night I brought you and Cian home to Satis House was a predestined moment and just when everything was supposed to click into place, we fought instead, and we broke out of the chains of fate, and we just sort of…slipped by each other.” The briefest laugh spilled through her lips, her gaze sweeping down to her fingers against the glistening metal. “He comes up with the most peculiar things, sometimes.”
That was it. No commentary, no opinion, just the single observation following her brother’s account of their terrible mistake, and then she fell silent and slipped into the car. “I promised to teach you how to be a teenager, didn’t I?” she said very suddenly, as if she’d just remembered, and glanced at the clock. It was just short of one o’clock in the morning. “Well here’s your first lesson---sacrificing sleep to sneak into a bar. Well, not sneaking exactly. I do own it.” And god knew she could use a drink, or ten, preferably without her cousins running amok, creating pandemonium from every which way.

((Will finish others later, they’re mostly written. But damn it, it’s late.))  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn was carefully not to give anything away, as the gypsy woman leaned in with her confidential whispers, but her eyes were sharper than their clouded appearance belied. Even if he had said nothing, he thought she might have been able to detect the flicker of uncertainty—‘by the shape and shade of souls’.
In the end, he clasped her hand gratefully. “Thank you,” he said—and then, to add a trace of professionalism, continued. “For your time. I hope that we will meet again.”
He was not sure if he imagined the smile on her face, but it didn’t matter. As one witch to another, he gave her a deep nod, almost a bow, and the door swung open.
Outside, Rynn began to step towards the direction of the car, when he felt something seize hold of his sleeve from behind. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he turned around, but it certainly wasn’t that—look on Antha’s face. She must have been listening. Of course she’d been listening. The gypsy woman had asked her to step outside more to save her the effort of concealing her own emotions rather than to speak to Rynn privately. For a mind-reading witch, there wasn’t much that could prevent her from eavesdropping.
“Even if you forgive someone, it doesn’t matter if they won’t forgive themselves.”
“I know what I did to you was evil. And I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of, now, but I couldn’t—”
He stopped, his face unreadable.
“There’s a part of me that’s still angry about it, actually. At myself, more than you. I started it, I was the catalyst. You were just a tool to me. But my own arrogance cost me everything. My family. My home. The legacy that my family left me, generations upon generations of souls that I was supposed to safeguard.” He paused, staring at nothing. Sometimes he thought he could still hear them, the ghosts, enraged and howling, trapped within the crumpled catacombs.
“I was responsible, and failed them all. Even if you offered your own home to me, I couldn’t just—accept it so easily. I hated the idea of benefiting from the pity of someone I had tried to selfishly sacrifice.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. It was a short, hollow bark of frustration. Rynn started walking; he felt like he was doing an abysmally poor job of explaining himself, and he suddenly wanted to get back to the car where they could allow the radio to fill the awkward silences for them.

“It would have made things easier, perhaps. I’ve never really liked easy things. It’s the struggle that makes any effort worthwhile. If everything in this world just came to us when we asked for it, then how would we determine the value of our rewards?”
“It probably sounds like I just enjoy being difficult. But I swear that isn’t it, and—if things hadn’t happened the way that they did…”
Well, who could say? Rynn didn’t think that even Antha could predict the future like that. But he had often thought that marrying Antha, drawing close while Rynn drew away, had been good for Cian. His brother needed a place to belong, a home that wasn’t a bar. And maybe it had given Cian good cause to forgive him, despite how his stupidity had crippled the family. Then again, Cian had never liked their old house much in the first place.
Rynn climbed into the car, following Antha’s lead, and once the doors were shut he glanced down at his hands, where they were unconsciously fiddling with the loose hem of his sweater. He must’ve pinched five or six new holes in the fabric while they’d been out tonight.
“Anyways, I’m glad we’re…friends, now.” Suddenly, Rynn shook his head, intentionally allowing tawny hair to hide his eyes. He didn’t want her to see how emotion had made them gleam wet.

“And I agree. A drink would be nice.”