Mallory's Maleficarum

[Mallory]

In Nomine: the oldest, simplest, and most dangerous spell known to mortal man. While kneeling before a five-, seven-, or eleven-pointed summoning circle, demarcated by salt or white chalk, speak the true name of an immortal being born in another plane, and it shall appear before you. Most beings summoned in this manner will seek a bargain with their conjurer, and the terms are binding to their literal word, without regard to the spirit of the agreement.

30 April, 1998 C.E. - Walpurgisnacht

In a narrow old house on a lamp-lit street, in a dark and treacherous city-state ruled by magic that was not unlike RhyDin, there lived a husband and a wife and their one-year-old daughter. The man came from a distinguished family even older than the house, though his lot was less fortunate than his siblings'. His house had become dreary and drafty, his wife unhappy, his parents cold and indifferent; debt collectors knocked on their door at odd hours, and lately followed him home from the train station every day.

He was a failed magician, and failing at magic in a family like his, in a city like this, made him a desperate man with seemingly few prospects. Because however worse life could become, however more wretched other mortals were, all that mattered was that he believed he was the most wretched, and there was no lower place for himself and his family to sink to.

Desperate mortals made desperate bargains, and on the day of his daughter's first birthday, a day he had been laughed out of his own lectures at the college, a day he had been sacked by his own sister, he turned in desperation to the oldest name in the book.

"Sheddun," he said to the candle-lit near-darkness in the cellar of their drafty old house. Another cold wind blew the flames across the chalk boundaries; his wife hugged her shawl around her shoulders as she shivered. Silence, except for the cries of a baby echoing down from the nursery.

She looked at the stairs.

"Wait!" he said, pointing and looking at her with a greedy gleam in his eye. He had felt something, like cold water in his heart and sharp fingernails on the nape of his neck, and he gasped like a lover when he felt it again.

The wind rose, and dust blew from the chalk lines and drew to the center of the circle, swirling into an ever higher cyclone. The little flames from the candles roared three feet high. The husband and the wife caught only a glimpse of pale flesh rising from the floor, draping itself in the shadows around them, before every light went out.

"You called; I came," said the voice of a stranger invited into their home. When he spoke, the candles lit themselves, and a man in a burgundy cloak and suit stood in the middle of them. He beheld the couple with two black eyes set in a long ivory face; his nose was long and pointed like a snout, and his thin lips were curved in a wolfish grin. His dark hair fell perfectly around his shoulders, no single strand distinguishable from the rest, draped over his tailored clothes like a black shawl. He approached, and his ivory-buckled boots clicked on the uneven stone floor in perfect time. "Well?" he said, and licked his lips.

The husband and wife exchanged a glance, terrified faces illuminated by the devil-bidden candlelight; the husband lifted his chin when he replied, "I have conjured you here to bind you to a bargain."

The stranger wound his fingers together, clad in silver rings, and hid them inside his cloak when he bowed his head. "I have come when called, with an open mind and an open heart. There is no need to be so bold. Please," he said, and opened a hidden hand to beckon with two silver fingers; the husband was powerless to resist, the wife powerless to intervene, both frozen by his charms. "Tell me what it is that you want."

"Power," said the husband through gritted teeth, turning his eyes to watch the stranger, as the power of the spell held his body in place.

"Of course." The stranger released the husband and wife, and they staggered and caught their breath as he twisted his fingers through the air, dotting and crossing invisible letters that detailed a bargain. "And what will you give me? What have you to lose to me?"

"Your sister," the wife whispered, and the stranger laughed.

"She is not either of yours to give," he chided. "You have your house, your love, your voice, your senses, your memories, your advantages..."

The husband scoffed, emboldened by the insult of the stranger charming him in his own home, old and drafty as it was. "What good have my advantages done me? Have you seen this place?"

"A little, yes," the stranger replied honestly, and looked at the timbers supporting the ceiling as if assessing the home's exact value. Another wail rang out where he looked, echoing down from the nursery, and he made a thoughtful noise behind his thin, predatory lips.

"What good will power do us if you don't have the surname to petition the courts?" the wife advised the husband in a low whisper. The husband drew into a thoughtful silence to rival the stranger's.

Then he made his offer: "Her advantages, for whatever good they'd have done her," and the stranger knew exactly who the husband had meant.

"The power I give is equal to that sacrificed by the affected parties. It is done," the stranger said, and he did not extend a hand to meet the husband's proffered shake. It was not necessary. It was already happening.

Two portraits, seventeen film negatives, and thirty photograph copies vanished; then a single folder of hospital records, and a certificate of birth. The memories came next, from several grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings, nieces and nephews; a few neighbors; a few nurses and physicians; a handful of colleagues, a pair of local gossips; then the parents themselves. Last went the toys, the clothes and blankets, the diapers and bottles, the crib; the stranger opened his arm, and the baby appeared there before she could fall to the floor two stories above his head. He swaddled her naked body in his cloak, and she clenched a chubby fist in the tag: Mallory's Fine Clothiers. He walked past the dazed husband and wife, set her by the back door in a sliver of pale moonlight, and kissed her forehead:

"I will see you very soon."

Then he, too, vanished, taking the chalk circle, most of the candles, and all of their flames with him.

The husband and wife awoke to the sound of a baby crying, and navigated their way across the dark cellar by the sliver of moonlight that framed her form, swaddled in a burgundy cloak. They did not remember coming down here; they must, they reasoned, have heard the baby crying, and come down to look; she must have been left here by someone who did not want her, hoping the owners of the house would be kind and generous.

The husband and wife were not unkind to the child. They cared for her the best they could through the night, and took her to an orphanage come morning.

((Originally posted on December 18th, 2016.))

[Mallory]

((Content Warning: Child Abuse))

Wayfarer's Lantern: favored by marauders attacking travelers by night. While wishing aloud for a light in the dark, cross your written name with your own blood. Your body will be illuminated, and all who look upon you will be blinded, but be warned: for every second in the light, you will spend an hour in total darkness.

13 May, 2005 C.E. - Assassination of the Templars

At the age of one, the baby from the drafty old house on the lamplit street had nothing to her name, nor any name to speak of; as of her eighth birthday, her circumstances had marginally improved.

"Mal-o'-Mal don't look like a gal; a big green toad is her only pal!"

She had a name now, which was a start. Showing an uncanny ability to make few friends and keep none, she'd sought refuge in the orphanage's scant collection of books from an early age. A pretty young nun with big eyes and a soft voice, Sister Esma, had read to her whenever she asked, and by the time she was called away to mission work in Dalibad, she left behind a little girl who knew her first name came from the tag inside her old baby blanket, and her last name from the orphanage that sheltered her.

"Mal-o'-Mal but let's call her Hal; face like a dog and stinks like a cow!"

She tried not to hear the song while she read her little blue book of fairytales, but the clapping and dancing made them harder to tune out. What she wouldn't give for a few poisoned apples...

She barely heard sneakered feet scuffing through the sand when two hands hit her back. The book flew from her hands, and her hands and knees hit the sandbox with a jarring thud. She already knew what they were doing. She didn't cry this time, nor did she yell: it rarely helped. Instead she stalked after Bethany, the taller girl who now held her book aloft, dangling it triumphantly out of reach as she backed away.

"Dogface, dogface, dogface!" A smaller boy, Hiro, ran alongside her. He'd been friendly to her when he was lonely, but Mallory was already learning not to trust that. She ignored him and followed Bethany to the edge of the playground, where it abutted an alley and a vacant lot on the other side. The earth sank here, gray silt flowing off the fresh mounds of dirt and gravel, past the wooden barricades and into a roughly square hole: about ten feet, and revealing a collapsed section of a large drainage pipe.

"You're not s'posed to go back there, Bethany!" another onlooker chimed in. Mallory didn't know this one by name, a recent arrival, but their know-it-all voice and hands on their hips told her they were ten seconds from running back to the house to tell a grown-up.

"Neither is she, dummy!" Bethany said, and she struck a pose at the edge of the hole, the pretty blue book dangling from her dirty fingertips, pages flapping in the wind. With a brief, violent thrill, Mallory imagined pushing her in. "Dogface thinks she's so smart, writing Mallory on the library list! Too bad she dropped her book down the drain!" and with that, she hurled the little collection of fairytales away from her, sending dozens of pages about bratty princes and princesses and wily enchantresses flopping awkwardly through the air and falling out of sight.

Some kids laughed. Some kids "ooh"ed. When Mallory went for a closer look, the taller girl kicked her in the leg and shoved her onto the gravel, and in spite of herself, she could feel hot tears on her face. Bethany didn't stay to gloat. She could hear a nun calling out into the playground from the back of the house, and she and the other kids quickly scattered from the forbidden corner of the yard.

Mallory sniffed and wiped a scraped hand across her cheeks. She dared a look back at the house as she crawled up to the edge of the hole. No adults had seen her yet, but someone would rat her out soon if they hadn't already. She looked down.

The book had landed face down, a slash of its bright blue cover visible, the rest concealed by the shadow of the overhanging drainage pipe. The sounds of running water and other noises, hard to place, echoed up and out into the surface world. Mallory rarely left St. Martin's, but kids in RhyDin grew up knowing by whispered rumors and tall tales that the undercity resembled swiss cheese more than solid bedrock. Churned earth and mud-caked equipment mostly blocked one end, but the mouth of the tunnel before the book was wide and impenetrably dark.

She gulped, and began the careful, muddy, slippery climb down, hand over fist toward the base of the pit, white rubber soles sliding through damp red clay until she hopped back, stumbling to a stop in front of the tunnel. She ducked down and squinted at the darkness, the book just within it and just out of reach. "Oh I wish, I wish for an angel's light; I wish, I wish for an angel's light," she found herself chanting quietly, a rhyme often heard among a few of her bunkmates when night came and it was "lights out." She crept forward, one hand snaking shakily towards the book.

"I wish, I wish for an angel's light... I wish, I... wish...!" Her fingers grasped the cover in the darkness and she snatched it back, eagerly claiming her prize, but her pride at her victory deflated when she saw the loaned book's poor condition. Bethany's dirty fingerprints were all over the cover, inside and out; two inside pages were coated in mud, half of a wolf's face peering out from two broad gray stains; and the lower page corners had been soaked in a mud puddle, already shrunk together, ready to stiffen and wrinkle when they dried. Even if they'd forgotten to make her write her name at the library desk, her name was written proudly on a little paper slip on the inside cover, the only unblemished feature there. "Oh, ****," she said, worrying her lip.

But her eyes were torn from the ruined book and the incriminating evidence, and back to the darkness, by a slow, steady scuffle of clawed feet and wet, hissing breaths as something approached. Whatever it was, she couldn't see it, but she knew it had to see her, and she could hear it getting closer. "I wish, I wish for an angel's light... I wish, I wish for an angel's light," she murmured, eyes wide and panicked as she crawled backwards from the mouth of the tunnel. She could hear it scrabbling closer, faster, and she cried out in fear and grasped the book by the inside cover to protect her face, her scraped and bleeding hand clutching the flimsy shield.

Light flashed, golden-white and bright enough that it should have been painful for her to behold, even through her eyelids, and she opened her eyes in wonder. The muddy pit with the broken drainage pipe was dazzling, almost heavenly, and she could see the creature in the mouth of the tunnel: a massive rat, with a mangy coat, yellowing teeth and a bloated body, rearing away from the magic as it let out a pained shriek. The light faded when she felt the book tumble from her hands and into her lap, but the creature was already scrambling blindly away from her, colliding with the sides of the tunnel as its claws scrabbled over the slick metal surface.

Soon its echoes could no longer reach her, and with a rush of adrenaline she tucked the muddy book under one arm and scrambled out of the pit, into the gray daylight above, and into the grasping fingers of Mrs. Eckmueller.

"Playing in the pit, after all the times we've told you?!" she said, pinching her neck and pulling on her ear. "You could've been eaten by God knows what! And ruined one of our good books, I see?"

"Bethany," Mallory began, wincing as the woman dragged her along, but she couldn't get a word in edgewise.

"Bethany we're already dealing with. You can wait in the closet 'til we're ready for you."

[Mallory]

((Content Warning: Homophobia, Biphobia, Bullying, Self-Harm))

Ward of the Unforgiven: while it does not shield the caster from harm, it promises far worse for your transgressors. First, the caster must have suffered both insult and injury from the same enemy. Inscribe the insult onto a piece of paper and wind it around the base of a copper knife. Then, speak the insult to your reflection in a silver mirror at midnight while making a small cut with the knife: any location may serve this purpose, but cutting the injured area will increase the spell's potency. Unwind the paper and hide it in a box with an iron lock, and repeat the ritual with new paper on the following night...

20 March, 2012 C.E. - The Vernal Equinox

"Steer clear, ginger beer."

The shove hadn't been unexpected, nor the laughter that accompanied the sound of her books hitting the floor, scattered across the dingy yellow hallway of St. Martin's School for the Wayward. The words were new, even if their speaker was not: a girl with wild brown hair, dressed in a plaid skirt and a band t-shirt, leaning on her locker and grinning around a piece of bright blue bubblegum.

Mallory felt herself making a face when she looked up from her things, tearing the cover of her Latin workbook when she yanked it out from under someone's foot: "What?" She felt less confusion over the words than dread over discerning their meaning, twisting queasily in her stomach. At least her face wasn't hot.

"I said you need to keep your ****in' distance, queer," she said, and as Mallory heard her unfolding her arms and her sneakers squeaking away from the wall, she recalled that her name was Zaria. She didn't look up because now her face was burning, and she didn't want to give them the satisfaction.

She didn't look up because she knew she'd see Yvonne standing among Zaria's friends, laughing to protect herself, a different laughter than the surprised and joyful laughter they'd shared before in quiet places.

"Leave me alone," Mallory mumbled, shoving books into her bag two at a time, going in at odd angles, making the whole process take unbearably long.

"Or what? Gonna try to kiss me, too?"

Mallory barely heard Zaria noisily puckering her lips, or her friends and onlookers cackling, over the blood pounding in her ears. She snapped her head up to stare at Yvonne, who immediately avoided eye contact, studying her nails, smirking uncertainly as a boy beside her nudged her arm. A noise rose around her, kids "ooo"ing when they saw Mallory look, and as soon as she was back on her feet, Zaria was wrenching her forearm painfully.

"Oh no no, I'm your girlfriend now," she tauntingly cooed, filling the small space between her mouth and Mallory's ears with mocking kisses and too-sweet perfume.

"Let go," Mallory said, and twisted out of Zaria's grasp, stepping on the girl's toes as she stumbled away.

Crack! Mallory's face turned, numb and stinging where she'd been slapped, and Zaria looked stunned by her own actions for a fraction of a second. Mallory was stunned too, staring with wide eyes as tears fell from them, until Zaria yelled:

"Fucking queer!"

The bell rang, and the onlookers dispersed uncomfortably, a few spurred by the vice principal marching down the hall. Mallory took the first break in the human barrier and plowed through, head down as hot tears stung her bright red cheek.

* * *

"Yvonne -- "

"**** off, Mal. It didn't mean anything."

"Yvonne -- "

"You used to go out with Damien. Damien. Gods, I can't believe I didn't know. And, what? That didn't work, so you thought you'd give liking girls a try?!"

"Jesus fuck, Yvonne, it doesn't work like that."

"No, Mal, it really doesn't. ...Zaria was right about you. You're just a dumb slut. Get away from me."

* * *

Music Room #3 was a disused space in the basement of St. Martin's, once used by the Chapel Chorus and the golden-voiced friars that taught them. The chapel had burned down years ago, though, and after a string of scandals related to conditions and teaching methods at the school, the Church had quietly withdrawn their portion of the funding, taking their bald singing men with them.

The room was cluttered with boxes of maracas and tambourines, bells and sheet music; collapsed cubbies spilling recorders out of their sleeves and onto the floor; and a broken piano, mostly covered by a rooster-patterned bedsheet. A dozen pieces of furniture had been moved in here over the years, some of it at least a century old, including a tarnished silver mirror, covered in a sleeve of moth-eaten brown velvet. The first time she beheld her blurred reflection in its surface, she knew it could channel magic, and went to work searching her scant sources of arcane power for any spell that might use it.

Pierinye, when they were still talking; the library down the road that was sanctioned by the school, and the archive across a narrow alley that was definitely not; a few odd little shops inhabited by a few dark and knowing faces that had sensed her affinity for black magic over years of wandering away from field trips and slipping out after dark...

She had a red composition notebook, almost completely filled with last year's Latin notes, with ten groups of two pages each set aside for spells; she had a shoebox with a few art supplies piled on top, mostly unfinished sketches and a lot of pencils, and underneath a few tidy clusters of arcane components wrapped in tissue paper. She set the notebook down on a stool that had once served as a music teacher's perch, wrote a few words on a separate piece of paper, and unwrapped one of the components: a fishing knife, ruined with an uneven coating of copper she'd managed to apply after a shop class. She yanked the velvet loose from the mirror, spread her feet apart, and readied the blade.

"Queer," she said into her own eyes, catching a slice of bared teeth as she gritted them against the pain of the first cut. The welling of blood came with a rush of relief, one that immediately struck her with confusion and shame, as much as the word itself. "Queer," she said again, and made another red line of pain and relief. "Slut," she said, and this line, like the others, belonged to her.

She caught a strange smell in the air, rotten yet acrid, and when she made a disgusted face in the mirror, a pair of green eyes stared back at her, the pupils wide and flattened. She slapped herself and seemed to snap out of it; idiots forgot to mention hallucinations in the side effects...

Then she leveled her chin, stared down her reflection, and struck herself again. "Queer. Slut." The words stung as they revolved around her, orbiting her body and soul like a burning cage...

The ward was set.

[Mallory]

Sin Manifest: evoke a tormenting power out of one's own hatred. Limited to experienced casters capable of twisting the threads of fate. Begin by uttering a name that one knows themselves by, in a rhyme that refers to their sin and damnation. Follow the threads to them while repeating the rhyme. When you are close, take and smash a copper-filled jar...

11 January, 2017 C.E. - Afterfeast of the Theophany

Trick had decided to follow Mallory after all, trailing her steps in fretful silence. She could feel him fretting, and it would have worried her more were she not so focused on the prickling tug at her fingertips --

The life and essence of one Barret Betz and Wes Monroe, two of Ed's coworkers who had beaten him upon their discovery of his relationship with another boy. "Barret Betz, I forgive thee not. Black sheep, moldy chaff, burn away and rot. Wes Monroe, I forgive thee not. Black sheep, moldy chaff, burn away and rot," she whispered again, and heard Trick's faint repetition over her shoulder.

They were nearly two hours into their journey from the Manor, after two detours: one at a bill collection service seeking freelancers, to get their address; the second at an internet café, to print a letter. Without the letter, blame could fall where she wanted it least; she wouldn't have that.

They came to a narrow dead-end in an older neighborhood stuck between the Marketplace and a few of the small river docks that served it. Their victims' apartment was on the second story over a brick storefront, up a rickety wooden walk-up, and when she looked at their front-facing window, she knew they were there. Bluish light from a TV screen flickered through the glass, but Mallory knew that they slept: through the threads now burning in her fingertips, she felt the chaotic flow of thoughts and emotions that signified dreaming.

She fixated on the brief flashes of anger, pride and wrath she felt, and cooed quietly into the dark street: "Bare your teeth for me, my poor, stupid darlings... Feel the wolf. Growl," and when she twisted her hand away from the window, as if moving the strings of a marionette, she could feel their hatred -- hot, bitter, like blood and fire in her mouth -- and feel something yearning to be born, stirring in the womb of their slumbering souls.

She turned to Trick, could see the question forming on his lips, his brows knit in concern, and put a finger to her lips. "Remember, not one more rhyme. You promised."

Then she stalked down the street, hurrying along the shadowed eaves of narrow row houses, as far as she could be from the little halos of arcane lamplight. She crept up to the banister at the bottom of their stairs, and opened their rusty little mailbox with a wince as it creaked. She slid a folded letter out of her pocket, still warm from the printer, and dropped it in.

Then she took five long steps back until she was staring ahead, and up, at their door.

"Be born, child of woe; leave their lands fallow; at the sound of the crash, drag them down into the trash."

She hefted a pickle jar from her backpack, filled to the brim with copper coins, enough for a meal for three. That didn't bear thinking about. This, black magic, was the price of agency for those so often without it. Tonight, mercifully, she paid little.

She grunted as she let the jar fly overhand, hurtling through the air and smashing against their door, and suddenly her hand was cold, the threads briefly swollen with some power before their connection to her was severed. She didn't wait to see which neighbors noticed, nor the moment when the hapless roommates she targeted awoke, or went out looking for the vandal. She ran, as fast as her feet could carry her, and she had not even reached Trick when he turned and ran, too. Smart boy.

They were around the corner of the short dead-end street by the time Wes and Barret poked their groggy but angry heads out the door to sort through their mess. They'd know soon enough what plagued them -- if they were too stupid to understand the source of the sleepless nights that would follow this, then Mallory's letter was a plain enough warning.

* * *

I have watched you from the background for some time, seen your sins, and found you deserving of a hag's wrath. I have taken your hatred and anger, and twisted it into a fitting form: poltergeists, one for each of you. So long as the evil festers in your hearts, these will feed on it and torment your nights. Every lamp flung across the room, every furious rattling of your bed, every shove and scratch and bruise from an invisible tormentor will happen because you deserve it.

Sweet dreams.

[Mallory]

((Content Warning: Implied Sexual Abuse, Self-Harm))

The Nightmare Mask: replacing one's perception of you with irrational fear. First, discover the nature of your victim's night terror, whether by ordinary means or divination...

22 July, 2012 C.E. - The Feast of Mary Magdalene

Mallory balanced the bowl carefully in her lap, cradled in one arm, as she scooted across the bed towards Andersson's back. She could see his graying beard moving in the moonlight, heard his incoherent murmurs, and knew that tonight, she had not stayed up in vain: he was in the midst of a night terror, easily matched by her own as she drew ever closer.

If he awoke, if he suspected black magic, if he suspected she was escaping again, if she spilled the bowl of water in his bed, she didn't have to imagine the consequences she'd face. She knew the dangers already, worse than what she suffered on his 'good' days.

But she was determined that tonight would be the last time she suffered him at all.

The bowl came to a rest near the back of his head, near enough that when she passed her curled fingers across its shimmering surface, the reflected moonlight turned black. This was only the first ingredient. While he mumbled and frowned, fingers digging into his pillow in fear of his imagined torment, she steadied the bowl against his movements with her knee and pinched her own arm. A few moments passed before her arm tensed against the pressure; a few more, before it began to hurt as she forced herself to squeeze harder, hard enough to bruise. She sucked in her breath and held it when she felt the urge to give voice to her pain, and her eyes grew damp with the strain.

No sooner did she feel a hot tear roll across her sallow cheek then she caught it with her finger, and tipped it into the bowl. It was enough. A vision was taking shape within the water, and she had to step away before it vanished. She scooped up the bowl and scooted across the bed away from his restless body, swung her feet over to the floor when she heard him stirring. He gasped awake, and sat up in bed while she crossed the room, seeking her blindly in the darkness.

"Munchkin?"

Bile rose as soon as she heard that word, and she replied through the acid in her mouth: "Gotta pee. I'll be back soon. Promise."

Mallory did not need to be a witch to feel his eyes on her back, both hungry and curious. She did not know if he could see the bowl, but if she had any time to herself, it was only moments. The Watchman's saber hanging on the wall near the too-small bathroom door, and the strange old pistol she knew he kept in his nightstand, were not the same temptations they had once been. He was stronger, faster, and she could find no stomach for another's blood after what had become of Zaria.

In the momentary sanctuary of the bathroom, she balanced the bowl on the counter and peered into its depths. Even focused on the whirlwind shifts of Andersson's captured nightmare, she could see the bedroom lamp's light come from the large gap under the door, and the larger one along one side that strained the latch that held it shut. She had seconds.

"Nightmare, wash over me; nightmare, become me," she said, splashing the water across her face, rubbing it into her skin.

"Munchkin," he said, now unquestioning and authoritative. Her captor's footfalls were heavy and angry, and he rattled the door. "Mallory!"

The latch broke, Sergeant Magnus Andersson stood before her, seething with anger that she was hiding something from him, her savior -- that she had shut him out. She pitched the bowl at him, bouncing off of his chest as the water soaked his head. He cleared the water from his eyes with one arm, and beheld her smiling form.

He began to scream.

* * *

Mallory stood out in the street in the clothes he had held hostage for weeks, since the day he'd taken her into his home after catching her stealing. She was checking her backpack by hand as she lingered in front of his apartment; her eyes were on his window, now dark, but she knew he was still there. She could hear his hysterical sobbing through the thin white curtains.

Something slithered behind her as she basked in her power, a length of scaly flesh that slid along her bare calf as it whipped to and fro like a metronome. She whirled around to face it, but the black street behind her gave no sign of the source, nor the flickering pools of lamplight beyond. The only monster she knew of cowered in the house before her.

She spat on his doorstep and promised herself no more saviors as she stalked away into the darkness of RhyDin.

[Mallory]

Blind Man's Bargain: for a third eye capable of foresight. First, you must collect the name of a dead blind man -- the fresher the death, the better...

17 December, 2016 C.E. - The Feast of Daniel the Prophet

The protests had largely died down on Saturday, but Mallory wasn't taking any chances. She had a backpack full of spells, notes and components; she had a cloak to cover her features, a ratty old red thing that had served as her baby blanket (her hoodies were too dirty); and something resembling a plan. Petition the coven behind the Black Rave if they're back in town? Blow the emergency funds on a back-alley doctor in Stars End? Follow the smell of brimstone and betrayal to a hag preying on the local drunks? Whatever it was, she had to act before this problem became worse.

The tail, the goat's eyes, even the horns were not new to her; but the last few days had been the first time that any outward sign of her power had stayed...

She cut a fast path across RhyDin, keeping her head down and her hood up as she walked; crossing the road to pass lingering protests, crime scenes, and vandalized shops; avoiding vendors, preachers, Watch officers, and anyone else who might feel inspired to speak to a stranger; putting everything she had into appearing poor, small, insignificant among the people of RhyDin. She became so focused on how she was crossing town that she lost sight of the destination, her feet guided by another force than a mortal mind. She saw the flash of glittering violet pixie wings in front of her face, and stumbled a step back as a faun bumped into her with "one thousand pardons," tail swishing as he hurried away down the sidewalk. Reflexively she checked her backpack and pockets as she looked around to get her bearings, until she laid eyes on the building in front of her. "Of course you'd take me here," she growled to whatever had taken her there, and crossed the street to the Mill at Little Elfhame.

She waited a beat for a dark-haired man smoking a pipe to step out through the front door, and slipped in before it could swing shut. Once inside she dared to lift her head enough to get her bearings, looking for a concierge, an office, or a flashing neon sign that spelled out "CERTAIN DOOM" accompanied by an arrow.

The vestibule was nicely decorated in soothing shades of blue. There was a door leading to the back entrances for the businesses on the first floor, a few arm chairs, a buzzer, doors to the stairwell and elevator, and a directory list on the wall.

The directory was succinct. On the second floor, there were two businesses listed: The House of Summer, Inc. and Kids of Summer Foundation. For the third floor, just one listing: The Empress. Gold lettering and everything! It matched the threads in the carpet on the floor.

She snorted. Well, that would just about have to be her, based on what little she'd seen and everything else she'd heard. She pretended to look at a few apartment brochures on a table, since it seemed too late for leasing agents to be on the clock to notice her. Then she went to the stairs, thumbs hitched into her backpack straps as she took in her surroundings.

If anyone passed by her and seemed to notice her, she smiled in what she was told was a friendly way, but made no eye contact. From the stairwell she made a fast path to the third floor office, doing her best to speak to no one until she arrived.

Only one person passed Mallory on the way up the stairs. A part-time office worker for Kids of Summer Foundation, she gave Mal a pitying look as she continued down the stairs. It was too late to be working on a Saturday, and she knew better than to the meddle in the faerie's business. All sorts of people came and went at The Mills!

Out of Mallory's hearing, Jewell shouted at Ishmerai from her bedroom on the second floor of the penthouse, "Someone's on the stairs!" With the way the entrance of her home was set up, it made establishing a proper threshold very tricky. They had warded the place beyond belief to make up for that issue.

"I know!" Ishmerai shouted back, shaking his head. That woman was always telling him his business. He made it to the door before Mallory reached it, stepping aside onto the landing and closing it behind him. He lifted a brow when he saw the hooded youngster come up.

Mallory tipped her chin up to look at Ishmerai. She'd seen his type before, or at least, she was pretty sure she had. "I've got an appointment with Jewell," she said, hesitant at first, but ending on a defiant note as she tightened her jaw.

The knight grinned. It wasn't a wholly unfriendly gesture. "Do you now? My lady must have forgotten to mention it to me. She is dressing at the moment, perhaps if you wait here I can send your name up to her?" Challenged!

"She wouldn't know me by name," Mallory replied, "but she'd know me by her options. She's got an appointment with me, or she's got a story tomorrow about an Overlady assaulting two kids at a tavern, on top of all the other bad press." The witch beamed a smile back at the grinning knight, then. "I can wait."

"I see." Although impressed by her gumption and retaining that smile, there was something sharp to his green eyes as he stepped back, closing the door. Ishmerai clearly knew the incident she was referring to.

He was back in less than five minutes, opening the door and standing aside to allow her in with a gesture, "Welcome to our home, miss. My lady said she would be happy to give you a few moments of her time. If you will just follow me."

If anyone bothered to watch and count, they would note that Mallory looked over her shoulder at the stairwell exactly seven times before Ishmerai returned. She was a little shocked it had worked; she was just as shocked that no one had emerged from the stairwell to black-bag her, either.

The knight closed the door behind them before leading her through the vestibule (the floor absolutely covered in high heels) and down a hallway to Jewell's home office and library. He stepped aside to allow her entrance.

The room was warm and cozy. Books filled the floor to ceiling shelves on three walls. The other had windows that let the fading light pour in. Jewell was sitting at her desk, but she stood when Mallory entered. She was wearing a dressing robe of all things, her blue hair done up for an evening out. The deep wound across her face, free of stitches, was still a livid red against her pale skin. Her expression was carefully schooled: cool and reserved as she looked at Mallory. "Come to steal more of my glamour, dear? Or are you planning on asking this time?"

Mallory could hear her heart inside her ribcage as she picked her way through the vestibule. It may as well have been the corridor before a throneroom, bristling with spears instead of heels. The threat of what could happen to her here became all the more real when the faerie stood from her desk and regarded her. It sounded like Jewell was speaking underwater until she heard herself reply: "Asking." She cut a look back at Ishmerai... then let her eyes return to Jewell as she lowered her hood. Two little ram's horns had sprouted from her temples, rather recently given the blood coagulating around the base.

She winced at the sight. It looked painful. Jewell gave a nod to Ishmerai, who departed from the room. The faerie then stepped around the desk, tilting her head this way and that as she examined the horns without touching her. "When did this start?"

"Few days ago," Mallory replied through her teeth. It was necessary for Jewell to examine her, but the powerlessness here stung nearly as much as the horns pushing their way through. There was a breath. She shut her eyes, digging her fingers into the little holes worn into the thighs of her jeans. "Few years ago. Always, maybe. I thought they were... swollen nodes or, ****, I don't know," and she winced, balling her hands into fists. "Breaking through the skin to say hey to everyone is pretty ****ing new."

Jewell walked around her twice, brow furrowed in concentration. Unlike the haughty woman Mal had met and struggled against at the Inn, this Jewell was more... human. No high heels. No act to put on. "Maybe we should sit down," she suggested with a gesture to one of the chairs in front of her desk, putting the piece of furniture between them to perhaps help calm the young woman down.

"****ing... Okay," Mal said, letting a little of the tension uncoil. She dropped her backpack on the floor with a book-laden thump and sat opposite Jewell. She normally slouched; right now, she was stiff in her chair, hands pressed flat against her knees, leaned forward and looking at the space between them.

"I'm not asking for charity," she informed Jewell, looking up at the other woman. "I can trade."

"It's rather difficult for a faerie to give charity to anyone anyway," Jewell remarked with a wry smile. "But we can discuss that when we get there. I'm not exactly sure what I can even do for you or, really, what you even want from me." Her own posture was more relaxed as she leaned for ward against the desk, observing the young woman with more curiosity every passing moment. "Are you cursed?"

"I don't know." It was a tough admission for Mallory: if she'd known her steps would have led her here, she would have wanted to know more about her own situation first. Seemed more competent, instead of in way over her head. "I'm an orphan. The orphanage has all its kids examined so foster families can get what they want. They said I was pure human. Humans are more popular for adoption... but faking that can have pretty bad consequences. I think I'm human. I do a lot of black magic, but... I don't know what would have triggered a curse like this."

She sucked her lower lip behind her teeth to chew on it as she frowned. "I've made contact with fiends before... but there's been no bargains. Nothing to impart a curse."

Jewell nodded as she listened, tapping her fingers on the desktop as she tried to think. "You're pretty talented for pure human," she offered the compliment honestly. Then her grey eyes were fixated on those budding horns: "Something like this is not really within my realm to fix. Certainly not without knowing the cause. I am a powerful enough practioner, but I have focused my studies elsewhere. I could possibly recommend someone else for you to see..." She left the statement open for a second option.

"I tasted your glamour," Mallory replied at once, setting her fingers on the edge of the desk as she leaned forward. "You don't have to know what these are to make them disappear. I don't need them to be gone, I can figure that out myself... I just need people to not see them. You can do that."

Jewell sat back. Now they had gotten to it. Her chair rocked a little back and forth. "I can do that." Whether she would or not was obviously the question. "You said you could trade?"

There was visible relief in Mallory's face, but the expression soon darkened again. This was only one step; she was yet to see how far she would have to go. "The things that you do, with glamour and the elements, you'll always be better at than me... but we're both magicians, and no magician masters all skills. I'm experienced at communing with the dead, contacting beings from other planes, creating and maintaining wards, hexes, curses..."

She licked her lips, tipped her head forward as her golden eyes locked onto Jewell's. "I'm a soothsayer. I can see visions of the future, boons and warnings... I know how many claim it, but they aren't willing to pay the price for a third eye. I am."

Jewell's heart fluttered a little in her chest at some of the skills Mallory rattled off. Communing with the dead produced such a feeling of longing, a feeling she thought she had conquered already. But she wouldn't dare ask. Not this slip of a girl. This nobody. Not for that.

Jewell forced herself to take a deep breath, straightening in her seat again. "The soothsaying? That will do." It wasn't as tempting, but with everything going on, it was still tempting enough. "A fair enough exchange. And you will want a glamour that will last until you no longer need it, yes?"

Mallory nodded. Never mind what the soothsaying would cost her, the lengths she'd have to go to for the visions this woman would require. "Until I can fix this."

"Until you can fix this. I glamour strong enough to withstand the iron of the city." Jewell nodded her agreement and then offered Mallory her hand. "We should shake on this."

"To make it a contract," Mallory replied, guessing that the laws of Faerie might apply here. She hesitated, watching Jewell's eyes as she clutched her hand, pumped it once.

Although they were making a deal, Jewell's grey eyes were rather warm. There was a part of her that remembered what it was to be young and scared, even if she didn't fully let it influence the details of this deal.

There was that little pop of power when they shook on it. The sealing of the deal. It made it so both would be obligated to uphold their end of the bargain. "Glamour first?"

Mallory huffed an unexpected laugh, a release of tension after taking the leap: "I part the veil a little better when I'm not terrified of being burned at the stake, so yeah. Let's start with that. I can give you a reading tonight as well, but fair warning, I'll be blind the rest of the night."

The laugh made Jewell smile, but the warning killed it just as quickly. "We could do it another day if it would be better. But yes, we should start with the illusion. With things as they are..." Jewell shook her head. "I can do it from here, but it'll be easier if I can at least touch you."

The faerie knew enough to warn the girl before just touching her.

"No, you... I want you to know I'm good for it," Mal said, shaking her head at Jewell's counter-offer. Proving herself now, in a deal like this, felt important. Without another word, if there was a couch or lounge in the room, Mal rose to sit on that, taking her backpack with her. The divination would be easier sitting close to her, anyway.

"All right." Jewell crossed the room with her over to the purple sette, adjusting her robe. She rubbed her hands together to produce a fine layer of silver dust on her palms. It was more for show or perhaps to just give her a moment to prepare herself. "What should I call you? You know... since we've entered this arrangement."

"Mallory. Mallory St. Martin." St. Martin was the name of one of RhyDin's larger orphanages. She pushed her fingers back through her hair, lightly touching her horns as she did, and tied her hair back out of the way. "I'm ready," she murmured, looking down at her knees as she curled her legs off to one side, then set her emerald gaze on Jewell's silver hands.

"Nice to meet you, Mallory. I'm Jewell. Jewell Ravenlock." She offered her a faint smile. "Try to relax. This shouldn't hurt." Twisting so they faced each other, she set her hands on Mallory's shoulders and let the illusionary magic wash over the girl.

Some had described it as cool, like a wave of water. Others had compared it to a warm embrace by The Empress herself. Being surrounded by the faerie's presence: her scent, her touch, her energy.

Mallory's senses were awash with being in Jewell's space, and what constituted her presence and how it filled a space she inhabited, as she felt the embrace of the spell. The woman she had judged, and then feared, became alluring and mysterious in the span of a simple ritual.

Carefully, Jewell wove the glamour together. She kept her eyes open, focusing on creating a tight, strong illusion that would make Mallory look like Mallory. An illusion that would shift with the wind through the girl's hair. An illusion that would feel real to the touch and a magical probe. It was delicate work but easy for the faerie. It was one of the few things she had mastered in her time lost to Faerie. And when it was complete, she removed her hands from the girl and sat back, letting out the breath she had been holding. "That'll do it. Unless you want me to change your hair color too? It's fun to do."

Mal's cheeks were a little pink when she blinked at Jewell's question: "I, uh..." She dug into her backpack for a compact, flipped it open to check her reflection. "I'm fine doing that the normal way." Her hair was, currently, dyed a very bright red. "This... this will work," she nodded, and with only a brief sideways glance at Jewell, dropped her compact into her backpack and began digging out other materials. A notebook. Obituary clippings, held together with a paperclip. A book of matches. A pickle jar. "Tell me about a memory... any memory, big or small. It'll still be there when we're done, don't worry," she muttered distractedly as she picked through the list of the recently deceased.

There was something a little thrilling to completing Jewell's end of the deal that only had a little to do with fulfilling a piece of the contract. There was a satisfaction to it. She watched curiously as Mallory unloaded her items, nibbling at the inside of her cheek at the request. "A memory?" Her bare foot tapped on the plush rug. "The other night. I was, uh... I was at the Outback." Jewell blushed for some reason, wishing she had picked another memory. But having started it, she continued. "Behind the Inn, where they do fist fighting? And my, um... he's my friend. Lover at times. He saw that I was injured." She gently touched the gash that marred her complexion. "He frowned and he brushed his thumb lightly across my cheek." She licked her lips. "It probably seems like a stupid little thing, but he seemed concerned. And, well... that means something to me." So finishing, she took a deep breath. That was harder than the glamour had been.

Mallory looked at Jewell and nodded, listening carefully to the memory as she sketched out the rough details of it in her notebook. A feminine figure, Jewell, head angled away to let a taller, broader figure touch her cheek. She tore out the page, folded it in half, and tucked it into the jar. Then she removed one of the newspaper clippings and informed her, eyes steady on Jewell's, "I am invoking the spirit of Antonio Gabrerra." She dropped the clipping into the jar, struck a match, and dropped it in, too. The paper burned, and Mallory kept her gaze steady. She blinked twice as smoke rose from the burning paper, and a trail of it turned from black-grey to silver-white, glimmering as it twisted through the air towards her. She blinked again, let out a breath like a death rattle, and settled milky white eyes on Jewell, Seeing while not seeing. "Do you... have questions for me?" she asked -- it still sounded like her own voice. "Or would you like a general reading?"

Jewell's mouth felt so dry as she watched Mallory work. She could ask her question. She could. But could she admit to this girl that she had given up her true name? It was a frightening prospect. It was unacceptable, and her decision was suddenly that easy. "A general reading, please."

Mallory shifted on the couch, adjusting her legs to sit indian-style, and turned her head blindly in Jewell's direction. Her eyes seemed to move of their own accord, revealed by little gray lines, edges of differeing shades in her now-white eyes. Jewell could feel somewhere in the back of her head when the gaze was fixated on her. "A hot night in winter, loud and warm... I see red hands, not silver, before you; not your intent," she shook her head slowly as she reached out for contact, closing a hand on Jewell's forearm, "but your doing. You will lose a friend." She licked her lips. "Merchants weigh gold and salt, but your sisters weigh good and evil just the same... Tell them, when they see the raven in his cups and hear the rising whine on a moonless night, hold or they will burn. Many will suffer, but some... I see... men with proud faces, men with steel, laid bloody and pale and beneath the earth. Nothing can be done for them. They are prepared. You must prepare." She exhaled another breath, another rattle, and dropped her head, shivering.

It was an uncomfortable sensation, someone performing a type of magic on her. It was uncomfortable for Jewell to let it happen. But she was eager, when Mallory started to speak, to hear. Her path was so obscure these days. She needed to hear.

Even if what she heard was unpleasant. Scary. Terrifying.

The red hands were bad enough. Losing a friend... men beneath the earth... Her chest was tightening. Her lungs squeezed painfully as her heart raced. Mallory could probably feel her trembling until Jewell attempted to calmly extract her arm. She could not show such weakness.

They are prepared. You must prepare.

Jewell tried to laugh, but it was thready and uneasy. "Prepare for the party tonight, of course. Absolutely right. I really should prepare. Are you all right? What can I do for you?" She made sure her hand wasn't shaking before she touched Mallory's arm lightly. "I will see to your needs first, of course, before going off... to prepare."

"I'll take down some notes, so you can look at them later." It was normal for a client to rationalize, the way Jewell was. Having notes often helped. She packed her backpack blindly.

Her lips were blue. "A fire. A bed or a couch. Someone to show me the way to the restroom, the kitchen, whenever I need to... I'll leave as soon as Sr. Gabrerra does."

"Notes. Right, of course. Thank you." Jewell stood, awkward and anxious. "Ishmerai can see to everything you need. And..." Jewell hesitated, her voice suddenly quiet: "Thank you." Then she left the room quickly, summoning the knight with an unecessary shout. He had been in the hallway all along.

A dead man's eyes followed Jewell's progress, marveling quietly at the invisible threads at her fingertips.

[Mallory]

Fury's Chain: an enchanted jar capable of containing the wind. First, wait for the weather to turn to the spirit of endless anger, jealous rage, or vengeful destruction; then, mark a wind-torn banner with the corresponding name...

6 February, 2017 C.E. - The Feast of Saint Armand

The sound of the explosion was still ringing in Mallory's ears when she pushed past the concierge who tried in vain to keep her inside, out of the Mill at Little Elfhame and into the smoke-filled street. Bombs had been a fact of RhyDin's violent political discourse for at least the last ten years, but by luck this was as close as the witch had ever been to one in her life. She had thought about what to do if she was caught near an attack, but never what it would feel like:

The nearly impenetrable haze. The coughing and crying. Strangers veering towards her, close enough to see her face as they looked for their own, only to move on and cry out precious names.

Guards were rushing past, a few away from the source of the smoke, helping the walking wounded to safety and a healer; most ran towards the danger, and the witch could see some of them covering their hands and their faces when they could.

She checked her cell phone. you guys ok? She heard coughing, hit Send, and reflexively stepped out of the way as an old gnome stumbled past her; his eyes were wet, and he was coughing into his arm and scratching a cluster of angry red marks on his arm.

Oh, no. Oh, ****. The realization hit Mallory, how stupid she had been staggering out here to look around; what if it was a chemical attack? She withdrew to the eave of a building, away from the intermittent eddies of glittering gray smoke blowing down the street, and sucked in a deep breath of cleaner air before pulling her thick scarf up over her nose and mouth.

That was iron stinging in her nostrils on that last breath, but it would not sting her as much as the locals; a sylvan woman was running away with her son, shushing him comfortingly, both of them sporting angry rashes on their cheeks and their long, slender ears. The smoke was hurting them. It was meant to hurt them.

Mallory was taking a knee in the mouth of an alley and digging into her backpack before she could realize what she was doing. A passing guard, even less informed than her, brandished a spear and shouted a question in an elvish-sounding language she did not understand. At the sight of the jar she produced, containing cloth scraps with Greek letters written in charcoal, he hesitated to get any closer. She was lucky he did not have a gun or crossbow.

When she popped the cork off the jar, wind howled outward, swirling one of the smaller smoke clouds up over her head. "Erinys! Tisiphone!" she yelled over the sudden windstorm, and then the wind blew in.

From either end of the block, from up above and down every alley, the wind twisted, circled, and dove down into her jar. She screamed in shock, squeezing her eyes shut against the debris, shielding herself with one arm as the wind whipped through her hair. When she could bear it no longer, she lowered her arm to steady the jar and jammed the cork back in.

She was coughing, her scarf felling away as she gulped in what felt like clearer air, but she could barely see to check: every time she cracked open her eyes, they were too bleary and still stung. She didn't realize the guard had moved up to her, until she heard a cork pop. He was holding out a waterskin.

She clutched it with one hand, taking several greedy gulps of water before she let go. "Thanks, I, uh... with that spell... I wasn't doing anything bad... just wind," she said to him, as he came back into focus. He nodded along to her words without understanding, and gave her an unfamiliar one-word reply before he moved away.

Her gaze followed him curiously, and found the source of the smoke through the diminished haze: the blown-out storefront of Beyond the Veil.

((Written in connection with the Temple SL and this playable, with thanks to Jewell's player!))

[Mallory]

Mark of the Pact: for a physical reminder of a bargain struck. If your contract was written by your metaphysical hand, first acquire it from the Planes of Keeping by any means; then, inscribe the zodiac on the reverse side, using charcoal stolen from a temple brazier. Invoke the aspects of a sign by marking it with your blood...

14 December, 2016 C.E. - The Feast of Spyridon

The crumbling manor house that stood alone on a narrow lot, across the way from a glorious old cathedral and a number of other stately homes in varying states of (dis)repair, was very hard to look at.

It wasn't its physical condition: despite the peeling paint and warped siding, two boarded windows and several more cracked and taped window panes, it retained its sense of grandeur, as confident in its outlandish size in the cramped cobblestone streets of Old Temple as the day it was built.

Instead, the house was simply difficult to behold. The magic of Mallory St. Martin drew the eye away, and could induce headache if one attempted to focus on the building despite the aura of tedious mundanity it actively exuded. Even photographers found it distracting and bothersome, angling their shots away from it during the rare modern wedding at the nearby cathedral.

The potent, intricately layered wards were especially useful on a day like today. Screaming masses thronged Old Temple, as the crowd's anxieties and hatred and fear threatened to boil over into violent hysteria. Fear was easy to come by in RhyDin, and so much of it founded in collective memory of unspeakable terror and calamity visited upon their communities over the years...

It made the finely-dressed gentleman standing on the cathedral steps miss Vyrna a little less, and enjoy RhyDin a little more. It made him tempted to give the crowd an extra push, expend his power conjuring phantasms to burst out of the counter-protester's mouths, and watch the whole affair dissolve into civil war; but he knew this outcome to be inevitable, and that it required no intervention on his part.

He was many things, and a patient being was one of them.

Someone in a marching crowd was shouting at him, slapping her hand against her picket sign and gesturing to a destination up the road. He simply bid her good speed and a good journey with a tip of his broad-brimmed hat, and waited for the column to pass.

There. Now there was nothing obstructing his access to the witch inside the house -- nothing meaningful, anyway. He curled his left ring finger inward, pricking his palm with a needle affixed to a silver cap on his fingertip. Then he dabbed a feather quill into the well flowing out of his skin and used it to make a mark in the air.

The quill scratched audibly across unseen parchment, and then it vanished. So too did its owner, along with the two drops of blood falling from the edge of his palm before they could stain the cathedral steps.

* * *

Across the street, up at the top of the house and through the window facing the grand old cathedral, Mallory twisted up her bed sheets and kicked them away, writhing in her sleep as the horns pushing out of either temple broke through the skin, baptized in the blood welling around them...

[Mallory]

The Claw of Orpheus: for the perusal of a mortal's memories. Focus on the spell by clutching the right hind claw taken from a stillborn roc while staring at your target...

7 September, 2017 C.E. - Eve of the Birth of Mary

As a witch who had spent the last two decades growing up in RhyDin, Mallory St. Martin required a subtle hand to divine, scry, or otherwise pry into with black magic.

As a succubus in the employ of a powerful fiend, Naomi Lin was uniquely equipped for this task.

She watched the much younger woman approach from the front door of the little Lebanese cafe, squeezing carefully past servers and patrons, mostly better-dressed and likely wealthier than herself. She'd partially buttoned up her flannel shirt and picked out a new(ish) pair of jeans, but there were several details that marked her as an unusual or unsuitable choice for a high-profile political aide: her very threadbare backpack, adorned with mismatched patches from a very angry adolescence, and laden with too many essentials for someone who had grown up in comfort; an unsteady awkwardness to her body language and pace, brought on by the great care she exercised in being aware of her surroundings, possible pickpockets, oblivious marks, and exits; and the ZoSo t-shirt peeking out from underneath her shirt, the white letters faded to a faint gray, the collar torn and frayed.

She easily imagined that Mr. Adder had his own reasons, and excellent at that, for taking an interest in the witchling.

"Ms. St. Martin?" Naomi rose to meet her, eyes narrowing even as she smiled, adding a teasing slyness to her kindness. They shook hands, and she could feel a tickling thrill of enchantment from the eclectic rings on her fingers. "Naomi Lin. We spoke on the phone. Please, sit down, and make yourself comfortable. I'll order us drinks -- black coffee, yes?"

It was an unnerving touch, one that drew a momentary frown from the witch. "That's right, yeah. Thanks," she added, after an uncertain beat.

Naomi smiled sweetly.

"I'm... kind of surprised you reached out, to be honest. I've never gotten involved in politics here." Liar. "And from your call, it's not clear -- " She paused, thinned her lips, and started over. "How did you say you came by my information, again?"

I didn't. "Divination is difficult magic, as you are more than aware, and unfortunately many in the business do not bring their customers genuine prophecy, relying on tricks instead." She paused, smiling aside at the waiter, quietly ordering in Greek. The waiter understood, as did the witch, given her eyes widening in surprise. "So when someone brings their clients genuine, useful portents on a consistent basis... word gets around." Her smile widened. "You should give yourself more credit. You have more of a reputation than you know."

"Thank you," Mallory replied, again with uncertainty. Naomi could feel another question hanging in the air and preempted it.

"As a candidate for governor and a long-time investor in talented individuals, Mr. Adder always keeps an eye to the future; and we believe your gift for divination could be very useful, preparing him for future events and keeping him one step ahead of the competition... as well as better prepared for calamities the city might face in the future," she added with another smile, watching Mallory as she looked down at her recently arrived coffee, frowning at its dark surface in thought. Naomi took advantage of the distraction to slide a tiny black talon from her blazer's right pocket.

"I see," Mallory murmured, after a long pause. She was still frowning. Naomi only smiled, and it widened as she leaned forward conspiratorially.

"It also does not hurt that you are young, attractive, and well-connected for someone your age. House of Summer? This year's Green Man? Kabuki Street's dangerous but beautiful delinquents? And you yourself, the Belladonna Knight. It's a very good look for the people we wish to attach to Mr. Adder's campaign."

Mallory's expression remained guarded, and while her cheeks colored at first at the compliment, she quickly grew even more reserved. Compliments mean that the person paying them wants something. Compliments are a threat. Perhaps she's smarter than I thought.

"I already have a job -- "

"At Panacea, for seven silver an hour. We know," she replied, with another sweet smile. "We would pay you thirteen."

The glimmer in Mallory's eyes when she paused was all too familiar to the succubus. Her smile grew.

"As well as time and a half for overtime and travel, and there will be plenty of both, as well as enrollment in a health insurance program operated out of Stars End -- free for you, with discounted enrollment for... family. Mr. Adder expects his employees to be flexible and responsive to his needs, and if you proved yourself equal to the tasks of the campaign, we could easily find a permanent role for you in his administration. But the demands on your life would be much the same." She opened a hand. "He asks a lot... but gives generously. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Ms. St. Martin."

Mallory paused to process this offer, the money, the radical changes to her life at the behest of a man shed never even heard of until very recently; and as she did, Naomi turned the talon in the palm of her hand, and narrowed her eyes at the witch... and the witch's doubts came flooding into Naomi's mind.

A girlfriend, Eri Maeda, and the anxious beginnings of plans to accustom herself to more time with her, not less, before moving in together. Her family, Trick and Spencer, and the flexibility to look after them, take care of them, still be family after moving out. All this could be a trap; Adder is rich and powerful, wealth and power mean danger; should she ask Cane's advice, let him know what's going on? Should she tell Ishmerai? Would Jewell help or hurt if she knew?

Naomi already knew the answer before Mallory gave it: "I'm sorry. It's a very generous offer... a slightly confusing, but very flattering, offer. But there are things in my life that I can't sideline for a political campaign, and certainly not long-term. I'm sure you understand."

"It's disappointing," Naomi enunciated, delicately, "but... I understand completely. Thank you for seeing me today. I'm sure that if anything changes..." She smiled. "We'll be in touch."

[Mallory]

Boon of the Scorned: for drawing hidden words to your hand. Create a conjuring flame within the palm of your hand, and repeat the name whose mention you seek. Every piece it is inscribed upon will be drawn into your grasp...

12 September, 2017 C.E. - Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Samuel Adder had a security apparatus much like those of other polished modern politicians: men and women in suits and dark glasses, making themselves present wherever he was going, scoping out the people and divining their intentions before he even arrived.

However, the strangers that had spread across the broad avenue in New Haven all seemed to lack earpieces. Some didn't even seem to have guns, forgoing their jackets and with no holsters in sight.

A dark-haired woman with long ears that curled at their points had a digital tablet propped up at her table, seated across the way from the designated park bench at a restaurant patio. Subtle manipulations of the spinning silver rings seemed to alter the image, though she chatted pleasantly with the tablet as if there were a relative on the other end.

Two large, broad-shouldered men shared a bench only fifty feet away, exchanging quiet words and secretive smiles. There was a basket of funnel cake sitting between them, picked at but largely untouched, and while their arms were stretched out along the back to keep the bench to themselves, they kept their hands free as much as possible. One was a gray half-orc, his broad ears twitching subtly at every new source of noise; the other seemed to be a human, cybernetically enhanced, his mechanized eyes roving ceaselessly over passersby.

Others bled into the crowd in more subtle ways, only noticed when they lingered too long, passing by the park bench and looking that way one time too many.

Another key difference, though, was that no one was needed to escort Mr. Adder to his destination. In one moment he was wherever he had been before; in the next, he appeared walking in front of two people with their heads down to look at their phones, only one of them even startling at his sudden presence. Ashes settled around his point of origin as he veered away from the crowd, forging a path to the bench to meet Lady Ta-Neer, turning the heads of a curious few among the oncoming traffic who recognized his face.

Samuel Adder had picked out a short, handsome argyle scarf for the occasion, cinched over a white button-up shirt with a starched collar and sleeves that had been carefully rolled up to his elbows. His gray wool slacks, red argyle socks, and detailed black oxford shoes had all been picked to match the scarf.

He met his contrast already lounging on the bench, her head tilted up and eyes fluttered closed. He was dressed meticulously. She was dressed in a short romper that left legs, arms, and neckline all exposed to the warmth of the autumn sun. One of her flip flops was precariously close to falling off her foot, and her short hair was pulled back in a ponytail from which a portion of her hair had already escaped.

And the only security detail in evidence was a fae knight lurking openly a few benches away.

Jewell sensed his approach (he blocked out a bit of her sunshine) and opened her eyes. With an indulgent smile, she sat up from her lazy slouch, stretched skywards as if waking up from a nice nap, and then turned her attention to Mr. Adder. "Hello there. Are you the man I've been looking for?"

Samuel's eyes crinkled warmly at the corners as he watched her stretch; she looked as happy as a cat in a patch of sunlight. "I certainly hope so." He held his hand out to her. "Samuel Adder. You can call me Sam. People call me a lot of names," he added, amused by the thought.

"Hopefully nothing too terrible," she laughed as she shook his hand, even though she couldn't help but think of the names she had been called. "I think I like Samuel, honestly. Rolls off the tongue better." She gave it try, repeating his name slowly as if tasting it for the first time, "Samuel. Samuel. See? Much better. I prefer to be called Jewell. Or The Empress. It's really more of a name than a title. You may have your pick."

"I like Jewell. It suits you," he said, narrowing his eyes slyly as he released her hand. "And now that I have seen how it does, I regret having taken so long to meet you." He let out a faint sigh, though his smile was not at all diminished, and draped his arms over his knee. The loose golden chain of his wristwatch jangled faintly when he bounced his knee; the watch's face lit up with scrolling notifications, but he ignored them. "I have heard a great deal about you since I first set foot in this city."

"Have you?" Her grey eyes were merry and bright as she twisted on the bench, tucking one leg beneath her while her elbow found the backing and her cheek the palm of her hand. "Can't say I've heard too much about you," but only because she wasn't really listening these days, "except that you're a charmer. They certainly seem right about that. So why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself, Samuel? How long have you been in my fair city?"

Samuel's smile shifted to something more nostalgic, and he looked just past her as he remembered that night... "Oh, about nineteen years ago was the first time I visited, to check out the local talent. What I saw kept me coming back, but I was always just passing through until late last year. That's when I decided this city had something special in mind for me, and vice versa," he chuckled. "Between RhyDin and Stars End, you have theaters, studios, raceways, stadiums, dueling arenas -- everything a talent scout could hope for, with an entire Multiverse to fill out the cities with fresh faces and keep me sated."

He breathed a soft sigh, shaking his head. "I know," he half-sang in resignation, "it's nowhere near as glamorous as your life. I can't claim to be the emperor of anywhere, at least not yet. But it's led me to meet a lot of very interesting people."

"Glamourous," she chuckled. "Yes, my life is certainly glamourous, isn't it? But it's not all fun and games. I have to meet with stuffy politicians now and then too. So you're planning to be emperor somewhere, are you? And here I thought you were running for governor. My intel must have been wrong," she mused.

"Or just incomplete," he offered. "The rest of it, you'll have to corroborate on your own... but, I could let you in on a few secrets." He brought his hand up to his chin, turning his head to regard her carefully; his eyes narrowed playfully. "Unless you're finding this all too stuffy."

"Mmmm, I don't know." Jewell looked him over consideringly, "Normally I'd suggest you undoing a button or two first to loosen up or maybe at least getting a drink, but I think I can make an exception this time."

Samuel made a pleased humming sound behind his smile, and his hand fell again to dangle by her knee. "I have quite a lot of money, among other assets. I have very, very many skilled people at my beck and call. I have a terrible need for more potent vices to draw in the masses -- vices from far afield, the kind we usually only see on Beltane. The rest, you're either ascertaining now..." His lips curled. "...or you will soon enough.

"Personally, I think we should finish this conversation over a bottle of wine until the words escape us. What do you say, Jewell?" drawing out the name for an extra breath as he watched her.

Her thoughts raced rapidly--play the game and get burned, vices, Beltane, faerie, bottle of wine, fiend, greed, be careful, be careful, be careful--but came to a sudden halt when he said her name. She blushed becomingly, but the smile was more flirt than shy maiden. "That sounds fantastic." She stood in such a way that his hand just had to brush against her leg, "Your friends," she nodded subtly to the nearest group of security detail, "won't mind if I steal you away?"

He laughed, letting his fingers draw along her leg as she rose and he shifted to follow suit, and when he stood, he offered her his open hand, paired with a smile curled in wicked invitation. "My dear Jewell... they couldn't stop us if they tried."

* * * * *

Samuel admired Jewell's back out of the corner of his eye as he sat on the edge of her bed. She had been breathing the deep, steady breaths of slumber for twenty minutes, and he could no longer feel her curious fae mind poking and prodding at his fiendish one.

He was alone, then, in her room, and free to peruse for what he'd initially reached out to discuss -- but it had quickly become an impertinent question, once the sparks started to fly.

He cradled one open hand in his naked lap, and drew the other across it in slow circles. His eyes slid shut, then opened to reveal two slivers of impenetrable blackness, as a maelstrom of flickering red embers grew in his palm, fed by his rapid, breathless whispering, which stopped with one word:

Mallory.

The insistent tugging of his power pulled at the written words concealed within her inner sanctum, sending a small collection of letters and journals fluttering through the air to circle him slowly like vultures. He lifted one hand to pluck one from the air, and opened to the page with the words he sought, now marked bloody red.

"You broke your alliance with a fae? Oh, you poor, stupid girl..." He smiled over his shoulder at Jewell's stirring form. "You're certainly no safer for it."

((Written with Jewell's player -- thanks!))

[Mallory]

The Last Breath: for killing. Clench your fist while you focus on the sound of your target's breath, wishing to never hear it again...

15 September, 2017 C.E. - Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

It was past two in the morning when Mallory finally stumbled out of the Crooked Cabinet, giggling at her own unsteady steps as she stopped herself short of the curb. Her bag clattered against her hip as she turned to squint through the bar's massive glass windows for Eri, blinded by the bright lights flashing from the arcade cabinets that lined the front of the bar.

She knew better than to walk around at night making too much noise, but after a look around, she danced in place, stamping her foot and calling: "E-E-E-riiiiii. Hurry up!"

Eri was, to be fair, being a bit sluggish. She caught up after a moment, giggling as she saw Mallory dancing in place and hearing her tone of voice. "It's not my fault. My legs are shorter," the delinquent insisted. She blinked a bit now that they were away from the brighter confines of the bar, and took a step toward the direction of her home.

"Shorter legs, rounder ass, it's all tradeoffs," Mallory sighed, pinching the posterior in question as she crossed behind Eri to fall into step on her other side.

Now that she was in motion and had her balance, Eri was moving on a little better. She looked over her shoulder a moment when hearing Mallory's sighing reply and laughed, hopping a few steps and giving a light playful shove at the witch's shoulder when she was pinched. "Guess that's right. Gotta look at the positive."

The wicked smile Mallory wore didn't last long, relaxing as she breathed a long sigh, getting the familiar stink of RhyDin through her nose and into her lungs. "Glad we're walking instead of taking a cab. I thought I was okay until I stood up, but I -- "

She closed one eye and peered at Eri, giving her a stupid grin.

" -- feel a little drunk."

Peering ahead now, Eri nodded her head. "I think I forgot to pay attention to how many drinks I had," the delinquent confessed as they rounded the first corner.

"I only had three. Do shots count?" she asked Eri, stumbling and steadying herself on her as they rounded the corner. She wound their arms together, slowing their pace a bit, and tipped her head back to look up at the clear autumn sky. "If they do, I had five. Total. Not shots."

Eri's eyes roamed from one side of the street to the other as she thought on that, her arm settling comfortably around Mallory's. The light sound of her steps were almost lost in the general sound of the city at night, which were so familiar by now that she really had ceased to hear them. "Shots count, sure!" she decided. "They're just drinks at maximum efficiency."

"Five is like... one or two too many. I'm such a lightweight," Mallory added with a snort-laugh, and gave Eri's arm a squeeze as they drifted towards the center of the lane.

There was no traffic at this hour. It didn't matter. They'd only passed two people so far, one who kept his head down and avoided them, sticking close to one side of the street.

"I think he knows we're drunk," the witch stage-whispered to the delinquent behind the wrong side of her hand.

"Ooo, is everything looking blurry?" Eri asked with good humor, leaning a bit against the witch's arm with her head as they moved to the middle of the path. She did so cautiously, careful not to lean too heavily and throw their balance off, but was so deliberate with her steps that she stumbled herself. She glanced at the figure that had kept far over to avoid them, and had to smother a giggle behind a hand at Mallory's misdirected stage whisper. "Maybe he's afraid we'll throw up on him."

"Or that we'll put a curse on him. A lady-curse. A sexy hex," Mallory hissed at Eri, wiggling her fingers in front of her face.

Eri was looking over at Mallory's gestures and grinning when her steps faltered and came to a stop. Her grin faded, and she blinked slowly. "Maybe I should be keeping more careful count," she said doubtfully. "I feel unusual..."

"You and me both! We, uh..." Mallory trailed off too, frowning as Eri stumbled, slipping free from her grasp. She tried to peek at her face. "Babe?"

A feeling like a spear of ice-cold water shot through Eri's chest, radiating up and down her arms, rendering her limbs sluggish and heavy.

Eri's face had at the moment only a puzzled and concerned expression. The delinquent had enjoyed her supernatural durability for so long that actual fear was a foreign feeling, slow to dawn on her. It seemed to when the icy sensation began radiating through her, and she slumped to the ground, her limbs too sluggish to keep upright. "Did I get shot?" she asked senselessly. "I didn't hear anything... but maybe you wouldn't..."

"Eri...?!" Mallory felt sure she wouldn't have missed a noise like that, but dared a wild look around in the darkened street as she knelt next to her girlfriend; they seemed to be alone. "Eri, talk to me," she said, fingers scrambling to check her pulse. "What are you feeling right now?"

Eri let out a final shudder as the spasms passed, managing to roll onto her side on the pavement. She tried to lift her head to look around, but couldn't manage it; her pulse was rapid, struggling to keep up with something.

Then the second surge came, as the icy ball growing in the delinquent's chest burst outward like fire, wracking her body with spasms as the pain flooded through her. She curled into a ball of misery in the middle of the road. "Dame... dame..." she muttered, lapsing momentarily into her native tongue in her distress, her voice difficult to hear. With great effort, she managed: "I don't know. Hurts... like ice, but burning."

"Not good... not good..." Mallory drew out her cell phone with shaky hands, thumbing through emergency services. She was about to dial when a force seemed to roll Eri onto her back, focusing inside her heart again and drawing inward hard enough to force all the breath from her lungs.

There was something unnatural about whatever had Eri pinned on her back, going rigid as the force seemed to squeeze at her heart. Her hands feebly reached to grasp at Mallory's arm, struggling to find the breath to even call for help.

The effect was instant when air flooded Eri's lungs, the strength returning to her grip on Mallory's arm. It was then that she began to discern the nature of the attack; during her experiments, she could ordinarily hold her breath more or less indefinitely without suffering any ill effects. Nonetheless, whatever had happened seemed to be over, and the pain was beginning to subside.

"Eri, what the **** happened to you?" Mallory whispered, her eyes wide and terrified as she brushed the hair back from her face. With her free hand she patted the cobblestones until she found her flip phone. The outside LCD was cracked, but the buttons still worked fine.

Though recovering Eri wasn't in a hurry to move around, what with the residual pain still lingering. Content to lay there and let the recovery continue, taking comfort in Mallory's touch, she blinked her eyes slowly as she struggled to answer "...I don't know. Somehow my regeneration shut off. And something was happening to my heart. It must be magic," she explained.

Mallory paused to frown over Eri's words... and shook her head faintly, shifting the delinquent's head into her lap. "I don't know who the **** could have done that," she said, "but we've got to get you to... a healing house. I know a place that won't ask questions, we'll take a cab there...

"Just hang in there. Okay?" she whispered, tearful eyes lowering to Eri as the call connected.

Eri sighed in relief as her head was shifted from the cobblestones, much more comfortable in Mallory's lap. "Okay," she replied, looking up into Mallory's tearful eyes with a reassuring smile.

[Mallory]

The Knives of Brutus: a dagger for every nemesis you have. Stretch your fingers out as long as knives as you focus on the last words you heard promising revenge against you...

16 September, 2017 C.E. - Feast of Saint Cornelius

The man who currently went by the name of Samuel Adder had studied Wayside Manor long enough to know what kind of house it was. It was not the kind of house that was seen, so it was not the kind of house where one knocked.

Instead, Mr. Adder stepped up to the door and let himself in.

He watched with a small sense of wonder as the invisible threads of wards, illusions, and vengeful hexes snagged and snapped when pushed in the right direction with the right amount of force. The glorious old door, with its chipped paint and warped shape and the way it stuck to the top left corner, swung open to admit a stranger for the first time since Mallory St. Martin and Patrick Richie had been strangers, too.

"Ah, but I am an old friend," he breathed into the air of the drafty old house, and let out a long, satisfied sigh. The door slammed shut after him, and he made himself comfortable, searching only a moment for a coat rack in the foyer before hanging his jacket, his scarf, and his silk-ribboned fedora on the banister.

Then he turned his head, attuning his very perceptive old ears to listen to all the little sounds that echoed through the old house. "Who is home, I wonder...?" he murmured, taking three slow, steady steps up to the foot of the stairs. His eyes widened with increasing delight, his smile growing by degrees, as he soaked in everything there was to absorb about this place: this, the center of power for the promising young witch he had chosen to invest in, a harvest nineteen years in the making.

He turned away from the stairwell to examine the library. He stood in the threshhold and shut his eyes and breathed in deep, taking in the smell of so many centuries of accumulated knowledge in one humble place. Then he opened his eyes and found them alighting on the map on the wall. "Now, whose talented hands created that, I wonder...? Who... who is responsible...?" He stalked towards the mural like a wolf after a mewling lamb, studying Spencer's handiwork with predatory interest.

Footsteps in the stairwell. We have a guest. He turned his head to listen to Patrick Richie descend, watching him through the walls, and smiled when the boy -- no, the man, though only just -- called out to the library in an uncertain voice.

"Mal? Spence? You home already?"

There was a staggered step, and the young man's heartrate sped up audibly, as he caught sight of the strange clothing hung up on the banister, lingering halfway down the stairs. Mr. Adder glided into the doorway to greet him with a magnanimous smile before he could get too far, watching with amused interest as he took a step back; his eyes were wide, then narrow, and his hands curling into fists.

"Who are you? What the fuck are you doing here?"

A chuckle escaped Mr. Adder as he stretched out a hand in open invitation. "I am here to call on your roommate, Ms. St. Martin, but that does not mean we cannot be social. Come, Mr. Richie -- let us dance."

Patrick Richie had lost his family to one of the horrors in RhyDin, and had glimpsed a few more in the years since, enough to guess that Samuel Adder was one of them. He turned to race up the stairs and the nearest available window, and stopped with a strained breath as his muscles seized up, tightening and moving against their will as Mr. Adder beckoned with a long, pale finger.

One stiff, trembling step followed another backwards, dragged closer and closer against his will, until he stood at the bottom of the steps, and the stranger's breath curled around his ear.

"There is no use in running, Patrick Richie. There is never any use in running from me."

* * * * *

There were three occasions Mallory could remember where she had come home to find Wayside Manor's front door unwarded.

Every time, she had ascribed it to her own human error born from inexperience, misjudging its duration, or fluctuations in the Nexus. There were never any signs of tampering, and she'd been satisfied with her conclusions, if more than a little frustrated that she could not always guarantee the house's protection.

There were no signs of tampering, either, but there were a few people she recognized from the neighborhood slowing down to turn and frown at a house they'd never remembered seeing before. The illusions had never broken before. She bit back a curse, pretended to check her phone, and waited for a moment when no one seemed to be paying the Manor any mind. Then she crossed the street and hopped up the steps to the door, glancing at her faint arcane scratchings on the doorframe as she picked through her keys.

The door opened with a quarter turn, evidently already unlocked, and Mallory's eyes immediately fell upon an unfamiliar coat and hat strewn across the floor near the foot of the stairs. A fine fedora hat was crumpled in the corner.

She barely had a chance to turn back towards the door when a wind picked up from deep within the house, howling past her and slamming it shut. All the little hairs on her arms and neck were standing on end, her heart was racing, but her face was set in a rictus snarl as she took in her surroundings. That was magic. In my fucking house.

Something creaked in the library, like wood under pressure, and Mallory set her bag down in the hallway with a muffled thump and padded her way over, her fingers tensing around the little silver ring on her necklace. The razor-sharp thorns bit into flesh, blood filled the grooves in her palm, and her body hummed with a freshly tapped reserve of arcane power.

She whirled around the corner, coming face to face with her brother.

He dangled two feet off the ground in the library, head hanging forward, arms outstretched like a grotesque mockery of the crucifixion. His features were twisted in more terror and misery than physical pain, but whatever had its hold on him made it so difficult to raise his head to look at her, like every point in his body was chained to the Abyss.

His eyes met hers, then ticked to one side, at a figure she could barely see in her periphery.

"Ms. -- " the stranger began. She didn't let him finish.

"Break," she uttered, and something dark and terrible crackled its way across the library to the well-dressed man standing in the corner, hands outstretched to dangle Trick from invisible threads. Her rending spell wrapped around his frame, but barely bit into his flesh before it burst into little bits of shadow around him. Blood stained his collar and trickled down his arm, but he seemed unfazed, and Trick remained aloft.

"Hounds," she hissed, placing herself between this man and her brother, and the blood dripping to the floor curled into crimson spectres with snapping jaws. "Kill."

One of them snapped at his heels and was swiftly kicked away; the other withered into nothingness as soon as he laid eyes on it; but the third leapt up onto his chest and sank its fangs into his shoulder, eliciting a grunt of pain as blood flowed across his chest.

But Trick remained aloft. Worse, whatever force was acting upon him was tightening, and he began to cry out in pain.

"I'll make you pay for that, shithead!" Mallory snarled as she bounded forward, the blood in her hand coalescing into a curving iron spike. She reached overhand, past her one remaining hound still snapping and tearing at his flesh, and drove the weapon down towards his throat -- stopped short by a pale, long-fingered hand tightening painfully around her arm.

He flourished with his free hand, and Trick fell to the floor, bound there by some remnant of the spell still at work. His brilliant green eyes narrowed on hers, and with the dark words he whispered, she choked and gasped as her breath began to escape from her...

...but she bit her lip and spat at him, blinding him, sending him reeling away from her with a string of infernal swearing. But her grim smile of satisfaction lasted no more than a single breath.

He flourished again, still blinded, and she slammed backwards into the doorframe, the rest of her breath knocked out of her as she slid down to the floor. Her vision darkened, then cleared as she struggled to regain her focus... and saw knives filling the room that hadn't been there before, dozens of them, each glowing crimson, radiating an intense heat she could feel as one of them passed close to her face.

And the man she slowly began to recognize as Samuel Adder seemed to control them so effortlessly, paying them little mind as he dabbed at the blood on him with a silk handkerchief. "Have I demonstrated my power sufficiently?" he asked. The room was getting hotter, crimson light spilling out of every corner, emanating from tiny cracks in reality that manifested in the air around them, and she saw tiny, batlike claws struggling to grasp their way through them. "Or should I eviscerate your roommate, and let the imps of Hell feast on his entrails? Or break your half-blood lover's immortality for good, and steal her very last breath? Or poison the minds of the masses against your precious apothecary, and make you watch as the masses tear that pathetic dog apart in the street, limb... from... limb?"

Mallory glared across the room at Samuel Adder, her hand still tensed around her ring, blood dripping from her fingers with a rapid, rhythmic drip. "What the fuck do you want with my friends, you puffed-up windbag?"

"Fortunately for you, it is nothing at all to do with your friends, Ms. St. Martin." He chuckled quietly as he stepped across the room, the knives floating out of his way as he walked, and stooped down next to her. "As long as they aren't what stands between you and me... but that's what you said, isn't it? Even if you didn't say it out loud. You have a girlfriend. You have your roommates. You have all these powerful people you've lined up in your life, people whose strength you think you can rely on... but they are far more fragile than you know."

Understanding began to dawn on Mallory, only to be followed by even more confusion and rage. "What the -- is this about your fucking campaign?!" she asked incredulously, sliding back from him into the doorframe, straightening up as much as she dared. Her eyes darted to one side: Trick was still bound, the burning daggers still in place, claws still scrabbling desperately through the glowing tears in reality. "About that stupid interview? What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Oh, child; there is far more that is wrong with you," he replied with a sad sigh, trailing a finger on the hilt of a dagger, setting it into a perilous spin a few inches shy of Trick's bound form. He didn't appear to be conscious, but at least he was still alive, breaths rising only to struggle against his invisible restraints. "You don't even care anymore that you don't know your true name, when you know that St. Martin is just some horrible orphanage, and Mallory is the clothier whose cloak I bundled you in when I took you from your home! You claim to have a family here, among these urchins, these nothings, when I took you from the best wizarding stock in a city older than the written word!"

Mallory's heart was racing again; shock and terror had replaced her anger, as horrible revelations spilled from the lips of this fiend.

"Your name is Nadya Volokhov. You were born in Vyrna, the City of Warlocks, to Evgeny and Mariya Volokhov. And I laid my claim on you when they sacrificed your name and all memory of you to me. Every ounce of power you think you have earned, that talent which you think manifested from the air itself, everything you have mastered has been done with my power and my blessing, and now you will come work for me because you belong to me!"

With a sound like a thunderclap, every dagger in the room shattered, and the air began to fill with trails of black ash, slowly winding their way around his form, wreathing him with a dark mantle. His eyes flared with vibrant green fire around the long pupils of a goat, and his smile stretched into a proud display of too-sharp teeth. Curly black horns erupted from his temples; a long, scaly tail lashed the floor behind him with a whip-crack. He stood up slowly to his full height, backing away from her on cloven feet, stretching his arms between her... and Trick.

"You still have a choice! You can remove everything that stands between us! I will give you the gift of binding and hiding Trick's memories of these terrible moments, and you tell him that you have gone to live in Star's End for a while, to work for me. You take your abomination of a girlfriend, and you break her heart so thoroughly, so completely, that she never stands beside you again. You tell the menagerie at Panacea that you quit, today, for the opportunity of a lifetime. You leave that life behind, and you come work for me; and I will tell you everything you need to know about who you are, and what you have been destined for all this time...

"Or, if you decline? I can remove them for you. Still..." A sheet of paper, an offer of employment written on campaign letterhead, appeared in front of her, and a simple ballpoint pen hung in the air beside it. His smile, and the spread of his arms, turned magnanimous. "The choice is yours."

Mallory took in a deep breath. Her eyes ached from the hot tears that had flowed, unbidden, since the moment he had spoken her true name. She looked at Trick, beginning to stir, groaning and struggling under his invisible restraints. Then she looked at the contract. A simple employment contract, for an unspecified term, including pay and benefits...

...that would leave her fully within her tormentor's vicelike grasp.

"Nadya Volokhov, on the dotted line, if you please."

She reached for the pen.

[Mallory]

Heartbreak: for love lost. No magic is needed, no curse or cantrip or hex is ever warranted, in the simple breaking of a mortal heart.

17 September, 2017 C.E. - The Feast of Saint Robert Bellarmine

* * * * *

Text to Eri: hey. where are you right now?

Text to Mallory: hey i'm at the store. what's up?

Text to Eri: can you take off? I'll meet you outside in a bit. it's important.

Text to Mallory: sure i will meet you outside

* * * * *

Within minutes, Mallory was waiting outside, about a block down from the store. Her back was to a wall, her head was bowed, and her fingers were tensed around the backpack dangling in front of her.

She looked pale -- paler than normal -- and dark circles hung under her eyes, barely disguised at all by her heavy eyeshadow.

Eri emerged from the back of the store and rounded the corner at her usual leisurely shamble. She seemed curious but not apprehensive, at least until she saw Mallory's posture and pale appearance. This brought a frown, and she hurried over. "What's wrong?" she asked without preamble.

Mallory began to look up at Eri, but couldn't bring herself to look at her face. Even though this could be your last time, you fucking idiot. You fucking bitch.

"This," she hiccoughed, and dug into her backpack until her fingers closed around a letter. It was handwritten on parchment paper, and bound with twine. "I, um... I need you to read this," she began, her voice shaky. "I'm... I'm so fucking sorry, Eri... but I need you to read this. Okay?" she said, and forced herself to look into her eyes, holding the letter close to her chest until she received an answer.

Worry and confusion mingled as she watched Mallory avoid her gaze. Seeing the letter produced, the worry remained evident in her eyes and expression, but her confusion was slowly replaced with a sort of dread when she reached to accept the letter. "Okay, but... why the letter? Did you get bad news? Is someone sick?"

Mallory shook her head slowly. Her shoulders rose with a suppressed sob... and she thrust the letter into Eri's hand. She pressed a kiss to her cheek and whispered: "Goodbye, Eri."

And she turned away and took off, dragging an arm roughly across her eyes, burning anger at herself, and at him, rising through the waves of sorrow that threatened to drag her down. You stupid coward.

Eri looked astonished at Mallory's goodbye, and took a few steps to follow and protest, but she didn't stop. Still, knowing that whatever the letter contained was not going to be good news, her need to know overcame the urge to pursue the witch and argue. With slumped shoulders, she untied the twine, keeping it without even thinking about what she was doing. The letter unrolled, and she began to read. Eyes widened as she did, and she was obliged to stop and swipe tears from her eyes before she could continue.

Eri,

I have something important to tell you.

I saw you in so much pain that night, and I can't stand the thought of causing you any more; nor can I stand the thought of never getting to tell you. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before, and I'm sorry for how much heartbreak I'm about to cause you.

I've been having an affair. It was a stupid, selfish, impulsive thing that I started, and I stupidly, selfishly indulged it for months.

It's no one you know, and it's nothing you did. Her name is Cassandra, and I met her in Stars End on one of Trick's race days. There was a skating rink, the Hakodate Snow Palace, that stays cold all summer long, and that's where I met her. I'd like to blame it on the enchantment of that place, but I know better. My own weakness is at fault.

This is my fault.

You've given so much love to me, freely, without reservation or suspicion, and the longer the affair went, the more it ached to know what I was doing to you. You deserve so much better than that, and you deserve so much better than me.

I'm leaving the area for a while, taking time off to think about what I've done to you. I don't know when I'll be back, but you shouldn't wait for me to return. You deserve to be so much happier than that, and I'm so, so sorry for breaking your heart.

Mallory

[Mallory]

The Rite of First Equinox: for reshaping flesh into what it always was. To attain power in the manner of the old gods, you first need a piece of them; then a mediator and two participants, though only one need be willing.

28 January, 2018 C.E. - The Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas

* * * * *

It had been three hours since the call was placed, and Mallory was waiting in the great room, sitting indian-style on the L-shaped couch with her back to the corner, leaning over to read the contents of the dusty old grimoire known as the Primordial Vitaeum. There was something on the TV, but the witch may as well have been a million miles away from it, fingers barely daring to touch the ancient pages and the magic circles depicted within. She gasped softly and held her breath when, once more, the voice within the book reached out to her and told her:

Speak the words. Cast the spell.

"Hey." Mallory looked down at the back of Eri's head, shutting the grimoire for the time being, and shutting its temptations out of her head. "Think he'll be here soon?"

Eri looked back from the screen of the TV, smiling when she heard Mallory speak to her. She glanced at the mantle clock and nodded. "He said a few hours. Should be here any time now."

"Alright." A smile flickered across Mallory's lips at the sight of Eri's own, and she shifted the old book aside to thumb through her notes. "Just... want to be ready... don't want him to think I don't know my -- "

At that time there was a knock on the door from the mud room level. A quick sequence of five raps at the portal. Eri looked up to the hallway and stood up. "That's probably the girls bringing him up now," she said with a smile. "Anyway, I don't think he'll think that... You know more about that stuff than anybody I ever met." The delinquent strode out of the room and towards the basement door; Mallory scooped up her books, took a deep breath, and fell in right behind her.

Eri opened the door and blinked at the sight of Roka standing in the threshold, dressed in a glaring houndstooth sport coat, plaid polyester trousers, and a bright purple sequined shirt. The security yanki from downstairs was slung over one shoulder, apparently stunned.

"Good evening," he said, bright eyes taking in the sight of Eri and the witch beyond with interest. "Your door guard is stunned. She wanted my identification, but I had left my portmanteau at the hotel after brunch. She became dangerously excited."

Mallory had grabbed at Eri's arm and raised a hand to point at Roka, but was stopped by the man's shocking nonchalance and her girlfriend's apparent lack of concern. She had lived in RhyDin long enough to recognize there were a certain number of people who embodied the surreal spirit of RhyDin, and Eri's father seemed to be one of them. "Hi," she said, hastily lowering her hand and greeting Roka with an uncertain smile. "Why don't you... set her down by the door, and I'll rouse her?"

Eri seemed mildly surprised that their guard had gone so quietly, her dark eyes blinking a few times. She looked up at Mallory with her smile renewed. "Could you, Mal? Thank you. I'll serve some drinks in the meantime." She nodded to Roka, who set the guard down in the corner by the door and followed Eri into the great room.

Mallory was relieved to have that much more time to compose herself, and to leave the task of settling Roka in to his daughter. She clutched the grimoire that much tighter to her side as she slipped through the narrow space past the elder oni, kneeling beside the stunned yanki to examine her.

It was a simple spell, a temporary stun that was easy to rouse the girl from, shining a golden light in the palm of her hand into the guard's darkened eyes until they fluttered back to life. It took a minute to quietly convince her that everything was okay, and that the man she had seen was the visitor they'd been expecting, to the point that the witch was pretty sure she'd stay at her post for the rest of her shift. The guard gave Mallory a final wary look as she trudged down the stairs into the mud room; the witch shrugged helplessly at her, shut the door, took a deep breath, and strode into the great room.

"She's alright, if unhappy," she announced as she entered. Her eyes alighted on Roka first, her bright green gaze curious and rather openly sizing the man up.

Roka had been seated but rose to give a formal bow to Mallory when she returned. Apart from the odd wardrobe, the man seemed only remarkable for looking so bland and ordinary. "Of course, it's a fairly safe spell. They are zealous guards. She was going after my floating rib, I think..." he murmured thoughtfully.

"It's been an interesting year for most of them," the witch explained, stepping forward to offer Roka his hand. The bow had already been acknowledged, but it was time for names now. "Mallory St. Martin." Her fingers were long, slender, and clad in several glass and silver rings; her thorny ring dangled from her necklace, resting just above the top of her Abraxas tattoo.

The offered hand was taken and given a firm shake, Roka's hands both free of any rings. Only a silver medal with some crudely carved oak leaf cluster design was worn on a cord around his neck. "Roka Nishina," he replied. His accent was difficult to place within the scope of those heard around the city or on Eri's home world. "It is a happy occasion to finally meet you."

Mallory"s gaze dipped to the medallion long enough (drawn by the magic that emenated from it) that she showed signs of recognition in her face, though she did not voice it. "I've been looking forward to it. It's good to meet more of Eri's family..." She turned to flash a fond smile aside at the delinquent, and looked back at Roka. "...and I appreciate you coming out here to offer your insights," her fingers flared over the grimoire she clutched under her arm.

Eri smiled her beaming expression back at the witch, seeming at ease with the meeting and without any apprehension of her own. Roka nodded. "I have bumped into Saori a few times recently. Eri here is more elusive. Better guarded, too." Serene eyes fixated on the cover of the grimoire in the witch's hands now. "Of course," he agreed.

"I, um... I do have a question for you, actually, before we start," she said, tapping her thumb against the book's cover as she fixed him with a curious look. "How's your Gaelic?"

* * * * *

Two hours and a six-pack later, the elder oni and the witch were still at it, and deep enough into it that Eri had fled for somewhere with less chalk lines and theorycrafting. The small room where Mallory taught Haley, Aiko and Kana was too small for the ritual circle described in the Primordial Vitaeum, so the rug was rolled up and stashed in the corner next to the TV, while the coffee table had been carted out into the hall. Books on Gaelic lore, two of her composition journals, and several grimoires covered the couch, already littered with a dozen sketches detailing ritual circles and the positioning of the participants.

Mallory knelt between two deliberately broken sections of the circle (even with mundane chalk in place of blood, precautions were still necessary), holding her hands out to either side as she finished murmuring an approximation of the syllables involved. She breathed a slow sigh and lowered her gaze thoughtfully to the center of the circle... then over her shoulder, to Roka. "And I'll know it's working when I feel the third and thirteenth lines touch?"

The elder oni was perched on one end of the couch like a great drunken bird, eagerly watching the practice run of rare magic. Often laconic, he still seemed as serene as ever, but the old magic brought from theory to practice was exciting enough to bring a sharp gleam to his eyes. "It is so," he confirmed. "There's no doubt in the translation, and once referenced to what Harris and Brown wrote in the lore it is positively certain."

"Hmm." The witch stood to better survey their work, and her bright green eyes widened and flared as she beheld it. "Then, blood of the participants," dragging the toe of her striped sock along one of the innermost circles, "blood of the mediator," tapping another, "and the participants, again," nodding to the mixing bowl in the dead center, an ordinary stand-in for the relic of the old gods she could only hope would soon return from the Far Lands. "On the outside, it'll take me over an hour, and that's if I don't fuck it up... but less, maybe, if I have help. Help that I can count on."

She blew out an irritated sigh and stalked over to the couch, leaning on the other armrest. "I wish I'd had the sense to bind a reliable familiar years ago -- an imp, a pixie, something to make this **** easier. But somehow I could never get to binding summons from binding wards, or even from conjuring from my own blood." She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "It's old magic, and I'm only mortal," she told herself, "so of course it'd be this hard."

Roka seemed to think about this for a time. "Up to this point, it may have been an asset to you. You have done an equal amount of work to what I had in my first one hundred years. The mounting pressure of limited resources of time makes a sense of urgency. Yet... at the level you have reached as a ritual leader, now you will have to take more of a role to keep the ship on even keel, as it were."

As he thought on it, he relaxed from his crouched pose on the cushion and sat on the sofa normally. "If Eri or Saori had even started to learn about ritual magic, they could help. It's a shame their talents run to other things."

Mallory turned her head to study his face in profile, remaining in her lean and keeping two book-laden sofa cushions between them. He was so ancient, so powerful, but his capabilities on their own frightened her less than her fascination with them. She wanted to ask him how, to sit at his knee and listen to his words and hear them until her soul, too, blazed across the deep aeons of history like a terrible comet...

So she was secretly grateful when he turned the conversation to his daughters, a subject that was far less ominous to her, though it had a not inconsiderable weight in her mind.

"Are they... immortal, like you? Will they get to watch the stars go out?"

"Oh yes," Roka confirmed. "I had decided not to tell them while they were still growing up. Barring a disaster or foul play, they will have to search out new worlds like I did. It's a strange thing, to have to prepare new homes as a contingency against the end of your native one, don't you think?"

The witch lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with one of burning curiosity. "How old are you, Roka?"

He didn't seem surprised by the question, or hesitate answering. "I'm not certain. The earliest memories I can put a definite date to are 1467 by our home world's calendar. Before that, it was just the mountains and the forest. There was no meaning to date or time."

"Five hundred and fifty years," she breathed, and spent a long moment silently considering living twenty-seven and a half of her lifetimes. "How do you keep going that long?"

He gestured to the books and ritual circle before them. "It's easy. There's still an infinite amount to see and learn. If this is just one crossroads of the planes of existence, how many other crossroads?" He considered this for a moment, before adding: "Drugs make it all more fun, too."

"Tch." The chiding sound was followed by a soft, amused chuckle, and she shook her head and let her gaze drift to the window. "RhyDin's been my home for... most of my life, and it's all I remember seeing. I'll go out there someday. Soon, I think. Eri wants to show me Prague," she added, raising her eyebrows as she ducked a glance over at him, "thinks I'll love it. She's usually right about those things."

Her smile took a fond turn as she contemplated the delinquent, and how they thought of each other... Then she pushed off from the couch, turning to collect her notes and begin the process of cleaning up. "You can stay for dinner, if you want. Eri's okay with it. Then we can smoke a bowl after we're done -- it's from my work, and they have really good stuff."

His eyes looked sleepy, but there was a gleam as he watched the fond expression. He nodded slowly. "You'll like Prague, I think. Great sense of age there..." Then, impulsively, he added with a blink: "They have a library you would really like. It's not generally available to the public. I'll write you a letter of introduction."

There was no hesitation in accepting the offer to stay a while longer. "Dinner would be wonderful, thank you."

Mallory was still gobsmacked by Roka's offer by the time he accepted hers. The type of private old library in Prague that would impress a well-traveled, centuries-old demon... she couldn't begin to imagine the kind of forbidden knowledge it held. "Right, right," she nodded as she scooped up her books, "let's go get Eri and, um... yeah. Do that."

She led the way out of the great room with her notes, leaving it in disarray for now, still inscribed with most of a ritual circle that could reshape the heart of a god.

((Written with Eri and Roka, with thanks!))