The Lyceum

[Mallory]

Mallory had seen plenty of evidence of Aiko and Kana's potential as Enochian mages, and just as much potential to hurt themselves or, worse, give up on magic entirely. What had started as an ill-fated test at the Red Dragon Inn a few days prior was now a full-blown intervention. "They need to talk to someone who's fucked up in all the ways I already have -- so they don't have to," she'd explained to Eri, right before asking the sukeban to invite the twins to the house to talk.

By the time they reached the front of the old stone house west of Kabuki Street, there was a trio of delinquents waiting outside the mudroom door, smoking and gossiping loudly until they heard the twins approach. One girl pushed off from the door, greeting the pair of them with a lifted chin and a half-sneer. "Door's unlocked. Boss says to head upstairs and see the witch."

The words turned her expression into a nasty smile. Sending two girls into the boss' house to talk to a witch surely meant that a terrible fate awaited these two.

Aiko and Kana exchanged a look upon hearing the guard's statement and observing her grin. Both of the sisters already looked nervous, and that phrase and expression made them look horrified. Still, Aiko led the way through the mudroom and up the stairs into the house, and Kana followed silently. When she reached the top of the stairs, Aiko looked into the hallway and called uncertainly: "Hello? We're coming in, excuse us..."

"Aiko. Kana," came a voice from the small room down the hall and around the corner, a faint, sickly green light spilling out from the doorway to show them the way.

The witch sat alone in the small room, barefoot and dressed only in shorts and a camisole, despite how cold this part of the house could get without a fire nearby. The source of the light seemed to come from nowhere at all, except for a subtle gleam on the plain white walls not at all unlike the kind they'd glimpsed at the bar a few days prior.

She had no books, nor arcane implements of any kind. Instead there was a pot of steaming water resting on a potholder on the floor in front of her. The witch's eyes were shut, but they slid open once she heard the twins in the doorway, and she gave them the full weight of her attention as she welcomed them with a small, mysterious smile.

The pair crowded into the doorway to observe the green light. Aiko's attire had undergone a worrying change -- while Kana wore an ornate pink and white dress as typical, Aiko had elected the standard Kabuki Street delinquent's uniform. Their eyes turned from the walls to Mallory in unison, as curiosity seemed to have replaced their unease.

"I don't know this cantrip..." Kana said uncertainly, her attention turning back to the gleam of light. Aiko was studying the pot of water with interest now and remained quiet, only giving a small bow as she stood back from the doorway a pace.

Mallory's expression remained steady, lifting her chin to study the pair with equal interest, even though it was only Kana who spoke. "Then what can you tell me about it?"

Kana peered a little closer at the walls, but was not willing to cross the threshold yet. As she started to speak, Aiko shot her a warning look and spoke up instead. "We just came to apologize for the trouble in the bar. We're not going to attempt to practice or study magic anymore. I... we have decided that it's time to be realistic about our lack of ability, and -- "

Down the hall from the twins, a door slammed shut, punctuating Aiko's words as both of them jumped. Kana's head turned in the direction of the sound, then back to see that Mallory's smile had vanished, replaced by something much sterner. "You called this magic a cantrip. Why," she hissed.

Aiko took an involuntary step back when confronted with the witch's stern expression, but Kana took advantage of her sister's silence to answer. "Because I can sense the power of the spell. It's relatively simple. It has no layers, but only..." she trailed off, unsure how to explain.

"Hm," a short huff of a reply from the witch, and she turned to stare at Aiko, green eyes narrowing on the poor girl as the eerie light in the room faded and stretched into growing, deepening shadows, revealing the shape of her magic as it contorted itself to this simple new task. "How would you describe this simple, unlayered spell?"

Aiko held her ground, though with some effort of will as the shadows stretched out. It was Kana"s turn to fall silent, turning red in the face as she sensed she'd given an incorrect answer. Aiko finally shrugged. "It's not a spell I understand. Its nature is foreign to me. To guess would be irresponsible," she replied in a quiet voice.

"Kana's instincts have the right of it... as does your caution, Aiko." Mallory's expression leveled off, and she hissed out two words in an unfamiliar tongue, though she enunciated slowly and clearly, the last syllable of each word nearly identical. "The lack of layers is only one part of what makes it a cantrip, because not all simple, unlayered spells are cantrips. How you can tell are the two threads," flashing two fingers at them, "one for channeling the light... and one for tuning it. One rigid... one pliant. Watch," she said.

The witch spoke again, slow and clear, drawing two fingers through the air, and her thumb another way; the door they'd heard earlier clicked and creaked open. Then she looked between the twins slowly. "You lack discipline, not ability... and that's a lucky thing for the two of you. I excel at discipline, and I will teach it to you, if you are willing... and you will learn the shape of magic, and know the dangers you face and the danger that flows from your fingers better than any language you've mastered, and refine that raw power the two of you wield into control. You can make an entire regiment of swords swing, stroke for stroke, at your direction to cut down your enemies; you can give the shape of magic to ordinary things, making artifacts of wonder out of whatever passes through your hands; and you can bend the laws that bound the material plane, and build a lasting gateway into another world...

"...or, you can walk out of here, right now, and I'll never bother you again," she added, gesturing in the direction of the opening door down the hall. "No more magic. No more mysteries. You're free to go, if it pleases you."

Kana opened her mouth at once to speak, but closed it again and looked to Aiko. Aiko's eyes had watched the movements the witch made and listened to her words closely, her fascination unmistakable. She was silent for a moment, looking longingly in the direction of the sound of the opening door. But she turned back and expressed her only remaining doubt. "What about the cost?" She was still a street girl, even if magically talented.

Mallory's expression twitched towards a smile. "I know a few things about the price of magic..." But these girls were lucky. They'd been gifted with the ability to simply see the rules of the reality around them, and use the right instructions to break them; whatever price they paid for their gifts was subtle. But she suspected they meant the price of benefiting from her magic. "The two of you know Hebrew. You're going to teach me, so I can help you master your magic in the way that suits you best. In the meantime, we'll be using Koine."

She gestured to the floor around her. "Have a seat."

The twins stepped forward into the small room in unison, a hint of the strange connection they shared visibly at work, as there was no look passed between them or any words exchanged. Both settled on the floor around Mallory, their dark eyes looking at the witch intently.

"This," the witch said, dragging her thumb and forefinger through the air in a slow, tense line, "is a thread of cold." Her eyes finally fell to the steaming pot of water on the floor between them, its heat intense and lingering after a long while sitting on the stove. "You're going to use it to freeze the water's edge without freezing the center... and hold it there for one hour. I know this floor's uncomfortable, so I'll do you a favor," she added, looking between them with a cheerful smile.

"Do this for me twice, and we can have floor cushions."

((Adapted from play with Aiko and Kana! Thanks! Originally posted November 14th, 2017.))

[Mallory]

"Breathe..."

Haley held her breath. Mallory's gaze ticked aside to her.

"Just -- breathe..."

She let it out in a long sigh, and her cheeks dimpled in an overjoyed smile.

"Now, reach out. What do you see?"

Music swelled and light from the little tablet flashed across the girl's face as she immersed herself in the trailer. It sounded exciting from what little Mallory understood of it, but Haley's mood and signs of it in her expression had the lion's share of her attention.

There were no other distractions in the room they shared: the small, featureless, windowless chamber on the second floor of Mal and Eri's house, with only a pair of yoga mats unrolled for the two of them to kneel on. They both remained in position, though Haley was now bouncing in place as she watched the tablet Trick had given the witch before his first trip offworld.

"When's the movie coming here?!"

Mallory's eyes flared and she let out a long thoughtful hum, and leaned forward with a sage look; Haley giggled. "The spirits have whispered their secrets from beyond the grave and told me... soon." She dropped the expression to flash a grin at the girl. "Maybe not in a couple weeks, but I bet it'll be in Stars End in a month or two."

"Think Trick'll take us?" Haley seemed unaware that the question would require any thought, entertaining herself by turning the tablet at different angles, watching the screen resize as it tried to keep up with her movements.

"Knowing him? Probably." Even if the movie didn't make its way offworld before enlistment, it wasn't hard to imagine him dragging them to some spacer movie theater with holographic ads and voice-controlled soda fountains. But those thoughts, like the trailer, were distractions she'd allowed herself during their break, and it was time to resume their lesson. She straightened her posture, and saw Haley moving to do the same out of the corner of the eye, but corrected her gently: "Can you put the tablet next to our shoes?"

She rose fluidly, leaned out into the narrow hallway, and tucked the device in next to their tennis shoes. Then she took one step back and gave Mallory an expectant look. Her hands were behind her back, but the witch could tell that she was fidgeting.

"How did the trailer make you feel?"

"Happy, like... giddy happy," Haley replied, bouncing on her heels.

"And how does that feel?"

Haley was silent for a moment, but there was no pressure from the witch. No need to introduce another emotion by pushing her too hard, not while she was getting her to focus. "...Like my cheeks are tingling... and my face is warm... and it feels, like... light, in my chest."

"Together, we're going to fill up the room with that happiness. I want you to close your eyes and breathe -- in, two, three... out, two, three... in, two, three... out, two, three... Do you still feel that tingling? that warmth? that lightness?"

"Uh-huh."

"Let it flow deep inside of you when you breathe in... wash over you when you breathe out... in, two, three; out, two, three." Mallory's eyes were shut, too, but she could hear the rhythm of Haley's breathing in the small room; there was also the low noise of air flowing through the house, heaters at work, the refrigerator in the kitchen just down the hall humming away. "Now cup your hands in front of you, like you're taking water from a sink... and I want you to fill it up with all of those feelings, that tingling and warmth and lightness... and splash it over your face."

Mallory could hear movement, assuming that Haley was following her instructions to the letter.

"Splash your face again."

This time, Mallory didn't need to hear her; she could feel Haley's happiness radiating throughout the room, warming her face, making her chest feel lighter. She was smiling, and she knew she'd have to fight it if she wanted to stop.

"Now... I want you to splash your face again... and shut the door."

There was no anger in the telekinetic force that took hold of the door, no terrible swelling of mass from nowhere, as happened most of the time Haley moved anything larger than a pencil. Instead it was like a warm breeze took enough shape to rise up, shift out of the room, and press the door shut with its soft, formless hands. It sealed the pair of them within the room suffused with Haley's emotion, freeing them from the world outside to meditate in peace.

* * * * *

"It's working. She's doing better."

"She still needs a teacher."

"But you're -- "

"I'm just giving her the tools to teach herself. Someday, she's gonna outgrow them."

"How long?"

"Fuck, Rob, I don't fucking know." Mallory folded her arms and stepped away from the living room window; she could hear Haley chatting with the delinquents guarding the mudroom door, poking at a game on one of their phones. "She picks up on things so fast... I just wanted to give her a focus to practice telekinesis, but between last week's session and today's?"

"She's an empath?" Rob guessed, rubbing slowly at the back of his neck. He'd done as much homework as he could about his little sister's powers. "You know if she can do anything else?"

"No, but I'd be pretty fucking stupid if I thought it would stop there." She folded her arms, leaned against the wall, and shut her eyes. "Sorry. I know I'm freaking you out. But if she can control emotions...? I can only teach her discpline. Someone needs to teach her restraint."

Rob reached into his jacket pockets, palmed a pack of cigarettes to get it out of the way, and held out a handful of gold and silver coins to Mallory, enough to feed two people for a week.

Mallory narrowed her eyes. Refusing money was never easy for her; Rob had to know that. "We already talked about paying for lessons. Keep hitting up R.C.C. and putting up my ads, and we're square."

"It's not for lessons, it's for finding Haley a teacher. What'd you call it... restraint?" He pressed the money into her hand, giving her more pause and buying him more time to talk. "I'm not like you and Hales. This city could eat me alive if it wanted to," he admitted with a laugh, ruffling his scraggly hair. "But you, like... you know shit. You walked into the riots and came out alive, and somehow you knew what the hell was going on, and... you keep coming back to Wayside, bruised and bloody and living. There's gotta be a decent psychic, or mystic, or monk who can help her out without inducting her into an order, just chilling in some lonely place they don't advertise... and I bet you can find them and dig them out."

Mallory's fingers curled around the coins, silently counting them as she looked at her old housemate with cold anger. That he was actually convincing her only made her madder.

"Please?"

The witch let out a long breath... reached up and tousled his long, curly hair into his face, leaving him sputtering. "You know I'm not gonna say no to that, you fucking jackass. I'll go on the hunt for someone who can help Haley better than I can... and you," jabbing a finger into his chest, "start sending me magic students instead of dumb frat boys and prep school brats... and find us somewhere we can practice."

((Originally posted November 27th, 2017.))

[Mallory]

A young woman with short dark hair was kneeling on a faded golden rug at the edge of the Goblin Market, close enough to the hustle and bustle to provide an abundance of distractions from what the adolescent orc kneeling in front of her was trying to focus on: her eyes, the cards in her hands, and the fact that, try as he might, his innate charms did not seem to work on her. In fact, they gave him no feeling at all.

"You know... you could always tip your hand," he said, sounding a little strained, and blinked in surprise at the lack of spark, as the red thread subtly interwoven with the rug suppressed his magic.

The woman merely smiled and laid the five cards down flat, and tapped her left ring finger against the stack of seven next to her knee. "I have removed seven for you. The rest is up to you. Choose," she insisted.

The orcling glanced between the small stack of silver that, by luck, he had been able to accumulate from her so far, and the large pot of silver she had sitting beside her. "Taurus..." She revealed a bull. "Virgo..." She revealed a robed woman. "Capricorn, Cancer, and Scorpio!" he said all at once.

She looked up at him. Her smile inched wider. "Did you really feel the earth was so strong?" as she turned over the remaining cards. He huffed a sigh and pushed the silver over. She dropped half in the pot, half in her own pocket, and shuffled, intricately inscribed copper bangles clinking together as her hands moved. She was dressed for the summer heat, made all the worse by the sun-heated streets and the hundreds of warm bodies that packed this area, baring many of the distinctive tattoos that lined her body.

Innately savage locales like the Row provided no shortage of enthralling people-watching for a woman like Cressida. She reveled in their oddities, in their wheeling and dealing, and amused herself to no end with the hustle of it all. By no means tall, she sat atop the lip of a shoulder height stone wall wrapping an aging two story building made of the same. The lower level was a bookstore, one of her favorites if such a thing could be believed, while the upper played host to the store's keeper. All of that was neither here nor there, considering her attention was not upon the store but rather the interchange of frustration and silver on a crimson threaded rug down the way.

"Poor bastard," she intoned to no one but herself, though a handful took notice of the vibrant blonde as she hopped down from the wall's edge. A fresh pair of high topped kicks scuffed on cobblestone as she shouldered her way through a pair of broad brigands who, despite their ire, failed to pick an otherwise losing fight with the little spitfire, who spared not a look over her shoulder at their grumblings. Ever the curious thing, a skip-hop step scooted her around a cabbage cart and to a stop shy of the gold rug. The cant of her head when paired with the curve of her smile bled delectation. "What's the name of the game here?"

"Zodiac," the kneeling woman said. She seemed to have no other belongings with her but the rug, the cards, the silver, and the various bangles and baubles that adorned her wrists and fingers and dangled by her throat. "Place a silver for each guess. Guess correctly, and you earn the right to as many silver out of my pot. If you can guess five in a row, you double your take." Then she spread her hands -- one welcomed her to sit on the other end of the rug, and the other fanned out the twelve cards, face up, each marked with a different sign of the zodiac, arranged in perfect order.

Her eyes were not on her own hands, though. They were on Cressida, locked intently on her gaze.

"My horoscope said something about this." Cressida's brows furrowed as if it had been a troublesome thing, black words on white paper over a latte in Seaside. On a dime, her expression changed though, her grin living once more as she sank down onto her knees on the rug's edge and shifted her weight to move her legs to one side. It was too hot for jeans so mid-length denim would have to do. She tugged at one pant leg to smooth it against her thigh while she made her perusal of the woman's setup.

"Something about a cute ne'er-do-well being my demise or something. Totally ominous." Her brows bounced playfully as she settled with a soft exhale. One hand wiggled into a back pocket to pluck out half a dozen silver coin, jingling them within her palm before setting them down in front of herself. The fire in her eyes was less flame, more tangerine dream, but just as alive as the young woman seemed to be herself. "But this could be fun! No laughing when you take me for all I've got though. Fair?"

The young woman laughed softly and ducked her head a bit, then canted it as she curled a smile at Cressida for her gentle flirtation. "On my heart," she promised, pressing the too-sharp point of her left ring fingernail to her chest, where the Abraxas tattoo peeked out of her low-cut tank top. All part of the hustle.

She held up the cards for her one more time, then turned them over and shuffled. She slid the cards out into her hand with deft movements, though not the first six, feinting a few and skipping over them, passing over others completely, until she had as many cards in her hand as Cressida had coins in front of her. The other half of the stack, she slapped down onto the rug, pinning them there. None of the cards' faces had been revealed in those motions -- not directly, at least. "Pick as many as you'd like," she said, leaning her cheek on one hand, letting a thorny silver ring gently scrape her jaw, and curled another smile at her customer. Her other hand held the six cards flat on the rug between them, spread out by her fingers.

"Alright, if you promise. I'm holding you to it." Cressida wagged a finger and then lowered her gaze to the shuffle of the cards. Six in one, half a dozen in the other, the odds for such a hustle were long for the regular passerby. Guessing games usually were. Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip as the dart of her eyes tried to follow each motion, all the while her fingers settled on the threaded rug, feeling out just what it was that had held the earlier orc youth at bay. Anti-magic properties, perhaps? It wasn't terribly uncommon, but a good bet for keeping people from cheating at such a game. "So just call out what's what like the other guy did? Hope for the best?"

The short-haired woman clucked her tongue. "Should have been watching my hands... but, take a guess. You can cash out whenever you want -- even after the first," reassuring her with a much gentler smile than the one she'd been teasing her with. A little too gentle, a little shot of condescension that seemed likely to work at goading some of her customers.

"I tried, but you're quick!" Ever amiable, she didn't seem too concerned just yet. Knowing that pushing magically at the threads would be a bad idea, she instead closed her eyes and ticked her finger back and forth in a silent game of eenie meanie miney mo. Her finger came to a stop near the third card from her own left.

"I think... I think that one's going to be... Pisces. Maybe?" Intentionally incorrect, it wouldn't do to immediately show her own hand. Besides, it was a single silver. If it turned it into a larger winning later, all the better.

The hustler turned over the Taurus and smiled. "My sign... so luck was with me this round. But it won't last," she half-sang, and shuffled again. "How many, love?" she sighed, not quite clear whether she was flirting or condescending, as she splayed the cards face-up... and looked up from them to Cressida's eyes.


"Tsk." Cressida tutted her tongue against the back of her teeth and shook her head. A good sell even on the worst of days, her machinations were subtle behind a veil of a troubled expression, worried about her meager loss more than anything. A few silver didn't go far in this city, but venture just a little further through the market and into the Row and people were murdered for less. The flicker in her gaze danced from the cards, up to the woman's face and back. "Let's give it another try. Maybe just one or two more though..."

"Watch my hands," the kneeling woman said gently, and she flipped the cards over, shuffled a few times, and selected six of the cards with no less flair than last time.

Cressida followed the motions with a gentle movement of her chin to go with the sway of her gaze, ticking left, right, and across the spread of newly selected six. In her head, the motions were spelled out five seconds before they happened, so this time around when she pointed to far right card, it was only after intuiting the cards makeup down to the ink on the other side, a ghost of an imprint in her mind. Short of sorcery interfering, it should have been right. "Leo. That's comin' up, isn't it? Next month? Yeah, we'll go with that one."

Both a lion and a very interested hustler stared back at Cressida when she turned over the card. "That's one. One more, and you're coming out ahead."

"Oh!" Feigned surprise was convincing enough, complete with a perk of her posture and a lift of her brows. "Broke even, may as well try again to see if my luck holds, right?"

That seemed to diminish the hustler's suspicion, at least a little bit. She smiled encouragingly, tapping her fingers sequentially over the five remaining cards.

"You know... I've got the money out... may as well give it a go. I'm out a coffee, worst case," Cressida said after a few moments contemplation. Her tongue poked from the corner of her mouth, focus funneling through the structure of the cards, pulling recall from their earlier motions and how it related to their original positioning. Starting from where she had left off on the far right, she went down the line with a steady, confident reading. "Aquarius... Libra... Aries... tch Scorpio... Sagittarius. All my exes' signs, you know?"

The young woman managed to bite back a laugh, but definitely grinned a bit, at the familiar noise she made over Scorpio, and turned them over. Every one of them had been exactly right. She set out six coins, as promised, but put them directly between them... and watched Cres' eyes as she said, "You can take that, or you can take the pot." She did not reveal the cards at all after she swept up her six guesses, shuffling them rapidly, obscuring them with her hands however she could, and then laying all twelve out between them, face-down.

The gauntlet had been thrown. "Your choice."

"Well hot damn, look at that." She seemed pleased to say the least. So the mat beneath them may have held magical prying at bay but her own tricks still worked without issue. It wasn't necessarily about the neat stack of six coins between them so much as it was about the challenge and watching the way hustlers reacted when they found themselves on the receiving end of their own game. "All twelve for the pot?" Brows lifted, intrigued. The girl had trouble resisting a challenge like that.

"There's no tricks, no bullshit, no Watch for me to cry 'cheater' to." They were very close to the Goblin Market, after all. "Just the cards... and the two of us." She reached out a hand and jangled the pot of silver coins. There must have been a few dozen in there.

"The Watch." Cressida snickered. For the first time since dropping by the woman's streetside stop, a glimmer of wicked mirth caught the wing of her smile and the crinkle at the corner of her eyes. The woman sitting across from her was likely a bigger threat than any bumbling member of the city's so call police force would ever be to Cres. "Let's give it a go then."

For the laid out cards, she moved her index finger to hover over them seemingly randomly. She did that twice, making the pass over the cards, her mouth moving subtly though no words came out. "Okay. So. Aries. That one's mine." She indicated the first card, one of the middlemost facedown cards.

"Then... Taurus and Gemini." Sitting side by side, likely coincidentally, she pointed them out with a splay of index and middle fingers before moving to the next. "Cancer on the edge here. Umm..."

A few moment's pause to go back over the order in her head. "Leo..." Point. "Virgo." Point. "Libra and Scorpio." Point, point, pause. "Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius." One, two, three points before coming to stop over the last card to be indicated. "And Pisces ought to round it out."

Wordlessly, the young woman turned the twelve cards over, exactly as she had indicated. Then she smiled a slowly curling smile as she pushed the whole pot over. It was decent money, even if she'd only been dumping half in there -- she'd had a very productive morning. Then she reached out her left ring finger and pulled at a loose strand of the red thread. It snapped, and magic returned all at once.

The bright, hot sun seemed darker and more distant, as if a veil separated them from the sky, and the few shadows around them grew and deepened. The crowd sounded more distant, too, like they were on the other side of a plaster wall. The witch kneeling in front of Cressida was still studying her with the same expression. "How well do you know your gifts?"

Though the pot had been pushed toward her, she made no move to take it, instead shifting her weight to kneel with her legs beneath her. When everything came flooding back only for their immediate surroundings to dim, her gaze went high toward the sky then down to the woman across from her. "You said no tricks. But, I know 'em well enough to say you'll make out like a bandit with this setup. Just don't go too far that'a way," she thumbed toward the throng that spilled between the Goblin Market and the deeper parts of Rookery Row; "lad named Atticus runs the streets and hates losing."

It was a friendly warning that came before a hand pushed against the ground as she got to her feet. The pot was left on the ground. It wasn't about the money but rather the exercise. "I had fun though, keep the jingles."

The witch didn't rise to stop her. Neither did the barrier, only insulating them from sound and attention. "There's a girl," she said. "She's nine years old. Her gifts are growing, and she doesn't know how to control them. I've been teaching her meditation and focusing exercises... but they'll only get her so far. She has telepathy, telekinesis, empathy, precognition... and a lot of headaches, and more than one public outburst."

She repeated the earlier gesture, opening a hand to welcome Cressida to sit on the rug again.

Before Cres could even dust herself off, the woman called her attention back with the hook. So it wasn't a trick but rather a legitimate, purposeful inquiry. A neatly groomed brow perked though she stayed on her feet for the handful of moments it took her to war over things with herself. Then with a sigh, she sank back down. "Mm, first thing you need to do is find a way to put a kibosh on the empathic thing... at least somewhat. That age is hard enough for a girl to deal with her own feelings let alone everyone else's."

Rubbing the heels of her palms together, she contemplated just how much to say before deciding to double back a bit. "Name's Cres. What's your name?"

"Mallory St. Martin. Mal," she added. "I've been looking for a teacher for a long time... but psychics -- the real kind -- don't like to advertise. I've had to be discreet, she's had problems with interested outsiders before... I guess a lot of gifted people do," she added.

"I'm opening a shop called the Lyceum, someplace warded and secure... and we'll have classes after hours. Including one for people like her."

"St. Martin," Cressida repeated with a thrum of acknowledgement. "You're smart to keep weirdos away from her. She's young... easily influenced, I'm sure. Know I was at that age."

Hemming and hawing a bit as she considered it all, after a minute or two, she shrugged. It wasn't like she had anything more important going on at the moment. And had it not been for her own teachers, she would have been a goner a long time ago. Pushing a hand back through her hair, she gave the newly ordained Mal a nod. "I could maybe talk with her, see if I can help at all. I'm not... really a teacher, but I'll give it a try."

Mallory had been carefully schooling her expressions during this whole exchange, controlling whatever she displayed, but it was hard not to show signs of relief at Cres' words. She nodded, and began collecting her cards and coins. "I'll give her a call... and show you the shop." There was a little curl of a pleased smile as she rose from the rug and added in a mysterious undertone,

"The closest door isn't far."

((Written with the player of Cressida, with thanks! Originally posted on June 15th, 2018.))

[Mallory]

Mallory did her best to keep the twins in the loop once this process started, but her interactions with them at the Lyceum were brief, passing each other while they went to work on enchantments and Mallory went to instruct students or vice versa. It wasn't until the evening of the 12th that she made her way down to the science lab in what would soon become the Kabuki Street Community School, clutching a bundle of heavy old spellbooks in her arms. The top one appeared to have a simple teleportation circle on the cover, with the sigil of the famous mage Klytus in the center.

The old laboratory was divided crudely between work and living space for the twins with blankets and a clothes line. Aiko and Kana were presently in the living space, Kana seated in a recliner with a book and Aiko sitting on one of the folding beds with a tablet in hand watching something. Both looked up and got up from their seats to greet the witch when she arrived. "Hey Mal," Aiko said as she gave the spellbooks a curious look.

"Hey." Mallory smiled at both of them, offering the first tome to Kana and the second to Aiko -- one Safiya had used in the construction of the Lyceum, Worlds within Worlds: Magical Planes of the Ancient Egyptians. "It's been long enough. Let's talk about your new digs."

Both of the eccentric twins seemed eager to have a look inside the tomes, but they held them in hand for the moment and looked back to Mallory when she spoke. "We've been looking around," Kana said with a nod. "There are a few acceptable places available."

"You can do that, if you like," Mallory shrugged, then opened her hands to the books, "...or you can make your own place. Safe from anyone. Accessible only by you. It can look however you like, provide whatever you like, and you can change it to fit your needs." She smiled as she leveled her gaze, looking between them. "These books can teach you how... and I can show you how I constructed my very own -- not the Lyceum, but the place you both sensed on Walpurgisnacht."

There was an instant clamor from the sisters as they looked at the books, realizing only when Mallory spoke of them what she had in mind. After a moment of silent consideration, Kana glanced at her sister, then nodded to Mal. "Yes, thank you! We will begin the research into it at once."

Mallory laughed softly and nodded, pleased with their enthusiasm. "Go ahead and set those aside for now. I have something else to show you."

There were no vines to break her flesh this time, merely a fingernail transforming into a claw and piercing her palm. She made several precise motions, dripping blood that formed into a glowing circle on the floor, curved lines tracing between each point where a drop had fallen.

Then she clapped her hands together flat, and pressed them apart, leaving her middle fingers perfectly straight while her thumbs and pinkies touched. A doorway opened, a crimson portal to what looked to be the grim fountain in Three Foxes Court... but different somehow.

As she stepped backwards into the portal, she bowed her head to them in welcome.

Each of the Fujiis looked at each other in perfect unison after the witch nodded, then in perfect unison followed through the crimson portal. They peered at the appearance of the grim fountain, simultaneously familiar and strange.

What were usually three fox statues in the fountain had been replaced by Mallory's shadowy hounds, and though they were completely still, their ruby-like eyes seemed to follow the Fujii sisters' movements as they crossed through the portal. Their jaws were locked on a clawed arm, its talons clenched around a beating heart --

-- dripping blood into three hundred and sixty-five channels that forked out in every direction, flowing down the twisting alleys and side streets of a silent city shrouded in mist.

"This is the domain of my heart, and the home of my avatar, Malleus... when they aren't off causing visions and haunting dreams," she added with a curl of a smile. "You helped me to build this -- my immortal home."

Both stared all around the scenery of the silent city, then Aiko looked back. "How did we help?" she asked. "We only assisted the ritual."

"The ritual is what built it," Mallory replied evenly. "Each cut created a channel to fill with blood, carved out pieces of the Veil that became streets and buildings through the unconscious will of my spirit... until the final cut. This is the place my blood, and my power, flows from... forever."

The witch lifted her chin, considering Aiko, then Kana, watching them both with a smile. "And there's more of it than I could ever hope to use alone."

Kana was busily studying the channels and streets of blood, while Aiko was thinking on the witch's words. "More than you can use? But don't you get your power from the blood?" she asked curiously.

"I do. But there's plenty to share... and it's not power that interests me most of all, as I discovered that night. It's knowledge." Mallory tipped her head. "Aiko, Kana... how long have you been studying magic? On your own, and under me?"

It was Kana that answered with an unspoken glance to her sister. "Seven years altogether. Two years with you." Aiko looked over at the fountain again and tapped her chin pensively, adding, "But we can't draw power from blood."

"You wouldn't be drawing it from your blood," Mallory said. "You'd be drawing it from mine."

"That's different," Aiko acknowledged, looking back from the fountain to the witch. Kana nodded thoughtfully.

The witch smiled and opened her left hand. "I can offer you a number of things... the ability to change your face, or your body... or blood that shakes off poison, or disease... but whatever you choose, it comes with the knowledge to deepen your magic, make it stronger and more subtle. And, should you remain mortal, and die mortal... a peaceful place for your spirits to rest in my realm." Then she opened her right hand. "In exchange... I ask that you bring me offerings of knowledge."

The twins looked at each other. "So we'd share the findings of our research, and artifacts we find?" Kana asked. Aiko pursed her lips and added. "That's our part in exchange?"

"There are... expectations I have about how you will and will not use magic, but I've shared those with you before. Those still hold. Otherwise... yes. Bring me knowledge," Mallory said, gesturing to the strange city around her, "and help me turn this into an eternal library."

Aiko looked around at the city with a gaze of anticipation. "I agree," she said. Kana followed an instant later, nodding her head and adding, "I will agree to that pact also."

Mallory gave them a alow, warm smile and welcomed them back through the portal with an open arm: "Then we'll perform the rite... and see if we can't start on your new home tonight."

((Written with the Fujii twins, with thanks!))