Archive of Our Own

Living in Mordred Manor is different than Aelwyn thought a haunted house would be.

It’s never creepy, not really—no porcelain dolls with eyes that move in the closets, no hands reaching out, no one else staring at her from the bathroom mirror. It’s also never quite quiet; little rustles of book pages turning when they shouldn’t be used to disturb her until she got used to it, the constant chatter of all the house's occupants that she hasn't quite grown accustomed to yet. Sharing a room with Adaine helps, if only because she seems entirely unbothered by it.

The place is still far too big, even for the truly staggering amount of people that live here. When they first moved in, Adaine had excitedly showed her some of the secret passageways that she’s found, including one in their room behind one bookcase that magically synced to her library after Adaine had put all her books in the shelves.

"You’re sure you don’t want to ask if they can change the lever book to a different one? You had some helpful notes in there," Aelwyn asks, hand on Adaine’s old freshman year divinatory textbook. She’d hated asking her for it, hated ceding even that small ground in front of their parents, half-hated the way Adaine’s face lit up.

Only half-hated. Even when they were still at each other’s throats, she could never really hate Adaine being happy.

Adaine shrugs. "That’s from so long ago now. I mean, Kristen’s made or or reshaped resurrected multiple gods since then. Besides, I have plenty of notes from collaborating with Ayda on portents in the synod."

"Ah," Aelwyn says. "How is your friend?"

Ayda Aguefort: half-phoenix Mistress of the Compass Points, daughter of the famed wizard Arthur Aguefort, paramour to Aelwyn’s roommate/possibly adoptive step-sister, diviner, and her little sister’s best friend.

She’s not jealous of the time Ayda gets to spend with Adaine. Really, she’s not. She and Adaine talk plenty about spellwork.

"She’s good," Adaine says, narrowing her eyes at Aelwyn, suspicious. It’s a fair response, even if she's a little annoyed about it. Aelwyn does her best to avoid asking questions about any of Adaine’s friends, after most of them pretty decisively declared that she still had to prove herself. (And, of course, said that Ayda was of course one of them, a ‘low-quality child’.)

Aelwyn might, hypothetically, have some issues with Ayda she needs to work out, when they find a therapist willing to work with someone who could start a second war if Fallinel decides to try and take her again. Not that she remembers that, of course, but she understands the political ramifications.

"We’ve been working on refining the spells we made each other," Adaine adds, turning back to her books. She’s decided to redo her entire organizational system again after having a) befriended a librarian and b) gotten really into lesbian historical fiction, allegedly for the plot.

Kristen and Ragh apparently have a bet going for when she’ll figure it out. Aelwyn thinks they’re being somewhat generous in their conclusions.

“I was very nearly unconscious when I saw her spell, but it seemed quite impressive to me,” Aelwyn says. “At least it killed our father, no?”

“I don’t think it was that hard,” Adaine says, disdainful, easily confident. “I mean, that attack wouldn’t kill me, just knock me out, and I was a sophomore in high school. Though I’m glad Ayda doesn’t plan on showing that spell to anyone other than me. It could possibly be refined, she thinks, but I think it’s good as is. It’s nice, to just—hit something.”

“I understand,” Aelwyn says. “I have this spell that lets me create a little knife from—”

“I remember,” Adaine says, and Aelwyn remembers that ah, yes, the last time she used that spell was on Riz, Adaine’s friend, directly in front of Adaine.

Whoops. “Well,” Aelwyn says. “I think I’ve misstepped enough in this conversation.”

“It’s fine,” Adaine says, though her smile’s tight around the edges. “We’re not the same as we were then.”

Adaine stands taller. She laughs easily. She leaves books out that the ghosts seem to enjoy for them to read and tours state schools and killed their father and—died, and came back again.

Aelwyn just looks smaller, when she looks at herself in the mirror. Physically she’s skinny enough that Gorthalax, Jawbone, and Lydia all try and get her extra food, and she slumps where she didn’t used to, and her fingers have a slight tremor that make her spellwork a little harder to nail.

“We’re definitely not,” Aelwyn says, infusing it with as much affection as she feels so that Adaine doesn’t look deeper.

Sure enough, Adaine beams at her, then asks her to grab all the books set in pre-1800s Frostheim.

Aelwyn’s life in Mordred Manor is more of putting her foot in her mouth like that than she’d like it to be.

With Adaine: talking about their childhood, about magic, about Aelwyn’s therapist search or job search or hobby search, about anything can result in a little head-butting.

With Jawbone: nothing on her end, but she always tenses whenever Jawbone tries to talk to her. He’s Adaine’s dad, not hers, he didn’t ask her, he doesn’t know her. Also, his stories are wilder than hers and he shares them very quickly.

Sandra Lynn is polite but they can’t talk about anything regarding the last adventure, Ragh is actually fantastic but still in Fallinel where she cannot and will not go, Tracker is very funny over text but also out of the country, Kristen is—strange, and occupied with her deity, Lydia and her have little to no topics of conversation other than Ragh.

Aelwyn’s not exactly unused to loneliness. She hasn’t really had a friend since her best friend in middle school didn’t want to hang out with her after the third time she refused to have a sleepover at her house. There was Penelope, but that was really more of a working relationship. There’s Adaine, now, but there’s only so much time Adaine has for her rather than any of the Bad Kids or Ayda or Zayn or school.

But it sucks now more than it used to. Now she’s working on opening up, ugh , and taking down the walls that she saw in her mind in her sister’s mind. Before she could just ignore it, bury herself in working parties and Kalvaxus’ scheme and her parents’ expectations.

Not entirely sure of how to actually fix any of that, though, she spends her time mostly...waiting. For something to actually click.

All she does with her time now is wait for something interesting to happen.

Job applications that don’t work out for her because she’s not a citizen and also the center of a diplomatic incident that fully sparked a war between their countries, people that she thought at least tolerated her who either hate her for what she did or just heard about Adaine using a first level spell to take her out of the fight don’t want to spend time with her, finishing her diploma online because it’s the only school that would accept her.

Other than Mumple. She hasn’t fallen that far.

Aelwyn’s in their room on her bunk re-reading one of Adaine’s books, an epic about a water genasi princess and her high elf maid getting embroiled in interplanar politics. It’s good, but she knows all the twists now and also the second book won’t be out for another three months. When the door opens, she sits up with a smirk and a joke about the continued adventures of the Bad Kids ready on her lips for Adaine, but it’s not Adaine walking in.

It’s Ayda.

“Oh,” Aelwyn says.

Ayda and her don’t talk. She doesn’t hate her or anything, there’s just no reason for them to. Ayda doesn’t live here, though she spends more time here than her pirate city. The only thing they have in common are being wizards and Adaine.

“Did you need something? Adaine’s out.”

“I’m aware of that,” Ayda says with a little nod. “I’m here to speak with you, actually.”

“Oh!” Aelwyn sits up, suddenly extremely aware of the fact that she’s still in her pajamas at 11am and that there’s chip crumbs on her chest. A quick prestidigitation takes care of the latter, at least. “Did you need something?”

"Need is a strong word. I would very much like your aid with something, if you are not opposed to offering it. I would strongly prefer to avoid being in your debt, though, so I can repay you with spellwork or something else we negotiate ahead of time."

“What’s the favor?” Aelwyn asks, climbing down from her bunk and only hitting her knee against the boards once. “Did you need a spell?”

“Aid with an abjurative one, to be precise,” Ayda says. “I’m working on a gift for Figueroth’s birthday. Unfortunately, I’m having great difficulty modifying the spell forbiddance to hurt fiends that aren’t Fig or Gorthalax.”

“Then make it hurt celestials instead,” Aelwyn says. “Do you have the spell slots to cast it regularly enough to make it last? I presume you’ve already added in ways to make it impossible to dispel.”

Ayda frowns. “No. I hadn’t considered that, but that is a concern. More pressingly, the purpose of the gift is for Fig to visit and reshape Hell to her will without too much fear of other devils attempting to harm her. My only successful spellwork has been to attach it to an object.”

“What object?” Aelwyn asks, reaching her hand out. Ayda’s hand moves to one of the pouches of her belt, but doesn’t remove anything. “I’m not going to steal it, come on.”

“That wasn’t my concern,” Ayda says. “I will have to swear you to secrecy. I should have done so earlier, but I was more focused on avoiding your debt.” Aelwyn frowns. “Not specifically your debt. I don’t like owing things to anyone, but especially other wizards.”

“Alright,” Aelwyn says, though the frown hasn’t completely left her face. “I so swear.”

“I would prefer something magically binding,” Ayda says, not quite meeting her gaze.

“I would prefer to just fix your spell,” Aelwyn says, and Ayda stands straight up to her full height, almost a full foot taller than Aelwyn. “I don’t want to be bound, but I’m not going to tell Fig, alright?”

“Adaine told me to go to you,” Ayda says, apropos of nothing. “And I trust the judgment of my friends. My best friends. Do not make me regret it. My knowledge of chronomancy makes it so that if you do, this will never have happened.”

“Then you have nothing to lose, right?” Aelwyn says, crossing her arms. She gets that she was working with two of their big bads, but come on , there’s the R in RVS for a reason. “Look, I’ve modified similar spells, I’m sure I have some notes that will help.”

“And in return?” Ayda asks.

“I don’t know,” Aelwyn says. “Give me a moment to think.” Ayda lifts up a hand, and Aelwyn adds, “Figure of speech. I have plenty of moments.”

“Ah,” Ayda says, pausing and nodding. “I see now. Thank you for elaborating.”

Aelwyn nods, headache forming behind her eyes. “Whatever.”

Ayda’s face doesn’t exactly fall—she’s difficult to read. But her shoulders slouch a little as she hands over what she has on the spell so far.

Her spellwork’s not bad. It’s a completely different style than anything they learned at Hudol, but it looks adequate. There’s a few flourishes that are unnecessary, but—well, actually, that could be altered to allow for a few protected individuals, possibly. It’s certainly not how Aelwyn would do it, if she were to make such a spell, but if it works…

“I may have figured it out,” Aelwyn says, looking up at Ayda, who’s still standing, looking around the room in an obvious attempt to avoid conversation. She sympathizes. “You can sit down.”

“Thank you,” Ayda says, before sitting in one fluid motion. “That was extremely fast.”

“You were partially there,” Aelwyn says, sitting next to her on Adaine's bed to show her what she's pointing at. “This addition here to the rune—if you make space here and know the true names of the people you’re trying to add, they could be excluded from the protection. Make sure you draw this as convex, not concave; that would make it so they were the only fiends affected.”

“Fantastic,” Ayda says. “You are as clever a spell-caster as your sister. Before I accept this, what is it you want in return?”

She’s half-tempted to say the compliment will do it, just to avoid further conversation about it. “One of the forbidden books from your library.”

Ayda nods. “A fair payment. Do you have any specific preference? Books are forbidden in the Compass Points for many reasons. I hope you’re not looking for any of the books on Umberlee, however.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Umberlee?”

Ayda sits straight up again, almost at Aelwyn’s height even though she’s sitting on Adaine’s bed. “I have no problems with Umberlee, and fully respect her dark and terrible power and complete dominion over storms. I would never be so bold as to claim otherwise, and apologize if it felt as though I did.”

Ayda relaxes again. “Good to know. The books get stolen more often than even the ones on cursed treasure. I believe she has one of her clerics making sure that any knowledge of her is in their hands, and barely even that.”

“Interesting,” Aelwyn says. “I don’t know, get whatever you think would be fine.”

Ayda’s feet shift a little, talons close to scratching the floorboards. “I—am not the best at judging gifts for other people. If I were to agree to that, you would need to promise not to tell me if I had misjudged what to get you. It would hurt my feelings. You could also give me more guidelines so that we could avoid that entirely.”

“A book about pirate history?” Aelwyn suggests. “I assume there’s at least one lurid tale there.”

“Lurid pirate history,” Ayda says. “Yes. This I can definitely do. Thank you for making this process easier. You didn’t have to.”

“Well, Adaine had to rub off on me eventually,” Aelwyn says.

“Hm,” Ayda says. “An interesting theory. I do not necessarily believe the premise, though in your case, the conclusion might be accurate. Adaine is a very good and kind person, and I consider myself lucky to know her.”

Aelwyn waits for more. “Oh, that was it.”

“That was it,” Ayda says. “Have I been rude, somehow?”

“No,” Aelwyn says. “I just was expecting more of a trail-off or something.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Ayda says, grabbing a quill—what is this, Fallinel?—from one of her pockets and adding to one of the notes on her forbiddance spell. “Thank you again for your aid.”

“You’re paying me back, it’s fine,” Aelwyn says.

Ayda nods stiffly. Aelwyn can’t tell if she’s upset, or what it was she would’ve said that would’ve even upset her. She’s being downright doting by her standards.

“Is there anything else you wanted to say?” Ayda asks.

Aelwyn shakes her head.

“Then goodbye,” Ayda says. “I hope that all of our exchanges are as beneficial for both of us in the future.”

She disappears in a rush of flame, and Aelwyn groans when she sees how singed the ceiling is.

“So the thing about haunted houses is that it’s like having roommates, right?” Jawbone says over the dinner table, which is about as big as the one at the Abernant home but manages to feel cramped anyway. “I had this one roommate once, okay, his name was Sethavar, but we all called him Seth.”

“Oh, the Seth who—”

“Yes, Fig, it’s that Seth, but that’s not this story.”

“Which Seth are we referring to? I’m not familiar with this story.”

“Why would you even put that in a garbage disposal—”

“I apologize, I was incorrect. Figueroth has shared this story with me. Please continue, Mr. O’Shaughnessey.”

“Kiddo, you can call me Jawbone—”

“Kristen, you can’t be on your phone at the table—”

“Tracker finally has service you can’t tell me that I can’t be on the phone Sandra Lynn it’s literally so homophobic—”

“Tell her I say hi! Ask how Ragh’s doing!”

“Tracker says—”

Aelwyn’s gritting her teeth so hard that her muscles actually hurt. It’s not worth casting deafness. It’s not. She doesn’t want to be caught unaware and risk throwing an offensive spell again, because half the people here will start yelling at her and the other half will be concerned, which is worse.

But also do the people in this house never shut up? A moment of peace? Even a moment to stop and listen to any other person? Jawbone’s going on about bad roommates and something about an aarakocra woman, Fig is still muttering about garbage disposals while Ayda nods right next to her, Kristen’s openly weeping and from what Aelwyn can hear, Tracker is, too.

“Ragh says hi,” Kristen says through tears.

“I say hi back,” Aelwyn mutters, stabbing at a piece of pasta with her fork with far more aggression than is strictly necessary.

“He says—”

Aelwyn fully misses the next part of Kristen’s sentence over Jawbone and Fig uproariously laughing, and she can feel a shield sparking at her palm.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Aelwyn tells Adaine, who looks up and points to the headphones she’s wearing.

Aelwyn growls under her breath and heads out of the room. She wonders when (or if) they’ll notice she’s taking the plate with her.

Back in her bunk with her crystal and pasta puttanesca, she puts on some mindless show so she has something to eat to. Adaine keeps trying to recommend her podcasts, but they’re all (all love for her sister) the dullest fucking thing she’s ever heard in her life, and she went to Hudol. Fig and the Sig Figs’ music is, admittedly, not bad, but the smirk that Fig gets on her face when she catches Aelwyn listening to it makes her understand Adaine’s urge to rely on melee when it makes no strategic sense. All her old music is—

She just doesn’t want to listen to it, that’s all.

“It’s my dream dress,” a fire genasi person weeps. “Why did it have to be made of paaaaperrrrrrrrr?”

The host of the show calmly shakes a flame out of his sleeve and says, “Well, we could always request it be made of a different material, or see if there’s a dress in a similar cut at one of the stores designed for those from the elemental plane of fire. Again, your budget is 14 gold pieces—”

“No! It’s the perfect dress. We have to make them replace each piece of paper with a flame-retardant fabric,” they say, and the host nods with an understanding that Aelwyn can’t see the cracks in.

“That’s the ugliest dress I’ve ever fucking seen in my life,” Aelwyn mutters, mouth full of pasta. Some of the sauce gets on her chest. It’s disgusting, but she doesn’t have the energy to actually do anything about it.

“Hey,” Adaine says quietly from the front door. Aelwyn manages to yank back the fire from her fingertips in time to hide it from Adaine, but she has to drop the fork in her hand or risk burning her hand with hot metal.

“Adaine!” Aelwyn says. “Get sick of ‘family’ dinner, too?”

Adaine’s frown, which Aelwyn hadn’t noticed before now, deepens. “No. I mean, it’s a bit—much. But I love them, and they love me. I—don’t think I will get sick of that, honestly.”

The spike of pure, unadulterated self-hatred that hits Aelwyn is not a surprise, nor is it something she’s unused to. It never gets easier, though, nails digging into her palms to get the tension out in a way she can hide it from Adaine, thinking she could have had that for years and years if you weren’t so fucking selfish, if you weren’t a coward, if you were a better sister and a better person and a better dau—

“Sorry to ruin the mood,” she says so she doesn’t bite her tongue off.

“You didn’t!” Adaine says. “Well. No, you did, a bit, but so did Kristen’s crying, so it’s really not a big deal. It happens. More often than I thought it would. That’s why I have these.” She waves her headphones up at Aelwyn.

“Can I have those?” Aelwyn asks.

“I’ll buy you a pair.” Adaine beams up at Aelwyn, though there’s still a suspicious look in her eye.

“Fairly certain I’m supposed to be the one buying you things, Adaine,” Aelwyn says, sinking back into her bed. There’s crumbs digging into her lower back that she’ll wipe away at some point.

“It’s okay,” Adaine says. “It’s not about what we’re supposed to do or should do. Not anymore. It’s just what we want to do.”

“You’re so wise,” Aelwyn mutters. “It’s annoying.”

“I do think,” Adaine says, rushing over both the compliment and the insult with a focus that worries Aelwyn, “that you should consider trying to reach out to the people here. Not all at once, that gets—overwhelming. Possibly. Is a thing you might be feeling.”

“I’ve lived through worse,” Aelwyn says, shoulders so tense they feel like they're up near her ears. “I’m fine, Adaine, just drop it.”

“I don’t want to,” Adaine says, voice rising, just a little. “Aelwyn, things can be better now, I promise—”

“They’re already better, I just need to wait for a job or—”

“It’s been months, Aelwyn, and you just sit in this bed and do nothing!” Adaine says. “And it’s—if you just wanted to relax, that’d be one thing, but you get more irritated each day and you don’t talk to anyone other than me unless they talk to you. You don’t seem happy! You’re my sister and I love you and I want you to be happy!”

Aelwyn blinks at her sister. “I—Adaine, I am happy, what are you talking about?”

“Please don’t lie to me,” Adaine says, and she’s crying, and Aelwyn rolls over the side of her bunk to thud to the floor.

“No, no, Adaine, I’m sorry, I’m not lying—I’m not trying to lie, don’t cry, I really don’t know how to deal with this—not that you’re something to deal with, fuck—”

Aelwyn is very incredibly bad at this. At being a person in general, but especially at taking care of her sister the way she should have been the entire time. It’s always worse when it’s her fault. It feels like it’s always her fault, even though she knows it’s not, knows Adaine has worries other than her, but she lives here, she could stop it, she could be the perfect sister who knows just what to do and say and be.

She could multiclass into bard and learn calm emotions, at least. If the fucking—pardon would go through. Seriously, she’s not Bill Seacaster, how hard could it be—

Adaine hiccups, and Aelwyn’s attention slams back to her like a truck into a brick wall. “These are just frustrated tears, I’m okay.”

“Oh,” Aelwyn says. “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

Adaine shakes her head. “You weren’t. That’s why I told you.”

Aelwyn opens her arms for a hug, because that almost always goes well. Sure enough, Adaine half-steps, half-crashes into her arms. Aelwyn squeezes her in a hug that hurts a little.

“I love you,” Adaine says.

Aelwyn wants to cry a little herself. Doesn’t. Says “I love you, too.”

“That’s why I want you to—I don’t know. Will you get mad at me if I say something?”

Aelwyn’s gut says probably. “No.” She can always bite it back.

“Is this what you want?” Adaine asks.

Aelwyn pulls back. “Adaine, of course I want to be here with you, I want to—do all those things you said in the forest, about making new memories, and building immortal lives—”

“No, no,” Adaine says. “I know that. I mean...it feels like you wait for me to have time free and that’s all you do. If I’m just missing something, that’s...fine.” Her sister’s tone gets a little like it used to, suspicious, anxious, and Aelwyn puts the hand that isn’t still on Adaine’s shoulder into a fist. Not to use, just to—hold something, tight, put the tension in its place so she can hide it. “But...you sit in this room and you watch shows you don’t like and you never tell me about anything you’re doing, you just ask me about Aguefort and my friends.”

“I’m still waiting on the pardon,” Aelwyn says. She can feel herself getting defensive, holding her chin high, makes herself force it back down. “No job will hire me until then, and even then, it’s...well, I’m sure Basrar will give me the interview once I, um, finish the application—”

“Aelwyn,” Adaine says. “What do you want other than time with me? We can do things outside of each other. Should, actually, codependence is dangerous, Jawbone and I have talked about it in the context of—oh, I probably shouldn’t talk about that with anyone other than them, sorry.”

“Tracker and Kristen, I get it,” Aelwyn says, and Adaine grins up at her. “I…”

She’s not sure. She knows her sister doesn’t want her to go back to all her old tricks, if she could, if anyone wanted anything to do with her, and...well, she can reread her sister’s books, but she’s already read all the ones that interest her, and she was really never that into books for fun, anyway.

“I mean, classes take up my time,” Aelwyn says, and Adaine’s lips thin. It looks nothing like the way their parents’ faces used to look, haughty and cruel, but it’s—not great, either, for Aelwyn. “Some of it. They’re not difficult, but the work has to get done, and they won’t let me do it all at once in case of chronomantic meddling. I don’t...know what answer you’re looking for.”

“Forget it,” Adaine says, and the frustration is palpable now, easy to read, making the air around them just that much more tense. “I’m going to go spend time with Fig and Ayda, okay?”

“I—”

Adaine storms out of the room, and Aelwyn wants to follow her and start yelling, have a fight like they used to, not with fists and spells but words and maybe then she’d figure out what the hell she wants from Aelwyn so she can just tell her and make this easier on both of them.

Her old dealer won’t talk to her, her old job at Hudol’s been taken up by the majority of its students involved getting disciplined, her new job hasn’t panned out, her pardon’s still in red tape so she can’t even go to the mall and get a smoothie.

What does she have? Adventuring? She’s not one of the Bad Kids, they’ve made that clear, she doesn't want that.

Aelwyn lets her fist relax, finally, looks at the blood that wells up there with what she likes to think of as an academic detachment. It really doesn’t make sense that wizards don’t have even small healing spells. You’d have thought they’d teach it. It’s quite useful, especially considering the amount of wizards that end up living solitary lives. If a book fell on them, they certainly didn’t have the dexterity to catch it, or even the strength, and if they got a head wound, where would they be?

Ayda would be fine, Aelwyn supposes. Fig’s marveled about her strength enough times for her to get the picture. (And, of course, turned an even deeper pink and then invisible when she realized any other person heard her, including the one she was, in theory, aware she was speaking to.)

Aelwyn grumbles, goes to get back in her bed and lies right back in the crumbs. It’s really nothing. It’s an incredibly minor deal. She could get up and brush them off, or even just ignore it. It’s almost nothing.

She rolls over, face into her pillow, and screams as loud as she possibly can.

The door thuds open, hitting the wall with an audible crack, and Aelwyn turns with a dagger already manifesting in her hand. Fucking house of adventurers and werewolves, of course Jawbone would hear her.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Aelwyn hisses. “Get out. Leave me alone.”

“Okay, kiddo,” Jawbone says, lifting his hands in a conciliatory gesture that’s getting on Aelwyn’s nerves. She’s not a wild fucking animal. “You know you can always talk to me, right? I won’t judge. It’s m’job not to.”

“I don’t—” Know Jawbone. Trust Jawbone. Think Jawbone’s job was anything other than telling kids about college before he took it. Want to talk about it. Know what to say.

“Kid,” Jawbone says, and Aelwyn groans and shoves her hands over her face, only barely managing to dispel the dagger in time to avoid giving herself an emergency trip to Mordred’s cleric.

“Fuck off,” Aelwyn says, and listens to see if there’s a growl in his chest, if there’s a muttered comment he’ll leave, if he’ll call for Adaine or someone else.

The door closes with a little click, and when she looks up, Jawbone’s gone.

"Good,” Aelwyn says to no one, voice echoing just a bit, and goes to bed. It’s been a tiring day, even if she’s not sure why.

When she shakes herself from her trance, the crumbs are still there, but she’s been tucked in and her laptop put away on its charger. Adaine’s breathing is slow and steady, so she’s still trancing—makes sense, since Adaine presumably started trancing at a normal time. God, her trance schedule’s going to be completely off, as if she needed to be more—

Aelwyn punches her pillow, then climbs down the ladder with as much stealth as she can muster. It’s not a lot, since she is a wizard, but Adaine’s never been an especially light trancer, so it’s fine.

“Sweet of her to put this away, but not actually helpful,” Aelwyn mutters, and when she tries to pull the charger out of its port on the laptop, it floats right back up. “What the—”

Aelwyn drops the laptop, but whichever ghost is fucking with her does, at least, catch it.

“Don’t touch my things,” Aelwyn says, deeply unnerved. “Give it here.”

It floats right into her hands, charger still wiggling like a worm caught on the sidewalk. She makes a face at it. She’s not nearly aware enough for this. Normally her trances don’t linger with her long after she wakes, but her dream was just...disquieting. It wasn’t anything scary, just flowers, wreathed around her arms like a bracelet, up to her neck, up to her head, back down her other arm—

Wait. She dreamed.

Aelwyn does not have panic attacks. She’s familiar with the symptoms, made an effort to be once she moved in here, and this is not that. Instead, she drops her laptop (which the ghost catches), and sprints out of the room.

This house is a goddamn maze, but Kristen has helpfully chosen to be pathetic and wear a blanket everywhere, so she just follows the lumpy trail of unevenly-cleared dust. She’s got to ask about it, the Nightmare King is gone now, is something else, but what else can it be?

She’s so focused on getting to Kristen and shaking her awake and demanding answers that she doesn’t notice Ayda until she’s close enough to see her firelight, nearly trips in trying to stop soon enough not to hit her.

“Aelwyn Abernant,” Ayda says.

“Not who I’m looking for,” Aelwyn says, and then tries to push past her. The problem is her wingspan—literal wingspan, in her case—blocks the hallway, and she’s not so stupid as to try and engage in physical combat.

Especially not with Ayda. The glowing tattoos helpfully illuminate the muscles that a half dozen of Fig’s songs wax poetic about, and Aelwyn’s aware of the fact that she built the spell that Adaine used to kill their father.

Normally a point in her favor, rather than against it, but it’s an unusual evening. Night? Probably fully night, at this point.

“Is this an emergency?” Ayda asks. “I can fly through the house and wake everyone. Should I? I don’t understand your tone, but there’s—tension, I—”

“Do not do that,” Aelwyn hisses. Ayda doesn’t flinch back, but something in her expression conveys much of the same thing, and she shoves down the guilt as easily as she used to. “Move out of the way, Ayda.”

“Fine,” Ayda says, and steps out of her way.

Aelwyn doesn’t hear her mutter an incantation, but a little shield flickers around her reflexively, and she whirls around. “What was that?”

“You noticed?” Ayda asks, which is very much not an answer to her question.

“Did you cast a spell on me?” Aelwyn asks, and fuck being smart, she’ll fight her right here.

“No,” Ayda says, and Aelwyn doesn’t read any dishonesty in it. “I did cast a spell, but it was on me. I apologize. You are a very—instinctual abjurer.”

“Don’t—insult me,” Aelwyn says, uncertain if that’s actually what’s happening here. “I—fuck, I need to go.”

The light of Ayda’s wings and hair fades into the background, and casts a little minor illusion of a light in her hand to make sure she doesn’t trip over her own two feet. She should’ve brought her crystal with her, stupid, forgetful, she knows better—

Kristen’s doors are big, imposing things, with stained golden glass windows that turn an eerie purple in the starlight that shines in. It does, admittedly, fit her whole vibe quite well, but it’s a little disquieting for right now, with the ghosts she knows are watching and the dream still fresh in her mind.

“Kristen Applebees, I’m coming in, please have clothes on,” Aelwyn says, waits a moment—one time was more than enough, thank you—and yanks the door open.

It hurts her hands a bit. Gods, pathetic.

“Whazit,” Kristen says, ever the picture of eloquence.

“Yes, we’re all grateful you’re not a bard,” Aelwyn says, and Kristen just blinks blearily up at her. “Were you even asleep?”

“Yeah,” Kristen says defensively, and she is so tempted to detect her thoughts just to call her on the obvious lie. But she’s not so moronic as to piss off someone she’s about to ask for a favor in the immediate future.

“How sure are you that Cassandra isn’t the Nightmare King?” Aelwyn asks.

Kristen sits up, still wrapped in her blanket like a cape, but the contemplative expression on her face is almost—almost—enough to make her understand why her church isn’t just made up of her and that one fanatic—Greg, or whatever.

“I mean, in a way they are,” Kristen says. “In the same way that I’ll carry being Helioc with me forever, you know? Or how Fabian will always remember what it was like to fight like a champion, and Fig will always know whisper magic, even if she doesn't use it like she used to. We are different, but no one can truly forget the things we left behind to become who we are.”

“Wow,” Aelwyn says. “Did you get all those platitudes off of Hallmark cards, or were a few from your own imagination?”

“Hey,” Kristen says, and whatever little charisma she’d held onto, it’s gone in the way she tears up at that. That was barely even mean! That was—she’d used to banter with Penelope like that, it was fun, it was friendly.

“God, okay, never mind, that was all very inspiring and clerical or whatever bullshit you need to hear,” Aelwyn says with a roll of her eyes. “I’m speaking literally. Does any of their influence retain any Nightmare King properties?”

Kristen sits up. “Why? It’s the middle of the night, I’m trying to have a long rest, I—”

“All you’re going to do tomorrow is listen to one of your records on repeat, eat whatever food Adaine and the others bring you, and cry about your girlfriend being in another country,” Aelwyn says impatiently, and Kristen sits up, crossing her arms. “Just answer the damn question.”

“Sheesh, okay, no need to be mean,” Kristen says, rubbing her eyes. “Uh, not very. They don’t have enough followers who care about the Nightmare King stuff for that to linger as more than memories. And even then, it’s—” She shakes her hand. “Why?”

“So there’s no way they have any of the Nightmare King’s—ambient powers,” Aelwyn says.

“No,” Kristen says, then tilts her head. “I guess not no way. It’s possible Cassandra has a ton of followers that, like, I don’t know about. Like, maybe there’s a whole religious movement out there, um, somewhere, that I just don’t get to know about. That would—"

“This isn’t about your relationship drama!” Aelwyn shouts before she can remind herself that’s not what they do here, and the silence that follows makes her want to throw a shield over herself and run away to Leviathan or any other place they wouldn’t think to look for her.

Someone knocks, and Aelwyn turns her head to it with enough force that it hurts her neck. She was never this fragile before Fallinel. She thinks, anyway. It’s hard to tell, her body having grown taller and lankier in the year she’s forgotten. The firelight in the windows lights them gold again, and Aelwyn’s shoulders tense a little.

“Kristen?” Ayda calls. “Are you alright?”

“We’re fine,” Aelwyn says. “Go away, Ayda.”

“I was not asking you,” Ayda says, and her voice isn’t a threat, sure. Aelwyn’s heard her threaten people before—to unmake them, to scatter their atoms across existence, to shove a core of molten flame into their soul so that no matter where the great wheel landed them, they would never know true peace.

That last one was for a reviewer who called Fig and the Sig Figs’ new album derivative. Aelwyn had barely been able to keep herself from making a gagging gesture at Adaine, who wouldn’t have thought it was very funny, and might have cast a Ray of Sickness at her in exchange.

“Do you think I’d—”

“It’s totally fine, Ayda,” Kristen says. “Aelwyn just had some questions about the theological implications of creating a new deity from essentially the bones of a dead one.”

“Ah,” Ayda says. “It sounds like an interesting discussion. May I come in?”

“It was just ending,” Aelwyn says. “Don’t worry about it.”

There’s a few beats of silence, where Kristen nestles further into her blanket, ignoring Aelwyn entirely, Ayda’s wings flutter a little from the other side of the door, and Aelwyn wills herself not to start making pithy comments about both of them.

After about a minute of this, Kristen starts to snore—gods, already? humans—and Aelwyn rolls her eyes and heads out of the room. This time she’s careful to open the door she can’t see Ayda’s outline in, walks past her without even a sideline glance.

“Were you purposefully excluding me?” Ayda asks. “Normally I don’t like to know when people are, but I’d thought that we were getting along—fine, if not well, and I wouldn’t wish to operate under incorrect assumptions going forward.”

“What?” Aelwyn says. “What are you talking about?”

“The discussion,” Ayda says. “I was genuinely interested. Even if Kristen was going to bed, I wouldn’t be opposed to continuing it with you.”

“I—” Right, Kristen’s lie. Technically not a lie, she supposes, though the phrasing was—interesting. Almost kind of her, to not say Aelwyn walked in here and is acting totally weird, dude, and I’d probably be asking what was going on if I wasn’t a complete wreck of a person just because my high school girlfriend is in another country doing the same thing I’m trying to do here.

“Aelwyn?”

“I’m fine,” Aelwyn says automatically.

Ayda nods. “Fig told me that when people say they’re fine, especially without prompting from a question, it very rarely means they’re fine. A confounding Solesian tradition, to be sure, but simple enough to remember. Are you? Fine?”

“Well, who asked you,” Aelwyn says, and keeps walking away. Ayda doesn’t follow.

Aelwyn doesn’t want to go to bed—she’s already fully tranced and she doesn’t want to be in there anyway, not after that dream. She shivers. God, it’s summer, it shouldn’t be so goddamn cold in here. Fucking haunted houses, honestly.

She wanders a little aimlessly, taking note of the portraits of people none of them have ever spoken to who start throwing things about the house if they try and take any of the paintings down, the flickering candlelight, wax dripping onto the tables she passes, snuffing out as she gets far enough that the light doesn’t help.

“Look,” Aelwyn says. “I’d like to be left alone.”

The candles around all flare up at once, like the wick was left far too long, making the room bright and warmer. She doesn’t have a clue what the hell any of that means, but—whatever, the flames die in a moment. The candles don’t light up as she walks through the house anymore, and she can use her own light and not worry about whatever lives in this house besides her sister and the legion of people who annoy her.

The library here must have originally been planned for Adaine’s room, with all its bookshelves, but the new place isn’t half-bad. It’s full of the strangest assortment of books this side of the outer planes, but it’s serviceable—legal texts about fiendish politics, books in celestial about part-time work, musical theory, psychology textbooks, trashy romance novels. Nothing she can grab and just start reading, but she’s got to do something, so she turns on the lights and gets to organizing.

It’s not the same system she’d use to organize her books at her old house, designed to seem perfectly systematic but hide all the things she’d hidden in hollowed-out old textbooks. Nor is it Adaine’s, based more on a library’s system that relies upon knowledge of author and the Dewey Decimal System. It’s just putting the genres next to each other. Legal text is no longer next to Tusk Love is no longer next to a book about how to totally rage on the drums.

“He doesn’t even live here,” Aelwyn mutters, just to break the silence. “What was his name again, anyway? Not like it matters.”

The light flickers.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Aelwyn hisses.

The room plunges into complete darkness.

“For fuck’s sake,” Aelwyn groans, letting light flare into her fingertips and illuminate the room around her. “Are you punishing me for not knowing the name of someone I’ve met twice, both in combat? It’s not like I’m saying it to his fucking face, what does it—”

As she turns back to the door, where she knows the switch is, the door is wide open.

Aelwyn groans. She’s not a horror fan, but she knows enough to know that she shouldn’t do this. “Can you just not?” she asks. No response, of course, because why would anyone ever be helpful. “Fine.”

She starts to walk back to the door, to close it and dispel magic, see if that helps, but it slams as soon as she starts to reach for the handle. She’s only barely able to throw up a shield in time so that it cracks that and not the bones of her fingers.

“What have I ever done to you?” Aelwyn snarls. “Seriously, what?”

No response.

“Well, fuck you, too,” Aelwyn says with a sigh, turning back to the books only to see them—different.

Flowers creep up the walls, all deep reds and blacks, the books completely hidden by a wall of plants that wasn’t there before. It smells terrible—a wave of rotting fruit and flesh hitting her so suddenly she has to throw a hand over her nose or start gagging. It doesn’t look like druidcraft—it looks like they’ve been growing here for a hundred years, roots feeding on...something.

She never went to school to be an adventurer, she’s not that dumb, so she turns around and walks right out of the room.

The smell follows.

In a room with moss growing up the walls and cracks in the cobblestone flower, there lies a row of eleven flowers, each completely different from the rest in color, shape, size. One, pale blue with only the smallest of blooms, begins to wilt.

Aelwyn waits for Adaine to wake up and plays a dumb, pointless game on her phone to keep herself from fixating on the flowers.

Haunted house bullshit. Why not. This, admittedly, is new and far creepier than the rest of it, though she’s not entirely sure why it’s getting under her skin so badly. It smells bad, is that it? Hudol boys smelled abysmal but she didn’t let that stop her from a paycheck and a party.

Shit, she should check that account. It’s almost certainly been drained or frozen by now, but if not, she might have enough money for some dragon spice or weed or something. But then she’d have to bring that into the room with her baby sister, fuck, why isn’t she just thinking? Besides, if she wants weed, she can probably get Jawbone to write her a card or something. Or just get her some, wasn’t he a dealer?

She’d missed the (physical) withdrawal symptoms, or at least forgotten them, and she’s not sure she wants to remember them. But if she can at least start a consistent supply—

“Mmf,” Adaine mutters. Aelwyn looks down at the bottom bunk, sees Adaine’s face squished into her pillow in a way that cannot be comfortable.

“Are you awake?” Aelwyn asks, a little too loudly if she isn’t. Adaine nods. “Great. What do you do when the house is fucked up?”

“What,” Adaine mumbles, more statement than question.

“When the creepy things happen,” Aelwyn says, heroically resisting the urge to snap at her sister to get her to talk faster. Penelope had liked to do that, especially at Biz. “Do you just get one of the clerics to do something or can I try an exorcism?”

“I lived here for a day before we went on spring break,” Adaine says, sitting up. Her hair is a tangled mess that’ll take magic and/or scissors to look normal again. “I don’t even know what you mean? The floating books?”

“No,” Aelwyn says, but it all seems so stupid now that her sister’s awake, that the sunlight is hitting through the giant hole in the ceiling (giant telescopes are somewhat expensive, apparently). “I—it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure?” Adaine asks, so sweet, and Aelwyn nods.

“Do you want help brushing your hair?” she asks instead, because she doesn’t want to talk about it, and her sister deserves someone who’ll help her.

“Oh!” Adaine says. “I normally just—yeah. Sure. Yes. Where’s your hairbrush?”

Aelwyn, who’s kept her hair in the same braid for—a week or two, says, “Oh, I’m not actually sure.”

This early in the morning, Adaine doesn’t call her on it, just yawns and says, “Maybe tomorrow? My dream last night was—”

“You dreamed, too?”

“Oh,” Adaine says. “I guess I did.”

She doesn’t sound worried, and Aelwyn is pissed, all of a sudden, that she’s not bothered, though she has no idea why that’s setting her off. Takes a deep breath, tells herself to just grow up and listen to Adaine.

“So,” Aelwyn says, and Adaine narrows her eyes at her. “Your dream?”

“Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“You’re making a face at me.”

Aelwyn doesn’t have a mirror handy to glance at whatever rictus of a smile is on her face right now. “I’m just tired.”

Adaine closes her eyes, mouths something Aelwyn can’t make out. “I would like it if you didn’t lie to me. It makes me feel—”

“—are we really doing ‘I statements’ now, those are—”

“—like you don’t value my input, and while I logically recognize that that isn’t the case anymore—”

“You sound like a self-help book, just so you know.”

“Well, it’s better than me saying you get on my last nerve!” Adaine snaps.

Aelwyn grins at her, sharp-edged. “Was that so hard?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Adaine says, rubbing her temples. “No. If you want to talk about it, talk to someone else or wait a bit. I can’t do this right now.”

“I wasn’t asking you to!” Aelwyn says, but Adaine’s already misty stepped out of the room, which is completely unnecessary. Thirty feet isn’t that far though, and she yells, “Also who the fuck else would I talk to, Adaine?”

No one responds, and after taking a moment to scream into her pillow, Aelwyn decides to get ready for the day. Today, like all the days preceding, she has nothing to fucking do except sit in this house and wait.

The game she’s been playing on her phone beeps at her, reminding her that her jelly bean crops or whatever are ready. She looks down at the app, all brightly artificial blues and pop-ups to watch an ad and get her daily reward and pay only ninety-nine copper pieces for five hundred in-game dragon eggs and all of a sudden it’s too goddamn much, and she throws her crystal onto the ground, where it doesn’t shatter but makes a loud, satisfying crack.

For a second, she feels great, and then she comes to terms with the fact she just threw her phone at the ground and feels like a fucking dumbass. With another scream into her pillow, she steps onto the ladder, hits her knee, yells into the edge of her mattress, and climbs the rest of the way down until she reaches the ground.

Mending fixes one crack at a time in the screen one by one by one, and it’s, at least, something to do. It won’t restore the magic to the crystal, but it’ll at least make her excuse that it just stopped working, she doesn’t know why, can’t they just take it as a trade-in? a little more plausible.

So. Perhaps she is not, in fact, dealing with the house creeping her out.

Just in case, she flips through her spellbook. There’s one spell, a weak ward that won’t stop anyone from spying but will let her know that someone wants to. Aelwyn doesn’t want any ghosts looking at her for a bit, so she casts it, and—

Of fucking course Adaine is scrying on her. Why would she be allowed privacy, after all?

Aelwyn throws her now-useless crystal at where the orb is before dispelling it, just to make her intent clear, and decides that actually, the possibility of being accosted by angry Solesians is a far better alternative than staying in this house for another fucking minute. She changes into clothes as fast as she can—all she has are thrift shop T-shirts and jeans that don’t really fit, but who fucking cares—and heads down the many, many stairs to storm out the front door.

That’s roughly a five minute walk from the tower, but she’s pissed, doesn’t run out of steam until she sees another person.

“Zayn,” Aelwyn says. “Lovely to see you. Let’s catch up another time, shall we?”

“Sure,” Zayn says. “You okay?” Aelwyn growls a little under her breath as she passes him rather than answer. “Jeez, okay. You can say hi in the graveyard if you need to.”

There’s few places in the world Aelwyn wants to be less than this house’s graveyard right now, but she smiles at him anyway before finally heading out the front door.

She puts her hoodie up, idly pulls at the drawstring. There’s not really anywhere near here to hang out at; Basrar’s is too bright and plucky and she needs to ask them for a job, she doesn’t exactly want to hang out at Krom’s, right next to where Johnny Spells’ gang used to dance, and the mall’s a little far. Besides, she doesn’t really have any money.

If she’d been planning ahead, like she should have done, she could’ve asked Jawbone for some spending money, or, better yet, filched it from Fig’s wallet. She’s a rock star, she can spare a few gold. But no, this is impulsive and stupid and all-too-Aelwyn, so she just—walks.

She keeps an eye out, tries to make sure Adaine isn’t scrying on her again. Or worse, Ayda; she’s got more spell slots, and the idea of someone other than Adaine watching her right now pisses her off even more. Especially Ayda.

Aelwyn ends up just loitering somewhere near St. Owen’s and watching the cars pass and wishing she still had her crystal. She doesn’t even have the wreck that was left, didn’t bother to pick it up after throwing it. What was the point?

A convertible passes, turquoise with sea detailing, and Aelwyn freezes, ready to bolt if any of the Seven Maidens notice her. Fuck, that’s all she needed today. But none of them glance, stuffed into the car just enough to be unsafe, a horse (???) galloping alongside them with Katja riding.

None of them glance her way, and that’s a relief as much as it twists a knot in her gut. Because why would they look at her? She’s some random nobody in a worn-out hoodie on the side of the road without a crystal or anything. And that’s better than what she used to be, on some level, she knows that.

At least when she was a villain she was something, though.

Aelwyn wants, all of a sudden, to be in bed, trance as long as she can force it so she doesn’t have to face anything. She turns to start to walk back. About halfway home, she realizes her skin’s going to be burnt to hell; hopefully she can convince Kristen to heal her, given that Fig will almost certainly be pissy now that she’s upset Adaine.

When she walks in the front door, opening with an ominous creak like it always does, she half-expects all of Mordred’s ragtag crew sitting on a couch, intervention-ready, like they’d made her help with when Kristen hadn’t showered in three weeks. (She hadn’t put up much of a fight; they all had to sit at the dinner table together, and she’d like to hold onto what little appetite she has left.)

But there’s nothing. Obviously. The only one who gives enough of a shit to worry about her is probably still mad. It’s a little funny, given that in this case, Aelwyn genuinely thinks she’s in the right for once, but whatever. Her skin crawls at the idea of being watched, especially after the creepy shit in the library last night, but it’s not like she can’t give Adaine a few free passes. She deserves that and more.

(She deserves Aelwyn walking out of Mordred and not ever coming back, not responding to Sendings, shielding herself from scrying, letting Adaine forget her and find someone else to spend the rest of her immortal life with. That’d be better than continually fucking dragging her down.)

For the first time since moving in here, she wishes she didn’t share her room with Adaine, if only because she doesn’t want to fight, just wants to forget the world for a bit, even if it means she has to reread one of Adaine’s dumb books when she can’t trance. Even if it means another dream.

She hates dreaming.

Thank every fucking god that’s ever lived or died, Adaine isn’t in their room when she opens the door. She can climb into her bunk without being distrubed. Grabbing her laptop with mage hand, she settles back down, flinches at the crackling sound of paper being laid on. It’s a bit of an awkward shuffle, getting the note from where it’s pinned under her back, but eventually she pulls out the crumpled piece of paper and reads it.

Aelwyn,

I’m sorry. I talked with Jawbone and realized what I did was really wrong. It was an invasion of your privacy and I didn’t think of it like that. I won’t scry on you again. Unless it’s a quest and your life is in danger or something.

If you want me back in the room, I’ll listen to sending. Otherwise it’s yours for the night. Fig’s letting me crash with her, we’re having a sleepover with Ayda! You can also come join us if you want? (I know you don’t like Fig very much, but she promised it’d be fine.)

We’ve got a small quest we (the Bad Kids) were going to go on tomorrow, too, if you want even more space. I won’t bother you the whole time, even if I’ll miss you. I’d say you can join us

(Aelwyn’s gripping the paper hard enough to tear, nails digging into the palm of her hand, her blood making the ink bleed, but she can’t quite bring herself to stop. She might be crying.)

but Professor Aguefort was very specific about it being only the Bad Kids this time. (Apparently having multiple high-level wizards help you with a quest is cheating, but he sounded too proud to actually be upset about it.)

I love you. We’ll make it through this.

Adaine

(P.S. Jawbone said he’d buy you a new crystal. He’s probably gonna want to talk to you about it first, but the offer’s there.)

Aelwyn’s eyes flick over the letter again and again without really processing it any more. She comes back to herself long enough to relax her hands, cast mending on the paper. She kind of wants to tape it up like Adaine’s postcards and pictures next to her bunk, the beginning of a collage that’ll only grow as time passes.

It takes her a minute to find her spellbook and some wire so she can cast Sending, and a few minutes more to figure out what the hell to say.

I’m sorry. I love you. You can stay at the sleepover. Maybe next time I’ll join. This is your room, you can always be  here.

It’s lacking, but it’s Sending, 25 words is always lacking. Adaine responds immediately anyway.

Okay. I love you. Let’s talk before I leave for my quest tomorrow?

Aelwyn has to scramble to find more wire—they’ve really got to go on a spell components shopping trip when Adaine gets back—but this response is at least easier.

Yes. Definitely. Love you.

I love you too.

Aelwyn’s hands hurt, little red crescent marks welling up where she’d dug her nails in, but it’s enough that she can just wash her hands in the sink, wince at the slight pain of it, put on a band-aid and hope it doesn’t peel.

She doesn’t have much to do, or, honestly, anything, but the more she looks at the room, she does...understand why Adaine was worried. She’s not—it wasn’t okay, to scry on her. It’s not easy to hold that and the fact that she loves her sister at the same time, but. Whatever. She’ll figure it out.

But anyway. Her sheets haven’t been washed in awhile and are covered in crumbs, her hoodie honestly sort of smells, and there’s nothing in the room that’s hers and not hers-and-Adaine’s. (Except the crystal, which still sits in the corner, cracked and bent into a strange shape.)

It’s not like she has anything better to do. Her laptop’s close to dead anyway now that she checks.

As much as Adaine disavows their snooty high elven heritage, as much as Aelwyn is realizing how much that part of her life messed her up, there is something nice in everything being nice and clean and put together. She feels stupidly, irrationally proud of herself for getting this done until she realizes she has literally only changed the sheets, what the fuck, that’s nothing, and then has to practice some stupid slow breathing thing just to calm down again.

Great. Bed made with clean sheets. The old sheets shoved in Adaine’s hamper because they never got around to getting Aelwyn her own. A shower.

For an old and extremely haunted house, the water pressure in Mordred is always nice. It feels really, really good to get clean, Aelwyn pointedly ignoring how gross the water ends up looking, or how tangled her hair is when she goes to wash it.

When she gets into bed that evening, the horror of the dream and the library from last night feels about as far as it could from now: an important-but-good talk with Adaine in the morning, in clean sheets and clean pajamas without the layer of grime she’s half-gotten used to.

Adaine was right. They’ll get through this, too.

She dreams of flowers again, hollyhock and oleander and buttercups and deep black roses all growing around her, from her, around her wrists and ribs and throat. It smells sweet, it smells like rot, it smells heavy and damp and just like Sylvaire. She tastes copper, somewhere in the back of her mouth, and she’s choking through a tight, controlled smile—

Aelwyn wakes up breathing heavy, but the room smells like Adaine’s fresh scent detergent, not like the middle of the woods, so she can relax pretty quickly. A few deep breaths, and she feels like herself again, doesn’t feel like bolting.

Also, nothing’s ominously levitating this time, so that’s cool!

The show she’s been watching is a bit more grating at this point, especially when one of the mothers of the bride demands that she should get a bright white dress for the wedding (???) and it ends up in an actual fight, knives-drawn and everything.

She decides to finally finish and submit a job application—Basrar’s, which would suck so bad but hey, it’s something she can tell Adaine she actually did. She’d already gotten most of the way through it, just needed to list a couple references. After some deliberation, she puts down Jawbone O'Shaughnessey, lists it as a personal reference. With the way his stories go, he and Basrar probably killed a dictator together or had some passionate love affair a decade past or something anyway.

Adaine doesn’t knock on the door, but waits for Aelwyn to notice her before she fully steps in, nervously staring at Aelwyn.

“Adaine,” she says, less confident than she’d like.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes,” Aelwyn says. “Yes, let me just—” She slams her laptop shut, climbs down her bunk slowly so she doesn’t slam her knee into one of the wood slats again. When she turns back to her sister, Adaine is smiling at the letter on her bed. “I didn’t, um. I didn’t want it to get damaged.”

“That’s sweet,” Adaine says.

“I was gonna hang it up, but I don’t know where you keep your tape, so—oh!” Adaine practically tackles Aelwyn into a hug, collapsing against the bed in a way that hurts, sure, but doesn’t override the relief that Adaine isn’t mad at her, is still willing to put the work in.

“I’ll show you later,” Adaine says, voice all choked up. “I mean—when I get back, we don’t have much time and we really should talk.”

Right. “Okay. Yes, let’s—do that.”

They sit on Adaine’s bed, and Aelwyn can’t quite look at her, looks instead at the picture of the two of them taped on Adaine’s wall. It’s a little awkward—Adaine’s smile a bit too wide to be genuine, Aelwyn’s a bit too stiff—but it’s the first photo they both actually wanted to be in with each other. The only one that still exists after their old house burned down, too.

“So,” Adaine says. “I know I said this in the letter, but. I’m sorry I scryed on you. It was an invasion of privacy, and I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have let my worry for you override that, and I won’t do it again.”

“It’s okay,” Aelwyn says. “I mean. As long as you don’t scry on me again, it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Adaine says. “And—ugh. I’m not—this is new to me too, you know? I’m going to mess up. And so are you. And we need to be able to work through that.”

“Aren’t we doing that now?” Aelwyn mutters.

“But part of that means,” Adaine says, continuing on without acknowledging that at all, “is that you need to talk to people that aren’t me about it. Because I’m going to mess up and it’s okay to need to be mad about it at someone. Whether that’s Jawbone or—”

“I’m hardly going to talk to your dad about you being a bitch sometimes,” Aelwyn protests.

Adaine pauses, nods. “Okay. Then someone. I don’t know if any of your old—um, friends—”

Aelwyn’s old ‘friends’ are all dead and in hell or didn’t know anything about her anyway. She doesn’t say anything, but Adaine’s face falls, so she probably gets it.

“Then someone,” Adaine says, gentler, and Aelwyn hates that she’s handling her with kid gloves, hates that she definitely needs it. “Can I ask something?”

“Can I stop you?” Aelwyn says, then shakes her head. “Sorry. Yes, fine, go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you want to spend time together last night?”

“I just—I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“You would’ve been welcome,” Adaine says, and Aelwyn scoffs before she can stop herself. “Aelwyn—”

“Your friends only let me in this house because they know how much you want me here,” Aelwyn says. “They’d have let me join your little sleepover, they wouldn’t have wanted me there. Especially not Fig. She—”

“She probably would have less trouble with you if you just tried to be nice—”

“This is me trying!” Aelwyn snaps, and Adaine goes silent. “Adaine, this is me playing nice, not insulting them to their faces, I don’t—I’m not like you! I don’t—this is me, okay? I’m not going to change.”

“You already have,” Adaine says. “Aelwyn, I know you think you’re not—I know you think no one but me is ever going to want you around, okay? But they will. I mean, I literally killed someone with a ladle my first day of school, and Fig still calls me her best friend. And Fabian is already fine with you, even if your whole thing is—gross, and weird, and probably not healthy—”

“Get to the point you want to make already,” Aelwyn says, hands gripping Adaine’s sheets tight enough that it hurts.

“You can make an effort here,” Adaine says, then closes her eyes. “I think you can make an effort here. I see you’re listening, I see you’re trying, but...can’t you try just a little harder? When we come back from our adventure, hang out with me and Fig! She really will be okay with it. Or Ayda, if Fig’s a little too scary.”

“Fig’s not scary,” Aelwyn says with an eyeroll. “I mean, one high-level spell—”

“I meant socially,” Adaine says. “And the fact that you’re still thinking of my best friend as an enemy isn’t actually good either!”

“I helped you win the Nightmare King battle, why do I have to—”

“Look,” Adaine says. “I would love to continue this conversation.” (She says it in the same tone she’d say ‘having this argument’.) “But we have to go to the Baronies. Honestly, we should be already on our way, considering how far it is—”

“I can teleport you,” Aelwyn says, quickly, because that’s something she can do for Adaine that’s easier than everything else she’s asking for. “If that doesn’t count as you getting help from a high-level wizard.”

“You’d have to walk back or make camp, though,” Adaine says with a frown. “I mean, can you cast teleport without bringing yourself?”

“No,” Aelwyn says. “I mean, if I had time to modify it—”

“Oh!” Adaine says. “Ayda could come with us and you could teleport the two of you back! Or you could teleport us there and she could take you back? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind either way.”

Aelwyn’s pretty sure, based on what little she’s interacted with Ayda, that Ayda would actually rather go with them, but fuck her, who gives a shit. “I’d like to see you off. Besides, I’ve never seen the Baronies. And it’s an excuse to leave Solace without anyone being any the wiser.”

As expected, Adaine’s face twists a bit in anticipation of possibly getting in trouble, but she nods. “Cool! Let’s go with the others, then.”

“So what’s the quest?”

“Oh, just some mind flayers,” Adaine says with a shrug. “We’re stocked up on diamonds for revivify just in case, but we should be fine.”

“To the Underdark, then?”

“No, they’re above ground, isn’t that strange? I’m curious about if their behavior’s been influenced by the death—or, well, morphing—of the Nightmare King—”

Aelwyn is smart, top of her class at Hudol, accomplished wizard—but Adaine is something else, clever and quick-witted and so, so curious about all the parts of the world that Aelwyn couldn’t give less of a shit about. Sure, she’s got a complex about her grades and an annoying righteous streak, but she’s the type of wizard that end up changing the world, being legends, founding academies to wreak havoc on future generations.

Aelwyn is, on a technical level, more than a match for Adaine, but she knows that won’t be true for long. (Especially not with her online courses: can she correctly identify a cantrip, honestly.)

They meet up with the rest of the Bad Kids—all completely anachronistically dressed, as though the peasants won’t be taken aback by Fig’s fishnets or the other one in the band’s Disharmonic Orchestra hoodie—downstairs. Fabian is very purposefully making conversation with Kristen, glancing at her every few seconds. Riz nervously glances into a mirror like he expects something to look back at him; nothing does, or at least his poker face is the same as his normal one. Twitchy.

Ayda’s there, too, holding Fig’s hand, nodding at Aelwyn before looking away. Fig is wearing a new collar, jet black with red spikes that catch the light and gleam like fire. The spellwork on it is masterful; Aelwyn’s good at this mentoring thing. That’d be another potential career if anywhere would just hire her.

Shit, she should check if Basrar emailed her back.

“We all ready?” Fabian asks. He’s more relaxed around everyone when he isn’t trying to pretend he isn’t paying attention to her, shoulders looser, smile easy. He claps—Jorjuj? something with an uh sound—on the back, who awkwardly messes with his already mussed-up hair. It’s stupidly sweet and obnoxiously endearing, just like Adaine’s friends always are.

“Hell yeah!” says Fig. “We’re gonna bring rock to the Baronies!”

“We very explicitly were told not to do that—”

“Riz, all Professor Aguefort said was that the Ministry of Adventure wouldn’t like it, not that we shouldn’t, and also—”

“Why would you want piss off the people in charge, rules are there for a reason—”

“Haven’t you killed, like, a dozen people—”

“Your point?”

“They all do this sometimes.”

“Do you guys remember when Tracker—”

“—Kristen, she hasn’t even been gone two months yet—”

“—Aelwyn?”

Aelwyn snaps back to focus to see Ayda and Adaine looking at her with hard-to-read expressions. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s what Adaine was telling you,” Ayda says. “They do this sometimes. It’s fun just to be heard.”

“That’s right, babe,” Fig says with a glare at Aelwyn, as though she cared enough to refute the point. “Besides, we’re ready for the teleport.”

“Alright,” Aelwyn says. “Am I teleporting you there or does Ayda have the spell slots to teleport twice?”

“I don’t,” Ayda says. “Do you?”

“No,” Aelwyn says. “Just the one teleport.”

“Then we’ll all go and I can teleport us back,” Ayda says, then narrows her eyes at Aelwyn. “You’ve tensed up.”

“No, I haven’t,” Aelwyn says. “That’s fine, let’s go.”

“Or...I can teleport us there?” Ayda says, and now everyone’s stopped talking to watch this exchange, which is absolutely wonderful and doesn’t make Aelwyn want to start throwing hexes.

“Fine, whatever, just do it,” Aelwyn says, and a fiery teleportation circle burns itself into the floor. The magic around them doesn’t feel like Aelwyn’s teleport; it’s warmer, feels like flying until the sudden stop in a dimly lit field.

“Oh, fuck yeah, babe, this is barely even a mile away from the tavern we’re supposed to investigate first!” Fig says after consulting an old-timey map. Ayda’s wings flare out even though her expression looks the same. (Pride?) “Gorgug, you ready to bring rock to the people?!”

“Sure,” Gorgug says affably. Aelwyn tells herself that she won’t forget his name again, if only so that she’ll know it if Adaine quizzes her. “Also to stop them from getting their brains eaten and stuff.”

“They’re not as strong as Whitclaw, right?” Fabian asks nervously.

“Who?” Aelwyn asks Adaine, who mouths later.

“Bye, babe,” Fig says, and pulls Ayda into a kiss that isn’t, like, weirdly intense or inappropriate or anything. It’s sweet. Aelwyn feels weirder being near them than she did any of the times Dayne and Penelope made out mid-villainous planning session, as though they didn’t have things to get done.

When she risks looking back, they’ve stopped, Fig waving goodbye at Ayda, who waves back uncertainly. Then it’s the two of them, alone in a field, watching the Bad Kids walk away.

“It was the choker, right?” Aelwyn asks.

“Yes,” Ayda says. “Good eye. Thank you again for your advice on the spellwork. It was very helpful.”

“It’s whatever, you paid me back,” Aelwyn says. Adaine turns, waves at her, very obviously mouths play nice!. “I—didn’t hate helping. If you ever need help in the future.”

“Alright,” Ayda says, brow furrowed just slightly. “Is there something you need to teleport?”

“No,” Aelwyn says, annoyed, and casts the spell. Her spell acts like it normally does, cool, quick, like stepping off one stair and onto the next. When they arrive back in Mordred, there’s the faintest smell of flowers again, but when she sniffs, it’s gone.

“What?”

“I was just smelling the air, don’t worry about it,” Aelwyn says. “Well. Good—casting.”

“And you,” Ayda says. “I—”

“Did Adaine ask you to play nice too?” Aelwyn says, because it’s one thing if she’s being nice to all of them because Adaine told her to. It’s entirely worse if they’re nice to her because Adaine told them to be. At least, without them making it obvious, and she’s not good at reading Ayda.

“No?” Ayda says. “Why—oh. I’m going to leave and fly away; please don’t try and follow me.”

Aelwyn watches as Ayda does exactly that. She hears the telltale creak of the front door echoing throughout the house as she walks up and up the stairs to her and Adaine’s tower, but doesn’t see Ayda out the window when she climbs back onto her bunk.

Adaine's voice pops into her head, startling her. Aelwyn! Please apologize to Ayda, you really hurt her feelings. Things are fine here. I’ll send a message if they’re not. APOLOGIZE. I love you.

Aelwyn groans. Her first instinct is to say “I love you, no fucking chance”. Her second instinct is not to reply at all, get on a bus out of Elmville and stay gone.

Fine. Will apologize. Didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. Stay safe, I can’t afford a diamond for resurrection. I love you too.

It takes her a lot longer to figure out what she’s going to say to Ayda.

Draft one: Sorry for hurting your feelings. I didn’t realize—

Draft two: Ayda. I apologize for hurting your feelings. It was not my intention. Don’t feel the need to be nice in the future, I understand.

Draft three: Can you grow the fuck up? Who gives a shit if I don’t like you. I don’t like any of you. (This one’s written more for the satisfaction of writing it out, viciously scratching at the paper until the ink bleeds through the paper.)

Draft four: Ayda. Sorry for hurting your feelings. I didn’t mean to imply that I would only be nice to you if I was asked to.

There. Entirely true, not a lie to be found, an apology that Adaine can’t fault since she won’t hear the exact wording unless Ayda wants to waste even more spell slots on more sendings.

Ayda doesn’t respond in the next moment, but it’s still pretty quick. Aelwyn. I accept your apology.

What, that’s it? No snide insult? No irritatingly sentimental confession about her feelings, or whatever all of them do? It’s sort of a letdown, all things considered, even if it’s a relief to not be fighting with Adaine’s best friend.

She collapses onto Adaine’s bunk, too drained to bother making her way up the ladder to her own. Her eyes catch briefly on the photo of her and her sister again. Ugh. Things were much easier when she just—

Hang on.

Aelwyn sits up. The picture looks a little different now. Adaine’s smile is even wider, stretching just this side of unnaturally far, and Aelwyn’s is just as wide, an expression she’s never once worn. It looks painful.

Sure enough, when she casts detect magic, she gets a faint sense of illusion, a silvery aura hovering around the photo, but no clue as to who cast it. She pushes deeper, but nothing, and nothing again, and surprise! more nothing.

Frustrated, she drops the spell, stares at it. The version of her and Adaine don’t move again, still just smiling.

She could ask Ayda. The other wizard’s an accomplished diviner, if not an Oracle like Adaine, and she’d almost certainly have better luck in figuring out where it came from. But Ayda’s almost certainly still pissed at her, weeping tears of flame across the skies of Elmville. It just seems like a hassle.

Jawbone, are there any usual symptoms of the haunt here?

He responds to the sending quickly, to his credit. Kid, ‘fraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed pretty much anything that wasn’t helpful since the day we first moved in, the Thistlesprings took care of all that up front with one of their doodads. Let me ask Sandra Lynn real quick. Yeah, she says she hasn’t seen anything either. Why? Everything safe there?

A little more wire—this would be so much easier over text. I’m fine. Just asking. Are you not here? How do you have more words with sending?

Nah, Sandra Lynn, Lydia, and I are going on a little weekend camping trip with everyone out of the house. Didn’t Adaine tell you? Also it’s a little trick from Aguefort; I’ll show you sometime.

Aelwyn doesn’t respond. It’s not especially likely that Adaine purposefully didn’t mention it, probably too focused on their argument to remember. She gets in her own head about things like that sometimes. It’s completely irrational to have her feelings hurt by being left out of the loop.

I’m sure she just forgot, kiddo, no worries.

Aelwyn wraps a little more wire around her hand. Don’t call me kiddo. Please.

Sure thing! Whatever floats your boat. Let us know if you need us.

Jawbone’s annoyingly hard to stay mad at. Some part of her, small and stupid, wants to ask if he’ll come back to Mordred. It’s one thing to see creepy shit in the house when there’s a gaggle of annoying teenagers and her sister and the people who actually own the damn place here. It’s another if it’s her and Zayn and maybe Ayda.

But she’d rather not waste the few bits of wire she has left, especially to ask someone she doesn’t really know for help. Aelwyn’s never watched a horror movie, but she’s fairly certain she’s doing the dumb thing right now. But what would a guidance counselor know about magic? She should ask Zayn; he’s a dead wizard, he’s perfect for it.

She rolls off Adaine’s bunk, making sure to fix the sheets where they wrinkled where she laid down. Adaine is, for all her (completely understandable) disdain for Fallinel and their focus on propriety over everything, is as neat and organized as any elf Aelwyn’s ever met.

No wonder she was so bugged by Aelwyn’s messiness. It’s hard to care enough to keep clean when there’s not things to hide or people to yell at you if you mess up. (Not, of course, that they ever did, as she was very careful to never give them a reason to think they should.)

Whatever. Getting help from Zayn.

Other than to the dining room and back, the path through the manor that Aelwyn knows best is to the graveyard. She tends to avoid the tunnels—doesn’t like having to squeeze through the walls—so instead she takes a meandering path through the house until she steps through a door into a greenhouse and through that into the graveyard.

“Oh, Aelwyn, hey!” says Zayn with a bright smile. “Wasn’t expecting to hang out today, what’s up?”

“I have a question about illusion magic, was hoping you could help,” Aelwyn says, casually as she can.

“Oof, I can try? I’m a necromancer, not an illusionist, but I try to be well-rounded.”

“Well, it might have to do with ghosts, which is why I thought of you.”

Zayn beaming with pride somehow manages to be dark, in the visual sense—a shift of the air around them like a twilight breeze, like one of Kristen or Tracker’s spells. But it’s not scary, just—goth. Perfect for him, honestly.

“Well, yeah,” he says. “Alright. What’s going on?”

“A photo in my room looks off,” Aelwyn says. “When I cast detect magic, I saw illusion magic, but nothing else. I wasn’t able to get any more information off of it.”

“Huh,” Zayn says. “Weird. Can I see the photo? I mean—unless it’s, like—it’s not that—”

“Ugh, no, it’s a photo of me and Adaine,” Aelwyn says. “Gross. Yeah, sure, let’s go back to the tower.”

“Sure thing,” Zayn says, and walks (well, floats) along the same path she took to get down here. That’s why Aelwyn likes Zayn; he doesn’t pry when she obviously doesn’t want to talk about something. He’s the only one in this house who gives her that courtesy. (Technically not in the house, to be fair, but on the grounds counts.)

When they get back upstairs, Aelwyn points out the photo. Zayn’s still figuring out fine motor coordination when it comes to manipulating objects, so she tenses a bit when he picks up the photo. He seems to be doing okay. (She can Mend it if it tears. It’ll be fine. She can Mend it if it tears.)

“Huh,” Zayn says. “Weird. I also see the illusion magic, but I can’t tell who it’s from, like, at all. That’s really difficult magic to pull off. But this seems like a minor spell. Have you tried dispelling it?”

“I don’t have that stocked today, actually, but go ahead.”

Zayn mutters the spell and flicks his hand towards the photo as if physically pushing it away. It’s a nice twist on the somatic component, she’ll have to try that, certainly faster than twirling her hands around like Hudol taught her to.

The spell dissipates easily. “Huh. Well, it’s not a big—”

Aelwyn gags, and Zayn frowns before he throws a hand over his nose and mouth too. She doesn’t have detect magic up anymore, can’t tell what magic it is, but the rot wafting towards her from the photo has her fully step back and shield herself, as if that can stop a smell from hitting her.

Zayn pushes his hand towards a window; it shatters rather than opens, but honestly, Aelwyn’ll take it. Breathing through her mouth, she manages to mostly avoid the musty, sickly-sweet smell that suddenly seems to permeate every inch of the room.

Aelwyn doesn’t have any wind spells stocked, but waves her hands towards the window. Zayn makes a bit of a face at her, but stops and helps when she glares at him, letting a shocking grasp spark at her fingertips.

“So,” Zayn says, after cautiously breathing in through his nose once to confirm the smell is mostly gone. “That was nasty.”

“Yeah,” Aelwyn says with a little shudder.

“It smells like death,” Zayn says. “That could be necromancy, not necessarily ghosts. But I didn’t see any necromancy…”

“So I can’t just exorcise this room and call it a day?” Aelwyn asks. Zayn frowns at her. “I’d make an exception for you, obviously.”

“No, I don’t know what that is,” Zayn says. “Definitely abjure the room just in case, or—abjure more, nice work on the wards—”

“Thank you,” Aelwyn says with a grin and little bow.

“—but I’ve got no clue what this is. I’m also still only a junior at Aguefort. And a rising junior, too, classes haven’t started yet. But anyway. I can say with certainty this isn’t any of the ghosts I know in the house.”

“You know the ghosts?” Aelwyn had thought all the ghosts did was freak her out and float around being generally useless, like a less-helpful unseen servant.

“Yeah!” Zayn says. “It’s way easier for them to talk to me than to you, since I’m dead and all. But no one’s in here—haven’t been for at least a day. Did you ask them to leave?”

“Oh,” Aelwyn says. “I think so. Good.”

Zayn shrugs. “Sorry I can’t help more with your fucked up photo.” Aelwyn looks at it; it’s fine now, awkward and genuine and the first photo Aelwyn actually likes of herself. “You might check the basement, that place is creepy.”

Aelwyn scoffs. “Sorry, Kristen and Adaine’s permanent blanket fort is creepy? What are you, twelve?”

“No!” Zayn says. “The other basement, obviously. I’m goth, I don’t think pillow forts are creepy.”

“What other basement?”

The only way to this other basement is apparently through a secret passageway, located in her tower (just great, really awesome information to find out) and thin enough that the walls brush her shoulders unless she stays in the very middle. It’s dark and there’s no easy way to light it and—

“Hey, you—”

“I’m fine, Zayn.”

There’s a long pause.

Aelwyn sighs. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’d offer to go with you, but I don’t think I can. The basement is like—” Zayn shudders, which is not helping Aelwyn’s anxiety. “It’s powerfully warded against ghosts. We can go, but it hurts like hell.”

“So this isn’t a ghost? What the hell else would it be?”

Zayn shakes his head. “It might be a ghost who has a spell that allows only them in. For what it’s worth, Jawbone’s been able to go down there without a problem. It’s just on ghosts.”

“Well, I’m not going down into a basement that a dead goth necromancer thinks is creepy alone!”

“Can’t you take Jawbone with you?”

“He and Sandra Lynn and Lydia are going camping,” Aelwyn grumbles. “And there’s another Bad Kids adventure! So it’s just you and me.”

“What about Ayda?”

Aelwyn rolls her eyes. “Probably moping on Leviathan.”

“What, ‘cause Fig’s gone? She’ll be back in, like, a week, tops.”

Aelwyn shrugs. She doesn’t exactly feel like recounting her fuck-up of the week. (Second fuck-up. Okay, so third.)

“Aelwyn…”

“I’ll ask, fine, don’t nag me about it,” Aelwyn says. Zayn holds his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine,” Zayn says, irritatingly gentle. “You have the slots for sending?”

“I should,” Aelwyn says. “How big is this basement?”

Zayn shrugs.

“Lovely. Well, hopefully it’ll be less than an hour that I have to endure.”

“Endure, you high elves are so dramatic.”

“You are also—”

“Yeah, but I’ve died and thrown off all that prissy and prim bull—”

“Right, so if I were to go and throw some dirt on your headstone—”

“—that’s not me being prissy that’s just rude of you—”

“—what, can’t handle—”

“—we are getting distracted.”

Shit. Aelwyn was hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I suppose.”

“Ask Ayda,” Zayn says. “And if it sucks, you can always leave. Or teleport away.”

“Used that slot,” Aelwyn says glumly.

“That...was a joke.”

A pause. “Oh.”

“Damn. Look, it won’t be that bad, okay? Worst that happens is, like, you die and get to hang out and brood in the rain with me forever.”

“Wow. How comforting.”

Zayn rolls his eyes at her before starting to float away. “Oh, and tell Adaine I say sorry and I’ll fix the window!”

Aelwyn nods. Staring down the long, dark hallway for a time doesn’t make it seem any easier. She knows there’s a bag of torches in some adventurer’s pack somewhere in here; it’s part of the Aguefort orientation package. It takes some time to find; a brown rucksack stuffed with a variety of cheap goods that range from wildly useful to completely pointless. She doesn’t want to waste time sorting through it. The idea of being in the basement after dark is...bad. Probably irrational, but bad.

Then there’s nothing to do but go for it, since she doesn’t want to wait for a full long rest (and another night’s trance). Shit.

Ayda. I could use your help with something. You can decide what the terms of repayment are.

There. That’s simple, straight-to-the-point.

Ayda, to her credit, responds quickly. I will meet you in the tower.

She doesn’t fly through the open window like Aelwyn’s expecting. Instead, the door creaks open, loud as it ever is. Aelwyn’s shoulders tense; she can’t read her, can’t tell if she needs to be cautious or outright putting shields up.

“Is Adaine safe?”

“Yes,” Aelwyn says. “She’d probably tell you first, anyway.” Ayda’s face doesn’t shift. “I—there’s some sort of curse on the basement and I need you to check it out with me.”

“Why?”

“Because—” Hm. What to admit here. “I’m not sure how big the threat is and I’ve already expended a fair amount of spell slots today. I thought it wise to have another wizard with me.”

“I see,” Ayda says. “I’m not sure what I’d like in return. Would you be amenable to a by-spell transaction? 50 gold per spell level.”

Aelwyn doesn’t even have a bank account right now. “No. Can I teach you a spell?”

“Which?”

“Your pick.”

Ayda nods. “A fair deal, as long as the spell is high-level, or perhaps multiple low-level spells? Though I don’t know if you know spells I don’t.”

“Then we can work out a new deal,” Aelwyn says. “Look, can we get this done? I swear I’m not going to renege on my side of this arrangement, alright?”

“Would you sign a contract on that?”

What the fuck. “Sure. Whatever.”

Ayda drafts up a contract on a scroll, and Aelwyn signs after skimming through it. There’s a clause in there about Adaine being mediator if both parties cannot agree on a fair resolution. Seems fair.

Then they’re walking down the hallway, Aelwyn trailing behind Ayda, who doesn’t seem to care about how cramped it is. With the faint glow of Ayda’s wings and hair, the passage is well-lit. Another benefit of bringing her along.

Aelwyn has to consciously make herself breathe steadily to keep herself from freaking out. It’s just—cramped. The walls aren’t even touching her, but—fuck.

“Are you alright?”

Aelwyn inhales, exhales. “I’m doing fine. Thank you for asking.” Prim and proper and polite, and this whole thing should be over soon.

Ayda’s shoulders are right up against the wall, and her wings are pushed in. She doesn’t seem to care. Aelwyn tries not to be bitter about it.

Somewhere deep, deep in the basement, miles and miles into the earth, a second flower wilts.

Getting to the basement doesn’t take as long as Aelwyn’s dreading. It’s barely two minutes before Ayda pushes through the exit, inhaling deeply as though the smell of must is in any way appealing , but to each their own? Aelwyn gets out, ignores the wave of relief that comes from being out of such a cramped space.

“Can you feel that?” Ayda asks.

Aelwyn doesn’t immediately know what she’s talking about, but figures it out when she concentrates. The wards in here are powerful, and incredibly well-crafted. The lines—not literally visible, but clear enough to a wizard who knows what they’re doing—are messy, closer to Ayda’s than Aelwyn’s. But the intention of them, the components that went into them, something more than makes up for the shoddy spellwork.

Maybe it’s not shoddy spellwork, actually. Just a different style. Still, it’s clear they’re not made by an abjurer. Abjuration is all about knowing wards, inside and out, being ready to throw them up at a moment’s notice, picturing the exact look of a shield or protection spell so vividly it might as well be there, precise and specific.

“Yes,” Aelwyn says after too long of a moment. “The wards?”

“That was part of what I meant,” Ayda says, pointing to a specific ward that hadn’t caught Aelwyn’s eye. “That one is interesting. Can you tell what it’s guarding against?”

The two main wards on either wall are simple: one forbidding ghosts, though notably there’s space left for a specific ghost, who’s almost certainly the culprit, and the other’s one to protect against divination spells. This close, Ayda should have no trouble studying it, but it would certainly keep Adaine from being able to see into this basement unless she’s both very clever and very lucky.

She has no doubt about Adaine’s wits, at least.

The third ward is smaller, almost hidden behind the ward protecting against diviner’s attempts to see through to whatevers' hiding in the shadows. She steps closer to it, and the shadows seem to stretch further and further, like the room goes on forever. It’s just fucking shadows, she doesn’t need to cast light, but she does anyway, as if it’ll help her look at the ward.

Ayda doesn’t comment on it. Small mercies.

The lines of this ward are neater, but less sure, like it was copied directly from a book. Embarrassingly, she’s not immediately sure of what it’s for. Similarity to sigils indicate something of religious importance, but there’s no obvious celestial or infernal influences.

“What do you think of it?” she asks, feeling the edges of it with her own magic as though she’s still investigating and not just trying to figure out what to say.

“Despite the ward not being designed to protect against divination, like this one, I can see it even less,” Ayda says. Her frown is very, very slight, but given how little she expresses things with her face, it completely transforms her. The light in the room—the flickering fire of Ayda’s hair, the cantrip busy dancing around Aelwyn’s fingertips—cast her strangely, adding to the effect. “I was wondering if you had any insights.”

“It’s not infernal,” she says. “See that line there? Infernal abjurations almost always are convex there, and celestial abjurations are concave. But this one’s just a straight line, not curved at all. The rest of it looks like a sigil, so it should be something religious, or at least religiously inspired, but it’s worshipping something other than the normal heaven-hell dichotomy.”

“Hm,” Ayda says. “If we weren’t trying to find an answer as quickly as possible, that would be a fascinating puzzle.”

Aelwyn mostly just wants whatever’s here to leave her the hell alone, but sure, Ayda can think it’s fascinating. “Then you can come look at it once we deal with whatever’s here, no?”

Ayda nods. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” Aelwyn says, and Ayda confidently steps into the darkness. She illuminates it a little bit, and the room is—massive, actually, because she keeps walking and walking with Aelwyn following behind and she can’t see the wall yet. “What’s wrong with this house? Who designed it, who would want this?”

“Perhaps as some sort of bunker,” Ayda suggests. “There was a salesman in Leviathan, fleeing from somewhere else in Spyre, I believe the Baronies, who had a huge bunker built underneath his home. I only heard that story as advice for what not to do, though. Bunkers are better suited for on-land than for a city on the sea. He drowned when he tried to hide there.”

“You’re cheerful,” Aelwyn mutters. “Perhaps we should have long rested so we can teleport out if things go wrong, then.”

Ayda doesn’t respond for a long moment, though her stride doesn’t slow at all. “I believe if things go wrong that we can make our way out. Despite your feelings about me, we are both accomplished spellcasters, and I trust that you would try and save me. I would try and save you as well.”

Aelwyn’s hackles do drop a little at that, even though they shouldn’t. Of course Ayda’s not gonna let her die. They have a contract, and also Adaine would certainly never forgive her. She might like Ayda more than who Aelwyn actually is, sure, and Aelwyn might hate Ayda for that, a little, but Adaine would hate either of them if they left the other to die.

Hm. Maybe Ayda does understand this better than she’d thought.

They walk in silence for another ten minutes, at which point the whole thing’s completely ridiculous. “This place has to be enchanted to make it so you never reach a point. There’s no way the room is this large.”

Ayda nods. “I agree. Give me just a moment.”

“To wha—”

Ayda closes her eyes, and the fire of her wings and hair flare out as a small ball of flame appears in her hand. Aelwyn, who’s seen Fireball mishandled before during the one practical class she’d been able to attend at Hudol, gets ready to duck and roll and hopefully not immediately die. But Ayda throws the thing down the path they’re following, not at Aelwyn, so she stops, forces herself to relax.

They watch it fly further down the hall, further and further, illuminating nothing new or interesting, until it’s gone far enough that it blips completely out of their sight.

“That spell is meant to show things as they truly are,” Ayda says. “It appears the room really is this large. Perhaps it was expanded by magic rather than made to go on forever with magic.”

“Whatever,” Aelwyn says, hand tightening around the strap of the bag with the rations in it. She’s not gonna be stuck down here. It’ll be fine. “Let’s just get to the end of it.”

They walk for another stretch of time without saying anything. Aelwyn’s crystal is, of course, broken, so she can’t check exactly how much time passes.

At some point, the silence is as oppressive as the basement-that-never-ends, especially given she knows Ayda is mad at her, so she tries a topic of conversation that can’t possibly hurt anyone’s feelings. “What was your impression of the wards back there?”

Ayda doesn’t respond right away, but when Aelwyn risks glancing at her face, she looks like she’s mulling it over rather than purposefully ignoring the question. “They seemed practiced, but still self-taught. I imagine whoever cast the spell was quite talented, as I couldn’t sense the details of who they were beyond the sigil’s age.”

“I didn’t pick up anything on its age,” Aelwyn admits.

Ayda looks at her, not blinking in a way that’s a little nerve-wracking in the flickering light. “Why do you ask?”

“Just making conversation,” Aelwyn says. “We’re both down here, right?”

Ayda nods. “It seemed to be at least fifty years old, though it’s possible they’re older and I simply couldn’t see that far back. It was only a very quick examination.”

“That’s impressive,” Aelwyn notes, because it is. The fire of Ayda’s wings and hair doesn’t flare out at all, which means it’s not an emotional response thing, probably? Or she’s just not affected by Aelwyn complimenting her, which...is. Fair. 

“Thank you,” Ayda says, continuing to walk on.

The silence gets annoying again quickly, only the sound of their footsteps and their breathing, the echo of their breath that she’s probably imagining. When she turns back, she can’t see the pathway out of here at all, and it’s—bad, so she—

“You’re fro—”

“Wait,” Ayda interrupts, looking down into the darkness. Aelwyn strains to see whatever the hell caught her eye, but her perception’s honestly not that great, so she doesn’t see shit. She can feel something, though, a breeze against her face that would reassure her that they’re on their way to an exit if there was any light from up ahead at all.

“Can you cast that spell again?” Aelwyn murmurs, trying to keep her voice low. Whispers carry, a low voice doesn’t—it was one of the first lessons she’d learned before she dared to stray from what her parents wanted her to do. “The—see as they are spell?”

“No,” Ayda says. “I don’t have the slot, but let me—”

A bolt of fire sparks from her fingertip and just misses a transparent specter, standing frozen in the hallway across from them. It looks like someone with long, dark hair, all the color washed out of its skin, an expression that’s not quite a scream stuck on its face.

Aelwyn’s ward crackles to life in front of her as she murmurs a quick spell, just in case the thing throws itself at them. Ayda’s whole thing is fire, she should be decent at evocation even if it’s not her main school of practice. But the other wizard doesn’t throw another spell at it, and Aelwyn glances over.

Ayda’s expression is the same as ever, but there’s an intensity to her gaze that would have Aelwyn shrinking away if it was directed at her. But she doesn’t seem nervous. There’s no magic swirling in her palm, her tattoos don’t glow more intensely. (Come to think of it, she might just be assuming that’s how Ayda’s tattoos work without actually ever seeing it. Sue her, she doesn’t spend time with her sister’s friend’s girlfriend.)

“Well? Is it immune to fire or something?”

Ayda doesn’t turn to look at Aelwyn. “I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt them to check.” Aelwyn could be imagining the emphasis on them there, but she doesn’t think so; Ayda’s shoulders have tensed up a little, like she’s upset.

Aelwyn forces herself to make the shield less visible, though she doesn’t drop it at all. “Right! Of course. My apologies.” Playing nice and all.

Ayda nods. “Apology accepted.” Sucker. “Would you be able to shield me briefly? I’m about to cast detect thoughts, and I’m worried that doing so will inflict some sort of negative effect.”

“Why would you do that?” Aelwyn asks, drawing a quick shield in front of her. It’ll really only stop, like, a cantrip, but it’s something. “Let’s just keep moving, the hallway isn't exactly blocked.”

Ayda doesn’t respond, staring intently at the ghost as she murmurs the verbal components of detect thoughts. Aelwyn gets ready to banish whatever might possess her. That’s an aspect of abjuration that she’s somewhat less practiced in than shields. Abjuration is abjuration, though; for her faults, she can handle that.

“Nothing,” Ayda says, a hint of actual apprehension in her voice.

“Okay, so they’re dead dead. Let’s get this over with, then, we must be getting close.”

“No,” Ayda says, then shakes her head. “Not—a denial. A refutation. You don’t understand what I mean. It’s not that I’m not getting a response. It’s that she’s not thinking of anything.”

Okay? Good for her? “And?”

“Just—a blank void,” Ayda says. “Do you have remove curse prepped?”

She does. She doesn’t mention it right away. Remove curse isn’t a high-level spell, but it’s one she doesn’t want to waste a slot on. “Do you really think it’ll help? Maybe if we remove whatever’s powering the wards back there that’ll do it.”

Fat chance. Aelwyn’s pretty sure those wards will need to be carefully deconstructed and dispelled, even if they kill the caster that drew them. It’s not as though she wants to leave the ghost here to suffer, she’s not that much of a bitch, but she wants to be out of this endless fucking basement.

Ayda nods. “A fair assessment. You never answered my question.”

“Hm?” A pause, enough to seem convincing. “Oh, right. I do have it prepped, but I’m low on slots because of all the sendings.”

Ayda keeps walking, somewhat abruptly. Aelwyn rolls her eyes and follows. They continue on for ages—long enough that the walls shift from normal-if-poorly-maintained to a rough cave system, all stone. There’s no moss on them, no sign of sunlight from further ahead; it seems more like a dungeon than a basement.

With a frustrated groan, Aelwyn drops the pack she’s holding. “We’re going to be down here for ages. We should just rest and teleport down to the bottom.”

Ayda blinks at her, eyes wide behind her glasses. “It’s not possible to teleport to a location we’re unawa—”

“I know,” Aelwyn says, and she’s proud that she doesn’t sound choked up, a little embarrassed that she sounds angry. Hell, embarrassed that she is angry, period. It’s just a little dungeon crawling.

Ayda doesn’t respond, doesn’t try to soothe her like Adaine would or start yelling like any of the others (or Adaine if Aelwyn’s pushed the envelope too much). It’s—a little awkward, not having any energy or even words to bounce off of. She ends up leaning down to pick up the bag and walking forward, expecting Ayda to follow.

She doesn’t.

After about ten seconds, long enough to make distance but not far enough to leave the light from her wings, Aelwyn turns back and arches an eyebrow. “Are you going to start moving? I’d rather not be here any longer than we have to.”

“Why are we down here?”

Aelwyn groans. “There’s a—curse, we need to break—”

“Yes, there’s a curse, but why are we down here now? You don’t enjoy being around me which—you are entitled to that opinion, of course, regardless of how it hurts my feelings—but you’re intent on taking care of this now. Is it something dangerous? If so, you should tell me, as I don’t enjoy being unprepa—”

“We need to break it now because it fucking freaks me out,” Aelwyn interrrupts. “That’s it, alright?”

After a long moment, Aelwyn (busy looking at her feet, the soles of one of her shoes starting to peel a little) hears the click of Ayda’s talons against the stone of the floor. The tension in the air is—pretty rough, honestly. Aelwyn wants nothing more to just get to where they’re going.

Then she never has to talk to Ayda again outside of pleasantries when she comes to see Adaine, and she can put this whole ghost thing behind her.

“Do you have a slot for scrying?” she asks, what feels like hours later. 

There’s a beat of silence, then Ayda says, “No. Apologies for the delay, I shook my head before I realized you’re not looking at me.”

Aelwyn groans. “What if we go down this hallway and it turns out they live in the middle of the Necromikron?”

She glances back at Ayda for the first time since her little outburst earlier. She’s not looking back at Aelwyn, instead looking at the wall with her brow furrowed. “How long do you think we’ve been walking?”

Aelwyn shrugs. “I don’t have my crystal. No idea.”

“Hm. I was going to say, I can cast augury and then we can make camp. If it turns out we’ve gone down this path in error, we can teleport back in the morning. If not, we can continue forward with all our spells in case of any danger.”

A sound course of action. Aelwyn does not want to trance down here. “Fine.”

“You—say that as though it’s not fine. Have I missed something?”

“No.”

Ayda’s fingers twitch, like she wants to cast a spell. Aelwyn can’t read aggression from her at all, just that one twitch, but she preps herself to throw up a banishment if she needs to. That should give her enough time to get a head start running back, especially if she makes herself invisible.

“Okay,” Ayda says. “Give me just a moment to cast augury so we can determine our next course of action.”

Ayda sits all at once in that same fluid motion as when she’d asked for help earlier, and Aelwyn awkwardly sits down next to her. When Adaine had first learned augury, she’d briefly tried a ton of different divining tools. Aelwyn, who’d taken a divination class the previous school year to replace an elective, had still had the gem-inlaid sticks that her parents had bought her to celebrate her first semester 4.0.

She’d almost given them to Adaine, who would’ve been able to actually use them; Aelwyn had cheated her way through that divination class by buying the test answers from Renna Husindarin every exam since the first when she was too high to remember the difference between guidance and guiding hand.

But she hadn’t.

Ayda has these ornate-yet-understated cards, sleek black with gold inlay. Possibly real gold? How rich is Ayda? She is a pirate, though she’s lacking the ostentatious jewels and finery Aelwyn associates with the ones who’ve found any treasure.

(Maybe that’s just Fabian trying to show off, actually.)

“I like your tarot deck,” Aelwyn says eventually, watching Ayda shuffle. The back of the cards is a golden flower, framed by its own branches, but it’s so stylized that it doesn’t set off Aelwyn’s blosso—uh, burgeoning plant-based anxiety.

Well. Not a lot, anyway.

“Thank you,” Ayda says. “It was a gift.”

“From Fig?”

“Why do you ask?” Ayda says, focused on the cards in front of her. She doesn’t shuffle it like a deck of playing cards, but by tipping the cards into three piles, seemingly randomly, putting the deck back together, and then into piles again.

“I like to talk,” Aelwyn says, words dripping with sarcasm obvious enough that hopefully Ayda will pick up on it, and not the fact that it's not far off from the real reason, which is that she hates silence.

“Hm,” Ayda says, adjusting one of the piles so it’s more organized before collating them into one deck. “It was a gift from my father, actually.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize you two were—” What to say here that won’t be rude, now that she’s already this far. “—in the habit of giving each other gifts.”

“We’re not. Or, well, I supposed that’s not entirely true. He did gift me the enchanted key so that I don’t have to abandon my life in Leviathan or my new best friends and girlfriend. But I have never given him any gifts. This one seemed more an afterthought, and I don’t like doing things without thinking them through first.” The next time she shuffles it’s with a little more force. “I asked if it had any personal significance and he said he stole it from a shop downtown.”

Aelwyn is...not sure what to say to that. Yikes is her first thought, thought (and hypothetically said) without much enthusiasm. The second is to ask why she’s giving Aelwyn that kind of information. The third is to ask how long she needs to shuffle, really, wouldn’t one or two times suffice?

“I apologize,” Ayda says. “I’m used to discussing these things with Adaine. I realize we’re not anywhere near that level of closeness or intimacy. Do not feel obligated to return the favor if you don’t wish to.”

“By what, discussing my parents? They’re both gone, nothing much to say.” Aelwyn tries to say that as casually as she can. She thinks it works.

Ayda nods, and finally starts to pull cards. “The Queen of Wands reversed.” The card (upside down to Ayda, right-side up for Aelwyn sitting across from her) has a skeleton with a ring behind her head like a halo, bony hand grasped around a sunflower.

“I don’t know what the cards mean,” Aelwyn says, too distracted by the way the bones are holding the flower—it seems to be held tight, even though there’s not much detail—to keep herself from admitting a lack of knowledge to Ayda.

Ayda, to her credit, doesn’t skip a beat. “If the card were right-side up, it would imply—confidence. Charisma. Self-awareness and comfort with one’s identity.”

“And reversed is what, the lack of that?”

“In a sense. Reversed, the Queen of Wands can signify overbearing scrutiny of the behaviors of yourself and others, and being held back by that.”

She’s got her wings wrapped around herself a little, and Aelwyn thinks maybe that card’s not meant for her.

“Well, it doesn’t quite answer our question about whether or not we should stay or retreat,” Aelwyn grumbles.

Ayda’s wings relax a little, whether at Aelwyn not pressing or at the renewed task. “The middle card—” She flips it, and it’s upside down for Aelwyn. Good sign, then. “The Three of Cups.” Three skulls—Christ, what’s with the death motif in literally everything in Aelwyn’s life right now—with the top of the skull missing, two of them facing down, liquid pouring from where their brains should be into the flower at the crown of the third one.

“Cheery,” Aelwyn says.

“That was...sarcasm?” Ayda asks. Aelwyn nods. “The meaning of the card is actually positive, though I believe you’re referring to the art of the deck?” Aelwyn nods again. “I understand your gut feeling. However, I did research on this deck. The artist is from a culture that does not have the same fear of—well, death and undeath as is common in Solesian culture. Bones are still just people, just stripped of the flesh and sinew. The idea being that there is no need to fear any of the parts that build us, even when they’re left without the pieces to make it complete. It has only ever been human, or elvish, or—half-phoenix. Though there’s no half-phoenix skeletons in the deck.”

“Huh,” Aelwyn says. “So what’s the card mean?”

Ayda blinks at her, then looks back down. “Friendship, essentially. Good intentions and good news being shared.”

It’s not a vibe Aelwyn gets from the card at all, but whatever. “Okay. I still don’t see how it fits.”

“It may be a less direct reading than what to do,” Ayda suggests. “Though perhaps the third card will be obvious. Are you familiar with weal and woe?”

Aelwyn thinks back. The words don’t sound totally unfamiliar, but she doesn’t really have any idea where she heard them or what they mean. “Remind me.”

“It’s one way to interpret augury, though more common with dragon bone or other divining tools than in tarot decks. Weal meaning good results, woe meaning danger or just poor results. Both, for good and bad. There’s also nothing, for results that don’t make much of a difference either way.”

“You’d think they’d have some different W word for when you don’t pull either,” Aelwyn says, mostly just joking.

Ayda nods. “I agree. If you’re going to be alliterative, you should be consistent with it.” She seems serious. “So it could be rather than a literal interpretation, we’ve pulled one weal and one woe.”

“And one that could be either, or, uh, whatever?”

Ayda grins, sudden and unexpected, and Aelwyn smiles back a little, just out of instinct. “Ha!” (Her laugh is more like a screech.) “I enjoy that. I may use that in the future. With your permission.”

“Yeah, go wild,” Aelwyn says. “So. What’s our final result?”

Ayda flips the last card—upright for Aelwyn. Another woe, then? She thinks? “The Queen of Pentacles, reversed. No—Queen of Rings, for this deck. A stylistic choice, but it’s important to respect the artistic intention of the creator, especially as they are an extremely powerful cleric who is still alive.”

“Reversed means bad,” Aelwyn says glumly. “So we’re in the wrong place?”

“Not necessarily,” Ayda says, though the confusion evident in her voice makes Aelwyn feel less like an idiot. The card is another skeleton, reaching the ring slightly above her head, higher than the halo imagery in the first. Her clothing is much more ornate than the simple black of the other Queen card, and she’s surrounded by yet more plants. “Reversed, this card implies fear, self-centeredness, mistrust.”

Okay, that one’s probably Aelwyn.

“So,” Aelwyn says. “Two woe and a weal.”

“Yes, but the weal is the one that actually gives more of a—prediction. The other two seem to be—” She cuts herself off abruptly. “Well. It’s up to interpretation.”

“It’s fine, Ayda, the two woe are obviously us.”

Ayda relaxes, tension in her shoulders that Aelwyn had missed earlier completely dropping. “That seems to be the case. I didn’t want to offend you.”

Aelwyn shrugs. “I know you don’t like me. It’s fine to say you think the card about being a bitch is about me. I did, too.”

Ayda shakes her head. “No. Both to your misunderstanding of the card and to your assumption. Why do you believe I dislike you?”

“Uh,” Aelwyn says. “Because...you do? I don’t care.”

Ayda blinks at her. “I don’t understand that.”

“What, your opinion not having a high priority in my life? Look—”

“No,” Ayda says. “We’re misunderstanding each other. I don’t understand not caring about everyone’s opinion. It’s—obviously, it would be good if you liked me. As I’ve just stated, I like when people like my company. But I would give anything not to care what other people think of me like you do.”

It’s so easily admitted, so sincere, that Aelwyn can’t quite manage to respond with any sort of venom. “It’s not—that I don’t care what people think of me, exactly? I just. People aren’t going to like me, unless it’s Adaine or, like, Ragh and Zayn. Why bother being upset about something that won’t change?”

Ayda looks down at the cards, head tilted towards the Queen of Rings. “Upright, the Queen of Rings can indicate intelligence. I think that aspect fits you as well. Do you see how she’s reaching—up, from your perspective?”

Aelwyn nods. “Yes. Why?”

“Her gaze is upward, looking past the material things—she already has that in her grasp.” Ayda points, as though Aelwyn can’t see the bony fingers around the solid gold of the ring. (The gold on the cards flickers a little in the firelight of Ayda. It looks pretty cool.) “It’s a card of restoration, and growth.”

“Your point being?”

“I think things can change,” Ayda says, looking back at Aelwyn. “But this card, upright or reversed, is not a card that happens without effort and work.”

Aelwyn’s not sure whether to be pissed at the unsolicited advice, backed by the forces of Fate itself, or to take it to heart.

(Adaine had asked her to change, too.)

“Well, I don’t want to piss off the powerful cleric who made the cards,” Aelwyn says, and at Ayda’s brow furrowing, adds, “Thank you. I just—easier to make a joke.”

It’s more than she’s admitted even to Adaine, but Ayda nods, like she gets it. “You remind me of Fig.”

Aelwyn heroically bites back the expression she wants to make before Ayda can see it. “Oh?”

“If you hadn’t kidnapped her father and tricked her, I believe you two could get along quite well,” Ayda says, putting the three cards back in the deck.

“Great,” Aelwyn says. “Awesome. Are we staying or leaving?”

“I think the cards indicate we might have luck if we continue,” Ayda says, and kindly doesn’t add the friendship part of it. That’s a weird pressure to put on either of them.

“Okay,” Aelwyn says, a little upset that she doesn’t have an excuse to abandon this, but hopefully they’ll make camp and then find the ghost responsible before lunch the next day and then she can go upstairs and trance without having a—not-quite-nightmare.

Neither of them know how to make camp, as neither of them are actually adventurers, but Aelwyn can approximate a good shelter using the tent that came in the bag, though it’s not the shape it shows on the label, and Ayda has a fire burning in seconds.

Their camp’s far from cozy, but it’s serviceable, and the rations actually don’t taste terrible. sorta like a protein bar. (Maybe it’s just the peace and quiet that comes from eating without being surrounded by a bunch of annoying teenagers yelling about nothing.)

Conversation’s easier than it has been on their walk down into the depths of this house. They’ve definitely gotta be far, far from the manor grounds, not even really in Mordred anymore.

“This space would still be property of Jawbone and Sandra Lynn, actually,” Ayda adds when Aelwyn wonders if they’ll get caught breaking and entering. I did research on Solesian property law with regards to home ownership after I made sure the key I owned worked; I didn’t want to risk a pirate who broke in getting excused for some legal loophole. As long as we don’t break a lock and enter someone else’s space, we cannot—legally—be held liable for breaking and entering. So unless someone else has an unlocked tunnel into this network—”

“It counts as part of Mordred,” Aelwyn guesses, and Ayda nods. “Huh. Good deal for the square footage. Do you think if it gets burned down—just this part—they can collect the insurance?”

Ayda tilts her head. “I don’t know the specifics of their insurance plan. It’s certainly a legal possibility.”

Ayda tries cooking one of the rations, to see if it tastes better that way, but it just burns while Aelwyn laughs (well, more like snorts). It’s—different than when she used to laugh when Dayne tripped Biz at one of their villainous meetings, or her and Penelope being snide about the soon-to-be Seven Maidens. She’s not laughing at Ayda. Well, she is a little, if only because her expression, all wide eyes, is just like Adaine’s surprised face.

“I still don’t know why the tunnels are here, though,” Aelwyn says. “Separate from the legality of them. Like, what would a space like this even be used for?”

“An escape route? Fig guessed that all the secret tunnels meant that a criminal mastermind used to live here. Then again, Riz had pulled up the ownership history of the place and didn’t see anything more dangerous than an adventurer.”

“It’s Elmville, everyone’s an adventurer,” Aelwyn says, and Ayda nods and writes something down. “Solace in general, but especially Elmville.”

“Fascinating,” Ayda says. “I have no idea how this society functions like this. Hm. I’ve had a thought.”

“Yeah, go on,” Aelwyn says. “Are there any drinks other than the water in that bag, by the way?”

Ayda digs through the bag, pulling out the rope, the rest of the rations (enough food for at least a week), and a variety of other mostly-useless trinkets considering it’s not an actual dungeon. “I don’t see anything. To my original point, it is possible these tunnels are for some sort of adventurer’s purpose.”

“Yeah, but what? A fake dungeon?”

Ayda shrugs. “It’s certainly a different educational approach than the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, but I believe there’s a school in Bastion City called the School of Heroism and Villainy that favors a less quest-based learning system.”

“Isn’t that the one with the weird skeleton thing?” Aelwyn says with a little shudder.

“What skeleton thing?”

Aelwyn explains what she’s heard, something about skeletons that are enchanted to reanimate again and again as essentially free combat experience. It’s just something she’d heard secondhand from Penelope a few months ba—nope, last year, so it could be wrong, but the idea of it was funny.

“That seems cost-ineffective,” Ayda says. “You would need something more powerful. Revivifying a dragon at 1 hp would net far more experience.”

That gets too close to the Maidens, which is something Aelwyn does not want to talk about, especially with one of the few people here in Mordred who doesn’t know everything already. “Right. Well, is it possible your father made this as an experiment looking into executing that concept?”

Ayda shakes her head. “No.”

“...okay, I guess.”

“I don’t believe my father would have made wards like this without making it obvious he was the one who made them,” Ayda explains. “He’s very—proud, of his magic like that. There’s a reason the Academy has his name on it. He’s not subtle.”

Aelwyn, getting the sense that Ayda may have some things she doesn’t want to talk about too, asks, “In that case, do you have any sense for anything else about the person who cast the ward?”

The conversation switches to spellcraft, very quickly getting off topic from the original warding, and Ayda pulls out notes she has about the differences in casting between her and her previous selves. It’s a type of study that Aelwyn’s never seen before, that probably no one’s ever seen before. At least, Aelwyn doesn’t think there’s other half-phoenixes around. 

She doesn’t ask Ayda about it.

“As you can see, our casting is very similar, but there’s variances,” Ayda says. “Now, most of this can be attributed to the fact that in lieu of a traditional spellbook, my first spells were learned through these notes, so the base influences are the same. But you can see my two previous iterations both favored a much more direct approach to spells, like you—”

“Direct? What do you mean by that?”

Ayda shuffles closer, and they look over the notes. It’s a lot like when they worked on the spell, but now there’s no specific goal in mind. Aelwyn gets to look at this unique, impressive feat of spellcasting, far more interesting than anything she’s been doing in her dumb online class. It's kinda cool. “Do you see how the lines are very—precise? They’ve only been drawn once, not in a variety of small, quicker lines like these here.”

“Yeah,” Aelwyn says.

“It reminds me of your casting approach. It’s confident, reflexive. You know your magic works for you; you don’t think about it as long before you cast. That’s not, of course, to say that you don’t put thought into your spells. Given your work with modifying forbiddance, it’s clear you have experience adjusting and creating spells to work for your specific purpose.”

Aelwyn certainly has experience with that. She doesn’t imagine Ayda will appreciate hearing where that knowledge comes from. “Mm. So what changed?”

Ayda taps one of the spells that Aelwyn is pretty sure is from this lifetime. “There’s a certain—doubt, in my spells. I take a long time to research spells before I cast them, and I need to be very, very driven in order to cast more difficult spells without preparing ahead of time. A friend in danger, the fate of my library at stake, that sort of thing. However, it does allow me a certain flexibility to my casting. As I put so much thought in, modifying is a less—involved process. I can plane shift into a ruby rather than into another literal plane easier than you could, most likely, but you could modify plane shift into whatever you needed given a specific purpose and some time, even into an entirely different spell.”

It doesn’t sound like very different methods of casting to Aelwyn, but she can see a difference in the notes. This Ayda has very neat, legible handwriting, but packed so tight with annotations and crossed out that it looks more jumbled. One of the other pages, worn with age, has much messier handwriting, but written out just the once with a diagram taking up the rest of the space.

“Have you ever tried to talk to one of your previous selves? I’m not a necromancer, so I don’t know the specifics, but I’m sure there’s ways to summon ghosts from other planes at least temporarily to speak with them. With two clerics and Zayn in the house, I’m sure there’s at least someone who can get you on the right track.”

Ayda doesn’t respond for a long moment, long enough that Aelwyn worries she’s fucked up, tries to think of something to say to abate the tension or at least direct it elsewhere, when Ayda says, “I don’t have—that’s not a possibility. For me.”

“Okay,” Aelwyn says. It’s getting late enough that she’s getting tired, and she does not want to sleep. Continuing this specific conversation is—risky, sure, but better than the alternative, so, “Why?”

Ayda blinks at her, studying her expression. “I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

Shit. Not much room to maneuver around that. “Alright. Well, the notes are interesting, regardless.” Play nice. “Thanks for showing them to me.”

Ayda opens her mouth, and Aelwyn waits for her to say something. But then she seems to change her mind, looks away, and says, “We should start a long rest. I need to fully sleep.”

“Your fire doesn’t, uh, dim when you sleep, does it?” Aelwyn asks. The fire they’ve got burning is probably gonna die if it’s not tended to for four hours, and she doesn’t want to wake up in pitch darkness. Even with darkvision, it’s—not how she wants to spend her time.

“No,” Ayda says. “Why—oh. You’ll need light to prepare your spells after you wake. My wings should do for that.”

“Guess I’ll work on modifying light to make it last longer while I wait for you to wake up,” she says, unsure if she’s joking or not.

Ayda nods. “Right. I’m going to go to bed now.”

It’s a little awkward and difficult to get into the tent, but there’s enough space that they’re not touching and have their own space. Ayda has to curl up a little not to brush the edges, and Aelwyn’s pretty sure they’re gonna wake up with part of the tent shredded from Ayda’s talons.

Ayda lies down and just falls right asleep, like it’s nothing. Aelwyn doesn’t even sleep and she can’t trance that easily. A little annoyed, she lies down and—

Can’t trance. At all.

It doesn’t matter how much she tries to settle in and properly meditate, or even how much she tries to relax like a human (or half-phoenix) would. As soon as she almost starts to relax, she starts to feel like she’s falling, jolts upright and fully awake and aware.

It’d be fine if she was trying to stay up. Hell, she doesn’t want to sleep, doesn’t want to dream—the “mental exercises” all elves are supposed to be good at when they trance don’t come to her easily. Actual dreaming—that’s not something elves are supposed to do, even under magical influence. Even with a dead god literally called the Nightmare King, it took a direct exertion of their influence via Kalina.

Hm. Well, then something can’t be right. Assuming Ayda’s reading was accurate—and she’s inclined to believe it, if only because the card directly calling her self-centered and mistrustful seems like—well, unless she’s lying—

After a moment’s hesitation, she grabs Ayda’s notes, still out, and flips until she can find a note on the cards’ meanings. These are recent, in the current Ayda’s writing, and validate what she said. Okay, so a real reading. If whatever was causing this really was as powerful as the Nightmare King, it’d have been all woe about staying. Danger. Red alert. The Tower and the Ten of Swords and the Devil. (Next to this one is a note saying inaccurate. The only devils I’ve known personally have been nothing but kind.)

Slipping back into the tent, she tries—again—to get comfortable. It’s a little easier to relax, though the peace of mind she needs to meditate still eludes her. Until, suddenly, it doesn’t—sleep hits softly, gently, unnatural and that’s—bad. Probably. It’s hard to hold onto the thought as she slips into another dream.

The earth is damp and cold beneath her, the grass tickling the back of her neck. She’s sinking down, but not like quicksand—it feels like the mattress the first time she slept in a motel, a little gross but hardly dangerous.

Aelwyn’s a little surprised when she can sit up. The place around her is a meadow, not a forest—flowers of every color she can imagine and a few she couldn’t bloom everywhere. The only patch of grass is where she’s sitting. It’s a perfect outline of her, not an inch off.

That should be alarming. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it is, but for now, it smells sweet and it looks beautiful and she’s so tired of worrying.

The flowers don’t suddenly wrap around her ankles, don’t sink into the earth, don’t even get crushed by her weight, just spring back up, healthy and whole, as soon as she moves her feet away from where she's stepped on them. She wanders, the meadow going on forever just like the basement, but there’s no walls closing her in here, no dark shadows that she’s worried will be too dark even for her darkvision, nothing but—flowers.

What’s at the edge of this? Anything? It can’t go on forever. She hasn’t seen a single other person here.

That tugs at something. She’s supposed to be near someone. Who was that? Not Adaine. She wouldn’t forget Adaine, not even if her brain was broken beyond repair. (A strange thing to think.)

There is something behind her.

Aelwyn ignores that, knows it to be true the same way she knows how the spells she’s been able to cast since middle school feel leaving her hands, knows also that as long as she doesn’t look at it, all it can do is follow her. She doesn’t know when it started, thinks it was behind her ever since she got up, the outline just-too-perfect

For what it’s worth, it’s easy to forget that whatever it is there with everything around her, especially now that she has a goal: find whoever she was with. That just makes sense. She can’t remember who it was, if it was an enemy or an ally, just knows it isn’t Adaine.

She searches, but it’s just flowers and flowers and flowers and no changes. She wonders if she should turn, search in the other direction, but that would require looking at—whatever it is, and she’s not one to take that kind of risk without knowing there’ll be a payoff. (If it was Adaine, she’d look. But it’s not. No one else is important enough to risk herself, and even then—)

The flowers don’t run out, as long as she walks, as long as she’s followed, but eventually she sees another patch of grass, also her shape, and it feels only natural to lie down. This time, sleep—or, well, restfulness—comes easy, and—

Aelwyn wakes up feeling better rested than she has since before Fallinel claimed her from Elmville’s police station. She can remember the dream, but only vaguely—something about flowers—but it doesn’t haunt her the way the other ones did. She still shouldn’t be dreaming, but—whatever. That’s what they’re here to deal with, and Aelwyn doesn’t exactly want to look a gift not-nightmare in the mouth.

Ayda’s still fast asleep next to her, at least another few hours left before she’s rested enough. The light of her wings is more than enough for Aelwyn to flip through her spellbook and prepare her spells for the day. She almost preps burning hands just for another lightsource, but—Ayda’s here, and she casts light just by being here, so she’s probably good? Also, Aelwyn excels more at combat where she doesn’t need to be in the thick of things, conjuring elementals from a distance to do the melee.

As always, she keeps that spell prepped, in case she needs to make a quick getaway. Expeditious retreat, for the same reason. Blink, the same. Banishment, as it’s one of the more powerful spells she has in terms of protection. Modify memory, she skips past. Remove curse, better safte than sorry.Her highest-level most difficult spells, she only has one of, and she picks teleport without even checking the others. What, symbol? That’s only helpful for planning ahead, not actually being mid-expedition. Adventure. Whatever.

She’s still not an adventurer. No interest in it, this is just something she needs to get done.

Ayda sleeps very soundly, or at least doesn’t stir when Aelwyn keeps flipping through her spell book for lack of anything else to do. It’s a strange mix of comfortingly familiar—she’s had this same spellbook since she first showed a natural aptitude for abjuration—and...odd. There’s notes here about erasing memories, about detecting maidens, about reflecting damage. It’s a version of her that—she isn’t, anymore.

She doesn’t know if she’s better, though, and she slams the book shut before remembering there is, in fact, another person here. She freezes, but Ayda only rolls over and continues sleeping, and after a few minutes of her heart pounding in her chest, Aelwyn lets herself relax.

Instead of the later parts of the spellbook, where she dived deeper in making spells work for Kalvaxus’s big villainous plan, she flips through the cantrips. She’d learned those long enough ago that there’s a visible difference in her handwriting, a little messier before Hudol had been strict about everything being uniform.

This is—easier to read, a little. There’s no signs of what she’d do in the future, just excited notes about what she’s noticed about her spellcrafting, how easy it was to throw up shields, helpful “tricks” for making spells from other schools work. One says make sure to remember the words. Great lifehack, little Aelwyn.

Ever contradictory, it’s also way, way worse to read this, because she remembers being that kid, eleven or twelve and waiting for the world to open up and just be better, and she remembers throwing her kid sister in the line of fire before they could even think to put her there instead, over and over again. This is when she smoked weed for the first time, got really paranoid and locked herself in the bathroom of the girl she’d been sort of friends with. This is when she first saw Kalina, after waking up with a cut she hadn’t remembered. This is when she figured out something was really, genuinely wrong with her, that other people didn’t just hide their less-than-kind urges better than she could.

Fuck, this is exactly why she doesn’t linger with things like these.

Ayda’s notes offer almost the same level of distraction without the added emotional baggage, and while it’s a little more difficult to make out writing on parchment rather than paper, the light cantrip, bright, almost fluorescent, more than makes up for the difference.

When Ayda does stir, Aelwyn almost misses it, completely engrossed in what reads like an argument between the current Ayda’s notes versus her previous self about conjuration, of all things. Next to abjuration, conjuration is the school Aelwyn’s most comfortable with, after all her practice conjuring elementals. But this is an entirely new perspective, less focused on efficiency and more on questioning where—

“Aelwyn.”

She doesn’t exactly throw the notes up in the air or anything, but she has to catch herself from accidentally tearing the notes in her rush to move, hide what she’s doing. It’s not as though she’s even doing anything wrong, but—still. “Fuck!”

“I’m sorry,” Ayda says. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I’m—it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Aelwyn says, irritated at her own response and at Ayda for seeing it. “I was just looking at your notes.”

Ayda nods. “I can see that.”

There’s a long, awkward pause.

“Do you need time to prep your spells?” Aelwyn says, shoving the notes in her hands and climbing out of the tent. She casts light on her own book, doesn’t see anything other than the same walls as before when she lifts it around to see what’s going on. The light it casts is a little too bright, hurts her eyes a bit.

“Only a few minutes,” Ayda says. “Would you prefer I climb outside of the tent to do that? So that way we can get started faster?”

Aelwyn nods before remembering Ayda isn’t looking at her. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

Ayda preps her spells—including teleport, after a brief discussion about escape routes in case they get misdirected—while Aelwyn packs the tent up. It doesn’t fit in the bag the same way it was there earlier, and she has to cast mending on one of the poles after she accidentally snaps it, and then they—wait. Shit. Which was the right way?

Ayda takes a pearl out of her pouch, crushes it with a little burst of magical force, and nods in the direction opposite of where Aelwyn had been looking. “That way is deeper into the basement.”

“Right,” Aelwyn says. “Well. Hopefully we’ll be through with this before we have to make camp again.” Ayda’s quiet, for a second, and Aelwyn realizes—a beat too late—how that might have come across. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to set the tent up again, after all.”

Ayda nods, not quite meeting her gaze, and says, “Well. Let’s be off, then?”

The system of roots is very, very strong. The flowers are all interconnected, practically sprouts of one larger organism, drawing from the same source. They’re not easily ripped out, either, and it’s only growing more powerful.

A hand reaches out to the one that had begun to wilt, now growing stronger, and just barely touches it with the tip of one finger. It stays strong, but the flowers next to it begin to lose their color, ever-so-slowly drying up.

Today is easier. Ayda’s not mad at her anymore, and they talk, even if it’s a little stilted outside of spellcraft. They don’t really know much about each other, and everything Aelwyn knows to ask about is a little—well, risky. Arthur Aguefort—definitely risky. Wizardry—topic is largely exhausted outside of very specific academic discussions, and those don’t lend itself to being spoken about without visual aids. Fig—she has nothing to say. Adaine—she doesn’t want to hear Ayda’s opinions on her sister, doesn’t want to hear she knows something about her sister that she doesn’t.

“So,” she says. “You’re from Leviathan?”

“Yes,” Ayda says.

“How’d you end up there?”

Aelwyn had actually thought a lot about Leviathan, when she was younger. Back in middle school, the idea had been...appealing, a city that’s constantly moving, enough people to lose herself in a crowd, no one she’d recognize, no one she’d have to risk disappointing.

Also, you know. The idea of being swept off her feet by a hot pirate woman wasn’t nothing.

“I was reborn there,” Ayda says, like it’s a totally normal thing to say. “There was no reason to leave. I had no support anywhere else in Spyre, and no grand ambition to do anything but protect my library.”

“And now?”

The fire of Ayda’s hair flares up a little. “Well. Now I’ve found people who I want to stay with, and who want them to stay with me. That’s new. Or—not entirely new. I had Garthy, before. But that dynamic is...different, and difficult, though I still cherish it.”

“Garthy?” The name sounds vaguely familiar. A cursebreaker her mom might have mentioned. “An old friend or something?”

Ayda nods her head, vigorously enough that her glasses go flying, which is expressive in a way she hadn’t expected to see from the other woman. She snorts, mends the lenses when she hands them back. “Thank you. Yes, and also not quite. Your mending of these glasses is perfect. Garthy is family, both chosen and biological, though I was unaware of that when I was first young enough to contemplate leaving Leviathan.”

“Thanks,” Aelwyn says. “I didn’t realize Arthur Aguefort had family other than you.”

Ayda blinks. “Hm. That’s—an angle that I hadn’t considered. That by being related to me, Garthy is also related to my father. Of course, it’s obvious in hindsight. I am going to have to speak with both of them about that, though Garthy may have—please give me a moment to write that down.”

Aelwyn waits, pressing into the walls to see if she can get the slightest sense of anything, casting detect magic just for something to do. There’s a faint aura of magic around the both of them, but otherwise nothing.

“So if he’s not through Aguefort, is he half-phoenix?” That bird must get around.

“Quarter,” Ayda says, sounding supremely uncomfortable, and then it clicks.

“Oh. Oh! That’s—well. From a previous—”

“Yes,” Ayda says. “To Garthy’s credit, they were quite good at separating me from the previous version of myself in terms of what they expected from me. I assume, at least. It’s a practice I try to avoid, but as I’ve no other points of comparison, a little inference isn’t that dangerous.”

Aelwyn wants to push, but Ayda doesn’t exactly look like she wants to talk about it. “So, uh, Leviathan. What’s it like?”

“Loud and dirty,” Ayda says. “It’s not at all a place for research. The Compass Points is the only location there that matters to me. Had my father not gifted me the key to Mordred, I would have simply shrunk it down and—well. Moved in here, I suppose.”

“You would’ve U-hauled,” Aelwyn says.

Ayda pulls out a piece of parchment. “I’m not familiar with the term. It’s one Kristen used, but then she started crying, so I wasn’t able to ask for further information, and Fig was distracted, and then I just forgot. Do you—”

“It’s when gay women move in with each other very soon after a relationship starts,” Aelwyn says. “It’s a staple, so I hear.”

“Why is that called U-hauling?”

“It’s a type of moving truck,”

Aelwyn explains. “Uh—” She digs into the pack for a pen and looks around for a piece of paper until Ayda hands her parchment. She draws the truck—or an approximation of it, she’s an abjurer, not an artist—and shows it to her.

“Excellent. Now I know and will not be caught unaware again.”

That moves into gay culture in Solace, very different from gay culture on Leviathan (breaking into their house to leave treasure rather than steal it, which is actually kind of cool), then into the fact that Aelwyn is also, in fact, gay, and then a bit of an awkward discussion about Fabian when Aelwyn clarifies that she does mean she’s a lesbian, not bisexual.

“I thought—”

“Yeah, well, you do dumb shit when you’re sixteen and high and more focused on a villainous plan,” Aelwyn says, hoping that’s enough to diffuse the conversation, realizing her error only a second too late when—

“What plan?”

“Adaine didn’t tell you?” Aelwyn says, wishing there was somewhere else she could go, conversationally or physically. There’s just this tunnel, getting—warmer, actually, the deeper they go. Ugh. Gross.

“No,” Ayda says. “I just knew that you were being held in the same prison as Adaine. I realized later, after we rescued you—” (Aelwyn hadn’t actually known that Ayda was involved in that rescue. Completely forgotten it. Stupid of her to even think that, because obviously she’d forgotten it) “—that you and the Bad Kids were not on the best of terms, as you kidnapped one of Fig’s fathers—”

“Right, yes, whatever,” Aelwyn interrupts. “Let’s just focus on—”

“—please don’t interrupt me,” Ayda says, loud enough that it startles her.

There’s another long beat.

“Go on, then,” Aelwyn mutters.

“I only had a little left to add, “Ayda says. “I just don’t—like being spoken over. So. I knew you weren’t on good terms, but I never knew why. I assumed you just chose your mother’s plan over ours.”

Ours. Because Ayda’s a full part of the family. “Well. Assumptions.”

She’d thought it was a pretty pointed dismissal of further conversation, but Ayda presses further. “Are you unwilling to tell me?”

“There’s just no reason to dwell on it. It’s the past. It’s over. It’s not like I’ll do what I did again,” Aelwyn says. “You don’t have to worry about me betraying you.”

“I wasn’t,” Ayda says, though her tone’s a little hesitant. Aelwyn doesn’t think she’s lying; she seems the type to have obvious tells.

“Alright,” Aelwyn says, just to acknowledge she’s heard her.

They walk for another length of time without talking, until the silence becomes as oppressive as the darkness, which seems to cast longer shadows the further they walk. It’s just in Aelwyn’s head, she knows that, but—still.

“It’s a good thing you’re half-phoenix,” Aelwyn says, hoping this olive branch works. “It’d have been annoying to cast light every hour.”

“I agree,” Ayda says. “Though it would have worked as well, if not better. Of course, my hair won’t do much in the event of magical darkness, which seems far more likely given the nature of this mansion.”

“Magical darkness is more fiendish,” Aelwyn says, because she did learn some things at Hudol. “I’m sure it’s just more ghosts.”

“Statistically speaking, you’re likely correct,” Ayda says with a nod. “But Fig has been impressing upon me the importance of not relying on statistics. It can be a little...restricting. Hm.”

“What?” Aelwyn says. “Do you see something?” She lets a shield start to form in the palm of her hand, ready to be thrown up in a second if something leaps out at them.

Ayda stares down the dark hallway in front of them, ominous and foreboding, and says, “I was simply thinking of what we will do in the event that I’m Polymorphed. Again, I do agree with your analysis that it’s ghosts, but better to be safe than sorry.”

Aelwyn thinks of being down here with only her own magic for light and shudders. “Right. Did you have something specific in mind?”

“No,” Ayda says. “I suppose we could cast light on something just in case, though we would still have to recast it.”

“Whatever, that works,” Aelwyn muttes, and recasts light on her spellbook, which had its brightness fade...maybe a half hour ago? Again, it’s hard to tell time without a phone or any sort of view of the outside.

“Your tone is hard to decipher,” Ayda says, turning to look at her with what isn’t quite an accusatory glance. “What’s upsetting you?”

“You’re not at all freaked out by the dungeons underneath the house you spend more nights in than your own home?” Aelwyn asks. It’s an obvious misdirection, but it works.

Ayda tilts her head. “You’re asking because you’re freaked out?”

Aelwyn thinks about Adaine warning her to play nice, and admits, “Yes.”

“Understandable,” Ayda says. “I’ll be...honest, though I don’t exactly find it easy, given how little I know about you firsthand. This hallway is terrifying, and had it not been for the Forest of the Nightmare King and the events that transpired there, I would say this is the most frightening experience of my life. Or, this life.”

Aelwyn nods, and Ayda turns back. They walk for what feels like hours further down the hall, long enough that Aelwyn kind of wants to sprinkle a bit of the dust from her relatively bare components pouch to make sure they aren’t in some sort of loop, long enough that the walls get wider, like they’re finally getting somewhere. Hopefully that somewhere is in the right direction.

She trusts Ayda’s augury, though. Also that Adaine would cast sending if she saw some sort of vision of her in danger.

“Would you be upset if I were to ask you a question? A personal question, not that one,” Ayda asks, breaking the silence.

“I’d like to say no,” Aelwyn says. “But it depends on the question.”

“Hm,” Ayda says. “That’s not especially helpful.”

“Just ask,” Aelwyn says, absent-mindedly using Prestidigitation for something to do with her hands.

“Adaine,” Ayda starts, and a shield audibly crackles between the two of them before Aelwyn can hold it back. “Never mind. I can see I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.”

“What about Adaine?” she says, tone perfectly pleasant and polite. Ayda doesn’t answer right away, and Aelwyn forces herself to drop the shield. “Go on. Ask. It’ll just bother us both if you don’t.”

“You clearly care a lot about your sister’s opinion,” Ayda says. “As do I.” Aelwyn wants to cut her off and say that first of all, that’s not a question, and second of all, that’s not her business, but Ayda had been pretty clear about that point. “Is that why you’re being nice to me?”

Aelwyn takes a moment to process it, still comes up empty. “What?”

“You said that Adaine had asked you to play nice,” Ayda says, arms hugging herself, wings half-wrapping around her. “Is that why you’re being polite? I’ve been debating whether I should ask. I didn’t want to—I don’t usually want to know, when people don’t like me. But I’m confused.”

“Um,” Aelwyn says. “I mean, I do enjoy talking to you about spellcraft. I don’t—I didn’t invite you on this journey because Adaine asked me to, or anything.”

“I know,” Ayda says. “I asked. She said you may be unhappy that I did; I haven’t asked her anything since, now that I know it’s the type of thing you may dislike. I’m mentioning it now because I can see you’re angry.”

“I’m not—” Aelwyn stops, because she kind of is, the idea of her sister gossiping behind her back about her to Ayda, who she had, stupidly, sort of trusted not to do that sort of thing since they were in the tunnels. Perhaps it’s just that she hadn’t even noticed her casting sending. “I’m not really angry, at least. I just—I don’t like people—”

Talking about her. Caring enough about what she’s doing to have an opinion on it if that opinion is anything less than wonderful girl, you can tell she’s going places, and did you see her casting? truly unparalleled!.

“Aelwyn?” Ayda asks. “I’m not trying to interrupt. Just checking to see if you’re alright.”

“Why?” Aelwyn asks, because that, at the core of it, is what’s bugging her. “Why are you bothering to?”

Ayda shrinks back. “I won’t again. Sorry.”

“No, I’m not—” Aelwyn groans. “This isn’t what I mean. I don’t understand why you care enough to check. I’ve been a bit of a bitch to you, in case you haven’t noticed.” She winces. “And that! That was awful! I don’t—you realize what kind of person I am, don’t you? Why are you wasting your time?”

The volume of her voice has steadily increased, until she’s loud enough that her throat’s hoarse, that it echoes on the halls, that it covers the sound of raspy breathing from up ahead until they’re much closer than she’d like them to be.

Ayda’s firelight catches them before Aelwyn notices anything’s happening at all. She grabs Aelwyn and pulls her back in a selfless gesture that annoys Aelwyn all the more. At first glance, she thinks it’s a lich, gets ready to teleport out and call backup until she realizes it’s a bit too fleshy, not skeletal enough to be a traditional lich.

The rot on them is visible, though, spots of plant growth. They look a little like a fucked-up druid, like Danielle Barkstock gone murderous hermit rather than gay ecoterrorist. Long, dark hair that smells awful, looks crusty, looks like it’s oozing.

Whatever they are, they’re breathing, unlike the ghost from earlier—slow, rough, but unmistakable. It doesn’t react to either of their presences, though, even when Ayda pokes it despite Aelwn trying to pull her arm back.

“It’s definitely physically real,” Ayda says, then looks down at her hand. “That is—gross.”

Aelwyn prestidigitates her hand, because she is not making camp with someone who’s got some sort of blight. Ayda nods at that, acknowledging the spell, eyes still focused on the being in front of them.

It keeps breathing, even blinks once, but it’s clearly been there for a long, long time—there’s moss on their clothes, some sort of plant growing up their arm that trails all the way back to the root system at their feet.

Now, Aelwyn’s not spent a lot of time around plants, admittedly, but she’s fairly certain the harsh line between the lifeless, cold stone and the start of the plants, a perfectly straight line, isn’t natural. It’s also definitely a sign of some sort of curse.

“Rapid plant growth, maybe?” Ayda mutters. Neither of them lean past the line, and Aelwyn finds herself looking at Ayda’s hand. Plenty of curses are transmitted with touch, and prestidigitation wouldn’t break it. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Neither does Fatal Strength, but it’ll still kill you,” Aelwyn says, studying it. She’s generally not the worst at recognizing curses, though she’s no diviner. There’s no immediate, obvious sign of the plants swarming Ayda, no bleeding from the mouth and eyes, no sign of her organs moving to places they shouldn’t be. (She’d skipped the rest of the unit on Deliquescent Flesh. They’d had pictures.)

Ayda still doesn’t look at her, but asks, “Do you have remove curse prepared?”

“Yes,” Aelwyn says, and is about to poke her and cast it when she stops. “Are we sure remove curse will even do anything for you?”

Ayda shakes her head. “No. But I’d rather not wait around to die if I am, so. It would also be beneficial for you to remove the curse on me, if it’s a curse based in aggression—”

“—not actually arguing that point, but it’s good to see you’ve some common sense after all,” Aelwyn says. “What I meant was should I cast it at a higher level instead, as I do have the diamond dust, and I’d rather not be cursed—”

“—I asked you not to interrupt me—”

“—fine!" A beat. "Sorry.”

Ayda waits. “I wouldn’t want you to waste the component if you can accomplish the same goal with a simpler spell.”

Aelwyn nods. It makes sense. “Fine.” She reaches out and touches Ayda’s arm, casting the spell, doesn’t feel anything leave but also doesn’t feel a curse transfer to her. “Well. I guess we’ll see.”

Ayda’s the one who steps onto the plants first, Aelwyn ready with her hands in her pouch for the diamond dust in case something happens. With no obvious disasters, she follows after her.

Normally the silence has been awkward, and it is, but Aelwyn finds herself irritated at Ayda breaking it when she says, “You asked why I’m wasting my time. I don’t see it that way."

“Wonderful. I didn't ask,” Aelwyn says, ignoring every survival instinct to push past her so she won’t have to look at her annoyingly earnest gaze. It’s so irritating, the Bad Kids’ insistence on everyone being able to improve themselves, on thinking she can improve, their dogged persistence—

Which Ayda doesn’t seem to be demonstrating, quietly walking next to her without pushing at all.

“You—” Aelwyn says, but stops, because Ayda being quiet is what she wants, obviously. So a victory for her, all things considered; they can work together and solve this issue and then never interact with each other outside the minimum requisite amount by virtue of them both knowing and caring about Adaine.

Great.

They walk further in the room, because now it is a room, with grand stone columns that you can barely see under the onslaught of plant growth. It has to be magical—the only light in here is Ayda, but none of the plants are at all wilted. In fact, the only rot around them is from the people—the one they passed, more and more as they continue through, all frozen in place, all covered in plants, all absolutely panicked.

Obviously, they can’t speak to them, and if Ayda’s casted a detect thoughts, she’s chosen not to share whatever information she’s gained from it with Aelwyn. One of the people there’s fallen over, hands covering their face. Another’s caught mid-sprint, the leg that’s lifted up behind them tied to the one still on the ground by a complex, interconnected system of leaves and branches. None of them are dead—they blink, they breathe, the eyes follow Aelwyn (or so she thinks). But they don’t react.

“Do you think they’re spies for whatever’s up ahead?” Aelwyn wants to ask Ayda.

“Have you ever seen or heard of magic like this before? It’s far from any of the curses we’ve learned in Hudol, but I’m sure you know about chronomancy,” is another good question she doesn't ask.

“Seriously? That’s all it took? Me pushing back once? I thought you hero types were more—stubborn, but I can’t blame you,” is perhaps a little more emotionally relevant, if otherwise unhelpful.

She doesn’t say any of that, of course. Instead, they just keep walking, because at her core, Aelwyn’s a coward, and as long as she’s got her teleport, she’d rather avoid the conversation altogether.

The rooms seem like, once upon a time, they were something magnificent. It seems like whatever’s here might be a temple, though any obvious religious iconography is missing—no statues to long-forgotten gods (would’ve been a bit of a repeat, anyway), no giant stained glass windows, no people praying.

There’s more of a sense of time now, with doors to pass through. Aelwyn keeps count of the rooms—three separated by archways before they get to an actual door, which Ayda opens after casting clairvoyance just to be safe, six before they reach what would have been a branching path if there weren’t boulders collapsed in front of all but one of the exits, seventeen before Ayda first yawns, twenty before Aelwyn’s brave enough to bring up setting up camp.

“The next room we reach that doesn’t have any of the—the next empty room should be one we make camp in,” Aelwyn says, quietly, as soon as she works herself up to it.

Ayda nods.

This time, there’s a less—relaxed air. Part of it is that they’re not in a hallway that might not be creepy if it was well-lit, they’re in a giant room deep in the earth filled with the not-quite-bodies of Just Some Random Fucking People (some of whom are so much smaller than Aelwyn, and she isn’t looking closer to see if they’re gnomes or halflings because fuck, if they're not that's not something Aelwyn can handle). Also, now they’re not—talking. Not friends—friendly. She meant friendly. They weren’t friends. Aelwyn’s not that naive.

Aelwyn climbs into the tent right away, bored out of her mind, to try and trance. Of course, it doesn’t work—she can’t meditate at all, can’t even do deep breathing to try and focus because there’s this musty rot that’s faint enough she could be imagining things and strong enough that she can’t just ignore it. She can’t even ignore Ayda’s breathing on the outside of the tent, the flickering of her firelight, the shuffling cards.

She’s not even doing any readings—Aelwyn’s watching her shadow through the tent—just stacking the cards into piles again and again and again.

Aelwyn digs through the bag, just in case maybe she’s missed a switch to flip that will banish every ghost from the house so she can just teleport back upstairs immediately, but all she finds are the torches, the rope, some copper wire, their last canteen—

Oh, wait, copper wire. It’d be nice to talk to Adaine, let her know (from her perspective) that she’s alive and okay. Also, she’s booooooooored, and unwilling to break the silence with Ayda first.

Draft one, mentally notated rather than using paper, as she didn’t bring any: Adaine! Ayda and I are okay—

Draft two:Hello, Adaine. We are safe/fine. (One word.) Boring down here. Ayda is mad—

Three: Hello, Adaine. We are safe/fine. Boring down here. Tried to play nice. Didn’t work. I love you. Hope the adventure’s well.

Hm. That’s almost good enough.

Four: Hello, Adaine. We’re safe/fine. Boring down here. Tried to play nice, didn’t work, will keep trying. (Internally, a massive sigh.) I love you. Hope the adventure’s well.

She’s got to have Adaine teach her the pirate sending, if only so she can swear profusely, like she’d like to. She’d ask Ayda, but…

Well. If she offers gold, maybe the olive branch will work. Do pirates take IOUs? It feels—callous, to offer money to bait her into being friendly again, but all Aelwyn really knows about Ayda is that she likes deals, magic, and being friends with Adaine and all the Bad Kids.

Adaine responds before she can psych herself up. Aelwyn! Things are good here. We just revivified a local lord so now we’re technically Baronese citizens. Hope it works with Ayda. I love you too.

Shit. Now she has to do it. Adaine wants her to.

She climbs gracelessly out of the tent to see Ayda going through those same notes, not obviously reacting to her presence, even when Aelwyn sits next to her.

“I was reading those last night,” Aelwyn says. Ayda still doesn’t respond. “Or—whatever time it was. Do you have service here?”

“I don’t have a phone,” Ayda says. “I keep meaning to get one, but I get—side-tracked.”

She speaks! Progress. “Well. Your notes were very interesting. Both you and the previous versions of yourself are clearly formidable casters.”

Ayda tilts her head to stare at her. “Why are you saying that?”

“It’s true.” Not a lie, technically, if also not an answer to Ayda’s question. “I—didn’t like how we left things. How I left things.”

Ayda puts the notes back into one pile. “Okay.”

There’s a long beat. “...okay?”

“I was waiting for you to continue,” Ayda says stiffly.

“Fuck, okay,” Aelwyn says. “I was a bitch. I’m not—used to people giving a shit. I—”

“This isn’t an apology,” Ayda interrupts. “That’s a justification. Fig has talked with me about it.” There’s a long beat, where Aelwyn tries to tell herself the magic that’s trying to form itself in her hand is a shield and not a hex. “If you want to apologize, just say you’re sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Aelwyn kind of wants to teleport away and leave her down here instead. “I’m sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “I will—try to make it not happen again.”

Ayda nods. “Honest. Thank you. Can I ask what I did wrong?”

“I don’t—” Aelwyn huffs out a frustrated breath, more tense with Ayda’s acceptance than she would’ve been with the other woman cursing her. “I don’t know. I just—usually only Adaine. Tries like that. It just rubbed me the wrong way.”

“I understand that,” Ayda says. “That’s why I stopped. But then you didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.”

“Weren’t you—mad?” Aelwyn says. “Why would I talk to someone who’s mad at me?”

“No,” Ayda says. “Frustrated, yes, but I get frustrated easily. It’s a flaw of mine.” A flaw of Aelwyn’s is hating how easily she admits that. “But why were you upset with me for stopping talking when you asked me to?”

“I just…I thought you’d try harder than that,” Aelwyn says, sounding very small and very stupid. If her parents could see her now, they’d be humiliated. Send her to Mumple. God, a fate worse than death.

Ayda’s brow furrows. “You asked me to stop.”

“Yeah, but—” Aelwyn cuts herself off, but Ayda doesn’t do her the courtesy of interrupting her so she doesn’t have to piece together her thoughts. “Most people push past that.”

“I’m not going to read your mind to find out that information,” Ayda points out, ever-logical. “If you want me to make an effort, telling me that I should stop making an effort seems counter-intuiti—” She shuts up, all at once, staring down the hallway other than the way they came. “Do you hear that?”

Aelwyn strains to, but doesn’t. “No. I’m sort of shit at that elven perception thing.”

Ayda smiles, wide and unexpected. “Ha!” (A screech, but quiet. Sort of a weird sound, but very Ayda.) “It’s footsteps. I can’t tell if it’s getting louder or quieter.”

“There’s no way they don’t hear us,” Aelwyn says, voice low. Whispers carry; low voices don’t go nearly as far. She’s not tired at all anymore, though Ayda looks a little less sure on her feet than Aelwyn feels. “We’re the only things moving here.”

“Let me—” Ayda grabs the cards, pulls just one—a white skeleton holding a golden skull, staring down at it like it’s Yorick. “Strength. Fortitude. Confronting that which scares us.”

God, can’t Fate say “cut and run, it’ll be fine”? Just once? “Then let’s go.”

As they disassemble their camp, Aelwyn goes quickly through her component pouch. “I have fucking—nothing—do you have any glass beads?”

“For an invulnerability spell? I should, yes—” Ayda tosses it to her, and she has to use a quick cantrip to guide it to her hand before it shatters. “Sorry.”

“Right,” Aelwyn says.

They hurry towards the footsteps, until they eventually find themselves on one side of a pair of big, wooden doors, somehow untouched by the plants and the rot on everything else, a faint voice on the other side.

“You ready?” Aelwyn asks.

Ayda looks down at her. “I hope so.”

“Reassuring,” Aelwyn mutters, and Ayda pulls the door handle. Nothing happens. “Is it—”

“It’s a push door,” Ayda says, pushing it, and it opens without issues.”

“Oh, what the fuck?” says a voice that sounds more like a teenager with the flu than some grand evil. “Did my plan actually work?”

The person speaking, once Aelwyn gets a good look at them, looks more like a big bad than the voice would imply, though still not the terrifying lich she’d worried it might be. They’re skeletal, but made of wood instead of bone; not something Aelwyn recognizes, but again, she’s not an adventurer. There’s no recognition on Ayda’s face either.

“I certainly hope not,” Ayda says.

“Guess we'll see!” they say, and then Aelwyn’s just barely managing to dodge a fireball that Ayda just stands there for. “Aw, man, I thought that’d do it.”

The casual tone they’re using to try and murder Aelwyn is, admittedly, a little unsettling, but not so bad that she doesn’t have the wherewithal to throw a lighting bolt their way. (Regardless of how she personally feels about it, it’s a good spell.) They don’t dodge out of the way, don’t seem especially dextrous, but barely flinch. It’s not a weak version of the spell, either.

Aelwyn’s starting to get how rangers actually help their parties. It’d be great to know what this thing’s weak to.

Ayda throws a black marble at the ground, far enough from Aelwyn that she doesn’t have to dodge the way reality shifts around the point of impact to yank their villain(?) closer, and this has much more of an impact.

“Force damage,” Ayda calls, and their opponent says, “Uh, no, that’s—that’s not right—”

Aelwyn can’t think of any force damage spells before the guy runs right at her with his hands out. She tries to dodge out of the way again, but she’s a wizard, and he manages to grab her wrist. It hurts, and suddenly she feels—ill—

And she’s in a field of flowers, and her mind is warm and racing and it fucking hurts and—

“Aelwyn,” Ayda calls, and Aelwyn tries to focus. It’s a curse—contagion, probably, it was touch-based and she’s been...poisoned? Maybe?

But the field is so comfortable, and fighting it just means you have to keep—doing the same old, same old, don’t you?

Then there’s another hand, this one on her shoulder, warmer than the one that grabbed her wrist, and Aelwyn realizes it’s Ayda just before she conjures a knife.

“I hope you won’t mind me casting this spell,” Ayda says, and the curse vanishes. They’re flying, Aelwyn realizes a little late, in Ayda’s arms, and the person on the floor is staring up at them, facial expression hard to read.

“Yeah, removing curses is fine,” Aelwyn says. “Thanks.”

“This is a little unfair,” they call.

“You’re welcome,” Ayda says (to Aelwyn, not to the person they’re fighting).

“Isn’t the spell you made for Adaine force damage?” Aelwyn says, and Ayda’s answering grin is as bright as the fire of her wings. Aelwyn throws a globe of invulnerability up around them as they soar to the floor, deflecting the spells the—tree dude? keeps throwing at them, ice and plant growth and more, until they’re right by him, and then—

Ayda’s fists start literally glowing with power, and Aelwyn drops the spell as Ayda drops her (it hurts, a little, but not as much as the ice storm would’ve, and the tree dude whines, “Aw, man,” and then he gets thrown into the wall with a particularly satisfying crunch.

“Woo,” Aelwyn says half-heartedly. “Are they dead?”

The villain lets out this shuddering gasp that might’ve been more blood-curdling if they didn’t sound so pathetic. “It’s not—my fault. I was trapped down here for so...long…”

“You tried to kill us,” Aelwyn points out, pushing herself up.

“Immediately,” Ayda adds. “Also, there’s a bunch of undead corpses down here and you seem the likely culprit.”

“Yeah, what’s with the dream thing?” Aelwyn asks. “Also these flowers?” There’s one planter with distinct flowers, unlike the mass of uncontrolled growth on the floor.

“It all started when I—” they say, and then die mid-sentence.

The plants all shrivel up and die all at once, except the flowers in the planter, and suddenly there’s these magical torches everywhere, making the room much more well-lit, and a thud, like every body collapsed to the floor all at once. (She assumes.)

They wait, Aelwyn for some imminent danger, Ayda for presumably the same reason, but after a minute, nothing’s happened. “So. That was anti-climactic. Is it taken care of?”

Aelwyn shrugs. “No idea. Let me ask Zayn.” She’s got just a bit of copper wire left, and concentrates.

Zayn, it’s Aelwyn. We think we’ve fixed it. Is the house fine again?

Zayn responds before Aelwyn has a chance to shrug at Ayda. There was this really strong rot smell for a second but it’s all gone now, so yeah? Think so? The other ghosts are all happy.

“Sounds like it,” Aelwyn says.

Ayda pauses. “Is taken care of. Right. Understood. Shall we teleport up?”

“Um, one second,” Aelwyn says. Ayda waits. “Thank you. For saving me.”

“Of course,” Ayda says. “We had a deal. And I will always try and save my...friends?”

It’s not the big monumental thing that Aelwyn had sort of pictured, but it’s...nice. Reassuring. “I’m gonna mess up again.”

Ayda tilts her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’m going to be a bitch,” Aelwyn says. “And I’m going to hurt your feelings. Not intentionally. Probably. I don’t—know how to do this friendship thing. Or just being a good person in general. But I would like to. Be friends, I mean.”

“I—”

“And I’m not saying that because of Adaine,” Aelwyn says, all in a rush, “And I’m sorry for interrupting, I’m just freaking out, a bit. I don’t know why. It’s stupid.”

Ayda waits. “I’m not...good at offering comfort. But I’m happy to hear you’d also like to be friends. I’ve enjoyed this journey, strangely enough.”

“Happiest I’ve been at Mordred, honestly,” Aelwyn says, which is just pathetic. “Just—something to do.”

Ayda narrows her eyes at her. “I think you should probably talk to Jawbone.”

“Yeah, probably,” Aelwyn says. “Alright, that’s enough feelings talk, let’s go back upstairs.”

Ayda’s teleportation circle burns itself into the ground around them, warmth comforting instead of alien, and they appear in the living room, startling Lydia.

“Whoa! Oh, hey, kids. Everything good?”

Aelwyn nods. “Yup. All good now.”

Lydia makes her way out of the room, leaving just Aelwyn and Ayda. Part of Aelwyn wants to go trance in an actual bed, but the sunlight through the windows is mid-afternoon at the latest.

“So do you want to talk spellcraft in the tower or something?” she asks instead. Ayda nods, and they begin the long walk up to Aelwyn’s room.

It’s not dusty when they walk in there—obviously, they’ve been gone for two and a half days, not a month—but her bed’s not made and the window’s still broken. Ayda grew up on Leviathan, it’s definitely not the worst she’s ever seen, but Aelwyn’s embarrassed anyway.

“Would you like me to repair the window?” Ayda asks.

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” Aelwyn says, slowly mending it piece-by-piece. “If you want to flip through my spellbook to find a spell that I can teach you, you’re welcome to it.”

Ayda takes the book, flips through, and they sit in a mostly-comfortable silence for the twenty-ish minutes it takes for Aelwyn to mend the window, piece by piece, slow and careful to avoid cutting her hands.

“Would you be able to teach me Symbol?” Ayda says. “It would be useful in protecting Mordred and the library, especially the sleep effect.”

Aelwyn shrugs. “Sure. The stunning effect is a little more useful even if it’s shorter, though, it’s easier to wake someone up than it is to get them focused after a stun.”

“Hm. I see your point,” Ayda says. “Yes. I’d like to learn this spell. It would be good to put in front of the restricted sections—oh!” Ayda’s wings flare out. “I’d forgotten. One moment.” Ayda reaches into one of her holsters and pulls out a book depicting a man, all lean muscle and soulful eyes, swooning into the arms of a buff pirate woman. “Your book on lurid pirate history. Despite the cover, it is not a romance novel. It depicts Jane Wren and—are you alright?”

“I’m fine, shut up,” Aelwyn says, grabbing the book. “Thanks. Did you have this the whole time?”

“Yes,” Ayda says. “I had meant to give it to you after we teleported back, but then you hurt my feelings, and I’d forgotten during the travel into...whatever is below there.”

“For someone surrounded by such horrifying ambiance, they died really quickly,” Aelwyn says. “Good, obviously, I’m not trying to get dragged into any adventuring nonsense, but still. Sort of embarrassing for them.”

Ayda laugh-screeches. “Yes. I hope you enjoy the book.”

“Something to do while I wait to get a phone back,” Aelwyn says, and then, when Ayda slumps, adds, “Besides, I asked for a reason. I used to like pirates, as a kid.”

That does it; Ayda relaxes, and then they work on the spell together, Ayda mostly just copying it out of Aelwyn’s book while Aelwyn reads all about the history of a bisexual pirate who tricked her way into being kind of a god, replete with lines that would make more sense in a bodice-ripper and random asides into how much of a bullshit scam insurance is. Ayda offers commentary on the whole thing that’s insightful, funny, oddly biting at times. Aelwyn tells Ayda all about how to modify the glyph, hide it better, refine the triggers that cause it to attack.

The time goes by quickly. Ayda starts yawning well before the light gets any dimmer, and Aelwyn jumps a little when Jawbone knocks on the door, letting them know that dinner’s ready. She’s not honestly that hungry—the rations were lembas bread, it’s filling—but Ayda’s stomach growls, so she follows her downstairs.

It’s a much chiller affair than dinner usually is, with just Jawbone, Sandra Lynn, Lydia, Aelwyn, and Ayda. Lydia and Sandra Lynn are continuing some conversation about the Mountains of Chaos that Aelwyn cannot begin to understand, and Ayda’s single-minded focus on her food gives Aelwyn very few options to avoid talking with Jawbone that don’t make it obvious.

Besides, he starts talking before she can think of one.

“You need a new crystal, right?”

Aelwyn nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay! We can head to the shop tomorrow. Might take advantage to upgrade my crystal myself, I’ve still got people trying to reach me about my last job.”

Aelwyn had blocked all those texts. “What’d you do?”

“Oh, I got ‘em through to someone else and let ‘em know they can always talk with me if they wanna try for recovery. Not much else I can do until me and the Hempstocks and the Cubbys finish getting that harm reduction group set up.”

“Cool,” Aelwyn says, who has no idea what any of that means, and keeps eating. “So what’s with that sending trick?”

Jawbone grins at her, a surprisingly unintimidating image with how sharp his teeth are. “I’ll explain it on the drive to Horizon. For now, how’d your adventure go?”

“Not an adventure,” she and Ayda both say in unison.

“Fine,” Aelwyn says, and Ayda yawns. “The boss fight was sort of weak. Not much happened. I thought it’d be worse.”

“Probably more dangerous control over their lair than any actual combat prowess,” Lydia says confidently. “Did you make sure neither of y’all are cursed?”

“I removed a curse on Aelwyn,” Ayda says with a little nod.

“And then punched them so hard they died,” Aelwyn says. “Will you teach me that spell?”

“Sure,” Ayda says, and Aelwyn mostly-misses Sandra Lynn’s expression, surprised, pleased. “I wouldn’t have been able to if not for your Globe of Invulnerability. Ice Storm would have—hurt. Badly. It wouldn’t have done more damage but I do not enjoy being cold at the best of times, and that was far from the best.”

“Ugh, Ice Storm,” Lydia says in commiseration, and then they let Aelwyn sort of sit out of the rest of the conversation, only occasionally chiming in. None of them shoot her any weird looks when she tries to contribute, no one forces her to.

She’s almost disappointed when she hears back from Adaine that they’ll be arriving in a few, with the help of a definitely-evil-but-functionally-harmless duchess who has some enchanted teleportation items if no actual magic of her own. Sure enough, the Bad Kids arrive back in a puff of smoke and magic in the other room, stumbling in when they smell Lydia’s cooking.

Adaine’s got a bit of gore in her hair, a chunk of purple flesh precariously attached to her forehead with some black ooze, but she beams at Aelwyn, looking for all the world like the epitome of an adventurer: competent, surrounded by loved ones, violent, a little unhinged.

Aelwyn’s so proud of her.

They all move to sit around the table, Ayda scooting right next to Aelwyn to make space. Fig’s eyes narrow at that, Aelwyn notes, but sits next to Ayda and doesn’t, like, pull a dagger or anything.

“Fig,” Ayda says, tapping her foot a little, like she’s nervous. “How did your adventure go?”

“Good!” Fig says, and starts looking through her bag. There’s the obvious clink of gold and other types of treasure, until she eventually finds what she’s looking for and pulls out a—brooch? Pin? Some tacky thing, all bright gold with an obnoxious red heart in the center. “I saw this and thought of you so I stole it from this asshole so you could have it!”

The corners of Ayda’s eyes immediately well up with flames, but she takes it. “Thank you. I love it. What is it?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Fig says. “But the gold looks kind of like flames, and the heart is ‘cause, you know, I like you.” Her cheeks are redder, and she glares at Aelwyn when she catches her watching. Aelwyn gives a thumbs up and looks away, and when she risks glancing back, Fig’s watching her with this contemplative expression that—really would fit Adaine more.

Ayda manages to fix it onto her sweater, which does not match at all. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the weird energy that Fig’s giving off right now.

“You and Ayda had your own—sorta quest thing, right?” Fig says. It’s not jealousy; Aelwyn had seen plenty of that from Penelope when Sam had started dating Johnny Spells, she’d be able to recognize it. It’s just—weirdly thoughtful. “What happened?”

“We walked for a really long time into these weird tunnels below the house,” Aelwyn says, becoming slowly and uncomfortably aware that more people around the table are paying attention. “There were a bunch of plants and sort of—bodies—and then this weird semi-skeletal wood thing. Ayda punched it to death.”

“Cool,” Fig says, attention mostly back on Ayda.

“How’d you know to fix it? Were you in the basement for something?” Kristen asks—directed at Ayda, not Aelwyn.

Ayda doesn’t say anything, but glances back at Aelwyn, who relents. “I was dreaming, which isn’t normal, and I kept seeing flowers and smelling rot. Zayn said to check out the basement, so I did. Asked Ayda because I didn’t want to do it alone.”

Adaine smiles even wider at that, a little food on her face, and Aelwyn rolls her eyes and reaches over to wipe it off with her thumb. “Hey!”

“You had some chili on your chin, it’s gone now,” Aelwyn says. “Also you have some mindflayer in your hair.”

“It tried to eat her brain and completely failed,” Fabian says, rustling her hair despite Adaine’s yelp of protest. “Fantastic! Not at all a horrifying reminder of past enemies as our successes were so decisive!”

Gorgug—she remembered!—nods. “Adaine did great. Except for when she almost fell off the airship.”

“I cast Fly,” Adaine grumbles. “And also Kristen had revivify diamonds.”

Riz, who has already finished the bowl of food in front of him, “I feel like we’re getting off-topic. Why were there weird tunnels under Mordred?”

Ayda sits forward. “It’s still unclear. There were a lot of people there and it looked, architecturally, somewhat like a temple, though I didn’t see any obvious religious iconography. But that doesn’t explain the darkness or the plant growth or, for that matter, Aelwyn’s dreams. That’s more likely a residual effect of the being we killed.”

“Control over their lair,” Adaine says with a little nod, as if to say yes, of course, how obvious. “It’s gone now, though?”

“Zayn said that the rot smell vanished, so I assume so,” Aelwyn says. “Unless you see any curses on either of us.”

Adaine’s eyes go a brilliant white, only for a second, before they’re back to their normal color and she’s frowning. “No curses, but you appear magically exhausted, Ayda.”

Aelwyn is relieved that it’s not her, then quickly disappointed with herself for being relieved, then busy digging through her bag for any components. “Do you all know greater restoration? I have some diamond dust but I can only use it to enhance remove curse.”

“Oh, no worries, the philosophers in heaven gave me this staff which has it prepped,” Kristen says. Fig looks both totally shocked and totally touched at Aelwyn offering, which she can logically recognize as a completely fair response even as she bristles at it. “Ayda, can I poke you with my staff?”

“Sure,” Ayda says, and Kristen does. Ayda fully perks up. “Oh! I feel much better. I hadn’t even realized how bad I was feeling.”

Adaine tilts her head. “Huh. Did anyone else hear a little whisper of someone complaining their plot was foiled?”

Everyone shakes their head.

“Well. I think we’re good now.”

The general consensus is a shrug and digging back in. It’s back to loud and rowdy, especially when Adaine logs into Aelwyn’s email on her phone so she can see if she’d heard back, and they discover that Basrar wants her to come in for an interview. She’s a little surprised by how unanimous the excitement is; even Fig whoops and claps and grins at her.

“Now, customer service is—I’ll be frank—awful, but Basrar will probably let you hex someone if they’re obnoxious, and no one’s eager to mess with someone who’s related to an adventurer, so you should be good,” Jawbone says.

“I still have to go to an interview,” Aelwyn mutters, though she’s smiling, a little, at the positive attention all directed her way. It’s better when Adaine uses mage hand to squeeze hers, a little reassurance that she’d resent from anyone else.

That night, when Aelwyn goes to trance, it happens quickly, and she doesn’t dream of anything at all.

Ayda sits at a table at Basrar’s, visibly nervous, shuffling her tarot cards again and again and again. She doesn’t react when the waitstaff walks by her table, or when they sit down on the other side of the booth.

“Did you show up like two hours early for a date with Fig again?” Aelwyn asks, pulling off the white-and-red cap with obvious disgust.

“I didn’t mean to,” Ayda says. “But—yes. I forgot about the time difference between Leviathan’s current placement and Solace.”

Aelwyn snorts. “Where is Leviathan now, anyway?”

“Near the edge of the world,” Ayda says. “It’s become a bit of a logistical problem for Jamina, who really does not want to deal with the interplanar politics that falling off would cause, let alone the physical damage from the gravity shift. My friend Cheese may be visiting soon so his crew can help with pushing it back.”

Aelwyn nods, quickly dismissing a text on her crystal that chimes and interrupts the conversation. “Sorry. Not important.”

“I was done,” Ayda says. “Who texted?” Aelwyn doesn’t answer immediately, so Ayda, having learned from Adaine (a surprisingly gossipy person), asks, “Is it Sam?”

Aelwyn glowers at Ayda. “You’re the worst. Sorry—hyperbolic talk for effect, not a legitimate feeling of mine.” Ayda relaxes. “No, though. It’s—uh. You know how I hate my online class?”

“I recall you threatening to set the headquarters on fire,” Ayda says. “Will we be doing that? I can prepare some Molotovs. Danielle showed me how.”

“Perhaps later. I actually—I’m going to try and finish my schooling early,” Aelwyn says. “I submitted an application to, and I have to wait for the Ministry, which could take awhile, but my pardon’s been through for weeks, and it’s not like I don’t know the basics for an abjuration wizard. The text was just letting me know I should have a decision before the end of the week.”

Ayda nods. “Fantastic. If they don’t accept it, we can burn it down then?”

“I worry I’ve been a bit of a villainous influence on you,” Aelwyn says, smirking a little. “Advocating for violent property damage?”

Ayda shrugs. “It was one of the first things I did with the Bad Kids, so if you have been an influence on me, you’re not the sole corruptor.”

“Aelwyn!” calls Basrar. “Your break’s up, can you help with the—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aelwyn says, waving him off. “Ayda, don’t forget we’ve got book club this Saturday.”

Ayda nods. “I haven’t. See you then.”

Aelwyn goes to take the order of a group of kids from Skullcleaver, customer service smile perfect for anyone who can’t read her. She jots it all down, tells it to Basrar, slips Ayda an extra scoop of her favorite—strawberry.

Fig shows up early too, freezing when she sees Ayda and running to shove a bunch of flowers into Aelwyn’s arms before Ayda can notice, though Ayda does notice it in the commotion that causes, and then Fig bemoans that the surprise is ruined. Aelwyn puts the flowers in water, ignoring the pointed glare of a couple Hudol kids on a date, and stops to smell them.

No rot at all.