Chapter Text
Either the roads are longer than she’s used to, or it’s a consequence of being as directionally challenged as she is.
To all manners of citizens here, Penacony is quite a city to get yourself lost in, after all – there never exists a dull moment among its hustle and bustle, for you never know just what you could expect on its streets. But to her, Penacony is the worst place to get herself lost in, right now, all for precisely the same reason – she never knows what she could run into on its streets.
She shouldn’t warp with a wormhole, although it’s the easiest way to transport with her magic – her curse ; there are people too familiar with the gravitational lull and pull who might utilize their own skills to detect it, might dig around the dimension she’s traversing in and rip her straight out of it – and the chance that they’re here tonight – THEY got eyes everywhere – awaiting her, is high. It’s been over a month. Even if she counts on her memory lapses to offer brief bouts of comfort about the horrors she ran from, clarity always dawns back on her in full swing – conserved on her body, conjured in her mind – desert roses in bloom, bleeding from her arms, along her chest, up her throat, like she’d choke on them, along her equally red tears – reminding her why THEY won’t rest until she’s found.
Or dead. Likely both.
A threat must be eradicated, not only to others, but also herself.
The roads are longer than she’s used to, and the city’s taller than she’s used to, too. Commercial buildings in their restoration tower above her, and the grand reopening of the Radiant Feldspar hovers above the city itself. Ironically enough, she’d escape to Penacony just as businesses serving anything other than mindless escapism carved themselves a home in the city, after the trial of its former magistrate Sunday who attempted to unite the hedonists Penaconians have slowly become into a so-called “paradise” under the guise of Order, where humanity should be infallible to primal instincts – predation of the strong and sacrifices of the weak – when they needn’t bear the hardships of reality again. Yet, Sunday failed to consider: in their world that’s strongly divided between two stronger races yet, Order could never be the great equalizer – Magic is. It’s always been in Magicians’ eager nature to live out their fantasies, expand the horizon of wonders created at their fingertips; it’s not a stretch to imagine this group to believe that making choices at one’s own power is their birthright, and forfeiting their Magic to enter a soulless paradise has had nary a sway over them. Mortals, on the other side of the same coin, rely less on this fantastical passion and more on hard reason and work: they’re society’s lawmakers, scientists, teachers; they hold Magicians accountable; and, of course, they believe even though escapism is innate in the weak, whether they are weak or not is not up to another, especially a Magician like Sunday, to decide.
So it goes, Sunday’s farce was the last straw for the City of Festivities to wake up from its “dream”, when a Revolution is staged to turn Magic around to foster progress and purposes, not sap them from the public. At least, in theory. For the common good , she hears in a voice that isn’t her own. Otherwise, people wouldn’t stand together and lend power to things that could potentially change their ways of life.
That, she desperately wants to believe to be true.
It’s just past midnight, and the only other lives she passes are patrons stumbling home from pubs, or the city’s enforcers on their night patrol. Her feet make no noise over the asphalt as she dodges the billboards at their intervals, noticing how whenever they’re walked near, their eyes would open wide, and they’d hop along to chase you. Magic, she realizes. They’ve found even more use for Artificers.
It unnerves her – the threat of unfamiliar magic. Maybe she’s being watched, now, through the lens of some esoteric spell.
Nowhere is safe and nothing is home; sure, she may be able to escape the ruins of her hometown, but a fugitive will never fit in anywhere – not when she’s dyed in THEIR shadow. She has secrets that would bring the city to its knees, crack the foundations. Now she’s seeing shadows, wispy-dark tendril-fingers reaching out from every turn of the roads. Now she’s hearing her name like a heartbeat from the alleys. Now she swears the blinking lights on tourist attractions are a thousand eyes, cartographing her.
So she does what she’s always done, and discreetly steals her rest from the houses of people who won’t ever – should never – know she’s there.
There’s a humbler, more unassuming house nestled between two larger shops with light still on. She approaches it cautiously – the red brick, the artistic stained-glass pointed windows, the heavy black wooden door – but it’s just like any other building.
So she knocks – once, twice, thrice – and waits.
She isn’t kept waiting for long; there’s a shuffling from the frame, and the door swings open, held by a lavender-haired stranger, sleep is on the verge of overtaking her eyelids. This is where she runs on a held breath; where she makes the rooms invite her in, forces the walls to open up their nooks and crannies for her to lay low – she slips under the woman’s arm until she’s firmly tucked behind a long couch on the opposite wall by the time her hostess greets the night air with a confused, “Hello?”
She’ll take a step out of the door, surveying around, then step back inside and shrug. Kids pulling pranks; the wind playing tricks on the crystals hung in front of her door. She’ll come up with a sound explanation and let it slide. They always do.
Only her hostess doesn’t return to her work or bed. She stills, almost imperceptibly; the intruder watches from the shadows as she shuts her door and simply stands around. Though she isn’t at the right angle to read her hostess’s expression, there’s no way she could’ve been caught. She remembers having done this a thousand times over – and that part of her memories, operating on adrenaline, seems to work above all else; knows herself to be undetectable to even the most ingenious of Magicians, because most can’t understand the origin of her power, can’t fathom the price she pays for it.
But then the stranger reaches for what appears to be a rectangular fragment of a handheld mirror and whispers an incantation to it, imbuing it with a touch of light that illuminates the room with its reflection. Not that it matters; the woman hiding in plain sight is as invisible as she was a moment ago, with or without the light.
Or so she thinks.
The stranger spares a few seconds to glance at her mirror, then turns to face her, dead-on in her aim, staring directly into the intruder’s hidden eyes.
“Nice try, Conjurer, or whatever you call yourself,” she says, her sunset irises that hold eye contact with the intruder seem to glow, becoming the second source of light and clarity in the dark. “But did you really believe you could slip in here with an illusion like that and go unnoticed?”
She’s put on the spot to make a decision – fight or flight, but she’s done fleeing. She’s done fighting the unnecessary people, too, actually. “Well,” she surprises herself with the sound of her voice, “considering how many times I’ve done exactly that, yes.”
The woman laughs, and something about the melody can soothe your weary souls, take you back to the simpler days of your childhood. “Fair enough,” she says, and her even intonation betrays no fear of threat. Why would she, with that keen of a perception. “What can I say? I’m not like other Magicians.”
“Before I reveal myself,” the intruder lowers her voice, trying to mimic that indifference, too, “you can’t see me, can you?”
“No. I channeled my ability into a light cone that can capture your memories, experiences, and abilities in the moment. It reveals to me a disturbance in the air – in your mind, too, but a reflection can’t simply dispel an existing spell, especially not one as intricate as yours,” the woman replies with a frown. “I thought that was the point. Why?”
“Your accuracy,” she stands up straighter from the back of the couch. “You’re looking me dead in the eyes.”
That seems to evoke surprise from her hostess for the first time in the night, among all things. “Just pure luck, I assume,” she reasons, and peers more closely as if she’s looking for other possible signs she could pick up. “Physically, without the light cone, I could still feel a gravitational field emanating from you. Like a wave.”
Slowly but surely, the intruder releases the light rays back from where she absorbed them that paints her as part of her surroundings, and blossoms into view. The hostess’s eyes drop immediately, following her “guest” from her laced up boots to her high-waisted shorts, up a white and purple jacket, worn over a black crop top; she traces the path of her chitinous shoulder guard, along the raging flames and oni details on furisode sleeves, down the chain around her wrist, clawed fingers wrapping tightly around a long sword.
“Now you see me,” the intruder says, as if the curtain rises and a show is about to start.
“First of all,” the stranger brings a finger to her cheek, “I get why you tried to sneak into my house. You aren’t the type that typically goes unnoticed, are you?”
She chuckles at the irony. “Only when I want to be.”
“Which, I’m guessing, is a lot.”
“Likely more than ever, now,” she says, dropping the hint; she could never know who to trust in her whole life, but considering the stakes from the weeks prior, she’s aware she needs to start.
“May I have a name?”
“Acheron,” she relinquishes easily. It’s technically not her real name, but over the years she’s grown to resemble it wholeheartedly, and it’s ever difficult now to reconcile with the sense of her original self over the addled memories. It’s not real enough that she feels like she symbolically trusts the stranger too soon, but also not fake enough that she wouldn’t get very far with it.
“Acheron,” the woman repeats with a strange vibrancy. “You’re a pretty – pretty dangerous thing aren’t you?”
“Many would agree,” Acheron says, and shuts her mouth suddenly. Her body count’s too high, and considering most of them likely didn’t deserve it, adding ‘if they were still alive to talk about it.’ isn’t quite an attractive idea. “And your name? My benevolent hostess, who isn’t turning me over to the authorities?”
Her smirk seems to brighten like the glimmer of twilight in her eyes. “Black Swan,” she introduces, extending a hand. Her palm is cold, but Acheron won’t say that goes for her everything else. “I can’t promise I’ll never turn you over, but we’ll leave the authorities out of it.”
“And I’m the dangerous one?” The ease in which she lets a laugh loose startles her more than the comment itself. “Look at you .”
And as soon as the sentence leaves her mouth, reality dawns on her like all along it’s been waiting to catch up once her shock subsides – look at Black Swan . Black Swan behind her veil, twinkle behind her eyes. Black Swan in her striking purple bodysuit with windows on her front and sides, baring just enough skin to wonder; Black Swan in her heeled boots with black belts tight around her thighs. Black Swan with lavender hair spiraling down her back and over her shoulders like a tide pulled by the moon while her irises glitter like the boundary between the sea itself and the sunset. Black Swan with a voice like satin, inviting her in without Acheron’s magic having to carve her way out first.
Believe it or not, this has never happened to Acheron before; breaking into houses has meant hiding from the old and weary, or from the young and busy - hiding being the keyword. She’s never been propositioned because she’s never been caught.
“Anyhow,” Black Swan’s voice draws Acheron’s full attention back to her. “No, I won’t turn you in – but you must promise to do the same to me tomorrow.”
“Why would I want to turn you in?”
“Oh,” Black Swan waves a hand nonchalantly. “You’ll see.”
🐍🦢
In the dim glow of gas lamps, and with the short time that Acheron is led up a set of creaky, spiral stairs, she uses her vantage to take in everything about her hostess’s humble abode: beneath the velvety couch she was pressed against earlier is a violet fur carpet, the setup of which is actually facing a round, mahogany table, above it sat a deck of Tawot Cards whose glittering black covers look as profound as the starlit heavens. At the opposite end of the room, there stands several bookcases in a spectrum of darker, purple-leaning hues – her hostess’s favorite colors, as she soon comes to know – whose contents are too abundant they drape over the wall they lean against like a curtain; and if Acheron squints, she can make out translucent statues of swans, each with its distinctive size and creative liberty, decorating the shelves. In a corner, near the first step of the staircase, Acheron also passed an ornate ceramic altar cluttered with dried herbs, an assortment of gemstones, and whose incense being lit gives the room a faint floral aroma.
The living room disappears from her view as she walks to an open door at the end of this floor’s corridor. “This is my room,” Black Swan offers, nudging Acheron inside. “You can stay here.”
“You’re surprisingly fine with this,” Acheron raises a questioning eyebrow. “I barged into your house. You don’t even know me.”
Black Swan responds with a casual shrug. “I consult my Tawot Deck every evening before bed. There was no foreboding sign in the will of cards today. I may not know you, but I reckon I’ll trust you.”
“Do you?”
She comes to face her pair of glittering irises in a darker room again. Her teeth are too white and her smile too wide. Acheron swears she’s shimmering like a mirage, like she doesn’t have a physical form, like Acheron, for the lack of better words, dreams her up by piecing together the last, most pleasant memories she could’ve had in her life as her mind gives out to a prolonged, runaway fear. She leans against the doorframe, and the motion solidifies her back into existence again. And Acheron knows the answer is yes.
“Take my bed,” Black Swan urges again, taking up space in the doorway as if physically blocking the incoming argument. Without accessing her power, she can still read Acheron’s train of thought: far too used to treading where she doesn’t belong, uncomfortable where she’s actually welcome. “I’ve got some bits and pieces of duties left to tidy up for customers tonight. I’ll take the couch downstairs.”
Acheron is poised to protest, but looking at one of Black Swan’s hands that goes up, she settles for “Duties?” instead.
“You probably missed the sign on your way scurrying in,” Black Swan gives a pointer, “I’m a Memokeeper.”
Oh, how Acheron needs someone who preserves beautiful things, not erodes them.
🐍🦢
The door shuts with a thump. Acheron is once again left with the encroaching dark and quiet, where she belongs.
She strips down to her top, slips under Black Swan’s sheets, grips her wool blanket close to her heart. She counts her breath – one, two – and waits for the trails of flowers to descend on her body, those that bloom naturally in the dark and quiet without a care in the world for how the stone hard reality is there to debase it. But she barely even reaches ten – before she’s even able to plot out her excuses and escapes, her eyes are already shutting and her heartbeat slowing, and the psychosis can’t claim her for their own if sleep does first. It’s been too long since she’s slept in a halfway decent bed, too long since a halfway decent sleep, if at all – that her last thought in the few moments of lucidity left is whether Black Swan has put a spell on her bed – put one on her , too – like a dam against an outpour of memories, easing them into a pleasant rest.
Being a Memokeeper surely has its perks.
🐍🦢
Actually, being a Memokeeper surely has its cons, too.
Just those that Acheron doesn’t realize until the sun peeks in from the window, startling her into stillness with the light against her eyelids. She’s so used to leaving before dawn – blending into the night until she becomes it, body another celestial object like the stars and the moon above it – that for a few solid minutes, she just sits up in shock, hands white-knuckling the duvet.
That’s how she comes to stare at the organized chaos of Black Swan’s specialty. There’s a desk full of parchments with complicated symbols and intelligible incantations, plenty more of them having ended up crumbled in a trash can below. Corked vials of, if not essential oils, then just plain unidentifiable liquids, presumably to ease a client’s mindscape so her inspection is smooth sailing. A row of ice (ice? at least, Acheron assumes) sculptures that appear to depict a certain man progressing through life, with the leftmost statue being a toddler kicking a soccer ball and the rightmost still a version of him but taller and in a business suit and tie, all in various stages of melting at the details – clearly, Black Swan has her limits as well to whatever peculiar magic her line of work entails. And – her favorite observation thus far – a dark spot charring a horoscopic chart’s corners hung above her desk and to the ceiling, suggesting a ritual must’ve backfired and exploded there.
The comical sight does humor and relax her, but not considerably. If anything, it makes the sheer ridiculousness of her whereabouts apparent to her. It’s nearly eight if she’s reading the angle of the sun correctly, and there are tell-tale noises from the floor below, meaning she’s lost her opportunity to sneak away if she so wished. She inhales, unclenches her fists; exhales, raising an arm to the air, finding her skin visible, with blood still beneath not above it. Remind herself she’s currently alone, and every minute she’s far away from THEM is a minute she’s safe from the toll of her curse – and everyone else is safe from her .
She gets dressed and straps her sword back on in a hurry, then yanks open the door unless the bedroom’s charm further distracts her from her objective: she has no luxury of lazy mornings. She’s still a fugitive to the right people, and not worth protecting to the wrong ones. Black Swan has been kind to her, too kind for her own good. Black Swan isn’t involved in politics. Black Swan should remain in the clear, she thinks, rounding a turn of the staircase; Black Swan shouldn’t be tangled up with –
Near the banister, one of the swan sculptures Acheron saw yesterday stares at her from the very shelf it emerged from, a feather duster held in one wing, the other picking out books to clean the surface below and rearranging them based on the colors of their splines. She scrutinizes it again in the sunlight: body the same pliable, glistening fluid Acheron’s seen all over the house, yet its every motion is done with a flawless precision that would put an average Artificer’s contraption of cogs and gears to shame, and Acheron can feel the gears in her own head turning, too. Memoria , she concludes, like the very currents this city floats on; and memetic constructs in themselves (Acheron is aware of memory bubbles just as well as all manners of immersive entertainments downtown) wouldn’t be odd, if they were intentionally handled – handled being the keyword. Memoria, etymologically speaking, should also just be able to recall , not react. But as the swan cranes its neck to look at her expectantly, as if waiting for a response, that is a talent only managed by a select few mental-oriented Magicians in their world, notwithstanding how much Acheron wishes it to be zero.
“Kane from three blocks down gambled his monthly paycheck on a loss in a baseball tournament and needs help bouncing back for his wife and daughter, abstaining from the vice moving forward… Speaking of which, he also complained about his daughter not quite excelling in the sport itself, but I already knew it’s just her excuse to get him to spend more time practicing together…” Black Swan mumbles as she peruses memory bubbles lolling on the table, which snaps Acheron out of her stupor. “Miss Acheron,” she changes the subject suddenly, “do you need help coming over here, or are you so used to eavesdropping on people while invisible that you’ve forgotten your manners?” She chuckles at Acheron’s line of sight on her ‘creation’, “you know, they say birdwatching goes both ways.”
“Oh, oh,” Acheron says, and nearly trips in her attempt to descend the last steps, hand flying to the railing. “My apologies, I…”
But Black Swan’s grinning, posture reclining on the back of her windsor chair, a mug held lazily in her hand. She sips her coffee just as casually, but her eyebrows are raised into a single, challenging point as she watches Acheron slots the jigsaw pieces of her mind together, waits for her to see the bigger picture from a distance.
Yes , as if she’s saying, you’re not the only one who harbors secrets.
“Take a seat, Acheron,” she offers again as she gets up to go get Acheron the breakfast she’s having. “Please. I so rarely get anyone join me for breakfast.”
There’s an extra chair pulled out at the table; she approaches hesitantly, once again feeling at odds with herself and the atmosphere, calm and airy and inconsequential. It’s been so, so long since she’s gotten anything remotely close to a welcome reception, and all for good reasons. I’ve committed atrocities, she muses. Engaging me is a risk.
Black Swan returns with a plate of ube mochi waffles, and like she can ride along the tracks of Acheron’s train of thought, as expected of a Memokeeper, she says, “I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m blessed with quite an enticing gift, and I’m trusting you.” It’s a trade broker, another practice standard among Memokeepers – one that’s reassuring, like Black Swan is setting Acheron up to feel like she has the high ground despite herself. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours .
“I’ve seen similar sculptures all over your house,” Acheron says, taking the bait anyway, curiosity rising with the second. She knows elevations of magic exists: how practitioners, herself included, beyond honing the classics preached by the maestros from their specific fields – Aeons, as they’ve become known as, can also adapt their magic based on family traditions or natural affinities. Memokeepers, in this case, are a school of Mentalists united by their love for memories and a certain degree of immunity to memoria’s corrosion, but their similarities just about end there. Out of all Acheron’s come across, one is an archaeologist for her ability to reconstruct from memoria her subjects’ evolutions through time, whereas another is an oneirologist, storing her clientele’s dreams in bubbles to extract out emotions that must’ve triggered them – but never has she encountered Black Swan’s specificity, not simply in their conception, but in their execution. “You can create memetic entities that act of their own accord?”
“Miss Acheron, are you ever curious about the meaning of my name?” Black Swan says like an answer to another question.
“I can’t say I have, but now that you ask,” Acheron picks up a waffle with her fork, “I wonder if it has something to do with how people don’t realize that black swans exist until they see one – an unforeseen but consequential event.”
“And so is the case with my constructs, precisely,” the Memokeeper explains. “The problem is not that these memes don’t exist in nature, it’s the fact that they’re often simple-minded creatures that live vicariously through humans, pursuing a existential understanding of themselves to the point they may endanger us to steal memories. A problem of which we get lucky, since they mainly manifest beneath Penacony’s ‘Twelve Hours’ where memoria concentrates, which is also why most haven’t come across one.”
“If that’s the case, what convinced you it was a good idea to create your own?”
“The day I was born, my mother says it’s like nature itself celebrates it: the birds chirped, the moon and sun were together in the sky. I believe I was blessed, with a soul steeped in nostalgia, and what I’d say… a third eye in magic that lets me see the ‘void’ memetic entities try to fill and imbue it with a…not exactly a soul, but a purpose – a replica of my memories.” Black Swan recalls, and Acheron learns either her hostess really loves sending her on a wild goose chase ( swan chase?) with her stories, or she’s really thrilled to be able to finally discuss her work with someone – an honor Acheron appreciates, but not understands. Is the Memokeeper simply doing this as an exchange of information, or does she truly find Acheron deserving of a secret not many is privy to?
So she patiently listens,“but how ?”
The diligent swan finishes its work by the shelf and flies over to their table, wingbeats slow and neck outstretched.
“Most Memokeepers only understand the memories ,” Black Swan says, digging her index finger into her little friend and the glassy structure melts back to a puddle of liquid crystal at her touch. She swirls it around, molding it with her fingers, “So it’s par for the course for them to access memories with memoria, either creating or destroying them, but they must do it mindfully. This is why these bubbles wrapped in a Sentiention membrane,” she gestures across the table, “are the most common manmade memoria containers. So are light cones, which reflect experiences onto a surface of memoria – but much less so, because they can only be crafted if a Memokeeper has mastered Fuli’s spell of Refining Aether.”
“Right,” Acheron says, following. She also follows Black Swan’s hands as they shape the memoria back into another swan sculpture, but this time a bit atypical, with its body hollowed out, opened with a hole on top of its plumage. Black Swan finishes by tapping her temple to extract a string of light to weave into the contrivance, and Acheron’s mouth falls open as she watches it depart for the sink, sip on the water, and start watering the plant pots on the windowsill through its beak.
“But me? I surpass them,” Black Swan continues after her work is finished. “I can feel the memories, know how they connect not only to their owners but also to one another. My magic isn’t boxed into the manipulation , but creation . Like how Alchemists nail the elements down to a science, or how Artificers view every nut and bolt as a blueprint – I don’t feel like magic just exists in my blood to grasp onto memories, but in the memories themselves. I enlighten shells of memoria with a ‘memory’, thrust on them a role to fill – and fill it they do, as per their nature.”
“Everything in the material world will eventually perish, but they can live on in another way – through Remembrance, that’s my ultimate goal.” She steals a piece of Acheron’s waffles that’s been ignored from how enraptured she is. “As our city progresses away from an opulent dream once built upon the decay of our spirits, I’m also working to help more people ‘wake up’. If you’re in control of a memetic form, as I’m starting small with my sculptures, you can traverse the realm of spirit that’s currently out of reach – I’ll be able to plunge into a person’s mind and restore lost memories or tip the scale of emotions there, essentially reminding them of their greater purposes forgotten in the throes of pleasure. This is part of the Revolution Penaconians need, to my understanding.”
Black Swan eyes her carefully, fingers drumming on the table. Legs spread, boots glat against the floor. “In exchange, what I need to know, Acheron,” she says, “is if you understand.”
Not Black Swan’s magic itself, but the weight of her information . Acheron’s no stranger to betraying trust, but not of her own accord. She’ll start with a clean slate. “I’m actually not from Penacony,” she says, meeting Black Swan’s eyes, “but I have noticed the Revolution, not only its philosophical debates but also its power struggle, in lieu of the Oak Family – and I can only imagine what they’d do with a gift like yours.”
“Either detest, or exploit it,” Black Swan says curtly, but it rings out in Acheron’s ears: I know exactly by WHOM – you who work wonders on this world, would you dare persist in the face of THEM who renders every resolve of mine – of us, of everyone – worthless. “Per the final clause of the black swan theory – after the first instance that the public witnesses my rare talent, they will rationalize it by hindsight, as if it could have been expected. They’ll scramble to find a second glimpse, replicate it, perhaps even hunt me down to sate their morbid curiosity. Yet, if command over memetic forms fall into the wrong hands, rival factions could operate while as invisible as you were, stealing, distorting, or implanting memories onto their targets.” She pauses, mounting suspense. “This is why nobody knows about the art.”
The wind chime trills over from the door, and a voice dragged out with a tell-tale impassive drawl calls into the house, “I’m late, I know, but I’m always fashionable so can you blame me?” There’s a bustling, the door shutting, and a thump of something heavy dropping to the floor. “But before you try to use my tardiness as an opportunity for blackmail, they finished deconstructing that department store on Ninth, and I picked up a box of steel for cheap. I know the dealers have started price-gouging from the boom in Artificer’s hiring notices to fix up the city, but it’s been so long since I purchased my sword, and I was looking forward to Blade forging me a new one after his mission today…”
A woman rounds the corner into the kitchen, surprising Acheron how her flamboyant appearance – from a head of red wine hair tied into a ponytail, a pair of pince-nez sunglasses resting on it, to a white dress shirt worn under a sensational black jacket, a spider pattern crawling over her back – reflects the weight of her presence carried into the room. She has lighter shades of her hair for eyes, which zero in on Acheron – one of them thinks she belongs there and the other clearly doesn’t – but soon relax, their corners even crinkle like she’s amused.
Black Swan addresses Acheron to correct, “Well, almost nobody knows about it.”
The newcomer steals a few more looks around the room, noticing the swan serving as a watering can, and quickly comes to her own (incorrect) conclusions. “It’s been a while since you’ve had a girl stay the night, Black Swan, let alone one you trusted with your secret. Was she that good in bed?”
“Acheron, meet Kafka,” Black Swan introduces, unfazed. “Kafka, Acheron. She’s… in need of friendly faces, or something like that.”
“And I’m sure you were a great friend ,” Kafka says, and Acheron can’t actively tell from her leveled voice if she’s purposely distrustful, or if she’s just making a joke. “Acheron,” she repeats, rolling the syllables on her tongue. “I’ve heard that name.”
“When?” Acheron asks, a hand flying to the hilt of her sword as a nervous tick. “How?” Was she declared missing? A poster, warning her not to return? Is there a bounty over her head; a freshly dug grave, waiting?
“From Blade,” Kafka says.
It takes Black Swan’s response for Acheron to realize Blade is apparently a person. “What about him?”
The floorboards creak. The streets bustle. The methodical clicking from the coffee machine. The consistent drumming of water from the avian meme. Acheron can hear it all, the world tilted on an axis, the space around her careening out of orbit, almost as loud as Kafka’s thoughts as she puzzles it out.
“Did you run?” She asks cautiously. Black Swan’s question goes ignored; she’s addressing Acheron directly, not as a guest, but an enigma. “Did you run away?”
“How did you know that?” Acheron whispers back, her grip tightening.
“Remember how Elio assigned us to monitor The Family’s reallocation of their authorities and keep an eye out on the IPC’s every move?” Kafka turns to speak to Black Swan, but her eyes soon land back on Acheron. “Well, it’s Blade’s shift today, and he’s been reporting about the arrival of a new candidate for the City Council, who possesses an Aeonic title, if that. There were talks on the streets about how THEY’re not seen accompanied by their right hand today, who’s said to be on break from magic overexertion.” She takes a breath. “Interviewers were given your name. No picture, so I assume it must be a Magician who can slip into disguises. Yet, to my knowledge, you weren’t actually declared missing.”
Both pairs of eyes are staring at Acheron now. Dimly, she’s aware that they’re awaiting a response; here’s the part where she confesses all her sins – or as much as she can recall with the curse precisely put in place for this scenario – but where to start, where to stop, where to fault and flow like the water beneath the black sun that plagues her dreams –
“Which I find strange,” Black Swan interrupts, “considering you managed a grade-A invisibility spell to slip into my house last night just fine.”
“How curious,” Kafka briefly lifts an eyebrow at Black Swan’s account. “Tell us, stranger. Before you ran away, what did you specialize in?”
“Was it illusion?” Black Swan asks, but her mouth still parts like she has more to say.
But Acheron surprises all of them, including herself, when she comes clean with the truth, unable to curb its appetite for repentance. “Assassination.”
That's how she silences the room.