If Xavier expected to follow Mickey and Thairn into Mickey's bedroom, he was proven wrong when Mickey snapped his fingers and relit the wards behind them. Mickey gave a little wave to his guard with a wiggle of his fingers and closed the door, sight and sound all blocked.
"The doctor couldn't fix his arm," Mickey said to Thairn. "Can you?"
Thairn kneeled in front of Illa, brushed her lips against that tainted arm, tried to feel out the magic.
"Where?" she asked Illa. He could point, even if he couldn't talk.
He showed her the darkest of the bruising on his arm, and when she examined it more carefully, she could sense a strange thickness in the bone, a fracture set and regrown. He hadn't had it before his mission.
The man she'd sent him to had broken his arm.
She kissed it, firm, tried to force her magic to suffuse. But while it smoothed the former fracture down to the same thickness as the rest of the bone, halted the squirm in the ridges on his skin, the feeling of taint did not disappear. The black and bruised colors in his skin did not fade.
The bone gave beneath her hand.
Illa screamed.
She fell back, heart twisting in her chest, horrified disbelief ringing in her ears. Mickey was on Illa, a purple glow coming from Mickey's hands, countering the contusions, restoring volume to the flesh that had fallen in from the bone's collapse. But it wasn't enough to take away the discoloration entirely, and the taint took the form of black slugs, engulfing Mickey's hands.
Mickey stopped casting the healing at Illa, lit his own hands aflame, burning away the tainted magic. The slugs withered, fell to the floor in cinders, disappeared into nothingness.
"The good news," Mickey said, "Is that if I light his arm on fire, it might fix him."
"How much on fire?" She could heal surface burns. She suspected he wasn't talking about surface burns.
"More on fire than either of you are going to want."
Illa couldn't speak, but he was staring, at his arm, at Mickey, at Thairn, at his arm. A long look at Thairn that seemed to be asking something, but, for all that they'd been friends for decades, she couldn't read it. What were things he would likely want to know? She didn't know how to explain his arm. But Mickey, she could explain Mickey.
"Rhett," she said, and got to a knee before him, eyes meeting his, avoiding looking at his arm. "This is Mickey Morley." Illa didn't seem to respond, but then, he'd have controlled his response if he'd been able to talk. Mickey was not to know of their deal with Greta.
"We're behind Mickey's wards, so, I can talk to you properly now." Though I love you, that she couldn't say. "I'm sorry. About... I'm sorry. I have to keep cover. You understand?"
He nodded, just barely. And then a question, one she caught in the lift of his eyebrows.
"Yes, I always seem to pick up a lover, don't I?" She chuckled, despite the pain in it. More acquaintance with Illa than she should have implied, but, it was such a relief to talk to him.
"We haven't decided yet which of us is Romeo and which is Juliet, unfortunately," Mickey said.
It made her laugh again, for all she felt like crying. "He--he knows that I know you." She worded that carefully. "He says he wants to help you get out."
"It's not going to be a quick get-away, I'm afraid," Mickey said. "It will be tough to get you past all the family, especially if Alanna wants to stay and finish wreaking all that havoc she's promised. We've at least got Malachi out of the way, for now--Luke had Malachi's guards slip him something last night that should leave him high for most of the day."
Something about that sparked indistinct concern in the back of Thairn's mind. But Illa was her focus right now. "We're going to start by trying to get an antidote to the potion Lucía gave you," Thairn said. "That way we can talk with you properly."
Illa made a pen-and-paper gesture, and Mickey went to get it for him, but Thairn just shook her head. Lucía had, by now, explained the potion. Nonetheless, she took off Illa's hand binds, which she should have done from the start. He would need them off to put on new clothes, right? That was the excuse, if someone walked in to find his hands unbound. Though that excuse wouldn't fly, if they saw him with pen and paper.
Sure enough, what he wrote was nothing more than a jumble of loosely-connected words, nothing either Thairn or Mickey could comprehend. The magic of Broca Burn--it didn't matter how you tried to communicate: if it used words, it wouldn't work.
Illa clenched his teeth, knuckles white around the pencil. He began to draw.
First, the figure of a person. A human man, perhaps? And a second figure, this one with fae wings. Arrows between them, as if they were exchanging something.
The figure with fae wings stabbed the man, and then... if Thairn were making it out correctly, there were two faeries?
"What is--"
A knock came to the door.
Mickey crumpled up the drawing and set it aflame with his magic, dropping the ashes in his trash can. Ran for the closet to get a shirt and slacks, shoved them into Illa's hands. Thairn started Illa getting dressed. All ready to look correct.
Mickey opened the door to find Magdalena on the other side.
Thairn knew Illa well enough to read his reactions, no matter how well-covered. A second of freeze, a flinch of widened eyes. Magdalena had questioned him before Lucía had retrieved Thairn. What had Magdalena done? What had she said? What did he know?
Thairn turned to face Magdalena, subtly putting herself between them. Suppressing the urge to reach back and touch Illa for grounding. She gave Magdalena a bow of acknowledgment. Then returned Alanna's paranoid attention to Illa.
Mickey brought down the wards for Magdalena. Thairn found it interesting that Magdalena waited for him to do so. Was she refraining from blasting through them out of courtesy? Or was she actually unable to breach them?
"Malcolm Godfrey Morley," Magdalena said. Her cane struck the floor with a hiss. "What is this?" She grabbed his hand and forced a mostly-empty vial into his grip.
Mickey looked at it as if he'd never seen it in his life. "I can't say. Perhaps Lucía could tell you?"
"I said no deaths, Malcolm. Was it Lucía who dosed this and gave it to Malachi, or was it you?"
"Malachi is dead?" Mickey asked, visibly startled.
That nagging thought in the back of Thairn's mind came back and clicked into place. I've made arrangements, Lucía had said last night. And Mickey, just moments ago, Luke had Malachi's guards slip him something last night that should leave him high for most of the day.
Lucía always did complain to Alanna about drug interactions throwing a wrench into her plans.
All the same, it didn't make a good excuse to give Magdalena. Mickey and Lucía separately meant to drug Malachi, but probably didn't mean to kill him?
"Malachi is dead," Magdalena confirmed. "His guards said you bribed them to make sure he took this."
"I'm sure that's what they told you, but I'm also sure of this." Mickey offered the vial to Magdalena. "If you look at what's in it, it won't be my brew you find inside." A bold play, with what was only technically the truth.
One that failed. "I already know you steal from Lucía, you insolent boy."
If Thairn really were his ally, she would bring up what Lucía had told her, about having matters "arranged". Then that would be two pieces down, and only Mickey's loyal guard still left in play. If she held her silence, Mickey might lose the game here. And for all that Greta and Illa had both been captured, Thairn still owed the debt.
Although. What would Magdalena do to Mickey, if she decided Mickey had killed someone Magdalena didn't want dead?
I promise to protect him from the dangers of the succession, Thairn had said. Was this protecting him from dangers, to let Magdalena decide to kill him?
"It was Xavier."
Mickey and Magdalena both turned to face Thairn. Thairn did the final button on Illa's shirt, shoved him away, wiped her hands against her blouse and approached Magdalena.
Thairn continued. "Everything Xavier--and Luke, for that matter--do, the assumption is that it's Mickey behind it." Mickey had sent Luke to do the bribing, so if she could tangle Luke up into this, she'd get it believed. "But from what I've heard of this... competition? Xavier's his own player. You've named him so. And Luke... he's been Xavier's partner for a while, hasn't he?"
"He has," Mickey confirmed.
Magdalena glared him silent.
"I saw a shadow go into Lucía's laboratory," Thairn said.
"And what were you doing there, girl?" Magdalena asked.
"Meeting Lucía for tea. You can ask her--we meet regularly to discuss the students." Thairn waved the matter off. "When that shadow came out, I followed it. You never know if..." a significant glance to Illa, and a clench of her gloved fist, "...you never know. When the shadow uncloaked, I saw Xavier."
"How was it he didn't notice you following him?" Magdalena asked.
"I would not have survived," Thairn lifted her hands to show, to remind Magdalena of Alanna's backstory, "did I not know how to move quietly."
"You've done good, girl." Magdalena held out her hand for the vial, took it back from Mickey. "Would you like revenge as a reward? You can use this bug as a class demonstration tool. Hurt it all you want." A dark chuckle. "Just keep it alive."
Thairn's heart pounded, and Alanna's face smiled. "I would be honored." She gave a bow.
"I'll send you replacement guards, Mickey."
"Could one be a taster? I'm head to head with Lucía now."
Magdalena ignored him, turned to leave, her cane pounding out her aged steps. A tentacle snapped out from the cane, stretched longer than it should have been able, and wrapped around one of Illa's unbound wrists. His eyes widened, and he half-reached for Thairn--stopped himself before Magdalena could notice, and shuffled off after her.
"It will be in your classroom before your class starts," Magdalena said. "Don't worry, girl. Plenty of time to prepare a riveting lecture."
Thairn and Mickey were left alone.
Mickey snapped his wards back on. "Why didn't you say it was Lucía?"
Thairn composed the lies, though really they were truths conveniently organized. "It wouldn't have worked. She already knew it was Lucía's poison--what she wanted to know was who bribed the guards. She wouldn't have believed that Lucía sent Luke to do anything."
"But Xavier--"
"Xavier was about to win the Test of the Kraken. He told me so last night, that Magdalena had deemed the capture worthy."
"But that wasn't going to matter," Mickey said. "After you proved I could trust him, he and I made an alliance--"
"And I was to know that how? We're supposed to be allies in this, and you didn't even tell me that?" Press the attack. Ignore the guilt.
"I thought you would..." He sighed. Dropped into his chair. "You're right. We are supposed to be allies." He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked up at her with his most piercing gaze. "So what is Rhett to you, really?"
What had Mickey seen, in the way Illa interacted with her? How much did Mickey realize? What would some other version of her say, if Illa were a mere acquaintance?
"I'm curious," she tried, going for neutral. "Why that question?"
"Because that arm is going to kill him."
Thairn's stomach clenched.
"I think I can fix it," Mickey continued, "with your help. But it would risk my life. I see the way he looks at you. I don't think you've only met once or twice. What does he mean to you?"
What if Mickey was lying? What if this was a ploy, to assess Illa's value as blackmail?
What if Mickey was telling the truth? What if he was actually willing to risk himself, if it meant saving someone important to her?
Maybe he was setting Illa up for a life debt, like the one Thairn had snagged Greta in. Save Illa from something Mickey hadn't caused, at risk to Mickey's own life. Turn Illa into his tool.
She'd rather Illa be a tool than dead.
She made sure the wards had been reactivated properly. That they held solid. That the door was shut.
She sat on the bed. And let her mask crumble.
Mickey reached out a hand at the sight of the devastation on her face. Kind wizard. If it weren't for all of this, she probably could love him.
She clung to that hand and closed her eyes and saw Illa's face as Magdalena dragged him away. A pain in her chest, like she wanted to cry, but couldn't. "The fiancé," Thairn said.
"The arranged one?"
"And the friend. The kink one."
"Who gave you permission to seduce gorgeous wizards?"
She laughed and it sounded like a sob, even though there were no tears. "That's the one."
"Well, then, we'll have to save him. After all, you told me he wouldn't be one of your tragic romances." Mickey came to the bed and took her into his arms. Brushed her hair gently from her face.
She felt the tears finally come. Because there was no jealousy here. Only sympathy. It hurt more than coldness, because at coldness, she could have worn her masks again. But faced with sympathy? She could only let the walls between her and the pain collapse.
"It's a romance only for me," she said. "He doesn't..."
"Does it matter?"
She shook her head. "He's mine. Regardless of romance, he's mine." And they'd taken him from her, made her hurt him in a way he'd never want, and she couldn't protect him.
"You're beautiful when you care for someone."
She leaned her head against his chest, trusting that he'd bear her up. She felt so safe here with him.
Together, they'd save Illa.
Lucía's laboratory was designed to seal the lab off from outside light when the door was closed. Many of her potions were light-reactive, after all. This made it easy for Mickey to form a cloak of shadows and nick potions by the feel of what their magic would do, then sit in wait in the far corner, where it would look most dramatic when she did turn on the light.
Mickey heard the knob turn and arranged himself in the chair for maximum cocky confidence, all borne in the cross of his legs and the lay of his cane.
He opened his mouth as soon as she stepped across the threshold. "Lucía, darling. What is it that you have on our dear Alanna?"
Lucía, deadpan. "There's an intruder in my lab, and I can't see what it is. Guess I'd better kill it, just in case."
"Like how you killed Malachi? I don't think that would make Magdalena happy."
"Didn't you hear? Xavier killed Malachi. It's quite a shock. Everyone thought it was Mickey."
"I did hear that. And I found it fascinating, that Alanna would name Xavier instead of you. Seriously, what do you have on her? I hear she takes tea with you. Did you drug her?"
A snort. "As if I could. She won't even let someone else serve her water. Everything from the tap herself."
"Mm, smart woman."
A clink of a potion bottle being moved. "You think she's loyal to you, do you? That's adorable."
"I am irresistibly charming."
Another snort. "Not as irresistible as you think, cousin. I didn't have to get anything on her. She came to me and offered me up all kinds of pretty little secrets. Like what you've been doing to my students' potions."
"Do you think it's only her students I've been giving false conversions to? She's been giving you the wrong key to all my swaps."
"That's cute, Mickey. But even if I were stupid enough to believe anything that comes out of your mouth, I've been testing them. I know which of us she's lying to. And it's not me."
He felt that sting of betrayal and put it away. Later. It was all a game, after all, wasn't it? He needed to play, and play well.
How was he doing, at this game? Mistakes, to be certain. But he'd come in here to steal the Broca Burn antidote, and he was pretty sure he'd managed, if he knew the feel right. He'd come to find out what Lucía had on Alanna and gotten even more than that. Why Alanna was doing it, that was up to question. But, if Lucía wasn't bragging about it, that meant Alanna knew and Lucía didn't.
Goals accomplished? Time to make a dramatic exit? Or should he push for one more victory?
Anything Alanna had said about Lucía couldn't be trusted, right? (That sting again.) If that were the case, then what else had she told him about Lucía?
Ah, the identity of Lucía's masterwork. Alanna had recently begun to claim it was something anti-fae. But if it were, Alanna would just have let Mickey flub up Lucía's experiments instead of deceiving him.
In which case, it was probably what he'd begun to suspect, before the red herring.
"How is that loyalty potion working out for you?" Mickey asked. "All ready to get a gold star from Magdalena? Have you started on aerosolization yet, or is that step two?"
No answer, but he knew she hadn't left the room.
He drummed his fingers along his cane. "How did you get it into Alanna? Lined her hot water kettle with it, maybe? Snuck it into her tea stash?"
"A coating on the spoon." Another clink of a potion bottle. "How did you guess, Mickey?"
"Did you really think I wouldn't notice when one of my tutoring students stopped having her own opinions anytime they conflicted with yours?" He stood, as silently as possible. Lucía was going to attack him soon, he was sure. Possibly even with that loyalty potion, and wouldn't that be a sight? "Does it work on faeries, do you know? Since it seems they've been chasing us."
"I'll let you know after we test it on Rhett today."
"Don't screw up and poison them. Magdalena wouldn't be happy."
The blow came. He dodged, parrying with his cane. Lit it aflame for an instant, to see where Lucía was, then doused it so she couldn't track him. Dove into her legs. Crashed her against a cabinet of glass bottles, and he knew they spilled, both from the fragrant bursts of anise and holy basil and from the sizzle and stink of a reaction against Lucía's skin.
He wrapped the shadows tighter around himself and, going by memory, ran for the door. Through the vestibule, out the other side, and began casting wards, strengthening her spiderwebs until they were so solid he was pretty sure she couldn't leave, at least not quickly.
He'd left any antidote to the loyalty potion locked in there with her.
Dammit.
At least he'd grabbed the antidote for the Broca Burn. Okay, he had to go find where Magdalena had dragged Rhett off to, that was the first thing. He could warn Rhett about the loyalty potion. Then, assuming this fiancé of Alanna's didn't hate Mickey on sight and just been unable to say so previously, Mickey and Rhett could work together to fix whatever the loyalty potion had done to Alanna.
All while trying to survive Lucía, who had either nearly killed him after murdering Malachi or nearly dosed him with loyalty after enthralling Alanna. Mickey thought he would be used to family assassination attempts by now, but somehow his adrenaline centers hadn't burnt out yet.
All part of the game.
Magdalena's cane dragged Illa down the halls. Thairn had taken the bindings off his hands. Could he use this as a chance to escape? No, that tentacle's grip on his right wrist was too firm. And his left hand--the one with the injured arm--was losing dexterity. He'd noticed it when he was trying to draw.
Thairn had tied the corset tie over his wings in front of witnesses, so, of course she hadn't been able to put its sealing knot anywhere convenient. But if he ignored the pain in his arm, the sick feeling that it would collapse again, and reached--
Magdalena glanced back at him. Her cane let loose another tentacle, wrapping around his left wrist and yanking at the injured arm. A pain noise, high and desperate, escaped his throat.
A maze of halls and then a door, finally, into a sitting room. Magdalena let the cane go while she shut the door behind them. The cane stood on its own, holding Illa in place just as firmly as it had in her grip.
Only a second for Illa to glance at the seemingly-innocuous array of antique furniture before the cane dragged him through another entryway. This time to a room that had manacles drilled into the walls, iron implements arrayed around, a shelf of potions. The potions were all carefully labeled by hand, and none of those labels looked encouraging.
Magdalena busied herself in the sitting room, leaving the cane to mind him alone. Three more tentacles lashed forth, grabbing his feet and hips, pulling his balance out from under him. He flinched in anticipation of landing on his bound wings, but instead stopped just short of the ground, held aloft by his octopodian chains.
Magdalena returned with a goblet in hand, sipping a dark, garnet liquid. The aroma of wine and ambrosia filled the room. She got a potion from the shelf--he couldn't catch what the label was--and dipped down next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just barely see her feed it to the raven's skull that topped her cane.
A snake's hiss emerged from beneath his back. He fought with the tentacles, but they were far too strong. Especially weakened as he was from the living death inside his arm, the sleepless night with the chainmail veil, the other torments he'd endured. A serpent that moved like a living creature and looked to be made of the cane's carved wood slithered up along his bound wings, following the ropes around his body until it reached the top of his chest. He kept trying to struggle--and failing.
"Stop squirming," Magdalena said. "I thought you might want to speak, foolish fae."
The snake struck, its fangs piercing just above his collarbone. The snake venom burned up through his blood.
With an explosive sear, he felt something in his brain unlock.
"What do you want?" he asked, and the words came out fluid and just as he meant them. He sagged against the octopus arms in relief.
"To use you." Magdalena sipped her wine. "You fae are always trying to send double agents our way, to infiltrate the Morleys. I would like to reverse that. I think it's about time we sent a double agent to infiltrate Faerie."
"And if I say no?"
Magdalena ruffled a pile of paper on a side table that he hadn't noticed notice. "I'll have to send Ms. Abercorn a suggested curriculum."
His mind went reeling back to that chainmail, the inescapable taint gnawing at his wings, those hours of immobile torment...
The fear showed, and he hadn't been intending to let it.
"You see your predicament," Magdalena said.
He tried to respond, but his head was stuck in that night, in those veils, in that stillness he'd had to use to survive it. As nonverbal as the Broca Burn had left him. Worse.
"You're wondering," Magdalena said, "how I'd ensure your loyalty, if you did say yes."
He tried to nod, tried to give her a considering look, tried to get control of his face. Come on. Sink into Thairn's orders, something, anything. But all he could think of was Thairn locking the chainmail onto him, the click of the lock even as the nausea began to strike like endless, terrible blows...
"No," he said, and it wasn't to Magdalena's offer, but she took it that way.
A tentacle wrapped around his throat. It felt enough like a collar to pull him for a second into the right space, enough that he could send his mind to the right images. Thairn, doing his buttons for him, dressing him before Magdalena came. That last push, sending him down in his head.
Come on. Come on. He had to be Thairn's Rhett, her Ian, her Illa.
"H-how would you ensure my loyalty?" He had to stop thinking about that chainmail. Couldn't. He strained his wings against the ropes. They weren't steel, at least they weren't steel, but he couldn't get it off, he couldn't stretch his wings out, he was trapped--
An explosion sounded, shaking the floor of the room and spilling Magdalena's wine. She stumbled, caught herself. Grabbed another potion off the shelf and fed her cane a second vial. The raven swallowed, and the snake's fangs moistened once again with venom. But Magdalena didn't wait to watch. Out the door in a blink.
Illa turned his panic towards the struggle, even as he felt his bad arm start to give. He didn't want to lose his words, he couldn't, he still had to warn Thairn--
A shadow spiraled around the snake, strangling it. A flash of steel sliced through the tentacles holding him up, and more shadows braked his fall. Those same shadows crawled into the raven skull's eye sockets, pinned the cane to the ground.
Mickey Morley stood over him, sheathing his sword-cane. He hefted Illa up into his arms. A cloak of darkness surrounded Illa and Mickey, leaving nothing but black. Illa couldn't see the path they took out, but he felt Mickey running, heard the sounds of the household, and finally saw light again in the room where Mickey had given Illa his clothes.
"There you are, right as rain." Mickey set Illa down and patted his shoulder--the bad one, and they both winced. "I'm sure we both have a terrible lot to tell each other, but, first--was I hearing right when I was eavesdropping? She took the Burn off?"
"Yes. I can talk now."
"Oh, thank god. I'm only about half sure I stole the correct antidote, and I don't think either of us want to know what else it might have been." He patted Illa more gently, this time on the healthy shoulder, and looked him over. "Alanna really does have fantastic taste in men."
"Mickey." Illa had to trust that Thairn was trusting the right person. She at least had more sense than Illa, it seemed so far. "I have something important to tell you."
"As do I. Lucía slipped your fiancée--" Thairn had told him that much? That wasn't what she'd flagged. "--a loyalty potion, and I don't know if it works on faeries, but they're planning to test it on you, if they haven't already, and maybe I should have checked for... no, I rescued you fast enough, I think. I hope? Please don't be dosed with a loyalty potion. I saved you from the potion-dosing snake in time, yes?"
"It struck me once to remove the Broca Burn, and was about to strike me again before you came. Though if I were dosed, I can't imagine I would tell you. What makes you think Alanna has been?"
"Lucía said she had, and Alanna's been siding with Lucía on the succession in secret. As I am devastatingly charming, it couldn't possibly be that Alanna likes Lucía more than me. So, what's your news?"
"Magdalena is a changeling fae."
"She... wait, really? Did the real one never actually come back? Was that a fake fight, all those years ago?"
"The real one did come and fight the faerie for control of the family, but didn't win. The faerie killed the real one to fake her own death and cut herself off from our people."
"Oh. Damned impressive." Mickey took a second to admire the trick. "So, the real one's been dead all this time?"
"Not quite. The real one got revived by a necromancer and became a zombie."
"Interesting. And that's why you were with someone from the Wingless."
"Right. The real one is Gabriel, head of the Wingless."
"He's... secretly a girl?"
"He's trans."
"That's fair. He the one who did that to your arm?"
"He is. He broke it, and... tried to have it healed."
"By a necromancer?"
"Unfortunately."
"Do you know that's going to kill you?"
"What?"
"I was going to nobly risk my life to cure it. But, I need Alanna to help, and she might be dosed."
"Then we should get her and figure out if she is dosed."
"How are we supposed to do that? Clearly you fae can't read each other's minds."
"No. But, we can convince her that Lucía wants one thing, and you or I want another. We'll see what she chooses."
"Then, I propose we make it look like I'm about to win the Serpent--"
"Don't make it about the succession."
"Why not?"
Illa was so exhausted. Too exhausted for good lies. "Just don't."
"You think she'll continue to side with Lucía, even if there's no potion, don't you?"
Dammit.
Illa could either ruin Thairn's secrets, or ruin Thairn's alliance.
"Alanna promised Greta that she'd stop you from winning," Illa said. No, that hadn't been the exact wording. "Or rather, she promised to 'make good-faith efforts to protect you from the dangers of succession without attempting to slay you or bring you grievous physical harm.'"
"Dangers?"
"Greta gave us some excuses for why the succession would be dangerous to you."
"Then Alanna's been my angel all along." A broad, besotted grin. "Excuses?"
"The real danger, I suspect, is that Magdalena isn't human and doesn't need to retire. She probably plans to kill and take the place of whoever wins the contest."
"Then, Aunt Greta..." A pause. "She actually cares about me."
"She gave us a lot, in exchange for protecting you."
Mickey's face perfectly, perfectly still. "I should probably rescue her from whatever hole Magdalena's put her in." His eyes ran over Illa. "Let's take care of you, first. If Aunt Greta's still alive, then she's got better odds than you of staying that way."
Illa felt deeply aware of the cold in his arm, the way it was continuing to spread. Past his elbow now. Cresting his shoulder. He nodded, feeling the fear clench at his throat.
"We'll have to get Alanna first," Mickey said. "I'll come up with a test that doesn't involve the succession. Let's get you tied up enough to make the family happy, and then we'll go find her."
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