After Mickey fled the laboratory, Lucía rose from the shattered glass. The sharp odor of volatiles making her cover her mouth and nose. What had hit her? Her shoulder itched, and she got enough of a glance to see the skin corrode. Shit.
She stumbled to the emergency shower, a zap to start the ventilator, a surge of magic to activate the lights. Blackness by the doorway, leftover shadow from Mickey. Bastard.
She'd worn her goggles into the lab, so at least nothing had gotten into her eyes. Hadn't swallowed anything.
The water washed away the potion residue, flushed out the corroded pits seared into her flesh. The doctor would fix it.
She'd relied on a sip of nightsight to outsmart Mickey, hoping she could dose him. But she'd missed, and he'd gotten away. Idiot. Her work crumbling his confidence in Alanna had gone through, at least.
How had he learned it was a loyalty potion? She hadn't told Alanna about it. Hadn't even told Magdalena yet. It was still in testing. The expectations for her work were, sadly, too often mundane. Alanna, at least, would not have been disappointed. If Lucía had been willing to tell her the truth. Alanna always favored Lucía's trickier potions, the ones "more interesting than fighting and killing."
Though, Alanna was quite interested in anything that could be used to fight and kill faeries. Sadistic tastes, if her fascination with substances like Wing Rot were any indication.
Lucía had just begun to assess what exactly had broken and spilled when everything exploded.
Because Mickey, the idiot, had left the flammables cabinet open when stealing from her, and then used fire.
It was infuriating, having to look aged and barely mobile when Magdalena needed to rush anywhere. She managed to pretend she was using the wall to hold herself up. Perhaps she could chalk it all up to adrenaline. But she made her way, as fast as her disguise would allow, to Lucía's laboratory, the source of the explosion.
The door was warded, laden heavy with both Malcolm and Lucía's magicks. Were they working together? Or was there a fight going on in there, in the middle of her mansion? Servants were coming--Magdalena couldn't tear down wards this knotted herself without playing her wings or singing a spell, so she allowed one bodyguard to take her arm and her weight, and another two to start work tearing down the wards. Slow work. She sent a servant to go keep an eye on that damned faerie. She didn't trust her cane to handle them alone.
But before the wards were even halfway down, the servant came running back to inform her that the faerie was missing and her cane was damaged--the raven and serpent surrounded by shadow, the kraken's arms sliced by a blade. Xavier's trademarks. Had he really turned traitor on her? Perhaps she'd given him too much credit, thinking he could handle a Test for the succession. She'd really been hoping she could get rid of a less-useful asset and keep the better ones by letting him take the prize. But now Malachi was dead, Xavier was a traitor, and Lucía and Malcolm had warded themselves into Lucía's laboratory and started blowing things up.
Should have shucked her plans and just picked a successor. Having a face to steal was more important than all the rest.
She took the cane from the servant and stripped it of shadows, then leaned on it for apparent balance so she could let go of this silly bodyguard. The tentacles, injured, caressed her hand, seeking soothing. She swatted them away. She'd fix it up later.
Another servant, with news. "Mr. Malcolm Morley's gotten the faerie away from Xavier. Where should he put it?"
Malcolm was in this laboratory, wasn't he? These wards looked like his. But then, he'd have his bodyguards trained for similar. Xavier again, the traitorous bastard. Even now, as the guards worked to peel off the warding, she could see the trickles of shadow. Wilier and more vicious than she'd known.
"Tell him to hand it off to Ms. Abercorn. She'll be starting the preparations for her class soon." The Fae-Fighting teacher would be a secure enough person to leave the faerie with. "After that, tell him to come here. He needs to clean up Xavier's mess." And also, that damned faerie hadn't taken her deal, had they? "Stop by my chambers on the way. I have a lesson plan for Ms. Abercorn to follow."
"Madame Morley!" a woman ran up, one Magdalena took a moment to place. Ah. One of Lucía's lab assistants. Dara Lynwood, was it? "Madame Morley, we need to clear this wing of the building."
"Why?"
"There's a gas line in there. That explosion, if it hasn't hit it already, or if there's leftover flame inside..."
Magdalena slammed the hoof of the cane down to the ground. "Stop breaking the wards!" she ordered the guards. "Start thermal, arcane and kinetic shields. All the way through the floor into the pipelines. Radio the guards upstairs, surround the laboratory in a full sphere."
The guards got to work pouring it on, forming a shimmering blue bubble all around the laboratory. Dara dispensed advice as needed. Magdalena noted that this would seal Lucía inside and guarantee Dara a promotion. Backstabbers, all of them.
They'd just gotten the barrier sealed when the second explosion went, the space the laboratory had once occupied now a swirling colossus of smoke and flame, the latter of which was every color but orange, an unholy rainbow of magic fire.
That was the end of the succession battle.
"Madame Morley says to take it to Ms. Abercorn's classroom." The servant passed Mickey a sheaf of papers. "She also says to give Ms. Abercorn this lesson plan, for today's class."
"It's going to be hard for Alanna to change her lesson on such short notice," Mickey said.
"I'm afraid those are her orders as the Principal, Mr. Morley." The servant curtseyed. "Once you're done, Madame Morley wants to see you."
"Where is she?"
"Outside Dr. Morley's former laboratory."
"Is Lucía alright?"
"We aren't sure, sir. But as I left, I heard..."
"What?"
"There's a gas line likely to be affected by the explosion. They were preparing to seal the laboratory."
"With Lucía inside?"
"I'm afraid so, Mr. Morley."
"I'll come see Magdalena after I've dropped this off." He flipped through the lesson plan. "Make that after I've dropped this off and healed this faerie. Unless Magdalena wants this to be a final."
"I will let Madame Morley know." Another curtsey, and the servant was gone.
Mickey allowed a stray glance to Rhett on the other end of the leash and resumed walking for the classroom wing of the building. They'd been heading there already. Mickey read through the lesson plan on the way.
"This doesn't look pretty," he told Rhett. "What the hell did you do to piss Magdalena off?"
For all that Rhett no longer had the Broca Burn, Mickey had assured the servants that he'd given Rhett a new dose, so Rhett could say nothing.
The guy ought to know what was in it, if he was going to be subject to it. So, Mickey began reading the lesson plan out loud. If someone questioned it, he could just say he was intimidating Rhett, right?
Unfortunately, it seemed to be working. The faerie grew paler, and his walk began to slow, until he shuffled to a halt and pulled the leash taut.
Mickey badly wanted to ask if Rhett could handle this, if he wouldn't rather have Mickey pull some brilliant plan out of the air to avoid it all. Not easy, this place was crawling with security. That explosion had kicked a fire ant's nest. How could they get out of this? Have Alanna call in sick?
Though, if Magdalena wanted to do this to Rhett, someone would be doing it to him, whether it was Alanna or someone else. Alanna could at least try to make it easier on him.
Could Alanna handle doing this to him?
"At least none of it should do permanent damage?" Mickey tried. "Assuming we get your arm fixed first. Tell you what, you get through this, I'll take mercy and get you smashed drunk." More sympathy than he perhaps should show in public, but, damn.
Rhett gave Mickey the kind of exasperated look Mickey got from just about everyone. Rhett set his shoulders, held himself up straight, and reached his bound hands up to touch the buttons Alanna had done for him. Something settled in him at that. Mickey could see it.
He's mine, Alanna had said.
Mickey led them on to the classroom. The leash held slack the whole time, Rhett keeping close pace.
Mickey was starting to like this guy.
The buttons and leash and hand binds helped the clockwork click in Illa's mind as they walked into the classroom. Thairn was at the lectern already, Illa's brass collar sitting on her desk. She was running through her lesson plan, her real one, which involved basic material that didn't require anything much from him at all, other than standing in place and spreading his wings and demonstrating this or that.
Magdalena had something different in mind.
The face Thairn put on it was perfect, but Illa knew her well enough to read the hesitations, the flutter at her fingertips as she leafed through the lesson plan. She looked at Illa, let their eyes meet for just long enough to let him guess at what lay underneath.
He lifted his chin, enough to expose his throat, and met those eyes, a plea he could not voice. Make sure I'm under for this.
Her hand clenched around the papers, but, she said the right words. "I know this will be taxing on you, bug, but it could be worse. Your fellows have certainly shown me that. Be a dear."
But instead of settling on him, the feeling of her control gripped like a vise. No comfort here, only fear, the sick feeling of that chainmail. She saw it on his face, he knew she did, but, what could she do? Barricade the door? Make Mickey put up wards? Blow her cover?
"Anyway," Mickey was saying. "Lucía had a request, too..."
"I don't have time for it."
Probably not loyalty-dosed.
"Good to hear," Mickey said. "Because between you and me, she was saying something about poisoning the spoon you use to stir your tea."
Relief, then. Mickey hadn't told Illa the method before.
"I use my own spoons to stir my tea," Thairn said. She and Illa both did, and other utensils besides. Humans insisted on using stainless steel for everything, so Thairn and Illa had become masters of the sleight of hand to swap the utensils out. "If she poisoned the spoon she intended me to use, that's no woe of mine. Unless it's a contact poison?"
"Sounded like something you'd have to swallow."
"Good."
"Look, I read through that lesson plan. I don't think your faerie's going to survive it, if I don't heal them first. There's also a hell of a lot else that's just happened that I need to talk to you about."
They left the classroom as one, Thairn pulling over a black-haired student--her assistant. "Susan, the class will start late because Principal Morley's requested a change in lesson plan. I need to go finish preparations, and then I'll be back. Have them discuss the readings while I'm gone."
"Yes, Ms. Abercorn." Susan peeked around her to get a half-fascinated, half-frightened look at Illa. "Do you know how long...?"
"Sorry, dear, no."
"Okay. I'm on it."
To Mickey's room, and the wards as solid as they could get. Thairn unbound Illa's wrists.
Mickey's hands flared purple. "Let's get started."
"What do I do?" Thairn asked.
"Kiss him anywhere, doesn't have to be the arm, and start pumping healing energy in. I'll get to work on the corruption. If I fall unconscious and start growing zombie slugs, try to kiss me awake? I'll be your Sleeping Beauty."
"Better than being my Juliet. That one actually has a happy ending."
"That's the spirit."
Thairn took Illa's hand, pressed her lips warm with the tingle of magic to his palm. There was nothing of steel chain to this, just her protection.
Then the flesh beneath the skin of his arm began to writhe.
She held him there, through that bone-deep wrongness, that crawling feeling almost like the chainmail had been. She poured out her magic into him, until her lips burned to the touch, made him feel singed. Held steady, even as he felt a surge of slimy, rotten corruption seep out from his very bones, lash out at Mickey. He hoped the wizard survived this. Please.
Fire from Mickey's magic, licking Illa's arm, fire in the burn of Thairn's mouth, flames and pain and her there, pulling Illa through this.
Illa felt something like a centipede wrapped around the bones of his arm being yanked out of his skin, the flame again flaring and singeing him. And then... then...
He had his arm again.
Mickey fell back, wrestling with the necromantic manifestations. Creatures trying to crawl into his skin like engorged slugs. A serpentine wrapping of sticky, black-green, necrotic tar. Mickey lit his own arms with flame to the point that the skin began to burn. But he got it, all of it, and Thairn pulled away from Illa then, began to kiss Mickey's arms better, his hands better, and his lips for no healing reason at all.
"You're all good?" Mickey asked Illa, still squeezing Thairn close.
Illa pressed his fingers into the flesh of his healed arm. No ache, no bone giving way. The skin had its ordinary luster, no bruised-black discoloration. He was healed. He was really healed.
Illa nodded.
Mickey had risked his life to do it. Was he going to call the life debt in now?
But instead, what Mickey said was, "Fantastic. Alanna, darling, I can't stay long. Rhett can tell you everything we've learned."
"Tell me?" Thairn asked.
"I can speak," Illa said. "Magdalena took the Broca Burn off to question me."
"And didn't put it back?" Thairn asked.
"Apparently Lucía's lab exploded," Mickey said. "Magdalena got a little... distracted. So, of course, I staged a noble rescue."
"In secret, I should hope," Thairn replied.
"I left behind some traces of magic, but I should be able to blame those on Xavier. I've sent him and Luke to a safehouse the family doesn't know about, so I'm free to ruin their reputations all I like. I can 'forgive' them once I succeed to the 'throne'."
"The throne... Wait. You said Lucía's lab exploded? Was she in it?"
"Afraid so."
"So you have the succession."
Mickey froze, struck by the revelation. "I suppose I do." He thought, and then, "Crap."
"Mickey, if you're going to get the succession no matter what I do, there's something I have to tell you."
"About your deal with Great-Aunt Greta?" Mickey asked.
"How long have you known?"
"Not very. Rhett told me about it after I rescued him. Along with some very interesting information that I don't think you know. Rhett?"
"Magdalena is a faerie changeling," Illa said.
"But the photograph?" Thairn asked.
"That was the human half of the swap, disguised to look fae."
"Interesting. That explains some things. And makes others very strange indeed."
"There's more. Gabriel, of the Wingless. He's the human half of the swap. He was raised as a zombie after he died."
"The genders?"
"He's trans."
Thairn accepted that with a nod, for all she seemed shell-shocked. "So, Magdalena..."
"...is fae," Mickey finished. "And probably intent on killing me and stealing my face the moment I 'succeed' her."
"Which is why Greta didn't want you to win. She knows."
"Yup. Didn't actually know Aunt Greta liked me. Rescuing her is on my list, after I see Magdalena today. Hopefully she's not too impatient about the killing-me business, I don't have time to be dead."
"Why are you seeing her at all?"
Mickey shrugged. "She's requested my presence. Don't exactly get to say 'no'. I've stalled for time as it is, coming to heal Rhett."
"What will you do if she tries to kill you?"
"Fight. Win, I hope. She'll have to get me alone for the face-snatching, that might give me an advantage."
"You..." Thairn looked from Mickey to Illa, and there was resolve in that gaze.
Resolve to what, Illa wondered?
"You saved Rhett, and risked yourself to do it." She took Mickey's hand. "It has no magic binding, but I accept this debt. I owe you life. And I promised your aunt. I will give my best efforts to protect you from the succession's dangers."
There was puzzlement in Mickey's look, but he did squeeze her hand.
Thairn continued. "I will show you how to bind your life and magic into your heart, to keep safe outside your body."
Mickey laughed, and then... caught on that it wasn't a joke. "What? That's a legend."
"It's real. I had to kill a wizard who had such a heart. I stole the knowledge on how it worked, and then I took every last piece of his heart and destroyed it."
"Ouch. Why?"
"He murdered the man I loved. And gave me that scar, the one you felt."
Sympathy on Mickey's face. "A heart for a heart," Mickey said. "I like your style."
"And I like yours. Mickey Morley." She put her hand to his breastbone. "You aren't going to be a tragic romance."
She taught him the words to say, the signs to make. As he chanted, his sternum split, and a heart turned to crystal emerged from his chest, still teleporting blood to and from his body. A wizard's heart. He held it floating between his hands as the wound sealed.
"I wasn't even sure I had one of these."
"You can put this anywhere," Thairn said. "In a box, and you will have to check and rejuvenate it from time to time. In a person, and it will need no care but their life around it, though they will hold your greatest weakness right at hand."
"If I were to put it in a person," he said, "what magic would I cast?"
She told him the words, the gestures.
"Then, Alanna," he lifted it. "I offer my heart to you."
"Thairn," she said. "My name is Thairn."
"Oh, good. I'll need that for the spell."
He began the new chant, her name within the syllables. A shaft of light pierced her chest. The heart, glowing, squeezed its way into the crack. The wound sealed, and the magic was done.
Thairn's eyes were wide, fingers fluttering to her chest. "It feels--"
"I think I can imagine." Mickey smiled, and they shared a look, something neither of them needed to speak.
Then Thairn was hugging Mickey and Illa both close, and Illa's face was buried in her hair, and everything felt like it could be alright for a moment. Just for now.
"Before I go, Rhett," Mickey said. "Do you want me to slip you some deathwish? To help with the pain?"
Illa shook his head. "The nausea is going to be worse than the pain. Deathwish can exacerbate that for me. And I need..." He could feel the fear churning in his gut again, his breath coming shallow. "I need to be able to tell. If I'm seriously injured. And I'm not experienced enough with that drug to be sure I can."
Thairn and Mickey both looked at each other, expressions worried.
"Dear," Thairn said to Illa. "We should set up a safe signal. For major injury."
Illa nodded. Tried to think of it like a kink scene. "Give me an object I can hold. If I think something's been dangerously damaged--" and he was specific about "dangerously", because there was going to be damage, damage he couldn't say no to, "--I can drop whatever you give me, and you'll know from that."
"Will you drop it otherwise?"
"Not if you order me not to."
"Will my orders be too much? For you to be able to drop it when you need?"
"I'll do my best. I kept my head at Gabriel's, just like you ordered me. For the most part."
"What's he like?" Mickey asked. "My secret godfather."
That was a whole complex mix of emotions that Illa didn't have time or energy to process right now. "Good to humans. Bad to faeries. Hates the Morl--" No, that wasn't quite right. "Hated Malachi. Hates Magdalena. Not sure how he is about the rest of your family."
"I will grant that we are terrible."
"Considering you just risked your life to save my fiancé from what Gabriel did to him, I won't grant that," Thairn chided.
Mickey tutted. "Such a cruel lover."
Illa wasn't sure if he should say this in front of Mickey. But, it was clear Thairn had gone all-in on trusting him. And it was... imminently relevant.
"I made a promise to Gabriel," Illa said. "In exchange for information and freedom."
"What did you promise?" Thairn asked.
"To help him restore his place in the family, and to help him get rid of Magdalena."
"Only 'help'? Nothing more specific?"
"Just 'help'."
"Then I'd argue you've done that by now. Unless you feel the oath cutting at you?"
"No. Our initial plan to take her out failed, though."
"I'm intrigued," Mickey said. "What were you planning?"
"We were going to use Malachi," Illa answered.
"Ahh. Afraid that's been ruined. Unless the overdose was part of the plan?"
"It wasn't, no. The plan was to turn him into a zombie."
"I suppose his corpse is still around, if you really want it, but grace was in the mix of what he overdosed on. A successful raising isn't likely."
"It also relied on Magdalena not knowing he was undead."
"Then, you're out of luck. And I'm out of time. Unless there's any more dramatic revelations?"
"No. Good luck."
"You, too. I meant it, about the drink after. Completely smashed, if you want it."
Illa chuckled, shook his head. "I might take you up on it."
"Alanna, darling," Mickey said. "Or Thairn, rather. We'll see each other soon?"
"We will. Be safe."
Mickey pressed his palm to her chest. "I trust you'll keep me that way."
They kissed, and Mickey left.
Thairn and Illa were alone with each other for the first time in months. They hadn't thought to do it earlier, while trying to save his arm, but Thairn took off Illa's borrowed shirt and undid his wings, let him have a good stretch. They didn't have long, but just a few minutes more, please. He held carefully still as she pulled off the binds, only letting his wings extend when she took off the lark's head at the end and nodded to him. There was dizzying freedom in it, finally letting them flare and flutter. Thairn bade him hold them out, and she kissed better every bend and bruise the rope had left.
There was something in the heat of healing on his wings that made him intensely aware of his own body, of the absence of aches and wounds it now held. That constant pour of healing power as they'd fixed his arm had done more for him than just heal the arm. It had unknotted sore muscles, cleared away the cuts and bruises from his time with Gabriel. There would be more soon, but for a moment, he could feel whole again.
It had to come to an end, of course. But, he took a moment to lean against her, to have her hold him. To let himself feel her touch.
"Can you go under?" she asked.
"I can try. I keep remembering the veil..." He shuddered against her. Flared his wings just because he could.
She held him, carefully angled so his wings could move freely. "There will be more veils today."
"I know."
"Do you still want me to try to bring you to that space in your mind?"
"Please."
She took out his collar, then, and cleaned it of sweat and grime with a washcloth lying on the bed.
"Why is that there?" he asked.
"Makes things... neater."
"Thi--" he thought about it. Should have realized already. "Oh."
"Your blushes are adorable." It was nice, to be able to hear genuine affection from her, instead of the cold demeanor she had to wear outside this room. She seemed to like it, too, for they'd made too many excuses to linger already.
And then she was before him, holding that collar with something of lightning to her. He scrambled to kneeling before he even realized what he was doing. She slid her gloved hand over his neck in a possessive glide, and then clicked the cool brass onto him, and it felt like a shield again, the way it had been among the Wingless.
"You are mine," she said. "No matter what they do to you, or do through me, they will not take you away from me. Not in mind or body." She grabbed his chin. "Do you understand?"
It was an order. He took it in, let it hold him. "Yes."
She bound his wings with the silken rope, and he swallowed down the panic, leaned against her. Let her hold him through it the way she hadn't been able to do the first time. There was something ambrosial to this, in the slide of the rope against his skin, the long-forbidden marital binds, though ropes were not at all like the cloth veils of old. She finished the last loop and tied it off. He felt it press into his wings with every breath. It was... good, for now, the way it had been with Shandra. But more, because he was promised to her, because this was hers to do (and to be forbidden to do, because their culture had left those bad old days behind centuries ago).
She put his wrists in leather cuffs, bound together. Not much time left now. She pressed the collar into his throat with her palm, pushing him against the side of the bed, until he could feel her ownership lock into him fully. He tried to memorize this moment, the way she made him feel.
And then it was over. She put on the mask of Alanna Abercorn's cold loathing. Took him out the door, then stopped outside, cursed.
"Forgot the leash." Seemingly unconsciously, she turned back, but the wards were there to stop her, since Mickey wasn't around to let her back in.
Her foot strayed through the colored layers, as if they weren't even there.
She stumbled back, hand to her chest, where Mickey's heart now lay. Looked about, but there was no one here to watch. She stepped forward, tentatively, and walked through the barrier.
She came out with the leash, attached it to Illa, and they headed for the classroom as if nothing at all had happened.
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