Despite how angry he felt after he left Mira backstage, Laxus didn't go very far. He did what he said he was going to do and found a place to watch. Smooth wood dug into his ribs and his third drink left condensation on the bar top. He didn't want to be drunk but he also didn't want to be sober, not after Jake popped and Trent and Brady splashed. Not after all the blood and the pleas and the pain that still radiated from his knuckles all the way through his wrists and into his forearms.

Behind him, the singer Melanie exited the stage. The announcer came out and thanked her and then he introduced Mira. She came up, said a few short words, and started to sing. He was torn between wanting to turn and watch her fondly because she did have a sweet voice, and wanting to rage at her. How could she think that using magic on him was a good way to go?

You don't even know what she was doing. The shoe's of Devil's advocate didn't quite fit. He'd felt the Soul she tried to let loose. It was rotten. Was Griswold right and Julian had a knack for turning people?

Not Mira. There had to be a better explanation. He just couldn't think of it.

He took another shot. It burned all the way down.

Trouble passed by the bar. Natalie met his eyes and paused. "You look like you'd be happy if you were a lot drunker."

"Isn't everyone?"

"I've known some mean drunks." She backtracked to his side. "What's the matter, love? Woman troubles?"

Laxus had to stop himself from looking at the stage. "Now why would you ask that?"

"Every trouble stems from a woman if you ask Julian. I'll tell you what I tell him. If you didn't love trouble, you wouldn't love us."

True and true and true. That wasn't the only source of his troubles, though. He had a meeting he was grossly unprepared for and wanted information in case it blew up on his face. Laxus faced her. "Do you have time to talk?"

Natalie shimmied in between his thighs to stand between him and the bar. She pressed her mouth to his ear and said quietly, "You're going to get yourself into trouble being blunt like that. Ask me with a little more finesse."

They were too close. Laxus pushed her back. "Julian doesn't want you around me like this." Was she crazy? Someone would blab. They always did.

"The strangest thing happened. Today, he told me I could come back to you. So go ahead. Touch me. No one will care."

How else was he to keep an eye on her, Laxus supposed? "Even if Julian okayed it, there're people around."

"There are."

"So get off."

"Will you help me?" she asked in a coy voice.

"You know that's not what I meant."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and hot. "It should've been. Can you still taste Mira on my tongue?"

Almost. He bit her lip.

"Come, let's talk about it." She wriggled away and crossed the room without looking back. Laxus tossed back his final shot and followed. By the time he'd entered the small, private poker room she'd ducked inside, Natalie had flicked on a dull lamp in the corner and was lounging on the poker table.

"Is this more to your liking?"

He closed the door. "Are there any cameras in here?"

"If there were, Julian would be out of business."

"Microphones?"

"No," she said.

"Good. I have a lot of questions, first of which is where did you and Eli go last night?"

"He took me to the garden."

"Why the garden?"

"Mm… because Silver River runs through it."

"So what?" He wasn't following.

"So, on the banks of Silver River is Silver Dragon, and he likes fucking me close to it. It reminds him of the time he spent employed by Madam Genève and that makes him feel insane. Which sounds terrible but he likes it." She dragged the tips of her fingers over the wooden table. "Sienna was the same way. Even after Genève hurt her so bad, she wanted to be close to her." She got a dreamy look on her face. "Sometimes, I wonder if it was a sickness Genève carried and if Julian was contaminated by it when he decided she needed to go away. It's like I know he does terrible things but when he touches me…" She closed her eyes and slid her hands up her waist to grab her breasts. "I love him."

Laxus wasn't sure it was a contagious sickness but it was some kind of psychosis, that was for sure. "I don't want the details of your fuck diary. I want answers, Natalie."

"That's not why I brought you in here, remember?" She started to undo her dress.

"That was a ploy, remember?"

She acted like he hadn't spoken. "I thought before you fucked me, you'd listen a little to what Mira did to me today. She loves to kiss me. Everywhere. She was shy at first but then…" She draped her arms around Laxus' shoulders and nipped the edge of his jaw, just beside his ear. "She's amazing."

"Cut it out, Natalie. This is serious."

"Of course it is, love." She grabbed between his legs. Laxus tried to keep things on track.

"You didn't drug Julian just so you could have a midnight tryst with Eli, did you?"

She was candid for the first time Laxus could remember. "Julian's afraid Eli's going to get in my head and convince me I love him more than I love Julian. He doesn't want to lose me. Which is sweet. But I also want to be with Eli. It was the only way."

"That is fucked up, Natalie." Any way you cut it. Could Eli put a suggestion like that in someone's head? And if Julian was that concerned about keeping a leash on Eli, why have him around at all?

"Are you going to tell on me?"

"I don't want to, but Julian thinks it was Mira, not you that drugged him. He thinks she got into your head and convinced you to betray him. If you told him the truth—"

She smiled some. "He doesn't really believe all that. He knows I love him too much to let Mira hurt him like that. Romy his favourite. Next to me."

"He sounded pretty fucking serious to me."

"It's a game, Laxus. He was trying to make you squirm to see if it was you helping her, not me." She shook her head like he was stupid. "Just be calm and everything will blow over."

"He is looking for blood." How did she not get that?"

"Julian'll only get it if he smells fear. Now stop asking questions, stop rocking the boat. He'll find who took Romy in good time, doing things the way he does them. His gaze is on Mira right now but she's innocent. He'll see it."

"Like he saw that in Sienna? Wasn't she innocent, too?"

"That was a mistake."

"That cost a girl her life. I don't want Mira to be the same."

She said stubbornly, "I'm going to protect her."

"You can't keep her safe always."

"And you can?" she challenged him. "You don't even know where to begin, otherwise you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be foolishly going out to the docks tonight, either."

Laxus' guts wrung. Eli must have told her about the note he'd received. If she knew, did that mean Julian did, too?

"Don't worry, love," Natalie said like she could read his mind. "Keep quiet about what I did to Julian, keep your head down with your questions, and Eli and I will keep quiet about this. Just be careful and don't buy anything from a snake oil salesman." She smiled.

He knew even less if he should trust her or not. "Why is everyone in this fucking casino playing games?"

"If you don't play, you die. Enough now. Let's do what we came in here to do." She pulled the skirt of her dress up over her behind and pulled down the front so her breasts were out.

"Are you serious?"

"It's all part of the game. If you're good, I'll tell you all about what me and Mira did today." She leaned forward against the poker table and looked back over her shoulder. "Hurry. You don't want to be late for your meeting."

When Laxus exited the poker room with Natalie in tow, Julian was sitting at a table in front of the stage watching Mira sing. Raff was at his side looking uncomfortable. Julian picked up his wineglass and cheered Laxus from across the room. Good job getting in good with Natalie, that cheers said. If he was happy about it, though, the emotion didn't meet his eyes. All Laxus saw there was distrust and thought it could be that Natalie was right. Julian was playing him.

Mira started her next song and Julian looked back her way. Natalie said, "I should go sit with them. Be safe tonight, Laxus. Don't do anything stupid."

Now that he had a sense of Julian's deceptions, he would play this thing smart. "Enjoy the show, Natalie."

The Gold Room took him into Gomorrah and the clock over the bar claimed it was two forty-five. The casino was a riot of noise and light and security stood in the corners, watching that everyone played a fair game. Laxus looked for faces he might have recognized but saw none.

The air was cool outside of Gomorrah and once he got through the cedar maze, Scarlet Lake shone like a pomegranate split open. The wind pushed its surface into a million small waves that lapped at the stony banks. The dock he'd pushed Sienna from came into sight and though it was empty, Laxus could see her falling. He could hear the rapports of Eli's gun when he shot Trent and Brady. He could taste the death.

Laxus stuffed his hands deep into his pocket and felt three small pills loose inside. His stomach twisted when he realized what they were: the Magicfire Eli had given him so many days before. He clutched them tightly and thought about taking them out. Why? So he could look at them, so he could feel their weight in his hands. So he could relive that elated, twisted feeling they left in his body, so he could escape the crushing weight of the dock and Scarlet Lake and his gun and his magic. You should throw them out.

He left them exactly where they were.

Beyond the waves and the whistle of wind, only the sound of Laxus' boots crunching over the gravel broke up the monotony of silence. He strained to hear anything else, but there was nothing. This whole meeting has to be a trick. It could also not be, though. So he couldn't just walk away.

He stepped over a ring of white stone. Scarlet Lake winked, drawing him closer. He stared into its hypnotic waters and felt a soothing wave crash over him. He could keep going. Just walk out into the lake. Julian and his tricks couldn't reach him out there.

"It's like Pandora's box," a deep and familiar voice suggested. "Tempting, but it will destroy you. It destroys every mage it's hungry for."

Laxus teetered, too close to the edge of the dock. How were his toes curling over the damp wood? He recovered and took a huge step away from the edge. Safe again, or relatively, he faced Nolan. "Why is that?"

The moon clung to Nolan's wrinkles and made him look even older. "I once knew a gypsy that said it was mermaids. She told me mages built Innisfil up around their lake. People would throw garbage and dump in slag from the mines on the east shore. So they started luring mages down to the waters and drowning them as revenge."

"You believe that?"

"Doesn't matter if the story's true or not, does it? There's something about this lake. No one can deny that."

"I heard people who touch its waters suffer," Laxus said, remembering Eli's words.

"People suffer outside of them, too, Mister Dreyar."

Somewhere in the distance, a bell rung three times, telling the hour. The ring of stones he'd stepped over blazed and Laxus realized what he hadn't before; he'd stepped into a magic circle. He tensed, ready for anything, but when the spell faded, he felt no different.

"A dampening circle," Nolan explained. "In case there's someone listening in."

"Like an anti-eavesdropping spell?" Laxus asked.

"In a way, yes. Our voices won't carry. Now we can talk business."

"Business? I'm not even sure why I'm here," Laxus said.

"You want dirt on Julian, I have it."

All of Laxus' senses were running at eleven. "Julian's my benefactor. Why would I want dirt on him?"

"Because you've been sleeping with that woman he's got, the one with the silver hair, Mirajane. You've been having Natalie behind his back, too. And, perhaps most importantly, I know you're not who Julian thinks you are, Laxus Dreyar. I'm not sure why the grandson of Makarov Dreyar is in Innisfil, much less Noir, but I'm sure it's not to fluff his career as a capo."

Laxus reeled. This was not going as he'd planned. "How do you know that name?"

"A person can buy a lot at Black Cat. The name of a guild, information on one of its most infamous members, and that's just you. I've also learned the history of a disgraced police officer that's too weak to get the job done himself." Nolan looked relaxed, confident. He was in control of the situation and knew it, too.

There was one course of action that would end this before the blight could spread. Laxus summoned enough lightning to stop a man's heart. If someone told him even a week ago that he'd be having these kinds of thoughts with a sort of relaxed insanity, he would have laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He wasn't laughing now.

"Relax, Mister Dreyar. I'm not here to fight or to trick you. I'm interested in us helping one another," Nolan said. "I want Julian gone, you're in a position to do it. Griswold can't give you the resources necessary to complete the job, but I can."

Ever suspicious, Laxus asked, "Why do you care what happens to Julian? Aren't you buddies?"

"Business partners. Forcefully, at that. He upended Madam Genève and promised that Innisfil would be better for it but all I see is chaos. He's paranoid. He's killing all of his friends. When am I next? So, he must leave. I need a partner to do that, though."

"When comes the part you run back and tell Julian I'm a traitor?"

"I don't want to play a who's more loyal game with Julian York. You and I would both lose. I just want my city back. I want the people of Innisfil to feel like they're in control again."

He almost laughed in Nolan's face. "So now you're the good crime lord?" Unbelievable.

Nolan crossed his hands over his cane. "I am no saint but I'm the better of two evils. I won't bleed this place dry. All Julian York cares about anymore is money and girls. He wants the city under his thumb—he wants them all addicted to his stuff, so they have to keep coming back to him. I don't want a city that's drooling from the mouth—I want a city that's going to make me money."

"I heard when Madam Genève was around, she didn't know how to run things, now I'm hearing neither does Julian. How long until someone says the same about you, Nolan? It doesn't seem like a very secure job. Are you sure you want this, old man?"

"I admit it sounds perilous but I have a family. I want Innisfil to be prosperous for the people I love. Before I give you any information, I need just one thing."

And here was the catch. "What?"

"I swear to shut down the production of both Silver and Magicfire like the cops want, but when it's all through, I get full immunity."

"So you want the cops to turn a blind eye to your participation in the illegal activities, up to this point," Laxus clarified.

Nolan pointed his cane at Laxus' chest. "You got it."

He didn't have the ability to make those kinds of promises, but obviously, Nolan didn't know that. He played along. "Alright, you have a deal."

"Smart man. I'll need a few days to get everything we need."

"I thought you said you knew—"

Nolan cut him off. "Do you think Julian's a fool, Laxus? He doesn't let anyone know all of his secrets. I need time to make the necessary contacts and to convince people this is the right way to go. I needed to know first that you were on board—people won't compromise themselves for nothing."

What could he say? "Fine." He could wait a few more days for a break like this.

"I'll contact you when I have something more concrete," Nolan said. "Keep your head down, alright?"

Laxus flexed his hands nervously. "Sure, but try to make it quick. I want to be out of here." The sooner the better.

Nolan nodded. "I'm working as fast as I can. These things take time."

Of course they did.

"Keep out of trouble." Nolan clapped him on the back then meandered back down the dock. His spell vanished and Laxus could hear everything again. The wind had picked up; Scarlet Lake was a riot of reds. Blood red. Ruby red. Cardinal red. Dead red. It gripped him in a vice and all he could think was, it's hungry for mages.

He walked to the edge of the dock again to watch the water roil. Nolan's words churned through his mind. There could be an end to this. He could be leaving Noir behind soon.

The thought left him feeling… empty.

Something pale moved beneath the water's surface. What was down there? Something. Something white and moving. Something that caught his eye and wouldn't let go. He hunkered down on his haunches and peered into the water.

The liquid swirled, crimson, gold, onyx. Copper. Pearl.

That something was stretching, reaching. Searching. It shimmered. Laxus leaned closer, trying to see what lived beneath.

The water exploded and then he was falling. Laxus hollered and scrambled, but he couldn't right himself. He sucked in a sharp breath, then hit the frigid water. As soon as he dipped under the surface, hands closed around his arms and pulled him ever lower.

There are things that live beneath the water. Not just things. He looked into Romy's wan face and moon-pale eyes as she bullied him into the deep. And not just Romy, other girls. Girls he didn't recognize. Girls. Rotting, waxy, disintegrating. Was Julian's shipment of girls to feed the mermaids of Scarlet Lake? Would he be so cruel?

Laxus tried to pull away. His hand broke the surface. He reached for the dock but even more dead appeared. Trent was sort of neutrally buoyant; half of his face was missing after he'd been shot.

Bodies surrounded Laxus and hauled him under and it was easier than he'd planned. He felt dizzy and stupid, not just from oxygen deprivation, but from the water, too. His skin buzzed. He felt high.

He wanted to give in.

Fight.

He gathered his magic and sent it skating through the water, but it was weak. Keep going. His motivation was evaporating.

You need to get Mira out of Noir, at least.

That thought lent him a burst of energy. He pulled out of Romy's hands and even swam a few uninterrupted meters, but then the water writhed. More dead took her place. They didn't care about the electricity slowly pulsing out of Laxus' skin. The dead didn't feel pain.

Mira let the last note ring out. It was a sad song that made love to a lonely tune. It made her feel like she'd been scooped out inside. The small crowd clapped and cheered mutedly. Everyone was still apprehensive after the episode with Logan, but they were there, spending money in the casino, drinking, even laughing every now and again because Julian said so.

"Thank you," Mira said into the mic. She searched the room for Laxus' shock of blonde hair, but of course he wasn't there. Wherever he was, he didn't want her knowing about it. Maybe he's off with another girl. Another girl like Natalie after they'd parted ways. Her heart hurt, but she couldn't even get mad, not really; she was just as guilty.

She fumbled the mic back into the stand and left the stage even before the lights could dim. If Julian was mad about her abrupt departure, she cared not at all.

Natalie waited for her backstage. "That was a great performance." Her halter dress was done up haphazardly at the back while the skirt rode high on her thighs. Her eyes were glossy and bright. She was stoned.

Mira barely looked at her. "Thanks." She tried for the exit.

Natalie grabbed her hand and held her back. "Hang on, love. Where are you going?"

"Let go of me, Natalie."

"What's wrong?"

Mira didn't even know how to put into words what she was feeling. Frustrated and annoyed that Laxus was so clandestine about his meeting, ashamed for trying to force it out of him and betrayed that he went off with Natalie afterward. To tell her the truth?

Natalie stepped in front of her and brushed her hair back from her forehead. "Whatever you have to say, please say it."

"What did Laxus want with you?"

"Can we not talk about this here?"

Mira huffed and pushed away. "Forget it."

Natalie brought her back. "Don't be mad, Mira."

"Let go of me."

She closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. "All I should say is that he wanted to ask me questions that he shouldn't be asking about people he shouldn't be curious about."

Julian. He was asking about Julian. That idiot. Mira's stress rose. "He didn't know what he was saying, Natalie—"

"He did. Don't worry, though, that secret is between us."

So she wouldn't tell Julian Laxus was fishing? Mira didn't think they could be so lucky. "Excuse me."

"Where are you going?"

"To find Laxus."

"You shouldn't look for him, not right now."

She said stubbornly, "I need to know if he's safe."

"I appreciate that, Mira, I really do, believe me, but the situation is complex and you'll do him a lot better if you just waited for him in your room."

"He could be in danger."

"Going after him won't change that. Sometimes, the only thing we can do is wait."

"I can't wait for him to maybe come back from this maybe dangerous thing he needed to take care of!" Mira hissed.

"We'll wait for him together." Natalie took her hand and led her away with a confidence that was difficult to deny. She pulled up short as soon as she opened the stage door. Julian waited at the bottom of the stairs, Raff at his side.

"Ladies," he said with everyone's favourite smile. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Natalie smoothed her dress. "We were just heading back to Mira's room. Post-show celebration."

Julian's eyes crinkled. "I'm going to hit pause on that. Come, Mira." He held out his hand.

Natalie asked, "Where are you going?"

"Back to my lounge for a few minutes."

"For what?"

Julian's smile fell. "I need her help with something."

"With what?" Natalie asked before Mira could rouse a question.

"Natalie," Julian said like he was scolding a dog. "Go find someone else to play with for a while."

"No. I'm coming, too."

"It's a private matter."

"I don't care."

Guests were starting to stare. "What is the matter with you?" Julian hissed.

"You did the exact same thing with Sienna and I won't let it happen again."

"Don't make a scene." Natalie brought in a deep breath to do just that. Julian's expression could peel paint. "Don't you even dare, not out here. If you want to talk about this later, sure, but on Noir's floor, you smile and nod, Natalie."

Mira was suddenly afraid for her. She touched her shoulder, silencing her next retort. "It's okay." She could handle Julian. "If Mister York needs my help, I'm happy to oblige."

"Come." Julian took Mira's hand and pulled her against his side. Natalie watched it happen with tears in her eyes. She was no longer angry but scared.

"Don't hurt her. Please, Julian. Please—"

His anger evaporated. He leaned in and kissed a tear from her cheek. "Go wait for her in her room. I'll have her escorted back when we're through."

That seemed to be the promise that Natalie was waiting for. She nodded and let Julian walk away. Mira kept her shoulders relaxed, though her heart was cramping. She wanted to find Laxus, not entertain Julian. She looked back over her shoulder just in time to catch Natalie's eye. She was no longer crying; she looked furious.

The Gold Room's door opened and Eli stepped out. He barely nodded to Julian, eyes fixed on Natalie. He whispered in her ear just as soon as he could. Julian noticed and judging by his grip on Mira's hip, she thought he didn't like it, either.