Just a couple more chapters of finishing out Lady Midnight before I close out the story with my own plot taking hold. I do plan to be present in Lord of Shadows (actually that was my whole plan in the first place before I ended up needing to provide context in Lady Midnight) and so we're finally getting to my pre-planned plot! Woo!
*Gasp* This chapter's under 9000 words! Egad! The next one's actually under 10,000 too! And the one after that is around the same length as this one! Wheee, short chapters to edit and read!
:)
Shu was fine with the dark.
Most of the time.
Some of the time.
On occasions.
"Hehehehe~!"
Nope!
"Eeek!" Shu threw a red-hot vine as they crushed a ghoul laughing with that Necromian child's voice.
"For heaven's sake, Shu, would you please calm down?" Laura snapped. "I'd like the element of surprise when we find Malcolm, thank you very much."
"How far are these tunnels?" Julian asked. He was following Laura closely, as she was the only one of them who knew how to navigate underground properly.
"Not far. I can sense Emma and Malcolm." She knew Julian was in a rush to save his parabatai, and so they were practically sprinting down the stone corridors.
Selina's hair, eyes, and crescent birthmark shimmered white, providing ample lighting for them. Shu, constantly on edge, was shimmering with an outline of red glowing dully like the embers of a blaze before it became a fire. Their eyes shimmered emerald green while the rest of them was almost plunged into darkness - as if all the light around them was sucked into their aura.
"Asushunamir - Shu or Namir, they/them please!" They had quickly introduced themself as the group had run back down into the convergence and blasted their way through a growing number of conglomerated zombies and ghouls - all at different levels of decomposition. Some were fully skeletons, others had some skin even if it was rotting like a zombie from television, and there were some that might've been mistaken for entirely human if not for the fatal wounds they were succumbing to - like they were trapped in their final moments for eternity. Another reason to hate necromancy. "I'm a Plantaen descendant of the Infernians and an expert on Necromians."
'So that's why Ace brought them in,' Finn thought to himself as they ran.
"Almost there!" Laura announced "A porthole! They're at a porthole."
"Which one?!" Selina demanded.
"Third one down! 40 degrees right of our current position!"
"Got it!"
Selina and Laura led the charge with their respective means of tracking. Julian was hot on their heels.
"There!"
Finn could just barely make out Emma's blonde hair, the candelabra of Hands of Glory, and Malcolm's back as he cornered her against a porthole before Malcolm snapped. Violet light shimmered in the tunnel behind them, its iridescence fading as it grew dimmer and more opaque.
"No!"
The three Astrals ahead surged forward. Laura grabbed Selina's hand and kicked her foot backwards; a stone pillar shot out of the ground and boosted the two of them forward. Selina was thrown into Malcolm's wall, but instead of preventing its solidifying, Selina got caught inside of it just as it fully solidified into a wall. Finn could feel his connection - she hadn't died, but he felt the breath sucked out of his lungs. Knocked out, most likely; unable to help Emma.
"Emma!" Julian pounded on the wall, but Selina's light had completely been diminished, leaving only Shu as a dim light source. "Get it open!"
Laura held up her hand as a large mallet formed in her hand and she charged it with electricity before swinging like a baseball player. She hit the wall, but rather than the wall shattering, she got repelled somehow and staggered back, narrowly avoiding hitting Julian.
"How is that possible?!" Shu exclaimed.
Finnegan pulled out a witchlight just as the laughter from before returned.
"Hehehehe~!"
"Dammit, the convergence is giving them more power than me!" Laura hissed. "I hate Necromians."
"We need a way in there!" Julian snapped. "Emma needs our help! She's gonna be killed!" He pounded on Malcolm's wall in vain. Julian, who so rarely lost his cool in stressful situations, looked like he was going to break his seraph blade trying to smash through Malcolm's wall if it meant he could get to his parabatai.
"We need to get rid of those pesky Necromian kids."
"You want inside? Play with us."
The winds of the Necromians picked up, and in the small tunnel it felt intense and claustrophobic enough to knock Finn off his feet. He mildly heard a shriek and felt something grab into him before he was sucked away, pulled down the tunnel by the Necromian hands.
By the time Finnegan landed, it felt like he'd traveled miles. Gathering up his witchlight, he illuminated the dark tunnels. Shu had landed beside him, gripping his arm so they hadn't gotten separated, the blonde Astral looking around uncomfortably.
"These guys don't seem nice," they muttered. Finnegan stood and Shu quickly grabbed his hand. "Illusions," they warned. "Don't wanna get separated."
Finnegan sighed and hurried forward with Shu at his side. He couldn't quite make out what he was supposed to think of Shu. They were certainly powerful, but at the same time they seemed so young and childish. If they seemed this afraid of the dark, what made them the expert on Necromians?
"…asked us to investigate the murders you were committing? What did you get out of that?"
"Emma?" Finn called.
"She's still in that chamber," Shu said. "Come on. We should hurry." Shu started leading the way. The corridors started twisting and turning, short and long, and Finn had little idea which direction they were going.
"I got the absolute promise that the Clave would stay out of it. Individual Shadowhunters don't frighten me, Emma. But the whole mess of them could be a mess indeed. I've known Iarlath a long time. I knew he had connections to the Wild Hunt and I knew the Wild Hunt had something that would make you move Heaven and earth to keep information from the Clave and the Silent Brothers. Nothing against the boy personally; at least his Blackthorn stock is diluted by some good, healthy Downworlder blood. But I know Julian. I knew what he'd prioritize, and it wasn't the Law or the Clave."
The winds of the Necromians were laughing at them. Shu began to question the paths they were taking, but Finn was already long since lost.
"Shu-?"
"Shh."
"When I saw the Rosales boy, I realized I didn't have much time. I knew I'd have to take Tavvy right away. Thankfully I had Iarlath's help, which has been invaluable. Oh, I heard about the whipping. I'm very sorry about that. Iarlath has his own ways of having fun, and they aren't mine."
"You're sorry? You killed my parents, and you're apologizing? I'd rather be whipped a thousand times and have my parents back."
Shu held their hand up and a small vine slithered out of their finger. They reached out and touched the walls of the tunnel, causing the vine to stick to the stone and begin leaving a trail. The laugher around them turned to small shrieks of surprise and pain.
The walls began to shimmer. Gray hands began to reach from the walls for them. Shu squealed and swatted them away while Finnegan slipped his witchlight into a sling and drew his seraph violin bow. The instrument required two hands to play anything, but the violin was on his back, and since it was magically enhanced it didn't need to be played properly to be played. He strummed the beginning of a song for them as they ran and then swung his violin bow to cut through the wriggling hands.
"But why those markings? Why the Unseelie King's poem?"
"Because it was a message! Emma, for someone who's talked so much about revenge, who's lived it and breathed it, you don't seem to understand much about it. I needed the Shadowhunters to know. I needed the Blackthorns to know, when the youngest of them lay dead, whose hand had dealt them that blow. When someone has wronged you, it isn't enough that they suffer. They need to look at your face and know why they suffer. I needed the Clave to decipher that poem and learn exactly who would be their destruction."
"Destruction? You're insane. Killing Tavvy wouldn't destroy the Nephilim - and none of them who are alive even know about Annabel-"
"And how do you think that feels? Her name forgotten? Her fate buried? The Shadowhunters turned her into a story. I think several of her kinsmen went mad - they couldn't bear what they'd done, couldn't bear the weight of the secret."
"If it was such a secret, how did Poe know? The poem, 'Annabel Lee'-"
Shu sent a wave of flame down the corridor and burned the walls, ceiling, and ground. The light slowly faded into the distance as the threat before them dissipated. "Ha, that'll show you!"
"When I found out, I wanted to deny it, but it was the poem that proved the facts of it - Poe had learned the truth from Downworlders, learned it before I did - how Annabel and I had loved as children, how she would have left the Nephilim for me, but her family heard of it and decided death was preferable to life with a warlock. They'd walled her up in a tomb by the Cornwall sea, walled her up alive. Later, when I moved her body, I kept it near the ocean. She always loved the water."
Finnegan tried his best not to sympathize with Malcolm, keep his head in the game. But he couldn't help it. There was a part of him that wished Malcolm and Annabel had been successful. Maybe then Malcolm wouldn't have ended up like this. Even though Finnegan couldn't see anything that was happening, he could hear Malcolm's breath was coming in sobs. His grief was as raw and real as if what he were talking about had happened yesterday.
Immortals never forgot. They never wanted to forget. Hundreds of years seemed like a long time to grieve, but loving someone so fiercely…Finnegan wondered if Fionn would ever be pushed that far if he died.
"They told me she'd become an Iron Sister. All of them lied to me - Magnus, Catarina, Ragnor, Tessa, Zytaveon - corrupted by Shadowhunters, drawn in by their lies! And I, oblivious, grieving for her, until I finally found out the truth."
Shu led them down another corridor as they whacked a zombie with their hand and shattered its bones to dust instantly. "Keep moving!"
"I want you to understand. I want someone to tell the Clave what they're responsible for, I want them to know the blood on their hands, I want them to know why."
"Your why doesn't matter. Maybe you did what you did in the name of love. But if you think that makes any difference, you're no better than the Clave."
Finnegan felt the sweeping laughter of the children ripping past him through the winds of the corridor. It was as if a giant fan was covering the tunnel and shoving them back with stronger and stronger winds. He was sure that the wind speed was categorized as a small tornado by that point.
"Don't worry!" Shu called. "It'll be fine!"
He realized that Shu must've been significantly dampening the extremes of what the Necromians were trying to do. They could be getting blown off their feet again and thrown into a random section of the tunnels if Shu hadn't been helping. Something about being an expert on them. Or maybe that was just Finnegan being optimistic.
"Have you…have you always hated them? Julian and the rest?"
"Always. Even when it seemed like I loved them."
"That's horrible. It's not their fault. You can't blame them for their ancestors' sins."
"Blood is blood. We are all what we were born to be. I was born to love Annabel and that was taken from me. Now I live only for revenge. Just as you have, Emma. How many times have you told me that all you want in life is to kill the one who killed your parents? What would you give up for it? Would you give up the Blackthorns? Would you give up your precious parabatai? The one you're in love with?" A scoff. "Please. I always saw the way you looked at each other. And then Julian told me that your rune had healed him from Rook's poison. No normal Shadowhunter's rune should have been able to do that."
"Not…proof of anything."
"Proof? You want proof? I saw you, the two of you. On the beach, sleeping in each other's arms. I stood over you and watched you and thought how easily it would be to kill you. But then I realized that that would be a mercy, wouldn't it? Killing the two of you while you were in each other's arms? There's a reason you can't fall in love with your parabatai, Emma. And when you find out what it is, you will feel the cruelty of the Shadowhunters, just as I have."
"You're a liar."
"Let me tell you a truth before you die, Emma. It is a secret about the Nephilim."
"Duck!" Shu slid their feet forward and tugged them both down to the stone floor. Shu hauled them both to their feet and continued forward.
Shu swatted at the wind, thick with black wisps flying at them at high speeds.
"Ah!" they shrieked and came to a stop, swatting with their free arm while keeping a firm grip on Finn's hand. "Stop it! Hey! Ugh!"
"Play~! Play~! Play~! Play~!"
"Let go! You-! Mmm!" Shu stomped and set the wind on fire, swatting away the black dust in the air that was trying to stick to them.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
The winds exploded. Finn felt like he was being punched in the gut.
Then they stopped.
The tunnel was eerily calm and silent now that the winds had died down. Shu hacked up some of the dust, but they seemed okay. They swept their curly hair out of their face and then glared down the tunnel. "That'll teach you! Ha!"
Two ghostly lights began to conglomerate and shimmer, slowly becoming visible. Like a camera lens focusing, the two white blobs formed into a pair of dark-haired girls in old-fashioned night dresses. One of them was holding a worn stuffed bear, the other a pink stuffed dog. Their hands were clasped between them and they stared up at Shu with dark eyes.
"You don't want to play!" they accused in tandem.
"Annie, Tina, down." Shu and Finn turned around to see Mat standing in the corridor, the Necromian standing with his arms crossed glaring down at the twin girls. "You go gather the others and go home. Now. Rozaline will be speaking to you about this - accepting Necromian deals at a convergence without permission."
The two girls frowned, mirror images of each other. "But Maaat~!"
"No, I don't wanna hear it! Do you know how much trouble you've caused? Just because the Astral world is in disarray doesn't mean the death gods aren't going to be in contact with us about this incident. And let's not forget that 'playing' with Laura has severely disrupted her systems and when she recovers, she could bring down the wrath of the Archeans and Fulgarians upon us. You know the rules about playing."
The twins stuck their tongues out at him.
"Mat's no fun." "No fun is Mat."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm not fun. Just get the others and get your asses back to the House or I'll tell Roz about the hotel incident and he'll never let you play in hotels again."
The twins huffed, but they jumped backwards and their smoky bodies dissolved.
Mat sighed. "Sorry about that. The kids have been acting up for generations and it's unlikely they're going to stop any time soon. They're relatively harmless, but they enjoy scaring people. Inspired some popular movies and books and such. Being summoned at a convergence gave them a perfect playground-"
"Charon!" Shu released Finn's hand and launched themself at Mat, wrapping their arms around him in a tight hug. "I knew you'd come to help, Chare-bear!"
Mat flinched and actually looked flustered as he tried to pry Shu off of him. "Asushunamir, release me!"
"Mataecharonsan, never!"
"Ugh, not never! Let me go! We've still got work to do! This is not the time! Must you always be so…ugh!" Was he turning a certain shade of pink?
The pieces started to fit together in Finn's head. Mat had said that he'd had people on the line and that was why he was helping the Infernian cause with the Phoenix Resistance. 'I have people that I care for that are at risk. Infernian descendants. My friends. My family.' Shu was part Infernian…
Despite the current situation, Finnegan snickered. He clapped his hand over his mouth to hide it, but Mat glared at him all the same. His dark gaze was slightly mitigated by the fact that he had the equivalent of a fluffy blond kitten clinging to him.
It was only once Shu had managed to sneak a quick kiss on Mat's cheek that he was able to shove Shu away. "Look you need to get those Hands of Glory. They're valuable when it comes to dark magic and necromancy activity. We, in the meantime, are going to get out of here. The other Necromian kids aren't going to get in your way, so you don't need Shu's help anymore. They don't need to guide you home."
"But Chare~" Shu did their best impression of the kitten eyes from that cat in Shrek.
Mat's eyebrow twitched, and it was clear he was resisting the strong urge to fold under Shu's gaze. "No." He tugged Shu into his grasp and then melted them down into the shadows.
"Hey, wait-!"
But they were already gone.
Finn sighed. "Gee, thanks, Mat."
He continued down the corridor, but it suddenly seemed a lot less confusing - hardly the maze it had been that had required Shu's assistance navigating. He just went straight forward and then heard Julian's frustration up ahead.
-TTOT-
By the time Selina came to, the first thing she saw was Emma collapsed on the ground with Malcolm standing above her, holding up the candelabra of Hands of Glory.
Selina tried to move. She moved her head in the direction of Emma and expected her body to follow. Instead, her right arm got caught as if it were being held in concrete. A moment later, she realized that it might as well have been. She was half-encased in Malcolm's solid wall, only the top half of her torso and her left arm hanging free. She squirmed the rest of her body, but everything else was encased in the magic, opaque barrier. At least her legs weren't hanging out the other end.
She pulled at her right arm, but it wouldn't budge. She silently cursed at whatever force that denied her extra strength when she was in such a situation. She was supposed to be a goddess for fuck's sake. But without the sea or moonlight directly, she was actually relatively harmless. Harmless as a Shadowhunter could be, anyway.
Malcolm didn't seem to notice her consciousness yet, at least. She glanced up at the porthole. Seawater. She looked around the room and noticed the lever that Emma had mentioned before. She'd pulled the lever and the portholes had opened to suck Emma out to sea. All Selina needed was to pull that lever and get the seawater inside so she could stop Malcolm and protect Emma.
"Let me tell you a truth before you die, Emma. It is a secret about Nephilim. They hate love, human love, because they were born of angels. And while God charged his angels to take care of humans, the angels were made first, and they have always hated God's second creation. That is why Lucifer fell. He was an angel who would not bow to mankind, God's favored child. Love is the weakness of human beings, and the angels despise them for it, and the Clave despises it too, and therefore they punish it. Do you know what happens to parabatai who fall in love? Do you know why it's forbidden?"
She shook her head.
His mouth quirked into a smile. There was something about that smile, so faint and yet so full of bone-deep hatred, that chilled her the way none of his grinning had. "Then you have no idea what your death will spare your beloved Julian. So think about that as the life leaves your body. In a way, your death is a mercy." He raised his hand, violet fire beginning to crackle between his fingers.
"Emma!" Selina screamed.
He hurled his magic at her, but Selina saw his shoulders jump in surprise at her outburst. Emma flung her arm up, the arm that Julian had carved the Endurance rune on, the arm that had been burning and aching and screaming at her to use it since she'd struck the Black Volume when attempting to strike Malcolm and ended up on the floor where she was.
Fire slammed into her arm. She felt it like a hard blow, but nothing more. The Endurance rune was pulsing through her body with its power, and alongside that power rose her own rage. Rage at knowing Malcolm had killed her parents, rage for the wasted years she'd searched for their killer when he'd been right in front of her. Rage for every time he'd smiled at Julian or picked up Tavvy when his heart was full of hate. Rage at one more thing that had been taken from the Blackthorns.
She seized Cortana and wrenched herself to her knees, her hair flying as she drove the sword into Malcolm's gut. She felt the blade go in, felt it tear through the skin and rip past bone. Saw the tip of it burst out through his back, his white jacket soaked through with red blood. She sprang to her feet, yanking the sword free. He made a choking noise. Blood was spilling onto the ground, running across the stone, spattering the Hands of Glory.
"This is for my parents," she said, and slammed his body as hard as she could against the glass wall.
She felt his ribs snap as the glass behind him fissured. Water began to pour through the cracks. She felt it splatter against her face, salty as tears.
Selina waved her free hand and pulled the seawater through the porthole cracks faster. "Emma, take cover!" She wrapped bindings around Malcolm's crippled body and began searching for the memory sphere on his person.
"I'll tell you about the parabatai curse," he gasped. "The Clave will never let you know it - it's forbidden. Kill me and you'll never learn-"
With her left hand, Emma yanked down the lever.
"Emma!" Selina held back the water that gushed through the open porthole and used it to pull Emma back and out of range.
Malcolm sighed, though the corners of his mouth turned up in a bittersweet smile. "Well then. I suppose I have no more use for this." He flicked his hand and summoned the fiery red memory orb.
Selina's eyes widened. "No-!"
Malcolm's magic crushed the orb. The room exploded with heat and pressure, as though he'd released a small atom bomb within the area. Selina pulled the seawater into the room as fast as she could. The water moved like a living thing, a hand shaped out of water, formed by the sea. It surrounded Malcolm and the violent energy of the released sphere. For a frozen moment, Malcolm could be seen clearly, struggling with feeble motions, within a whirlpool of water, water that spilled across the floor, water that gripped him, encircling him like an unbreakable net. Malcolm was sucked off his feet. He gave a cry of terror as the ocean took him. Emma sucked in a deep breath as the entire room was pulled into the sea and blocked the radiating heat.
Then, the current rushed back out, carrying him with it. Selina had it pull the glass door shut behind him and sealed the cracks in the glass.
The silence the water left behind was deafening. Exhausted, Emma slumped against the glass of the porthole door. Through it, Selina could see the ocean, the color of the night sky. Malcolm's body was a pale white star in the darkness with the red light of the fiery memory sphere dying out beside him, drifting among the weeds, and then a dark, spiky talon curled upwards, through the ripples, and caught hold of Malcolm by the ankle. With a quick jerk, his body was yanked out of view.
There was a bright flicker and Selina was released from the violet wall of light in the corridor - spells disappeared when the warlocks who cast them died.
"Emma!" "Selina!"
There were pounding footsteps in the corridor. Out of the shadows, Julian appeared. Emma saw his stricken expression as he caught her to him, his hands knotting in her soaked, bloodstained gear. "Emma, God, I couldn't get to you through the wall, I knew you were there but I couldn't save you. And then those necromancers with their reanimations attacked and I nearly lost where the wall was and I thought I wouldn't make it back-"
"You saved me," she said hoarsely, wanting to show him the Endurance run on her arm, but she was pressed too tightly against him to move. "You did. You don't know it, but you did."
Laura surged past towards the porthole, sticking her head flush against it and looking around. "He's gone?"
Selina nodded as Finnegan knelt by her side. "Are these burns?"
Selina glanced down and noticed that her left arm and skin that hadn't been encased in the magic wall was burnt from the explosion of the memory sphere. On top of that she was soaked with seawater. She couldn't tell if that was irony or not.
Laura glanced back out into the corridor. "Your family's coming to find you. Probably thought we're taking too long. I'm shifting the corridors to let them through."
"Who?" Julian asked.
"Uh…Mark, Cristina, Diego, Diana."
"Tavvy," Emma whispered. "Is he-?"
"He's fine," Julian assured her. "He's outside with the others." He kissed her temple. "Emma…" His lips brushed hers. She felt a shock of love and pain go through her.
"Let me go," she whispered. "You have to let me go, they can't see us like this. Julian, let me go."
His head came up, his eyes full of agony, and he moved away. She saw what it cost him, saw the tremor in his hands as he lowered them to his sides. Felt the space between them like the space of a wound torn into flesh.
She dragged her gaze from his and looked down at the ground. The floor was awash with seawater and blood, ankle-deep. Somewhere Malcolm's candelabra floated beneath the surface. Emma was glad. The salt would dissolve Malcolm's gruesome monument to murder, dissolve it and pick it clean, and it would be white bones, settling as Malcolm's body settled to the floor of the ocean. And for the first time in a long time, Emma felt grateful to the sea.
Emma and Julian were walking deliberately apart, keeping distance between them. Exhaustion and pain were slowing Emma down as she walked at the back of the pack. Cortana was back in its sheath. She could feel the sword humming with energy; she wondered if it had absorbed magic from Malcolm.
But Emma didn't want to think about Malcolm, about what he'd said.
Ty, Livvy, and Dru were sitting on the ground with Tavvy - the little boy was cradled in Livvy's arms, seeming sleepy but awake. Kieran was a distance away, sitting beside Max, Andy, and Val, who appeared to be tending to an unconscious Fionn and Zytaveon. Ace was once again gone. Kieran had a scowl on his face that relaxed only somewhat when Mark emerged from the convergence.
"How is Tavvy? Is everything all right?" Julian approached his siblings. Dru jumped up and hugged him tightly - then gasped and pointed.
A loud grinding noise cracked through the air. The gap in the hill was closing up behind them like a wound healing. Diana darted towards it, as if she could hold the pathway open, but the stone sealed shut; she snatched her hand back just in time to keep it from being crushed.
"You cannot stop it," Laura said. "The opening and the paths inside were made by Malcolm. This hill doesn't naturally hold within it tunnels and caves."
"Now that he is dead, his enchantments are failing," Kierak agreed. "There may perhaps be another entrance into this space, at some other ley line convergence. But this door will not open again."
"How did you know he was dead?" Emma asked.
"Lights going on in the city below. The…I don't know what your mundane word for it is-"
"Blackout," Mark supplied. "The blackout's over. And Malcolm cast the spell that was responsible for the blackout, so…yeah."
"Does that mean we can get a signal on our phones?" Ty wondered.
"I'll check," Julian said, and walked away to press his phone to his ear. Finn thought he heard mutterings of his Uncle Arthur.
While Emma and her family rejoined with Tavvy, Finnegan, Selina, and Laura rushed over to where Fionn and the others were. Laura quickly went over to her wife. Val seemed to be back in shape, and she'd woken Andraeus as well ("Still pretty as ever," Selina muttered). Zoltan was trotting around in circles impatiently, but he hadn't left yet, so Finn couldn't tell if that was a good sign or not.
"Fionn!"
He knelt at the faerie's side. He looked so delicate…
Finnegan reached out and ran his hand through the faerie's hair, pulsing lightly to the rhythm of his breathing, fluctuating between shades of orange.
"Selina, did you get the memory sphere? Val, you can put it back into him, right?"
"Finnegan-''
"He's gonna be fine, yes?"
"Finn-"
"What about Veon? Is he gonna be okay? What even happened? Oh, and Laura, you helped Julian get through that tunnel in the maze, right? Mat showed up, and-"
"Nephilim!" Kieran took Finnegan by the shoulders and shook him violently. "You must listen…upon your departure, something must have occurred with my brother's sphere of memory."
Finn glanced at his parabatai. "Selina…?"
Selina bit her lip and took a deep breath. "So…these burns weren't from Malcolm…"
Selina went into her explanation of what had happened from her end. She could feel Finn's distress as she went on and explained what Malcolm had done.
"S…So what does that mean? Val, what happens when a memory sphere is broken? Surely the memories just return to their owner, right?"
Val frowned. There was pity in her eyes. Finnegan didn't like pity. He'd seen it all his life from those closest to him. "Memory spheres like the ones that I used were the equivalent of extracting a soul, Finnegan. Living, sentient creatures of such a high functionality have constant fluctuations in their souls. You're aware of how true names work, how they're constantly in flux and need to be renewed after a certain period of time if you've entrusted it to someone else. With gods and deities, who are resistant to or fully incapable of change, a true name will always remain the same overall. But Fionn…he is not a god. Quite the contrary - his multiple…complications…they're exactly what were preventing him from connecting to Phoenix properly in the first place."
"So what happened? What does his memory sphere being destroyed mean?"
Val reached out and took his hand. He wanted to rip his hand free of her grasp, but he couldn't find the strength. "It means that…he's…died. Or the equivalent of it, anyway. The thing is, his life is tied to that blade." She motioned to Kieran, who had strapped Fionn's knife to his belt. "The stipulations surrounding his curse were that none can kill him except Kieran - and not without that knife. Because that's where his soul will go when he dies. I…I honestly have no idea where his soul is. But I can't touch it anymore. I can't find it."
Finnegan's eyes dropped to Fionn, lying in the grass. It was faint, but he could see the faerie's light breathing. "But…"
Val's fingers wrapped around his palm. Her other hand sandwiched his between her own. "I said that Fionn's memories, his soul, are gone - missing," she quickly revised. "But Fionn is…very special." She sighed. "He's had multiple lives, multiple personalities - multiple souls. All of them were him…er, sorta. They were all his base soul, but…it was like he was being reborn, multiple times. Malcolm wiped his memory once; I found the memory sphere in Malcolm's place before he captured me. That memory sphere not only contains the memories of…of her, but the memories of everyone who had ever known she existed in that form. Be happy that he didn't have me do the same to Fionn. It would've taken too much time, and all he needed was Fionn's soul, not that of those around him too. But he managed to wipe an entire decade of her life - more even. He erased her existence to every sentient creature that ever knew her; such a thing could literally destroy her soul. It's worse than any kind of homicide. I can restore that version of her to this body if we go get that memory sphere."
"But you can't ever get Fionn back?"
Finnegan would not let his voice break. He would not start thinking about the last time he'd seen Fionn; he would not start wondering the myriad of questions that he always asked when he worried it would be their last encounter. He would not allow that to overwhelm him. The moment he started thinking about it was the moment he'd break down, and he had no idea if he'd be able to pull himself together again.
"T-There's no way to use the knife or something to summon his soul back?"
"Actually," Val said, her voice raising in a hopeful manner - as though Finnegan had guessed the correct question in class, "that might be a viable option. If Kieran is willing, we can work with him to try and recover Fionn's soul with that knife of his. We can also use the fact that Malcolm didn't have me erase everyone else's memories of Fionn in order to combine the blade with a reconstruction of all the evidence that exists of his life. We know a lot about him, he left a mark on this world, and with time, yes, I can extract his footprint on this world and possibly make a reconstruction of his memories. Kinda like…you can tell a lot about what you've lost by the shape of the hole it leaves, yes? But-" she interrupted before Finn could speak "-that means that we'd be condemning him to his fate in that knife. We either choose between not knowing where he is, or knowing exactly where he is and what he's suffering through."
"Can we get him out of the knife?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. We could try though. Since Kieran accepted his role as the weapons' new master, it's possible he could release Fionn at his leisure - but only if he agrees to still uphold the kill order eventually."
"What about…what about all the Astral stuff? You need Phoenix, right? Shouldn't you be…helping get him back?"
"Like I said, Finn. Fionn's soul, everything that he had done to himself…that was preventing Phoenix's emergence. The Fionn that you knew…the reason that the Unseelie King wanted him was to take away Fionn's curse - return him to his true form so that he could access Phoenix's powers. What Malcolm did to him…it was what the Unseelie King wanted of Malcolm anyway. Being able to use Fionn's cursed blade was a bonus, but either way, he was being commissioned to find a way to take Fionn's memories away again like before. Using me," she chuckled humorlessly - bitterly, "…like before. We're just lucky that this time Malcolm was distracted by Annabel. If Malcolm had done it like he did before, none of us would remember Fionn even existed - even me. And he'd have gotten away with it."
Finnegan frowned. "So the Unseelie King just…what? Resets Fionn every time he doesn't turn out the way he needs?"
"That's how it appears, yes. But he's growing desperate. The blessings of the former Infernian are wearing off, and he needs Phoenix more than ever. The PR team is already breaking a lot of laws by helping you all the way that we have. If they're convinced that Fionn isn't necessary for Phoenix - that he's actually a hindrance to Phoenix's return…they won't waste the resources."
Finnegan felt his hand trembling. He knew Val must've felt it too. He would not break, not right now. He could snap later, once he had the time to. "S-So, uh…Fionn's gone?"
"Maybe not forever," Val reminded him. "But for now, yes. And…also…in destroying Fionn's memory sphere, Malcolm enacted the final part of his plan to return the Unseelie King the one he wanted: a girl named Dearil."
Dearil…that name sounded slightly familiar. It wasn't common enough that Finnegan had just randomly heard it in passing, but he had made a mental note of it, somewhere down the line. It wasn't an important conversation that he'd heard it in, but he'd heard it nonetheless.
"Before Fionn became Fionn, his - er, her - her name was Dearil Kingsdöttær." She motioned towards the sleeping faerie. "This right here is Dearil Kingsdöttær, in her original form. When Malcolm destroyed the memory sphere, we knew about it because Fionn reverted to Dearil. Quite colorfully, I might add. It was a lot of red."
Finnegan dropped his eyes to Fionn, to Dearil. Dammit, he'd already gone through mental training to readjust from 'Fae' to 'Fionn.' The faerie looked very similar to Fionn - though that was just how Seelie were. The gentry Fair Folk were graceful, male or female. He did start to scour for the details. She was smaller - her clothes were definitely baggy considering that they were made for Fionn. He noticed that her left ear was deformed at the tip, heavily scarred and it had lost its pointed tip because of it. Fionn definitely hadn't had that.
Finn started to realize that Fionn's body was completely different from Dearil's, and that something like Dearil's ear meant that her body was entirely her own. This body had never learned to play instruments with Finn, nor rode with him upon the powerful steed Zoltan across the skies. This body had never heard his music, his playing and his singing. This body hadn't taught him to embrace himself, it hadn't comforted him or hurt him or…loved him. Losing one's memories was one thing, but she had also lost all of Fionn's muscle memory as well. Every part of Fionn that remained was gone from this body.
"Is she…?"
"There's nothing significantly wrong with her. She needs some food and rest, but otherwise she'll make a normal recovery."
"What's the last thing she remembers?"
Val glanced down at her. "It's hard to say. Mmm…right before she made the demon deal that transformed her into Fionn."
Finn had no idea what that would mean. He barely had any clue about Fionn's history before he'd met the faerie the day that he and his horse had saved Finnegan's life. He knew that Veon had been with Fionn for a while - and actually, Veon had been the one to supply Fionn with the potions that helped counteract his curse. If nothing else, that meant that Dearil had probably gone to Veon or someone close to Veon to summon the demon to make that deal before Veon was then commissioned to give his regular doses.
"Veon?" Finnegan asked. "What about him? How's he doing?"
Val sighed. "Malcolm forced me to take control of his psyche, which isn't easy. Veon's history is…well, it's not really that complicated. He's the child of a powerful demon who used the ashes of his sister to impregnate a warlock - basically trying to rebirth her into a more powerful vessel with the human blood to be able to wander as an enhanced warlock. Veon was born with his aunt's voice in his head since he was a child, and for a while, her soul was in control of his body. It's why he's the source of crocodiles in the sewers. Magnus managed to help him get ahold of it, but Malcolm just needed to break his mental barriers down - causing the struggle you saw earlier during the investigation - and then he just needed to use me to take control of him and his feral form when he needed us as his bodyguards for the ritual."
"Will he be okay?"
"I've sealed off his mind to his aunt and such. He should recover, though he's going to have a major headache."
Diego gave Tavvy an energy draught to help wake him from whatever Malcolm had done to keep the child asleep.
"Your left arm," Cristina said to Emma gently, and led her a few feet away. "Hold it out?"
Emma obeyed and saw that the skin of her hand and wrist was red and blistered, as if she'd been burned.
Cristina shook her head, drawing her stele from her jacket. "There were a few minutes there, when you were behind that wall Malcolm made, where I thought you weren't coming out."
Emma bumped her head against Cristina's shoulder. "Sorry."
"I know." Cristina turned brisk, pushing up Emma's sleeve. "You need healing runes."
Emma leaned into Cristina as the stele ran over her skin, taking comfort in the fact that she was there. "It was weird, being trapped in there with Malcolm. Mostly he just wanted to tell me about Annabel. And the thing is - I actually felt bad for him."
"It's not weird. It's a terrible story. Neither he nor Annabel did anything wrong. To see someone you love so horribly punished and tortured…to think they'd abandoned you only to find out that you abandoned them…" Cristina shuddered.
"I hadn't thought about it that way. You think he felt guilty?"
"I'm sure he did. Anyone would."
Emma thought of Annabel with a pang. She had been a blameless victim. Hopefully she had never been aware of anything, never been aware of Malcolm's efforts to revive her. "I told him he was as bad as the Clave and he actually seemed surprised."
"No one is ever the villain of their own story." Cristina released Emma, pausing to examine her healing handiwork. Already the pain in Emma's arm was receding. She knew a rune from Julian would most likely have worked more quickly, but after what had happened with the Endurance rune, she didn't dare let him rune her in front of everyone else.
Julian was near the car, holding his phone to his ear. A moment later, he tapped the screen and slid it back into his pocket.
"So are the signals working again?" Ty asked. "Who were you calling?"
"Pizza," Julian said.
They all stared at him. Like the rest of them, he was filthy, a long scratch along his cheek, his hair tangled. In the moonlight, his eyes were the color of an underground river.
"Thought we might all be hungry," he said with that deceptive mildness that Finn now knew meant that whatever was happening on the surface didn't match what was going on in Julian's mind.
"Actually, that was a good idea," Selina realized. She got that glint in her eyes of an epiphany, which was only augmented by the fact that her eyes actually did shimmer in the moonlight.
"We should go," Finn announced. "The convergence's collapse means the Clave is going to be able to see the dark magic emanating from this place on their map. When we get back, I don't think we'll be alone."
-TTOT-
They hurried to get everyone ready to go.
On the Blackthorns' end, Livvy was carrying Octavian on her lap in the backseat of the Toyota, and Diana was taking Cristina and Diego in the truck, which she had hidden among some scrub brush. Kieran offered the use of Windspear again to Mark, but Mark declined.
"I wish to ride with my brothers and sisters," he said simply.
"Could you take Dearil?" Finn requested. "I want to take her to my Institute. We weren't that populated even before the Dark War when our numbers got sliced. It shouldn't be too hard to sneak her in. But first I should help confront the Clave about this situation, help the Blackthorns explain and dismiss everything." Kieran helped get Dearil's unconscious body settled onto his horse without a word. She was significantly lighter than Fionn. "Besides," Finn said lightly, "you'll get a few extra moments with Mark."
"We're going to head back to Veon's apartment," Andy said. Max was floating Veon beside her. His scales reflected the moonlight gently. "See if we can't patch him up."
"I'm going to search Malcolm's apartment for Dearil's memory sphere and see if I can't find some notes on how to reverse the memory wipe." Val gave her husband a quick kiss and assurance that she'd be careful. "With the memory wipe being so powerful, it'll no doubt be a pain to undo, but we're just righting the natural order of things."
"I'll go with you," Max volunteered. "Laura, you Astrals go do your Astral thing and figure out the aftermath of everything while we raid Malcolm's place."
Laura plucked Veon out of the air and easily slung the sparkly warlock over her shoulder. "Make sure to get those cool primal stones he has in his collection. I've wanted to dissect those for centuries."
"Hey, where's Rios?" Finn realized.
"He went back to HQ to fill them in on the situation," Andy explained. "I'd wager Ace is with him or at least offering transportation to get messages back and forth."
"Oh, HQ is gonna have our heads after this one," Laura muttered.
"We got Phoenix back before he was killed, so that's a bonus. Last thing we need is for him to be reborn somewhere else and have to wait for him to mature so we can locate him again. You know the boss isn't cruel."
"Maybe we can get Finnegan to woo her into giving us a pass."
Andy snorted. "Like anyone can woo her into favors."
Max and Val opened two different Portals, the four (five counting Veon) turning to depart to their respective locations.
"We'll be back with an update on the memory sphere," Val said. "In the meantime, you need to keep Dearil safe and calm. We've already pushed our luck interacting with you guys as we have, so unfortunately we can't - or rather we shouldn't - be doing anything else. Even Max and I are still under Covenant laws as a part of PR, so while we have some privileges, we're already in hot water until we get in our report. Veon, however, should be useful if we can get him back on his feet!"
"Be in touch!" Max waved.
The warlocks went through one Portal while the Astrals took the other. The Portals snapped closed behind them.
Selina sighed. "Honestly, I really enjoy not being under the PR rules."
"So you get to do things they don't by being rogue?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Although I am alone and not very well liked. And the Fate gods still control me to some extent. That's where being merged with Selina Dalmasca comes in handy. Being part human loosens the bonds held on all gods against royally fucking up the universe."
Finn signed and climbed aboard Zoltan with Selina riding behind him. Zoltan was seemingly speaking to Windspear while they waited to depart.
Julian turned to Kieran, who was busying himself adjusting and securing Dearil to look distracted. The faerie's eyes were flat, unreflective. It was hard to tell how he felt about the loss of his brother and how much hope he had about ever getting him - or Mark, for that matter - back.
Julian wished he could see what his brother had loved: a Kieran who had been warm towards Mark or kind. He wished he could thank Kieran for not leaving Mark among the Hunt. He wished he felt less hatred in his heart.
"You don't need to come back with us," Julian said. "We don't need your help anymore."
"I've still business with Finnegan. And I will not go until I know Mark is safe."
Julian shrugged. "Have it your way. When we get back, don't come into the Institute until we say so. We'd be in trouble just for fighting alongside you."
Kieran's mouth hardened. "Without me, you would have been defeated this night."
"Probably. I'll remember to be grateful every time I see the scars on Emma's back."
Kieran flinched.
"You should remember that every time you blame Kieran for that whipping, you should remember that Kieran was simply one cog in the machine," Finnegan said. His voice was devoid of emotion, and yet at the same time he sounded so full of pain and maybe hope that it was hard to discern how close he was to snapping. "Your brother was the one who shared information he shouldn't have, your own parabatai was the one who volunteered to take those lashes - and only because you volunteered to take the punishment meant for your brother, subjecting Emma to pain because you were in pain. Maybe you should stop blaming your problems on anyone but your loved ones when you yourself can't handle the blame."
"Finn," Selina urged. She put a placating hand on his shoulder.
Finn sucked in a deep breath through his nose. "In any case, Julian's right, Kieran. Stay outside the Institute with Fionn until we clear it of any superiors who're investigating the dark magic. Regardless of how thankful we are, the rest of the Shadowhunter community might not be so accepting. Once we finish with the Blackthorns, you're welcome at my Institute in San Francisco to at least help Fi…Dearil recover."
"Many thanks, Finnegan."
Julian turned and walked towards the car. Diana cut in front of him, holding up a hand. She was wrapped in a heavy shawl, and her face was speckled with blood like light freckles.
"The Clave may well be waiting for you," she said without preamble. "If you want, I'll take the blame for everything and throw myself on their mercy."
Julian looked at her for a long moment. He had lived by ironclad rules for so long. Protect Tavvy, protect Livvy and Ty, protect Dru. Protect Emma. Recently that had widened out slightly - he would protect Mark, because Mark had come back, and he would protect Cristina, because Emma loved her.
It was a sort of love few other people could understand. It was total and it was overwhelming and it could be cruel. He would destroy a whole city if he thought that city posed some threat to his family. When you were twelve years old and you were all that stood between your family and annihilation, you didn't learn moderation.
He considered now, with all the detachment he could muster, what would happen if Diana tried to take the blame - he entertained the idea, turned it over in his head, and rejected it. "No. And I'm not being kind. I don't think it would work."
"Julian-"
"You hide things. The Angel knows there's something you're still hiding, some reason you couldn't take over the Institute. Something you won't tell, anyway. You're a good hider, but you're not a good liar. They won't believe you. But they'll believe me."
"So you already have a story for them?" Diana asked, her dark eyes widening.
Julian didn't say anything.
She sighed, pulling the shawl tighter. "You're a piece of work, Julian Blackthorn."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he said, though he doubted she meant it as one.
"Did you know I'd be here tonight? Did you think I was in league with Malcolm?"
"I didn't think it was likely. But then, I don't entirely trust anyone."
"That's not true." Diana looked across to where Mark was helping Emma into the driver's side of the car. Her blonde hair flew like sparks in the starlight. She glanced back at Julian. "You'd better get back. I'll make myself scarce until tomorrow."
"I'll tell them you didn't know anything. It isn't as if people don't deceive their tutors all the time. And you don't even live with us." He heard the Toyota start up. The others were waiting for him. "So you'll drop Diego and Cristina at the Institute and then head home?"
"I'll head somewhere."
He started towards the car, then paused and turned to look back at her. "Do you ever regret it? Choosing to be our tutor? You didn't have to."
The wind blew her dark hair across her face. "No," she said. "I am who I am because I've been part of your family. Never forget, Jules. The choices we make, make us."
Chapter title: 'Blinding Lights' by The Weeknd