Chapter 22: Where is my mind?
Lysander stared at the dead Muggle body. It was lying in the boot of the car that Nariyah somehow knew how to drive. It was a bloody mess; the Muggle's eyes looked like they had all but exploded from his head, leaving two gaping dark holes where his eyes would have been. There was blood all over the material, and it was staining everything.
"Why didn't you just vanish the body?" he asked.
Nariyah's lip twitched as she tried not to swear for the hundredth time that evening. Lysander hadn't taken it well that she had gone off with an unknown No-Maj to an undisclosed location, not told him and then brought back a dead body. In retrospect, she should have told him. And in retrospect, maybe she should have just vanished the No-Maj. But she panicked !
"I'm sorry. I don't usually deal with dead bodies , Lysander. I usually get information from living things! Excuse me if I don't know what to do when someone collapses to the ground, drowning in their own blood! "
"But you had the wherewithal to shrink him."
She didn't appreciate his tone.
"Oh fuck off, Lysander! Someone was coming and it was the first thing I could think of. So why don't you just vanish it - and the car while you're at it - and then we can get on with our day."
Lysander sighed at her dramatics but did what she'd said. Soon, the place where the car and the body had been was empty, and all that remained was the imprint of the tyres. Hopefully that Muggle hadn't been anybody important, but it was unlikely that anything would be linked back to the two of them. Not that it mattered; a quick obliviation was useful in times like these.
"Is there anything else we need to take care of?" he asked.
Nariyah tutted. "No. But I might have found a lead on Flamel."
"Where?"
"The area we went to, it was drenched in powerful magic. Wards, maybe, and a strong enough No-Maj repellent that it cut through my Imperius," she said.
"Did you get a good look at the man?" Lysander asked, excitedly.
She shook her head. "Why? Do you know what Flamel looks like?"
"I think so. I saw a memory of him years ago, but it should be enough to compare the man to what you've seen."
Was it really going to be that easy? Nariyah was used to getting jobs done quickly, but there was already a lot more around this that she was used to. It was interesting, that much was for sure, but they were messing with someone powerful. She still didn't know what Blue wanted the Philosopher's stone for.
"Well," she began, "we should probably get back up there then. Before they leave or something."
Lysander hummed. "I suppose we should try and investigate before we lose the opportunity."
" That's why the No-Maj was shrunk," Nariyah said.
He didn't respond.
The wards past the fence were stronger now; she felt them gently press against her once she stepped past them. When they'd walked some way into the forest, Nariyah began getting a headache.
"I see what you mean," Lysander said. "I don't know any other kind of magic that can repel magical beings other than wards, but this doesn't feel like a ward exactly."
"I told you." She couldn't resist saying it, and Lysander gave her a look letting her know exactly how much he didn't appreciate it. "Fine. But it's stronger as well. Whoever lives here must have strengthened them after yesterday's incident."
"That's...worrying." Lysander began to walk faster, keeping himself a few steps ahead of Nariyah even though he couldn't have known where they were going.
Nariyah wasn't sure she could fully recognise the path herself. What had seemed so straightforward when she had been following Elias the day before, now seemed unfamiliar. Had the trail changed?
No, it couldn't have. Maybe it was just because it was later on in the day now. Or maybe it was because Nariyah knew that there was suddenly a lot more riding on this trip. If Lysander recognised the man, then they'd found Flamel! Blue would be one step closer to whatever evil schemes he was planning, and Nariyah would have to choose a side a lot quicker.
Well. That was a thought for another day. Maybe when she wasn't battling a migraine. "I think we're close," she said through gritted teeth.
"I agree," Lysander said, his voice sounding equally as strained in pain.
It somehow felt longer and shorter, but eventually reached the area through which the shack was clear to see.
Snow had fallen overnight, so the groove Elias had made when he'd fallen was less prominent. Nariyah felt a twinge of pity for the man. For a second she wondered what he would have done if he hadn't come with her. But then she saw Lysander take out his wand.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Checking for wards."
"Don't be stupid. They've obviously raised them." She couldn't believe how dumb Lysander had just been. Of course they would have increased security after yesterday.
"Well, what do you expect us to do then? Lysander asked.
"Stake the place out."
"Like Muggles?" he exclaimed.
"Yes."
Lysander muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously close to 'this is what I pay you for', but Nariyah brushed it off. British Wizards were so uptight, it wasn't even funny. She didn't know how they weren't all combusting from the pressure it must take to keep those sticks in their asses.
"How long do we have to wait for?" he asked. His tone wasn't whiny per-say, but Nariyah couldn't help but imagine it with that childish, whiny twang.
"I'm not even going to dignify that stupidity with an answer, Lysander."
They sat quietly after that. The two of them kept watch on the little shack, trying to see if there was any movement inside. It was pointless; the sun bounced off the windows making them impossible to see through, and that was if there wasn't some sort of reflection or privacy spell on them as well.
It was difficult to know how much time had passed, but by the time the sun finally peeked through the white clouds, it was lower than Nariyah had expected. And she was shivering, hard.
"We need to get warm," she said.
"But if we go back now, we may miss them."
Nariyah agreed, but she was also freezing her tits off. They couldn't move around much in case someone could see them from inside, but it was just as hard to sit still when she was that cold. Was it worth it, to sit there and maybe catch a glimpse of someone who might be Flamel?
Well, it was worth it. But they couldn't stay out there forever. They'd need food. Water. To stay warm. Hell, they would need to pee eventually! That would be fine for Lysander, but she was not getting piss on her shoes for anyone !
"Fine. What if we stay for another hour?" she asked.
"And how, my dear, are we going to know that an hour has passed?" Lysander asked, with all the sarcasm of a man who wasn't used to getting his way.
Nariyah pursed her lips, scanning the sun and its placement. Eventually, she spoke. "When the sun hits that funny looking branch, we leave."
Lysander looked towards the tree branch she was pointing to. It was odd; the branch sat like a stand or an upside-down Y with a branch coming down the middle in a way that was uncomfortably considered the invert of the rune for life. Could that have been what caused the Muggle to die?
Todesrune was powerful. Not something to mess with unless you understood exactly what you were getting into. Lysander felt a chill run down his spine that had little to do with the cold. He didn't believe in coincidence; magic wasn't that predictable. But was it truly Todesrune , or was it just because he was primed to believe that whoever lived in that shack was a powerful wielder of magic?
"- did you hear me?" Nariyah asked.
"Yes, yes," he trailed off. "Fine then. We'll wait for the sun to hit the branch."
So they did. The sun slowly moved through the sky. It took longer than either Nariyah or Lysander expected it to take, but all the while, Lysander had gone very quiet. He kept glancing at the branch expecting something to change, and when nothing did, he would frown.
He would have said it was a coincidence, but it couldn't have been. As the sun touched the branch, the door of the shack swung open. Instinctively, Lysander moved closer towards it, making sure to keep himself hidden behind a tree that was large enough to cover him.
He hadn't realised he'd been holding his breath until an old man stumbled out of the shack, and Lysander suddenly registered the need to breathe. It was him. It was Flamel.
This man was older than the memory he'd seen, but not by much. There were more lines on his face, his sliver-white hair was longer, and he was wearing attire similar to old Muggles, but that was Flamel.
"It is him?" he heard Nariyah whisper from behind him.
Lysander nodded.
"Great. Then we should definitely go."
What was she talking about? Nicholas Flamel was standing there, mere metres from them. He was in their grasp. Lysander would be able to uncover so many secrets lost to the world from this man alone. And he would be able to help Tom in the process.
"Lysander! We should go."
"He's right there."
"Yes, and we need to plan how we're going to do this. We can't go in unprepared and unaware of the wards he's using."
The words made sense, but he also couldn't stop the thoughts racing through his mind. Nicholas Flamel was close. He almost didn't move when Nariyah pulled at his wrist, but she was making sense. Tom would be far angrier if he went into this without a plan.
"Alright. Let's go."
Nariyah didn't say anything to him until they were back in the hotel room. He knew that she was concerned about him, as much as she was trying to hide it, and some part of him hoped that his odd fixation was because of their exposure to strong magic. He had calmed down since then. Sort of. But he also knew that this was an itch he wasn't going to scratch until he got his answers. He could feel it coming on. He'd not felt that tingling buzz under his skin and in his brain for quite some time.
"What are we going to do, then?" she asked after they'd gotten warmed up and fed.
Lysander was quiet while he thought, but it didn't take long for the plan to formulate. "This is just a reconnaissance. We've found out that Flamel is here, but he's obviously got magic on hand that we don't know about."
"That we do," he heard Nariyah mutter under her breath.
"We need more information on how his wards operate -"
"If they're even wards," she said.
"We need more information."
"So how do we get it?"
Lysander paused, pursing his lips, and Nariyah got the feeling that she wouldn't like what was about to come out of his mouth.
"We need to get inside that building."
Lysander watched her face fall. He knew she wasn't going to like that suggestion, but how else were they going to get the information they needed?
The shack was small and unassuming; built with dark yellow and red brick clayed over in a distressed pattern. But not in any way that made Nariyah think it was intentional. The door was old wood, and the windows - if they could be called that - were uneven and dirty. Because the shack was on a slope, the angles looked tilted. Like it would fall down in a particularly strong snowy breeze.
It perfectly matched the kind of house she expected recluses to live in.
Nariyah looked over her shoulder briefly to where Lysander was lying down. She'd cast as strong of a warming charm on him as she could, but he was losing blood, so she'd need to work quickly.
She trudged through the snow, keeping her guard up in case she tripped something, but nothing happened. So, she knocked when she got to the door. She waited about five seconds before she repeated the action, again and again until the door cracked open.
"Hello? Please - help us," she said, desperately.
Through the crack, Nariyah could see the outline of a woman. The deep wrinkles under her eyes made her seem far too old to be standing there, but there was a fierceness in the glare she was showing her.
"What do you want?" the woman asked.
Nariyah looked behind her frantically, and then back to the woman. "Please - my father's been hurt."
She frowned, and her eyes flickered to the space behind Nariyah briefly before training them back on her. "I can't help you."
She went to close the door, and Nariyah pushed her hands out instinctively, stopping the door from closing. There wasn't much room, but she could just about see inside the house if the woman would shift to the right.
"I can't help you here," the woman repeated coldly.
"Please - he's collapsed and he's bleeding. I can't get him down to the village - he's too heavy. He'll lose too much blood."
"You shouldn't have been able to get up here," the woman said.
"We saw a gap in the fence, and we were -" Nariyah looked at the woman. She didn't seem like she was believing any of what she was saying, or at the very least she didn't seem like she cared. So, Nariyah let out a grunt of frustration, and pushed harder on the door, like she was angry. "Is this really important?! My dad is hurt!"
The woman drew her face into an angry scowl and opened her mouth, presumably to tell Nariyah exactly what she and Lysander could do, when the sound of slow shuffling feet came from behind the woman.
"Pernelle? Why is there a drought coming through?"
The woman - Pernelle - pushed against the door with a surprising amount of strength for a woman her age. "Go back inside," she insisted.
The sudden movement startled Nariyah, and she felt her grip slip against a particularly slippery rock. And then she was on the floor and the door in front of her was shut.
That bitch! Was she really going to turn Nariyah away like that? She would have been impressed at the level of apathy, but Lysander was well and truly incapacitated, and probably was bleeding out, a few metres behind her. And she didn't have her wand to heal him.
He was in actual danger now.
Nariyah picked herself up carefully and walked back to the door. She banged on it loudly, repetitively, calling for them to open the door. When that didn't work, she moved to the small window and began rapping at that, furiously.
She saw movement inside the shack. It was faint and blurred, but it looked like it was someone moving towards the door. She went back to the door, hitting it again.
Finally it opened.
"You're a very loud girl," the man - Flamel said.
Nariyah watched him, making sure to avoid his eyes. He didn't seem to be anything special - but then looks were deceiving. "I'm sorry - I just need help. My dad -"
"Yes, I heard."
"Will you help?"
"We'll do our best, my dear."
She helped them carry Lysander inside and lay him on the rickety-looking bed.
"What happened to him?" Flamel asked.
"We were walking the trail and he fell into some sort of hole. He cut himself on something sharp on the way down, but it wasn't bleeding that much when I came for help." Nariyah didn't have to fake the slight tremble in her voice this time.
He was looking bad; pale-faced, shivering and blood seeping through the bandages she'd hastily put on him. Nariyah swallowed back the zing of fear. She hadn't done anything he hadn't told her to do.
"Not to worry, my dear. We'll take care of him. But I need you to leave the room now."
In the middle of his sentence, Pernelle had taken a pair of scissors and cut open Lysander's top. She was pulling the pieces of fabric apart just gently enough not to aggravate anything, but she wasn't being the picture of genteelness while she was doing it.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. She didn't really want to leave Lysander in the room, unarmed and injured with two Wizards who hadn't been seen for years. Nor did she really want to be in this position in the first place.
"What we need to, girl. Now leave!" Pernelle didn't even look at her while she spoke.
Flamel tutted softly and led her out of the room with a hand on her back. He took her through the small shack into the kitchen and sat her down. "Would you like some tea?" he asked.
Nariyah hesitated. It was stupid to take tea from them, but she was cold and tired. And hungry. No. Don't be an idiot! They'd gone into this a little too blind for her comfort. Nariyah liked preparation. She liked knowledge.
"I'm not thirsty," she replied.
Flamel ignored her and poured her a cup of hot water that smelled of lavender - and maybe chamomile. He poured himself one as well, and sat at the table. "You should drink. You'll need fluids."
"What is it?" she asked.
Flamel looked up at her and smiled. "Nothing but a chamomile blend, my dear. No need to worry. Look." He brought the cup to his lips, his hands trembling from what seemed like the weight of the cup. He took a hearty sip, and swallowed it down.
Nariyah looked at him. From the image he presented, he didn't seem to be a dangerous man. If he couldn't even hold up a cup, what harm could he do to anyone? But she wasn't stupid.
The only thing that let her drink the foul-smelling stuff in the cup was the fact that he'd drunk it, and that she didn't hear anything in his thoughts to suggest that he'd done something to it. So she drank and tried not to gag. She hated chamomile.
Flamel smiled and drank with her.
"Is he going to be ok?" she asked. Nariyah felt horrendously uncomfortable asking a question like that. This trip had already caused her an untold amount of unnecessary stress, and now she had to shoulder this all by herself.
She was used to working alone, but this was very new territory.
"He'll be just fine. My wife has quite a few tricks up her sleeve."
That was what she didn't like. But Nariyah swallowed back the caution in her throat and smiled at the old man the way that anyone would if a couple were giving medical help to her father.
Flamel finished his tea in two long shaky gulps, and some of it dripped onto his shirt. Then he stood up. "You should rest, child. Your father will be well taken care of. I'll show you where you can bathe and rest."
He led her to a small bathroom and gave her a towel and ragged clothes that must have been Pernelle's. It was a loose blouse and a long cotton skirt that was far too big for Nariyah, but she accepted them anyway.
Flamel left, and she closed the door behind him, letting out the sigh she'd been holding onto for so long.
Their plan had been stupid. Lysander thought they needed a good enough excuse to get into the house, and what was a better excuse than posing as No-Maj's and saying one of them was hurt. He'd volunteered - apparently, she was better at pretending to be a No-Maj than he was - and then he'd began mumbling about the spells she would have to use.
When he settled on the blood-poisoning curse, Nariyah looked at him like he was a fucking idiot. The counter curse was notoriously difficult to do and she didn't have the medical knowledge to pull it off.
Lysander thought it would be better to have something that would keep them there for a few days, but she quickly reminded him that they didn't actually know that the Flamels would be able to cure it either. What use was medical knowledge when you were immortal ?
They went back and forwards over which spell to use that would damage him enough that they wouldn't be turned away, and in the end, they'd agreed on a spell that would significantly slow down blood clotting, and a simple cutting curse.
They walked as far as they could before the wards would tip the Flamels off, and Nariyah had performed the spell wandless. Only, she'd overpowered the cutting curse a little too much in her worry, and her desire to get everything over with and Lysander had lost a lot more blood than she had intended.
And he was heavy. She'd had to drag him as close to the shack as she could without them seeing her.
She hoped they'd be able to fix him. He may have cracked some ribs as she dragged him over the rocks and branches. It hadn't sounded pretty, at least.
There was also a lot of blood.
The tub wasn't a bath. It was more of a giant metal bin that she could step in and pour water over herself. The soap felt rough and almost-course, and it didn't have any particular smell to it. It just smelt...clean.
She was in and out as quickly as she could be, but it was still a long time before making sure there was enough hot water to bathe, cleaning herself, and drying off with the small towel she'd been given. When everything was done, she put on Pernelle's clothes. They were too big for her, but she made do with what she had. She needed to check on Lysander anyway.
He was lying down on a small mattress with a thin blanket covering him. He looked pale. Sick. Convincing. It worried her.
"You'll sleep on the floor."
Nariyah spun around at the voice, heart racing in her throat. Pernelle was glaring at her. "We've changed his bandages and given him something to numb the pain. We'll have to wait and see how that works before trying anything else."
"Thank you," she said through a honeyed smile. If she could, this woman would be unconscious by now.
Pernelle said nothing. She turned and went back to wherever she'd crept out of. It was unnerving how such an old woman could move so quickly and so quietly in a creaky shack.
Nariyah waited until she was sure the woman was gone and went by Lysander's side. She stepped over another thin mattress that she'd not noticed before now and checked his pulse. He was alive, but he was too warm. Like he was battling some sort of infection.
She really hoped this didn't kill him, because he seemed to be able to steady Blue in a way she didn't understand. And Theo would be devastated if he died.
"I'll kill you if you die on me, old man," she said.
Then, like an incredibly forceful wave, she felt the adrenaline of the past few hours, and the discomfort of the last week, wash over her. Nariyah barely managed to lay her head on the lumpy pillow before she fell asleep.
Something bright and red hit the back of her eyelids, forcing her out of unconsciousness and, for a long moment, Nariyah thought it was the sun. But the room was dark when she opened her eyes. She was confused until she saw that there was a funny blue light periodically coming through the large gap under the door. It hit her face again...and again.
Groggily, she sat up and looked at Lysander. But he wasn't on the bed. He wasn't in the room. He wasn't there.
And she'd seen him; he couldn't have moved even if they weren't trying to get information out of Flamel. Which meant...they had to have taken him out while she was asleep.
But...how could they have done that? She was right in front of the door.
The light flashed again, and Nariyah looked at it with slowly blossoming horror. Was Lysander out there? Was he being hurt?
She tried to stand but stumbled - feeling woozy. Instinctively she reached for something to hold onto, but her hand only met air, and she fell back onto the floor in time with another large flash of light blue light.
She couldn't stand...why couldn't she stand...why was she feeling so...slow?
Her eyes swam over the room and the tea mug caught her eye. When had she drunk...oh.
Oh. He must have drugged the tea. It must have been something slow-moving. So she wouldn't notice...until it was...too late.
How could she have been so stupid?
The world seemed to be tilted on its axis. She staggered to her feet and pulled the door open. The lights got brighter, and the sound of...something...crackled through the air.
She had the vague feeling floating around the back of her mind that the hairs on her arms were standing to attention. But it was too difficult to concentrate on that and moving. So she focused on moving.
She stumbled and hit things as she moved. And the closer she got to the other room, the brighter the flashes were. Nariyah had to shield her eyes, but doing so meant that she only had one hand to steady herself. And the drug wasn't wearing off.
If anything, it was getting worse.
But she got to the room, eventually, and she looked inside. And she remembered nothing.
Nariyah stepped out of the Pensieve angrily, followed by Lysander and Blue. She barely noticed the other two, her hands shaking with rage. "They fucked with my memory!" she hissed.
Neither answered, so she repeated the statement again. As if doing so would make it better. But it didn't. If anything, it made her angrier.
"They fucked with my memory and you just let me walk out of there! " she said to Lysander.
"Calm down."
"I won't!"
"Calm down, now, Nariyah!" Lysander said. His voice took on a colder tone and she felt the atmosphere around her shift a little. She sneered but stopped shouting. Nobody messed with her mind. That was hers! Not even Blue had been able to mess with her mind.
Blue shifted a little and looked between the both of them. "So we have nothing," he said.
"No," Lysander responded, quickly. "We have a recording."
Nariyah was confused. What kind of recording device was small enough to be able to hide it on Lysander? The Flamels had stripped him naked and she assumed they wouldn't have found anything otherwise that woman would have kicked them out faster than they could blink.
"How?" she asked.
"I hid it in my shoe."
Well...that was innovative. But still - "You hid a recording device in your shoe?" she asked, flatly.
"Yes," he said. "I had to shrink it in order to disguise it, but it still worked."
Blue looked interested. "The spell didn't affect the recording?"
"No, my Lord. If the exposure to magic is low enough, electronic objects can still function sometimes. Of course, they're not always reliable."
He motioned for Lysander to bring out the recording and Lysander produced a bulky looking silver machine that did not look like it could fit in his shoe without detection.
Nariyah didn't believe it would work. Even if his magic hadn't affected the flow of the current in the recorder didn't mean that the undercurrents of magic from the wards wouldn't. And that didn't even consider whatever magic they used to heal him. It wouldn't work.
But he pressed play, and she heard muffled talking. It wasn't very clear, but she could pick up bits and pieces of a conversation.
"Not that clear, is -"
"Quiet," Blue snapped.
Nariyah bit back the retort at the tip of her tongue and tried to listen to the muffled words. Concentration wasn't helping much, but from what she could make out from the conversation was that they were arguing about the fact that they were helping Lysander.
'Cause that was super useful, wasn't it. Either way, Nariyah hoped that they'd overhear whatever spell was used to get rid of her memories. It might just have been an obliviate to be honest, but mind magic was a bitch to get wrong. She did not want to end up in the loony ward at whatever hospital they decided to cart her off to.
Then, out of nowhere, there was a sharp, abrupt sound that cut through the air. And then static. Or something that sounded an awful lot like that. Then the recording ended.
"What was that?" Blue asked. His eyes were narrowed, and he was leaning forward slightly, like he recognised something.
"I...don't know. Not magic."
"What? How do you know that?" Nariyah asked.
"That's not what magic affecting this recorder sounds like," he said. "There's not any static. It just cuts out."
She was still confused. If it wasn't magic, what was it?
"I've heard that sound before," Lysander said. "I need some more time."
"Great. So we literally went there, found out nothing, and had my brain fucked with." They were just winning, weren't they?
Blue said nothing. He just stood there with what seemed like cold fury circulating him. His eyes were hard, and his lips were pulled tightly together. She didn't know why he was restraining himself. It wasn't really his MO.
But she also had a feeling that at whatever next testing session he and Lysander did, Blue wasn't going to hold back. She hoped Lysander could withstand it. And for his sake, she hoped that he figured out what the sound was.
As for her, she needed to plan. The Flamels were going to pay for messing with her. She would make sure of that.
AN: Big thank you to my beta-readers. Any mistakes are probably mine. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It's a little earlier cause I'm going home for the weekend for a birthday.
I start a new job again on the 1st December so I might need a little time to adjust to it. So, I'm going to give myself an extra week before I post the next chapter. If everything runs smoothly then I'll probably post in the normal two weeks but I may need a little mental distance from the fic - especially cause I've been writing for it every day this week and plan to do the same next week. Extra chapters, here we come!
Have a good weekend everyone :) See you in two to three weeks.