AN: Sorry for the delay, folks. Wanted to get the last episode completely finished before posting any of it. I'll try to put up one a day from here in. Happy Easter. P.S. Not everyone makes it out of this alive.
Episode 10: The Magic I Know, Chapter 1
The Queen surveyed the collection of artefacts laid out, each on their own separate plinth, around her. Her devotees, her minions, murmured impatiently at the edges of the shadowy, candle-lit, hollowed stone room. The susurrus swam in waves and troughs, like the echoing flow and ebb of water on a cavernous beach. Only one plinth remained unfilled. Only one supplicant remained absent. Her brother in arms. Her faithful serpent, who had won, with his endeavours, the place of honour by her side, relegating its previous owner to that of one of the lesser wolves: children of her other brother. The humming crescendo of susurration halted at its peak. All eyes turned unflinchingly on the doorway behind her. She smiled. He had returned. He had returned to her as he always would. Even before she turned, however, her smile faded slightly. Something was amiss in the awed gaze of her entourage. Something that troubled them. Then, in the silence, she heard it, echoing through the underground chamber like a silver spoon against crystal.
Tink.
Tink.
Tink.
The Queen turned, frowning at the glassy drips. There he stood, bloody and exhausted, as pale as death itself, dripping drops that shone blood red in the candlelight and turned to ice before they hit the cold stone floor. She took in his appearance, noting the collar in his hand and the frost-trimmed, fire-lit, sodden clothes that clung to every exquisitely sculpted muscle, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"There was a problem with the flask, my Queen," he answered, dropping to his knee before her and holding up the collar. "I had to improvise."
XXXX
"How're you holding up?" Jacob Stone asked his beloved Cassandra, one large, work roughened, impossibly gentle hand brushing a strand of bright copper curls away from her face. They were alone in the Library, strolling through the stacks for want of some way to spend the time Jenkins needed to finalise matters. "Talk to me."
Cassandra shrugged and shook her head, returning the coil of hair to its previous position. "How should I be? My parents are involved with the Serpent Brotherhood. My mother is a possible candidate for being in charge of the whole rabble; and I don't care what Ezekiel and his girlfriend say: I have met them both and there is no way my mother will be taking orders from Seonaidh's mom. Then there's the whole magic thing! Enoch said I had a part to play, but my powers don't come from my parents. So is this some huge destiny thing where I have to face off against my mother? Is that why I have these abilities? Or is it just one in a long line of Library related mysteries that I'm destined to put up with? Or is this just a testing ground for them and there's something bigger on the way? Although how exactly you could get bigger than the end of the world, I don't know! Not that I don't think the Library has an answer for that. In fact, I'm pretty sure she has an answer for just about everything! And what did Enoch mean by sharing the fate of the phoenix? Did he just mean that I'd died once and come back, or does he mean I'm going to keep dying and coming back, just like the phoenix? Am I immortal now? Am I the next Jenkins? The next Enoch? Is that why he is the keeper of the phoenix? Because he's immortal like it is? Really, fully immortal? Not just mostly immortal, like Judson and Jenkins and Flora?"
"Okay, Cassie, breathe," smiled Jacob, smoothing gentle hands down her arms from shoulders to elbows. "Let's just deal with one thing at a time, yeah?" He watched her half smile and nod. "Immortality, destiny, magic: we'll deal with them later. Right now, we know enough about you and all the amazing, wonderful things you can do to get us through this crisis. And this crisis is the one we need to focus on. Maybe you're immortal, maybe you're not: either way, you're strong enough to go through with this spell Jenkins is cookin' up. Maybe this is your destiny, maybe it ain't: either way you're gonna face it, and your mom. Maybe this is why you can use magic, maybe it ain't, maybe it's just one of many reasons, no matter: you're gonna use magic in this fight whatever the reason for having it. Maybe there's a bigger fight coming after this, maybe there ain't: we still gotta win this one first. So what do you need to do that? Books? Artefacts? Pepperoni pizza with extra cheese?"
Cassie chuckled and tangled her fingers in the loose fabric of Jacob's shirt. "If my mother is behind this – and I'm ninety nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine percent certain she is – then I have to try and get my dad out of it. Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn't: they always did tend to ignore what the other was working on unless it coincided with their own studies. Whichever it is, I need to know; and I need to try and get him out of it. He could be totally oblivious to what she's doing, he might have some idea and think it's harmless, or he might know the truth by now, and if he does that puts him in danger. She won't stop. Not for me, not for him. She doesn't care about us in that way. She's incapable of it. But she's not incapable of using him against me. She's always seen love as a weakness and she'll use any weakness she can find."
Jacob nodded, a frown darkening his face. "You're right: we can't let her have any leverage. I'm coming with you though. If she won't hesitate to use your dad against you, she won't hesitate to use you against us."
The house was dark when Jacob and Cassie stepped through the door to her parents' hallway. Silently, their interwoven fingers tightened around each other. An orb of pale blue light bloomed above Cassie's free hand and Jacob heard her breath catch. The hallway, leading to the open plan living room of the house, was strewn with debris. Books lay scattered from their shelves and bookcases; ornaments and souvenirs were interspersed between them, some merely broken, others shattered into unrecognisable fragments; pictures and certificates hung askew or slumped on the floor, their frames snapped. Wordlessly, Cassandra picked her way through the rubble, leading Jacob to the corridor that turned off to the stairs. Her father's study, his bedroom, the library; all were upstairs. She paused at the door to the cellar, wondering, chewing her lip in indecision, until Jacob stepped gingerly by her and drew her onward to the stairs. He nodded at them and she nodded back, sending the orb of light a short distance ahead to illuminate their way up steps covered in broken glass from the framed objects that had once hung on the now bare walls. The destruction did not stop at the top of the stairs either. There was less to be trampled and tripped over, but only because there had been fewer things in the hallway to begin with. A new urgency suffused Cassie's steps when the door to her father's study emerged from the gloom, hanging half open by an upturned pot plant. Ignoring the soil that clung to her shoes, she half led, half dragged Jacob into the room.
"Daddy?" Cassandra muttered, her voice child-like and shaking. The blue orb grew and flashed about the room, like a hound searching all corners for a lost scent.
"He ain't here, darlin', let's go," murmured Jacob, tugging her back to his side. "We oughta check the library and head back to our own before your mom decides she forgot somethin' here."
"She won't come back here now," Cassie shook her head, the blue orb drifting solemnly back to her hand. "She has what she needs."
"Still," he persisted, "we'd better go see what she took and you're the only one of us has a shot at spotting what's not there that should be."
Harried eyes still taking in the destruction of her father's study, Cassandra allowed him to lead her out of the room and along the corridor to the family library. The orb of light flitted in front of them once more, leading the way to the open doors at the end of the corridor. Cassandra wrapped her free hand around Jacob's arm, resting her head on his shoulder as they moved slowly towards their goal. As the light of the orb grew closer, the destruction within the library became clearer. Books, maps, priceless artefacts: all were scattered and torn all across the floor. Books hung half open on the edge of their shelves, the glass fronted doors to their bookcases hanging open and broken. Other books lay toppled in piles on the floor, some with spines bent backward under the weight of other books.
The room went dark. Cassie and Jacob froze.
"What just happened?" Jacob asked the darkness.
"Don't move," whispered Cassandra, detaching herself from his arm. With a flick of her wrist, invisible in the darkness, she conjured not one but three orbs of dancing blue light. They spiralled up and spread out, one staying sentinel above each Librarian's head, the third edging cautiously forward down the centre of the corridor. Again the destruction of the library loomed out of the shadows. As the orb approached the threshold of the room, it slowed to a standstill. Edging closer, Cassandra and Stone peered into the dimly lit room. At a motion from Cassandra, the orb floated serenely through the doorway.
And disappeared.
"That's new," rumbled Stone. "What is it?"
"I'm not sure," mused Cassandra. "Let me just…"
"What?" Stone dragged out the word, his eyes flicking from Cassandra to the doorway. She was now obviously – to him – looking at the world through her synaesthetic sight. He didn't like it when she went quiet. Quiet, with Cassie, was never good. Not in these circumstances.
"I'm not sure," repeated Cassandra, frowning and blinking back to his reality. "Wow, that really messed with my night vision. Come on. Let's get out of here."
"What did you see?" Stone asked, hurrying to keep up with Cassandra and the two remaining orbs. Orbs that, he noted, had grown brighter the moment their creator had mentioned losing her night vision.
"I need to talk to Jenkins about it," she replied, dragging him down the stairs and back to their own doorway.
It was the door from the parlour where they had once sat to drink tea; horrible, soapy, lemony, weirdly fragrant tea, Stone remembered. He watched her tear the door open and hustle him through. Nothing happened. They stood, hands still entwined, in that self-same parlour. The odd aroma of the tea still lingered.
Jacob Stone turned and looked down at the iridescent red curls forming a halo around his true love's face and asked the question uppermost in his mind. "What do we do now?"
XXXX
Colonel Eve Carsen looked down from the balcony of the mezzanine at her beloved husband bickering quietly with Jenkins. There was some question of order that they were 'discussing', and had been for the last hour. She sighed, the air leaving her lungs like sand from a bag too weak to hold it. Maybe she was too weak to hold this together. She had no magic, no faerie blood, no inexplicable superpowers, no genius IQ, no immortality, no decades of experience. What did she have? What could she bring to the table?
"It'll be okay," chimed a voice at her elbow. The cadence was unmistakeably Australian.
"You walk way too quietly, Jones," she grimaced, keeping her gaze fixed on her husband.
"World Class Thief, remember?"
"Amazingly, you know, I had not forgotten that," she quipped, turning finally to look at the youngest of her charges. "Part fairy too, apparently."
"So it turns out," nodded Ezekiel, leaning back against the rail and facing the stacks.
"When?" Eve asked, watching his half hidden expression.
"Hmm?" Ezekiel responded, looking round at her at last.
"When did you find out you had fairy blood?" Eve clarified, still studying his face for signs of prevarication. He looked away. She turned his face back to hers. "Jones?"
It was Ezekiel's turn to sigh. "A while now," he answered, finally.
"When," repeated Eve, "and how did you find out?"
"Remember when we all got stuck in the Library?"
"Could you narrow that down for me, please, Jones?"
"That time da Vinci sicced that Scottish bloke's telly on us," tried Ezekiel. "You know: when reality took a holiday and forgot to pack us in its suitcase?"
Eve nodded, releasing his chin at last. "Oh, I remember that one! You were with Jenkins, weren't you? But I thought he didn't know."
"He didn't," confirmed Jones. "We were only together most of the time, then that bloody demon intervened and we had to fix that little problem before we could go on. This happened before that, though: while we were testing stuff. There's a mirror, bronze, Celtic origin. It shows you the truth. Might be past, present or future, but whatever you see is the truth. Jenkins warned me not to look – it wasn't on the list to be tested – but you know me!"
"Yeah: that would just make sure you looked!" Eve muttered, turning to lean back against the rail too. "So: what did you see?"
"Enough," shrugged the young man, looking down at his toes in a way that reminded Eve just how young he really was. Older than Seonaidh, but not by much. "It was my dad. He was fae. He fell in love with a human. My mum. They got caught. It's forbidden: fairy and human. In case… Well, in case I happened. But by that point it was too late: I was already, well, happening. He got dragged back to his own realm and my mum… My mum died giving birth to me. I don't know if it was because I was half fae. The mirror didn't show that. Either way, having me killed her. I caused her death. I have power. Not powers, just power. I can use magic. Not well. Not yet. Jenkins is gonna teach me more though. Heck, half the vault is just me messing about with my magic to see what it, what I, could do. That's what put him on to me, you know. There are some things only fairy magic can do. Then there's stuff I shouldn't be able to do, even with fairy magic. It's amazing what you can do if you don't know it's meant to be impossible! Library magic, well, it's kinda defensive. It's meant to be used to help find and protect the artefacts, not attack the enemy head on. Fairy magic, it's more mischievous. It's about trickery. Neither offensive nor defensive. Put the two together, though, and you get something else entirely. Something more like the dark magic that all those irritating bad guys, and girls, out there use."
"And that's what you've got?" Eve concluded, nodding in comprehension.
"Sorta," shrugged Jones.
"Sorta?" Eve echoed, freezing.
"I'm kinda like a first generation hybrid. Everything's a bit mixed up and not quite in order. My girls, on the other hand, they'll have the best of mine and the best of their mother's."
"Girls?" Eve's head turned so fast the muscles in her neck complained.
"Past, present or future, remember?" Ezekiel grinned, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "It's a long way off yet, and I might not be right: I'm just guessing at what I saw. I saw Seonaidh with two twin girls. Girls so like her they couldn't not be related. And they were powerful. So powerful! More than anything or anyone I've seen. I thought, first time round, that they must be someone else's: that the mirror was telling me to let her go, or that she'd be okay if I broke things off. Then all of this happened and Charlene worked out I was hiding something – she is way scarier than you, by the way, and you're scary enough – and she sat me down and told me I was being an idiot and why. Then Jenkins came in and I had to go through it all again with him and then he told me I was being an idiot and sent me to look in the mirror again. I went. I saw pretty much everything I had before. Then, when it got to the girls, instead of looking away like I did first time, I kept watching. It was like I was looking through the eyes of someone standing there, but I had no control over where those eyes looked. Then one of the twins came running over towards me, calling me, or whoever, 'Daddy' and I thought 'great: I get to see the life I want through the eyes of my replacement!' But that wasn't the end of it. This kid looks up at me and asks 'how's the Library?'"
The room fell silent. Ezekiel was sucking in air like a drowning man plucked from the ocean. The rambling, tumbling words had spilled from his mouth like beans from a burst bag. Eve glanced over her shoulder to see Jenkins and Flynn studiously trying not to listen in. She looked back to Ezekiel. He was doing his best to appear his usual, flippant, nonchalant self, but she knew the signs of nervousness in him. The tapping finger, the too bright smile, the eyes that would not meet hers.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Ezekiel?" Eve asked, watching the young man steadily. "It's a heck of a gamble and now you know what you might lose."
"Right back atcha," Ezekiel shrugged. "Being lucky is my superpower, remember. Besides: the mirror shows the truth, not just one possibility. It has to work, because the mirror says I get to settle down and have kids afterwards. Just like that coin showed you. It has to work. The mirror says so."
