AURORA

Jezebel stands on two lean legs before me, loosely holding a stick of white sage.
Swatting it away, I cough at its bothersome smell and blink away the smoke following the path of sunset's glow coming into my eyes through the window.
"I've had just about enough of you," I groan.
"You and the rest of the city," responded she, dispassionately. "Unfortunately, there's not much I can do until you tell me your coordinate. Otherwise, I don't get my vessel back."
"You would think it'd be easier if you'd left me unconscious."
"You would. Por supues'...that's why you're a vampire and not a witch. You're all speculation."
"You're not here because you're worried about your vinyl. You're here because you're worried about the Mikaelsons. Nik, to be more specific," I twitch with irritation. "Is that speculation?"
"I told you if you had just stayed out of my way, there'd be no cause for you to care what I do," she repeats.
"He told me everything," I tell her. "How eloquent of an actress you are, using a 'pregnant girl on the lamb' story to butter everyone up, make you likable, and then, make it impossible for them to convict you of murder. Now, I've got to tell you, I've thought about going there but I've never had the guts—"
"I know what happened, I was actually there," Jezebel spits.
"What's the matter? Too soon?" I chuckle.
She steps forward, thoughtfully looking at the wall behind me and lightly sniffing to alleviate an itch. "It's funny. He told you about me, but I never heard a word about you. Let's not assume we know anything about each other."
"On the contrary. I know enough to make you suffer," I promise, "such as the reason Tristan even wanted you here. You're alike to a plague of locusts, Jezebel. You and your Murder of Seraphi. Though you run from them like a coward, you somehow manage to never look back as they tear this city in half like the red sea. I'm perfectly suited to tell Klaus what it is you're up to."
She leans down toward me. "You think you know him better than I do?"
I simper confidently.
"I'd say an entire millennium is adequate enough to earn the right."
Tricky, she wonders, "And what day did you two meet?"
"Oh, nice try. I'm not that naïve!" I catch onto her snooping.
Jezebel nods lightly.
"I'm aware of that. So, do you think if I went and asked Klaus, your timelines would match?"
I say nothing to that. The eldest Mikaelson sister appears, looking at an epiphanied Jezebel expectantly.
"Well?" Freya yawns.
Jezebel's teeth rake over her lip.
"The date the De Martels transitioned. Those are the coordinates. Tell Elijah we can let them go," she figures. "Let her go. We have what we need."
Damn.
"Jezebel!" I call out anxiously. "He already called them. And rest assured, if you free my sire, I will tell them everything!"
she turns on a high heel, tattooed hand on the doorframe as she leans back to look at me.
"Give it a try," says she. "Luckily, you're a reliable source."

ELIJAH

I'm standing on the overhead railings of the Abattoir when Jezebel emerges from the room where Aurora has been detained. There's a pause in her step when she notices the large "M" imprinted on a pillar nearby. Given her past exhibition of unpredictability, her thoughts take her somewhere else when the right cord is struck. That crest is a catalyst for colorful ideas.
Tristan must finally be out of relevant information. Klaus removes himself from Tristan's spot of detainment and approaches Jezebel, unhappy to see him without a bargaining piece.
"No such luck?" he intones as his hands lace behind his back.
She extends to him a paper with a number written across it.
"Aurora transitioned on November tenth," Jezebel says. "So, I'm guessing Tristan's coordinate is something along the same lines."
I can't see my brother's façade, but I guess it to be geared toward something of appreciation for little chaotic antics such as this. I also imagine the way he used to lay his eyes on her, with a slight longing and disguised pity.
"Not as clever as I expected from her, but all the same, poetic," Klaus remarked. "For the record, I didn't tell Freya to—"
"Nothing permanent has happened yet. I won't browbeat you for it," Jezebel interrupts.
"You aided Marcellus and you managed to keep my sister from an Atlantic prison. You've given us an advantage. I deem your next step will be to remind me that I owe you."
She says, "You don't have anything that I want."
His attention is still fixed on her as I round the corner of the railings just to see his disappointed gaze. I have to stop meddling.
I start walking back into the room where Tristan sits unconscious and bound to one of our fine Victorian chairs. My original thoughts were to interrogate him about the cargo ship where Rebekah's body lies, but I have come up with a new round of questioning in the last five minutes.
Tristan wakes with the scent of burning sage that crunches in Freya's grasp. His eyes open and his breath quickens; he looks horrified. He tries to speak, but he's only wriggling in his seat and humming.
"It's a side effect of her magic. It must have triggered the venom still in his system," Freya notifies me.
We choose to let him have his episode. Within a minute or so, he passively sits with a traumatized expression.
"I do enjoy knowing a most merciless witch is out to get you," I smile.

KLAUS

It had to be brought up sometime, when we would stop being familiar strangers and start being a failed romance.
Stepping towards her, I purr, "If there's nothing I have that you desire, then why are you lingering here in my city?"
She folds her arms as though she prepared to hear the question a second or tenth time. I lean over one of her shoulders when she refuses to respond to my interrogating stroll around her perimeter.
"I know for fact you swore you'd never come back to this place if it were an option. So, what other reason do you have to stay—besides me?" I tempt her to play.
Jezebel closes her blue-vein eyelids and puts her incarnadine lips together, unimpressed. She stops my imposing closeness with a firm forearm to my chest. Her forearm rebounds back to her side after a soft push on my dress shirt.
Jezebel states, "I can practically taste the paranoia. Trying to romance and gamble the hard feelings away in every potential threat you come across is a cheap trick."
She's one to talk. There would be no hard feelings had there been less secrecy between us. She was scared of my kin once and it drove her dire need and success to betray us.
Unable to restrain myself, I inhale deeply Jezebel's scent of sandalwood, my hand intimidatingly grazing the side of her olive neck to move her satin hair back. My memory serves me well that she would reject any sort of human contact with me as she takes a step away.
"If a fifth of the population is split between cruel and compassionate, then the rest can be swayed in either direction. I'd say I have created my own workable technique under those circumstances. It has proved compatible with very simple minds such as yours to the most complex—Aurora's. But make no mistake, I haven't the heart to take either lost causes in," I mutter to her.
Jezebel scoffs, "Swayed is another word for 'forced.' Not everyone wants to be cruel or to be compassionate. Compassion may dominate Aurora's heart right now, but what happens when it comes time to protect her sire? Or Tristan's? She doesn't want to hurt you, but she will to save herself. No one's story is any different than that."
I'm about to rebuttal her observation when Freya bursts in, seeming apologetic and slightly agitated.
"I can't find the sundial. It's gone. I've looked everywhere," Freya pants.
Jezebel cranes her head back, preserving a neutral countenance. There's a moment where I think she may do something rash until the silence in the air pulls on her ear. Exposing the doom she has every intention of making me feel, she turns her gaze toward me.
"Where's Aurora?" Soft and frozen in tone, she demands.
Aurora. We've left her alone for too long.
"She wouldn't have taken it, she's far too focused—"
Jezebel doesn't wait for me to finish. She rips open the doors on the downstairs guest bedroom, allowing us to get a better look at Aurora's overturned chair and the connecting door to the dining room completely destroyed.

ELIJAH

"You have what you want. You found Rebekah. Just let me go so this can be over and done with," Tristan asks of me.
Freya glances at me over her shoulder, expectant of me to give in or to have the last word.
I shake my head at her to let her know we aren't done here. I sit in front of Tristan, leaning inward.
"Yes, but you see, I don't. It is imperative that you confess what you know. How did you know Jezebel Zaragoza was alive?" I growl at him.
Tristan shakes, "What!"
"I believe you heard me."
"She— I told you... I told you she is of value to the continuation of our sirelines! One of the biggest pieces!"
"But that's not an answer to my question. Where did she come from? And how did you get to her?"
"Elijah...this is the second time he's had this much venom in his system. I think he's going to die if we don't give him the antidote sooner or later," Freya says, puzzled.
Tristan begins, "A deal was made! Aurora and I...we struck a deal with someone...a coven. We must bring Jezebel to them in exchange for a way to de-sire ourselves from you! A weapon! It would protect our sires from one another."
He would sacrifice Lucien and Aurora's sireline for the sake of his own. Unsurprising. I imagine he has yet to hear of this exact story.
"Who was in this coven, Tristan?" I demand.
He goes into another violent episode via his poisoned mindset, repeatedly murmuring, "Celeste! Celeste DuB—"
"Celeste?" Freya repeats, glancing at me for guidance.
That's the second time I've heard her name this week in hundreds of years. The episode is over within the next few moments. Tristan's levels of pride and serenity diminish as he withers like a flower.
"Celeste DuBois is one of the ancestors to the covens of New Orleans," I state quietly. "Allegedly."
That's when marcellus interrupts our night of entertainment. "What's next, charades? While you guys host the world's most messed-up game night, you got bigger problems."
He strolls into the room with a strut as proud as Niklaus's.
I drop my exhale like a weight as I wave off Marcellus. "Freya, would you mind dealing with this situation, please?"
"Oh, no offense to your lovely sister, but you and I need to talk. I'm here on behalf of The Strix, and I'm not leaving without Tristan," Marcel says.
I waltz out into the hallway, dragging Marcel behind me out into the corridors of the Abattoir.
"Elijah, look. The way I see it, you don't have a choice," he begins.
I remark, "Is that so?"
Marcel pauses. "How long before The Strix decide to come get their guy? And if they destroy half the quarter in the process..."
"I can handle the Strix," Briskly, I rejoin.
He pushes, "Oh, you can't even handle Tristan. He's caught in some seizure loop that girl put him in and the only thing that you can get out of him is...a bunch of words that tell you nothing about what's happening. The guy has been around for a millennium. He can withstand all your vampire mind games, and if you end up killing him, we lose Rebekah for good."
"So what are you suggesting here, Marcel, I simply hand over this wretched fiend and stand idly by as you set him free?"
"If I take Tristan, make it look like I busted him out, I get in tighter with him and The Strix. I can find out whatever you want me to and keep them from declaring war on the quarter if you trust me."
I step past him, overlapping, "I will not release that filth!"
Darkness overcomes me for more than two minutes, however, my eyes welcome nightfall when I wake up. I am stiff from the floor. I feel my forced lungs sucking in air like a vacuum. I am dehydrated, enduring the slow pressure and burn of oxygen on my stab wound. Jezebel is crouching beside me expectantly. She's holding a stake in her left hand. My gaze drifts to the empty chair where Tristan once sat and Freya barely waking up across the room on the carpet.
I remember Marcel's quick attack, his quick rescue of Tristan and his quiet word of returning for me. He didn't use a dagger or white oak stake, thankfully. Klaus appears from behind Jezebel, who smiles down at me violently.
Jezebel greets me, "Change in plans?"

MARCEL

"You have proven to be quite helpful Marcel. You have my gratitude," Tristan tells me.
"I wouldn't thank me yet... You're sure taking a lot of hits from this Seraph girl," I reply.
No one says anything, Aya grabbing Tristan's coat as he carefully stands up.
"We should go. Marcel, we'll be in touch," Aya says brusquely.
I feel a surge of frustration fall over me. I've felt it every time the Strix has reached out to me for a favor. It's been limited, but to feel the desire to lash out this early, it's incredible.
"Wait, hold up. So that's it?" I scoff. "You come into my house, threaten me, and ask me to declare war on the most dangerous vampires in the world. Which doesn't make sense to me! It seems like Jezebel is your biggest problem!"
Tristan rolls up his sleeves, coming back toward me. "I see. So you expected something more."
I continue to rant, "Damn right. You talk a lot about my loyalty to the Strix, what about vice versa! I'm a marked man."
"I assure you, we will be initiating good on—"
"No. None of that," I interrupt Aya. "You need me on your side. But if it's a friend you need, I'm not gonna be there next time."
Aya is about to lunge at me, the immediate hunger in her eyes when Tristan grabs her arm.
"You have earned something, indeed, Marcel. You are correct. Come with us," He says.
He nods his head toward my front door, and Aya is left with her foot in her mouth. She's unsure about that decision. Gleeful to see it, I grant her a big smile when I pass her by.

KLAUS

Jezebel ignores the cup of scotch I set in front of her.
She swears, "I won't use detail. If Aurora destroys it, I'm going to die."
Her eyes dart from Elijah's to mine. I stand between the couches in front of our coffee table while I bring my morning drink to my lips. Elijah watches our guest in confusion for a brief moment of time.
"You described the object vaguely, claiming it was us 'handing over your life to the Strix'. How do you mean?" Elijah ponders.
"My spirit is separated from my human body. It's been that way since I passed," she summarizes, eyes wandering towards Elijah. "I keep a physical presence on this plane even if I'm gone because of it. If this one gets destroyed, I can't makea new one. My human body is what holds the majority of my powers. Thing is that I don't know what happened it—it's a part of the reason I stayed when Marcel let me go. Someone needs to take the vessel from Aurora before she goes through another mood swing and snaps it in half," Jezebel explains.
"If you can't make a new one, who put you on the sundial?" Elijah asks.
"Celeste had an object called the Serratura that she kept me alive on before I met you. I guess there was some damage done to my body I don't remember that she was willing to fix for me." When a second instance came where someone wanted me dead, I decided to contact a descendant of Celeste," Jezebel replies.
"Vincent," Klaus narrows his eyes.
Elijah then begins for her, "And normally, you would go and retrieve this device yourself, but...?" Elijah begins for her.
"The vessel is cloaked," she tells him with a hint of accusation. "Every second I'm not in possession of it gives everyone else the ability to use it against me. I'm not so stupid I'd leave it unprotected. Especially not against you."
There is a rising hostility between Jezebel and Elijah, in which I am not entirely present to them. Here, I thought they were more or less simple acquaintances.
"Well, if you are in need of a rescue, there is a price to pay, of course. You'll have to play the role of our snake in the grass, pardon the innuendo," Elijah tells her.
She rolls her eyes in disenchantment. It brings a smug smile to my face.
Jezebel dreads asking, "What for?"
"I want you to tell us about the Murder of Seraphi," Elijah asks of her.
Her brows pull away from each other and her shoulders drop to a frozen position.
"...I told you once. Don't tell me you haven't put the pieces together," she intones.
My brother's slow blink communicates his doubt.
"You might as well hold back on the mystery, Love. While it is amusing to watch Tristan go through a seizure every time we ask, it's essential to our well-being and possibly your own. Besides, if it is as blasé a topic you make it seem, why would you spell Tristan's trap shut?" I corner her.
"Lucien Castle's Seer showed us an overbearing vision of the end of the Mikaelson line. One to fall by family, one by friend, and one by foe. Though, it's unclear if you're the friend or the foe. Or if the Murder, as it's been called, is planning to make it more transparent," I explain to her.
She takes a moment to process.
"Think of it like guardian angels. They see everything you do, and they're in charge of what happens next. The only reason you still exist is because I do. And if I don't exist, that means you stand no chance."
"Where are we going with this apocalyptic metaphor, exactly?"
"There's something I never got the chance to tell you before I was killed—"
My chest pounds like a drum when I hear the loud crack of stone. Jezebel's clutching her face, and when she looks at her hand, there's a fresh smear of black powder. Of all the consequences of bane that I've seen cross the faces and minds of my family's adversaries, I'd never seen anything like this. Like a china doll dropped by its owner, her dusty rose cheek grows a thin divide from her temple to the edge of her nose that could be drawn by pen to imitate the same width. Her eyes are wide in consternation, fingertip. I see the dumbfounded gaze in Elijah's eyes as ash slowly trickle from the mystical injury. Darkness takes over the shine of her eyes.
She notes briefly, "...Forget it. You're wasting my time. I have to find Aurora."