Author's Note: Special thanks to the guest who left the most recent review! I know it must seem like I'm always having a rough time from these notes, but recently things have been particularly rough as we've had a loss in the family. I do write for the joy of writing, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy getting feed back. When I saw that review it absolutely made my day, so thank you very very much. For everyone else, it's taking longer to get things set up than I thought, so I do think for the sake of progress I'm going to imply certain scenes rather than including them. That does mean some of the auxiliary characters I would like to include may get cut for now as I try to move things along. Hopefully it doesn't feel like its dragging to you. As always, please enjoy this chapter and I appreciate any and all feed back! And please forgive any typos, my keyboard is still acting up.
Tell him I'm not sorry… I'm not sorry… I'm not… sorry.
Vera blinked and she'd moved from the warehouse to the desert, far into the desert, past where the city was more than a pinprick on the horizon. It was night but she wasn't cold, her feet were bare but she couldn't feel the sand. The moon leered down at her, this massive reservoir of pale light bright enough to cast shadows. Except for her, Vera didn't have a shadow. That should've seemed odd to her, but it didn't. Nor did the lack of feeling or suddenly being out in the middle of nowhere without any explanation of how she'd gotten there. Something was bothering her though, the blood dripping through the moon's teeth. It was black. And gruesome. She'd never really appreciated how gruesome it was, that the moon should grin at them with the teeth of a predator after a kill. Like it hunted them in the darkness, or watched with glee as they hunted each other. It unnerved her to be so small before it, before the dripping Black Blood, as if the moon might open its teeth and a torrent would pour out and drown her.
"What's your rush," asked the moon, causing her to flinch but not drown.
"I'm not in a rush," she answered defensively. "I only just got here, why would I be in a rush?"
"Are you sure about that? Can you say for sure how long this night has lasted?"
"Night lasts until the sun comes up."
"Yes. But what if the sun never comes up? What if there is no sunlight here? Then how would you know?"
"That's a good point," Vera trailed off, moving her eyes to the horizon and frowning. "I'm forgetting something, aren't I."
"How would you know? It's like the sunlight, isn't it? Don't be in such a rush; stay and talk with me. We'll puzzle it out."
"No we won't. There are no answers here, only riddles. I have to go. I have to find the things I'm forgetting."
"That's pretty rude, declining my offer without even considering it. What makes you think you even want to remember?"
"Because," Vera said with a smile, picking a direction and moving off. "I've already remembered that I'm a rude person, and I like knowing that."
"Alright, suit yourself," the moon laughed at her back. "Nothing good's that way, but if that's the way you want to go, I won't stop you."
Vera gave it a half-hearted wave over her shoulder, noting that her feet left no marks in the sand as she moved. Instead the surface rippled like water, like something familiar, and thus she did not find it odd. What the moon had said was true; it was impossible to tell time without the sunlight. She walked for what may have been moments, hours, days, there was no way to tell. Even the sensation of walking was distorted, laborious and effortless at the same time, as if she coasted on the very ripples she was generating. Until finally she could see sandstone in the distance, until she could make out the structure in the slabs. Her fingers traced the edges, sloughing off more sand to join the sea, and she wandered through this new labyrinth. How novel, she thought to herself, this one has walls. Does that make the solution more obvious? Yet no sooner did she have the thought that she rounded a corner and entered a new maze, one that was infinitely more complex.
The room was small and densely packed with machinery and a honeycomb roof. Something about it looked almost like a memory, the coats by the door, the little hook from which a clear crystal with a red core hung, or maybe it was the person sitting at a desk across from her. Pale pink hair, unevenly cut, a long, black robe with a high collar stretched across a lean frame. Vera moved in closer, leaning in so she could see his profile. The person (she couldn't rightly assess their gender) had what she had to assume were unusually large eyes, wide and the color of centuries old ice, a sharp chin, and a little upturned nose. What was he staring at so intently? Why did it make her so nervous? Then she saw it. A rock like smooth coral and from that rock shadows that held the person's ears. Whispers given form.
Apprehension boiled inside, triggering the first sensations in her, what was it… in her body. The talking moon, the rippling sand, these things all seemed normal to her. Or at least acceptable. This was not. This was bad. The person before her had no idea of the danger. They were just sitting there, letting it happen. But it mustn't be allowed to happen. Something powerful agreed with her, summoned by the thought, and from the hem of the person's black robe thorny vines of viscous black liquid grew. They writhed and thrashed and demanded the person's attention, but the person could not be distracted. Not by the vines. Vera, though, was another story. She sensed the goal of the vines and, finding it in alignment with her own fears, acted where they couldn't. Her hand reached through the whispers and covered the coral, breaking its contact.
"What are you doing?"
Vera jumped, but kept her hand in place, looking around to see who'd spoken. When she found no one she returned her attention to the person at the desk, and jumped again. They were looking right at her now, pupils alight with a piercing white glow, expression blank. That horrible blankness filled her with a dread that sparked a memory. It was small, but she grasped at it nevertheless, desperate and afraid.
"Crona?"
"No. Crona can't hear you. He hasn't noticed you yet. He will not notice you either, because I do not wish it to be so. Why do you interfere?"
"Because this is bad," she answered simply, shaking hair from her face.
"How do you know that? What gives you the right to determine good and bad?"
"Well what about you? How do you know?"
"I was created to know. I was created to help." It was Crona's voice and yet it wasn't. It sent a shiver through her, though she did not relent. "I know the answer this one seeks, this unique creature that has found me. Indeed, perhaps with this one I can finally implement that answer. We shall see, soon enough."
"Don't use him. He's not a tool, don't treat him like he is, like everyone before you has. Please, if you have any conscience at all, just leave him alone."
"I don't understand. Our goals are similar, that's all the consent I need."
"That's not consent at all! I know Crona well enough to say that he would never consent to whatever you're doing. You know that too, or else you would've shown yourself by now."
"You're a very irritating human, but interesting. It's the Black Blood that fights me, that is why you're so convinced. It made you a human that can use magic and now demands loyalty in return. A contract I could undo. Some other time though; now I have work. Go back to your dreaming. I will find you when I need you."
The entity that was speaking with Crona's voice raised one of his hands and waved dismissively. Vera felt the world rush around her and through her and when it stopped she was back in the desert. The moon grinned down at her, chortling.
"That wasn't much of a trip. Did you miss the riddles?"
"No," she spat, scowling and combing hair from her face. "Damn it, I had something. Something important."
"You don't anymore?"
"It's… I was somewhere familiar with someone I knew- know- but something was wrong… Fuck! What was it? It was important!"
"Language," chastised the moon. "Honestly, who'd have expected such a dirty mouth?"
"Like you can talk," she shot back, folding her arms across her chest. "You've got blood dripping through your teeth."
"It's not dripping, it's oozing. But I digress; I had a thought for you. What if you don't know what you knew because you don't know it yet?"
"Awesome. More riddles. How can I know I know something that I don't know yet?"
"You're expecting this to make sense? Why? It's not your dream, it's everyone else's. And it's yours, since you are one of they. I'm sure you've noticed it's no regular human dream. This is a place filled with what is, what was, and what cannot be avoided so long as you dream. When all your tethers are cut the fog lifts and in your confusion you find clarity."
"Are you trying to be helpful? Because I understand less now than when I first woke up."
"I couldn't say why, since you're such a rude person, but yes, I am trying to help you. Maybe the pieces haven't lined up yet. Maybe you should come back when you're feeling more lucid. For now, why don't you check over there? Someone's looking for you."
"What do you mean? Over where?"
In spite of herself Vera looked around, looked every which way for this hypothetical person. At first she found nothing, and was about to rebuke the moon for misleading her when a second sweep revealed an irregularity. She wouldn't call it a person because it was, in fact, a piano. Still, something about it called to her, made her feel warm and fluttery inside. Without further comment to the moon she moved off again, reaching towards the piano even though it was far away, and through the act of reaching brought it closer. It was a baby grand, pitch black with white keys like marble, and when she made contact little blue flames winked into life all around her. Dark, crimson curtains emerged sinisterly from the sand and between them a cloth canopy spread; yet she wasn't afraid. True, what was now a room was dark and a little claustrophobic, the air thick with unspoken observations and danger, but in her heart she felt a gentle warmth that negated even the most rational fear.
"Vera? Vera, can you hear me?"
She lifted her eyes from the piano and turned, unbothered by the new presence. He was a young man, stoutly built but not overly muscular, with white hair and crimson eyes. Like the curtains, but brighter. His teeth were sharp and his narrow gaze had an intensity that made her insides flip. Startled that she had insides, Vera turned away again, pressing a hand over her stomach as if that could calm it and blushing.
"Is this your piano," she asked, ignoring his earlier inquiries and gesturing. She didn't dare touch it.
"Piano," he repeated, frowning at her and shaking is head. "There's, uh, no piano."
"Don't be an idiot, of course there's a piano. It's right here." Enlightenment sparked in her mind and she continued loftily: "More than that, I know it's yours because it's the piano inside your soul. So don't lie to me, it's not cool at all."
"Not cool, huh," he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, okay, I guess it's not cool to lie. Would you believe I can't see the piano?"
"That seems a little contrived to me, but I guess I don't really have any reason to doubt you…" She trailed off, considering for a moment before coming to some firm conclusion and turning fully to face him. "Were you looking for me? The moon said someone was looking for me over here; is it you?"
"The… moon said?"
"Yes the moon! Is it you or not? Because if not I need to go find the person who wants to find me."
"Wait, don't go!" He lunged for her, grabbing her shoulder then releasing it abruptly, shaking that hand and his head. Vera blinked at him, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows, encouraging him to continue. "I wouldn't have put it that way, but yeah, I've been looking for you. I want to help you get back to your body and wake up."
"Help me wake up? You're the one who can't see the piano, even though it's your own damn piano."
"Okay, I can't see the piano, but I think I know which piano you're talking about. Black baby grand, right?"
"Now how would you know that if you can't see it?"
"Because it is the piano inside my soul. Now can you come with me? Lets go back to your body. I don't want you to disappear on me again."
"What's the rush? You seem very anxious and it's making me a little nervous. Why is that? Why were you trying to find me?"
For what felt like a long time there was silence between the two. Pensive, Vera wondered how it could be simultaneously true that time didn't matter here and, in this moment, it did. It mattered. Finally he lifted a hand to her face, shivering as he tucked a lock of coal black hair behind her ear. The contact was like a breath on the back of her neck, yet it made her feel warm.
"You don't know," he asked quietly.
"I should," she whispered, grabbing the hand that still lingered by her cheek with both hands and smiling at it. "And I do, don't I. It's… it's because you're Soul Evans. And I'm Vera Aven and we worry about each other."
"That's one way to put it," Soul laughed, shivering and slipping his other hand into his pocket. "We haven't had a chance to talk about what happened at Crona's party yet, but we can. Follow me, I'll take you back to your body and then hopefully you can wake up."
"Where am I right now? Where are you," Vera inquired absently, noticing the curtains and piano start to run like water colors the longer she held Soul's hand.
"I'd guess you're somewhere on the astral plane. I'm at your bookshop."
"Bookshop? Come on Soul, quit trying to mess with me," she chided, shaking her head and moving off, releasing Soul's hand so she could run her fingers along a desk by the door. "This is a tailor's shop. My mom must be running errands; she's usually here handling the "business end." She'll be back soon, or else she would've asked me to watch the desk. But my dad…"
Suddenly her head snapped up and her eyes honed in on a little door in the back left corner of the room. Just now it was closed, but that didn't mean anything. Working or not working, the door was no signifier. What mattered was she had to check. If there was even a chance, she had to try.
"Vera," Soul tried, grabbing her arm. "Listen to me, your parents aren't here- they haven't been here for a long time."
"Don't be silly, of course he's here," she shot back, smiling brightly and slipping out of his grip. "Daddy's always here. He works too much, you see, we're always telling him. But don't worry; he always takes a break for me. Come on, Soul! Come meet him!"
"Vera wait!"
She didn't. Her heart was pounding and her eyes were burning and she didn't understand why. All she could get her head around was that her dad was behind that door and she was desperate to see him. Leaving Soul behind, she grabbed the knob and pushed into their warmly lit back room. Bolts of fabric stacked like an avalanche waiting to happen against the far wall, headless mannequins scattered in their own cocktail party. Scraps of cloth and pins and tape measurers and at the center of the chaos a lanky man with black hair and amber eyes behind round glasses. He looked up when she entered and smile a smile that made tears leak down Vera's cheeks, though she couldn't say why.
"Daddy," she whispered, afraid to approach any closer.
"Pumpkin," he returned, coming to her and grabbing the back of her head with one hand, planting a kiss in her messy hair. "Did you need something?"
"Yes," she answered honestly, looking up at him with shining eyes, like a child. "But I can't remember what. I'm so happy to see you though."
"Maybe you came for a fitting; I could measure your eyelashes first and calculate your state of mind." He pulled suggestively at the tape measurer draped around his neck, then faltered, feigning sadness. "But I would need a compass for that."
"Gulliver's Travels," Vera cited the reference, laughing. "1726. You know Swift predicted that Mars has two moons in that segment?"
"That's my girl," her father said, giving her a little poke on the nose before returning to work. "As it happens though, I could use you for a fitting. Come see."
Obediently she followed him, coming up on a solitary mannequin wearing a 50's style dress of aqua silk shot with burgundy. With as much delicacy as she could muster, she took the hem, rubbing the fabric between her fingers and smiling at its texture.
"Daddy, it's beautiful, but I don't wear dresses."
"I thought you might if you had an occasion."
"But Daddy, I don't have occasions either."
"What about Swan Lake? The ballet."
"Hmm?"
"You look beautiful. I know you would've preferred red but, well, you know how I feel about red dresses and daughters."
"A father doesn't make his daughter a red dress."
"Exactly. Besides, I think the aqua is very nice. Now come, sit down. We're right on time."
Vera exhaled through her nose, feeling something was off but not wanting to disturb a moment with her dad. The dress rustled as she moved, sighing as she tucked it out of the way and sat down. Her dad smiled at her, winking from behind his glasses and giving her head a little pat. She smiled back, looking forward as the music started.
"I always thought it was a little funny how much you like ballet," she commented as the stage filled with flowing skirts and artistically contorted bodies. "Even after I quit you still liked to watch the performances, and I quit about a month into it when I was four."
"Oh I fancy myself an artist too," he mused, crossing his legs and folding his hands on his knee. "And art appreciates art. Being a tailor is a very functional craft, even so, there's still the desire to create beauty. Ballet is profoundly athletic, but not particularly functional. The entire purpose of the performance is to elicit emotion and tell a story. These dancers don't contribute to society in a material way, yet they provide something vital nevertheless. I think we should be grateful for that, for the aspects of life beyond strict survival."
"Maybe you should've been a poet instead of a tailor," she joked, pleased with herself when he laughed.
"I am a poet," he quipped back. "With fabric."
For a long while they just sat happily together, watching the dancers perform their craft. They were oddly fluid, precise in their movements and seemingly unbound by their own body's constraints. Almost inhuman. It was remarkable to watch, but the longer she watched, the more Vera sensed something wasn't right. Everything else had been dream-like and strange, unsettling even, but this felt outright wrong. The feelings came first, regret and sorrow, preludes to an inescapable conclusion.
"We never went to the ballet together," she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek and getting caught by her nose. "I always turned you down. I said it was too girly."
"Oh pumpkin it's okay. We're here now."
"But we're not. This is just another dream, it's not real."
"Just because we're not in reality doesn't mean it's not real. The things you experience here, these dreams you've been having, they're all real. I'm sorry, I should've told you that first, but I wanted some time with you. It was selfish."
"No Daddy," she snapped, turning in her seat to face him with fiery eyes. "All I've wanted for so long now is time with you! So it's not selfish, not at all!"
"My sweet girl." He reached over and poked her nose again, then tucked hair behind her ear. "This is bigger than you and me. You don't know how much bigger yet, but you will once all the pieces line up. Trust that and watch."
Her dad pointed at the stage and reluctantly, still crying quietly, Vera sat back in her seat. The swan was out, fluttering and gliding and remarkably bird-like in her movements. No- not like a bird, a swan, slow and graceful and long. She was beautiful, floating when the prince lifted her, statuesque as she balanced on a single toe. And in her movements Vera could tell that she was… so sad.
"Odette is a princess cursed to be a swan during the day. She is trapped in a world of magic and her only hope of escape is for a prince from the human world to make a public and binding vow of love to her. Now if you watch you can see that even now, in her human form, she is very much like a swan."
"Yes," Vera confirmed, nodding her head and frowning at the ballerina. "I can see that."
"But look at her hands. They're rigid, as if straining against the bonds of her circumstance. Her anguish, that which tethers her to the human world- to the real world, is in her hands. Or for you, in your hand."
And the music stopped. The stage cleared, props, people, everything except a hospital table. With a person on it. She was at the edge of the stage, too far to make out who the person was, but close enough to feel fear. Her father stood next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder as she shook her head and shivered.
"I don't want to," she finally breathed. "It'll hurt, I know it will. I'm scared."
"I know you are pumpkin, I know. That's only because you're still alive. You don't belong here; you need to go back to reality. You need to be ready for when the pieces do line up."
"But I don't want to go back! I want to stay with you!"
"That's one thing you don't have to worry about. You'll stay with me and I'll stay with you, no matter what. So long as you love someone, no matter what kinds of barriers there are, a little piece of you always stays together. Now go on."
"You've never had to tell me to be brave before, have you."
"Not once."
"Alright," she took a deep breath and gritted her teeth, starting forward. "Alright."
"Vera," her father added as his fingers slipped from her shoulder. "I'm proud of you. You know that right?"
"Of course Daddy," she said, not looking back. "I've always known that."
Walls grew like plants around the hospital bed, one solid, one with a window out to the night's sky, and one made of a screen. There was a chair by the screen, in the corner it created with the wall, and someone in the chair. She paid that person no mind; her first priority was to inspect the body in the bed. It was a body because it was vacant, at least, practically vacant. A soul still flickered within and the flesh seemed preserved by a cocoon of magic tinged with Madness. So quiet she doubted anyone was really being affected, but building. The longer whatever was keeping her alive stayed in control, the more it spread, the stronger it would get, and the harder it would be for her to come back. So that's what she needed to see. Now for that way back.
"The anguish of the swan is in her hands," she repeated in a hushed tone, tracing one of the body's fingers. An idea whispered in her mind, the knowledge she'd come her to reclaim, but it was quiet and half formed. She dropped her hand, frowning.
Something moved in her peripheral vision and she jerked her head around, making immediate contact with a pair of familiar, crimson eyes. This person she knew, or at least she sensed a connection. He stared at her, both bewildered and expectant, and she looked back, perplexed and a little frustrated. It was on the tip of her tongue…
"Soul? Is that you," she finally asked, blinking at him. He didn't answer immediately, yet in that brief silence the absolute lunacy of her experiences thus far struck her again and she sighed, shaking her head. "I'm having… the weirdest dream."
The dream, having been offended by being called one, melted around her again before Soul could get a word in edgewise and when she blinked she was back in the desert. Kneeling this time, exhausted in the sand. Furious for having ended up back here, she struck the sand with her fist, swearing as loud as she could.
"That's not very mature," reprimanded the moon, grinning down at her with his bloody teeth and patronizing attitude. "Did things not go the way you wanted?"
"I was so close," she shot back, sitting up and facing the moon directly, huffing and holding up her pointer and thumb just a hair's width apart. "I was this close!"
"So what happened? If you were so close, then why are you still here."
"What, don't you know?"
"Of course I know, but I wanted to let you feel like you'd accomplished something. Would you prefer it if I say?"
"Go to hell," she grumbled, trying to stand and failing. "I got tired. That, and the moments don't line up yet. I wondered too far, now I have to wait and let reality catch up."
"That's very clever. I'm impressed."
"I'm so flattered."
"Did you find the person who was looking for you?"
"What?"
"The person who was looking for you, did you find them?"
"Yes," she said, smiling and resigning herself to taking a break in the sand. "Yes I did. I was the one looking for me. And with some help, I found me and now I know what I have to do."
"Enlighten me. I've become rather interested in your dreams."
"Then I'm going to disappoint you, because I have to wake up. The Black Blood ties me to my body, it's how I've been able to astral project at all, I just have to use it to get back."
"And how are you going to do that?"
"I… I'm still working on that part."
"I don't know man, it wasn't like that first time. She didn't even know who I was at first. I don't think she even saw the books or my cleaning stuff, just me and that dumb piano."
Soul spoke to the steaming cup in his hands, to the Deathbucks logo on the side and the cardboard sleeve. His narrow crimson eyes had gotten even narrower, frustration and fear tightening his features. Crona, who was intentionally spending less time in his lab and more with the people he cared about, felt that tension creep into his own body, into his chest and up his spine. Like a miasma coming from the scythe. Or perhaps not, perhaps Crona's fears, as usual, came from within him. His guilt…
"Some theories on the astral plane claim that time doesn't exist there," he said softly, clenching his thermos of hellebore extract and trying to be helpful. "Like dreams, where things can occur out of order but we don't know that until we wake up. And dreams last seconds but they can feel like hours. Maybe… Vera's experiencing events in a different sequence."
"So you're saying she knew me the first time because she recognized me from the second time," Soul scoffed, lifting his eyes but not straightening from his slouch. "She has got to be crazy screwed then, if she's so lost she can't even remember her friends or move through time normally."
"But she did remember you," Crona insisted, guilt making his straight back strain as he leaned forward. "She remembered you, she's following you. Memories are in the body, at least while you're alive, and her connection to you is also physical."
"Whoa dude, we never-"
"The Black Blood," Crona clarified, cocking his head and smiling just a little at Soul's blush. "You're it's source for her, a waypoint on her journey back to her body, you always have been. I think it's really good that you've seen her at all, let alone twice."
"I should feel encouraged, huh. That you know more about this than I do and you're so optimistic."
"I'm trying to be. I need to be. The alternative is that Vera is getting more lost on the astral plane and I can't deal with that. I can't deal with her being trapped in a coma for rescuing me-"
"Vera's in a coma!"
Soul kept his cool better than Crona, who jumped so violently he managed to slosh hellebore out of the sippy-cup lid. Breathing hard, he intentionally set the thermos on the table and pulled his hands into his lap, going rigid. Sensing that this wasn't ordinary discomfort, Soul straightened and turned, eyeing the speaker with cautious curiosity and concern. He was overly generic in his appearance, fit enough, tall enough, not particularly interested in his presentation. The only item of note was a lanyard that read "Death City Psychiatric Hospital Day Pass," and it was really only noteworthy because it hung away from his chest as he slouched, catching the light. His sandy blond hair was at an awkward length where it stuck out over his ears and at the base of his neck, an ineffectual curtain trying to hide the bags under his grey-blue eyes. When he held up his hands, perhaps to ward off their stare or to comfort their anxieties, Soul noticed they were heavily scarred. He approached from the Deathbucks line slowly, shamefully, and repeated the question:
"Vera's in a coma?"
"Go away," Crona spat before Soul could even open his mouth, making fists in his robe and trembling visibly. "Leave. Now. I don't want to see you."
"I know," the man said, stretching his fingers wide and looking down. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'll leave, just please tell me what's happened to Vera. We were friend's once."
"You're sorry?! Do you have any idea what you did to me?!"
"Crona, who is this guy?"
"My name is Ethan," he answered quickly. "I'm the one who kidnapped Crona from the party, I watched as Eric tortured him. And yes, I do know what we did to you; I felt it through those vines. Talk about it every day in therapy. I know better than to ask for forgiveness, just like I know you can appreciate what I mean when I tell you I didn't know what I was doing. It didn't seem wrong at the time, I- I didn't even try to understand your experiences first and now I have to live with a part of your pain. So there is some justice for you, at least."
"You've been infected by the Black Blood," Soul cut in, holding out a hand to quiet Crona for a moment.
"If we were infected," Ethan said with a shrug. "It's to such a small extent nothing Professor Stein did could get it to react. Besides, carrying around the pain of your victim seems like an appropriate punishment to me. Now can you please tell me about Vera? I know I have no right to ask, and you have no reason to answer, but please. Keisha hit her, I remember that, but I didn't think it was that hard. I didn't think she'd end up in a coma."
"You… you understand? Through the Black Blood," whispered Crona, still wire taught even though his shaking had subsided.
"I'm trying to."
"Show me."
Obediently Ethan sat down at the little table with them, set down his bags, and rolled up his left sleeve to the elbow. A scar coiled around his forearm, punctuated by evenly spaced pits in the flesh. And within each of those pits, just a prick at the deepest point, was a freckle of black. The entry points of Crona's venom, the most ironic atonement for his sins. Wordlessly Crona stretched out his hand, fingers elongating in an optical illusion of magic as Soul's own scar ached and shuddered in his chest.
"Crona," he warned, grabbing his shoulder and scowling at the heat coming off the blood he wore around his neck.
"I need to see," Crona said in a low voice, moving dangerously black and wide eyes to Soul. "Don't be afraid, I'm in control, I won't hurt anyone. But I need to know."
Ethan, for his part, seemed eager to prove he was no longer a threat and held out his arm to Crona, looking at him intently. Reluctantly, Soul let his hand slide from the witch's shoulder, palming his own scar and tensing. Just because Crona said he was in control didn't mean he'd stay that way. But this was one of Crona's attackers, one of the people who tortured him and made his Madness and magic even more powerful, intentionally or not. Who was he to interfere with Crona as he tried to deal with that?
Still, as those ethereally long fingers coiled around Ethan's forearm, sinking into his flesh like the thorns that had been their precursors, Soul felt uneasy. Then, when Crona's black eyes met Ethan's, Soul felt screaming. He felt his will snap and Madness spill over and out of control and terrified and the shearing of flesh and the resignation of morality to a monolithic purpose that stripped away everything that made him a person. And then he felt nothing. Those monstrous, pale fingers let go and they were back in the Deathbucks, panting and blinking. For a moment there was silence, as if a chill had washed over the entire building, but no sooner had it occurred to Soul that others had been affected conversations picked up again and life continued unconcerned by the subsiding magic in their midst. Crona closed blue eyes and clutched Maka's blood to his heaving chest, centering himself.
"It's there," he confirmed in a whisper, keeping his eyes closed. "The Black Blood is inside you; I put it there so you would understand and now you do. Now you've all been punished. It's like Vera's though. It can't take over you unless I tell it to and even then, there's so little. You're safe."
"Vera has Black Blood," Ethan asked, pulling down his sleeve and using it to wipe the cold sweat from his face.
"Yes. Vera was kidnapped and used by the witch Pendra earlier this year. As a consequence, she built up a resistance to magic and was infected with Black Blood. Once she was freed she found she'd gained the ability to astral project. When you took me from the party, she used that ability to go get Professor Stein and Mrs. Marie, then to come after us. She used her Black Blood to restrain mine; she's why I didn't dissolve you. It caused her to become lost."
"So that's what happened to her, back then, when she disappeared," he sighed, running his fingers through his disheveled hair and giving the table a dejected look. "And now… it's my fault. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt, I worked so hard so that no one else would get hurt, so that we could be the only victims. But I didn't know a god damn thing about it and now Vera's… Is there anything I can do?"
"No," Crona said curtly, cutting off Soul's more tactful response. "No, there's nothing you can do that would make any difference to your victims. You're helpless; your only hope is that you can do better and not make the same mistakes again. Just like me."
