I am very, very sorry for the length of this one. It took on a mind of its own.
Chapter Ten
"So, Mrs. Agreste," Marinette said, "how is it going with the grimoire and the sorcery? Adrien mentioned you've actually managed to make a lot of progress these past several days."
Nathalie sat with the girl in the living room as they waited for Adrien to fetch his father from upstairs. She took a sip from her water glass and offered a polite smile, through her lips felt the strain of force. "I've learned a lot," she answered. There was a certain crispness to each of her words, so that when her brief sentence plateaud into its end, it felt for a moment that she had managed to say something of any substance in response to her young companion. Marinette's eyes widened with intrigue, only for her to realize a few seconds later that Nathalie had in fact told her nothing at all, and she would have to press a little if she wanted any meaningful information.
"And what have you learned?" she asked. The red kwami sitting on her shoulder looked just as interested but much less confident, her own dark blue eyes darting between her holder and Nathalie as she nibbled on a square of chocolate.
Hardening her tone even more so, Nathalie replied, "I have successfully made each of the kwami power-up potions save for the one called spirit. It contains an ingredient which eludes my understanding."
"I've personally never made spirit either," Marinette said. "Master Fu had given it to me once, but I never used it. And I never knew how to create it on my own."
"The previous guardian never taught you?"
"No." Mairnette glanced away. Her kwami leaned its head against her holder's chin, sighing lightly. "I was there to witness him make the aqua power-up. The others I had to figure out myself. Although, it became a lot easier once I was actually given the grimoire's translations."
Nathalie dipped her head and took another sip of water, hoping the conversation could end while it was still directed on Marinette. But the young lady turned back and brought herself in inch closer, having shaken the sadness from her gaze. "Adrien said something about you managing to use the power-ups yourself. When I heard that, you should have seen the look on my face. Maybe when we have more time, you will have to tell me everything you have discovered. I'm sure this stuff is all recorded somewhere out there in the world, but it would be helpful for me to have."
"I'd imagine so."
"And you're not too overwhelmed with it? This whole sorcery thing is very new to us after all. I'm sure it's a lot to absorb in such a short amount of time."
"I appreciate your concern, but it isn't too much."
This time, it seemed that her tone came across more strongly, because Marinette shrank back. Not by much, but just enough that Nathalie regretted her sharpness and thought to apologize. She knew she was being unfair to Marinette, who was an authoritative figure on this side of the fight. A part of her expected every word out of Marinette's mouth to be a challenge or a trick, and she should have known much better than that. Marinette's previous slight - her only real slight - had stung deeply, but by now, it was embedded within a stretch of time they were no longer facing. Just ten days ago, she had falsely offered their miraculous because she knew they would refuse, because the reminder might pain them. But Nathalie was in no place to resent her for it now. Not while a common enemy threatened to shake them apart. If Marinette had been scrambling for a conflict to bridle, she ended up with more than she bargained for, and they were all paying for it.
"Oh," Marinette said. She stroked Tikki with her index finger. "I'm glad to hear that."
But Nathalie frowned, because she had been right to ask: the sorcery was too much, wasn't it? Or was it not enough? Nathalie could no longer tell the difference. She felt as though she could be giving everything and it wouldn't suffice. And really, that was her problem more than anything, that she didn't know how to tell this teenage girl that she'd done more magic in the last week than she ever imagined herself doing again, and it felt like it was getting her nowhere.
She heard her husband and step-son traveling down the stairs, and in the next moment they'd arrived in the living room. Gabriel had been nursing his head injury all day, resting in bed upon Nathalie's insistence. He was dressed down now, wearing a sweatshirt and black joggers, and beside Nathalie, Marinette appeared surprised to see him looking so casual. He took his seat on Nathalie's other side, and Adrien leaned against an armchair, Plagg floating beside his head with his arms crossed.
Marinette rubbed her hands together and rose from the couch. "Okay," she began, clearing her throat. "About today, here's what we know. Now, take all of this with a grain of salt. It's from Lila's mouth. According to her, Conspiracy and the Sorcerer have her trapped in this arrangement, and she believes resisting them, or even submitting her miraculous peaceably to us would be a risk to her life. I want to believe that she's being truthful because I don't believe she would otherwise be so openly antagonistic towards us outside of a battle if her heart was as dedicated to the cause as her teammates'. Lila is capable of playing innocent, but she chose not to. If she's taking the opportunity to be transparent, I think we should listen."
"Well, I don't," Plagg grumbled. "I'll never trust a word out of her. Even if there's partial truth to what she says, I don't believe that she's giving us the whole story. And if it's not the whole story, I want nothing to do with it."
"We need to take what we can get," Tikki countered. "We don't have much."
"This is what I think," Adrien said before Plagg could argue back, "Lila is not our biggest threat. She is our most familiar threat because we've all had to deal with her before, but with people like Conspiracy and the Sorcerer on her side we can't continue to obsess over her. That doesn't mean," he added, pressing two fingers into Plagg's lips, "that we aren't wary. But I think we can agree that her allies are at the heart of this issue."
Gabriel squinted at the floor. "The way Conspiracy fights...it's difficult to tell how dangerous he really is. He doesn't seem interested in causing us any real harm. He told me today that it is not his goal to hurt me, and he has nothing but the opportunity to do so, especially while I can hardly lay a finger on him."
"He didn't hurt me either," said Marinette. "Maybe he tried, but after hearing what it was like for you, I have to wonder if he was ever truly attempting to land a blow on me."
"So what does that say? That whatever he's after has nothing to do with us," Plagg explained, turning his eyes on Adrien again. "It's not personal with him, but it is with Lila. That's why she's the bigger threat."
"And there's a pretty big chance that he knows my identity considering the disappearance of the box. Lila doesn't know who I am, I'm sure of that by now. But Conspiracy? He must. But he's never…" Marinette trailed off, her sharp gaze glossing over as a thought crept upon her. Nathalie watched as she took a step closer to Adrien, who pulled her under his arm. More quietly, she continued, "He's never gone after me."
Finding her behavior alarming, Nathalie asked, "Hasn't he?"
"No, not that I can be sure."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I'm worried, and perhaps a little paranoid," Marinette replied. "Even Ladybug can't have it all together, not at a time like this."
Nathalie was about to pose further questions but was interrupted by Adrien. "There's still so little we know about the Sorcerer," he pointed out, lacing his fingers through Marinette's. "Like how they learned everything they know. They clearly seem experienced."
"Experienced enough to almost break a miraculous," Gabriel muttered.
"It seems obvious to me," said Tikki, leaping off of Marinette's shoulder. "The only way another person could have obtained that knowledge was if they had some kind of connection to the Temple. I'm willing to bet that Conspiracy does as well, considering all the other miraculous but the ones contained in your box, Marinette, had been destroyed until their restoration three years ago."
"Either they are from the Temple," Marinette agreed, "or they found a way to get their hands on some materials like you had, Mr. Agreste."
Gabriel shook his head. "I doubt it. Emilie and I had difficulty finding the miraculous, but I imagine the task would have been truly impossible if there were guardians there to defend them. We would have had no chance. No two random people could just waltz into such an important temple as that and take what they wanted."
"So they must be guardians themselves?" wondered Adrien. "But why are they attacking us if that's the case? If they had any authority, they wouldn't have to start a fight."
"Perhaps they've gone rogue," said Plagg.
"Rogue guardians?"
"It's happened before," Tikki murmured.
"What we know for sure is they have information, and they seem to have training."
"Do you think loyal guardians would have noticed that something was wrong by now?"
"We don't know how connected they are to the rest of the world."
Nathalie set her glass on the coffee table and stood up, drawing all eyes to her. "I think there's an explanation for all of this," she declared, staring at Marinette. "Conspiracy and the Sorcerer not only have to have a connection to the temple in Tibet, but one or both of them needs to know who you are in order for it to be possible for them to have taken the box. The only other person who knows your identity outside of us is the previous guardian."
A hush fell over the room. Marinette's face drained of color, while at her side, Adrien widened his eyes and retracted his arm from around her waist. Marinette stared at Nathalie as though the older woman had spit at her. She'd only looked this angry once before. Nathalie tried not to let her memories recoil that far back.
Marinette shook her head fervently, fingers curling into tight, white fists. . "No," she murmured, voice hardly above a whisper. "Master Fu has nothing to do with this."
"I'm not saying he's to blame," Nathalie said. Tikki and Plagg both drew close to their holders, each looking similarly offended at her suggestion. "I'm saying what is true, that he was the sole other person who shares the knowledge of your identity. And not only your hero identity, but of the fact that you are the guardian, that you had the box. The only box not currently at the temple."
"He would never have put us in danger."
"I don't mean that he did it intentionally. You realize that he may have returned to the temple and that the other guardians made him share everything that had happened in the one hundred-seventy-four years they had been gone? You realize he may not have had a choice, and that by officially naming you the guardian he has associated you with the Order? Marinette, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone at that temple knows your name, and if there was one person or two people who had wayward goals and no way out, they could have used you as their means to achieve whatever it is they're looking for."
Marinette closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples. "Please. I can't deal with this right now. I won't believe that's what happened."
Adrien reached out to her, "Marinette…"
"No, Master Fu did not just return to the temple and tell them everything. You want to know how I know? Because no one else ever showed up to help us. I don't have any other information except the one grimoire he handed me, and that's not enough." Her voice faltered at the end of her sentence as tears pooled in her eyes. Tikki nuzzled her holder's cheek. "If the other guardians knew about me, I wouldn't have been left to flounder. They would have done something. They would have come. They would have..."
A pang of sympathy bloomed in Nathalie's chest. "I didn't want to upset you, Marinette," she murmured as Adrien pulled his girlfriend into his chest. "But do you have another explanation? I'd be willing to hear it."
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Gabriel had risen and now gazed down at her softly. "I believe that you might be onto something, dear," he told her. "So far, it is the only idea that adds up."
"It doesn't add up," Marinette protested between her teeth.
"The math isn't perfect no matter how you look at it, but this is the closest we'll get to an answer."
"Until we know for sure, I'm not accepting that," she muttered.
Nathalie scowled and turned away. She had always thought Marinette to be practical, but it had become quite evident that the young heroine was prone to being swayed by her emotions. Nathalie supposed that she was not much different after all, but unlike Marinette, she was going to cling to whatever explanation could be pieced together to make sense of the last several days, whether anybody else liked it or not. To have the thought in her head granted her this flicker of exhilaration that she was desperate to keep alive, though, she realized soon enough, it could not burn away the dense, pervasive apprehension in her mind, which still, despite the ferocity of assurance, compelled her to reach for her husband's hand and squeeze it, so that he squeezed it back and leaned close enough she could feel his breath on her cheek.
The conversation continued as Gabriel asked Adrien and Marinette about their battle with Volpina, and later their questioning of Lila. The group was interrupted twice: once by Alain's knock on the living room's glass door, a moment that made each of them jump for fear that he had been listening, but luckily, he'd only come to alert Gabriel and Nathalie that he was leaving for the day and would see them tomorrow; the second interruption was by Anaïs, whose cries through the baby monitor on the coffee table beckoned Nathalie up to the nursery to care for her. What she found to be strange was that Adrien and Marinette moreso seemed unusually relieved by the pauses in the conversation. Her tense narrow shoulders relaxed during the interruptions, and eyes she struggled to maintain on the faces of her companions lifted again at every lull.
Nathalie found their retelling of the story odd as well, and she had a sense they weren't informing her and Gabriel of everything. She kept shifting her gaze to her husband's face, to search for any indication that he was noticing something peculiar, but aside from a couple twitches of his lip, he seemed entirely unbothered apart from the expected thorniness at the subject. Nathalie didn't know if his head injury was making him much less sharp than usual, or if she was just imagining things. Once again, she cursed herself that she couldn't manage to heal him.
Eventually, they all began to tire of the conversation, hitting deadends in their abilities to make sense of the day. Adrien and Marinette dismissed themselves to work on homework, which they'd been falling behind on since the ordeal began.
"Before you go," Nathalie said. Her eyebrow quirked at Marinette's hardened jaw, though she supposed that could have just been a sign of exasperation, "is there anything else you want to share? Anything you may have omitted in your story?"
Adrien and Marinette exchanged glances while their kwamis mirrored them. Adrien then shook his head, his blonde hair swaying softly around his face. "No," he answered. "We've told you everything."
"Are you sure?"
Her step-son grinned, his green eyes shining like a pair of leaves catching sunlight. He set a hand on her shoulder. "Everything's good, Nathalie. Don't worry, okay?"
The warmth in his tone eased her. She set her own hand over his and smiled back. "Okay, love."
Adrien withdrew. He opened the door for Marinette, and they left.
Six hours later, Gabriel called her name. "Nathalie, dear."
"Yes?"
"Are you coming to bed?"
Gabriel gazed at Nathalie from where he stood at the atelier's half-open door. The curtains had just been rolled shut, blocking out the black night on the other side of the window. Nathalie had not even noticed her husband stand. Her materials were spread across Alain's empty desk, which was more barren than hers and therefore a better location to continue studying. Nooroo had been observing from atop a desk light, but now that his master had risen, he elevated with a flap of his wings and hung between the pair, waiting for Nathalie's response.
She looked over her notebook, the grimoire, and her tablet, as well as the row of vials she had sitting in an open and mostly-empty drawer. She had been holding her pen so tightly that her thumb was starting to blister. She dropped it on the page. "No, I couldn't sleep now. I'm trying to work something out."
Gabriel looked reluctant. "I think you should come with me."
"I have a baby monitor with me. I'll be fine, but you." She pivoted the chair towards him. "You should rest. It was sweet of you to stay up with me as late as you did, but you need to take care of your injury."
"I'm alright, Nathalie," he insisted.
"Perhaps you are, but you should sleep just in case." He looked ready to protest, but clamped his mouth shut when she got to her feet and approached him slowly. "But, before you go, I have a request. Do you mind if I take the butterfly miraculous for the night?"
He stuck his hand in the pocket of his sweatshirt, where he kept the brooch, eying her reluctantly. "What are you planning to do with it?"
"Something useful, I hope."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes, and Nathalie feared he would refuse her, but then his stone blue gaze flicked over her shoulder to the kwami still floating in the middle of the room behind her. "Nooroo," he addressed, his voice deep and calm as he brought the purple brooch out of his pocket. "See to it that she doesn't overwork herself."
"Yes, Master."
He placed the miraculous in her palm and clasped his hand over hers. A chill rippled through her body. It was the first time she had touched a miraculous in two years. Nathalie shut her eyes as he pulled her close and kissed her mouth. "Good night," he murmured against her lips. "Come to bed soon, okay?"
"Depends on how well this goes," she replied, smiling as his cool fingertips grazed against her cheek on their way to brush some hair back. "I wouldn't wait up. Thank you, darling. Trust me, okay? I'll be fine."
He squeezed her hand and departed, leaving the atelier door open. Nathalie's shadow cut through the fan of light spreading across the hallway's hardwood floor, and she remained there until Gabriel's slow footsteps up the stairs had faded, and the closing bedroom door echoed softly through the house.
"My Lady," asked Nooroo as she returned to the desk. "What are you planning to do with that miraculous?"
She set the brooch down on top of the grimoire she had just flipped shut and grabbed her pen off her mostly-blank notebook page. "Marinette and Adrien mentioned earlier today that Lila disappeared in a flash of light," Nathalie said, chewing on the cap. Nooroo drifted into a seated position right beside his own miraculous. "Isn't that what happened to Gabriel this morning? He was facing Conspiracy one moment, and the next, he was in our garden."
Nooroo nodded. "Yes. I didn't see anyone, but we were blinded for a moment, and then we were transported from the alley. It happened faster than I could describe."
"So, you were teleported." Nathalie underlined a note on the page. "And isn't it the horse miraculous that has that function?"
"Yes, My Lady."
"Well, either there's someone transforming with the horse miraculous, or the Sorcerer is doing what they seemed to do when they nearly destroyed the butterfly during the last attack - mimicking a miraculous's power through sorcery. In fact, I wonder if that's why they have the miracle box at all. The miraculous give them a source of power they can use to make potions." She sighed, leaning back in her chair and pressing the pen to her temple. "Unfortunately, that doesn't explain how they managed to mimic a cataclysm without the black cat miraculous."
Nooroo's big eyes darted back and forth, his wings drooping. "Yes…"
"What is it, Nooroo?" she prompted.
"Nothing, My Lady, only that you, yourself have proven that it is possible to take a miraculous without the holder being aware."
Nathalie stared at the butterfly kwami for a moment before it occurred to her what he meant. She pushed her chair forward again, setting her arms on the desk. "How did you know about that?" she asked, making the creature flinch by the severity of her voice.
"Duusu told me," he replied as his wings trembled, "while we were reunited in the miracle box. She told me everything that had happened to you and to Miss Emilie while you were using the peacock miraculous, everything that I wasn't able to witness myself. According to her, there was one night that you had used the peacock miraculous to steal Chat Noir's ring, but that you had returned it before he knew it was missing."
Nathalie blinked at him, heart sinking through her chest like it was made of lead. Her stare faltered to her now clenched hands. "I wonder what you must have thought of me when you heard that," she murmured. "Did Duusu tell you everything else I did that night?"
"My Lady, that is a history long past us. You must understand my point, that the Sorcerer may have taken Chat Noir's ring without him being aware."
"No. I knew Chat Noir's identity."
"And as you suggested earlier today, the Sorcerer and Conspiracy might know as well."
Nathalie glanced down at the open drawer of vials. One of them, the familiar blue seemed to gleam brighter than the rest. She swallowed her oncoming impulse like she was forcing a coin down her throat and slammed the drawer shut. "I don't want to think about this. What I want to know is how I can do what the Sorcerer does by replicating a miraculous's power. If they can teleport, then it must be possible."
"Maybe the answer is plainer than you think. Ask yourself what this miraculous and the peacock can do." He held up his own brooch. "Your intention is to use this in a way that it is not necessarily built for, but when you think about it, there are many ways in which its power can reflect the abilities of miraculous other than itself. Pushing the boundaries is what they do."
Nathalie stiffened. Against her heart's will, her mind leaped back into those two-year-old memories of a dying woman trying to fix everything.
She gripped the edge of the desk. She was watching herself plunge from rooftop to rooftop, each and every surface rising up to catch her faster than she was ready to meet it. Her chest tightened, and she screwed her eyes shut, trying to think of something useful. Then, her memory of that sentimonster - that snake-like creature that slithered through the streets of Paris in the dark to steal the black cat miraculous - resurfaced, like it was emerging from sand under her feet. She remembered how it was born in a room miles away from her, how it phased through every wall she couldn't face for herself, how she watched it slip the ring of Adrien's finger while he slept, as clearly as though she was standing there herself, tugging at it with her own guilty fingers. Maybe the horse miraculous allowed one to displace her body, but Nathalie's - no, the peacock's power - allowed her to displace her mind. Nathalie removed her glasses and dropped them on the desk to drag her palms over her eyes, exhaling heavily.
"My Lady," Nooroo said, and she looked at him. "It's okay."
"I think I understand what you mean, Noooroo," she murmured. "The peacock's ability is to create sentimonsters, but in truth I could do more than just make them. I could move with them. They shared my consciousness. Everything they could do, I made them do. Everything they had, I gave them. A miraculous's expression of power is greater than the sum of its parts."
"I think so too," Nooroo said. "Think of this: the rabbit miraculous gives its holder time-traveling abilities, but can't it also create and destroy just as definitely as the ladybug and cat miraculous? All it takes a single wrong move to warp the timeline completely. That's a further consequence of it's already existing power. The holder's capacity to utilize it is what gives it meaning, is what makes it dangerous."
"So, I should think of replicating miraculous's magic as its power and my own power compartmentalized?"
"Yes."
"That's a start," Nathalie whispered, and she felt some of the tension in her body ebb away. The bitterness on her tongue was more persistent but with several more moments of silence, it soon left as well. Then, Nathalie reached out and closed her hand over the butterfly brooch. "How would a butterfly potion even work? If I throw it at someone would it akumatize them?"
Nooroo twitched his wings in amusement. "Maybe something like that. You should think of the butterfly miraculous as it is intended to be used. I am the kwami of generosity; my magic is about empowerment, and my nature is to give in hardship. Whatever is needed, I can provide."
She smiled. "I never thought of it that way."
"Master used me a bit differently."
She glanced down. "Well, where do I go from here?"
"Start with an empty vial."
Nathalie dug one out of the drawer and filled it a bit with water at the kitchen sink - every potion began with at least a little water. She returned the atelier and set the vial on the desk, gripping the brooch in her hand even tighter.
Gabriel could experience the miraculous's power even while he wasn't transformed, as long as the brooch was pinned to him and Nooroo, active. But Nooroo was active now, and Nathalie wondered if she could feel emotions even with the brooch simply held in her palm. She was starting to think the way they functioned wasn't so black and white. Wanting to find out, she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the feeling of the miraculous on her skin, its weight and the warmth radiating from its center. When she steadied her breathing, she could sense the faint pulse of its life, and when she wondered if that was merely the feeling of her own heartbeat in her thumb, a moment passed when she realized the pulse was too slow to be her own. She counted multiple seconds between each delicate beat, sharpening her mind, trying to feel what it felt, hoping its magic could soak into her skin.
Minutes passed of nothing, and Nathalie found her grip hardening and hardening until both of her hands shook, but still, she could feel it pulsing. She could feel it stronger than she could feel her own heart, and if she could lodge it between the tendons in her hand then maybe it would still not feel close enough. Nathalie's breath hitched and shuddered out of her mouth, as very suddenly she was jolted by a rush of horror and shame, churning her insides so that she felt sick.
The brooch clattered on the floor as Nathalie bent forward, shaking out her hands as though they'd been burned. A shocked breath fired sharply into her lungs. She sat there for a moment as she gathered her senses, waiting for the heat in her skin to fade.
"My Lady," called Nooroo.
She groaned covering her face, "It didn't work."
"No, my Lady, it did." She raised her eyes to glare at him. He floated just low enough that his little feet barely brushed against the surface of the desk. Concern made his eyes wide and shiny. "What did you feel?"
"I don't know. Everything was fine until I…" She trailed off. A hand dropped and dangled above the drawer containing her many potions. And her medicine. Need was a bitter taste on the back of her tongue. She couldn't force out the rest of her sentence.
"My Lady, you sensed your own emotions." Nooroo retrieved the brooch off the floor and set it carefully on top of the grimoire once more.
"What?"
"You felt them as you would feel them normally, but you also felt them as translated through the miraculous. That is to say," he added, blinking, "it worked."
It worked.
She used a miraculous.
Nathalie threw open the drawer and reached for her medicine. Nooroo offered not a word as she swallowed the contents of the vial. The next moment, she pulled out the green healing potion, the remaining half of its substance still swirling around in the glass, before she set it down on the desk and fired up her tablet to open up the grimoire's translations.
"This," she said, holding up the vial she had just emptied, the taste of which persisted in her mouth and throat, "has ingredients completely unique to the peacock miraculous, and one ingredient, aside from water, that it shares with this." She placed the empty glass down and grabbed the green healing potion. "That ingredient gives each of them their healing properties, as it does to every other healing potion in this grimoire, including the one connected to the butterfly miraculous. Eliminating that one ingredient leaves me with the beginning of a potion totally unique to the butterfly. That's the next step."
She flipped through her translations until she found what she was looking for, the instructions for a butterfly healing concoction. She copied the list onto her notebook, leaving out the common ingredient, a drop of ethanol. Then, she rose from her seat to gather what she needed.
"You're going to continue working?" Nooroo asked. He glanced at the dark window. "It is getting late, and Master told me - "
"I know, but there's no point in sleeping after all that."
Once she had acquired what she needed and taken some time to check on and feed the baby, Nathalie filled the vial with each necessary component until she had come up with an unremarkable murky mixture, which she set on the center of the desk.
"How does this work?" she wondered aloud, more to herself than to Nooroo. "Is it like the power-up? Does it have to react to…"
She dropped the brooch into the vial, hoping it would trigger something, that the potion would sparkle and light up like her hand did into a ball of flames, but nothing happened, it sank to the bottom and nothing happened. Nathalie sucked in her cheeks, feeling a little silly.
"Nooroo, could you touch it?"
He did, but the mixture was as lifeless as ever. He fished the brooch out and set it on a paper towel.
Nathalie dried it off. "I suppose I just…" She palmed it. "Keep trying. If I can sense the magic at a distance, there has to be a way to draw it out, right?"
"Perhaps so, my Lady."
Nathalie moved to the couch for that, crossing her legs and pressing the miraculous into the center of her palm. Her heart rate accelerated as she sensed its energy once more, reminded of that surge of fear that gripped her the closer she felt to its power, and to the person she used to be. Nooroo tried to encourage her once more to take a break for the night, but she refused.
She shut her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, keeping it rhythmic and slow, while each crest of dread that surfaced out of the calm she forced was pushed below again. She tried to feel the fear in her own body before feeling it in the miraculous, so it didn't sweep her under again, so she could brave it if it came and silence it if it tried to stay.
You can do this. It's the butterfly.
With her eyes closed, this brooch didn't feel much different from the peacock. Small and hard and lightweight, smooth and warm and teeming with magic that once consumed her, even when she wasn't wearing it. She couldn't get far enough away. The cloak of its power hung off her body everywhere she went, dragging her further and further down until she was drowning, tangled in its grip. She handed the miraculous over for the last time, and days later she closed her eyes to blackness, expecting never to know light again. She was too weak now to break the surface. Too weak to anything but sink lower. Lower. She did it because she wanted to. She did it because it was going to be okay without her. She did it because -
Nathalie flinched as her emotions screamed out through the magic. They felt sharp and old somehow. The miraculous bit into her skin. She loosened her grip. She kept her eyes shut. She waited for it to pass.
You can do this. You can.
This time, she didn't squeeze her hand closed. She let the miraculous sit freely in her cupped palm. Her knuckles ached from curling her fingers so tightly.
You have to do this.
She tried again, and it took much longer, now. She wondered how much time was passing, and then she scolded herself for wondering because she needed to focus. Her mind was dulled by the trepidation hovering at the periphery of every thought she had. There was no use to being afraid, but she was so used to being afraid. The thought of having broken apart one day was just as humiliating as the thought of having always been like this, but she preferred the possibility that she'd changed, that she'd become worse, because that meant she could change back. So when did it all start? When she had a baby? When she got married? When she learned that she didn't have to let go?
Another flare of emotion burst within her and she clenched her teeth. Nathalie dropped the butterfly miraculous on the coffee table. She opened her eyes and stared at it, stared at its deep violet center, tried to find that rhythm in the way the light reflected off its surface. She wondered if a miraculous knew whether it was pinned to a holder or carried in their hand.
She leaned close to it, squinted her eyes, watched as carefully as she could, until she saw it. That movement. That pulse. A part of her questioned if it was just an illusion her mind was fabricating out of desperation to make something work. Desperation. She remembered how that felt, like the pull of gravity, like a wrench in the heart, like a rope around the neck - it burned, not with heat or with cold but with some sensation unlike any other. She reached for it now. She tried to. She wondered if she could grasp it, feel it, draw it out, make it hers, if this was the way it worked.
There was this tension in the air...like a thin film, something she could tear apart with her fingernails.
And when she pressed against it, she inhaled sharply, for there was this brush against her throat.
Was this all in her head? Was this just a memory?
There was pressure on her chest, and she couldn't breathe. Had she found it? Was this the emotion? She pushed further, and the air seemed to bend and curve and she was desperate to break free. Trapped beneath the surface of water, drowning again, fingers never able to puncture through the wall, and it didn't make sense because she was supposed to be free now.
Suddenly, Nooroo flew into view. "My Lady, I think you should stop. This isn't good for you."
"No, I'm okay," she insisted, fighting not to lose her concentration.
But Nooroo surprised her. "Nathalie," he said, and she turned to him in shock that he used her name. "This isn't the way to do this."
Whatever connection she'd forged, she lost it. Her mind struck something solid as stone. "It was working."
"You're scared of the miraculous, but this isn't going to help you heal from that. You're relying on your misery."
She said nothing.
"You've made significant progress on this, but I don't know how easy it will be to do what the Sorcerer is able to do. I know your nature. You want to help." He came closer and put a little hand on her knee, quieting his voice. "This might not be the way to do it."
Nathalie winced. "What do you think? That I should stand by?"
"No, if you are to help, then you must try to confront your fear rather than cling to it," he said delicately twitching his wings.
"You think I should take up the peacock again?" she whispered.
"It won't hurt you," he told her.
"I know. It's fixed," she said hollowly.
"You should do what is best for you, my Lady." He glanced at the butterfly miraculous and shook his head.
"But…"
"This is not the way."
Nathalie turned away, her anxious expression finally falling. Her heart was tough and her mind, weary.
Nooroo let her be once he saw that her attention was fixed anywhere else but on the miraculous. He drifted off to the other side of the room while she remained cross-legged on the couch, hugging herself lamely and staring at the bookshelves behind her husband's work station. What was she meant to do if this was not the correct path? Marinette had asked this of her, but it seemed like she and everyone else was reluctant to let her continue, like they were scared for her. The feeling made her skin crawl.
A number of photographs sat framed in some of the gaps between books and various glass decorative pieces on the shelves. There was one of Anaīs just days old, one of Adrien holding her for the first time, another of Adrien standing in the nursery the day he and Gabriel surprised her by decorating it, the brightest look of joy on his face. She loved his joy, and she'd needed it then. She wanted his sunny smile to shine from within that frame and warm her heart, but the hair raised on her arms. She was cold.
Nathalie hadn't any idea how much time had passed when she finally told herself to get up. The night was only deepening, and she should be getting to bed. But she felt weighed down. Even as her eyelids drooped, she couldn't bring herself to rise, remove her things from Alain's desk and retire upstairs. Maybe it had something to do with the miraculous still sitting on the coffee table, gleaming under the room's dim yellow light like an eye fixed on her. She couldn't help but be aware of it boring into her cheek as her head was turned, feel the heat of its life as though it blazed with the warmth of the sun .
What do you want from me?
She slipped it into her pocket and was all too aware of it pressing against her hip, but she hoped that that would lessen some of the guilt weighing heavy on her now.
She rested her head in the sofa cushions, fixing her eyes back on those photographs, on Adrien, whom she loved as her own son but had once failed so severely, it was nothing short of wondrous he forgave her; on Anaïs, whom she would give every breath of her life not to wrong the same way. That meant being everything she hadn't been to Adrien: honest, hopeful, strong, good. When she held her baby for the first time, Nathalie cried. She cried because she was the happiest she'd ever been, and she cried because she didn't understand how the universe could give her something so fragile and perfect when she was so prone to breaking things.
Nathalie rubbed her cheek. It was still warm, and after several minutes had passed, she still felt as though she was being watched, like the miraculous continued to stare her down from the outside. An eeriness crept up her spine and into the rest of her bones, sending a shiver rippling through her body, strong enough to whirl her body around to face Nooroo once again.
"My Lady, you're alarmed," he commented.
She knew by some kind of instinct. Something wasn't right. Nathalie tapped on the miraculous in her pocket, but she was too shaken now to focus on sensing anything through it. She sprung to her feet and rushed to the atelier door, looking out into the dark hallway. The shape of her own shadow seemed so much more menacing to her now.
"Is something wrong?"
The baby monitor was silent. Anaīs was asleep.
"Nooroo," she said, looking back at him. "Is there someone here?"
The kwami froze in the air, and Nathalie knew he was sensing for a presence. A moment later, his wings flickered, and he shook his head. "My Lady, your family is all asleep. There is nobody else in the house."
She should have been able to trust his power, but her pulse only quickened as he spoke. Was it Plagg playing a trick on her? Was she losing her mind? Nathalie wandered slowly out to the foyer, then to the kitchen and dining room, finding nothing out of sorts. She jumped when she thought she saw someone walk past, but it was her own onyx reflection in the living room's glass doors. Everywhere she walked, she couldn't shake away this faint pressure on her skin. Her scalp prickled with unease.
"I must be going mad," she muttered, standing back in the atelier.
"No, I think you only need to rest. Master told me not to let you overwork yourself."
Reluctantly, Nathalie agreed to gather her things and retire upstairs, but all the while she and Nooroo were doing this, she couldn't stop herself from throwing quick glances over her shoulders, pausing her movement to listen for noises that weren't really there. Having placed everything in the box she'd brought with her, she clutched the baby monitor and flinched as it crackled. But nothing else. Anaīs still slept. Nathalie stared across the room at the photo of her newborn daughter, letting the image of her peaceful slumber paint itself across her mind.
She climbed the stairs slowly. Every shadow in the dark could have belonged to an intruder. In the box, glass vials rattled together while her shaking hands fought to remain steady. Nooroo came to a rest on Nathalie's shoulder and leaned his head into her jaw, trying to offer comfort.
Setting the box down in her office, she swore she caught movement in the corner of her eye, rushing past the room as if someone had followed behind her. She called out, "Gabriel?" but received no response. She couldn't hear footsteps either.
Nathalie reached for a vial and grabbed the first one her fingertips brushed against. The blood potion, a soft orange in the dark, faintly reflected off of Nooroo's wide, uncertain gaze. She couldn't bother wondering if there was a better option. She left the office, digging into her pocket to pull out the butterfly miraculous, which she pinned haphazardly to her shirt.
"My Lady!"
Nothing. Nathalie felt nothing but her own racing heart. She made for her baby's room anyway, her footsteps light and soundless as though she weighed nothing. She found the door was half-open, just as she had left it. Nathalie paused, listening, listening, the vial nearly slipping out of her sweaty hand. She held her breath. And for just a moment, a long and torturous moment, the house was so silent that she could near the muscles in her neck working as she stretched her head forward.
Nathalie waited. She didn't know for how long she waited, but her lungs begged for air, and she did not relent. She waited until her heartbeat boomed in her ears and her left hand stopped feeling the glass in its steely grip.
She waited until the silence finally broke.
Until –
Anaīs whined.
Nathalie felt her soul leap out of her body. She barreled through the door, ice cold fear slicing through her chest like a spear, and joining it was this fierce, primal rage, a sensation she had never once felt before, not even through the miraculous. It was crippling, it contracted every muscle in her body, pierced every nerve, like the brooch was sinking into her skin and melting and poisoning her.
A horrified gasp lanced through the room when Nathalie saw him, that shadow in the room, a tall, dark blot against the pale pink wall. His head snapped to look her way. His face was indistinguishable through the pool of inky blackness that obscured him completely. Nathalie felt deathly sick at the sight of his broad, jagged wings, rising from his side to hover over the crib. Her baby laid within, her whines mounting into watery shrieks, and a switch flipped in her mind.
"Get away from her!"
She smashed the vial against the door. Shattered glass rained down from her tremorous fingers. The orange potion soaked into the skin she had split apart. Nathalie barely noticed the sizzling sting in the freshly bleeding abrasions. Her blood mixed with magic and it hurt like nothing else, but it didn't matter.
"Nooroo!" she cried, voice charged with lightning, "Wings rise!"
Purple light washed over her body, but Nathalie saw only red. She rushed forth, raising the cane that had formed in her unafflicted hand and tearing it through the air towards the shadow's head. But he vanished. The cane punched through the wall. Anaïs screamed. Nathalie could only spare a quarter of a second to look at her laying there, her fists and feet held up, her face screwed up in terror.
Nathalie knew by the chill on her scalp that he had reappeared behind her. She looked at her bleeding hand to find it glowing bright orange, the magic emanating from her body reacting with the potion. This wouldn't work if she couldn't touch him. She made a fist, the blood trickling out from between her fingers.
She whirled around and lunged again. Those great black wings stretched out to stop her, but Nathalie wouldn't hold back. In the last second, his feathers smoothed out. She felt nothing as she made her collision, his silhouette melting into a cloud of smoke that enveloped her entirely. She was suddenly blind. Nathalie swung her cane through the darkness, trying to rip it apart. An incredible wrath fired through her blood. She pounded her fist against the floor, releasing an enraged shriek. The magic in her hand crackled and exploded beneath her in an utterly useless flare of power. The orange light dimmed and died.
No, no, no!
Somebody called her name, but she hardly registered it. The smoke lifted the very next second. Nathalie shot up, taking no more than a heartbeat to recognize the coast was clear before she practically careened into the crib. Footsteps and voices sounded out in the hallway, but she could pay no mind to them. Her baby. Her baby was crying. But her baby was here.
"Ana…" she choked out. Nathalie's cane dropped onto the floor. She reached for her daughter, only for her left hand to freeze in midair. It was soaked in blood. A crimson pearl streamed down her index finger and splattered on the crib mattress beside Anaïs's head.
"Nathalie!"
She stumbled back. A thousand thorns of fear sank into her skin and it didn't all belong to her. The butterfly miraculous poured emotion out over her body and set her aflame. Nathalie's knees buckled. Before she hit the floor, an arm wrapped around her waist, bringing her slowly down into a tight and desperate embrace. A sob trembled out from between her lips. She cried her daughter's name.
From her left side, Adrien stepped into view. Nathalie could see through the dark that he was white as a sheet. He reached into the crib and pulled his little sister out. Nathalie watched him press the infant to his chest, protecting her head with his hand as he bounced her up and down and tried to soothe her crying.
"Nathalie, Nathalie, my love, what happened?" Gabriel brushed her hair back and set his cool hand on her face. "Talk to me, please."
She couldn't say anything but her baby's name.
"I've got her," Adrien assured Nathalie, then he looked into Anaïs's face. "I've got you, Baby Girl. Everything's okay."
"Nathalie," Gabriel murmured again. He attempted to guide her eyes to his own.
"Gabriel," she sobbed. She wanted to bury her face in his chest, but to take her eyes off Anaïs was unthinkable. Adrien stroked her dark hair, his green gaze fixed on her. He gave her kiss after kiss and tried to shush her cries. She's there. She's right there, Nathalie told herself.
"Your hand," Gabriel said, taking her wrist. The blood had soaked into her sleeve, and she was only just now noticing her change in her appearance, the deep violet jacket and the white lace ruffle peeking through, dyed mostly scarlet now.
"It was him," Nathalie said. A violent hatred stabbed through her chest. She freed herself from Gabriel's arms and stumbled to her feet, holding her injured hand to her chest. "He was here. He was standing over her. He was going to…" She bent at the waist, gasping. "Oh, God."
Gabriel set a hand on her back. "Marinette," he called, steadying her, "Go get the first-aid kit. And some water."
Nathalie glanced back. The addressed young lady had been standing in the doorway the entire time, but Nathalie was only now taking notice of her. Marinette's countenance was pale with horror at the scene she'd witnessed. She'd been wringing her hands guiltily when Gabriel spoke to her. On his request, she dipped her head and disappeared, moving rather quickly, like she was eager to leave the room.
"What is she…?" Nathalie began to ask.
"Baby Girl's calming down," Adrien murmured. He continued to rock Anaïs as he went to turn the lights on for the rest of them, and only then did Nathalie see the damage that had been done. A hole was punctured into the wall above Anaïs's crib, there were scratches on the door made by shattered glass now piled in the entryway, and a black mark on the floor where the potion had faltered. Nathalie swayed, ill.
"You should sit down," Gabriel said and guided her to the rocking chair. Nathalie gathered her violet overskirt in her uninjured hand and sat. A glance at her reflection in one of the dark windows across the nursery revealed a disheveled ponytail, loose black strands framing a haunting expression. Nathalie couldn't believe it was her own face she was looking at, glaring grievously from behind a lacy white mask.
Her husband knelt before her, stroking her knee. "He was here?"
"I thought...I knew that something was wrong," she whispered. "Nooroo said that everything was fine, but...I had to make sure. And he was standing there. Right over that crib. He…" She shook her head incredulously. "He found us."
"Did he hurt her?" Gabriel asked, his pale blue eyes going hard as stone.
"I don't think so."
He gave a sigh of relief. Over his shoulder, Adrien cooed at the baby, who continued to whine but had ceased her frightened crying. He kissed her nose, promised her everything was going to be alright.
Gabriel squeezed her leg. "Did he see you transform?"
"Transform…" she repeated. It took her a moment to process what he'd asked her, but when she realized, the question struck her like a blow to the chest. Her blood ran cold. Her fingers uncurled to release her overskirt, which spilled onto the floor. She wanted to leap out of her own skin.
"He did, didn't he?"
"Oh no," she wheezed. Shame rippled through her body, the pulse of the miraculous beating into her chest. "No."
She tore the brooch off, and the transformation was ripped away along with it. Nooroo appeared before her as the miraculous rattled on the floor, his eyes wide and teeming with sympathy. She found him agonizing to look at.
"Nathalie, don't panic." Gabriel reached for her face, brushing his thumb beneath her eyes. "It's okay."
"No, it's not," she cried. "He saw me."
"He was here anyway. He already knew."
Marinette returned with the first-aid kit, which Adrien took off her hands and gave to his father. She walked a water glass over to Nathalie herself, unable to meet the older woman's penetrating gaze. She sized up the girl, noticing how she was dressed in pajamas, her hair a mess from having been slept on. Both Tikki and Plagg hung timidly by her ears, looking just as full of guilt.
Nathalie rejected the water. A murderous scowl fell over her face. All of the anger she had directed at herself a moment ago, she aimed at Adrien when she turned to him and demanded, "Why is she still here?"
Both teenagers flinched. Neither answered.
"Why," Nathalie said again, " is she still here?"
Below her, Gabriel's own expression turned sour, but he did not interfere. He opened the first-aid kit and tried to take her bleeding hand, but Nathalie snatched it away and shot to her feet. "Marinette, why didn't you go home tonight?"
Stepping back several paces, Marinette stammered through a frightened apology, "I-I-I'm sorry, M-Mrs. Agreste. I—"
"We didn't know you were staying here," Nathalie growled. She would have felt awful for terrifying the girl so, had her child not just been threatened, had she not been so sick with rage at herself. Marinette nearly dropped the glass, half of its contents spilling out onto the floor.
Adrien was red as a beet. "We didn't do anything," he insisted.
"Oh, you think that's what I mean?" laughed Nathalie. She outstretched her bleeding hand. "Be honest with me. I know you two didn't tell us everything this afternoon. You're keeping the truth from us."
Marinette looked down. "Don't blame Adrien. I thought-"
"Marinette," Adrien warned.
"I have to tell them," she said back softly. She rolled back her shoulders. "Last night, I thought…I thought I sensed someone in my room. Someone coming for my earrings. And I think it was Conspiracy."
"What?" Gabriel demanded.
She gulped and covered her face with one of her hands. "Tikki didn't sense anyone in the room. But if he would come again, I thought he would be coming for me. I wanted –"
"And you thought staying here was a better idea?" shouted Nathalie. The baby started whimpering.
"I wanted to be here," Marinette said, "I was afraid something like this would happen."
"Why didn't you say something?"
Adrien piped up. "Father." He appeared frightened by the thoughts in his own head. "We thought if Conspiracy came back for Marinette's earrings, he would go to her place instead. And we wanted to be here in case something happened because…" He pressed his eyes shut. "Because Lila told us she suspects you of being Hawkmoth."
Gabriel and Nathalie froze.
"We're sorry, Father. We're sorry but –"
"What happened to not hiding things from each other?" said Gabriel, his voice dangerously low. His words wounded Adrien.
"We didn't think this would happen." Marinette stared at Nathalie's hand, at the drops of blood that had pooled under her feet.
Nathalie gawked. "But how could you not mention that?"
"Because!" Marinette cried. "I didn't want to upset you again."
The baby screamed.
"That's enough!" Gabriel barked, banging his fist on the dresser. "We're not having this conversation now. Take the baby and go!"
Adrien grabbed Marinette by the hand and pulled her along with him as he made for the hallway, and their two kwamis dashed out behind them. Anaïs's cries clawed a hole into Nathalie's heart, and they grew only slightly quieter as the door to Adrien's bedroom was shut. Nathalie wanted nothing else but to hold her baby. She wanted to fold her body around her and rock her and never release her again. She very nearly followed Adrien out of the room, but Gabriel kept her in place, gripping her shoulder and slowly lowering her back down into the rocking chair.
He began tending to her wounds, wiping the blood from her hand and her arm with wipes that stung far less than that potion. Nooroo kept his eyes on the floor as he floated gingerly to the opposite side of the room. He stopped in the same place they had found Conspiracy when they burst inside. Nathalie ducked her head, her uninjured hand curling tightly over the arm of the chair until her knuckles were white.
Gabriel finished cleaning her hand and fished for some bandages. "Nathalie," he breathed, her name shuddering on his lips. "Are you okay?"
He asked because the answer was obvious, and the question was needed to dissipate her shock and anger and force her to process what had just happened. Nathalie felt something waver inside her, and then finally snap apart.
She began to sob with her entire body. Everything from her feet to her shoulders quaked as she gasped to keep her breath. She could not keep her hand steady enough for Gabriel to wrap it in bandages.
"No," she wailed. Tears slid down her nose. She just wanted her baby. "No, no, no, no…"
When she closed her eyes, a shadow moved across her mind, striking a bitter fear into her heart stronger than any miraculous could manage.