Someday, We'll Breathe Again

by Reminiscent Lullaby

The Agreste household has seemed to change for the better since Gabriel gave up the butterfly miraculous. But now, after twenty-two months without Hawkmoth, old and new enemies alike step out of the shadows to threaten the fragile peace and shake the Agreste family to its core. When the façades drop, nothing will ever be the same again.

17. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

"You're back. Good. Ladybug was about to get started. Where's Mayura?"

Hawkmoth strolled to the center of the room where his son stood waiting for him with folded arms. They were out of earshot of the Sorcerer as long as they kept their voices low. Fastened to a chair by Ladybug's yo-yo, the Sorcerer hung their head and sat in silence. They hadn't resisted when Hawkmoth had previously attempted to remove the mask from their face, allowing him at first to search for a strap, and then merely groaning in discomfort as he tried to pry it off their skin until giving up.

"Getting someone to watch the baby. She'll join us shortly," he answered.

Chat Noir nodded.

"How is Lila?"

"The same." They glanced over to the wall opposite of the Sorcerer. Lila had her back to the rest of the room, knees pulled up to her chest and hands clasped around her ankles. "We'll give it some more time. Maybe if we can get the Sorcerer to talk, she'll follow suit. I admit I'm worried, though. I really don't know what to think of it."

"It's unsettling for sure."

"Even after everything she's done, I can't stand to see her like that. She seems broken."

"If we get some answers, then maybe we can fix it," said Hawkmoth gravely. "We'll just have to keep an eye on her."

Lila seemed to hear them. She tossed her wild green gaze over her shoulder and sharply locked them on Hawkmoth. Through the whirlwind of bewildering emotions he sensed from the girl, he suddenly felt a solid stab of loathing, an indication – though not a very comfortable one – that she wasn't too far gone. But then she turned back around and scooted close enough to the wall that her toes touched it.

Ladybug approached them, transformed with her miraculous back in her possession. Once the Sorcerer had been paralyzed by Queen Wasp, the earrings had been shaken out of their sleeve, and Marinette wasted no time seizing them for herself once more. They'd also found a second fox pendant in addition to the one the Sorcerer had previously tossed onto the floor, and one was assumed to be the duplicate Lila claimed belonged to her grandmother. When Ladybug offered it back to her, however, Lila had shrunk away in fear, screaming that she wanted nothing to do with it, so Ladybug held onto it for the time being.

"I guess we start with the basic questions," Ladybug said to Hawkmoth and Chat Noir. "I don't think we'll get any answers, but if there's anything you can sense from them emotionally –"

"I can't," interrupted Hawkmoth with a shake of his head. "Their emotions are muffled. I won't be able to detect anything very precise."

"Well, try to detect something. I don't have very high hopes otherwise. We've never done something like this before. All I know is that using force wouldn't be a very heroic thing to do."

Hawkmoth assumed Ladybug would have that mindset, but he certainly would have been more willing to try it. He kept his mouth shut, however.

Ladybug blew at her bangs and turned around. Her shoulders squared, she advanced towards the Sorcerer with an effortlessly assumed confidence. Hawkmoth and Chat Noir remained where they stood, but Chat's enhanced hearing would allow him to pick up on any conversation that was carried out under breath.

The Sorcerer didn't move. Their mask was aimed at their lap, and even when Ladybug stepped close enough for her legs to be visible, they chose not to look up.

"Well?" Ladybug prompted, her voice reverberating crisply through the lair. "Do you have an actual name we can call you by?"

"No," was their response, the first word they'd uttered since Queen Wasp freed them from their paralysis.

"I hope you're comfortable with 'Sorcerer', then."

No response.

"I'll cut to the chase." Ladybug lifted the Sorcerer's chin and ran her thumb roughly along the edge of the mask, as if searching for the texture of an adhesive. "Who are you, and what did you want with my miraculous?"

Silence. That their expression was completely obscured was becoming a source of outrage for Hawkmoth, who was already blind to the way they felt.

"With the knowledge you have of magic, you must be aware of what it's capable of, right?" Ladybug said, keeping her voice firm and level, though Hawkmoth could sense her resolve becoming brittle. "You made no effort to steal the black cat miraculous. You seemed content to have only the ladybug. Why is that?"

"I don't need the black cat," they answered.

"If not, then you must only be interested in the ladybug's power, the Lucky Charm."

The Sorcerer shrugged.

Putting her hands on her hips, Ladybug released an exasperated huff of breath that she tried to mask as an expression of pity. Her voice, too, she deliberately made to sound excessively patronizing. "I'd think you could come up with a better lie, since you're talking to the guardian of the miracle box after all, and the holder of the ladybug miraculous for almost four years now. You know you can't control what object manifests when you command Lucky Charm, so why would you expect me to believe you need that power – a power you can't dictate to your whim?"

Hawkmoth thought he'd heard a reply, but according to Chat Noir, it was only a low grunt.

"How did you find the box?" asked Ladybug.

"You're going to move on so quickly? Where's your conviction?"

"Here's conviction: how did you find the box?" Ladybug repeated through gritted teeth.

"Luck."

"Of course. How did you find the box, and why didn't you ever try taking my earrings from me directly?"

"Oh, I did. Once, I believe two nights ago. Don't you remember?" the Sorcerer sneered. Their shoulders had been hunched forward, but now they straightened their spine and rolled them back, demonstrating their width. "Fairly certain I woke you up that night. It was a risk."

Ladybug took an involuntary step back. "That was you?"

"Couldn't have been Conspiracy."

"But you –"

"Tiger miraculous potion," said the Sorcerer. "Invisibility powers. Right, guardian?"

This wounded Ladybug. She hesitated to respond, and in that stretch of silence, the Sorcerer deflated once more, their head drooping, their shoulders falling forward. They hung so limply that Hawkmoth thought they would have fallen out of the chair if not for the yo-yo string keeping them secure.

Ladybug's voice was meek when she next spoke. She knelt before the Sorcerer, ensuring her face was visible. "Can I ask you about that?"

"You're so polite. Not surprising." The Sorcerer paused. "About what?"

"The guardians. The ones in Tibet. I don't know if you have any connection to them, although to be honest, it's almost a certainty given how much you knew about us, but…"

"You want to know about the guardians?" asked the Sorcerer. Their voice was unusually soft, almost with disbelief.

"If you can spare any information about them. Anything at all. Or, if you know anything in particular about the previous guardian of the box you stole," Ladybug said. Her tone had lost any trace of steeliness she'd possessed when she first approached the Sorcerer. "I knew him as Master Wang Fu."

"The name is…" Sharply, they turned their head away. "Unfamiliar."

Chat Noir widened his eyes at his father and mouthed back their response. The name is unfamiliar. Did that mean the Sorcerer was familiar with a number of other guardians? For them to have a connection to the temple was no surprise, but to hear them nearly admit it quickened Hawkmoth's pulse. He and Chat Noir turned their attention back towards the scene.

"I don't know whether to believe you," Ladybug murmured.

"That's the nature of these arrangements, isn't it?"

"Did Master Fu have anything to do with this? Did you learn about us through him?"

Ladybug flinched as the Sorcerer stretched their neck as far as they could manage towards her face. The dark slits in their mask appeared to narrow, though Hawkmoth was sure it was a trick of the light. "Forget the guardians," they told her. "You don't need them."

Springing to her feet, Ladybug glared down into their mask. "You do know them."

"Think what you'd like," they retorted.

"Who are they to you? Were you one of them? Are you still one of them?"

"And why should that matter to you?" the Sorcerer shot back. For the first time since being secured, they struggled under their bindings, shifting the chair beneath them. "I've had enough of this. If you knew what I wanted, you'd see this shit is an overreaction on your part."

"You stole the box!"

"And I gave it back."

"You stole my miraculous," added Ladybug incredulously.

"And I was going to give it back when I was done with it."

"If it was really no big deal, Sorcerer, then why can't you just tell me what you were going to do?"

They whispered something.

"What?" Hawkmoth said to Chat Noir, who narrowed his eyes, straining to make out what was said.

Then, he quoted back, "'I made a promise'."

Ladybug questioned, "To who?"

The Sorcerer refused to speak further to the heroine. She asked a multitude of questions, but received absolutely nothing in response, not even a sigh. After several minutes of trying, she gave up and retreated to the center of the room where her companions waited for her. Chat Noir took her by the arm and asked if she was okay, to which she only gave a weak shrug.

"Perhaps, it's time to escalate," Hawkmoth suggested.

"I don't know, Father…"

"That doesn't feel like the right thing to do."

"I understand that, but," Hawkmoth glanced at the Sorcerer, grip hardening around his cane, "we can't even look at their face. I can't feel their emotions. This isn't going to get anywhere if we only insist on asking them moderately uncomfortable questions. Two years ago, had you myself tied to a chair - ability to disarm me of my miraculous notwithstanding - I'd have refused to speak at all, unless you made me."

Chat Noir looked at the floor, ears folding against his head.

"We could take them to the police," said Ladybug. "They're apprehended, they are without their magic. They are out of the way of potentially harming the city. Perhaps, it would be wise not to overstep."

"And what will the police do? Confirm their identity using what DNA sample, exactly?" challenged Hawkmoth.

"They've told us there's someone else involved. Someone they made a promise to. They're not alone. If this is bigger than us, we'll need help," she reasoned.

"I'm not thrilled with the idea of communicating with law enforcement, Ladybug," Hawkmoth said with a lift to his lip, and her eyes blew wide when it dawned on her what she was asking of him. "Not before I can be certain they won't try to arrest me before cooperating with us about the Sorcerer."

"You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just –" Ladybug ran a hand down her face, "Gosh, I don't know what I was thinking. This is so difficult. I just don't want to hurt them."

"And that's noble of you, but if you ask me –"

"I think I have an idea," Chat Noir interrupted before his father could once again suggest using physical force. He had his right hand curled into a fist against his chest. Hawkmoth caught the faint green blinking of his ring. "I didn't want to try it earlier but…if we're running out of options…"

He approached the Sorcerer before either Hawkmoth or Ladybug could ask after him. The masked foe looked up quickly when they noticed him advancing, seeming immediately more alert than they did when confronted by Ladybug.

"Leave me alone," they grumbled. A single, harsh jerk of their body failed to loosen the bindings.

"I only have one question for you," said Chat Noir. Once he'd come to halt right at their knee, he held his right hand up, palm towards the ceiling. "What would happen if I cataclysmed your mask?" he asked.

The Sorcerer chuckled darkly, shaking their head. "I'm surprised you haven't already. Go ahead, try it."

"Chat Noir…" Ladybug warned, doubt teeming in her gaze.

But her partner ignored her. "Cataclysm," he murmured. Black energy bubbled around his fingers, but the Sorcerer did not wince. Hawkmoth shifted his weight, finding himself reminded of his first encounter with the Sorcerer, whose hand had been surrounded in that identical dark magic before he felt such searing heat through his chest he wondered if he was being killed. He nearly called for his son to stop, but before he could speak, Chat Noir laid his hand across the lower-half of the mask. Hawkmoth's heart jumped in expectation of it falling apart, revealing the face of a stranger beneath it, the stranger who tried to break his miraculous, who paralyzed him, who apparently had broken into his house and played with potions there.

But the mask didn't crack. There was a high-pitched whistle under Chat Noir's palm, and then a loud burst that elicited a shriek from Lila across the room. The Sorcerer cried out, their head firing back, while Chat Noir sprang away and gave a hiss of pain. His wrist went limp as he shook out his hand, reacting as though he'd touched a burning stove.

The Sorcerer groaned. A small black mark, like a streak of soot, was a blemish on a once-perfectly silver mask, but Hawkmoth watched in consternation as it faded away in a matter of seconds. Their chest heaved with pained breaths that eventually evened out. Chat Noir curled his right hand into a fist and cradled it with his left, glaring at the Sorcerer wordlessly.

"It's magic," they mumbled. "You can't cataclysm my mask any more than you can cataclysm Ladybug's – without breaking her nose instead."

"Did I break –?!"

"Luckily, my mask is more robust than your scraps of fabric, which barely conceal your browbone."

Chat Noir's sigh of relief that he hadn't inflicted any long-lasting damage earned him a curious tilt of the Sorcerer's head. Hawkmoth imagined their eyes flicking up and down.

"How sweet of you to be concerned." They didn't sound very touched. A half-minute passed where they attempted to free one of their arms from the yo-yo string, moving their elbow back and forth. It was clear they'd had something on their mind during those tense thirty seconds, for a humorless laugh eventually rippled out of their throat, taking everyone in the room by surprise. Hawkmoth watched Lila fold into a tighter ball out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly, the Sorcerer told Chat Noir, "You're too moralistic for your own good."

Chat Noir backed away several paces. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just can't help but notice," they spat. "It's so…predictable of you to be worried that you may have broken the bone of your enemy. You probably hold yourself to a high standard and expect everyone else to follow. Well, you might want to change that habit." They shook their head. Chat Noir flinched as they scooted forward in their chair. The scrape of the legs against the metal floor produced a grinding sensation against Hawkmoth's teeth. "You have a tendency to be disappointed in people when they do exactly what you know them to be capable of. Lila could kick a fucking kitten and you'd act shocked."

"Where…" Chat Noir's green gaze sharpened. "Where is this coming from?"

"My bad, I have some peeves. Probably not the best time to be bringing them up." By now, the Sorcerer had raised their voice well above the low rasp they had otherwise been speaking through. Hawkmoth didn't need a miraculous to know they were angry, and as long as he had his ears, he could tell that this anger was not a cool or steady or reasonable emotion. Something in their tone sounded audibly and psychologically discordant.

Chat Noir had no idea how to respond. He held the Sorcerer's stare for a moment longer before leaving them, returning to his father's side with a white face and tightly pressed lips.

"Their disguise is magic," was all he told them.

Ladybug brushed at some of his hair and took his hands in her own. "It was worth a try. But that's something, isn't it? If they created that mask with a spell, then we just need to find a way to break it."

"It won't be easy."

The rumble of the floor beneath Hawkmoth's feet announced the arrival of his wife following Chat Noir's grim statement. Mayura stepped off the lift, her bright pink eyes landing immediately upon the Sorcerer on one end of the lair, and then on Lila on the other, before finally reaching the faces of her family in between them. Mayura unfurled her fan over her mouth as she joined Hawkmoth, Chat Noir, and Ladybug, obscuring a stiff frown behind those soft white feathers. She was carrying the grimoire under her arm as well as a tablet.

"Anaïs is taken care of?" Hawkmoth asked her as she planted herself beside him.

She nodded.

"And Alain doesn't mind, I hope?"

"She's with Ruby and Jacques. I couldn't get ahold of Alain." Mayura tucked a loose strand of indigo hair behind her ear. She nodded at her allies. "So, any luck so far?"

They filled her in on what they'd learned up until then, which was ultimately very little. Mayura was not surprised that the Sorcerer implied a connection to the guardians and appeared more irritated than intrigued about their magical disguise. "That goes beyond what I'd be able to undo with this," she remarked, holding out the grimoire for Ladybug to take.

"Do you think we should see if they recognize this text?" asked the girl.

"You can try."

She did try, but the Sorcerer was unresponsive.

Mayura sighed and turned to her husband, who could not resist adjusting the lace collar wrapped around her slender blue neck. She ran her thumbs across his knuckles as she murmured, "I don't know what this person would have to say to me, but I certainly have a lot I'd like to ask of them."

"You can go ahead. Neither Ladybug for Chat Noir acquired much, but every little bit might lead us to something."

Mayura's first question was, "What were you doing in this house?"

The Sorcerer had ducked their head upon noticing Mayura come near, but now they looked sharply up at her. "What?"

"We saw the destroyed chair in the dining room. Why were you here?"

Hawkmoth felt a surge of alarm fire through him: Chat Noir reacting to Mayura's revelation. He looked at his father with wide, questioning eyes. "Here?" He merely received a silent nod. Hawkmoth was too focused on his wife and his foe to offer an explanation of the discovery now.

The Sorcerer didn't answer the question, however, apart from giving another violent tug at their bindings, which were certainly not coming any looser.

"You were practicing the cataclysm, were you not? You tried it on Hawkmoth's miraculous at the beginning of all of this. Suddenly, though, you don't seem too interested in that. What's are you trying to accomplish? It seems to me like you're playing around, and if there's someone you've made a serious promise to, I wouldn't think you'd be wasting your time like that, unless you actually intended to hurt Hawkmoth." Mayura's voice took on a dangerous rasp. Cool fury smoldered in Hawkmoth's veins, a clear indication of her emotion.

Even more dangerous was the tone of the Sorcerer when they snarled, "No." It seemed they made an effort to stand, for the chair lifted momentarily off the ground before falling back again with a crack. "I never meant to hurt any of you. I am not the villain you think I am." The Sorcerer jerked a foot this time. "I do not want to speak to you."

"Unfortunately, I have more questions." Mayura folded her fan and placed the tip of it under the Sorcerer's chin. They turned their head away, only for Mayura to grab their face anyway, by the edge of the mask. They shouted in protest, but they could not shake her off a second time. "Why Lila? You claim to not have wanted to hurt us, yet you recruit the help of someone you know has a bitter history with this group."

"Don't touch me," they growled.

Mayura stiffened her grip, pulling the Sorcerer's head higher. "Answer the question, and I'll let you go."

They said nothing.

"Truly, a compelling case you make for yourself," Mayura sneered. Anger crackled as her patience waned, small bursts of heat in Hawkmoth's chest. He did not disagree with her hostility, but he knew that if Mayura pushed too far, she would regret it later. He stepped forward and called gently to her.

At once, her grasp loosened. The Sorcerer pulled back and freed themselves, releasing a huff of indignation. Mayura did not back away but bent over and leaned her face close to the mask.

"Will you not even tell a fellow sorcerer what spell you performed against Lila to make her the way she is?"

They did not. They pushed the chair back.

Mayura was motionless and silent as well, but within her burned a violent rage, stifled from expanding to the exterior by the awareness of herself she'd acquired once Hawkmoth had reminded her of her fears. His wife was more disposed to respond coolly to difficult situations, but like himself, if her family was threatened she was far more likely to be rash, absent of consideration for how her actions would affect her when she had left the heat of the moment. Mayura wanted to hurt the Sorcerer. Mayura wanted to show them exactly who they had been messing with, but she remembered herself, and she did nothing.

Almost too softly to be heard, Mayura pressed, "Answer."

The Sorcerer refused.

"Please, if you're truly no villain," she murmured – a hand hovered above the Sorcerer's knee, but never found rest – "then I ask that you would be willing to help us by cooperating. Talk to us, and maybe we can help you."

There was still too much wrath coursing through Mayura's veins for Hawkmoth to know whether she had any intention of fulfilling that potential agreement. The Sorcerer's continued defiance only incited stronger waves, until Hawkmoth was tasting her anger, a bright and sour flavor that spread through his entire mouth, piercing his tongue and gums with thousands of microscopic needles.

"I know what it is like to not want to be seen as the bad guy. You and I might be more similar than you think."

This made the Sorcerer tense up, but they once again did not respond. Hawkmoth noticed how their head had turned by the slightest angle to face Mayura more directly, thereby recognizing that they may not have even been looking at her at all until that moment. Several heartbeats passed where they and Mayura appeared to be holding each other's stare, before their head turned back. And Hawkmoth realized, it was towards him.

Him, who had been the one to stand against the Sorcerer on multiple occasions, not only face-to-face but perhaps through Conspiracy as well.

His feet started to carry him towards them. Mayura's anger in the meantime was warping into distress as the sour taste on his tongue became duller and darker until there was something halfway between sharp wine and burnt coffee in his mouth. She didn't seem to notice him approach, but the Sorcerer's feet tugged at the strings, their head lifted higher.

"Mayura." She didn't react until he reached her side and set his hand on her shoulder. Blazing pink eyes flicked up to meet his, and at once she straightened her spine and faced him eagerly. "Do you mind if I step in?"

Throwing a quick glare over her shoulder, Mayura conceded. "Go on."

She seemed embarrassed by her lack of success, but Hawkmoth gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze as she started to make her way off. Chat Noir and Ladybug were asking her questions, but Hawkmoth could not pay attention to the exchange. He was focused on the Sorcerer now, who watched him very deliberately.

Hawkmoth planted his cane right between the Sorcerer's feet. "How many times have we met?" he asked.

They did not answer at first, and Hawkmoth feared this would be another worthless round of questions, until at last they said, "This would be the fourth, if you are counting the time I had paralyzed you this morning."

"I am."

"It is the fourth."

"The first would be the time you had tried to cataclysm my miraculous?"

"Correct."

"And the second?"

"It was my teleportation potion that brought you home after you had injured your head yesterday."

"You knew who I was even then?"

"I've always known." They inhaled sharply, then said, as if correcting themselves, "You detransformed in front of me."

"You were controlling Conspiracy both times?"

"Yes, to different extents, however."

Hawkmoth was shocked at how easily the Sorcerer answered his questions. They seemed a totally different person sitting before him than they had with Mayura, and even Ladybug and Chat Noir. But he tried not to allow his surprise show through his expression. Hawkmoth maintained a scowl, and he leaned down closer to the Sorcerer's face, who pressed themselves against the back of the chair in response despite not moving their face. "Care to elaborate?"

"Conspiracy was Lila's illusion most of the time. The only instance I had full control over him was during her first unauthorized attack," they explained, bitterness seeping into their tone.

"You were the one who warned me about her."

They dipped their head.

"So, why recruit her?"

It was the same question Mayura had asked. The Sorcerer hesitated, as if becoming aware of the difference in the way they were treating their questioners. They did not mind it enough to keep completely silent. "A couple reasons. I needed something." Hawkmoth had to lean in closer in order to make out the words. Their voice was so distorted that beneath a certain volume, only a mechanical rumble would register, or nothing at all. "Something to distract you. You were never meant to know me."

"You clearly hate her."

Silence. But something in the Sorcerer's body language affirmed this, whether it was consciously communicated or not.

"You hate her enough to have done something to her."

Behind them, Lila seemed to be slowly coming to her senses. She'd uncurled herself from that tight ball and now sat with her back against the wall. Hawkmoth and the Sorcerer watched her as her gaze briefly landed on them, narrowed to slits and then started darting across the rest of the room.

"What did you do?"

"Something she won't remember in time, if I did it right."

"If? Are you not trained?"

They didn't answer this.

"Was it some kind of memory-wiping spell?"

"Perhaps. You'll be glad for it."

"What did you make her forget?"

"Almost everything I no longer care for her to know about."

"Is she hurt?"

"What does it matter?" Hawkmoth recoiled, for it sounded to him that the Sorcerer's voice had cracked. He couldn't quite tell at first if it was the distortion failing or if they were on the verge of tears, but as they went on to speak, he realized they may have been truly crying. "What you don't understand, what none of you understand, is that everything I've done has been justified."

"And why do you believe that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I-I can't say. I made a promise."

"So you've said." Hawkmoth paused to look over his enemy, who he'd never carefully observed the appearance of before. Their disguise was so conspicuous that he'd never taken the time to notice the much less obvious details about them, that they were broad-shouldered, possibly muscular, possibly short-haired (their hood had fallen long before, but a skin-tight black bodysuit covered even their scalp). It was difficult to know what was a result of the transformation and what was an authentic attribute. The gloves were a non-magical addition, one of them having been ripped, but other than knowing the Sorcerer was light-skinned, anything else about them was uncertain.

After multiple moments of this quiet observation, Hawkmoth lifted his fingers up to his miraculous, which still communicated the emotions of the people behind him so strongly that they all started to blend together in an almost nauseatingly muddied combination, fighting for dominance right above his heart. Among the tangle of feelings was a lighter, finer thread, the one which created a space for itself but left no substance within it. The Sorcerer.

Hawkmoth lifted his cane off the floor and used the end of it to softly tap the Sorcerer's shoulder. "Why can't I feel your emotions?" he rumbled.

"The same reason Chat Noir can't destroy my mask. To protect me."

"I'm not a mind reader, you know. It's not as though I could know your secrets by knowing how you feel." They stared at him. "Unless it would make a difference?"

An automated noise responded to him.

"What was that? Enunciate," he snapped.

"I can't do this," they repeated, their voice shuddering out. "I can't look at you anymore. I can't look at any of you. I wish you would let me go." They rattled the chair, and screamed, "Let me go!"

Hawkmoth steadied the seat and held it down. He was certain he could hear the Sorcerer sobbing now.

"Fucking hell, release me," they snarled. "I can't stay here any longer."

"Calm down," he barked, "before I put you out myself."

They stopped struggling. Ragged breaths, when distorted, sounded a bit like a sputtering engine. "You could have let me go. That would have been the end of it. You'd never have seen me again, you'd never –" They cut themselves off with a frustrated grunt.

"Leave me the earrings." Their voice had gone quiet once again. Hawkmoth was sure that he'd been experiencing a pendulum of emotions had he the ability. Sharp emotional surges were such vibrant sensations to him; he'd have been blinded by this erratic person. "Leave me the earrings. And leave me the box. There's another miraculous I need, that I would not have needed if you'd let me go, if you'd let me – please, I know it's crazy, but you have to help me now."

Hawkmoth scrunched his eyes closed and exhaled heavily to quell his bewilderment. "We can't help you if you can't tell us everything we need to know."

"There's nothing you need to know, nothing, trust me."

"Trust you?" growled Hawkmoth incredulously. "That should be simple."

"You have to."

Hawkmoth's temper flared. "I don't believe you understand exactly what it is you've been doing," he snapped, making the Sorcerer flinch.

"I've –"

"How could we think of letting you go when you have been at the heart of a mission that has sent my family into great distress? I have a son. I have a daughter, a baby. I have a wife who has been through more hardship than you could imagine, and when you lost sight of your ally, lackey, whatever it is you call her, it hurt her more than I'd care to describe. Never, in a thousand years, would I have dreamed of letting you get away with that."

"I didn't…" they whispered.

"You didn't, what? You didn't know? You didn't think? Imagine having that luxury." Hawkmoth stood back. His knuckles cracked as his grip hardened around the hilt of his cane. "To you I may be nothing else than an obstacle, to you I may be nothing else than a super villain with the audacity to stand in the way of your goal, but you don't know what you have been threatening. I am a husband and a father and all I've ever wanted was to keep my family safe and whole. You will not get away with trying to tear it apart, whether or not you meant to. I will not stand to watch them suffer anymore."

The Sorcerer was quiet, apparently stunned, though it was hard to know. Hawkmoth simmered with anger that was his own, and he glared at the Sorcerer as if his eyes could set them aflame.

Then, they cried, "Please go away." They dropped their chin into their chest. "Leave me alone. I can't look at you. I can't hear your voice."

Hawkmoth listened. He'd gotten so much more out of them than he expected to, so without another word, he turned his back and returned to the center of the lair. Rain pelted against the rose window, and his family, all watching him from under its light, were drenched in the shadows of waterdrops.

---

"Lucky Charm!"

They'd had to replace the yo-yo with some rope Chat Noir found somewhere in the house. After Hawkmoth had finished questioning, it was suggested that Ladybug command the Lucky Charm, so that she might receive an object that could point them in the right direction. As the yo-yo rewound into Ladybug's fist, a splash of pink light above their heads materialized into a small red and black spotted item that clattered onto the floor at her feet.

"Again," Chat Noir mumbled.

It was a knife. Tightly pressing her lips, Ladybug scooped it up and looked it over in purposeful silence.

"I got this same object earlier this morning," she explained to Hawkmoth and Mayura.

The suggestion came up (though with much reluctance) that the knife could have been symbolic of freeing the Sorcerer from their bindings, that releasing them as they asked was the demand of whatever force it was exactly that communicated through Ladybug's power. However, to everyone's relief, the object must have also been useful long before the Sorcerer was ever tied to a chair, meaning it surely had nothing to do with them being free.

Ladybug attempted to slice through the Sorcerer's cloak. Though the blade did indeed make a tear in a sleeve, the fabric instantly repaired itself, after which Ladybug earned a contemptuous and unnecessary reminder that the disguise was magical and there was nothing they could do to unmask them. Ladybug didn't want to believe it however, and neither did Mayura, who was sitting on the floor with the grimoire by one knee and the tablet by the other, searching for any helpful information.

But it wasn't like any additional explanations had appeared miraculously in the translations. Everything the group needed to solve this problem they must have already possessed. That would have been a reassuring conclusion if they had managed to get any closer to figuring this out.

"Can you think of any potion in the grimoire that may require the use of a knife?" asked Ladybug as she swung the blade around her finger. Mayura shook her head and leaned back against her husband, who had joined her on the floor after a long and weary sigh had trembled out from between her lips. Chat Noir, meanwhile, had approached Lila and sat against the wall a few meters to her left, gently speaking to her every now and then, offering mundane conversation that omitted any acknowledgement of what had been going on with her the last several days. Hawkmoth had sensed the gradual decline in her shock over time, but she remained submerged in this deep and heavy gloom, like a suffocating fog.

"There are a few ingredients among the power-up potions that could theoretically include the use of a knife," Mayura was saying, "But I don't know, it feels too vague. That's a long walk, isn't it, for a Lucky Charm?"

"Well, I've found awfully convoluted ways to use them before." Ladybug remarked, brushing her fingers through her bangs.

Hawkmoth skimmed across the notes Mayura had open on the tablet, the list of ingredients for the seven power-up potions. "Could any of these help?"

"I don't really know how. Unless I could burn the cloak off their body, but that hardly impresses me. I doubt it would work."

"What do all of these even do?" Hawkmoth asked, picking the tablet off the floor. "I understand the fire and the water and the ice just fine, but blood? Spirit?"

"The blood potion sounds a lot more fascinating than it is. It essentially enhances one's sense of their own body, at least when properly consumed by a kwami first, before the transformation," said Mayura. She licked her fingertip and flipped a couple pages in the grimoire until landing on an illustration of a muscular turtle miraculous holder dressed with orange accents around their green suit. "I think it can make one even stronger, faster, etcetera, but there are shapeshifting qualities as well. It allows you to more keenly dictate what your own body is capable of."

Hawkmoth nodded, interested.

"I tried to use it last night," Mayura added weakly. "I don't know how that power would have manifested when disassociated from the kwami. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking at all."

He squeezed her knee. "It's okay," he whispered. Redirecting her attention back to the grimoire, he pointed out the spirit potion. "And what is this supposed to do?"

"I'm not very sure. According to the book, it 'breaks the barriers between worlds.' I've never successfully made it, though. I don't understand the last ingredient."

"What is it?"

"A riddle." Mayura took up the tablet and scrolled down a little. "Every other silly little clue has been solved, but I don't know what's meant by 'you at your most raw.'"

"I never got it either," Ladybug chimed in. "I had some ideas, but I'd never tested any of them." Her lashes fell over her solemn blue eyes as she glanced down at the floor. "Master Fu had given me one of each potion a long time ago, and I'd never used the spirit, so I'd never bothered to make it myself."

"What were your ideas?" Hawkmoth asked.

"I considered it literally. Raw flesh," Ladybug answered. "But that sounds…a little barbaric for a potion intended to aid superheroes. Otherwise, any sort of DNA sample. Hair, saliva."

Mayura's expression had turned thoughtful. Her lips moved as she whispered under her breath, so low that Hawkmoth could not make it out right beside her. Her stare floated across the room to the Sorcerer, whose head was tilted back towards the ceiling, who hadn't shifted in well over a half hour.

"Hawkmoth," she eventually said, tapping him against the chest, "I need to speak with Nooroo."

He blinked at her in surprise. "Now?"

"I have questions for him. We can go to the atelier if you'd prefer."

Hawkmoth agreed to this, though he was wary of her intentions, especially when she asked for the Lucky Charm as well. Ladybug was visibly reluctant to hand it over, initially closing her fist tighter around the knife's handle and hardening her blue gaze, but Mayura gave her a meaningful nod, and she relinquished the blade.

"Thank you," Mayura said. "Come get us if you need anything."

Once in the atelier, Hawkmoth detransformed and gestured towards his kwami. "Yes, Master?"

Mayura had crossed the room to a hook on the wall, where the Sorcerer's belt had been hung after Hawkmoth had taken it from them. There were no potions left dangling from it, but there was one empty bottle, which Mayura unlatched. "Nooroo," she said, calling the kwami's attention to her.

"Oh, My Lady!" he exclaimed, flying quickly in her direction.

"I have a question for you."

"Anything."

"What is the purpose of the spirit potion?"

Nooroo drooped a little. "Well, remember, I am not aware of how to make it."

"I know that. But what does it do?"

"I've not seen it used very frequently. It's a rather difficult power-up to control," Nooroo began, delicately flapping his wings. "Unlike many of the other potions, it has a bit of a mind of its own. The magic seems capable of seeking out its own purpose, which may not be the intention of the holder. I've seen many try to use it to discover secrets the magic has no interest in revealing. It's like Ladybug's power to that degree, in which it cannot give you what you want, but what it gives instead may be exactly what you need." Nooroo tilted his head and added sheepishly, "Of course, the spirit power is more abstract than the Lucky Charm. Its unpredictability is far less…appreciated. It's magic is far more abused."

With the empty bottle in one hand, Mayura scrolled through her tablet with the thumb of the other, brow furrowed in thought. "Hm, such is the same for somebody who utilizes the power externally? As I have practiced?"

"I wouldn't know, My Lady. I've seen no one before you who has accomplished that."

"Nathalie." Gabriel was at her side, running his fingers down the length of her arm. "Do you think you could control the spirit power to reveal the identity of the Sorcerer?"

"Maybe. The description says its power is to reveal hidden worlds, but that doesn't exactly sound like what Nooroo is telling me."

"It can be, My Lady, but not always. Often, the concept of a hidden world is metaphorical for the way the holder perceives the world after discovering what the spirit potion has to show them. The spirit is understood to be the purest form of a person, and truth the purest facet of reality."

"That's exactly what I needed to hear, Nooroo." Mayura's lips twitched into a small but eager smile. Gabriel gazed at her, captivated for a moment by the optimistic glow of her eyes as they continued scanning the tablet. This was the first time he'd seen her undeniably satisfied to be engrossed in the task of sorcery, which he knew, though she'd never explicitly admitted it, had been an aimless burden for so long. She was taking a path now that may directly result in forward motion for everyone, and Gabriel could both see and feel how that excited her, despite a tiredness growing increasingly heavier. "I must try to activate the potion without transforming with a spirit kwami. It's possible I'll have more control over it when the power is disassociated from Duusu, so I can interact with it immediately."

"Do you think this will work?" asked Nooroo.

"It's a plan. Of course, we'll have to come up with something else if it falls through. All we know for sure is that this will somehow be involved." She gestured to the knife she'd laid on the desk. "And I have to work with what I have. I'm not as knowledgeable as the Sorcerer. They've received all their information from greater sources than mine. This is all I have to work with, so I'll use it." She turned towards her husband. "The ingredients call for boiling water, a ground flower bud, and wax."

It took some time, but they managed to acquire those things. The potion looked like nothing so far, but Mayura had yet to add the most confounding ingredient. She grabbed the knife and told him, "Please do not be upset with me."

"Nathalie…"

"'You at your most raw'. I know Ladybug didn't like the sound of it, but I think she may have been right. What is rawer than blood?" She shook her head, knowing he would fight her. "Quite honestly, I wouldn't have thought of it myself. I feel like it should have been obvious, but I'd never even considered it. After all, there's a blood potion that does not even require blood to create it. Why should I have expected that blood would be needed for the spirit potion? All I ask right now," she finished with a sigh, "Is that you trust me here, love, okay?"

Gabriel brushed his fingers along the back of her bandaged hand. "You know I trust you, my dear, more than anybody. But you've injured yourself enough in the last twelve hours, don't you think? We should try something else first."

"Do you have any ideas?"

He didn't. He reached for the knife, "Let me."

"I'm sorry, but you're not the one using the potion, and may I remind you the instructions read 'you'. Dear reader. Me."

"Nooroo, say something to change her mind," Gabriel ordered his kwami.

"Master, forgive me, but I think she's right. Otherwise I would suggest a way to manifest her own spirit, but the guardians have said before that every drop of human blood contains a breath of soul."

"I'll be gentle. I promise."

Gabriel stood back. Mayura smiled apologetically before holding the knife right at the tip of her finger. She counted to three under her breath and made the slightest lash of the blade with a sharp inhale. It was no deep cut, just enough to press out a pearl of blood, bright against the blue of her skin. She let the drop roll off her fingertip into the mixture, and Gabriel held his breath as he waited for a reaction.

Please. Come on.

And it changed. The contents of the bottle turned a sparkling light pink. Mayura wrapped her fingertip in a tissue and met Gabriel's gaze with her own eyes bright with triumph, nearly matching the color of the potion.

"That looks right to me My Lady," said Nooroo, fluttering his wings with excitement.

"Do you think it will work?" she asked her husband.

"You have seemed confident, my dear, and I trust your instinct," he replied.

Mayura allowed him to tape a piece of the tissue around her fingertip. They thanked Nooroo for his insight, and Gabriel became Hawkmoth once more. They emerged into the lair to be greeted by Ladybug, whose eyes locked onto the potion with a look of pleasant surprise.

"Will that help us?" she asked.

"We hope."

Chat Noir rose from his position at Lila's side to join them in the middle of the lair. The girl's haunted visage went stony as her eyes flitted up from the floor to land on Hawkmoth. Her emotions were becoming clearer now, and Hawkmoth had to wonder what it was exactly the Sorcerer made her forget, for he was certain that Lila still deeply despised him. She made the smallest movement towards him, one leg extending by an inch out from under her, five fingers fanning themselves across the floor in his direction, two eyes narrowing into shrewd olive green slits, but Lila paused then. She seemed to remember the Sorcerer's presence, head whirling towards them. Fear flashed across her face before she threw herself back against the wall, glazing over once again.

Hawkmoth rolled his shoulders back, trying to shrug the chill out of his bones.

"Aren't you going to have Duusu take the potion?" Chat Noir asked Mayura.

"No. I might have better control over it if I work with it externally." She nodded at her step-son and husband. "Bring them a little further away from the wall. I may need space."

The Sorcerer became alert again once Chat Noir and Hawkmoth started to drag their chair forward. They struggled under the ropes, voice distortion clicking with the sounds of their sharp breathing.

"Wait," they said, "What are you doing? Stop!"

"This will be the end of your mission," Ladybug told them, twirling her yo-yo. "You can't hide behind that mask any longer."

The Sorcerer jerked as if they were trying to jump out of their skin. "No – don't! I-I made a promise."

"Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about that," grunted Hawkmoth.

They set the chair down and Mayura stepped forward, the bottle uncapped in her hand. "I will have to be deliberate about this if I am to control which barrier I break today," she murmured. To the Sorcerer, whose ropes Chat Noir was currently tightening, she said, "You seem awfully panicked. I am sure you know more about what the spirit potion is capable of than I do."

"Pl-lease, please don't," they stammered breathlessly. "Let me go. Let me fucking…" Their words became unintelligible. Hawkmoth was baffled at this behavior, after having witnessed the way they carried themselves around Lila, the way they communicated with him through the illusion of Conspiracy. The Sorcerer had seemed to him a powerful person, in control of themselves and others, an intimidating but level-headed leader –

Yet across the room, Lila watched the ordeal with panic blanching her face. Her nose was bruised as well as her browbone. One eye was swollen half-shut and a welt had formed where she had been violently slapped earlier that morning. Lila was not a person of a very sound temper, but the Sorcerer could not have been any sounder to have inflicted such hurt on the girl. Maybe they were unmasking a monster today. The prospect of revealing the flesh and eyes of a human being confused his expectations. He knew he must have been seen as a monster once. He surely couldn't draw the lines in the dirt himself. Two years ago, Hawkmoth appeared a maniacal, power-hungry brute, while under the mask he was Gabriel, a desperate and grieving husband. He asked himself now if the latter really was the only truth or if both could be true at once, if they could have always been true.

Mayura poured half of the bottle over the Sorcerer's mask. Bright pink potion soaked the silver and dripped into the fabric of their heavy cloak. With a deep breath, Mayura asked Chat Noir and Hawkmoth to stand aside as she held the remaining contents above her open palm.

This will work, Hawkmoth thought, as if convincing himself would will the universe in the same direction. This will work.

"Okay," Mayura whispered. She poured the remains of the bottle into her palm. Upon making contact with her skin, the potion flared. Bright light – mostly pink at first, but soon taking on shades of blue, green, yellow, and violet – beamed around her hand, softer and cooler and stiller than fire but somehow more incredible. Mayura's eyes gleamed. Her whole body gleamed, until her movements threw dancing lights across the lair's dark walls.

Mayura steadied her breath, for the display had startled even her at first. As the light came under a tighter control, she closed the distance between herself and the Sorcerer. They roared in desperation as she set her hand upon their mask.

"Let me see," Mayura commanded. Her voice hummed as though dozens more joined it, speaking from somewhere far away.

The light caught on the potion still trailing down the mask, but seconds passed, and nothing fell apart. Hawkmoth stiffened in horror as he noticed that it was not the mask that was changing, but the ropes. As if they'd been made of candle wax, they started the melt, dripping onto the floor and into the Sorcerer's lap, who seemed ready at any moment to leap out of the chair.

"No," Mayura grumbled. She reached for a rope that liquified in her hand. "The magic wants to release them."

The Sorcerer's arms were free. They shoved Mayura away, but she recovered gracefully and lunged back again. Hawkmoth wrapped his hands around the Sorcerer's shoulders and held them against his chest while they yelled for him to let go. The chair toppled over with a rough clatter in a pool of liquid rope that was now evaporating into the humid air. Mayura set her fingers back on the mask, her face contorted with fierce concentration.

The magic surrounding her hands flickered like a silent stroke of lightning. Mayura's ponytail lifted off her back, her sleeves waved as if she stood in the way of the wind.

"Let me see!" she repeated.

Her fingers trembled like a shock had moved through her. Pink light fired out from around her hand and encompassed the Sorcerer entirely. White lines drew themselves across their mask in a jagged pattern. Hawkmoth let them go as their body shuddered, and once he got a look at their face, he saw that the black slits in their face had brightened.

And then, Mayura tore back her hand. The pink light pulled away, as if retreating back into Mayura's form, where it illuminated her for a moment longer and finally died. Her eyes returned to their usual magenta shade. The shadows in the room deepened, and no light source flooded the room any longer but the rose window, which had darkened and darkened as the storm outside had grown gloomier.

The mask cracked apart. The Sorcerer threw themselves down on the floor with a horrified gasp. Pieces of silver burst down at Mayura's feet while the cloak melted into violet light and disappeared.

What remained was a person burying their face in their arms, black hair, chopped messily to shoulder-length, spilling in the way of their cheeks. Mayura and Hawkmoth each grasped a shoulder and pulled the unmasked Sorcerer off the floor while they grunted madly in protest. Hawkmoth pinned them up to the wall and took their chin in his fingers, glowering for the first time into the face of his mysterious enemy.

At once, he reeled in shock. His jaw fell open. Electricity crackled across his scalp.

The person staring back at him was his wife.

It couldn't be.

It wasn't.

No, it wasn't his wife. Not quite. Despite the expression of dread and rage twisting their features, Hawkmoth found himself keenly reminded of that picture hanging above the staircase, the one of Nathalie at twenty years old, gazing with that hint of surprise into the camera lens. That nose, that heart-shaped face, that tone of skin almost perfectly matched the countenance in the photo. Even the hair remanded him of Nathalie. Though she'd dyed it blue at the time, its length and texture matched the raven strands of hair framing the pale, perspiring face of the person struggling under his arms now.

But those eyes.

Those blue-gray eyes, flickering as though lightning blazed through them, as though they were two twin storm clouds.

He could have been looking in a mirror and seen those eyes staring back at him.

Mayura's realization came a split second before his. She stumbled back, taking her hands immediately off the young woman's shoulder. Her blue skin paled by several shades. Hawkmoth felt her shock. And then he wasn't sure whose shock it was he was feeling anymore, because everything he sensed from her now catapulted him into his own earth-shattering recognition.

He could feel the woman too. Her ice-cold terror and her white-hot rage and her stark silver grief.

Hawkmoth dropped her, and she slid down the wall with a pained cry.

Mayura's voice was a shiver in the shape of a name.

"Anaïs?"