A/N: In which Jace visits Emmara, Jace and Ral work on the flux machine, and Ral tells Jace to read his mind.

A/N II: This chapter is probably still rated T, but it does skirt the upper-level boundary of T. You have been warned.

Chapter Thirteen

Taking a deep breath, Jace drew his cloak more tightly around him as he reached up to knock on Emmara's door. His head was buzzing with equations, and he was slightly dizzy, floating on ideas—or maybe that was the lack of sleep. Well, either way.

"Jace!" Emmara exclaimed delightedly as she opened the door. "What a nice surprise."

He smiled back. "I have a somewhat strange request," he said. "Although if you're pleased to see me, maybe I could come in for some tea as well?"

"Always," she said, stepping aside for him.

It had been some time since Jace had been in Emmara's house, and it was the scent that he noticed first. The smell of flowers and incense was a little weaker than it used to be, but it was still enough to make him remember evenings spent there as Berrim, taking a much-needed break from—Jace coughed in embarrassment as some of his less savory memories floated to the surface.

The decorations hadn't changed much. The hallways were still bursting with greenery and plant life, the china dolls still seated in their places of honor along the high, wooden shelves. Some of the dolls were different, Jace was sure—it was a testament to the number of times he had walked these rooms that he thought he could tell which ones.

In the high, light arboretum, soft birdsong wafted through the room, and Jace found himself almost lost in the loveliness of it all. With the furniture artfully hidden among blooming plants and the muted sunlight filtering through shaded glass, it was very peaceful. Almost too peaceful, he had to admit. Restful for a short time, but Jace wondered how long he would feel comfortable staying.

Emmara showed him to one of the tables nestled amidst a little grove of trees. "The tea will be out shortly," she said with a smile, and he wondered whether there were other people here—Conclave members who would know Emmara's mind almost before she did (and that might be a problem, given what he had come here to say)—or simply servants, too practiced and efficient at their jobs to be seen.

"I have something to tell you," Jace said. He had intended to be calm, collected, and mature while talking to her. Instead, he felt like a fifteen-year-old again.

Emmara must have sensed something of his inner turmoil, because she leaned forward, cupping her hands together eagerly. "What is it, Jace?"

"I, um," said Jace, taking a breath to steady his nerves. "I think I may be seeing someone. I'm not entirely sure yet."

Emmara's eyebrows went up, and she chuckled lightly. "You're not sure?"

He had to laugh as well. "We've gone out to dinner once. Beyond that, we've spent the entire time closeted in his lab, working on a project."

"It's been a long time since you were so involved in research, hasn't it?" She reached out and gently touched Jace's cheek. It still felt fragile and delicate, this reforming camaraderie between them, but it was growing stronger.

He nodded. "Fascinating subject," he said, by way of explanation.

"Your research or your companion?" Emmara asked archly, and Jace looked down at his hands. "Just a moment," she continued, motioning to someone behind him, and the next instant, a cup of hot tea was placed gently between his hands. The servant walked around the table and handed a cup of tea to Emmara as well, and Jace sat in awkward silence until he was certain they were alone again.

"So who is this mysterious companion, and what is the favor you want from me?" asked Emmara, sipping her tea slowly.

Jace shifted uneasily. "Ah, do you remember Guildmage Zarek?" he asked.

As he'd feared, Emmara's thin eyebrows rose into her hair. "I do," she responded guardedly.

"Yes, well, er," said Jace. "We had occasion to—work together—and he, um, apologized." Seeing that Emmara still looked skeptical, he continued. "It's also thanks to him I'm not dead right now." Quietly, he undid the front of his shirt. She gave a small, shocked exclamation as he revealed the jagged, inflamed scar running down his chest. "You heard about the attack, I know," he continued. "You may not know that Ral was the one who got me to safety afterwards. And also restarted my heart. If he hadn't been there—I would have died." The truth of that statement rang hollow and heavy in Jace's mouth.

"Then I owe him a debt of gratitude," Emmara said, her voice shaking only slightly. "I'll bow to your judgment of him, Jace. For the time being, at least."

Jace heard the faint, unspoken 'as long as he doesn't hurt you,' and gave her a grateful smile. He sipped at his tea for a moment before getting up the courage to continue to his awkward request. "The thing is," he said carefully. "It may not be safe for me or Guildmage Zarek if I am too—obvious—about my visits. You're already known to be my friend, and you won't argue if the Azorius ask you to go into protective custody."

A faint smile. "True," Emmara said amusedly. "What can I do for you, Jace?"

"If you wouldn't mind occasionally hosting an illusion of myself for tea," Jace said. "I feel that would allay suspicion as to where I'm going and make it less likely for rumors to start."

Emmara nodded. "Do you need anything other than the use of my house? I would rather not sit around talking to thin air any more than necessary."

He shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "My illusion can bring a book or some papers to work on. I don't think it will cause much comment if I start spending a little more time here."

"Well, I'm certainly happy to help. But, Jace—" she paused, continuing only after he gave her an inquiring look. "—be careful," she finished.

"Of course."

Ral hummed quietly to himself as he finished the last touches on the wiring of the flux machine. "There," he said, stepping backward, and looking over at Jace, who was bent over the desk, signing something again. "Done. Ready for testing."

Jace looked up, his eyes focusing intently in a way Ral had grown to associate during the last few weeks with a kind of contained excitement. "And you're positive this won't fry my brain?" the mind mage asked lightly.

"I'd test it on myself, but—" Ral grimaced slightly. "—I think you'll have better luck calibrating it."

"What's that?" Jace asked, with a needling little smirk. "Something you think I'll be good at? How kind of you to say, Guildmage Zarek."

"Just get in the damn chair," grumped Ral, but not without a quick smile. The past few weeks had been—different. Ral was used to inspiration striking him at odd moments, spending long days grinding through equations with no ideas. He wasn't used to someone else steadying him when his inspiration started to flag. He wasn't used to having someone else there whose quick, intelligent questions could cut to the heart of the matter and keep him away from degenerating into a frustrated slump that might take days to shake off.

As Jace moved across the room, he brushed past Ral, and the lightning mage's heart thumped and constricted, sudden and disconcerting and immediate, but he shook it off and went over to connect the various bits of wire to Jace's head.

Jace leaned back gingerly in the chair. "What are the flat bits for?" he asked.

Ral picked one of them up, covered it in a layer of a sticky substance he had stolen from one of his colleague's labs for this purpose, and pressed it against Jace's forehead. "You don't want lightning going directly into your brain," he said. "Unless you'd like to drop the 'living' part of your title, Guildpact."

Jace squirmed, and Ral had to pause what he was doing to watch the movement of the other's hips. "Oh," Jace said. "No. Thank you."

Shaking his head to dislodge the distraction—this wasn't the time—Ral continued to afix the wires to Jace's head in a slightly wobbly ring. Then he moved around to the back of the machine, which was already humming with power, and attached the second set of wires to the head of the weird that Guildmage Maree had lent him. It seemed like a good calibration test to see if the machine would let Jace control something that was explicitly mindless.

Ral barely restrained himself from taking a deep breath. He wasn't nervous. He knew this machine. He had built it from the ground up, with minimal help. "Ready?" he asked Jace, who did take a deep breath, then nodded.

"Yes," he said firmly, and Ral flipped the switch.

He felt the surge of mana that responded, a tumultuous torrent of red. In the chair, Jace gasped, and his body arced backwards, head snapping back against the headrest. He gave a soft, pained whimper, and Ral fumbled to turn the machine off, but the switch was stuck. Ral swore, his voice loud in the eerily silent room, and went to find the main power source. He could cut it if he needed to, but it might overload. As he dithered over whether that would be better or worse than leaving it on, the mind mage's voice echoed, breathless, in Ral's head. It's all right. I'm all right.

Ral hurried back around to the front of the chair, where sweat was already starting to trickle down Jace's forehead, his eyes squinted forcefully shut. His tattoos were flickering rapidly bright and dim. "You don't look all right," Ral pointed out, noting, with some surprise, that his heart seemed to be thumping in his ears so loudly he could hear almost nothing else.

Just—a lot. Jace's mental voice was strained. Need to rewire some of the equations. Waiting for the machine to—ow—settle.

It was true that Ral had predicted an equilibration period. He just hadn't expected it to have quite such a dramatic effect on the machine's occupant. Leaning over the chair, still not quite sure if he should leave Jace like this, he noted that this probably meant the machine would need more tweaking to be usable by anyone other than an accomplished telepath.

After what, according to Ral's chronometer, was six minutes and fourteen seconds, but felt significantly longer, Jace's eyes snapped open, glowing bright blue, and his body relaxed slightly. Something touched Ral's shoulder, and he whirled around to see the weird they had connected, lips drawn back in a very un-weird-like grin. "Got it," it said in Jace's voice.

"Fuck," breathed Ral.

"What, didn't you believe your own machine would work?"

"Of course I did. It's just impressive to see it in action," Ral responded immediately.

"Ah, of course." There was a blue flicker in the air, and the weird's outline was obscured by Jace's own—well, almost. Ral glanced toward the form slumped in the chair.

"Did you give yourself more muscles, Beleren?"

The illusion flickered. "What? No!"

"You did." Ral grinned, advancing on the weird. "Now why would you do that?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about." Jace was starting to sound flustered.

"How are your perceptions in there?" Ral asked, changing the topic suddenly and smoothly.

He heard the confusion in Jace's voice as the Guildpact answered, "Well, the vision is a little muddy, and I think I'm getting an echo."

"What about your sense of touch?"

"Um," said Jace.

Ral smiled and moved forward, putting his hand on the weird's waist. "Can you feel that?"

The weird's throat moved convulsively as Jace swallowed. "Yes."

Ral leaned inward, letting his breath play across the weird's throat. "What about that?" he murmured in its ear.

This time Jace's voice shook when he responded, "Y-Yes."

"Then," said Ral, "I think we can call this test a complete success."

There was a moment of silence. "Oh. Yes. The test. Of course."

"So perhaps you'd better help me switch off the system."

"Right. Yes. Of course." The illusion flickered and faded, and the weird slowly relaxed to inanimation once more. This time, the switch moved easily to the off position, and Ral looked suspiciously at Jace, who was blinking dazedly as he removed the last of the wires from his head and started to get up.

Smirking, Ral moved across in front of the chair and pushed him back down. "Wait a minute, Jace," he said. "Don't you think you're being a little hasty?"

"Hasty?" Jace echoed, but he let Ral push him back down.

Ral felt Jace's pulse fluttering wildly as he leaned over and murmured in his ear, "You've crossed off a few of the debts you owe me, Jace, but wouldn't you like some new blackmail material?" He slid a hand down Jace's cheekbone, feeling the soft downy stubble where the mind mage had forgotten to shave, probably because he was too busy helping Ral. "Surely," he continued, his other hand curving lightly along Jace's thigh, "knowing that I have a lover in high places would make for excellent blackmail, don't you think?"

"Um," breathed Jace. "What—what do you want, Ral?"

Ral reached for Jace's belt. "Read my mind, Jace."

There was a moment, and then Jace moaned and reached for Ral's belt as well.

Ral wouldn't let Jace get his clothes off. At first, Jace had thought he was just being clumsy and slow—he hadn't gone to bed with anyone in at least four years—but it was becoming increasingly obvious that every attempt he made to do anything more than cursorily tug the Izzet mage's shirt up was thwarted by Ral either distracting him or actually knocking his hands over to another location.

"Ral," he gasped, as the other man's lips nipped down his throat to his collar-bone, "is something wrong?"

"That doesn't sound like you moaning my name, so yes."

Jace tried to glare, which didn't work very well, given the position he was in. "Why won't you let me get your clothes off?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then let me get your shirt off." Jace reached irritably for the hem of Ral's shirt, and the Izzet mage's hands slapped down on top of his. "Well?"

Ral sat back slightly, and the movement of his hips sent sensation jolting and juddering up Jace's spine. Gasping slightly, Jace managed to focus through the overwhelming haze of I want you, right now, this instant, and he brushed gently through the forefront of Ral's mind, following the quick, automatic image the other generated.

"You—have tattoos?" Jace said uncertainly. "I know you do, I've seen the one on your arm."

"Dammit, Beleren, those are my private thoughts!"

"You literally told me to read your mind."

"That was five minutes ago."

Jace glared at him. "I don't care if you have tattoos, I just want to get your damn shirt off," he snapped.

"Well, that's not what your fucking nightmares say, Jace!"

Jace sat back as well. "My nightmares? How would you—oh." The night on Theros, when his and Ral's dreams had merged with such unsettling results. But what did that have to do with—Jace blinked several times as Ral's objections finally became clear. "Those—those were literally symbols of a demonic pact. And while I may not have known that, it did mean they had some unpleasant side-effects. Looking directly at them—did things to my stomach."

Ral looked away sideways, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. "Jace, I just didn't—"

"Ask?" Jace suggested dryly. "You can, you know. And probably should, if you're going to object to me peering into your head. Also, um, I might need a look in anyway. A better look. A more, um, instructive look."

Ral's eyebrows went up. "A more 'instructive' look? What is this, day-school?"

Ears burning, Jace's eyes slid away and landed on the ceiling. It was much easier to contemplate than the mirth he was certain was about to dawn on Ral's face. "I—haven't exactly had—that many lovers," he said. "Actually, just the, well, just the one. The—the anatomy was—well. Different."

"You don't say," Ral drawled slowly.

"I just want to know what you're expecting!" Jace burst out. There was a spider on the ceiling. It was probably laughing at him.

Ral fidgeted uncomfortably in Jace's peripheral vision. "I don't think I was exactly expecting anything," he said finally.

"Just—give me a few pointers," Jace said in frustration, clumsily peering into Ral's head again, letting the Izzet mage feel him rifling around so that he could stop if this got too personal. "Just—wait." He paused, searched again, then looked back at Ral. Groaning, the Izzet mage ran his hands through his hair. "Wait a minute. No one? I wouldn't have thought that you were so…" He paused, trying to find a word that wouldn't be insulting.

"Ten thousand volts is kind of a mood-killer!" Ral responded irritably. "That is, in fact, the other reason I didn't want to take everything off." He indicated the gauntlet. "I—don't know if I can keep this controlled even with my adapter." Indeed, lightning was arcing from one of his shoulders to the other. An irritated shudder ran down the lightning mage's frame, and Jace felt Ral's reluctance to admit his lack of confidence in his own ability.

Reaching up a hand, Jace touched Ral's sparking palm, wincing slightly at the prickles of electricity that ran through him. "Breathe with me," he said. "Let's just—take it slow. Okay?"

He felt the lightning surge, felt the hair going up on the back of his neck. Then Ral leaned forward, lacing their fingers together, his breathing shaky. "Slow," he said. "Not a word I'm particularly fond of. But just for you, Jace."

The air crackled with electricity as he carefully removed both shirt and gauntlet. As Jace looked him up and down, Ral's chin went down, his arms going up, body language instinctively closed off. Jace wriggled upright in his seat and then gently pulled his hands aside. "Hey," he said. "I really do want to be here, you know."

"Obviously, Beleren. Obviously you want to be here," Ral snapped. "I'm not stupid. If you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't be here. Don't say stupid things."

"Sorry," Jace grinned in amusement and leaned forward to kiss him, on the lips and then, gently, on the tips of Ral's naked fingers. He heard the lightning mage's soft intake of breath. "There. See? You're not dangerous at all."

"Let's not go that far," grunted Ral, but he was doing a bad job of disguising the relief in his voice.