A/N: In which Ral Zarek planeswalks, forgets his gauntlet, and drips lightning everywhere, and Jace Beleren wakes up an unfamiliar location.

Chapter Sixteen

Ral woke groggily, the wood of his desk pressing painfully into his cheek. After a moment of rubbing his eyes, he looked around for Jace, but there was no sign of him. The room was empty.

A headache started gnawing at Ral's temples. Brushing it aside, he leaned forward across the desk, and saw that a piece of paper had been tucked beneath one of the manalines, the large, neat handwriting recognizable to him only because he had seen it used to outline glowing equations in midair.

Dear Guildmage Zarek, he read, and the headache intensified.

I apologize for leaving you like this, but I thought it better not to remain. Although our time in the past few weeks has been enjoyable, you will understand when I say that the social strata that we occupy are somewhat removed from one another. However, I do hope to see you in the future.

J. Beleren

Every piece of equipment in Ral's lab suffered a sudden, catastrophic overload as the headache blossomed into a crackling arc of lightning that leapt uncontrollably from place to place. For a moment, there was nothing around him but the searing crimson mana, and then for the second time in as many days, Ral felt the storm inside him ignite and fling him away from Ravnica entirely.

He didn't really know where he was going, but maybe it wasn't a huge surprise when he landed, looked around, and recognized the cluster of tents spread across the wide field. Where else would he even have gone? Lightning crackling along his back and arm, Ral began to pick his way down the hillside toward the leonin encampment. Maybe some gods or their followers would try something with him. That sounded like a fun time.

The soreness in his legs, which had been almost pleasant until he'd read the note, joined a sudden soreness in his throat and eyes, and he had to roughly push at them with his hand. What the fuck was wrong with him? So Beleren had come to his senses. Well, was he really surprised? After all, who would want to be associated with a mage from the slums of Ravnica? He should have known after the Guildpact's panic attack the night before that it wasn't going to last.

The smell of bacon hit his nostrils as he got closer to the camp. Food sounded nice right about now. Anything he could dig his teeth into, rip and tear. There was a small campfire built in the center of the circle of tents pitched nearest to the outside of the camp, and Iskra was once again frying bacon in a large pan. She looked up as he neared, her ears perking in what he surmised was surprise.

"Good morning, Zarek," she chirped. "Come and have some breakfast."

"Morning," he mumbled automatically, stumping down the bottom of the hill and throwing himself onto the large log by the fire that was presumably intended for seating.

Iskra bustled around the fire, turning the bacon over with a flat metal implement, and finally taking it off and tipping some of it onto a nearby plate, which she held out to him. "Zarek?" she said, almost timid. "Did something happen to your companion?"

The bolt of lightning jerked from Ral's outstretched hand without his conscious consent, arcing toward Iskra, whose fur went up as she hastily dropped the plate and caught the electricity with both hands. She staggered as it ran through her, shaking her fur in distaste as it bled from her into the ground. Ral stared in consternation, glanced down, and realized he wasn't wearing his gauntlet. Damn. "Sorry," he managed. "You okay?"

Iskra wrinkled her nose and sneezed sparks. "Ye-es," she answered uncertainly. "The bacon's not, though." The plate had hit a rock when it fell to the ground, and it had shattered, spilling grease and bacon across the ground.

"Sorry," Ral managed, wrapping his arms around himself. "I should go." What had he been thinking, leaving his lab without his gauntlet? If he had been thinking at all. He got up rapidly. "You sure you're all right?"

Iskra caught his arm as he passed, and he flinched back in concern. "Zarek," she said. "What's wrong? Is he hurt again?"

Ral shook his head, a quick, pained negation. "He's fine," he said bitterly. "Just…"

"Then why are you wearing his cloak?"

"I—" Stupidly, Ral stared down at himself. There was gooseflesh on his bare arms from the cold morning air. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Instead, Jace's blue cloak was draped over his shoulders, the front fastener tangled in the cloth so that it hadn't fallen. "I need to sit down," he finished, which hadn't been what he'd intended to say.

"I'll make more bacon," Iskra said, which was such an ordinary sort of thing to say that Ral had to chuckle weakly. "What happened, anyway?" she asked, as she began to clean up the broken plate. Ral sat down, not feeling quite guilty enough to offer to help.

He had to think for a minute before answering. "We fell asleep together last night—" Pause. She was a kitten. What did that mean? Ral had a vague notion that you weren't supposed to talk about sex in front of small children, but he had an even vaguer notion of what constituted "small".

Iskra's tail twitched in what was probably amusement. "Yeah," she agreed. "Then what?"

"I woke up, and he was gone," Ral said absently. He rubbed the cloth of Jace's cloak between his fingers. "Left a note. Not a very nice one."

"Was he angry?"

"Didn't think I was that bad in bed," Ral snorted, a little sarcasm returning to his voice. "Uh. Anyway. He said he didn't want to—" The lightning crackled across him again, and again he wished for his gauntlet. "But—" The thought of Jace writing that stilted letter and then cautiously tucking one of his most precious possessions around Ral's shoulders before stealing away didn't fit. It didn't make any sense.

Iskra finished collecting the shards of the plate and rose, nose wrinkling. She grinned and flicked a spark at him. "My eldest brother says bedding someone after you've had an argument is really fun," she offered.

Ral had to pause for a moment as his mind threw up the image of an apologetic and very naked Jace. "Ah," he said.

As Iskra hurried back and forth, first fetching more bacon, and then starting to fry it again, his mind kept returning to the conundrum of the previous night. He didn't remember falling asleep. If he tried very hard, he thought he could conjure up a feeling of light hands on his shoulders, but it might just be wishful thinking. But—Jace wouldn't leave the cloak. Well, he might, but he wouldn't have written a rejection letter and then…noticed that Ral was cold, tucked his cloak around him, and left? That wasn't how normal people acted, surely? Either way, it didn't seem to fit what he knew of Jace. Which led to two possible conclusions: either Jace hadn't tucked the cloak around him (absurd; who else would have any desire to do so?) or Jace hadn't written that letter after all. And if Jace had not been the one to write the letter, then someone else had snuck into Ral's darkened lab and left a note in Jace's handwriting, intended to be read exactly as Ral had read it. With the result that he would presumably lock himself in his lab for a week or two—no, they might not know him—but at the least, they would not expect him to seek out Jace.

"Don't shock me this time." Iskra shoved a new plate of bacon at him and hopped onto the log to sit next to him.

Somebody didn't want Ral poking his nose in and checking on the Living Guildpact. There was unlikely to be a benign reason behind that.

"I'm learning to control the sparks a little bit!" Iskra said excitedly, interrupting Ral's train of thought. "I mean, no one is too happy about all the lightning flying around, but they got tired of trying to stop me, I think."

That got a grin out of Ral. "Good for you, kid. Didn't get in trouble for taking me to Jace?"

Iskra shrugged. "Oh, I got in a lot of trouble. I was washing pots and pans for a week. Did you know that you can store lightning in water? It's really funny to dump spark-filled water onto someone who's annoying you."

This received a chuckle. Ral's insides were going warm and cold at the same time, his mind trying to process both his camaraderie with Iskra and his creeping concern for Jace. "Yeah, my teachers weren't happy when I figured that out." He paused, moving to a less painful memory. "Used to leave buckets of water over the door for my friends to walk into when we were studying for admission into the League, though."

"I don't think a tent would support a bucket very well," Iskra said meditatively. "But does it work with any liquid? My brothers keep trying to steal my soup."

"Test it and find out," said Ral. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Hm," Iskra said meditatively, then giggled. "I could see the future in a bowl of soup!" she said cheerfully. "Oh! What is the blue and red symbol that looks like a bat with spikes? Do you know?"

Ral choked on his bacon. "Uh," he said. "Don't worry about it, kid." A bat with spikes. Well, that was a new one. Somehow, he thought the committee of members who had squabbled over the new sigil for five weeks several years ago would be less than pleased to hear it described that way.

"But I want to know," Iskra said plaintively.

Trying to think of a way to answer her without either lying or discussing Ravnica in detail was giving Ral a headache. Finally, he compromised with, "That's something you, uh, have to find out for yourself."

Iskra sighed, tail lashing. "How annoying," she said.

"I should go," Ral said abruptly. "I—need to make sure that Jace isn't in trouble."

"Well, at least you got something to eat," Iskra said prosaically. "You should come back and have breakfast again. Only maybe don't make me drop the plate next time. We don't have that many to spare."

Ral looked down at his plate. Somehow, despite not really tasting it, he had managed to eat all the bacon he'd been given. "Thanks," he said. "Uh. Thanks. I—yeah. Sure. I'll come back when I can." He heard himself saying the words and wondered where they'd come from. If he wasn't careful, he'd start enjoying spending time off-plane. He shook his head. There were more immediate things to worry about.

The office of the Living Guildpact was heavily guarded by a number of Azorius arresters. Ral briefly considered stopping when they asked him to, but decided that it was too much hassle. In the end, he strode into Lavinia's office trailing three protesting armed guards, sweating slightly from the number of times he had countered a detention sphere.

Lavinia looked up in what appeared to be mild confusion and annoyance. "Guildmage Zarek—" she began formally.

"Is Jace here?" Ral demanded.

The arrester's eyebrows went up. "Did you two have a quarrel already?" she asked.

Ral felt heat on his face, lightning crackling in the vicinity of his arm, and he wished he had bothered to stop at Nivix for his gauntlet. He leaned forward across the desk. "No, we did not have a quarrel," he said angrily. "Is he here?"

Lavinia's impassive face gave away no emotion, but she waved a hand to the three guards to stand down. "Ral," she sighed. "I received your note not three hours ago. How did you manage to lose him in that time?"

Ral blinked. "My what?" he repeated in confusion.

There were several neat stacks of paper on the desk. Lavinia reached unerringly across to one of them, and plucked a sheet that was about third from the top. "Your note," she said, passing it to him.

Dear Lavinia, Ral read, in a passable imitation of his own handwriting. Jace and I were hoping to have a little more time together. Can you possibly make his excuses for us for a few days? The signature though—that wasn't an imitation. Ral stared. He knew he had not signed this, but Lavinia could be forgiven for having been fooled.

"I didn't send this," he said slowly.

"What," Lavinia said flatly. "Zarek, this had better not be a joke."

Ral shook his head minutely, both hope and fear flaring simultaneously inside him. "Move," he said hoarsely, shoving past her to reach the window. He was barely in time—the bolt of lightning tore out of his right hand and through the open window with a loud thunderclap, singeing the building across the street. Ral leaned against the window for a moment, swearing under his breath. Then he turned back to Lavinia. "I did not send this," he said again. "Fuck, I'll say it in a verity circle if you want."

"That may become necessary," Lavinia responded coolly. "Before all of us go into full panic mode, I would like to check a few things. Please wait outside the office."

"How can you be so fucking calm?" Ral snarled. "The Guildpact is missing, he could be kidnapped, he could be dea—"

Lavinia's jaw jutted out. "I am very much aware, thank you, Guildmage Zarek," she said, and Ral noticed that the pen in her hand was trembling very slightly. "However, I would prefer not to precipitate a citywide panic if possible, especially if it turns out this is all a simple miscommunication."

Ral, who would be perfectly happy to precipitate a citywide panic if it meant getting Jace back alive and in one piece, made an angry noise, swung around, and marched out of the office, before he could lose control of himself again. Once outside, he began to pace back and forth, trying to decide if he should wait for whatever Lavinia was planning to do, or if he should just cut out the middleman. Whatever the Azorius arrester said, the Guildpact was confirmed missing, to Ral's mind.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he whirled round to see a beautiful elf in white and green robes, with the Selesyan tree embroidered on her chest. The emblem made him step back instinctively as he looked her up and down suspiciously. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place her.

"What are you doing in Jace's cloak?" she demanded.

He'd forgotten he was still wearing it. Well, that explained the soft touch to his shoulder. She had mistaken him for Jace—though, given their respective height difference, Ral was faintly insulted. "Who the fuck are you?" he asked rudely.

She took a step backward, her face freezing into an expression of distaste, which was when he remembered where he'd seen her before. The Selesnyan Maze-runner. Jace's friend, the one whose memory he had wiped. "Where is Jace?" she said, not bothering to answer his question.

"That's what I'd like to know," snapped Ral. The air around him was starting to crackle and snap, but the elf did not appear particularly put off.

"What do you mean?" she asked instead. "Why are you wearing his cloak? You're not being very discreet."

"I mean that Jace is missing," he snarled back and found himself drawing the cloak more tightly around himself instinctively, away from the hand she put out to touch it.

Her face froze as he spoke. "What do you mean?" she asked again.

"Are you fucking stupid?" He didn't have time for this. Lavinia was going to be too slow. He needed his gauntlet back, and he needed some time to think. He'd get Jace back by himself. He shoved past the elf and headed for the exit of New Prahv.

Jace woke up slowly, squinting against the headache. There was a bright light shining in his eyes, and his stomach felt ready to rebel. He felt cold metal on his wrists and against his neck.

"Living Guildpact," said a voice, tinged and distorted by a strong echo. "I'm glad you're awake."

Jace didn't even bother trying to think of something to say; instead, he reached out with his mind, trying to figure out what was happening. A sudden jolt of pain through his skull dissolved his concentration, and he heard himself cry out.

"Oh good. It seems to be working," said the voice.

"Where am I?" Jace asked, his voice coming out rough and hoarse. Fragments of the evening before were starting to knit themselves together in his head. He'd left Ral sleeping on his desk and started to leave for a drink of water. And there had been pain in his head—he'd tried to planeswalk, but something had stopped him—panic reared up in the wake of that memory, and he tried to reach for the Eternities.

A loud noise went off in his ear, and it was as if a brick wall had gone up. Momentarily stunned, Jace collapsed backwards, another stab of pain shooting through his head.

"I've stopped your teleportation as well," said the voice. "It was reasonably easy to adjust Lightning Bug to compensate."

"What do you want?" Jace managed through the sudden ringing in his ears. Something brushed against his forehead.

There was a sigh. "Honestly, Guildpact, I'm sorry about this. I didn't know that you were—I mean, who'd expect Zarek to be fucking the Guildpact? But I need your help."

"My help," Jace echoed stupidly. "You kidnapped me."

"It was for a good cause. It was for the best cause."

"You know," panted Jace, trying to work his arms out of the restraints, "I don't think I agree."

"You haven't even heard it yet!" The voice turned from almost companionable to dark and wrathful. "I am fucking sick of the fucking dragon controlling the Izzet League. Someone needs to do something about him."

"I am the living incarnation of law and order of the city of Ravnica," Jace said tightly. "It is not my place to meddle in intraguild affairs. Now, I really think you'd better let me go-"

There was a sharp sigh. "I can't do that," the voice said simply. "You're the only one who can work the flux machine—I already tried it on a dozen goblins. And I am sorry. But at this point, letting you go would compromise my whole plan anyway. So I guess I'll just have to go forward with it."

"No," Jace said frantically, not certain what 'going forward with it' meant, but fairly certain he did not want to find out. Why hadn't he lied to her, tried to get more information? "I mean, I'll consider—"

"What happens if I do this?"

Lines of pain ran down the scars on Jace's back, and he gasped and for a moment was—

-pinned on the table with Tezzeret bending over him, the manablade hovering above his back and then slicing downward as he screamed himself hoarse—

-wracked with a full-body shiver of pain. A soft whimper pulled its way out of his throat without his consent.

"Interesting," the voice continued relentlessly. Jace struggled against his bonds, once more reaching out with his mind—and once again the stab of pain through his temple caught him and dissipated the feeble attempt.

He took a deep, steadying breath through his nose. A gentle touch on his forehead was followed by a stab of pain down the lightning scar on his chest and—

-Ral's hands on his chest like a lifeline, followed by a surging rush of painful electricity and the absence of a heartbeat becoming a thunderclap in his ears—

-Jace swallowed against the feeling of needing to throw up.

"The light seems to be disturbing the patterns," mumbled the voice, and there was a moment of hollow silence before Jace felt cloth slide across his eyes and block his view, not that he had been able to see much to begin with. The disappearance of the light should have quieted the headache, but instead it merely left him lost in the darkness, his heart beating thunderously loud in his ears.

"What do you want?" he asked, but that was wrong—he'd already asked that, hadn't he? Something tingled on his forehead, and he realized the flat, plastic disks Ral had taken off last time they'd tested the flux machine had been replaced. There was a low hum as the power running through them intensified, and Jace bucked against his restraints. This didn't feel like the last time. Something was very different, very wrong. His hands clenched and unclenched, but he wasn't trying to move them. He could feel Ral's equations burning at the corners of his mind, but they were backwards, inverted, solution and initial conditions mixed up and turned over.

His mind burning with an internal fire, Jace slipped into darkness.