A low murmur of conversation dropped off as Pyrrha and Daisy emerged from the fire in a burst of green light and ash. Lit well by the gold-tinted fungi, the common hall for a moment appeared as a portal into the past with the impressions of life and activity afforded by its occupants, but Pyrrha's mind soon caught up to her despondent reality; amidst stations of study stripped bare and dusty shelves picked clean, there were but three other silent souls inhabiting the space. They all watched Pyrrha.
Byron stood beside the fire, unruly brown hair matted to his forehead with old sweat. Wasila waved from behind him, seated with refined ease beside Furnival at the round meeting table, and her enduring smile quirked into a smirk at the disheveled potioneer's anxious half-step forward.
He spared Daisy a curious glance before meekly meeting Pyrrha's stare. "Pyrrha . . . listen, it's—er, I mean, first of all, I'm glad to see you're—"
"Does anything of what you're attempting to say pertain to Morrigan?" Pyrrha said.
Byron winced at her tone. "Er, no."
"Then it can wait. Go and attend to the vapor chamber; from here on, the Lodge never stills while I'm inside it. Understand?" Pyrrha waited until Byron and Wasila both nodded before adding, "You'll share the duty with Eilith, as well. It's the least she can do."
"Sure. I'll pass that along, I suppose," Byron said, a little dubious. He seemed to summon himself up, pushing his crooked glasses back into place. "I'm sorry, but I really must tell you—well, I am sorry for all that . . . that mess back there, but Aradia, you know, she was . . ."
"A difficult woman to disregard," Pyrrha finished, and Byron nodded with some relief that he had been understood. Displeasure indurated her tone to ring through the room. "As am I, yet here you stand easily enough, misusing my time to satisfy your own peace of mind. Begone! Go, before my patience fails me—we may both regret what happens then!"
The weedy wizard tried his best not to appear hurried as he fled, nearly tripping over the hem of his robes on his way out the eastern door.
Wasila gave a shake of her head with a rueful grin, twirling her wand between her fingers. "The poor man can't find a break, can he? I wonder who it is he was hoping to see."
"Weren't you a bit harsh?" Daisy said.
"I think little of anyone that allow themselves to be cowed into acting toward ends they believe to be wrong," Pyrrha said, running her fingers through her hair; her left arm twitched up and lowered again. "He would have been a killer by coercion."
Fury and eagerness were all that ran her enervated body, and it had perhaps amplified her disgust, but Byron's feelings were immaterial. Only one consideration could possibly earn her delicacy. The object of their deadly excursion sat there before her, bewildered and yet somewhat more at ease than she might have expected, though he had paled at the glimpse of her arm. She approached the table with her best effort at an expression of calm reassurance.
When she laid her hand on the high back of the chair opposite, Wasila barely shook her head and flicked her eyes at the empty seat at Furnival's other side; after a ponderous moment Pyrrha rounded the table and claimed the indicated chair, and with a few gestures pulled it out and sat it facing the historian directly. Past him, Wasila briefly pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Mr. Furnival," Pyrrha said as she took her seat. Daisy hopped up and settled on the table's edge behind her. "Let me begin with an apology for the . . . for our intrusion. I'd hoped for a less stressful reunion for us both, though you appear to be keeping well?"
Furnival uttered a laugh, somewhat higher than his usual voice, though he spoke steadily. "I'm well enough, aren't I? Well as I can be after playin' host to a fuckin' civil war skirmish in me own home—ah, pardon the language, good ladies, but I'm all in a tizzy! Miss Harcourt's stimulating company only does so much for a man's nerves in this sort'a bloody fever dream. And you!" The old man gestured at Pyrrha up and down. "What in God's good name happened to John Clay's little girl, eh? Explain me that!"
"More than I'd like, and nothing I care to revisit in detail."
Furnival's brow furrowed, and Wasila gave a little grimace from behind him. "A shame, that, but I can understand—I'd heard a bit'a the business from yer da, ya know, and I still can't wrap my head around it—to kidnap a bleedin' child like—!"
"I'll thank you not to continue that thought," Pyrrha said sharply, and Furnival quailed a little. Drang was distant history she'd rather not have exhumed, particularly in Wasila's company, considering the woman's unsettling attention to her past.
"A'course, a'course, and grant yer forgiveness." Furnival sat back and rubbed at his grey temples. "It's all a bit much for me, isn't it—the Nightmare Queen!" he cried. "God help us all if it truly ain't a heap'a nonsense!"
"She's out there, sir. She set upon us at your home soon after you left, and this—" Pyrrha shook back her sleeve and held up the stump of her left arm, the sealed flesh still an angry scarlet "—is what she did to me."
Furnival cringed. "Good lord, how—?"
"This was my second escape, days ago," Pyrrha said, placing a finger at the sensationless site of her scar. "After she murdered my sister in front of me."
Ashlin was suddenly there as if summoned, sat across the table from Pyrrha at Wasila's far side. She offered a smile, sad and genuine, and the burn mirrored the uprising warmth in Pyrrha's heart at the sight.
Furnival's response reclaimed her attention. "That's . . . well, that's fuckin' brutal, ain't it?" he said, voice gone a little thick. "John couldn't help but mention the two'a ya when we had business, no matter the occasion—even in writin', he'd tell me this an' that about somesuch silly joke or gesture—kind'a things only the parents can really appreciate, I s'pose. I feel as if I might'a knew her a little for that, if that makes any sort of sense, so I'm . . . I hate to hear it. I really do."
"Thank you for that," Pyrrha said quietly. "Perhaps you've had some light shed on your purpose here?"
Furnival blinked owlishly, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was about to say. "It's how the raving mad one put it, then? You need me to tell ya how to kill the Nightmare Queen."
Wasila laughed. "Well, that's a fine windfall! To think we nearly wasted precious time at divining her past, cobbling together an answer! Don't hold back, wise man," she said, "where do we stick her?"
To Pyrrha's surprise the old man snorted, amused. "Ah, feck off, and you know well what I meant! A'course I dunno about all that curse business—but what I do know, see, is everythin' else, near enough. But I don't see for what call," he added to Pyrrha curiously, "when it's all been told before. Ain't you got yer da's notes? He took plenty enough in all our jawin'."
Pyrrha shook her head. "They were all destroyed when our home burned to the ground. I hadn't yet been through the lot of them."
The atmosphere perceptibly sobered to its earlier state in the silence that followed. It rang unpleasantly of any number of other social engagements where Pyrrha's deportment had been found wanting, though she hadn't a clue how one might soften such news.
Daisy spoke up as if nothing had gone amiss. "So instead, we get to hear it all straight from you. Could be for the best, even; your own account is bound to be more thorough."
"Aye, there's that, to be sure," Furnival agreed. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "So let's crack on! Where shall I begin, eh? What is it you know already of the Queen's tragic past?"
Little was there for Pyrrha to relate, as her focus had been consumed by the search for the island prison, taking for granted all the time that the knowledge and skill available to her would be sufficient in breaking the witch's curse. She recited the obscure tidbits she had run across that came prior to the storybook confrontation, and then summarized the tale itself, and by the end of her oration Furnival was shaking his head as if to condemn uncouth behavior.
"Just enough truth to it for the purpose of entertainment, I reckon," he said, as if history were ill-used for such a function, "but otherwise worthless gibberish, that fairy tale is. I'll have to begin at the beginning, then, to set you to rights, an' hopefully you can make of it what you need to."
"That's all I can ask. Thank you," Pyrrha said.
The anticipation that had been building in her now mingled with an odd melancholy; there was the shadow of resemblance to better evenings spent listening to tales spun by her father, and it was a woefully hollow echo. She thought she may never truly recapture that distant feeling of insulated happiness.
Furnival rolled his eyes up to the glowing ceiling in thought, absently righting his monocle. "Morrigan's earliest years are the least well documented, an' I can't say as it's all that relevant to what came later. Suffice it to say her mother, Nemain, made a proper ordeal out of childhood for her and her sisters, for what greater temptation is there than to exploit those who depend on you, when they harness such power? Accounts of how that arrangement ended differ, though not by much, all told; there was undoubtedly a nasty sort of death involved.
"The sisters three branched out at their newfound freedom, though they remained close, a'course, close as siblings could be who'd been through all they had together under Nemain. They began to practice magic as never they had before, and for all the hell their mother had given them, she'd chanced at one kindness; she'd kept her daughters circumspect. Left to their own devices, notoriety was theirs across the land soon enough, and sooner still were all manner of folk venturing from near and far to beg boons of the sisters—long, long before we magicals were numbered enough to be hunted and driven to secrecy, see. The witches being of rather a rough and insular upbringing, I was astonished to find they had entertained the peasants for a time, perhaps finding worth in the adulation of the masses—but only for a time.
"Yes, time came and went, yet the entreaties of the muggles never waned in volume; much the opposite, as one might expect. Ceaseless pleas became requests became entitled demands, and then that was that, the end of the peoples' good fortune. The sisters turned away all comers, from beleaguered warlords to sick-stricken fishwives with five mouths to feed. Resentment was quick to follow, and retribution right on its heels—a terrible crime it was, indeed, not to consent to spend their lives in constant pursuit of the betterment of strangers, in the manner of the Blighted Bride. In this, the sisters had joined the ranks of Dagda and Cuhulin as heretics in the minds of the populace, self-consumed outsiders to the goodness of humanity, content to champion suffering by their inaction."
"Rubbish!" Daisy reddened a little when the outburst drew their eyes. "Sorry, it's just so unfair! Nobody should have to bear all that responsibility."
"Where do you come from that 'fair' is a consideration?" Wasila said. "I should like to visit."
"There's justice to the world," Daisy said. "Only . . . there isn't enough of it, sometimes." She shifted nearer to Pyrrha upon the tabletop.
There was a soft rustle of movement, and Pyrrha's hair uncoiled and tumbled down her shoulders, where it met the gentle pull of a hairbrush. The unexpected attention sent a tingle of warmth over her scalp.
Wasila looked unimpressed. "How terribly unlucky for those at the end of the line when the well runs dry."
"Justice," Ashlin said, leaning forward knowingly, "is something we've all got to bring about for ourselves—it won't just happen, serendipitous."
"I'm inclined to agree," Pyrrha said, falling silent at the same moment as Daisy, whom she'd spoken over. A thrill of alarm ascended her spine.
"Sorry—agree with what?" Daisy said, pausing mid-stroke.
"I was thinking aloud," Pyrrha said, striving not to sound breathless as cruel heat seeped in. She gestured at Furnival. "Continue."
The old man nodded amiably. "Right, an' where was I, now? Aha! Retribution." He half-stood and turned his chair to face Pyrrha more completely, plopping gratefully back down. "So, as I said, ent nobody who were happy with the sisters' change of heart. The muggles raised a racket backed by steel, more than once, if you'll believe it—by all accounts, it took no less than three separate 'battles' for the masses to take the lesson, an' they'd done quite some damage to Morrigan's forest refuge in the meanwhile. She didn't take kindly to that, an' it was that point she an' her sisters shed all compunctions. Anyone from then on who neared their lands were recipient to an indiscriminate and deadly attention, to every sadistic length in their power.
"At some point during this period, the witches had made the acquaintance of Dagda, a recluse in his own right, so I myself would be eager to learn how that came about, but alas, I've had no luck in that direction. Dagda faced similar persecution, being a cantankerous old wizard hoarding wondrous magics of his own—a case of the outcasts banding together against oppression, I could suppose, but I digress. They'd become so close, in fact, the old man had consented for Morrigan, an' only Morrigan, to sip from his enchanted cauldron, from which it was said no one walked away unsatisfied. It's my speculation that her great desire then was to deepen her connection to the untamed timberlands she claimed as home, as it explains rather neatly her reputed affinity for wildlife.
"It was Dagda who ferried a message from the wizard-hero Fionn McCoul himself, perhaps with a bit of coaxing on the old man's part. It was an offer of amnesty for their heretofore unchecked brutality, with the provision that the sisters would lend themselves to aid in quelling the uprising of the giants, who had united under a vicious specimen called Bennadon. I could prattle on for hours about that fella, the remarkable feats'a conquest—but, yes, another time, perhaps. Ahem.
"Eventually the siblings agreed to his terms, and they held to their word, helped McCoul wage war against the giant tribes who had terrorized and overrun settlements across Ireland. It was a campaign of years, despite the combined might at their disposal, an' by the time of its end—a decisive loss for the giants—Fionn had realized some kindled affection toward the Nightmare Queen."
Cold exhilaration suffused Pyrrha's lungs. "Were they—did they have a relationship?"
"Most definitely not," Furnival said. "It was this very thing which sparked their enduring feud; McCoul declared his feelings in unflinching readiness to be reciprocated, and, by what few accounts I've managed to scrounge, Morrigan spurned him in the most public and humiliating manner she could contrive. In his outrage, Fionn reneged on their agreement, and the massacre that followed at the edge of the wilds is more or less accounted for in that tale of yours."
"Macha and Badb did betray their sister, then?"
"That they did. Not out of jealousy or spite, mind you—they sought after their own safety, and knew Fionn was their only hope. Yes," Furnival said at Pyrrha's expression, "by their assertions, Morrigan's disposition had gradually twisted into tyrannical cruelty that recalled their mother, only with an unmatched command of magic to give teeth to the situation."
"Why?" Pyrrha said. It seemed a bizarre turn from what had supposedly been a tight-knit sororal bond.
"No one can say for certain," Furnival said. "Could be it was just who she was finally free to become. My guess? It would have something to do with that mysterious well of power Morrigan alone had been granted a taste of. The timeline seems to fit together, if ya squint."
"Perhaps," Pyrrha said. "Have there been others to take this sort of fall, after drinking of the cauldron?"
Furnival shrugged. "It was legend, an honor reserved for those who'd earned Dagda's respect. I've got no concrete proof of any other recipient, so all I'd venture to say is that the big man himself seemed to maintain a certain level of waspishness throughout his recorded lifetime. No sudden descent into madness."
"Did Dagda deign to bestow this 'honor' to Fionn?"
"No. They had tensions of their own. Dagda had family on both sides of the war, if you catch my meaning. McCoul held that against him."
"I see." What little pride in her lineage Pyrrha might have held to was sinking away. "Go on."
"An' on I go. Now, Fionn, having avenged his wounded ego at the cost of hundreds or thousands of lives, including that of his own wife, well—it was a mess, a blight on his good name, and it was all his own doing. In his rage he took Morrigan prisoner rather than ending the affair right there, colluding with his old nemeses the giants, to boot. Now, for my money, it was the shock of killing her own sisters that did it."
"Did what?"
Furnival blinked. "Allowed Fionn to capture and imprison her with such impunity, a'course! Haven't I gone on about her powers, not to mention the staff."
"The staff?"
"Another gift from Dagda, I tend to suspect, as Macha and Badb hadn't their own, while Dagda's instrument was famed in its own right. There are some lines of thought that lean toward special influence of the masses having been granted or enhanced by the staff, but it's nothing I can verify, even though it's her namesake."
"You can," Pyrrha said. "We've had occasion to examine it, and discovered it to have a profound sway over the minds of those whose touch it rejected." Irving's shaken countenance flashed through her mind, another image framed in blood taking its place.
Furnival nearly shot up from his chair before he gathered himself and sat back down, brows high. "The staff!" he cried. "You've seen the staff of the Nightmare Queen? Held it? Have ya got it still?"
Pyrrha shook her head with regret. "She's since reclaimed it."
"Ah." Furnival deflated. "That's bad."
"Our gratitude for your special insight," Wasila said wryly.
"But you've got to tell me—what was it like to wield? How did it feel to work magic with? And the materials—how was it fashioned?"
"Quid pro quo," Pyrrha said, tilting her head subconsciously to grant Daisy better access. "Finish your recollections."
"Hell! Ah, well, it's easy enough, as that's near the end of things. As you'll recall, Fionn and the giants built that monument to their mutual loathing of the Nightmare Queen, where she was imprisoned for ages untold. She cursed herself in her hatred for Fionn, that she may live to exact revenge on his line, and here we are."
"Elaborate," Pyrrha said, leaning forward intently. "This is the most vital point, the nature of her curse. Tell me what you know of it."
Furnival looked nonplussed. "Done that, haven't I? How d'ya imagine I might expound any further on that business?"
"The same way you've illuminated the rest of it," Pyrrha said, growing incensed in her impatience. "Records. Accounts and cross-references. Extrapolate, if you must. Her jailers had to have seen or heard something of note, for instance."
Furnival laughed with a trace of condescension. "Ya ever met a giant? It ain't quite like them to keep meticulous written histories."
"I've met giants. You well know they pass down their lore orally."
"I'll put it to ya like this, then; ya ever had a thoughtful and enlightening chat with a giant? No?"
"They weren't animals," Pyrrha snapped. "If you'd bothered to treat with them, you might have learned something useful." Her building fury was only partially aimed at Furnival; she'd already squandered the very same opportunity in her single-minded pursuit.
Furnival didn't bother to hide affront. "Seems yer shit outta luck then, as I didn't bother to get me head ripped off for some dimwit's musings!"
Daisy had abandoned Pyrrha's hair, leaning around. "How are we supposed to learn more about the curse, then?"
"I can't rightly say," Furnival said, leaning back and scratching at his beard, disgruntled. "Unless ya can speak to the dead, it seems there lies an impasse."
"Do you know of any ghosts from that time?" Daisy said hopefully.
"None, and believe you me, I've searched far and wide."
A heavy silence fell upon their gathering, perceptibly tainted by Pyrrha's ill humor. She met Ashlin's eyes across the table and saw her own helpless frustration reflected in her sister's expression. Furnival's account had filled in details everywhere but the most crucial point, and she couldn't help the creeping feeling that her efforts had been for naught once again, that she had lost her hand, lost Hati, in yet another of her misguided endeavors.
Compounding her dismay was the decisive tarnishing of her heritage; the way the facts fell together regarding Morrigan, Fionn, and their family's blood connection, suggested dark and ugly notions of her famed ancestor. Even if that underlying horror were to be somehow disregarded, Pyrrha now felt she could appreciate Morrigan's drive for vengeance, in light of all she'd learned.
"Tell us more about Dagda," Wasila ventured. "He didn't feature in the storybook at all."
Furnival gave her a nod over his shoulder. "He was a crafty fella, the once-in-a-century sort, like old Nicholas Flamel or Albus Dumbledore. He treasured his own genius and the artifacts born from it; the advent of staves as a magical focus, the enchanted harp which played upon emotions easily as notes, and above all, his cauldron—his very own philosopher's stone, that was, his life's masterwork. These objects of his were sought after, as ya might think, an' it made him paranoid an' misanthropic—justifiably so, I'll warrant."
Wasila sat up a little straighter. "His harp played on emotions? Do you know any more?"
"I do. It was a piece especially dear to him, a gift for his daughter. He meant the harp to fulfill her what desires she may coax from the land's people, but she was too good-hearted to take such an advantage, and so she gave it away as a mere curiosity. Bit of a tragic turn, it's said, because the harp evidently had another enchantment; it was spelled to guide the owner through all obfuscations, back to Dagda's lair—this, so that his daughter may visit him and skirt the charms which kept him hidden away."
"That's . . . interesting," Pyrrha murmured. A fantastical course of action was beginning to plot itself in her head.
"What did the harp look like?" Wasila said, glittering eyes boring into the historian.
"Finely carved oak," Furnival said thoughtfully, "apart from the neck; the woodwork there was gnarled, ugly. Decorated with pyrographic ivy patterns. The strings were said to resemble flaxen hair."
Wasila gave an elated laugh and captured Pyrrha's eyes. "I've heard tell of a harp like this—in the possession of Horst König."
"A dealer in rare magical artifacts," Pyrrha said for Daisy's benefit. Exhilaration seemed to claim her and Wasila both, a static charge carried between them.
"We get our hands on that—"
"—we use it to find the cauldron," Pyrrha finished.
It was a solution that seemed too good to be true, as had Morrigan's existence seemed too outlandish and terrible—if the one, why not the other? She had one overriding desire for the cauldron to satisfy; the singular knowledge that would elevate her to an instrument of Morrigan's undoing. Her own zeal faintly unsettled her, that she would grasp so readily after any such tenuous thread, but she had nothing else resembling an option and she burned to act against the witch.
"Hang on," Daisy said, "you think this cauldron can give us an answer? That it's just out there, waiting?"
"Morrigan was," Pyrrha said, feeling faintly dizzy. "We can't speak to the dead, as was pointed out so astutely—"
"What am I, on vacation?" Ashlin put in.
"—it's our only chance to obtain the knowledge we need," Pyrrha said. "It must exist."
"No one walks away dissatisfied," Wasila repeated, securing Furnival in an eerie stare. "Isn't that right, wise man?"
"I—well, yes, but I can't speak to any of this, it's—it's out of me feckin' realm, to say the least!"
"Do you have cachet with this man König?" Pyrrha said, looking past Furnival. Wasila's invigorated smile widened.
"A few of myselves," Wasila said with a nod. "The money won't be an object. If he hasn't yet sold the harp, it's as good as our own. I'll set out immediately to make the arrangements, with your magnanimous permission?"
"In a moment," Pyrrha said. She pushed to her feet, wincing when she'd pressed the tender wound to the chair's arm; she gestured for the historian to rise with her. "You've been most helpful, sir. Thank you. We may call upon you at a later time with further questions."
"Just a minute, now!" Furnival shoved to a stand. "Glad to be a'service, an' all, but we've had a bargain! I've waited all me life for a real peek into Morrigan's personal history, even secondhand—ya got to tell me all about that staff."
"Another time, you have my word. I have pressing matters to attend to. Wasila will escort you home and help to clear up the mess."
The historian's disappointment was palpable, and it took several rounds of promises and coaxing before they at last had him out the Floo; Daisy had prolonged matters by speaking up on his behalf. With so much for Pyrrha to consider in the revelations delivered by Furnival and Aradia, she couldn't tolerate any time wasted for the old man's whims. She caught Wasila's wrist on her way after Furnival.
"Only suppression, for now. We may need him again. And I want the bodies recovered and preserved."
"Done." Wasila flashed her Cheshire cat smile over her shoulder as emerald flames swallowed her whole.
The flickering fireplace held Pyrrha's gaze for all of a few moments before her eyes roamed without purpose up to the gloamy ceiling, and she exhaled a long breath, feeling utterly spent. A momentous milestone had been achieved, another flagstone laid upon a long and treacherous road. She lamented that success never brought her the peace that should correspond to the misery of failure. Ashlin's head settled on her shoulder.
"What are you thinking?" Daisy said quietly.
Pyrrha turned to face her; Ashlin was gone. "The beginning of Morrigan's end is in sight . . . and what satisfaction I may have taken here is sapped from me. Fionn McCoul," she said, "was a despicable man, and he didn't know it."
"He was a bastard, all right." The curse sounded foreign on Daisy's tongue. She slid off the table and drew near, looking with soft concern. "D'you feel badly for her?"
"She took Ashlin." Pyrrha turned her head, her hair a curtain against what her face may betray. It was a crutch she never allowed herself. "The loathing is still there . . . perhaps it's less focused. I wonder that it will linger after her death . . . but that will depend, I think."
"On what?"
"On whether I can make amends," Pyrrha said lifelessly, "for my very worst mistakes." She matched eyes with Daisy again and surrendered to the impending leap, heart in her throat. "Now is the time for you to understand me entirely, if it's still what you want."
"Let's have it out," Daisy said, a resolute light in her eyes. "Less worry on both sides. There's nothing you can tell me that would drive me off."
"Then come with me and see."
They walked the tunneled halls in somber silence bereft of a telltale clicking at their heels. Pyrrha could feel her sister trailing in their wake instead, a lurking omnipresence at the edge of sight. The midnight colors in the walls bled and shifted into one another, imparting a dreamlike peace that was a pale shade of what it could be, the difference between fitful rest and the repose of death.
Featureless stone loomed ahead as a wall to bar the way. Pyrrha paused in the golden gloom before the portal, beneath the suncaps emanating their subtle scent that mingled with sour metal and settled on the back of her tongue.
"Hati let you in, didn't he?"
Daisy nodded from aside, downcast. Her hands played idly at each other. "He saved my life, held me back from the hex that was here."
"Is that so?" Pyrrha felt a pang of sorrow. Hati had so readily leapt to her defense against his pack. "It doesn't surprise me . . . Not to diminish him, but I want you to know I had you in mind, though I never meant for you to come this far. The spell would only have made you vanish until I returned to recall you."
"Made me vanish?" Daisy's arms crept up in a subconscious self-embrace. "You can vanish a person? What if you hadn't been around to bring me back?"
Distress reared up. Pyrrha had meant to deliver reassurance, meant well and made worse, true to her accursed nature. The scar's latent fire seemed to feed on the strange air.
"Then someone else would have discovered you later. All your time away would have passed in a moment, as if you'd merely blinked." Pyrrha turned from Daisy to place her hand against the warm stone that thrummed to the rhythm of her own pulse; the barrier disappeared.
"Hati did the same thing," Daisy said, voice tentative and inquiring.
"The way is sealed with my blood." Pyrrha let the admission hang for a moment, allowing them both to consider the conception of their new accord. "Hati came to my defense in the Forbidden Forest. To heal his wounds, I had to invoke magic fueled by my own body. He carried part of me within him."
"Blood magic," Daisy repeated in a whisper. She looked worried and unsettled, reluctantly curious; a hopeful sign.
"Yes. It's a fascinating branch of study to which I've devoted myself. Quite beyond what wizardkind have thus far ventured to observe, I've found the blood of all life to be a sort of . . ."
While she gathered her thoughts, Pyrrha beckoned and led the way into her study, her cluttered utopia of exhaustive research and experimentation, all aglow with the emerald fluid vats and the flickering azure of the nerve cloud. The wall lamps that recalled her old home winked dimly in contrast, spilling their hearts no further than the open pages of the writings spread beneath. Ashlin stood before the stone lectern and contemplated the tome there.
". . . A sort of counterpart to the soul as we understand it, neither entirely inverse nor alike."
There was a pause in which Pyrrha marveled at the sensation of speaking aloud about the passionate drive and interest she had so long kept apart from her scant personal connections. Aradia had taken interest insofar as she could benefit, as had Pyrrha in turn for the old witch's studies of the soul, but neither had shared a scrap more than what was necessary for cohesion.
"Counterpart to . . . ?" Daisy trailed off with an expression that told of a formulating question; Pyrrha turned away to place herself before the pair of preservative vats and watched the cloudy fluid drift. Daisy joined her side. "I don't understand. We each have a soul, the essence of who we are, right?"
"The entirety," Pyrrha amended. "It encapsulates us as individuals, stripped bare of pretense; thoughts, feelings, memory, personality . . . consciousness. Personhood distilled."
"And blood is a counterpart to that . . . how?" Daisy's tone leaned more interested than disturbed; Pyrrha felt a small swell of elation.
"As the fundamental nature of the soul is transcendence, an otherworldly extension of self," Pyrrha said, "the nature of blood is that of primal worldly connection, an infinitely tangled web of mortal life."
The walls seemed to draw her voice out of the air, leaving the irregular snap and jolt of the nerve cloud to disturb the lull. Antiseptic smells seeped from the two tempered glass vats, layering over the must of old parchment and the subtle hints of blood and burning oil. The chamber's climate was almost cold enough to fog their breath, a concession to necessity, and it made evident a subtle warmth emanating from the tanks.
"So, I suppose it's like . . ." Daisy bit her lip, staring straight through the billowing pale green matter. "If the soul is individuality, then blood is . . . er—community?"
"Hm . . . efficiently phrased, and basically accurate as an analogy." Pyrrha couldn't help a pleased quirk of the lip briefly fracturing her solemnity. "The magic in blood connects all the living in our unified trial of life; charms fashioned of these bonds have the potential to transcend perceived limitations. Moreover, our lifeblood carries impressions akin to the soul, but they are imprints from the lives around us that have made their mark on ours, and have thus become a part of our enduring experience."
Daisy's eyes were wide, and she seemed to struggle, hands kneading at each other. "We've got a—a communal memory? You're saying, in my blood—in our blood, we've taken in a bit of everyone in our lives?"
"I believe it to be the case. I haven't yet proven this conclusively . . . but, yes. We hold dormant the sum of all who've touched us, from distant ancestors to passing strangers to friends . . . and family." Pyrrha waved her hand to indicate the slow-swirling liquid before them, where the shadow of a jaw had sunk into view.
"Oh," Daisy said breathlessly, clutching Pyrrha's elbow. "Oh, no . . . those . . . ?"
"My parents," Pyrrha affirmed quietly, the admission rekindling an old ache. "What was left."
There were tears in Daisy's eyes, and she tried to blink them away. "God, how terrible to think . . . to think what they must've felt. How awful. Oh, I miss them." She dabbed at her eyes with a sleeve, the other hand still squeezing Pyrrha's arm. "You've kept them here with you, all this time? Why?"
Pyrrha ran a loving hand down the warm curved glass, heart speeding with passion and anxiety. Everything that mattered to her was converging into conflict.
"Because . . . there exists the barest hint of potential. I've learned to manipulate lifeblood connections to ends thought impossible, and I intend to tap into our intrinsic flesh memories for an even greater feat . . . Just as the fantasy of true, unfettered immortality came to be realized in horcruxes, I will call upon blood magic to actualize the recreation of lost life."
The silence echoed. Daisy looked as stunned as Pyrrha felt for having at long last voiced aloud that all-consuming and unthinkable desire, the words still humming along her bones. Daisy's stricken expression gradually crumpled until she broke down, gathering Pyrrha into her arms, and she shook with the weeping she suppressed in Pyrrha's shoulder. Prickling dismay passed in lingering ripples at each little shudder.
"F-forgive me, I thought—thought so badly of you when I—Oh, of course—of course, I can't believe I couldn't see—!"
"I forgive you, Daisy, it's not even a question . . . Please . . ."
"God, I don't believe it," Daisy said into Pyrrha's shoulder. "I've been blind. This . . . this finally makes it all so obvious. I don't believe it. It all started after—after—" she cast a hand at the remains "—and I can't believe I never guessed at . . ."
"No . . . you couldn't have known. Don't tear yourself down for this. I did all I could to keep it from you. I'm sorry."
"But you must know—" Daisy pulled back and held Pyrrha by the shoulders, gaze wet and imploring "—you must know how absolutely mad this is, how dangerous and horrible and disastrous to get right, let alone what might come of a misstep!"
"I don't know anything of the sort," Pyrrha said gently.
"No, don't say that!" Daisy shook her a little. "Don't say that to me! You're more brilliant than I'll ever be, you've got to understand the wrong in this! You told me yourself about horcruxes, the God-awful consequences—how is this any different? This is what's been killing you!"
"I would give everything to restore my family . . . and so I have been. For them, not myself. That's the difference."
The words seemed to strike Daisy deeply, and her distress hardened into outrage; she let her arms fall. "For them? Did they want this from you? Have you asked them?"
"Do you imagine they wouldn't take back their lives if they could?" Pyrrha hadn't been prepared to defend herself like this; the cornered feeling was beginning to provoke her ire.
"They've passed on, Pyrrha," Daisy said, eyes burning, face flush with emotion. "You and I don't know them as they are now, and we don't know how they might feel about being ripped away from the peace they've found—but we can bloody well guess what they'd say to a trade!"
"Fortunate that it's not up to them." Pyrrha's level tone was a deception that harbored something ugly beneath the surface, a senseless antipathy toward those who would oppress her with such inordinate caring. Only she could weigh what her life was worth.
"And this is assuming you're absolutely, one hundred percent successful in bringing them back precisely as they were! What if they returned different?"
Hearing that underlying fear expressed from Daisy's mouth brought a chill crawling over Pyrrha, as if she hadn't truly considered it at all, and it sharpened her indignance. She turned away and approached her laboratory tables, pretending to consider the pools of red stagnant in their enchanted glassware.
"I'm fully cognizant of the risks, and I never intended to act decisively until I'd taken every missing measure and corrected every flaw in my method. If you haven't guessed that, perhaps I was mistaken, and you understand me not at all."
"Well then, bugger the risks to them! What about you, God damn it—don't you care what it's doing to you? Don't you care for your own—" Pyrrha startled when Daisy struck her shoulder "—bloody—" again "—life?" The blows kept falling.
Pyrrha clasped Daisy's fists in her hand as best she could, lowering the sundered arm raised in reflex; it was caught out and cradled in Daisy's own delicate hands, and she stared at it with an awful mix of miserable fury tainting her fair, blotchy face. She ran a thumb tenderly along the ridge of the wound, sending unpleasant tingling up the limb.
"Not as much as I value theirs. Not nearly so much," Pyrrha said. Another muted sob snuffed from Daisy in a spasm, and Pyrrha went on before it could escalate. "But I never said it would come to that. In fact, I don't believe it will."
"N-no?" Daisy looked hopeful and hopeless, intent on a glint of light in the gloom. "How can that be? Your heart, your body . . ."
"Have held up for more than two years," Pyrrha finished, a half-truth. "And I'm so very near to the answer, Daisy, so near I can almost anticipate their reunion . . . Here—let me show you something remarkable."
They crossed the study side by side, Daisy's desperate grip forbidding them to slip apart as they passed beneath the dim oil lamps of the adjacent hall, and they stopped at the same portrait flanked by two doors that mirrored the Clay household. The picture's occupant watched them with detached interest from where she lay lazily draped across a velvet chaise lounge, the neck of an empty bottle dangling from her fingers.
Daisy sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her free hand, and her voice was level, with a miraculous hint of good humor. "This had better not be what you meant by 'something remarkable'."
"Well, pardon me," Daphne drawled. Her voice was melodious and husky, faintly strained by a lifestyle of excess. "Had I expected to entertain, I promise I wouldn't be so dreadfully sober. Find me a drink, and I'll find you remarkable!" She threw back her head and laughed.
"It's heartening that alcohol abuse hasn't dulled your gift for wordplay," Pyrrha said. "How are you this evening?"
Daphne fixed her with an incredulous look that elicited embarrassment; it was a question never ventured before. "I'm faring better than you are, evidently. Was that some sort of thickheaded tip-off? Is this adorable little thing holding you hostage?"
Pyrrha hummed over Daisy's subdued giggle. "We're fine."
"Right." Daphne shifted back into her previous position, staring listlessly at the ceiling of her world, bottle swaying from her hanging hand. "I suppose you want me to stop by—?"
"No." All sparse contentment was seared away when the burn ignited again. "The—our home is gone."
Only Daphne's eyes moved, tearing away from the magnificent architecture. "Gone?"
"Burned." Ashlin stood before the portrait, a forlorn smile gracing her profile as she regarded it.
The air was thick with grief over again, as if it were a weighted net ever waiting to descend and entrap her at a single false step, at every last reminder of what was lost.
"The girl?" Daphne murmured, expression unreadable under unruly black hair.
Pyrrha turned without another word and threw open the righthand door, Daisy's shaken-off touch finding her shoulder instead. They stalled a moment at the threshold when a burst of shattered glass tinkled behind them.
"Better to burn out, I suppose . . ."
The door closed as they entered and Daisy glanced back briefly, as if she'd wanted to reply, but she stiffened when the room regained her attention.
It was an austere dwelling, the bare wood floor's dark polish reflecting dull golden light from the chandelier. Nearest the door was a cluster of dusty furniture; a small table with a pair of chairs stood upon a patterned rug, wall-mounted shelves entirely empty, the mirror-bearing dresser reflecting the room's sole anomaly upon its surface. Pyrrha's notepad rested there, pages thick with scribbled observations.
Beside her, Daisy surveyed the room with a countenance drained of color. The source of her unease could have been the room's glaring similarity to that of Ashlin's bedroom, contrived for a feeble trick of fleeting comfort upon the occasions of Pyrrha's visits. The position of the bed in the corner was partially obscured by a four-paneled partition, a perfect mirror to its lost counterpart, but for one flaw. Where the partition before them was lifeless wood, Ashlin's gift had been charmed to reflect fourfold the observer's every angle as they would appear in the settings of different lights and weathers.
Ashlin flickered in and out, her beaming smile stolen away just as Pyrrha caught sight of it. The flash was enough to draw out the memory it had mimicked and impress it vivid as if the birthday had only just passed; for a moment Pyrrha was swept up in a former life that she could only ever brush with the tips of her fingers, no matter how far she reached to feel again what had been and gone.
What lingered in the wake was the bittersweet sensation of a stab in her abdomen, the blade drawn out too soon. The scar bled warmth, and Pyrrha thought, Thank you.
An uncertain breath at her side brought her back to the present. It was the outline of the bed's occupant that transfixed Daisy, who peered through a gap between panels in a compromise of interest and trepidation. For encouragement Pyrrha gave a nudge along as she led the way around the partition to wait beside the bed's end table, where sat a wireless tuned to Ashlin's favorite channel; an upbeat piece drifted out to be lost in a sea of silence. The signal died at a gesture. When Daisy found the will to step into view she faltered, then stumbled to Pyrrha's shoulder, clutching and leaning unsteadily.
"What . . . ?"
The woman rested in funereal repose with arms folded over precisely tucked blankets that hadn't shifted an inch out of place, and her thin and smooth outline along the length of the bed gave rise to the impression of a narrow sarcophagus. Her chest rose and settled in a detached cadence. Dark red hair spilled around a pale and unblemished face, and empty black eyes looked beyond the blank ceiling, unblinking.
Upon the bed lay Pyrrha.
Tension hung about them like the deadly haze they'd earlier escaped, awaiting the lightest tilt in the balance to bring order crashing down. Pyrrha's shoulder twinged when fingernails dug in. The reaction of mute horror hadn't been what she'd hoped for, and she found herself treading unsteady ground once more.
"I call her Nona," Pyrrha said. The silence smothered her offer as inadequate. "My ninth attempt," she went on, hesitant. "My first success."
"You cloned yourself?" Daisy sounded on the verge of hysterics, breathing nearly erratic. "I'm going to vomit."
Ashlin snickered.
"You cloned yourself," Daisy repeated before Pyrrha could respond. "This—I don't know what to do. What do I do with this? There's another you?" She approached the bedside tentatively, as if the woman might lunge at her any moment.
"She's me as I was when I formed her," Pyrrha said. "In a sense. Inside her brain lives all of my history, my skills, my knowledge, my flaws. Given the proper initiative, she's precisely as capable as I was several months ago."
"She hasn't budged . . ." Daisy leaned nearer and laid a hesitant hand on the woman's arm, the contact failing to earn even a glance. "Nona?" she said, soft and unnerved.
As Pyrrha made to speak Daisy drew her wand. She drew gentle whirling patterns over the restful witch's body, a low hum filling and fleeing the room in even fluctuations. The sound faded when she shifted the wand's tip directly in front of Nona's eyes, where it emitted a violet light no more intense than an ember; the witch continued to stare past Daisy as if her mind were somewhere else entirely. The probing appeared fruitless until Daisy let out a little gasp of comprehension.
"She's—she's fully awake!" Daisy cried. "Not comatose, not charmed or cursed—what's—why won't she respond?"
"She lacks the will." Pyrrha joined Daisy by the bedside and placed a bracing hand on her friend's shoulder. "I've yet to reason out the final phase of the process, though she was never meant to be taken that far anyhow. I intended Nona to be my proof of concept, and that she has been; she's alive."
Daisy leaned away from their contact, pale and wide-eyed. "This is what 'alive' looks like to you? This isn't a person, it's a—a husk! You made her without a soul! How could you do this to her—to you? God, this is horrible—!"
"Calm yourself," Pyrrha said, striving to abide her own advice; Daisy's disgust had stricken her. "She's in no pain—she hasn't the capacity to understand suffering, or any other feeling. You may as well lament how the soles of your shoes feel to be trod upon."
"What a heap of rot! Just because she can't express it doesn't mean that this—" Daisy gestured vigorously at the bed "—isn't a miserable existence!"
The remonstration rang harshly while they reevaluated their standing. At their side, Nona was an immutable presence that rested with an enviable tranquility. She'd drawn Daisy's sympathetic gaze again, sorrowful brown eyes plumbing depthless black for all that wasn't there.
In her empty state, Nona could attach no meaning to any experience to befall her, and could form not even the most rudimentary thought in absence of a base identity to instill initiative. What she shared of Pyrrha was dormant, sealed beyond a rift she couldn't think to traverse; she was little more than a fleshbound library barren of readership. Pyrrha's overture to that effect was rejected with a tight-lipped shake of the head.
"I don't care how far gone you think she is," Daisy said. "Even if you're right, it's wrong. It's . . . cruel." She hugged herself and looked on the vacant body with disquiet. "I can't grasp how you can consider something like this a success."
"Nevertheless, a success is what she represents." Pyrrha's tone had flattened on its own. "Think on it. I've drawn from the echoes in my blood and recreated my living self to perfection; this means everything for my parents, for Ashlin. It means I have left only to discover how I may recall their departed souls, that I might reunite them with their flesh."
"This is utterly mad, I just can't believe . . . d'you really think . . . ?" Daisy's eyes shimmered with something less than hope. "Of course you do. Stupid question. It's possible, then . . . to bring them back whole? As if they'd never—never left?"
"It's more than possible," Pyrrha said. "It's inevitable."
"And you?" Daisy pressed, almost accusing. It was subtly evident in her manner that she had a mind to relent on the matter of Nona. Her inner conflict escaped through their eye contact; the compromised feelings she directed at herself brought Pyrrha her own stinging guilt. "You'll live through this?"
"I promise." The conviction in her voice seemed to quell the worry, but it didn't abate, and still beneath bled sadness and guilt for the counterpart's circumstance. Pyrrha regarded the body again, and ran her hand up through her hair. "Oh, Daisy . . . what would you have me do? Shall I grant her an end, sacrifice all she may yet offer for your peace of mind?"
"No," Daisy snapped. "Do it for her peace of mind. It's the only—only right thing that can come of this," she added with waning conviction, her eyes flitting between the Pyrrhas, hands kneading.
A protracted pause caught them up while Pyrrha stared through her doppelganger with the same distant listlessness. To terminate her greatest success would likely hinder her efforts when the time came to reconstitute her family's bodies. There were arguments swirling at the fore of her thoughts, insights that might bend Daisy's resolve, but she kept them inside. She didn't want to damage Daisy's self-regard any more than she already had. The procedure could survive Nona's loss, but she hoped it wouldn't have to.
The wand slipped easily from Pyrrha's pocket, and she pointed it without hesitation; an emerald glow shined from the tip, casting Nona in sickly pale tones that made her seem a body encased just beneath the waving turquoise glass of a shallow sea.
Daisy's hand caught her wrist, and the eerie light faded with the curse. Her words seemed to force themselves out: "Do you—do you need her?"
"I don't," Pyrrha said, soft and assuring. "Of course I don't."
"But she'd make it easier, right, or—or give you better odds of doing the job properly? Something definite?"
"That's right," Pyrrha said, voice neutral. Her wand arm still aimed, was still arrested in a tense grip.
They stood interlocked like statues frozen in depicted conflict. Then Daisy brought their arms down together and let go to wring at herself, head bowed away from the bed. She cursed softly and said, "Then I've changed my mind. Let her be until she can't help you anymore, and then . . ."
Affection barely tempered the sense of defeat that passed between them in one direction. "I'll set her free as soon as it's done. I always intended to," Pyrrha said. "You have my word. Please, don't worry yourself overmuch; not even time has meaning to her."
"It's awful, but it's . . . it's for the best in the long run, I hope. Doesn't feel like it right now, though." Daisy cast the body one more regretful glance and turned to round the partition, nearly fleeing the room. Pyrrha followed behind after switching on the wireless with a parting flick. "Is there—" Daisy stopped in front of the door "—could you give her her own soul? Could you find her one?"
"It would be an aberration," Pyrrha said quietly, reluctant to shed light on the darker corners of her arts. "Two such halves of disparate beings can never be reconciled. I wouldn't dare to attempt it, even if I didn't expect disaster. What you've seen here would wilt in comparison."
Daisy grimaced and nodded, crestfallen, and Pyrrha passed her to lead the way across the hall.
The refuge of Pyrrha's chamber evoked the illusory comfort of far-removed solace. Dim and familiar, the layout was broken and buried beneath piled texts and loose parchment. The ceiling rose higher than the room's width, and beneath it, lit wicks flickered with warm light that licked at the wallpaper, candles hanging high and fixed like distant pillars bearing up an array of constellations. The melting wax breathed down a lush and subtle scent that fused to taut muscles and encouraged them loose.
A polished wood armoire stood open wide to display a mirror that reflected only billowing fog against flat blackness. As Pyrrha approached, the haze resolved into mere suggestions of faces shaped from mist; the scowl of a gaunt old man, the proud stare of a woman with sculpted features. Behind them lurked another diffuse form, less cohesive than the others, yet still faintly evidencing an eerie smile.
When from the darkness a distant yellow light kindled, Pyrrha slammed the doors shut with a swipe of the hand, rattling the wrought iron hinges.
"Damn!" Daisy said. Pyrrha glanced back to see her clutching her chest from where she stood by the desk. "What's that about?"
"Nothing, I'm sorry." A beckon threw the armoire back open to reveal hanging robes that ranged a limited selection of muted styles and colors, identical pairs of boots set neatly beneath, next to one outlying set of pristine white trainers. "Help yourself to whatever you need," she said, swiping at the clothes; the rack slid beyond the wood confines to ferry more options into view from the other end. Another flick of the hand indicated a door behind Daisy. "Through there for the lavatory. I'll help you put your own quarters together tomorrow, if you like. Are you comfortable sleeping here tonight?"
The question was abandoned to the air for a few moments longer than was pleasant. It had been a boundary broken long ago in their friendship, but Pyrrha hadn't wanted to make the assumption after all she'd bared of her intentions. Feeling Daisy's chaotic emotions hadn't given a hint to her new disposition; there was far too much activity to translate.
"Of course," Daisy said with a bit of an edge.
Pyrrha turned to face her friend and spoke just as firmly. "Is there a problem?"
"No," Daisy said, "and that's exactly the point."
"Peculiar stance for an argument."
"Shut up," Daisy said. "You know what I'm talking about, I've only told you a thousand times that I don't like when you do that—when you act like I'm off my rocker for wanting to spend time in your bloody presence."
"Do you?" Pyrrha's demeanor had retreated into a cold shell. "That's not quite the impression I've had since I brought you here."
"Been reading me again?" Daisy clutched tight handfuls of her robe at her sides, cheeks and neck coloring. "Making stupid interpretations, like a blind woman matching colors?"
"As if there's a need." Pyrrha's pulse beat heavily. She shut and threw open the armoire again, and busied herself in the feigned rearranging of perfectly sorted potion vials. "It's plain on your face," she added, "I appall you."
"Life appalls me. This whole situation appalls me. Not you." Daisy's voice had passion undercut by frustration. "I understand why you're doing what you are. I might even call it the closest to the right thing there is to be done. You've never been a bad person, and you're still not, okay? Don't ever imagine I'm thinking otherwise."
"That's a weight off my soul, truly."
"Stop it," Daisy snapped. "If you're aiming to drive me off, you should know all you're really accomplishing is a more irritated roommate. You remember how that plays out, don't you?"
That made Pyrrha turn back around. The anger was still evident, but there was a light in Daisy's eyes. The reference let some of the tension out of the room.
"I remember," Pyrrha said, blindly shutting the closet behind her. As a girl she'd woken one day to find every last book in her room charmed shut, and the counterspell had eluded her until she finally stormed outside the empty home to confront someone; the tome in her arms had unfurled in the sun like a flower. "You gave my family quite a laugh . . . I could only forgive you."
"And then you stuck around with us, all according to plan." Daisy's ire faded into wry contentment. "I've always wanted your company, you twit. Nothing's changed there."
"But . . . ?" The prompt was necessary from Daisy's inflection. "You're still troubled."
"Of course I am! I hate what's going on, I hate that you have to do what you're doing, and not just to Nona." Daisy wrapped herself in her arms and spoke at the floor. "The outcome of all this is terrifying to imagine, no matter what it ends up being, but I—I'll help however I can. Even if I don't agree with this direction, it's your family and your decision, and I'd love nothing more than for you to prove me wrong and bring them back to us intact. If anyone in the entire world could make it happen, it's you."
Relief and happiness mingled to loosen the iron bands around Pyrrha's chest; they hadn't diverged as far as she'd feared. A desire to mend swept her up before she could second-guess the offer. "It needn't be that only my family has the chance . . ."
All color drained from Daisy's face, and she met Pyrrha's eyes with a haunted look. "My—my mum?" she whispered. "You think you could . . . ?"
"It's nearly as possible, I think," Pyrrha said gently, navigating the reaction with uncertainty. "I can't say this definitively until I've made the attempt, but it could turn out that my connection to her is too tenuous for the process to be viable. In that case . . . it would be down to you to undergo the procedure in my place. You or your father."
Daisy's hands shook where they met at her waist. Her wide eyes were fixed on her own clasped fingers, white and bloodless as her expression. "I—I don't know, that's—I mean, I can't—"
"You don't have to decide anything right now," Pyrrha said, closing their distance for a calming hand over hers. "The offer will always be open. Take all the time you need to think on it."
"I'll—I will. I'm so grateful, Pyrrha, really, I just . . ."
"There's nothing for you to explain," Pyrrha murmured. "I think it's about time for the day to end. I'll prepare you a bed while you wind down," she said. "Help yourself to whatever you can find."
A comfortable silence settled around them like a worn-in cloak while they reenacted a far gone childhood and performed their familiar bedtime routines. Pyrrha vanished and lifted possessions away, and the clinking and humming from the washroom recalled better nights spent wondering at the merits of grooming oneself so extensively before sleep. Ashlin's snickered observation that their contrasting appearances proved the results elicited a soft laugh as Pyrrha conjured a luxurious set of bedding across the room from her own.
The day's trials crept in to curl around Pyrrha's bones while she worked, dragging her down from the inside. A few wordless and mellow minutes later saw them abed under scant candlelight. Like no time had passed since the first stay over, they watched the shimmers of the wicks through the glossy liquid wax that dripped upward around the flames, each glowing drop striking the ceiling with a peaceful hiss. Where they landed their imperfect whiteness echoed outward across the ceiling like fleeting moonlight ripples on a dark pond. In the smothering arms of sleep Pyrrha began to know profound peace.
A radiant glow filled her eyelids, and she shot upright full of rushing blood, mirrored by Daisy at the other side.
The source drifted through the room as a pearly apparition in the shape of a sea turtle; it settled at Pyrrha's bedside and peered up at her with fathomless pale eyes.
"Harp sold off." It was Wasila's voice. "Gone to track it down."