Scribe of the Sidhe

by thegreatroshen

Fae has grown to adulthood in the diminished remains of the Fairy Tail Guild. Her family has been missing for seven years, and in that time she has mastered her magic and learned much about the world. When they finally return, she will be ready for greater adventures than ever before.

11. Investigation

My list of things to accomplish had not gotten shorter as my knowledge increased.

"As this crime has been committed by a Celestial Spirit, I believe the proper wording of Fioran law will largely negate the penalty that this man will suffer."

"His Majesty will not allow this to pass without challenge." Loke promised, hauling Hector to his feet. He leaned on his heavily, still gasping like he couldn't believe he could still breathe at all.

Mattson looked perplexed.

"King...Toma?"

I had a brief moment where I remembered that people did not know that Loke was in fact Leo.

"The Celestial Spirit King." I said as an explanation. "Does Fiore have an established modus operandi for interacting with the Celestial Spirit Realm in this way?"

A proclivity for Spatial Magic is a common trait found in the royal family, and they have maintained their status as Celestial Spirit Mages of various strengths throughout generations.

That's a yes then.

Mattson coughed, adjusting his cloak with one hand.

"There is. In large part, governance between the two is separate. So the formal penalty will need to be handled by his own people. As his actions are largely dependent on his summoner, most of the blame would fall on them."

Which meant that we needed to get back to the Celestial Spirit Realm and find the name of his contractor. Or...

I still needed to inspect who had managed to enter this room and how they had applied a curse to all of us without my noticing.

"Loke, can you take Hector back to the Realm and find his summoners name in the copy of the contract that is stored there? I'll work on finding whoever managed to get access to him."

I surveyed the former holding cell with my hands on my hips.

Hector's behavior had only changed after I left the room to speak to the Rune Knights. So there was a very narrow window of time when someone could have gotten in to interact with him at all.

To be this impactful and powerful, to make a Celestial Spirit forget their own identity, I assumed it had to be a close range effect. The further away you were from something, the less precise detail you could bring into being. And to reach such an ingrained concept such as that...

They would have needed to be right next to Hector.

So, the man I spoke to before I left was the one who had the full details. Hence why he was confident in the discussion. Like nothing could touch him. And from a human standpoint he was even right that we legally could not punish him. but he had been drawing things out instead of simply telling us that. Probably to buy time under the orders he was given.

But afterwards, he was unsure. Fearful. That may have been a reflexive response to him feeling himself dying. But my sense was at that moment, Hector would have said or done anything to no longer be dying. But he no longer had the capacity to tell us the important facts he had once known. They were probably still visible under Soulgaze. But by my estimate, I would not be functional if I used that again. Not with the dull throbbing in the back of my mind that had been slowly growing more profound.

So I needed to track this person the old fashioned way. I hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over my spellbook. The enchanted deerstalker hat that was my Sherlock Holmes totem would measure up to this situation well. But Harry Dresden was no slouch in solving a mystery either, and had the advantage of being a wizard himself.

I'll stick with what I've got for right now.

"Alright. Who was in here?"

I mused to myself, scanning the ground slowly as I circled the small room.

"What was your goal in getting into this room?"

The easy conclusion: this perpetrator was tying up loose ends. Something in Hector's memory would have been able to identify them. As long as the Hunter remained alive, he was a liability. Most Celestial Spirits were incredibly loyal to their contract holders, and the lack of answering loyalty presented few possibilities.

First, if Hector's contract was forged via Right of Conquest and he didn't actually have that much devotion to his summoner. But his behavior didn't reflect that l. He was confident. Perhaps that he would be rescued or otherwise escape punishment.

Second, if the man who gave him his orders tonight was not in fact his contracted summoner. Then Hector's loyalty would be given first to someone else, to the point of selling out the perpetrator of tonight's events. Which would definitely make him a threat to his continued obscurity.

The lengths which this person was going to in order to conceal their identity made me suspect that once there were enough clues to string together, traces of his activity would be popping up left and right.

But there was something else off about this whole scenario. Why the kids? Someone with this skill set could find much easier ways to make money. And no ransom was demanded. The man pulling Hector's strings had not needed him in the slightest. He had easily gained access to a manor I had secured, with Rune Knights within and without. But instead of taking the kids himself, if that was the original goal, he had sent Hector in. And now that the scheme had unraveled even just this tiny bit, he had targeted his own pawn instead of the kids again. This meant that either his purpose had been accomplished even with the brief abduction and he was covering his tracks, or he was regrouping for a second attempt. A more cautious one.

I stopped circling in the middle of the room, a plan coming together to fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

I needed to know what the original goal had been in targeting these six children. Because circumstances suggested it wasn't a cut and dry kidnapping and ransom attempt. I needed information on the sale of Silver Keys in Fiore and surrounding countries for the last few decades. Which was not feasible for me to tap, even with Story Magic, from where I stood now.

"I need an Archive."

I pulled out a round piece of lacrima, hung on a chain around my neck. It was about the size of a large marble. But I placed my fingers on either side of it and started to rotate them clockwise against each other, making it grow to about the size of my palm.

A number of our allies had Lacrima phone set ups because it was worth having direct means of contacting them. The tool, however useful, was not easy to make transportable. It had taken scouring for an obscure item from a niche fantasy story to get something to base it off of. I focused on it, and my intended target... I spoke to give the tool its direction on who to contact.

"Master Bob."

There was a pause and then a voice drifted from it. A tiny image of a bald man with a violet strappy shirt and a touch of make up on his face. I briefly wondered why he was awake and looking fresh at this hour, then decided not to question it.

"My darling Fae. How are you this fine evening?"

The affectionate coo in which he spoke was very par for the course for Master Bob of Blue Pegasus. A former member of Fairy Tail, and an old teammate of Makarov's, he was like a weird uncle to every guild member. And a long standing friend.

"Working unexpectedly. Does Blue Pegasus still have a running list of Celestial Spirit Mages in the country?"

The eccentric man hummed thoughtfully.

"I believe we do. Has someone else been naughty to a spirit?"

"If I'm right, an outside party deliberately shattered a Silver Key while they were on our side of their gate. Not his summoner. I'm trying to find a connection."

The man's face lost its light hearted expression for a split second and his perpetually smiling face settled into a focused stare.

"Is the Spirit alright?"

"They won't be once the King has their way with him for what he pulled here. But he'll live."

Master Bob was a Caster with Material Phasing. His magic had no connection to the Celestial realm whatsoever. But he was a frequent advocate of Celestial Spirits, and anyone who might be looked down on or discriminated against. He had warned Karen Lilica frequently about her treatment of her contracted spirits. The Zodiac, and Loke especially, remembered him for that.

"Let me have Hibiki call you back, darling. He has the current list, as I recall. What else will I be looking for?"

"Still figuring that out. But I'll update you as I learn more."

"Be careful, Fae. Ta-ta!"

So that meant Bob didn't have any immediate renewal leads for me.

"Appreciate it, Master Bob."

I shrunk the lacrima as the call terminated by twisting my hands at the sides counter clockwise and let the bauble drop back around my neck once it was back to its smallest size. Leaving it large made for a better image, but it also made it more fragile, and limited the length of calls made on it.

With some information being sought out for me, and a course of action chosen, I started to scour the room more in depth. Touching the ground, the door and the walls to get a hint of who had entered the room. It was as though my magic trying to delve that history was meeting not a wall of resistance, but a cloying, slick film. The revulsion was instantaneous and unexplainable. But also very traceable. Following the history that I couldn't see was as useful as getting a complete image.

So I went my way, holding the five pointed star talisman of silver that acted as a focal point of the Dresden totem. I followed the trail out to the main hallway. Black footprints imprinted on the otherwise clean floors, visible to only my eyes. It meandered in some places, turning this way or that. The distance between the prints told me that person had been in a hurry.

There was a trail going into the room where I had left the reunited families. And a trail going out again. I was turning towards the door to follow it out when small hands grabbed my arm.

It's Kellye.

The warning from Morgana came before she actually made contact with my arm, but didn't stop the slight jump as I turned back towards the girl who had a look of fierce determination in her eyes.

"Miss Fae, I couldn't say it before: but the man earlier. He lied."

Truth.

I sank to one knee, clasping Kelly's hand.

"Which one?"

She spoke hurriedly, like she was trying to get all the words out before something snatched them away from her.

"The man who said Tara forgot the handkerchief you made for her. She didn't forget it. He took it out of her hand. And she didn't seem to notice. No one did. He dropped these." She extended her hand which had the mangled pieces of what was once a Silver Celestial Spirit Gate Key.

"He told Mr. Marc to clean them up and burn them. But I took them, because he lied and I thought it might be important."

I let her drop them into my hands, mind whirling in a dozen different directions before it caught on what she had said.

'The man from before...'

There was only one face I remember as being out of place in the last little bit.

The coachman.

That seemed so long ago, though it hadn't even been ten minutes. Hector had seized while he was still in the hallway talking to Mattson. In that gap, he must have gotten into the room, hexed Loke to forget he was there, then Hector to forget who he was, and walked out and broke the silver key.

Morgana hummed over that connection, resonating that this was important.

"No one noticed?"

She shook her head fiercely.

"I asked what he was doing. And he just patted my head and told me to not pay it any mind." She grimaced, shivering slightly. "It felt gross."

I flicked my eyes over her hair and sure enough, there was a deliberate, big black stain on her orange tinted locks in the shape of a hand to my wizard senses.

The coachman is the curse user. But I need proof of whether he is the summoner too.

I slid the key fragments into another handkerchief carefully, their history was currently overwhelmed by a sensation of being discarded and worthless. Of pain and separation. I pushed that story aside and took Kelly's hand. "You did very, very good. You were right, this is extremely important." As I spoke, I led Kellye back to the room where her parents were waitin. And there I saw Mattson, face lined and grim.

"-suspect poison. He passed away quickly after confessing."

I reached out with my free hand and tapped the fabric of the story he was presenting his audience. It felt much more solid than the one I had pulled off of Hector, but this was just as false. Not a word of what he spoke was true, though he believed it wholeheartedly.

He is informing the families that Hector managed to consume poison during interrogation and died. But he confessed to targeting their children for ransom.

And not that he was a cut off Celestial Spirit?

He does not remember that he is one.

The coachman had gotten Mattson with the story he wanted. But he didn't know Hector had survived. Or, he didn't care that he had since his trail was now covered.

The families listening in were appropriately shocked and horrified and Mattson's news of the prisoners suicide. But they were also relieved that the threat was gone. There was no frustration at the lack of additional information. No questioning how a prisoner could die like that while in custody and escape proper justice.

Nothing like what a fierce mother like Janamis would feel for a threat to her children. Or what a thorough, careful man like Thain would demand in response to a threat to his friends' children.

This is a load of crap. A cover up.

That is true.

But looking at Mattson, I felt only a firm resigned conviction that this was resolved and no further investigation was possible. The veneer story had enveloped them all completely.

I looked down at Kelly, who was shaking, still flushed. She looked tired and a little dizzy. Out of reflex, I laid a hand on her forehead. Morgana responded promptly.

101.2 degrees.

"Kelly, you've got a fever."

When did that happen?

She looked up at me imploring. Eyes overbright and slightly manic.

"I feel fine. I want to help catch the bad guy!"

This might have been scary to her, even now. But she was fighting against that negative feeling by viewing it as an adventure. Pooh might no longer be with her, but judging by how she was clutching my hand, I was giving her a similar courage.

"You're sick, kid. You need to rest."

What brought on her fever?

I cupped her face with both hands, trying to scan her history to make a quick, targeted diagnosis. She had been fine only minutes earlier...

This was building even then.

I felt a slight...pull on my own magic. An inclination towards it.

I paused.

"Story Magic: Wizards Sight."

There was a slight flex as that aspect of the totem slid open, to again let me see the world as it truly was.

Kellye as she truly was to the Sight reflected in the usual malleable image of a child. She had a lot of life ahead of her. A lot of growth. She reached more or less the same height but her clothing was indeterminate in color, cut or style. Her hair was long and elaborately done, or boyishly short and dyed green in some places, and every possible point in between.

What caught my attention was a faint, familiar cloud hovering behind her. Connecting to her head like a personal raincloud. Only instead of casting a shadow, it was light. There were images in the cloud, reflecting like a mirror. The black curse laid on her mind was snatching something out of her head, but the cloud was restoring whatever was taken as quickly as it was being taken.

And I knew what to do.

I closed my Sight to lessen the drain on my power, pulling out my pen.

"Kelly, give me your hand."

She held it out, trusting and instantly confident that I had an answer. Her faith vibrated through Morgana who warmed in response to that trust.

I then wrote my counter and read it aloud, speaking it into existence.

"Silence must fall when the Question is asked: Doctor Who?"

The curse shrieked, writhed and then finally shattered into a faint memory as it was forced to release her and severed from its sustaining source. Kellye let out a sigh of relief as what was doubtless a profound discomfort lifted from her.

"What was that?"

I wrote the same key on my hand, feeling the throbbing headache recede as the curse was forced away.

"I broke the curse on us."

And even with everything, I was smiling. It was wonderful news that I had found.

"I knew you could do it!" Kellye cheered, still a little flushed and feverish.

"Thanks, but you really need to go get some rest now."

Her face fell, and she looked devastated, if not on the verge of tears. A mood swing only a tired, sick child could accomplish.

"But I want to help!"

I ruffled her hair gently, watching the remains of the curse fall away from her.

"You already have, Kel. I promise. Now let me take care of the rest. You have got a very big surprise for your family."

She caught herself on the verge of a breakdown. Green eyes reflecting blue with new emotion.

"I do?"

I leaned down to whisper in her ear. Delighted at what I had the chance and reason to say.

"You're a wizard, Kelly."

Traumatic breakthroughs were painful. But they also happened younger than most wizards who learned their power in a slower, less abrupt way.

Kelly's encounter with a Memory Curse had caused her determination to go head to head with something actively trying to make her forget the events of the day. As long as she wasn't experiencing it directly, it was at risk of being forgotten entirely. Her mind would fill in the gaps with something plausible, and the curse would then go dormant and eventually fade completely. But in this case, the attempted memory theft had run into an impassable wall of resistance in the form of Kellye's memories of Pooh. With all the willpower and imagination that only a child could hope to match behind it. And it had lost.

Maybe it was that Kelly had already loved memorization and study. Maybe she was pre-inclined towards the branch. But my young friend was now a newly awoken Archive Mage. Every time the curse tried to snatch knowledge out of her mind, her infant Archive had resupplied her with perfect recall on stored information that she was concretely certain of. And because the curse could only affect a living being, and not a secondary source of energy, it was locked in a never ending battle and could not make her forget.

It functioned much like the Silence in Doctor Who. Hence why the critical phrase from that story had been enough to shape my magic in such a way that I could break the curse off of the both of us. Kellye's new Archive had been the back up for her. And Morgana had been my saving grace.

I would come back later, speak with her parents and arrange for Kellye to be made a Fairy Tail ward for the purposes of education. I would even bring that up to Hibiki, as an expert Archive user himself for guidance in how to best use her talents and talk about what paths were available to her now that she had unlocked this talent.

She might have broken into this by her own efforts, but I would not let her walk this path alone. She would have all the teachers she needed to make as much as she wanted of this ability. I would make sure of that.

But right now: I had a curse to hunt down.

-vVv-

Just because I knew what I was looking for now didn't make the hunt that much easier. The nature of the Curse was one meant to obscure and not draw attention. And aside from this current incident, I would have no way of connecting prior instances where this perpetrator had been active. Unless Hibiki had come across some in his search that could be cross referenced with facts that could not be altered.

"A fine evening to you, Fae."

The Blue Pegasus wizard spoke smoothly, professionally and poised out of my shrunken communications lacrima.

"Forzare..."

I hissed, sending a wave of kinetic energy from my anklets through my foot as I kicked a would-be footpad in the head, sending him crashing onto an alley wall with a thud and a groan of pain.

The more I refined my totems, the less bleedover there was, but I couldn't eliminate it completely, try as I might. It seemed that going around at night in my Harry Dresden Totem, while chasing down another bad guy was just asking for some random schmuck to start a fight with you to delay you and otherwise see to it you were at the end of your rope when you reached the actual final confrontation. And of course there was always the option of it not being random at all, but enemy action.

I'll have to work on that later.

I had been quiet for too long and I heard Hibiki speak again, a little hesitantly.

"Fae?"

"Be with you in a minute, please hold! Oh no you don't-"

I bit off a curse as the second man made a grab at the lacrima around my neck. A flare of amber light and there was a shield of amber energy that diverted his hand away from it, thanks to a trusty shield bracelet.

I spied something behind my remaining would-be assailant and waved a hand, exerting my will.

"Ventas Servitas!"

I decided, in a fit of petty vindictiveness, that the report on the incident would contain in detail: rendered unconscious by a garbage can. I tugged my coat straight again, caught by breath and grabbed the lacrima on my neck. Enlarging it a tiny bit to let his voice come through more clearly and forge a stronger connection

"Sorry about that Hibiki. Good evening."

"Are you alright?"

"Not even a little, but you should see the other guy. Bob filled you in?"

I would normally love to chat and socialize with the friendly Blue Pegasus wizard. But I was a bit preoccupied at the moment. He was used to that and gave me a sidelong look that told me his next call was going to be to Simon to tell him that I was getting in some sort of scrape.

"Yes. I'm sending you the list of current Celestial Spirit Wizards now. It's based on the sales of Silver Keys, so any inherited keys or contracts will not be displayed."

As there were 12 Golden Keys who could not be bought vs all the potential Silver Keys, it was still going to be a very comprehensive list.

"I understand, thanks."

A slightly transparent screen of an Archive message popped up before me, asking if I would accept a file of information. I held up my spellbook to it and confirmed the download, letting it flow into the lacrima in the binding. There was a brief hum, rising in tone, ending in a small chime to signal the task was completed.

I flipped my book open, scanning if there was any information that the transmittal had lost.

The list is complete.

"That came through perfectly, Hibiki. Thanks again."

"Always a pleasure, Fae. I hope we'll get to meet in person again, soon."

I thought, since I had him here...I might as well ask. Hibiki was generally obliging in using his talents for friends and this was important.

"Actually, could I take a bit of your time for another search?"

The wizard gave me a brilliant customer service smile that was at least 80% real.

"I am at your service."

"I need a list of cases that were closed or inconclusive due to a lack of witnesses. Or incidents that were called in that got closed without prosecution for the same reason. I might be dealing with a mind altering or memory curse that only Archive users have a shot at escaping from."

Hibiki made a sound of interest and I heard the faint tapping as he recalibrated his Archive access to try and scoop out the information I wanted from what he had available.

"That's a pretty hefty amount of combing, Pagemaster. You are going to make me clock some overtime tonight. I'll have to send you a bill for my lost beauty sleep."

His tone was teasing and cajoling. He very obviously wanted some coddling and comfort from what he recognized as an attractive woman. And now that registered differently than before my filter had been corrected. And I was now very grateful that I had not opened up the lacrima to allow him to see me clearly because I was now turning a little red and I would rather die than let the incorrigible flirt realize my altered state of mind.

But my mouth moved automatically.

"Hibiki, it's what you do when you're awake and upright that makes you beautiful. Not your sleep."

There was a brief sputter of surprise on the other end that made part of me giggle in satisfaction.

"Excuse me?"

Then what I had said actually registered . My only option was an immediate tactical withdrawal before I had to explain myself and cause the surging embarrassment to cascade.

"Anyway, let me know what you find. I've got a curse to catch. Bye!"

"Wait a minute, Fae-!"

I ended the connection quickly and got my whirling thoughts under control. I turned my thoughts towards Morgana who seemed likewise slightly stunned at what had just happened.

Where the ever sweet fudge did that come from?!

Flirtation...can be viewed as a story. He started one, and you completed it.

My face was on fire with chagrin.

That's not acceptable. I've got a kidnapper to catch and a potential conspiracy to uncover. I don't have time for this!

Interacting with others thoughts and feelings are normal. The state you lived in for the last few years allowed for such intense compartmentalization that it detrimentally impacted your growth as a person. There has to be time made for this.

I took a deep steading breath, pushing aside my flustered feelings and the tiny blip of satisfaction I felt at making the notorious womanizer do that extreme of a double take. I could probably play it dumb when I next saw him in person to keep the bit going of my relative ignorance in matters of the heart. Or I really, really hoped I could pull off playing dumb. Otherwise, the infamous trio of Blue Pegasus hosts would turn their attention to me.

List, focus on the list.

And the flickering bit of Celestial Spirit energy told me that Loke was returning with his gathered information. He stepped through his gate, eyes darting over his glasses to the two unconscious men in the ally. I could practically see him consciously deciding to not ask about them.

"Anything good?"

"ReQuim."

A name. I love names.

And one that rang a bell in my head no less.

I let my spellbook fall open, spinning pages through until I landed in the section Hibiki had just sent to me.

"There is no one by that name listed in the current standing list of summoners. So they must have inherited the key. ReQuim family tree."

They were nobles so their main line was a matter of public record. Morgana secured that information quickly, guiding my hand to sketch out lines, names and how they all connected to one another. And, in a strange, morbid way, it was quite easy to track. Most of the main family was dead with one living descendant remaining.

"It's almost an extinct name."

I briskly underlined the bottom most name on my sketched tree.

"Odhran ReQuim."

But the face that popped up with the name didn't make sense. Ohdran was a young man, late teens to early twenties, with a merry twinkle in hazel eyes and soft chestnut brown hair. There was a note that Morgana provided that he had a bad leg due to a disease similar to poliovirus, which led him to walk with a cane. He was definitely not the grey-haired coachman who had cursed us all.

Unless he is a master of disguise and has been walking with a cane since childhood to build his alibi.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Princess?"

Loke asked, looking over at the two unconscious men on the ground.

"Nothing too important. Could even be nothing. Part of the hazard of using this totem is the threat of random assault."

Much like the Child Link totem had projected some of Navi's traits onto Happy, and the Aerith staff had summoned a spiky haired blond to take down a pervert, every totem had this warping effect on probability and me. For example, I would crave ramen if I wore the Naruto headband for too long. And when I did eat it, I could put away half a dozen bowls without batting an eye. And Harry Dresden almost never got to his final destination without someone trying to rough him up.

"It's Juniper. The events of tonight have tripled the average crime rate for this city, and you think that it isn't related to what's happening?"

"I didn't say that. I'm saying it 'could' be nothing, not that I was sure that it was nothing."

I had no way of connecting the old coachman to Ohdran. But maybe these thugs would help with that.

I slapped some cuffs on the pair and waved my enchanted smelling salts under the nose of the older of the duo of mooks. His eyes snapped open, his skin turning green as he coughed and sputtered at the intense aroma assailing his senses. His eyes refocused on me, a little bruised where I had smacked him down. Then he processed who he was looking at and flinched.

"This won't take long. Loke."

With almost literal feline grace, Loke pounced, easily pinning the man to the ground. And I propped my chin in my and and scanned him head to toe, magically searching for the presence that seemed to be coating everything and everyone I had encountered tonight. The slight throb in the back of my head was all the trace that remained of the Curse of Silence. And sure enough, this man, Jamison according to Morgana, also had a touch of it on him as well. My book drifted open and a small magic circle projected onto my hand.

Guild identity runs deep and strong. It's a label you accept on yourself. And it stays with you forever. So let's see who you have connected with.

"I really don't have time for this today. So let's dispense with the formalities. You know who I am, James."

His eyes widened reflexively upon hearing me call him by name. The small instinctive reaction of his innermost self recognizing my call.

"You've heard of me. But even what you've heard doesn't even scratch the surface of what I can really do. Especially with something as important and personal...as your name."

Ok, lean into the Scary Face thing, we need this guy to talk quickly so we can feel out the limits of the Silence on him.

Jamison swallowed, trying to lean away from me, but he had nowhere to go.

"You can't."

"Wouldn't. Normally." I corrected, letting a bit of power drifted from my fingers as pages slowly turned in my spellbook.

"There is a lot that I can do that never sees the light of day because I don't want to have to be the sort of person who resorts to that kind of extreme."

I glanced aside thoughtfully for a moment, as though in contemplation.

"But someone kidnapped some kids tonight. And I don't accept that he will get away with that. And you are between me and that man."

Jamison was now petrified as the spell I was weaving fell over him. A subtle bit of magic power kept moisture on his skin, making him feel cold shivers from head to toe in the spring night air. There was an invisible band of power around his neck to simulate the lump in the throat feeling that you got from nerves. And the sensation of goosebumps was made ever so slightly stronger, the stale taste of the inside of his mouth rankled and became more bitter on his tongue. All his physical sensations were kicked up to eleven, amplified so that he would not know what to focus on first.

The body didn't know what to do when all of its senses registered information past a certain threshold at the same time. It would start to try to kick into high gear, on the precipice of action. Coupled with his being firmly restrained, it should be enough to break his will and get my answers.

76% chance of success at this point.

I would run with that if I had to. But I would have liked to make that number bigger.

"You said you wouldn't! You're a fairy, you're soft...!"

He seemed like he was trying to convince himself of that. But the dogma he held onto, that Fairy Tail wizards meant you didn't have the stomach for torture and terror, did narrow down the sort of people he usually ran with. And there were a few names I could mention who would have had that outlook of Fairy Tail given the last few years.

And he had just given me an opening. I tutted, shaking my head at him.

"The cleaned up, happy stories of people overcoming adversity are the stories I like to tell. Because they are for moral education, veiled heavily in entertainment. But the ones that I based those stories off of? The original 'fairy tales'? Those are far from soft."

Story Magic: Interrogatory Exposition.

I stayed standing, looking down at the man who seemed to have forgotten entirely that Loke was pinning him down. His eyes were fixed on me, who his every sense was telling him was the bigger threat. I had a captive audience.

"The fairies in those storiea were their own force, neither good nor evil. Abide the law and you would be safe, but cross their line and you could kiss your eternal soul farewell. They couldn't lie, but every word was chosen with great care so everyone had to keep on the alert for double, and triple meanings."

The illusion I was building with my words took my natural features and turned them one degree up. Flirting on the edge of what the human mind would deem uncanny and unnatural. Sharper nose and cheek bones, a face a degree too narrow, eyes too large and luminous. And he saw the change, as I was staring right at him, not giving him the chance to miss anything about my 'transformation'.

"I am human. So I am free, as all humans are, to do any kind of terrible thing and the consequences will be mine to bear. But, as I said and as you pointed out...I work very hard to keep those acts from seeing the light of day."

I glanced up at the still dark sky, then back down face expressionless and dispassionate.

"Unfortunately for you Jamison Druthers...there are still several hours until dawn."

I brought my book before me and tugged on a ribbon that opened it to a section towards the back. With my other hand, I yanked the last thread of the Interrogatory Exposition around him with the use of his full Name. It closed around his mind with the finality of a bear trap snapping shut. His heart took off in a mad gallop of terror and writhed against both my cuffs and Loke holding him down..

This section was largely an elaborate ruse. The terrors of life often did not need to be exactly articulated. A sudden cry off screen. An abrupt cut to darkness. A discordant screech of notes. The mind connected the dots, in a bizarre form of Auto-fill, extrapolating from the surrounding information what was most likely in the empty space. Don't tell people that they should be afraid, but unsettle them, throw some specific stimulus their way, and leave a few menacing gaps in their perceptions... And their own minds will do the work for you.

Rogue and Simon could get information out of people with their Shadow Dragon Slayer and Darkness magic. I could use the mechanics of thriller, suspense and horror to scare the crap out of people.

Loke stepped in as the good cop after I broke the man into a gibbering mess.

Someone had hired him to ensure that I was thrown off the trail of the man I was currently hunting. This second connection to the ReQuim family.

The ReQuim family were former landowners who had fallen on hard times. They had rerouted their focus into paper and ink production for a small, exclusive clientele. It was quality work. Their remaining owned land included a small section of coastline near the Serene Cliffs, a few villages and a manor house.

Morgana pinged the location.

The manor was in proximity to one of the spots where Zeref had had an Episode. The most recent one, not counting his Curse exploding on Tenrou. But it was one of the smallest ones. The area of dead plant life and buried animal bones had been tiny compared to other incidents.

I flipped through my book to where I had transcribed Ultear's notes on the subject.

Approximate date: X777.

That date felt significant for a number of reasons. Seven was a magically significant number of decisiveness. In a group of seven, there could be no tie. In a council of seven people, there would always be a majority vote no matter how a matter was divided. It conveyed a sense of completion. The country of Seven had chosen its name in an effort to embrace and welcome magic users after a bloody civil war about 400 years prior.

Morgana pinged on a previous thought.

Completion.

Something important was completed in X777.

But that related back to another topic, not my current focus. I scribbled down a note to circle back to that topic.

Episode. Small footprint, but the timeline shows that the impact of his episodes were getting larger and larger the further away he got from Nirvana.

So where had that dark energy gone if it hadn't gone towards devouring all life in the area?

The Curse of Contradictions is a punishment. Plenty of dark wizards would find the effects of the curse to be exactly what they wanted. But this is the exact opposite. He doesn't want it.

The image, the memory, flashed back in my mind of a dark haired, too young looking face to connect with the reputation of the Black Wizard. The tears on his face. The grief, the torment that was breaking out of his control. Unable to hold it back. My grip tightened on my pen, and I had to bite my lip to draw my focus back.

Zeref's face had haunted my dreams ever since I had seen it. The despair and horror that had no end. No hope of reprieve, no relief.

I had realized it before. Zeref did not want to hurt anyone. Hence the Curse acted out to destroy and harm everything around him, leading to his forced apathy and isolation to try and minimize his impact.

Everything.

His Curse damages everything. A perfect unnatural disaster.

My eyes snapped open and I tapped my book with my pen.

"Gemino."

Two copies of my spell book popped out, caught by my telekinesis, and held before me. This would only copy the information, not the totems contained in them. But I needed to triangulate my conclusion.

One of them flipped open to my research on the Curse of Contradictions, its conditions, effects and duration, potential victims, everything. The other flipped to the ReQuim family research, the public records that detailed their abrupt downfall.

My personal book flipped to the story that detailed the Harry Dresden totem and everything that he encountered.

"Curse of Contradictions hurts everything around it. And it's not fussed how it does it." I tapped the date in my book for Loke's benefit. "14 years ago, Zeref was on the mainland and something triggered a surge of the Curse. He couldn't hold it back."

The lacrima in the copy of my book projected my and Ultear's map of the Cursed terrain. The spots grew gradually larger as time went on.

"But this spot was much smaller than the others, too small. The area of rapidly decayed plant and animal life was a fraction of the size of the previous one."

Morgana, calculate the growth in the four incidents we can see and calculate the projected rate of increase for this X777 event.

My shared soul and mind partner did this with blistering speed and accuracy. She highlighted the area in my vision on the map.

"The effect of Nirvana containing the curse decayed at a set rate, based on the combined factor of the distance and length of time he was away from it. The pattern persists in all of the incidents." I drew a larger circle around the last point of the map. "So the minimum area of effect that Zeref should have impacted is much larger. Which covers the primary home of the ReQuim family."

The second book drifted around to my other side. And I put an x mark on the manor house, which fell just inside the circle of effect. Zeref had had centuries of time to get familiar with the curse and how it worked. He would have known its area would be increasing and he would have taken precautions against it. Putting more and more distance between himself and people that could be affected.

"During X777, disease was running rampant in this part of the country. The ReQuim family was devastated by it." I projected out the family tree. The full, old census records Hibiki could dig up. The ones that were the least touched. Least likely to be tampered with.

"The family was largely wiped out with one person bearing the name remaining, that being Ohdran."

"I note you said 'bearing the name'."

I shot Loke a bright smile.

"Precisely. Now, we're approaching the border of conjecture, so we're going to stay focused on Zeref. His Curse has to cause maximum pain and suffering inversely proportional to how much he values life. But, he's also a magical genius. Kinana managed to subvert her Curse into something beneficial to her, it's no stretch that Zeref could manage the same thing to achieve a measure of control over it. Found something that he could do to prevent it from running wild. He wrestled it down from causing mass demon spawnings to just releasing spurts of negative energy that destroy life. The next step would be to shrink the deadzone, so in order for it to continue to fulfill its intended purpose to torture Zeref, have to mutate again. Instead of causing the creation of mass demons and their curses, what if it gave one curse?"

I pointed at the house on the map.

"Someone near this spot that had the pre inclination to become host to a curse and misuse it, was then handed one custom made for him thanks to the Curse of Contradictions. Because that was what would cause the most damage."

"So our guy's curse is a Zeref creation." Loke grimaced, running a hand through his gingery mane. "Well, now I feel better that I got hit and didn't notice. It's been years since I was near one of those things."

Because he was old enough to encounter them.

Others of the Zodiac have met Zeref personally.

That was highly pertinent information and I would definitely explore it later.

I circled the area on my map near the manor.

"We need to go here. The ground where a curse first manifested will have the clearest history."

A dull groan made me look down at the two would-be footpads who I had trounced.

I honestly forgot that the two of you were here.

I nudged one of them with my foot, scanning specifically for their guild affiliation. They were both much more broken down and less able to keep secrets. Even then, the connections were far less direct than I would have liked. And these men were also placed under the now familiar taint of the Silence. Their memories had been altered to not have any recall about who set their task. Just a rendezvous point and time to report their mission success.

And the location happened to be in Raven Tail territory.

It's weak. They have enough plausible deniability to pin this on a Dark Guild instead of owning up to it. Especially with these two barely being able to remember their own name.

I would need more proof to connect this assault to Raven Tail. They would either need to purge the guilty parties, or face being disbanded.

Don't jump to conclusions. It could still be someone other than Raven Tail.

They had not made any overt moves. But Ivan had made some fairly suspect comments about Fairy Tail when not in Simon's earshot during some meetings. He left the goading to Sabertooth, but I could feel his attention, like sharp glass being drawn over skin, but not hard enough to puncture.

That was the rub there. While Jemma and Minerva had been rather overt about their intentions, Ivan and Raven Tail had never been that blatant. It took literal scrying to see their hostility underneath the veneer of neutrality. This didn't fit their pattern. For either of them. It had to be someone who was willing to get their hands dirty and who didn't care for the law.

"Anything?" Loke asked, arms folded and shoulders loose and relaxed.

"They've been wiped clean. Mest might be able to trigger something, but I can't try to jog their memories right now."

The weaknesses of the Harry Dresden Totem were the laws his kind of wizard was bound to follow. Among them being mind magic being considered Dark Magic. One of the branches of power that could be addicting and life destroying. And as long as I was wearing the totem, I couldn't perform any deep dives with my Psychometry.

"I feel like we're running out of solid leads."

"We still have one. Hector's contracted wizard, Ohdran Requim. It is likely someone close to him who stole his key, someone he knew and trusted and Hector trusted by extension."

I flipped through my book, pulling out a series of rings, bracelets and swapping out my earrings.

Harry's standard tool kit included professional grade single purpose magic items as supports for his standard spells. Among them were rings for gathering kinetic energy, and releasing them on command. A shield bracelet, which made barriers of various sizes with my magic circle emblazoned on them. A staff, for cracking heads and big spell focuses, and a blasting rod, a short wand made for outputting concentrated blasts of fire power. Harry was an Evocationist. A class of wizard affectionately known as a boomstick. But he typically only went into confrontations to the teeth and with an ace he had tailored to his opponent.

"Loke, we are most likely going to be walking into a trap chasing down this lead because that's the kind of night we've been having."

"But we're still going anyway."

I gave him a sharp edged smile, feeling my pulse start to race as my adrenaline picked up again.

"Naturally."

-vVv-

After the third time jumping through the Celestial Realm, I was starting to get used to the massive surge of light and power. Breathing it in felt wonderful, not peaceful or steady, stars were constantly burning after all, but alive. Again the music of the spheres moving alongside one another rang in my ears. I couldn't help but take a deep breath and light suffused my senses.

Wonder if I can bottle some of this for Sting.

He was a White Dragon Slayer. And his element was caught between Light and Holy magic. You couldn't get more on the nose than with literally Celestial light.

Almost too soon, the air changed back to regular mortal elements. The air itself tasted distinctly different. Familiar and comforting, but very much less than the Celestial realm.

The scent of salt washed over me like a wave. It was faint, as we were not very close to the shore, but the contrast made it stand out. I couldn't hear the ocean over the sound of my pulse roaring in my ears. This was something where I could easily die and no one would be able to remember me enough to mourn me. Just Kellye and Hibiki out of everyone in my world.

The house was large, but didn't quite qualify as a manor I thought. It had a weathered look to it, stately and old, likely from the battering of the winds off the sea. The stone was bleached and pale against the still dark sky. This was the usual home of the Requim family. Though their major industry in paper and printing took place further inland.

I blinked my Wizard's Sight open for a second with my totem.

The pale house disappeared under a pall of cursed shadows. Tendrils of darkness extended out in all directions, looking at this place from above, I was sure that this would look like a dark, massive spider web extending across most of the country centered in this building. It was a living thing, pulsing and alive. It had latched onto this place and was actively devouring all truth that it could reach, replacing it with falsehoods. I reached out and touched one of the nearby tendrils.

A man who sold his freedom after committing a murder in the heat of the moment. The death was ruled an accident because the three witnesses who were originally going to testify against him all proclaimed that their companion had fallen and hit his head rather than being pushed by the murderer in a fit of rage.

My regular sight asserted itself again.

"This is the place." I touched Morgana gently, who was oddly still and silent.

Is Ohdran here?

Past patterns indicate this is the most likely place for him to be.

Her voice sounded terse and tense. I took a closer look at her. And her presence was seemingly paralyzed in her place. Like she had pulled her legs up to her chest and curled into as small of a ball as she could. Shutting everything out.

Are you ok, Gana?

I'm fine-. No-...I don't know.

She trembled, and I felt her fear like a distant dream. The echoes of the way she had felt before we settled in Fairy Tail. The raw animal terror that had made her take the leap of faith and cling to a promise from a complete stranger.

Will you be alright if we keep going?

The house will be fine. But...I can't go to the shore. There's a bad story there. A bloody one.

Pirates had raided this coast before. And Morgana had been working overtime to keep my mind clear in spite of the Silence constantly trying to feed on me.

We shouldn't have to go there.

But we will.

She corrected me with a sigh. I was too thorough to not make a full investigation of the matter.

We'll deal with that as it comes.

I felt her agreement.

This entire exchange had taken no more than a single breath.

"Hopefully someone's home." I mused, starting for the door of the Requim house.

The contact of my knuckles on the door as I knocked made Morgana speak up, unable to keep silent.

This is a small domicile to be so isolated.

That was true. A single house like this with no outbuildings had room for maybe the family and one or two staff members. And it would have taken a considerable trek to get groceries and food. The closest village was several miles up the coast.

No it isn't, there is one that is much closer.

Loke sniffed the air, then stepped forward and shuffled me behind him, placing himself between me and the door. I moved willingly, Morgana's tone was empty, terrified where I could see now reason to be.

Something is not right.

There came a soft shuffle from inside. Then the door opened a crack. The face opened of an elderly woman peered out, eyes clouded with age.

"May I help you?" Her voice was thin and reedy. And I could practically smell the memory curse clinging to her.

"We're looking for Ohdran Requim." Loke spoke calmly, though I could feel his tension radiating off of him.

"He went for a walk down- by the beach?" She sounded hesitant and uncertain. I wanted to try and wrench the curse off of her and make sure that she was recalling that information correctly. But she had been laboring under this for years. And the fact that she was awake and dressed at this hour of the morning told me that she was a vital clue that someone had expected us to find and talk to.

She gave us directions, doubtless for where they have their trap set up. But there is no time constraint, is there?

Not as such. This trap is meant for you and you alone.

I tried to give her a quick mental hug.

Good thing we aren't alone then.

"Thank you. But maybe you could help us as well. What is your name?"

"Dora, miss." she was defaulting to manners that had been ingrained in her over a lifetime.

"Faerun, Dora. My name is Faerun. I understand that the master of the house is not here, but we do have some questions to ask. I feel you could offer some critical insight. May we come in?"

Stepping into the house felt like walking through a thick layer of cobwebs. The Curse had caught a lot of errant truth and thoughts over the years, and stale information washed over Morgana. She almost appreciated that, tackling the distraction in favor of whatever it was outside that scared her so much.

It's worn down appearance aside, within the house was both immaculately kept and well updated. The floors were made of polished wood, with ornate rugs with distinctive Desierto patterns. The fire in the hearth tried to give warmth and light to the room. And maybe to another person, it might have succeeded. But a lot of the comfort it would have brought was sucked into the dark void lurking near the ceiling. I did not look at the Curse, just deepened my connection to Morgana so there would be no lapse in the information loss should it find cause to strike.

Curses that became sentient were generally called Demons. And I wasn't going to chance that this thing had come far enough in the course of its life to qualify.

Dora had me sit in one of the chairs close to the hearth in the kitchen. Someplace where she seemed more comfortable than the parlor we had passed here. The oppressive dark presence was not as prevalent here. The caster probably didn't have a proper idea of how magically significant a hearth was, especially one that produced food. Somehow its own inherent magic from previous generations of the home being used had withstood the curse for all these years. The warm smell of cinnamon and spice hung in the air, emitting from a large kettle on the stove.

"It's biting out there in the wind this time of year, Miss Faerun. Can I offer you and your friend a cup of tea?" She didn't stumble over referring to Loke with the ease of someone who had a literal lifetime of customer service experience. Loke remained silent to let me speak and make the call. In a split second decision, I answered.

"That is very kind of you. Thank you. I'll gladly have some."

"Me too, thank you ma'am."

It was time spent, but she was my best source of leads so far, and she would talk more if she was comfortable. And I had Esuna on hand if this turned out to be the trap and there was poison in that cup. It would be diabolical to use what appeared to be a completely innocent bystander to bait and deliver the trap. And it looked more and more like she was innocent. Her hesitancy faded gradually as she went through the familiar motions of setting out a tray with cups and saucers.

Eric is going to pout if I actually get served poisoned tea right now.

It was his drama-king dream to be given a poisoned drink with intent to kill and proceed to down the whole thing without batting an eye.

Dora's arms trembled as she lifted the kettle as if she were going to drop it, and I bit my lip to keep from offering help. It would be overstepping in her space. This wasn't just her house, but the kitchen was hers. Where she spent the most time. She poured each of us a cup, returning the kettle to its place and carried the tray over to us. She added a small drizzle of honey to her cup and I opted to do the same, while Loke refrained. The chair she settled in had several cushions arranged on it, and a low stool nearby. Everything she had done felt like a familiar gesture. But there was a faint shiver. I could feel it too, a tiny hint of a draft that managed to elude the hearth's warmth.

I let her get situated, but she surprised me by speaking first.

"How may I assist you, Miss Faerun?"

She didn't waste time, and there was a dignity to her as she held her tea, lifting the hot liquid to her lips and sipping it without flinching. I opted to hold my cup until it had cooled.

"Have you worked for the Requim's for a long time?"

This got a little spark of life out of her and she straightened. As I had hoped, this was not well buried under that Curse.

"Yes, I raised the young master's, his parents before him, and played alongside his grandmother." There was a fondness and pride in her voice as she looked over our surroundings. "It was a lively place then. Mr Requim had just made it big and bought his title. The house was new, everyone there seemed so energetic."

Her fond memories were palpable to me. Washed in the gold of nostalgia, made bright by old grief. I could see the place as she had. In bright mid morning sunlight, a dazzling blue ocean as the backdrop. Children racing up and down sand dunes, bringing back shells in droves. Boy's chasing girls with strings of slimy seaweed that washed up on the beach.

I murmured Esuna under my breath for myself and Loke's cup, but there was no resistance to indicate that there was a poison present. I posed another question.

"Were the Requim's a large family?"

I had a rough idea of when the curse had come into being. And Dora felt as though she must have been one of the earliest victims. So if I could get her to focus back on time before the curse came into being, it was far more likely that I would find some sort of information that could let me find the source of the curse.

Said force of unnatural malice remained still. This line of questioning wasn't leading anywhere that it was supposed to block her from.

"No, they were modest enough. There was Patrik, and his two sisters. He married a local girl, Saralyn, and oh they kept me busy." Her voice gained strength and warmth. "Five children they placed in my arms, one after the other. Time was, my own children couldn't tell the difference between them and us. We were all family."

The small hint of warmth and happiness in her face faded, the lines becoming more prominent on her face.

"The fever took most of them. The house got real quiet after that."

And the curse attacked her at this point, but it was only retreading familiar paths. There was no truth left for it to gouge at. The poor woman's mind was mostly a patchwork of mundane, simple things that the caster had not deemed important enough to force her to forget.

Ok, the plague and its survivors are important. So it has to be someone who lived through that.

Morgana, even tucked into a ball as she was, lashed out with a bright sting of power against the Curse trying to obscure the importance of even my vague conclusion. Further proving my point.

"And who all lives here now?"

"Just me. And the young master when he's around. He has me keep the house ready for guests all the time. Guess the ghosts must come and stay, since I sometimes have to wash the sheets and refill the pantry."

The tracks and scars in her mind got a little deeper as the Curse stole even more from Dora. I hid any shift in my expression behind my cup, the warm scent of apple and cinnamon washing over me. Morgana noted each and every ingredient in the pretty golden tea. And sure enough, as Dora had said, it was very good at chasing away the chill.

She can't even remember the people that come by the house. And because of her age, I'll bet people don't really give her absent mindedness a second thought.

I tried to reclaim my patience and temper, in spite of wanting to unleash a lifetime's worth of righteous indignation on this woman's behalf.

Morgana, can you confirm how many people there have been here over the years that she was unaware of?

Two hundred and twenty seven.

The man behind this had brought other people into this house. Had them stay here as part of his business.

His primary hub was run by a lonely, kindly old woman who was kept mentally locked in the worst era of her life. Incapable of moving beyond that or making new memories to dull the pain she had gone through. Almost everything new around her was something that the Curse was inclined to snatch out of her thoughts. She had functionally been trapped in her grief, the loss of all her children, her family and most of her friends, for more than a decade.

I added another mark to my running tally of reasons to make the Silence suffer once I got my hands on him. And I leaned into the daily, domestic tasks that Dora seemed to be in charge of. It was a common enough failing that people did not realize the work that went into maintaining even a small household. And it was very, very common for it to be deemed unimportant.

If someone had gotten away with murder, extortion, bribery and heaven knew what else for over 15 years, the situation and time had likely bred arrogance. And arrogance bred short sightedness. So there had to be something small and innocuous that he hadn't cursed into oblivion. Something I could pull out and use.

"And where do your groceries come from? It looks like you're pretty well isolated out here." I focused on the necessities of life. Things people could take for granted

"There's a dock by the sea shore that some merchants stop by every two weeks. They're good boys, help me get everything back to the house."

This memory Dora was allowed to keep, the curse going still and silent. I caught a glimpse of two young men transporting crates, bags and barrels down a gangplank to a dock and a horse drawn carriage.

With very familiar horses.

I pulled up the memory of the unnamed coachman's carriage, and the horses he had hitched to them. And placed them side by side with Morgana's wordless manifestation of Dora's memory. Everything seemed to match to me, but now I needed an outside confirmation.

I put my finger to my temple and drew the memory out, a small, bright silver strand. That was left trailing from my finger as I opened my spellbook. I used my rings to make my pen hover before me and sent the memory into it. Then I guided the nib down to a blank page and I flicked it once. The pen zipped over the page of its own accord with incredible speed, reproducing my memory in close detail, and in color. The sudden movement made the old woman jump slightly.

"Goodness me!"

I held up a forestalling hand, smiling sheepishly.

"I do not mean to startle you. I merely wanted to ask if you recognized these horses."

I turned the book towards her to show the double page spread of the suspect coachman's buggy and team. I had been focused on other things at the time, but Morgana remembered them. Two beautiful, dark bay horses with frothy white manes and tails. A handsome pair. An unconscious thought had mused that with a matching team, the coachman probably got a lot of attention and by extension, many fares.

Dora leaned in, squinting at the image...then her face brightened again.

Another area that is not obscured by the Curse.

"Why yes. Those are Chance and Mariposa." And again, her joy was obvious as she beamed at the equine shapes. "You're a dab hand at drawing, young lady. I feel they are about to leap right off the page!"

"Thank you." I responded politely to her compliment. "There was a man driving this team who is an important witness in a case I and my partner are investigating. Are these horses ever loaned out or rented?"

She shook her head, hand clasped over her chest.

"Oh never! Mr Requim bred Mari's grandsire when he was just a young man. And Chance was a gift to Patrick's wife, stars rest her soul."

I saw Loke make a peculiar expression at her reverent statement, but chose to ignore it.

There are some tribes in other parts of the world that would and still do revere Loke and the Zodiac as gods.

I left Loke to break out of his war flashbacks and focused on my lead. This was something that the Curse had not tried to hide away, so I had to pursue the lead until it landed me something important or I could go no further.

"They're important to your family?"

"The Young Master hasn't walked right in years, but he can ride like the wind. His father had him up on a horse before he could even sit up on his own. He dotes on those animals."

I felt the silent frustration of the curse, but it did not activate. Morgana kept it off of me with another sharp lash of indisputable fact. Dora was allowed to remember this, but I was not supposed to be able to learn or retain it.

Jackpot, another Curse free route!

The pride that only a mother figure could feel kept this part of her mind clear. Something that was unknown to the Curse's host, and therefore, more difficult for him to block.

"I had heard about Ohdran's difficulty walking. My friend designed his current treatment plan and his cane."

I could dimly recall, and by that I meant Morgana could recall Wendy looking down at the job request with a bewildered expression. She had never had anything like this asked of her before. Designing a walking cane and knee brace. Not something she had picked up, but that had been sent to her specifically.

"Oh it's helped so much. When he was a boy, nothing could stop him from getting out to his horses. But after he started to get so tall, his leg often gave out under him. His uncle had to step in to help."

And bells started to chime in my head. Morgana had to send out three defensive bursts of power to keep the Curse back from me. Its caster really did not want me on this train of thought. I tried not to look too eager as I took another careful sip of my tea.

"It's good he was here to support him. Not many people would be willing to take on the responsibility."

A neutral, encouraging comment that could prompt more speculation.

I might have felt the tiniest bit bad, digging information out of this woman who would be deemed mentally impaired thanks to her near two decades of exposure to an insidious memory curse, on top of the wear and tear old age could have on the mind. But it was for a good cause and I was so close to finding the thread that could unravel this whole scheme I could almost taste it.

It's to let her actually remember her life. Which...she might not thank me for, but at least she'll have something to remember then instead of...this.

The Curse loomed overhead, and I could imagine it glowering down at us as Dora found information it had not been told to take from her. So it crouched like a spider in its web, mandibles clacking and waiting for some signal that it could strike that never came.

"I had my doubts about him at first." My hostess said, now more comfortable in her seat, taking a careful sip from her cup. "He's Sara's brother. Patrick's brother in law. He fell on hard times and...he had..." The Curse snatched and ripped that memory away. Dora's eyes flickered with a hint of pain for a second before she sighed.

"I-, I don't quite remember how he first came to be here, I'm afraid. But he found a place with us as a tutor for the little ones. My own children learned their numbers and letters from him."

There was a wind picking up outside. The house seemed to huddle down against the outside forces, bringing the Curse and the ceiling even lower. Ready to weather the storm.

There wasn't a storm in the forecast, was there?

No, but we are close to the coastline. These things can change rapidly.

"Did they like learning?"

"Learning, yes. But they did not always get on with him." Dora gave a chuckle. "Had to tan my eldest's hide a few times for talking back to him during class. And the baby always seemed to know when he was around and startled wailing fit to be tied."

I noticed something odd about how she said that. She didn't say her children's names. It would have been natural and normal for her to interject with a more specific term in this line of conversation. But this path was familiar. Referring to them as such.

"How many children did you have?"

"Four. My eldest was a mouthy boy. The second was a good girl. She helped me tend the house for the family. My runaway ran off to sea and came back with a bride and a baby, the rascal. And my little baby loved horses more than anything. Always toddling after Mr Requim asking to be picked up and allowed to sit on the horses."

I took a deep breath.

Please don't tell me...

Morgana sent a purely petty stab of energy up at the curse, which still lurked in the shadows like a grotesque spider.

It took them from her. It is not strong enough to overcome her love and take away her knowledge that they once existed. But Dora cannot remember her children's names or faces.

I was already going to make the Silence suffer. But dealing with him properly was starting to look a lot more like straight up torture rather than justice and I could not find it within myself to care.

I had to get back on target. Finding him was the first step. Torture could come after.

"You said that your eldest talked back. Was he being cheeky or did he resort to name calling?"

Loke was still and silent beside me. I don't think that he had taken one sip from his tea. A lion lurking in the savannah for the opportune moment to pounce. Brown eyes alert for the signal to move. The wind was getting louder still, rattling the shutters and ready to unleash what sounded like an incredible storm.

"Reedy Rilt." She said with a very tired sigh. "The man had an unfortunate voice. Turned my boy over my knee many times for calling him that, but I can't say he wasn't right."

Several things happened at once here.

First, the missing piece I needed fell into place and I knew there was an entire story there waiting for me to explore it as fast or slow as I needed. Second, there was a sudden, violent gust of wind and something crashed against the side of the house. There was the sound of breaking glass and Loke was moving, tackling me to the ground and throwing up a barrier of Lion Brilliance to deter other missiles.

But the brutal, abrupt snip of a nearby life being snuffed out told me that neither Loke nor I had been the intended target.

"Dora!"

Loke didn't let me get up and go to her, tucking me underneath himself. I saw why when a second arrow flew through the shattered window and landed inches away from his head.

This one had a message attached to it. A scrap of parchment, oiled to withstand rain and weather.

From where I was pressed into the floor, Morgana tried not to read what it contained. But she never really had much of a choice when it came to messages like this.

Someone knew we were here. Someone had wanted us here. Someone had predicted this was where we would be. Someone had even moved the chair that Dora used to be in plain view of the window, and barred the shutters open when she would otherwise have had them closed. Had her be awake to receive us when she, like any reasonable person, should have been asleep at this hour.

They had set her up, led her like a calf to the slaughter.

The parchment on the arrow shaft, still quivering, buried several inches deep into the wood, sounded in its message in my ear. The voice made my breath catch. My fist clenched, rings digging into my palm, and boiling rage and terror mixing within me.

"Loke, let me up."

"Fae-"

"If they wanted to snipe us, they had the chance already. They just wanted to send a message."

Loke let me rise, though he kept himself between me and the now broken window. I went over to Dora, pinned to her chair like a bug to a card, the shards of her tea cup on the floor and fixed in a look of surprise. Shot straight through the heart.

I wrapped one hand around the star-shaped pentacle that hung around my neck, and extended my will down into the floor. The house that had remained a home only because of one woman. Who was now dead not even two feet away from me. Killed abruptly and on a whim. Inside the walls of the place that had been her home for her entire life. The one place that should be safe.

Underneath the curse, I could feel the remains of the threshold quickly slipping away into the ground without her there to hold onto it. But there was still generations worth of energy there. And when I tapped into it and offered the chance to get payback on the invader that had made a mockery of its walls and safety. And it really loved that idea.

My other hand went around the short wand at my belt that had one purpose and one purpose only: outputting massive firepower. I pointed it straight at the center mass of the Curse that still was present overhead. I was literally seeing red, but feeling cold as ice. And then I reached for my anger.

Now, if I were using the lightsaber, the blade would have flashed red as I embraced the Dark Side. Channeling my feelings about this whole debacle. The interrupted party, celebrating peace and reunions. The abduction. The chase. Hector's near murder. Finding a hint of the scope and scale of how deep this Curse had run and how many had suffered because of it. Because of one. Single. Man.

"Fuego." I hissed. "Pyro Fuego! Burn, you greasy, bat-faced bastard, BURN!"

A spear of angry red flame shot out of the blasting rod. The curse was tied to the house, and the house wanted it gone at all costs. It was as though the spider-like curse's legs were seized all at once and it was spread wide, the ideal target for my fury. The spirit of the home latched onto it and held it steady as my scarlet hellfire impacted it with a crack, sending out a small shock wave of force that threw smaller pieces of debris around and spread the smell of brimstone throughout the room.

Normally, in the Dresden Files, this spell was pure destruction. It could chew through most defenses given enough time, but it also brought you closer to dangerous territory. Especially since it had originally been given by a fallen angel in an attempt to lure a man to his eternal doom.

I was not a blasting type of wizard. I was a Curse breaker.

I wanted this thing broken.

Shattered to pieces. Unmade down to the last atom.

Rilt had gotten cursed in this house. Zeref's distant presence had been wrought to latch onto the darkness and evil within him to grant him the means to do what he had always wanted and without any consequence.

He wiped out all of the Requim family and the staff. Ohdran he had kept alive to raise as a puppet. Dora was spared to keep up with running the house. I could see him through the vision systematically, and methodically killing every single one of the family and servants who stood in his way. The only time he hesitated was with his sister. And even that was not enough to spare her. With the timing of the affair, and thanks to his Curse, he was able to pass off his murders as deaths resulting from the plague.

But it was murder. Cold blooded murder and betrayal, family turning on family.

He assumed guardianship of his nephew and control of their assets and then, once he was confident in his methods, began building connections. Mundane criminals first, little things, like changing a friend's university grades. Then he managed to get on the radar of a mundane criminal group, then dark guilds.

Rilt became a problem solver. If you could pay his price, then your issue with the law, or your enemy or even your friend could simply disappear. Not even you had to remember it. And more often than not, you didn't. He didn't leave a loose end that could come back to him even from a client.

Until he met someone else who operated in those circles. Who, like me, had an extra set of hands on the mental front and could resist the Silence. Someone who, as far as I knew, had been sitting in prison.

I yanked the arrow out of the ground, feeling the faint aura of the wind magic that had propelled it to its destination. The message tied to it resonated in my head again, in a voice I hadn't heard in years and would have been happy to never hear again.

"Come find me, Faerun. We've unfinished business to settle."

I pushed out the hot, angry fire and embraced the cold. I didn't recognize my own voice when I spoke as though to answer the paper message that flashed into ashes in my hand.

"Couldn't have put it better myself, Brain."