The Alchemist - Part One
Oct 04, 2024
Jasper had never experienced weightlessness in his life – that was why, when he experienced it now, the term for such a sensation came to him slowly. The absence of tinnitus, aching joints, and a pounding headache came to him first, followed by the realization that his head was nearly completely empty of thought – no, not thought, but concern. Quite frankly, he did not care about anything in the universe.
Except for the fact that he had no idea where he was.
This concern was minor, cast into stark relief by not feeling any pain. Absently, he began to hum a Radiohead song, and the sound bounced around him and then dissipated, as though he was in a large room. It wasn’t darkness that surrounded him; not exactly. It was emptiness. Nothingness.
A void.
At least, it started as a void. The few notes he hummed bounced back and hit him in the face, and then he began to tumble over himself through this weightless place. The momentum was small but troubling, and he tried to gain his bearings, but that was rather difficult when there seemed to be nothing quite as reliable as gravity to help him out. In the end, he just went rather still and drifted a while, until something that may have been considered light began to fill his senses.
His feet touched cool stone and it was then that he realized he wasn’t wearing any shoes.
He was wearing exactly what he’d been wearing in the cave: nothing but his underthings, which should have bothered him but didn’t. His leg, which had been hurting enough to consider amputation, was completely healed. In fact, there were no injuries or marks on his body at all – and when he touched his previously matted and blood-crusted head, he found his hair was not only clean but styled in the signature look he’d stolen from James Dean. While Jasper marveled over this, another voice broke through the void, speaking intimately into his left ear: “I was wondering when you’d get here.”
Jasper turned to see the woman with the skeleton tattoos watching him through her hood. Her eyes were black marbles, and they intensely fixated on his face.
He should have been alarmed, but something was wrong with Jasper’s adrenal system as he still couldn’t convince himself to care. All he managed was, “You.”
The skeleton woman made a noise that may have been a laugh and may have been a disappointed sigh. “Me.”
“Am I dead?” Jasper asked. (It seemed the next logical question).
“If only it were that simple.”
From Jasper’s perspective, it was that simple. Dead was dead – no pulse, no consciousness, a little bit of decay. He, however, looked down at himself and found at least a healthy body, if not a perfect one. And he was still in it, obviously. Moving it around and such.
“Unfortunately,” the skeleton woman said, striding away from him, “when you were Made, your Makers didn’t quite have a grasp on what death meant. For the Fae, at least, it’s rather ill-defined.”
“It seems fairly obvious to me.”
“It would. But given that you’ve never seen what happens when a Fae leaves their body, I’m certain you don’t have a firm grasp on it either.”
Jasper didn’t agree. Of all people, he, given his intimate relationship with ghosts, felt that he understood it more than most.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand why I’m here, then,” Jasper continued. “If I’m not dead.”
“Oh, you’re very much dead.”
The confusing woman with the skeleton tattoos gave him a mischievous look that reminded him rather painfully of Aurora. She said, “The timeline’s a little mixed up, though. I’ve been trying to get a hold of your wily little spirit for a long time, and unfortunately wrenching it out of a body isn’t an option.”
Jasper was even more confused and felt himself frown without really telling his face to do it.
“It’s confusing for me, too,” Skeleton-Face said. “You’re the first case of this I’ve ever met, dead but not dead. As far as shuttling to the afterlife, it’s been quite a pain.”
“So have I made it? To the afterlife?”
“Heavens, no.” She snorted and collapsed into a sturdy armchair that appeared only a moment before she hit the floor. She flicked a bony finger and he stumbled backward into a matching chair. “It will be a long time before we see you in the afterlife, Jasper. That is, if you make it there at all.”
She considered his puzzled expression and continued her monologue. Although Jasper didn’t know who this creature was, he could tell, from his vast understanding of expression, that she was enjoying herself thoroughly, and for that reason, he was starting to dislike her.
“You haven’t figured out who I am?” she asked. When Jasper shook his head, she said, “Right. You belligerent little Fae have decided we don’t actually exist anymore. I suppose this hubris happens to everyone, eventually. My name is Sydara – although you may know me as the Guardian of Death.”
She paused for a long moment at the end, as though Jasper ought to have gasped in shock at the revelation.
He merely said, “I may have guessed that, you know. With the tattoos and all.”
Sydara scowled at him. “I can tell why they don’t like you. The mortals.”
“I’ve been told my sense of humor is rather dry.”
“Indeed.”
For the Guardian of Death, which Jasper would have supposed to be a rather dismal thing, Sydara had a flare for the dramatics. She crossed her legs and revealed a rather substantial length of leg, and her gown flashed with deeply embedded sequins. Jasper did not doubt that if this was some type of other reality he’d stumbled into, then she could control whatever it was he saw, perhaps even the tattoos.
“I still don’t understand why I’m here,” Jasper replied.
“Because the scales are unbalanced,” Sydara explained. “Because there is a debt to be paid, and – “
“And I’m to pay it?’
“No. Bartholomew Threeves is to pay it. You are simply the instrument to collect payment.”
“I decline.” Jasper tried to stand (he didn’t know where he was going, but it seemed the right moment to have his own show of dramatics), but found himself glued to his seat.
Sydara smirked. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Jasper. We’ve all agreed – it must be you.”
“We?”
“The seven of us. The Seven Guardians. We’ve been wronged – not just by Threeves, but mostly through him – and now is the time to make it right. You are the vessel that will carry – “
“Why?” Jasper’s ability to care suddenly came roaring back.
Sydara, likely unused to speaking to something that could speak back, withdrew a little and blinked at him in surprise. “Because you are the only one that can.”
Jasper considered this momentarily. He had no extraordinary powers, and if he was being truthful, his body was rapidly collapsing on himself, and every day his list of enemies grew. He had no allies to stand against Barty, and even if he did, he’d yet to discover what he was seeking retribution for. He pressed this fact, stating, “but you’re the Guardians. If you’re as powerful as you say, then you should be able to deal with Barty. Otherwise, I’m tempted to believe you’re a fraud.”
“We were once Fae, all of us,” Sydara returned. He’d gotten to her though – she bristled, her expression souring. “You should know that if you were paying attention in your history lessons. Guardians are chosen from the Fae, and not because of our exemplary abilities, but because of our incredible – “
“Capacity for theatrics?”
Sydara groaned and Jasper restrained a laugh. He hadn’t had this much fun exasperating another being in years.
“Don’t you want to know what happened to you?” she snapped. “Don’t you want to know what your life was like before all of this nonsense? Before the Knights of the Order, before Threeves, before – “
She stopped herself, retreating like a cat reevaluating its ambush plan. Jasper had to admit she’d been rather clever with that one.
“No,” he replied simply. “Not really. I have a suspicion that it’s exactly like this if you’re involved. If we’re asking what I’d like, I’ll tell you: I’d like to either pass on to the afterlife, or go back to my employment – preferably with an in-tact car, and without otherworldly entities bidding for my attention. I don’t know why you’ve chosen me to be your hero –“
“I didn’t, Jasper. Your mother did.”
Finally, seriousness struck the conversation, and Jasper’s elation at the rather stimulating argument died. He’d been enjoying himself; that was undeniable. Now, though, he realized that underneath Sydara’s façade was something akin to panic – she wasn’t lying. At least not about that.
He squeaked out, “What?”
“This verbal sparring is pointless. I know you’re intelligent; things would be unbearably difficult if you weren’t. Don’t let your intelligence get in your way, though. You need to remember. You need to put things back in their place, and though you might be right – perhaps your life before this one was nothing but hot, burning garbage – there are promises you made in that life that must be kept. Promises to your mother. Promises to your friends and family. Promises to me.”
Jasper’s mouth opened but he found he couldn’t speak.
“These are promises bound in blood,” she pressed. “Promises wrapped so deeply in magic that if they are broken, the fabric of the world will split. The first is Umbraxis. You must stop him, and you must seal the gates.”
Umbraxis. So there was more to the Shadow Man – that was not a comforting thought.
“I’d love to. Do you know how?” Jasper returned, a little indignant now, although he couldn’t pinpoint why.
“You must find me,” she said. As she did, Jasper realized that neither of them were truly in that strange room anymore. It was as though a thin veil had fallen between them, and he was looking at her through a screen. “You must find the six others. They will bless you – that is how you stop Umbraxis.”
“Haven’t I found you already?” Jasper asked. If not, then what was this conversation even about?
She shook her head and laughed at him, and the sound reminded him that death was on its own team, no matter what she said.
“Then where do I find you?” he asked. She was slipping away from him, fading, as though falling into deep water.
“The answer is Bartholomew Threeves,” she said. Then she was gone, dissolved into the darkness. Jasper found himself weightless again, drifting through the void, and for a moment he truly believed that he’d hallucinated the entire conversation.
And then he woke up.
Aurora’s head had been spinning for over a decade.
The only time it had stopped was when she’d seen Jasper in California – and then, she hadn’t been able to tell if that was because she’d finally left reality, or because she was witness to a miracle.
Rohan had wanted to believe the former.
Upon their arrival at the Villa di Montedoro, Lucrezia had taken one look at her, pushed her onto a sofa, and stuck a needle in her arm. The familiar warmth of the drug washed over her, and Aurora drifted through hazy wakefulness as she watched Lucrezia examine the specimen she’d brought with her.
“This isn’t a patient,” Lucrezia insisted, once Rohan had placed him onto the examination table. “This is a corpse. A very dead one. Where in all the realms did you find this?”
Lucrezia was a wiry female, and her eyes were made alarmingly bug-like by the magnifying goggles she nearly always wore. Looking at her so impaired made Aurora’s head spin faster, the effect like staring into the face of an enormous fly.
“And this one – “ Lucrezia thrust a finger in Aurora’s direction, “is even worse. I told you to be careful with her.”
Aurora didn’t hear Rohan’s mumbled response. The two always fought, even if they claimed to care about each other. The only thing she could keep in her mind was a name: Jasper. Jasper. Jasper.
Jasper dead, on the table. Jasper dead, on the stone floor of The Palace of Light. Jasper living, smiling, laughing, convulsing, falling, dying –
Aurora let out a strangled cry as the barrage returned, hammering at her brain in a relentless assault.
Flash – a voice telling her everything would be alright.
Flash – hands reaching through cold, iron bars.
Flash – the cry of a baby, and a female voice screaming, demanding –
“I told you, it isn’t strong enough anymore,” Rohan said. “She’s built up a tolerance to it. You need to change the formula.”
“She wouldn’t need it so much if you wouldn’t expose her to so much stress. Ravenscroft was a mistake, and as her caretaker – “
Aurora lost track of the conversation again, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. She vaguely registered a presence sinking down beside her, and a male voice saying, “Are you alright?”
Orion. She’d never spoken with him; not directly. She didn’t want to. She didn’t trust him. He hadn’t been there that day, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what had happened. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a part in the whole, monstrous plan.
“Would you like to lie down somewhere? You look unwell.”
Aurora opened her eyes. The room spun around her, but she was able to focus her attention on Orion just enough to make out his face. Son of Lumenvale – that thought emerged from somewhere in the depths. Cast out from the High King’s presence, for what? She’d heard the stories but couldn’t put the facts in order.
“I’m…tired,” she said. Her throat was torn from screaming and her mouth was dry as paper. Orion’s face didn’t change but was fixed in that same concerned frown.
“Would you like something to eat? Or drink?” he asked.
Rohan caught the tail-end of Orion’s question and whirled. “Stay away from her,” he growled, advancing so quickly that Orion leaped up from his seat. “It’s because of your people that we’re even in this mess. Why don’t you do us all a favor and sew your mouth shut?”
“There’s no need for that,” Zephyra returned. Aurora couldn’t see her – her vision was tunneling again – but her voice came from a far corner of the room. The fight continued right where it had left off. “Our biggest concern is figuring out what happened to Jasper, and then alerting the Order – “
Aurora didn’t know what caused it, but suddenly Rohan was roaring, throwing himself toward Zephyra’s voice. Lucrezia’s stern tones joined the cacophony, and Aurora pressed her hands to her ears. It was getting difficult to tell which of the horrible sounds were in the room and which were in her head.
She opened her eyes again just in time to see the corpse on the table jerk, and then Jasper, gasping as though he’d just been submerged for a substantial length of time, turned off the table and fell onto the floor.
The resounding crack, as well as Jasper’s undeniable snort of irritation, silenced the entire party.
No one moved as Jasper pushed himself up on his elbows, hissing through his teeth as he tried to move the still-broken leg. He issued a slur of curses and Lucrezia, who hadn’t seen a living Jasper in well over a decade, crossed herself.
Her face had gone completely pale.
“What are you staring at?” Jasper snapped, his face tight with pain as he moved to sit, straightening out the leg with an expression that was completely, only, and wholly his. The thought made Aurora’s mind still.
He was dead but not dead, as little sense as that made.
“You’re…” Orion started.
“Alive?” Jasper finished, giving him a look that would have frozen fire. “Yeah. It’s hard to ignore when it feels like I’ve been thrown down the stairs.”
It looked that way, too. No one had thought to dress him since they’d gotten here (he’d been dead, after all) and in the light Aurora could now see there was not an inch of him that wasn’t somewhat bruised. Just the sight, though; just the image of a speaking, working mouth, eyes that were angry but looking, and a face screwed up into the unfriendliest of scowls, made her want to cry with relief.
“I don’t understand,” Zephyra breathed.
Jasper’s wakeful presence in the room had anchored Aurora somewhat to this reality and now she was able to turn. Zephyra stood behind her, to her left, her hands grasping the back of her neck.
“I believe heart failure might explain it,” Jasper returned. “Or perhaps I’m simply so tired of listening to you bickering that I died.”
Neither Zephyra nor Orion spoke. It was Lucrezia, speaking in a stream of Italian Aurora didn’t understand, who moved next. Finally returning to a language they all spoke, she said, “Well, there’s always a first time. Up you go, on the table.”
Jasper turned his hateful look on her. “I think I’m done being poked and prodded. And if you all don’t stop staring at me, I will turn the lights out.”
Aurora fought a smile. Lucrezia, who’d forgotten how foul Jasper’s moods could be, put her hands on her hips and stared down at him.
“You were always stubborn as a hungry elumbrae,” she murmured. She didn’t make him move, however, and promptly found a robe in a closet and threw it at him. Jasper took it and slipped it on, looking small, cold, and put-out.
Lucrezia turned to Aurora. “Bed,” she said. “In fact, all of you need to rest. It’s near the middle of the night, and I’m exhausted – “
She was interrupted by a sharp rapping on the door. They were in Lucrezia’s kitchen, one of the only rooms in the house with direct access to the outside. The sound of the knocking sent a shiver down Aurora’s spine. Who would come looking for Lucrezia in the middle of the night?
As she answered the door, Jasper somehow managed to pull himself up and sit on the sofa where Orion had been only moments before. Lucrezia was speaking to someone in low Italian – but all Aurora could focus on was Jasper, the fine planes of his handsome face, the peculiar curve of his nose –
“It creeps me out when you stare like that,” Jasper said to her, refusing to look. He crossed his arms and sank deeper into the cushions.
Aurora tore her gaze away and tried to focus on the floor instead. That didn’t fix the gravitational pull that urged her to draw closer; it didn’t stop her heart from threatening to burst out of her chest. She tried to swallow, tried to do anything else – she’d had a handle on it, at first. She’d been able to pretend. Rohan had said it wasn’t Jasper, at least not her Jasper, and she ought to treat him as a stranger, but when they were here, in a place which had once been so special, so sacred, for both of them –
Lucrezia shut the door and sighed. “There’s a sickness in the village,” she explained. “It’s been killing off residents for weeks. I thought I’d gotten it handled, but that was one of them, come to tell me there’s been another case.”
“What kind of sickness?” Orion asked.
“A strange kind. I’ve traveled through three thousand years of human history and never seen what it’s like. Want a look?”
“We should really get back,” Zephyra said.
“How?” Jasper growled. “We don’t have our cars. We don’t have any way to contact the Order, unless one of them – “ he gestured to Aurora and Rohan – “want to take us back. Which they won’t do.”
“You lost your amulet?” Aurora whispered, realizing what he meant. If he’d had it, he’d be able to get them back.
“Yes,” Jasper said. “It’s in my clothes, which are still sitting at the bottom of a frozen lake in Denmark. Thanks to you.”
Aurora bristled, but it was Orion who said, “We should help. As Knights of the Order, we have to help. If you haven’t seen it, Lucrezia, maybe it’s from the Fae lands – and that would fall into our jurisdiction.”
A likely point, although no one seemed pleased about the proposition.
“I’m staying right here,” Jasper said. “And if you get into any trouble, I’m leaving you behind. I’m not going to lose the rest of my sanity to rescue you again.”
Although unpleasant, no one could argue that Jasper was being unreasonable. Even Aurora (prone herself to overextension) had to agree: Jasper had done enough. Perhaps heart failure had proven that.
There was something else, though, that seemed to be nagging at him. Perhaps intuition, or perhaps it was the part that she remembered, still lurking deep beneath whatever Threeves had turned him into, but he had that quirky expression he wore when he wanted to talk about something but he wanted everyone else to leave. Their argument had gone unresolved – interrupted when Rohan, Zephyra, and Orion had been captured – and though Aurora had no doubt it would be irksome, she knew it needed to happen.
If there was any chance that he was still in there, she would risk everything to find it.
“I’m not leaving you again,” Rohan said. He sat on the floor in front of them, ignoring Jasper and staring fixedly at Aurora. “Let the knights of the order sort things out. I’m through with that.”
Jasper narrowed his eyes at Rohan. Aurora could practically see him thinking, wheels turning, engine whirring. Like those funny cars he loved so much, there was a machine in his head that reliably churned out answers, given enough time. Whatever question he pondered about Rohan, she could see him weighing the facts to figure it out. He would then spew something incredibly calculated to test his hypothesis –
“What did you do to get ejected?” Jasper asked.
Aurora repressed another small smile. Right on time.
Rohan clamped his jaw shut.
Aurora’s thoughts wandered to a distant memory, the two of them staring at each other like this across a dining room table. For a moment, she was still there, listening to another one of Jasper’s hare-brained schemes and Rohan’s stubborn replies. They’d argue for a while, and then take it out into the street, wrestling like puppies in the dirt. Then they’d go and drink until the sun came up and Rohan would inevitably carry Jasper home –
She shook herself. Her grasp on reality was slipping again; she desperately needed to sleep, to shake off whatever drug Lucrezia had given her.
“I’m leaving,” Lucrezia announced, breaking the strange reverie that had fallen between the three of them. “Whoever is coming with me had better not dawdle. The rest of you – don’t destroy my house.”
Though unspoken, the word again hung in the air. Lucrezia briefly met Aurora’s gaze, and for a moment, Aurora thought she caught a glimpse of a smile.
Orion and Zephyra went with her, if only to see to the business of the Order. Jasper, fully unenthralled with the idea of facing yet another monster with a broken leg, stayed obstinately behind. Jasper and Rohan continued to glare at each other. Jasper’s nerves kept firing like live wires, and though exhausted he was restless. Sitting next to Aurora didn’t help.
Her owlish eyes made his skin crawl, even now that he knew what she was.
Athrubhan. One of the owl-people of the North. They’d been eradicated – or so Barty had said. Now, however, he couldn’t help wondering what else Barty had lied to him about.
The list was very likely a long one.
They needed to talk though; as little as it pleased him. He shifted just enough to see her and said, “We didn’t finish our conversation.”
Aurora bristled but didn’t speak.
“Last time we talked, you said something about the Guardians. That you knew them.”
She and Rohan exchanged questioning glances. It wasn’t quite agreement, but Jasper pressed on.
“Was one, by chance, named Sydara?”
“The Guardian of Death,” Rohan supplied. His tone changed, from suspicion to something more resembling awe. “Did you see her?”
Jasper hugged himself more tightly, hiding his apprehension underneath a scowl. “Saw her, yes. Bantered for a while. She’s irritating.”
“So are you,” Rohan said.
Jasper ignored him. “She told me something odd – something about finding the Guardians. Seven of them. And that we need their blessings to defeat Umbraxis.”
Another strange look between Aurora and Rohan.
“Are you going to use words to communicate,” Jasper snapped, “or do I need to learn telepathy?”
“Sydara has not appeared to anyone, in over one hundred years,” Rohan growled. “This is big – possibly one of the most important things ever to have happened. The fact that she appeared to you, of all people – “
“Yes, she made it clear that it was important,” Jasper returned. “There’s a debt to be paid, and that promises must be kept, and Threeves is to blame – I understand. What I don’t understand is why, or what anyone expects me to do about it.”
“That I can explain,” Rohan said.
Jasper gestured for him to continue, and there was yet another look between the two that made him want to throw something at them. But finally, Rohan began to speak.
This is the Legend of the Guardians, as told to Jasper by Rohan in Lucrezia di Montedoro’s kitchen:
Long ago, when the Realms were Made, there was no order to them, and so the Makers appointed seven noble Fae to protect that which was essential: life, death, night, day, chaos, order, and time.
Each guardian was given a blessing – this blessing was what they used to keep the balance of things. It granted them unique and terrible powers, including the power to walk between realms without getting lost in between.
For millennia, the Seven lived in peace. They were, like the rest of their Fae brethren, immortal; but they were not invulnerable. This was discovered when they were betrayed by one of their kind.
Aelric, a Fae from the country of Aramore, became jealous of the power held by the Guardians. In his greed, he sought to destroy the weakest of the Guardians and murdered the Guardian of Night. Seizing her power for his own, he began a great rampage across the realms, terrorizing those in neighboring worlds and stealing power for himself wherever he found it.
The six other Guardians banded together to stop Aelric, waging war against the great armies he gathered: monsters from all realms, wicked men, and those he’d deceived into following his leadership. In the end, they sealed him away into eternal darkness, disbanded his armies, and regained the power he’d stolen, but at a terrible cost: three of their own had perished.
The three who remained, the Guardian of the Death, the Guardian of Chaos, and the Guardian of Time, chose four new Guardians from the Fae realms to replace those who had been lost. This time, however, they each swore a vow of solitude – never to appear to the Fae again, and risk tempting them into evil.
They still wander the realms, or so the legends say; keeping the balance and maintaining the peace between the rifts, but no one who has sought an audience with them has been successful.
Not for ten thousand years.
“You see,” Aurora said, once Rohan had concluded his story, “if it was Sydara, then you would have been singled out by the Guardians. They rarely appear to anyone, and even then, they appear disguised.”
“But you said they appeared to you,” Jasper returned, frowning. At least, that was what she had alleged in their previous conversation on the topic.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Aurora replied. She folded her arms and mirrored his obstinate expression.
For once, Rohan seemed eager to speak. He said, “This is about Umbraxis – the Guardians want him gone. For once, we are aligned. “
“Indeed,” Jasper agreed. “So how does getting a blessing from the Guardians help?”
“For the last hundred years,” Rohan explained, “Umbraxis has been gathering power. He was wounded when…when he last tried to surface in the Fae realms. We know his plan, though: he wants to tear apart the seams between worlds, so that there is no barrier between the lands-in-between and all the realms. There would be no distinction between the human world and our own, and whatever lurks between would be free to wander. Our goal has been to stop him but without the help of the Guardians, that has been impossible.”
“So you’re saying that now the Guardians have chosen to cooperate,” Jasper said, “you have a chance.”
Aurora and Rohan both nodded, eyes wide and pleading. Jasper stared at the floor, thinking, weighing each fact one at a time.
Seeking the Guardians to get a blessing was a fool’s errand; as Rohan had said, no one had been successful in finding them in ten thousand years (except for Aurora, who, unhelpfully, wouldn’t elaborate on the subject). Not only that but if he was to find his way back into Threeves’ good graces, he needed to return to the Hall of the Order as soon as possible, not jump into a hunt for the god-like creatures of Fae legend. He’d also suffered what he could guess to be a massive heart attack; who was to say anything he’d seen hadn’t been a hallucination?
“How does Bartholomew Threeves fit into this? Sydara was insistent that he was the answer to all of our questions,” Jasper pressed, looking between them. “She said there is a debt to be paid, and he is the one to pay it. Why?”
“She’s right,” Aurora said softly. “Threeves betrayed the Guardians. One hundred years ago. He made a deal with one of their enemies and it cost them greatly.”
“And they want me to clean up his mess?”
“They want you to stop Umbraxis. Umbraxis is the result of everything Threeves has done.”
“And why me?”
Conveniently, the other two went silent.
“We can’t tell you that,” Rohan said. He and Aurora looked at each other again, and it made Jasper want to throw something at the two of them.
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to?” he snapped, irritation rising in him like bile.
“It isn’t safe,” Aurora said. “We can only tell you if you swear you won’t go back to the Order. Only if you denounce Threeves and the Order, and join in the resistance. Write it in blood.”
She was asking for a blood oath; the kind that, if broken, would result in sudden (and irrefutable) death. Jasper blinked in astonishment, then, realizing that they were completely serious, said, “If this threat is as dangerous as you say it is, then the Order should be made aware of it.”
“Jasper,” Rohan said, “you’re not listening.”
His voice was urgent, pleading. His face had gone nearly gray, and it was the first time Jasper had heard him speak without that usual note of condescension.
“Threeves is the Order. The Order is the threat.”
The collection retrieved from the scene in Denmark was an odd one. It had taken ten of Threeves’ operatives to take down the rogue beast, wrapping it in iron and dragging it through the realms to the Hall of the Order. No one in living memory had seen its likeness before. That, however, was not the greatest of Threeves’ worries.
Along with the beast, his ten operatives had brought back an eclectic assortment of items. Hera, the officer in command of the mission, approached his throne with a set of keys.
“They’re dragging the Mustang to the shop,” she informed him. “Not sure what we can do about it, though. Jasper’s smashed the front.”
Threeves took the keys. The other items were then presented – a pile of clothes (Jasper’s, he realized, which forced him to also note that Jasper might be running around somewhere disrobed; a predicament to be untangled later), a diary, and…
Hera held out the third item as though it were nothing more than a broken toy. Threeves’ eyes widened when he saw it, however, and he took it from her and held it up to the light.
It was an amulet, made from copper wire and a purple stone – an amulet that had been rumored to exist, but one he’d never seen.
Elysande.
Threeves addressed Hera curtly. “Do whatever it takes to fix the Mustang. Make it look new. I’ll be gone for a little while.”
She nodded and offered a small salute. Threeves tucked the amulet into his pocket and stepped off the dais, passing the beast wrapped in irons. It eyed him through a muzzle, baring its teeth but making no sound.
Threeves walked on past. If he was right, he had bigger things to worry about than that thing.
“You must have frightened him,” Valeria was saying, as she peered into her scrying bowl. Her long hair pooled around her, and Morwin watched with delight as the water reflected strange patterns across her face.
They were in the Northern Tower, and the moon was full tonight, perfect weather for scrying. Valeria’s nimble fingers hovered over the surface of the water, and she disturbed it every now and again, like flicking through channels on a human television set. Morwin loved seeing her work. He would never understand how she did it, and things he didn’t understand hooked his curiosity beyond measure.
“Jasper has made it to Italy. Varek is in place. Threeves is on his way here. It was as though you knew.”
He did know – that explained the flirtatious smirk she cast towards him.
“All in a day’s work, my love,” Morwin answered softly. To his left, legs dangling over the balcony edge, Dorian’s gaze fell on the distant city of Nivarin. The child was nearly a tween; how had time moved so quickly?
Almost immediately, there was a dull pop and Threeves appeared in the tower. He jumped, looking around and realizing that they were not in the garden, but instead in a much more private part of the house. Threeves’ eyes went wide – he must have thought he was alone with Valeria.
What a frightening thing, indeed, Morwin mused to himself. He spared Threeves the panic, however, and emerged from the darkness.
“What is it, Threeves?” he asked, sliding his hands into his pocket.
The strange Fae gathered himself, trying to cover the shock. His cobalt robes were coated in a fine layer of dust, and his normally immaculate hair was greasy and unkempt. Morwin didn’t need his magic to know that Threeves was incredibly out of sorts.
“I brought you something.” Threeves fished around in his pocket and took out an amulet, purple and copper, and inscribed with runes.
Morwin’s smile faltered when he saw it.
“Elysande,” Valeria breathed, rising from her bowl. Even Dorian, who’d never heard the name before in his young life, turned to look.
Morwin took the amulet, turning it over in his hands. “Where did you get this?”
“Jasper had it,” Threeves explained. He tried to sound unbothered, but there was that faint trembling in his voice that always gave him away. “I thought you’d want to see it.”
Morwin’s instinct was to crush it; to turn it to dust in his hands. His intellect, however, said otherwise; he gave it back to Threeves with no small amount of reluctance.
“It appears the Guardians are speaking,” he said. “To Jasper, of all Fae.”
“It would seem so.”
Valeria brushed her hair behind her ears, scowling at the vile thing as Threeves tucked it away.
“What should I do, my lord?” Threeves asked.
Morwin looked at Dorian. The child’s eyes had gone wide, and tucked behind them was a world of wants. It floated over him like a cloud: he was a tad hungry for – sweets, likely, given the image of a cake that kept hovering there. He wanted to go to bed, although he didn’t know it yet. He wanted to know what worried the adults in such a manner, although he knew he wouldn’t understand it. He wanted his father to stop looking so concerned so that maybe they could play and wear each other out running through the gardens.
“Change of plans,” Morwin decided. Yes, that was right – a change of tact. Jasper had never been one to control so easily; he needed to be persuaded.
He turned back to Threeves. “Get Jasper back on your side. Whatever it takes, Threeves. Give him whatever he wants.”
Threeves bristled but didn’t argue.
Morwin crossed the floor and scooped Dorian off the ground. He was still light enough to carry, even though he was no longer a babe. “Soothe him, help him, make him feel special. If the Guardians won’t speak to me, then perhaps we can get our answers through him.”
“And then?’
“And then we act,” Morwin provided. Dorian slumped against him, playing with the silver buttons on his shirt.
Threeves nodded. He turned on his heel and disappeared again, back through the invisible door connecting their lands.
Valeria left her scrying bowl, joining Morwin by the balcony. “Jasper cannot know,” she hissed in an undertone.
“He won’t, my love,” Morwin insisted, wrapping his other arm around her. “If he starts to remember, I have no qualms about killing him again.”
Click here to continue to Part 2
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