The Librarian - Part Two
Nov 01, 2024
The Libarian – Part Two
The Hall of the Order was in flames.
How it happened was anyone's guess - there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wards and spells in the prison that activated once Jasper, Aurora, and Rohan breached the top level.
The Knights of the Order threw themselves at the escapees, and would later report a monstrous thing throwing them back into the walls and floor and ceiling of the burning building.
The thing had teeth and claws and was built of shadows and malice, and had burning red eyes and a voice of steel against stone. The thing once had the body of someone named Jasper; but for the time it took the escapees to clear the hall and burst into the damp, night air, even those who knew him best could not be certain that it was, indeed Jasper.
This Other thing cast bodies aside as though they were made of straw. It snarled and snapped and burst through doors. Once in the night air, it obliterated the knights that rose to stop it. The Mustang, parked unceremoniously in the street, shuddered at its approach, not recognizing its driver.
Then the Other retreated, and Jasper was Jasper again, with a needle-sharp focus on the car. He opened the door to the mustang and hesitated only a moment before letting Rohan lay Aurora in the back seat, bleeding amongst the blankets he'd piled there earlier that night. She was deathly pale, unmoving, hardly breathing. He'd have to clean the blood out of the seats later.
Rohan squeezed into the passenger's seat just as Jasper slid into his. The doors shut, locking themselves, and the engine roared to life. He stepped on the gas pedal and barked, "seatbelt!" to his passengers. When Rohan didn't buckle in, the seatbelt came flying down on its own, securing him in place just as Jasper tore off into the night.
One hand on the wheel, one hand fishing around for the rucksack, he found the amulets and tossed them to Rohan. In his rearview mirror, fourteen cars of all different colors appeared. Jasper turned the dial on the stereo and filled the car with a sound that made Rohan wince. Styx blasted over the speakers, and despite himself, Jasper felt a smile work its way onto his face.
The adrenaline made him feel invulnerable. God-like. He'd never had an excuse to drive this fast, and tearing through the streets of Aetherill at the car's top speed caused the rest of the world to fall away. He forgot about his passengers, forgot about Bartholomew Threeves, forgot about the polaroids and the camera and the chase. For a few brief moments, he was in pure bliss - driving the car, music loud enough to rattle his teeth, maneuvering the streets of the city with precision even the other knights couldn't match.
There was a cracking sound, and his attention snapped back down to reality. The Knights of the Order, he'd forgotten, had magic. And they were firing at him.
"What's the plan, Jazz?" Rohan was saying over the noise. Jasper hardly noticed his voice above the din. He jerked the car around a corner, and with satisfaction three of their pursuers crashed in attempting the same turn. Rohan covered his mouth and tried not to be sick. He repeated his question - "the plan - "
"Don't puke in my car," Jasper snarled at him, speeding down an alleyway. He'd once seen a James Bond film where Bond had done this very move, and had always wanted to try it -
No. Focus. Despite his glee, he had to remember that this wasn’t a game. He needed to get away from here. To safety. Where would they be safe?
Aurora had told him that the amulets worked if one knew where they were going. He flipped through the images in his mind, places he remembered, places that would work, places Threeves would never think to look.
Ten cars remained behind them as Jasper came up with the solution. He turned onto a highway, elumbrae startling at the sudden emergence of cars and leaping out of the way. He needed to put distance between himself and the other cars.
"I need an amulet," he snapped, holding out a hand. He felt the cold, smooth stone in his palm and closed his fingers around it. "Close your eyes," he told Rohan.
For once, the sour male did as he was told. The road stretched out in front of them and Jasper pushed the engine as hard as it would go. He needed space, or the others would follow. The road ahead of them would end, and they would crash, and -
"Jazz, you're going to get us killed," Rohan was saying. Jasper hardly heard him. A building materialized ahead, large and unmovable.
Jasper pressed even harder. The engine whined.
"Jazz - "
He closed his eyes, and conjured the image in his mind. Then he heard the crash.
Waning sunlight gleamed off the hood of a black 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 from where it sat, neatly parked on cracked asphalt. One of its passengers had already disembarked, and had waddled over to the grass, where he dry-heaved for several minutes. The driver sat, marveling at the little stone which had delivered them to the motel. The third passenger lay completely still in the back seat.
Jasper opened the door to the Mustang and placed his feet on solid ground. He could feel the heat of the asphalt through his shoes and it comforted him. So far as he could tell, none of the knights had made it through the rift he'd opened in the middle of Aetherill. The image in his mind had been clearer than the last time he'd tried to use the amulet, and the rift had deposited them here, in Southern California in the year (he hoped) 1973.
While Rohan heaved, Jasper straightened himself out as much as he could, standing. The adrenaline left him shaky and unbalanced. He breathed deeply, the warm breeze a stark contrast to the wintery teeth of Aetherill's weather. He grabbed the rucksack and fished around for a few dollar bills and headed for the office.
The motel manager gave him a strange look when he asked for a room, but once payment for a night's stay was in order, he handed over the keys to a room without question. Jasper thanked him and stepped back out into the night. Rohan had recovered slightly and was now returning to the Mustang.
Jasper held up the key. "Got us a room."
Rohan understood. Jasper pulled back the driver's seat and Rohan reached into the car, lifting Aurora out as carefully as possible. She let out a soft cry - the faintest sign that she was still alive.
Jasper grabbed the rucksack and locked the car, leading the way to their room. Rohan followed with Aurora. It was modest and smelled thickly of dust and mildew, and when Jasper flicked on the lights, he was met with the ugliest floral bedspreads he'd ever seen. They looked like they hadn't seen an occupant in years.
"Not on the bed," he told Rohan, when he tried to set Aurora on it. "The bathtub."
Rohan looked bewildered. "The what - "
"We can't get blood everywhere," Jasper explained. "It'll make it too easy for Barty to find us. The bathroom is back there."
He pointed to a door on the far end of the little room. Rohan scowled as he lumbered towards it, opening the door with a foot. Jasper threw the rucksack on the bed and followed. In the sickly yellow light of the bathroom, he finally saw the full extent of the damage the two had taken - both Rohan and Aurora were badly bruised, bleeding in some places, and covered in blood and vomit. Rohan laid Aurora carefully in the bathtub, and though her eyelids fluttered she didn't wake.
"We'll have to get the pin out," Rohan said. "Otherwise…I'm not sure she'll recover."
Jasper tasted bile in the back of his throat. When the ghosts were involved, he had no problem with gore; but with those were living, it made him extremely ill.
Rohan, however, didn't seem bothered by it. He shifted the female onto her side and revealed the wound in her thigh. It was green and badly infected, and though Jasper couldn't see the iron pin, he knew what such a wound usually meant.
Fae were weak to iron - this was a fact that even the ancient humans knew. Having it around them often weakened their powers. Having it in them neutralized any magical ability whatsoever, including their rapid metabolism. Those imprisoned beneath Aetherill were almost always pinned, so that their abilities wouldn't help them escape. Jasper suspected this was why Rohan, if he did have abilities and wasn't simply hiding them, couldn't wield magic.
Rohan was right, though. Aurora looked unwell and was badly wounded herself. If she hadn't been pinned, she'd likely recover on her own, but as it was…
Jasper took a deep breath. He'd never done this before and he didn't want to kill her by trying. He didn't want to kill himself in the process, though, either.
"I'm not sure how I can help," he said.
Rohan gave him an incredulous look. "What are you - Jasper, I can't do this by myself."
"I'm aware," Jasper returned, voice sharp with annoyance. "But when I - I don't - "
He struggled to explain himself. He'd never described it to anyone except Aurora. He'd never talked about his unusual reaction to contact with living things, and talking about it now made him feel exceedingly inferior.
"I can't touch living things," Jasper said through his teeth. "When I do, I…weird things happen."
Rohan glared. "Weird things? Like what?'
"Like…I throw up. Or pass out. Or a hundred other things. I can't explain it - I've never been able to - "
For years, Jasper had tried to convince himself that he was completely indifferent to this state of being. He mostly hated interactions with others and preferred his own company over all else. There had been times, however, in recent weeks when this imposed physical isolation had begun leaving him deeply unsettled.
Rohan's mouth fell open. He looked at Aurora, and then back to Jasper; and when his gaze returned it was deeply saddened. "And you don't remember how to stop it?"
Jasper felt like he'd been slapped. "Remember? You knew about this?"
"Of course I knew. I just thought - I forgot this is all new to you. In all honesty, when I saw you again, I thought you were faking it. Aurora convinced me that you weren't - but there was no way…"
Rohan didn't finish, his voice pinching off at the end.
"You promised me the truth," Jasper reminded him. "All of it. In blood."
"And I'll give it to you - but after you fill your end of the deal. We're not safe yet - not with her in this condition." Rohan nodded to Aurora. "I can't do this without you. If you help me, then if you somehow remember everything, you'll thank me for it. I promise."
Jasper knew he was right. Even if Rohan was lying, even if they had meant nothing to him in the past, he still considered Aurora a friend now. Whatever she had done to piss off the Order, she didn't deserve to die this way.
He rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie and approached the bathtub, kneeling beside Rohan and looking in at the grisly scene. "What do you need me to do?"
"I'll hold her down," Rohan said. "You'll have to get the pin out. That's the only way she'll heal."
He was right. That, at least, was obvious. Jasper retrieved the knife from his pocket, his stomach already turning as he considered what Rohan had asked him to do. At this angle, and now that he was much closer to her, Jasper realized the gravity of that moment. His reservation fled. Aurora was not just bleeding, she was dying - and he didn't need her ghost to haunt his every moment for refusing to save her.
Except he wasn't refusing. He couldn't refuse. He wanted to help, but felt -
"Jasper."
Rohan was staring at him, eyes widened.
"Yes?"
"Where did you go?'
"Pardon?"
"I was talking to you for a full minute and you didn't seem to be anywhere near your body."
Jasper bit into his cheek, the pain grounding him to the moment, the taste of blood sharpening his senses. "I'm here," he growled.
"Okay. I've got her. Try to be as quick as you can."
Jasper would remember the affair as a tapestry of color in his mind. Black and red blood spurting from the wound as the knife sliced through the infection like butter. The first few moments of touching the mangled skin were agony; but for the first time, he didn’t pull away. He forced himself to focus, pushing away the pain and locking into a box and shoving that box into a shadowy place in his head.
Lights danced in front of his vision as he fished around awkwardly for the iron pin. He knew its like – they were usually around three inches long, and a quarter inch wide – and this one had dug its way into Aurora’s leg and nested near the thigh bone. The knife arced deeply into the flesh, and at Aurora’s first strangled stream, something happened that Jasper could not explain.
The happening wasn’t what startled him, however. As he sat on the curb outside their room, looking through the polaroid photos he’d stolen from Barty’s desk, he puzzled over the expression on Rohan’s face. Not surprise, exactly – but when Aurora’s screams reached a fever-pitch, Rohan had looked at him with something akin to hope written on his usually somber features.
Jasper had answered subconsciously. That screamed always summoned that part of him he was beginning to dislike immensely; it did this time, too. However, unlike before, he didn’t become a mess of rage and bile. Instead, he felt a spark of something unusual in the hand holding the knife – and then Aurora grew very, very still.
So still she may have been dead.
Jasper flipped through the photos from the ruck sack, laying them out on the asphalt. His fingernails were still caked in Aurora’s blood.
Every photo was of him. Some had Rohan’s face, some had Aurora’s; some included others he didn’t know. But all of them contained his face – a version of himself that was as foreign as these two had been only a few weeks prior. Jasper tried to create some type of timeline with the photos, but came up with very little. They seemed to be from a span of many, many years; and by the decay of some of the photos, those years were long in the past.
In the motel, Jasper heard Rohan fumbling around, getting Aurora settled into bed. The breeze against his face refused to let him drift into the nothingness he desired so greatly. The feeling – the spark – had sent his whole world crashing into a thousand pieces. Aurora had gone still and Jasper began to feel the pain of the operation in his own leg.
There was no wound – and yet he could feel the gaping hole the knife had left. The ache where the pin had been. The throbbing of the infection. It was as though he’d taken her pain and swallowed it, burying it inside himself. At first, he hadn’t noticed; he’d been in so much agony of his own that recognizing this foreign body was nearly impossible. Long after he’d finished, however, he still felt the dull reminder. The nausea of the whole experience still ate at him, and he was filled with an anxiety even the whiskey didn’t seem to touch.
Flip. Flip. Flip.
And Rohan had stared at him, as though expecting this.
As if he had known.
Because, Jasper reminded himself, as he kept turning over each haunting photograph, Rohan did.
The Library sat in the heart of the mountain - but not Mt. Hiei. It was a different mountain, one in the Fae Realm; because once one entered the Sanctuary, one walked through a riftgate and left the human world behind.
That explained the winding, twisting passageways beneath the mountain, and the ancient archives holding both treasures and horrors from all of the realms. Lucrezia rarely traveled these paths, because traveling without the help of the Librarian was impossible. The walls changed and moved and would entrap trespassers until they were rescued by the Librarian or, as was much more common, until they died.
There was no way to steal from the Library, either. At least - there was no way that anyone had discovered. Even the Order had tried and failed - and Lucrezia remembered the oaths sworn by Bartholomew Threeves when he'd learned there was one place in the realms his slimy fingers could not touch. This riftgate was one he would never control, no matter how he battled for it, and no matter how many Knights he sent.
Fortunately, Yorihito was in a curious mood, otherwise Lucrezia didn't know how else she would have convinced him to leave his work in the upper passageways. The ancient immortals like the Librarian had a different concept of time than the younger ones, and what she found pressing he often considered an issue for the next hundred years or so. Bringing the blood had been a deliberate and effective choice, and now she followed him through the spidery halls to a place so still and dark that it may have been a tomb.
Yorihito carried with him a light - a flickering orb that hovered near his shoulder. Conjuring light was an easy trick for the Fae, but this was different. This was an almost sentient light; one that seemed to know exactly how bright to burn and where to cast its beams, before anyone even asked. Lucrezia had, many times, asked her friend how he did it; he, ever the scholar, told her there was no point to telling her something all the Fae must learn.
Learning comes through doing, he said, many times, as though she were one of his students.
She watched the ball of light bounce around them as they walked, alerting them to cracks in the floors and walls the sprang up out of the darkness to stop their progress. It was a cheerful thing, the antidote to the melancholy of the archives, and a direct contradiction to her own sour mood. Deep in the darkness, she heard strange scratching sounds - nothing, Yorihito said lightly - and tried her best to focus on the task at hand.
Finally, after a walk that seemed like miles, they came to one of the rotunda-like caves. Housed inside where hundreds of shelves, each filled to the brim with records and artifacts. Only a few were in languages she could read. Lucrezia had traveled the human realm for thousands of years, but these were from lands beyond even that, from species unimaginable by the others.
"No creature can bear the weight of all the worlds," Yorihito had explained, once, "not even the Guardians. That is why it is our duty to record it here - so that it becomes bearable."
Indeed. This itself was unbearable - without the Librarian, she would never had found what she needed. This cavern was only one subject - one that Yorihito knew well: botany.
Her first instinct had been, you think Jasper was poisoned?
Of course, Yorihito refused to come to conclusions. He saw the blood in the vial and kept his own thoughts private, refusing to complicate the matter by musing aloud. She followed him as he wandered through the shelves, and several minutes later they found the tome he'd been looking for, covered in a century's worth of dust.
At least.
"Plants from Aplarcia," Yorihito said, reading the cover. It was in yet another language she didn't know. She hadn't heard of that region, either. "It's from the Saftan realm. I think the answer lies here."
He carried the tome over to one of the many long, wooden tables and set it gingerly down. Then, carefully, he began to turn through pages so old Lucrezia worried they'd turn to dust even in his gentle fingers.
She knew better than to ask questions, so she sat down and watched. The pictures in the tome were descriptive - many relating to death - but she still couldn't read any of the words.
Finally, Yorihito turned the book to her. He tapped an illustration with a careful finger and said, "perosio. The necroblossom. Flower of the living dead."
Necroblossom. That name was familiar - although Lucrezia had never heard of successful husbandry of the plant. She had also believed, until this moment, that the properties of such a mythical flower were highly exaggerated, like the Apple of Eden or the Fountain of Youth.
"I've heard of this plant wreaking havoc in far-away realms," Yorihito continued. He sat opposite her and steepled his fingers under chin, eyes glazed over as he descended into thought. "It's highly dangerous and extremely volatile. Legends say that it can bring back one's enemies from the dead, for the purpose of enslaving them."
"I assume as a form of punishment."
"You assume correctly. It was used in the royal houses as a means of keeping enemies in check - loved ones, often, would be subject to the Living Death. They're nearly impossible to kill, once they've been dosed, but their lives are agony."
"And you think this is why little Jasper is back from the dead?"
Yorihito nodded slowly. "Possibly. I remember…I remember a rumor from ages past, of a Fae trying to grow the plant. He'd been unsuccessful, so we thought, but perhaps those rumors had been planted to fool us. Perhaps he succeeded, after all, and our little Jasper is the proof. It's in his blood, anyway."
So that was what they'd both seen - those strange bodies in the sample had been remnants of the necroblossom.
"What worries me," Yorihito said, "is not how, but why. I remember the night Jasper died. We all do. Perhaps Threeves wanted more vengeance than he was owed."
"Threeves is not clever enough to devise this, Yori."
Yorihito shook his head, his eyes sparkling with a suppressed laughter. "Certainly not. No - this is the work of someone else, someone far more intelligent than Threeves. Perhaps Threeves is involved, somehow - perhaps Threeves was even the instrument that administered the plant. Our enemy would be wise to hide in the shadows, to place as many bodies in between himself and the crime as possible. Only, I can't imagine who would bear Jasper enough ill will to go through with it. His mother and father are dead, and Aurora…"
Yorihito trailed off. The amusement in his eyes died as he whispered, "Aurora."
"Aurora?"
"I know who is responsible."
Lucrezia waited, not wanting to press him, but when the silence dragged on for nearly a minute, she snapped, "who, Yori?"
"Morwin."
The name chilled the air, and Lucrezia went completely still. Morwin. King of Aramore - known mostly as a recluse. She'd never met the Fae male, but knew of his cunning, his charisma. He had a way of knowing exactly what a person wanted, and how to use it against them.
"This can't be as simple as a school boy feud," Lucrezia said. "Morwin has Valeria - he was happy with that arrangement."
"Morwin likely saw Valeria as a means to an end," Yorihito replied slowly, still thinking. "But Morwin isn't above playing games. Whatever his reasons for including Jasper in this wicked plan, it is rooted in hate, Lucrezia. That is a root that goes deep."
"Indeed." Lucrezia looked back down at the book, studying the strange markings she didn't understand. "How do we help Jasper? He can't keep living like this - he doesn't even remember his true name."
"We can't. If we remove the effects of the necroblossom, he'll die again. That has been consistent with every story I've heard. If you give him an antidote, then he will revert to the state he was in when he took the dose: and in my memory, that was inarguably deceased."
When Aurora woke, she had no idea where in the realms she was. All she registered initially was that the ground was no longer cold and damp, but soft and warm. She was clean, and though her leg ached she was no longer in excruciating pain. The warmth from the infection had gone - as though someone had cut it out. More than that, she felt stronger; and she was a little hopeful that in the process, they'd removed the iron rod, too.
All of this came tumbling towards her in a heap, and as she lay in the dark untangling each confusing thought, she began to make out shapes on the ceiling. Shapes cast by shadows - cast by light - filtering through a curtained window to her right. She turned and realized then that she lay in a bed. She was no longer in the prison.
The horrid, awful place - she shook remembering it. How long had she been there? How many times had the Fae come to torture and interrogate them, to ask them what they knew about Umbraxis, the resistance -
"Try not to panic," a soft voice said into her right ear. "You're safe."
She made out Rohan's large form in the next bed, turned to her and sagging against the pillows. He sounded tired, completely drained.
"Safe?" she whispered. Her voice was hoarse from screaming and days of disuse.
"Jasper got us out. We're in California. Some shady motel - "
"Jasper?" Aurora shot up, so quickly that the world spun and she fell back again. Rohan responded quickly - too quickly - and rushed to her side.
"Take it easy, Aurrie," he growled. "You nearly died. You need to - "
"Where is he?" she rasped. "Is he - "
"He's fine. Sitting outside - he needed some space. But he's fine. And he…he did it, Aurora. He renounced the Order. He's back."
Her eyes widened. "Does he remember?"
"No - I don't think so. But he's trying. I can tell. He knows something's up. I promised him, after everything was more settled, that we'd tell him the whole story."
Disappointment sank in Aurora's stomach like a stone. The bed creaked and Rohan turned on the light between them. He was badly bruised, and covered in blood, likely hers. She realized, with the light, that she was no longer wearing the torn and rotting garments she'd had in the prison: she was wearing clothes she didn't recognize, and she was clean. Her hair was damp but no longer matted with blood.
As though he knew what she was thinking, Rohan said, "I couldn't leave you in your own sick, Aurora. And those are Jasper's clothes."
Aurora didn't mind that Rohan had bathed her; he'd done it many times before, when she'd taken ill and hardly knew who she was. It was the hoodie that startled her. The smell. Something so familiar and yet so strange.
"You're right, by the way," Rohan sighed. He scrubbed his face with his palms. "I didn't believe you - not at first. But he's still in here. I don't know where, and I don't know how deep, but he is. We didn't lose him - not completely."
Aurora sat up again, more slowly this time. She pulled back the blankets and swung touched her bare feet to the cheap, rough carpeting of the motel. As she stood, unsteady at first, she said, "we're going to win this time. I can feel it."
"I don't want you to get your hopes up. I don't know what happened to him, and I don't know how to reverse it - "
"We'll figure it out. In the meantime, you don't need to worry so much over me. You should bathe - you're a mess."
She meant it kindly, but Rohan scowled at her. He tried to stop her as she wobbled her way towards the door, but she ignored him.
The night was cool and filled with stars. The sidewalk under her feet was rough, pricking into her soles, and she walked carefully towards the Mustang parked near the door. Jasper wasn't in the front seat, but she heard the music playing softly through the door and instinctively knew where to look.
Aurora peered into the backseat and found him there, asleep.
Like that time at Ravenscroft, seeing him like this was like taking a step through her memories. How many nights had she gone to retrieve him from the car? After how many arguments with Rohan did she crawl into the back, talk him down from taking some disastrous (and often over-dramatic) action?
Aurora opened the door, almost without thinking, and had to still the instinctive movement to crawl in there with him and curl up in the hallows of the seat -
Jasper startled, waking so quickly that Aurora squeaked in surprise.
"What are you - " his eyes flashed with obvious panic, and then stilled when he realized who she was. "You're awake," he corrected, voice still pitched.
"I didn't mean to startle you," Aurora said quickly. "I just - Rohan told me what happened. I wanted to say thank you."
"Oh. Yeah. Don't mention it."
Jasper blinked several times, running his hands through his hair so that it stood up on end. He tilted his head, stretching out a muscle that must have been sore from sleeping in the car, and said, "feeling better? That was…dramatic."
"I am. Thank you. And thank you for this." She tugged on the hoodie she wore. "Rohan told me it's yours."
"I had a spare. Do you need something?"
Aurora slipped into the back seat, claiming the space where he'd had his feet only moments before. "I just wanted to talk. You renounced the Order?"
"Yes - what of it?"
"I wanted to know why."
Jasper didn't answer right away. She closed the door and leaned against it, drawing her knees up to her chest. The wound in her thigh stretched and ached, but with her magic restored it was healing rapidly.
"I don't like unfinished business," Jasper said, finally. "And you and I have unfinished business."
That was an understatement.
"And there's no other reason?" Aurora pressed. Her voice trembled slightly, earning her a look. He looked worse than she remembered the last time she saw him – face slightly yellow, deep purple circles beneath his eyes.
"Should there be?" he said.
"I just didn't know if you remembered anything."
Jasper shook his head. “That was sort of the point of this whole exercise,” he said. “I get you out, you tell me everything. Except…you didn’t make the blood oath. So I guess you’re exempt. But tell Rohan he can’t weasel his way out of this one. He made an oath that was final.”
Despite herself, Aurora smiled. Hidden in his irritation was a hint of the Jasper she remembered – his usual grievances with Rohan, his egregious antics that often landed the three of them in trouble.
“I will tell you. I have nothing to hide, especially if you’re not going back.”
“I’m sensing there’s a caveat.”
“There is.”
He raised an eyebrow, staring her down. The light from the street cut across his face in a stark, angular way that made him look much more severe.
“I’m hungry. I can’t do this on an empty stomach.”
Jasper’s shoulders sagged with relief. “That,” he said softly, and with the smallest hint of a smile, “I can quickly remedy.”
He got up and climbed into the driver’s seat. At his invitation, she did the same, moving unsteadily into the passenger’s seat.
“Don’t drive too quickly,” Aurora said. “I hate these things.”
And if she remembered correctly, Jasper was a frighteningly reckless driver. He gave her a slightly amused side-glance and turned the key.
Jasper drove carefully, but the way his fingers twitched around the steering wheel told her the strain was immense. On a clear summer night, alone on a California highway, the temptation to speed down the asphalt as fast as the engine would allow must have been maddening. The music on the radio was twenty years ahead of its time – she tried to remember the name of the artist, but couldn’t – and as she listened, she leaned against the seat and watched the world fly by.
He took her to a drive-thru restaurant and ordered a large bag of something greasy. Aurora eyed it suspiciously – but when Jasper handed her the bag, a wonderful smell filled the car and her mouth began to water. She held the bag as he drove away, warm and wonderful in her lap. He didn’t return to the motel, however, and instead drove a few miles in the opposite direction. He pulled the car into a large lot, where a giant, neon-lit marquee spelled Diamonds Are Forever in bold letters.
Aurora’s eyes widened in amazement as Jasper spoke to a pimple-faced attendant, handing over a few more bills for what looked to be tickets. Once secured, he took the car through a gate and parked it in amidst a dozen or so other cars. Then he turned the engine off and leaned the seat back, letting out a deep and tired sigh.
“What is this?” Aurora asked, bemused. She knew a movie when she saw them – they had something similar in the Fae realm, although it was done with magic and not science – but that wasn’t the root of her question.
“I kept thinking about this film, the entire time we were driving away,” Jasper explained.
“And you knew it was playing tonight?”
“It’s what I was picturing – when we used the amulet.”
She blinked, momentarily forgetting her hunger. He was able to use the amulet…with a film?
“That’s remarkable.”
“I couldn’t think of anywhere safe. I just thought of something…I don’t know. Familiar.”
Perhaps those two were one in the same, from time to time. Aurora glanced at the screen, and then remembered the food in the paper bag. She reached in, carefully sorting through a mess of hot sandwiches and salty, yellow slivers.
“Did you get anything?” she asked, taking out what she assumed was hers. It was a lot of food for only one person.
Jasper shook his head. “I’ll eat later.”
She wanted to ask if it was because of how he’d helped her – if there were residual side-effects – but she didn’t. Instead, she unwrapped the hot sandwich and took a bite.
Aurora had never tasted anything so wonderful in her life. It was warm and salty and smooth in her mouth, and she repressed the urge to dance in her seat as she chased it down with the bubbly beverage. Jasper's expression was guarded, but she thought she caught a hint of his smirk when she said, "gods - why have I never tasted this before? This is…divine. Amazing. We don't have food like this in Aetherill, or…anywhere."
"It'll kill you," Jasper answered. "After a few years. In the future, the humans are all obese and dying of heart disease, from that." He nodded to the hamburger. "But it's nice every now and again."
Aurora suppressed her laughter, trying not to embarrass herself by choking on her food. As though he'd read her mind, Jasper reached into the bag and handed her one of the grease-spotted paper napkins. She took it and wiped her mouth.
Around them, other cars were gathering, the darkness falling swiftly. Jasper rolled down the windows and the soft summer breeze drifted through the car. For a short moment, Aurora could forget why they were here. It was strange - here was someone who, at one point in their lives, had known her inside and out, and now she started shaking when he looked at her. It was like being a teenager again, that horrible feeling of does he like me? Does he not?
She scolded herself for that line of thinking. Getting overexcited now would be a mistake, since they didn’t have any of her medicine and Lucrezia was Guardians-knew-where. It didn't help, though, when Jasper said, "I’ve gotten you food. It’s your turn.”
Aurora felt all the blood rush from her head. She swallowed painfully. The human realm had fairy stories warning children against making deals with the Fae, and sometimes she could understand why.
"I'm not sure how," she admitted.
"Well, you start at the beginning, and stop at the end."
That was definitely a Jasper thing to say. Very calculated, very simple. Point A to Point B.
He added, "it doesn't have to be complicated. You make it complicated with emotions, but if you take emotions out of it - "
She silenced him with a glare.
Jasper put his hands up and leaned away from her. "I'm trying to make this easier for you."
"Are you saying you don't feel emotions?" she snapped.
"No," he answered slowly. "I'm saying that they're not the primary factor when I'm making decisions. If they're relevant, then yes, but I can't just assume that the mere presence of an emotion equals its importance in a situation. For example, I understand completely that this is a difficult thing for you - likely due to some level of grief and yet unexpressed trauma - and I'm trying to make it easier by saying - "
"You aren't."
Jasper shut his mouth.
"In fact," Aurora pressed, "the best thing you could do right now is to listen, and promise to believe me."
Jasper's eyebrows rose. Once, a long time ago, he'd made that face at her and she'd thrown a book at him. She'd nearly broken his nose.
"I'm not insane," she insisted.
"I never said you were."
"Yes, but that's typically the first thing someone thinks when they hear this story. So you have to promise me two things: that you'll believe me, and you'll remember that I'm not insane."
For once, Jasper didn't look condescending. He lowered his hands into his lap. "Alright. I promise."
Aurora's heart gave a jolt. She hadn't expected it to be so easy - she had expected him to fight her. He didn't, though.
"The beginning," he prompted. And his voice was…gentle. Kind. Aurora wanted to melt.
"The beginning," she repeated. Which beginning? There were several. And how much could he handle right now? How much would he believe?
But he made a promise to believe her - and that was one thing about Jasper Ravenscroft that had never failed. He always kept his promises, to her above all else. In sickness and in health. In prosperity and poverty. In weakness and in strength. In life, and…in death.
This is the story of Jasper Ravenscroft, as relayed to Jasper by Aurora while a James Bond film played in the background (Jasper was slightly grieved that they missed the film for this conversation, as he'd come primarily to see the car, but all things considered it was more important).
There was once a man who fell in love with the moon.
His name was James, and because he didn't know her name, he simply called her the Moon. Her name was actually Elysande, and she was the Guardian of the Night.
Distraught at her loneliness, she fell in love with James and stole him away. The crossed to the Fae lands together and began their illicit love affair, and together, they had a son.
They named him Jasper.
Elysande was punished for her betrayal of the Fae and sent away to the athrubhan, banished from her home alongside her infant child. It was no matter for her, however - she still had James, and they raised a joyful child. He was not gifted in magic like the other Fae; and indeed, seemed quite ordinary, more like his human father. Jasper wasn't allowed to know that he was different, however. The athrubhan, a kindly people, allowed him to learn and grow, and treated him with the dignity and respect of their own kind.
In his early adolescence, Jasper decided he wanted to make something of himself. Although it broke his mother's heart, he enlisted with the Academy of the Order with the dream of one day traveling across the realms. At the academy, he met an athrubhan female named Aurora.
Aurora had been enrolled in the academy as a young child, sent there by her parents to make something of herself. The attraction had been instant; in that moment, they became inseparable. The incident was insufferable for their friends and the subject of great scrutiny and criticism. As is common with two so wildly in love, however, neither of them heard the scorn of their peers - they only had eyes and ears (and mouths) for each other.
(It was at this point that Jasper put his chin on the steering wheel and stared pointedly at the screen, watching Mr. Bond as he destroyed a car very similar to his own).
At Elysande's encouragement, the two had a swift engagement and married happily. That was where the story should have ended, and although Aurora had told it to herself a hundred times to keep herself sane, she still had to summon monumental strength to continue.
It was a long time later (a few years - she'd lost track, but at least twenty) that they received word of James' sickness. Elysande had written Jasper a frantic letter, begging him to come and speak reason to his father. They'd been at a party when the note had arrived. Jasper had left at once, responding to his mother's panicked tone, and the two of them had fled.
"It was supposed to be a celebration," Aurora said softly. She couldn't looked at Jasper anymore, not even his profile. She leaned her head against the passenger's door. This was the part where everyone said she was mad. The part no one believed. The part that she, too, was starting to wonder about.
"We went to see James. He was…unraveling. You tried to reason with him. You failed."
Jasper didn’t give any indication that he heard her, but she knew he was listening. Even now, there were some mannerisms that hadn't changed.
"Jasper," Aurora said, "you died. It was a violent fight, a terrible scene…and I held you as you died."
Still no answer from him. She could see the reflection of the film in his eyes, gunfire and car tires screeching into the night.
She knew what he was doing, weighing each fact, putting it in a box, stacking them in little piles in her brain. It made her want to scream. She knew she had to be patient, though. He'd figure it out. He had to realize the truth eventually.
"It was the second worst day of my life," she whispered. Tears brimmed around her eyes.
"Second-worst?"
Finally, Jasper looked at her, one eyebrow poised in a questioning stance. Aurora didn't know if she had the strength to continue. The rest of the story was…well, mad. Insane. Not even Rohan believed her.
"It was supposed to be a celebration," Aurora said. Her voice came out as a croak.
Her heart beat so heavily that it hurt. Aurora wanted to run into the night, the scream, to claw out her hair. She fought to breathe, fought to stay still. Jasper, to her surprise, reached into his coat pocket and handed her his flask.
Aurora took it and drank.
It burned as it went down, her eyes watering, tears stinging her cheeks. When she handed it back to him, their fingers brushed. Jasper sucked in air through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. It was a moment that made her want to rage, to tear apart the world for taking him from her, and then dangling him in front of her again, just out of reach -
Jasper's cheeks flushed as he fought the nausea threatening to overwhelm him. While he was distracted, Aurora continued.
"After it…happened," she said, trembling, "I was taken away. To an…institution. I had the baby there."
There was the hysteria, in the corner of her mind. This is the part where I go mad, she thought.
"They told me I lost it. They told me it didn't survive. That's…that's a lie."
Aurora swallowed down a sob. "Barty took him," she breathed. "I know he made it. I know he's alive. I've seen him, in my dreams. His name is Dorian. He's…"
She pressed a hand to her mouth as reality began to shift right in front of her. She was in the cell again, screaming, begging for someone to bring back her son. Her child. Her baby, the only piece of her life she had left. There were the nurses, shushing her and soothing her and telling her that she'd imagined it. She'd lost the baby, and it had been tragic, and she'd barely escaped with her own life. And there was Bartholomew Threeves, inquiring on the patient, he'd said, staring in at her through the bars. And there was Rohan, Rohan -
"Rohan got me out," she whispered. "I don't know how he found me. But he broke me out, and we've been running ever since."
Aurora took the greasy napkin and dragged it over her tear-stained face. Jasper wasn't looking at her, not exactly; but his eyes had glazed over and he stared in her general direction. When he spoke, some minutes later, it wasn't what she had expected.
"Aurora, what do you want from me?"
She coughed a little. "Want…from you?"
"You asked me to believe you," he elaborated slowly, "which, might I add, should have come with greater context before making that request - but now that you've told me, and assuming that I do, what are you asking of me?"
Aurora understood. She wanted so many things from him, and it was obvious he knew that. There was, however, only one thing she could ask. "Nothing," she said. "Only that you don't turn me away and call me a lunatic."
The other things, however, floated in the air between them, as though written in the fog that was starting to stain the windshield. Remember me. Hold me. Love me.
Whatever Threeves had done to him, however, made those things completely unfair. How was she to know that he was even the same Jasper she'd met in the High City? How was she to expect any of those things?
Jasper leaned back in his seat, tipping back the flask into his own mouth. "Do you know anything about James Bond?"
Aurora startled at the change in subject. "James Bond? No. Should I?"
And so Jasper launched into a detailed explanation of the Bond films (particularly the cars). It should have felt dismissive, but in actuality Aurora realized that this was his way of telling her that he'd accepted her terms. She wondered if they'd ever speak of it again.
In that moment, though, she didn't want to. She could pretend that they were a guy and a girl on a date at a movie, with greasy food and a walking, talking encyclopedia of human cars. He compared the details of the car in the film they were currently watching with his own, pointing out modifications here and there. Gradually, the anxiety in her stomach settled, and for the first time since breaking out of that asylum she began to feel truly at ease.
He hadn't laughed at her. He hadn't run away from her. He hadn't said that he believed her - not yet, anyway - but he hadn't called her crazy. Maybe that would be enough.
Click here to continue to Part Three
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