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Chapter Text

hostile nations

Aksinya settled when Illya was thirteen, neither early nor late, and this is the only reason he was allowed into Special Forces and not abandoned to the winter, or worse. 

A desert cat dæmon is unusual in Western Siberia, but Illya and Aksinya are clever and faithful and strong enough that no one says anything to their faces.  The psychologists who vet them after every few missions argue that perhaps it is understandable; Illya's childhood was so disturbed, they say, that of course his dæmon chose an unusual shape; the country did not do enough to reassure a young Illya Kuryakin that as long as he was diligent and useful to his superiors, he would always have a place among them.  Aksinya's shape is not an early indication of a traitorous heart, merely a weak one. 

Her form proves useful, anyway.  The men of the USSR are the descendants of the fierce Tartars and the cunning Muscovites; their dæmons are wolves and snarling dogs, tigers and bears, hunting eagles and thick-furred wild cats.  Aksinya's shape lets Illya move in the Western world without the scrutiny of his fellow agents. 

By the time Illya and Aksinya are grown, they're mostly able to handle the whispers, too.  They're no worse than bullets; they can be dodged, and with enough skill, they are not fatal.  Illya and Aksinya are loyal.   Their work proves that, even if Illya's parentage and temper and Aksinya's shape don't. 

The Teller mission is given to them because Illya's closest and because it is about Rusakov particles (Oleg believes.) He's the best, and he knows the consequences, should he fail. 

"Is that the Denmarkian?"  Aksinya says, crouched on a short stack of wall, whiskers brushing Illya's elbow.  "He certainly doesn't look like much."

The Denmarkian, Solo, is a dark-haired man with a bird-formed dæmon.  The KGB is unsure what her true shape is--Solo dresses her in dyes and fake feathers.  At the moment she is a brilliant red, her feathers gaudy and her wings shining like they've been polished with wax.  She sits tamely on Solo's shoulder. 

While Illya watches and the Denmarkian lets his case be checked--and bugged--his dæmon turns her head and looks Illya straight in the eye. 

He looks away reflexively, jaw working.  Embarrassment--in the USSR they don't look each other's dæmons in the eye, it's not done, and he knows New Denmark is a strange and perverted place, but he wasn't prepared--flares in his belly and dies. 

When he looks back, pushing down his discomfort, Solo and his dæmon are stepping into a cab. The dæmon's feathers flash. 

"Do not underestimate him," Illya says roughly.  Aksinya flattens her ears against her skull. 

Illya doesn't need to tell her what will happen to them should they fail, should the Denmarkian and the CIA get their hands on Udo Teller's work.  They have been to Zimbabwe and to the northern reaches of Kamchatka and Nova Zembla; they know what becomes of the zombi and the victims of the Tartars' knives. 

The Denmarkian hasn't noticed the tracker slipped into his briefcase--sloppy, and characteristic of the hubris Illya has come to expect of the CIA--so he and Aksinya can follow at a safe distance, gathering a few local hands, and prepare to flush Solo out. 

They know where Solo's going.  Illya checks his gun and Aksinya sharpens her claws against the cobblestone streets. 

They're ready, and neither of them are afraid. 

---

Berend decides, ten minutes into their acquaintance with the Denmarkian and his obnoxiously bright dæmon, that he likes them. 

Gaby, ten minutes into their acquaintance with the Denmarkian and his obnoxiously bright dæmon, is in the middle of a car chase and trying not to crash, and the whole situation is the Denmarkian's fault anyway, so she's not feeling particularly charitable towards him.

"Left!"  Berend yells, digging his talons into Gaby's shoulder.  The Denmarkian doesn't bother to correct him, so they're at least going the right way.  Their attacker's car--KGB, the Denmarkian had said, with the light and unbothered air of someone who's never had to live under KGB control--slams into Gaby's with a crash, but she shakes him off and dives down the next street, pulse thundering in her throat. 

She pulls into an empty parking space neatly and turns to glare at the Denmarkian.  "Who are you?"

"Never mind that," says the Denmarkian, tucking his map into his breast pocket.  His dæmon, a songbird with scarlet feathers and black wings, says something to her man in French, or possibly Spanish, neither of which Gaby speaks, and flutters out the open window. 

"Drive around the block," the Denmarkian says, "then come back here and get me.  I'll see if I can't shake our friend the Red Peril."  He follows his dæmon out the door. 

"I like him," Berend says, scanning the streets for the KGB agent's car.  Shrikes have horrible night vision, but it is an extra set of eyes and if Gaby's caught she'll be killed--no one defies the KGB, no one--or worse.  She's heard the stories.  Her Brytish handler, Waverly, assured her that the Muscovites or the Soviets or whatever the hell they call themselves these days no longer practice intercision, but it's Berend on the line, not Waverly's snow goose, so Gaby would rather not risk it. 

Gaby would really, really rather not risk it.  "Of course you do," she mutters, hanging a sharp left to avoid being caught in the Soviet's headlights.  Berend has always had a fondness for things that can get them killed.  He should have settled as an eagle.  He has the personality for it, and if he was larger than Gaby's closed fist maybe then he could actually get them out of half the situations he got them into. 

Berend, of course, doesn't care about intercision, or at the very least doesn't worry about it.  This is all very exciting for him, and when the Soviet's car crashes, rear window shattered, he whoops and flies in a few tight, excited circles around Gaby's head. 

"Be still," she scolds.  "We're working."

Berend ignores her. 

The Soviet, who is apparently half-armored bear, is not dead, and takes off after them on foot with a vengeance.  His dæmon is sand-colored and some kind of mid-sized feline.  Gaby can't get a good look at her because she's moving incredibly fast and the Denmarkian's head is in the way. 

The Denmarkian's bird says something else in French.  He agrees. 

"What now?"  Gaby snaps, and the Denmarkian says, not looking away from the Soviet bearing down on them with the back of their car still in his hand, "Turn right, then immediately left," and runs them into a wall. 

The ensuing scramble to get up to the rooftop of whatever apartment building they crashed into cements Gaby's belief that all Denmarkians are batshit insane and cements Berend's hero worship of the Denmarkian and his dæmon.  He swoops to the very edge of Gaby's range, tugging unpleasantly at whatever anchors them together, and starts shouting insults down at the Soviet, clattering his beak. 

"Could you grab him, please?"  says the Denmarkian, peering over the edge of the roof.  Gaby's tempted to ask him if his tiny dæmon is going to carry them over the minefield, but then the bird leaps off her man's shoulder and, in a couple of strong wing beats, is across the minefield and the walls and fluttering above a canvas-covered truck. 

Gaby gapes.  There's easily fifty meters of space between the Denmarkian and his dæmon, and he doesn't seem bothered by it at all.  A cable comes flying out of the dark and anchors itself on the chimneys rising out of the rooftop.  The Denmarkian pulls on the wire, testing its strength, and looks pointedly at Gaby. 

"Grab him," the Denmarkian repeats.  Anbaric lights flood the rooftop.  The police are down below and the Soviet, if the noise is anything to go by, is coming. 

Gaby does, plucking Berend out of the air--he was in the middle of shrieking, "And your father would fuck a cliff-ghast," and nips at Gaby's fingers sullenly--and holding him tight to her chest. 

"Hug me," says the Denmarkian, and Gaby does.  He's strong, wrapping one arm around Gaby and holding on to the line with the other, and his dæmon calls to him from across the gap.  Her feathers shine in the light. 

Gaby, despite having a bird dæmon, is not a fan of being airborne.  She holds on tightly, Berend's heart beating against her breast, and sighs when they're firmly back on the ground. 

The Denmarkian drops the Soviet into the middle of the minefield, turns to Gaby, and grins.  His dæmon returns to his shoulder like nothing's happened.  "So," he says, "hotel?"

   "I don't even know your name," Gaby says. 

"My apologies."  The Denmarkian sticks out his hand.  "I'm Solo.  Shall we?"

---

Oleg tells Illya and Aksinya they will be working with the Denmarkian.  Illya beats Solo into the ground.  He feels much better with Aksinya's teeth around Solo's dæmon, black dye burning her tongue.  The bird, inky dark from her beak to her claws today, beats her wings twice and then holds very still. 

"Don't kill your partner on the first day," Oleg scolds.  His husky dæmon looks down her nose at Illya. 

"What does that mean?"  Solo says, looking from his own dæmon to Oleg to his handler. 

Illya only glares. 

They settle into an awkward sort of truce after they spend a few hours baring their teeth and posturing at each other.  (Well, Illya postures.  Aksinya is his weak heart, after all, so she stays behind his legs and keeps an eye on Solo's dæmon, who fluffs up to twice her size and hisses a litany of unpleasant-sounding things in French.) 

The Denmarkian has terrible taste in women's fashion and his dæmon seems to speak only in French--which is annoying, because Illya has always been terrible at French--but is largely harmless, Illya decides, and largely irrelevant to his own mission.  He will let the thief thieve and focus on Gabrielle Teller, only daughter of Udo Teller, and her uncle Rudi.

Napoleon Solo is, despite his posturing, easy to dismiss.  He says something to his dæmon ad she flutters up onto his shoulder, whispering in his ear, and they depart. 

Gaby is not so easy. 

She's beautiful, of course, but Illya has met many beautiful women and none of them have been like Gaby.  Her dæmon, for one thing, is a bold creature, unflinching, and sharp with his tongue and his talons.  She reminds Illya of his father's stories of the scientist Lyra Silvertongue, the Bear-Speaker; he can see Gaby and her dæmon, who introduces himself stiffly as Berend, facing down a panserbjørn.

On the zeppelin flight to Rome, Berend remains on Gaby's shoulder and stares at Illya fiercely, daring him to get too close. 

Aksinya likes them.  She is not supposed to--attachments are ruinous to people like them, people living, as Oleg likes to say, on borrowed time--but she does.  It settles in Illya's stomach like a stone.  She blinks slowly at the girl and her dæmon to show that the means no harm, and spends the majority of the trip curled up in Illya's lap.  He does not touch her. 

In Rome, Gaby scolds his lack of architectural knowledge and makes Aksinya laugh.  She calls him "Illyusha," just to see him tighten his jaw, and makes him give up his father's battered old watch.  She plants an elbow into his solar plexus and tackles him to the ground, Berend diving for Aksinya's head with a war cry. 

I am, Illya thinks, as his traitorous hands slide down Gaby's back to cradle her hips, in trouble. 

Berend drops from the air and Aksinya catches him gently, holding him in her teeth like she used to hold Illya's brother's dæmon whenever he was kitten-shaped and fragile.  The shrike is smaller than Solo's dæmon, but, in Illya's opinion, better-formed; he is sleek and compact and dangerous.  Shrikes are good dæmons; vicious, uncompromising birds.  There's nothing soft about them. 

Illya carries Gaby to the bed and lays her down gently.  Aksinya leaps up and arranges Berend with her huge, soft paws, tucking him into the hollow of his human's throat, and looks at Illya.  He knows she can feel his heart hammering in his chest. 

Both of them can imagine Oleg's face, see the gleam of a silver knife out of the corner of their eyes. 

"Is this your weakness," he asks, bitter, "or is it mine?"

---

The sun warms Gaby up and banishes the last of her hangover.  Berend, flush with the success of emotionally manipulating Illya, doesn't stay on her shoulder for longer than a minute at a time, swooping around them or dropping down to perch on Aksinya's head, like he loves her. 

(For all that this is a lie, it does  not feel strange to walk arm and arm with Illya, to have Berend perch on the caracal dæmon's head and whisper in her ear, to know what she sounds like when she purrs, amused.

Gaby's not sure if that means she's a good spy or not.)

They both see Solo across the party.  His dæmon, whose name Gaby doesn't know, is black and blue today, modeling some kind of jay.  They studiously don't look at each other.  She catches sight of Waverly and his snow goose Ireneaus too, and doesn't look at him. 

Uncle Rudi looks much like Gaby remembers.  His dæmon Ortrun, a shiny beetle, flicks her wings at Berend in greeting. 

At Illya's feet, Aksinya goes stiff.  Illya doesn't seem to notice, but Berend does, and stays where he is on her head. 

"I've never met a Muscovite with a desert dæmon," says Rudi, eyeing Illya.  Aksinya's ears go flat against her head and she hunches, just a little.  It's strange, but Gaby's never actually seen Aksinya look anything but apologetic and nervous.  Illya himself is tall and fierce--he could have killed those two men last night, easily--but his dæmon slinks at his heels and keeps her head down. 

He doesn't really touch her, either.  Must be a KGB thing, Gaby thinks.  Berend pointedly stays where he is. 

"I am West Siberian," Illya says, smiling blandly.  "We are not as close-minded as the Muscovites." 

"How does a West Siberian architect meet an East German mechanic?"

Gaby, because she feels something like pity for the way Aksinya seems to hug the ground, jumps in with their story, covering for Illya.  She doesn't like the way that Rudi looks at him, like he's taking Illya apart behind his glasses. 

Rudi says something rude enough for Aksinya to finally stand up straight, shoulders twitching hard enough to dislodge Berend.  Her fur rises and her claws slide out; for a moment, she looks quite ugly and vicious. 

"Uncle Rudi," Gaby scolds, "that wasn't very nice."  Illya, who's temper is something of a problem, apparently, for all his dæmon is mild-mannered and nervous, stalks off.  His hands are shaking.

They're upset, Berend whispers in between Gaby's ears.  I wish we were witches.  Then I could follow them and make sure they don't do anything stupid. 

"Sorry, my love," says Rudi, not sorry at all.  His dæmon flicks one antenna. 

Gaby sighs and her dæmon returns to her shoulder, ruffling his wings.  He glares at the beetle and clacks his beak.  Behave.  "There's a way you can make it up to me."

---

Illya goes to the Vinciguerras' factory because he has something to prove to himself. Aksinya follows without complaint, subdued.  The more time passes, the closer they get to failure. The sooner he completes his mission, the sooner he can leave Gaby and Berend behind and put them out of his head and his heart. 

The KGB has no room for this sort of thing.  They're not emotionless monsters, of course--there are good people there who Illya and Aksinya are proud to call comrades.  There are agents who have husbands and wives, who have children. 

But they are not the sons of traitors.  Their dæmons are wolves and dogs and tigers and bears and eagles.  Illya has a caracal dæmon and a temper.  He doesn't get the same indulgences that everyone else does.

So he goes to the factory, kills the power, and finds the Denmarkian and his bird dæmon watching them, heads tilted to the side in unison. 

Illya sighs.  "What." 

"Oh, nothing," says Solo.  "I won't tell Ms. Teller if you won't." 

Illya debates. "Fine," he says.  "We have ten minutes until the lights come back on." 

As it turns out, Solo is good for something.  He has an impressive range with his dæmon; Illya and Aksinya can be three meters apart from each other without pain, but any more than four and their vision goes dark around the edges and she has to rush back to him and leap into his arms.  Solo's dæmon swoops five or six meters ahead and scouts for them.  Solo's hands are quick, too.  Doors don't seem to slow him down.  On this kind of job he's mostly quiet and professional, so Illya puts his personal distaste for the man aside and does whatever he can to help.

Then he thinks he sees his father's watch on another man's wrist, glimmering gold in the light, and Aksinya darts out after him before Solo can stop her. 

It's watching Solo and his dæmon crack open the safe that makes Illya recognize the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he looks at Aksinya and hisses, in West Siberian, "Don't you dare."

She blinks up at him tiredly.  "It's not something I can help, you know." 

They have to run soon after, so Illya doesn't get the chance to examine the feeling of camaraderie--weakness--that's starting to grow inside his dæmon's heart, in his own bones, and then they're in a boat on the water and Solo is gone, and then--

Aksinya cannot swim, and Illya can't be apart from her; they sink like stones.  Water floods their mouths.  The last thing Illya remembers seeing, as they sink, is a shape swimming down in a beam of light. 

Where, Illya thinks dimly, is his dæmon?  He feels a hand wrapped around the scruff of Aksinya's neck, not painful like it should be, and then nothing. 

---

Gaby is a mess of nerves and guilt.  She has to physically hold Berend in her hands to keep him from diving off to Aksinya and confessing their whole terrible plan.  She doesn't want to betray Illya.  She doesn’t even want to betray Solo.  They're good men, she thinks.  Irritating and not especially bright, but good men.  Illya looks out for her.  Solo treats her like a colleague. 

He leaves her with Illya and Illya's hands are on her thigh, cold, and she wants--

Berend squawks indignantly and she loosens her grip. 

"You're nervous," says Illya, frowning.

"I'm scared," Gaby corrects.  Berend twitches in her hands.  Aksinya winds between Illya's legs, and his expression is painfully sincere as he says, "We won't let anything happen to you, you know."

That's not what I'm worried about. 

She doesn't know when winning Illya's trust and affection became genuine affection in her own heart.  Last night, perhaps, when Illya grouched about Alexander Vinciguerra and his overly-friendly capuchin dæmon, or maybe when he pressed the new ring into her hands, smiling at her indulgently. 

Gaby doesn't want to hurt him.

Waverly said that Illya's good enough to be fine.  Solo, too, is no stranger to getting himself out of sticky situations. 

"Why don't you ever touch your dæmon?"  Gaby asks, because if she doesn't say that she's going to tell him what she's about to do. 

Illya snatches his hands away like he's been burned.  "I--what?" 

"Gaby," Berend hisses, alarmed. 

Gaby takes a deep breath.  "She's your dæmon," she says firmly.  "And I've never seen you pet her, or hold her, or calm her down."

Illya struggles with himself for a moment.  His teeth are bared.  Aksinya is pressed up against his leg, fur fluffed up anxiously, and he doesn't reach down to soothe her.  "It is not her who needs calming down," he finally says, like Gaby pulled the words out of him.  "It is me, I'm the one who--"

It's just as well that the Denmarkian returns.  His dæmon, who Victoria Vinciguerra introduced to Rudi and Gaby as Eulalie, is on his shoulder, dye reapplied so that she's freshly blue. 

Berend sags in Gaby's hands.  Aksinya stays pressed against her man's shin.  Illya looks away.  The moment is broken. 

"Well?"  says Solo.  His dæmon mutters something in French--she does speak English, Gaby's learned, she just refuses to around people who aren't Napoleon, for some strange Denmarkian reason--and ruffles her wings.  "All turned on?"

Gaby glares.  "Ready," she says, and hopes Waverly's right about the two of them.

---

Gaby betrays them.  It makes Illya's heart kick in his chest and anger swarm up from the center of his belly.  As they run from the guards and their dog dæmons, Aksinya yowls and tears at the ground.  They're in pain, and Illya does something he almost never does; he bends down and grabs Aksinya by the back of her neck, pulls her into his arms, and holds her there. 

It is a weakness, where he comes from, to need the comfort of your dæmon. Illya's heart is flawed enough already; he can't afford to be any weaker than he is, but Aksinya is wailing in distress and Illya's own heart is--broken, he thinks the Denmarkians call it. 

They trusted Gaby.  A good KGB agent would not have, and wouldn't be this--this wounded at a betrayal.  But they are not good KGB agents, are they, Illya and his dæmon?  Traitor's get, insane, not good for anything, and now they will be разорваны, intercised--

Aksinya bites into the meat of his wrist, and stiffens in his grip.  "Stop that," she snaps. 

"You think it will not happen?"  Illya climbs into the truck and his hands are shaking.  He feels unmoored, despite the fact that he is literally holding his heart outside of his chest, pressed into his coat, his ribs. 

The KGB, when they took him in, had been very, very explicit.  Illya was a liability.  His dæmon's foreign form marked him as a potential traitor.  So, if he failed them, if he tried to run, if he tried to do anything but what he was told, he'd be cut apart. 

Aksinya swipes a paw across his face.  Pain blossoms; blood drips down his nose.  Illya presses his hand to the wound, startled.  "Aksinya," he starts, but she bites his wrist again, thrashes out of his grip, hisses, and spits. 

Illya is the one who loses control, most days, and Aksinya the one who drags him back.  She's mild-mannered, his dæmon.  She's meek and polite and well-behaved, and has been since he was a boy.  This is her nature.  He can't change it. 

She's never bitten him before. 

"They won't if you don't let them!"  she growls.  "If you--"

"What, run?"  Where is Illya going to go?  The USSR is his home.  The KGB his only family.  What will he do?  Join another side?  Kill his comrades, become a thief like Solo?

"Solo," Aksinya breathes, and Illya's pulled out of his spiral. 

"What?"

"Solo," Aksinya insists, "he doesn't know about Gaby, he and his dæmon went to meet Victoria Vinciguerra and Gaby gave him up--"

Illya's blood runs cold.  "I don't think we have to worry about the dæmon," he says, and points.  In the distance, getting ever closer, is a bird, her feathers black and fading blue, and she's flying unsteadily towards them. 

Aksinya looks at her human.  "This is not over," she warns, "but for now, we have to help him." 

Illya doesn't know when Solo began to matter so much--when he pulled Aksinya out of the water, of course, when he touched Illya's dæmon without causing pain--but he nods.  "Dæmon," he says, rolling down the window for her.  "Are you alright?"

Solo's dæmon flutters into the truck and lands clumsily, feathers in disarray.  "You have to come," she says, in perfect English--she's been able to speak it the entire time--"you have to come, they're hurting us--"

"Did Solo find tracker in his shoes?" 

The bird dæmon twitches like she's been shocked, making a pitched sound of pain.  "No," she gasps.  Illya looks at Aksinya, who leaps off his lap to curl around the bird dæmon and lick her feathers flat.  The bird doesn't pull away, leaning against Aksinya, shuddering.  It's intimate. Illya looks away. 

"I will find him," he promises, and throws the truck in drive.

---

The Vinciguerra affair, as Napoleon has taken to calling it, is overall a confusing blur of pain and betrayal and reunion.  Étienne, bless her, manages to find Peril and bring him to Napoleon before creepy Uncle Rudi brings out the Tartish knives, they meet the man with the snow goose dæmon who assures them that Gaby is still on their side, and they go to get her. 

Napoleon finds Peril's watch on a man with a skinny coyote dæmon.  It's the strangest watch he's ever seen, heavy gold and ancient-looking, with no numbers around its face but rather dozens of small, hand-painted symbols. 

"Keep it for later," Étienne tells him, darting on ahead.  "I feel like we're going to need it.  Peril and his dæmon, they have problems, and we don't want to have to kill them."

No we don't, Napoleon thinks, surprised.  He's not entirely sure when he became so fond of Peril and Gaby--he usually isn't that fond of anyone but Étienne--but he doesn't want this mission to end like the CIA will want it to end. 

The watch is heavy in his pocket when he shoots Alexander Vinciguerra in the back of the head.  The man's dæmon goes up in a cloud of golden dust.  He's lucky Gaby's alive--Napoleon hadn't been sure, not at first, he hadn't seen the little shrike dæmon anywhere--and so gets a quick death, not the drawn-out affair Illya and the caracal would have inflicted on him otherwise.  The disk containing Udo Teller's parallel world research goes into Napoleon’s turtleneck.  He lets Étienne swoop around and fuss over the other two dæmons--not that she speaks to them in a language they understand, or names herself, but then she never does--and waits patiently for Waverly.

Then it turns out that they haven't saved the world just yet, and they go running off to destroy Victoria Vinciguerra and Udo Teller's device, and then he returns to his hotel room and sleeps off the worst of electricity sickness, with some help from his mother's limonberry tea, and makes his plans. 

He doesn't want to kill Peril.  He doesn't like killing anyone, really--he's a thief, not a spy, and not an assassin--so he decides that he won't, Sanders be damned. 

When Illya comes, bone-white, with his dæmon behind his legs, ears pressed against her skull in misery, Napoleon tosses him the funny watch and says, "My mother is a witch." 

Illya blinks. 

Napoleon doesn't feel much like offering anything else.  He and Étienne don't share with other people as a general rule.  The last time they did, it shackled them to the CIA.  But Napoleon knows a thing or two about having a strange dæmon, about living on the border between two worlds--his and theirs--and about the awful weight of duty.

If he fails, he's going to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell.  He doesn't think the CIA would go so far as to intercise him--a practice he is going to tell his mother about, and see if she wants to rally any of the Nova Zembla witches on a hunt for silver knives--but locking him and Étienne in a box until they starved for sunlight would do almost the same thing. 

Not that he's ever going to tell Peril that.  Saying it out loud would be too cliché.  Étienne huffs a laugh and swats the back of his head.  She's wearing her own feathers today, and she's beautiful.  A concession to Peril, Napoleon thinks, though he wouldn't dream of outing her intentions to him.  

Illya looks confused, but his dæmon--Aksinya, Étienne supplies--is nodding.  "What are you going to do with that disk?"

Napoleon looks at the thing on the chair.  "Well," he says, "I have a box of matches.  Drink, Peril?"

And Illya, with a huff of laughter, comes to join him on the balcony.     

Chapter Text

2. 

The problem, Étienne thinks, is that she's been cursed with an extraordinarily stupid human.  She thinks it loud enough that Napoleon can hear it, and he's tempted to flick her off his shoulder for it.

Étienne, as always, beats him to it.  She nips his ear once, sharply, and lofts herself into the air.  They chose one of their more mundane disguises for this mission; Étienne's magpie feathers are dyed blue and black, a jay's colors, and she lights down on the balcony railing and clacks her beak at Napoleon impatiently. 

He sighs. "I'm coming, I'm coming."  He leaves a pretty blond young man with an iguana dæmon in his bed, tugs on a shirt and a pair of slacks--creased, which is a pity--and goes to join his dæmon on the balcony. 

They've never been to Haiti.  Étienne likes the heat and Napoleon likes the view.  From here he can see the Consulate rising from Port au Prince, where a High Brazilian dictator-to-be is probably sleeping next to an enormous pile of money. 

A knife wound, still raw and shiny, twinges when he moves, reminding him exactly why he can't just break into Matteo Pereira's room and make off with all of his things.  Rome had been a tolerable affair, Istanbul delightful, but their last mission in Jakarta had involved rather more gunshots and knife fights than Napoleon would have liked. 

Illya's still mad at him. 

"Stop wallowing," Étienne says, in clear, hard Portuguese.  Ah.  He didn't find all of the bugs, then.  Napoleon's dæmon is a paranoid ball of feathers, which he tells her and earns himself another nip, this time to his fingers. 

"I'm not wallowing," he says. 

Étienne fixes him with one beady corvid eye.  That's the only thing they can't disguise.  With dye and the judicious application of glue, Étienne can become anything from a common starling to a magnificent bird of paradise, but they can't change her eyes.  Most people don't look too closely--both Napoleon and his dæmon work very hard to prevent anyone from even getting the chance--but if they do, it's easy to see what Étienne is underneath her paint and fake feathers. 

"Napoleon," she says, "that boy in there is the spitting image of Illya, and it's embarrassing for you."

Napoleon arches an eyebrow at her.  "Thank you for your opinion, my dear." 

"If Illya's still angry, it's his own problem," Étienne snaps, and shakes out her wings.  "You're the one who got stabbed over it anyway.  I don't understand why he's so upset."

"He's angry because Gaby was with me."  It was supposed to be a simple theft; a gunrunner in Jakarta may or may not have been in possession of some strange new anbaric weapon.  Napoleon was to go into his base of operations, a little house on the outskirts of the city, poke around, maybe crack a safe or two, and return with the weapon.  Easy. 

But Gaby had wanted to come.  She's a fast learner, Gabrielle Teller, and both Napoleon and his Étienne are alarmingly fond of her and her dæmon, the fierce little Berend, so they agreed and brought them both along. 

Of course the easy theft devolved into a fight, and Napoleon was stabbed and Gaby nearly--though thankfully not--shot. 

Waverly and his snow goose dæmon hadn't reprimanded Napoleon--he'd only said, "These things do happen now and again, Agent Solo, just don't make it a habit,"--and Gaby and Berend hadn't left his side for days.  But Illya had been furious, and still is now, nearly two weeks later. 

Étienne snorts.  "If he doesn't stop trying to protect Gaby, Berend will rip out his eyes.  That dæmon of his needs to keep him in check."

"I don't know if you've noticed, darling," Napoleon says, droll, "but Illya and his dæmon don't seem to have the relationship that we do."

Napoleon's dæmon flutters into his open palm, mindful of her claws. 

"Though," he continues, "to be fair, no one does."

They should have been born female.  Then Napoleon would be a witch instead of just the son of one, and he and Étienne could spend all their days in the sky, chasing the northern lights.  But what should have been and what is are two very different things, and Napoleon and Étienne have learned to accept it, and move on. 

He's not sure Illya and his Aksinya have done the same. 

"We're truly prodigious in every way," snaps Étienne.  "Now are you going to keep pining after our partners and sleeping with every woman or man who bears a passing resemblance, or are you going to do something about it?"

"I'm not pining," Napoleon lies, because he's learned that lying is always the best policy.  "And you know we shouldn't, my dear.  It wouldn't end well."  Napoleon has no real preference for with whom he shares his bed, so long as they're generally human-shaped and don't mind Étienne's terrible personality, but he's sure that Illya is not interested in men and Gaby wouldn't want to share. 

Besides, his sentence is up in four years, three months, and six days.  Once he's free--and he's leaving then regardless of whether or not the CIA agrees--he's gone.  He's never coming back. Napoleon can manage casual affairs if he only sees his partner once, maybe twice.  More often than that and he gets attached.  In the interest of sparing himself future pain, he's going to stay away from brave, clever Gaby and mysterious, very handsome Illya. 

It's safer in the long run for everyone involved.

Étienne hisses in disgust, leaps off his hand, and darts for his head.  He's used to it, so he knows to duck before she can make contact. 

"Coward," she spits, thankfully still in Portuguese.  "I'm going to do something actually useful with my time.  You go ahead and stay here feeling sorry for yourself."  And she's gone in two or three powerful wing beats, quickly vanishing against the backdrop of the sky.  Napoleon sighs.  She'll be fine, of course.  Étienne is smarter than he is, and she can take care of herself.

It's always awkward to explain to a lover just where his dæmon has gone and how she can do it.  Napoleon can hear his guest--Jean-Paul?  Jean-Luc? Jean-something, anyway--beginning to stir. 

Behave yourself, Napoleon directs at his dæmon, and goes to distract his new friend. 

---

This, Gaby thinks, watching Napoleon escort a pretty young man to the door, sending him back out into Port au Prince with a kiss on the cheek, has gone on long enough. 

Berend picks up on her annoyance and hops up onto her shoulder, running his beak through her hair. 

Illya pointedly does not look up from his chessboard.  His face is expressionless.  But at his feet, Aksinya is stiff and miserable.  They saw. 

And because he's Illya, and because he and Napoleon are still on the outs with each other over that mess in Jakarta, he's not going to confront Napoleon about it until it's too late, and then they'll have another vicious argument and Gaby will be left to pick up the pieces. 

"Well?" Berend whispers. 

"Well what?"

"Are you going to do something about it?"

Gaby eyes her little dæmon.  "It's not of my business," she says.  "I don't think either of them would like me sticking my nose in."  

Berend huffs and launches himself off her shoulder.  Aksinya is too far away--Gaby and Berend can farther apart from each other than most people, perhaps three or four meters--but Napoleon is just at the edge of their range and Berend lands on his shoulder, ignoring Gaby's hiss of pain as something inside her chest stretches and pulls like a rubber band. 

Berend is not touching Napoleon, not directly, but it's still strange for a person's dæmon to go to someone else.  Napoleon--not Solo anymore, not after Jakarta--doesn't react, but Gaby still gets up and ushers both of them into a sitting room off the lobby and away from prying eyes. 

Illya doesn't look up, but Aksinya's amber gaze follows them out of the room. 

"Ah," says Napoleon.  "What's wrong, mm?"

"Brother dearest," Gaby says, sweet as sugar, "you're being a bit of an ass."

Napoleon raises an eyebrow.  They're in Port au Prince under the aliases of Mr. James McKinney, Denmarkian businessman, and his sister, Ms. Ella.  "Sorry?"  he ventures.

Gaby's dæmon leaves him and swoops around the room, checking under lampshades and pillows for bugs.  "Clear," he chuffs, and darts back to Gaby, landing on top of her head so he can look Napoleon in the eye. 

"Don't play dumb," Gaby says, cross.  "I know Illya's angry with you, but you're acting like a child."

It's a mark of how well Gaby and her dæmon are improving that they can see the exact moment Solo goes from honest to dishonest.  His face smooths out and his eyes go dark and dead. 

His dæmon should be a crocodile instead of a bird. 

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he says. 

"And I'm sure you do," Gaby retorts, irritated.  "You're free to sleep with whoever you want, Napoleon, but you could be more kind."

Napoleon shrugs.  She wonders, despite herself, if his wound still hurts.  "You don't last long in this business by being kind, Gaby," he says.  "And who I sleep with isn't really any of his concern.  It's none of yours either, actually."

Berend jumps back to his shoulder, no more than a wing away from his face.  Berend is bold to the point of stupidity sometimes--most times, like in Jakarta--but even he wouldn't break the great taboo by touching the side of Napoleon's neck, no matter how much they want to, no matter how much they want to show him--

Gaby stamps that thought out quite firmly.  Napoleon has made it very clear that he's not interested, and besides, sleeping with him is a horrible, horrible idea.  It's rather desperately cliché, too.  Not as cliché as sleeping with Illya would be--Gaby is, apparently, only attracted to the men she absolutely should not be attracted to, and she knows how both romances would play out. 

She and Napoleon would have a passionate affair, but it would be brief.  He would get bored or she would get irritated, and they would go back to being partners and friends, but it would be different, awkward, and distant.  She and Illya would last longer, because Illya is gentle and tender and clever and kind underneath his rough exterior, but eventually Gaby would tire of his protectiveness and leave, and they would be different around each other and to each other forever. 

(Ideally, both of them--

No, Gaby tells herself, and drags her mind away from even entertaining the thought.  In her own room, with just her hand and Berend, she can fantasize all she likes.  But she is a grown woman and a spy, and right now she is working.  The thought is ridiculous, anyway.)

"And where's your dæmon?" she hisses, because with Solo it's easier to be angry than attracted. 

"She's around," he says, unbothered. 

"Well, among us normal people, dæmons can't just up and wander off," Gaby snaps.  "So keep Eulalie, or whatever her name is, close, alright?  And make sure she's back in time for the party tonight."

"Her name isn't Eulalie," Solo says, and gives Gaby a half-bow that sends Berend back into the air.  "In the future, I'll try and keep her close.  Ms. McKinney," he says, and then he's gone, back out into the lobby and then the street. 

Gaby feels a headache building behind her eyes. 

"Nice view," Berend says, watching Napoleon leave.  He is completely without irony, and Gaby reaches up to swat him out of the air. 

"Hush," she says.  "You're not making this any easier on me, you know."

"Was I supposed to?"  her dæmon asks, and Gaby doesn't have an answer. 

---

By the time the sun has set and their real work begun, Illya's jaw aches from grinding his teeth and his concentration is shot past recovering.  Aksinya, who has been bolder these past few weeks, more likely to purr and rub against his ankles than slink behind him and hiss at shadows, is back to skulking. 

Illya looks at himself in the mirror.  The man before him is pale.  His eyes are sunken.  His hair looks lank and greasy.  The suit Solo procured for him fits well, but it isn't his style and pulls at his shoulders.  Aksinya, perched on the sink, looks miserable. 

Neither have said anything about the man Solo took to bed last night, or the closeness that has sprung up between him and Gaby. 

Jealousy is not professional, Illya tells himself.  It is not what a good agent feels. 

"Say it out loud," Aksinya says, bitter.  "Maybe then you'll believe it."

Illya frowns and says nothing.  He doesn't know what has gotten into his dæmon, but she's been stubborn and sulky since Jakarta.  All his life she's been quiet and well-behaved.  She's had to be; Illya himself is so volatile that half his nature must be calm, and obedient, and level-headed, otherwise he's little more than a beast. 

Aksinya hisses, short fur bristling. 

"Aksinya, Дорогая моя," he says, tiredly.  "Come.  We must go.  Party starts in ten minutes." 

Because she is him, she can't do anything but follow at he strides out of the room and into the lobby and out into the street, prowling at his heels. 

Cowboy and Gaby will already be there.  Gaby will be on Cowboy's arm, both of them beautiful, and they will be laughing, and--

Aksinya bites him, hard.  "Enough," she hisses.  "You don't get to be jealous, Illya."

He knows that.  He knows, and he's jealous anyway.  If he was not so cowardly, not so weak, then he would--

What?  He could or would do nothing.  He is KGB, and no matter how much he likes his partners, he will not, cannot have them.  Either of them. 

Aksinya's ears go flat with misery.  But misery is familiar.  He can work with misery. 

By the time they reach the Consulate, Illya and his dæmon are as put together as they ever are.

The party is being thrown in honor of Matteo Pereira, a former member of the High Brazilian Armed Forces.  Pereira believes that he is the rightful ruler of High Brazil, and is in neutral Haiti to seek support for another coup d'état. He is a despicable man by all accounts.  He is also, however, rumored to be in contact with the organization that was also behind the gunrunning ring in Jakarta. 

So now Illya has to go play fascist sympathizer while his partners, for all they are playing siblings, touch each other's elbows and whisper in each other's ears. 

Aksinya bites him again.

"Thank you," he mutters.  She huffs. 

They survive the party by skulking around the edges of everything, drinking perhaps a little more than they normally do while working, and deliberately not looking for either of their partners. 

(He can't stop himself from finding them in the crowd, no matter how much he wants to.

Cowboy has found himself a pretty woman to spin around the dance floor.  His nameless dæmon, returned at last, dances in the air with the woman's gossamer butterfly.

Gaby entertains a small knot of young men, all of them puffed up and trying to impress her.  Berend, feathers shining, sits on her shoulder and holds court like it's his due.) 

Their target, Mr. Pereira, has a large jaguar dæmon and her muscles ripple under her fur.  Pereira is seated, surrounded by rich men and women eager to throw their lot in with a foreign dictator.  What does it matter to them that he will go back to High Brazil and commit atrocities on his people?  They will be safe here in Haiti, or in New Denmark, or in Hispania Nova, far away from the carnage. 

Aksinya skins her lips back from her teeth.  Illya can feel her claws itching in his own hands. 

As if he can sense their imminent violence, Solo comes ambling over to them, flushed and breathless.  His hair, usually swept back, frames his face with dark curls.  His bird dæmon flies ahead and lands on the table near Illya's elbow.  She says something to Solo in French. 

Illya tries not to twitch in irritation. 

"You're Mr. Karburokov, right?"  says Solo, slurring his words.  It's only the bright eyes of his dæmon that clue Illya in.

"Karbarokov," Illya corrects.  "And you are?"

"James McKinney," Solo says.  "I hear you can help me out with a problem." 

"Do you speak West Siberian?"  Illya asks.  He knows that Solo is at least conversational in most of the USSR's language, but West Siberian is a dialect that not many know.  Muscovite is more common.

"Of course." Solo makes the switch easily. 

"What's wrong?" Illya demands.  "We are not supposed to talk to each other."

"They're here," Solo says. 

Aksinya leaps up onto the table beside Solo's dæmon, who obligingly makes room for the larger cat.  "What?"

"The organization, Pereira's friends.  They're here." 

"Where?"  Illya immediately scans the crowd, hoping to see--something.  But he doesn't.  Nothing seems unusual.

"Two of them, a man and a woman," Solo says.  "My dæmon spotted them in Pereira's room earlier today; they were talking with him about a house on the coast and something they called uma lâmina."

Illya frowns.  His Portuguese is not that good; he can say stop, where is the Muscovian Embassy, and I will shoot you, but little else.  But the word sounds familiar. 

"Uma lâmina means a blade," Solo says, and Illya stills. 

 "Like the Jakartan's anbaric knife?"  Illya says. 

Solo shrugs.  "We don't know," he says, "but it's likely.  We told Gaby already.  The mission priorities have changed.  We'll still take Pereira if we can, but the man and the woman are our new primary targets, as well as this lâmina they mentioned."

Illya nods.  He can work with this.  A hunt is always, always better than the kind of slow seduction the mission was going to originally require.  Illya is a man of action; hanging around a party waiting for the target to come to him is not his favorite game. 

 "Illya," Aksinya says, and rears back onto her hind legs for a moment, "Illya, where is Gaby?"

Solo's eyes go wide, an expression Illya knows is mirrored on his own face, and his dæmon leaps into the air immediately.  She circles the ceiling and returns not a minute later, and speaks to Illya in English for the second time in their months of partnership. 

"She's gone," the bird dæmon says.  "Gaby's gone."

---

While the boys snipe at each other and argue about the best way to get ahold of Pereira's friends and the blade they keep mentioning, Gaby is actually going to get some work done. 

At least, that's what Berend says they should do, and Gaby thinks that sounds preferable to sitting around letting men flirt with her while Napoleon and Illya posture.

(She's getting rather tired of playing the bait.  In Istanbul and Jakarta Illya and Napoleon were more than happy to let her run with them, to show her the tricks of their-and her, now--trade, but since the stabbing they've both gone back to treating her like all she's good for is a distraction.)

So when Matteo Pereira, jaguar dæmon at his heels, leaves his party in the company of a woman with a long-haired monkey dæmon and a man with a jewel-bright snake, Gaby follows. 

"I wish we had Eulalie's range," Berend whispers, darting ahead to check around corners and then back to Gaby.  "This would be so much easier."

"We can't all be the children of witches," Gaby whispers back.  Berend tugs his beak through her hair once, and goes off again.

"A guerra na Brasil é longo," the woman is saying.  Portuguese is beyond Gaby--Illya and Napoleon are teaching her Muscovite and West Siberian, and she's been learning a little French in the interest of eavesdropping on Napoleon and his dæmon, but she doesn't know any Portuguese.  In Europe Portugal is nothing compared to the power of Brytain or the German Electorate or the USSR.  She's never even thought about learning to speak their language. 

A guerra na Brasil é longo, she repeats to herself.  Napoleon, if nothing else, will know it. 

"Mas o guerra da República ainda não começou," the man says. 

Gaby can see them; the three people, Pereira and his companions, have stopped out in the Consulate's courtyard.  They're surrounded on all sides by crumbling stone pillars and peeling paint.  The sky above them is wide and empty.  In the distance, Gaby can just barely hear something thudding. 

"Closer," Berend whispers. 

"Be careful," Gaby hisses back.  She can't approach Pereira, not without being seen.  She has her gun with her, but she thinks her partners would be disappointed if she had to kill all three of them before finding out where they were keeping their weapon.  But if she stays in the shadows and Berend flies as close as he can, maybe--

The thudding grows louder, rhythmic and regular.  A gyropter, Gaby realizes.  A gyropter is coming, either for Pereira or his friends. 

Gaby feels the ache of separation starting up in her chest, sharp and persistent.  "Berend," she whispers. 

"A little farther," he whispers back.  The sound of the gyropter's blades gets louder, drowning out Matteo Pereira and his companions. 

"Você deve lutar conosco," the man continues. 

Pereira is shaking his head.  "No," he says, "no," and then something in rapid Portuguese that Gaby can't hear.  His dæmon snarls. 

Berend, five meters away now, the pain of it making Gaby breathless, cocks his head.  

"Berend," she hisses, "Berend, come back, you're too far--"

"A pity," the woman with the monkey dæmon says in English, and shoots Pereira in the head.  Pereira collapses.  His dæmon goes out like a candle.  And Berend, startled, jumps up, wings flashing, and the monkey dæmon leaps and grabs him.

"No," Gaby gasps, lurching forward.  "No, let him go!"

The monkey scrambles back to his woman, pulling Berend farther out of Gaby's reach, and Gaby bares her teeth, drawing her gun. 

"Oh now," says the woman, "we can't have that," and wraps her hands around Berend like a cage. 

The gun falls from Gaby's nerveless fingers.  She wants to scream, but if she opens her mouth she's going to be sick.  She staggers, collapses against a stone pillar, and sinks to her knees.  Wrong, her instincts scream at her, wrong wrong wrong, this is wrong. 

Behind Gaby, gunfire erupts. 

"That's our cue," the man says, in accented English. 

"Berend," Gaby whispers, helplessly, and finds the strength to lurch forward.  Her dæmon is fighting, but the woman's grip is relentless and he's getting weaker every second.  You're not supposed to touch another person's dæmon like this, it's wrong and evil, and Gaby can feel the woman's hand around Berend like a fist around her own heart. 

"Berend," she says, and a black gyropter descends from the sky, hovering above the courtyard.  A ladder spills out of it and the man climbs up, followed swiftly by the monkey and the woman who climbs one-handed, the fainting Berend in her other fist. 

Gaby staggers forward, forcing her feet to move beneath her, but she's not fast enough.  She's not fast enough.  The woman climbs inside the gyropter and Gaby is still on the ground.

The gyropter lifts up into open air, and then Berend is gone. 

---

In the aftermath of the firefight, Illya goes back to the hotel and paces.  The Haitian police descend on the Consulate like flies to a carcass, and Illya killed three men; he doesn't want to leave Solo and Gaby in the chaos, but he also doesn't want to get arrested, so he swaps his jacket out for a dead man's, pulls a hat low over his ears, scoops Aksinya up into his arms, and jogs back to the hotel. 

The moment after he and Solo realized Gaby was gone, gunfire had erupted in the dancing crowd.  Five men, all with wolf dæmons, had shot into the party, screaming something in Portuguese or maybe Haitian French. 

Illya had shot back, and Solo ran off to get Gaby, shouting that he would met Illya back home over his shoulder. 

But they have not returned, and Illya is growing anxious. 

He recognized one of the shooters as a former mercenary occasionally contracted by the KGB, a Tartar who still followed the old ways.  He didn't know any of the others, but it's reasonable to assume, he thinks, that they were all mercenaries, probably sent by the High Brazilian government to kill Pereira.  He knows that Gaby and Napoleon are good at their jobs, but Gaby has only been in the field for a few months and Solo is a thief, not a spy.  Trained Tartish mercenaries could kill them easily. 

"They can take care of themselves, Illya," Aksinya says.  Her earlier anger has dissipated.  Now, she's just anxious, and tired, and sore.  Illya was shot--not seriously, but still--and since he refuses to acknowledge the injury, it falls to her.  She has her right foreleg curled tight against her chest and her ears lie flat against her head. 

"Last time we left them alone, Cowboy was stabbed," Illya growls, unhappy.  If he is not with his partners, he cannot protect them.  Solo thinks that Illya is upset with him because they failed their last mission, but Illya doesn't care about that, not now.  The price of failure in UNCLE is only Waverly's disappointment, perhaps a lecture.   Illya has nothing to fear from failure. 

But he is better at fighting than Cowboy, a better shot than Gaby.  If he's not there--

It is not failure Illya is afraid of.  It's loss. 

Aksinya blinks.  "You've never let yourself think that before," she says hoarsely.  "Illya, my Illya--"

"Do not," says Illya, and he realizes his hands are shaking.  "Do not say it."  If his dæmon doesn't say it, then it isn't true.  He is not weak. 

"It isn't weakness," his dæmon growls, drawing herself up, but whatever she's going to say is cut off by a heavy knock on their door, and Illya startles. 

"Peril," Solo calls, and there is something wrong, Illya can hear it.  "Peril, open up."

Illya rushes to the door and throws it open.  Aksinya darts out into the hallway, scents the air, and says, "Clear." 

His partners are standing in the doorway, both ashen, and Gaby's face is glazed with tears.  Her eyes are wide and vacant.  Solo has an arm wrapped around her waist and he's taking almost all of her weight.  His dæmon is nowhere to be seen. 

"Gaby," Illya says, reaching out for her.  He tugs her gently into his arms, her own hanging limply at her sides.  Something is wrong.  "Are you hurt?"  he demands.  "Were you shot? любимый, what's wrong? What happened?" 

Gaby's burning with fever and her breath is coming in wet, pained gasps. 

"Poison?"  Illya looks at Solo, bewildered.  Solo follows them into the room and shuts the door behind him.  He leans against it heavily.  "What happened?"

"Berend," Aksinya says suddenly, and sounds ill.  "Where is Berend?"

Gaby shudders in Illya's arms.  "They took him," she whispers.  "They took him."

---

They get Gaby to bed before Solo's dæmon returns.  Illya doesn't know what to do.  He is not good at comfort under the best of circumstances.  This is--

This is horrendous.  Taking another's dæmon away, it is atrocious, and he does not know who he can kill to make it better. 

"Why are we just standing here?"  Illya hisses.  Aksinya is watching Gaby, worry making her fur stick up straight.  "We have to--"

"What?"  Solo snaps, and whirls on Illya.  "What are we going to do, burn Haiti to the ground?"

"If we must," Illya spits.  This is what happens if he's not there.  If his teammates are left alone.  They get shot and stabbed and torn from their dæmons, and Illya wasn't there.  He couldn't do anything to stop it. 

Solo bares his teeth at Illya, and he's aware, dimly, that this the first time he has seen his partner genuinely, truly angry.  "We have to be smart about this," he says, low and fierce.  "If they kill Berend, Gaby will die too.  If they hurt him--"

"I understand how the bond between human and dæmon works," Illya hisses.  "I am not fool, Cowboy."

"Then you know what will happen if we run in half-cocked and hurt Berend by mistake."  Solo's voice is lower still.

He doesn't want Gaby to hear him, Aksinya whispers. 

Misplaced anger lurches in Illya's gut.  "You and your dæmon can be apart," he says, a little desperately.  "She can go miles from you and it doesn't cause you any pain."  Solo, he thinks, is too clever to die, and Illya's own death is an inevitability.  But Gaby's death, the death of her Berend, is unthinkable.  On that score he and Aksinya agree. 

"My dæmon and I chose to--we chose to learn how to separate ourselves."

That stops Illya in his tracks.  "You what?"

Solo waves a hand impatiently.  "We chose," he says.  "And it was far from pleasant, but we couldn't die from it.  Gaby and Berend didn't choose.  She's in shock.  Her fever keeps spiking.  And if we don't find her dæmon soon, she could die." 

"How are we going to find him if we stay in here?"  Illya growls. 

Solo's lip curls.  "My dæmon," he says, "will find him.  "She's gone to ask the local witch clan for help.  When she knows where he is, I'll know, and we can go and get him.  Until then, we need to stay put, and do what we can to keep Gaby alive."

Illya wants to fight, to right what's been made wrong with his blood and his bones, but he knows that's not going to work.  It's not going to solve anything.  He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and says, "Very well.  What can I do?"  Aksinya presses against his leg reassuringly. 

Solo relaxes and for once doesn't push a fight.  "Stay with her," he says.  "Do what you can to keep her comfortable and warm.  There are--things I know that could help Gaby.  Things my mother taught me."

Illya goes still.  Witch knowledge.  Solo never speaks of his mother.  There used to be thousands of witches in the world, but after the Asriel War seventy years ago there are only a few hundred left.  The remaining witches have become secretive and shy to protect themselves.  There was an old man in Illya's neighborhood who claimed to have once known a witch, but until Cowboy told him about his mother in Rome, Illya had never met anyone who knew one.

Witches could also travel far from their dæmons, and not die.  "Go," says Illya.  "I will look after Chop Shop.  And..."

"We'll watch for your dæmon," Aksinya offers, quietly. 

Solo nods.  "She'll come here before she goes anywhere else.  I won't be long." And then he's gone, leaving Illya alone with his dæmon and his heartsick partner.  He takes a shaky breath, forces himself to be calm.  Aksinya looks up at him. 

Without saying anything else, she leaps up onto the bed where Gaby tosses and turns, her skin clammy and hot.  Her eyes roll and toss under her eyelids, and she's mouthing something in German. 

"She smells sick," Aksinya says. 

"She is strong," Illya says, forcefully.  "She will pull through.  Cowboy did."

"He and his dæmon chose," Aksinya argues, and that is still unthinkable, to pull yourself away from your dæmon.  Where had Solo gone that his magpie couldn't follow?  Why did he do it?

"Never mind that," snaps Aksinya.  Gaby's hands are curling and uncurling, fingers twitching.  She makes a soft, agonized sound in the back of her throat.  "Let Solo do what he can.  We have to keep Gaby alive until the magpie can find Berend." 

An idea sparks between them. 

A good KGB agent would crush the idea before it formed fully.  A good KGB agent wouldn't even entertain it. 

But if these last few months with Gaby and Solo have taught Illya anything, it is that he's not a good KGB agent.  He wants what he should not want.  He feels what he should not feel.  He always has, and he always will, just like his dæmon will always be a desert cat and his father's watch will always sit heavily on his wrist.  All he can do now is protect Gaby and Solo. 

To his dæmon he says, "Could not hurt to try."  They've been touched by others before as part of their training.  Dæmon-touching is one of the fastest and most effective methods of torture; everyone in the KGB undergoes it to build up tolerance.  When Oleg had grabbed Aksinya and refused to let go, it had hurt more than anything they could imagine, but they bore it, and if they can do anything to help Gaby, they should.  They will. 

Aksinya licks Illya's fingers, steps into the restless circle of Gaby's arms, and presses her face to her throat. 

---

Gaby wants to die.  She wants to be dead.  There is a hole in her chest where Berend should be and isn't, and it hurts. 

She wants her dæmon.  She doesn't know where she is or how she got here, but she knows that Berend isn't here and she should be with him. 

She's cold all over.

Berend, she thinks, my Berend, my Berend.

And then, starting in her hands, creeping up her arms, pooling in the hollow of her throat and her chest and into the ragged, ugly wound where her link to Berend is stretched taut and almost to breaking, is just a little bit of warmth.   

Chapter Text

3.

It isn't hard to find the Port au Prince's witch consul.  Napoleon grew up in places like this; he can smell them from miles away, and is drawn to them like a moth to a flame when he lets himself indulge in a little bit of nostalgia.  He doesn't often, especially not now that he's leashed to the CIA, but it's Gaby who's alone and in pain back in their hotel, so he makes an exception.    

The consul is a tall, powerfully-built dark-skinned man named Gaspard.  His dæmon is a long-legged maned wolf with fur the color of autumn leaves.    

Gaspard takes one look at Solo--and one quick, cursory look to search for his dæmon--and says, flatly, "You're the boy from the Lac Supérieur clan."    

"I am," says Napoleon. "May I come in?"    

Gaspard and his dæmon stand aside.  Napoleon has never had any dealings with the Haitian witch clan.  He spent most of his life in New Denmark and Hispania Nova.  He once spent three weeks in Lapland with the Lake Enara clan, but he'd never come this far south when he regularly interacted with witches.     

"How is your mother?"  

"Well, I'm sure," says Napoleon, shaking Gaspard's hand.  Gaspard's house is full of the smell of fire and cooking limonberries.  Several sprays of cloud-pin stand propped up against the fair wall.  He has wide, tall, wonderful windows stretching from one end of the house to the other, the whole sky hanging on the other side of the glass, and something in Napoleon's chest aches.    

"And your dæmon?"  Gaspard and his wolf are watching him with dark, steady eyes.    

Napoleon sighs.  "She's with your witches, I think.  We need help."  

"We are not interested in loaning our services to the CIA.  Haiti is neutral."  

Of course he knows.  Word does get around among the witches, few as they are, and it's not every day that a witch queen's son gets caught stealing art and ends up pressed into service.  "Look," says Napoleon, "all I need are limonberries, moonweed, and bear-spirits."    

Gaspard blinks.  His dæmon doesn't.    

"You're brewing a potion," he says, disapproving.  

"I am."   

Dealing with consuls is always tricky.  They're men like Napoleon used to be--the sons of witches, the lovers of witches--who run interference between their clan and the government of whatever region their clan calls home.  They don't, as a general rule, like people who like Napoleon now and mix the two worlds freely (and, admittedly, for their own self-interest.)    

When witches have daughters, they take them into the sky and teach them magic and spells and about the dead, desolate places they must cross to give them the power to move apart from their dæmons.    

Their sons they leave with their fathers.  Unless, of course, their sons don't get the hint and keep turning up in the clan caves, sticking their noses into everything and generally making nuisances of themselves until their mothers give up and let them hang around.  They’ve always been unusual, Napoleon and Étienne.  Their reputation precedes them, and it’s been as helpful as often as it’s been annoying.      

"I am, of course, willing to owe the Port au Prince clan a favor," Napoleon says smoothly.  Gaspard doesn't move, but his dæmon shifts.  All of the witches should know that he's good for a favor.  

"Tell me why you want to make a potion to ease the pain of separation," Gaspard says.  His voice is laced with suspicion.      

As instinctive as it is to lie, witch consuls are rather like panserbjørn in that they can sense dishonesty.  Gaby's in pain, so Napoleon says, "My partner's dæmon was stolen from her.  We need to keep her alive until we can find him."   

"Le garçon ne ment pas," says the maned wolf.    

Gaspard nods.  "Then no favor is necessary, Napoleon Solo, as long as you keep the secret of the brewing to yourself."    

"I've never given the CIA witch secrets," Napoleon says.  Evasion is the only kind of dishonesty he's going to get away with here.  "I'm hardly about to start now."  

Gaspard eyes him, and Napoleon notices that his eyes are the same color as his dæmon’s.  It would be unsettling if Napoleon had the time to be unsettled.  As it is, he’s on a schedule and he can feel Étienne moving out in the darkness somewhere nearby.  "Come," he finally relents, and Napoleon follows.  

Most consuls have a storeroom for anything their clan might need, and Gaspard is no exception.  His is a complete apothecary.  Napoleon can only name about half of the plants and berries and bones he sees.    

"Limonberry," says Gaspard, dropping a palmful of tiny yellow berries into Napoleon's hands.  "Moonweed.  And bear-spirits, enough for one potion."   

There are many, many things Napoleon can do with a good amount of bear-spirits--not in the least drink any man or woman under a table--but if he pushes Gaspard won't give him what he needs.  He bows, and makes a mental note to visit Gaspard's apothecary should he find a moment or two to spare.    

"You've saved my partner's life," he says, very seriously.  "If you need my help in the future, I'd be happy to give it."  He's not lying.    

Gaspard inclines his head.  "Tread carefully, Mr. Solo.  There is much going on in the world that you might not understand.  Be careful of the enemies you make."   

Napoleon tucks the ingredients safely into his pockets and secures the jar of bear-spirits under his arm.  "Monsieur Gaspard," he says, turning the consul's warning over in his head, and takes his leave.  

---

When Solo returns,  Aksinya has curled up carefully beside Gaby, her warm weight pushed against the girl and Gaby's hands resting limply in her fur.    

Illya paces.  It should--hurt more, he thinks. It had hurt when Oleg touched Aksinya, when a Nipponese assassin grabbed her that mission in Coree, and when a Tartish death squad tried to control him by harming his dæmon Illya had nearly begged for death.    

But Gaby's hands on Aksinya's back don't hurt.  Illya is keenly aware of them, can feel them like phantom touches down his own spine, high up between his shoulder blades, but the soul-deep sickness of someone else's hands on his dæmon is absent.    

Aksinya blinks at Illya, slowly.  "Her breathing is easier," she says.  "And her fever's gone down."   

Illya nods.  "Then you should stay," he murmurs.  "If it's helping Gaby, you should stay."    

His dæmon nods and cranes her head around to lick Gaby's chin.  Gaby sighs and settles deeper into the bed.    

"This is cozy," Solo says, startling Illya.  He whirls around and glares at the Denmarkian leaning in the doorway, prepared to defend himself and his dæmon's choice, but Solo doesn't seem to be especially bothered by Aksinya's behavior.    

He looks harried, and his dark hair is still in disarray.  There is a small green bottle tucked into the crook of his arm.  His jacket pockets bulge suspiciously.  His dæmon is perched on his shoulder in her magpie feathers, the dye she used to disguise herself at the party washed away.   

"Successful trip?"  Illya asks.  “Did you find Berend?” 

“My dæmon asked the Haitian witch-clan.  She knows where he is,” Solo hums.  "We can go just as soon as we get Gaby stable, and we stake out the warehouse they’re using.  There’s no sense in rushing in half-blind.  How's Gaby?"  

"No worse, anyway.  You went to the witches?"  Illya does not expect his partner to answer.  Solo, for all his flirting and dancing and light-fingered cheer, is so private Illya does not know the name of his dæmon despite the fact that they have worked together for a few months now.    

He is surprised, then, when Cowboy says, "My dæmon went to the witches.  I went to the witches' consul."  

"The witches' consul?"   

Solo crosses the room to check on Gaby, careful not to touch Aksinya.  His dæmon flutters down to confer with Illya’s caracal quietly.  "Most clans keeps a consul in the nearest major city to their home territory.  The consul's job is to act as a go-between for witches and humans.  They also," and he shakes the green bottle, "keep a stocked apothecary, in case a witch needs to whip up a spell in a pinch."   

"And you were able to get these ingredients?"  says Illya, confused.  The last thing they need is a clan of witches after a thief.  

"I can ask nicely, if I have enough incentive."  Solo checks Gaby's forehead, movements more careful and tender than Illya's ever seen from him, and says, "Good work,  Aksinya.  She's not as feverish as she was.  Are you in pain?"  

Illya's dæmon blinks.  She looks at Illya, who just shrugs.  Solo seems to have very little regard for social niceties.  He will talk to Aksinya and Berend if he wants.  There's no point being offended.    

"No," Aksinya says, in her soft voice.  "She's not hurting me."  

"Good," says Solo.  "Then if you wouldn't mind staying put...?"  

"I will stay," Aksinya murmurs, and rests her head on Gaby's stomach.    

"Excellent.  Peril?"  

Illya raises an eyebrow.  He's glad, he thinks, that he and his dæmon have been able to do this for Gaby.  

"I'm going to need your help," Cowboy says, already loosening his tie.  The magpie takes it from him carefully and lays it over a chair before returning to Solo’s shoulder.      

"Anything," Illya says, and means it.    

Solo grins.  "I'm glad you said that."   

What follows is probably one of the strangest hours of Illya's life.  Solo has him rip the fire alarm out of the ceiling, then plug the bathroom sink while Solo and his dæmon jog down to the lobby to get two bowls, a spoon, and hot water.    

"These are limonberries," he says when he returns.  He gives Illya a bowl full of the little yellow berries and a wooden spoon.  "I need these crushed, okay?   Please be mindful of the juice, that's really what we're after."  

Illya obligingly stirs and crushes the berries, his earlier near-panic and fury distilled by having an actual task.  Gaby's sleep is easier now, and she does not look quite as close to death as she had when Solo brought her back from the party.    

He’s not angry with Solo anymore either.  He had been at first, for reasons he can never articulate.  Solo thinks it’s because Illya is protective of Gaby, and while that’s true, there’s more to it than that.  Illya’s not an idiot.  He knows that Gaby’s a grown woman and a spy, just like he and Solo are.  She’s a young spy, of course, and not as experienced, but her choices are her own.  Illya doesn’t want to control her or keep her out of danger.  He just—wants her to be safe.   

And he wants Solo to be safe, and for Solo to act like he’s part of a team instead of charging off to do whatever he pleases.  Illya’s aware that people see his Aksinya and assume, because of her shape, that she doesn’t work well as part of a team (among other things), but Illya and his dæmon have never had a problem working with others.   

Solo is the opposite.  Secretive, arrogant, reckless with his life and the lives of his teammates.   

Irritation twitches under Illya’s skin and he takes a deep breath.  Now is not the time.  It’s not that Cowboy doesn’t care about them, he reasons; he’s here, after all, brewing a witch potion to help his partner.  Illya can forgive him for his recklessness this time.   

(From the main room, Aksinya snorts.  Fool, she says between Illya’s ears.)   

While he works on the berries, Solo shreds the hotel phonebook, fills the sink with paper, and promptly lights the whole thing on fire.  On top of these he puts the other bowl, the hot water, and several strands of dark brown moss, which he rolls into tight balls and sends sinking to the bottom of the bowl.    

"Pay attention," says Solo, "in case you have to do this again.  This is moonweed. It grows in the far north of New Denmark, Nova Zembla, and Tartary.  You can find it in the stores of most witch consuls or if you know which politician to bribe.  Let it steep in boiling water for five minutes or so."  

Illya nods, committing the plant to memory.  "And the berries?"  

Solo takes the bowl from him and, using the spoon as a barrier, pours the juice into the hot water.  Blue smoke starts to fill the bathroom, sweet and stinging.  Solo’s magpie fans the bowl with a few strong wing beats.  "The juice'll boil off, leaving its sugars in the pot.  The last thing you need to add is blood and bear-spirits."  

Illya stiffens.  "Blood?"  

"Blood," Cowboy agrees.  "Yours or mine, Peril?"  

"Mine," Illya says immediately, holding his hand out.  "As much as you need."  

Solo laughs softly.  His expression is one Illya doesn't recognize.  "Only a drop," he says, "and not yet.  The juice has to boil off."  

"When will you know when it's done?"  

"The smoke will change."  

Illya is quiet for a moment, contemplating.  Then he says, carefully, "I did not know you could do magic."  He knew that Solo was the son of a witch because Solo told him on the balcony in Rome, to show Illya that he knew at least a little of what it was like to be strange, to be regarded as a foreigner in your own country, to be odd.  Or at least Illya assumes that was the reason.  It is hard to tell with Cowboy.    

"It's not magic," says Solo, still watching the potion.  Smoke has made the mirror steam and Illya's shirt cling to his shoulders.  Solo is in a similar state, sweaty and dull-eyed with exhaustion, but he, for once, is not concerned with his appearance.  His magpie’s feathers are sleek and shiny.  She has more white to her than Illya first thought.  Her darker feathers are iridescent, shining blue and green whenever she shifts.  Her shape suits Cowboy.      

"Seems like magic."   

"It's just chemistry.  Like cooking or mixing drinks."  

"Did your mother teach you?"    

Solo cuts Illya a sharp glance, jaw tight, and for a moment Illya thinks that he has pushed his partner too far.  "No," he relents.  "She made this for me when I was a kid.  I watched her do it, in case I ever had to do it again."   

"Why?"  asks Illya.  "Is it more than a potion to ease--" and he stops.  Solo said that he and his dæmon chose to separate.  "How," he begins again, looking between man and magpie, "can you go so far from your dæmon?"  

Solo sighs, watching the potion boil.  His dæmon mutters something in French that sounds like, Vous pourriez tout aussi bien lui dire, mon cher. "There are places," he says, "where everything is dead and your dæmon can't go.  If you cross these places, you and your dæmon will be able to move apart from each other."    

"You left your dæmon behind?"  Illya hands twitch for his dæmon.  He can't imagine abandoning her.  Having her pulled away is one thing, but choosing to walk where she couldn't is unthinkable.    

"She wasn't happy with me either," says Solo, unbothered.  The magpie snorts.  "My mother threatened to drop me off a mountain for being so stupid.  Then she made me this, and we waited for my dæmon to forgive me and come back.  Ah," he says, "we're ready.  Your hand, please?"  

Illya holds his hand out again.  From somewhere on his person Napoleon produces a knife,  nicks the pad of Illya's thumb, and uses the blade to stir the dregs of moss and cloudy water, which hiss violently and continues to smoke.    

"What are bear-spirits?"  Illya sucks the blood of his thumb and eyes the dark bottle.  He wants to push, wants to ask Solo what it felt like, to voluntarily tear himself from his dæmon, how she felt, why she agreed in the first place, but Napoleon is at the end of his patience with the conversation.    

Solo grins wickedly.  "Liquor," he says.    

"Made by bears?"    

"Made for bears.  Raw spirits.  They were popular during the rule of Iofur Rakinson years ago.  A bottle this size can put a panserbjørn on its ass, I'm told."   

Illya almost snaps,  And you're giving it to Gaby? But Gaby can drink Illya under a table and besides, she has a reason to drink.  So he just shrugs and says, warily, "It will not kill a human?"  

"No," Solo promises, and tips about half of the bottle into the bowl.  "Now stir this until it's cool enough to drink, please, Peril.  I'm going to make sure the hotel staff doesn't skin us alive for property damage."    

Illya stirs while Solo quickly and efficiently puts out the fire and cleans up the mess.  The sink in scorched and the wallpaper smoke-stained, but Illya will pay the damages himself if the potion helps Gaby.    

"Smells like it could drop bear," Illya mutters, wincing.    

"It doesn't taste very good either, but it should work."   

"Then what are we waiting for?"  Illya taps his fingers against his leg impatiently while Solo pours his concoction into a mug and hands it off.    

"Good to go," he says.  Illya wastes no time getting out to Gaby, touching her shoulder to wake her.  "Gaby,  любимый."  

"Illya?"  Gaby stirs under his hands, unconsciously tightening her grip on Aksinya.  Her eyes, when she opens them, are bloodshot and glassy.  "What… ah.  Where's Berend?   What…"  

"Shh," Illya says, and Aksinya makes soothing noises in the back of her throat.  She pushes at Gaby's hands, reassuring her like her own dæmon would if he could.  "Drink this.  It will make you feel better."   

"Where is... Illya, I need to find Berend, I don't know--I don't know where he is."  Gaby hasn't realized that it is Illya's dæmon under her hands, creeping into her lap and pushing against her chest.    

"Drink this," Illya encourages.  "It will make you strong again, yes?   So you can find your Berend.  Here, let me help you."    

Gaby wrinkles her nose at the smell, but lets Illya press the mug to her lips and drinks the potion down.  When the mug is empty, Gaby shakes her head as if to clear it, blinking rapidly, and makes a tight, pained noise.     

"Ah," she says again, biting her lip.    

Illya rounds on Napoleon.  "You said it would help," he growls.    

Solo holds his hands up.  "Give it a minute.  Gaby, how are you feeling?"  

"I'm alive," says Gaby.  Her voice is raw and rough.  "That's about all I can tell you.  What's going on?   Berend--they took Berend, we have to--"  

And she looks down.  Her breath catches.    

"Illya," she says.  "Why am I holding your dæmon?"  

---

I'm holding Illya's dæmon, Gaby thinks, for the hundredth time in ten minutes.  Aksinya is a warm heaviness in her lap, her short, dense fur soft under Gaby's fingers.    

"You're sure you're not in pain?"  Gaby asks anxiously.  When the woman with the monkey dæmon had grabbed Berend, she’d thought she would die.  Even having someone brush up against Berend accidentally hurt and made nausea roll in her stomach.  Aksinya licks her fingers, fond.    

"I am alright," the caracal promises.  "Illya?"  

"You're not hurting us," Illya says.  "We are fine, Gaby."    

"How're holding up?" Napoleon stays in the bathroom doorway, eyes unreadable.  His dæmon is nowhere to be seen.     

Gaby doesn't understand how he can do that without being in pain.  Maybe he is in pain.  Maybe he's just better at hiding it.  Her stomach twists, and she aches for Berend's weight on her shoulder.    

If—when, she tells herself ferociously, when she gets Berend back—she's not going to let him out of her sight ever again.  Her fingers tighten in Aksinya's fur.  She forces herself to take a deep breath.    

"I am—managing," she says.  She still hurts like someone's carved a hole out of her chest, but she can breathe around the pain, now.  It's not paralyzing.  "Thank you.  What did you give me?"  

"Witch secret," Napoleon says, and smiles at her.    

"You're not in too much pain?"  The concern in Illya's voice is sweet and despite the strangeness of it all, Gaby strokes a thumb down Aksinya's back.  The caracal dæmon arches into it.    

"Nothing I can't handle," Gaby says.    

Napoleon laughs.  "Atta girl," he says.  "It's not a perfect fix, but you shouldn't be in too much pain until we get Berend back."   

He's irritating, cavalier, and often callous, but Gaby can appreciate his way of viewing the world.  Certainty is not something Gaby is good at--perhaps it's an Iron Curtain thing, because Illya isn't good at it either--but when Napoleon Solo decides the world will work in his favor, it does.    

Gaby likes her lips.  "Do you--do you know where he is?"  She's afraid of the answer.    

Illya and Napoleon trade glances.  "Cowboy's dæmon found out from the witches," Illya says gruffly.  "She’s gone to scout out the warehouse where they’re keeping him.  She’ll be back soon."   

"There was a gyropter," Gaby says.  "And a man and a woman.  They--" Thinking about the woman and her monkey dæmon makes revulsion and terror squeeze at her insides.    

Aksinya makes a grumbling noise and settles deeper into Gaby's lap.  She's heavier than she looks, but the weight of her is good.  It centers Gaby and eases the ache in her chest enough that Gaby can breathe around it.    

"How did the witches know where to find Berend?  Did you see what the people who shot Pereira looked like?”  

Napoleon grins, this time entirely without amusement.  "Witches have a sixth sense when it comes to this sort of thing.  Anyone who would grab a dæmon will be doing something awful enough to catch the witches' eye."   

"And then what?"  

Both of them look at Gaby like she's gone crazy.  

"We will go and get Berend back, of course," Illya says.  Napoleon hums in agreement.  Gaby blinks rapidly, determined not to cry.   

“You’d willingly go into a place where people touch dæmons,” she says.   

Both of them look at Gaby with twin expressions of fondness and exasperation.   

“Yes,” they say.  “Of course.”  

“We’re going to get Berend back,” Aksinya murmurs, her head on Gaby’s knee.  “We wouldn’t leave you to suffer, Gaby.” 

“Besides,” Illya says, voice a growl, “anyone who would steal another’s dæmon should be stopped.” 

“Napoleon,” Gaby says, remembering Pereira and the conversation he was having with the man and the woman just before he died, “do you speak Portuguese?”   

“I speak enough.  Why?” 

“The man and the woman—that was who killed Pereira and took Berend, did I tell you?  A man with a snake dæmon and a woman with a monkey.  They pulled Pereira out of the party to talk to him privately.” 

“Do you remember what they said?”  

“They were talking quietly.”  Gaby tightens her grip on Aksinya’s fur.  “That’s why—that’s why Berend was so far away from me to start.  He wanted to hear what they were saying, so we could have you translate.” 

“Do you remember anything?”  Napoleon repeats, gentle.   

Gaby takes a deep breath and wracks her brain.  “Something about—a guerra.  They said guerra a few times.”  

“A guerra means the war,” Napoleon translates encouragingly.  “Did they say anything about a guerra na Brasil?” 

“Yes!”  Gaby remembers the woman leaning in, her hand on Pereira’s elbow.  The man smiling, deep-voiced.  “A guerra na Brasil é longo.  That’s what the woman said.”  

“The war in Brazil is over.” 

“And then the man said—the man said, Mas o guerra da—Mas o guerra da República ainda--“ Gaby stops, frustrated.  The last part of the man’s sentence is on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t remember. “Neo?  Nyo?” 

“Não?” Napoleon suggests, frowning. 

“Não começou!” Gaby says, sitting straight up.  Her head spins and pain thunders around the edges of her heart, but she stays upright, eyes shining.  “Mas o guerra da República ainda não começou.”  

“But the war of the Republic has not yet begun,” says Napoleon, frown deepening.   

“The Republic?  What does that mean?  Are there any republics?”  Gaby’s never heard of a Republic of anywhere, except perhaps the Republic of Texas.  New Denmark is a collection of states, Nova Hispania much the same, and most of Europe under Denmarkian, Brytish, or Soviet control.   

“I don’t know,” Napoleon says, a strange light in his eyes, “but I bet it has something to do with that blade they kept mentioning at the party, mm?” 

“We should not worry about it now,” Illya says.  “Most important thing is Berend.”  

“Agreed.  Gaby, do you think you can stand?”   

“We are not taking her,” Illya snaps, moving forward like he’s going to pin Gaby down.  Not that Gaby would mind, under ordinary circumstances, but she is not a child, and she is not going to be left behind.  Her temper flares.   

“I’m going,” she growls, at the same time as Napoleon says, “She’s coming with us.”  Gaby shoots him a grateful look.  He smiles crookedly.   

“You can’t stand!”  Illya says.  “You have been sick all night.  You—” 

“I am missing my dæmon,” Gaby hisses, and swings her legs off the side of the bed, dislodging Aksinya from her lap.  The caracal dæmon makes a soft noise, alarmed, but doesn’t move to stop Gaby.  “And if you think I’m going to just sit here and let you two run off to get him back without me, you’ve wrong.”   

“But—” 

“I’m not a child,” Gaby says fiercely.  “I don’t need you to coddle me, Illya!  I need you to help me find my dæmon.”  And to prove her point, she shoves herself to her feet.  She regrets it almost at once—Napoleon’s potion has done a lot to ease her sick heart and the pain in her chest, but she feels as weak as a kitten and the room spins.  Her legs tremble underneath her.  She wobbles.   

Both boys rush forward, hands outstretched, but Aksinya presses up against Gaby from behind and it’s enough to keep her from toppling over.    

Gaby breathes deeply.  She stays on her feet.  The room still twists and her knees still shake, but she’s on her feet and goddamnit she is not staying here while Illya and Napoleon but themselves and their own dæmons in danger trying to rescue hers.  “See?”  she says.  “I’m fine.”  

Napoleon smiles.  Illya looks between them, clearly upset.  Gaby knows that he means well, but it’s time that Illya realized she doesn’t need his protection.   

“Now,” she says, trying to sound steadier and more authoritative than she feels, “gentlemen.  Shall we?”

Chapter Text

4.

This is a bad idea any way Napoleon looks at it.  Fortunately for everyone involved, he's made a career out of bad ideas, so he's not too worried.  Étienne flicks his ear with a wing before fluttering to her watch post at the top of the squat, ugly apartment building they're using as a base of operations.  The warehouse where they're keeping Berend is across a narrow, filthy strip of river.  If he concentrates, Napoleon can look through Étienne's eyes and see a woman pacing across the water, a monkey dæmon perched across her shoulders. 

"I've got a woman," he says, still concentrating.  Étienne sees the world differently than he does; colors are abstract, blurry.  Features are in focus or entirely indistinct.  The woman has a gold watch on her wrist, gold earrings glittering in her ears, gold around her neck.  "Dark hair.  Big, mean-looking monkey dæmon.  Sound right?"

Beside him, Gaby nods stiffly.  Napoleon nudges her with his foot, trying to convey affection, and turns his attention back to Étienne. 

"There are five guards stationed at permanent locations," he reports, "and two more who roam around.  The woman's on a SAT phone."

"Weapons?"  says Illya, all business.  He's clearly not happy about the whole situation, but he hasn't said anything since they left the hotel.  Aksinya is sitting patiently at his feet, watching and waiting. 

Guns are harder for Étienne to see.  Most of them are black and indistinct against dark clothes.  Napoleon concentrates, ignoring the dull headache that's starting to build behind his eyes, and says, "Semi-automatics at least, by the looks of it.  There's a gyropter on the roof.  A few boats in the river, a few more in the sea."

Étienne takes flight again, swooping over the dark glittering mass over the river and over the warehouse.  She lights down on a rusty old crane, a relic of Port au Prince's more prosperous days, and makes a few cackling magpie noises to convince anyone who might be watching that she's a real bird and not a long-ranged dæmon. 

"There's a weak spot on the north side by the sea," Napoleon says.  "An old service door.  There's only one guard and it's out of the loop of the rotation."

"Can your dæmon see inside?" 

The warehouse's windows are blacked out. 

"No."

"So we go in blind," Illya says, shouldering a rifle. 

Napoleon breaks his concentration and blinks rapidly, wincing.  "Yes," he agrees.  "We go in blind."  It's a terrible, terrible idea.  He could list the reasons why it's such a bad idea--this organization's clearly got some sway if they were able to execute Pereira without fear of reprisal, UNCLE knows nothing about them, they grab dæmons out of midair, and Napoleon really, really doesn't like these repeated mentions of this lamina--but he figures Gaby and Illya know the risks, and besides.  Gaby and Berend are worth any risk. 

The depth of the feeling surprises him, but he ignores it.  He has other things to worry about.   My dear, he thinks to his dæmon, come back.  It's time. 

"Alright," Illya says.  "We go in when guard rotation changes, yes?" 

Napoleon looks at Gaby, pale and determined.  "Agreed," she says. 

She's holding up well, all things considered.  At some point, he and Étienne will have to talk to her, tell her what they know and what it was like for them to be able to move separately from each other.  He doesn't know if Gaby and Berend will be able to go nearly as far as he and Étienne can--they've been on separate continents before--but he can assure her that it's alright, anyway.  It's a damn useful ability to have, even if the process of acquiring it is daunting.

Étienne returns, shaking out her feathers and landing on Napoleon's knee.  He rubs a knuckle down her back absently. 

"Vous pensez trop," she tells him, mostly amused. 

"Don't I always?" 

Étienne laughs. 

"Sorry if this is rude," Gaby says, looking between Napoleon and his dæmon.  "But I have to ask.  What's your name?  I keep calling you Eulalie and I know that's not right."

Napoleon's dæmon stiffens under his fingers.  He keeps stroking down her back.  Her name is her name--it's not his to tell.  Étienne keeps his secrets, so he keeps hers.  She names herself to precious few; not even their mother knows her real name, the one she chose for herself when Napoleon crossed the snowy, dead stretch of wasteland and left her behind.  She'd taken a few weeks to even come around to the idea of telling Napoleon, even though she bit his fingers whenever he called her by her old name. 

Illya coughs and looks away, embarrassed.  His dæmon, however, is watching with interest, betraying him.  Both of his partners are curious.  As they should be, he'd imagine.  It's been several months and Étienne has rarely worn her own feathers, let alone shared her name.    

"Dites-leur si vous voulez," he says, "ou ne le font pas. Il n'a pas d'importance pour moi."

Étienne shakes out her wings one more time, considering, and finally says, in English, "If I find my name on any dossiers, I'll be very disappointed in you both.  My name is Étienne."     

"Étienne," Gaby says, smiling widely.  The smile banishes the drawn, sickly look from her face and Napoleon feels his dæmon's heart flutter in his own chest. 

Romantic fool, he tells her, hiding a laugh.  You're smitten.

And you're not?  she returns. 

"Thank you," Gaby says sincerely. Her fingers flex, almost unconsciously, in her lap. 

Étienne chuffs.  "It was past due, I think," she says.  "You must forgive us.  We have terrible manners.  We were raised by bears and cliff-ghasts." 

That wrings a laugh out of Gaby and a small smile out of Illya.  Aksinya pads over, careful not to touch Napoleon, to bump nose and beak with Étienne now that they've been properly introduced. 

"She's serious about the dossier thing, by the way," Napoleon warns lightly.  "We've tried very hard to stay off the radar, haven't we, my dear?" 

There is still a spot of black dye on Étienne's neck.  Napoleon's pockets are almost always full of fake feathers. 

"Very," she agrees. 

"I won't say anything," Gaby promises.  She looks at Illya. 

"Nor I," he says. 

Napoleon smiles.  God, he likes them.  "Who's ready to go storm a mysterious evil base?"  he asks, just to see his friends smile again, and is rewarded with twin grins.  "Then let's go.  Étienne, ma chère?  Lead the way."  

---

They kill the man guarding the service door with a quiet shot from a hundred yards away and prowl across the dark concrete.  The guard's dæmon, a scruffy mid-sized dog, flickers out of existence.  The stink of a city river clashes with the salty smell of the sea and the air is thick and hot, even in the dead of night.  If Illya'd had his way, they would have gone in sooner.  Not during the day, of course--theirs is work best done under the cover of darkness--but right at nightfall. 

Gaby has been without her dæmon for twenty-four hours.  She is doing remarkably well, all things considered.  Illya is not sure that he would be able to stand after so long without Aksinya, let alone get up and fight. 

Chop-Shop is pale and drawn, but she is moving beside them, face set.  Aksinya winds up against her legs, licks her fingers, and offers her own body as support whenever Gaby stumbles.  Each touch sends a burst of warmth through Illya and seems to steady Gaby. 

He is glad, for perhaps the first time in a long time, for his dæmon's shape.  Aksinya is strange back home, ill-suited for winter and the mark of an outcast among their peers, but here, she is just what Gaby needs. 

Napoleon and his dæmon--Étienne, she named herself, and Illya feels strangely honored--pick the lock in mere seconds, slipping into the dark warehouse first to scout out a safe path.  Gaby and Illya hide in the shadows, Gaby pressed against Illya's side and Aksinya between their feet. 

"Clear," Napoleon calls softly, and they follow him inside. 

It takes Illya's eyes a moment to adjust.  Aksinya can see in the dark just fine and prowls ahead of him, tugging somewhere deep in his chest. 

"Looks like this part of the warehouse is abandoned," Cowboy reports.  His magpie is gone, presumably to find a safe path through the warehouse.  Looks can be misleading.  Illya was once in a cave in Coree that looked like it had been abandoned for thousands of years until machine guns had emerged from the walls and nearly torn him to pieces. 

But the smell of the place is all dust and rot.

"There haven't been any humans around here in weeks," Aksinya whispers.  Her eyes shin in the dim light. 

"Étienne says that most of the people seem to be concentrated near the river."  In his turtleneck, the lines of Cowboy seem to melt into the wall.  "Come on.  We've only got a few minutes before the rotation goes by and sees the dead guard."

Illya does not need to be told twice.  "Gaby?"  he says. 

She nods at him.  "I'm okay.  I feel--better.  Berend is here somewhere." 

"We'll have him soon," Illya promises.  And then he and Aksinya will rip apart everyone involved with Berend's kidnapping and Gaby's distress.  The memory of her lying there on his bed, gray with exhaustion and pain, makes red mist swarm behind his eyes. 

Be calm, Aksinya warns.  We have to get Berend back first. 

Illya forces himself to settle, flexing his fingers, and follows Napoleon down the hallway and around the corner, then another, and another.  Étienne returns to them, lighting down on Solo's shoulder and whispering to him, too soft for Illya to hear. 

They come to a junction.  The hall is more brightly-lit now, and Aksinya's fur is bristling on her shoulders.  There are people near. 

Napoleon gestures and turns left; Gaby and Illya follow. 

"Can you feel Berend still?"  Illya murmurs. 

Gaby nods, relief shining on her face. 

"Can you talk to him?"  Illya and Aksinya can share thoughts between each other (though they rarely do), between whatever strange and powerful force ties them together.  But Aksinya cannot go far from him.  He doesn't know if there's a distance limit, if one whose dæmon is in another room can speak to them, or share feelings across a city, or across a continent. 

Gaby frowns, concentrating for a moment, and then shakes her head.  "No," she says.  "No, I can't.  I can feel him, but--"

Aksinya bounds back to lick Gaby's fingers.  Warmth flutters in Illya's gut.  This is not the time nor the place to feel this way, he thinks, but makes no move to stop his dæmon. 

"Thank you, Aksinya," Gaby says.  She smiles at Illya.  "I'm not in as much pain," she promises.  "We'll have Berend back soon." 

Illya nods.  Ahead of them, Napoleon sticks his nose into another hallway and then draws back, flattening himself against the wall.  His dæmon flutters up and hides herself in the shadows between the top of the wall and the ceiling.  Illya does the same, pressing himself into a corner, letting Gaby crowd against him. 

A man walks past, dress shoes clicking, nose buried in a file and a bright green snake dæmon looped around his neck.  Gaby stiffens against Illya involuntarily. 

Ah, Illya thinks, one of her attackers. 

"Peril," Cowboy hisses, but it's too late; Illya lashes out like lightning and has one arm wrapped around the man's neck and the other around his mouth in a heartbeat. 

"Call for help," Illya warns, dragging the man back into the shadows, "and my dæmon will rip yours to shreds."

Aksinya snarls for emphasis. 

"This way," Solo hisses, irritated, and picks open another door.  Illya hauls the captured man inside of it, holding perhaps a little tighter than necessary, Aksinya and Gaby hot on his heels.  Solo shuts the door and his dæmon takes up watch by the little window, muttering under her breath in French. 

"Gaby," Illya says, "is this the man who was with Pereira?" 

Gaby nods, white-faced and grim.  She doesn’t look frightened; she looks angry.  She looks like she wants to rip this man limb from limb.  (Now is not the time or the place to feel so fond of her, but Illya cannot help it.)   

"All clear," Étienne reports, and swoops over to Illya.  For a moment he thinks that she's going to land on his shoulder, but instead she wraps her claws around the snake dæmon and drags it, hissing and wailing in pain, off the man and into the air. 

The snake is a good size, perhaps a meter and a half long, but magpies are not small birds and Solo's magpie is larger than most.  She carries it into the air with ease, tightening her claws around it, and hisses through her beak. 

"Well, Peril, you've done it now," Cowboy drawls. 

Illya shrugs.  "If I let go," he tells the captured man, "and you scream, my friend's dæmon will kill yours, do you understand?" 

Napoleon and Étienne did not agree to murder, but Illya's trusting the affection Napoleon has for Gaby.  Étienne cackles, squeezing her claws.  The snake dæmon whimpers and writhes. 

Illya lets the man go.  "Please don't hurt her," the man begs, voice hoarse.  He speaks with an accent Illya can't place; it is not Denmarkian, Muscovite, Brytish, or any country he knows. 

"Cooperate and we won't have to," Napoleon says, lying as easily as he breathes.  Illya only smiles, close-mouthed.  It is better, he's found, to let Napoleon or Gaby do the talking.  Illya tends to get goaded into violence too easily. 

"I will, I will, I swear," the man babbles, watching Étienne. 

"Who are you?" 

"I'm--my name is Gustav, I'm a scientist, please don't hurt my dæmon--"

Napoleon holds up one gloved black hand.  "Who do you work for?"

"I can't tell you," the man says miserably. 

"Ma chère?"

Étienne drops the snake dæmon.  She hits the ground with a smack, and before she can get away the magpie has her again, digging her claws cruelly into the snake's back.  The man moans.

"I can't tell you," he begs, "I can't, they'll kill me--"

Illya decides to help things along.  They are on a schedule.  He grabs the man by the back of the neck, lifts him off his feet, and shakes him like he'd shake a disobedient dog.  His fingers are tight and leave bright red marks on Gustav's skin. 

"We'll kill you if you don’t," says Napoleon, not unkindly, "and we won't make it a nice, clean execution.  You took something of our friend's, you see."

"The dæmon is still alive!  He is still alive!" 

"We know," Illya growls, and doesn't put him down.  At his feet Aksinya hisses softly.  "Now, answer the question.  Who do you work for?"

Étienne's claws tighten and the man, gasping, nearly crying, says, "THRUSH!  I work for THRUSH, please, please let her go, please." 

"THRUSH?"  Napoleon says, frowning.  "I know that name.  What's going on here?  Why were you trying to recruit Pereira?" 

"The Republic," the man says.  "The war of the Republic--" And then he stops, panting for breath. A crazed, fearful light shines in his eyes.

Napoleon, Gaby, and Illya trade glances.  Illya has never heard of THRUSH, but by the sounds of it, they're planning something violent. Waverly will want to know. 

"Where is my dæmon?"  Gaby says, glaring down the man. 

"Alive!"

"I know he's alive," she spits.  "Where is he?" 

"Down the hall!"  Gustav says, not needing any further encouragement from Illya or Étienne.  "There is a room where Olivia keeps her experiments, he is in there, I told her to release him after you did not die and she refused--"

At the word experiment, red light flashes in front of Illya's eyes and he tightens his fingers to the point of pain.  Gustav yells, his vertebrae creaking under Illya's fingers, his legs kicking, his eyes popping out of his skull--

"Enough," Aksinya whispers, and pushes against his legs.  Illya loosens his grip.  He becomes aware, gradually, of Gaby's hand on his elbow. 

"Thank you," says Napoleon.  "Which door?"

"Third on the left down the hall," Gustav wheezes.  He's crying, and his dæmon hangs limply in Étienne's claws.

"Is the door alarmed?" 

Gustav shakes his head as best as he can.  "No, no, there hasn't been time, we just arrived her two weeks ago." 

"Good," says Napoleon.  "If you're lying to me, you understand what will happen to you, right?"

Gustav twists again in Illya's grip, feebly, and sobs, "It's too late, I shouldn't have told you anything, they will lõigatakse meie juures, lõigatud meid peale--" 

His dæmon screams something high and sharp in a language Illya does not understand, and Gustav bites down on something hard, begins foaming at the mouth.

"Cyanide,” Cowboy hisses, starting forward, but it's too late now.  Gustav begins to convulse, his dæmon writing in Étienne's claws.  Within a minute Gustav is dead, slumped lifeless in Illya's grasp, and his dæmon fades into a swirl of golden dust and vanishes. 

"Shit," Napoleon says.  "Gabs, you okay?"

Gaby nods, still grim.  "What was he saying?"

"I don't know.  I don't speak whatever language that was.  Peril?"

"Neither do I," Illya grunts, dropping Gustav's body.  Aksinya sniffs at his corpse disdainfully.   "He was terrified of them, whoever they are.  THRUSH?  I have never heard of them."

"I have," says Napoleon. 

"Who are they?"  Gaby asks.  "What do they want with my dæmon?"

Cowboy shrugs expansively.  Étienne returns to his shoulder, shaking dust out of her feathers.  "I don't know.  I haven't heard anything about them in over ten years.  When I knew of them, they were just a ring of thieves and fences.  They moved stolen art."

"Did you ever have contact with them?"  Illya asks.  He does not know how a ring of art thieves gets involved in war and dæmon experimentation, but he is not sure he wants to know.

"No," says Étienne.  "Rings are dangerous.  Too much infighting.  We didn't want to risk it."

"Does not matter now," Illya decides.  "We should get Berend and go."

"Agreed," Gaby says.  Illya touches the small of her back, gently.   

Étienne leads the way back out into the warehouse proper and down the hall, as Gustav directed them, and within moments and a few quick motions from Cowboy, they are in another dimly-lit room and Gaby darts from Illya's side to stick her hands between the bars of a cage, whispering Berend's name and soft reassurances in German. 

Illya and Aksinya pace the length of the room and return.  "No one else is here," he says lowly, "and I do not see any traps or cameras.  Gustav did not lie."

"A point in his favor," Napoleon says.  "Gaby, do you need help?" 

It's clearly a struggle for Gaby to stand aside long enough for Napoleon to pick the lock on Berend's cage, but she does, and then her dæmon is in her hands, nuzzling against her throat, chanting her name. 

The little shrike looks well enough, all things considered.  There are a few stray feathers scattered around the floor of his cage, but he is well enough to fly and busy nuzzling and nipping at Gaby's fingers, her throat, her chin. 

"What," Napoleon murmurs, low enough that Gaby won't hear, "do you think that is for, mm?" 

The center of the room is taken up by a table.  Above it, a single, guillotine-like blade hangs, shimmering strangely in the light.  It looks silver, but more than silver; the sharp, gleaming edge of it makes something in Illya's chest shudder, makes Aksinya whine and press up against his legs, seeking warmth. 

"Nothing good," he says darkly. 

The KGB performs intercision the Tartish way, with short knives.  Illya knows what silver guillotines are, of course, what they do; they were the central piece of evidence that finally lead to the collapse of the Magisterium seventy years ago.  As far as Illya knows, the last guillotine was destroyed in Bolvangar by witches and the secret of their creation lost with Marisa Coulter, who disappeared, as legend tells it, through a hole in the sky. 

"I think," Napoleon says, "that we should perhaps not leave it intact."

"I agree." 

Between them, Illya and Napoleon do a good job of ripping out the anbaric wires and control panels that seem to be connected to the guillotine, and once Gaby and Berend finish their reunion, they join in too.

There's nothing they can do about the blade.  Illya is all for bombing the warehouse into little pieces, but they don't have any explosives or any time to find some, so they leave the room a mess of wires and sparks and hurry back out the way they came. 

It bothers Illya, how quickly he gives in to Cowboy and Gaby's urging.  It makes something strange and unfamiliar itch underneath his skin.  In the KGB, they don't leave missions half-finished.  

Gaby holds Berend to her chest the whole time.  He looks well enough, her dæmon.  More angry than frightened, anyway.  He and Gaby are whispering to each other, reassurances, promises, and Aksinya twines through Illya's legs briefly, a solid warm brush of comfort. 

For once, Illya lets her. 

They make it out without any more trouble.  Illya would not mind killing a few more of them--they have a silver guillotine, there is only one use for it, they are monsters of the worst kind--but getting his partners out safely is more important. 

Besides, once Waverly hears about all of this, Illya's sure that UNCLE will go after THRUSH with everything it has.  Waverly is reliable like that. 

"We're leaving first thing in the morning," Napoleon says, as soon as they stumble back into their hotel. 

"I will find us transportation," Illya says immediately, because he's still too wound up to stay put.  He still wants to wreck something, but he doesn't want to alarm his partners.  A strange sort of helpless fury is twitching in his chest, a grief rattling behind his teeth.

"Don't go far," Cowboy warns.

"Please," Gaby adds. 

"We will not," Illya promises, and ducks back out into the streets, Aksinya at his heels. 

"You did well, Illya," his dæmon says softly, looking up at him with her eyes shining green in the reflected streetlight.  "It's alright.  You don't have to be upset about anything."

Illya looks around to make sure that Solo's dæmon has not followed them; it would not do for her to hear this and report it back to her human.  "Not even how much we care about them?"  he says bitterly.  He did not want to say it.  Giving voice to it has made it real, somehow, has made his weakness tangible. 

He cares about his partners to the point where he will leave a mission unfinished for them. He will leave a silver guillotine whole. 

Aksinya flinches.

"Yes," Illya says, and keeps walking.  He doesn't know what to do now.  His loyalties, for the first time in his life, have shifted.  He feels like a foreigner in his own skin.  Everything is different.  "That is what I thought."

---

"I need to step out for a moment," Napoleon says, smiling down at Gaby.  Illya had returned ten minutes ago and was currently hiding in the shower.  When he'd come back, his face had been stony and his dæmon miserable.  "Will you be alright?"

Gaby, curled up in Illya's bed with Berend hidden somewhere inside her coat, nods.  "Where are you going?"  She doesn't want him to leave, but she's sure he has other things to take care of.  He called in a lot of favors for her.  He hasn't said as much, but Gaby's not stupid.  She knows what that potion he gave her must have cost him with the Haitian witches. 

"Étienne and I need to call the witch consul," he says.  "The witches need to know about the guillotine.  They'll take care of it.  They hate intercision, and they'll alert other clans around the world to keep an eye out for THRUSH." 

Berend mutters something under Gaby's armpit.  His tiny heartbeat is fast and reassuring. 

"Go ahead," Gaby smiles, mustering up a smile.  "We'll be fine here." 

Napoleon nods.  "If you need anything, just shout.  We'll be back soon."  He hesitates.  "There are some things Étienne and I need to tell you," he says. "But we want to wait until you feel better.  It's nothing serious," he adds, correctly reading Gaby's expression.  "It's about what happened to you.  What you might be able to do now.  Are you alright with that?"

"Yes," Gaby says, after a minute.  She supposes that she didn't really think about it.  Berend is back safely with her.  Nothing else really occurred to her, but of course they're going to be different now.

"Good."  Napoleon bends down, presses an affectionate kiss to Gaby's forehead.  "Rest.  Peril will keep an eye out. We'll be back before you know it."

Gaby waves him off and sighs.  With Berend tucked safely inside her coat, Gaby finally feels whole again.  Berend breathes with her, his heart beating in time with hers.  Something inside them still aches, but it’s getting easier to bear every second Berend is with her.     

"I was so worried about you," she tells her dæmon.

"I knew you'd come," Berend says.  "They didn't hurt me." 

Gaby, because she feels it's appropriate, settles down deeper into Illya's bed while Illya continues to hide from her in the shower.

Berend huffs a laugh.    

"What?"  Gaby murmurs.  "We could have died.  Again.  I'm tired of waiting around for one of them to make a move.  I'm tired of not acting."   

Her dæmon sticks his beak out of her coat, eyeing her.  "Fair enough," he allows.  "I'm game if you are."   

Gaby smiles.  Later, there will be questions to address.  If she and Berend can do what Napoleon and Étienne can do, for one thing.  If Gaby will be able to touch Aksinya again.  What the three of them are going to do now.   

But right now she is whole and alive and flush with success.  They technically failed their mission--Matteo Pereira is dead--but they have names, now, an enemy with a face.  They got Berend back and uncovered a new organization and won.   

And Gaby, if she's being perfectly honest with herself, deserves a reward for not dying.   

So when Illya comes out of the bathroom, Aksinya at his heels, Gaby takes off her coat and says, "Come here."  

Illya freezes.  He pales.  She can see the want in his eyes, the desire, but he doesn't move.  "Gaby," he says, hoarse.   

"Illya," she returns.  Berend flutters to the end of the bed and flashes his feathers, showing off for Aksinya.   

Illya swallows.  "You... do not want this," he says.   

Gaby snorts.  "Like hell I don't.  I very much want this.  And I know you want it too.  I can see the way you look at me.  I'm just finally acting on it."  

"But, I."  Illya closes his mouth.  He twists his father's watch, scratched and heavy gold, around his wrist.  "You and... Cowboy."  

"Me and you," Gaby says.  She wants both of them still, of course, and she knows they want each other, she's not blind, but right now, at this moment, she wants Illya.    

"I," says Illya again, and Aksinya creeps from behind him, her eyes on Berend.  She looks torn and hungry.  "We are partners.  In the KGB we don't--"

"This isn't the KGB," Gaby says, but her heart is sinking.  If Illya doesn't want this--   

"Oh," says Berend, "for god's sake," and leaps off the bed and into Illya's hands.   

Both Gaby and Illya go completely still.  Gaby expects—pain.  She expects it to hurt.  But Illya's hands only feel warm and gentle around Berend.  Warmth starts to kindle in Gaby's ribs.   

"See?" she says.  "You're not going to hurt us, Illya.  We want this.  We want you." 

And Illya closes the distance between them, one hand cradling Berend to his chest, the other coming up to cup Gaby's face.   

Aksinya leaps into Gaby's arms and she kisses Illya gently, just a brush of lips at first.  She lets Illya lead—this time—and deepen the kiss on his own terms.  She opens her lips for him, licks along his teeth and teases at his lower lip.   

Illya groans.   

They have been dancing around this kiss for months.  Gaby lets Illya climb onto the bed, still holding her dæmon in to his chest.  His free hand slides down her neck to cradle her hip.   

Berend tumbles from Illya's hand to rub his head against Aksinya's chin and card his beak through her short fur.  The caracal curls around him, purring deep and rough in her throat.   

Illya pulls her into his lap, and Gaby wastes no time in wrapping her legs around his waist.  He puts out heat like a furnace.  His hands, for once, are so warm she can feel them through the fabric of her dress.   

"This," she says, breaking the kiss long enough to put Illya's hands where she wants them, "is good." 

"Very good," Illya agrees.  His pupils are blown and his lips are wet and red.  Hunger makes Gaby lean in again, slower this time, her fingers tracing down Illya's ribs, feeling his heartbeat against her fingertips.  She wants to feel his skin, to have his hands on her bare hips and his lips on her throat.   

Behind them the door opens and shuts with a snap.  Gaby dimly hears a sound of surprise—Napoleon.  Damn.   

But she doesn't want to stop kissing Illya so she doesn't, so she holds onto his hips and grinds down into his lap and savors the way he growls into her mouth.  Aksinya collapses against Gaby's side, Berend between her paws, wings outstretched.   

Tomorrow, they will have to deal with the fallout.  With Waverly.  With Napoleon.  With THRUSH and this knife they are so desperately trying to create, and this Republic they want to destroy, and with the world they live in and share with so many terrible, evil people.    

But right now Gaby has Illya, and her dæmon, and Aksinya as a warm weight at her side.  She wants this and that, she thinks, is enough for now.