Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Rise and shine, Hero.”

“Do you think that’s funny?” I asked, pressing my face against the pillow.

“It is a little funny,” Addam muttered against my shoulder, sounding almost defensive. He pulled me close, and I felt his arms wrap around me and something that definitely wasn’t an elbow prodding against my hip. “You said you wanted to be up early this morning.”

“And you’re clearly already up-“ I muttered, ducking away when a wave of nausea swept through me. Addam let go – he’d made that mistake yesterday, when he’d gripped onto me too tight and nearly been vomited on. There’d been an outbreak of death magic that Brand and I had cleared out last week, and we’d both been feeling kind of awful since.

I finished emptying my guts, and looked up at him. Addam was sitting up, stretching and already brushing his ridiculously expensive hairbrush through his ridiculously soft hair. The early morning sunlight made it look like gold. I still couldn’t believe I got to have this. That he put up with me, with us, with everything. “Not trying to pull me back to bed?”

“You said you wanted to be up early,” Addam pointed out. I checked my watch. There was still only one number before the flashing dots, and it didn’t even have the decency to be a nine.

“Why would I-“

“It’s important,” he murmured. His hand ran over the old scars on my shoulder, easing the pain there, and I almost groaned. Brand had been teaching him some good tricks.

“Bed is important.”

“It’s Max’s birthday,” Addam reminded me.

I flinched. It was. Max had reluctantly admitted a few days ago, after Quinn had loudly asked whether we’d got everything for his birthday barbecue. Brand had suggested we could celebrate his gotcha day in a couple of months, but Queenie’d already bought things. And it mattered. After everything the lot of us had been through the past few months, Max’s birthday mattered. And the kid deserved two birthdays, so we could celebrate his gotcha day as well.

I did groan then, reluctantly pulling myself out of Addam’s arms, and went to use the bathroom. Someone had used all the hot water.

Said someone was eating a concerningly healthy breakfast, with Addam beside him snacking on some kind of sourdough toast and jam made of some obscure fruit no reasonable person had heard of. Brand looked about as ill as I felt – and he felt as ill as well. He waved a hand in greeting, grabbing a spoonful of jam and shoving it into his mouth.

“No more wraith nests,” he muttered. “It’s not good for us.”

“Apparently not.” I groaned again. Was this what getting old meant? I wondered what a reasonable time was to put in for our first rejuvenation treatment, just as the doorbell went.

Max checked the peephole, and then opened it, beaming when he saw Quinn was there. He looked surprised, as though Quinn ever wouldn’t be there when it was Max’s birthday. I’m sure if I asked Quinn would tell us the many times he was there, and the ridiculous situations that might stop him. I didn’t ask, but nodded, as Addam waved at his brother. Quinn was carrying a handful of cards, and his arms were full of presents, all neatly wrapped and with bows.

I looked at the presents, and at the couple of things Brand and I had bought, and back at the pile. “You know Quinn and Addam are rich, right?”

“Rich and trying to buy my love,” Max agreed. He paused, frowning at me. “You’re still ill.”

“And if it still is bad after a few days more, we’ll go and see if we can beg a healer off the Tower,” I offered. I hated asking for help. I didn’t like it that I hadn’t just bounced back already.

Quinn practically skipped inside. He placed his pile of presents down, and added the cards to the rest of the pile. “I need to go sort out the drinks,” he said.

Max swallowed, and looked at me. “One year closer to your duties being discharged.”

I smiled at him. “You think Brand and I are going to return you in three years?”

The answering smile the boy gave me was fragile but it was real. He didn’t think that. It was proof that we’d made progress – that he was aware he belonged here. I bumped my shoulder into his. “Matthias Saint John, you’re stuck with us.”

“I know you said presents later-“

“But you want to open one now?” I asked, indulgent. He blushed, and then paled, mottling out to a delicate blue sheen.

“Not… not just a present. There’s…” He gestured at the small pile of cards.

“Just don’t open Queenie’s when she’s not there to see it,” I told him. He nodded, and picked up one, laughing. It was from Quinn, and showed a ferret holding a balloon with ‘Have a Ferret-tastic Birthday!!!’ written on it. He propped it up on the table, and reached for the next.

Two things happened at once, the way they often did. From the kitchen, there was the sound of breaking glass, making me think a crate of beer bottles had just been smashed. Addam vaulted to his feet, ready to go and deal with whatever it was that Quinn was seeing. And Max paled.

We didn’t have a bond with Max, not like with each other. But I didn’t need one to tell the boy was terrified.

“Max?” I asked, calling Fire to my fingertips, as Brand’s hand went towards his knife. “What is it?”

Max shook his head, shaking, and took a breath.

“Is it Him?” I asked. We thought we had resolved the Hanged Man’s claim, meaning that Max no longer had to live in fear, but I couldn’t see what else would cause so much panic. Max shook his head, and pushed forward the card he’d opened.

It wasn’t magical – no wards to add special effects. Just a paper card, with ‘Happy Birthday Uncle!’ On the front. Inside someone had faked a child’s handwriting. ‘To Max. From it’s a surprise’. They’d written the Rs back to front.

There were some things Max didn’t talk about. This was one of them – what he had endured before he came to us, what had happened that meant I was not the only one to know what it was to lose everything. Only he’d lost it long before the raid that destroyed his House.

Quinn came running in. He wasn’t smiling now. He looked worried. “I-“ He began, and looked at Max. “It wasn’t meant to upset you.” He said quietly. “I just- you find out today and-“

I looked at Max. I looked at Quinn, who was the sweetest teenager I knew but much better at the future than the past, and thought about the fact I’d thrown up this morning.

Brand was fast. Faster than I was at a moment like this. He turned around, and he stared at Addam, who had just walked through, handkerchief from his pocket showing signs of Quinn’s nosebleed.

“The fuck have you done to Rune.”

I braced for anger, or confusion, or denial. I wasn't ready for what happened, the way Addam took in the card, and looked at me, and smiled as though this was the best news he had ever heard, as if he'd just been given a puppy. That look lasted for all of three heartbeats, before he looked at my expression. I got the feeling his new puppy had just been kicked.

"Rune?" He asked softly, reaching out towards me.

Quinn was standing there still, looking between us and Max, who was still holding the card, before it dropped from his hand as understanding sunk in.

It occurred to me that we were spoiling Max's first real birthday party as a part of the family, and I felt guilt, and anger.

Addam hid his pain after another few moments, the same way he had hidden his joy. "We can fix this." He was pulling out his phone. "I can arrange for a specialist healer to come over and- and put things back to normal."

"I-" I looked at him. "You don't want me to fix this."

"It-" He took a breath. "Hero, I want what you want. I want you happy."

"What do you want?" I asked him, as though he hadn't made that clear the moment he thought we were talla. He'd asked that first night about my views on children. He was a natural father. He thought- he thought I was his talla, and now he thought- I took a breath.

"I want what you want."

I flinched. That was the problem with Addam. He had a kind heart. He meant it, I knew he did - no matter how much he wanted a child, he'd prioritise me. "If I was neutral about it?"

Addam's eyes flickered over to Quinn. "You can't be neutral about a child."

Max cleared his throat. "I... I guess you'll be wanting the spare room."

"No." I said quickly. "It would be in with me."

"Bullshit," Brand muttered. "We're putting the cot in the basement, you'd sleep through a nuclear war." And just like that, we were planning logistics. We were planning what to do for the child, how we would keep it.

"I need some air," I muttered. Addam stepped forwards, and I shook my head. "Alone."

Brand followed me out. The grill was there, waiting for him to attack it with lighter fluid and Addam to take over the cooking. There was - it was our home. It was our life. We'd made this, from nothing, and the thought of adding more-

Brand's arm wrapped around my shoulder. "There are ways," he muttered. "If you're not sure about this. Let Addam pay to get rid of it, if you don't-" I knew he was right. But this wasn't - this was Addam. This was us. He didn't need to say anything to let me know what he was feeling, but I knew he wasn't going to be racing down to the nearest healer and asking them to get me a termination spell.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw Addam was standing in the doorway, and I didn't quite know what to do about the fact he was there. He walked out slowly, ready to move back if Brand or I didn't want him. He was always so careful. He'd never overstep. He understood that I had lines, and that those lines moved, and he would listen and respect where those were on any particular day, even when I didn't expect him to.

"I didn't know-" He paused, and squeezed my hand. "If you want to do this, we do it. If you don't, we don't. It's your call."

I looked at them. Both of them. My boys.

"I'm terrified," I told them. "But no. We-" I swallowed. "Together?"

"Together." Addam winced. "I should have realised. Quinn was reading a book on baby care the other day, and I didn't even..." He sighed, and looked at me. "You realise that you can't go out in the field with this?"

"That," I told him, "is something we will negotiate over. While I'm having a drink."

"You can't drink," Addam told me, while Brand said "Quinn smashed all the beer bottles."

I groaned, and rubbed at my eyes. Fucking seers.

Addam wrapped his arms around me, and so did Brand. I was safe there. I looked up at Addam, and then at Brand, locking eyes with him. His eyes were brilliant, shining, and I knew he was worried for me at that moment, just as worried about this as I was.

"Last time-" I said, and swallowed. I didn't know what to say then, my hand creeping up to rub at my shoulder. I knew it was a tell, but I needed it to be a tell. "Lord Tower handled it." I had barely been aware of what was happening. He'd sent Brand out of the room, so that Mayan could continue his 'you are the worst Companion ever' lecture, and called in a specialised healer, who had asked me if I wanted this. I'd nodded when the Tower squeezed my shoulder, and there was a spark of darkness, and it was done.

Later, Lord Tower had spoken about how it was necessary. I was the only heir of the Sun Court. A child would have potentially given another Court power over us, and I was always meant to reclaim my father's mantle. But that wasn't why. I'd been barely alive. I had needed help. I had needed to put that night behind me if I was to have any chance of surviving.

I looked up now, and saw Addam staring at me with pain in his eyes, and my Brand there, ready to protect me. Last time I'd been alone. I wasn't just surviving now. "I'll need help," I said quietly, ducking my head back down, because I wasn't sure whether or not I was a good father, but Addam had raised Quinn. And whereas my experience of parenting involved accidentally-acquired seventeen year olds, he'd taken care of Quinn from an infant.

"I'll be there every step of the way," Addam said softly.

"You're just using this as an excuse to get out of training, aren't you?" Brand asked, and he was smiling at me. I nodded, and took a deep breath, and lifted my head.

"We'd better go and see the boys," I told them both. "We can't spoil Max's first real birthday."

"It is not spoiled, Hero," Addam said, and he brushed a kiss to my shoulder before walking into the house.

Brand and I were left alone. He stared at me for a moment.

"I can't believe you gave me your fucking morning sickness," he muttered, and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned in, opening our bond up and letting my gratitude pour through.

"I couldn't do it without you."

Chapter Text

When I went back in, I found that Quinn had pulled out a ‘Dummies’ Guide to Childcare’, and he and Max were both leaning over it, flicking through it. Max had the same stubborn look he had when Brand was teaching him a new defensive technique - he was ready to fight, and he knew it would hurt and he’d keep trying anyway.

“We’re going to need to buy things,” Max muttered as he caught sight of me. “Ciaran gave me some money for my birthday, we can use that for-”

“No,” I said quickly. I wasn’t going to take money off a kid for another kid. Not when Max was dealing with enough.

“It’s my… My niece or nephew,” Max said softly. “I want to help.”

“You can babysit.”

“It’s a very cute niece-or-nephew,” Quinn said, frowning as he said the phrase. I realised he’d already seen it. Which was a whole other thing that I needed to consider - Quinn had already seen the baby. Seen its future.

“Is it healthy?” Brand asked quickly. “Are there any allergies-”

I glared at him, because we didn’t trust seers, and yes we trusted Quinn but I wasn’t sure we were meant to do this.

“Healthy,” Quinn agreed. “As long as you stay away from the squid, that causes a seafood allergy, but you shouldn’t go through that portal anyway because the Mariana trench is no place for a baby and Addam is mad at you and-”

“And I,” Addam interrupted, “will be paying for whatever is needed.”

I looked at him, and swallowed. I wanted to be proud. I wanted to refuse - I was Arcana, I was meant to be funding a Court and a life. But currently my Court was one Companion, a teenager, and possibly Addam. I was struggling enough to support my current family.

“That’s the least you can do,” Brand said softly. “This is all your fault.”

Addam gave an awkward shrug. I decided not to argue.

“I think I can avoid the Mariana trench,” I muttered. Because I hoped that I would be able to avoid the Mariana trench - if nothing else it was rather deep and dark and we didn’t need a repeat of the mall situation. Even if we’d gotten a good joke out of it.

Quinn nodded, and looked at me and Brand, and smiled awkwardly. He licked his lips, clearly weighing up what he could say and what would create some kind of horrific paradox. “It is Addam’s,” he said.

I nodded, and took a deep breath. It was Addam’s. “Do we need to-” I began, and then shook my head. Quinn was already struggling and we kept asking questions. He wasn’t a magic eight ball, we couldn’t just shake him up and expect answers at times it was convenient. “Thank you, Quinn.”

Quinn nodded awkwardly, and ducked behind Max. Queenie wandered through from the kitchen, her eyes wide. I didn’t want to know how she already knew.

Max looked at us. “Shall we have a barbecue?”

Brand spun on his heels, and marched out to the grill. I could feel his concern burning through our bond. My Brand. He worked so hard to keep me safe, and this was a danger we hadn’t prepared for.

Addam went out to help with the cooking, because Brand got a little lighter-fluid happy. Max looked at me. He was nibbling on his lip, his skin a strange greenish tinge.

“Spit it out.”

“I’m going to help,” Max told me quietly. “I won’t… I won’t let any harm come to them. And… if they’re not…” He swallowed, and glanced at Quinn, his fingers brushing against his necklace.

I decided that now wasn’t the time to tell Max he had far too many tells. “If they’re not what?”

“If they’re not as magically powerful as you hope they are-” He interrupted himself, “Quinn says they’re better at sigils than me by the time they’re seven-”

I cleared my throat, and looked at Quinn. “No prophecies about the baby. Not that sort.”

“But-” Quinn began, as Max shrugged. I glared at Quinn, and he realised he should probably shut up for now, because he’d already caused enough chaos.

“They will be,” Max said softly. “But I just- if they’re not…” He nibbled on his lip. “I could take care of them. And I’d do it properly, I wouldn’t - I’d never-”

“I know.” I walked over to him, and enfolded him in a hug. “I know I can trust you not to harm them. And I’m going to make you in charge, if Addam and Brand and I all die, do you understand that? If we all get killed horribly, you’re going to get stuck with a screaming toddler, because I trust you to look after them. But. We’re not going to get rid of them. Even if they’ve got not a spark of ability in them. They’re our family.” I knew he was hurting, and I gazed into his eyes. “Matthias Saint John, do you think Brand is in any way failing?”

“No.”

“You know he can’t use sigils. He has no magic. He can’t use cantrips, even. And there is not a single way that I would have survived if he wasn’t by my side. He saves me- he saves me so many times, and I am so fucking lucky to have him. And I’m fucking lucky to have you. We will work with you. We will teach you sigils. But if the baby couldn’t use them - they’re still special.”

Max nodded, resting his head on my shoulder. I squeezed him tight. I didn’t know that I was cut out for this - for any of this. But I hadn’t done awfully. He was growing up into a kind young man, and maybe in time he’d be able to put his fears aside, and be the person I knew he could be. I stepped back, and looked into his eyes.

“I’m scared,” I told him, painfully honest. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I don’t- I don’t think prophecies help. I know more than most how a prophecy spoken over a crib can ruin everything.” I smiled weakly. “But I’ve got you. I’ve got my family, I’ve got my Court around me. And our baby? Our baby is going to be so fucking lucky to have you in their life.”

Max nodded, ducking his head in the way he had, until he’d got his blush under control. He looked up at me and nodded.

I glanced out, and saw that Addam had successfully saved the grill, and managed to get the fire under control. I was pretty sure he was using a Shield to manage that, but I didn’t argue because there would be food. I smiled at Max. “Max?”

“Yes?”

“We’ll worry about this another day. Today we’ve got to focus on you. And you’ve still got presents to open later.”

He smiled shyly at me, and he nodded, and we headed out into the garden, and I let myself forget, for now.

Forgetting worked until Brand slapped a cigarette from my hand. He frowned at me.

“Which stash was that? I thought I’d got them all.”

I looked at him calmly. I wasn’t going to tell him. Instead, I had to put up with him frisking me, and pulling a half-pack of cigarettes from my pocket. He tore them up in front of me. “When you bought the card?” He hissed.

I nodded.

He rubbed his forehead. “No. No smoking. No smoking, no drinking, no coffee-”

“I’m having coffee.”

“The child will be born addicted to caffeine.”

“That’s fine,” I pointed out. “We can give it caffeine.”

“You’re going to give a toddler caffeine?” Brand asked.

I hoped it wasn’t going to be born as a toddler, but I didn’t think that would be helpful to say. I looked at him, and he looked back, and I swallowed. “I’m drinking coffee.”

“But not alcohol?” He asked quietly. “And no smoking?”

I winced, but nodded. I could tell he was panicking about it. He worried enough about me having reduced lung capacity, and I could always get a regeneration, and I had big lungs. I wasn’t sure how big a baby’s lungs were, but I probably shouldn’t have been smoking. I rubbed at my forehead, and he looked at me, and I could feel anxiety pouring through our bond. Normally he shielded better than that. He was being manipulative but- but I could tell his goal was genuine.

“Rune? If we’re doing this… we have to do this right.” He was frightened. I knew he was - I could feel it through the bond. He wanted to keep the kid safe, only it wasn’t just keeping it protected from guns and things. I thought of what Addam said about Quinn, about how terrifyingly small he’d been at first. We couldn’t mess this up.

Addam walked over, with two plates of food. He handed one to me, kissing my cheek, and passed the other to Brand. “You are fighting.” His accent was strong, suspicious.

“We are talking.”

“Your expressions do not look like that when you talk.” He rubbed my good shoulder with one hand, rested his other hand on Brand’s arm. “You are fighting. And you are frightened.”

I wanted to argue, but I was frightened. Brand was frightened. Our individual emotions were bleeding together into one big ball of terror.

“We do this together,” he told me - told us. “You do not need to fight.”

“He won’t let me smoke.”

“He never lets you smoke, Hero,” Addam pointed out, and kissed my neck, and I felt the fight go out of me.

“I’m gonna fuck this up,” I whispered, with utter certainty.

“We will not,” Addam told me. “We are together. We can work out things together.”

He said it with such certainty that I had no idea how I was meant to respond. He was always so fucking certain about things like this. It would be obnoxious if he wasn't right.

Addam kissed my forehead, because he was far too tall, and looked into my eyes, his wine-coloured eyes shining with emotion. "You are incredible, Hero. You can do whatever it is you put your mind to. And I will be there beside you."

I took a breath, and nodded. "Today needs to be about Max."

He gave me a playful smile. "Today, yes. Perhaps tonight-"

I hesitated, my mind racing. I'd need to borrow that book off the kids and work out what we could even do. Funnily enough, handling how to have sex while pregnant hadn't been high up on my research list, given my aversion to both things. Both things when it wasn't Addam. I was well and truly fucked.

I glared at him, and stole a bite of Brand's burger, and walked off to check on Max.

He was eating a hotdog, and looked up at me shyly. "Can... Can I open the rest of the cards now? Quinn says there's no more surprises."

I nodded, pressing down on the threatening guilt that said I'd managed to upset Max on his birthday, and made the day about me. My guilt wouldn't help Max have a nice afternoon. I called everyone over. Quinn insisted his presents were to go last, which concerned me - and Max, and Brand, both of whom looked at the presents as though they might be a bomb.

He opened the cards, proudly arranging them around him. There were the ones I expected - Queenie, Brand and me, Max, Quinn, Addam and Quinn's little 'surprise', and then there were also ones from Ciaran and Lord Tower. He gazed at them fondly.

"You need to open the presents," Brand reminded him, voice a little gruff with emotion. I didn't call him out on it, this time.

Max opened Queenie's first, gasping in delight at the crimson shirt and dark tie he had been given. She smiled at him nervously. "I thought it might be suitable for more formal Sun Court events?" She explained.

He leaned forwards and crushed her in a hug, and she hugged him back. He put it reverentially to one side, his fingers touching the fabric, and then looked back at the pile, that was almost entirely dominated by the elegantly wrapped gifts from Addam and his brother. I got the feeling they'd paid someone to do the wrapping as well. I'd remembered to throw some newspaper around my gift, and had been feeling pretty good about it.

"Mine?" Addam offered, handing over a small wrapped gift. "I am also paying for you and Quinn to go to a theme park soon. He has reassured me you will have fun."

"Thank you," Max said, looking at Addam curiously, and opening the gift. His gasp this time was louder. He looked at him, and then at me. "This is too much-"

"I explained to our quartermaster that it was important to me, and that due to my relationship with your brothers it-" Whatever Addam had left to say was stopped as he was embraced tightly by Max, who wiped at his eyes and then showed me what he had been given.

It was one of the Justice Court sigils. A plain platinum disk, woven into an armband, like the one I wore. Addam squeezed his hand, and looked Max in the eye. "I give this sigil freely; your Will is now its Will."

"I-" Max stared at me, as though checking he was allowed to take it. I nodded, and smiled.

"We're going to work on this." I paused, passing over my own present - a book that had some instruction on sigil magic. He tore the newspaper off of it and smiled, fingers flicking to his necklace again. I paused, and shrugged. "Mostly my present is the actual lessons, I-"

"Thank you, Rune." Max looked at me, and nodded.

Brand was next. A pack of condoms, a set of practice knives, one actual knife, and a holster. "I'm giving you lessons too."

Finally Quinn darted forwards. Max opened a book, frowning at the title. "What's Battle Alchemy?" He asked us.

I hesitated, and decided that was a problem for another day.

"The book's about Battle Alchemy," Brand pointed out. "Read it and you'll find out. That's how books fucking work."

Max gave him a shy smile, and then there were another pile of gifts from the Saint Nicholas brothers - new clothes and new shoes and a hairbrush and a diary. I was pretty sure Max's wardrobe now cost more than mine, and judging by Brand's expression I expected I'd hear later how his tie was worth more than we made in a year. It didn't matter. Max was happy, and while I liked getting him stuff, I simply couldn't afford the kind of thing that Addam didn't bat an eyelash at.

It occurred to me that we were going to have a lot of arguments about money when it came to the baby. But we weren't having that argument today.

The day went on. Eventually, after pizza for dinner, the boys decided they were watching a film, so we tidied up as best we could around them. Even Brand seemed willing to let Max take a day off from chores, and anyway Queenie had already sorted out most of what was needed.

I went to head up to my room, and paused, looking back at the others. "You two, come with me?" I asked. They nodded. I looked over at the kids. "Let us know immediately and only if there is a problem."

Quinn pulled a face, and Max nodded. Quinn curled up into Max's side, and Max turned up the sound on the television.

Chapter Text

I looked at the two of them. It was an awkward dance sometimes, the three of us. I was so fucking grateful for what we had managed to claw together, but it hadn't been an easy journey. Brand and I were too fucked up, and Addam too good, for it to be easy.

When we reached my room, I exhaled. "I think Max had a good day." That was what mattered.

"Idiot," Brand muttered. "I don't think he's going to stop grinning for a month-"

"You did well, Hero," Addam said, and his hand was on my shoulder, massaging over the scars. "He is lucky to have you. Everyone who has you in their life is lucky to have you."

"Even if you're too fucking fertile," Brand agreed. "I thought-" He hesitated. "Even among Atlanteans-"

"It's not common," I agreed. "Not since the Unsettlement. But Quinn seems certain-"

"Shit," Brand looked down. "I was telling you you'd been eating too much cake last week."

"You shouldn't have done that," I told him with a smirk. "It's cruel to criticise a pregnant person for gaining weight." To be fair, I had been eating too much cake. Queenie had been trialling cake for Max's birthday, and I'd gotten rather excited about it because Brand was on a shopping trip which meant I didn't have to listen to his ideas about portion control. I shrugged, and he nudged his elbow against mine.

"What do you want to do this evening, Hero?" Addam asked, and his arms slunk lower, tight around my waist. I leaned back against him, looked at Brand.

"What do you need?"

Brand snorted. "We aren't fucking making this about me," he said, as though I couldn't feel the anxiety sparking through our bond, as though I hadn't felt it all day. I looked at him, and he paused, just for a second, and then nodded.

I smiled at him, and reached out my arms for him, and he tucked against my body, and I was held. I ran my fingers up his sides, feeling his breath hitch. It wasn't easy, always. Addam was flexible and open to pretty much everything, but prone to levels of praise that could set Brand off on a panic attack. I didn't like anything that reminded me - and what reminded me varied from night to night. And Brand couldn't be restrained, his own preferences aside. He apparently had no problem with it with other people, but if it was us he needed to be able to move freely in case he had to throw himself on a grenade or jump in front of a knife.

We were a fucking mess.

But it worked. I settled down on the bed, as Brand closed the door and Addam stripped off his shirt. Shirtless was his natural state, as far as I could tell. I looked at him for a while, because I could, because I knew that Brand wanted me to do something and because Addam was really gorgeous, in a way entirely different from how Brand was. Burgundy and blue eyes stared at me, waiting for me to tell them what to do. I let the moment linger for a few seconds longer, licking my lips. "Help Brand out of his clothes," I instructed. Addam went to do that, pressing kisses to Brand's skin as he exposed it.

"You did so well with Max today," Addam told him. "You take such good care of our family. You're such a good protector." His voice was a deep rumble, his accent exaggerated, and it was clearly having an effect on Brand. I smiled, watching the way Brand squirmed slightly at the praise.

"Stay still, Brand. He's helping you-" I instructed, and then murmured a privacy cantrip.

Addam didn't snore. He was that level of perfect, and I knew I didn't deserve him. But I'd got him. I didn't deserve Brand either, and he did snore, but he was sprawled against me, and things were calm, and all was good - until a wave of nausea hit us both simultaneously and sent us scrambling for a bin.

There was a confused noise from behind us, and Addam walked over and rubbed our backs.

"He's being smug again," Brand muttered. "I could stab him in the kidneys. He'd be less smug then."

"I would just heal it," Addam answered, "and then continue being smug."

I groaned, but sunk back against his arms.

“I’m still considering the stabbing,” Brand announced, as he finished emptying his stomach. I muttered a cantrip to freshen our mouths, because that was a terrible start to the day. Brand looked at me, and rolled his eyes. “Sure, you can fix the aftermath.”

“More than you could do. All you’re doing right now is throwing up.”

“Rune, I take it back. Being your Companion is awful and I wish it had never happened.” He barely finished the sentence before I felt the spike of anxiety through the bond. He opened his mouth to apologise.

“I’m pregnant,” I told him quietly. “I can still tell when you’re joking. And I’m sorry. I can look into if there’s a way I can stop…” I swore under my breath. “Addam, you’re telling Lord Tower.”

“Why would I be the one to tell Lord Tower?”

“Because he likes you,” Brand said.

I shrugged and nodded. “You’re his favourite godson. You tell him you’re having a child, he’ll be delighted. I tell him, and-” I paused, and looked at Brand. “I’m going to be out of the field, aren’t I?” The Tower was going to be pissed. I couldn’t go in the field, and Brand wasn’t going to go without me. Two decades of investment wasted because I couldn’t keep my legs shut. And Lady Death was going to be insufferable.

Brand looked at me. “You aren’t meant to do any exercise that involves physical contact during pregnancy.” Addam looked like he was going to interrupt, but he shut up when Brand glared. “You are also not meant to exercise at heights above 2000 metres, or go scuba diving and deal with deep pressure, both of which I would remind you occurred last time you took a fucking elevator on a mission.”

I paused, and stared at Brand. “When did you research this?”

“Addam took over the barbecue and you were talking to Max,” Brand said. He swallowed. My Brand. I didn’t deserve him, not for a moment. Always keeping me safe. I wrapped my arms around him.

Brand shoved me away, managing to get an elbow in the ribs. “No. No emotions. Fuck, Rune can you not keep your hormones on your side of the bond?”

Addam sat back, and watched the two of us. Addam was still naked, and apparently the fact we’d both started the day puking our guts up wasn’t enough to end his interest in us. He smiled softly, reached out, tangled his fingers with mine and rested his head on Brand’s shoulder.

“I can speak to Lord Tower.”

“Later.” This was the kind of thing we were hiding for as long as possible. “Shit. What about your aunt?”

He stared at me. “What… why would you want me to tell my aunt?”

“She can do glamours.” I shrugged. “I don’t want this common knowledge.”

“Why?” Addam asked.

Brand stared at him, and narrowed his eyes. I knew he was furious - that his fear was turning into rage - even before he opened his mouth. “Because you fucking Atlanteans prey on weakness and a pregnancy is a pretty big one. How-” He shook his head. “Fuck, I can’t even ask Eve, I’ll have to talk to Mayan-”

“No telling Mayan,” I muttered. “He’ll have a lecture.”

“I need to know how to best protect you.” Brand swallowed. “Both of you. And then- Rune.” He looked at me, and his eyes were pained. “You know that - that people who want to hurt you - they go through our kids. And I- I love our family. I love our family, and I would - I would do anything to keep them safe but I-”

There was so much pain rolling off him at that moment. I wanted to say - I wanted to say something. To tell him that the kid was more important. But I couldn’t do that, not to him, not when I knew he couldn’t listen. He didn’t have a fucking choice. He had one purpose, and it wasn’t to protect the kid. I swallowed, and I knew what I was about to say was going to hurt him.

“Brand?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think our kid should have a Companion.”

An entire story of grief and agony and pain flickered across his eyes. And then he sealed it away from our bond, and nodded.

“I can’t buy a child,” I tried to explain.

“It wasn’t-” Brand stared at me. “Am I meant to put up with your self-flagellation? Am I meant- Am I meant to be happy that no human baby is being bought? What about what I want? I want to be involved in raising this kid-”

“And you will be.” Addam said softly. “I… admire the bond between the two of you. I know I could never-” he shook his head, and reached out, and kissed Brand softly, and then me. I was relieved I had studied a breath-freshening cantrip. He looked into my eyes. “I… I admire the two of you. But in this case… I think Rune is right. I am sorry.”

Brand stared at us, and grabbed his pants, pulled them on, and stormed out of the room. I winced, wondering if we’d made the right call, and knowing it was the only one I could make. I tried to send a placatory emotion through the bond. What I got in reply was the equivalent of Brand waving a sign saying ‘Fuck off’. But. It was a reply. That was good.

Addam’s arms wrapped around me, and I tried to remember how to breathe.

I swallowed, and took a moment to calm myself. I knew that Addam would support me, always. I didn’t know how to handle that certainty, but I had it. “Are you just… saying that to be on my side?” I wasn’t going to compromise. The thought of plucking a human child from their surroundings had disgusted me since I was five years old, and yet I knew that for Brand it was different.

“No,” Addam said, and he hesitated just for a moment before he continued speaking. “I cannot… I do not know, or wish to guess, where Mayan or Corinne were sourced from.”

I winced. It was hard, sometimes, when faced with Atlanteans’ power, to remember that we were not the only time that humans had been able to overpower others. They had cruelties throughout their histories that made our own seem lesser. It still did not feel right to think of infants being ‘sourced’.

“I do,” Addam continued softly, “know about Eve. Eve has been a part of my life since I drew my first breath - the Companion of my mother’s only surviving child.” He shook his head. I knew that the Crusader Throne had lost more than most in the war, as all of their scions were trained fighters. We acted as though it was a fair peace, not a surrender. We were refugees, and not an Atlantean among us forgot that.

I nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

“You understand that Companions are selected to look like their scions,” he said softly. “So that even before they can defend them actively, they offer a degree of protection. It must have crossed your mind that Eve.. would never make a good match for Christian.”

“Indeed.” Of course, there were ways. I had wondered if Eve had been trans, if Addams’ treasured nephews and nieces had grown from Eve impregnating Christian.

“It was my mother,” he said quietly. “Many Courts… Many houses… choose two bloodlines they believe are promising. But Christian was to be a heir scion of a vital Court. My mother knew war was coming. It was more than a hundred years away. But it was coming. Ensuring the best possible Companion… could not be left to chance. And so she chose four bloodlines. And she cross bred them, twenty years before she chose to have an heir of her own. And then again. One child was…. Was not viable. And the other was timed to be born a few short weeks before her own pregnancy. Eve was female. But she had been planned, for a long time.” He looked at me. “I do not… I cannot support this. I do not… my mother did not just have one child with a Companion. She had several, until… until the war. And in the end, her children’s Companions could not save them from what happened. They died together.” He frowned, mourning siblings he had never known.

I squeezed his hand.

“I would speak in your favour regardless, Hero. I know this matters to you. And perhaps, if you had chosen that the child must have a Companion, I would have allowed myself to be persuaded. But knowing your thoughts… I will not change my mind.”

I leaned in, and kissed his cheek, and went to track down Brand.

He looked at me, blue eyes sparkling. “What’s next?” He asked me. “You choosing to support those Companions’ Rights groups that think all of us should be freed and returned to the nation of our birth…” He looked at me. “I don’t regret, for a moment, that I was given to you.”

“Even when I’m an ungrateful shit?” I offered, and that made him smile. I squeezed his hand. “I don’t regret you either. But this is a new age.”

“There are still children to be bought,” he told me, as though that wasn’t a horror about the human world. Humans could judge lives so briefly - but Atlanteans did the same. I thought of Quinn, whose own mother turned her back due to his weakness.

“And maybe one day we will care for one. But we have five children of our own - six, now,” I looked at him. “I am already tiring. We have a family already. I am already… I am afraid of people who mean to hurt our family. I cannot… I will not… weigh any of my children against another. I’m sorry.” I let the bond fall open, showed him how much I felt about this.

He gazed at me, with those blue eyes that had been my greatest support since my first breath, and nodded. His arms wrapped around me, and I let out a shuddering gasp, because there were no words for this. I leaned into him, and his arms wrapped around me. We didn’t speak. My mouth felt dry. He stroked my hair. I didn’t complain.

Chapter Text

Despite his attitude, I knew one thing for certain. Brand would always put me first. He was my Companion, the closest I had to a talla, the best part of my soul. That didn’t mean there was never a time when I wanted to throttle him.

This was a case in point. He had brought out a list, and presented it to me at the dinner table.

Some of the list made sense.
1. No smoking - baby lungs can’t handle nicotine.
2. No getting stabbed in the stomach - if you can’t work this one out you’re fucking stupid.

There were other parts of the list that I disagreed with, but I could see the logic of.
7. Stay out of active fire situations - I know you.
14. No using your Aspect in its totality - there’s no research as to what the host turning into a pillar of fire does to a foetus.

And then there were some where I was pretty sure he was fucking with me:
28. No caffeine - bad for foetus.
57. No raw cheese.

I groaned, and wondered if I could set the list on fire. It was typed, rather than handwritten, so I suspected if I set it on fire a second version would appear. I tried it anyway.

The second version was laminated.

I stared at Brand, and at Addam, and then looked across at the boys. Max smiled at me. I was pretty sure he’d helped Brand prepare the list. I wondered if I was allowed to consider my firstborn an utter traitor.

Before I could ask, I noticed Quinn’s expression. He was chewing on his lip. “Did you already argue about the Companion thing?” He asked quietly. “Because you’re not meant to argue about that for another week.”

“Human babies take time to research and purchase,” I told him. Brand opened his mouth, and shut it again when both Addam and I glared at him. He shrugged, and I smiled nervously.

Quinn nodded, and stayed quiet, but his expression was very much doing that thing where he had seen something, and wasn’t sure what to say. I wondered if I should push him. “Is it about the baby?” I asked. I knew we weren’t meant to be pushing him - that Quinn’s very sanity relied on us not asking too many questions about future possibilities. But this was Quinn’s baby brother or sister. We had no money, but… if we had to scrape together the money for a healer for the baby, we would find it.

“The baby is healthy,” Quinn said quietly. “Very healthy. They- they’re a lovely child.” He swallowed, and licked his lips. “They first manifest an Aspect at three years old after getting into a fight at nursery.”

I smiled at him, feeling rather proud. Our child would have an Aspect. Quinn looked away.

I sighed. “Are they evil? Is that the problem? Is our child going to be some kind of world-ending monster?” Unfortunately, with the life I had, that was the kind of thing you had to check.

“No,” Quinn said quietly. “They’re lovely. Clever. You’ll be very proud.” And then he grabbed his plate, and ran out of the room.

I wondered if I should follow him. Before I could, Max did. Max was a good kid. I was proud of him - of how far he had come. And it angered me to think of how his grandmother had abandoned him simply because he wasn't impressive. He had a passable command of cantrips, but that was it. He hadn't been taught further, and then- I felt anger bubbling inside me.

"Calm," Brand said softly, and he rested a hand on my shoulder. "Look, if you are worried about these... maybe we can negotiate a few of them."

"You expect me to go nine months without coffee," I pointed out, because that was easier than pointing out that he wanted me out of the field for months. After the Hanged Man, we had more money than we'd had for a long time before. But we were burning through it at an astounding rate. If we didn't bring money in for nine months, the baby would be born into a newly-bankrupted Court.

"You don't need coffee."

"I need coffee."

"You won't be charging your sigils so often."

"Yes, I will." I looked at him. "I... I can get Exodus really built up."

Brand's hand squeezed mine, his finger brushing over the white-gold ring. "No. We need you."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. We'd argued about Exodus before. I wasn't strong enough to have that argument now. After a moment, he pressed his face against my shoulder, a silent comfort, and I took a deep breath, and tried to trust him. I would trust him. He needed that. I would always trust him. I would never have survived for as long as I had without him.

"I will fill them with mainly defensive magics, but I have to be able to protect our family."

"We will protect our family," Brand said quietly, frowning as he wrapped his arms around me. "You don't have to do things alone, Rune."

"I never have," I whispered, and I leaned against him. We ate, and Addam took up plates of food to the boys, because apparently Quinn didn't feel like talking to people at that moment, and I wasn't in the mood to force it.

That evening, I headed up to my room. Addam followed, having called to check in on the Dawncreeks, and his hands settled on my shoulders, fingers running over the old scars.

"Are you alright, Hero?" He asked me, and his voice was full of tenderness I didn't know how to handle. I nodded, and then relaxed as I heard footsteps on the steps up towards my room. The door opened, and Brand walked in, and he wrapped his arms around the two of us, pressing his face against my shoulder, and I took a shaking breath.

"I'm terrified," I whispered, and he laughed softly.

"Yeah, you and me both, Rune. I wasn't.... I didn't have this down on my list, it's bad enough with Max and he's somewhat self-sufficient. You can leave him on his own for an hour, and the most you've got to worry about is that he might get kidnapped. Babies can't lift up their own heads, what the fuck am I meant to do with that?!"

“They’re not so tricky really,” Addam said softly. He was smiling.

Brand stared at him. “We can’t afford an army of nannies and wet nurses, like you did for Quinn.”

“It’s my child too,” Addam said softly. He looked annoyingly smug, like he was proud of the situation we were in. Brand glared at him. He kissed my shoulder, then Brand’s cheek. “Let me help you. You two aren’t on your own.”

I stared at him. I didn’t want his help. I was proud - I had to be proud. I’d wrapped the shattered remnants of my Court around me, armed myself with scraps pillaged from the dust of my father’s empire - I couldn’t accept help. I had been fighting for what little I had for twenty years, and I couldn’t show any weakness. But it was different now. With Addam, everything was different.

“It’s his fault,” Brand said softly. He was resting his head on my shoulder, looking up at Addam. “He should have to pay for stuff, given that you’re doing all the hard work.”

I nodded, slowly. “We’re going to have to hide this for as long as we can.” I hated it. We were vulnerable, and a child was a target. “And we have to get more secure.”

Brand nodded, fidgeting slightly. “I’ll talk to Mayan. There… I can take jobs on my own.”

I didn’t like that. He didn’t like it either - we never took jobs on our own. It wasn’t safe. He’d be risking himself, and I wouldn’t be there to protect him. But if I wasn’t allowed in the field- “If it comes to that. We’ll focus on information gathering for now, easy jobs. Nothing more violent than a ghoul, and I’ll load up with Shields.”

Brand looked at me, and he nodded. We didn’t like this. We knew it wasn’t a good idea. But the alternative was worse.

Addam kissed me softly. “You are so brave, Hero. But you don’t have to face it all on your own.”

I shrugged slightly, and blinked as a look passed between them, and then Brand was slotting behind me, his arms around my waist, as Addam kissed me again.

“Moment you want us to stop, say,” Addam said. I tried to relax into it, to enjoy being between the two of them. I did like it - liked being held by them, keeping them safe. It worked, until it didn’t, and I gave a shake of my head. Brand had backed off before I managed it, and I winced.

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for,” Addam said quietly. “You lead the dance.” He said it so easily.

“Of the three of us, I’m the one with two left feet.”

“That’s why we let you lead,” Brand said. “We can duck out of the way…” He paused, and looked at me, opening the bond up between us, letting me feel his own thrill of desire. Some elements of Brand’s preferences were very different from my own, but the two of us could do this - could have the bond open at intimate moments. It was tricky - you learned, with a Companion, to seal the bond off when you were aroused, because otherwise pairs like ours would achieve very little once puberty hit. But as adults - when Brand and I were in the mood - it let me experience intimacy at a distance, in control. Desire came easily to Brand, in a way it didn’t to me, and I didn’t begrudge him it. Not when it felt like this.

He looked at me, smiled, and laid down on the bed. I took his hands in mine, lifted them so they were resting on the top of the mattress. “Hold still,” I told him, and felt his eagerness, and I left his hands there and turned to Addam. “You’ll take care of him for me, won’t you?”

Addam’s eyes were blown with lust, and he nodded. I was so fucking lucky to have them. Both of them. My darling boys, who found ways like this - who let me be in the middle of it all, even when I couldn’t - I smiled, and settled down on the pillows beside Brand, running a hand across the strength of his chest. “Hold still.” I pinched sensitive skin, and smiled at Addam, who licked his lips and leaned in and kissed me first.

I was asleep. I knew I was asleep - I was at a party, and I was wearing my normal clothes. I could see Addam and Brand dancing together, their arms around each other, and the music felt loud but it was at a distance, and I was smiling - I didn’t want to dance, but it was fun, watching them. I felt relaxed.

And then I caught sight of the figures in the corner of the room. Masked men. They had blades, knives, and they were circling the room. I tensed, and I could feel a weight over me, the walls closing in, and-

“Stop.” I looked up, and everyone had frozen. The room had returned to its previous dimensions. The men were still there - I could count four of them. Four missing. One gone. But they weren’t moving. And nor were Brand and Addam, who were smiling into each other’s eyes, and now all was still I could see that there were others I knew there - Lady Death had her arms around Layne, the two of them laughing. Quinn and Max were dancing - Max far more fluidly, Quinn wearing that excited look he had when he realised he was being included in something. Lord Tower and Mayan in the corner drinking something I didn’t want to taste. Corbie and Anna peering around the door. I felt panic in my chest, because there were four men I couldn’t see and my children were here.

“Stop.” This time the voice was closer, and I turned to see Ciaran - his hair midnight blue, lips blood red. He was striding through the room, pausing to stop a glass from falling, and then walking to stand before me. He looked at me, and sighed. “Can I make this a good dream?”

“You shouldn’t be in my mind.”

“No,” He agreed. “But Sweetness was sick with worry and calling out, and I appear to have overshot.”

I hated people interfering with my mind. I hated feeling like Ciaran could see, like an old wound was splayed out. It reminded me of Rurik. It reminded me of all the articles that Brand had burned. Ciaran gazed at me and reluctantly, I nodded. He snapped his fingers, and the masked men disappeared. The music and movement resumed, at a lower level. Max went running over to Corbie, swept him up in his arms, and it was - it was safe.

I looked at Ciaran, who looked at me, and nodded tensely.

“You don’t need to borrow trouble, little Sun.” He gazed into my eyes. “You’ve got enough coming your way as it is.”

Fucking Seers. I tolerated Ciaran. I loved Quinn. I hated Seers.

“I’ll be joining you for breakfast,” he said softly. The music grew louder. Ciaran vanished.

I looked around, and saw Addam and Brand were both looking at me.

I squared my shoulders, and walked over to dance with them.

Addam’s head was on my bad shoulder when I woke up, and there was no sign of Brand - he was probably out for his early morning run. I was wearing boxers. For me, that was a success - there were times I went to bed in normal clothes, and Addam complained the jeans were scratchy against his bare skin. I was wrapped in the blankets, which meant a fair amount of Addam was exposed.

I looked, and then the events of the previous night came back to me and I scrabbled for the sigils I didn’t sleep wearing.

“Shit.”

Addam blinked up. “Hero?”

“Ciaran’s on his way.”

Addam groaned, and grabbed his phone to tell Brand.

Five minutes later, Brand was back, Addam had made us coffee from his fancy percolator, and I had brushed my teeth and was finger-combing my hair. I summarised the previous night. “Ciaran dreamwalked last night. Apparently Quinn’s distressed and he’s coming over.”

“I hate this.” Brand looked at me. “He knows, doesn’t he? Or he’s going to know. Or he’s already known and-” He paused, and looked at Addam. “Did your brother know this was going to happen?”

“It’s not - Quinn’s power doesn’t work like that,” Addam said defensively. “He wouldn’t have been certain.”

“He could have warned us.”

“No.” I interrupted. “He made the right decision.” If I’d even considered the possibility, I’d have been even more reluctant to let Addam touch me, and probably would have gone to a healer and seen if there was some way we could avoid this. As it was, I was wondering about if there was some kind of infertility cantrip I should be looking into. But - but this was different. This was happening. I was glad it was happening.

Before I could voice that, the doorbell rang.

Chapter Text

Brand sighed, and wandered over to the real peep-hole. “It’s Ciaran,” he announced, making no effort to open the door.

I raised my eyebrow at him. He shrugged. I stared at him. He rolled his eyes. Our conversation was interrupted by simultaneous waves of nausea which sent us rushing over to the sink.

“Going to kill you,” Brand muttered.

“You’re a terrible Companion,” I told him in return.

A warm hand rubbed my shoulder, and I felt the ghostly echo of cooler touch against Brand’s.

“I’m sorry,” Addam said gently. “You’re both doing so well.”

I sighed, and looked at Brand, and he nodded. “We should kill him instead,” Brand suggested. I considered agreeing.

Behind us, I could hear Max opening the door and welcoming Ciaran into our home.

I looked over to him. Ciaran was well dressed - today he was wearing a blue glittery outfit with rather impressive shoulder-pads. I rather suspected that he had received that during our excursion to the 1980s. I stared at him, and took a breath, and he smirked at me.

"This is quite a mess you've got yourself into, little Sun."

"I-" I paused and looked over at the spiral staircase. Quinn was perching there, looking nervous.

"Hello, Sweetness," Ciaran greeted, with a surprisingly gentle smile.

"Why are you here?" Brand asked, having rinsed out his mouth. I took a sip of water as well and walked over to offer Ciaran my hand. He took it and shook it. He was wearing white gloves today, and it made him look like a musician or something else. I didn't voice that.

Addam paused. "Would you like a coffee?"

"Would I-" Ciaran began, then shook his head. "I've heard from Quinn that Rune isn't always the best at checking if the milk is in date."

"That was once."

"Once in this timeline," Ciaran corrected, which was irritating. I reminded myself that Ciaran was our friend now, and that I appreciated his help, and that he was a very powerful Principality, an Arcana without a Court. It would be a bad idea to argue with him.

Brand, apparently, did not listen to such concerns. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here, because Quinn needs me to tell you something. Because sometimes, Brand, when he tells you this - you handle it very badly. Very. Badly."

"That's not fucking ominous or anything," Brand muttered.

Ciaran looked at him. "Sometimes you use the f-word." Given my Companion's inability to make it through more than a sentence without swearing, we both knew that he didn't mean 'fuck'. I glanced over at Quinn, who had made it down the stairs and was leaning against Max. Quinn was very sensitive about being called a freak. Ciaran pressed his lips together, looking at us. "I'm not going to force a vow from a human, and I won't compel you, as Sun doesn't like it. So I will tell you simply that if you do say that, you will hurt Quinn a great deal." There was no further threat. There didn’t need to be.

"Okay, so some other-mes are arseholes." Brand shrugged. "That's not news." He looked towards Quinn. "This isn't going to be one of those times."

Quinn managed a weak smile. The poor boy was genuinely hurting, and I could see that bothered Brand - he didn't like hurting people he cared about, and alternative timelines were outside of his control.

"Whatever it is, spit it out," I muttered. I wasn’t enjoying Ciaran’s dramatics, which was unfortunate, because Ciaran was nothing but dramatics.

Ciaran looked at me and raised his hands. "It's important you understand that there are three people responsible for the mess you are in, Sun, and Quinn is not amongst them."

"I understand."

"And you really are quite fertile." He paused, and I ran through what Quinn had said. I didn’t think I could handle twins. Quinn had always spoken in the singular. Ciaran looked around us. "What I am about to tell you... we have to keep it within the people in this room. Perhaps, if it is something you need to do, you can tell your patron. But no one else."

"Understood." I spoke for all of us. I already knew that we were in a great deal of danger if the news became known. We were too vulnerable already, without a baby-shaped target on our backs.

"We might also have to tell Diana," Addam said quietly. Reluctantly, I nodded. Quinn paused, and his nose leaked blood. He wiped at it with his handkerchief, then nodded as well. I tried to feel relieved.

"She will say some unpleasant things when she finds out," Quinn admitted, nibbling on his lip. "But she will keep the child safe."

"Alright." Ciaran took a deep breath and nodded. "That will have to do. Sun? I want your permission to tell you your child's Aspect."

I hesitated. An Aspect was an incredibly personal thing, something that you only discovered as you grew. It was the kind of thing that normally was shared only with those closest to you. "Are you sure?"

"It's important," he said. Quinn had said our child would manifest their Aspect when they were three years old. Knowing the child had an Aspect was important, but I couldn't at first understand why it would matter. And then I thought of the Hanged Man's Aspect, imagined holding the infant version of that.

"Don't make me puke again," Brand hissed, and I tried to breathe through the mental images, pushing them away. There was no reason why our child would have an Aspect like that. A moment later another thought occurred to me. Lady Justice, Addam's mother, had an Aspect that was in the form of a giant spider. It was a secret that we would take to our grave, but Brand was not particularly fond of spiders. It didn't interfere with his work, but a three year old turning into a spider unexpectedly when he was holding it was the kind of thing that would get said three year old drop-kicked. Brand didn't like being startled.

"Alright." I looked at Ciaran. "If it's important, you can tell us. What is it?"

"A pillar of fire. What Atlanteans tend to call a burning man, although it’s gender neutral as a term."

I stared at him, confused. I would have expected that - it was my Aspect, my father's Aspect. It was rare, but it was strong in my bloodline.

Brand pulled out his cell phone and was typing away. I glanced over. I saw that he was researching fire-proof playpens.

Addam frowned. I didn't understand, but I think Addam was starting to decipher all the cryptic bullshit we were being given. I looked at Ciaran.

"Well?"

Ciaran exchanged a look with Quinn, and Quinn nodded.

"You're not pregnant, Rune," Ciaran said. The use of my name shocked me almost more than what he was saying. It didn't make sense. I was. I was sure of it. I knew it was - I knew I was. I was throwing up every morning. I was-

"That's not possible," Addam said quietly. "There's no record-"

"It happened," Ciaran said quietly. "Rarely. In Atlantis it wasn't unheard of, although it was unusual. And now... well, our little Sun does like to keep things interesting, doesn't he?"

Brand looked up at me, turning his cell phone so I could see what he'd found - apparently someone had worked out that fireproof playpens were in demand from Atlantean parents. "This one's got asbestos in."

"Is that safe?" I asked, putting aside what Ciaran had said to focus on the problem ahead of me - and then a moment later I remembered what Ciaran had said. I wasn't pregnant. There was no need to buy a playpen. But Quinn had been so sure-

Brand shrugged. "As long as the kid doesn't gnaw on it. I'm buying it."

"But Ciaran-" I began, and Brand shrugged and hit buy. He had realised as well what was going on, and I was running along behind, lost and confused.

"This isn't one of those times I’m an arsehole, Quinn. It’s not on you. Your brother, however-" Brand said softly. "And it's your fault, Rune. Our baby will catch fire and that's on you."

"But-" I stared at him. We didn't have a baby. That was what Ciaran- I stared at Brand. Brand's brilliant blue eyes stared back into mine, and I understood. I hadn't expected to understand. But I felt everything falling into place.

"I've not been making you sick," I said. He looked at me, and he nodded. I took a breath. "You've been making me sick."

He nodded again. I stared at him, and then turned, and walked over to the stairs. I headed up to my room, and then came back.

"Don't you dare," he muttered.

I smirked at him, and handed over the list. The one that he had laminated. I tapped number seven, “Stay out of active fire situations”.

Brand stuck his middle finger up, and walked off. Addam went to follow him, but I caught his arm.

“Give him space, just… just for now. He needs a moment.” At times like this, when Brand felt vulnerable, he couldn’t stand anyone seeing. I tried to send affection through our bond. He didn’t push me away. A few breaths, and he sent comfort back, a silent sense of forgiveness.

Ciaran clapped his hands together. “You sure do keep things interesting, Sun.”

I didn’t enjoy being the entertainment. I looked at him calmly. He shrugged, and turned to Addam, his lips seeming to grow even brighter, like raw blood. “Didn’t you have any snacks? I said I was coming for breakfast.”

Addam made no attempt to move away from me. That helped. His burgundy eyes were full of concern, and I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t know what I could say that would help. I didn’t know if I should apologise. Companions weren’t Atlantean, but they weren’t quite human either. There was magic that worked on them that didn’t work on other humans. And apparently, this was part of it.

“Ciaran, I’ll find you something to eat,” Max said, and he guided Quinn through to the kitchen. I tried not to worry about what two teenagers might decide was edible, and instead closed my eyes and tried to focus on the bond. I didn’t know what I could say to comfort him. I wasn’t sure he wanted this.

“He bought the playpen,” Addam said softly. I nodded. I knew that Brand wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t sure about going ahead with this. I could see now that Quinn had played us, in a way - he’d let us get attached to the idea, before- before we’d found out the truth. That was why some versions of Brand kicked off, because they worked it out and they panicked. I was excited. But this was going to be hard for us - for all of us, but Brand most of all, because he wouldn’t be able to protect me as well as he normally did.

Addam smiled at me sadly. “I’m here for you both.”

“Thank you.” I felt a faint tug on my bond. “I think Brand wants to talk to me.” I turned, and headed out into the garden, reaching the door before I realised I wasn’t on my own. I turned, and looked at Addam, and shook my head. I could see the pain in his eyes. But I knew with utter certainty that at this moment, Brand didn’t want to see anyone other than me.

“I… I understand.” Addam managed. He was hurting. I squeezed his mismatched hands.

“We won’t make any decisions without you. I’ll bring him back in. But he needs me to talk to him.”

He nodded, and leaned down to kiss my forehead, and I took a breath and headed out to the garden. Brand was standing by the hedge, glaring over at the neighbour’s manicured lawn, but as I approached he turned to face me.

“I-” He managed a weak smile. I could feel his tangle of emotions - fear, and anger, and guilt and hopelessness. “I didn’t mean to take this from you,” he said, and that was nonsensical. “At least you don’t need to worry about the health risks. It's not the same, but at least this time it’s me getting their body destroyed.” He was aiming for joking, and instead it was bitter, and- I reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

“Brand. It’s not like that. Alright?” I tried to sound firm. “We are having a child. It’s nothing like-”

“It should have been me before.” It was an ongoing guilt, one that reared its head when he was at his most vulnerable. His voice shook slightly, and I stepped forwards and I embraced him, pressing my forehead into his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me. I appreciated, a great deal, what Mayan and the Tower had done for the two of us. They had saved us both, at a point when few would have given us a chance. But I would never forgive the way they’d got inside Brand’s head, as he was grieving and lost, and convinced him that not only should I not have been tortured (something I would have agreed with) but that it should have been him instead.

“That night, those men, don’t get to have anything to do with our children.” I swallowed, afraid. There was- there were bad men out there, and our child would be vulnerable. There were eight I still needed to fear. But I wasn’t on my own. I looked at Brand. “All of this, it’s your choice.” I’d wanted one thing. That didn’t mean Brand did.

“Our body, our choice,” he said with a weak smile, and I nudged my head against his shoulder again. He took a breath.

“It’s your choice Rune. I want what you want. But I’ve got… I’ve got to know. Am I your surrogate?” My first thought was if he thought we were telling the Arcanum - but no. That wasn’t - he was thinking of something more. He was asking me- he was asking if- I took a breath, and met his gaze.

“This baby is ours. Mine, and yours, and Addam’s.”

“I’m a Companion.”

“Exactly.” I looked at him. “Are you telling me Corinne’s children aren’t hers? And she didn’t have anything to do with the pre-birth bits.”

“She’s their aunt.”

“You’re… you’re whatever you are. You’re a part of this.” I rested my hand against his stomach, and he paused and rolled his eyes, which I knew was a smile.

“You’re not trying to x-ray me, are you?”

“It’s too dark,” I pointed out, which set him shaking his head, which was like a laugh, and then I laughed too. I paused. There was no point straining my magic for any sparks of life yet - we had Quinn’s prediction, and Ciaran’s.

Brand looked at me. “The fuck do we do?”

I swallowed. “You think you can face breakfast with Ciaran?”

He groaned, but nodded. I entwined our fingers, squeezed for a moment, and then let go.

“Brand? We’re going to need a bigger house.”

He looked at me, his eyes piercing. “It’s not safe.”

“At the moment it’s so not-safe you can’t set foot on the grounds. I can take Addam, do some initial surveys.” I hesitated. “They didn’t torch the upper halls.”

He looked at me and I knew we were both thinking the same thing.

“You aren’t risking your life for it, Rune.”

“I-” I looked at him. “I’ll just be checking the house. I don’t know if we can get the estate inhabitable in time. But if we happen to locate it on our searches-”

“You are too fucking soft,” Brand told me. “But sure. Let’s go in, see what Ciaran wants, and then we can tell Addam the two of you are going to be risking your lives for a fucking crib.”

Chapter Text

I adjusted my earpiece, more out of reflex than anything. I felt the normal tangled mix of emotions I felt on my personal scavenger hunts, only now with more awareness than ever of the potential dangers. There were a lot of risks involved in coming here, and I did not normally bring company.

The last time I'd visited the Sun Estate, I'd found papers explaining how my father had purchased Brand. It didn't exactly make me eager to go back. I took a deep breath, and felt Brand pushing reassurance at me. He was clumsy with it, but I nodded and tried to appreciate what he was doing.

"You both stay on earpieces the whole time," he said quietly. "Any signs of trouble that you can't handle, and I'm calling for backup." I knew that it was killing him, offering that rather than going in himself. But it was necessary - he couldn't go on the estate anyway. I smiled nervously.

"We'll just see what we can find."

"Grab something valuable," he told me. "Not some bullshit paperwork."

"Got it." I paused, and then leaned in and hugged him. He stared at me, but he returned the embrace.

"Fuck's got into you, Rune?"

I shrugged. "Hormones?"

"Stop using my hormones to excuse that you're huggy..." he paused, and looked at me. "No... no wasting sigil spells, alright? I know... I know." He met my gaze steadily. "But the most important thing is you two coming out. It's been two decades."

I nodded. I could put spirits to rest, but not without cost - I had loaded one spell for that, meditating for hours, but the rest of my spells were offensive magic. I had Addam with me, and he would be carrying Healing and Shields in his own personal armoury. I had to take one. If my father - I would put everyone to rest, in time, but- Brand's hand squeezed my shoulder, and I tried to forget the image that had ended up in the papers.

Brand took a deep breath, and turned his attention to Addam. "Look after him, Saint Nicholas."

"I'll bring him back to you," Addam promised.

Brand must have been feeling emotional, because he nodded sharply. "To us." Addam smiled, a bright real thing, and then I was using Levitation to get us both in the air.

Addam looked up at the house, and I heard him gasp. I felt strangely embarrassed, as though I was somehow failing him as well as everyone else because my family estate was not pristine, or even inhabitable. I saw Addam take in the overgrown grounds, the patches where plants refused to grow, the cracked windows and broken walls. Two decades had not been kind. But it was only nature fighting us. No one was stupid enough to try and steal from cursed ground.

"Rune, I-"

"It's a mess, I know."

"This..." His accent crept out. "This is too much. For you. For anyone. We can't go in here."

"I'm going in." I turned and looked at him. "I know this place. And this is our home. The family won't all fit in Half House, and I can't just move into your condo."

Addam fell silent but I knew he was rubbing at the thought, poking at it like an infected tooth.

"Stay close," I instructed him, making my way over the grounds. I could see the flickers of ghosts, but it was dawn, and these were not dangerous. I tried not to focus on them, not to see faces I knew. "We can't stay long. Bigger things will get us."

"Last time we were here, Rune got injured by a wight," Brand interrupted helpfully. "It's like getting beaten up by a pensioner..." I could hear the smirk in his voice. "And Rune ended up blasting a hole in the conservatory. Try and make sure he doesn't do that again today."

"I shall do my best," Addam replied with a soft look at me. "But Hero - this is not safe for you to come alone."

"I'm not alone. Brand's got drones, and earpieces, and he's stalking me through my phone, and he's probably stalking you because he thinks that tracking software shows love."

"Rune-"

"No." I swallowed and looked at him. "I've come here a lot, through the years. I am better armed today than I have ever been before, and that is even without you here. I first came with one ring, and I couldn't-" I shook my head. Addam reached over to squeeze my hand. I squeezed right back before letting go.

I darted ahead, up to the window on what had been the nursery. It was foolish. Normally if I was going to do this kind of thing, I would be hoping for treasure - a valuable painting, or maybe a sigil. But- I needed this. We needed this.

"There are ghouls in the orchard again," Brand interrupted. "I think they caught a deer, but I'm using a flesh bomb to keep them away."

Addam looked at me. "What now?"

"That window-" I pointed to a sash. "If you can use telekinesis, I can get in and get it-"

Addam waved a hand, and the window lifted open, creaking with age, the wood swollen by passing years. I approached, diving inside and only just keeping my feet off the ground.

"Are you alright?" Addam asked.

"I'm fine. You stay outside-" I looked around. The entire estate was in a bad way. I didn't know how we could live here. But- the crib was still there, in the corner of the room, surrounded by rotting cushions and abandoned books.

I paused, picking up a small wooden dagger Brand had loved once, and then bringing my feet down, so I could approach the crib. The mattress and pillow and toys were damaged, rotting, but the wood itself was strong. I used a spell to lift it, tipping out the waste and then guiding it over to the window, while I constantly kept alert for any sign of danger.

The door creaked open, and a pale figure stared out at me. Her face looked almost familiar, but I didn't- I pushed the crib out, and felt Addam lift it, and then I turned and ran when she jumped forwards towards me.

I hissed in pain, and tried to focus. "Fuck." I was hovering outside the house, with Addam.

"What?"

I held up my foot. Long, sharp fingernails had torn through my trousers and socks, and blood was running down my shoe and dropping down to the ground below. "I'm bleeding."

"I've got a Heal."

"Get out of there," that was Brand, because he knew the danger. We both did. If I was bleeding, I was a target. Things, hungry things, would be seeking me out.

"On our way," Addam answered, and he used his telekinesis to move himself, me, and the crib towards the visitor's carpark. My leg was blistering where it had been scratched, but getting out was the priority.

We landed by the car. I stumbled, on my bad ankle, and Addam landed smoothly, the crib clutched to his chest.

"Was it worth it?" Brand hissed. "You're hurt. Saint Nicholas-"

"I've got it-" Addam promised, and then there was that sunburn sting of healing magic. Addam placed our crib in the car with startling reverence, and then looked at us both. "You cannot fix that."

"Not alone. We just need to arrange-"

"Let me arrange." He looked. "As a present. For our child. Let me help, and do what needs to be done. I want you to have a home, and that is not- that is not a home."

I swallowed. "I want the haunts moved. Same with the spirits... or put to rest, not..."

"I understand." He looked at us both. "Let me do this for you?"

Brand looked at me, and nodded.

"We'll pay for what we can," I said quietly.

"Alright. I'll find the contractors." He took a deep breath. "It is the right crib, yes?"

I smirked at him, but looked at it and nodded. "It is." I paused. "Oh. And Brand, I got you a present." I pulled out the wooden blade.

There was a moment where my Companion glared, but then he rolled his eyes and snatched it so I counted that as a success.

"We get the crib home, and make a plan of attack?" I suggested, and the others agreed. I noticed that the blade had ended up in Brand's pocket.

I smirked at him. He shook his head, but said nothing, which I was counting as a victory.

“So what got you?” He asked, casually.

“A wight.” The lie I needed to tell Brand, and I focused on the truth of that. I regretted that I hadn’t had the chance to put her to rest. But I had been bleeding and that would draw danger to Addam, so I had fled when I’d got the chance. I pushed down the part of me trying to work out which of the nursemaids it had been, before it had become what it was now. I could remember a faint smell of roses, a soft voice singing- I shook my head and focused. It was a wight that had injured me, because it had to be a wight.

He looked at me, and there was a flicker of scepticism in his gaze. “Another wight? You’re getting slow.”

“Good thing I’ve got you two to keep me safe.”

“Oh absolutely,” Brand smirked. “You sit on your ass and send the pregnant man into danger for you.”

He drove us back. I would have driven, but I wanted to sit with Addam in the back. I looked at the crib. It was oak, ancient, but I remembered it now, in faded snatches - there was the enamel sun emblem I remembered at the head of the crib, remembered reaching up to it eagerly, Brand beside me. Only it crossed my mind now that this wasn’t enamel - it was jewel work, some of the finest I’d seen, and I knew well one of the few people alive who had mastered jewel work - one of the last keeping the art form alive. I knew Lord Tower and my father had been close, but it was strange to think of him being trusted with the crib, adding his own touch to it. I brushed my fingers over it, wondering which stones - citrine, with amber for the rays, I suspected.

“We should put the crib in the sanctum for now,” I said, because it felt right. I didn’t know exactly why, only that it had been somewhere bad, and I wanted - I wanted to fix it, before it was used. I wanted to be near it, to chase away the memories it had lived with since I had used it last.

Brand nodded, going to lift it. Addam raised an eyebrow, and flicked his fingers, using telekinesis to carry it up the stairs.

“Fuck,” Brand muttered. “Max presented me with a fitness plan earlier. Later on there are a lot of rules around how much I can do. And Addam won’t let me lift things. I hate this.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was. He stared at me, and shook his head.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, but ignored it. A moment later, Basket Case began blaring from Brand’s phone. He answered it the way he’d defuse a bomb.

“What is it?” A moment later he sighed and held it out. “It’s for you. Quinn says you don’t answer your phone.”

I sighed and took it. “Hello, Quinn.”

“I need your permission to teach Max how to use spells stored in sigils,” he said quickly, which was a concerning start to a conversation. “I know you’re going to teach him how to store and use them but you can’t, not until you’ve got the new sanctum, and-”

“That-” I frowned. I was planning to teach Max, it was just that I’d been busy. “I will teach him.”

“I know. And I won’t stop that, it’s important, I’m just teaching him how to empty them.”

That was strange. There were very few reasons why a scion would need to be able to empty a sigil and not store a spell. There were people you could hire, but spells responded better when it was your own work. Emptying was easier than storing, but with rare exceptions it wasn't worth the effort. Perhaps if you wanted a hugely advanced spell, but a beginner couldn’t hope to control those.

“Quinn-”

“Please. It’s important. And you get angry if I don’t ask for permission so-”

I rubbed at my forehead. “Quinn… is Max going to head into trouble?”

“It-” Quinn took a deep breath. “Rune. Look. It’s important.” I hated when he did this. He was being worryingly clear - he’d seen something, and he wasn’t sharing what it was. “He’s not going to get into any trouble on his own, and we want your permission.”

“Are the two of you planning on going anywhere, or doing anything, that you shouldn’t?” I asked, because that seemed like the kind of thing that a responsible guardian should ask.

“No. We’re not planning on it. And Max won’t be on his own. Please.”

I knew that if I was Addam, I would be able to work my way through Quinn’s complicated system of not-actually-lying. I supposed that I deserved it for lying to Brand. “Alright. You can teach him. Or I can.”

“It has to be me,” Quinn said quickly. “Thanks.” He hung up, and Brand looked at me.

“What are the kids doing now?” He asked. “Do I want to know?”

“No,” I sighed. “Quinn wants to teach Max how to use filled sigils. It’s the wrong order but… he sounded pretty desperate.” In a way, asking for permission was progress.

Brand groaned. “That one is Addam’s problem.”

I nodded. “Why is there never just one problem?” I asked. Brand bumped his elbow against mine, and grabbed his phone back. I took a deep breath, and held it, and looked at him. “Okay. We’ve got the crib. Now what?”

Brand hesitated. “We speak with Lord Tower about this situation.”

I groaned. I heard Addam come back down the stairs, and he walked over, wrapping his arms around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

“Brand says we’ve got to talk to the Tower.” I rubbed at my forehead. “And I really don’t know how to start that conversation.”

Chapter Text

“I assume this isn’t a social visit,” Lord Tower said as the three of us walked in, “given you’ve brought Brandon with you.”

I tried not to tense. Brand needed to be here - this was about him, more than any of us. More than that - Brand and I - we were partners. Sometimes I would deal with Lord Tower on my own, because he and Brand would snipe at each other, but - but I needed this. I used visiting Lord Tower as an excuse for privacy in my past, and even if that didn’t always work - this was different. Brand had to be here. I shook my head. “I need to- we need to talk to you.”

Addam was behind me. Brand was at my side, slightly in front, because he’d got pissy when I’d tried to take point on the way over here - and then I’d nearly been hit in the head by a low-flying pixie of all things, so he had been too busy being smug to get anxious about Lord Tower until we’d been two blocks away.

Max and Quinn were at home, mostly because I wanted to keep the Tower away from Quinn. Quinn was incredibly powerful and wanted to help, and therefore was perfect Arcana-catnip. I owed my life to Lord Tower, and what he had done for us. That didn’t mean I wasn’t aware he was after Quinn. Anyone who understood what Quinn could do wanted him. Lord Tower was Quinn’s godfather, and his friend, and at times I still worried. Quinn attracted trouble.

“You’d best come in.” He turned, tapping at his watch as he walked away. We got the lift up to the penthouse, rather than down to the War Room, which was a relief - I didn’t think I could handle any more major news. I looked around. It was strange - it had been ten years since we left, and part of me still thought of this as home.

“You got a new bookcase,” I commented. He smiled at me, that soft way he had sometimes, the way I had once thought was beautiful.

Brand was tense. I could feel his anxiety buzzing through our bond like caffeine, and I tried to calm him. He stepped closer, guarding me.

Mayan stepped out of the Tower’s personal office, and nodded a greeting. I tried to smile back. Mayan was severely dressed, plain apart from his obsidian hairclip, and he was heavily armed. I could feel Brand prickling. He and Mayan were practically snarling at each other. I knew that the events of the past few months - first the lich, and then the fight with the Hanged Man - Brand had earned a few crumbs of respect from Mayan. I hoped this wasn’t about to lose them.

Addam was blissfully unaware of the tension. He walked into the office, and paused, staring at one of Lord Tower’s paintings - a naked youth, sitting at the edge of the pool at sunset. He turned and looked at me, and I looked back at him in silence.

“This is how rumours start, Hero.”

“They already have,” I reminded him. Addam glanced at the painting once more. I didn’t know if he could see the details of the jewelwork, the sapphire in the water, the obsidian in the hair. A lone figure in the setting sun. It was tasteful at least. If Addam understood, he didn’t say any more.

I sat with my back to the painting. Addam hesitated, looking at Brand as though expecting him to sit, then sighing and seating himself to my left - so that I could hold his right hand.

Lord Tower looked at the three of us. “Well?”

“We are restoring the Sun Estate, godfather,” Addam spoke. “I will be meeting with you to discuss the best contractors, as there is somewhat of a time pressure.”

Mayan moved into our line of sight. I understood he wanted to watch our expressions. I tried very hard not to look like a teenager being reprimanded. I was a grown man now, and I could make my own fuckups and be proud of them.

“The Sun Estate - Even with all of Rune’s… funds… there won’t be enough.”

“I plan to add my own funds.”

“Have you spoken to your mother about it?”

“I don’t need to,” he answered. “The Crusader Throne’s accounts make allowances for the care of any infant children.”

That was blunt. I felt Lord Tower look at Addam - strong, muscular and a fighter, and then look towards me - the long-rumoured ‘most beautiful man of my generation’ and all that bullshit. He arched an elegant eyebrow at me. “You’re an adult now Rune. You can arrange your own abortion.”

The dismissal stung more than I would have expected it to. Addam’s hand squeezed my own. I met the Tower’s eyes without flinching. “That won’t be necessary.”

“But Annawan Dawncreek-”

“Remains my heir.” I looked at him. “There are plenty of Courts whose heirs are not the initial child. Even taking children from the Greater Houses-”

“The Dawncreeks were only ever a Lesser House.”

“They are a Greater House now,” I said, and I kept my voice calm.

“Congratulations,” Lord Tower said, with coldness, to me, and then he smiled at Addam. “You will be a wonderful father, after the care you showed to Quinn.”

“We need your expertise,” Addam said softly.

“With the pregnancy? I was married to a woman, Addam. Dayton and Amelia happened the traditional way.”

Mayan leaned down, the movement elegant, and whispered something against Lord Tower’s ear. I knew he was doing it for show, had seen before that the strength of their bond had progressed almost to telepathy - he and Lord Tower were not close, the way that Brand and I were close, but centuries of a bond had an effect. If Mayan wanted to communicate a message, he did not need to whisper.

There was a flicker of surprise in Lord Tower’s gaze, which I almost felt proud of, gone in a moment. He nodded sharply. “Brandon, it appears you took some of Mayan’s instruction around protecting your scion somewhat more literally than intended.”

I could feel Brand was ready to stab something. Maybe Lord Tower, or Mayan, which would be suicide. Or maybe Addam and me for getting him into this mess. I hoped, if he was stabbing anything in this room, it’d be that stupid painting. I took a breath.

“We plan to keep this quiet. At least for now. The other Arcana will not necessarily take the news well.”

Lord Tower paused, struck for a moment, and then nodded. “I see the wisdom in that.”

“We will still-” I paused. Could I even offer to take jobs for him at the moment? There were rules in place, and… “We are still looking into work. There are months yet before we need to worry about the future. We need funds. For now my focus is on restoring the Sun Estate.”

“I would like you to know,” Lord Tower said quietly, “that I would not be going about this the way that you are. But you are your own person, Rune. I cannot… approve.” He looked at me, and at Brand. “But I think your father would have been delighted.”

I nodded, once. I knew that was closer to a compliment than I could have hoped for from the older man. “We fetched our crib from the Estate. I saw the jewel work.”

“He was… he was excited about the arrival of his heir,” Lord Tower said softly. “For the arrival of both of his boys. Your father… he was kinder than an Arcana should be.” We both knew where that had ended up. He didn’t say any more - we sat, looking at each other.

It was Lord Tower who moved first. “I do not know if you’re going to be taking a move back from other commitments? This seems an extreme step-”

“No.” I was aware of how things worked. What had happened to me on that night should not have happened - Arcana Courts would tear each other apart, but children were expected to be shown a degree of care. Pregnant individuals were not. The best I could do for Brand was to shore up our position.

“Understood.”

There was no argument. He had expressed disapproval, but it had not been as harsh as it had once been. He was respecting my own choices, and that frightened me in a way I didn’t know how to convey. I tried to stay calm. Brand’s hand rested against my shoulder, and Addam’s thumb brushed my palm.

Lord Tower looked between us, weighing something up. He nodded to Mayan, who handed him a manila folder. “I have not yet tracked down Matthias’s uncle. But I have found some traces of the remains of the Lovers’ Court.” He passed the folder over. I took it, looking down at it. I’d gotten a great many missions over the past two decades like this. But it was different - I had been the one to start this investigation. Lord Tower was still shielding me, offering me protection as I found my feet. I did not know what to make of that. I was meant to be able to stand alone, and I felt lost.

“The information I have is there,” he said quietly. “But Rune? I understand you have a lot of different priorities right now, and some challenging decisions to make. Whatever path you choose, make sure that you can follow it through.”

I nodded.

Lord Tower waved a hand, and the door to the office opened, servants bringing in drinks. I tried not to smirk when I realised he had presented Brand with a bottle of non-alcoholic beer. Mayan took a sealed bottle of water. The rest of us had sangria. I put the folder in my jacket to deal with later, and Lord Tower looked at us. “You should stay for lunch.”

“Sundrop fish make me puke,” Brand said, mostly to be a brat, because we’d need at least another six zeroes in our bank account before we’d be considering trying sundrop fish again. “And so do mushrooms grown from caterpillars. Or mushrooms generally.”

“I see. We’ll put you on a more… simple diet, Brandon. Bread and water perhaps?”

Brand looked at him. “Rune and I share a bond.”

Lord Tower looked at me, and sighed, one elegant hand raising to rub at the bridge of his nose. “I’ll see what can be arranged.”

Mayan left. I knew he was busy, trying to handle all of Lord Tower's security. I wondered if that was Brand's future. I didn't think he wanted that - he was meant to be beside me, not tucked away behind a computer screen. But for the next few months- I paused, and hurried after Mayan.

"Mayan?"

He turned and looked at me, and I felt rather self-conscious. It wasn't anything he was doing, it was simply that his presence had that effect on me. I tried to smile through it, rather than blurt out anything embarrassing. Once I was calmer, I looked to him. "I have a favour to ask."

He inclined his head.

"I know that you often let Brand make use of your arsenal on field missions. Given the situation - if there is any surveillance equipment you could spare, or anything- anything ranged-"

"Brand's purpose is to look after you," he told me, and there was something close to gentleness in his voice.

"I know. I know that and I-" I didn't want to have this argument with Mayan. I hated having it with Brand. We were partners, he shouldn't sacrifice himself for me. But there was little point arguing that with Brand, and less in trying to argue it with Mayan. "I know. But I want him safe while he's doing it. I've made him vulnerable right now, and I-"

"I can lend him a few things," Mayan said. "I'll expect them back once he's fully returned to the field."

"Thank you." My voice held steady, despite the wave of relief that crashed over me. It might be enough. It was more than I had otherwise. I half-expected a lecture from Mayan about weakening Brand's ability to keep me safe.

Instead, he looked at me. "I think, between the three of you, you have a chance of raising the child." Then he turned, and went off to do whatever secret spy shit he was doing for the Tower today.

I returned to find that Brand was pacing around the room, and Addam had sat down on the sofa. Brand was searching for bugs. I went to sit beside Addam, ignoring Brand's cursing and the noise of electronics being crunched.

"Has he not grown out of this by now?" Brand muttered.

Addam's fingers trailed along my spine, through my shirt. "We should look at that envelope."

I didn't want to. I knew that was foolish. Part of me just wanted to focus on what we had now, on keeping Max safe. I knew that starting down this path risked tearing the band-aid off a wound that for Max was still raw enough to bleed. But. That man was out there somewhere. And he posed a threat to Max - not because he could tear through my defences, because he couldn't do that. But because his existence left Max hunted. I knew more about that than most. Knowing your abusers were out there, that you might pass them on the street, it left an aching emptiness inside you. It was an awareness you carried with you, all the time, even decades later. I had to spare him that.

Brand approached, and he moved to sit on the other side of me. They were bracketing me, guarding me. It wasn't even my suffering, and they were still there to protect me.

"I can read it," Brand offered. He knew this might hurt.

I shook my head, opened up the folder. The first thing I saw was a photograph of a man and woman entwined, arms around each other as they laughed. They looked vaguely familiar, a memory from years ago. Perhaps scions I had known in my youth. The more startling thing though was the pale blond hair on both of them - the same as Max's.

Brand's lips had drawn into thin lines.

"What?" I asked him, because I knew from experience he was at least four steps ahead of me when it came to observation.

"Look at the lights."

I frowned, staring at old strings of electric lights. They looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place them. They weren't as in focus as the figures were.

"The Green Docks," Addam said softly.

I winced, and glanced at Brand. Brand shrugged.

"I can hardly identify a ship from that photograph. But you're getting towards the edge of the lights there, and- if it's something to do with the Lovers, it's not a part of the docks I ever - Rune." His hand rested on my arm. "I know how you feel about people being mindfucked."

"I-" I hesitated, and took a breath, feeling like I was teetering on a knife edge. "Would you have gone otherwise?"

"Oh, every week, I love having no fucking idea what I'm doing," Brand muttered, elbowing me. "No. Come on. You know me."

"I know you," I agreed, and leaned over and hugged him, the tension running away.

"Fucking hormones," he muttered, but he hugged me back, and then shoved me over towards Addam. "Saint Nicholas, you take over hugging duty, I'm looking through the folder."

Brand took the folder off me. I couldn't object, because Addam's arms were around me and Addam's arms were very warm. It was hard to object to such things. I nuzzled him.

"I wonder if he would let me have that painting," Addam said, half to himself. "I could put it up in my apartment."

"What, the one with the setting sun?" I snorted. Addam wasn't a fool, and the scarring on my shoulder, picked out in opal, was distinctive.

"Hero?" Addam turned to look at me, and there was something like confusion in his eyes. "Have you been to Platja d'Aro?"

"No, I-" I paused. "Is that where the background is? I always thought it was the Enclave."

"No. My godfather keeps a villa there. He likes visiting Spain - he took Quinn and I there on holiday once. That's where he's painted - I recognise the landscape."

"He painted me somewhere I never was then."

"Maybe. But... but Rune..." Addam took a breath. "It is on the East coast of Spain." He said that like it mattered, and I didn't see why. I didn't go gallivanting around Europe with Lord Tower, no matter what the press liked to speculate.

Brand put the folder down, and dropped two broken bugs on top of it. He met my gaze, and nodded sharply. I frowned - there was something both of them were seeing, and I wasn't.

And then I saw it too.

Addam smiled at me, and I thought of that painting, one where I was barely eighteen, still traumatised, vulnerable. The one I always thought focused on the fall of my house, a beautiful image but a strange one for Lord Tower to want to have in his study. Me, alone, facing the water lit by the setting sun. Only the sun wasn't setting. It was rising.

Brand's arm wrapped around me, and Addam kissed the top of my hair, and in the distance a bell rang to call us for lunch.

Chapter Text

Lunch was, thankfully, pasta with Matsusaka wagyu beef and truffle shavings. Apparently, truffles were a fungus but not a mushroom. I wasn’t sure about that distinction, and nor was Brand, but apparently we would have gotten ortolan if Addam hadn’t refused to eat that on a previous occasion, and so I felt we had really gotten off rather lightly.

We got into my beaten-up Saturn to drive home. I drove, having won a brief non-verbal argument with Brand, and Addam sat in the back and flicked through the folder. It bothered me that they’d both read it and I hadn’t yet, when in a way I still thought of Max as my responsibility - I was the one who had accidentally acquired him.

“You’re going to need to talk to Max,” Brand said. “I mean. I can. But you’re better at this stuff.”

“He looks up to you a lot,” I pointed out, because it was true. Max had even cut his hair like Brand’s, and he devoted himself to his studying of whatever defensive techniques Brand was teaching him, despite having no natural aptitude for them.

“That’s why you should talk to him.” Brand shrugged. “He trusts you, and he- I don’t want him to feel embarrassed talking about it. You might… You might know what to say.”

“Why?” I snapped. “Because being raped gives you a guide to how to handle these things?”

Addam’s hand rested on my shoulder, and I could feel a flood of guilt through the bond, and I took a deep breath and forced myself to be better than that. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t-” Brand shook his head. “But this is what I mean. I’ll put my foot in it. He trusts you, and-”

“It’s going to hurt him.”

“It is.” Brand agreed. “And it’ll hurt him a lot worse if the three of us walk into an ambush he could have helped us avoid because we were so focused on sparing his feelings that we didn’t ask for the information he possessed.”

Brand was right. Brand was always right about stuff like this, and I hated that.

“Alright. But- Quinn comes over this evening, for pizza, and they can have a sleepover.”

“And I’ll make sure he doesn’t try and sneak out a window again,” Brand agreed. “He’s such a self-sacrificing idiot sometimes I forget the two of you aren’t blood related.”

I nodded, and drove us home. Addam’s hand stayed on my shoulder, rubbing slightly. Brand had taught him well - the two of them both were good at removing the pain that otherwise clustered there.

When we walked in, I found that there were little circles of plastic dotted about over the outlets, and Max was watching a video on his phone which he cut off, not fast enough to stop me hearing “hand behind their head and neck and the other beneath-”. He could have been watching a fighting technique video, but he clearly wasn’t.

“The plastic’s new,” I said.

“Babies can poke things into outlets,” Max murmured. “Quinn says it almost never happens and it’s far more likely they’ll cut themselves on one of Brand’s knives but-”

“You got these?” I asked, as behind me I heard Addam reprimanding Brand for a future that might or might not happen where he left a knife in reach of an infant. That wasn’t my problem yet. This was.

“From my allowance,” Max said quietly. He did have an allowance, for the work he’d been doing for me.

“Max, that’s for you.”

“It’s… it’s my baby niece-or-nephew,” he said quickly, slamming the words together. I wondered if Quinn had accidentally let something slip. “Nothing’s more important to me than them.”

I looked at him, and nodded. He could make those decisions, and I could respect them. Given what I was asking of him, I had to respect them.

“I’m researching baby care,” he explained, leading me over to a table, and pages of notes. His writing wasn’t the best, but then nor was mine at times, and I’d had expensive tutors. “I can look after them when the two of you are out on missions. And Corinne says she can teach me techniques to fight while holding a baby. I won’t-” he paused, and looked at me. “I won’t go looking for trouble, not when there’s a baby, but-”

“But sometimes trouble finds us.” I looked at him. That was my opening, and I knew it. I didn’t like it, but I knew it. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Whatever you need, I can-”

“Max,” I said softly, and I saw him wince at the tone of my voice. “It’s about your uncle. There’s - some of the Lovers’ Court have surfaced, and-”

“You’ve got the baby to worry about,” he said quietly.

“I do. And in a few months time - we wouldn’t be able to follow this lead. But right now? We are in the best position we will be in for a year, if not longer. This is our chance.” I reached out, and rested my hand on his arm. “Can I ask you some questions?”

I saw him carefully close his emotions down. I was used to seeing that from Brand, but it was different seeing it on the face of my ward, seeing him trying - he was so young still. Two years older than I had been - three, now. Slightly older than when I’d started running missions for Lord Tower. And he was still so fragile. My people can tear each other apart. We can be warlike, and we scramble for power. Very little is sacred to us. But children, childhood - it was meant to be protected.

He looked at me, those pale features trying so hard to be brave, and he nodded.

“We’ll talk,” I told him softly, “and then, when it’s done, you need to stay with Quinn. He wants to work on your sigil use, and I need to know that this won’t be a repeat of the boat incident. Max, we… we can only deal with this if you… if you are safe. Can you do that for me?”

“I can do that,” he said, softly. It wasn’t a vow, but I realised he meant it. I smiled at him, once, and fetched the folder, and walked with him to the sanctum because it was the most privacy we could get in our small home.

The conversation was productive, and that was the best I could say of it. What was most relevant, immediately, was the identity of the two scions in the picture. Hannah Saint Valentine and Ethan Trumel - distant cousins of both Max and each other.

Hannah, I remembered, had always had interesting drugs at parties. But we hadn't been moving in the same social circles for twenty years. I vaguely remembered Ethan, but he had been far more on the outside of the network, and honestly I hadn't particularly liked the people at the parties. I'd just wanted to get high, and then be with Geoffrey while my mind spun and I didn't worry about things like my father's security teams or my companion who I had abandoned.

I pushed away any concerns about the amount my past self had been a dick, and focused on the road ahead of me. If Hannah had been using the past few years to work with Project Laius, then she should never have got out of the raid. Worse, I'd been hanging around smoking with people who saw humans as toys. Past me had deserved-I felt concern through the bond, and breathed through it. I parked a short distance away from the Green Docks.

"You're tense," Brand said, and his voice was awkward, careful. We stood outside my car, and I willed my lungs to keep working. Just breathing. It was strange, sometimes, the concentration it took.

"Are the two of you-" Addam looked between us. "I know last time we were here-"

"I know what to expect now," I muttered. "It shocked me, that was all. And it's fine. I know Brand-" I regretted how angry I had been, but that was hard to explain.

"I've not been coming here," Brand said quietly. He'd forgone his usual knife harness for concealed weapons, because we were pretending we were just scions having a relaxing evening rather than actively trying to hunt down information and people. We were concealing who we were until we got the information we needed, and then we were going to cause chaos, because chaos was what we were good at.

"I told you I'd organise a fucking car pool," I hissed.

He raised his hands, looked between Addam and I, and managed something approaching a smirk. "I've been visiting occasionally. But I can get what I need at home."

Addam snorted, and I huffed at the two of them, and tried to lead the way. That lasted a handful of steps before Brand pushed forwards. This night, we had a destination in mind. Brand led the way forwards for a while, until he got lost. And then Addam, and Addam's near-endless supply of money, became more useful. Max had provided me with the name of a bar, and the Tower with the name of a boat. Asking for both had brought us here.

"This-" I frowned at the boat ahead of me. "Anyone got any useful info-dumps?"

Addam shook his head. This far out, the main lights of the dock were mostly faded.
"I don't know how the Arcanum missed this," I muttered. It wasn't right. The holdouts of the Lovers Court were meant to be destroyed. They shouldn't have been still afloat with neon lights and drunken revellers.

"It's a shell game," Brand said quietly. "The boats - a lot of Arcana keep them. But they hide the ownership. If the Lovers had ships - it might take years to unpick it. And they can't just start arresting any blonds. Look at Max. People move between Courts."

I stared at the boat, and at the shadows I could see around it. It looked - well, it was a large 19th century steamship, with three masts. In the low light, I had to squint to make out the name of the boat, still on side. The Bywell Castle was a steamship carrying cargo across the world, and had saved a number of seamen while travelling, towing one ship nearly nine hundred miles across the Atlantic Ocean, before disappearing without a trace. I could see the flickers of ghosts on the ship - men in uniform, staring in fear at the shape of a kraken's tentacles.

The ship preserved its own ghosts, and more - around the hull, bobbing in the water, I could see figures from the event it was famous for. My kind used energy. Notoriety was our fuel. The Bywell Castle had been responsible for the death of more than six hundred people during a collision. The ghosts lingered here.

Addam reached out, and I felt Clarity pass over me. I took a breath. He looked at me. "We're not here to fight the Hanged Man, Rune. You seeing this benefits no one, and we need- we need to be sharp."

I nodded, and led the way. I felt - I was anxious, bringing Brand here towards people who viewed humans as nothing more than entertainment. But I knew Brand would not forgive me if I had left him behind, and more than that I knew we needed him. So I pushed aside my fear, and walked onto the ship.

There was a man running it who I didn't recognise. He was Atlantean. There were other figures, further back, collared, and I realised I should not have brought Brand here, and I could feel panic spiking - and then Addam and Brand were close enough to me I could feel the heat of their bodies, and that helped.

I walked forwards. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I saw the blank, dazed expression of mindfucked humans, and a couple of scions who were laughing, and they wore masks - not animal masks, just the half-face coverings people used when they knew they were doing something at the edge of what was allowed. The bar, the Angstloch, was open, and I could see an array of drugs on offer.

I searched through the groups. The man in charge stepped forwards.

"My Lord?" He asked me.

"We heard," And that was Addam's voice, which was good because I wasn't sure I could breathe at that moment, "that we could rent a room."

"And a friend?" the man asked.

"We brought our own," Addam said, and I turned around, because Addam did not - Addam never sounded like that. I had a momentary panic that he'd somehow got mindfucked, even though the Clarity over me held strong. Brand's eyes were rather unfocused, and I felt a wave of reassurance crash through the bond and I realised - shows of strength were needed here. Addam and I both were wearing visible sigils. But Brand had concealed his weapons.

They'd planned this.

My throat felt tight, but I nodded, once. The man smirked, but led us along to a corridor, and I tried not to look to either side, because I couldn't - I'd panic and that wouldn't help. And then we reached a private room, with a bed and a cupboard I knew I wouldn't look in, and the man left.

Brand immediately started checking the room for bugs, as Addam set up privacy spells, and I tried to make sure my breathing was happening as it should.

"You didn't want to warn me?" I hissed at them.

"Hero-" Addam began, and I stared at him, and he backed down with a look towards Brand.

"This matters," Brand said softly. "We have to protect Max. And I knew- Rune, it's one thing for you to know there'll be mindfucked humans there. You've been around it before. But it's quite another to see it and know that we can't fix it right now. We can't just blow up the fucking ship."

I stared at my gold ring. "It's sounding a good idea right now."

"And what happens to the humans on the ship if we do?" He paused, adjusting his clothes, bringing out knives and a gun. "I don't know what you think you can do, but you're not-No. We find Hannah, and we go from there."

"I-" I looked between the two of them. I loved them. But being here - my chest felt tight, and I was staring at shadows, and I- I didn't know that I would be able to put this aside the way I would need to in order to let my defences down. "I'm not... I might need some time, after this, before I can- I-" I swallowed. It wasn't my pain. It wasn't about me. But I was scared. I was fucking terrified, because I should never have brought Brand into somewhere that preyed on humanity.

"Look," Brand said, and he squeezed my shoulder. "Right now, I'm not feeling particularly fucking horny either. But this is for Max."

They were right and they knew it. Max was my weak point. If he needed me here, I would do it. I would for any of my children. And so would the two of them.

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"You go and find Hannah. And we're moving quickly." Addam was the one to answer.

"Why?" I asked quietly. There was no obvious time pressure - I could take this to Lord Tower, to the Arcanum, but there would be no solution tonight.

"Because I have the ability to call in a team of security from the Crusader throne," Addam said. "And they will move in when I say. I am not-" He shook his head, and looked at me. "This is not justice."

I could have been annoyed at him for trying to take over, for making this decision without me. Instead, I felt relief - it would be destroyed. "Will your mother mind?"

Addam shook his head. "Not in this case. She will understand - our relationship with the human world is delicate enough that we cannot allow - we will not allow this." His accent was strong, and that knowledge meant I could breathe more easily. This was the last night of this boat. The humans here would be freed.

I took another deeper breath, and nodded. "I will go and find Hannah."

There was a burst of something like laughter from Brand, and he looked at me.

"I don't know what fucking world you think I'd let you walk out that door on your own, but I'm not actually mindfucked. I'm coming with you."

"And I, Hero," Addam said. Which is why I led both of them back into the bowels of the ship.

Chapter Text

I sent a light cantrip ahead of me as we walked along the corridors, which were lit by fairy lights. My chest felt tight. I passed a couple of humans, painfully young and blank eyed. Addam paused by them for a moment, and then hurried on to stick close to me. I felt a bubble of air wrap around me, and wondered what Addam had picked up on - if it was a mild sedative in the air, or something stronger.

I wanted to start stabbing things. Ideally, every Atlantean on this ship who was ignoring the fact that the humans were mindfucked. I thought of- I thought of the cruelties my kind could inflict on humans. I thought of the boat not far from here, full of bodies and spirits that had been denied their rest. I thought of that old man, who had suffered - I thought of these youths, students probably, plucked from their homes. We were a nation of refugees, outnumbered and outmatched, destroyed by sickness and by war - and we were still the monsters that humans warned their children against.

“Whatever you’re fucking thinking, stop it,” Brand growled. “I can’t take this much angst through the bond.” His hand bumped against my elbow. It was a comfort - I wasn’t sure at that moment I could stand even Addam touching me. But it was Brand. His touch was soothing. I breathed through my concerns and walked on.

It was a substantial boat. I paused, and decided to ask one of the dead-eyed humans for help. She was pretty, with delicate features, wearing little. The tag on the collar at her neck said 'Chloe', and I didn't know whether or not it was her actual name. I reached out, touched her arm for a moment when she didn't seem to have seen me arriving.

She turned her attention to me, and I made myself smile, and speak gently, the way I did when there were children caught up on missions, because I couldn't throw away innocent lives.

"Hello, is it Chloe?"

She looked at me, confused, then nodded. "What do you want, my Lord?"

"Do you know where Hannah is?" I asked her, trying to keep breathing. She blinked at me, and shook her head, and reached towards me.

I pushed the Clarity that was on me forwards - more on instinct than anything. I didn't want to be groped by a mindfucked human. I didn't want anyone to be touched by anyone.

Her eyes widened and focused, and she started to hyperventilate, her hands coming up to grab at the collar. I could hear Brand swearing imaginatively behind me. I realised we couldn't take her with us, and we couldn't leave Clarity on her. I stood, frozen in terror.

Addam walked forwards, and reached out, taking her hands in his own. "Hello," he said, and he said it gently. "My name is Addam Saint Nicholas. My mother is Lady Justice. Help will be coming."

The woman - a girl, really - looked at Addam, his handsome face and trustworthy eyes, and managed a faint nod.

"We are going to get you out of here, Chloe. But we have to find Hannah first. Hannah Saint Valentine. She's in charge. We have to find her to rescue you. Do you know where she is?"

Chloe nodded, and gave him directions. He smiled at her, and nodded, his hands squeezing her own.

"It will be over soon," he promised her. "You will be alright. You are going to be safe, do you understand me?"

It was very hard to doubt Addam when he used that voice. She seemed to relax, nodding once.

He snapped the Clarity from her in a heartbeat - she didn't have time to panic, falling back under the control that had held her. She smiled sweetly at us all, her eyes dull.

"Fucking hell," Brand muttered. Addam turned and walked back, and his own expression was grim.

"I don't like to leave her," he muttered.

I paused, and nodded, and turned to her. "Chloe?"

"Yes, my Lord?" That same dead-eyed expression she'd greeted us with at first.

"Would you go and wait in our room? You can rest on the bed."

"Yes, my Lord." She turned and walked away. I looked at them and shrugged.

"She'll be safer there," Brand agreed. I nodded. It wasn't enough. But if a fight broke out - and part of me wanted a fight to break out - she'd be safer there. And it would keep her from the scions that visited this place.

We walked along in silence. I tried to breathe. Addam was muttering softly to himself. I paused, looked at him. "What was that?"

"I am telling myself that when this is done, we will be in your bed," he said softly, "and I will be able to hold you both. And I will not let go until I hear from the security team that this has been dealt with."

Brand nodded sharply. I tried to smile, and we followed Chloe's directions.

It wasn't that far, and thankfully Chloe's information had been good - I didn't want to have to ask anyone else we passed. There were a few scions scattered around, but they paid us little mind, too busy with the humans close to them. My skin crawled. My shoulder twinged. There was no screaming here, no smell of burning, and my mind had been my own. I didn't know why it was getting to me so badly.

Brand reached out. "I can go- if- if you need me to Rune. I can do this."

I didn't point out that Brand had to stay near Addam. I didn't point out that I felt responsible. I just smiled and shook my head, and looked between them. "I can go ahead alone, or-"

"That's not fucking happening."

"Alright. I'll go with you. But- I'm sorry." I didn't know how to explain it. "She wasn't- I never knew, if she was hurting humans back then I hadn't heard about it, but-"

"She was one of the shithead scions you used to sneak out and drink with?" Brand asked.

"Yes. On the edge of the group, but... Lovers dabbled in drugs even then. Not... not like this, but-"

"Look, whatever shit she's got to say about you, I'll have said worse before," Brand said, and rolled his eyes. I didn't deserve Brand. I smiled, and took a breath, and knocked, resisting the urge to transform my wristguard into a sabre.

The door was opened by a beautiful human man, with the same dull eyes as the others. Hannah was sitting on a sofa, her fingers brushing the hair of a human girl. I'd dealt with my share of scions in my life, and I knew what the Lovers Court could be like. I wasn't startled.

Hannah gently pushed the girl away, adjusted her dress, and stood up. She had the same delicate features Max did, the same pale hair and luminous skin. She looked not much older - she'd already had a rejuvenation treatment. Her gaze went to me, and then to the men behind me.

"Rune, I see you still haven't managed to escape your stalker." She had a trace of a European accent.

"Brand is my partner," I said, even though I realised I shouldn't have let her drag me into this discussion.

"That isn't what you used to say," she laughed. "An annoying guard dog trying to snap at your heels when you and Geoffrey wanted to be adults-" she shook her head, and clapped, causing a small flurry of snowflakes around her hands. "He laughed, you know. You were still young enough to be impressed by trick magics. You were so innocent back then..." She leaned forwards, and I felt the prickle of compulsion. I pushed back against it, and I knew I had to trust Addam to keep himself and Brand thinking clearly.

She pouted, realising her trick wasn't working on me, and sighed. "I did so like speculating with the others afterwards," she said softly. "Geoffrey was one of the few of us who thought you wouldn't kill yourself, and then you went and spread your legs for one of the Arcana-" her gaze hardened, and I felt the twist of released magic. "And then you came and destroyed my home."

The attack wasn't a surprise. The humans had moved during her speech - the man was still near the door, the girl to my side. When they attacked, I didn't use Fire - our healing magics would not have helped their wounds. I flung out my Shield, using a technique Addam had taught me, lifting both Hannah and the girl into the air in separate spheres.

Brand had managed to restrain the man. Addam had locked down the room with a Sigil spell.

I looked at Hannah, and she stared at me.

"You used to like what we could do," she told me. "You wanted to use drugs to block out the world, to quieten the bond-"

"I was awful," I agreed, looking at her. "I was stupid and ignorant and I didn't appreciate what I had. And I know that, so if you think this little trip down memory lane is going to upset me - it's nothing I don't think, every single day."

I heard a noise from Addam, and felt Brand's concern - but it was concern aimed at me. I looked at her. The thing was, I hated compulsion, and mindfuckery, and that meant I was generally pretty good at resisting it. With her sphere moving her around, she wouldn't be able to focus enough to attack me. I looked at her. "But I'm not here to reminisce. I'm here because I think you have information about Gideon Saint Valentine."

She looked at me, and then blinked, as though confused. "Is this about our little lost prince?" She giggled softly. I hated giggling like that, but I tried to smile anyway, to pretend I didn't have her floating above me captive. "Because it makes sense, I suppose, that the disgraced princes would find each other."

"Do you have information?" I asked her.

"What do you have in return?" she asked. "I'm not stupid enough to think you'll let me go."

I looked at her. She was right. "What do you want?" I asked, aware the last time I'd bargained with a Lovers I had ended up with a child to raise.

"Let Ethan leave, and I'll tell you what you need to know."

I hesitated. Ethan was responsible for what was happening here, at least in part. He was one of the Lovers Court that was meant to be destroyed. But this was Max we were thinking about - the boy who trusted me to protect him. My ward, my brother. I nodded.

“I give you my word that I will not interfere with Ethan leaving the ship, and I will not pursue him as long as he does not cross my path.”

The air hummed with magic. She looked at me, judging whether or not she could trust my word, and then she nodded, just once, sharply. Struggling slightly due to the movement of her sphere, she pulled a necklace from her throat, and dropped it, and I reached out and took it. I could feel the faint buzz of magic in it. Not a sigil. Not powerful enough for a ward. I took the wardstone.

“The Wonderland is only findable at full moon, new moon, and at the quarters,” she told me. “The stone is activated by blood from the Lovers Court. You can destroy Gideon if you want. I don’t care about him… Our tastes run down different lines.” She looked at me, and there was something strange about how she stared at me, a coldness to her eyes that sent my spine prickling. “You have to put me down so that I can tell Ethan to get off the ship.”

“Addam?” I asked. I felt him step forwards, and he was practically glistening with magic. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to explode things. I placed her down on the ground - allowed her to drop the last couple of feet, because I didn’t feel like being gentle.

She glared at me, but she pulled her phone from her pocket, and sent a message. I hoped that it was to Ethan. Then she did something else to her phone, and Brand cursed and grabbed for it.

She tried to backhand him, which went about as well as it could be expected - a pampered scion trying to hit a highly trained bodyguard. He caught her wrist, and squeezed, and she screamed.

“She’s tried to wipe the phone,” he told me. “But there’s some left.”

“Call in your team,” I said softly to Addam. Addam nodded, holding her down with his magic as he pulled out his phone. Brand stepped closer to me, and I tried to breathe. She was looking at me, and smirking, her injured wrist clutched to her chest.

“Did you scream?” She asked. “We used to wonder, what happened that night. You always played at being so brave, and now you’re Lord Tower’s pet. Did you scream, when those seven men-”

She wasn’t involved. She couldn’t have been - it was only men in the Carriage House that night. I looked at her, and I laughed, just once, the noise louder than I had intended it to be.

“Yes,” I told her.

Her eyes widened.

Addam took us home. I wasn’t in a fit state to drive, my mind spinning. It was a relief when we were back on the wood of the docks, the air no longer tainted. Most of the scions had fled, along with Ethan. They’d left the humans, and Addam’s team would be dealing with those. We had played our role.

When I got in, I saw Max was sitting on the sofa, his legs stretched out and back against an arm rest. He was reading, holding a glowing thing in his hand and using it to light the page. When he realised we’d arrived, the light flared and then died and he swore under his breath.

Brand turned on the light. I looked at Max. He looked up at me, his skin fluttering unnatural colours because he was trying to hide his fear.

“Are those Quinn’s sigils?” Addam asked, gesturing to a small pile of plain discs that were on Max’s legs.

“I haven’t taken them,” Max said quickly. “He said I can borrow them for the exercise. We were practicing together, but Quinn got tired earlier after trying to see too much, so I thought-”

“As long as you didn’t win them in a pillow fight or something,” Brand said. “So what’s with the Jackie Chan shit?” He gestured to the sigil Max was holding.

I didn’t point out that Brand was the last person to judge on that front, given how he’d tried to teach Max self-defence.

“He…. he’s teaching me to empty them.”

“It’s a method I was taught by,” Addam said quietly. “And I used… a gentler version with Quinn. The one he is using. You have a sigil with a stored spell, and you have to draw it out as slowly as you can- I got him halfway through a book and then said he could have one sigil filled with light to finish reading it.” He laughed softly at the memory. “Of course, that works less well when he can see the probabilities of when he did finish reading the book, but-”

I laughed. Brand didn’t.

“What did you use?” Brand asked. “How did they teach you?”

“Oh.” Addam shrugged. “Same idea, really. Only using Air.” He paused, and looked at me, and at Brand. “I do not like it when the two of you look so angry.”

“Not at you,” I told him.

Max cleared his throat, fidgeting with the emptied sigil he was holding. “Did it work? Going to the Docks, I mean? Did it-”

“It did. We’ve got a lead. It’ll be a few days before we can follow it. But a lot of people were saved tonight.”

Max nodded, and Brand walked over and shoved Max’s legs so that they could sit pressed together. I stared at them, and then at Addam.

“You are telling us that your mother tried to suffocate you.”

“It was safe, Hero. There were members of my mother’s security team there for when I passed out.”

I wondered if I was allowed to yell at Lady Justice. Probably not, but I could dream.

Addam rubbed his forehead, and checked his phone. “The team are doing well. I’ve given them instructions as to where to find Chloe, and they’ll do a full sweep.” He yawned.

Max stared at the sigils. I could tell some of them were already emptied. I walked over and squeezed his shoulder.

“Go to bed. Or Quinn’ll steal all the blankets.”

Max looked at me, and I knew he was scared. He stood up, and pressed himself into my arms, and I held him as tightly as I could. Then he pulled away, and nodded. “I’ll go now.”

When he left, I looked back at Brand and Addam. Both of them looked tired, and concerned. I was concerned as well. Learning to empty sigils was important, but- Sigils only held a limited amount of a spell. And once you’d called the spell forwards, it was near impossible to return it to the sigil - there were methods, and I’d be able to teach Anna, but not Max. Max didn’t have that kind of power. In a battle, you released your magic fast, in a single flare, or in a more controlled manner over a few minutes to manage something like Flight or Levitation, or even a Shield. But drawing out magic for hours, keeping a single sigil going - I had been through enough over my life to know that wasn’t normally for combat.

It was for survival.

Quinn was trying to ready Max for something, and I was afraid. Deeply afraid.

Addam looked at me. “Can I touch your arm, Hero?”

I nodded, pressing down the self-recrimination that threatened to rear its head. He was my boyfriend, and he didn’t feel he could touch me unless I consented. He guided me up, towards my room, and Brand followed.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Addam said softly. “I would like to hold you both. But if you are not-”

Brand shrugged, kicked off his shoes and jacket, took off most of his weaponry, and lay down on the bed. Addam lay down next to him, and wrapped an arm gently across his shoulders. I stayed standing, fighting myself to move forwards.

“I can’t- I can lay down,” I said softly. “But I can’t… touch you.”

Addam nodded, and wrapped his second arm across Brand. Brand rolled his eyes, but sent a sense of affection and warmth towards me. I lay down on Addam’s other side, at a distance.

“Does this work?” Addam asked us both. “I can hold Brand, and let him know that he was brave and he did well. And I will not hold you, but I can tell you that you did well.”

I shrugged. “It works.”

“Hero. We should talk about what she said.”

I winced. I’d known this was coming. Addam did not like leaving delicate matters undiscussed.

“I was an ungrateful brat,” I whispered. “I left behind the best thing in my life, and I made a game of it, to sneak out when I knew it scared you, Brand. I was awful. And I will spend the rest of my life- the rest of our lives-”

“Fuck this,” Brand muttered. He clambered across Addam, and pulled me close, pressing his forehead to my own. His blue eyes bored into mine. “Rune. You were a fucking child. You had not been allowed to leave the house without me, not once. We let Max go to the shops by himself and he gets kidnapped practically every week. It’s no fucking wonder you were pushing back. Quinn pushes back. You don’t-” He stared at me. “What happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

I took a breath, and concentrated on the truth of the lie. I needed Brand to think that. I needed Brand to believe that it wasn’t my fault, so that we could live, so that we could keep going, because if he ever understood how badly I’d messed up - how much I had failed- I forced myself to smile. His touch was warm. His gaze, those blue eyes, were the first thing I could remember.

“Say it,” Brand ordered.

I took a breath. I could lie for Brand. I could do anything for Brand. “It wasn’t my fault.”

He rolled his eyes, and patted my hair. “Good scion.”

I stuck out my tongue at him, and things- things felt better.

Addam’s phone rang, and he spoke briefly to someone on the other end in Russian. “The boat is clear.” He paused. “Technically, Rune, it is your victory.”

I frowned, and Brand cursed. Again. And then I cursed.

“I don’t want it.”

“We could sell it?” Brand suggested. I shook my head. I didn’t want anything to do with the Green Docks. My finances were stretched, but I would not grow them like that. And the boat could not be returned. It had disappeared, years ago. It wasn’t like the Declaration. It was older. The families were all gone. I swallowed.

“We scuttle it,” I said quietly.

“You just want another fucking chance to use Exodus,” Brand muttered, which wasn’t a refusal, which meant he agreed. Behind me, I saw Addam nod. My chest felt lighter than it had all night.

Chapter Text

I was awoken by a knock on the door. Brand had already managed to escape Addam’s octopus-like affections, and had presumably gone on an early morning run, because Brand's masochistic streak apparently extended to enjoying exercise. I was glad to lay in bed beside Addam, and watch how the morning sun glinted off his hair. He was beautiful. He really was.

I leaned in, and kissed his cheek. His eyes fluttered open, and he smiled, brilliant and unguarded. "Rise and shine," he murmured, and I shook my head in fond despair, stroking a blond strand out of his face.

Then the knock at the door came again. I groaned softly, but lifted my head. "Yeah?"

"You two aren't doing that thing with Brand and Addam's tie are you?" Came Quinn's voice. Addam flushed, and I cleared my throat.

"No. Brand has gone for a run."

"Oh." Quinn poked his head around the door and smiled brightly. "That's alright then. I don't want to see that."

I decided not to point out that apparently Quinn had seen that, more for my own sanity than anything else. I prodded Addam, who was looking concerningly contemplative, and then took a breath. "What is it, Quinn?"

"Oh!" Quinn's eyes lit up. "I wanted to tell you to say yes when they ask because it’s always easier-”

“When who asks?”

“Layne!” Quinn shot me an annoyed look, which I suppose was deserved. I raised my hands in a surrendering gesture, and Quinn pouted but nodded. “They’re going to call to ask for your permission, and you almost always say yes and if you don’t then you feel guilty for like half an hour and then you call them back and say yes but if you start by saying yes it makes them really happy.”

Great. Now the other children were using Quinn’s gift of prophecy to get what they wanted. I took a moment to raise an eyebrow at Quinn, but he was still smiling. His expression fell when he saw Addam was rummaging in the bedside cabinet.

Addam turned to him, and raised his hands as well. “I wasn’t-” He sighed. We both knew that Quinn had been hurt a lot by the medicine he’d taken. “I have a faint headache.”

Quinn nodded, and then stepped forwards and approached Addam, hugging him close. “You almost never blame yourself if I hug you enough,” he said, and there was a note of hope in his voice that convinced me that one at least wasn’t an actual prophecy. I smiled and ruffled Quinn’s hair. “How did you boys sleep?”

“Max is having nightmares, but he didn’t scream this time so it wasn’t one of the really bad times,” Quinn said. I nodded.

“I’ll talk to him after-” as if on cue, my phone began to ring, a picture of a rainbow with safety pins on the icon, and blaring out ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’. I raised an eyebrow at Brand’s song choice - Layne was probably too young to know that one. I wondered why children insisted on video calling, and pushed answer, smoothing down my hair, and feeling relieved I was still fully dressed.

Layne waved as he - they, I pinched myself- flickered up on screen. They were looking so much better than that first time I had seen them, when they had been near-dead - their hair had bleached tips, and their face was fuller, no longer almost-entirely starved. They were smiling.

I sighed. “Quinn says that whatever you’re about to ask, I say yes. So there you go.”

“Are-” They beamed at me. “Thank you so much, Rune.”

“Have I just signed over my Estate? You don’t want it. It’s got wights.”

They wrinkled their nose. "No. I don't- are you sure?"

"I'm sure there are wights, Addam is getting people- just tell me what I've agreed to?"

"I'm at New Saints," they said, gesturing behind them to the painted hallways. Ghosts didn't show up in video calls. Layne had check ins and physical therapy and a lot of other things I afforded because they needed it.

"What is it?"

They bit their lip. The movement reminded me painfully of Corbie. "There's this patient. Their leg, it's gone gangrenous and it's not responding to treatment but... but I think I can fix it using my immolation magic, and the doctors say I can try if-"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Technically, in an attempt to help both Max and Layne, I'd sworn the teen into my service and that meant I was their responsible adult.

"What did your aunt say?"

"She's not happy. She's worried I'll get upset but Rune- Rune I need to do this. I need to try. And she knows it's your call."

I looked at them. They looked so damn hopeful. And I knew if it didn't work, it'd hurt. But. "You can try. I give permission. If it doesn't work, it's not your fault."

"Thank you. Really. Thank you." They sounded almost relieved. And then they hung up.

I lifted my head and saw both Quinn and Addam smiling at me.

Quinn had that soft, contented expression he wore when a piece had fallen into place. Quinn had futures he wanted to see, and I knew he was manipulating all of us to achieve them. His powers were simply too great for any child. And yet, at this moment he was happy, and I couldn’t bring myself to object when apparently Layne was happy too.

“Thank you,” Quinn said quietly. “They really like medicine. They end up sometimes as a surgeon and even if they don’t do that then they almost always say that this volunteering… it helps them.”

“Quinn-” Addam said softly. “This one, it is not your story to tell.”

Quinn nodded, and looked briefly guilty. And then I smiled at him, and his own expression shifted to an answering beam.

I liked that. Liked the idea I had woken up and done something good, given Layne a purpose when they were still so traumatised by everything that had happened. And then I continued thinking, and my mood darkened.

“Hero?” Addam asked, giving Quinn the most gentle of taps to send him from the room. “Something bothered you then.”

I took a breath, and pushed calm at Brand, because he’d definitely have felt that wave of nausea. Maybe it was morning sickness. I found the waste paper bin, and Addam rubbed my back and offered me water after.

“Was that the problem?” Addam asked. It would have been easy - it would have been the easiest thing to say yes. That I had fallen quiet because I felt sick. But that wasn’t true, and I- I had so many lies in my life. I didn’t want to lie to Addam, not when I didn’t have to.

“Just… thinking.” I swallowed. “I’m meant to lead the Day Court. Be a shining light amongst the Arcana. And I- Layne is finding their purpose in helping people. The first time I felt like myself - really like myself after years - was when I’d managed to run a mission for Lord Tower and he praised me.” I was a mercenary. I’d tried to be selective, when I could be. I didn’t regret what I’d done - there were a lot of innocent people living freer lives because I’d stopped bad people.

But.

The child in my care was finding their path through helping people. And I’d never done that.

Addam reached out, and rubbed my shoulder, the bad one, his fingers expertly digging into the row of scars. I suspected he’d used an Eidetic spell so that he would remember the detail of what Brand had shown him. “Hero- if you hadn’t been a fighter, we would not have met. I would have died in that basement. A doctor does a great many things, and I am - I am so proud of Layne, if that is the path their life takes them, or if they choose another path. But I would not have survived without you being who you are.”

I nodded, some of the tension leaving me. Slowly, choreographing the move so I had plenty of time to refuse, he leaned forwards and kissed my cheek. I closed my eyes for a moment, and then looked up at him. Warm burgundy eyes met my own.

“And Rune? You are giving that child safety. You are letting them have the option. It is like… when you were angry at Max, when he and Quinn…” He shook his head. His accent was thick now. He meant what he was saying. “You want our children to have options that you did not have. You did not get the chance to be a doctor. But you have given that chance to Layne. I know you see it as a failing, as showing you are not kind, but it is not that. It is… it is a strength, and it is proof that you are kind.”

His hand rested against my own, and I smiled at him. I brushed my finger against his lips.

The door opened, and Brand walked in. “I felt Rune angsting,” he announced. “What did you do, Saint Nicholas?”

“It’s fine,” I said firmly. “He was helping.”

“Brand,” Addam smiled, the tension lifting with my Companion’s arrival. “Quinn let us know that rather than going for a run, we could have been doing something more fun this morning.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Try not to get knocked up again-” I muttered, and got to my feet. Brand was at my side, his flirting with Addam dropped to check on my needs. I did not deserve his unending patience. But I had it.

“Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine. I just- I need to go and talk to Max. Quinn said he had nightmares. And we have to keep him away from all-” I paused. “Addam, Quinn knows something is going to happen.”

“If he knew, he would have said,” Addam said softly. “He sees a possibility, and is trying to prepare us for it. I do not like it any more than you. I care for Max as well. But I trust Quinn’s gift. If he hasn’t told us something, he has a reason.”

It was the answer I knew was coming and I still hated it. But Addam was right. Quinn deserved my trust. “We keep Max away from this as much as possible. He will know the boat was raided and that the woman was arrested. No more than that.”

“Can I ask one question, Hero?” Addam asked. “Or perhaps the question should be asked of Brandon… how are you intending to get some of Max’s blood if you don’t wish him to know of what has occurred.”

Brand looked at me, and smirked. “Oh, there’s a dozen fucking ways I can do it. But-”

“But he’s not going to,” I said quietly, “because it needs Saint Valentine blood. I’ll get some from Hannah, when the time comes.”

With that, I pushed myself to standing. I went to the bathroom, leaving the other two. I could feel Brand’s concern through our bond, and I tried to reassure him, let him feel that I was alright. I lingered for a moment, and then headed down to Max’s room, knocking on the door.

There was no answer, and then Quinn’s voice from downstairs. “We normally have banana pancakes-” he called up. I went downstairs, and smiled to see that Queenie had indeed made banana pancakes. With both chocolate sauce and maple syrup. I didn’t even think Brand allowed chocolate sauce in the house.

She smiled at me, and passed me a plate. I set about emptying the bottle onto my food, knowing that Brand would throw it in the trash when he found it. Once I had taken a few mouthfuls, I looked over at Max.

Max was wearing a pair of pyjamas that were covered in stars. I didn’t recognise them, but Quinn’s matched, which meant it was another gift from Addam. I was very lucky that I had a boyfriend who was incredibly generous and did not believe in asking to be repaid. Max was pale, the tips of his ears blue, and there were smudges under his eyes that rippled to a different colour when he caught me staring.

“Did you- you said it went well,” Max said quietly.

“It did,” I agreed. “We saved a lot of humans that were being hurt, and we’ve got a lead on where we are going next.”

“You don’t-” He hesitated. “You don’t need to put yourself at risk for me.”

I looked over at him, and swallowed my mouthful of pancake. This was important. This was so important I even put my cutlery down. “Yes, I do. You are my responsibility. You are my family, and I do not - I do not have much family, but what I do have, I will protect until my last heart beat. You deserve to feel safe. I will find a way that you can know you are safe.”

Max nodded, and smiled.

“You should finish eating the pancakes now because Brand yells a lot if he sees the syrup puddle,” Quinn supplied. I shrugged, and resumed shovelling pancakes into my face, and by the time Brand came downstairs the plate was mostly clean of incriminating stickiness.

Brand looked at the plate, and at me, and sighed. “How much sugar did you eat?”

I shrugged. He rolled his eyes, but took a seat and ate his own pancake.

“Rune and I’ve got to go out later,” he said to the boys. “But Addam is going to stay here, and you are going to keep him company, alright? Quinn, why don’t you watch a movie or something-”

“I need to choose different pyjamas if we’re watching a movie,” Quinn muttered. “I don’t want to spill strawberry milkshake on these.”

Brand did that expression he made whenever Quinn came out with a sentence he wasn’t sure how to respond to. I smiled.

“Either something else, or change your pyjamas then?”

Quinn nodded decisively, and smiled at me, and then turned to Max. The two of them were muttering, so I went to leave my plate in the sink. Then, feeling Brand’s eyes on me, I washed it up.

Less than an hour later we were back wandering through the Green Docks. They were lively during the day - a bit quieter, the paint more clearly cracked. But they were still busy, with Atlanteans looking for fun, music still blaring.

There were a few Guarda officers around the Bywell Castle, but they backed off on our approach. It really was mine then. I didn’t want it.

“What’s the plan?” Brand asked.

“We search it first. We have to look for any clues. And then- then we can take it somewhere else and scuttle it.”

“Addam has arranged for a boat to tow it a safe distance from the coast,” Brand told me.

I nodded, and stepped on board. With no sigils to hold the drugged smoke in, it was easier to breathe, but I still pulled Clarity across both myself and Brand. It felt wrong, bringing him here, because these people preyed on humans. But I needed- I needed him here. We were partners. I could trust him when I could trust no one, and both of us wanted Max to be safe.

It took three hours to search through the main areas of the ship. I didn’t use any psychometric spells, because we already knew what had happened here, but I tried to search quickly. There was little of use. Just an unrelenting catalogue of misery and cruelty.

Brand stayed close by me. The Guarda wouldn’t allow anyone else on the ship, and we could have covered it faster if we were separated. But we stuck together.

Eventually, it was done. There was nothing here to help, nothing that answered the questions I had. There were no sigils either, which was irritating - I’d hoped to find some. But either Ethan had taken them, or Hannah had already sold them.

“Rune?” Brand paused. “You’re too busy angsting to notice clues.”

“What?”

He pointed at a pile of collars, each with a heart-shaped tag and a name. Now he had drawn attention to it, I could feel something, a faint buzzing. I approached, and sifted through them, until my hands closed on the one I was looking for.

“How did you do that?” I asked him.

“Do what?”

“You recognised a wardstone. You can’t sense magic.”

“No, but I can recognise when it looks the fucking same as the necklace she gave you. I don’t have magic sense but I’ve got eyes.” He was right. There was something different about the heart on the collar, and rather than a name it had the same pattern as on Hannah’s necklace.

I put it in my pocket, and searched through the rest. This was the only one with a wardstone.

We left the ship, blinking in the sunlight, and Brand went to organise towing the ship into the sea. I looked down at my golden ring. In a way, using Exodus frightened me - I knew once this was sunk, I would be heading home and into my sanctum, and I wouldn’t be leaving again until I had some power built back behind it. But. I wanted this gone.

The boat towed the Castle out some distance, and then I stood on the deck of the hired ship with Brand. I knew he couldn’t see the shape of remembered panic, the figures facing a creature that they didn’t understand, he couldn’t see the children gasping and screaming and drowning in the water. But he put his hand on my arm.

“I looked her up,” He said softly. “She’s better lost.”

I nodded, and took a breath, and I raised my hand, and I released the spell.

Chapter Text

We headed straight home, and I headed straight to my sanctum - I had used up Exodus, and my chest felt tight, and I knew from past experience that I would continue to feel like that until I'd built it up again. So that's what I did.

I could tell by the tightness around Brand's eyes that he didn't like it. When I came back down, after several hours, I felt almost dizzy with exhaustion but I was calm again.

Brand looked at me, and I felt the bond clamp down tightly, and then relax a moment later, back to a cold sensation which implied he didn't want to talk. Which meant something was worrying him, and he didn't want to pass it on.

Addam smiled, almost too bright. "You did a good thing, signing Layne's permission slip. They called to say it worked. The man's going to recover, and they're hoping to volunteer more at the hospital."

"That's- that's brilliant," I said, feeling proud. I paused, and grabbed my phone, messaging them a quick well done, and then walked over to the sofa. Quinn was attempting to teach Max how to play a video game. Unfortunately, Quinn's method of playing video games didn't work particularly well if you weren't able to predict what would happen in the next few moments, but Max was trying gamely anyway.

I sat down in a chair, and Brand looked at me.

"All good?" I asked him. He nodded, then shrugged. I smiled. "Yeah. All fine."

He nodded, and took a breath. "Addam and I think we should go to the Enclave tomorrow."

Max looked up, his eyes bright. "Can we?"

"We can," I said quickly, because anything that made Max look that innocently happy right now was something I wanted to encourage. I needed to do some research, but I could take a tablet along and work on it there - or rather, Brand and I could work on it there. "Make sure you don't go too deep, I don't want to have to rescue you from a kraken."

"That hardly ever happens," Quinn told me. I sighed, and smiled anyway.

"The Tower's going to be there," Brand said. He said it casually, which set alarm bells ringing in my mind. "I think we should update him on what we found."

I looked at him. He shrugged. "That or I just want to go to the beach while I can still go shirtless."

I nodded. We'd talk later.

Addam smiled. "I will send a car to get the three of you," he offered. "Quinn and I will go home this evening."

I looked at Quinn, who raised his hands defensively.

"It wasn't me," he said quietly. "Addam wants to catch up on some work."

I nodded. I didn't like it - I wanted Addam here, with us, where he belonged. But Addam did still have a business to run, and I knew he'd been neglecting his work with Moral Confidence.

Addam looked at me. "I was planning to organise another concert soon, and if you would like-" he smiled, and there was a sweetness to it I was still surprised by. "I'd like it if you and Brand could come."

I nodded. I hated concerts, and clubbing, and- and Addam wanted me there, so I would be there. Because it would make my boyfriend happy. "I'll go."

He smiled at me softly, and kissed my forehead, and then headed off, and it was just me and Max and Brand.

Max looked at me, and after a moment he let the skin around his eyes darken. He hadn't slept much the previous night. He’d been trying to hide it. He didn’t want to worry Quinn. I held out my arms, and after a moment he came to sit next to me, resting against my side.

“Has Quinn told you anything he hasn’t told us?”

Max hesitated, and shook his head.

“Max,” I said softly. The teen wasn’t a very good liar, which at times was endearing, but worried me at moments like this.

“He says that… there’s always a chance. Always a possibility the Lovers come for me, if you don’t…” He took a breath. “I knew that. I knew I’d… I mean…” He shook his head. “It makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” I asked, and he looked away.

“Quinn says I need to know that you never stop looking for me. If… if you… if he…” He swallowed. “You always look for me. Always.”

“Of course I do,” I said softly.

Brand looked at Max, and then at me. “Fuck it.”

“What?”

He marched off, heading down to his room, and returned holding a frankly terrifying looking device that appeared to be a gun crossed with a needle. He stepped towards Max, who took the entirely reasonable decision to pull me in front of him as a living shield. I didn't blame him, but I still twisted to glare.

“Brand, what is that and where did you get it?”

“Veterinary supplies.” He paused. “Come here.”

Max swallowed, and looked at me.

“Are you microchipping our ward?”

“Not microchipping. Tracking. I don’t trust the software on his phone. Look, Rune, I’m giving him the chance to say no, but-”

Max looked between us, and swallowed. “You… you really are going to follow me, aren’t you?” His voice was quiet.

“Yeah. I mean, the issue is if Rune loses his phone and a bad guy gets it-” He glared at me, and I raised my hands defensively.

“That was once-”

“Regardless. I’ll teach you how to cut it out again. But.” I could feel the anxiety through our bond. I knew that this was how Brand showed he cared. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one. Sometimes it worried me that the two of us were the best of Max’s guardians.

Max shrugged, and stepped forwards, turning to expose the elegant line of his neck. Brand hesitated, then took the device and held it to his shoulder. The machine clicked. Max flinched, slightly, his skin marbling different colours, but he held still.

I looked at Brand. “Did you do this to me?”

“Your shoulder was already fucked,” he pointed out. Max had reached up to rub at his shoulder self-consciously.

“I don’t want you two to get hurt trying to find me,” he said softly. “But… I know Quinn’s right. If you’ll look for me either way-”

“We will.”

“Can I do the rest of the kids tomorrow?” Brand asked hopefully. I shook my head.

“You’ll have to talk to Corinne, she might have already done something.” I sighed, and then turned to Max. “Are you going to bed now?”

“Thought I might… watch TV for a bit? If that’s-” He looked at me, and I nodded, and sat down on the sofa, and Brand sat on the other side of him. We let him pick the film.

The next morning, Addam’s car turned up early. He was already in it, and so was Quinn. Quinn left the car, and hurried over to us. Max threw himself at his friend, and I wondered if that was because Quinn was unlikely to try and insert a tracker in him.

Brand looked at Addam when he climbed out. “Can I put a tracker in Quinn?”

Addam looked at him, attempting to take his bag and then momentarily confused by the question.

“Can I put a tracker in you?” Brand asked, while moving his bag out of Addam’s reach. “It’s only the size of a grain of rice and doesn’t cause much muscle damage if you position-”

“No.”

“I put one in Max.” Brand admitted. Addam took a deep breath, looked between us, and nodded.

“Alright. You can put one in me later if you must.. But no-one is giving one to Quinn without his agreement.” He looked contemplative. “You could possibly put tracking software in his phone-”

Brand stared at him open mouthed, before starting to swear rather fluently.

“What is wrong?” Addam asked.

“I think you just insulted him.” I supplied. “Quinn has had tracking software on his phone since the second time he came over to watch a movie.”

“Ah.” Addam looked at Brand.

“We can’t all use tracking spells,” Brand muttered. I knew this was something he was actually sensitive about - he’d hated it when we were kids and I’d snuck out, and I’d been too selfish to care. “And it’s easy to get Quinn’s phone off him-” He gestured over to the boys. Max was currently holding Quinn’s phone and flicking through whatever photos he was sharing.

“Brand, stop trying to microchip people,” I muttered, and got in the car.

“They’re not microchips,” Brand answered and managed to usher the boys in. It wasn’t far to the Enclave. We went to the Sun Court rooms, but Addam actually did tip the staff. Any concerns about microchipping teenagers were briefly forgotten as the boys went to play in the surf. Max looked happy there. I was reminded of his first trip here, how his face lit up as he played on the sand.

I sat down on a sunlounger, watching as Quinn and Max paddled and Brand drew a target and practiced with his throwing knives. After a short while, Max walked over to join him. Addam sat down on the sunlounger beside me. He’d lost his shirt. Brand had taken off his.

“I assume Brandon is not joking about the trackers?” He asked, his accent thickening in concern.

“No. He’s worried. We’re all worried. Max… Max is in danger, and Brand does not do well when the people he cares about are at risk.”

“Nor do you,” Addam said, and shifted, and opened his arms. I hesitated for a moment, and then moved across, to lie against Addam. His mismatched hands stroked down my back, and I let myself relax. Whatever was going to happen, I wasn’t going to face it alone. And nor was Max.

The Enclave was safe. I let my eyes drift closed, enjoying the warmth of Addam’s body.

I woke to the sound of someone clearing their throat, standing directly over me, and opened my eyes to find the Tower was staring down at me in despair.

"Sleeping on the job?"

"I don't..." I frowned. "I don't think we've got any outstanding work right now. Just. Everything else." I waved a hand dismissively.

"I heard you sunk the boat," he said. He didn't seem concerned - if anything, there was a smile that I could almost bring myself to believe was pride. I sat up, trying to fix my hair, and realised that I'd managed to cause a me-shaped tan line on Addam's chest.

I felt my face heat up in a way that had nothing to do with the sunlight that had been warming us while I slept. I'd slept for a while. It was still strange, realising that I was able to relax so much within Addam's arms. It was also still strange to know that Addam had held me without complaint.

Lord Tower looked between us.

"I sunk the boat," I answered. "I had no more use for it, and it- are the humans-"

"They are being treated well. We are altering their memories, and returning them home once they are well enough. Those with severe injuries are being treated by human doctors, who are experts in the field. A donation from the Crusader throne is covering their care."

Addam nodded sharply, before I could thank him. I took a breath, and tried to trust it. "That- that's good."

"It is," Lord Tower agreed. "Lady Hannah was operating at a smaller scale than her Great Aunt, but she was clearly linked to Project Laius. My people have been interviewing her for information."

"Have you got any on- on Gideon?"

"Only from before," Lord Tower answered, glancing over to where Brand was exercising, and Quinn was building a sand castle, and Max was attempting to throw stones at targets. "Lady Hannah says you will be able to find him?"

"She gave us a wardstone she had as a necklace," I answered. "She said that the doors opened on the night of the full moon, the new moon, and between -"

Lord Tower nodded, his gaze fixed on me. "You will not be carrying out this alone, you understand?" He said quietly. "Responsibilities rest on your shoulders now. I cannot allow you to just send yourself in - you are-" He paused, and looked at Addam, and then at me. "You are going to be a father. When you have a child, you will understand-"

"I have children," I interrupted him. "I am doing this to protect one of my children." Addam's hand reached up and rested on my shoulder. It had clearly been in the sunlight - the metal was almost uncomfortably warm through my shirt.

Lord Tower considered for a moment, and I braced myself. I was not going to back down on this - I was not going to choose to protect one child over another, not when there were ways I could help protect Max without putting anyone else at risk. I think the Tower could see that in my gaze. "Gideon is not Arcana. He is not a principality, and his stock of sigils will have been greatly depleted by the attack on the Heart Throne - I doubt he will hold more than thirty, maybe less."

I tried very hard not to make a comment about my own tiny collection. I would not be ashamed of what I could do. And I was used to having very few sigils. I could use them in ways others did not.

"I would ask," Lord Tower said carefully, "that you plan who you take with you. And I do not suggest you simply blunder through yourself."

"It's a wardstone," I pointed out. "It has to be me and Brand - I don't know how many- I don't want anyone hurt."

"This is not like last time. There is no urgency, and it is not to a pocket dimension. The portal will hold steady. Once it is open, a competent magic user-" I wrinkled my nose, and he shook his head. "I mean an experienced one, Rune. Someone who knows what they are doing-" He sighed. "Someone who is used to dealing with portals would be able to anchor it open, and then more people could enter. I would recommend you take either myself, Ciaran, or Lady Death. However, if you have another choice, let me know and I will see what I can arrange."

I paused, and nodded. I knew this was a big offer from him, and I was grateful for it. "I will speak to Ciaran." He was the best at portals of anyone I knew, and I had reason to believe he was the best there was.

A grim nod.

"The approval for the raid on the Lovers' Throne still stands. Those who are serving it are legitimate targets in the eyes of the Arcanum, assuming they do not yield during an attack."

"He won't yield," I heard myself say. I knew that my voice sounded cold. I had no skill at that bodyguard-calm that Brand could conjure quickly as breathing, but I felt it now - that man had targeted my child, and I would not allow him to get away with what he had done, any more than I had stood by and allowed the Hanged Man to do the same.

Lord Tower walked away. I looked at Addam, sure I should say something. "You burned," I muttered. "I... I can heal-"

"It's not urgent, Hero," he said with a smile. "It barely hurts. No, that is not the concern... on the way here, Quinn said it was important that I ordered ice-cream for everyone after you'd spoken to the Tower. That is our main concern."

"You do realise sometimes Quinn bullshits us to get what he wants, don't you?" I asked.

Addam shook his head. "Quinn... does twist futures, to ensure that what he wants happens. I am aware of that. I am - I could not close my eyes to it any longer, even if I wished to. He's too powerful for that. But he does not... lie. He told me that Layne always finds a way they can use their gift to help - in some cases it's an outbreak of illness at the Academy, or a global pandemic, and sometimes he-" Addam hesitated. "Sometimes they start looking into the Agonies. But in this timeline, he saw this chance and he took it. Quinn saw that, and ensured that it happened. Quinn does that. He- A lot of prophets and seers are weak, and they lie."

He ran his hand through his hair. "Quinn does not lie, not outright. I do not think he knows how. If he says that ice-cream today is important, then I do believe him. And I was looking into it - the Enclave can provide both chocolate and coffee flavoured ice-creams, made of the finest ingredients. For you, I will order the Amedei Porcelana chocolate, and the second-finest coffee-"

I raised a hand. "Why do I get second best coffee?"

"Because the best is Kopi luwak, and I do not think you wish to have anything that has already been digested."

I shook my head, despairing of rich-people food, and watched as Addam walked over to the boys to arrange their ice-creams. Max's face lit up in delight, and Quinn hurried to announce which flavours Max would enjoy most. Even Brand consented to a single scoop of chocolate, because apparently he was in the mood for it.

We sat in the sun, and splashed in the shallows, and when the boys grew tired I headed to our rooms, because they were larger than my own house. Quinn yawned, and leaned against Max.

"You should stay with me tonight," he said quietly. "You'll have a nightmare, but I can wake you up, and you need to sleep."

Max shrugged, and followed the prophet's advice, and I let Addam guide me to the room, heading to shower and changing into silken pyjamas before I collapsed in a contented pile on the bed.

Chapter Text

Breakfast at the Enclave was a fairly elaborate affair - or at least, it was in other Courts. But this was my family, and we ended up getting pizza for breakfast - Quinn requested it, but unlike the ice-cream he didn't say it was important, just he liked pizza. He kept poking Brand to eat some, much to my Companion's confusion, but Brand ate a bit anyway, because with two teenage boys either you ate the food when it appeared or you starved.

I sat down with Max. "Are you alright?"

He nodded, fidgeting and not meeting my eyes. "I know that I'm putting... I'm giving you and Brand a lot to worry about. And I don't want to, but-"

"But you're our kid," I told him, reaching up and tapping my finger against his necklace, feeling the buzz of magic beneath my fingertips. "We are meant to worry about you. It's our job. And I want you to be free."

He looked at me, surprisingly perceptively. "That was what I wanted to talk about. I want you to be free too. If I... If there's anything I can look up- I'm good at it, and when I'm at school there's information, and-"

"You are good at looking things up," I agreed, knowing I had to handle this carefully. There was information about that night that no-one could know, and there were things that I did not want my children to know. But Max did want to help, and I did not wish for him to feel unwanted. "But that one isn't your burden. You have school, and I would rather you focus on learning things for your future, and looking up information we need for challenges we face now, rather than looking into the past." I looked at him. "I don't want those particular shadows on you."

I could see in his eyes that he wanted to protest, but he'd grown up enough not to. Instead, he leaned in and hugged me tightly, and I hugged him back, feeling the way his breaths were shaking.

Quinn carried over another slice of pizza and passed it to Max.

"I saw an ouroboros," he said quietly. "There was an ouroboros, and then there was screaming, and- and the ice-cream is important, and sleep, but I-" He frowned and rubbed at one eye, chasing a crumb of sleep from it. “The ouroboros is important.”

My throat felt tight. "A snake?"

"No," Quinn shook his head. "Not a snake." He wiped at his nose and frowned, and Addam passed him a handkerchief to control the bleeding.

I let out a breath I hadn't quite realised I was holding, and Brand's hand was on my arm, and the children were looking at me. I swallowed, and tried to smile, and then I made myself actually smile. I did not want to think on that night, not now, not with my children here. I knew I would have to go back and live there, and it risked bringing up memories, but they were memories I couldn’t afford to think of now. I did not let myself linger on each of them any longer, refused to allow myself to recall whose hands- but I did not want the serpent near my children.

"Quinn-" Brand said quietly. "The way you're talking, it sounds like something really bad is going to happen. Is there anything less cryptic you can offer us?"

Quinn looked down. I knew it bothered him, sometimes. How he saw things, how it all sparked. Things that looked important to him weren’t always important to how the rest of us saw things, and I knew that wasn’t his fault but it still made this harder than it needed to be. He bit his lip, and his nose began to bleed harder, and then he looked up.

Max rested a hand on his shoulder. Of all of us, maybe even more than Addam, he was good at helping Quinn with this. "Can you see forwards? Anything certain?" He gestured towards Brand. “I think if they know we’re- if we’re okay- Anything from Rune?”

"Max always learns too many lullabies," Quinn murmured, his eyes unfocused. "He sings them to- to the baby. And to Corbie. And when I have a nightmare. And... and he is almost always the one to grab the pan when it catches fire, and he gets badly burned with the oil. Brand yells at me for not knowing it was that day, and Addam uses the healing sigil we keep in the kitchen for emergencies - the golden sun, so it works out and there’s no lasting scar. And Max gets out of having to help with cooking for a week."

I looked at the others. I didn't have a golden sun sigil, and even if I did, I couldn't imagine a situation where I could have a spare sigil lying around the kitchen waiting for a hot-oil based accident - although now I knew one was coming, I told myself that as soon as I got a golden sun sigil, I would do exactly that.

"Any idea when he does it?" Brand muttered. "Because we're wasting a sigil-no, Max." He huffed. "It's not wasting a sigil to fucking use it to heal you, it is a waste of a fucking sigil to have it lying around waiting to heal you when we could get a date." He paused. "What if we put up calendars everywhere? Then you'll see those."

"That doesn't work," Quinn said quietly. "Rune forgets to turn them over, and Corbie keeps setting them all to his favourite pictures and then you get him a dinosaur calendar and he cries when it's the end of the year and he has to take it down." Quinn yawned, and swayed, and Addam reached out to steady him.

"Stop pushing yourself so hard this morning," he muttered, ruffling his brother's hair in concern. "Whatever is coming, we can face it together."

Quinn smiled, and just like that, the ouroboros was forgotten about. After a hot chocolate, Quinn perked up more, which was a relief, he'd overdone it with the morning's predictions. We sat in the sun until lunch, then headed home.

I felt like I was balanced on a knife edge. But I’d been balanced on that for a long time, and now - Now I had things that I would fight to protect. That I had to fight to protect.

Max bumped his shoulder into mine. “I’m going to learn lullabies,” he said stubbornly.

“I can find you the ones Quinn liked,” Addam said quickly, pulling out his phone and searching for them. He hit play.

Max stared at him blankly, and when there was no immediate response he sighed. “Addam. These are in Russian.”

“You don’t need to get the words completely right. And if you swear, it’s not like a baby will know,” Addam offered, and Max laughed, but he sat down and took the headphone Addam offered.

I looked at Brand, and he signalled to me to meet in the kitchen. He went through, and looked at me. “We should have asked Quinn which kitchen,” he muttered. “If Max is going to burn himself- Or we should not let him near hot things, or-”

“He’ll be okay,” I said.

“I mean,” Brand sighed. “I’ve been telling him if he gets stolen again I’m putting up a fucking kidnapping counter. ‘It has been this many days since Max last got himself kidnapped’, you know the kind of thing? But… fuck. Quinn sees something bad and I- I can’t face it. I know you… We will find them. The men that hurt you. When you are ready, we will tear them down. But for now, we’re going to help Max.” He swallowed, and looked at me. “Rune-” His eyes were full of so much compassion. That was what people always got wrong about Brand. He cared. He cared so fucking much.

His hand reached out on my shoulder, and I felt that sense of certainty, that connection. Brand was part of me.

“If the man who hurt him- if he was one of the attackers- I saw how you responded to the mention of the snake-”

“No.” I swallowed. “Max’s uncle is fae. He’s fae from his grandmother - and her sons were. There weren’t- I don’t think there were-” I shivered. How often had I gone over this? Trying to remember every detail. And then Ashton had worn contact lenses. I didn’t think any of my attackers had that pearlescent fae colouring - but the hound had relatively pale skin, and the owl- I shook my head, and looked at Brand. I focused on what mattered.

“We are finding this man because he hurt Max, not because of what he may have done to me. I want him gone because of what he did to Max. I don’t care if he was one of my attackers. It doesn’t matter if he was one of my attackers. He hurt Max. He pays for that.”

Brand nodded, and bumped his shoulder against mine. “Come on. Back to the kids, or we’re going to be dealing with Russian lullabies for the next few years.” He looked at me, and rolled his eyes, and I felt better. He believed in me. And when Brand believed in me, I could do anything.

We spent some time looking at the plans for the Sun Estate. Addam, with his ridiculous charisma and endless money, had already managed to contact a few potential contractors who might be able to handle it. And Max had found some old blueprints, from when it had been translocated onto New Atlantis.

I called Quinn and Max over, as I pulled up the blueprints on the tablet. The boys sat down on either side of me, and Addam and Brand sat on either side of them.

“This is - was - the ballroom-” I gestured. “Surely we don’t need a ballroom.” There was so much space, and I didn’t think I’d be holding balls. I certainly had no desire for masquerades. I had a brief flash of memory - me and Brand, barely hip height, sneaking down stairs to watch the adults laughing and drinking, Brand wrinkling his nose and declaring it a waste of time, and dragging me back to show me his new training exercises.

“Hero,” Addam said, with just the softest note of reprimand. “We are going to be one of the Courts. There are expectations-” I shrugged. The ballroom could be a later battle.

“My father’s office needs to stay as it is,” I said quietly. “And his tower - I don’t want anyone to go near the defensive wards there. They’re too dangerous.” I suspected it would take me and several other Arcana to break through them, and I did not wish to have them broken.

Brand looked at me, and our eyes met. He cleared his throat. “The old tower and the other outbuildings aren’t the focus. They can be warded up for now, and we will handle them at a later date.”

I nodded, glad for the fact he hadn’t mentioned the Carriage House. There were some stables we might be able to use - I had a dinosaur I needed to provide shelter for. I paused, momentarily distracted by wondering if the elasmotherium would need somewhere to stay.

“You stopped talking, Rune,” Brand told me with a prod.

“Oh,” I said quietly. “I was wondering if the dinosaur would need a shelter.”

“It’s from fucking Siberia,” Brand pointed out.

Addam pouted. “I am from Siberia. I appreciate not being left outside in the cold.”

That made me laugh. “Alright. We’ll worry about it later.”

“I’m more concerned about it squashing Corbie,” Quinn said quietly. That made us all act rather more seriously, and we focused for a short while on trying to work out how to contain the dinosaur, and what the rooms should be for.

Brand selected a room he wanted for his arsenal, and I wanted the library restored, and the children were excited at the idea of a pool. Other than that - the estate just felt far bigger than I could manage. But we tried. It felt strange, memories of that other life, that home that had been mine - had been ours a lifetime ago.

Brand looked at me. “I want this place fully fortified.”

“It will be,” I agreed. We put the notes aside, and Max insisted that all of us download instructions on baby-friendly First Aid so that we would know what to do in an emergency. The afternoon drifted into evening.

Quinn and Addam went to help Queenie cook. Max looked at me.

“You found something about my… about Gideon Saint Valentine?”

“I believe so. We have a wardstone, and we think we will be able to access him in three days time…” I fetched them both, showing him the necklace and the collar.

He frowned, lifting the collar, examining it closely, turning it over in his hands. He fiddled with the buckle, staring at it. “It looks familiar…” He mumbled.

I heard Quinn scream ‘Stop!’, and Brand grab for Max- and there was a flash of light, and I blinked away sunspots. I heard running footsteps, and I looked around, confused. They were both gone. There was no sign of them. I could feel Brand’s panic, but he wasn’t here.

All that remained was the collar, the length of it tucked inside the buckle, completing the circle like a snake gorging on itself.

Chapter Text

The first thing I felt was terror. Utter panic, curling up my throat, threatening to strangle me. I reached towards the collar, but I didn’t touch it. Not until I knew what I was dealing with. I didn’t understand. But I wasn’t screaming - it was Quinn screaming. I wasn’t angry at him. I couldn’t be angry at him, because - this wasn’t him. I knew he wanted us to be happy. He wouldn’t have wanted this, would have stopped it if he could. He didn’t stop it, and so it was something he couldn’t have prevented. Logically I knew that.

But everything in my mind was yelling because I’d let Max touch it - I hadn’t been close enough- Addam’s metal hand closed on my shoulder, and it was Addam, and Addam was real, solid. I took a deep breath.

“Hero?” Addam asked carefully. “Can you sense- the bond-”

“I can feel him,” I said quietly. I could feel panic and rage, and I pushed down my own guilt to try and send him a sense of safety, a promise that he wouldn’t be alone. I knew I needed to act. There was anger but- Max had to currently be alive, or I’d feel more panic or despair.

My mind desperately scrabbled for any proof of my ward’s survival. Max being killed would weaken my magic. At that moment, I realised that his grandmother gifting the child to me hadn’t been a last minute attempt to keep him safe - it had been a plan to weaken me, because my magic was tied to his survival. Max wasn’t precious to the Heart Throne, the way that he was to me. He was disposable.

The realisation left me reeling, but I tried not to let it show on my face. I was Arcana. I could find them, I could - it felt strange, imagining doing something without Brand there, but I pushed those thoughts aside, because I couldn’t afford to panic. Because Brand needed me to stay in control. I could feel terror gripping at my throat, and I made myself breathe through the fear and try to think.

I was Arcana. I had to take control of this, because my family had been taken, and there would be time for guilt and panic after, when they were home.

It was Max’s uncle. Max was frightened of that man, and had good reason to be. I had to take control. I looked at Quinn. “I can see several people I should go to for support. Any advice you can give-” I knew Quinn wasn’t a magic eightball, disapproved when Brand joked about holding him upside down and shaking him until a prediction fell out. But I had a prophet in my house, and my family were missing. No one could do anything else.

His eyes closed, and blood started to leak from his nose. He was pushing himself too far, I knew that - he’d known something bad was going to happen, and he had been trying to prevent it, and now we had to push for this. “Not the room with the chairs,” he said quietly. “There’s too many, and they’ll start asking about-” He shook his head. “You don’t want them.” He frowned again, his eyes darting unseeingly as he looked between possibilities I couldn’t see.

“Ciaran’s on his way-” Quinn murmured, collapsing back against Addam as the doorbell rang. I hurried over to open it, glancing briefly through the peephole to ensure it wasn’t a threat, because Brand would never forgive himself if I got myself hurt during his absence. His absence because my reflexes had been too slow, because I had let Max-

“Ice cubes,” Quinn mumbled. Addam had got him sitting down, and was cradling his younger brother against his shoulder. Quinn was muttering and I could hear a few words - that he blamed himself for being a prophet and not seeing this.

Addam was telling him comforting things. I looked back at them. “It wasn’t your fault, Quinn,” I promised, and opened the door.

Ciaran came sweeping past me, heading straight to Quinn and clapping his hands so the boy looked up. Today it was a red sundress, and a blue belt and hat. “Oh, Sweetness, I could feel that panic-” He reached out, and his hands left patches of colour on Quinn’s plain shirt. “It’s not always clear, is it- not until it’s too late, and that’s not-” He pressed a kiss to Quinn’s forehead, and pulled out a handkerchief from a pocket that was a collection of different fabrics, the threads changing from one material to another along their length. He wiped at Quinn’s eyes.

He paused, looking up at me as he stepped back a step from Quinn.

“He learns an Irish lullaby,” Quinn mumbled. “He always does. And he and Brand argue because-” He frowned, and looked at me. “He learns it. He always- he always learns it, and-”

Then Quinn passed out, which was dramatic even for him. I still felt like I’d been torn in half. And then that feeling grew worse, because I remembered which Court had taken Max. I’d been so focussed on the threat to my ward that I hadn’t considered that the Lovers were a Court that specialised in mindfucking, and that my deepest nightmare was Brand being mind controlled.

Ciaran arranged Quinn on the couch, and told Addam to stay close to him, and then walked back to me.

“We will get him back, Sun. You heard him. We always get them back. And him and Brand arguing? It sounds like your better half-” Ciaran tilted his head, considered, “Better third? No, better half I think… He stays himself too. We’ll get him back.”

Addam’s team had rescued the humans on the Bywell Castle. I remembered the panic Chloe had shown under Clarity, and now that was a sickening reassurance because she was still in there. I would find a way to get Brand back, get Max back, and anyone who had harmed either of them would suffer. I turned to Ciaran. “It was some kind of portal. I’d - it felt like a wardstone.”

Ciaran crouched down beside the collar, and picked it up with the handkerchief. I saw the bright spark of several sigil spells as he examined it. “If it’s any comfort, you were right. It was a ward stone, although I think it’s currently useless.”

“The woman we spoke to said the wardstones work once a week,” Addam provided, his accent thick as he arranged Quinn across his lap. I was glad he was not reaching for me. I did not feel much desire for physical contact at that moment.

“How did I miss this?” I whispered.

“Because it’s a particularly sneaky bit of magic,” Ciaran answered, frowning. “And not one that should be available - this is meant to be proprietary to the Hex Throne, and offered out only under specific circumstances.” He looked at the charm on the collar. “I can probably reactivate the wardstone in time to get us in-”

“I have another wardstone. Can’t we just- can’t we just open the portal- get to them-”

“It’s not that simple.” Ciaran sighed. “This is… the Lovers are known for their parties, yes? That is how you got onto their estate for the raid you carried out. They have a lot of visitors. But they need entertainment. It’s…” He hesitated. “I know you went to fancy parties when you were younger.”

“Not- not ones that featured mindfucked humans-” I couldn’t keep the emotion from my voice. I knew I needed to. But I couldn’t. Brand would normally have told me to focus. Brand wasn’t here. My Aspect wanted to burn until I had my people back where they belonged.

“Don’t think of it like that,” Ciaran said with a shake of his head. “That’s how you see it. How I see it. The people attending their parties - think of a formal dinner. I know the Sun Estate used to host the most fabulous soirees - you’d bring in the greatest musicians, there was one year when your father arranged an indoor pool so that he could host some merfolk. Do you remember that?”

“I wanted to swim with them,” I remembered. I also remembered Brand at the edge of the pool, glaring, and I remembered one of the mermen trying to use their psionic gifts to get us to leave. That was the first sign we’d had I was unusually resistant - standing there and watching as Brand turned and walked away from me. I hadn’t liked that then. Since then, I had gained a great number more reasons to hate it when people tried to control my Brand.

“Exactly,” Ciaran answered. “That’s what I mean. Your father had to have everything set up, prior to the party starting. You need your tables laid out, the food prepared, the merfolk comfortable and ready to perform. It would be a terrible party if the cooks and serving staff and musicians showed up at the same time as the guests.”

Understanding flickered through, against my wishes. “It felt like a wardstone.”

“What set it off?”

“Max did it up,” I answered, and I could see now what had happened - the collar would send someone ahead, and the guest would use one like the necklace- I looked at Ciaran. “We can’t wait three days.”

“We will see what we can do to get to them faster,” Ciaran answered. I wanted to shout, to scream. I could feel my Aspect rising faster now, and I forced myself not to burst into flame in the middle of my home, because I could tell Ciaran was treating this seriously. He was trying to help, he was just limited in what he could do.

We were all limited in what we could do.

“Let me contact Lord Tower,” Ciaran said. “We won’t allow the remains of the Lovers Court to do this.”

I nodded, stiffly, because all of my effort was on breathing. I could feel Brand, but he had sunk into that bodyguard calmness he used when he was working. He didn’t want to startle me with a shock of emotion. But I couldn’t believe he’d be able to hide it if Max was dead. The pain would be too sharp. I had to trust in that.

Sigils could fix injuries. Time, and family, could fix the damage sigils could not touch. I could not afford to panic, not right now, not when I had to bring my people home.

I thought through my fragile collection of sigils, planning what I could store, quick and useful spells. Addam always carried Healing and Telekinesis. I had Exodus. I had a Healing spell in my ankh, Fire in my emerald ring. Shield in my thigh sigil. There was Levitation in my anklet, Blessfire in my remaining ring, and I’d been experimenting with Telekinesis in the Crusader Throne disc. I would need to dump the Blessfire at least - the monsters I was going to be facing were living people.

Addam looked at me, his burgundy eyes firm with certainty. “We will bring them home, Hero.”

I needed him to be correct. Ciaran put down his phone. “Lord Tower is sending a car to fetch us.” I didn’t argue. I felt a flood of relief, because some part of me was still the same terrified child who trusted Lord Tower to be able to help me when nothing else in the world would.

Ciaran’s eyes flickered at me, and I saw the magic rippling within them. He would help. He understood how important this was. I trusted Ciaran, and I trusted the Tower. I tried to hold onto that, because half of my soul was missing and my oldest child was gone. Addam patted the couch beside him. I went to sit down, tucking myself against him. The hand that wasn’t stroking Quinn’s hair reached for my own hand. It was all the touch I could handle, but I clung to it like a life preserver.

“We will find them, Hero.” Addam said. He was a scion of the Crusader throne. Justice would come to those who harmed what was ours. He looked at me, staring deep into my eyes. “And they know that we will find them.”

I had to trust in that. I knew I was no good to Max or Brand if I panicked. The car was there within two minutes, which given the traffic around the city startled me. I wondered, not for the first time, if Lord Tower could make cars appear by portals, or if he had one parked around the corner of us at all times. The car was proofed not only against bullets but against most explosions short of a nuclear bomb. The four of us piled in. Brand wasn’t there to look anxiously out of the window, so I did it.

Arriving at the Pac Bell was strange. It was the only place in the world I was used to being without Brand, because he and Lord Tower did not always wish to speak to each other. I could almost pretend that it was simply a normal day.

Mayan was waiting to show us into the lift, and this time we did go down into the basement. Any illusion of normality was shattered.

Ciaran clapped his hands and looked around in excitement, but that was the only show he gave of this being exciting to him. Addam stood beside me, just to my left. He was filling the gap where Brand should have been, and I think he was doing it intentionally.

Mayan didn’t do anything until we reached the space below. The doors opened, and the Tower strode out towards me.

“Rune?” He said, and his hand rested on my shoulder. I wasn’t a boy anymore. I made myself meet his eyes.

“The Lovers - Max’s uncle -” I tried to breathe. I looked at the others. Quinn was half-propped against Addam. And Ciaran was watching, his shirt flickering between textures and fabrics. I squared my shoulders, made myself give a report the way we had practiced, the way he had taught me to recite, because I couldn’t hide in my pain. “A wardstone which doubled as a portal was activated by Max. He and Brand are missing. I have reason to believe they are with Gideon Saint Valentine.”

Lord Tower looked at me, and then paused. “Rune? You are in charge, this time.”

I didn’t know how to be in charge if Brand wasn’t there to be the filter between me and what needed to happen. “We find them,” I said quietly. I held up the necklace, and Ciaran presented the fastened collar.

“These activate in three days,” I said quietly. “At least, the necklace one does. I need to speak to Hannah Saint Valentine.” I frowned, deciding I might as well share all I knew. “I have reason to believe that they are being held on a boat that belongs - that belonged to the Heart Throne.”

“Which boat?” Lord Tower asked. “I have a map of the Green Docks. If we can find them-”

“The bar is called Wonderland,” I answered. “I can speak to Hannah-” I paused, and looked at Quinn. “Ice cubes. There’s someone else who might have information. When Max first came to stay with us, Quinn got us to meet with Ciaran, and Max- Max got drugged. We watched the drink, but the barman-” I frowned, trying to remember. At the time my concern had been Max’s wellbeing, and ensuring that Brand didn’t kill the man, and knowing Max was crying and I couldn’t make it stop.

“Joey,” I said quietly. “The man’s boyfriend was called Joey, and I don’t… I don’t think he survived what they did to him.” I could hear the man’s anger. “He thought Max was a scion of the Heart Throne. He had lost… he had lost everything to them. And he said-” he was always with his uncle, wearing a stupid dog collar, sitting in the corner while his uncle did things to the humans “He’d run into Max at some of the parties.”

Lord Tower looked at me, and then flicked his gaze to Mayan. “Mayan, find out what you can from that man.”

“Don’t kill him.” I was startled by the pleading tone to my voice. “Please. Max didn’t want him killed and- and he shouldn’t have drugged Max, but- he’s been hurt by the Lovers too.”

Lord Tower looked at me. “If he is too stupid to work out that Max was a victim, I think he is too stupid to live. But this is your mission, Rune.” He nodded towards Mayan. “No lethal force, and if you can make sure he will recover from your interrogation, that is preferable. But the information is key.”

Mayan turned and walked out of the room.

I felt sick. Addam’s hand was on my shoulder, and I knew - I knew Max was back there, that this was his nightmare, and I just hoped they knew I was doing all I could to get them back.

The wave of warmth through the bond was startling. Brand. It didn’t feel - it felt like him. Like he could concentrate enough to let me know he was alright. For a moment, I closed my eyes and basked in the sensation, sending the same in return.

I looked at Lord Tower. “Do I… Do I go and speak to Hannah?”

“No,” he said softly. “I will handle that. You need to charge your sigils, and get some rest.”

“But-”

“Rune. We have to work on the assumption that there will be no way to open the ward stones early. So we have to plan for that. Ciaran, you analyse the wardstones. See what you can work out.”

The Principality shook his head, but picked up the two items.

Addam looked at me. “Hero. It is late. You need to rest.”

I didn’t understand how this could have happened. We’d been having a good day. And then I had lost them. “I need to store Clarity in my ring,” I said quietly.

“Alright,” Addam agreed. “I need to adjust my sigils as well. We’ll put Quinn to bed in his room and then we can use one of my godfather’s sanctums to get things fixed. And once… once that is done,” he smiled at me sadly, “we shall try and sleep. Because he needs us rested.”

I looked at him, and I nodded.

“When we find them,” Addam said quietly but firmly, “I will go to Max. Straight away. If they are together. I will go to Max. And you will go to Brand.”

That was a kindness greater than anything I could say. Brand would not want anyone to know he was vulnerable. And I needed - I would need him. To apologise. To make him safe. But I did not want Max to feel abandoned.

“Thank you.”

Addam tipped my head up, brushed his lips to my own. “Hero. I know you are frightened. I know you are angry and scared. But we will use that to charge our sigils and we will bring our boys home, do you understand me?”

Slowly, I nodded. I had to believe he was right. I closed my eyes, and tried to send a single thought through the bond. I will find you.

Chapter Text

I wanted to say it was hard to sleep with two of my people missing, but actually it was easy. My body found it easy enough to fall back on the old patterns, when I was recovering from - from what had happened in the Carriage House, the destruction and loss of everything. Those first few days, even having my eyes open was an effort I could barely force myself to make. I had slept, because sleep was easier than anything else. The nightmares only came later.

The Pac Bell remained my sanctuary, in a way. Addam and Quinn each had their own room in a twin suite, nicer than my own had been. Neither of them had a lock on the outside of the door. But then, I doubted either of them had needed to be kept under the kind of supervision I had needed at points, as I fumbled my way back to something that could be considered life.

I had thought I had lost everything then. But I had kept Brand. I had clung to him, determined to protect him with everything I had left, the meagre scraps of my soul. And now I didn’t even have him. We slept in Addam’s room, not my own, although I suspected it was still there for me.

I woke to Addam’s hands stroking down my back, his body warm against me. He was naked, and I was not, and he looked at me.

“I received a message from my godfather. They are ready to see us.” His phone was still charging on the desk, which meant the Tower’s message had been telepathic. But he’d chosen to let me sleep.

I nodded, and Addam reluctantly let go of me, and I startled slightly as I realised what I had missed the previous night. I quickly pulled on clothes that were suitable for the day ahead as a realisation buzzed at the back of my brain. I didn’t say it yet - I felt foolish for not being able to say it earlier. Addam was close behind me. We found everyone was already in the breakfast suite. Lord Tower subtly signalled for quiet, and so we spent a few minutes on forced small-talk, as servants laid out our food. And then they left us, and I looked at the Tower, and he nodded.

“Hannah does not know the location of the Wonderland,” he said quietly. “It is not among the boats on the Green Docks.”

“The barman at Cubic Dreams did not know the location either. He had some information which was useful, but his boyfriend had mostly been to parties aboard the Bywell Castle, until close to the end. There are reports of various people going missing, but not where they went,” Mayan reported.

I swallowed, and ducked my head. I was aware that what I was about to say was something I should have mentioned the day before, only it slipped my mind. “Brand had put a tracker in Max,” I announced, opening up my phone and then staring in despair at the list of apps.

I knew which ones were games. That wasn’t the current problem. Brand could work the apps I needed, and if that failed then Max normally could (even if sometimes he beat my high score on my own phone). I wasn’t sure which of these symbols revealed the trackers I needed.

Lord Tower stared at me for a moment, and then rubbed between his eyes. “Mayan?”

Mayan took my phone, did something to it, and then there was a map visible on the table before us. I was slightly surprised at that - I had not realised that the ornate breakfast table doubled as a screen. Mayan tapped at it. “Brandon has linked your accounts. Here you are-” he pointed to an area where there were four dots darting around from one location to another. “The wards on the Pac Bell disturb trackers. Addam and Quinn are here as well. There-” He gestured towards Addam’s condo. “I would assume those are Annawan and Corbitant, but there are quite a few-” he clicked on a small pile of dots, and paused. “Brandon appears to have put trackers in several of Corbitant’s toys.” He zoomed in, and we could see most of the dots were clustered together, and one was near Anna’s - Corbie had clearly taken a teddy with him to breakfast.

I hoped that wasn’t the kind of thing that Corinne would object to. Brand just showed love through tracking software. At New Saints there was another dot - I knew that would be Layne, who had a physical therapy appointment in the mornings. There was no dot for Corinne, but I knew she was in the Rejuvenation Centre. It didn’t surprise me that she hadn’t allowed Brand to put a tracker on her phone.

“He put a tracker in me, didn’t he?” I asked, because that was easier than dealing with the other problem. There were four in the Pac Bell, so either Brand had trackered Mayan or the Tower, or I was listed twice. I tried to focus on that, and not the bigger problem. There were no other dots on the screen. There was no sign of Max.

“He did,” Mayan agreed. Lord Tower was checking something on his own tablet.

“No sign of them more broadly either-” He flicked a hand, and the image changed from a map of Nantucket to one of the entire East Coast. Our dots remained, but no other one had joined them. Another flick, and we could see America. And then a third and final flick, and the outline of the world was there, and there was no sign of the other dot.

“Maybe he cut it out,” Addam said softly, and I knew it was meant to be a reassurance. If the tracker had been removed, it could have been destroyed without that meaning Max was injured. I tried to smile at the thought, only the smile tasted strange on my lips.

“It could be a pocket dimension,” Quinn suggested. “Sometimes it’s a pocket dimension.”

“It’s not a pocket dimension, Sweetness,” Ciaran said as he strode into the room, wearing a lime green suit and a vivid orange tie. On anyone else, it would have looked unbelievably garish. On Ciaran, it was believably garish. He sat down and began peeling an orange. “I would know if it was that. I’ve been looking at the wardstones, and the spellwork - it’s tricky, but it’s not the worst I’ve done. I think I can crack into them within forty eight hours, and hold them open, but I wouldn’t be in any fit state to go through them. Portal work always gives me an awful headache.”

“I will assemble a team,” Lord Tower answered. “It is quite likely there will be others there in need of rescue, and that we should act to handle anyone there who isn’t a prisoner.”

“Where is he?” I asked, staring at the map. Because it had to be a pocket dimension. There was no dot for Max, and I suspected Brand would have his own tracker as well, on his phone if nothing else. Neither of them were showing up. “What’s the range on these trackers?”

“Five hundred and seventy kilometres for the phones,” Mayan listed off. “One thousand and twenty kilometres for the physical trackers. We have a grid of antennae at four hundred kilometre distance, forming a grid across the globe.”

“The middle of the Pacific?” I asked, desperately. Lord Tower looked at me coldly, and I realised that of course his stupid grid system would cover the Pacific as well. And then I really thought about it.

“The kid’s going to be allergic to seafood,” I muttered.

Ciaran stared at me. “You do come out with the most fascinating sentences sometimes, Sun.”

“I know where they are.” I turned, and looked at Quinn, who looked as lost as the rest of them. And then I glanced down at my hands. I always took my ring with Exodus everywhere with me. But suddenly I wasn’t certain if that was a good idea. I stared at the map. “There’s no dot because they’re out of range of the antennae.”

“But-” Lord Tower looked at me calmly. “I would know if any of my antennae had been interfered with.”

“It’s not been interfered with. The grid is intact, they’re just out of reach.” I glanced at Addam. Everyone else looked confused. I was the only one with an answer here. And it wasn’t an answer I liked.

“Could you be slightly less cryptic, Rune,” Lord Tower said firmly. “I want to get them back as soon as possible, and need to know where I’m sending my team.”

“It has to be through the portal. Because I’m guessing the signal only works at significant distances through the air. Quinn… at Max’s birthday, he said that the child would end up with a seafood allergy if we went to the Mariana trench.”

With Brand absent, there was no-one to say ‘fuck’, but I’m pretty sure the Russian that Addam hissed translated to something similar.

Knowing where my people were should have been a comfort. It should have meant something, should have put me one step closer to having them back. But it was no comfort now. Knowing where they were put them further from me, not closer.

I stepped back, slightly, to let the Tower and Ciaran take control, because whilst I wanted nothing more than to force my way straight to my Companion and my brother, it was the two of them who had the skills necessary to organise what came next. Brand wasn’t there to calm me down, to help me plan. It felt like trying to think with only half of my brain.

Addam sat down beside me, and wrapped his hands around my own, as Lord Tower arranged for a security team. “We will get to them. I know - I know it does not feel like it. But this is progress, yes? We know where they are. If they are moved, they will immediately trigger the trackers, and we shall find them. I know - I know. It hurts me so much to be without them, and I know it is worse for you. But. We are talking hours. We shall get them back.” His accent made it clear he was distressed, but he was trying to hide it for me. I didn’t deserve him. He patted my shoulder. “We will have them back soon.”

It was not Brand’s blunt style of reassurance. But it was comfort when I desperately needed it. “Thank you.”

“We shall bring them home, Hero. And they know that, because they know you.” He reached out, and cupped my cheek. “They know you. They know you will find them. I am not saying that to comfort you, but because I know them. They have faith in you.”

“I let them get taken.”

“Even Quinn could not stop them from being taken. You will bring them home.”

“Can I ban them from ever stepping foot outside again?” I groused, leaning into his touch.

“I could, if I wished, point out that they were taken from inside our house,” Addam said. I shrugged my agreement, because my luck was just that shit. Addam leaned in, and brushed his lips against my forehead. “Our sigils are ready, Hero. We will be ready when the time comes.”

It was not enough. I wanted them there now. Waiting was awful. I hated waiting - hated when conversations were to be had later, hated when we were waiting for a mission. At least then I had the reassurance of watching Brand checking over his weapons. Now there was nothing. I excused myself, saying I needed some water, because I needed space from Addam and his kind positivity.

I found myself pacing through the Pac Bell, pausing outside my room. I undid the lock and headed inside. It was still there, the same - I wasn’t sure if it was sentiment that had preserved it for a decade, but it still stood there. My bed, and matching shelves. The chair Brand had made for me after I had managed to put it together wrong. The bookshelves had the books that I hadn’t taken, that wouldn’t fit in Half House. I wondered if I should ask for them back when we were in the Sun Estate. I would have enough bookshelf space then. There had been a library. The books were probably rotted, but the shelves would still be good.

I sat down on the bed. I’d been so young - we’d both been so young, and so lost. And I’d had Brand beside me. Brand had his own room down the hallway. He’d mastered sneaking out of the open window in the middle of the night and clambering across bare stone to get to me until Lord Tower had conceded to allowing us to stay together some nights - the bad nights, the ones where memories played in a loop and I lay in the bed and didn’t have the strength to scream.

I heard footsteps approach. Not Addam - quieter, almost silent. And not Brand. Lord Tower pushed open the door, and stood in the doorway, expecting entrance but waiting until I agreed. I nodded, and he stepped forwards.

He did not embrace me. We had never had the kind of closeness that allowed for touch - his feelings for me were not like mine for Max, I thought. Or at least, that was what I had always understood. And yet now, he looked at me and there was a quiet anger in his eyes. “We will get them back, Rune.”

I nodded. I did not trust myself to speak.

“We will get them back. And they will understand that they never should have moved against us.” He looked at me, into my eyes. “We will get them back.” I felt the faint shiver of a vow, and I nodded again.

“Addam is waiting for you. Quinn has been trying to work out what is needed - I would rather you did not take him through with us.”

“Us?” I asked, and that made Lord Tower raise an eyebrow, because of course it was us. He was going to be coming into the field, because I needed him. I didn’t say that, and nor did he, but it didn’t stop it from being the truth. “I won’t take Quinn through.”

“Thank you. I will arrange for healers to be here, for Brandon and for Matthias,” Lord Tower offered. “Anyone else will be treated at New Saints, and I shall be paying - I missed this in our initial attempt at clearing out the Lovers’ nests.” It was generosity I had not expected, but that was happening a lot. I allowed his excuse, because it meant we could both allow for this to happen.

“Thank you.”

“Rune,” he managed a soft smile. “Mayan and I rather enjoyed doing the research for this particular search, and now I get to visit somewhere I have never been before. When you are as old as I am, it’s a rare treat. Helping you is not always the hardship that you think it is.” He turned, and left me to my thoughts.

It was some time before I managed to stand, but I made my way back out to find Addam in the corridor outside. He’d known I’d needed him close, and that I needed space, and had found a way to meet both my needs. He was just perfect like that. He took my hand, and we returned to the breakfast room, where more food was waiting.

I could not bring myself to eat lunch. I managed some dinner, although I have no idea what it was - definitely something extravagant, but I could not focus on it. I slept, in Addam’s arms, as the Tower planned and Ciaran worked, and I was woken at dawn by the Tower pulling me from my dream and into a vision. We were back on the deck of that ship - it was a special memory I supposed, and it was probably meant to be an honour that he shared it with me.

I frowned, looking at his younger face. “Where- what is happening?”

“Rune, you have ten minutes to get down here. Ciaran has almost got the portal open.”

He pushed me from his thoughts, and I jumped to alertness, shaking Addam. “It’s time. Ciaran’s almost ready.”

Chapter Text

I dressed, checking and double checking my sigils. I paused slightly at the ring containing Exodus, and then decided I would need to wear it - if I found myself in a situation bad enough that I needed to release that particular spell, I should be glad for it even with the fact that letting off a blast in such tight quarters would likely be the last thing I did. I would have felt worse without having its reassuring weight against my finger.

Addam fastened his belt around his waist, and rested his hand against my shoulder. “It is alright. I will prioritise finding Max, and you will find Brand.” He said it so calmly and certainly, and that was a help, a reassurance that somehow it would work out. Addam always sounded like that.

I was not sure I completely believed him but I tried to, because I had to - because I needed desperately to know that all was going to be alright. I needed Brand. And I needed Max as well - they were my people, the heart of my family, and I could not lose them.

I managed to force a smile, and made my way outside. A maid directed us along the corridor and down some stairs.

The room we entered had clearly been planned as a ballroom - not one of the original rooms in the Pac Bell, but added because it was expected that an Arcana would be able to host elaborate parties. I did not know that it had been used for that. The Tower, if he had a party, would host them elsewhere. He knew that parties offered a chance for spies and threats to infiltrate your inner spaces. He’d used them often enough himself.

What it was used for was a base. The Tower had clearly been taking his role in this seriously - he had two squads of men waiting, and Mayan. Quinn hurried over, and spoke to Addam in a whisper. Lord Tower was wearing his battle armour, which surprised me a little - i knew of it, of course, but I had not seen it before. Bronze links, built into the chainmail, glittered with power.

He looked at me, and he nodded.

I managed a smile. “You’re not wearing the tiara today then?” I asked, keeping my voice as light as possible.

“I have that as well,” Lord Tower answered, gesturing towards his pocket. I blinked slightly. This was not - this was not a major fight. Prior to my elevation to an Arcana, it was the kind of challenge I was sometimes sent to handle on my own, and which I could manage competently. Only on my own had always meant with Brand.

Lord Tower looked at me. “They threatened my people.” It was that simple. I nodded, once, and finished my survey of the room because Brand would be furious if I didn’t remember everything.

Ciaran sat cross legged towards the back of the room, the two wardstones on the ground before him. He was spinning magic - literally spinning it, his fingers moving in the air before him. There was a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his eyes were closed, but as I approached they snapped open. His eyes glowed with silver, and I knew - I took a breath, and fought the urge to bow.

“Bring them back, Sun,” he told me. “I can hold the portal open, but it will not be easy. I can give you up to five hours. After that, I will need to rest, and it will open again in twenty four.”

“Thank you.” I could see the faint shaking of his body. I knew he was pushing himself, and I didn’t question his choice, because he was the only one who could do that. My family needed it. We had to move as fast as we could.

He worked, and the rest of us stood in silence. And then he smiled, his crimson lips quirking upwards in victory, and he clenched his hands into fists and then pulled them open. The collar was on the ground, but Hannah’s necklace lifted into the air, floating above us. In the gap between the two of them, the air flickered and tore, and a strange musty smell filled the air.

“Not yet.” He ordered, and I realised I had taken a step forward. He closed his eyes again, breathing slowly, and his fingers twitched again, and then he nodded, and his eyes opened. “It will hold.”

I stepped forwards first. This was my raid. My Companion that was missing. I was in charge. I had to be in charge. I stepped forwards, and walked through, my wristguard transforming into a sabre. I swung it around, looking for any danger - but I was alone. I was at the start of a path, and it was lit by fairy lights. The hulking shape of a ship loomed above me. I was standing on sand. I looked up, and saw pitch, a darkness that had weight. I called forth three light cantrips, sent them spinning up, and I could see a roof, only it wasn’t a roof - it was a dark mass, held up by a shield. I assumed there would be several mass sigils powering it, and I could almost hear Brand complaining about how well the other impoverished Arcana were resourced compared to us.

I took a step forward, to signal it was alright for the others to come through. I had decided I would be visible for this raid, and I would lead, because if they thought they had a small group of intruders, they would respond differently to knowing the Tower was here. He and Mayan and the rest would be following once I gave the signal, or within the hour. Addam alone would follow me now, as the others would secure the perimeter.

I knew which boat this would be. I had known since Hannah had mentioned the name of the bar on board, and yet it made it no easier to see the ghosts, the children screaming and spluttering and clutching, the women weighed down by their dresses in the water. The Princess Alice.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, the boat had sunk in the Thames on its way back from a trip to the seaside. It had been filled by children playing, by mothers and fathers pleased that the money they had scrimped and saved for had given their families a good day. The Princess Alice, filled with hundreds of lives, had been on its way back from the coast when the Bywell Castle had slammed into it, tearing the smaller ship in half. Many had been trapped in their cabins. Others had landed in the water, fouled by sewage, to choke and drown among the waste of the city. Over six hundred drowned, many children, and several of the survivors succumbed to the poisons they had inhaled over the next days and weeks. It was a tragedy, a moment of joy turned into terror. No wonder Atlanteans had wanted it. I could already feel my own magic sparking, responding to the raw power in the air. I could see the ghosts. This wasn’t like the Declaration, these ghosts had not been held in stasis. But this was a point where hundreds of children died, their lives and hopes and dreams drowned in filth. It was the kind of thing that my kind would not be able to ignore.

I caught sight of one young boy, his eyes wide with terror as he scrabbled towards the surface, And then the ghosts were gone. Addam had stepped forwards, rested his hand against my shoulder.

“Clarity,” he said softly. We had both stored it, our experiences on the Green Docks teaching us it might be needed. But I had been so caught up in the images that I had not thought to cast it myself.

“Thank you,” I murmured. I reminded myself this was not like our fight with the Hanged Man. I did not need to force myself to bear witness. There was no torture, no hunt or story here. Simply a tragedy. The men on the Bywell Castle had done all they could to save lives. Afterwards, shipping rules were changed to try and prevent anything similar happening again. And this corpse of a boat had been gathered up by my kind.

The boat had been split in half, but what was ahead of us now was whole. It had been repaired. It was simply too tempting a target for my people not to have snatched it up. I told myself that I was unusually sensitive to ghosts. Brand and Max weren’t. They wouldn’t be seeing this.

Addam looked at me, and I saw the cold calmness in his eyes. He was my strength. He was the representative of Justice here, somewhere where there had not been such a thing for a long time. I did not use my Clarity yet. It would be needed later, once I found Brand.

I reached down, brushed my fingers against my anklet, felt the fizz of power, the strange dizzy sensation that always accompanied the release of the spell, where I felt momentarily unsteady. Levitation was not used to being used at pressure, and while the air pressure hadn’t changed, the dome above our head was the only thing stopping us and the boat from being crushed to nothingness.

I reached out, and wrapped my hand around Addam’s wrist, above his metal hand. He looked at me, and nodded, and I guided us up into the air. I could see the path lit by fairy lights trailing up to the ship, where an entrance had been cut into its side. I took us instead onto the main deck, between the two giant paddle wheels that had powered her through the water.

There was no sign of life. If I remembered correctly, it was a day yet before the wardstones were meant to open, which meant we would have time to secure the site and be ready for anyone who came to visit. We touched down on wood that was showing signs of age, creaking and worn.

Addam’s expression was firm. “They will pay,” he told me quietly, and I believed him because I had to believe him, because I needed to know that we would make our way through this and ensure it did not happen again. I moved forwards, keeping close enough that the Clarity would stretch between us. I had to focus. My people were on the boat.

I reached for the bond I shared with Brand, and I could feel - I could feel something that was almost like exasperation, or relief, and I felt laughter bubbling up within me because he knew I was here. He was here. I sent back a promise to him, my determination to find him. If anything, the exasperation grew greater. He knew. He had always known.

He was going to tease me forever for the fact I’d forgotten about the tracker, and I would accept that because he would be with me to tease me. He’d get me it on a tea towel and I’d accept it because he was there.

Addam looked at me, and I could feel his focus, his flesh hand glittering with magic. “I’ve got Telekinesis. Remember, the humans on this ship- they are probably mindfucked…” I could tell he wanted to say more, but didn’t know how to say it. I shook my head.

“I can feel him. He knows we’re here.” He felt like himself, and that was a relief. Brand had his own mind. I didn’t know what to make of that, and I didn’t know where Max was, but at least for now my Companion had been spared the worst excesses of the Lovers’ Court, and I would celebrate that later. For now, I had to get to him. We needed to be together. I checked the wood ahead of me. The remains of the ship seemed sturdy. With a flick of my hand, I shook off the remaining Levitation - I needed to be on the ground for what came next.

I led the way, my cantrips bobbing around ahead of us. The deck of the ship was empty, but a door hung open. I walked forwards, knowing Addam had my back. I walked into the room, scanning it, my sabre ahead of me. There was no one. The humans on the boat might be hostile but they were victims and we had to try and preserve life.

It felt better once there was a wall between me and the outside world, even when the wall was only rotten wood, and would do nothing against the sheer weight of water that could come pressing in should the barrier fail. At least I no longer feared an attack from all sides.

I stepped forwards. This corridor was not lit. I didn’t search for a light switch - we did not yet know if our breach had been uncovered, and I did not particularly wish to call attention to us yet. I wished I had a bond that would let me sense exactly where Brand was. Brand said sometimes he could tell where I was simply by thought, but mine was never quite so precise. He was near. I could tell he was near.

I had Brand's presence in my mind, and that mattered. He could feel me as well, knew I would be coming for him, and I clung to the sense of him. I had a Healing spell on me. He was currently conscious. There was a good chance that we would be alright, I just needed to get to him and Max, and then get him and Max off of this ship. I wondered how far through this I could get without drawing attention to my presence, and I knew it would not be very long.

The cantrip lighting our way showed rooms with open doors, and I examined several of them, careful to check for any hidden dangers. There was nothing. It was a large vessel, and we had not come through the visitor's entrance - these rooms were old and decayed. And then as we progressed deeper into the ship there were the rooms for storage, condoms and piles of vials that I didn't recognise but were probably either illegal or highly questionable. I pocketed one, in case it was needed by the healers later.

I realised Addam had stopped following me, and turned back, trying to push down the flare of panic at the thought that he might have been being controlled. But his burgundy eyes, when they looked at me, were anguished but conscious. He was aware of his surroundings. More aware than I had been.

"What is it?" I asked, but even as I asked it I knew, because one of the doors was closed and had a familiar domestic ward in place above it.

I felt frozen as well. We knew that Brand was alive. And I had been telling myself, again and again, that I would know if anything had happened to Max because it would have been felt through the bond. I did believe that. But I stared at the ward in concern.

"Do we break it?" Addam asked.

"No," I said softly. "I do." It wasn't that Addam hadn't seen death before, or that I thought he was incapable. It was just that he was less tainted than I was. "You stay here and watch for an ambush."

He nodded, and I was grateful for that. I couldn't have him arguing with me right now. He drew his sword, and his Aspect flickered above his skin. His Aspect was beautiful, just like the rest of him was beautiful, but I did not look at that right now. I had to focus on what was needed.

I broke the ward and stepped into the room. There were seven bodies. None were Max. I could see a catalogue of injuries on those that were not too decayed. The smell was awful, and I backed out of it and looked to Addam. "It's not them." I used the communicator which connected me directly with Lord Tower and Mayan, as most of our technology would not work at this depth.

"I've found seven corpses. Not our targets." My voice sounded steady. I did not let myself think on what this meant for Max, or for Hannah's casual dismissal of not sharing Gideon's tastes.

"Tracking your location," Mayan informed me. "We will have them collected later."

"Thank you." I was glad that they seemed to have understood the strength of my feeling following the situation on the Declaration.

We carried on down the corridor. I checked in the rooms there, and these were clearly set up for the party. They reminded me of the room that had been used for parties at the Declaration, a concerning mix of cruelty and decadence, though lower budget than that the Hanged Man had managed.

I had known, of course I had known, that Max's Grandmother had gifted Max to her son to train him for marriage to the Hanged Man. It had not occurred to me before that moment that she might done it because they could have been friends.

We carried on. I checked a few more rooms. Some were less of a nightmare than others, but none of them were somewhere I wished for my ward to spend time. Had I been in a less awful position, I might have been able to make some kind of joke about Brand's tastes, but my Companion was missing and he was always better than me at hiding injuries through the bond. I was getting scared. It was a surprise, but a welcome one, when Brand pressed reassurance back at me.

We got another floor down the cabins before we first saw someone. She was sitting on the ground, her eyes closed, slumped against the wall, and at first I thought she was dead. But I drew Clarity closer about myself as I approached, and examined her. There was bruising, and a collar at her throat, and she was breathing.

I did not disturb her sleep, and I walked on. I heard Addam report her presence.

We carried on for a short while, and then I saw a figure moving towards us. He was armed, and he wasn't wearing a collar, and he had fae colouring - not as obvious as Max's, but still present. That combined into enough for me to class him as a combatant, and to let my wristguard transform into a blade. The man pushed the button on his radio.

Addam acted faster than me - he pulled Telekinesis from his belt, and sent the man slamming back against the wall with a sickening crack. The radio crackled, voices on the other end calling for information, and I stepped towards the man. He was out cold, if not dead. I didn't bother checking for a pulse.

I took a deep breath, picking up the radio and pressing the button to activate it. "This is Rune Saint John," I spoke calmly. "The Sun of Atlantis. I have come to reclaim what is mine, and to destroy you. This is your only chance to yield. If you do not surrender now, I will tear you apart."

There was no reply from the radio. I looked at Addam, and then used my sabre to send a pulse of fire into it, destroying it into scrap.

"I think," Lord Tower's voice sounded in my ear, "that we should now act on the assumption that they know you have arrived."

"Get in here," I snapped back, calling forth the Shield from my thigh sigil, and Fire, as I would always be able to use my sabre if I ran out. I channelled the Fire into the blade just as the first guards rounded the corner towards us.

Chapter Text

I pushed my shield in front of me, deflecting the initial attack into the walls. We’d moved far enough away from the girl that we didn’t need to worry that she would be at risk from the fighting. A wave of air went rushing towards me. The guard at the front stumbled - that was Addam’s Telekinesis hard at work. I shot fire at one man as he drew a gun, darted forwards with my blade as the next drew a sword. I counted six men, including the two already on the floor.

I was not used to fighting without Brand. But I had trained. I was not utterly useless without him, no matter what he might claim. I heard Addam yelp, but I couldn’t look around, bringing my blade up to meet the swing of the man ahead of me and snapping my Shield forwards, using it to slam the next man into a wall. I heard the wood splintering beneath him, and when I pulled the Shield back he crumpled to the ground. I pulled the Shield around myself as I spun, assessing the situation at a glance before parrying another blow. Between us, we’d ended up with almost all of the guards on the ground. One of the remaining men turned and ran, and I stopped him with a blast from my blade. My Shield was almost exhausted, but I pulled the remainder close around myself and Addam.

The last guard dropped his weapons and raised his hands. He looked young, and rather nervous about being here. “They pay well?” he said quietly, and I recognised a Warrens’ accent. I stared blankly, unsure what to do now. Brand did not believe in leaving survivors, but the man was unarmed.

Addam, who was more observant than I gave him credit for, turned and walked into one of the surrounding rooms. He came back with handcuffs, and cuffed the boy’s hands behind him. He looked at him, and leaned in, speaking low. Then he marched the boy down, and put him near the unconscious girl, using another set of handcuffs to attach the boy’s leg to a piece of pipework. He walked back to me and nodded.

“Thank you,” I whispered. I liked working with Addam. Addam always wanted to find ways to save people, and I didn’t always know it would work out, but I appreciated him. He made me feel hopeful. I cared about bystanders, and had argued with The Tower about it more times than I could count, but Addam cared about the bad guys too. I thought of Sherman. Addam had saved him. Addam was a better man than I deserved. “Are you injured?”

He showed me a cut on the back of his arm. It wasn’t too deep - I didn’t like it, but we didn’t have a Healing to spare, not until we knew the condition that Max and Brand were in. I regretted not grabbing some superglue - but Brand always carried that.

“It’s fine, Hero. Please don’t worry.” Addam smiled at me. He looked confident. He always looked confident.

I took a deep breath. “Onwards?”

“Onwards,” Addam agreed, waving his hand with a flourish. I was painfully aware that I was running low on useful sigil spells. I could fight with cantrips if I had to, but I was very conscious of the fact that I was at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and with a time limit. I could not afford to waste my sigil spells.

I could feel Brand more clearly now. He was nearby. I reached out, and grabbed a radio from one of the bodies on the floor. “Marco.”

There was a faint burst of amusement a moment later. My Brand was nearby, and he knew I was coming.

I hurried onwards, Addam with me - he couldn’t feel where Brand was, but he knew I would be headed there. We were almost there.

I turned the corner. Another guard attempted to stop us - Addam brought them down with Telekinesis, and again I grabbed the radio. “Marco.” I was closing in.

We turned another corridor - we were headed down, into the belly of the ship. This would have been engine rooms once, and the metalwork remained, empty now and moved aside. It had been repurposed as an entry space through the hull of the ship, with a ramp down to the ground.

I had a momentary flash of memory - my Father shooing me and Brand out from the ballroom before the party, rows of glassware being neatly laid out by the servants, plates waiting for food, instruments waiting without their players. A room filled with candlelight. This room looked like that - the glassware was waiting, the candles burning, and small spaces were set up. That was where the similarities ended.

It would be a while yet before the guests arrived. Another day for final refinement. If my calculations were correct, we had maybe three hours before the portal collapsed, assuming that Ciaran was able to hold it open as long as he thought. I had wasted too much time.

A dart came shooting towards me, and clattered helplessly off of Addam’s Shield before I could even raise my sabre and shoot it down. I scanned the room, looking for danger. There was an armchair, and a figure there. I strode towards it, stopped when I felt the dome of a spell in my path.

The man in the chair looked up. He smiled at me, and I saw - I saw that he looked close to my age, but his eyes and forehead had that strange ageless smoothness that spoke of repeated regenerations. He shared his mother’s overbite. He was heavily armed, wearing Sigils as necklaces. He looked like Max - the same unbelievably fair colouring, pearlescent skin. He seemed confident in his own shield - I could see flickers of power within it.

“The catamite prince,” he greeted me. “Matthias kept saying you would return. I assumed you had been simply filling the boy’s head with more nonsense. You know, you nearly had him believing that he was special.”

I did not react. I was aware of Addam tensing beside me.

“Rune-” He managed, the noise strangled out, and then he wasn’t - he wasn’t my Addam any longer. He rushed towards me, raising his sword.

I had Telekinesis in the disc on an armband. I used that, lifted Addam into the air, and held him up there. The spell would end when the man in front of me was dead.

The dome flickered with power. I looked at it, and reached out with my Will. I needed that dome gone. I understood the Tower’s warning about not relying on use of the Majure, that its use cost both me and Brand. But the man who had taken Brand was inside the dome. And there were things I could not allow myself to see yet, which meant I had to be inside of it. The wards began to crack.

Gideon Saint Valentine didn’t look concerned. I don’t know if it was because he wasn’t aware of the damage, or because he had more Sigils than me. Either way, the wards would fall.

They did. They crumbled down, and I stepped forwards again, still keeping Addam held back by Telekinesis. I moved him back, behind me, in case anyone else tried to shoot at him.

I was almost to Gideon Saint Valentine when I realised my mistake. He smirked, and I felt my knees buckle. Raw power crashed over me, a mix of arousal and desire, and he smiled.

“Look at me, Rune Sun.” He whispered.

Heir to the fucking Lover’s throne. He’d got the same sex magic as his mother, and I hadn’t considered that. It had never even crossed my mind that he would have an ability like this, and the pheromones had been building up in the dome until I had torn the shield down. His magic crashed over me. It wasn’t quite as strong as she had. But I couldn’t think, not now, my senses filled with pheromones, with want. I licked my lips. Addam did not cause such a reaction in me. He strode closer, crossing the space before me, and I was distantly aware of someone else’s panic. But he was looking down at me, and his hand reached out to touch my hair.

He was wearing gloves. They were black leather, not white silk, but fear pierced through the arousal. I jerked back, activating the ring storing Clarity as I pulled my sabre up and set off a single shot.

He crumpled, and the air cleared. I panted in air, trembling, my mind spinning as I gasped. The magic in the room was gone, other than a single thread crossing the room, nothing more than a wisp, towards what I hadn’t allowed myself to see.

Addam recovered faster than me. I must have dropped him when Gideon had unleashed his aspect - but he went running past me, past Gideon’s body. I caught sight of him sweeping a blonde figure into his arms, and the thread was flickering.

And then I fired off another shot into the corpse of the figure, and I ran - not to Max, but the corner of the room.

Brand was manacled. His arms were held above his head, twisted awkwardly at the wrist, his head resting against the corner of the room. He was on his knees. There were fresh cuts across his back, picking out letters. Thief. The cuts were not clean. Above him, written in his blood, were two words. Break me. There was a collar at his throat, and I felt fury at that.

I pushed my Clarity forwards, around both of us. He looked at me, and his blue eyes focused, and I could feel now the pain he was trying to hide - his arms were burning. More than that, he’d been forcing himself to hold with his back to the room - and he hated having his back to the room, needed a wall behind him if we ever went to a restaurant. He’d twisted- I stared at him, as I understood. He’d been protecting the child. Tears beaded in my eyes, as I blasted the chains and helped lower his arms. “I’m here.”

“Max was fucking incredible,” Brand whispered. He was trying to curl up, around his stomach, and I let him, moving to the side so he had a view of the room. I could feel he was in pain, but he was trying to hide it. I used my blade to cut through the chain linking the manacles - we would deal with getting them off later. I didn’t have any more Telekinesis left. I tried to examine him. There were the cuts to his back, deep enough to need a Healer, but not immediately dangerous.

“Any other injuries?”

“Not yet.” Brand muttered, and I could feel a wave of exhaustion and relief so hard it nearly knocked me from my feet. “Max was a fucking trooper,” he muttered.

I was aware of other people in the room, and I knew that I needed to move, but Brand’s exhaustion and pain was almost overwhelming. And then I heard Lord Tower approach.

“We have secured or destroyed the remaining guard, and will be arranging a full evacuation.”

I nodded, and made no effort to stand yet.

“Where’s Max?” Brand asked, pushing himself up. It was clear the movement pained him, but he wasn’t about to back down.

“He’s with Addam,” I told him. Brand nodded slowly.

“He was fucking amazing Rune-” he murmured.

Lord Tower signalled, and then Addam was approaching. He was holding Max in his arms. Max was wearing a collar himself, and leather trousers, and he still had the cameo necklace, the leather cord resting against his bare chest. He was unconscious, and a bruise had blossomed across his cheek.

“Is he hurt?” I asked.

“Healers are coming,” Lord Tower informed us. “We are evacuating these two as a matter of priority. They will be taken straight to my private suite, and I will deal with the rest. I will take control of the raid, so that you can focus on evacuating your people.” He said it with such confidence. I couldn’t argue. Men came, and tried to pick up Brand, but I shook my head. I could feel that he didn’t want to be touched. I managed to get his arm over my shoulder, and we limped towards the portal together.

Addam followed, carrying the unconscious Max. “Hero, I-”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said softly. “Lovers’ Court. It’s their speciality.”

Brand swallowed, and looked at me. “They didn’t-” He shook his head. “Max managed to keep Clarity over me.”

I stared at him. That wasn’t possible. You could burn through a Sigil in a moment, releasing all the power in a single blast. Or you could make it last, drawing out the power for minutes or hours. But Sigil spells would end.

“He didn’t sleep,” Brand said quietly. “He let me sleep, but he couldn’t- I don’t think he could have held it much longer. But- the whole time, I was… I was me. I knew… I knew you’d be coming. I knew you’d be coming for us.”

“Always.” We limped out of the ship, stumbling across the sand. I realised Mayan was standing beside us.

“Brandon Saint John,” Mayan said, “this counts as abandoning your scion. But. It is good you are back.” With that, he turned and walked off.

I wondered if after everything, I could destroy this ship as well. Or simply we could remove the shield, and the ocean would do that.

Brand was struggling to walk. If I had still got my Levitation or Telekinesis I would have made use of those but without them I was left trying to prop him up myself. He was panting, and his breathing sounded strange. If it had been a long way to healers, I might have used the Healing I carried - amateur Healing was good for surface wounds and serious ones. Mid-level injuries were where you went to a professional if you could afford one, because it was only too easy for something to go wrong in the healing and permanent damage to be left. As Lord Tower was paying, I could afford a professional. “Nearly there,” I told him, because that was important. “We’re nearly there.”

“Knew you were going to find me,” Brand whispered. “We’re fine. All three of us. I kept… I kept telling them. You were going to find us.”

I wanted to stop and embrace him, but that wouldn’t have helped, and the lack of me propping him up would probably have sent him to the ground. “Is there anything we need to talk about with what happened?”

“Max did us proud,” Brand answered. I knew he could be stoic about this - he’d not tell me when he was injured after a mission. He didn’t want to talk about it, so I’d have to try and bully a report from the healers later, and hope that would suffice.

The portal appeared, and Brand managed to step through unaided, because he was fucking stubborn about these things. I caught sight of Ciaran, cross legged and with his eyes still burning silver. Addam was ahead of us - had already got a healer standing over Max. They were busy taking readings and casting spells.

Addam looked at me, and at Brand, and walked across and held onto both of us. It let Brand sag forwards without embarrassment, and I called over a healer. There were a couple of private healers, the sort that the Arcana used, and one approached me. “Lord Sun?”

“Yes?”

“Lord Tower has explained the situation around Brandon Saint John’s… condition. It will be treated with utmost privacy.” I was so busy thinking about the situation I had seen on that boat that it took a moment for me to register their meaning. Then, when I did, I nodded. They took Brand from us, and he started to protest.

“No arguing,” I told him softly. “Let them take care of you.”

He went to unfasten the collar, and stopped when a healer murmured to him. I assumed they were worried it’d take his head off if he removed it.

“It’s not got a magical signature.” I reached out and unfastened it, and he shrugged his shoulders, pressing his chin down against his chest. I smiled at him. “Go with the healer.”

He rolled his eyes, but allowed the prodding. I felt warm arms wrap around me, and I was pulled back against Addam. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I’ve got you, Hero.”

Thankfully, Brand didn’t have any serious injuries. I watched as they prodded at him, washing away the dried blood and filth first, then using spells and tools to check for any damage that wasn’t visible before they laid him down on his front. They healed the cuts across his shoulders. There was a faint trace of the letters after the first sigil was emptied. The second took away everything other than the bottom inch or so of the F, which had faded to a faint scar.

They reached for a third sigil and Brand looked at me. “Are they fucking being precious about it?”

“A bit,” I admitted. I wanted Brand well, but there were other people on that ship. Even if the sigils wouldn’t have helped any injured humans, there might have been Atlanteans that could benefit.

Brand shrugged. “Then sure, I withdraw my consent for healing sigils for these injuries. Stop it.”

The healer frowned, and muttered disapproval, but they backed down. Brand might have been human, but he was a Companion, and the Companion of an Arcana. They couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to.

“We would recommend resting,” the healer told us. “Given your delicate condition, you should not have been engaging in this kind of activity.”

“I didn’t fucking do it by choice,” Brand muttered, getting to his feet in an awkward motion.

“Are you hurt?” Addam asked.

“Arms are still sore. It’s not- it’s not an injury, just I’d got them tied up like that for a while…” He winced. I reached out towards him, but before I could do anything Addam was already there, running his thumb across the new scar and then starting to massage at Brand’s shoulders the way he would treat mine.

Brand’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment.

“I wondered,” Addam said softly, “how you gained these other scars.” His fingers reached out and traced along one of the whip marks. We hadn’t spoken about it. Addam knew better than to ask about Brand’s scars, because he knew I could never talk about my own.

“Defending Rune,” Brand said, and he spoke in a tone of voice that made it very clear there were to be no more questions asked. Addam nodded, and didn’t say more. Almost immediately, Max made a soft noise.

I ran to him, Addam supporting Brand along behind. Max looked up at me. His eyes were shadowed, and I knew - I knew there had been damage done that would take time to heal. He was exhausted, and he smiled weakly. “She was right, you know?”

“What?”

“My Grandmother. She always… she always used to tell me… there are no small magics.. And I know… I know she meant what you can do, but-”

I looked at him. “Max. I couldn’t have done what you did.”

“You’re an Arcana.”

“I am.” I agreed, staring at him. “And you are not. And I… I could not have held a spell for that long.” It was the truth. I was too powerful. It would be like trying to use a firehose to blow out a single candle on a birthday cake. But Max’s power, weak though it was, could be harnessed. He had harnessed it. In near impossible conditions, he had used his magic to do what was needed.

“I’m fae,” he said softly. “Mostly. We don’t… we don’t need to sleep so much…” He yawned as he said it.

“Get some rest. I’m here.”

“Can… can you get Quinn?”

I glanced at the healers, and after a moment they nodded. Addam left me with Brand, and went to fetch his brother, who announced his arrival by running into the room and wrapping his arms around Max.

“You did it!” Quinn said. “You are always so much happier when you do it and the ice-cream was important, wasn’t it? Because when you learn fire it’s always Rune’s Aspect and-”

I cleared my throat to stop the boy from spoiling too much of Max’s future. Quinn grinned at me and shrugged, and I paused, looking at Max. “What about the ice-cream?”

“When we practiced Sigil magic, Quinn said I have to think about… when I felt the thing. So if I was trying to empty Fire, I’d think of you as a pillar of flame, and for light I was picturing a torch…” Max yawned. “But I just… I thought of the ice-cream, because I could remember so clearly how it felt as Quinn told me which flavours I’d like and I just… I knew this was my family.” He blushed, and his skin mottled awkwardly. “I knew it so much - Addam getting us treats, and Brand grouching, and you were smiling, and Quinn was telling me I didn’t like the lemon but I liked the orange and I just-” He shook his head. “I needed a clear moment for Clarity. That man kept telling me I was a disappointment to the Heart Throne. But I’m not part of the Heart Throne, am I? I’m a Saint John.”

“You’re our brother,” I agreed, and I held him in my arms, and I felt him begin to sob, and I rubbed his shoulders and let him cry as Addam and Brand made sure the Healers gave us some space.

Chapter Text

Eventually, Max ran out of tears for now, and he lifted his head from my shoulder. I had been stroking my fingers through his hair, and mumbling meaningless nonsense, and I smiled at him, hoping my own eyes were dry. I wasn’t sure it was helping, but it wasn’t making things worse, and that would suffice for now. He yawned again.

“You need to get some rest,” I told him gently. He was right when he said fae needed less sleep than other Atlanteans, but it was a matter of a couple of hours less a night, not several days of forced consciousness.

He nodded, slowly, and looked at me. “Will…” He bit his lip. I smiled, and rested my hand on his arm, giving him time to think. “Will you stay?”

“I’ll stay,” I promised. “We’ll stay.” He nodded again, and his smile was fragile. He made it through to the room the Tower had put aside for the two of them, and collapsed down on the bed, falling asleep before I’d even arranged the blanket around him.

Addam had been supporting Brand, but once I’d made Max comfortable, Brand walked over, and he wrapped his arms around me. “We knew you were coming for us. We both knew. Max was able to hold out because we knew.”

“Brand-” I frowned. He’d been hurt - he’d been cut, there were cracked ribs the sigils had needed to heal, and a lot of bruising that had now been vanished. “I… if we need to talk about-”

“Look,” Brand said firmly. “There was stuff that man could have done, that I wouldn’t have been able to walk away from. He didn’t do that. That’s all we need to talk about.” He squeezed my hand, and looked into my eyes, his blue eyes shining. “Don’t torture yourself, Rune. I walked away.”

I didn’t point out that most people would have called it limping, even though Brand would have done if the situation was reversed.

“What now?”

“I’m gonna go shower,” he muttered. “And then I can come back here, sit with you. You can tell the baby you were worried about it.”

“We were worried about you!” Addam protested. I rested my hand on Addam’s arm and shook my head. Sometimes, I forgot Brand wasn’t so obvious to the others as he was to me.

“He’s giving us an excuse so that we can make a fuss of him and he won’t be able to object.”

“Oh.” Addam smiled fondly. “Do… do you need help?”

“I can manage to wash myself,” Brand muttered, and I knew that meant he didn’t want to be touched right now.

“May I walk you to the shower?” Addam asked. I knew he was going to ask things that I didn’t want to be present for, so Brand let him go.

I sat by Max. I wanted to embrace him, to stroke his hair, but I didn’t know if he wanted that.

Quinn looked at me, from where he’d been sitting quietly in a corner. “He likes it when you hold him. And he… he likes it if I get in with him. He’ll have a nightmare once the exhaustion recedes a bit, but-“ He shrugged smoothly. “I want to be there for him.”

“Do what you think is best,” I told him gently. “We trust you.”

“I didn’t know-“ Quinn said softly. “I didn’t know what would happen, exactly. I certainly didn’t know how to stop it, I knew people wanted to take him but they weren’t actively looking and then there was the ouroboros but if there’s not the ouroboros and you aren’t looking they normally find him at Lady Death’s party but they can’t do that now…” He shook his head and moved to sit down on Max’s bed. “He’s scared. And I… I don’t know what the point of my gift is. If I can’t keep my friends safe then what is the point of me?”

“You’re Quinn.” I answered quickly. “You are Quinn Saint Nicholas. And you helped him survive, and made sure things were ready, but it – you were able to help him survive because you are his friend. You are Addam’s baby brother. You are-“ I looked at him. “You are my friend.”

“I am meant to be useful.” Quinn frowned. “I am.”

“But-“ I sighed. I didn’t know how to handle this. Pep talks were Addam’s area of expertise, not mine. But I wanted to get it right. “You don’t have to be useful to be a part of this. You are ours, do you understand? You are our family.” I smiled weakly, and Quinn nodded in return. “And you were right. The ice-cream was important.”

That made Quinn smile a little, just as Addam returned and wrapped his arms around his brother. I frowned at Max’s throat – the collar was still there, because he’d been too tired to remove it. I looked at it, saw his name on the tag, and promised myself I would let him choose how to destroy it.

Quinn caught me looking. “He burns it. With Fire. Once you teach him how to use sigils properly. You can teach him now. His uncle demanded to know if- if he could use them, and he can’t so he could answer that honestly but now he can learn-“

I nodded, and felt a flood of panic through the bond, followed by the silence of Brand shutting it, because he didn’t want me hurt by his emotions. I sighed, and clambered to my feet. “Addam? Watch over Max. I’m just going to get Brand.”

He wasn’t far. He was outside the room, eyes roaming around. He’d be looking for threats. I raised my hands, and he smiled and shook his head. “You’re not a threat, Rune. You’re never a threat.”

I shrugged, walking over and settling beside him, my back to the wall as we stood together.

“We’re back at the Pac Bell,” he muttered. “We gotta stop using the Tower for help every time something goes wrong.”

I laughed, and reached out, my hand bumping his. He wrapped his fingers around mine, and I could feel his certainty, his care. I pushed back my own affection and love.

“I just kept thinking that – the spell would drop, and I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from hurting you if he made me-“ Brand said, and he sounded – he was panicking, his voice too loud, and I squeezed his fingers hard.

“Brand.” I moved so I could press my forehead to his, opening our bond as far as it would go, filling it with love. “I know you would never harm me. Addam almost attacked me. I stopped him. It’s alright. And anyway, if you tried I’d just turn into a pillar of fire. We are fine. We are fine, alright?” I couldn’t let his thoughts carry on down that path, couldn’t let horrors eat away at him. He deserved so much better than that, my Brand.

He nodded, and took a deep breath. “He realised, after a while, what Max was doing. He thought it was funny, and he didn’t – he didn’t realise how clever Max was. He told Max- He told Max so much bullshit. And we’re going to keep telling him the truth, alright. He’s a brat but he’s our brat and we won’t ever let him go.”

I squeezed Brand’s hand. “Yeah. We can do that.”

“I knew you’d win,” Brand said softly. “You’re you. You can do anything, if you put your mind to it.”

“Thank you.”

“Which is why it’s so frustrating when you don’t even bother picking up your laundry-“ He paused, and tensed. I heard footsteps approaching, and saw Lord Tower walking towards us, looking casual if you ignored the faint blood spatter on his sleeves. He paused, regarding the two of us – Brand was dressed in generic clothes that had clearly been waiting in the shower, a set of grey pyjamas that let him be covered.

“Brandon, it is good to see you. Rune, a word?”

Brand frowned at me.

“Go and look after Max,” I said softly. For a moment I thought he’d refuse, but then he huffed and walked off. I watched him until I knew he’d gone to the suite, then lowered my head in a nod. “Tower.”

“Rune…” He shook his head. “You did well there. The healers believe no harm was done to the foetus. Matthias will need support. I do not-“ He paused. “I do not think there is anything that I can do. But if you require more security, or-“

“Thank you.” I did not refuse the offer, because I needed to use it, but at the same time I was careful not to agree to anything I couldn’t manage. “I will see how things go, but I appreciate it. I know that Addam is working on the Sun Estate.”

The Tower looked at me calmly. “I understand I went against your wishes by telling the Healers. I trust them to be discreet, but if you do not, then we can ensure they are silenced.”

“I’d rather you didn’t kill people for helping us,” I told him firmly. He shrugged, but nodded his agreement, which I realised would have to suffice for now. I took a breath, squared my shoulders. I was an Arcana. “What happened with the rest of the raid?”

"We have left most of the teams there under Mayan's command to gather in the partygoers as they arrive. The humans and other prisoners have been evacuated, and a few of the guards who seem to be mostly innocent have been contained to deal with later." He paused, looking at me curiously. "My Godson has made you less ruthless."

I shrugged, not sure how to explain. "They weren't the ones to take Max and Brand. And we are dealing with a Court that can harness mind control."

His gaze towards me softened a little, with a shake of his head. "You do things in your own way, Rune. You always have. But you have your people back. They are alive."

"I know," I didn't think I would be feeling anything like as merciful if serious harm had come to either of them.

"I will handle the rest of what happens. You go to them." He told me. I knew that I had a right to demand to be involved - I was no longer simply his mercenary, available when it was useful and then sent out of the room while the grownups talked. But - I could feel Brand's nervousness prickling through the bond. I wanted to go. I knew we needed to deal with what had happened - but Gideon was dead, and my people were safe. That was what I needed, more than anything else. And Lord Tower knew that.

I thanked him, turned, and left. I got back to the suite that had been put aside for us - Addam had his arms around Brand, although the two of them stepped apart as I approached. That wouldn't do at all. I walked along and inserted myself in the middle of their embrace, pulling Brand against me and leaning back against Addam. "We cuddle," I told them firmly. "A scary thing happened, and now we cuddle."

Quinn had climbed into bed with Max, and Max was asleep. As I watched, Quinn screwed his face up in pain and whimpered, and a moment later Max lashed out - panic lengthening his nails into claws. An absent part of my brain wondered if Quinn's prophetic whimper - caused by an awareness of future pain - had made Max lash out. The rest of me, the more useful part, focused on the fact that Quinn was in pain.

I leapt forwards, but Addam moved faster, using Telekinesis to pull Quinn back, while Brand got over to Max and shook his shoulder roughly. "Max!"

Max's eyes snapped open, full of fear, and he saw Brand, and then he saw me, and he started to sob. I didn't take it personally, because I could tell that he was responding from relief rather than anything else. I walked over, and patted his arm gently, as Brand cursed and wiped at his nails with a handkerchief.

"I admit you can actually do some damage with those," Brand muttered, looking over at Quinn, whose arm was bleeding. The claws had torn through his shirt sleeve. And the top layers of skin and muscle. It wasn't serious enough to require an actual healer, but did need treating.

"Quinn?" I held out my hand. "I've got a Healing..." He came over to me, and I released the spell from my ankh, smoothing over the injury to sunburn-pink skin. He frowned up at me rebelliously.

"He almost always scratches me, but he doesn't mean it."

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, in a gesture that I realised I had seen the Tower do before. "Quinn, if he almost always scratches you, why did you get in with him?"

"Because I don't particularly care about this shirt, and he needs me there. He always sleeps better if I hold him."

I sighed softly. Brand had managed to get Max back to sleep - he was too tired to really understand what had happened, and there was no actual harm. Max's nails had reverted to their normal shape.

Brand looked at me. "I'm guessing suggesting he sleeps in like, duct-taped on oven mitts counts as cruelty?"

"Definitely," I told him. "It's alright. He'll be okay-" I paused, because Quinn had that expression he had, that could best be described as a prophetic 'oh-shit', as he crossed over and laid down against Max again. Given the conversation, and the fact I was exhausted and I had my people back, I decided to make that particular expression a problem for future Lord Sun. Me? I was going to curl up with my Companion.

"It's late," I said. I wasn't actually sure what time it was - closer to afternoon than morning, but not night time. But then - I'd spent several days without my Companion. Max was out of it again, and Quinn looked at him and and curled back in stubbornly, and Max's arms wrapped around him.

Addam gestured to the bed that had been set up for Brand. "Hero. The two of you should rest too. I'll take first watch."

I knew I should protest. But - But Brand was here, and he needed me. I yawned, and followed Brand to his own bed. For a while, I dozed, aware only of Brand beside me and the fact that he was back and safe. I was aware of Healers coming and going, Addam talking to them, but I was focused on being near Brand.

I woke up to find blue eyes gazing at me. "How come," Brand asked curiously, "I was the one that was kidnapped, and then you're more tired than me?"

"I mean, I assume while you were kidnapped you were just kind of... staying in one place," I pointed out. "I had to go search a whole ship for you."

Brand snorted, shook his head. "Sure."

"I did! There were dead bodies. And condoms. I don't even know what some of them-" I paused, and fished the vial out of my pocket. "I should probably check if one of the Healers needs this for diagnosis purposes..." I scurried off to do that, trying to ignore that Brand was definitely judging me as I retreated.

I returned to find that Addam had stolen my spot - he was sitting up in bed, and Brand was leaning against him. I shrugged, and made my way over to lean against Addam as well, enjoying the warmth of him. Brand was looking at me curiously.

"What?"

"Do you have any of that red liquorice on you?" He muttered. Honestly, that was a stupid question - if I got any, I ate it immediately before he would come up with an excuse to throw it over a fence or out of a window. But it was sounding like a good idea. I was annoyed at myself for not having any with me.

Brand glared. And I frowned and looked at Addam expectantly.

"Quinn did warn me this would happen," he murmured.

"What would?" I asked at the same time as Brand punched me in the arm. "What was that for?"

"You're stealing my pregnancy cravings."

"I am no-" I paused, and looked at him.

"If you fucking take all the red liquorice, I am stabbing you."

"Why so stabby?" I hissed, raising my hands defensively. Addam had his phone out, and I realised after a moment that he was messaging to arrange a delivery of red liquorice to the Pac Bell. He was even ordering from my favourite manufacturer, because he was that perfect.

"There is no need for stabbing. We will have some soon."

Brand looked at me, and glared. "Very soon?"

"Very soon," Addam agreed. "Very soon." He patted us. "I... see it shall be my job to ensure that there is a healthy supply of whatever you are both after, in order to ensure your continued safety."

"Rune's continued safety," Brand muttered, although the offer of red liquorice imminently had somewhat placated him.

"You are a terrible Companion," I told him under my breath. He looked almost hurt for a moment, and I was about to apologise when he rolled his eyes and leaned in to bump his forehead against mine.

Addam stayed holding both of us until one of the bellhops, heavily armed, delivered a pallet of the red liquorice. He tipped the man, murmuring thanks as he brought a couple of packs back into the bed.

"Did you buy him a sweet-mountain?" Brand muttered, but his argument was somewhat undermined by him tearing into one of the packs.

"I thought this might last a few days and prevent any stabbing," Addam said, kissing us both on the forehead and standing beside the bed. I shrugged, and ate my own liquorice. "You look thoughtful, Hero."

"If Brand will let me eat stuff we're craving, I just need to work out how to make him crave more candy," I explained, and Brand shoved into me. I flailed, and would have fallen out of the bed if Brand hadn't caught me.

Addam smiled at both of us, and settled down on a chair beside me. I could see Quinn and Max from here, and Brand was close by. Exhaustion swept over me, and I allowed myself to rest.

Chapter Text

I woke to Addam telling me that there was food waiting for us. Judging by the angle of the light, Brand and I had slept through until morning. We were together. He was safe.

Max was safe as well. He was tucked up against Quinn, catching up with the sleep that he clearly needed after his ordeal. I allowed myself a moment simply to watch him. He looked peaceful when he slept. He had one hand gripping onto his cameo necklace, even though the sigil was empty now. We would have to go and practice filling it soon. Together. But not yet - he was still recovering, and the last thing that I wished to do was set him up for failure. I wanted him to understand I believed in him, that I thought he was special - and he would not be able to understand that if I failed him as he had been failed before.

Max had potential to be a fighter. He'd managed a truly impressive piece of sigil magic - not by using power, but rather the lack of it. And I could not allow myself to assign any particular importance to that, because he needed me to treat him well regardless of his magic.

Quinn's eyes were open and scanning the room, that warm burgundy he shared with his brother. He caught me looking at him, and flashed me a thumbs up, trying to make the movement without disturbing Max's rest. It took me a moment to appreciate that I was awake, and Brand was not. I gave his shoulder a gentle shake. "Brand?" I accompanied my words with a sense of calm, not wanting for him to wake up and panic.

Slowly, he did open his eyes, looking up at me. He frowned. "It's late. I never sleep late."

"You were recovering."

"This is your fault," he muttered, shoving me softly.

"There is food waiting," Addam interrupted, which was good because otherwise I would have needed to decide if I could get away with pushing Brand back. "For all of us. And I believe Lord Tower will have information about the events of last night."

I nodded. I knew I should have been excited, that I should have wanted to hear all of the gory details of how the Wonderland had met its end. I did enjoy learning about that kind of thing, normally. But normally my family were not involved. It was too personal for me to wish to hear.

I took a deep breath, and darted to use the bathroom before Brand went to use it.

By the time I returned, Brand looked more awake than I felt, and Max was resisting attempts to wake him, curling up small in the bed and burrowing into Quinn's arms.

Quinn gave him a sympathetic pat. "Addam... He'll wake up when he's ready."

Addam frowned, but sighed. "We all know he is awake."

"And he is resting," I said softly. I thought of times I had lain in bed, unable to move, as Brand bullied and cajoled me into eating and drinking enough that I would not finish the job those men had started.

"He inherited laziness from you, you know?" Brand muttered as he walked past to use the bathroom.

"Max Saint John?" I moved to perch on the edge of the bed. "You did very well. And you're allowed to be tired. I can bring you back food if you aren't feeling up to joining us for breakfast, but it would be good to see you. We would all want you there."

Max lifted his head slightly.

I swallowed, because I had forgotten that he had gone to sleep the last night with the collar on. I couldn't feel any magic there - it was just a collar, not even an empty sigil. It could be removed without harm. "You're... would you like that off?"

Max nodded and he reached up, trying to undo it. His fingers scrabbled with the buckle, and he failed to unfasten it twice. I could see he was becoming frantic, his fingernails sharpening slightly, and I did not want for him to do himself harm.

"I can remove it, if you'd like?"

He nodded quickly, and I reached out and undid the buckle, sliding it from his throat. I placed it down on the sheet beside him.

He stared at it for a moment. "What do I do?"

"What do you want to do?" I asked, trying not to look at the name tag glinting with Max's name.

"I don't want to see it," Max said, and there was a frantic note to his voice. He was frightened, and I hated that. I wanted his uncle to pay for what he had done. But Max's comfort mattered more than my rage.

"Alright. I can get rid of it-"

"No." He swallowed. "I... I'll destroy it. Just. Just not yet."

"Not yet," I agreed, and I took it, wrapping it around itself and placing it into my pocket. I was not happy about it, but its destruction was not down to me, and Max needed to be able to do it at his own pace.

I paused, looking at Max. He was pale still, his eyes unfocused. "Don't tell Brand."

"What?" Max frowned at me.

I went over to our pallet-sized pile of red liquorice, and picked out a packet. Then I carried it back, and handed it to him. "You can have this."

He stared at the liquorice, and then at me.

"Hero has not lost his mind," Addam said, stepping in unnecessarily in my defence. "He and Brand are both craving it."

"And it's my favourite sweet," I told him. "And I want you to have some of it."

He looked at me. "You've got like, five hundred more packets."

I shrugged, and then he nodded, and stood up so he faced me. After a moment he leaned in, and he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and I held him back.

He managed to get dressed, after he'd eaten his liquorice. I hadn't gotten any clothes in his size with me, but Lord Tower had provided some. They were even as garishly coloured as the things that Max would pick out for himself.

We headed down to breakfast. Brand stared when he spotted a bowl of fruit on the table, alongside some eggs, and wholemeal bread, and a handful of cashews. The rest of us had ornate pastries that had probably been brought freshly from Paris that morning.

Lord Tower looked up from where he was eating. He looked as immaculate as ever, and gestured for us to sit down. "Here. Eat."

"You got me food. Actual food." Brand sat down, and poked at the fruit with his spoon as though expecting it to turn into a small golem and try to bite him.

"Given your delicate condition, Brandon, I thought that it would be best that we kept your diet along the recommended lines for humans," Lord Tower answered, then looked at Max. "Matthias, it's good to see you."

"Thank you, sir." Max whispered, moving to sit between me and Quinn at the table. It was awkwardly quiet for a few moments, until I decided that I wanted to eat the fancy French pastries, and then it was quiet simply because I was eating.

After we'd eaten our first couple of pastries, Lord Tower cleared his throat.

"Gideon Saint Valentine is dead, as are three of his followers. There were ten men and two women who were arrested by the Guarda last night, having made their way to them following stepping through the portals. And seven humans and two Warrens residents rescued from the Princess Alice." He looked to me. "I will handle the rest."

"Thank you." I paused. "Is Ciaran-"

"Ciaran is resting. Apparently opening a portal and maintaining it tired him."

"Oh-" I began, wondering if I should go and apologise, or thank him.

"I am sure he is just taking the time to demand attention," Lord Tower interrupted. "Those in need of medical care were taken to New Saints Hospital. There is no more that you need to do for them."

I was sure it was meant to be a comfort, but I couldn't help worrying.

"Hero?" Addam asked softly. "I thought perhaps today we could go shopping. To ensure we have things ready - the Sun Estate may take a little while to prepare, but there are a great many things that are needed for an infant."

My first thought was to point out we could not afford baby things. But I knew Addam. He would afford it. To refuse his help would be to hurt both him and the infant for the sake of my pride, and I would not do that. I sighed out a breath. "Thank you. But - I think we should wait."

"Why?"

"Because there is nowhere in Half House to store those things." The only possible space was the sanctum, and Max would struggle to learn magic surrounded by the various expensive baby paraphernalia I was certain Addam would buy given half the chance.

"I have already located a storage space," Addam answered. "And we should go now, or at least soon, so that all three of us can be involved."

Brand groaned, putting aside his spoonful of fruit to rub at his eyes.

"I have prepared some training notes for you Brandon," Mayan told him. "Given the situation and the needs of your scion." He handed over a standard manila folder, bulging with paper.

There was a pause, and then Brand nodded and murmured thanks. It sounded like an insult. But I understood it might help him.

Max placed his knife and fork perfectly on the plate. "Could I come with you?" He asked.

Brand wanted to question it, but before he could I smiled. "We'd like to have you, if you're feeling up to it."

Max nodded, and that was that.

Brand… was not good at shopping. Had it not been for my Companion, I would have assumed shopping was the kind of activity that it was impossible to be bad at, consisting as it did of walking around and putting things in a cart, especially when Brand was good at both walking and lifting. However, I knew him. This was the man who had considered giving Max a new taser rather than brave the holiday crowds.

We bought things occasionally. Queenie often handled the groceries, and a lot of Brand’s supplies could be bought online, but we weren’t total recluses. We managed shops, and to get coffee, and there had only been two cases where Brand had intentionally triggered a fire alarm ‘for tactical reasons’.

As we made our way up to the top floor of one of the translocated department stores, I realised there was a fair chance I was about to see event number three. Brand was looking around, constantly scanning for any threats. And I was left wondering whether things needed to be this pink.

Quinn was walking with us, his lips pressed tightly together. I suspected he was trying to avoid letting me know whether or not we were likely to be making use of the pastel pink supplies. The shop assistant smiled at us. I was remembered rather of a shark. But her attention was not on me, mostly because everyone in the entirety of New Atlantis knew I was poor. Which, in this case, was a blessing.

“Lord Saint Nicholas,” the woman smiled. “What an honour-“ She paused, looking at our entirely male party, her gaze pausing for a moment on Max, and then on Quinn.

“I need to buy supplies for an infant,” Addam said. He was facing her attentions without fear, and I could almost pretend he was enjoying it – in fact, he might have been enjoying it, which was hard for me to get my head around. “We do not know the gender yet, and we already have a crib. But I wish to get a pram, and a buggy, and-“

“We do not need a pram and a buggy,” I interrupted. I’d been looking at the prices as we walked around, and I knew that both the prams and the buggies here cost more than my car. Considerably more than my car. In fact, I would be saving money if I got another car and drove the child everywhere, and that was even taking into account the cost of the car seats.

“A sling then,” Addam said, and I was momentarily distracted from my horror at the cost by imagining Addam carrying the baby. He had used telekinesis to carry Quinn when the boy was younger. I wondered if the same would happen for our child. It was a sweet image, and I smiled despite myself. A sling was a reasonable request.

“One that contains Kevlar,” Brand agreed. “And I’ve seen some of your strollers are fireproof, and-“

“We don’t need a fireproof-“ I began, then thought of myself. And of Quinn’s warning about the child’s own Aspect. I hesitated, wondering whether or not fireproof strollers worked when the fire was on the inside of the stroller.

Addam smiled charmingly at the woman, and shifted so that his wallet was visible. It was a movement I had seen Brand do before to reveal a knife. “I have a list of what we need. The best quality.”

“Of course,” she said, and I could almost see the dollar signs in her eyes. Addam either hadn’t noticed, or didn’t mind, and before I could say anything about it he was busy making plans, strolling down the aisle to look at things.

Max and Quinn were sticking close to us.

“There’s so much stuff,” Max whispered, while Quinn looked around and shook his head at a few of the children’s toys, building up a collection of objects. He paused, looking at one of the strollers, and shook his head. “That one doesn’t do well when it falls in the river.” He gestured towards another.

Brand looked at the stroller, and then at Quinn. “Why are you worried about the river?”

“Because we want a stroller that Addam can get a good telekinetic grip on,” Quinn answered, and then he paused, looking at a mix of different coloured teddy bears. He was frowning, focusing on each in turn, picking it up and putting it down.

“We should get this one for Corbie,” he announced. “He clings to it after a nightmare about the boat.”

Max winced. “I hate boats. We live on an island, and we can’t get away from boats, and that’s stupid.”

I gave him a sympathetic look, because that felt safest, and watched as Brand continued to question the poor sales assistant about which of the slings were the most bulletproof, and how well the baby clothes held up against nuclear radiation. I was pretty sure that last one was just him fucking with her, but I couldn’t quite be certain.

Addam bore our questions with good grace, thanking the woman who was helping us by name, and charming her. She offered to give us a ten percent friends and family discount, which was not the kind of thing that happened. I was almost certain that we’d had money added onto the bill before because of Brand asking the wrong questions and annoying the saleswoman.

I didn’t understand how a baby could need so much stuff. “Addam, you can’t tell me you got this much for Quinn.”

“Oh,” Addam frowned. “I got a lot more for him. But some of that was medical, he needed to be kept warm and I had to make sure we could get him oxygen, and he needed to be fed by a drip for a while…” He smiled softly as he said it, and I tried not to worry about how close we had come to losing Quinn.

Rather than linger, I helped pick out some new sheets for the crib – they had not survived the two decades that they had spent in an abandoned and deeply cursed estate. I found a blanket covered in tiny stars and suns and clouds. I knew it was to try and represent the weather, but I got it anyway.

Max chose a couple of outfits, and a bright purple teddy bear that was the same colour as the logo of Brand’s favourite crossbow company. Quinn chose some toys that matched his views of the future, and Brand chose a few items that met his safety requirements, and Addam sent us all away to investigate if there was icecream anywhere else in the mall.

“It’s strange he didn’t want help carrying the bags,” Max said softly.

“He doesn’t want us to know he’s spending more than we earn in a year,” Brand answered. “The baby carrier alone was more than we got for your last mission for Lord Tower.” He paused and frowned. “Well not the mission that meant you got Addam, the one before that.”

“The one where I got a sigil and a child?”

“You know what I mean.” Brand looked at me. “What you were meant to get for that job, if you weren’t profiteering on the side.”

I shrugged, and fell quiet. Addam returned almost empty handed.

“Did… was something wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

“You don’t… don’t seem to have bought anything.”

“I have arranged for it to be delivered to my storage unit,” Addam answered, lifting a single bag in which a green teddy was resting. “And I got this for Corbie.”

I shrugged.

Brand looked at him. I could feel spikes of anxiety through our bond, each one clamped down after a moment. He didn’t want to worry me. I smiled, even though I was a little worried about it all as well.

“Hero- The two of you both look… concerned.”

“There’s so much stuff,” I muttered. “What if I fuck it up?” I paused. “Should I be swearing?”

“It can’t fucking hear us yet,” Brand muttered, his arms crossed protectively across his chest.

“You won’t,” Addam said softly. “I managed… I managed to raise Quinn, and when I started, I had… no idea. We can work together.”

“Yes,” Brand agreed. “But you’re you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re… good at this. Raising kids and… and doing good things, and being a hero. The rest of us-“

“You’ve done well with me,” came Max’s voice. I was rather startled he’d decided to join the conversation, having been understandably withdrawn all day, but I smiled at him anyway.

“Yeah, but we can trust you to hold your own head up,” Brand pointed out.

Max shrugged. “You made me feel safe. You made me safe. We’ll manage.”

“I wonder who that woman thought we’d got pregnant,” I murmured, mostly because I didn’t know how to respond to Max and I was a giant coward sometimes.

Max smiled at me, and I got the feeling he knew I was a coward and didn’t care.

Addam embraced me, and then Quinn, and then Max, and then tried to embrace Brand and got pushed away, but not elbowed or hit, so that was positive.

“Do we want to go back to the Pac Bell?” Addam offered. I shook my head, glancing at Max, who was still looking exhausted.

“Can we go home?” Max asked, and so we did. It wasn’t far to Half House. Max walked between me and Quinn, while Addam continued to try and explain to Brand the purpose of various things he had bought. I wondered how anyone managed to have a child without access to Addam’s wallet, but I thought that was probably not the right thing to ask out loud. And knowing Addam he’d set up a foundation to help. Addam was a good person. Better than I deserved. But we’d got him somehow and we weren’t going to let go.

Brand checked the house was secure, and then we were able to head inside, into our home. I could feel Brand’s relief, and I knew that what had happened had shaken him rather more than he was choosing to acknowledge. I didn’t argue or push for more. He was allowed to be glad to be home, after what had happened. I was glad to be home too.

Chapter Text

After the entire incident with the Princess Alice, and some of the key remaining threats from the Heart Throne, things had settled down for a while. I actually had to go to a few Arcanum meetings, and Max kept pestering us with questions about children's first aid, and Addam spent a lot of time organising things for the Sun Estate. My bond with Brand meant that we both continued to crave red liquorice, and I had yet to find a way to influence him to want more sweets than that. Things were, if not better, then back to normal for all of us. I was aware we would have more battles ahead of us, we always did. But if the universe felt like being calm for us, just for a short while, I had no intention of questioning it.

I woke to find Addam smiling softly at me. His hair was sleep-mussed, his burgundy eyes warm, and I took a moment to just relish the fact that the universe had seen fit to give me this after all the bad things that had occurred - there was finally something other than Brand that was positive in my life, something I could cling to and be grateful for. I looked past him and saw that Brand was absent - and then I heard the sound of Brand's footsteps.

He was back from a run and going to shower. I sent a sleepy sense of contentment towards him and felt an amused response. The sudden spike of panic startled me enough that I jumped to my feet, heading immediately to him. I didn't think he was in danger - he was just startled, or in need of something. I knocked on the door of the bathroom. "Can I come in?"

There was a moment of uncertainty through the bond, where I wasn't sure if he was intending to say no. But then the door opened, and I found Brand staring at me.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "I could feel you panicking."

"I wasn't-" He began, and then he shook his head, and he nodded. "I was panicking. I don't know what I'm meant to do."

"What do you mean?" I asked, and he gestured at himself. He was clearly about to have a shower - he had a towel tied at his hips and had divested himself of almost all of his weaponry. I looked at him blankly. He groaned, rubbing at his forehead.

"Rune. Look at me."

"I am," I agreed. And to be fair, it was hardly an unpleasant view - he was always careful to keep himself in good form. I took a moment to appreciate him, because I could, sending back a sense of admiration through our bond.

"Stop being horny and focus," He hissed at me, and he gestured towards his midriff. I frowned. He glared at me. "It's showing."

I didn't point out that actually, he still looked more in shape than I was, because I wasn't feeling quite robust enough to deal with him agreeing. He looked at me, and I could see the panic in his eyes.

"It... We knew it would."

"I feel like I'm walking around with a target on my back," he muttered. "I can't- what if I can't keep you safe, Rune. I'm meant to keep you safe. It's what I am for-"

"And you will," I told him, because I could feel his panic, and this was not the time to try and argue with him about his purpose. He wasn't in the mood to hear it. "You always do. It's just... we just need to work out how to handle this."

"There's no good way to handle it," he shook his head. "I mean. I've been reading. And speaking to Eve, and I know - physically, I'm feeling pretty confident about it, especially if Addam is going to help me, but..." He stared down at himself. "I can't do this. People will see. And they're going to use it to target you, because this is a vulnerability and people... people will find ways to use it against you, and I feel like if I step out of Half-House now, everyone is going to see."

"You wear body armour," I pointed out.

"Are you saying my body armour makes me look pregnant?"

"Not...I'm not not saying that," I hazarded, because I was aware that I was insulting someone who had a lot of pregnancy hormones and also knives. He stared at me for a moment and then rolled his eyes.

"This is all your fault, Lord Sun."

"You're 'Lord Sun'ing me?"

"You deserve it." He shook his head. "You... what do we do? There's too much potential danger out there, and-"

"It's alright," I told him. "I'll talk to Diana, and once we know what she feels we can do, we'll go from there." I reached out and squeezed his hand, and he didn't shove me off, which meant he was a lot more upset than he was letting on.

He stared at me, but he nodded and went to shower. I made my way back to Addam, who was trying to look as though he hadn't been worrying during my absence.

"What's wrong, Hero?"

"Brand's worried that he’s showing. I think he's concerned he won't be able to protect me, as if he wouldn't have my back in any circumstances. But we're going to need to talk to Diana about this."

Addam looked at me and nodded. "I can call her."

"She's not going to be happy about it, is she?" I asked. Diana was not an Arcana. However, her disapproving looks were more frightening than those that could be managed by several of the nation's leaders, and I was not looking forward to her lecturing me about my mistakes.

"She might not be, but she is fond of children," Addam said. I held my tongue, so that I did not say something rather uncharitable about the fact Diana had only remembered that her fondness for children should have included Quinn when she had lost Ella. I needed help and that meant I had to put aside grudges.

"I will get her to come around. And we will have to take time to persuade Brand that he is still beautiful," Addam said. I was not sure that Brand had ever considered himself, or desired to be, beautiful. But I was smart enough not to have that particular argument with Addam, for no reason other than that it was one I was fated to lose if it began. I waited until the sound of the shower stopped, and gave Brand some time to dry and dress himself, before going to make some pancakes for breakfast.

Although well-meant, my cooking skills had not improved noticeably over the past few months, which meant that a few minutes later Brand entered the room by throwing a spoon with precision and turning off the fire alarm, and then chasing me away from the stove.

"Rune, what the fuck were you doing?"

"Pancakes?" I said quietly. "I thought you'd like pancakes, and then you could eat them, and-" I paused. "I wouldn't have to worry about you facing Lady Diana on an empty stomach."

"Lady Diana. Of the Crusader Throne. Coming here?"

"She can do glamours," I pointed out. "We need her to hide the pregnancy."

"Rune. She'll see how we live. She’s a scion of the Justice throne, and she’s going to see the fact that the only reason we haven’t been buried alive under a pile of washing is Queenie.”

I had not thought of that. “Can we blame the fact you’re pregnant?”

“For us living like slobs?”

“It has to be worth a go?” I argued. “And it might work out. And even if it doesn’t, she can’t be mad at you.”

He groaned, and rubbed his forehead. “You could just help keep things tidy.”

“Well, maybe that would make sense,” I agreed, “and maybe I should have done that before, but we can’t fix it now because Addam has invited her over. So we’re just going to have to do what we can right now and plan better next time, and I think we use you as an excuse because I’m at least ninety percent sure she isn’t going to be as mad at you as she is at me.”

“Rune-“

“And you’re always saying your purpose is to keep me safe, so really you should be grateful.”

“Thin. Fucking. Ice.” He muttered, and prepared some pancakes and then walked off with a plate of them, going to wait for Diana’s arrival.

She didn’t keep us waiting long, and Brand returned when she arrived. She embraced Addam tightly for several moments, and then allowed Quinn to hug her, and then turned to me. I saw her catalogue the unwashed dishes, and the pile of unopened letters by the door, but she didn’t say anything about them.

“I’m not hugging you,” I told her.

“That is a relief,” she replied, nodding slightly. “So. What do you need?”

“Why-“

“Lord Sun, I am not naïve enough to imagine that you would ask me here unless you found yourself in need of my help. And I am equally not naïve enough to think that you would ask me for help unless the situation was desperate. So rather than wasting my time, and that of yourself and my nephew, why don’t you tell me what the problem is, and once I know that I can see what can be done to fix whatever mess you have found yourself in.”

I wanted to protest, but annoyingly she was correct. I shrugged, after a moment. “Brand is pregnant.”

To her credit, she didn’t even blink. “I don’t think that I have any knowledge that could help there.”

“You can do glamours.” I looked at her. “You know… you know how our society treats humans. And Companions. And you know – you can help. Because if you are able to hide the pregnancy-“

“Lord Sun,” she said in her most no-nonsense voice. “People will ask where you acquired a child from, especially if it is visibly a child of the Crusader throne.”

“We’ll let people think it’s me. That Addam made me pregnant. I’m the virsa pulcrra. People will expect that.”

“You realise that makes you vulnerable.”

“Oh,” Brand found his voice. “He knows. Rune hasn’t yet met a problem he doesn’t try and solve by making himself the target.”

She frowned, her lips pressed into thin lines, but she looked between us and nodded. “You’ve got yourself into quite a mess.”

“I know,” I agreed. “And I need help.” That much was obvious.

She sighed dramatically. “I will provide it, if you need it.” She wasn’t happy about that. But I didn’t need her happy, I needed her willing to help, and apparently she was.

She looked at me, addressing me not Brand, but then she looked at him. “It is- I am right in thinking that it is a child of the Crusader throne?”

“Yes,” Addam said softly.

“Do I need to point out to you that Lord Sun is the one with grey eyes?”

“I can tell the difference, Aunt Diana.” Addam managed a slight pout, which made her laugh softly, even as she shook her head in concern.

“I can create something,” she agreed. “It will be more challenging than for your sister - we will need to keep updating it. And Brandon? I can hide the shape from peoples’ eyes, but your body will still contain a certain mass. You need to keep that in mind while moving, or you will injure yourself by walking into things - it was simpler for Ella, I was making her appear larger.”

Brand, who had a very good sense of where his body was in space at all times, nodded once.

She ran her fingers through her hair, looking between us. “Lord Sun, I can only create glamours when I am present. I can teach you to use them, but they require a sigil. I can fill it for you, but if you are going to use it you have to keep in mind how long it will be sustained for.”

“You-” Max looked up shyly. “Lady Diana, you can fill this sigil too?” He held out the one that Addam had gifted him. “That way I can help, and if - if Rune’s got an Arcana meeting or something, he can just shove a sweater up his shirt.”

I stared at Brand.

Quinn blinked, and wiped his nose. “Not the green sweater. That one falls out.”

It was actually not a terrible idea. Not the sweater, but- we’d already proved that Max was capable of sustaining a sigil spell for a long time. And whilst he was not allowed everywhere I was, it would enable a degree of protection. Plus, if one of us had to use a sigil it was better I kept mine full of things that would be useful. I smiled at both boys.

“I can also help with sustaining the glamour,” Addam agreed. “I would be able to lend Rune a sigil for this purpose, yes? It aids the Crusader throne, so the bloodline sigils should work here?”

“I believe so.” Diana looked at all of us, and shook her head softly. “I will keep your secret, and I will keep your secret, and I will keep your secret.” The tingle of a vow. I smiled gratefully. “Addam, your mother will wish to know of Lord Sun’s condition.”

I winced. And felt Addam stare at me. Lady Justice could be terrifying when she wished to be, and I knew she already disapproved of the fact I had acquired two of her children for my fledgling court. Still, I was ready to face her.

“A little longer?” Addam asked softly. “I will talk to her. Just… We want to make sure all goes well.”

“I understand.” Diana rubbed at her forehead. “I should warn you that once it is announced, Lady Priestess will probably bombard you with advice. She did that to my sister, last time. Not that it helped.”

I held my tongue.

Diana looked at me. “I mean because of Quinn’s sickliness, rather than anything more. The child was not well. Still, he has survived, and is doing better - both of my nephews are doing better. I want to help them. I will help them, if you will allow it.”

“Thank you.”

“My nephews, my family, are in your Court, Lord Sun. I am here to assist.” She looked at me, and I managed a smile in return. Not everyone in the world was against me. It helped to be reminded of that.

"I will need some time to prepare a suitable glamour for you both," she said. "I will return home to do it, as I need my own sanctum."

"Thank you." I looked at her. "This helps a lot."

"I know," she said. It was strange, I realised that most of the people on this island would be using this to manipulate me. She could have blackmailed me with the secret, and while I had not expected that, I was still touched that she had vowed to keep it hidden without me even suggesting such a thing.

"I am in your debt," I acknowledged, because sometimes it was easier to acknowledge these things, and I wanted her to know that I appreciated what she had done.

"No, you are not." She looked at me. "This is a child of the Crusader Throne. And you take good care of my nephews, of our family. If this will help you, I am glad to provide that help." She turned and walked away.

Addam smiled at me softly. "She really likes you."

"You think so?" I asked curiously. "I thought she was just being nice because you were here."

"It can be both, Hero." Addam kissed my forehead, and then turned to Brand.

Brand raised an eyebrow. "I don't need forehead kisses."

I smirked at him. "No. You don't need forehead kisses. But do you want forehead kisses."

Brand threw a cushion from the couch with utter precision, and it glanced off my chest. I stared at him, and he shrugged. I rubbed my chest and he smirked.

"What are we telling my mother?" Addam asked.

I hesitated. "That's your call." I was aware that the true nature of the pregnancy was at risk of becoming the Arcana's single worst kept secret (which given several of the other secrets they possessed was rather an achievement). At the same time, I could not ask Addam to lie to his mother about his child.

"It is our child," Addam said softly. "Brand, if you would come with us, I will tell her the truth as much as I can."

"I can come with you," Brand said firmly, his hand resting against his hip. "Do we expect an emergence of her Aspect?"

"It... is not impossible," Addam agreed, and Brand very carefully did not flinch. I looked at him, and tried to wordlessly ask if he would be alright. He gave a shrug and a nod. He'd manage.

It wasn't what I wanted - if it was up to me, I thought I'd probably try and just avoid Lady Justice. I disliked the way her eyes peered into my soul, unsettling me as she looked and found me wanting. That was bad enough even if she didn't become a giant spider. And knowing my luck, she would turn into a giant spider, and if it was up to me I wouldn't have to deal with that.

But it wasn't up to me. Not just up to me.

"Hey," Brand muttered, leaning in against me. "You know when most people say about their mother in law being a monster, they're exaggerating."

Despite myself, I managed a smile at that. I wouldn't be facing her alone. And she might even welcome the news. Stranger things had happened. It seemed unlikely, given how the universe tended to respond to us, but technically it wasn't impossible.

Addam looked between us. "I will arrange to see her tomorrow. Tonight, we should rest."

Resting, more often than not, involved us watching the television, curled together as the boys played games on their handheld consoles, and we ate food that was probably not entirely nutritionally balanced. It seemed like a good idea, much better than going to see Lady Justice. So I leaned in, and kissed him, and made my future Mother-In-Law a problem for Tomorrow Rune.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for me, when I woke up the next morning, I was Tomorrow Rune, and mentally cursed Yesterday Rune for leaving me with having to deal with Addam's mother. Sadly, Yesterday Rune was making no effort to solve the problem that I had to face, and so I was left to deal with it on my own. I explained this in whispers to Brand, while Addam was busy calling his mother.

When Addam returned, he looked rather frustrated, but he saw me looking and smiled. I didn't deserve how Addam looked at me, but I would always cherish it.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"I told her we'd be visiting. And that Max was going to come, because... I want her to get to know him. And then she asked if she should organise lunch for the four of us."

"It might have been me," Brand suggested, from where he was busy chewing on a piece of liquorice.

"It might have been, " Addam agreed. "But it wasn't. It's fine. She- it's fine." He took a breath, and I reached out and rested my hand on his arm.

"She doesn't deserve either of you," I said. I could see the flicker of pain in his eyes, and I couldn't stand that - Addam was a good person, and he deserved to be happy. All he wanted was for his mother to acknowledge Quinn - as Addam's child, if not as her own. It was such a small thing, and the fact he was denied it made my heart ache. I leaned in and kissed him softly.

"Did you tell her we can't eat mushrooms," Brand muttered, and I could tell he was already feeling sick at the thought of it, which wasn't at all helpful, because it meant that I was also feeling sick at the thought of it.

"I told her. And I told her I would meet her at lunch, that we had some important news to discuss, and - and that afterwards we would be heading over to the Sun Estate to check on the restoration." He paused. "We do not need to do that last bit, Hero, but I thought having an excuse prepared might make it easier to slip away if it was needed."

"It is fine," I managed. "How... how is it going?"

"Better." It had been a major project for Addam, I knew. Alongside his charity work, and his ongoing work to repair the reputation of Moral Confidence and make the venture a success, he had taken on restoring my estate. He had spent time getting the best contractors, and he had been sharing notes and plans. He had suggested that I stay away at first - he'd asked me and Brand questions, but he had given us some space as well. I knew the condition it had been in previously, stone crumbling and wood rotting as the fabric of the building consumed itself. If he was willing to consider me visiting it, then something important must have changed - he must have been making progress.

The thought of living back there still unsettled me in a way. There were so many memories there, lain over each other - a childhood of love and laughter, and celebration, and then - that one night which had destroyed it all. My father had died there. My household had died there. I had nearly died there, and I- I could have lost Brand.

Brand's hand on my arm called me back to myself, and I allowed myself a brief moment to breathe.

"You... Hero-" Addam began, and I was sure he was going to offer something ridiculous, possibly threaten to buy another mansion if the one that we had wasn't good enough. But I didn't want that. I didn't want to lose the Sun Estate. It was my home. And we needed a space that would be large enough for our growing family. Half House was precious to me, but did not have space for Addam and Quinn, let alone the Dawncreeks and a new child. We would manage. I made myself meet Addam's warm gaze.

"It's alright. We can go there after."

"Maybe knowing we're going to somewhere really cursed will help take our minds off your mother being scary," Brand suggested. His voice was teasing, but I appreciated him saying something.

"Anything is possible," Addam agreed. Which made me suspect his mother was going to be scary. But if we were going to be dealing with the Arcanum knowing that I was expecting a child, we would have to tell her first.

Addam drove us over to the Enclave. The Crusader Throne were intensely private, and she was not yet willing to accept me into her private home, even if I had opened my house and heart to two of her children. I did not let that bother me - I was far too used to being slighted to allow it to upset me every time it happened.

Brand's hand bumped against mine. I looked at him, trying to decide if he had actually gained weight, or if I merely assumed that he had because of the life I knew resided within him. He stared at me.

"I don't like that look, Rune. It looks like you're deciding if I'm ready for slaughter yet."

"Maybe I am," I answered. I didn't tease too much though - I knew that Brand's entire purpose was my protection, and I could feel concern bleeding through the bond at the idea he might not currently be strong enough to keep me safe. I was sure he was still strong enough to keep me safe. But me knowing it didn't mean that he would know it, and I disliked that. I wanted him to feel the trust I felt, and tried to push it through the bond.

Addam parked the car. "How are we handling this?"

"We are telling her the same as the other Arcana," Brand said quietly.

"That would be best," Quinn agreed. "I don't like the words she uses otherwise."

I could not be angry at someone for being cruel in another reality, even if sometimes I wished that I could be. I smiled at him, and Max threw an arm around Quinn's shoulder, and we headed into the Enclave.

Addam led the way to the Moral Certainties Suite. I was painfully aware that the last time I had been here, I had been trying to unravel the mystery of Addam's disappearance. I had seen Michael here, and he was gone, and I had met Diana for the first time, and-

Brand bumped into me when we were walking, with enough force that I stumbled. Despite myself, I smiled. I wasn't on my own. Brand was here. I had my Exodus ring on, and I would not need to use it. Quinn had not foreseen any particular dangers. We were together.

Addam was the first into his mother's office, and I heard him hiss disapprovingly as I walked in. Brand had gone in a step ahead of me, even when he knew that she was probably going to be trying to intimidate us, because Brand felt that his role was to always take the blow before I could, and this was just another chance to do that.

"Mother," Addam snapped.

I looked up, and I saw something descending from the ceiling, a flicker of cobwebs and legs and fangs, the stuff of nightmares. I knew that Lady Justice's aspect was merely visual. It was not utile like my own, or Lady Death's, or Lord Tower's, or Ciaran's. She did not even have the pheromone release that was the favoured form of the Lovers Court. But.

My heart was racing, and I could feel that Brand's own panic had spiked, and I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, to tell him that it was safe, that the giant spider was definitely not going to eat us. Unfortunately, I was reminded that Corbie had been reading a book all about 'Our Insect Friends', and even the twee author had struggled with making spiders and their dining habits seem friendly. There was a little cartoon spider holding a straw. My mind conjured some images.

By the time I'd chased out that particular thread of panic, I found myself facing Lady Justice, who was wearing an impossibly white suit and staring at me. Her eyes flickered to the unusual grey of the Iron Throne, and I knew that it was Ashton's eyes that stared out at me, and then they seemed to roil, flickering between other eyes from that night, the eyes of my childhood servants, the warm eyes of my father, and now I was the one who could not breathe.

Brand cleared his throat. "Stop that." He snapped.

I startled. He should not speak to an Arcana like that, but apparently he didn't care.

She paused, and laughed softly. "Lord Brandon, so kind of you to join us." Her voice was heavily accented, so like her son's, and yet with a strangely Atlantean note to it. "I assume that this is a matter of some importance."

She looked at me, and her eyes were briefly burgundy, and then they were the colour the Tower's eyes went when I had messed up, and-

"Mother."

She sighed, and drew a pair of sunglasses from her pocket. "You can tell your children - the children - that they can stop lingering awkwardly in the doorway if they wish."

"Thank you," I murmured, reminding myself I was dealing with a powerful Arcana, and my future mother-in-law.

"Hi," Quinn said, waving enthusiastically as he walked in. She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, before focusing on Max, and I was glad she had put on her sunglasses now. Max did not need to suffer her little eye-trick. "Hello Lord Matthias Saint Valentine."

"Lord Max," Max corrected shyly. "I'm Max Saint John, ma'am."

"Max," she shook her head. "I do wonder where we are headed, so many scions choosing to hide their family heritage. You do not need to do that here."

"He is my brother," I half-hissed the word.

She raised a placating hand. "Then he should acknowledge himself as such. 'Lord Saint John', or 'Lord Max Saint John', would suffice."

"Sorry Ma'am." Max apologised.

"It's fine, Max," I told him, because more and more people were using their given names. Technically, I supposed, all of Max's name had been given to him, but not in the most traditional sense. I cleared my throat. "Thank you for making time to see us, Lady Justice."

"You are welcome, little brother. The Sun Throne and mine have become deeply intertwined, and I know both my sister and my - my children have attached themselves to your Court. In fact, I believe your Court to be more Crusader Throne than Sun, on a simply numerical basis."

"We have a number of scions of the Sun Court," I said quietly. "We outnumber your own within my Court." I knew that for someone like her, neither Brand nor Corrine would count. That meant it came down to myself, Max, Layne, Anna and Corbie weighed against Addam, Quinn and Diana. I won on sheer numbers, although I was the only adult scion of the Sun Throne. I was the only remainder of the Sun Throne.

Addam's hand rested on my shoulder, and I could feel Brand's irritation through the bond, and strangely both of them made me feel safe. I was not alone. I could face whatever Lady Justice would throw at me, because I was here with my people, and that was what mattered. "Mother, that is what I brought you here to discuss," Addam said, and he looked into my eyes. His eyes were warm and full of kindness, and I managed to nod once. He turned his attention back to Lady Justice. "We have good news. You are going to be a grandmother."

Her sunglasses meant I couldn't see what her eyes did, but we were not suddenly facing a spider taller than we were, so I supposed that was a success. She took a slow breath, and I braced myself for her anger. I would withstand her anger if she wished to criticise me, because her knowing this was important to Addam.

"Congratulations, Lord Sun," she said, and her voice only shook a little. "I assume it is you - that you did not burden my son with a child."

"I did not make Addam pregnant, no," I said, and I crossed my arms defensively around myself. It was safer she thought this - that all the Arcana thought this, because if anyone wanted to target me it would keep Brand and our child safe.

She looked for a moment longer. Then she turned to her older son, and spoke quickly in Russian. Addam replied in the same, and a heavy silence fell between the two of them.

"She just asked if he was sure he wanted this," Quinn said quietly. "Addam said he was sure. I hope she stops asking. If she keeps on pushing him then Addam gets really angry about it and he won't talk to her and doesn't let her see the baby at first."

I kept quiet. I realised he was doing this intentionally - that he was pushing the information into his mother's path because in a way it was helpful for her. She did love Addam, even if she did not seem to care for Quinn. And I hoped she would care for her grandchild also. She took the information Quinn freely offered.

"I am happy for you, Lord Sun," she said softly. "I am sure you will be glad to have further options for your heir scion, and it is a good part of rebuilding your Court. I do hope that you will manage to balance this with your other demands - I can't imagine your coronation outfit will suit heavy pregnancy."

"I am postponing the coronation," I said quickly, relieved for the excuse. "I will speak to Lady Death about it soon, but I am sure she will understand. And my priority is arranging our house so that when we have the new arrival, everything is ready - I want to move home."

She looked at me, and I could see myself reflected in her sunglasses. "Will you have space in your court for both of my boys?" She asked.

"I will," I told her. "Quinn and Addam are both a part of my family. It is an honour to know them, and for Addam to be the father of my child."

"I expect you to go ahead with your coronation as soon as you are well enough," she told me. "And if you wish for my blessing, I will expect Addam to officially be your Consort, or at least your Betrothed. While my son is welcome to sire as many bastards as he wishes, he will not be acknowledging them."

"Mother-" Addam frowned.

"Leave her," Brand muttered to him. "She isn't worth the effort."

"She is," Quinn said quietly. "And I think she'll be a much better grandmother to them than she was a mother to me, and she'll like the baby a lot once she meets them, so please- please can we not fight?"

I didn't have anything to say to that. Quinn was a sweet boy, kinder than his mother deserved, but if this meant so much to him I could hardly refuse it. I offered Lady Justice my hand.

"Trust that I will do my best for your sons and my child. Our Courts are strengthened by our connection."

She shook my hand, and called for a maid to bring us tea, and spoke to Addam about his business. I stepped a short distance away, and Brand rubbed my shoulder to ease the tension.

Quinn came up to me and smiled. "Thank you, Rune," he said sincerely. "I'm so excited for the baby. And she's a good babysitter. She'll love them a lot."

My heart ached for him, but I nodded, because he needed my support then, and I would grant it. I pulled him into my arms, and he rested his head against my good shoulder. If the Crusader Throne did not want him, then he would find a home with me.