Night had fallen several hours ago, but the workshop beneath the Drifter’s new residence was still bustling with activity. While the other Drifters used the area mainly during the daytime, Reed had the place to himself at night, and he took advantage of that fact to the fullest. Once again, he was engrossed in his work, writing page after page of notes as he fiddled with the Heart of Dalot.
In his bleary-eyed state, he barely registered the knock on the front door above, and the entrance of a stranger into the household. He silently cursed, figuring Ashel had come to steal liquor again, but concerned himself with his writings still. While visitors had been plentiful, even at this hour, they never stopped by the basement to converse with him. But all the same, a young girl in a white robe made her way down the steps into the cellar, gently opening and shutting the door behind her.
“Any luck?”
Not looking up from his work, Reed gave a huff. Sun didn’t visit much after learning he wasn’t one for talking, but her visits weren’t unexpected.
The lady gave a soft laugh. “I asked you a question, soldier. Please respond in kind.” Reed gave a lazy look up to find Lady Parhelion sitting behind him, her white robes falling over the dusty desk.
“Ah, you’re here.”
He continued to tinker with the heart for a moment, not registering. With a sudden clench of his hands, his tools fell to the desk.
“Lady?! You’re here?!”
Lady Parhelion gave a sheepish smile as Reed reeled back in the workshop, sending papers flying. Barely catching himself from falling off his stool, Reed lunged forward and grabbed Lady Parhelion, hoisting her up by her dress.
“What are you doing here?! You can’t be here!”
“I can’t be here?” Lady Parhelion responded, looking annoyed. “Since when has that been the case?”
“You’re… you are going to go back to the safehouse, you are NOT going to do this again. We can’t talk like this.”
“I didn’t come here to talk,” Lady Parhelion laughed, hooking the heel of her slipper on the desk behind her. With a graceful huff, she pulled herself back down onto the floor. “Well, I suppose I did… come here specifically to talk. That’s not the whole reason why I’m here though.”
“I don’t like where this is heading,” Reed hissed, crossing his arms. “Explain.”
Lady Parhelion knelt to the ground, picking up papers that Reed had displaced. “You first. Can you use the Heart of Dalot?”
Reed bent down angrily, quickly assisting her in picking up the scattered papers. “Can I use it? Yes. Can I make it into a device capable of shattering the demi-plane? That’s one hell of a different story. I’ve spent three months in this realm trying to get it to work with a controlled burst, and I’m fairly certain it’s capable of such a thing. It’s damn near impossible to test it though without triggering the entire heart to shatter and release the magic.”
Reed sighed and took the papers out of Lady Parhelion’s outstretched hands, adding them to his own stack. When he’d first been freed, he’d been appalled at the state of the safehouse he’d been led to, with Lady Parhelion’s sheet music littering the floor. Nowadays, he feared he’d fallen into the same habits as she had. Papers were strewn about the lab, written in scraggly infernal script. He hardly knew where half of them were, they were mostly failures or nonsensical notes needed to lead him to the correct breakthroughs. His fingers were covered in dirty bandages, worn from age but placed on initially when the writing had been too much for his hands to bear.
He ventured a glance at Lady Parhelion’s hands and found no such coverings, but her hands were simply bloodied and calloused.
“I really wish I had better news to tell you, Parhelion,” Reed continued, placing the papers down. “But the fact of the matter is just that I’ll need more time. We’ve been lucky that the Drifters had to settle down for a few months, but now that Lucielle Johnson and Sun are back, it’s unlikely that I’ll get a chance to sit down and figure this out. You’re better off taking the Heart of Dalot with you and convincing Yez to look at it.”
Lady Parhelion pursed her lips together, looking over at the Heart of Dalot. “Yez and Sawyer are preoccupied, not to mention unresponsive most of the time. Tai is managing threads and running her own crew. That doesn’t leave anyone but you and me to finish up this investigation.”
Reed gave a half-hearted shrug, “You could take a look at it, if you’d like. I can leave you my research, and you could have Tai translate it for you-“
“Wrong guess.” Lady Parhelion said, still staring at the emerald. Reed leaned back on the desk, looking inquisitively at Lady Parhelion. His eyebrows knit together for a moment. As the realization struck him, he jumped forward, holding out his arms and putting himself between her and the door.
“No.”
Lady Parhelion cocked her head to the side. “I protected them first, I can do it again.”
“You’re not going with the Drifters,” Reed spat. “For fuck’s sake, that is the worst plan I can think of. We need you alive.”
“Yes, but not if your research yields results. It’s a fallback plan, and it lifts a great deal of weight off my shoulders.”
“IF it yields results… IF!” Reed shouted, gesturing at all the paperwork around them. “That’s no excuse! You haven’t recovered from the last fight you were in and you want to jump into this?!”
“I am more than recovered,” Lady Parhelion said, adding an edge to her voice. “As opposed to you. Your paranoia is seeping into the minds of us all. You need to devote time to this-” she said, tapping on the stack of paper beside her, “-and you need time to rest.”
“Just a few months ago I saw you fall just trying to play that damned harp. You fooled Tai, but you won’t fool me. You’re sitting out.”
“I am not. You will not give me orders.”
“No.” Reed slammed his hands down on the table and looked away. “I’m not letting you do this to yourself. End of argument. There’s no way I’m taking your word again that you’re good to go on this mission.”
“Fine. No more words then. Fire Fakkenell at me.” Lady Parhelion replied.
Reed’s crossbow was up in an instant, pointed at Lady Parhelion’s chest. The wicked end of the crossbow was pushed up by Reed’s greaves as he rested it on his knee. “You can’t dodge a bolt this close, Lady.”
“I said I’d prove it, now let me prove it.”
“This is idiotic.”
“I SAID I’d prove it. Come on!”
“Fine,” Reed spat. “Better be lighter on your feet than I remember you being.”
For a moment, Reed hesitated, the heavy crossbow wavering in its aim. They only stood about five feet apart or so. Reed had no doubt in his mind that Lady Parhelion had some trick up her sleeve, and he felt as though he was just playing into her hand. And…it was almost a relief. He had believed that nothing could stand up to Lady Parhelion, and to see the girl fall so low really had heightened his fear to a new extreme. This, however, was a moment of redemption. A moment to restore that faith and set Reed’s mind at ease.
Reed waited for so long that it was finally Lady Parhelion who made the first move, lunging forward in a fake out. In a panic, Reed fired the bolt, twisting it through the air faster and more accurately than any arrow should fly. In the split second before impact, Reed watched as Lady Parhelion neither moved nor cast any magic. Before he could react, the large bolt hit her square in the chest, piercing her body and throwing her backwards across the desk in a splatter of blood.
Lady Parhelion’s hands slammed and caught the edge of the desk. She hung there, arms weakly supporting her. The back half of the bolt stuck out of her chest, and she looked down at it through hissed breath. Reed lost feeling in his hands as he stood there dumb-founded, jaw slack as he realized what he’d done. He dropped Fakkenell onto the floor carelessly and slid forward to help her, but Lady Parhelion pushed off the desk and held her hand up for him to halt.
“You were never… one to be so… hasty-“ she gasped through pained breaths. Supporting herself on her left arm, she placed her right hand over the bolt. Small white runes lit up a portion of the bolt and it snapped off, falling to the ground. The remaining runes began to ring around the open wound, sealing it shut slowly.
“I-, damn it Lady-” Reed tried to respond, but his mind simply wouldn’t process words. Lady Parhelion gave him a stern look before stepping forward. Her hand continued to glow over her wound, pulsing with healing magics.
“You don’t understand…who I…am. Your…confusion… makes you…. nervous. Half the time, you make threats and use my good name…because you think that nothing…. can kill me, but the other half… of the time you remember just how neutered … this whole band is. We have no gods, no magic, no lifelines or friends in this new world. Our bodies are broken… and our spirits are weak. No weapons, no family… and you still spit on strangers. You act like I’ve got your back then dotter over me when you begin to realize just how weak we all are.”
Reed stared back at Lady Parhelion, nervously watching as she stepped forward.
“So I thought to myself, ‘what would it take to convince the Nine to let me out into the world again’? I thought maybe none of you would think anything of it when I offered my assistance to the Drifters once more, but then of all people… you and Tai decided to treat me like a precious vase. I withstand a powerful curse and you two write me off as fragile.”
“Jeez Parhelion, calm down, you need help. The things I’ve fought with the Drifters, Parhelion,” Reed growled. “They’d kill you, especially in this state. And if you die-“
“And if I die! Do you know how many times I’ve considered that over the past three years, Preston? Don’t you remember that the last time I walked among the Drifters I was alone? You were imprisoned, you and Tai and everyone, all because of me. And I knew that, and I knew that I was your only way out. There is nothing you can do to make me feel the weight of this decision more than I already do, but you must understand the alternative is far, far worse!”
Reed stretched out his hands and grabbed Lady Parhelion by the shoulders. Lady Parhelion made a small effort to twist and escape, but it was clear the wound was far worse than she was letting on. Sweat beaded down her brow as Reed pushed her back to sit on the desk.
“Alright,” Reed said, taking up the chair across from her. “Calm down. First off, finish healing yourself.”
Lady Parhelion hesitated, but pressed the second hand against her chest. A few minutes passed between them in silence as the white runes continued to snake their way into the wound. Reed watched with concern as her breath shallowed, but the healing runes continued to appear and close up the wound.
“S-sorry,” Lady Parhelion stammered.
“Take your time, do it right,” Reed encouraged, parroting the words of his older brother. A few minutes turned into ten, and then nearly half an hour of Reed across Lady Parhelion, trying not to provoke her further while she healed. But finally, with deep breaths, she ended the magic and pulled her hands away.
“That’s as good as I can do,” she muttered, inspecting the partial healing. “You really aren’t meant to survive a shot like that, I think.”
“How bad is the damage still?”
“I’ll be fine for tonight. I’ll need to go get medical attention by the end of the week though to repair it properly.”
“Lucky for you, we have a resident healer,” Reed said, rising to his feet at last. His knees wobbled a bit as he rose, locked out of anxiety for so long in the chair that he could barely walk now. “I’ll fetch Andal and he’ll-“
But instead, Lady Parhelion glowered at Reed and pulled him towards the door, “I’m getting a drink, you’re coming with me.”
“You need-“
“Don’t test my patience any further tonight,” Lady Parhelion hissed. “We don’t have much time.”
Reed pushed his way into the rustic bar, quickly scanning around for anything out of the ordinary. Lady Parhelion stepped behind him, admiring the establishment before stepping over to the counter to order drinks. Reed stood in the doorway for longer than anticipated, wondering to himself when was the last time he willingly ate or drank out at a public venue.
Lady Parhelion’s dress was torn from the crossbow bolt she’d taken, but there were enough layers of frills and fluff that it was tough to spot without explicitly looking for the tear. Neither she nor Reed had any sort of magics capable of removing the blood though. Reed watched nervously as the barkeeper chatted with Lady Parhelion, wondering if anyone would comment on the stain. But, the barkeep continued talking with the girl, not making a scene, and eventually he looked up and caught Reed’s eye.
“And little Lady is a friend of one of the Heroes of Dalot? Well keep your coin, miss, his drink’s on me.”
Reed scowled at the man, brushing aside them both to pick up the drinks. The other patrons at the bar cast curious and friendly glances his way, but Reed shielded his eyes and picked up the tray with his free hand. He scuttled back to an empty booth in the back corner, far from any other patrons who’d ventured out this late into the night. Lady Parhelion, still exchanging pleasantries with the barkeep, joined him after some time.
“Why are we doing this,” Reed asked dryly, staring into his drink.
“I’m in a lot of pain still, and this is where I’m staying the night.” Lady Parhelion hissed, bundling up her robes and stuffing her skirts beneath the table. “The barkeep is also a local physician, he’ll take a look at me once the place closes.”
“Why are we waiting until then. You need healing now.”
“I’m healed enough, I said that back at the house. He’d shut down the bar right away if it was bad.”
“How do you make friends like him that quickly? I thought you just arrived.”
“I’m a goddamn pleasant person, Reed,” Lady Parhelion hissed back, readjusting her robes to hide the bloodstain. “Now you’ve got questions, I’ve got questions, and neither of us is happy about what’s going to happen in the near future.”
“I’m not happy about what’s happening now either.”
Lady Parhelion pulled her glass straight in front of her. “Nothing makes you happy.”
“I’ve never been upset while playing darts back at the Devil’s Hearth.” Reed countered.
“You’ve never been sober while doing anything at the Devil’s Hearth. Now drink before Tai finds out.”
Reed held out his glass and Lady Parhelion clinked the rims together before downing the beverage in one go. Reed did the same, savoring the amber honey blend of the drink before setting it back down on the table. He watched indifferently as the drink began to refill itself through some means of magic.
“So now I’ve both murdered innocents, shot our leader, and drank alcohol on the job. Does this mean I’m removed from the Nine?”
“It’s been three and a half years, Preston. I’m just happy you’re still by my side.”
Reed looked up in surprise. Lady Parhelion looked solemnly down into her drink, and Reed could see the pressure and torment of the last few years etched into her face.
“Of course,” he replied dryly. “Not like I have much else place to be. Now do I get to ask my questions first, or are you going to go first again?”
Lady Parhelion waved a hand, “Shoot.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed into slits, at the word, but Lady Parhelion’s face split into a smile. “Alright, alright, sorry. Ask your question.”
“Why in the world do you want to take my place among the Drifters, especially knowing that if you die we all go down with?”
Lady Parhelion sighed and pushed back against the booth. “You fell unconscious at the Battle of Dalot.”
Reed gripped his mug a big tighter, defensively. “So?”
“Before that you nearly died trying to save Bernard.”
“Successfully saving Bernard.” Reed huffed. “And besides, odds were against us that entire time. I’d like to see any of you take down a dragon with three shots.”
Lady Parhelion paused in her drinking and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, yes, you could if you wanted to but you won’t, spare me.” Reed said, taking another swig from his glass as well. “Tough to believe now that you’re dressed like that.”
“And it was easier to believe me to be a competent warrior when I was twelve?”
“No,” Reed muttered. “But I didn’t have much of a choice then. Suppose I don’t have much of a choice now either though, huh.”
Reed sighed and glanced around the bar. It was a half-way decent place, though he couldn’t imagine him coming out here very often. He didn’t have plans to stay in Dalot for long, nor would he ever set foot on this realm again if he could help it. The idea of Lady Parhelion taking his spot in the Drifters and having to deal with everything weighed heavy on him. He’d be safer bunkering down in the house with those that intended to stay behind, but it would mean throwing Parhelion out into the middle of all the choas he’d endured these past few months.
“So to be clear, you think you can do a better job than I can in this role?”
Lady Parhelion rested her elbow on the table, leaning her head against her hand. “How about I answer that with a question of my own: What sort of magic is Spielascor using on us?! Why were you in such pain when Sun’s music started to play?”
Reed’s skin itched as he recalled the memory, a stabbing spear of pain striking his head even without the music’s presence.
“I… have a good theory on that, actually.” Reed said, clearing his throat. “You see, the freed members of the Nine all seem to have similar reactions to my own, albiet at different degrees. Putting aside the physical, mental, and emotional trauma of those years-“
“Yes, simply putting that aside,-“ Lady Parhelion interrupted. Her hands gripped around her drink began to tighten, sending small cracks through the glass. Reed reached out and pulled her hands off, setting them onto the table with a small pat.
“Just ignoring the human side of things for the sake of the analysis,” he continued, “there’s still something off. You exhibit a very weak version of this curse, while I exhibit the strongest symptoms. Tai is worse than you, Sawyer is worse than Tai, and I’m worse than Sawyer by a long stretch. The only one who doesn’t fit into the schema is Yez, but we’ll come back to her.”
Reed looked around at the bar to see if anyone was watching, but the spot he’d picked was well removed from the gaze of others. Pulling out a piece of chalk, he began to draw runes onto the table.
“So, for the most part we know that this curse is one that compounds with time. The longer we spent in Spielascor’s domain listening to his songs, the worse the effects became on us after our escape. We can assume that Yez didn’t pick up the curse in its entirety because she was pretty much de- she was unconscious for nearly the entire time.”
Lady Parhelion watched the runes with indifference as Reed continued.
“Then looking at the symptoms, what happens when music plays?”
“I really want to…hm,” Lady Parhelion mused, running a finger around her glass. “I don’t know. I just want to do something. I feel compelled.”
“That’s what I thought. Tai is a lot the same way. She gets very prone to rage, attacking others and becoming hyperfixated on taking action. If you two were the only ones subjected to that, well I can see it being some sort of berserker’s curse but-“
“No that’s not it,” Lady Parhelion said, shaking her head. “I’m not angry when it happens, I just can’t sit around doing nothing.”
“Well compare that to what Sawyer and I experience, and it starts to make sense. Sawyer has largely avoided the curse’s activation, but he’s reported a splitting sensation that pulls him apart when it happens. He can’t focus, feels restless, and slowly loses his mind while trying to perform all the tasks that jump into his head.”
“And you?” Reed leaned back against the back of the booth, setting the chalk down on the table.
“It’s like needing to do a thousand things at once, and right then and there. It’s not just a need to complete a task, it’s a need to complete everything at once. And then, it all starts to go black and its just that pain you felt before. My head spins when the commands start, and then trying to compose myself after that is simply impossible. It’s like my brain is on fire, and all I can think about is all those things I should be doing, and that damned song.”
“That almost sounds like-“
“It’s just a command spell,” Reed finished, leaning forward again. “But imagine if you cast command on someone for the span of three years. They’re trash spells. They’re easy to cast, easy to maintain as a curse, and easy to remove. I’d be surprised if the actual commands are anything but nonsense, but that’s not the point. The curse would have to be quantity over quality. Cast a hundred command spells onto one person, and not only are they going to have a hell of a time taking them off, but triggering the spell causes a contradiction. Your mind tries to accomplish all the tasks at the same time, and if any of them conflict, then what even happens? You don’t drop dead, but the spell is probably going to give you a hell of a time.”
Lady Parhelion pursed her lips together. “So imagine if it were a thousand command spells. That’s what you’ve got on you right now?” “That’s my best guess,” Reed sighed. “Music triggers the magic since it’s bardic in nature. I’ve been trying to shear off some of the command spells every day with the Heart of Dalot, but its tough to tell if it’s working or if it’s just breaking up some lingering wards that I wrote for myself long ago.”
“Sounds like we’re fucked.” Lady Parhelion said, sipping from her glass.
“It does indeed.”
“But… I think we can fix that.”
Reed waved his hand a bit in the air. “That, I’m less certain about.”
“Give me a month with the Driferts, and we’ll see if you feel the same way.”
Reed leaned back against the booth, staring at the bloody spot on Lady Parhelion’s dress.
“I think you can fix this. Just… don’t go being a hero.”
Later in the night, the two made their way up the stairs of the inn together, Lady Parhelion holding onto the wooden rail to support her as Reed helped from her other side. Her rented room was sparse, but lovely in a plain way. It was clear that the barkeep downstairs cared about being a good host, at least to this particular guest.
As Lady Parhelion sat down on her bed, Reed pulled his glasses up and gave Lady Parhelion a glower.
“I won’t stop you from joining back up with the Drifters,” he sighed. “You’re right, and I don’t like it, and I won’t be happy about it. There are absolutely threats that you’ll face that will put your life and ours in mortal peril.”
“But-?” Lady Parhelion encouraged.
“But you’re right that this is our best bet,” Reed conceded. “I was so focused on finding failsafes for when our plan failed, that I never really planned for if it worked so spectacularly. If you can buy me time, I can use the Heart of Dalot and we can end this, once and for all.”
“I have your blessing, then?”
Reed gave a snort of disgust and lowered his glasses once more. “As if you’d need one from me. I’m still not onboard with this plan, I’m just saying you aren’t completely off-base and I don’t have a better solution.”
“And-?”
“And I admit that strolling into my house and taking a crossbow bolt to the chest was a bold and stupid move. But also I’m glad to know you’re at the same level as Ashel when it comes to taking fatal wounds.”
“Well there you have it,” Lady Parhelion laughed. She laid herself down on the bed’s comforter with a huff. “Preston’s mind has been put at ease, and all it took was for me to lose a quarter of my blood all over his research notes.”
“You didn’t lose that much blood,” Reed muttered. “And I am certainly not at ease. I’m sending you off with part of the Heart of Dalot so you don’t get killed.”
Lady Parhelion waved her hand, motioning him away. “What a generous gift from such a selfish demon! Very well, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“And go talk to Andal before you leave! You need medical help!”
“I don’t remember which one that is,” Lady Parhelion laughed in a singsong voice before closing her eyes. A translucent purple mage hand popped into existence behind Reed, motioning him out. Reed paused, but gave a sigh and left the room. The mage hand waved him goodbye, and closed the door behind him with a definative click.
In the balmy summer air, he made his way back home, working through what was going to happen. In no time at all Reed stood at his desk once more, confused and worried, with his hands pressed against the desk’s surface. He looked at the heart for a moment and then straight down at the table. He plotted for a moment before running over and pulling out the necessary tools to get started. Clearing off his workbench and tidying up loose and bloodied papers, he threw himself back into work methodically and carefully.
A few days went by of Reed staying exclusively in the workshop, only stepping out for the occasional break and meal. It took two days to successfully sever a piece off of the Heart of Dalot, and another day to carve the ivory pendant to hold it. He wavered on the design for a while, but settled on a simple depiction of Dvallin arcing over the gemstone. After several rounds of quality testing and no word from Lady Parhelion, Reed found himself with the finished product.
He held up the pendant to the light, admiring the work. A sharp connection pulled at the back of his mind, and he saw the phantom image of Tai beside him.
“It’s lovely,” she said with a soft smile. “But I was hoping that you’d be able to stop her.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to be Lady,” Reed said, still staring at the pendant. “-but my brothers and I have spent a hell of a lot of our lives failing to save our family. Maybe I can end this, or maybe she can. If I were a betting man, I’d place my money on her, but I like trying to cheat the system too.”
Tai raised an eyebrow, but faded back.
“Enjoy your rest, Reed. Stay sharp, and crack the code so we can all go home.”
“Keep an eye on Lady for me,” Reed chuckled, pocketing the pendant. “I’ll be a stone’s throw away.”