The rain came to Elwynn as it always did in the spring, heavy and hard, staining the dirt a darker brown and feeding the forest in preparation for another long summer. It was a warm rain with hardly any wind, silvery puddles and diamonds against window panes, the smell of life thick in the air.
Mary stood in the doorway of Haleth’s little house, admiring the rain and the lone black horse tied to the hitching post up the path. She was wrapped in a black dressing gown, lace and chiffon to her ankles, pulling it tighter around her as she stepped onto the stoop. Raindrops from the overhand threatened her bare feet, but she didn’t mind. It wasn’t entirely unlike home.
It had been weeks since they brought the horse back from Booty Bay. Weeks since she’d picked through the ashen remains of a demon’s body, crumbling flesh and bone in search of a stone, delicate and strange. She held it in her hand, idly running a thumb across its glassy surface.
Would it hurt? She wondered. Did it matter if it did? Uncertainty tugged at the corners of her lips. It was a threshold, or it felt like one, that would stain her should she choose to cross it. Loss of life, yes, but what soldier couldn’t say that? The twisting of life beyond recognition; to taint something so completely with fel and void it ceased to be the sweet boy tied to a post, tossing his head in the rain. Well. That was different.
A quiet voice from behind caught her attention, pulling her from her thoughts. Mary stepped back inside, wet footprints on wood, dressing gown clinging to her frame. The horse at the post watched with black eyes as she turned, a final look in his direction, and closed the door.
The door to his little bath stood ajar, golden candlelight pouring out from within. Skeleton hands of moonlight crept across the floorboards and lukewarm water in the basin, across pale, bruised skin, and a discarded red dress in a heap by ceramic feet.
Their plan had gone poorly, despite Mary’s best efforts. One minute she was staring down a horse, her horse, the one she’d had for years as a girl, and the next he was charging her with eyes full of fear as the fel tore through his body. A tarnished plate covered in splinters and a pair of tweezers still sat on a stool by the open door, coupled with a damp cloth covered in flecks of blood.
He’d cared for her afterwards, of course, though she could hardly remember what was said. The low hum of his voice, his thumbs brushing tears from her cheeks. The kiss at her temple as she clung to him, soaking his shirtsleeves.
“I killed him, Hal.” She’d said it a dozen times already. Apricot’s remains were still outside, glowing like a gas lamp under a starlit sky, flesh torn apart by the very thing she’d put inside of him: The crystal they picked from a demon’s ashen remains, disguised as a late night treat. A gift taken in trust. “I killed my horse.”
“Your sister’s horse.” He corrected her, half-truths and shadow comforts whispered against her skin. “It’s alright.”
Mary pulled him across the rim of the tub, ignoring his protests and his hands fumbling with the clasp of his cloak. She ignored his little jokes and the splash he made as he fell in, soap and water spilling over the side of the basin, matching his laughter with her own as he struggled to right himself.
It’s alright. She echoed him in her head, letting the quiet confidence in his voice steady her shaking hands. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but it would be. It had to be. What else could she do?
Her words dripped like honey from the comb, filling her modest room with more than just candlelight and the muffled din of Old Town beyond the door. The walls and windows ached with power, folding in around her, bowed and bent at the edges of her vision.
There were only a few hairs left. One from the ritual was already threaded through the center of a dreamcatcher, wood and twine and bone and seeping ill-intent. The second was wound around the outer ring, tied off with a stretch of red ribbon. The third was in her hands, working its way out along the twine from the inner web.
It’s easier to show someone than explain it. Hal’s words in her ear, his hand on her shoulder. He was right about that. She’d read her book dozens of times, and there were lines and passages and whole chapters on channeling your will into more than just fire, and each time she’d fought and struggled and gotten no further than when she started.
But feeling it was different. It flowed through her like a river, from the warm touch of his palm to her chest, her legs, her fingertips. A spark like a firework that fizzled long after the light was gone. She poured it into her words and the twining of threads as it hummed beneath her skin.
Fear, loss, anxiety. An hourglass running low, a room with no door. Grabbing for a rope just out of reach. Taking in water when you need air. Pulling yourself along the ground, desperately willing a body that won’t listen to go faster, faster, to outrun whatever’s behind you. A spider just above the door, out of sight but watching.
She held the dreamcatcher tightly in her hands, fingers wrapped around woven twine, and poured the whole of her will into words and wood.
Joseph Brandstone. Find him, torment him, cling to him like a second skin. Fill his nights with terror and leave him ragged, haunted, afraid to close his eyes. Let his every waking moment be a warning for the next, and his dreams the gaoler for cell he can’t escape.
There was an unusual hum of anxiety spreading through the veins of Old Town that day; sending its inhabitants scurrying to finish their chores and errands before the week-end. Merchants lost and found dockets and bills of sale, runners of all sorts dropped and reclaimed their product and purses, the guard quickened their pace along the worn cobblestone. Even the rats seemed to be in a rush.
Mary was not immune to this general sense of unease. She carefully closed the door to her room behind her, acutely aware of how cold they felt in the dwindling, late summer evening. The week had not been kind.
Accusations of curses and meddling had set her out of sorts, not because she doubted the truthfulness of the claims or because she’d forgotten about them, but because her mind had since leapt to a different train on a different track, and she had hoped that to be the last of it.
Perhaps it would be now, after their confrontation by the park. Haleth tried to keep her from it as best he could, but there was still work to be done that only she could do. Recorking a bottle of wine, as it were.
She was met with a withering stare from a succubus coiled like a spring atop her bed, the binding runes that kept her tongue well in her mouth glowing faintly against her skin. Elerva, whose words dripped with a mix of poison and honey, had lost the privilege to speak some time ago.
“Good evening, sweetheart.” Mary locked the door behind her. “You look like you’ve been busy.”
Indeed she had. Papers and books lie scattered and upturned around the minimal room. Clothes, candles, crystals of all sorts, even the fel shards Cam had given her had been strewn across the floor. A constant reminder to the novice warlock that her grip on her demon was tenuous at best.
The mess was something to be dealt with later. Mary pulled a ring of keys from around her neck and moved to the squat little desk by the window, stepping over a dispersed pile of scrolls and tomes between them.
She could hear the succubus’ tail whip the bed behind her. Key in the lock of the top drawer. The contents inside were untouched, for the most part. Her grandmother’s tome, her mother’s wedding ring, a rabbit skull on a velvet band with a matching set of earrings. Only one thing was missing.
Whip.
Mary turned on her heel, eyes wide. There, on the bed, cradled by a pair of pale grey hands, was the dreamcatcher. Elerva grinned, her sharp, glistening teeth framed by thick, blackened lips.
It was undamaged, for the most part. Joe’s hair had been removed shortly after the curse was set, and any magic from her or Haleth would be little more than vapors. Even the repugnant Drust signature from which she’d plucked it would have gone inert. But if left alone in the hands of a succubus, especially one so hesitantly attached to a master, the most basic focus could become disastrous.
Mary stepped toward her hands outstretched. “That’s not for you, Elerva. Give it here.”
The succubus uncoiled, stretching her long legs out before her. Her lips curled into a delicate pout as she shook out her hair, holding the dreamcatcher close to her generous chest. She would have giggled and teased, had her voice not been threaded to the back of her throat.
“Elerva.” Mary moved closer, her hands emmenating a warmth all too familiar to servants of the Burning Legion. “You remember what happened last time you didn’t listen.”
Another binding spell. Defiant protests, when she could still speak. The feeling of an axe cutting away at her skin, again and again. The man’s idea: H A L E T H. She remembered. The hot searing of her flesh in fel fire, the swirling searching emptiness of the twisting nether before her body was called back to her again.
Elerva’s petulant pout turned to a snarl of hatred as Mary’s too-hot hands closed in on her. She held the dreamcatcher up before her in reluctant submission, all but flinging it at the warlock as she plucked it from her hands.
“Thank you.”
Mary stepped away from the bed. Wood and twine and bone began to smoke and burn beneath her fingers, casting a brilliant green light across the room. They kept their eyes on each other; pale green and blood red.
“I think it’s time we made some adjustments.” The warlock spoke softly, letting the smouldering remains of her focus crumble in her hands. The thought had already crossed her mind, earlier in the week when she spoke to Moz. She’d thought about it several times since then. Which demonologist she’d go to, how they would go about it, whether or not it was worth it to release her into someone else’s care or simply cut her loose. Or kill her.
However she decided to do it, there was one thing she knew for certain: It was time for Elerva to go.
The room felt empty. The unpleasant crackle of the fel that accompanied her succubus was gone; the ward she’d set around the perimeter of the room inert, and scuffed, and nothing but plain white chain on wooden boards.
The signs of Elerva were still there: Upended books, scattered papers, unlocked and opened drawers. She’d been there, but she wasn’t now. She never would be again.
Mary placed a hand on her chest. There was something close to loss settling there. Not regret, not guilt, not sadness. A palpable emptiness joined by the burning in her hand and the weariness in her limbs. Wyatt said it was to be expected.
She’d been lucky, in a way. Everyone knew demons lied, but they could be compelled to tell the truth like anyone else. They could be convinced, bargained with, bought and sold. But Elerva was different. She was disobedient, hateful, bound through sheer force and little else. Their contract was smudged, altered, weak and bending. Tenuous at best, and the demon knew it.
It felt like a curse, before all this. More than just the horns on her head. Saddled with the most unruly succubus in the world. But it was a sign of her growth, she thought, to turn that to her advantage. Joe was tired, the dream catcher burned, and the contract destroyed. Three little victories, and all she had to do was hold her head above the water.
Now she could focus. Mary pulled her mop of black hair back, tying it at the base of her neck with a ribbon. The rest of her books needed to be moved to Hal’s, along with the contents of her desk. The crystal she’d picked up from the Herald, the ring of thorns, the wooden bear. Her room at the Pig needed to be cleaned and organized and made to look normal once more, and then… then it was done.
She had weaved, like a spider, her web across the open altar. Each thread was enchanted by her hands and silver; the kind of silver only present in your memory: A full moon, a reflection on the water, dew on the grass. It danced in the low candlelight of the main room, winding tighter around the imp caught in its strands.
“Pyewacket.”
He kicked his legs in vain. The woman addressing him was soft and small, painted in red and black to match the robe that pooled around her on the floor. She was bent over a circle of glyphs every imp knew by heart: A binding ritual, flooded with power.
“You can give up on that.” She smiled without a hint of warmth. “The more you struggle, the tighter they get.”
He’d had a contract with a warlock before. Nice enough guy, an elf, not too interested in the details as long as the job got done. That had been easy. Simple. Clean. He watched the woman before him lift her fingers from the floor, dripping shadow and silver like inky threads. This was different.
He felt a knot at the center of his stomach and a tightening of his chest. Cracks and aches wracked his body and he squirmed, the strands of her web cutting into his flesh. He heard her voice, calm and quiet, unmoved as his form began to change.
“I don’t need an imp.”
Claws from his fingertips. He arched his back as his tail grew longer and longer, sprouting thick black hairs that crept their way along the whole of his body. He squeezed his eyes shut as light flooded in, and let out a hiss and a yeowl in a voice that was not his own.
“And I don’t need an animal that can get lost, or stolen, or killed.”
The warlock opened her arms to him, waving the threads and shadows and webs away with a flick of her wrist. He landed on his feet, all four of them, and padded across the floor to her. A contract was a contract, no matter how strange.
“I need you, Pyewacket.” She cooed as he settled in her lap, soft and warm. “A cat who is not a cat. A familiar of my very own.”
Exsar snorted into his coffee, black, eyes flicking to the corners of the cafe in nervous hesitation. The only other patron was silent, absorbed in their own business, and wholly uninterested in a pair of ren’dorei soaking up sunlight at a window table.
“I-I did, yes, but not so loudly, please.” He pulled his chair closer and lowered his voice. “I just don’t understand what she means. It’s an odd thing to say.”
Verana across from him sipped her coffee, two sugars, two creams, giving him a moment to compose himself before answering. She was dressed more modestly than was normal for her, in a trim, calf-length day dress embroidered with red berries and birds, and hardly a pearl pinned in her hair.
“So I heard you correctly.” She sighed, a wry smile playing at her lips. “You can’t think about those things too much, Exsar. Did you think she meant you harm, or to toy with you? I doubt it. Unlikely! You know how Stormwind is by this point, don’t you? Everyone is after something, always, and if you say you’re not you must be dull or lying. Honest conversation is met with suspicion, haven’t you noticed that? That includes yourself. You give a man a rose and he looks for the thorns beneath it.”
She raised a slender hand at his protest and he relented, settling back into his chair, drink forgotten for the moment.
“Or perhaps your personalities are just at odds. Could that be? I admire your honesty, truly, but not everyone speaks as plainly as you. Should you decide to try again, I could accompany you. A translator of mysteries, as it were. I shall add it to my titles! And don’t apologize, don’t you dare. It is no trouble to me at all, Exsar, I hope you know that.”
Sheepish. He returned her smile, a crooked thing less often used, and cleared his throat to cover the creep of blush at his cheeks. “I wasn’t going to apologize.”
“Is that so?” Verana tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, all starlight and ocean blue, bright eyes wide with feigned surprise. “It’s good that you weren’t, truly. I have in mind all sorts of terrible punishments for liars, did you know that? Escorting me around town, giving into my every whim, listen to me talk for hours on end. Such awful things come only to liars, you know. Is that alright with you? What do you think?”
She was always this way with him: warm and clear, with a hint of mockery in her voice like a bell. His smile grew wider and he looked away, through the window to the bustle of Dalaran’s cobblestone streets.
“I think,” he said, quiet and sure, “that sounds just fine.”
He looked like a boy when he was asleep. There were no jabs, no jokes, no mocking smile on his lips. Adrift in the space of half-truths and familiar stories that make up dreams; dark hair clinging to his forehead in the warmth of their Elwynn home. She wondered how many others had seen him this way.
Mary slipped from beneath the covers, bare feet on the wooden floor drawing a shiver beneath her skin. Her winter robe, thick and plush, lay discarded across the back of the desk chair not far off.
It must have been a full moon, or close to it. The front room was bathed in silvery light, freckled with the shade of trees that loomed just above their front windows. Not that her things were especially difficult to find, even in darkness. She kept her chalk and her grandmother’s book at the corner of her desk when she was home, and the black candles she’d picked up long ago had remained in the top drawer since she’d moved in. Over a month ago now, must be.
Another look toward the bedroom. An adoring smile. He hadn’t heard, or moved an inch. And he may berate her for it later; chastise her for not waking him, involving him, heeding his suggestions. But, Mary thought, opening the door to the chill of late autumn with her ritual arrangements clutched to her chest, sometimes it was best to just do it alone.
