#gabriel blake

[gwblake-blog1]

I am a newbie to tumblr and a bit of a dinosaur, so please give me time to figure this thing out. I may be slow, but I’ll get there...eventually.

[keircatenation]

Silvertongue 25

One | Twenty-Four | Twenty-Six

            It was weird, opening her eyes and looking at a bare wall where she instinctively knew bookshelves were supposed to be. Except, Miranda reminded herself, she destroyed them the last time she was in her old room. There was sunlight falling across her bed, and even when she closed her eyes it was bright against the inside of her eyelids. She thought about pulling the covers over her head and going back to sleep, but she wasn’t really tired.

            Her entire body ached, like she was tossed around for several hours by a yeti, but her brain told her that it didn’t want more sleep.

            So she got up. She swung her legs out of bed, marveling at the thin, swirling scar lines covering her thighs and calves. She held out her arms and saw the same there. They were very faint, and would probably be overlooked even when she wore a tee shirt, but they practically glowed in the sun when it caught them the right way. She touched her face and wondered if they were there as well.

            She pushed herself off the bed, wobbling a bit on her feet. She felt dizzy for a moment, but it passed quickly. She walked to the window and insinuated herself between the filmy curtains and the warm glass. She put her palm flat against the glass, leaning into it to feel its solidity. Her eyes were unfocused as she stared out the window, resting her forehead on the glass.

            Now that she was out of immediate danger, it was more difficult to ignore the flashes of feelings not her own: a bit of delight at a witty joke she’d never heard; a slight tinge of annoyance over another soul falling into the river; the taste of frost at sunrise at the North Pole; the solid heat of the midday sun in the middle of the desert against her back. It was impossible to say whether she was calling these memories to her or if her patrons were sending them to her. Maybe neither; maybe this was just how the bond between patron and avatar worked. She wondered if the gods could feel each other as well.

            Probably not, Miranda decided and turned away from the window.

            She looked around her old room, detached from what she was seeing. It felt worlds away when she last slept here. She had been panicked and terrified and so confused about everything that was happening to her. Now…

            Well, Miranda was still somewhat confused about a lot of things. But that wasn’t taking over her emotions anymore. Neither was the terror or the panic. Even though she felt little tugs going off in different directions, this was the most at peace she had felt ever in her life. She was the only one on the inside of her skull, and she felt solid and – perfectly content with herself.

            She smiled a little happy smile.

            The wardrobe was half full of clothes that she had worn during her high school summers, the ones that she didn’t like enough to take with her when she left to move to New York. It was mostly summer dresses with conservative neck and hemlines. Miranda had figured out early on that she would never have a large bust, so she rebelled against anything that she thought might make her chest look smaller than it was. Her favorite shirt, she recalled with sudden clarity, was a spaghetti strap white shirt that fell dangerously low over her cleavage.

            Miranda picked out a blue dress and put it on quickly, noting with some dissatisfaction that it was a little loose. She suspected that the last few months had not been kind to her health in particular.

            There weren’t any shoes in the closet, so Miranda ventured out of her old room in bare feet. She was nearly silent, padding through the carpeted halls like a ghost. She felt more grounded outside her old room. She had seen these halls recently, just after her death ritual, and she felt they were more of her present than where she woke up.

            There were voices coming from Gabriel’s study. Four months ago, she would have listened outside the door, or gone up to her hiding hole and eavesdrop fro above. Now, Miranda knocked on the door and entered, studying the walls of the room. This was Gabriel’s sanctuary, she could tell. From the titles of books on the shelves covering one wall to the light brown wood of his desk and other furniture, this was Miranda’s understanding of her brother.

            What was somewhat surprising was the fact that Harlan Blake was sitting in discussion with Gabriel. She hadn’t realized they talked this much, but she really should have.

            “Miranda,” Gabriel greeted with a smile. “I should stop expecting you to hold to a normal healing timeline, shouldn’t I?”

            Miranda smiled back warmly. “Isis is known for her healing, so I expect the answer would be yes.” She sat down in the other armchair next to her father. She nodded to him. “Father.”

            “I’m glad to see you awake,” Harlan said quietly.

            That was – unexpected, and also very pleasing. It surprised Miranda how much she liked it that her father cared about her. She had assumed that, since their ties had never been very strong, he would remain angry with her for a long time. But perhaps that was just her perception of their relationship. She hadn’t understood him and resented him, so she imagined that he felt the same about her.

            “It’s good to be awake,” Miranda replied.

            Gabriel cleared his throat. “We were just discussing the council meeting.”

            “Right,” Miranda said. “Right. How did that, um, go? I mean, after all the flashy stuff. Like, the negotiations.”

            “They were – how can I put this best?” Harlan said. “Well, lets just say that the dissenters were rather timid after your light show. It seems that after your defeat of their god, they decided that not much of what they wanted to say actually needed to be said.”

            “Wait,” Miranda said. “But things were discussed, right?” She looked from her father to her brother and back again, frowning a bit. “You know that just because Nemain was the driving force behind the chaos, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have valid concerns. I mean, I could list five, I’m sure, off the top of my head, and that’s coming from a child of one of the founding families.”

            She paused and wet her lips, choosing her next words carefully. “The system that the Thirteen Covens has in place works. But – it is sedentary. It’s a system from three hundred years ago, and it totally worked then, but it doesn’t work so much anymore. There’s a lot of good points to it. Just not everything, and it needs to be more flexible, more changeable.”

            “I don’t know how the other leaders would take that,” Harlan said with a frown.

            Gabriel shook his head. “I think the younger leaders, my generation, would be open to the idea. And if we start spreading the ideas now, we might be able to convert even the more traditional members.” He met Miranda’s eyes. “I know you don’t like him, but Quinn Vega is an influential member of our generation. And you know him from school, don’t you?”

            Miranda burst out laughing at the idea of Quinn being interested in anything other than improving his own position in the world. “Oh gods,” she gasped. “If you want someone to talk ti him about this, it had just better not be me, that’s all I can say.”

            “Why do you say that?” Harlan asked, leaning forward and frowning.

            Miranda’s laughter died down, leaving her grinning a little. “See, our typical interaction is him insulting me and me ignoring him. I doubt that my newfound status would improve that at all.”

            “It would make it worse,” Gabriel commented, amusement all over his face. “Well, some people are idiots. It can’t be helped.”

            “I suppose so.” Miranda sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Listen, I get that you’re taking the higher path, and everything, the whole don’t punish the dissenters because we’re awesome and fair, but I really think that looking at promoting different leaders among the dissenting covens might be a good idea.”

            “That is a valid concern,” Gabriel said. He turned to Harlan. “What is being done to punish the dissenting leaders? I haven’t heard of anything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

            Harlan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Very little,” he replied wearily. “Traditional coven law doesn’t really have a procedure for this sort of occurrence. I assume it’s happened before, because our history is long and quite arduous, but we haven’t found a precedent yet.”

            Miranda had no idea that her father didn’t like poring through the history of the covens. It honestly didn’t occur to her before now that there were parts of his job that Harlan didn’t like. It was a little astounding, to be seeing Harlan as a human instead of a father. She liked it a lot.

            “Why don’t you make your own precedent?” Miranda asked, because she honestly didn’t know. “If there’s no real history for this, then can’t you just do whatever sounds right to you?”

            Gabriel shook his head, but Harlan beat him to the explanation: “What I don’t think you understand is how steeped in tradition the covens all are. We need to exhaust all records before we can make any sort of decision. This is why the dissenters are all mainly at large.”

            “Okay,” Miranda said. She rested her chin on her hands. “That sucks.” She narrowed her eyes, staring at the lined curtains around Gabriel’s windows but not really seeing them. “Is there any way of searching through these records quickly? So that when a difficult case needs to be called, we’re not waiting on people to check the histories?”

            “It’s all done by hand,” Gabriel said. He tapped a pen against his desk. “Every coven history needs to be brought to one place where an impartial team of witches reads every single line of every single book – and do you know how many books there are in that room?”

            “No, but from your reaction it’s a lot,” Miranda replied dryly.

            Harlan tapped Miranda’s forearm and she looked at him inquisitively. “You must have an idea about an easier way to check this information,” he said. “You wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise.”

            Miranda gave him a half-smile and replied, “Well, yeah. I mean, runic filing systems and information management systems were what I was studying second semester at Barrowmore. I catalogued my professor’s entire collection of texts for my final. It’s – not exactly a popular area of expertise, and I understand that – I felt like I was going to die from boredom some nights while studying it – but it totally exists, and I think it could really help out with this problem.”

            “Leadworth still has your system in place,” Harlan mused.

            Miranda shrugged. “I’d hope so. He’d mess up the runes if he tried to modify it any. His specialty is making things go boom.”

            “We noticed,” Gabriel commented. Miranda looked over and saw that her brother was smiling at the two of them, eyes soft and warm. It made her feel special, like a part of the family again.

            “If you really want to get to working with the runic information system,” Mianda said, “I’d ask Kasi Joshi. She was the most in tune with how the words came together in the end. And I mean, Josh might be using my system, but the library is still using hers, which just lets you know how awesome she is.”

            She had no idea if this was favoritism or something, recommending her friend for a large and probably well-paid undertaking, but Miranda figured that her family could take it or leave it. They knew what they needed better than she did, so they would either hire Kasi or not.

            “Um,” she said, because she was sure that she had other things that could improve coven leadership, but then Gabriel stood up. He walked around his desk and took her hand, smoothing over her fingers gently.

            “You’re all right, aren’t you?” he asked quietly.

            Miranda shot a glance at her father, but Harlan seemed as interested in the answer as Gabriel was.

            “I – no,” she said, and it was the truth. Before Gabriel could start freaking out, she continued, “I was just a conduit for the power of two major gods. I really don’t think that the human body is meant to withstand that kind of energy flow, and I have the scars to prove it. I’m tired and I ache all over. But” – she wet her lips – “but I feel peaceful. Balanced. And while my two patrons are kind of dicks, I think I can work with at least one of them to figure stuff out. So, yeah.”

            She smiled. “I’m as close to all right as I can be right now, and I will be in the future. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s sweet that you do, but just know that I can manage stuff myself.”

            “Of course you can,” Harlan said, surprisingly. “But that doesn’t mean that you need to. This is another unprecedented event – an avatar with two patrons?” He gave a small laugh. “Until I saw you fight against Nemain, I would have called you crazy had you said that your patron was Isis, and also your other was Loki. It’s been thought to be impossible. And such an odd combination,” he added as an afterthought.

            “Seriously, I’m sure that death kind of fucked things up with me,” Miranda protested. “I can work out a real study, but my hypothesis right now is that dying when I was seven, and then again in December, weakened the connection between me and Isis, so that I was able to promise myself to Loki and form an actual bond.”

            Gabriel shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “This should make sense to me, but I keep getting stuck on the fact that you’ve died three times in your life so far.”

            Miranda made a face and nodded. “Believe me,” she said truthfully, “The same thing trips me up, and I’m the one who’s actually lived it.”

            Harlan made a considering noise, and then he unfolded himself from his chair, straightening his suit with a few tugs. “I’m terribly sorry, but I do need to get back to the history research. Each leader has his or her shift overseeing the research, and it’s almost time for mine to begin, unfortunately.” He winced.

            “When are we going to see you again?” Miranda asked. What she really meant was, when will I see you again, but she thought her father understood.

            “I have business near Barrowmore next week,” Harlan said. “That is, if you plan to move back to your old apartment.”

            “It’s still around?” Miranda asked.

            Gabriel nodded. “We kept up its rent and cleaning while you were gone. Sentiment, you know.”

            “Sentiment that I appreciate right about now.” Miranda stood up and embraced her father. “I would love to see you for dinner when you’re in town next week,” she whispered to him.

            His arms tightened momentarily around her, and then they both backed away. He nodded to Gabriel and then left the room.

            “I’m glad that you’re getting along better with him,” Gabriel commented softly, putting an arm around Miranda’s shoulders.

            “Me too,” she replied, and she was.

[keircatenation]

Silvertongue 24

One | Twenty-Three | Twenty-Five

            Gabriel, of course, didn’t like the plan.

            He thought that relying on two thousand year old runes to combat gods was idiotic and would fail. (No matter that Miranda was going to recharge them, it just wouldn’t work.)

            Miranda politely informed him that it wasn’t his decision.

            Gabriel loudly informed her that he was the coven leader, and not her.

            Miranda heatedly informed him that this was a matter of gods and not covens.

            Gabriel left the room quite abruptly at that point, and Miranda commented on the level of his intelligence and possibly the quality of his breeding as well. Gloria grabbed her at that point and steered her quite firmly outside, where they remained until the port to the council was ready. It was difficult for Miranda to focus sometimes, getting snatches of sights halfway around the world, or smells that she knew weren’t coming from Blake House.

            Arguing with Gabriel hadn’t been helping, either. It only made her want to – she had no idea, but the urge to shed her skin and tear into him was getting strong, so she was thankful that Gabriel left the room when he did. She wasn’t quite sure where she stood with him. She was doing her best to stay calm and explain herself to him, but there were times when he just didn’t listen.

            “It’s going to take time,” Gloria reminded her.

            Miranda glared at her feet, because she knew that. She just – didn’t want it to be that way. She liked easy answers. Easy answers were nice and simple and compartmentalized and involved very little emotional stress.

            “I can’t be worrying about him second-guessing me today,” Miranda muttered. “He needs to know that I know what I’m doing, because I do.”

            “Tie him up and leave him behind?” Gloria suggested and Miranda chuckled. “No really, I wouldn’t mind tying him up somewhere. Possibly a bed. I love Everett like air, but your brother is a fine piece of ass.”

            “Ewww,” Miranda groaned. “I did not need that image! Gah, you evil creature! I will never be able to unsee that!”

            “Hey, I only mentioned it. You’re the one who imagined it!” Gloria held her hands up in defense. “Now, come on, we should get back.”

            Miranda grinned at her. She stood and stretched out her back. She was wearing a nice black dress that swayed around her knees. It was dressy for her, with a little lace detail at the neck, but very conservative for a council meeting. Still, she could pass for an assistant, at least until she was done setting and renewing her runes.

            It was a small group that was going: Miranda, Gabriel, Patrick Koenig, Patrick’s uncle, and Miranda’s father.

            “Patrick,” Miranda greeted when she and Gloria approached the spot. She nodded at the older generation. “Lord Koenig, Father.”

            “I understand that you’re the one with a plan here,” Lord Koenig said gruffly.

            Miranda smiled slowly at him. “Of course. Who would suspect me? To all the covens, I’m the magicless freak. So who better to have a plan?”

            “It’s a stupid plan,” Gabriel interjected.

            “It’s a risky plan,” Miranda corrected. “But it will work.”

            “Do we get to know the plan?” Patrick asked dryly.

            Miranda shook her head slightly. “Better if you don’t quite honestly. The fewer people know it, the less of a chance the dissenters and their patrons will hear about it. And we’re going to try and keep their patrons out of it, at the least.”

            “Patrons?” Harlan Blake asked seriously.

            “Nemain and Eris are backing the Vega, Himura, and Lupei covens,” Miranda answered. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what they’re endgame is, save complete chaos, but my goal is to remove their influence and provide a stable environment for civil and logical negotiations to me made. That’s the only way the Thirteen Covens are going to get though this.”

            “And how are you going to accomplish this?” Lord Koenig asked skeptically. “Pardon my language, but even you described yourself as a, ahem, magicless freak.”

            Miranda rolled her eyes. “Let me worry about that, okay? Seriously not something you need to worry about. You need to worry about making peace, and making sure that the dissenters don’t have valid reasons for all this shit. And if they do, you guys are the ones who need to compromise and fix things up. SO – let me worry about the easy stuff, yeah?”

            She gestured at the port circle. “Now, who wants to go first?”

            Patrick rolled his eyes, shouldered past his father and disappeared in a swirl of white runes. Lord Koenig went next, and then Harlan Roland. Before Miranda went, she turned to Gabriel and said, “I’m not going to be with you after this. I’m going to be walking the upper and then lower levels, to get closest to the runes. But I trust you’ll be fine, and I swear that I’ll be fine as well.”

            She went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Love you.”

            Then she stepped onto the portal and when the white runes cleared from around her, she was in front of a sprawling castle fortress on a cliff. A gust of wind from the sea caught Miranda’s hair and sent it flying around her face, but she wrestled it back into a messy bun, something she probably should have done before leaving Blake House. Ports all around her flared to life, letting other witches from all the covens start the trek up to Place de Tranquilité.

            Miranda joined a group of other modestly dressed witches heading toward the back entrance. The coven leaders, the ones with three assistants following to hold their trains, walked sedately toward the front entrance. Miranda spotted both Gabriel and her father among them, mingling with some of their political allies. Gabriel’s shoulders tense, and he glanced in Miranda’s direction a few times, but several other leaders did the same. Most of them were tense, actually.

            Going to supper in such a charged atmosphere must be horrible for digestion.

            Miranda slipped away from the other witches as quickly as possible, heading for the upper levels. There were runes of protection around the battlements that she wanted to check on, as well a few tricks to dissuade gods from crashing the party.

            It was even windier on the battlements, making Miranda’s hem flap around her thighs, but she set to work. She reached inside her and pulled a thin gold haze to cover her sight. The old runes lit up like rife in her sight now. Perfect. She found the nearest protection sigil and set about retracing and recharging it. It was hard work, even if it wasn’t exactly physical, and she was sweating by the time she had worked her way around the perimeter. She checked the time and swore; she was rushing at her work, but she was still late getting downstairs.

            She dashed for the stairs and then froze. A dark cloud was gathered to the north. As it got closer, Miranda saw several pieces break off and she gasped. That wasn’t a cloud, but a murder of crows. Nemain was always said to be an aspect of the Morrigan; there was obviously some truth in that tale. She dashed down the stairs, leaping several at a time and tumbling into a few walls before she got her balance.

            On the main level, she forced herself to slow down, because plenty of witches were walking around outside the council hall, but she still walked briskly, and she was sure that her face was reddened from the wind and running.

            The stairs down to the storage levels were located in what used to be the servants’ quarters, which were mainly unused by the covens now, so the population thinned out quite a lot by the time that Miranda saw the stairs. She sped up even more and was almost there when someone slammed her into the wall.

            She cried out when her head slammed against the stone wall. A hand twisted into her hair, pulling her head back, and another grabbed her wrist, pinning it by her head.

            “Feel familiar, doesn’t it, Blake?”

            Miranda gritted her teeth and glared at Quinn Vega’s insufferable, smirking face.

            “Doesn’t feel so good now, does it?” Quinn continued, twisting Miranda’s hair even tighter. “This is your place, little whore, against a wall and silent, not walking around like you’re anything of worth.”

            Miranda bared her teeth and said, “Oh, like you are? A bully like you, scared to match wits with someone fairly, scared to speak up without the backing of an equally cowardly god?”

            “Nemain is great in ways that you cannot comprehend,” Quinn hissed.

            “If she’s so great, why isn’t she here?” Miranda asked. “Why hasn’t she come to claim her own, her loyal, her faithful?”

            “She will,” Quinn insisted, but there was insecurity in his face, and his grip on Miranda slackened.

            Miranda knocked him away from her. She straightened her hair and dress calmly, then smirked at him. “Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to continue doing my job.”

            She stalked away down the stairs. Quinn’s footsteps echoed off in the opposite direction. She guessed that he was going to warn the rest of the dissenters who had contact with the gods. Well, if Miranda’s calculations were correct, the protections on the battlements should hold at least until Miranda dug herself into the foundations of Place de Tranquilité. Then she could really build some god proofing.

            The storage level was colder than the battlements, water seeping through the earth from the English Channel, giving the air a damp, clammy quality. Miranda shivered and pulled her magic in front of her eyes again. The runes down here were fainter, a little older, but with the potential to be infinitely more powerful. She took a deep breath and started to work.

            It was harder to call up her magic now. She had gone through a lot of it on the battlements, and her connection was with the sun and the air, not the earth. She was sweating heavily, the cold sticking to her skin and making her shiver even more. Still, she worked as quickly as she could, taking a little more care with these older spells.

            When she was three quarters of the way done, she heard an explosion in the distance, and she felt a surge of magic.

            “Fuck,” Miranda said and straightened up. That was her rudimentary god proofing failing on her. Nemain was through the battlements and probably heading to the council hall. Miranda sprinted for the stairs and scaled them quickly. Her skin was practically shedding golden runes as she ran.

            On the main level, she quickly oriented herself and dashed for the council hall.

            The doors were askew when she got there, one hanging off half its hinges. The council table, a giant round marble slab carved with runes of peace and prosperity, was cracked down the middle. The coven leaders were scattered around the hall, clearly thrown back from the table when the explosion of magic hit.

            And standing in the middle of the remains of the table was Nemain, god of madness and war.

            “Hello, avatar,” she said with a grin.

            Nemain was tall and skinny, bones pushing from under her skin. Jagged black tattoos covered much of her body, curving onto her cheeks like war paint. Her red hair was long and tangled, twisted through with golden chains and blood and bones. She wore nothing more than a breast band and a loincloth, but her fingernails resembled daggers and her teeth were sharp and bloodied. Her eyes were completely black.

            “Hello, Nemain,” Miranda said, and her voice barely wavered. She could barely breath from all the magic in the room. Magic from the god, magic filtering down from the fragmented spells upstairs, and magic slowly seeping up from the lower levels.

            She could work with that. She just needed to get over the runes that she didn’t get to downstairs.

            And they were – on the other side of the room. Of course.

            Miranda started walking slowly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She spotted Gabriel next to one of the pillars halfway through the chamber. It seemed like the dissenters were mainly on one side, and the older covens on the other, with the neutral parties scattered randomly about.

            “So what do you get out of this?” Miranda asked conversationally. “Just for funsies? Seeing how much chaos you can come up with before one of your siblings is going to step in?”

            “And is this Isis, ah, stepping in?” Nemain asked. She seemed cooly amused, like she had no idea why this human was bothering to talk to her like this because her victory was a foregone conclusion.

            “Not exactly,” Miranda replied evenly. She was at the edge of the table, and she rested her fingers on the surface of the stone lightly. There was old magic rooted here, even broken and cracked as it was. She could feel the potential tugging at her, and when she glanced back up she knew her eyes had changed. “You see,” she said, “I am here on my own. Neither of my patrons cares especially about your little bid for power. It is, ah, how to put it, of very little consequence to them.”

            Nemain tilted her head like a bird, her eyes narrowing. “Them?” she asked sharply.

            Miranda shrugged and continued around the table. “Of course. Isis and Loki. A patron that I’ve had since birth and one that I chose just recently. A nice balance to it, don’t you think?”

            “Avatars can only have one patron,” Nemain snapped.

            “Well, no one told me that,” Miranda said with another shrug. “Anyway, that’s old news. Not important right now. What is important is what your plans are.”

            Nemain laughed coldly, and yeah, it was a little terrifying, but Miranda had faced down Loki with her memory missing and had fought her way through Osiris’s underworld to meet Isis. She could see the cracks in this god’s armor. Nemain was not as scary as she wanted to be.

            “Why do I need a plan?” Nemain cried, high voice bouncing around the room. “I have all that I wanted already! Your precious covens distrust each other, chaos and confusion hanging heavy over everyone.” A wild, ruthless joy filled her face. “I am important.”

            Miranda let that ring around the room, and then she tsk’ed and spread her arms. “Oh, you’re important now?” she asked cruelly. “I hadn’t noticed. In fact, I doubt much of anyone noticed. Well, the humans here, but let’s face it, they’re just bodies of blood to you, aren’t they?” She was almost around the table now. “So you really haven’t accomplished anything, have you? Yeah, the covens are in a bit of disorder right now, but that can be fixed. And you are still forgotten by your fellow gods.”

            Nemain growled, curling herself in a bit like she was waiting to pounce on Miranda and tear her throat out. But Miranda was all the way around the table, and she was in the middle of the runes she hadn’t gotten to earlier. They pulled on her magic, calling up the golden sigils on her arms. From the gasps nearby, they were elsewhere on her body as well, which was only slightly worrying.

            “I mean,” Miranda continued, seeking out all the remaining protective sigils, “You’re nothing more than an aspect of the Morrigan, aren’t you? Just a spirit, barely keeping yourself from being devoured by a larger spirit. Let me tell you – I do understand why you wanted all this attention.” She turned around and gave an ironic smile. “Being the ignored younger child sucks, doesn’t it. But hey, that’s life. And while I turned that around, not everyone can. And if you’re designed for envy and jealousy, well” – Miranda shrugged – “there’s a certain sadness to that.”

            With a shrill war cry, Nemain leapt off the table at Miranda.

            Miranda stumbled backwards, barely getting a protective shield up in time. Words tumbled out of her mouth, runes half forming in the air all around her as she dodged Nemain’s furious attacks. The power of the runes was building in her bones, power flowing through her from – well, somewhere, and she thought it was Isis and Loki because some of it tasted like the sun and some of it smelled like frost – and into the runes, waking the ancient spells up after years asleep.

            The air around the two was clogged with gold and black, mixing together and sparking ominously.

            Nemain was on the offense, it was clear to see. She had given up any pretense of looking human. Her hands were clawed, as were her feet, and her body bent in grotesque ways, resembling an animal more than a human. Her eyes were wide and bloodthirsty, and Miranda knew that she could keep this up for only so long before the god would catch her and kill her.

            Suddenly, Nemain swiped at her and she wasn’t fast enough with a shield and she went flying backwards. She landed hard on her side, the air rushing out of her body. She gasped into the floor, scooting away from the god prowling toward her. All the air in her lungs was going toward the rune spells, but even that way she wasn’t fast enough.

            Nemain grabbed Miranda’s neck and hauled her to her feet and then higher. Miranda scrambled to hang on to Nemain’s bony wrist and pull herself up, but the runes were already faltering from her sudden panic.

            “Not so brave are you, little Isis?” Nemain snarled. Her breath stank of raw meat and blood. “Not when you’re about to die a painful and pointless death. Your words are drying up, aren’t they? Falling apart in your pathetic little mind. And everyone around you watching your complete weakness.”

            Miranda felt blackness closing in around her and her eyes slid sideways and away from the god, because that wasn’t what she wanted to see last in her life…

            Her eyes widened minutely and she would have gasped if she could.

            Because standing behind Nemain was Gabriel, holding rune fire in both hands and a determined look fixed upon his face. With a wordless cry, he lunged forward and wrapped his hands around Nemain’s face, pulling her back off of him. Miranda fell to the floor and, as soon as there was air in her lungs to force out again, she finished powering the spells underneath her and the hall was filled with a bright light. Nemain cried out in pain and rage, and there was the sound of a thousand birds flying, and when the light dimmed down, she was gone and the table was whole again.

            Miranda stood shakily and approached the table, aware of nearly every eye in the room on her. “Right,” she said, barely able to speak for the bone-deep hurt that was creping up through her entire body. “Now that she’s gone, let’s keep things civil, shall we?”

            And then she collapsed into a pair of arms, and it was warm, so she let her eyes close…

[keircatenation]

Silvertongue 23

One | Twenty-Two | Twenty-Four

            “Miranda!” Gabriel cried when her eyes opened. His hand was on her face, an arm holding her torso off the ground. She gasped and pressed a hand to her chest, where the dagger used to be, sliding through the blood to find that the wound had healed.

            “Oh gods,” Miranda breathed and relaxed in her brother’s arms. She felt – oh, so normal. So strangely normal. There was no magic in her head, no humming in her bones, and not even the heady feeling being able to do anything. It was all – not gone but sunk deep into her, under her thoughts so she needn’t be bothered by it. She turned her face into Gabriel’s chest and shivered.

            A moment later, Gabriel shifted her around to drape a blanket around her shoulders.

            “What was that?” he asked, still sounding panicked.

            Miranda clutched the blanket around her, ignoring how it smeared her herbal painted sigils, and mumbled, “Ritual. T’ find m’ p’tron.”

            “What?”

            She sighed and said clearly, “A ritual to find Isis, my patron god. Well, one of them. The other is off being pissy.”

            “What?”

            This time it was less a demand for clarity and more a general, shocked exclamation of disbelief. Miranda had no idea what Gabriel was more shocked at, her resurrection or the fact that she was an avatar, but she honestly couldn’t bring herself to care. She was tired, just gallivanted around the underworld then returned under her own speed, and now she wanted to rest.

            Before taking on Nemain and Eris.

            Because no one messed with her family, no matter how much she disliked most of them.

            “Seriously, Gabriel, I’ll explain it all later,” Miranda said.

            “You better!” Gloria called. Miranda pulled away from Gabriel and actually looked at the clearing. Gloria and Everett were standing in a circle of Blake bodyguards, and more ringed the altar. Miranda would usually feel uncomfortable with her state of undress, but at least she had the blanket.

            She blinked and nudged herself out of Gabriel’s arms, unfolding herself to her full height. She let the blanket drop to the ground beside her and held her arms out in front of her. She closed her eyes and reached back into herself, where Silvertongue used to be and her magic before the wall fell, and tugged a bit. She opened her eyes to glowing sigils swirling along her arms, stories she recognized from the walls of the underworld, and she smiled.

            “So you figured it out,” Gloria observed, and her dry tone broke Miranda out of her power rush.

            She blinked and let the power sink back under her skin. She met Gloria’s eyes and said, “And still no one tells me anything.”

            Gloria snickered at that, but everyone else looked lost, so Miranda turned back to Gabriel and said calmly, “So. I’m an avatar. And the covens are being jerked around by Nemain and Eris, so I suggest letting me come to the council because, even if you don’t allow me there, I will come, because I intend to fuck their shit up.”

            “What?” Gabriel said flatly.

            Miranda sighed and kissed his forehead. “Oh, Gabriel. A lot of things are going to happen very quickly, and I can’t explain everything right now, but I promise that I will explain it. I can’t very well hide from you until fall semester starts, now can I?”

            Gabriel leveled a very flat, unamused stare at her, and she winced, realizing she probably should have chosen a better way to phrase that. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “Joking about hiding, not so good, got that. But! Point still stands. When is the council, even?”

            “Tomorrow evening,” one of the bodyguards said.

            Miranda nodded and bent down to scoop up the blanket. She wrapped it around her shoulders again, because it was chilly, and took a few steps in the direction of the road. Then she turned back to Gabriel and asked, “Uh, am I gong to have to find my own way, or are you not-angry with me enough to take me?”

            “You’re just going to find a way yourself if I don’t, won’t you?” Gabriel said. When Miranda nodded like it was obvious, he sighed and leaned forward, putting his head in his hands. “You… are such a younger sister.” He looked up. “Infuriating.”

            “You’re such an older brother,” Miranda replied. “Overprotective.”

            Gabriel glared at her, and she realized how strange this must be for him. She was lucky, quite frankly, that he wasn’t trying to kill her. She came back to him and put her hands on his shoulders gently. He looked up at her. She moved her hands to his neck, cupping the back of his head and massaging his neck.

            “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry – that I am not the same, and will never be the same again. I’m sorry that I cannot be your little sister ever again. But I can be your sister, and I want to be. I love you, and have loved you, and will continue to love you until I no longer exist. But I am not… completely yours – I can’t be – just as you are not completely mine anymore. But please, never forget that I love you, Gabriel.”

            There was silence for a moment, save for some quiet talking among the other people in the clearing, and Gabriel and Miranda stared at each other. Gabriel then reached up and touched Miranda’s arm, smoothing over the skin slowly. “The past four months have been very hard for me, please understand. There has been a lot of change, and not just with you. And you – I believed you were gone, Miranda, taken over by some sort of demon. So I can’t say that I’m ready to just – forget – about this. I can’t.”

            “I’m not asking you to,” Miranda said. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

            “I don’t know how much I can trust you right now,” Gabriel admitted.

            “We can work on that,” Miranda replied. “I want to work on it. We just need to get the council sorted out first, so we have the time to work on it.”

            Gabriel stared at her for another long moment, and then he stood and swept Miranda into a tight hug. “Just as a warning,” he whispered fiercely, “Now that I have you back, I won’t want to let go again any time soon. So that means no stupid moves tomorrow.”

            “Please, when am I ever stupid?” Miranda asked flippantly. Gabriel leveled her a look, and she said hurriedly, “On the second hand, don’t answer that. Don’t ever answer that. I don’t think I want your opinion on my level of stupidity. It would totally deflate my ego.”

            Gabriel hummed in assent and wrapped his arms tighter around her. She sighed and burrowed into his warmth, ignoring the part of her that was shouting that they were wasting time, because runes were things that could be written under heavy pressure and emotions were not something that could be rushed. And mind control was not something she ever wanted to have experience with.

            One of the other Blake witches stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Sir, if we want to get any sort of sleep before the council tomorrow, we should head back to Blake House now.”

            “Where’s the council?” Miranda asked, frowning a bit. “And when, what time?”

            “The old Council Hall in Normandy,” Gabriel said. “And at six in the evening, which of course means noon at Blake House, and even earlier here.” He let Miranda out of his hug, but kept an arm tucked around her shoulders as he led her aside, letting the Blake witches draw an enormous transport spell on the ground.

            “Normandy,” Miranda repeated. “That’s the old Place de Tranquilité, right? The place where the first council was held, back during the Roman Empire?”

            “Yeah,” Gabriel said, watching the witches draw their runes more than listening to his sister.

            Miranda grinned. She had a plan. It was still sort of falling into place, the details fuzzy in most areas, but she had a plan, and it would work, by the gods.

            Things were looking up.

[keircatenation]

Silvertongue 9

One | Eight | Ten

            Blake House had several private ports, which would take them to the nearest hub, where they could catch a long distance port to any other major hub in the world. It was a luxury that not many people had. Most people needed to get to a hub by traditional transports, whether it be foot or car or even zeppelin, and then they’d port to their final destination. Miranda liked the port hubs more than zeppelin fields, but she preferred cars more than anything else. They were easier to control, and certainly didn’t have as much hang ups about stopping for bathroom breaks. But witches typically preferred porting – it was the quickest.

            So the Blake party – Gabriel, Miranda, Patrick Koenig, and several other cousins and bodyguards – left Blake House and arrived at the Charlotte Port Hub within seconds, and though it left Miranda feeling shaky, at least it was over quickly. The magic in the back of her head was also quiet, a little surprising considering the fact that it tended to act up a bit when confronted with exterior magic.

            But it was quiet, through security (she did get looks from normals because she couldn’t take off the locket, and then again from the witches because of the magical levels she was giving off), and through finding their next port station. Their runescribe wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes, so they took a seat where they could find them – usually on baggage. Miranda had only her duffel, so she leaned against one of the ornamental pillars scattered around this arm of the hub. They were placed rather randomly, although there had been a lot of hoopla about how they enhanced the runic foundations of the hub. Miranda leaned her head back against the pillar and resisted the urge to poke at the wall in her head.

            Gabriel gave Miranda a look when she rubbed her eyes, but she rolled her eyes at him. It wasn’t like she was suddenly going to give out from the stress of leaving the house. Please.

            There was a niggling reminder in the back of her head that Gabriel was right to be concerned, that Miranda had died and then almost died again, but she pushed that thought away because it sounded remarkably like Rain when she was explaining why Miranda really should study for the practical, even though she couldn’t actually get the magic to work.

            Miranda blinked and shifted her weight. She missed Rain. She missed the rest of her friends at Barrowmore as well, but rain most of all. They had been roommates freshman year, after several “mishaps” had happened to the first two girls Rain had been “saddled with.” Miranda had decided that she didn’t want to know, so she didn’t ask, and Rain didn’t explain, and they got along splendidly. Miranda still decided that she preferred living alone, but Rain was like a sister. She resolved to call her when she got to California.

            “Still up for this?” Gabriel asked, leaning against the pillar next to her.

            Miranda groaned and rolled her eyes. “Please,” she said. She turned to face him, leaning on her left shoulder, and crossed her arms. “I’m not some damsel in distress,” she added.

            Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so I didn’t save you from death under a month ago.”

            Miranda scowled and turned away. “That’s stupridos,” she muttered.

            “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Gabriel said sternly.

            “Gabriel, come on,” she said. She turned back, opened her mouth to continue, and then closed it again. She shook her head, shrugged, and then said, “You know what, I’m obviously never gonna get you to see things my way. So – there. I give up. I already promised to follow your orders.”

            Miranda flopped back against the pillar, arms crossed again and shoulders hunched. She closed her eyes, ignoring Gabriel moving next to her. It was harder when he insinuated an arm between her shoulders and the pillar, but she refused to unclench until he had completely surrounded her with his arms. She kept her eyes closed, but she took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders, letting her arms come around and hug her brother back.

            “There,” Gabriel said into the top of her head. “This is what I want.”

            “Tell that to these dissenters of yours,” Miranda mumbled into his chest. “Maybe they’ll let you off easy, late Midwinter’s.”

            “Don’t you mean an early Candlemas?” Gabriel asked.

            “I thought orgies would be a bit too much to ask of them,” Miranda replied. “Besides, I know I wouldn’t want to get that close to them, sounds unsanitary.”

            Gabriel laughed softly, and then squeezed Miranda tight and spun her around, ignoring her yelps and the fact that they were in the middle of a busy port hub. Only after they almost hit three people did he put her down.

            She drew herself away like a disgruntled cat, combing through her hair and resettling her tee shirt and jacket appropriately. “And here I thought coven leadership made you more mature,” she said exasperatedly. “I have no idea where I got the idea from, since you’re obviously still the same, extra three feet of height or not.”

            Gabriel gave her a wide, lazy smile and raked a hand through her hair as well. She batted his hand away with a huff.

            “It’s probably a good thing you never see each other,” Patrick Koenig said suddenly. He was sitting on his luggage, watching them with a small smile. “You’d never get anything done, elsewise, if this is any judge of your behavior.”

            “It’s entirely Gabriel’s fault,” Miranda informed him primly. “He’s supposed to be the more mature one, I can’t help it if he decides to take the low road.”

            “Excuse me,” Gabriel protested somewhat half-heartedly.

            “That so,” Patrick said, and Miranda discovered that she could probably enjoy spending time around her sister’s husband.

            Hmm, actually liking members of her family. That was a new concept for her.

            Just then, the runescribe hurried up to their port and started drawing the spell to take them to California. Miranda watched with interest. The man had his manual with him – it was regulation, and the hubs wouldn’t let a runescribe wander around without one while on duty – and it was open to the Charlotte-San Francisco transport spell, but he never even glanced at it. The spell followed a standard template, it was easy to see that, with slight modifications based on start and end destination.

            Miranda followed the chalk strokes and wondered if she couldn’t somehow improve it…

            Gabriel nudged her and she tore her eyes away from the runes. She gave a sheepish smile. Gabriel shook his head and drew her close as the entire party gathered around the port.

            “Right,” the runescribe said briskly. “Just breathe normally, keep still, and first timers should probably close your eyes. Ready? Alright. Dona haec viatores celeris transitus, nuntius custos.”

            Miranda felt the tug of well-worked magic in the pit of her stomach, and she closed her eyes against a fresh pounding in her head. She kept her breathing slow and even, through her nose, despite how much she wanted to bend over and gag. She clenched her jaw and hoped it would be over soon.

            After several long moments, the tug in her stomach dissipated, and she found herself on solid ground again. She opened her mouth and took a gulp of air. She relaxed her back and shoulders deliberately, rolling her head to loosen her neck as well.

            “Don’t port well?” Patrick asked, kindly enough.

            Miranda shrugged and shook her head. “Usually it’s fine, but I guess I haven’t done it in a while. Maybe that’s it.”

            Gabriel nudged her. “You said you it was calming down,” he whispered in her ear.

            “It was,” she whispered back. “Sometimes, it just, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to like outside magic.”

            “We’re going to talk about this when we get to the hotel,” Gabriel said.

            “Yes, dad.”

            The Blake group gathered their luggage and made their way toward security. The San Francisco hub was larger than Charlotte’s, with a different style of architecture that favored bright, wide-open spaces. Miranda thought it looked like one of the incomprehensible modernist pieces of artwork that was in a gallery opening she’d been dragged to by Rain last year. She’d gotten cornered by a woman in purple jeans and a plaid scarf and had spent the entire night nodding and saying, “Yeah, makes perfect sense,” for fear of getting ripped apart by a rabid art critic.

            Miranda trudged along behind Gabriel in the lines, studying the white curves and wings around her, when she noticed a strange nob on one of the pillars nearby. She frowned and turned to examine it more closely when one of the bodyguards behind her said, “Fuck,” and grabbed her arms, and then there was an explosion of heat.

            She felt weightless for a moment, and then she hit the ground hard, her right side taking most of the impact. She cried out and lay there for a moment, completely stunned, and then she felt hands grab at her again. She opened her eyes – when had she closed them? – and saw the face of the bodyguard from before.

            He said something to her, but she couldn’t hear him. She shook her head to clear it. He made a face and pulled her over to a nearby curve of marble and tucked her against it. “Stay here,” he said, and this time she hard him.

            Then he was gone, and Miranda of course had to look at what happened.

            The terminal was chaos.

            There were witches slinging spells at each other everywhere, some wearing the Blake crest, some wearing the Lupei crest, some wearing the Himura crest, but most wearing Vega. She spotted Gabriel fighting three witches, his back to a pillar, a blade in one hand and his blue glow of spellrunes in the other, and blood running down his cheek. Patrick wasn’t too far away, green runes glowing in both hands and a snarl on his face. Miranda winced as he got tossed ten feet back, but he just got back up and tossed that witch even further back.

            Miranda gasped for air and forced her eyes away from her family. She could help, she knew it. Just what – think, think, think. There were plenty of people cowering away from the magic, like her. There – that was something she could do. She could clear them out, make sure that no one could hit them even by accident.

            She stood up gingerly, gritting her teeth against the pain in her side. She studied the terminal, plotting out the best place, the safest places that she could get to. Obviously, the exit would be best, but there was a large alcove there that could shelter maybe twenty, and another there that could fit about ten.

            Mind made up, Miranda took a deep breath and edged out of her shelter. A dash of orange runelight flew past her and the magic in her head surged against the wall, but Miranda kept her feet and dodged the next spell, sprinting across the way for where she could see some people huddled. More red, green, and orange spells flew past her, one singing through a bit of her hair, but she was able to dodge all of them. She had a lot of experience, both from her childhood and also from dueling club at Barrowmore.

            True, at Barrowmore no one had been trying to kill her, but they had also been a good deal more consistent and precise with their aim.

            Miranda made it to the trio across the way and crouched down with them, ignoring the pounding in her head. “Listen, you need to make it to the exit if you can,” she said, hoping she sounding calm enough. “Get to that wall, and then that alcove there, see? After that, you should be able to make it out.”

            “What the fuck is going on?” demanded one of the guys.

            “Fuck if I know,” Miranda said. “I don’t follow politics.”

            Then she took a breath and ran back out into the fray. The Blake group was holding their own – they were all remarkable duelists – but the dissenter group had numbers on their side. For every witch Gabriel knocked out, there were two more to take his place. It was like fighting the Hydra, but with no way to stop new heads from appearing! More dissenters kept porting in at regular intervals, so even if Gabriel or Patrick or one of the other Blakes took several out in one move, there were always more.

            Miranda slid into and alcove, a spell flying right over her nose, and she pressed herself up against the wall and gasped for breath. Okay, this wasn’t working. She saw Gabriel trying to work himself away from the wall he was pressed against, trying to make his way over to one of the ports – of course.

            The ports.

            They needed to close the ports.

            Break them.

            Whatever.

            That’s what Miranda needed to do. The civilians were clearing out on their own, and with the help of hub security. But no one was getting close enough to the ports to stop people from coming in.

            Ports were really very simple constructs. Flat surfaces, generally stone or metal encasing precious gems that channeled the magic of the runes drawn by a runescribe. If any of those things broke, the connection couldn’t be formed, and the port was useless. Miranda couldn’t break the ports herself, but – someone with magic could.

            A dull red spell flew by her shelter and she grinned ruthlessly. Those spells were pretty dangerous thing sot be throwing around a port hub. Who knew what they could hit?

            Miranda stepped out again, but instead of running for shelter, she ran at one of the ports. Almost immediately, she was dodging more spells, but it was still just like ten-on-ten duels at Barrowmore. The adrenalin was erasing the pain in her side, and once she got a feel for the positions of everyone around her, she was gaining ground.

            She grinned when she managed to trick a Lupei witch into throwing another Lupei twenty feet back into a wall.

            But that was child’s play. Even a rookie could manage that, in these conditions. Miranda had to do better then that, to break these ports.

            She was getting closer to Gabriel. She was also gasping for breath, pain edging past adrenalin and magic thumping at her temples. Gabriel – focus on Gabriel. There was a Vega behind and to her right, she could hear him chanting a fire spell. When he was on his last rune, Miranda sped up and dove under the witch in front of her, not quite smiling as she heard his yelps and felt the heat of fire pass over her. She landed on a port and immediately rolled off it as a yellow spell whipped at her.

            The spell crashed against the port instead, and the gems cracked, fogging over. It was useless.

            Perfect.

            Miranda managed that routine a couple more times before she dodged too slow and was thrown back. She gasped for breath, rolling onto her back, but the last thing she saw was the glow of red runespell before everything went black.

[michelangeloed]

Silvertongue 8

Eighth chapter of nanowrimo 2012.

            So Miranda found herself once again at Blake House, eavesdropping on private conversations, and generally just trying to figure what the hell was going on with herself. The bursts of magic hadn’t stopped. The few times that Miranda had run into her father in the halls, she had literally had to run away to keep from – exploding something.

            Gabriel tended to look at her with something like pity in his eyes now, which meant that Miranda was also spending less time with him, because she did not need pity from her older brother, thank you, she was perfectly capable of dealing with this issue without the pity party. She was getting cooped up again, even in a house as big as the Blake mansion, and the magic in her was reacting poorly.

            She quickly developed a newfound respect for meditation. It was something all witch children learned early on, but Miranda hadn’t much use for it after she lost her magic. But now, it seemed like the only thing was would help her keep control. She’d managed to knock Quinn out for several days; who knows what the magic would do next?

            It seemed like she wasn’t the only one scared of herself, since every so often Blake witches would stay after meetings with Gabriel and ask about her. It wasn’t every meeting, or even every day, but it was often enough that Miranda wanted to leave again, if not for her own fear.

            “Your sister, she’s not possessed, is she?” a cousin asked urgently a week ago.

            “She has been through a traumatic experience,” Gabriel said flatly. “She is not possessed.”

            “Yes, but there is – talk, of her doing magic.”

            “Investigations are being made.”

            And they were. Every few days, she met with her childhood healers, who ran her through tests like a prize racehorse. And each time, they clucked and mumbled something about “inconclusive” and “more tests needed.” It was very frustrating.

            And Miranda was tired of people assuming she was possessed. Demons were very rare nowadays. Just like the rest of the semi-Christian beings, they tended to keep to their little pockets of the world, where people didn’t try to kill them every time they stepped a foot out of line. There wasn’t even a good reason to think that! No black outs, no unusual displays of strength, not even eyes changing colors (although, let’s face it, that last one happens to just about everyone and their grandmother with the level of magic saturation in the world).

            Her mother wasn’t even at the mansion. Anemone Blake was doing a round of Blake allies, playing the charming and disarming politician’s wife. Miranda didn’t know how she could stand it, but Anemone did it, and she even seemed happy with it. Miranda supposed that her mother loved her father very much.

            However, Callie was at the mansion. Miranda had seen her here and there in the halls. She always seemed so busy with her duties, both as wife and as runecaster, so Miranda didn’t try and bother her. She would have loved to see some of her projects, but she knew that Callie knew what she was doing. Her younger sister always seemed so coldly competent, even as a child.

            Besides, Callie had made it quite clear over the years that she didn’t want Miranda to give her advice.

            It’s not like Miranda blamed her – she wasn’t exactly in a position to give Callie advice. First, she had just lost her magic, and then she was at boarding school, and then fighting with their father and going to college.

            But it would have been nice to talk to someone, instead of holing up in the library or her room or the little niche above Gabriel’s study. One day she was just going to go mad of it.

            So one day at breakfast, which Miranda actually took in the dining room in hopes of seeing Gabriel, she said, “So how about letting me come along to California?”

            Gabriel, who was also taking breakfast in the dining room for once instead of his study, choked on a spoonful of porridge. After a coughing fit, he wiped his mouth, fixed Miranda with a hard stare, and said, “I never told you anything about California.”

            “You never tell me anything about anything,” Miranda replied sweetly. She took a sip of her juice, just to give the impression of calmness, because if this didn’t work then she was screwed. “So who cares where I heard it? I know that you’re headed to California to talk with the Himamura coven. I’m not asking to do that – all I want to do is come.”

            “Miranda, the magic you’re carrying is dangerous, and we still haven’t figured out why you even have it,” Gabriel said. “Until we know what’s going on, I don’t want you anywhere near danger.”

            “Well, all the more reason for me to come with you,” Miranda exclaimed. “What if something happens while you’re away?”

            “Then you have healers who will care for you,” Gabriel said firmly.

            “Gabriel, come on,” Miranda said, changing tactics. “We’ve been over this already. I’ve agreed to take a year off of college for this – for you – and I’m dying here. There are only so many days I can spend in the library. Besides, I think the magic is calming down.” That was a lie. It had woken her just before dawn, beating at the wall in her head.

            Gabriel shook his head and took another bite of porridge.

            “Please,” Miranda said. “I swear that I will follow all your rules, no matter how silly I think they are. A bodyguard, staying with your party, waiting around outside meeting rooms – I will do it. I need to get out of this house.”

            Gabriel raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

            Miranda pushed her chair back. She planted her hands on the table and leaned forward. “What on earth do you need from me for this to happen?” she demanded. “Whatever you want, if I am capable of doing it.”

            “And if you can’t?” Gabriel asked.

            Miranda stood up straight, hopelessness pooling in her chest and clenching around her heart. “I can, I can,” she said quietly. She had to, because otherwise… “Whatever it is, I can do it.”

            Gabriel scrapped the last bite of porridge out of his bowl, finished his juice, and then stood up. He clasped his hands behind him and pinned Miranda with a stare. “Then I need your promise,” he said. “To follow my orders without question. To allow me to do what I think is necessary to protect you.”

            Miranda swallowed. “I promise,” she said quietly.

            “Good, then,” Gabriel said. He came around the table and cupped her elbow. “We’re leaving this evening. Don’t worry about packing heavy, just a few changes of clothes should do it.”

            “You don’t expect to be there long,” Miranda said. “You don’t expect this to work.”

            Gabriel sighed. “I hope it does. But… I think that there are quite a lot of people in the world right now who want a war. There is only so much one man can do.”

            “But surely there are others who want to prevent a war between covens,” Miranda said.

            “There are some,” Gabriel replied. His face was dark and worried. “I just don’t think there are enough of us.”

            “What about an avatar?” Miranda asked. For some reason, the discussion of avatars on her last day of classes came back to her. “They’re more powerful than the average witch. Could one of them do something?”

            “And you know an avatar still human enough to want to help?” Gabriel asked, clearly amused. “No, that’s not going to happen. You see – avatars, they’re not exactly human, not anymore. They’re built to channel the power of gods. You can’t be that and be the same as before.”

            “That doesn’t mean that they have no sympathy,” Miranda argued. “Besides, don’t the majority of them protect people from gods?”

            “Not their own gods,” Gabriel said. “There are restrictions.”

            Miranda huffed. “So you think this unrest is caused by a god?”

            “I can’t think of another good explanation,” Gabriel replied. “There have been no tragic events lately, no great offenses, just a steady increase in unrest about the oldest Covens.”

            “So – a strife, perhaps?” Miranda asked, mind already whirling through what she knew of strife gods. It wasn’t much, since she was drawn more towards healers and tricksters, but they still operated under the main rules that governed all gods: power came from followers; ergo, more followers equals more power; and the larger gods were nearly almost always ready to eat smaller ones.

            “Or a war,” Gabriel agreed.

            Miranda frowned. A war? No, that wouldn’t make sense, not quite, it was just too – subtle really wasn’t the right word for it, but it wasn’t quite the MO of a war. But what did she know, she was just the younger sister. “Well, that sucks,” is what she said aloud.

            “Yeah, it does,” Gabriel said. “I’ll meet you at the third floor port at six.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

            Miranda smiled after him as he left. She was almost gone, she was going to be sleeping somewhere new tonight, this was wonderful. There was a nudging from the magic in the back of her mind, like it agreed with her, but she ignored it easily. The wall was keeping firm, and that was that. Absolutely nothing to be worried about.

            If only it were really that easy.

Seven | Nine

[michelangeloed]

Silvertongue 6

            Miranda wasn’t sure if she liked the fact that the binding spell was attached to her locket. It was small and circular with the Blake family sunburst carved into the front, with a piece of her hair inside. It had been a gift from Gabriel the year after their grandfather’s botched ritual, and she had worn it ever since. The witch who cemented the binding spell had requested something very close to her and something that she wore often, and the locket fulfilled both, but – the locket was hers.

            But at least the magic inside her head wasn’t wiggling around anymore. It was there, she could feel it, but a thick wall blocked it off. Gabriel was concerned with how exactly the magic got inside her. He thought it was the ritual, and how it had been botched. Miranda didn’t disagree, but she didn’t exactly agree.

            How coincidental, that two people had thought to kill her for her magic. More than ten years apart, as well. She didn’t look that killable, did she? Or rather, she didn’t give off the impression that she had that much magic. She couldn’t. The healers had done everything they could to find her magic after her grandfather tried to kill her, but they said nothing could be done.

            Well, that was something.

            Everyone who knew about Xavier Blake’s attempt at power and also knew about this ritual could draw the parallels. But most, including Gabriel, were concentrating on the idea that it was the incompetence of the priests that caused the rituals to explode. A misdrawn rune, a misspoken word.

            But – what if it wasn’t incompetence? After all, Xavier Blake had been a great witch. Mad and power hungry, yeah, but he had been the one to teach Miranda to check her written work three times before attempting even the simplest spell. He would not have allowed a mistake in his runes, Miranda knew that. Especially not with something as important as a human sacrifice to the gods.

            And Miranda doubted that a priest of Nemain would have allowed a mistake either; a goddess of war and madness wouldn’t be a merciful one should a ritual be botched.

            So – they didn’t cause the rituals to fail. So, Miranda figured, the only other thing that could have done it would be she, herself.

            But how? Nothing about this made sense.

            So. Miranda could not have caused the ritual to fail. Therefore, something cared about her life enough to save her and cause the rituals to fail.

            That also didn’t make sense, but more along the lines of the fact that Miranda couldn’t comprehend a being that powerful giving a shit about her life, not due to the fact that it was impossible. In fact, it was very possible. There was even precedent – gods saving their avatars from death, fighting off another god for them, or even making them into gods themselves.

            Could Miranda be an avatar?

            Suddenly, a lot more things made sense. After all, the trauma of death could, theoretically, seal an avatar’s powers away, just as it could possibly release them again.

            But that was so far-fetched that Miranda doubted it was true. If an answer was too good to be true, then it was probably wasn’t.

            The magic bound within her was probably just a side effect of the ritual blowing up. Now that it was bound, it would fade within time, and she’d be back to normal. What was more interesting was the Coven politics she kept catching snippits of as she skulked around the mansion after her brother. Gabriel was convinced that Miranda was some breakable thing, and refused to tell her about the unrest among the Covens, but she remembered enough of the house’s secret passages to eavesdrop on conversations long enough to get a good picture of the time.

            The Vega, Himura, and Lupei Covens all wanted more say in the laws being passed. The Andersons, Blakes, and Koenigs had been in charge far too long, they said, and new developments demanded new leadership. Miranda wasn’t quite sure what those “new developments” were, but she assumed it was just an excuse for dissent. That’s not to say it wasn’t worrying, that three covens were suddenly speaking out against the founding families. It was very worrying. Miranda could almost understand Gabriel’s desire to shield her from it, if she was ten years younger.

            As it was, she let Gabriel keep the impression that Miranda was hidden away in her ignorance, and she followed him around in secret. One of her favorite spots to eavesdrop was a ledge between the second and third floors. She couldn’t be seen from below, and only seen from one angle from the top. And, most importantly, there was a vent by her left hip when she lay down on her back, and she heard everything that was said in Gabriel’s favorite meeting room.

            “…Himamura Heng is gathering his Coven tomorrow night, along with the other heads, and Maiara Locklear is joining,” Gabriel said.

            “Locklear, really?” asked Patrick Koenig, the husband of my younger sister Callie. “I thought they were staying out of this!”

            “Upstarts, just like the rest of them,” grumbled a deeper voice that Miranda didn’t recognize. “Should come down on them hard, teach them a lesson they won’t forget.”

            A few others agreed, but then Gabriel said, “That won’t be possible. The foundation of the Thirteen Covens is the fact that all of us are equal. We cannot ignore that truth, especially not now.”

            Miranda leaned her head against the wall next to her and drew her eyes away from the vent, looking up. Her eyes widened when she saw her mother leaning on the bannister above, looking down at her, one eyebrow raised elegantly. Miranda gulped. Anemone Blake nodded her head to the side and then walked away from the bannister. Miranda sighed. Nothing to it, then.

            She stood up carefully and clambered up and over the bannister. Her mother was waiting and hooked an arm through Miranda’s, leading her down the hall away from her hiding spot.

            “You know, I was surprised that you were home and hadn’t stopped by to say hello to me,” Anemone said.

            Miranda winced. “Things have been crazy.”

            “I know,” Anemone said. “All the more reason to visit your mother, wouldn’t you think?”

            “Mama…” Miranda sighed. “I – Gabriel can’t keep me here forever.”

            “Of course not.”

            “I’m not – I don’t belong here. You know that.”

            Anemone smiled sadly. “You always have been a little too obstinate to really enjoy life in the Covens,” she said. She smoothed her hand over Miranda’s forearm. “You are not me. That is why I convinced your father to send you away for school.”

            Miranda looked at her mother, eyes wide. “You were the one who wanted that?” she whispered.

            “Yes.” Anemone stopped and turned to face Miranda fully. “My darling, you are meant for more than the life that I live. If you do not want to remain here, then do not. You have done so much. I have no doubt that you could leave at any time, should you truly wish to.”

            Miranda said, “You mean…”

            Anemone put a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “I have a porter ticket bought for you, leaving in a half hour. You can be back in Barrowmore by supper.”

            “Mama,” Miranda said. “Thank you.”

            “Darling, just because we do not see each other does not mean that I do not know you,” Anemone said. “And it certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”

            Miranda smiled and nodded. She squeezed her mother’s hands. “I just need to get away from here,” she said. “If Gabriel won’t let me help with the Covens, then I can’t stay here.”

            “I understand,” Anemone said.

            “You’ll not tell until I’ve left?”

            Anemone shrugged. “How could I know that you found the ticket I planned to use myself? It’s certainly not my fault if I don’t know where you are.” She leaned in and whispered, “But for the record, the ticket is on my dresser, and a coach is leaving in five minutes.”

            She placed a kiss on Miranda’s forehead, and then stepped back. “I hope to see you again this year,” she said sternly. “None of this falling quiet for years at a time.”

            “Yes, Mama,” Miranda promised, and then she dashed down the hall to get her ticket home.

Five | Seven

[michelangeloed]

Silvertongue 5

Fifth chapter of nanowrimo 2012.

            It was still dark when Miranda heard something. Probably a wild animal, she thought, but she was too tired to move. There was something important here, but she couldn’t think, too cold, couldn’t think…

            She was being moved. She considered fighting, but anywhere had to be better than here. Besides, there were warm blankets being wrapped round her. Soothing voices were talking all around her, and she couldn’t understand them, but she liked listening to them. She smiled slightly and started to fall back asleep. The voices grew panicked around her and a jolt went through her system, like the blade had been, and she woke up more.

            Her eyes focused on the face in front of her. Gabriel, her brother, wrinkled brow and wide, fearful eyes. Why was he afraid – she was alive, she was alive, she tried to say, and wanted to put her hand on his face, but she couldn’t feel her hand. Either hand. I can’t feel anything, she wanted to say. Gabriel, Gabriel, I can’t feel anything.

            “Don’t worry,” Gabriel said, his voice drifting down to Miranda as if through water. “Don’t worry, little sister, I’ve got you. You’re safe now, nothing’s gonna happen to you now.”

            Miranda kept her eyes open and on her brother’s face. She slowly became warmer and warmer, and her feet and fingers began to hurt. So did her legs, arms, chest, head, and neck. Everything hurt. But Gabriel was here, and he was talking to her, and she trusted him. Plus, it was so warm here….

            She forced her eyes open again, and she was looking at a light blue ceiling. Light streamed in from a window to her right. She knew this room. She hadn’t been here in years. How Gabriel managed to get her from New York to North Carolina without waking her up, Miranda had no idea. Then again, she doubted that she had been very observant at the time.

            Miranda sat up, only a little surprised to find how well rested she felt. Healing magic was strong, and usually put her out for at least a day. She felt ready to tackle another full semester of classes. She moved her dark blue coverlet off of her and moved toward the window.

            Yes, she was at Blake House, the Blake family mansion. There was the fountain with the little cupids running around and making trouble – Miranda had once climbed to the top of the statue and refused to come down until it was dark out. There was the dueling range, with the shed of weaponry beside the three circles cut into the grass. Miranda remembered watching Gabriel duel against his friends, cheering for him form the sidelines, until she cheered for him from her room because she didn’t want the attention of being surrounded by witches.

            Miranda curled her hands into the curtains and leaned her head against the windowpane. She’d been dressed in a tank top and pajama bottoms, just a bit too small, so she knew they were her clothes. She hadn’t kept clothing here since she was thirteen. Everything else was kept at boarding school or was thrown away year to year.

            Her room was the same, as well. Light blue walls, dark blue accents, light brown wooden furniture. Stately and calm, but comfortable in a way the rest of the house had never been. The shelves where she had kept books were dusty, as was the dresser top. Interesting, that her family hadn’t kept the room clean after she had left.

            The door opened and Gabriel edged through, holding a tray of food. He saw Miranda by the window. “Oh, you’re up,” he said.

            “Don’t look so sad,” Miranda joked. She motioned toward the tray. “Soup?”

            Gabriel looked down. “Oh, yes. The healer said you probably wouldn’t be conscious yet, but…”

            “I’ve always healed quickly,” Miranda finished. She went to her bed and sat down, one foot remaining on the floor beside her. She looked up and said, “Well?”

            Gabriel set the tray down on the bed between them. Miranda took the lid off the soup bowl and sniffed it. Chicken noodle, good. She wasn’t sure if she could have handled a more exotic recipe. She picked up her spoon and took a sip. She hummed in delight.

            “So what happened?” Miranda asked after a few more sips.

            “I was hoping you could tell me that,” Gabriel said. “The ritual room was completely torn apart. I don’t know of anything that could have done that, save a god.”

            Miranda set her spoon down gently. “I don’t remember what destroyed the place,” she said. “I was dead. I must have been. The – the priest, he – he, uh – the knife. It was in my chest. I pulled – pulled it out.”

            “That doesn’t make sense,” Gabriel said urgently. “If you were dead – how are you alive now?”

            “If I knew, you think I wouldn’t tell you?” Miranda asked and laughed a little hysterically. “This is – not right, and I know that, oh I know that.”

            “Okay.” Gabriel frowned. “So, the ritual.”

            “A virgin sacrifice to Nemain,” Miranda said, suddenly very tired. “For power. I don’t know why they’d bother, everyone knows I don’t do magic. Not since – well. Grandfather’s ritual.”

            Gabriel covered Miranda’s hand with his, just holding it. Neither of them liked to think of the time their grandfather tried to sacrifice several Blake children to get their magic. In fact, no one even talked about it, probably one of the reasons why Miranda was thought to be such a freak growing up without magic.

            “Well, anyways,” Miranda said. “I was killed and then I woke up, and then I almost died again and you saved me. So.”

            “You’re not going back to Barrowmore, you know,” Gabriel said. “Not for spring semester.”

            Miranda jerked back. “What?”

            Gabriel reached for her hands again. “Miranda, listen. It’s dangerous out there. The Covens – they’re in chaos right now. I don’t know who’s against us, and who’s with us. You – it’s clear that you can’t protect yourself, not against the people who will want to use you against us. Against me.” He leaned over the tray, grasping Miranda’s shoulders. “Miranda, you are my greatest weakness. You know that.”

            Miranda froze, torn between agreeing to everything her brother said, because of course she knew that she was his weakness, and telling him to fuck off, because it was her life goddamnit. “Gabriel,” she said finally. “I refuse to stay home. I would hate it, and I’d hate you for it. I can protect myself. I was on my own for seven years before college.”

            “Then how did those monsters get you?”

            “Because sometimes people are idiots, Gabriel!”

            Gabriel pulled Miranda up and closer, upsetting the tray on her bed. “Miranda,” he said, “You are a Blake without magic. You cannot afford to be an idiot.”

            The vanity mirror shattered out, and Gabriel spun Miranda around so his body shielded her. Miranda realized her hands were clenched in his shirt and made herself let go, backing out of his arms. Both of them scrutinized the broken mirror.

            “Scrying gone wrong,” Miranda offered. “I mean, maybe if someone died on the other end, the power blowout might be enough to do this.”

            “Doesn’t sound right,” Gabriel said. Miranda made to approach the glass shards, and he stuck an arm out in front of her. She glared at him and swatted his arm away. She picked up a few of the glass pieces and turned them over, looking for fading runes. Nothing. Not a one.

            “Nothing here,” Miranda said, looking over her shoulder at her brother. “Couldn’t have been long distance, then, unless it was a scrying. But yeah, that doesn’t settle right. So it had to have been something in this room.” She settled back on her haunches and raised her eyebrows at Gabriel.

            Gabriel crossed his arms. “It wasn’t me. And that means you should get away from there before something else happens.”

            Miranda clenched her hands into fists, remembering not to slam her hands down on the broken glass just in time. “Gabriel! I am not in danger! The mirror broke, okay, but whatever did it – it’s not in the mirror anymore. So will you just stop – ”

            One of the bookshelves flew apart, and Miranda screamed as a large piece of wood flew over her head. Gabriel grabbed her arms and tugged her up, and they both ran out the door. Gabriel slammed the door shut behind them, whispering containment charms and protection spells. The door glowed blue and the noise inside died down.

            The siblings leaned against the door in silence for a moment before Gabriel said, “Oh, it’s gone, you said.”

            “Shut up,” Miranda huffed. “Nothing about that made sense. I mean, a mirror, a bookshelf? That’s a piss-poor attempt at hurting someone. It’s more like uncontrolled magic than anything else.”

            “What the fuck,” Gabriel said.

            “If I knew, I’d say,” Miranda said.

            “This is impossible,” Gabriel said.

            “Obviously not,” Miranda said.

            “If that was uncontrolled magic – ”

            “Well, it’s the only reasonable answer.”

            “ – then you’d have to be the one performing it.”

            Miranda blinked. Nope, not a possibility. To her left, a window shattered inward. Gabriel grabbed her shoulders and pressed her against the door, shielding her again. “Miranda,” he said urgently, “Calm down. Please, calm down. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s you, you have magic, and it’s out of control.”

            That wasn’t –

            Another couple windows shattered.

            Miranda took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She suddenly realized there was a tight swirling pressure in her mind, one that wasn’t there before today. She almost panicked even more, but then she shoved it down, tightening her grip on it when it tried to break free. She heard more shattering, but then she had the thing ­– magic? – in her grasp and the shattering stopped.

            She panted, sagging against the door.

            Gabriel put his hand on the back of her neck, cradling her skull gently. He pulled her face into his shoulder, and she let him. The thing inside her was still wiggling in her grasp, not as violently, but she knew that if she relaxed any that it would break free again.

            “I think,” Gabriel said, “that we need to find a way to bind that.”

            Miranda nodded, too tired to do anything else.

Four | Six