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.