Saturday evening, 12 September 1942, at Malfoy Manor in Tintagel...
Hadrian Kyteler was frustrated. “Endymion,” he said patiently, “has it crossed your mind that maybe Valeria doesn’t want to be found? Susie did say that she wasn’t drunk, and she was the one who had Nat bent over the railing. This isn’t like you. Wouldn’t you rather be dancing? What’s got into you?”
Endymion just glared at him. “She’s not okay,” he said. “I can’t explain any more than that, except fuck, she’s loud, and it isn’t her screaming orgasms I’m hearing. I don’t want her waking up in the morning feeling all broken up about fucking the shite out of Pritchard. Is it so horrible for me to care what happens to someone else? Even if it is out of character?”
Hadrian sighed-and gave up. Sometimes there was just no arguing with Endymion. “No,” he admitted. “It isn’t horrible. In fact…it’s rather a good thing, just, why does it have to be this, here and now? Have we adopted Valeria? Is she the sister we never knew we had, even though we already have several perfectly good ones?”
Endymion snorted. “She’s just Valeria. She’s lost here, and I like her. Also, fucking the shite out of Pritchard, you must admit, is a really big job for a girl her size, even if she is unbreakable.”
“Okay, I give,” said Hadrian. “I just hope you’re prepared for her not to be happy you’ve found her.” He followed Endymion down through the open balcony gallery, past the couples who were dancing or snogging, and down into a dark stairwell, wondering why the Malfoys hadn’t put on the gaslights there, too. Wasn’t it awfully stupid to give people places to skulk when you were the sort of person people wanted to assassinate? Or was this some clever plan to concentrate all the skulking into one convenient place?
There was a woman crying in the stairwell. “Shite,” said Hadrian under his breath.
“That’s not Valeria,” said Endymion. “That’s…Maria?”
The crying stopped.
Hadrian knew better than to ask how he knew. “Do you want to go down there and talk to your actual sister, or do you want to keep looking for Valeria?”
Endymion glanced back at Hadrian over the tip of his Lumosed wand, closed his eyes, and scowled. “Maybe not. Valeria isn’t projecting so much…oh, fuck, she is.”
Hadrian laughed. “More than you ever wanted to know about Pritchard?”
“Ugh,” said Endymion. “I suppose we can go down and speak to Maria…but I’d feel better if you had a shotgun loaded with rock salt.”
Hadrian laughed. “So would I, but you know we can’t have things made out of iron here.”
Endymion looked at the banister as though he were considering sliding down it the way Hadrian did sometimes, then called out down the stairs. “Maria? Maria, it’s me. Can you hear me?”
“They probably heard you in Devonshire!” Maria’s voice was oddly calm for the voice of someone who’d been sobbing less than five minutes ago. “I realise you’ve finally admitted you’re a mind-reader of some sort, but do you have to tell everyone not only your secrets but mine, not to mention that other poor bitch?”
“I’ve made no such general admission,” Endymion huffed as he took the stairs two at a time.
“Three people can keep a secret,” said Maria. “If two of them are dead, maybe.”
“It’s mine to tell, not yours,” said Endymion. “I’d appreciate your not shouting it in the stairs.”
“Then don’t tell Hadrian when I’m crying. He’s your boyfriend, not mine,” said Maria, as Endymion sat down on the stair just above hers.
Hadrian sat on the stair above Endymion’s. “Pardon us for caring that you’re upset,” he said. “You might as well tell us what’s wrong.”
Maria glared at him. “I have a broken arm. At least he set it.”
“This place is crawling with healers,” Endymion offered. “We could go get it fixed.”
Maria sighed. “I will,” she said, and looked pointedly at Hadrian.
Hadrian shrugged. “We already know you were possessed. Valeria told us.”
Maria groaned. “How do you know I’m not still?”
“Maybe that’s why I don’t want to leave you alone-”
Endymion sighed. “That’s all right, Hadrian.” He glanced at Maria. “If you were still possessed, you wouldn’t know you had a broken arm. Do you remember how you broke it?”
“No,” Maria said sullenly.
“That sounds ominous,” said Hadrian.
“Thank you, Lord Obvious,” Maria replied, and blew her nose into a bloody handkerchief. “I’m still not going to marry Willy Walsingham.”
“Is there some reason you’re being so rude to me?” Hadrian finally asked her.
“None at all,” said Maria. “I like hearing about the way my brother whored himself out all over town in order to pay for his alchemical supplies while you were snogging girls and pretending you didn’t want to fuck Robert Campion. Especially the part where I got to read it in a piece of badly-printed fish wrap that turned out to be Nazi propaganda!”
Hadrian stood up. “That’s enough,” said Endymion, and tugged at his hand. “You’re not going anywhere.” He turned to Maria. “Leave Robbie Campion out of this. For fuck’s sake, his birthday is four days away.”
“Dead people don’t have birthdays,” Maria said, shrugging. “You hated him, Endymion. Why are you suddenly calling him ‘Robbie’ like he was your friend? He did everything he could to come between the two of you.”
“Hadrian loved him,” Endymion said in a soft voice. “But Hadrian loves me more. And I can’t fault his taste. And Robbie was killed by the Germans. Maria. Do try to be decent.”
“You’ve turned boring,” said Maria after a long, long moment.
“And you’ve become venomous,” said Endymion smoothly. “And yes, I know, you always were; but you just don’t care who knows it now, do you? I never thought it was all the demon.”
“There’s no reason to care any more,” Maria replied just as smoothly. “I don’t have to be nice any more. I’m mired in debt, which our uncle Oswald is paying, and I’m about to take over the family business. You’re the one who’s going to have to be a good little wife now, but I’m sure that’s all right…you’re doing it brilliantly.”
Endymion sucked on his lower lip. “You know,” he said conversationally, “I’ve always known you didn’t think very much of me, but you had to go and say it out loud.”
“I think of you all the time,” said Maria. “I was in the room when our mother went up on the ceiling. I heard what our father promised. I know what our father did to that boy you liked who worked in the stables. I know how smart you are and how that thing’s been out to get you since you were a baby. I’ve been taking care of you since I was four. But I couldn’t protect you from either our father or the things he made deals with, so I had to watch you and Carey get eaten alive by Maya, and then the thing that was in Maya came to live in me for a while. But I’m not bitter about it.”
Hadrian sighed, in spite of his resolution to do less of it. “Is this what all the Dashwoods do? Say they’re not exactly what they are?”
Endymion laughed. “More or less.”
Maria glared at her brother, then looked right up at Hadrian. “You did enough of it, so you should be familiar with the concept.”
Hadrian swallowed, hard. Endymion realised, to his horror, that he was actually taking the things that came out of Maria’s mouth seriously. That he actually blamed himself for some, if not all, of what Endymion had done during the time they’d been apart, and that he’d thought about it a lot; that he had no idea what it had been like.
“Just what do you think he ought to have done?” Endymion said angrily. “Just what do you think you could have done? I’m not owed.”
“I think the thing that bothers me most,” said Hadrian in a very soft voice, “is that you not only say that, but you also believe it.”
Endymion dropped his hand. “Stop…do you pity me, Hadrian? Don’t lie to me; I’ll know.” That voice was cool and airy, but the look in Endymion’s eyes…
Maria laughed. “So now you get it, do you, Fairlight?”
“That’s the wrong word for it!” Hadrian sputtered, indignant and terrified. He hadn’t felt Endymion’s absence so keenly since the first time they’d quarrelled.
Endymion closed his eyes, and imagined himself outside at Medmenham, just after midnight, on Christmas Eve with the snow falling down around him, coating the world in purity, covering everything ugly and bloody and human up like a blanket. When the voices outside his head stilled, he opened his eyes again. “Don’t call me that,” he told Maria. “That name…is not for you.” He turned to Hadrian. “I love you,” he said, and reached for his hand again.
Hadrian laced his fingers through Endymion’s. “I…know. Don’t…” He glanced down at their joined hands. “I don’t pity you. I just wish things had been different.”
“I don’t have any regrets,” said Endymion quietly. “The way I’ve lived…I couldn’t afford them. I made some bad decisions, but I chose as well as I could.” He swallowed, and reached up to touch Hadrian’s cheek. “You didn’t know. I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to be happy and…safe, for as long as you could be. You were my refuge. As long as I knew that none of those things had touched you, there was still something good in the world.”
Hadrian stared at him. “I would have tried to help…”
“No,” said Endymion. “You would have told your parents. Who either would not have believed you, or would have felt obliged to do something. Even when my age was still in single digits, I knew, absolutely, that your mother would try to destroy me and believe all along she was doing what was best for me. It might have been different if your father had lived with Lavinia, but…”
“Priscilla Chattox is a bitch,” said Maria.
Hadrian glared at her. “Don’t talk like that about my mother.”
“It’s only the truth,” said Maria. “She would have destroyed him. Absolutely. She would have taken him to St Mungo’s and tried to figure out how he worked, and she would probably have broken him. Do you even know why his name is Fairlight? He doesn’t.”
Endymion laughed. “Fairlight, light-bearer, Lucifer? Maria, you don’t believe that. You don’t.” It was ridiculous.
After a long moment, Maria sighed. “Maybe I don’t,” she said after a moment. “But she did. I don’t mean that she told me that, I’m not an idiot, I don’t believe what demons say. I mean she was thinking those thoughts in my head.”
“She was also thinking that she’d like to go and fuck Nicodemo Zabini again,” said Endymion after a moment, “except she was planning to do it in your body.”
Maria laughed. “She wasn’t a succubus. She knew her limitations. And she knew that she wasn’t Dracaena Malfoy.” She shrugged. “So tell me, would it have been worth it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Endymion.
“Prince of lies,” said Maria.
Hadrian cocked his head to one side. “Endymion,” he said, wondering if he was going to regret this, “did your sister just try to tell us that you’re the antichrist?”
“No,” said Maria. “Just one of the competitors. There’s a race for the title; he’s got the best odds.”
“I’m not playing,” said Endymion firmly. “I want to be an alchemist. Not a spy, and certainly not a demonic saviour figure. Anyhow I thought the smart money was on Stepa Zitek, not me.”
“Forgive me for nepotism,” said Maria, standing up. “One of the Zabinis is a long shot. The one who just jilted his girlfriend, I think.”
Endymion frowned. “Maria,” he said, “you haven’t been with the demon so long that you’ve begun to think this is a good idea?”
“I’m tired,” said Maria. “Tired of trying to watch over you, and watch over Jon, and wonder where this is all going. I want a life of my own now. I wish Hadrian the best of luck with this, really I do, but I’m done with it. I told Mr Zitek that after he sent it away.” She hugged herself, favouring her splinted arm. “I want to make a lot of money, and have a lot of sex, and maybe…travel, see the world someday. I’m going to let those friends of yours clean out the caves, and then I’m going to restart the club sans dangerous rituals, and after that? I never want to see them again.”
“Stepán’s here?” Hadrian stared at her.
Maria rolled her eyes at him. “No. Not him. His father. Who is very disappointed they’ve been slacking on the job and let that demon get away. The one that was in me, I mean. But then his father doesn’t have to care about endangering your custody or your inheritance by fucking with Uncle Ozzer, which I tried to explain. Not that he wanted to hear it, he thinks that it’s all Lady Báthory’s fault. Whoever she is.”
Endymion cleared his throat. “Maria. What you want…it’s all right with me, really. You don’t have to see me again, either.”
Maria frowned. “It’s not that I don’t love you any more. I just need a rest. Mr Zitek says it will never leave me alone, but…”
“Maybe it won’t,” said Hadrian. “It would be better to stay in touch.”
Maria shrugged. “We’ll see,” she said. “Right now? I just want you to be safe, so I don’t have to worry. Maybe sometimes I wonder just why we’ve all been fighting so hard. If all they want is to set you on top of the world.”
Endymion groaned; the hollow feeling inside her was worse than it had ever been in him, and he didn’t know what to do for it. There was no-one for her like Hadrian. There was no-one else that she loved, except him and Jon. “You know that’s not what they want. At least not all of it.”
“Yeah,” said Maria. “Just promise me this. If it ever comes down to you or the Zitek boy, or stupid fucking Alessio? Promise me you won’t be one of the bodies, Endymion.”
“I promise I’m not going to fall for that,” said Endymion, frowning angrily. “Not going to give that yellow-eyed bastard the satisfaction, after everything you’ve suffered. No matter how much easier you think it’s going to be if I do. That’s not any different from the choice that our father made.”
Maria slapped him, but she’d forgotten that her arm was broken and it hurt her more than it hurt Endymion. “You don’t know anything about it,” she said, as she suffered the ignominy of Hadrian helping her sit back down.
“What I know,” said Endymion finally, “is that you’re talking crazy talk, and that you need help. I’ll go and fetch one of the healers; Hadrian, do you think you can stay with her for a little while?”
Hadrian nodded, but Maria shook her head. “I’m going to leave and go back into town,” she said. “The carriages are leaving, for the people who aren’t going to stay overnight, and I’m not. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see you, or Zitek, or anyone else here tomorrow. I promise I’ll go to Mungo’s as soon as I’m back in Londinium, but this conversation is over.” She pulled herself up with her good arm and began to head down the stairs. “There’s a door one floor down that leads to outside. Don’t follow me.”
Endymion stood there and watched her walk down the stairs, turning it all around in his mind. Hadrian stared at him. “You’re not going to just let her go? Just because she asked you to!”
Endymion looked up at him. “Do you really think she would co-operate with us if I chased after her? You know that doesn’t work with me or Jonathan.”
Hadrian frowned. “Yeah,” he said softly, “I know.”
dream_of_earth, ministry_brat and voiceofcalliope