Mira spent the entire walk back to Alaric’s struggling to keep Vallian upright. It was a fifteen minute route rounding tight corners and squeezing through back alleyways just to keep out the line of sight from both the common folk and any of the Cardinals on the off chance that a few of them had escaped and were looking to hunt them down.

Soma’s ability to sense the presence of other people came in handy; she told them when to stop moving, when to go, where to turn. She was a living radar, with the only downside being that Soma was never certain what kind of people she was sensing during their travels. It was a decent help, though, and they made it back to Alaric’s with relative ease.

The man didn’t question anything when they returned with Mira dragging a beaten and bloody Val into the house. Soma, who began to struggle more staying atop Jovie’s shoulders, made a beeline for the backyard of Alaric’s house while Magic retrieved his coat as if pulled towards it like a magnet and began shedding the Cardinal jacket as quickly as possible.

Alaric helped Mira drag Vallian into the house and the noise the librarian made stumbling into things made the goats in the house perk their heads up. Jeralt and Bjorn watched intently, the smaller kid between them resting its head on its hooves, but unblinking.

“He’s one of them,” Mira whispered once the older man had a better hold. “I don’t want him down here, for Jovie or Magic’s sanity.”

“Upstairs then?” asked Alaric.

“It’ll do. Don’t tell me where until I ask you directly.”

“Understood. If you’d like, I could try and help your brother there.” Alaric pointed towards Magic with his chin and when Mira followed the gesture, found him sitting on the couch picking at his hands, curled in the corner.

“I can handle him,” she said, feeling the slightest bit guilty. “Just tell me where you keep bandages.”

“Atop the counter in a basket. Sometimes the homebound goats get themselves into trouble, so I need them on hand. They’re heavy duty, which is more than what you’ll need, but doesn’t hurt.”

“Good.” Mira watched the man turn to lug Vallian up the steps before catching him by the elbow. Alaric turned his bi-colored eyes on her, one brow raised. “Thanks,” she added.

The old man grinned. “What is my job,” he said, “if not helping people. Lending runaway Scepters companions isn’t the only way I know how to help.”

She smiled a little at that and watched him disappear to the second floor before snagging the medical equipment from the counter. Mira almost placed all the contents in her pockets, then decided that maybe approaching her brother with the red coat—even though it was a disguise—wasn’t the best idea. Shedding the coat onto the nearest chair, Mira was left with just her sweater and she placed the materials in those pockets instead.

Magic didn’t look up at her when she sat a cushion and a half away from him just to give him space. He was preoccupied with scratching at the base of his palms, the motions varying from forceful to tender. Every now and again, pain laced his features and Mira could see from where she was sitting that his palms were coated in blood.

“Take this,” she said, the words tearing Magic from his ordeal. She lobbed the ointment and the gauze which her brother caught. He didn’t respond to her as he applied the cream to both palms, wincing and inhaling sharply with each layer. “Look,” Mira went on, “I know you’re hurting, but—”

“My hands are fine,” Magic said, wrapping the gauze around one of his hands in a way that made him look like a boxer. His voice was tense, taut in a way that reminded her of a string pulled tight and close to snapping.

“I wasn’t talking about physically, but I guess that works, too. I was talking more in relation to a certain someone I had Alaric escort upstairs.”

“What about him?”

“I know what he was involved in. I saw the papers.”

Magic’s expression, complete with a frown and a squeak in his monotonous tone, didn’t change when he spoke. “Then you’ll know that I don’t want anything to do with him right now. Or ever, really.” He snagged a set of shears and sliced through the gauze, tucking the loose end into the wrapping. Mira reconsidered ever giving her brother scissors and when he put them down to start wrapping his other hand, she discreetly took them away and put them in her pocket. “Frankly,” he went on, “I want him dead.”

“You don’t mean that,” Mira said.

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Magic paused in his work, then looked up at her with a challenge in his bi-colored eyes. “I don’t mean that?” he echoed with a hint of a sneer. “You sure that I don’t? Because I know I do.”

“Mags—”

“Thirteen years. Thirteen years, I’ve lived life like this because people thought that murdering a mythical bird was more important than the lives of innocents! Thirteen years, Mira, of living in hell! And you don’t think I would want to see someone pay for that kind of torment?

“There is no way in Ori’s speckled sky that I’m going to work with someone like that. With someone who is so deeply ingrained with a group of people who ruined the way I live my life. Who ruined so many lives because of a fucking vendetta against mystical beasts!”

Mira wanted to explain to him that she didn’t think it was true. That she didn’t think someone who held so much weight as an Alchemist—someone charged with learning so much about cipher and how to manipulate it—would be so readily tortured. And it was torture, Mira was certain of that.

She knew Magic would accept that kind of explanation, not with where his head was at currently, so she opened her mouth to try and lead into that thought, but midway through wrapping his second hand, Magic continued.

“Where did you get your ID badge from, Mira?” he asked, pausing for a moment before resuming in his wrap.

The question made her chest tighten. Not because of the words themselves, but because of how he said them: wounded and upset. “I got mine from a body,” Mira said. “One of the Cardinals that Jovie took care of. I figured the second badge would be helpful.”

“A body?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

“Because I got mine from a girl. My age. Maybe younger. She might have even given it to me if I asked her since she didn’t want to be there in the first place. I watched Soma kill her because would have rather died than been forced to choose.”

Mira remembered the corpses of the Cardinals she’d watched Soma kill back in the Eastern District. Their bodies had all turned to ash, stone-like without a single drop of life. Back in that fight, Magic was far from those particular casualties. He must not have seen that kind of ability up close and, knowing his personal history with smoke and dust in general, that meant he’d been struggling to hold himself together since the alarms or a little before them.

“She was so terrified,” Magic went on. “She was a few seconds away from calling the other Cardinals on us. Until Soma took that choice away. By killing her.”

I pity them. Forced to choose between freedom and a life of servitude because they simply wish to do what all things do. Live.

Mira didn’t think, only wrapped her arms around Magic, who sank into the embrace, shoulders shaking. There was nothing to say on the matter and nothing she could likely say to ease his pain. The only thing she could do was offer her support and, despite his usual resistance, Magic stayed there for a time.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It was a useless phrase, one that she’d perfected for most of her life, but it was the only thing she could find that was both true and vague enough to express her feelings.

Magic only nodded. Then, something brushed against her leg and she jumped a little, startling Magic who scrambled over to the other side of the couch.

Bjorn was standing in front of Mira’s legs, his massive body squeezed between the couch and the coffee table. She sat cross-legged to give the animal more space and the goat hobbled through the cramped space until he got to Magic, shoving his chin onto his handler’s lap.

He looked at the goat, then at his sister, who reached over and took the shears out of her pocket to slice the gauze so that he could tuck the material into the wrapping before holding onto Bjorn’s chin. Magic ran his fingers through the animal’s curly fur and, in return, Bjorn lifted his head to bump his nose into Magic’s.

Mira had to chuckle a little. It never ceased to amaze her just how much comfort Magic found in animals.

The sound of wood creaking got Mira’s attention and she looked up in time to watch Alaric hobble his way down the last few steps. “Ah,” he said, “has Jovie come through this way?”

“Not that I know of,” Mira replied. “I think Soma’s still fighting with her outside.”

“I’ll see to them then. Everything handled here? I see Bjorn’s gotten back to work.”

Magic lifted his head high enough so that he could make eye contact with the old man. “He does a good job.”

Alaric grinned in a way that made his eyes crinkle. “Good. Lovely. Anyway, things are all taken care of up the stairs, Mirabellis. If you’d like, you can take a look near the closet beside the bathroom.”

A hint. Mira nodded her head and the man went off, his wooden stick tapping along the ground as he went, calling for Jovie who Mira could hear screaming even from her spot inside the house.

She drummed her hands on her knees, then stood up, patting her brother on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go take a quick trip upstairs. I won’t be long, and then after that, once Alaric comes back in with Jovie and Soma, we can figure out a plan.”

Magic paused, shaking his head a little as he twirled a finger around one of Bjorn’s coiled strands of fur. “I still don’t like the idea of working with him. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“I know you don’t. And I’m not asking you to like him, Mags, I just … He’s an inside man. He has knowledge about the Cardinals. We can use that against Jax in the Maidenwoods.”

“Mirabel—”

“I don’t need you to trust him. You just need to trust me. Can you do that?”

Magic considered her for a little, continuing to run his fingers through Bjorn’s fur as the animal huffed and made a low sound that almost resembled a content purr. “I do,” he said. “I do trust you.”

“Good. I’m gonna go take care of business one floor up, but I’ll make sure everything stays in one piece.”