Dean Avery knew that he was utterly ensconced in a massive amount of trouble.
In truth, the yogurt that Hannah had slung his direction was precisely what he had needed to cure the hunger-induced migraine that he had been fighting for the last few hours, as Talia had been adamant about interrogating him far too fiercely to allow him to sneak into the kitchen and retrieve a bowl. Taryn, Will, and Henry had all been too amused to offer him any merciful respite in the form of food during Talia’s vigil of barraging him with questions about why he had appeared in the foyer of the Atrium with an unconscious Commoner slung over his shoulder, and when George had made things worse by finishing the last of the wheat toast in a conniving cramming of breadcrumbs and jam, Dean was feeling positively miserable about every single one of his circumstances.
He had been foolish to drag a Commoner to Brink, and even more so to have enlightened her with the existence of the Guild. Upon watching Emery attempt to breach her mind and to hear that he had experienced the same sort of numb radio silence that Dean had first felt in his own try, a knot formed in his stomach that was sitting just at the bottom of the pile of yogurt that was both righting his senses and yet roiling guiltily in his gut. As he scraped the last of the yogurt from his bowl and glared at a bit of fuzz from the arm of the sofa he sat upon, the sounds of Taryn and Will leaving the kitchen rose up behind him. Henry had gone back to the Roost a bit ago to fetch his workbooks for the latest bit of alchemy he was conducting, and Emery had chosen to depart the Mess in search of Talia; most likely embarking on a valiant mission to assuage her outrage at Dean’s rash actions. He knew his next move would be to apologize to Talia personally--that he had to do it before he focused on anything else--but it would have to be after he had a few hours to rest, in which doing so he could properly clear his head before facing her once more.
The guilt that encroached upon him, he knew, lay mostly there--his decisions were now effecting his friends, and he was solely to blame--but he also grunted with indignant frustration at the thought of any of them judging him when they hadn’t been there to feel what he felt; the total snuffing of his magic, the wall of empty air that had stood starkly between him and the Common girl when he had reached for her mind. If they could only comprehend the shock of it, then they would potentially be more gracious at his impulsive idea to drag her along with him back to the Atrium in order to seek out help from Emery.
At the true heart of the matter, above all else, the girl’s sheer ignorance to the fact that he had been striving to destroy her human mind had shaken him. He wasn’t used to his magic failing him, and in truth, the fear he felt at that fact was thoroughly annoying as it hummed along behind his eyebrows.
I’m a Seeker, for God’s sakes--why am I letting a human ruffle me so?
After he had plopped his bowl into the sink of the kitchen and left it to soak, his headache had lessened, but his mood had taken on similar qualities to that of an aggravated child. He self-righteously flung open the kitchen cupboard where the dry goods were stored and he ransacked a stale package of chocolate biscuits that had been shoved to the farthest corner, undoubtedly by Henry, who was always snacking and who constantly tried to hide said snacks from his own line of sight when hungry.
Cramming a fistful of them into his mouth and showering dry crumbs everywhere, Dean migrated from the kitchen and back out into the Mess. They tasted like sugared cardboard, but they miraculously helped to ebb away at the riot of uncertainty which he was holding deep within the cavity of his chest. It was Sunday--a day usually reserved for some manner of training alongside household chores, and potentially a few cat naps--but Emery had pointedly mentioned work for he and George that afternoon in the city. Dean looked down at his clothes, rumpled as they were, and he contemplated the need for a shower. It had been a few days since he had properly bathed, and even though the cursed rain of the Known had been enough to soak him down to the last layer of his flesh and he had Wielded a cleanup, his magic never could quite manage to entirely eliminate the feel of grime. He had come to suppose that it was intentional; magic refused the satisfaction of those basic tasks to force people like him to have a regular hygiene regime established. He was aware of a vague smell of damp mildew coming off of him from somewhere, and he sighed, his nose wrinkling--I’ll have smelt like this for hours by now. Lovely.
With the last of the biscuits crunching between his teeth, Dean took off towards the steps leading to the foyer, waving the wrapping between his fingers before neatly evaporating it in a glow of gold from his palm. He climbed the steps and maneuvered through the Atrium to the Roost, where he found Will reclining on one of the sofas, his hands busy with shuffling a deck of cards.
“Hey,” Will called to him as he stepped onto the staircase landing. “You look like you need a drink.”
Dean bit back a sarcastic laugh, “I need a shower.”
Will looked thoughtful. “That too,” he commented lightly, sending the cards flying in a graceful arch in the air, each of them flitting around like birds on some invisible breeze. “I’m waiting for Henry to get his things, then we’re heading out into town to get some supplies for his work. Wanna join?”
“Nope,” Dean replied, brooding. “Sorry, not feeling up for it. Have you seen where Talia went off to?”
“Emery beat you to it. They went to his office before you came up here--I’m sure they’ll be going at it for a while. She seemed riled to the rafters.”
Dean deflated slightly, “I’m up to bat next with her.”
“Good on you. She’s quite pissed at all that you’ve done.”
“Thanks,” Dean muttered, and Will sent the cards flitting in a circle around his head, their corners whipping at his long hair. “I’ve got quite the apology to spin.”
Will nodded, “I figured as much. So then…what happens now?”
“What sort of a question is that?”
“A fair one, I think.”
Dean narrowed his eyes, crossing to the hall leading to the line of bedrooms on the left. “Unfortunately, I haven’t got a good enough answer for any of you. She’s here, and I brought her.” He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, “I don’t suppose you can Conjure up a way into her mind, can you?”
Will chuckled, “no, fresh out of those I’m afraid.” When Dean grew even more disgruntled, Will pulled a velvet card pouch out from thin air and into the space beside him, and the cards soared in their organized flight-path into its depths before Will closed it and set it on the cushion. “Can you actually not do it, then? Eclipse her?”
Dean looked murderous, “no, I’m just letting Commoners into our world now for the hell of it--of course I can’t do it.” His last words came out between clenched teeth, “It’s madness.”
“Seems tricky,” Will fought against a sympathetic smile. “Makes me glad I’m not gifted as a Seeker.”
“Right,” Dean sighed, his shoulders slouching. “I wonder where George is milling her about--most likely in all our secrets, showing her everything confidential about the Guild over the last few millennia.”
“They were heading up to the library just as I was coming up the stairs. Actually, George was playing the tour guide rather well.”
“Not surprising.”
“She seems calm, all things considered,” Will mentioned, stretching his arms over his head and standing to his feet. “She’s a curious thing. Do you know anything about her?”
“No,” Dean muttered. “And I don’t care to. Every second that she’s here, she’s a liability. You heard what Emery said: it’s convoluted why this is happening, but we’ve got to somehow find answers. There’s something deeply unnerving about her.”
“At least she’s nice?” Will shrugged, and Dean scowled.
“Need I remind you that she almost broke my nose?” Dean spat. “She’s volatile.”
Will laughed, “and what might’ve led her to do such a thing as that? Perhaps a mad man chasing her down in the street, striking the fear of an assault--or a gruesome murder--into her heart?” Will grinned cheekily. “She must’ve had a strong arm.”
“You’re no better than Talia,” Dean groaned, tuning down the hallway. “Leave me be.”
“Avery,” Will stepped towards him, dropping his smile. “Wait—listen, I didn’t mean to prod at you even more than you’ve already been this morning--or to tell you off. I want to help if I can. I imagine it’s been a rather wild last twenty-four hours for you.”
A pinprick of gratitude welled in Dean’s chest, and he mustered up a feeble smile at his colleague. “I appreciate that, Will; really. I’m going to clean up a bit, talk to Talia, and then try to figure out what’s next--I’ll let you know if I need extra hands in fixing my mess.” He ran a hand through his hair, pushing back his unruly bangs. “For now, do me a favor and keep yourself and everyone else out of trouble--Emery was right to keep the rest of you here after the incident at the flat. Something is sour up in the Known.”
Will nodded gravely, “aye, Avery. I’ll do my best.”
“Will!” Henry’s voice came from the second room down the left hallway, nearby where Dean stood at the entry to the dorms. “Where’d you put my beakers?”
“Shit,” Will grinned, darting forward and pushing past Dean to head to the dorm that he and Henry shared. “I broke a few when I ran out of shot glasses two nights ago,” with a dramatic wave of his hand, a burst of indigo light from his palm produced a glimmering set of pristine glass beakers from the air before him, and he snatched them into his arms to cradle them like a mother to a fussing child. “I’ve got ‘em here, Hen!” Will called as he hurried to their dorm door and opened it, stumbling inside. “Was just polishing them for you!”
The door snapped closed, and Dean heard a commotion from Henry as he reprimanded Will for his obvious ruse, demanding what had happened to the original set of his alchemy beakers. Dean couldn’t help but smile as he turned down the hall to head to the last dorm on the right--the one he and George shared--Will was the only Conjurer he had ever known who could create exact replicas of objects. Unfortunately for him, he bunked with the most observant, nitpicky Aider in all of the Vale, and Henry was not one to accept imitations of originals, no matter how indistinguishable they were formed to be.
Once in his room, Dean headed straight to the shower, tiptoeing around the bundles of George’s both clean and soiled laundry that littered the floor in the narrow space between their two beds. This was the regular appearance of their shared room. Dean had taken upon himself to purchase George several hampers throughout the years at the Atrium--sometimes even having Will create a few clever ones that could pick up laundry all on their own volition--but George never seemed to stick with the habit of cleanliness for long before getting terribly lazy and opting to leave his things strewn about. The ones that Will magicked were eventually given to the girls, or sometimes used up in the Haven by Jane to collect compost and scraps of weeds.
The flagrant appeal of constant untidiness was one of the few things about his brother that Dean never could quite grasp in his mind--George was a good student, motivated well-enough, and he had a flare for flirting that could get him in with many of the high social circles in Brink--but however put-together his rose-colored life was out in the real world, in their dorm, George was no better than a toddler. Dean had learned to live with it, especially since George had to put up with enough of Dean’s own personal poor habits on the daily, and as much as he hated to admit it, those gobs of garments reminded him fondly of George’s presence, no matter how badly some of them could grow to smell.
In the washroom, Dean peeled off the grimey garments he had worn to the Known, unhooked his wristwatch to set on the counter, and leapt into the arduous task of hosing himself off. The water that welcomed him in the shower was lukewarm at best, and as he cowered in the far corner from it, he shot a beam of gold light from his fingertips to the nozzle, causing a spurt and stutter of steam to erupt from the shower’s head, heating the water in an instant.
Old pipes, Dean thought as he scrubbed at the Common smell that pervaded his skin with a bar of white soap. I might as well commission Will to make a new boiler, with how often I have to heat them myself.
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The water helped ease the last needles of the headache from his brow, and he allowed himself to soak up the reverie of becoming clean once more for a few long minutes, the torrent of the shower much more soothing than the indignant rain that had pelted at him from all directions in London. The rain was his least favorite part of that cursed city--it always seemed to be just at the corners of the weather, constantly threatening to make an appearance, even in the summer months. Windy, damp, crawling with rats and with the throngs of tourists everywhere you turned; London always was a chore to endure in his assignments. He had been working with the Guild since he had turned nineteen, and eight years of traversing the Way Through had given him plenty of time to learn the city at the heart of what the Commoners referred to as Great Britain. He had traveled farther out from the city in his work, and when the buildings and streets gave way to rolling green hills and farmland, he found that there was a certain sort of beauty hidden away--but alas, most of the wielders he sought after were located amid the concrete and metal of London, where it was much easier to remain unnoticed.
His last case before Helena had gone missing had taken him and Talia on a hunt after a wielder who was going between the Known and the Unseen with a trove of texts stolen from an exceedingly ancient gravesite in Mull that had been discovered by the Guild and turned over to the Priory. The Seekers had caught word that the man had been going between worlds via a dangerous bit of rifting, all of which screamed of Syndicate activity, and they had been hot on his tail in a whimsical little town outside of London called Chiddingfold when they received word from Emery that the Southwark Bridge had been attacked by Austeres.
If it hadn’t been such a stressful few hours in the Known as they went from a mad manhunt straight into a frenzy of Altering Common minds at the bridge for crowd control, Dean would have liked to have spent a bit more time in Chiddingfold. It was quiet enough to allow for some thought, and although it had been raining, he and Talia had walked the streets together in companionable silence, taking in the peculiar way in which the world and all its business merely shifted indoors--bars were alight with patrons, the smell of a bakery wafted along the cobbles, and brick chimneys puffed with white smoke as the wood-burning stoves beneath them toiled away.
But then Helena had been taken, and Dean had no leads on where she was. He had been trying to work on finding her when the A2 had been destroyed, and the sight of another disaster in the Known had nearly choked him with fear that his brother would be the second victim to disappear, as George was the least powerful in his role as a Guild Apprentice. He shuddered suddenly as he reached to turn the tap of the shower off, remembering the sight of their flat door at St. James’s Park forcibly splintered inward. If George had been taken, too…there was a stab of rage somewhere from deep within his chest, and he closed his hands around a dark flicker that erupted from his palms.
No, he was there. He was safe. A deep breath centered him, pulling him back into his own reflection facing him out from the smudged mirror.
As he toweled off, contemplating the need for an eventual shave and a haircut, his wristwatch tinkled merrily on the counter, and a beam of golden light burst from it, igniting upward into a swirling orb no larger than a five lucre coin. The voice of Emery floated into the washroom, emanating from the orb pleasantly as if he had been speaking to Dean over tea and crumpets.
“Esteemed Members; let us convene in the east training room at a quarter past noon. Please bring your workbooks, if you have been assigned any such sort of wielding.”
Emery’s voice cut out as quickly as it had begun, and the orb dissolved into the billowing steam of the shower’s remnants as the wristwatch tinkled once more, its gold light snuffing out. Dean sighed as he mussed his hair with the towel, trying to force it into submission as it sprang out in every direction, demanding to take up space in its current state of unruly management. Training, and then an assignment in town. His body complained, desperately asking for a snooze as he entered the bedroom and went to his humble dresser and pulled open a drawer to retrieve a pair of brown pants and a tee shirt. His bed looked so welcoming--so perfectly ready for him to collapse upon it in a fit of exhaustion--but he knew that if he were to lay down amid the comfort of his own mattress, he would never be able to get back up. Emery did not allow any of them to skip training unless they were quite literally on the edge of death with illness, and since Dean had left the task of calming Talia to the old Guild Leader himself, he thought it best not to be tardy out of appreciation.
With his clothes dotted with water drops from his damp hair, Dean secured his Token back around his wrist and checked the time--eleven fifty-five. He slathered on some deodorant, grabbed the enormous stack of George’s training workbooks from his brother’s horrendously disorganized desk, and he strode from the dorm, heading back to the Roost. Henry and Will were there, each carrying a pile of books of their own, and the three of them moved towards the staircase heading upward to the library.
“I’m surprised we’re training today, given the uproar of the morning,” Henry commented lightly as he stepped in stride beside Dean. “I wonder if Emery will make us do chores afterwards, too.”
“Oh, he most definitely will,” Will stomped up the steps after them, balancing his books and lurching to keep the topmost one from falling. “We could very well have the entire Syndicate come calling for high tea and he’d still demand that we keep to our routines of toilet cleaning and hoovering.”
“I wonder what sorts of tea Austere’s enjoy,” Henry played along without missing a beat. “Perhaps nettle leaf? Milk thistle?”
“Devil's tongue, fire weed…”
“Black,” Dean remarked, eliciting grins from both of the other men. “Simple, bitter; entirely uninteresting in every way.”
“Seems fitting,” Henry chuckled. They reached the library, and as they crossed the wide expanse of the room so intimately encased by the rows of shelves, they heard a commotion from the upper floor--a great crash, followed by a yelp of surprise--the whole of the library rattled with the impact of whatever force had struck against the floorboards above. The three men paused, each of them meeting the others’ gaze with bewilderment.
“What do you suppose that was?” Will asked, slightly amused. Another sound ruptured the air; a great groaning of the wood of the ceiling as something moved across it as fluidly as a snake, heading longways overhead, seemingly moving down the hallway of the training rooms. A distant cackle of sharp laughter floated down to their ears, and Dean recognized it as Hannah’s.
“Oh boy!” Henry burst out, pointing across the library to the staircase leading upwards to the training rooms. A vibrant waterfall of emerald vines came dumping down the steps, all of them dotted with explosive pops of flora in various shades of pink. Growing at a rate similar to the rushing of a river, the vines struck the floor of the library and continued to stretch their delicate fingers out in all directions, spreading across the floor in a throbbing carpet of foliage so thick that when it reached the boys, it came well past their ankles. Jasmine permeated the air, alongside the tang of energy sizzling all around them--magic flitting off of every beam of light through the windows and sending the library alive with life. As the vines reached the descending staircase leading to the Roost which the boys had just appeared up from, they slowed their growth, and they were left alone in a sea of foliage. A few butterflies floated down the staircase and lifted into the air of the library, soaring up to the lip of the reading loft, their shadows casting down wisps of gray.
Another ripple of laughter descended the staircase that was clogged with vines, and Dean’s brows furrowed. Whatever Hannah was laughing at was inadvertently making him bubble with anger.
“Jane has outdone herself,” Henry chuckled, reaching down to pluck a particularly lovely starburst flower from one of the vines. “Wonder what she’s going for with this bit of flare.”
George’s voice permeated the air from the floor above, “can you grow an oak in the training room, too? Open up a skylight for us?”
“George!” Dean barked, moving forward through the vines around them as if he were pressing through freshly-poured tar. “Don’t you dare!”
The voices above cut to silence, obviously caught in the act. Henry and Will pursued after Dean, all of them struggling to stay upright in the mess of plants that were haphazardly taking up every inch of the library floor. When they reached the staircase, Will waved his hands with a swipe of glimmering indigo, and all of their stacks of workbooks they had been lugging along with them shot up into the air, floating amiably alongside them like leather kites. Each of the boys grasped onto the thickest vines they could find, and they began the brutal ascent up the steps, grunting with exertion as they went hand-over-hand upwards through the tangle of fauna, all of them getting face-fulls of leaves and flowers as they went. Dean cursed under his breath as he pushed through a determinedly tough web of vines as thick as ropes, and as they made it halfway, a cry of surprised delight came from the floor above, this time from Jane. George’s laugh mixed with hers.
When they crested the staircase and made it onto the landing of the training hallway, they at last could see the situation in its entirety. Jane, George, and Hannah all stood at the end of the hall nearest to the east training room. Hannah and George were roaring with laughter so strong it had them both gasping for air, and Jane burned scarlet with embarrassment, a grin painted lithely across her face. Her hands were outstretched to the floor just beyond her toes where the cascade of vines had first begun, growing merrily out from the floorboards as if they had been there long since the Atrium was first erected. A little crop of white flowers peppered the walls around the trio, popping out of the cracks between the bricks like frosting rimming a layer cake.
Hannah was the first to catch her breath, and she looked down the length of the hallway to lock eyes with Dean. He hadn’t realized just how violent his expression must have been, since she immediately swallowed another wave of laughter, and she coughed to cover it, her face paling ever so slightly. George noticed her change in demeanor, and he looked to Dean as well, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Damn, we’ve been found out, girls,” he snickered, slapping a hand to both Jane and Hannah’s backs in admiration. “It’s been a pleasure knowing both of you.”
“George!” Dean snapped, glaring down at them all but still brutally holding Hannah’s eyes. “What the hell are you three doing?”
“Practicing,” George remarked casually, tossing him a dismissive wave. “I dared Jane to show us something actually impressive, seeing as she’s just a glorified landscaper.” It was at this that Jane turned to him and shoved him playful, sending him staggering backwards. “But!” He chirped, holding out his hands in truce, “she clearly is a wielder of impressive prowess, seeing as she has managed to bring an entire rainforest into the Atrium halls as easily as if she were making a turkey sandwich! Really--I mean, you can see for yourself--this is something spectacular!”
“It’s amazing, Jane,” Will piped up, and Dean’s lip actually curled up in disgust at him. “What? It’s cool!”
“You are not helping,” Dean continued. “They’ve nearly destroyed the library!”
“Oh, stop,” Hannah spoke up at last. “She’s not done anything of the sort. The vines are harmless, and Jane does a marvelous job at taming them.” Dean’s chest clenched tight with indignation at her reprimand. “What she wielded is positively miraculous.”
Dean stepped forward, furious. “You have no right to-”
“Actually, I quite agree with Hannah,” the voice of Emery cleaved through their argument, snapping all of their attention to the east training room door frame behind where George, Jane, and Hannah stood. The old man peeked around the corner of the doorway, looking annoyingly peaceful as his milky white gaze stretched blankly down the length of the hallway past Dean’s shoulder. “I can tell that this is an incredible bit of showmanship from your Tender gift, Jane. Are their vines all the way to the library, Avery?”
When Dean couldn’t find the words to reply with, Henry answered. “They reach all the way to the Roost staircase. They’re as thick as ropes off a hull--all speckled with flowers, too.”
“Yes, I can certainly smell them,” Emery sighed dreamily. “Lovely in every way. Excellent work, Miss McCrea.” Jane burned even pinker at his compliment, and she bowed her head low. “Seeing as it is twelve past noon, I think we had better file into the training room and get set up for our practice. I hear Talia and Taryn coming up the steps of the Roost now.”
Dean seethed with frustration, and he flung out his hands in exasperation, saying nothing. Emery lifted a single thin hand into the air and waved it to the side sharply, a sparkle of white light swirling around his palm and flickering like the wings of a bird. The vines that were laid thickly around the hallway evaporated into a shimmer of what looked like fine powder as it rose to the ceiling in a cloud of dwindling silver.
“Wow,” Hannah breathed, and Dean swore he saw Emery actually straighten upright to preen at her marveling. Dean shook his head in disbelief, unable to hide the sneer that was crossing his lips.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, striding quickly down the hallway, the stack of George’s books in tow behind him. He pushed past the trio, his shoulder clipping Hannah’s as he went by. She didn’t say a word as he slid past Emery and disappeared beyond the doorway of the training room, and George clucked his tongue after his brother.
“Pouting,” he whispered to Hannah and Jane, and although Jane giggled, Hannah couldn’t bring herself to join in the fun. Jane and George followed after Dean, and Will and Henry came near and entered the training room as well. The clipped steps of the girls’ approaching footfalls came up from the library staircase at the end of the hall, indicating Talia and Taryn’s imminent arrival.
“Hannah,” Emery said gently from the door frame, and she jumped. She had nearly forgotten he was there in the filing by of the members. “Would you like to sit in on our training this afternoon?”
“Yes,” she replied, a spark of excitement igniting through her. “I absolutely do. May I?”
“Of course,” Emery nodded, “I would love for you to observe. You may see some interesting things…the Guild here in Brink is composed of some exceptionally talented young wielders.”
“Hey,” Taryn called to Hannah as she and Talia emerged into the hallway, moving towards them. “How was the tour? Did George take you all over?”
“Just up to the Haven. He said something about there being floors down below, too? Underground?”
“Oh, yes,” Taryn and Talia stopped in front of them, and Hannah was acutely aware of how much Talia towered over the rest of them, her arms crossed over her chest. “There’s lots more to see than just the above floors. I can show you later, if you’d like--maybe after lunch.”
“I’d like that,” Hannah answered with a relieved smile. Talia sniffed the air, her eyes narrowing.
“Flowers?” One of her eyebrows shot upward inquisitively as she eyed Hannah. “Why do you smell like soil?”
“Jane grew a forest,” Hannah replied, squaring her shoulders. “Right here in the hallway.”
Talia paused, considering her words. “A forest?”
“Well, more like vines. They looked like tentacles from some grand octopus.”
Taryn laughed, and Hannah swore she saw Talia’s lip fight against a lift at the corner. “Missed it, I guess,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Time to train,” Talia and Taryn moved past them and into the space beyond, where George cackled with laughter at some joke that Hannah couldn’t hear.
“Come, dear,” Emery said, turning over his shoulder and entering the east training room with a wave for her to follow. “There’s a chair at my desk you can sit at where you’ll be out of range of all that we do.” Hannah heard his voice change with the quality of his smile, “allow us to show you some proper magic.”