Paints, herbs, bandages... Madeira flipped through all of it, searching for anything. She could hear Dev'ania through the open bedroom door stalling for time, before it hurriedly snapped closed. Though she couldn't understand the words, she could hear the hissing torrent of incredulousness from Kesha being cut off and placated by the Konti's pleading tone.
Determined to make the most of Dev's efforts to help her, she dug deeper into the locked closet. Between the medicines she couldn't name and the typical household floatsam she found and unfurled a portrait that might have been done by Kesha herself. On it her and her sister were standing in front of two others she supposed were their parents. Deceased? Moved away? Whatever the case it seemed they were no longer here to look after the sisters. In a deep corner, dusty from age and disuse, was a sheathed sword. Thin enough to be a fencing sword, it sported an elaborate handle and T shaped guard. Nobody had moved that blade in a long time. Did it belong to one of the sisters, or was it an heirloom? Did they know some kind of sword combat?
Lastly there was a stack of journals, their edges dark and crinkled from use. Inside was cramped, complicated writing that clearly denoted magical notes of some kind. The Spiritist hesitated for half a tick before flicking though the topmost journals. Mages always tended to be secretive about their writings. And if her brief acquaintance with a glypher and her own first steps into malediction had taught her anything, it's that you don't stick your hands in anything unless you're prepared to lose them.
Most of the journals were Ponrose's, the inside of their covers all signed with cramped cursive. But a few deeper in, though they were not so religiously signed, obviously belonged to someone else. The writing had changed completely, the strokes and pressure neat and orderly. They must belong to Kesha. She did grudgingly admit to studying some form of magic.
The voices from the bedroom were simmering down. Someone was going to come through that door any moment. With her last few ticks Madeira bent over one of Kasha's notebooks, trying to decipher at least what kind of magic she was studying.
“Fine. This is you and your little friend’s last chance."
The oldest sister's angry tone came muffled but distinguishable through the closed door, and just like that Madeira was out of time. She threw the notebook back into the closet and stepped away, her body half turning as if studying the window closest to her when the bedroom door clicked open behind her. Kesha, looking completely fed up, swooped out, with Dev'ania close behind her.
"I think you two have disturbed us enough. I don't care who you are, I am tired and my sister is not well." Kasha, her dark eyes flashing cold and hard, stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded. She seemed to turn to stone as Madeira watched. "I do not care about the undead whatever and this magekiller symbol. Neither have anything to do with us. Ask your questions and go."
Madeira glanced at Dev, unsure of where to go from here. Sapphire told them to look into Ponrose. That was the only clue they had. But everything they had found within the house had been subjective at best. Madeira glanced at Ponrose's still open door. She could think of one option she had left, but it would require Kasha's cooperation. And that kind of help seemed unlikely. But the Spiritist had not spent her entire life persuading ghost's not to kill her just to back down because a woman was being closed off. Madeira changed tack, her unthreatening obliviousness burning away into something serious and urgent.
"Dev'ania will have a few last question for you. I will to speak to Ponrose."
"No you won't. She cant even answer you!"
"Then there'll be no harm", Madeira shrugged. "But I won't be able to say I've done everything I could without speaking to both people in this house." She was far from sure that Ponrose would speak to her, but at this point she was about willing to try anything. There was a technique in hypnotism called a trance, that made one more open and susceptible to suggestion. Her hypnotic power had grown stronger since moving to Lhavit so perhaps, if she played this just right, she could dig Ponrose out of the mental hole she had crawled into and get a coherent answer out of her.
But that involved subjecting Ponrose to magical meddling, which her sister would not agree with. She needed five chimes alone with that woman.
"I understand your situation with the Shinya is delicate. I want to do nothing to aggravate that. But if you don't let us do our jobs someone with more authority will have to do it for us. Give us just a few more chimes, just to make absolutely sure you two have nothing to add to our... undead investigation. Then by the grace of the gods you will never see us again."
She brought her hand to her cheek as if to swipe away an invisible hair off her cheek. But as the spider gloves skimmed her cheekbone they stirred, and a magic woven deep in their fabric shivered in the space between her and Kasha. Trust me, the hypnotic gloves sighed, sweet and coaxing. And before the eldest Rhui could formulate and objection or shake off the hypnotic suggestion Madeira had given Dev'ania a meaningful look and slipped away into Ponrose's room, the two of them essentially switching places.
"Ponrose?" Madeira poked her head around the door, ready to back away if the woman recognized her. But the youngest Rhui sister didn't even seem to recognize the room she was in. She was staring listlessly at the wall, but her eyes were unfocused and cloudy. "Ponrose. My name is Mads. I'm going to sit right here."
The bed sank slightly as Madeira sat beside the prone Ponrose, who's head rolled minutely with the movement. "I'm going to sing you a little song, and it's going to put you right to sleep. Once you're asleep, we're going to have a chat, like friends do. Okay?"
No response. Madeira cleared her throat, working her jaw, before she opened her mouth and began to sing.
Her voice was her preferred method of ferrying dijed. Her body did not have much presence, and her eyes were pale and tired rather than spellbinding, but her voice was another matter. It was not trained to sing or preform, to be sweet or pretty, but rather she had learnt to put weight behind it. It could fill a room and take up space in a persons mind, be hard and demanding or soft and coaxing in equal measure. And though the delivery was rough, the music itself had a gentle beat that leant itself to the lulling subtleties of hypnotism.
The song was some nonsense lullaby that she once sang to her children in the cradle, but it did the trick. Her dijed rose and twisted, siphoning from her soul and reverberating in the words as they left her lips. She had only put someone in a trance once before, and she struggled to again find that fine line between sleep and wakefulness she needed for it to work. The cadence behind the words rolled and dipped as she tried to fit into that sweet spot between the mind and the soul. Ponrose's eyelids drooped and her jaw relaxed as she sang, and Madeira could almost feel the dijed skating across her nerves and the damp surface of her eyes. Fearing the chance of overgiving, she let the dijed trail off slowly with the words, and until they trailed off too, and the song was nothing more than the ghost of an echo that hung unnaturally long in the closed room.
"Ponrose", Madeira spoke little over a whisper, taking care not to shock her into wakefulness. "Can you hear me? There is a killer in Lhavit, Ponrose. A mage killer." Gently, gently, she reminded herself, her voice softening and rounding at the edges. "What do you know about this killer, Ponrose?"
Determined to make the most of Dev's efforts to help her, she dug deeper into the locked closet. Between the medicines she couldn't name and the typical household floatsam she found and unfurled a portrait that might have been done by Kesha herself. On it her and her sister were standing in front of two others she supposed were their parents. Deceased? Moved away? Whatever the case it seemed they were no longer here to look after the sisters. In a deep corner, dusty from age and disuse, was a sheathed sword. Thin enough to be a fencing sword, it sported an elaborate handle and T shaped guard. Nobody had moved that blade in a long time. Did it belong to one of the sisters, or was it an heirloom? Did they know some kind of sword combat?
Lastly there was a stack of journals, their edges dark and crinkled from use. Inside was cramped, complicated writing that clearly denoted magical notes of some kind. The Spiritist hesitated for half a tick before flicking though the topmost journals. Mages always tended to be secretive about their writings. And if her brief acquaintance with a glypher and her own first steps into malediction had taught her anything, it's that you don't stick your hands in anything unless you're prepared to lose them.
Most of the journals were Ponrose's, the inside of their covers all signed with cramped cursive. But a few deeper in, though they were not so religiously signed, obviously belonged to someone else. The writing had changed completely, the strokes and pressure neat and orderly. They must belong to Kesha. She did grudgingly admit to studying some form of magic.
The voices from the bedroom were simmering down. Someone was going to come through that door any moment. With her last few ticks Madeira bent over one of Kasha's notebooks, trying to decipher at least what kind of magic she was studying.
“Fine. This is you and your little friend’s last chance."
The oldest sister's angry tone came muffled but distinguishable through the closed door, and just like that Madeira was out of time. She threw the notebook back into the closet and stepped away, her body half turning as if studying the window closest to her when the bedroom door clicked open behind her. Kesha, looking completely fed up, swooped out, with Dev'ania close behind her.
"I think you two have disturbed us enough. I don't care who you are, I am tired and my sister is not well." Kasha, her dark eyes flashing cold and hard, stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded. She seemed to turn to stone as Madeira watched. "I do not care about the undead whatever and this magekiller symbol. Neither have anything to do with us. Ask your questions and go."
Madeira glanced at Dev, unsure of where to go from here. Sapphire told them to look into Ponrose. That was the only clue they had. But everything they had found within the house had been subjective at best. Madeira glanced at Ponrose's still open door. She could think of one option she had left, but it would require Kasha's cooperation. And that kind of help seemed unlikely. But the Spiritist had not spent her entire life persuading ghost's not to kill her just to back down because a woman was being closed off. Madeira changed tack, her unthreatening obliviousness burning away into something serious and urgent.
"Dev'ania will have a few last question for you. I will to speak to Ponrose."
"No you won't. She cant even answer you!"
"Then there'll be no harm", Madeira shrugged. "But I won't be able to say I've done everything I could without speaking to both people in this house." She was far from sure that Ponrose would speak to her, but at this point she was about willing to try anything. There was a technique in hypnotism called a trance, that made one more open and susceptible to suggestion. Her hypnotic power had grown stronger since moving to Lhavit so perhaps, if she played this just right, she could dig Ponrose out of the mental hole she had crawled into and get a coherent answer out of her.
But that involved subjecting Ponrose to magical meddling, which her sister would not agree with. She needed five chimes alone with that woman.
"I understand your situation with the Shinya is delicate. I want to do nothing to aggravate that. But if you don't let us do our jobs someone with more authority will have to do it for us. Give us just a few more chimes, just to make absolutely sure you two have nothing to add to our... undead investigation. Then by the grace of the gods you will never see us again."
She brought her hand to her cheek as if to swipe away an invisible hair off her cheek. But as the spider gloves skimmed her cheekbone they stirred, and a magic woven deep in their fabric shivered in the space between her and Kasha. Trust me, the hypnotic gloves sighed, sweet and coaxing. And before the eldest Rhui could formulate and objection or shake off the hypnotic suggestion Madeira had given Dev'ania a meaningful look and slipped away into Ponrose's room, the two of them essentially switching places.
"Ponrose?" Madeira poked her head around the door, ready to back away if the woman recognized her. But the youngest Rhui sister didn't even seem to recognize the room she was in. She was staring listlessly at the wall, but her eyes were unfocused and cloudy. "Ponrose. My name is Mads. I'm going to sit right here."
The bed sank slightly as Madeira sat beside the prone Ponrose, who's head rolled minutely with the movement. "I'm going to sing you a little song, and it's going to put you right to sleep. Once you're asleep, we're going to have a chat, like friends do. Okay?"
No response. Madeira cleared her throat, working her jaw, before she opened her mouth and began to sing.
Her voice was her preferred method of ferrying dijed. Her body did not have much presence, and her eyes were pale and tired rather than spellbinding, but her voice was another matter. It was not trained to sing or preform, to be sweet or pretty, but rather she had learnt to put weight behind it. It could fill a room and take up space in a persons mind, be hard and demanding or soft and coaxing in equal measure. And though the delivery was rough, the music itself had a gentle beat that leant itself to the lulling subtleties of hypnotism.
The song was some nonsense lullaby that she once sang to her children in the cradle, but it did the trick. Her dijed rose and twisted, siphoning from her soul and reverberating in the words as they left her lips. She had only put someone in a trance once before, and she struggled to again find that fine line between sleep and wakefulness she needed for it to work. The cadence behind the words rolled and dipped as she tried to fit into that sweet spot between the mind and the soul. Ponrose's eyelids drooped and her jaw relaxed as she sang, and Madeira could almost feel the dijed skating across her nerves and the damp surface of her eyes. Fearing the chance of overgiving, she let the dijed trail off slowly with the words, and until they trailed off too, and the song was nothing more than the ghost of an echo that hung unnaturally long in the closed room.
"Ponrose", Madeira spoke little over a whisper, taking care not to shock her into wakefulness. "Can you hear me? There is a killer in Lhavit, Ponrose. A mage killer." Gently, gently, she reminded herself, her voice softening and rounding at the edges. "What do you know about this killer, Ponrose?"
