Closed Sound! Lights! Stage!

[Madeira Dusk]

80th of Spring, 521

Part one: Changing The Script


Madeira was washing the blood off her face at the kitchen sink when there was a knock at her door.

"Don't", she warned Maro as he put his bloody dishtowel aside, prepared to send their visitor away. "Let me handle it."

The boy servant blinked up at where his mistress was holding her own towel under her severely broken nose. The skin around her bloodshot eyes was that sallow yellow colour of an impending bruise, and the rest of her face was a ghostly white. A few drops of blood trickled from a shallow cut across her throat and soaked into the collar of a cloak that he knew did not belong to her. Beneath it one of her shoulders was alarmingly lower than the other, and the arm below it was trailing loosely with every movement and dripping blood on her shoes.

"Are you sure, Ma'am?"

"Put a pot of tea on, sweetheart, then go upstairs. I'll call if I need you."

He didn't ask again. As Madeira composed herself the boy pumped the kettle full of water and lit the fire beneath the stove. The iron stairs rattled as he ascended to the second story. The knock at the door banged impatiently again.

The stage is set. Madeira closed her eyes and brought her left arm up in an elaborate flourish, like a narrator introducing a play. The actors are cast and the script written. Ionu, bless this performance, she prayed. This was the start of a plot two seasons in the making, and it required masterful acting and stage-magic slight-of-hand on a scale she had never attempted before. So it seemed only right to have the god of illusions and trickery on her side.

Madeira opened the door just as the visitor was about to bang on the door again.

The man on the other side lowered his fist at the same time his eyebrow rose to his hairline. Dark lips pulled back to expose white teeth in an expression of undisguised mirth. Rotsam the Curse Eater, the private practice mage and Madeira's rival in more ways than one, looked much like he did the last time she saw him. The poisoning of Lhavit's water had done nothing but deepened the purple bags beneath his eyes and added new fissures to his hateful smile.

"Ey, princess. Who worked you over? I feel like I should send them flowers"

"You did, Rotsam", Madeira laughed through her shortened breath. She was surprised to realize the expression was genuine, even through the pain.

The Myrian man took a long tick to look her over, as if committing the sight of his Cordas partner ruined and bloody to memory. In his fist he had a crumpled letter. Madeira recognized her own stationary. She wasn't surprised he had shown up when she asked. Both of them were itching to have a private, face-to-face chat after the two of them had been marked and partnered by Sagllius seasons ago. The rules of the game they were playing were undefined and the goal vague. They both wanted to know where the other stood, and naturally Rotsam would want to snoop around her Archetrix home.

"That so?" the Myrian laughed, his grin stretching to Jomi-like proportions. "Well, that must be a fantastic story."

Madeira surprised herself by smiling back. There was something so dangerously freeing about the two of them being alone together. There was something fresh and clean about the honesty between two people who knew each others secrets and didn't have any reason to hide their contempt for each other.

[Madeira Dusk]

He brushed his way inside without being invited in, and Madeira was forced to step aside. Her left hand trailed last, and her wrist brushed against his bicep as he passed. The diamond bracelet on her wrist glinted dully, but nothing happened. Around them the house was quietly seething against the intrusion,

"So this is the infamous Infinity Manor." The Myrian stood inside the door with his hands on his hips, his eyes darkly critical as they ran over every inch of the place. "You know, Princess, some say this place is alive."

"It is." Madeira answered distractedly, tearing her eyes away from her bracelet. What went wrong? The Bracelet of Spiritual Confinement, her last gift parting gift from Madara Craven, had worked so easily with ghosts. "Sit, I'll make some tea."

"Like I'd consume anything you give me."

"Then sit and look at the tea I'm about to give you."

As Madeira returned to the kitchen, where the kettle was just beginning to screech, Rotsam took the opportunity to snoop around. He studied Bird, who ruffled his feathers at him. He ran a calloused finger over Raj's bared teeth and turned over the knickknacks on the mantelpiece. When she returned with a single cup of tea she held the mug out to him by the handle, necessitating him to touch her hand as he took it.

She was sure he brushed the bracelet again. She was sure of it. But still nothing happened. She was starting to sweat under the cloak.

"You're looking pale", Rotsam's sharp eyes flicked over her as he dropped his mug on the mantelpiece to go cold. "Something on your mind, Princess?"

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm in a bit of pain", Madeira covered for herself, swaying where she stood. How was this not working? Something was wrong. Maybe living souls were harder to catch.

Rotsam stared a moment longer, searching her face like he could see the lie rattling around inside. Eventually he turned away and pointed to the blue pigeon in its gilded cage. "You've got quite the menagerie going. What the hai is that?"

"I'm not sure." Madeira admitted, she moved to one of the sofas and tried to sit, but a lance of pain as her hanging arm brushed the seat almost made her black out. Leaning heavily on the armrest she gasped and blinked the black spots out of her eyes. "Ionu gave him to me."

"Who?"

"Ionu. They're the deity of my childhood home." Just the memory of Alvadas put a warm glow in her chest, distracting her from the pain. "They're brilliant and wild. Their illusions and tricks open up an understanding in the world you cant find anywhere else."

"Tricks and illusions? Ha! No wonder they've got you all dewy eyed, you sad little liar. Reality not your cup of tea?"

"How narrow minded. Reality is a perception and perceptions change. I make my own reality." The words were coming in fast little pants. Just a little longer, she begged of her body. Every shard of bone in her broken arm was a red hot poker. Don't pass out. Not here. Madeira considered herself tougher than people gave her credit for. There was a lot she could endure. But it seemed that the drugs that the Shiress woman, the doctor of the Redynn, gave her were wearing off. She was no longer sure if it was Infinity pulsing around them, or if it was her own heartbeat.

"You're about to keel over any tick, so lets get to the good part. I didn't come to exchange philosophy, I came to make a deal."

"A deal?"

"Wakey wakey, precious. Yes, a deal. See, I took a page out of your soiled book and got myself a... hmm, business partner. They're not your biggest fan. Doesn't narrow down the list though, does it? For such a popular little attention whore you do manage to piss off a lot of people."

"And you're willing to tell me who it is."

"Absolutely. I know all your pieces, it's only fair you know mine."

"For a price." Madeira squinted at the Myrian, trying to keep him in focus. Her mind was turning. Why was he telling her this? He was giving himself away with every word. Now she knew the abrasive, antisocial ghost hunter wasn't working alone. What ever he wanted out of it, it must be worth the risk. But what could she have that would possibly be worth it?

Madeira blinked hard. The Myrian's lips were moving, but the sounds washed through her uncomprehendingly. The world began to tip sideways.

"What? Say that again."

Rotsam stepped closer, his dark eyebrows pinched into an annoyed knot. Getting right in her face, he repeated himself slowly.

"I- I can't hear-"

The pulse gave one more vicious bang, and the world went dark

[Madeira Dusk]

"Ma'am? Are you okay, Ma'am?"

Madeira came to in a whirlwind of agony. A small, calloused hand was patting tentatively at her back. The voice it was attached to was strangely absent, like he was waking her from a troubled sleep and wasn't trying to rouse an seriously injured unconscious woman. That was no surprise. Maro emoted like a block of wood.

Infinity was fluttering through her mind like a confused moth, bumping into things in a kind of gentle panic. From its perspective she saw herself face down, pillowed on a second body below her. Her right arm was bent at an impossible angle beneath the cloak spread out around her body. The body below her was breathing, she could hear the gentle swoosh of air through its chest. She must have collapsed on top of Rotsam, or else he caught her without thinking. He wasn't moving besides the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

"I'm okay", she announced to her worried audience, her voice scratchy and raw. "Maro, there should be a case of pills in my bedside drawer. Find a blue triangular one, cut it in half, and bring it to me." The drugs she had were not for medical purposes and not for pain, but at this point anything would help.

As the boy scampered off Madeira braced herself with a deep breath and raised herself to her knees. White fire raced up her right arm as it dragged across the floor. Rotsam still hadn't moved.

As her vision came back into focus she found herself kneeling between the knees of the Myrian, who himself was laying on his back, arms contently at his sides, eyes open and staring up at the ceiling like he wasn't really seeing it. His expression was as blank as a mannequins.

Maderia hissed in pain as she seized the mantelpiece and scrambled to rise to her feet. Adrenaline began pumping through her veins, sharpening every sense. With a silent prayer and a shaky breath, she raised her diamond bracelet to her eye.

In the teardrop charm hanging from the linked chains was a tiny image of Rotsam. The man's face was contorted in a roar of fury and seemed to be beating at the inside of the gem, though there was no sound.

The wind knocked out of Madeira and then came rushing back in a shocked laugh.

She did it.

She did it!

The Bracelet could trap souls, or at least that was how it was explained to her. The body was left behind, catatonic and vacant, until the soul returned. But it was the question of when that was the tricky part. The confinement didn't last forever.

"Stay right there, precious", she snarled, wiping the back of her hand under her re-bleeding nose. "You've got a part in this performance too. Or at least your body does. But your soul is going to get a front row seat. Curtains in five!"

Maro returned with the requested pill. Azura should be dissolved in water, but Madeira swallowed it dry. She wasn't going to risk the poisoning on her already overtaxed body.

"Thank you, sweetheart. Now get the soulmist from the pantry. Everything we have. Then go to your room and stay there until I get back. Do not answer the door, no matter who it is." It was unlikely that the Shinya were going to want to talk to Maro after what was about to happen, but the chance was there, and she didn't want to take it. "You didn't see anything, did you?"

"No, Ma'am", the boy shook his head, his bright green eyes intelligent but completely devoid of curiosity.

"Good boy."

As Maro fetched the jars of soulmist, Madeira used the blood from her nose to scribble a lopsided glyph on the mantelpiece. Pressing her left hand down on top, she called her support to the stage.

[Alice Weaver]

The call was subtle. Mads was always subtle.

Alice’s soulmist called for her to reunite with it across the city. It sang a gentle siren song threaded with urgency and...pain. A pain of a shattered body that was held together only by triumph and another shifting feeling unknown to the Spirit. It seemed when you called to another soul to come to your side the close, twining contract let something leak through.

Alice stopped her listless floating that she had taken to during a few hours of the day. Using the time to think, plot, plan, and reshape her soulmist. The dress had grown old after six years and she decided it was time for something less flashy. Her head tilted back towards the call, letting her thick ringlets of red hair brushed across the ground below her, as she floated parallel to the ground as if resting on a table.

“Is this finally the time I get let in on your web, Madeira?” Alice whispered to herself with a slight smile before she too sang back to the separated soulmist allowing the summon to take over.

The feeling of her stomach dropping, even though she didn’t have one, and the rush and blur of colors was something she didn’t think she would ever get used to whenever she was called. But she enjoyed the startling experience nonetheless. She was eager for new sensations even if they were only purely visual.

The ride came to a halting stop as her disjointed soulmist roiled and bubbled in a pool above a bloody mark painted on the living wood of Infinity. Her soulmist reached up with tendrils and pedals, blooming upward like a young rose as arms, legs, and a head roughly formed. It was only after the mannequin-esque body set foot upon the floor did the rest of the soulmist react in a flurry. Blurry hands took on pointed fingers, the legs became shaped from rough blobs, her face molded with a strong nose and storm grey eyes. Red hair spilled from the shaped head while falling behind slender shoulders.

Lastly, clothes wrapped the spirit. Rough spun cotton trousers cloaked the legs as more roughspun fabric wrapped around her torso as a short sleeve tunic, lacking the elegance of her previous dress and looking more like a laborer’s work clothes. Oddly her feet were left bare as she touched down to the floor, a bit of frost forming from the contact point from the freshly conjured spirit.

Alice rolled her shoulders as she reached her hands back, gathering up her hair and tying it back into a ponytail, a few loose strands brushing her temple, with a strand of soulmist as she looked over her ‘Master.’

“You look like you lost a fight with a bear…” She observed with tact, eyes taking in the unnaturally bent arm before her gaze drifted down to the well-built and heavily tattooed myrian man. She nudged him with a barefoot, watching as a bit of frost spread across the catatonic arm.

“And he looks like he lost a fight with you.” She stated dryly as she raised an eyebrow. “I take it this is Rostam? Might I ask why we don’t dump him off a sky bridge right now and call it a day?”

Seeing that the Spiritist was on the verge of collapse she moved closer and pushed a thin layer of soulmist to wrap the arm in a cooling layer and take some of the weight of gravity off it as she stood by Maderia’s side.

“...I’ll just assume it's some Madeira scheme.” Alice sighed out. The ghost was still working on Sunberth logic. If there was a problem with a person they couldn’t be more of a problem dead.

“Anyways. I have the vaguest idea of the plan. Someone possesses his body, beats you publicly, and then someone acts as a bystander and witness? That’s about all I’ve put together. Where do I come in in all of this? I can’t play the part of the bystander as I am very obviously dead so what other tricks do you have up your sleeve, Mads?” Alice asked with curiosity as she tried to read the Spiritist mind through guesswork, having possessed them before and gone through many trials but as always Madeira was never an easy read. She’d just have to wait for more details to be revealed.

[Jomi]

The air crackled with energy as the two ghosts materialized before the sixteen point star painted on the mantel. The force of being plucked from space and time and transported unwittingly across a city always left Jomi reeling for a tick. Even after all this time his soul still struggled to right itself after being forcefully summoned, leaving the discombobulated, unmaterialized blob of soulmist spinning in place as he struggled to right himself.

The other summoned ghost recovered first. Jomi watched from his peripheral as the second mass of soulmist sprouted arms, legs and facial features as she put her body together with the upmost care and detail. Jomi noticed that she favoured her head, pulling her mists forward and sculpting her nose lips and eyes before any of her limbs were materialized. Her priorities differed from Jomi, who typically started building his body piece by piece starting with his feet and working upwards. Jomi typically delayed showing his face, leaving it to the last tick to show himself. The Kelvic was slow on the uptake especially in social situations where his naturally badger-like desire for solitude directly clashed with the bonding submissive nature of a Kelvic. He found that he needed the extra few ticks to assess the situation and think over what his reaction to whatever convoluted, bullshyke scheme Madeira felt like disrupting his wanderings for should be.

Jomi's mist contracted rapidly around him. The dull red glow of the Dira stone imbedded in his palm grew brighter as the goddesses' gift supplemented his own power to draw himself together into a perfect recreation of his living body. His mists pressed together forming the dust coloured cotton, buttoned shirt and leather pants patched at the hip and knees, the unofficial uniform of a common dock labourer and the clothes he wore when he died. Next to the usually ostentatious high-born master of the house Jomi typically felt out of place. But one look at the palid, sunken eyes of his master, cut, bloodied and turning an alarming shade of blue, and he could't stop himself from thinking aloud.

"I've seen better looking corpses."

The Master was hurt. Badly. He didn't need medical training or Rak'keil's mark to recognize that these injuries were serious. Madeira wasn't a fighter; she'd rather talk her way out the situation or else call on one of her hopeless vassals to protect her. Who could've done this, where even Infinity wasn't able to help? A hopeless panic began to bubble up from the dark corners of his mind as Jomi's eyes slid to the stairs, where down below sat the heavy iron door lead to the basement.

"Someone possesses his body, beats you publicly, and then someone acts as a bystander and witness?"

Beside him the new ghost began to fire off observations, snapping Jomi from his dark spiralling trance. She was listing off details as Jomi, still reeling from the sudden summoning, failed to notice the dark, tattooed man passed out on the rug.

The woman poked at the maybe-possibly-dead-man smartly with the tip of her toe. Jomi took the opportunity to get a good look at the ghost woman as he struggle to grasp the spark of familiarity that danced around his head. Where else had he seen a red headed ghost woman before?

"Hold on. Assistant? What are you doing here?"

Just as soon as the words left his mouth Jomi swept his hands out and waved them around as if to erase the words still hanging in the air.

"No wait, that was the wrong question." Jomi turned to the small, broken human woman clutching at the chair she perched on for dear life. Leaning down to be eye level with her black swollen eyes. 'What I meant to say is what did you do, Madeira."

[Madeira Dusk]

As expected, her ghosts couldn't help but comment on her ruined state. She gave a chuckle through the blood clogging her nose.

There was something about the gaze of the dead that was so unsettling, no matter how often you were under it. The two ghosts stared down at the Myrian man, and then their attention turned to her, and her spine shivered. Perhaps noting how thinly she was holding herself together, Alice suppressed what she could of the damaging touch of her shroud and used it to hold her up. The touch was cold and uncomfortable but a balm to the hot pulse of pain running up her right side.

Alice always had such biting words, but her actions were strangely incongruous with them. She learned that in their classroom brawl together. The woman had a wicked tongue as sharp as a tack, yet her touch belied a softer side and a deeper loyalty.

Jomi had no such depth.

"What did you do, Madeira?" he snarled, inches from her face.

Madeira smiled, her tongue running over the pointed edges of her teeth.

"I won."

Extracting herself gently from Alice's grasp, she stepped through Jomi and over Rotsam's body, waving the back of her hand to disperse the cloud of soulmist that was the insubstantial core of the ghost's divinely charged life-like form. There was a silvery sheen around the edges of her vision, a sure sign of the azura she had taken was finally kicking in.

"I can't kill him", she admitted, standing at Rotsam's shoulder and studying his vacant face. "There is someone out there much scarier than him who is pulling our strings, and who would be rather put out if I ruined the game. But you're right about the plan. We're going to put on a show like these people have never seen before."

Holding the mantle for balance, Madeira carefully slotted one slippered foot beneath his chin. A childlike curiosity lingered in her eyes as she pressed experimentally against his throat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, meet our antagonist, Rotsam the Curse Eater: spiritist, maledictor, enthusiastic Duster and soon to be violent psychopath. His soul has vacated for the moment, so he'll be played by our best possessor and violence expert, Jomi." She let go of the mantle long enough to make a dramatic flourish in Alice's direction. "And you, my dear, will play the starring role. Not the bystander, the hero, and the tragic heart of our narrative. Jomi, remember that stone Autumn gave you? Fetch it for me. We are going to bring Alice Weaver back to life."

She waited for Jomi to leave before kicking Rotsam's head aside. Madeira made her way back to Alice's side, a wild gleam in her eye. She spoke urgently. "Listen to me. I know of a way to make you you again, your real body and your intact soul, together, alive and healthy, for a few bells. It's not much, but its life, exactly the way you wanted it. I can make you completely whole again."

She let that idea sink it, let it linger seductively on her persuasive tongue. She needed her to want this before she could reveal what it was going to cost her.

"But it comes with a heavy price. If I give you life, I have to take it away. Play your part, come to my rescue, and then die." Reaching up, her left hand trailed down the side of her face, not quite touching her. "An assault is a monstrous thing. But a murder? That is unforgivable."

[Alice Weaver]

She wasn’t the only one who was summoned. Madeira had a wealth of spirits to call to her it seemed. The second spirit was bulkier than the woman specter yet much more put together, he looked almost alive. She felt a familiar pang of jealousy looking at the perfect form he so casually threw together after being summoned. The pang was placed after the other ghost spoke.

“Hold on. Assistant? What are you doing here?” The other ghost asked before turning to lay into Maderia.

“Ah, I knew I remembered your form from somewhere, Sir. Any of the people you poisoned die yet?” She shot back towards him, eyes narrowing slightly at his open hostility approach towards Maderia. You can not like someone but that doesn’t mean you have to be so openly brash about it… “Some of those alcoholic mixes were just dreadful.” She whispered to herself as Maderia pulled away from Alice’s chilling mists, proudly stating that she won.

“You won what? A really shitty few weeks recovery?” Alice’s joke was missed amongst the shifting of the two as the Spiritist walked directly through the other ghost before introducing the man strewn catatonically across the floor.

The man on the floor was the man Alice was warned to stay away from, Rotsam the Curse Eater, a Spiritist with a penchant for dusting the poor souls just trying to find their path, and apparently Maderia’s mortal enemy. Madeira continued on, preaching like a pastor with nothing to lose on a hot summer’s day, she strutted, she vocalized, she commited to the part.

“Not the bystander, the hero, and the tragic heart of our narrative. Jomi, remember that stone Autumn gave you? Fetch it for me. We are going to bring Alice Weaver back to life."

Alice’s eyes flew wide open, her head tilted forward and her mouth hung slightly agape as the spirit was struck dumb. Her eyes flicking rapidly between Maderia, herself, and Rotsam. Almost as if she was expecting Rotsam to sit up laughing and say that this was all an elaborate prank to unsettle the ghost.

...Not entirely out of the question with the people she was keeping company with.

The joke never came. The punchline was nonexistent.

Madeira almost rushed back to Alice’s side with a gleam in her eye.

“Listen to me. I know of a way to make you you again, your real body and your intact soul, together, alive and healthy, for a few bells. It's not much, but it’s life, exactly the way you wanted it. I can make you completely whole again."

“It’s-It’s possible?” Alice sputtered out. A warmth blooming in her chest like a roaring torch at the vindication that it was something that existed. It wasn’t some pipe dream that would never happen. She felt her mists grow more solid as her resolve was strengthened to a new level, anchoring her more firmly to the realm of the living. Determination and hope were the fuel to her unliving fire. While the ghost was processing this information she noticed Maderia fell silent.

“I sense a but.” Was the careful, if strained, reply.

“But it comes with a heavy price. If I give you life, I have to take it away. Play your part, come to my rescue, and then die. An assault is a monstrous thing. But a murder? That is unforgivable.”

The ghost’s face fell flat as she stripped the conflicted emotions from her soulmist.

“To live...I have to die again. And you want me to just...go alone with this? Why would I ever want to give up what I have here and now for a pitiful few bells? I want a full life. Not one where I get a few bells only to be slaughtered like a pig.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “And even if I came back after I was killed again. The question remains why. You want me to die just because you need some help for nothing? That’s an awful exchange for a life.” She finished as she reached up with a burning cold hand and ripped Maderia’s hand back down away from her.

[Jomi]

“Ah, I knew I remembered your form from somewhere, Sir. Any of the people you poisoned die yet?” The red-headed ghost sneered, her eyes narrowed cooly as she gave Jomi a cursory once-over.

"If you drink some mystery liquid a stranger hands you then it's not a poisoning, it's natural selection." Jomi corrected. His eyes shone in a deceptively life-like way as he laced his hands together under his chin in mock worship. He turned to the ghost woman with a conspiratory grin. "I'm just spreading the wonders of Dira's cycle to the masses."

The pair had met at the Hearts festival a fortnight ago, he remembered. The day itself had been a blur but Jomi could still picture the two of them behind the counter of the impossible folding bar. Dishing out gods know what to their unwitting patrons. The woman herself had been quick to show off her silver tongue. Laying the charm on thick to sooth one particular young human woman's perfectly valid questions of the nature of their operation.

He'd also remembered that he'd suspected that she'd been one of Madeira's lackeys. Jomi was both pissed and secretly pleased with himself to be proven right.

"But enough reminiscing. I'm more concerned with how Madeira managed to lose a fight with a dead body."

"Ladies and gentlemen, meet our antagonist, Rotsam the Curse Eater: spiritist, maledictor, enthusiastic Duster and soon to be violent psychopath. His soul has vacated for the moment, so he'll be played by our best possessor and violence expert, Jomi."

Madeira's theatrics were met with only a blank look from the Kelvic ghost. His thoughts turning to white noise as he tried and failed to follow along with the madwoman's scheme. Souls leave the body at the point of death, and ghosts can't pilot a dead body. No matter how skilled. But Jomi didn't have time to voice the inaccuracy in the Masters plan before she'd shifted her focus on her next tool.

"And you, my dear, will play the starring role. Not the bystander, the hero, and the tragic heart of our narrative. Jomi, remember that stone Autumn gave you? Fetch it for me. We are going to bring Alice Weaver back to life."

That was a clear command. Find the thing, and bring me the thing. He could do that.

The simple minded Kelvic was thankful for the distraction. He'd never been one for planning and schemes, he was much more comfortable being told what to do. An unfortunate byproduct of his Kelvic nature.

Jomi blinked away from the two women and the prone man. Disappearing and reappearing in short bursts until he'd materialized in the empty second floor bedroom.

The ghost had a remarkable amount of worldly possessions for someone who no longer had use for such things. He'd finally worn Madeira down enough with his incessant groaning to allow him to take up residence in the twins old bedroom. A space all his own to deposit his hoards of miscellaneous junk.

The hinges of the old toy chest groaned in protest as Jomi sent a burst of controlled soulmist to flip the lid. He sifted through the suspiciously empty bags, jade figurings and unassuming sticks until he'd unearthed a small glowing pebble. The stone was weightless and easy to hold even for the incorporeal undead and shone with an eerie light similar to his soulmist.

Palming the stone Jomi closed the chest and blinked his way back to the women. Just in time to see Alice swipe Madeira's hands off her like a disgusting insect. Her face contorted in barely contained fury.

Jomi held out his hand between them, the pebble rolling lazily in his palm. "...Do you still want this, or is this a bad time?"

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira hissed in pain as Alice's roiling soulmist swatted her hand away. At that moment Jomi stuck his hand between them. Maybe he was being his just anarchic self, or maybe he was actually trying to short circuit the building tension. With Jomi it was hard to tell. Regardless, all their attentions immediately narrowed on the gently glowing stone.

Madeira plucked it out of his palm, holding it by the tips of her fingers like she was expecting the thing to combust. She hadn't seen Autumn and her disturbing magical stones in seasons. The woman had wandered away not long after Madeira had bought Maro and she hadn't been able to find her since. Wherever she was, she hoped the spirit was okay.

"It's called Borrowed Life", she explained to Alice as she held it up to the gaslights that circled the room. "Not gifted life, or stolen life, it's borrowed." The Spiritist sighed, the stone disappearing into a white-knuckled fist. "The murder won't send you to Dira", she explained, trying and failing to keep the regret out of her voice. "You'll reset, exactly as you are now, and your body will disappear. Borrowed and then given back. But it will be terrible. You'll feel everything."

The silver sheen the drugs had superimposed on the edges of her vision began to resolve itself into shapes. It became vines and flowers and began to push into the room, first from the tears in the upholstery of Spooks' favorite chair, then from that one crack in the ceiling, then from the broken face of the clock on the mantelpiece. Pushing aside the strangers cloak she was wearing, Madeira saw a tangle of roots and flowers cascading down her body, so blue it hurt to look at them. They were growing out and around the shattered bone that had broken through the skin.

It was a sign, she was sure of it. This was life pushing hard and fast through the broken pieces. Ionu themself, her childhood deity, was trying to tell her something.

Her smile came back, a ferocious thing that bisected her face like an actress making sure the shine of her teeth could be seen from the back row.

"You're right. A life is worth more than this. So what do you want for yours, Alice? Tell me what its worth and I will give it to you."

Turning to Jomi, she beckoned the ghost over so she could hold onto his materialized shroud in order to lower herself painfully to her knees beside Rotsam. "Maro left soulmist on the table for you, darling. Rotsam may not be home but he's still a spiritist. I don't know if that will make this easier or harder."

Curious, she pressed down on the catatonic man's chin and opened his mouth. Seizing the tip of his tongue, she pulled it out as far as it would go. And there on its bed, in a perfect mirror of its twin, was his Cordas gnosis: a blue penrose triangle. She laughed once, hard, and then leaned down and kissed the man like that's all it would take to wake him. Only as she pulled away was it clear she had bitten him. In her eyes she could see flowers blooming from his cut lip.

"Go on, Jomi. Lets get him on his feet and make him up for the glorious final act. He'll need some defensive wounds. Nothing serious, just enough so he can't explain them away." She licked the blood off her lip and pulled herself shakily to her feet.

[Alice Weaver]

“It's called Borrowed Life. Not gifted life, or stolen life, it's borrowed. The murder won't send you to Dira. You'll reset, exactly as you are now, and your body will disappear. Borrowed and then given back. But it will be terrible. You'll feel everything."

There was a note of disappointment in the Spiritist voice that the ghost would come back. A professional hazard of wanting the ghosts to go away and stay away is what Alice chalked it up to.

When the explanation, simple as it was, was finished being given the Spirit’s sharp tongue ran before she could fully process what she was saying

“Oh, that’s much better.” She spoke with mock sweetness. “Want me to suicide thrice more for you, Maderia? I’ll have to clear my schedule if this becomes a regular event…” The distributed soulmist withered around her body as the temperature became down right frosty around the fiery-haired ghost.

Alice why are you getting so mad. Her own voice spoke in the back of her mind, You have been stabbed once so what’s a second time? Besides you were ready to die for her in the swamps a few moons ago…

That was entirely different because I didn’t think we had an opti-

Blah blah blah. Shut up, Alice, Madeira is still talking. The spirit admonished herself.

"You're right. A life is worth more than this. So what do you want for yours, Alice? Tell me what it’s worth and I will give it to you."

That offer silenced her internal arguing. That’s a potent offer for just a single death again. Well, ‘death’. Maderia had quite a few things to offer. And besides, she did promise to help Maderia in her schemes should she be needed...she just wasn’t expecting the ask to be so...deadly to start off.

Alice fell silent for a few moments as the only living person in the room turned to talk to her other ghost servant. Leaving Alice to ponder what she wanted from the Spiritist. At the moment she couldn’t even believe she was considering taking the offer. And on the other hand, she was upset that it was sprung so sudden on her so she could not get the most out of the offer.

Alice licked her lips as she thought before drawing in a breath, smothering the anger she felt brief moments before under the icey layer of someone who is dead.

“Very well. What I ask for being slaughtered like a sacrificial pig is… three lessons. I want you to offer me three lessons to learn any three skills of my choice. They can be skills you know or have the ability to get someone that can teach me those said skills. I will only be refused these lessons if you have physically no way of teaching them to me. I will not be rejected that learning opportunity purely because you do not wish to teach me those skills. I reserve the right to decide what these lessons will be on at a later date after I have time to think about them.” The Spirit had a half-grin stretched on her face with a glint in her eyes as she looked up at the Spiritist.

“That is all I want for my participation.”