Hope

The room was silent for a few moments as Avys made her exit. In fact, it was only broken by Lord Astacio standing up from their seat, loudly moving the chair. That they had been supposed to rise for the duchess leaving was seemingly forgotten given that she had just up and left before the instruction could be given or followed. Irwyn glanced at the Crier to see their reaction… only to realize the old man was no longer standing in their alcove. In fact, he was not even in the room anymore. Some kind of teleportation, no telling whether cast by the man or just an item. City Black also had a Temporal Beacon after all which meant much easier Time-based teleportation for anyone with the means.

“You got lucky, but this isn’t over,” Astacio walked over to their table, the bodyguard - at least Irwyn assumed they were one - following behind them while their lawyer remained seated, quite still.

“Irwyn has been acquitted,” Elizabeth pointed out, still seemingly surprised though Irwyn was reasonably sure she was exaggerating a bit at that point.

“Yes, and for four years hence he is an innocent man… in this matter,” Astacio nodded. “But accidents don’t care for guilt or innocence, do they? We are in a Lich War now after all. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts,” then the man turned around and left right through the gate they had gone through.

“Did he just?” Irwyn gaped.

“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “As direct and clumsy as ever.”

“Isn’t that basically going against the trial’s outcome?”

“No, not really,” Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. “What the verdict means is that they cannot send the real assassins. The kind that murder demigods in daylight without being noticed. Instead, they will have to rely on lesser methods - the kind where it won’t be seen as an assassination, more as a ‘failure of strength’. House Fathomsight will still definitely play out the grudge but it will have to be done indirectly.”

“Such as?” Irwyn raised an eyebrow.

“You will be challenged to a lot of honor duels in the near future by sycophants our age trying to kill you for favour,” Elizabeth sighed. “Annoying but not actually dangerous. Sending you on particularly dangerous assignments is another trick – which will not happen because you will be with me and they cannot justify that. They will also try to bribe or coerce people to stab you in the back. But they will be clumsy and unsuccessful attempts. A decent chunk of resources and risk was invested in you Irwyn. My parents will not let that easily go to waste at this point.”

“I suppose that is reassuring,” Irwyn nodded. “Perhaps we…” he began but was interrupted.

A man stood in front of their bench, Irwyn realized. It was the other side’s lawyer who had for whatever reason not left along with the Fathomsight Lord. He was also staring at Nilly, extremely intently. Irwyn panicked slightly given what they had just been speaking about but a glance at Elizabeth showed him she was not surprised or panicking at all.

“Who are you?” the man said, his arm trembling.

“That is the question, is it not?” Nilly smiled wide and stood up as Irwyn stared. “Like a knot at the back of your head, just refusing to let go.”

“Tell me!” the man screamed at her, startling Irwyn. The male lawyer was visibly shaking now. Irwyn looked at them again, wearing identical clothes and such eerily familiar mannerisms. But now that he looked at their faces next to each other he realized there was a deeper resemblance. Unmistakably shared features of their visages, the kind that were close enough to assume a relation.

“What are you talking about?” Nilly walked around the bench, placing a hand at the man’s chest. “I am me!”

“No! You are not!” the man recoiled but the hand followed him. “WHY DO YOU HAVE HER FACE?!”

“What do you mean, daddy?” Nilly shrunk before Irwyn’s sight, making him freeze at the unexpected shift. In the blink of an eye, she was younger… much younger. Perhaps fourteen if Irwyn had to guess by appearance. Even her suit morphed into a black summer dress loosely put over her suddenly tender shoulders. “You are scaring me!”

“No, no, I buried you,” the man collapsed backwards to the ground. Irwyn tried to speak but realized that no words would come out. Neither could he move nor reach for magic. All he could do was stare as things unfolded.

“Can’t you see? I am right here, daddy,” Nilly spoke again, kneeling in front of the man and putting her hands to his cheeks.

“I… I… I…” the man was breathing hard, shaking in delirious fervor. Then he leaned forward and hugged Nilly with all the strength of maddened desperation. “Yes, I know. It’s all right. I am right here.”

“Yes, you are,” Nilly hugged him back and they stayed like that for at least 20 seconds in which Irwyn struggled but found his fetters unshakeable. “Then… can you tell me, daddy?”

“Tell you what? No… anything,” the man hesitated then immediately changed his mind. “I will tell you anything. Just stay with me, alright?”

“Then daddy, why did you hurt the others?” Nilly asked with a sweet and innocent voice. “What did they do to deserve what you did to them? What you stole from them?”

“W…what do you mean?” the man recoiled again.

“Was it because you were bitter about what happened to me?” Nilly was still smiling and it seemed so innocent on the outside. And yet… “Did you want other parents to feel the same way you did? Or perhaps you thought that causing pain would take yours away.”

“I… have done no such thing!”

“Really?” Nilly asked in the little girl’s voice, then changed. She was suddenly a chubby young boy in a shirt with several sharks sewn onto it. “Then why did you cut my fingers?” then her – its - form shifted again, into a girl with long golden locks and a crown of flowers. “It hurt when you peeled me,” another girl, a bit older in a sparkling skirt glowing with magic. “Did I deserve the rake?” an athletic boy in trousers. “You laughed when I begged to die.”

“What is happe…”

“Hush, hush,” Nilly was in her original form again, placing a finger over the man’s lips. Then she blew a fistful of powder into their face. The man started coughing as Nilly stood up and moved away from him. Five, six times, then the coughing stopped. Then the man looked up again, shocked, confused and horrified.

“yjo.. yao… yoe…” the lawyer stood up and pointed at Nilly but words failed him while the ‘woman’ had a wide smile plastered across her face. Too wide actually. Literally ear to ear. Then her lips moved and rows of sharp teeth showed.

Then she reached forward with her hand, but the man was too far as he was desperately backing away. So, instead of moving, her fingers grew, elongated. From digits into skin ropes, hundreds of knuckles adorning each at regular intervals as Nilly grabbed the terrified man’s head, then two of the malformed appendages reached for their temple and pulled something out.

A moment passed as the man froze. Nilly returned to her previous state, except with a slightly different face. The man wavered on his feet for a moment, then blinked. He glanced at Nilly, confused but not visibly terrified anymore. Not a hint of fear or recognition, actually.

“Your Young Ladyship, I shall take my leave,” he politely said and then hurried away. But in a way a busy man would rather than a retreat in the face of dread.

“By the Aspects, what was that?!” the moment the lawyer passed through the gate Irwyn could finally speak, whatever had just held him slipping away in a single breath.

“My due compensation,” Nilly smiled, a human grin. “The dew of vengeance, fresh and ripe.”

“What have you done to him?” Irwyn glanced at the gate, shaken by the frankly horrific display.

“Exactly the kind of things he deserved,” she laughed. “Not a smidgen more or less for kind treatment was not among them.”

“You have what you wanted,” Elizabeth seemed unphased though, speaking with calm. “Leave at your leisure.”

“I would not be opposed to an explanation,” Irwyn opined.

“Why don’t I write a letter while I am at it, eh?” Nilly rolled her eyes. Except each rolled in the opposite direction. “I followed my dealings to the letter and owe nothing more.”

“And I did not imply otherwise,” Irwyn nodded slowly.

“By those words I shall act then, bye,” Nilly smiled from ear to ear one last time, then dropped dead. Life left her eyes in a blink and before her corpse even collapsed it already began to decompose. Clothes and skin shriveled, then fell into dust - which was all that remained of the woman in just a few moments. Then even the dust dispersed, seemingly vanishing into nothing.

“What was that?!” Irwyn took a breath which failed to calm him, then turned to Elizabeth who had been calm until that moment.

“Our plan B,” she answered but shakily. Irwyn realized her hand was trembling slightly even if she did not let that reach her face. Composure cracking now that she no longer feared to lose it.

“If the Duchess play didn’t work out for whatever reason,” Irwyn grasped. “She contacted some kind of fae?” because what else than a Sister of life could that have been? It was far more… malicious than the few Irwyn had met but then again, he had been warned by themselves that the fae could be fickle. The effortless shapeshifting and semi-whimsical – though he shivered at such a description - actions were the biggest giveaway, not the mention the strange way of speech.

“No, this was not part of my mother’s plan,” Elizabeth shook her head, calming down. “I was approached personally on your behalf and kept this a secret best I could.”

“Mine?” Irwyn was rather surprised to hear.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Have you ever met any fae? ‘Nilly’ knew you by name.”

“Yes, I did once on my way to Abonisle,” Irwyn admitted. “But they were… very different. I don’t think this one was among them, though it would be hard to tell. Even then they were loose with appearance and names.”

“Maybe you left an impression,” Elizabeth nodded. “Either way, an offer was made. The fae wanted access deep into City Black to ‘hunt’ and in exchange promised to help you escape if things went South. And well, I was already supposed to recruit a lawyer.”

“Stealing me away in tact sounds like a… harsh ordeal,” Irwyn noted. There was absolutely no way that City Black wasn’t heavily fortified to stop intruders from both entering and leaving.

“Better than no plan B at all,” Elizabeth shrugged. “Not to mention that finding a regular person who wouldn’t get intimated by the Fathomsights would have been difficult. They tried hard to make her turn on us or not appear at all today.”

“Won’t someone suspect something amiss if they find no trace of this ‘lawyer’ who represented me?” and checking records was not particularly hard. All it would require was a hunch or a practical routine.

“Faen magic,” Elizabeth shrugged. “It works in incomprehensible ways for people on our level but from what I have come to understand, anyone looking into her past will be made to be sure nothing is amiss, even subconsciously forging their own reports if necessary. Of course, that will not work on powerful enough mages but those are not sent to do background checks.”

“And whatever she did to that man, he had not died on the spot,” which meant dissociation from the trial itself. Irwyn remembered that faceful of dust. He had no idea what it would actually do but decided after a moment that he probably wouldn’t want to know. The picture painted of them was not pretty. And neither would be their fate if he had to wager.

“If they die in the nearby future at all,” Elizabeth shrugged. “Fae are known to be fickle and have a different outlook on things. It could be a decade-long knell or she might not have sought their death at all. No way to know at the moment and I am wary to send anyone to keep an eye out. My mother would notice that and I would rather try to keep this from her - it is already quite possible she suspects something.”

“Yes, you are right,” Irwyn sighed. No point in taking risks for mere curiosity. He did not know how the Duchess might actually react if she knew. “I just wonder why ‘Nilly’. The fae seem to be fluid with names but it is still a strange one.

“Who knows? I chose it willy-nilly,” Irwyn heard a whisper behind his ear and jumped, actually falling over the table and barely turning to land on his behind rather than face. He had felt nothing, heard no approach. And still, the fae had been behind him. “Like watching a fly fly, no deeper meaning or reason behind it.”

“I was under the impression that you have… left,” Elizabeth carefully said back on guard as she walked around the table to help Irwyn up. More to make meaningless distance than because he actually needed assistance.

“Oh, you know how it is. I lie as I lie, or tell the while sitting truth perhapstimes,” Nilly chuckled to herself as she gracefully floated to sprawl over the table. “But that is what I present: Just because I left doesn’t mean I am no longer present.”

“Do you want anything more from us then?” Irwyn ventured.

“It is wanton to want tons of things,” she shook her head, moving it far enough to the sides it would have broken most necks. “But you surge with curiosity Starchild, I am inclined to sate it. Ask!”

“Yes,” Irwyn nodded as he tried to think. There went better not knowing, he supposed. That hadn’t necessarily been a suggestion. “Hunting was mentioned. Why do you pursue people?”

“Ah, that is a question of the good kind,” Nilly nodded. “You see I don’t care for who is kind or otherwise but what I cannot stand is the breaking of the only true principle. Do you know it? Remember it? My sister would have surely mentioned it.”

“That ‘to deceive is to change and to live is to deceive’,” Irwyn recited it had been memorable to him at least. It was probably why the Lifegiver Vitaros was also titled the Deceiver after all.

“Just right, just right,” Nilly laughed, her mouth revealing rows upon rows of dull teeth - each a molar. “And that is the very nature of everything that lives. A fundamental right of metamorphosis. And therefore, those who deprive it must suffer.”

“You acted out children,” Irwyn noted trying not to remember too many details of that morbid play.

“Humans grow so very stiff with age,” Nilly nodded with sudden seriousness. “They lie to themselves just fine, ah, but the form, the form. With growth they forget how to bamboozle the world around them. But still, something better than naught. And in no age or era will I abide by those that strip away even that little.”

“Children die all the time, daily even,” Irwyn pointed out.

“And I am just one sister crusade,” Nilly nodded. “I cannot possibly prevent every death. Why try? Vengeance is so much more satisfying and always plentiful - enough that I can pick and choose the most egregious. I have not gone thirsty for a single year since the start of this quest.”

“I see,” Irwyn slowly nodded. It was twisted logic but he imagined it made perfect sense from the perspective of this fae. It also made him even more want to get away from the powerful maniac speaking with him. “I believe my curiosity is sated.”

“Good, good, half-truths have a nice ring to them,” she jumped up straight, then traced a perfect ring with her fingers. “But I can see I have overstayed my welcome. I wouldn’t want you to be so scared you hold a grudge. I can already see our places switched in a century or two. farvel n.“

This time she did not just decay away. Nilly exploded into a barrage of blood. Not blood and gore, just blood. Because there were no fragments of bone, sinew, skin, or anything else that a function shell of flesh ought to traditionally have. Just a sanguine spray… that did not actually touch or stain anything. Instead, it all formed into neat strings which interlaced and combined into an image. It reminded Irwyn of a rose made of still-bleeding flesh for the split second before it disappeared into nothingness.

“Is she actually gone this time?” Irwyn breathed out.

“As if I could tell,” Elizabeth shook her head. “I have been told the fae were moody and alien but I did not expect it to be like that.”

“I have met a few once, as I said but that evening did not involve murder,” Irwyn nodded. “I think they were mostly fascinated with my peculiar inability to write. A different question comes to mind thought.”

“Which is?”

“It relates to elemental advantage,” Irwyn elaborated first. The principle that described certain elements being better suited for certain effects than others. “How difficult is it to translocate using Life magic as she had?”

“I am more concerned about how difficult it is to kill someone who can just discard their body,” Elizabeth shrugged. “But I assume this is on the higher end of power even for the fae.”

“Not Named though,” Irwyn said confidently.

“I am not so certain,” Elizabeth admitted. “The universe is full of ancient immortals. And we are far more likely than average to run into them on account of Fate.”

“She might be close but not Named,” Irwyn reiterated, shaking his head. “I once met someone who seemed rather knowledgeable and they shared with me a piece of wisdom, that the fae change what they call themselves or each other on a whim. They summed it in a simple principle: They don’t have a name until they have a Name. And I don’t think anyone would just hide their Name.”

“I wish I could just get someone to look into this without raising questions,” she muttered under her breath.

“Maybe you can claim to meet a wandering fae in the nearby future and use it as an excuse,” Irwyn suggested. “And speaking of nearby future… now that I am acquitted I am rather unsure as to what mine holds.”

“Well, first of all you will be moving,” Elizabeth moved right into the new conversation. “A guest house on more private property. Then tomorrow my mother wants to meet you face to face. Even I wasn’t told much more than that. My assumption is she intends to reveal what she has schemed for us in this Lich War.”