Chapter 24: Serica: Areli’s Extraction
Serica:
With the intel from my time with Illia and Purfree this was simple. I'd let myself through the garden door, which was always left unlocked, and drifted unseen through wide, empty halls that hadn't seen more than a maid's attention in weeks. The floors were tile, also known as clay, also known as Earth. They were compliant, didn't make a whisper at my footfalls.
It seemed a matter of course that Regis would house Areli in these forgotten spaces. I still didn't know the specifics of their hidden daughter, but that wouldn't last long. Her bedroom lay behind a right, a left, and an unassuming service-stair. I opened its door, and found myself face to face with a distraught mother, "Please."
Persephine slunk, ass on the stairs, eyes freshly red from a session of bawling. She had a butcher's knife in her lap. I took a step back. I was trained, and knew better than to corner a woman and her child. This was a development, she wasn't supposed to be here. She lived a practical street-block of passages away. If she'd somehow clocked my approach, that meant she had magic.
I pondered my chances of snagging the blade with a flaming whip, found it too risky, and likely inconsequential. It was there for warning, not defense.
"Alright, I'm listening." I said, and settled onto the floor, hands in my lap, palms up.
Persephine's blonde bangs were darkened with salt, perspiration or tears. She wore a black night-gown, a sign that I'd bolted her upright in her sleep or halfway through a wine bottle, either way, she wasn't all here.
She hesitated, tried to work through her response. She likely had a vague understanding of what I represented. One daughter's mentor, here at the hidden bed-chamber of another. She had to know I came to claim Areli. I hoped she realized that whatever I had planned, it was a better alternative than life with Regis.
I grew tired of waiting, every spared moment threw off our schedule, set Purfree's watch on our tail. "Areli-" she pulled back at the name, "she deserves better."
Persephine nodded and her eyes re-welled, "I shoud've-"
Yes you fucking should have.
I didn't move, she was ready to undo herself. It wasn't clean or quick, but it would be efficient.
That's not you.
"Damn-it... Push!" The tiles flexed, obeyed, and flung me at her. In an instant I had a fore-arm at her throat and the cleaver in my hand, "Do not get in my way."
I reclaimed my feet, stood above her, collapsed on the steps, hair clinging to them, heaving breath.
The fucking hair.
Blonde Persephine, crimson Reilin, Regis, the rest of them, and black Areli.
She's illegitimate.
I seethed. It clicked and it sucked. I couldn't let myself lay blame at Persephine's feet, it could have been forced upon her, but whatever happened, Regis was not Areli's father, and he'd made everyone else suffer for it.
Persephine pulled her arms close. If she called on something I'd end her myself. The woman was half-gone already, it wouldn't be difficult, "Just go, you don't want her to see you like this."
I stepped forward, we were already too late, the choice was hers. Areli's door lay in a small, cobweb strewn corridor at the stair's top. It peeled open quiet, I don't know why the hinges were oiled.
Inside, six by six foot, a cot, a quilt, a too-small bookcase, lamp atop it, and a sleeping girl. I'd missed the rose-spectacles, wrapped at the lamp's base. They slid into my blouse-pocket and I wrapped her, brought her up gently over my shoulder. A book sat on the other side of her pillow, and wound up nestled between us. She stirred for a moment that I waited out, and then I turned.
Persephine had the grace to make herself sparse. We bottomed the stairs and began our trek to the garden. It was quiet, her chest rose and fell against my shoulder. I felt like I'd done right for once.
Then a bell chimed, watchmen shouted, and Areli woke.
I could have run, accepted the chaos, but I knew better. She struggled, bolted upright and then tried to fold backward. I held shame for the world that she didn't scream. She should have, but her instinct was to stay quiet. I held her tight, let her see my face.
Her arms wrapped my neck. She buried her face into my shoulder, and I walked her outdoors.
The world was anger and confusion. Boots trampled, a watchman eyed us and I waved him off. We were just two raven-haired guests, a woman and her girl, disrupted by some midnight security incident.
I'm sorry they didn't recognize you.
Illia paced at the cherry tree, our rendezvous, naked but for a disheveled thong.
Okay.
I wrapped an arm around her and told the soil to "Push."
We flitted over the wall, beneath and surrounding me was black, I braced my legs for impact, felt it hit, and ran. Illia slipped from my arm, barked cold laughter, and unleashed the night upon that place.
Each bound released another from her chain. A shiver fell across me as they rolled across walls and cobblestones in my wake. Those vengeful girls, rounding to face with the corruption that had driven them this far.
We heard shouts, screams, and pleas as we ducked around corners. I was flying blind, off memory, my shoulder kissed a brick-face and bloomed wet. I gripped Areli's head close, rebounded off another wall, and carried on.
An Earth-touched bound carried us through the window. I grabbed "Home Base", shuttered the window, and waited.