Yvon Leffoy (yvon) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-09-29 13:16:00 |
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Current mood: | working |
Late Tuesday afternoon, 15 September 1942, at St Mungo's Hospital in Londinium...
“Alessio,” Yvon Malfoy said quietly, “there’s nothing I can do by myself. Your brother’s not responding to verbal input. He doesn’t even respond when he’s touched. I need you to help me.” He swallowed, nervous and hopeful. There was only one thing he could think of to try, and he didn’t want to wait for Endymion Dashwood to arrive from Trevena. Especially not when he didn’t know what he was going to find, and he didn’t know how well Endymion had recovered from trying to read the demons who’d been guarding the church at the Old Pond. “Do you understand what I need you to do?”
Alessio Zabini swallowed hard himself, pale with worry, and he shook his head. “I…I don’t…he’s not responding at all? Not at all?” Alessio knew that was bad. Therapeutic Legilimency required a patient who was alert enough to respond to trance induction. If Yvon was using the command-voice and still couldn’t wake him, Nicodemo was trapped in his own head. And Alessio didn’t need to be told how bad that was.
“No,” said Yvon. “I can’t wake him. Even chakra balancing doesn’t work if he’s not responding to external stimuli. Did he ever say anything to you about building a memory palace? Maman did that, and she gave me a key phrase; she gave one to him as well. Maybe she taught him to do it as well?” He was grasping at straws, but he didn’t want to ask this thing of Alessio, who was still just beginning to get control of his power.
Alessio shook his head. “No, never, never. It doesn’t…it doesn’t seem like something he’d do. I don’t think.”
Yvon frowned. “I tried to activate his slate and reach Maman, but it won’t respond to me. If he’s locked himself in a memory palace, he’s safe. If he hasn’t…we shouldn’t wait for her to respond to an owl or dispatch. You don’t have to be told what will happen to him if he’s trapped in a prison in his own mind, subject to someone else’s mistreatment and unable to get out. I need you to take me in there. If Endymion were here, I’d ask him, but he’s not. And he’s still ill from yesterday.”
“Gods,” Alessio breathed, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t…I don’t know if I can, I mean, it’s like what Endymion does, but I don’t know how.” He breathed out heavily; he knew he could do this, but he was afraid of it: what if he couldn’t stop, what if he got trapped in there with Nico, and Yvon as well? “I can try, though. I have to try.”
“You can do this.” Yvon clasped his shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. Maybe Nicodemo couldn’t respond to his voice, but Alessio would. “Telepathy is the only thing I can think of that will bring him out of this for sure. You were doing it at breakfast yesterday. I know you couldn’t control it then. But I can control you. You know that.”
Alessio nodded. “I just…I don’t know how to take you with me, I barely know how to do it for myself.”
“You just have to stay in contact with my mind,” said Yvon, who suspected it might be more difficult for Alessio not to. “That shouldn’t be difficult for you, Alessio.”
“No, true,” Alessio admitted, pushing his fringe behind his ear. Nicodemo needed him. Needed him, when so often it was the other way round. It was his turn now. “All right. All right. I can do this.”
Yvon smiled at him. “Think about Endymion and how he makes you feel. Endymion has hypertrophy of the fourth and fifth chakras; so when we go in there, I want you to pull the energy up through your heart and your throat.” Yvon led Alessio into the room where Nicodemo lay in bed, curled up in a ball on his side like a child in the womb. “Me first,” he said softly, stepping between the brothers; he knew that if he let Alessio think about what he was seeing, Alessio would lose his composure. “Sit down with me. I’ll be easier. I’m opening my mind to you…now.” He pulled a second chair over to the bed, to face the one he would be sitting in himself.
Alessio sat down. He didn’t allow himself to look at Nico long, or to get upset the way he looked, curled up defensively around himself. As Yvon talked, Alessio focused, pulling his energy up just as he’d said, thinking about the breakfast table, the way the thoughts had echoed in his mind: all the things he could associate with the moments of telepathy he’d managed to use. It felt strange to do it deliberately, but there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his brother, and nothing he wouldn’t do for Yvon.
Yvon didn’t allow himself to think about how little he understood what they were doing. They did experimental treatments all the time at Mungo’s. He induced himself, going easily into trance, and even though it went against all his instincts to open his own mind, this was Alessio. So he did everything he didn’t do when he used occlumency, looking right into Alessio’s eyes and deliberately stilling his own thoughts, making his mind clear like water.
Alessio reached out without hands, took hold in Yvon, through the well-worn pathways they’d built up by sharing energy in bed. Yvon’s thoughts were clear and orderly, though there was a darker, more chaotic layer below that Alessio knew well and avoided. It made him smile to feel himself in Yvon’s mind. “There you are,” he murmured, and the words echoed through both of their minds.
Here I am. Yvon smiled at him. Later, we really need to make love like this. After we talk about this afternoon, though…and save your brother. He’d been angry about the way Alessio had surprised him in Priscilla’s office, but he couldn’t be angry now, and not just because of the work to be done. Not now, not surrounded by Alessio’s warmth.
Alessio nodded and turned his attention to Nico. Holding onto Yvon was easier than he’d thought it would be, just like holding his hand. He was surprised that he had instincts, and they worked. But his smile died on his lips as he concentrated, trying to find Nico. His brother’s body was alive and well but there seemed to be no-one home, only the faintest presence at all, buried deep and hidden away. He looked for the wall, thinking of himself and Yvon as a gentle wind that could slip through the cracks, but there were no stones. The wall was made of briars, like the walls around the Manor in the Bois. The briars were overgrown and dying; the thorns were wicked and cruel, and the flowers were dying. The scent of blood was thick in the air, and the leaves had fallen away from the twisted trees. A cold moon shone down on the blackened ground, which was marbled with patches of snow. The briars parted for Yvon, walking along at Alessio’s side.
The standing stones were covered in blood. There was a broken body on the altar-stone, too mangled to identify; but Yvon knew that it was his mother Dracaena’s. The one that had fallen below her was his own. “This is the Bois,” he said softly. “Or it could be, if we were all dead.”
“Oh, Gods.” Alessio looked around in horror. If this was where Nico was trapped, they had to get him out. Just the smell in the air, ozone and death and blood, made him sick. “I guess…I guess the Manor, he’s likely to be there, that makes sense,” he said, heading that way determinedly.
“I think so,” said Yvon, running after him. Ice and dead leaves and dead bees crunched under their feet. He determinedly refused to look at his mother’s dismembered corpse; his own was harder to ignore, but he managed. This was not real and he was not going to be trapped in it.
Alessio was concertedly not looking around. He knew what he would see and he didn’t want to see it. If he got angry, or frightened, they would either be trapped or fall out of the trance, and even if they didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to help. So he followed Yvon down the faint silver track that Yvon’s mind provided, down toward the Manor. The smell of smoke was stronger here, acrid and bitter. Three of the towers had nearly been razed to the ground, and he couldn’t tell if it was ash in the air or snow. A red and white flag with black runes on it hung from what was left of the fourth tower.
A girl came running out of that tower, half-naked, her blond hair dripping blood, and threw herself off, screaming in French that she wouldn’t be taken again. Yvon stopped in his tracks and looked over at the body: it had once been his niece, Juliana. “Whoever did this to him knows Liane,” he said softly. “Or else she’s made more of an impression on your brother than I thought. That’s interesting. As a data point.”
Wide-eyed, Alessio swore in gutter Italian. “We have to get him out of here,” he said firmly, looking over the ruins, then picking the best way to move inside with a decisive little nod.
Yvon followed him. There were armed soldiers looting and guarding the central keep, but they trooped around in blissful unawareness of the intruders’ presence. “We’ve seen Mother, me, Liane…and that could have been Charis out on the wall,” he said quietly. “But we haven’t seen Luce or Endymion. He’ll be with them.”
Alessio nodded. “What kind of sick mind would you have to have to think all this up for him?” he asked, picking his way through the rubble. Even if the soldiers didn’t notice them, he stayed out of their way.
“Someone who knows what frightens him most,” Yvon said quietly. “All they would have to do is plant a seed, and he could generate the better part of it himself out of his own worst nightmares. If they’d done it to you or me, we’d be in Spain again.”
That made Alessio shudder. “He’s got to be in here somewhere. Master suite, maybe?”
Yvon glanced at him oddly. Alessio knew that Nicodemo and Dracaena still didn’t sleep in the bed she had shared with Ercole, but he trusted Alessio… “That seems…unlikely.” He frowned. “Unless they’re down where the paintings are…” Yvon had gone down there only once; he wasn’t sure if Alessio even knew about that room. “Maman keeps all her old paintings—and Esteban’s—in a secret room you can only reach through her wardrobe. If I were him, I’d have taken Endymion and Luce down there. Assuming they’re not out here somewhere, resting in pieces.”
“Let’s try it,” Alessio said. “It sounds like a good guess.”
“Okay,” said Yvon. “There has to be at least one person left for him to protect; otherwise he wouldn’t want to live without Maman. That’s why he’s not responding; he doesn’t want to give them away.” He led Alessio up the stairs, which shouldn’t even have been there, the keep had seemed so demolished outside; they were seemingly interminable, but none of the lifts were operable.
Alessio was sure there was something wrong, the way the stairs just seemed to stretch on and on, but after a few Germans clattered down past them so close Alessio was so sure he could feel the fabric of their uniforms, they managed to get to the top. That only began the process of winding through the corridors, which, even at a trot, were nightmarishly twisting and long.
“Here,” Yvon said softly, and pulled him into an anteroom. “You can go round through here. This is the room where she sleeps. Close your eyes, don’t look, just follow me.” He took Alessio’s arm and marched him through the room, head down as though he had blinders on, ignoring the broken furniture, the bloodied beds, and from there into the master suite, where he thrust Alessio first into the wardrobe. “Be prepared,” he said softly. “If he’s aware of us at all when we get down there…he’s going to think we’re more of them.”
Alessio nodded and headed down the stairs at a faster clip, steeling himself for whatever was at the bottom. All of this just made him more determined to get Nico out of this, and if he had anything to say about it, never let anything happen to him again.
“I know,” said Yvon softly, the thoughts so loud he could hear them, and caught Alessio by the arm. “But this is his mind, Alessio. This is his reality. He’s the only thing here that can hurt us. Do you understand? These Germans can’t hurt us unless he makes them. He can. Unless you sense someone else here. Whoever did this to him is long gone. He’s in control of this world, he just doesn’t know that.”
Alessio nodded. “I know. I just want to get him out of here. Badly.”
“So do I,” said Yvon, who still didn’t think Alessio got it. “But you can’t go charging down those stairs. He’s down there and he thinks he’s protecting something or someone, and whatever someone or something he thinks he’s protecting, he controls that too. Be quiet, don’t stomp, don’t make him aware of us yet. We need to find a way to communicate, or something or someone is just going to attack us, and whatever it is, it’ll be him, so defending ourselves, we’ll hurt him.”
Alessio nodded again. “Right. Right, no,” he said, understanding dawning and he pulled away to walk more carefully down the stairs. At the bottom there was a great stone room; the walls were covered with canvases, canvases hanging from racks, and shelves covered with sketchbooks and notebooks and scrolls.
Yvon had been down there once; it looked familiar but different, reconstructed from Nicodemo’s nightmares and memories. He didn’t recognise any of the art he saw now; it was all horrible, a thousand different evil futures staring back at him. All of them were Nicodemo’s fears, and a part of him wanted to catalogue the horrors, because the information might be useful. But he felt dirty even looking at them. Instead he glanced down to the far end of the room where he knew Dracaena kept the ones she feared the most. That door was closed, and probably locked and barricaded.
“He’s in there, isn’t he?” Alessio asked in a rough whisper. He didn’t want to look at the paintings, the sketches, but it was almost impossible to look away. Everywhere he looked was another horror more terrible than the last, a nightmarish kaleidoscope.
“Yes,” whispered Yvon. “Don’t look at the paintings. This…this is what he was living with when she was in Germany. The things he was afraid would happen then, the things he thinks might happen if Patil and Mysteries get their way. These are his secrets. We’re not meant to see them. Just come with me.” He swallowed. “Somehow we have to convince him we’re real. That he didn’t see me killed.” He paused before a painting of a man he recognised as Nicodemo, much younger, curled up in a dark corner with the child that had once been Alessio caught in his arms. “That whatever’s in there with him…isn’t you. Because I haven’t seen you here yet either.” Yvon looked down at Alessio, absolutely clear-eyed. “That’s what it was when you were children, the two of you huddling together alone, wasn’t it? It’s not Endymion, it isn’t Luce…it’s probably you.”
Alessio felt his throat go tight and he nodded. “It was always just him and me.”
Yvon sighed heavily. “You’re the one with the power to reach him, not me. All I’ve got is logic and trance induction. That won’t work till he can hear my voice, and only you can make him hear it.”
“I’ll reach him,” Alessio said, swallowing that tightness away and he nodded again, more determined now.
Yvon followed him to the door. “You have my strength,” he whispered, squeezing Alessio’s hand. “Remember, he won’t know I’m even here ‘til you’ve reached his mind. Unless you touch his mind, when you get that door open…he’s only going to see them. Not us.”
Alessio nodded, closing his eyes, not thinking about the strange loop of trying to reach Nico’s mind while they were in Nico’s mind, that was just too dizzying to really consider. He just reached out for the mind he knew: Nico. At first all he could feel was wild, wordless fear, and then the small room came into sharp focus. There was a rush of cold and the smell of old battlefields: blood and dirt and shit and fear. The room was so dark he could hardly see, even through Nico’s eyes, but he could hear the ragged breathing and little whimpers of the hot, damp bundle in his arms. Alessio knew, with a suddenness that made his stomach lurch, that it was himself as a child, tiny and helpless and mute but for soft sounds of panic. There was something else heavy slumped across the door, and that, he knew, had been Endymion Dashwood once.
“Nico, it’s me,” Alessio called, swallowing that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and rattling the handle of the locked door. “It’s okay, it’s me, I came to find you.”
“Locked?” Yvon sighed. “Of course it’s locked. Probably barred and barricaded too.”
“He’s in there, it’s horrible, Gods, it’s like we’re kids again only a million times worse,” Alessio tried to explain.
Yvon nodded. “Should’ve expected that,” he said in a philosophical voice. “Yell louder.” He bit his lip. “Inside his head as well as out. Don’t worry about giving me a headache. I’ve got it already anyway.”
“Well, I’m sorry anyway,” Alessio told him. He pounded his fist on the door, and did exactly what he was told. “Nico! It’s me! Come on!”
“No!” Nico yelled, his voice cracking with fear or rage, Alessio couldn’t tell, but he could feel his own body tighten as Nico held on to the child in his arms. “No, you can’t have him!”
Yvon leaned against the door and closed his eyes, reaching out through Alessio’s mind and into the red snarl of pain, hoping that the pain was Nicodemo. He’d never done this before. He was a Legilimens, not a telepath; he knew how to look in through the eyes and read the secrets written behind them; he had never felt anything like this. But if they were linked, then it only stood to reason that he could use this power as well.
It was the hardest thing Yvon had ever done with his mind. Linked as closely with Alessio as he was, it would have been easy to believe that this was all real, because the smells and sounds and sights were so vivid. But he forced himself to remember that the dirt and blood and bodies were figments of Nico’s tortured imagination. “Nicodemo,” he said in a loud voice. “Everything you see here is a lie. Alessio is a man, he’s nearly thirty, he’s out here with me, and we’re alive, and you’re at St Mungo’s. Maman—Lady Dracaena—is in Tintagel, waiting for you.”
Yvon willed the stone beneath his feet to become insubstantial, willed himself to float in the grey of the overworld and willed the mists to seep through whatever cracks in the stone they could find, and himself, still to hold onto Alessio’s arm, and Alessio’s mind. It made every nerve in his whole body burn. “These are illusions.”
“Don’t lie, I saw it, don’t lie!” Nico yelled, and Alessio winced as he scrambled back, pushing himself against the wall in the dark, tiny room, the stones slippery with heaven only knew what, still curled protectively around the boy that Alessio couldn’t bear to think of as himself.
“I know you saw it,” Yvon said quietly, and pushed, trying to break the illusion’s hold on him, to reveal the grey nothingness and howling winds beneath to them all. “But it’s an illusion. Alessio, walk through that door. You should be able to do it.” He willed the mists he knew were there to appear, the darkness to break. Why was this so difficult? Nicodemo was already induced, already in a trance state.
Yvon scrambled to find the anchor, the trigger, something to hold onto…the memory this had been linked to. It was the childhood memory, of course. If he could at least get Nicodemo back there and out of this fantasy… He tugged at Alessio’s mind: Alessio. What happened? When were you trapped with him, really? When?
“I don’t know, I don’t remember, maybe…maybe it wasn’t trapped, maybe it was hiding…?” Alessio suggested, trying to push through the door, but it felt like solid oak under his hands and there was something pushed up against it, and he couldn’t get it to give for him.
Just to me, like this, Yvon thought at Alessio. You have to remember it. You have to get him back to something real, so we can get him back to reality. Give me the memory.
Alessio swallowed. He didn’t want to remember, but being here, the memory was closer to the surface than he wanted it to be. He didn’t want Yvon to know, to see him like that, terrified and unable to control his own body, hiding in the stable in the hope that their father wouldn’t find them in his drunken rage.
I’m sorry but you have to, Yvon said, and pushed Alessio through the door and into that stable. This was not real, and he wasn’t going to give into it. That way lay madness. Clearly you were a child at the time. Tuscany? When your mother died, maybe?
Maybe! The shove through the door was startling, but then Alessio was on the other side of the door, looking at a brother he could only barely remember, young and gangly and all wild curls. The look in his eyes was dangerous. “It’s me, Nico, it’s Alessio, don’t you know me? I came for you, I couldn’t leave you here…”
Yvon fell forward and caught himself on Alessio’s shoulder; things were beginning to look a little less clear to him. It was a small room, but not the one he knew from the Manor. The paintings were gone, and there was an animal scent in the room, something that hadn’t come from anyone human or even faerie. A dog or a cow or a horse or something like that. The air was wrong, and there was never straw on the floors at the Manor.
“Nicodemo,” Yvon said firmly. “This is your past. This is over. You survived it. You’re an adult now; we all are.”
“You can’t take him!” Nico insisted, shaking his head, trying to scramble backwards again, but there was nowhere to go, and the sound of his boots scraping across the floor set Alessio’s teeth on edge, it tasted wrong and he didn’t know why.
“We don’t want to take him,” Yvon said, and crouched down at their level. “You can bring him along.” He didn’t like what Nicodemo was holding. It was adorable, like pictures of Alessio when he was a child; but the intelligence behind those eyes was not Alessio’s. It was something else. An automaton, a thought-form. Not a child.
Nico stopped scrambling back, but he still had that wild look of a trapped animal. “It’s not his fault, there’s nothing wrong with him, don’t say there’s anything wrong with him anymore!”
“Alessio is perfectly healthy,” said Yvon, looking into his eyes and tilting his head to mirror the tilt of Nicodemo’s head. “I’m a healer. I’d know. Do you remember who I am?”
Nico’s face furrowed in a thoughtful frown, then he shook his head. “Just don’t take him,” he said, softer, but still as adamant as before. “He doesn’t need a healer, he’s fine just the way he is.”
“I know,” said Yvon gently. “Who are you hiding from? Not me, surely.”
“Pappa. And Fulvio,” Nico said quietly, glancing around as if the name would produce the man.
“Your father died years ago,” said Yvon. “And Fulvio is in Tuscany. You’re in Londinium.”
“He’s coming though, I know he is,” Nico insisted, glancing around wildly. He’d seen so much horror, it could only be Fulvio’s doing or their father’s.
“He can’t. Your body is in Londinium. This is a memory, an old one.” Yvon tugged Alessio down to his side. “This is Alessio. I’m his fiancé. We’re nearly thirty now, and you are living with my Maman, Dracaena Malfoy, whom you love, and who misses you.”
Alessio crouched down next to him, and Nicodemo looked from the two men to the little boy in his arms, all messy dark hair and wide, scared brown eyes. “That…but…this is…”
“A memory,” Yvon said quietly. “A pretty little memory to be sure, a memory to be loved and cherished. But a piece of the past. And the present is so much better, I promise you this.”
“It…it’s not real? But…but…I’m real,” Nico said, not comprehending, and he shook his head slowly.
“You are,” said Yvon. “But you’re much older than fourteen. You’ve hidden yourself in the past because you’ve had terrible dreams, but they are dreams. Alessio and I have come to help you wake up from them.”
“I don’t want to let go of him,” Nico said, shaking his head. The child was clinging to him, viciously, its eyes gone red and sharp little teeth bared, but as long as it meant to pretend that it was Alessio, it could not speak. Yvon was grateful for that small advantage.
“You don’t have to,” Alessio told his brother, and reached for his hand. “I’m right here. Really here.”
Nico’s frown was puzzled, and he rubbed his face, starting to grind his teeth together as he thought. “I don’t understand, I want…to go home, but there’s no home left…”
“Yes, there is. It was a dream. I promise you I will make the bad dreams go away, but we have to go back so I can,” said Yvon. “I promise you’ll be safe with us.”
Finally, Nico took his brother’s hand. “Yes. Home. I want to go home.”
The vicious little changeling opened its mouth to bite him, but Alessio seized Nicodemo and held him tight; Yvon stared at the thing that was not Alessio, and hissed a word in the language that came from his bones, and it crumbled to dust. Now, things were easier. Yvon closed his eyes and tried once more to break the illusion. He was not about to march Nicodemo through the imaginary abattoir, and if he wasn’t made to see it as illusion, he would remember it as though it had actually happened, instead of just as a terrible dream. He willed the stone and straw to crumble, the smells to dissipate, the light and darkness to merge into mist and shade.
Alessio breathed out in relief as things started to fade, as everything around them started to grow grey and indistinct, but even still, Nico didn’t move and didn’t let go.
“Lies and illusions,” Yvon said softly. “Do you recognise me now?”
Nico blinked rapidly, as if trying to get water out of his eyes. “Yvon? What on earth…?”
“It was a dream,” said Yvon. “And you’re going to be back in your body soon, and I’ll sort it out for you there.”
“If that was a dream, then I want to wake up,” Nico said emphatically.
“Then wake up,” said Yvon, in the tone he always used to wake people up. He could sort it out with Legilimency more easily in the physical world.
Nico nodded, looked awkward for a moment, then said, “Thank you,” and disappeared.
That awkwardness made Alessio feel strange, as if they were walking somewhere they oughtn’t be at all, and he pulled back, letting go of all of them.
Yvon rubbed his eyes. There were a thousand angry goblins with pickaxes behind his eyes and he was going to get reamed if Priscilla found out about this, but he put that out of his mind. “Nicodemo,” he said sharply to the man on the bed. “Can you hear me now?”
“Yes,” Nico said, opening his eyes and blinking at the light, his voice rough. “Loudly.”
“This wasn’t done by spell-craft either,” Yvon said quietly. “I’m beginning to think that someone with an ability like yours and Alessio’s set these compulsions. And the traps that were in them.”
Nico made a thoughtful face, squeezing his brother’s hand when Alessio came over and took it briefly. “Then we’re in for all kinds of trouble.”
“We are,” Yvon acknowledged. “I need to use Legilimency on you to sort that all out. I think everything we saw was made up of past nightmares and experiences, but if I let this go into your long-term memory, you may suffer some of the same problems you might have had later if you’d actually lived through the experiences. I’m not sure how deep they went, and I need to be sure, and I can’t imagine you want someone you don’t know going through all that. I at least already know what all of it is and can put it all back where it belongs.”
“No, I don’t want someone I don’t know,” Nico agreed, making another face. “I don’t want anyone going through it all, really. But if it has to be done, it has to be done.”
“I’m sorry, it has to be done. We’re all shell-shocked enough around here,” said Yvon. “I do appreciate your trust, and Alessio’s; I promise to be worthy of it.” He looked down into Nicodemo’s eyes. “Alessio, you’d better let go of him, unless you want to be connected to us while I do this.”
Alessio shook his head, squeezed Nico’s hand once more, then let go of him, reluctantly.
“Try not to fight it,” Yvon said gently.
Nico exhaled softly and just tried to relax into what Yvon was doing.
“Good, good,” said Yvon. “Just imagine your mind as…your office. Someone’s gone into the files and taken things out and left them all over the place. These are very confidential files, so you’ll want to put them away yourself, but I’ll help you as much as I can. Everything should still be in folders; if you can just look at the folders and put everything back in the drawers without opening them, this will go more easily. Do you see the mess?”
Nico was surprised by the vividness of the image, and he felt like he was actually there, like he should call Galina to help, but that was ridiculous, he knew he wasn’t in his office at all. All the same, he picked up one of the red file folders left sitting by his desk. The temptation was there to look into it, to make sure the file name matched the contents, but he just tapped the folder on the edge of his desk, straightening the papers inside.
“If you see things that are out of their folders, do let me know. I will help you sort it out,” said Yvon in a strong, firm voice. “Your brother is here, too, if you need him, but he will be quiet for now.”
“I can’t imagine my brother doing filing,” Nico said with an amused little smirk, but he kept gathering up files. He wasn’t sure how this was working, if it was working at all, and it felt sort of ridiculous in its own way, but if this was what he had to do, he wanted to get it the hell over with and go home.
Yvon had to bite his tongue to maintain his professionalism instead of smugly declaring, he does it for me, but he managed. Just barely. “These are memories and nightmares, that’s why they’re confidential,” said Yvon. “We’re putting them back where they belong, so that they won’t get mixed up in the rest of your life.”
Nico hesitated, his hand over an open file, not sure if he should look at it, or just bundle it up. If it was open, it might be missing parts. “Just don’t look at any of them?”
“What do you want to look at, and why do you want to look at it?” Yvon asked softly.
“It’s open,” Nico told him, shaking his head. “I should look at it.”
“Why do you think so?” Yvon asked in a soft voice.
“I don’t know, this is all one big metaphor, isn’t it?” Nico said, trying not to snap.
“Calm, calm, you’re very calm,” said Yvon, frowning. Nicodemo was a very difficult subject at best. “I know you have a lot of angry feelings, and this has been a violation, but right now we need to keep our distance from that. There are a number of different reasons you might want to look at it. If you are afraid that it has been misfiled, that’s a good reason. If there is something about it that is compelling your attention, perhaps it would be better to resist.”
Nico exhaled again, working on keeping calm, just as Yvon said, and he gathered up the file without looking at it, ignoring the urge. “I just want to get this done.”
“I know, but better to do it properly than to have to do it again,” Yvon said quietly. “Just listen to the sound of my voice for a while. Let yourself float up on it and let go of your anger and urgency.”
Nico nodded, exhaling again, just breathing, listening, trying to let go of that irritation, that anger that kept threatening to boil over. Better to be angry than afraid.
“I know you’re afraid,” Yvon said softly. “But you are safe here, now. Neither your brother nor I will let anything near you.”
“I’m not afraid,” Nico wanted to insist, but what came out of his mouth was “No, no, I know,” and he hated admitting to fear, even by omission.
“Have you found anything that’s loose?” Yvon asked quietly.
“There’s…there’s papers, over there,” Nico said, looking around and spotting a few sheets of parchment lying loose by the filing cabinet.
“Pick them up and look just at the tops. Can you tell where they go?”
“I think so…” Nico frowned, picking up the papers, and he kept thinking about the smell of the barn in Tuscany, the sound of the cows in the straw in the winter.
“We’re here for you,” said Yvon. “Do you need us to take those and put them away for you?” He knew it would be better to go through all the old memories and try to milk the venom out of them; he also knew that even though Miranda would want him to do it that way, Nicodemo would never consent to it now, and didn’t have time to devote himself to the lengthy process of healing that would follow. After they’d won a few more battles. Or the war. There would always be something else, but Nicodemo really did need to maintain himself for now.
“No, it’s just…it’s just the barn,” Nico said. “Cows.” Looking at the papers, he could smell them, feel the sunlight on his head, look out at the green fields.
“So put them away where they belong. That’s part of your childhood. If you want to look at them, go ahead. But tell me what you’re looking at, so we can talk about it,” said Yvon.
“Good to know cows are still safe,” Nico said wryly, looking around for the right folder, there was a folder somewhere.
“Everything’s safe here,” said Yvon. “I am here to be your guide and keep you safe. But I also know that you prefer to put these things away instead of looking at them. It would be good to look at them some other day, when there is time. What we absolutely have to do now is put everything in order before you go home. Unless you want to begin a course of treatment. Which I would advise, when things are more settled.”
“I just have to find the folder,” Nico murmured, looking around for it with a thoughtful little frown.
“Is it the one you were thinking of looking at before? Maybe we should look at that one.” Yvon glanced at Alessio, hoping he was paying attention. Alessio was paying rapt attention, his eyes flickering between his brother’s face and Yvon’s.
“I think so,” said Nico, picking up the folder again and he opened it, tucking the papers inside.
“So what’s in there?” Yvon asked casually.
“Cows,” Nico said with a laugh, and looked at the papers. “Alessio when he was small. The hazel tree. Those are the best things in there.” Alessio had had a delicious scent as a baby, and had been such a sweet, warm weight in his arms. There was a hazel tree that they had loved, and then there was also a walnut tree, which Dracaena had come to love later…
“You want to remember those things,” Yvon said softly. “Alessio was adorable when he was small.” He was entirely unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. The child, if he had been real, would have been so beautiful. “And he still is.”
“He was,” Nico said with obvious fondness.
“He loved you very much. You did a good thing, taking care of him,” said Yvon.
“Someone had to, and I wanted to, I wanted to very much,” Nico said, smiling, and he closed the folder gently.
Alessio startled a little. He had always felt a little guilty about being so much of a burden on his brother; it was nice to hear that he hadn’t been.
“I think we’re all glad you did,” said Yvon. “Someday you’ll look at the other things. And we’ll be there with you when you do. But not today. Today, just keep that memory with you. And I want you to hold that memory close in your mind, so that you can always call it up instead of the other ones.”
“Yes,” Nico said, still smiling, and he put the folder away. He liked the look of his desk, so clean and orderly.
“Have we cleaned up the mess now?” Yvon asked quietly.
Nico looked around. “Yes…yes, it looks like it,” he said. There was something else still amiss, but it wasn’t his papers.
“Are the drawers all in order? Was everything where it’s meant to be?” Yvon sighed, hoping it was, and that they would be able to leave soon.
“Yes,” Nico said. “Everything’s closed up, where it should be.”
Yvon let out a deep breath. He was relieved. It could have been so much worse. Whoever had done this wasn’t a master of whatever art they had used. Or didn’t have his training. He could have thought of a dozen ways to do far more damage with the same power and process. “One last thing. Is there anything in your office that might be a clue to tell us who did this?” It seemed impossible to him that one could be in someone else’s mind and not leave traces of oneself behind.
Nico looked around, frowning. “No, I don’t…wait,” he said, looking at his chair, something glinting and catching his eye. He went over and retrieved from the seat a silver necklace, snapped in the back, a few of the blue stones missing. It was utterly random, and it puzzled him. “It…what on earth does this mean?”
“What did you find?” asked Yvon, who could not after all see the images in Nico’s mind.
“It’s a broken necklace,” Nico said, looking at the little piece of jewellery, turning it this way and that. It was tauntingly familiar and he was wracking his brain trying to remember who’d worn it.
“Have you seen it before?”
“Maybe? I don’t know, I don’t think so,” Nico said, frowning.
“Look at it closely and commit the details to memory. Have Maman draw you a picture. It’s the trace left by the person who did this to you. Perhaps we can identify…her,” said Yvon. Men didn’t usually wear necklaces.
“I don’t think I’m going to forget,” Nico said, staring intently at the necklace. Something about it bothered him, but he didn’t know what.
“You’ve seen it before, I’m certain,” said Yvon. “Is it Lalage’s?”
“No, not hers,” said Nico.
“Is it my brother Domitian’s?” Yvon scowled. Faerie men wore jewellery, as did some of the Old Blood; they were not people Lalage normally had as associates, but he had learnt to distrust the norm with Lalage Parkinson.
Nico snorted. “Not unless he has a penchant for dainty jewellery.”
“It…is it Portia’s?” Yvon asked gingerly. “It can’t have been Galina or Verity!”
“No, not at all,” Nico said firmly.
“It doesn’t belong to Juliana?” Yvon couldn’t believe his little niece was capable of this.
“No, it…I can’t…I’ve seen it, I think, I don’t know,” Nico said, struggling.
“Someone at the Weekly? In Michael Charteris’ offices?” Yvon hated it, grasping for straws.
“Yes,” Nico said. “Yes, his office, there, but it wasn’t broken there.” That was more familiar, that made sense. Someone had worn it in Charteris’ office, he remembered her, but not her face, just her necklace and her legs, because she wore short skirts, showing off her body as though it were a brand new toy, which he always suspected of being a sort of distraction.
“Who? Let her face appear to you out of the shadows.” Yvon swallowed.
Nico waited, but nothing was coming. “I can’t see her face, it’s not coming to me.”
“Can you see her shoes?” Yvon asked.
“Shoes? Seriously?” Nico asked, sceptically.
“Just answer me, can you see them,” Yvon said, frowning. He hated subjects like this. Couldn’t Nico understand that sometimes it was easier to come at things from a different direction?
“Yes, I can see her shoes,” Nico said.
“Okay,” said Yvon. “Start looking up. Look at her legs, at her skirt or trousers, at her clothes, at the necklace itself. Don’t try to look directly at her face, but try to catch it in your peripheral vision.”
Nico nodded, letting his eyes go up the girl’s body, noticing little, useless details about her clothes, but he still couldn’t see her face. “I can’t,” he said, getting frustrated.
“What colour is her hair?” Yvon asked, hopeful.
“Brown,” Nico told him.
“And her skin?” Yvon continued.
“She’s white,” Nico said.
“Can you see her reflection in anything? A mirror, a window?” Yvon asked. “The glass over one of those paintings?”
Nico shook his head. “It’s just a blur, I can’t see her face, I can’t remember what she looks like at all.”
“All right,” said Yvon. “It’s one of Charteris’ secretaries, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nico said, nodding.
“Well, there are only two, and the other one is Ellie Chang’s older sister,” said Yvon with a heavy sigh. It would be the one who never even gave you a name to call her by. That was just their luck. “Let’s wake up again then.”
“Yes, please,” Nico said, exhaling softly, and he opened his eyes.
Yvon sighed in relief. He felt like he had been running for miles. His body was aching, a clear sign that he’d overstressed his higher chakras, when he wasn’t supposed to be working at all, and the gaslights hurt his eyes. “Let’s go home,” he said, more to Alessio than to Nico, but definitely including both of them.
“Yes,” both brothers said emphatically.
“I’ll just get Miranda in here to write the discharge order,” Yvon said wryly, not looking forward to that conversation, either. “Well. When I can feel my feet, again.”
alessio, nicodemo and artisson