Gardening had never been Sabrina’s favorite task. She had a green thumb as much as any other witch from her world, but it had always been her Aunt Hilda who had taken care of any plants inside and outside the house. There was a peacefulness to it, something productive to help keep her mind off of the chaos and turmoil that was constantly around her. Pay attention to the seasons, know when to start planting. What could and couldn’t grow next to one another. Which plants would try and take over the others and needed to be potted far away from everything else. How much light, water, correct kind of soil. What yielded the best food output and would keep them full, while also adding in some things to try and help people’s spirits.
The strawberries were a big hit. A bit of color, something sweet and tangy. A definite plus after the abysmal lack of fruit once the orange season had ended. They were incredibly delicate, making transport of them a bit of an issue, but no one would care too much about anything being slightly squashed.
She headed to the backdoor of the cottage, knocking twice before she let herself in.hung up her raincoat and stored her muddy boots by the door before heading to the kitchen. Soup was simple enough, something that would hopefully last Edwin the couple of days in between her getting back to the cottage. He needed to eat. He also needed to sleep but she couldn’t do much about that. She filled a bowl with some of the soup--don’t ask about the kind of meat--and headed off to locate him.
He was probably in the library again.
Edwin was indeed in the library again. He rarely left it these days. He couldn’t bring himself to return to the bed he and Nikolai had shared for so many years. His pillow still smelled like him, and it made Edwin’s heart ache so painfully that he thought it might kill him.
Instead, Edwin spent most nights pouring over his books. Sometimes, when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, he fell asleep with his head pillowed on one of the open books on the table, and he always woke up feeling guilty, hoping he hadn’t damaged the spine of the book. Sometimes, if he had the presence of mind to stop reading, he would sleep in the seat that was nestled into the large window of the library, or in one of the comfortable chairs next to the fireplace, and would try not to think too much of the nights when Nikolai would sit reading in the chair opposite him, or how sometimes they’d pull the chairs closer to one another so that Edwin could rest his feet on Nikolai’s lap.
When Sabrina found him, Edwin was sitting at the table, a book on demonology that Caleb had stumbled across open in front of him, a couple others spread on the table in front of him. Some had seemed promising – perhaps with the right cross-referencing, he could find a reliable way to put Daniel Arlington down.
But it wasn’t here.
He slammed the book shut with a frustrated sigh, and Sir Robin, sitting on his lap, let out an annoyed noise and leapt off from his lap. He laid his hand gently on the cover of the book, as though apologizing for his rough treatment of the tome, and then gathered it up so he could return it to the shelves and pull a few more down. This had all been easier when he could summon the books to him.
He turned, and started when he saw Sabrina, then mentally scolded himself for it.
“Sabrina. I didn’t hear you arrive.”
She had set the bowl down on the surface with the most clear space and then cleared off as many books as she could manage from the table for him. Careful not to get anything out of order, not to misplace something in case he still needed to look at it.
“You know how light I am on my feet.”
Not exactly a lie, but she didn’t want him to berate himself for not hearing her. She knew he would anyway. They all did, mentally beating themselves up when they caught themselves zoning out, or not hearing something, or missing something. It was difficult not to do so with how exhausted everyone was nowadays. Sleep never came easily and she didn’t know many who managed it for more than a few fitful hours. There were too many scars, too many memories that morphed into nightmares, pushing them back into the waking world. She never managed to get back to sleep after waking from one.
He looked about the same as when she’d seen him last week. Though hopefully that wasn’t exactly the same outfit he’d been wearing the week prior. Not that she could blame Edwin if he couldn’t stomach heading into the bedroom where he and Nikolai used to share.
Sabrina nodded toward the soup. “You should eat.”
Edwin stiffened to sudden stillness when Sabrina started moving his books, his hands clenching, but he reminded himself that Sabrina had touched his books before and had managed to not completely destroy his organization system or blow up the library entirely. Even still, he didn’t take a breath until she’d finished, and it wasn’t until she mentioned that he should eat that he realized that the ache in his stomach that he’d been ignoring the last few hours was, in fact, hunger.
He nodded his thanks at her and sat down. “Thank you,” he said, pulling the soup closer to him, and after he’d taken a couple of bites, he asked, “I take it the gardens are doing well?” The soup was better than he’d expected.
Sabrina perched on the edge of another table, careful not to disturb any of the books there. Good. He was eating. It was a good sign, better than ignoring it or coming up with excuses for being too busy to have a breather. “So far I’m not picking up on any rot this year and the pests have been taken care of. We should have a good season.”
Better than the last one when they’d lost half of the produce because of some damn animal scavengers. She’d reinforced everything she could manage, keeping the critters away. “How’s your research going?”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” Edwin said. He felt a guilty pang that he hadn’t even looked at the gardens yet this year. When Sabrina had first started growing here, Edwin had offered his help as much as he could. He didn’t have much experience gardening, but his connection with Sutton Cottage and his own affinity with the land helped give the plants a bit of a boost.
He pushed it down. He didn’t have it in him anymore to worry about something like that. He tried not to think about what Nikolai would think about him dedicating his time to this research instead of thinking of the community as a whole.
“It’s not going at all,” Edwin said, nearly snarled. “It seems there are a hundred different ways to destroy a demon, and I have no way of telling what will work on the particular demon I want to destroy without trial and error.” He doubted very much that Arlington would give him more than one opportunity.
Sabrina had destroyed many demons in her time. It was kind of a given birthright thing with her being an heir to Hell, but every demon was annoyingly different. Add in that different worlds had different rules and it was a rabbit hole that Edwin might never find his way out of. She didn’t bother bringing up that Nikolai wouldn’t want him dedicating all his time to this. What was the point? It was too soon, the hurt was still too close. Sometimes people needed to focus on something that might never be possible so they didn’t go insane or shut down completely.
“Darlington might have an extra advantage if he’s being powered by that jerk too. Which adds another layer to the annoyingness.” That wasn’t helpful though. “Do you want to go over what you’ve found so far? It might help to talk it out.”
“You’re right, but better men than me have tried to kill Interitus and have failed, and I think, at least, I have a chance against Arlington.”
He tried not to think of long days working in the stacks together, of quiet moments of friendship. He couldn’t think of Arlington as someone who’d used to be his friend. If he started to think that way, he’d spiral. Arlington was the demon who’d killed his husband, nothing more, and nothing less.
Forcing that thought aside, he launched into a lecture of all he’d learned of demons. How to lure them, how to capture them, how to destroy them. Their strengths and their weaknesses. He’d read books on demons native to Vallo, and ones that had been recorded from other worlds, and Caleb had, at one point, left him a tome on Demonology that Edwin had thought had proven very illuminating, at least in some regards.
“It seems that most texts claim that demons can’t be killed at all, only banished from our plane,” he concluded. “But it seems holy water seems to be the most common method for destroying them, but more often than not, the books seem to claim that it will banish them instead.” Edwin had no interest in banishing Arlington. “And I’ve no notion on whether or not Holy Water would need to be blessed in the name of the Christian God, or if any god of Vallo might do the trick. I’ve found a number if sigils one might trap a demon in, that might ensure that they cannot escape and which might mean that they cannot be banished, and so would regularly banish them would destroy them instead.”
But then, no two books seemed to agree on what, exactly, these sigils should look like, and many differed on what was possible through the use of sigils and runs in the first place.
Sabrina nodded along to everything he said. It all made sense, she’d deduced as much before having researched various kinds of demons for different reasons before everything had turned crap. One couldn’t run a version of Hell and actively recruit other demons into it without learning their strengths and weaknesses.
She mulled over whether to admit something, not entirely sure she could do it anymore. Her magic was still there under her skin. At least some part of it, but it left little by little every day and she was never sure what would work when she did have to use it. And then it was only used in the most dire of circumstances. She had no intention of becoming thralled like too many others.
“I can…well. I could. I’m not sure if I can do it now because well.” Sabrina shrugged. Who knew what would and wouldn’t work. “But I can usually make Holy Water.” She’d done it before in Vallo.
“You can make Holy Water?” Edwin asked, startled. He hadn’t thought of asking her, hadn’t even considered the fact that she was the daughter of Lucifer, and even if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have thought that Holy Water was in her particular wheelhouse.
“You must –” he started, and then stopped, suddenly, as logic thrust stepped in front of the rest of that sentence. “I suppose it must use magic,” he said instead, voice going flat.
Was it magic? Sabrina wasn’t sure. It didn’t require any kind of spell. She simply held her hands above the water, closed her eyes and blessed it. She’d given Roz back her sight that way, cured Constantine’s body, and a few others as well. Where did magic end and angelic abilities start? Or was it Hell based? Goddess? Her genetics were a mess that she never understood.
“I’m honestly not sure if it's magic or not. I could do it after I resurrected myself, lost the ability, and then regained it after my second resurrection.” Probably best not to test that theory.
Or at least not at Sutton Cottage where the gardens that fed so many were located.
Edwin had had the same thought. Regardless of how much Edwin wanted vengeance, he knew that the wards of Sutton Cottage weren’t foolproof, and that the grounds had survived unscathed so long by dint of incredible amounts of caution and a bit of luck.
“If I find nothing more promising, will you make me some?” Edwin asked after a moment. “We can find somewhere in the forest, in case it is considered magic by Interitus’ standards.”
Sabrina nodded. She wanted to be able to help, but part of her warred with the knowledge that Darlington wasn’t himself at the moment. He was under Interitus’ control when he’d killed Nikolai. She knew that didn’t do much to reel back Edwin’s anger, couldn’t blame him for wanting vengeance. Who knew if they’d get a chance to unthrall anyone, but what if they did? What then?
There were too many possibilities. Who knew if any of them would happen. “I’ll make you some if you can’t find anything else.”
“Thank you,” Edwin said. “And for the dinner, too.” He managed a wan smile, and a tone that might have been reminiscent of a joke. “Sometimes I think I’d forget to eat entirely if left to my own devices.”
“Fingers crossed we’ll have some meat later this week.” She reciprocated the smile and pushed herself up. Hopefully patrols were able to get some animals for them. “I’ll stop by in a few days to check on the garden.” And him, but that part went without saying.
“I’ll be sure to send a message if any of the hunters return here,” he said. The most often returned to the Outpost, but if the game was large and Sutton Cottage closer, it wasn’t uncommon for them to prepare the meet here.