The Universe's Mixer

They'd gone their separate ways; actually, the sorceress had sent her latest student on his way. It was a simple "I'll see you soon," but it got her point across. Whether she actually saw him soon depended on how well her next meeting went. She went back to the shop and got cleaned up, "borrowing" a few more pieces from the seer's wardrobe. Eventually she was going to need a new place to live; she was growing bored with Xanadu's things. She wanted her own.

Perhaps, that had always been her problem; she wanted her own things, her own power, her own path, her own country...Or maybe she was just too arrogant. Overconfident. It didn't matter; she was about to try something she'd never attempted before; well, she'd certainly not tried it in some time with this particular sort of being. There was the living island, but she'd never gotten a chance to actually talk to it.

She made her way back to the same warehouse, or what she believed the same warehouse. A small tote hung from her shoulder; the bag was filled with the odds and ends of a conjuration spell. Baba was about to call on the City to have a nice conversation. She wanted to know what was going on. Her brow lifted as she walked into the warehouse; there was no sense of blood, magic, or even death. The place looked as if it hadn't been used in ages, but felt as if it had just been created. She didn't take the time to wonder if the City had made this place just for her, if it knew what she was about to do.

There was no table, but then, the sorceress didn't need a table. She pulled out the candles, setting them in certain places. Then she drew the circle, small symbols set between the candles. There was the usual incense, burnt bits of twigs, herbs, and paper. What was going to make this powerful? Why the blood and the eyes. The eyes were set carefully in the middle of the circle; Baba traced them with a circle of the Cupid's blood, the City's creation. Then she took a sip of the still sickeningly sweet liquid. She set the jar of blood into the circle and settled back to chant softly.

There weren't any true words to the chant, nothing intelligible. The sounds were just meant as a focus; her will needed to be focused. She called on the City, called on a physical representative. She called the City to join her, and she'd bind it to the spot. She could have used the heart, she could have used the brain, she could have used any organ she wanted, but the Cupid's eyes were really the only thing they hadn't destroyed while playing. So, the eyes lay there, staring blindly at her by jar of blood that had once given them life, made them work. She demanded it show itself. Now all she had to do was wait.

She lacked tarot cards, stars, runes, tea leaves and yet, even half-dead, blind with her limbs bound Xanadu could still found signs of the future to interpret. She could feel her spilt blood splattered over bruised and swollen flesh. She heard the caw of large black birds outside her window. That was enough. The sylph was careful to hide this knowledge after weeks of torture. Her strategy was to tell her captor anything else, nearly everything else, and hide one or two critical facts to obfuscate what she didn't want Baba Yaga to know.

The signs were undeniable. Though the mechanism of her release was still up to interpretation, her suffering was to end. And she was relieved. So much so, that when she heard the sales floor above her creek Xanadu smiled with tears in her eyes calling out, "Death, is that you?" Dehydrated, her throat burned when speaking audibly above a whisper.

After the weirdness known as Cupid (but in Violet's case she gained a friend in Lizzy) she realized something. "I am due for a trip to the salvage yard" as she scribbled a note in case anyone was looking for her before leaving the hostel. With a bag full of finds slung over one arm she was back to her usual self, nursing some ideas along the way. But anyone could see something was on the younger woman's mind, worry about her brother and sister and hope they were still able to duck Count Olaf. As she walked she scanned the rubbish bins for ideas and would on occasional stop to pluck a promising looking part or a piece of rubbish that gave her an idea. "Idea!" as she happily grabbed some broken glass,"This glass would make a good conduct for the auto feeder".