Chapter Text
The Red Death had finally passed, and the city was celebrating.
Mr. Edwin Nightingale propped his head on a hand and listened to it through his open window. From the second story of his modest home it was difficult to discern more than the indistinct chatter as people went about their daily business, but if he listened hard and long enough a few scraps of information came through.
“Hurry up, Jonas!”
“Fresh bread for sale! Fresh bread!”
“I hear there will be fireworks!”
“Fifteen more dead just this morning…”
Frowning slightly, Edwin rose to his feet and shut the window. He would miss the breeze, but not the gossip. He already knew of the deaths of course. Everyone who looked at the day’s paper did. Treatment had come too late for those sorry souls, caught in the throes of the Red Death’s unnatural resistance to magical treatment.
The paper spoke of other things as well. Discontent rippled among the lower classes; many spoke out against the mayor’s decision to continue with the yearly harvest festival while the city’s poorest quarter remained under quarantine. The Council of Mages was under fire for their failure to enforce their own guidelines, and anti-magic sentiment was at its highest since Blaine the Conquered single handedly lost Osford’s rights and privileges as an independent city-state nearly two centuries previous.
And, most worrying of all, another mage was dead. Murdered in such a way that rendered traditional investigative techniques useless. He joined six others, each found just in the last two months.
Authorities did what they could, but the timing could not have been worse. Edwin rubbed his temples, staring helplessly at the reports scattered in front of him. He was a journalist, not a criminal investigator. His beat was the political machinations of the Council, not the sordid underbelly of Rend River Way, where four of the bodies had been found within a stone’s throw of the quarantine.
The city’s mages were in danger. The madman responsible for the murders was only growing bolder while the frustrated, the angry, and the afraid praised him as a hero. There were whispers of a curfew being debated among the Council, but so far nothing had come of it. The murders were all mundane in nature, and many among the city’s top governing body failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation.
They always did when there wasn’t any magic involved.
“Dad! Dad, look, I finally did it!”
Edwin hurried to stuff his reports in his desk as his daughter ran into his office, stocking feet sliding on the polished wooden floor. She came to an uneven stop, a grin threatening to split her face in two, and held up a glowing hand.
Five small circles of light spun over her upturned palm, each a different color. Edwin—who wasn’t a mage and had no idea the significance of this accomplishment, other than it had kept her occupied for more than an hour—nodded solemnly. “Very impressive. Now can you do it with your other hand?”
“Of course!”
Edwin cocked an eyebrow. “Simultaneously?”
At this she paused, and after careful consideration nodded. Just shy of ten, Eliza Nightingale often impressed her father with her magical ability. As she raised both hands, nose crinkled in intense concentration, Edwin feared what might happen to her if he and the investigative team assigned to the Rend River cases failed to stop the killer in time.
Those fears faded into wonder as one by one five additional lights sprung into Eliza’s offhand, joining the others in a dizzying array of color. She was only able to manage such a feat for a few seconds, and the effort left her breathless.
“I can do it again,” she insisted.
“Not now, darling,” Edwin said. He took her hands in his and brought her close, clutching her tighter than he was wont. “Remember what your mother says. Don’t overexert yourself.”
“When’s she coming home?” Eliza asked. “I thought you said the plague was gone.”
“Not gone, just…more under control,” Edwin said.
“When she gets back can I go outside again?”
“We’ll see, darling. We’ll see.”
Edwin approached his lunch with the mechanical detachment of someone who knew they had to eat but had no real desire to do so. He half-listened to his daughter’s idle chatter, his thoughts drifting back to the problem of the murders.
Inspector Briggs had informed him earlier in the day that the scene was scoured of evidence, leaving nothing behind for his mages to trace. The crisis surrounding the Red Death left them without the manpower needed to track down what few leads they had. There was little optimism that they would catch the killer anytime soon.
They had only one avenue left open to them, but there was no guarantee it would work, and Edwin had no idea how he’d go about convincing the authorities to even try.
After several moments Edwin realized Eliza had stopped talking. He forced another bite of food and tried to pretend that nothing was amiss, but Eliza’s frown indicated that he was not successful.
He was saved from saying anything by the timely arrival of the maid. The normally decorous woman burst into the dining room red faced and flustered. Edwin jumped to his feet, certain that Briggs had come to deliver more terrible news, before noticing her eyes were alight with excitement instead of fear.
“Mrs. Nightingale has returned!”
Edwin shared a look with his daughter before they both ran to the front door. Eliza was quicker, and she made it to the entranceway a second before her father. She let out a high peal of laughter and launched herself into her mother’s arms.
It took a small effort of will for Edwin not to do the same, and he might have anyway if he hadn’t thought the effort might knock her to the ground. Bryony Nightingale was a tall, willowy woman who always gave the impression of being more fragile than she actually was, and four weeks serving the plague-stricken had whittled her into a shadow of her former self. The uniform of her Order hung from her shoulders more loosely than Edwin remembered, her cheekbones more prominent. When she looked up to greet him, Edwin saw that the whites of her eyes were dyed red.
“Bryony…” he breathed.
“Hello, love. It’s good to be home.”
A third plate was hastily added to the table and it was made sure that Bryony had a heaping portion of everything. She picked at her food before pushing it away in favor of a cup of strong tea. Her short blonde hair was damp and her skin had the pink glow of someone recently scrubbed. Edwin wondered if she came directly from the quarantine.
Eliza was more animated than Edwin had seen in weeks, and she wasted no time showing off her new trick. She managed her ten little lights for half a minute this time, with Edwin having to swallow his tongue not to warn against overexertion. Bryony always teased that he was overcautious when it came to magic.
“That’s very good,” Bryony said. “I hope you’ve been attacking all your lessons with the same ferocity.”
“There’s nothing else to do,” Eliza whined. “Dad won’t let me go out, not even for the festival. I’m going to be the only one to miss the fireworks.”
Bryony looked at Edwin quizzically. “Is that so?”
“We can talk about it later. You look like you’re about ready to fall asleep in your food.”
“I am not,” Bryony said impertinently. The effect was undercut by a jaw-popping yawn, and Eliza giggled.
“I am, perhaps, a little tired,” she admitted. She set down the remains of her tea before standing in a long, catlike stretch. “I’ll need a nap if we’re to go out tonight.”
“Really?!”
“Bryony, no,” Edwin said at the same time. “It’s not safe—“
“I have spent a month in that godsforsaken pit. Edwin, I need…I need to see something cheerful.”
Edwin had no response as she pushed in her chair, reached to give their daughter a bone-crushing hug, and retired to their bedroom. A terrible silence fell over the dining room, only broken when Eliza asked, “Is Mom okay? What’s wrong with her eyes? Does that mean she has the Red Death?”
“No, Eliza. They wouldn’t have let her come home if they thought she’d caught it. Remember, the Death is a pox. It gives you spots, not…whatever that is.”
“So you don’t know either?” Eliza asked.
“No, but I intend to find out.”
Bryony was curled on the edge of the bed when he entered the room. For a moment Edwin thought she had fallen asleep without changing out of her scapular or pulling back the sheets, but the sound of her breathing was too strained. The simple leather belt where she kept her athame was thrown haphazardly on the floor. Edwin stepped over it carefully before crawling into the bed next to his wife.
“I didn’t expect you back until next week at least."
“Replacements finally arrived from across the river. They didn’t need me anymore,” Bryony said. Away from Eliza she allowed the tiredness to seep into her voice. “I had nothing left to give.”
“Then you should rest , not go gallivanting around the city.”
“It’s not good to be cooped up inside,” Bryony murmured. Edwin felt a tear that dripped off the end of her nose, and she took a deep, shaking breath.
Edwin held his wife close. “I missed you stealing all of the covers.”
“It wasn’t the same trying to sleep without your dreadful snoring.”
Edwin almost smiled. “How did you hurt your eyes? Truly?”
“It’s just a burst vessel, like when you sneeze too hard. I got them from time to time as an apprentice. In a few weeks you won’t even be able to tell.”
“Can’t you heal it?” Edwin asked. “Eliza thought you were ill, and she’ll not be the only one.”
“Normally, yes. But it’s not wise for me to use any magic at the moment, not even for something as small as this.”
Edwin’s heart pounded in his chest. “What happened?”
“You don’t want to know,” Bryony said flatly. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and if I’m lucky I never will again.”
“Was it that much worse than the cholera outbreak two years ago?” Edwin asked.
More tears spilled down her face. Edwin didn’t know the words to comfort her, so he held her instead, wrapping his arms around her as if he could shield her from the hurt and the pain. Bryony had an uncommon compassion that stretched to the world’s most wretched creatures, a gift that had served her well as a healer. But empathy could be a two-edged sword, and it was cutting her deeply now.
“There were so many sick. If we found them early enough we could treat the Red Death like any other illness, but if we didn’t then they went to the Order. Blood magic worked, better than anything else, but there weren’t enough of us. W-We had to choose who to treat and who to let go.”
“Bryony…”
“There was a girl about Eliza’s age. We found her in a tenement house surrounded by the dead, and the spots had already reached her neck. I couldn’t…I couldn’t just let her die.”
Edwin was afraid to ask what happened as his wife paused to wipe her eyes. She nuzzled her head into the crook of his arm, exhaustion etched in every line of her face. There were creases that Edwin hadn’t remembered being present a month ago. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“I used the last of my strength on that girl. I’ve got nothing left, so they sent me home.”
“You won’t have to go back, will you?”
“I don’t know. The worst is almost assuredly over, but the Death is so different than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Bryony said. “I…I don’t know if I could stand it, but if I’m called, how can I refuse?
“You said there were replacements,” Edwin said.
“Traditional healers, Edwin. Not blood mages.”
An unhappy silence filled the room. It was selfish of him, but Edwin didn’t want her to go back. She had done her part and more. Let someone else go instead.
But in his heart of hearts, Edwin knew just as well as Bryony that she would return once she regathered her strength. No matter how much she might want to refuse, her duty toward her Order, her city, and her profession demanded that she go back as soon as she was able, and there was nothing Edwin could do to stop her. For a moment he felt like his tears would join his wife’s, but he swallowed them back. For once he was the one comforting her . He couldn’t fall to pieces now.
“I take it you haven’t found your murderer?” Bryony asked softly. “Is that why you’re keeping Eliza locked up inside?”
“Another dead just last night,” Edwin said bitterly. “I was meaning to talk to you about it anyway. I've had an idea, and I think perhaps your people could be of great help.”
Briefly he explained the particularities of the case, as well as the tricks and cleverness the culprit used to cover his tracks. Bryony listened despite her exhaustion, and once he finished nodded slowly.
“It’s not my area of expertise, but the idea has merit. I’ll present it to the Order as soon as I can.” She rolled over so she could face him properly. “But that’s no reason to keep your daughter trapped in her own home. All the victims have been found far away from here, and unsavory characters besides. It sounds to me like vigilante justice gone too far, not some crusade against the city’s mages.”
“The man found last night was a Fairchild.”
“Related to the Counselor?” Bryony asked.
“A cousin,” Edwin said. “And I’m not worried about the murderer so much as the feelings he’s inspiring. Just last week someone tried to throw a firebomb at the Department of Magical Licensing and Certification. Protective spells kept it from burning, but the intent was there. The people feel a need to blame the Death on something , and mages are an easy target.”
“We can’t let Eliza live in fear just because she knows a little magic,” Bryony said. “And we can’t hide what she is from the outside world. She’s a smart girl, and boredom is dangerous at her age. I’m surprised she hasn’t started making her own trouble yet.”
“Oh, I assure you she has,” Edwin said.
Bryony smiled. “There has to be a balance between caution and living life. It won’t hurt anything to go out for a few hours before dark sets in. We know the streets that are safe, and Eliza can have her fun. We can watch the fireworks from the roof together, just like we did when she was small.”
Edwin’s protests turned to ash on his tongue. He could hear the truth in what she was saying, but she had spent the last four weeks behind the walls of the quarantine. She didn’t see what he saw, or hear what he heard.
“If you wake up in time we’ll go. Together, as a family,” Edwin promised. “But you need rest. You look worn to a shadow.”
“I feel like a shadow,” Bryony murmured. She rolled back to her side and allowed her eyes to flutter closed. Edwin stayed with her until he was certain she was asleep, before carefully sliding his arm out from under her.
He needn’t have bothered. Bryony didn’t stir as Edwin shook the feeling back into his fingers, dead to the world. Tired as she was, he doubted a stampede of elephants would have woken her. Quietly he found a spare blanket and draped it over her shoulders before creeping out of the room.
Eliza passed the hours sitting in front of the old cuckoo clock, quivering with repressed energy as she watched the seconds tick past. Dark came early in autumntime, and Edwin had made clear the terms for going out to the harvest festival. Edwin wouldn’t have put it past her to wake her mother up herself, so he brought out a stack of parchment to the kitchen table. He kept half an eye on her as he worked at drafting his next column for the paper. A runner was sent to Inspector Briggs informing him of Bryony’s promise. After that, all he could do was wait.
Edwin knew little about his wife’s obscure branch of magic, but it didn’t take a scholar to know that four weeks of intensive healing had taken its toll on her body. He didn’t expect Bryony to wake before the promised deadline. He hoped she wouldn’t wake until the morning.
So it was a surprise to both father and daughter when Bryony stumbled out of the bedroom just past four in the afternoon. She sat heavily at the table and asked, “Is there any tea?”
There wasn’t, but Edwin sent for the maid to put a kettle on. Bryony rubbed bleary eyes, the red of the sclera contrasting sharply with the stormy blue-green of her irises. They were the sort of eyes Edwin would have expected to see on a demon in a play. They didn’t fit with her sleep-tousled hair or the pillow creases on her face.
“Mom, are you sure you’re okay?” Eliza asked. She twisted her hands into knots, and with enormous effort said, “We…we don’t have to go today if you’re tired.”
“I slept for fourteen hours yesterday. I’m not going to keel over anytime soon.” Bryony carded her long fingers through Eliza’s hair. “There will be plenty of time for rest when I’m dead. Now get ready. We’ll leave once I get changed.”
With a whoop of excitement Eliza tore off towards her bedroom. The tea arrived and was gratefully accepted, Bryony cradling the cup like a child would a favored toy. A few sips later she almost looked alive again.
“I know what you’re going to say, and don’t,” Bryony said, cutting Edwin off before he had a chance to speak. “A little fun at the fair isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“Fourteen hours? ”
She nodded. “It’s the only thing that kept me from coming home.”
Bryony downed the rest of her tea in three large gulps and pecked him on the cheek. “I’ve missed you all so much, but this fretting will get you nowhere. Let tomorrow worry about itself and enjoy today while it’s still here.”
Edwin caught her wrist as she pulled away and brought her into his arms. “You’re home. Festival or not, that’s enough for me.”
Bryony laughed as he pulled her in for their first proper kiss in over a month, which was cut woefully short by a disgusted noise at the back of the room. Eliza stood with her arms across her chest and a look of pure revulsion on her face.
“Are we going or not?”
While Bryony got ready, Edwin relieved the maid from her evening duties and sent one final message off to Inspector Briggs in case he needed to find them. Less than thirty minutes later Bryony was in her most comfortable dress, looking just as lively as she’d been before leaving for the quarantine.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Edwin said as Eliza groaned in tortured exasperation.
He took the steps to the ground floor three at a time, his thoughts still of where he could take Bryony and Eliza that would be both safe and entertaining. He’d heard Highstreet was blocked off in its entirety for the celebration, full of dancers and artists, fortune tellers and food stalls. Bryony had scarcely eaten at lunch, perhaps it would be best to start there…
Edwin opened the door, and before he even had a chance to register the face felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He stumbled back a step and looked to where a bright red stain was spreading through his waistcoat.
“Wha…?”
The assailant pushed his way in, knife dripping with blood. His blood, which was now seeping through Edwin’s fingers as he clutched his belly.
Without thinking Edwin launched himself at his attacker. An overpowering, primal fear told him that his family was in danger, and he had to do something, anything , to keep them safe. He felt no pain as the clumsy maneuver knocked them both to the ground and they rolled into the hat rack, knocking it to the floor. The attacker roared as a lucky punch connected with his mouth, teeth cutting into Edwin’s knuckles. The knife flashed again, sinking past belts of muscle where Edwin's chest met his shoulder, scraping against bone.
With a sickening squelch, the assailant pulled the knife free and rolled to his feet. He kicked Edwin savagely in the ribs before he could even react. Edwin felt something in his side pop and curled in on himself instinctively to protect from the blows, but no more came. Confused and disorientated, he looked up. The assailant had the bloody knife raised against his own palm. A word of power was shouted into the air, and a deep score was carved into tender flesh.
Blood magic, Edwin realized dully.
Blood trickled from the attacker’s hand and formed a fine red mist. His knees buckled, but he managed to remain on his feet as a thick, odious magic descended over Edwin.
I’m going to die.
“DAD!”
Edwin’s head snapped to the stairway. “Eliza, no!”
Edwin didn’t know if the desperate plea came from his lips or Bryony’s, but it distracted the attacker just enough. The oppressive magic lifted from Edwin as he turned his attention to Edwin's daughter. It was then, and only then, that Edwin’s panicked mind recognized the face of the man attacking him.
“You? I…I don’t understand.”
His face twisted into a hateful snarl. “ Death to all mages ."
The red mist descended over Eliza. The second it touched her skin she began to scream.
“No!” Edwin cried. “No no nonono… ”
Edwin tried to stand and failed. Bryony caught Eliza as she crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. The screaming did not stop, not even for her to draw breath. Her back arched unnaturally far, and she began to claw at her neck and face.
The madman’s knife slipped through his fingers. He sunk to his knees.
“It wasn’t supposed…to be…her.”
And with this pronouncement made, he slumped to the ground, dead.
Edwin didn’t notice. He didn’t notice anything but his wife and child. Using the last of his strength, he crawled over to where Eliza lay. Bryony was struggling to hold her down, chanting a spell so quickly that the words almost overlapped one another as they came out of her mouth. Eliza’s body shuddered and then went still. Her brown eyes were open impossibly wide, wild with a fear that Edwin couldn’t understand. He could see the pulse in her throat thundering at terrible speed, each breath coming in short, desperate gasps.
The effort of the spell nearly made Bryony collapse on the both of them. Edwin grabbed the hem of her dress with a bloodied hand. “G…get help. You’ve…nothing l-left.”
Bryony looked down at him helplessly, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. She stumbled over to the dead man before falling hard on her knees. She let out a frustrated cry, and tried to stand again. From the stairwell the maid stood, frozen and useless. Edwin wanted to yell at her to do something, anything to help his wife, but his tongue was too thick and heavy to manage the words.
Beside Edwin, Eliza began to shake as whatever spell Bryony placed on her started to break. The pulse in her throat beat even faster as every muscle in her small body tensed in a horrible rictus. A rivulet of blood trickled down her cheek where her nails managed to pierce through skin.
With a final shudder, Eliza gasped like a drowning man resurfacing for air, her back bowing backward as far as it could without breaking. Her lungs filled to capacity, she let out the most terrible noise Edwin had ever heard. The sound—equal parts frightened scream, agonized cry, and the final ululations of a dying animal—was something he would have thought impossible for any person to make, let alone a nine year old child. And not just any child, his daughter , terrorized by a spell meant for him.
“Please, gods, Eliza. Please…someone help.” Edwin’s limbs grew cold and his voice weak as begged with his dying breaths for someone, anyone , to help his daughter.
But there was no one, and Edwin’s voice faded to a pathetic whisper, his tears mixing with the blood still flowing from his chest and belly. The last of his strength faded, and he rested his cheek against the hard, unforgiving floor. From the corner of his eye, he saw his wife pick up the madman’s knife, her hands trembling with fear and exhaustion.
“Bryony, no…”
“There's no time. I can’t…I can’t just let her die.”
In one smooth motion the edge of the blade slid across Bryony’s palm, its keen edge leaving a deep wound as it traced a familiar path. The red of her eyes darkened, and blood trickled from her nose and mouth. A scarlet ribbon rose from the cut, somehow both beautiful and terrible. It made a bloody halo with Bryony at its center, and with her voice low and steady she began to chant.
Unlike the madman’s curse, there was nothing foul or oppressive in Bryony’s magic. It was warm, like a favorite chair in front of a fire on a cold winter day. The feeling drowned out Eliza’s terrorized screams, leaving Edwin at peace.
His eyes closed and his breathing began to slow. A moment later Bryony stopped speaking. There was perfect silence, then the sound of her falling heavily against the ground.
It would be the last thing Edwin heard before joining his wife in death, the fate of his daughter unknown