Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Taako’s basking in the warm light of an average Tuesday morning at home when he hears a crinkle-tinkling crunch. “Hey Krav? You good?” he calls, carefully making his way toward the door. Kravitz doesn’t break things, really. Between magic and incorporeality, he either doesn’t touch things or catches them before they hit the ground. Maybe it was one of the cats? Shit, was that a vase?

It wasn’t a cat. Kravitz is standing frozen in the center of the dining room, orange juice and black, translucent blood dripping from his hand. The source of the noise, the remnants of the drinking glass that he’d evidently crushed, are in a pile at his feet. But Kravitz doesn’t even look at Taako, doesn’t seem to register the pain. All his focus is centered on a small, innocuous looking slip of paper held in his shaking hand.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Taako asks, eyes wide. Kravitz doesn’t say anything, just hands him the paper before looking at his bleeding hand with some sort of vacant curiosity.

Taako takes it. He reads it over once, then twice. And then he shoves it in his pocket, gives Kravitz a kiss on the cheek, and sprints out the door.

—

The door to the Director’s office at the Bureau of Benevolence slams open, and Lucretia jumps, scattering papers across her desk. “Hey, next time you can just… knock…” She trails off, seeing Taako’s furious and - scared? - expression, and she tenses up, not sure what’s going on. He’s been avoiding her, ever since Story and Song. She can’t blame him.

He stalks over to her desk and slams something down on it. “Hey, Lucretia, want to explain exactly what the fuck this is?”

She picks it up, hands shaking just a little, and something heavy settles in her chest at the thick cream stationery and black feather wax seal. “Oh….” she breathes, quietly. “I hadn’t realized… yeah, it’s about time.”

“About time for what,” Taako hisses. “Lucretia, what did you do?” Some distant part of her registers that he’s not angry anymore, he’s terrified.

She sighs. “It’s okay, Taako. Really. I signed up for this, it was worth it. Now I get to deal with the consequences, okay?”

“Yeah, actually, fuck this.” Taako pulls out his Stone of Farspeech. “Hey all, emergency team meeting, Creesh’s office, right fucking now.”

—

Thanks to a few handy teleportation spells and inter-planar portals, Lucretia’s office is very crowded in just a few minutes, and the meeting is moved to a nearby lounge. Somehow, this all feels a lot more real surrounded by soft couches and her family, and Lucretia puts her head in her hands.

She still doesn’t regret it, though.

“So!” Taako stands, gesticulating wildly. “Guess what I learned today, what Lucretia has been neglecting to tell us?” His anger is back in full force.

“Taako, chill,” Magnus snaps. “What’s going on?”

“This!” And he shoves the letter in Magnus’s face. Taako watches, almost vindictively, as his expression goes from annoyed to shocked to horrified.

“As of today, the contract between Lucretia, also known as Madam Director of the Bureaus of Balance and Benevolence, and - and Her Majesty the Raven Queen of the Realm of Death, agreed upon precisely ten years hence, has come to an end…” His voice stutters out. “As agreed, the soul of Lucretia is now the property of Her Majesty, for all eternity, to be relinquished without complaint to any of Her Majesty’s Reapers for delivery to the Astral Plane.”

Magnus drops the paper with shaking hands. “Lucretia?” he asks, voice hoarse. “What did you do?”

“I saved everyone’s lives!” she snaps, suddenly tired of this. “You all had Kravitz and the Queen on your backs all the fucking time, did you never once wonder why I didn’t? I died-“ she closes her eyes. “I died nearly as many times as you.”

“You made a deal,” Barry says, understanding and resignation in his voice. “So you could stay out, keep finding the relics, you made a deal.”

“Yeah, I did,” she says, heavily. “This was - well, ten years ago, so about two years after… you know. And I was careful, but my luck ran out eventually. She stopped sending Reapers. She came in person.”

Lucretia closes her eyes, remembering the terror of that day. A moment of exhaustion, hunched over her desk with hands in her hair, wondering just how long she could keep doing this. And then a thunderclap, and she was not alone. Deep, dark eyes stared out at her from a bleached-white raven’s skull, waiting impassively to see what she would do.

She’d never felt so small before. Not even that terrible, lonely cycle, when it was her against a hostile world, had made her feel so insignificant and powerless. And yet, she still stood, still spoke to the Queen with a fire in her heart and shaking voice, because she was terrified but she would not - could not let that stop her.

“She thought I was interesting, sort of novel in an annoying way. And I was desperate. If anything happened to me, if no one knew about the Voidfish, that would be it. The plane would be lost whenever the Hunger finally made it here, and-“ her voice cracks- “you’d never know the truth. I had so much I had to fix, so much to repair, I couldn’t let her take us-“

She cuts herself off, but it’s not fast enough. Davenport claps his hands to his mouth, muffling a curse, and with horror in his eyes he rushes out of the room.

Merle lets out a long breath. “It wasn’t just a deal for you. She wanted Davenport, too, didn’t she?”

Lucretia’s shaking, now. “He’s died almost as much as me, was a criminal as much as any of us. And I- I was the reason he couldn’t fight her on this, couldn’t defend himself. So yeah, I made a deal. I convinced her that I could make her life - unlife- hell if I wanted to fight her on this. I’d been doing it for years, and we both knew I couldn’t keep it up forever, but as long as I could it would be really fucking annoying for her.”

“You bet your lives on your ability to be a nuisance,” Lup says slowly. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed or horrified.”

“It was all I had,” Lucretia says, looking down. “Worst case, she’d kill us, but that’s no worse than what would happen if I didn’t try. And this - it wasn’t long after Wonderland. I didn’t have a lot of resources left.”

Magnus puts his head in his hands. “Gods, this is so fucked up.”

“No, it’s not,” Lucretia snaps. “It’s the fucking laws of nature. I broke them, I made a deal to compensate, it all evens out, and now I get to deal with that.”

“Yeah, no,” Taako says, standing and beginning to pace. “This isn’t happening. We are not letting this happen, we are getting you out of this.”

“Taako, no,” Lucretia says, resigned. “I can’t break the deal. I can’t fight her or run away, that’s not how this works.”

“Oh, you’re not running,” Taako says brightly. “We’re kidnapping you.”

—

“Okay, here’s how this is going to go,” Taako says, clapping his hands. “Merle, you and Davenport are going to hold down the fort. We need to keep Davenport away from our possibly extensive future death crimes, just in case, and I’d rather not start an inter-godly war.”

Merle scoffs. “Yeah, that’s fair, that could get interesting. Don’t worry, Lucretia,” he says kindly, “We’ve got this.”

Lucretia doesn’t acknowledge him from her position curled into Magnus’s side. She can’t believe they’re doing this.

“Barry, Lup, okay, here’s where shit starts to get complicated,” Taako says, and Lup starts laughing, near hysterical.

“Uh, yeah, bro, you think?” Barry moves to comfort her, but his spectral hand goes straight through her back.

“No, look, we can make this work,” Taako continues. “You’re both kind of experts in death crime loopholes? So yeah, Her Royal Raven-ness is going to send you after us. But there’s a difference between following the spirit and the letter of the law, and I think you know that.”

Taako deflates a bit. “Um, also, on top of all that, you’re going to have to deal with Kravitz. I kinda… ran out on him this morning? So he’s going to be freaking out, and he’s also a lot more… by-the-book than you are.”

“You mean he actually gives a shit about the Raven Queen’s rules,” Barry says wryly. “Fucking lawful goods.”

Taako just shrugs, and then turns to the next task at hand. “Magnus, you and I are the kidnapping team. We’re taking Lucretia and running, and that’s all the rest of you get to know about that, just in case.” Magnus puts an arm around Lucretia, and she sighs.

“Do I get a say in this?” she asks softly.

“Nope!” Magnus chirps, and then he looks a little more serious. “I mean, yes, absolutely, to an extent. Just not about the fact that we’re doing this, because we’re making our own decisions, okay? We know what we’re getting into.”

She sighs again and doesn’t say anything else. This is a fight for later, and she’s tired.

“Okay, last team!” Taako says, and then looks up at the ceiling. “Hey kiddo, you can come out now.”

“Alright!” One of the vent covers slides open and down plummets Angus McDonald, who would have landed smack on top of Merle if not for a carefully timed levitation spell. “Hello sirs and ma’ams!”

Lup sighs. “Carey, I know you’re up there too. Taako, did you plan this?”

Carey slides down out of the vent to perch on the sofa. “He didn’t, actually, I have no idea how you knew we were up there.”

“Because I’m a really fucking good wizard, that’s how,” Taako grins, but there’s something forced about it. “I’m assuming the rest of you all are outside?”

“Yeah, Killian’s outside, Avi’s firing up the cannons, and Brad went after Captain Davenport,” Carey says. “We doing some death crimes today?”

“Well, kind of - you’re technically helping us not do death crimes,” Taako says, ignoring Carey’s quiet “aw, shucks.” “Hey boy detective, you’re on research duty. We want any instance, ever, of someone getting out of a contract with Her Birdliness. Top priority, we need that as fast as possible. Carey, you and Killian are with him, for body-guarding, the legitimacy of adulthood, and thievery skills.”

Carey grins sharply. “Oh, this could get interesting fast. What about Avi and Brad?”

“Keep them doing what they’re doing. Avi’s in charge of transport, for us and also you if you need it. Brad can help Merle and Cap’n’port, he’s good at that.”

Lup watches her brother, some kind of defeat in her eyes. “Hey Taako, rough estimate on how long it’ll take for Kravitz to figure out you came here to warn Creesh and then show up out of a misplaced sense of duty?”

Taako dramatically mimes checking his wrist. Lup’s probably the only one who can see his hands shaking ever so slightly. “Uh, about now, probably. Oh, speak of the devil- reaper - whatever,” Taako yelps as a pitch black portal begins to form in the center of the room. “Magnus! Time to go!”

“On it!” Magnus shouts, and he very gently scoops up Lucretia in his arms and starts running for the cannons, Taako hot on his heels.

Lucretia sighs again, looking back over Magnus’s shoulder as one skeletal arm emerges from the portal, scythe in hand, and is immediately tackled by Carey. Yeah, “interesting” sure is one way of putting it.

Chapter Text

For the first time in a very long time, Lucretia watches the gentle white glow of the moon base shrink above her, until it really does just look like a moon. The transport orbs aren’t very large, and so she’s still cradled in Magnus’s arms as they float down to the ground. She closes her eyes tight, but opens them when she feels something brush her head and settle on her chest.

Taako pulls his arms away. “There. Now no one can find us, as long as we keep those on.”

Lucretia looks down and sees a small golden crystal hanging by a cord around her neck. Taako’s just finished putting one on Magnus and is putting on his own when Lucretia can almost feel Magnus frown behind her. “Wait, why do you have these? What are these?”

“Tracking spell inhibitors, homie,” Taako quips, attention now focused on his bag. “I’m always ready to go off the grid, remember? Fantasy Scout motto, be prepared and all that jazz.”

“I refuse to believe you were a Fantasy Scout,” Magnus mutters.

“Okay, so maybe that was a lie,” Taako admits, pulling buttons and scarves and all kinds of knick-knacks out of a bag that really should be too small for that. “But I bet you totally were, right?”

“Hell yeah I was!” Magnus says, looking affronted. “Got all the way up to my Silver Dragon award!”

“Yeah, I have no idea what the fuck that means.”

Lucretia giggles, imagining a tiny Magnus (but still with full sideburns) in the uniform of a Junior Fantasy Scout. “I bet you collected neckerchiefs, didn’t you?”

“Sure did!” Magus says, proud. “I have a whole box full, back… home…”

He trails off, and Lucretia mentally kicks herself. Taako’s back to studiously ignoring her and Magnus just seems sad. Great, she keeps making things better and better.

Finally, though, Taako finds whatever it was he was looking for and brings it to his face. “Hey guys, it’s me,” he says. “We’re gonna be landing just out of town in a few minutes, can you come pick us up? Yeah, I know it’s short notice, but it’s also dubiously illegal and could get kinda wild soon, and that’s your jam, right? Thanks!”

He drops the Stone of Farspeech and Magnus asks, “Okay, first off, who was that, but also, how are they going to find us if tracking spells don’t work?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Taako laughs. “I don’t remember how to fly this thing, so we’re about to make a pretty good sized beacon. On that note, BRACE!”

Taako throws three levers on the console and then himself against the side of the bubble as a bright green forest grows below them. Magnus sighs, disentangling himself from Lucretia. Mere moments before they would hit the ground at a breakneck speed, Magnus flips the levers back and pushes two buttons and the orb drifts to a gentle landing on the forest floor.

He grins over at Taako. “Vehicle proficiency, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Taako gripes. “C’mon, we don’t have all day.”

He clambers out of the bubble, Magnus and Lucretia following behind. Magnus starts ripping up grass from the ground and halfheartedly throwing it over the orb in some attempt at camouflage.

“Really? You’re really- okay, step back,” Taako says disdainfully, and with a flick of his wand plants begin to grow over the bubble, obscuring it completely. He raises an eyebrow at Magnus. “Magic, remember?”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Magnus says amicably, and Lucretia holds back a stressed giggle. They continue into the woods, Taako erasing their steps, until they reach a small clearing. The sun shines down gently on vibrant green grass spotted with pink wildflowers, and Lucretia, exhausted, drops down to sit in a mess of lupines. Magnus sits down beside her, and as Lucretia leans against him, Taako walks into the center of the meadow and sends a stream of golden sparks into the air. And then they wait.

After a time, the gentle twittering of birds and brush of wind through the trees is joined by a low growl, a dull roaring. Taako, still standing in the middle off the meadow, grins and calls out, “Our ride’s here!”

There’s a crash, a metallic roar, and Lucretia scrambles to her feet as a vehicle barrels into view. It’s a wagon, of sorts, but a wagon in the same way that a copper dragon is a lizard. It’s close to ten feet tall, a long silver chassis perched atop enormous wheels. And it’s being driven by two dryads, brown and pink and familiar.

“Aw come on!” Taako shouts. “You had to bring the fantasy minivan?”

“Hurley! Sloane!” Magnus yells happily. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself,” Sloane calls, jumping down from the car with ease and pulling Magnus in for a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too!”

“And yeah, we brought the minivan,” Hurley says, joining them. “You didn’t tell us how many people to expect, and knowing you it could be a small army.”

“Nah, just us today,” Taako says, gesturing at Magnus and Lucretia. Uncomfortable, she gives a small wave.

“Hey there!” Hurley says, chipper. “I don’t actually think we’ve ever formally met, but you’re the Director, right?”

Lucretia smiles awkwardly. “Please, just call me Lucretia.”

“Alright, this is great, but we’re kind of on a tight schedule here,” Taako says, looking around the meadow as if he expects something to jump out at him. “Can we move?”

“Okay, one thing first, before we get going,” Hurley says, serious. “This is dubiously illegal by whose laws? I will arrest you if it’s something fucked up.”

“Er, the laws of the Raven Queen, life and death, all that jazz?” Magnus says, somewhat nervous.

Hurley breaks into a grin. “Oh, that’s fine then. C’mon, get in the car!”

The ride into Goldcliff is too loud to talk, so Lucretia just spends it staring at the trees outside. It’s been a while since she’s seen this much green. But soon forest gives way to cityscapes and cobbled roads and before she knows it, they’re at an unassuming townhouse attached to a very big, very assuming garage.

“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Hurley asks.

“Well, we need a plan, and maybe a getaway vehicle,” Taako says. “We’re kinda winging this.”

“Alright, I can help with that,” Hurley says, nodding. “Magnus, you’re the vehicle guy-“ she ignores Magnus’s whispered “told you!” and Taako’s raised middle finger- “So why don’t you both come with me to the garage so we can sort some shit out.”

Sloane turns to Lucretia. “No offense, but you look dead on your feet,” she says. “While they work that out, want to come inside, have some tea?”

“Tea sounds wonderful,” she says, with a slight smile. It really does.

Sloane helps Lucretia down from the wagon and escorts her inside the home. It’s cozy inside, full of natural light and simple furnishings. Also, every single surface is covered in mechanical parts.

“Oops, sorry about this,” Sloane says, sweeping some grease-covered metal… bits off the kitchen table with a clatter. “I’d say we’re usually better but no, we really aren’t.”

Lucretia laughs. “That’s fair, one of my friends is the same way with mechanical things. You’d like him, I think, even though he focuses more on aerial stuff.”

Sloane fiddles with a kettle in the kitchen as Lucretia takes a seat. “Oh man, you’ll have to introduce us - some of the assholes in the battlewagon circuit have started using flying machines and I refuse to let them get ahead of us. We’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know?”

“Come visit some time, I’m sure Avi would love to meet you both. He’s a big fan.”

Before long, Sloane comes over to the table with two large mugs of steaming pink tea. For a few moments, they just sit there quietly, sipping the faintly floral, spicy tea. It’s nice, and Lucretia could sit here for hours, almost forget the reason she’s here… But then the silence is broken, because most people are a bit more extroverted than Lucretia right now.

“So, you been to Goldcliff before?” Sloane asks, curious. Lucretia winces.

“Yeah, uh, it’s been… a while. Last time was, well, when Bane was promoted to Captain.”

Sloane stares, or Lucretia thinks she does, it’s a little hard to tell what with the blank wood eyes. “That was what, eight years ago?”

“I don’t have time to get out much,” Lucretia answers, defensive. Sloane just sits back and looks pensive.

After a minute, she says, “You mean didn’t, right?”

“What?”

“You said you don’t have time. But the Relics are found, the Hunger is done, you’re doing your Bureau of Benevolence thing, which like, that’s cool, but you can take breaks now, right?” Sloane’s tone is carefully neutral.

“What? No, I-“ Lucretia stops, rubbing her eyes. “There’s still so much that has to get done.”

“But you have a team now, right?”

“I mean, yes, but I can’t just push all my work onto them so I can what, go gallivanting off for nothing in particular?”

“Lucretia?” Sloane asks, quiet. “Besides Story and Song… when was the last time you left the base?”

It takes her too long to work that out, and by the time she comes to a rough estimate, Sloane’s just looking at her, and she can’t take this. “Does it matter? It’s not like I’d be welcome down here, anyway,” Lucretia mutters.

“Okay, there’s a whole lot to unpack there, and hoo boy I am not a therapist,” Sloane says, rocking back in her chair. “Wanna elaborate on that one?”

She’s so tired. “Sloane, what is there to say. I fucked up, I fucked up real bad. And because I fucked up, because I couldn’t do what I had to do, entire cities are dead. So no, I don’t think people exactly want to see me. I’m the reason the Relics were a danger for ten whole years more than they should have been.”

“Lucretia, listen to me, please.” Sloane says, and her tone is firm. “Yeah, I know I’m kind of being an asshole about this, but I think you need to hear this.”

“Why?” Lucretia snaps. “I literally just met you, why should I care what you say?”

Sloane sighs. “Because I am the only surviving person who was completely thralled by one of the Relics.”

Lucretia stops, jaw dropped. How had she not considered…

“I mean, I’m not the only survivor, period,” Sloane continues. “June lived - she’s doing well now, you know? We write sometimes - but the Temporal Chalice is fucked up, she wasn’t exactly thralled. You can ask her more about that one, but that’s the short version. And Lucas is also weird, because his thing was his own choice, pretty much without influence from the Philosopher’s Stone.” She pauses for a moment. “I admit, I can’t know for sure about the Relic Wars or before things went to shit with Brian-“ Lucretia winces at that- “But like. The only survivor of long term or complete thrall is me. Well, maybe one other person, but let’s stick with me for now.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia whispers. “If I had been faster…”

But Sloane puts up a hand. “Nope, see, this is exactly what I wanted to stop. Lucretia?” she says, leaning forward. “I am one of the only people who you can’t ignore saying this, so I’m saying this.” And she pulls Lucretia in for a hug. “This wasn’t your fault.”

Lucretia freezes. “But…”

“Yeah, I know it’s all a complicated clusterfuck,” Sloane says, gently letting go. “I know that you feel responsible because you put yourself in a place where you were the only one who could do anything. And I’m not here to get into that, that’s not really what I was part of. But as far as the Relics go… yeah, that’s not your fault. Not alone. You did what you could, and I don’t blame you for, well,” and she looks over her own hands, rough brown bark and pale wood grain, “this whole situation. I don’t, and neither does June, and neither does Lucas.”

“Is he… is he doing okay?” Lucretia asks, tentative. “Is he still afraid to come see me? I know I… after the whole faked death thing, I don’t really know where we stand, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

Sloane smiles gently. “I think he’d really, really like to see you. It’s gonna be a little weird, not gonna lie, but he misses you. You’re family.”

Lucretia has to fight back tears at that. “I… I miss him too. I don’t… I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have here, or if there’s visiting hours in the Astral Plane, but let him know I’d like to see him?”

Something in Sloane’s expression cracks at that. “I’ll tell him.”

They return to a peaceful silence, Lucretia sipping the dregs of her tea, until Magnus rushes into the room. “Okay, Taako says we need to go now, and uh I agree, because apparently a portal just opened up outside of town and that means they’re onto us,” he rambles. Lucretia stands, almost knocking over her mug.

“Shit,” she says eloquently, and then, “Sloane, will you be okay? I’d really rather not get you in trouble with the Raven Queen, given, you know…” and she gestures at Sloane’s whole body in general.

Sloane cracks a smile. “Nah, we’ve got that good good amnesty going for us. We can buy you some extra time, too. It’ll be fun!”

Lucretia follows an excited Sloane into the garage, which is somehow even bigger than it seemed on the outside. Every square foot of it is covered in vehicles of all shapes and styles that Lucretia can barely comprehend, let alone try to describe. But Hurley and Taako are standing besides three which have been pulled out onto the street: a low-riding pale pink one with ram’s horns spouting flames, a simple motorized wooden cart, and a gleaming black motorcycle.

“Aw thanks babe, you know that’s my favorite!” Sloane says, ducking down to give her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek. Hurley blushes.

“Magnus, you ready to drive?” Taako asks, hopping into the wooden cart as Sloane swings herself onto the motorcycle. Magnus nods, but he looks a little dejected at how their ride compares to the others.

“Aw, don’t worry, Magnus,” Hurley says. “I know it looks boring, but it’s got some tricks up its sleeve!” And she winks.

Immediately looking more enthused, Magnus climbs up into the driver’s seat and starts pushing buttons. As the cart putters to life, Hurley hops into hers and the engine roars, shooting flames high into the air. Taako lets out a whoop, and Magnus yells, “HAVE FUN RAISING HELL!”

And then with squealing tires and screaming engines, Sloane and Hurley shoot off to the edge of town, cheering all the while. Lucretia smiles, confused but fond, as their own cart gently starts to rattle in the opposite direction, out of town and into (for her) uncharted territory.

Chapter Text

Merle’s out the door before he realizes that actually, he has no clue where Davenport might be headed. This is the first time he’s returned to the moon base since the Day of Story and Song, and Merle has no idea what favors Taako must have had to call in to get him here at all. He doesn’t exactly have good memories associated with the place.

Still, Merle does a cursory investigation of places like his old bedroom, which is eerily stark. A single bed with a warm red blanket, an empty bookshelf, and a few identical BoB uniforms hanging in the closet are all that remain in the room. He’s not sure if this is the remnants of what Davenport didn’t want to bring with him, or all that was in here to begin with. Either way it’s unsettling.

He sweeps the entire moon, room by increasingly less likely room, so it takes some time for him to make his way into an older, now unused part of the moon base. Fisher’s tank, once brilliant and glowing, now stands dry and bare in the center of their room. And standing straight in front of it, staring into nothingness, is a small red and orange figure.

He doesn’t turn around as Merle enters. “I don’t know how I am, or how I feel, before you start,” Davenport says, with a calm that seems detached and unreal. Merle hangs back.

“Yeah, a bit of a stupid question,” he almost chuckles. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Want me to leave?”

“…No.”

Merle sits down by the door, one eye on the hallway and one on Davenport. A minute passes, then two, then ten, and still Davenport stands. Brad comes by the door, and Merle waves him on with a series of quiet hand motions that he hopes conveys “not right now, stay on call, maybe later, do we have cookies left?”

Davenport stands, and Merle waits. Time passes. And then, suddenly, Davenport starts laughing.

“I feel - I feel grateful, and isn’t that fucked up?” he chokes out. “I’m grateful that she didn’t- that she stopped- while I was- FUCK!”

He punches the tank. It makes a deep, hollow ringing sound, and as Davenport slowly crumples to the floor, Merle casually prepares a Cure Wounds.

“She took- she took everything from me,” he whispers. “I think I might hate her for that. I know I hate that she did that. I remember it, you know?”

Merle nods, uncomfortable. He’s not sure what to say.

“I remember it all, and I remember none of it, because there was nothing for me to remember. I couldn’t… it’s static. I could see, I could observe, but it meant nothing. I had no context. I didn’t even have myself.”

Merle winces, his mind echoing with choruses of “I’m Davenport!” and memories of laughter. “Did you… were you there, when…”

“When she sold her fucking soul so I could keep mine?” Davenport asks harshly, then sighs. “No. I don’t… I would remember seeing that.”

He’s silent for a few more moments. “She destroyed me. She broke me. But she’s still… she’s still her. And fuck, this is the robot plane all over again, isn’t it? Because it worked. She kept us alive, and now we saved the world, undid our mistakes, took down the Hunger. She did it. And the costs… ten years of my life, on that kind of scale, not that bad, right? Not if those were your two options?”

Davenport’s clenched fists are turning white. “It worked. With minimal collateral. And I don’t think I’ll ever know if there was a better way.”

Merle doesn’t either, so he just sits down next to Davenport and slings an arm over his shoulder. In a while, Brad will come back with cookies, and they can talk about it. About the bright and promising girl he personally selected for the mission. About the brave young woman who fought her way through a hundred years, who flew the Starblaster through sheer force of will alone. About the terrified woman who made this decision, truly thinking it the only option. About the old, fragile woman who tried to keep them safe, keep them alive in a fog of ignorance for a decade.

But for now, they just sit.

—

“Oh, for the love of- please don’t touch that- oh, how the fuck did you get in here?!”

Artemis Sterling, most powerful man in Faerun, definitely does not shriek at the sight of intruders in his library. Not at all.

Killian waves. “Dude, she’s a rogue, do you even have to ask?”

“Nah, that’s fair,” Carey grins down from atop a bookshelf. “I mean, I’m not the one who picked the lock.”

“Hello, sir!”

Sterling sighs. “Hello, Angus.” He puts his head in his hands. “You are aware that I have a Stone of Farspeech, correct? And an agreement with Lucretia? And I could have just let you in if you had asked?”

Angus’s smile wavers. “We didn’t have enough time for that, sir!”

Killian mouths “I’ll explain later,” eyes surprisingly serious, and Sterling stiffens.

“Okay. What do you need?”

“Myths, legends, maybe some necromantic texts, whatever you’ve got about escaping the jaws of death!” Angus seems remarkably chipper given his research subject.

Sterling sighs. He seems to do that a lot whenever these people come around. “Myths and legends are six rows over, second shelf from the top. Necromancy is in the back, pull on the statue’s arm and it’ll open up the door in the wall.”

“Ooh, secret passages, neat!” Angus stands from his perch next to Carey. As the rogue deftly leaps across the rows of bookshelves like a set of stepping stones, Angus says, “Killian, catch!”

Taking a solid ten more years off of Sterling’s life, the twelve year old throws himself from the bookshelves, landing in Killian’s arms with an “Oof!” Seemingly unfazed by this, she jogs off in the direction of her wife, and in a few moments he hears, “Killian, throw!”

It only takes a moment for the orc woman to return, and when she does, her face has lost any levity. “Is there a place we can talk in private?” she asks in a low voice, glancing back from where she came. Carey’s laughter rings through the library, loud enough to mask their speech.

Sterling nods. “Yes, here, I have a study just off the library.” Quietly, he leads her there, where she collapses into an over-stuffed sofa. Sterling joins her - he has a feeling he’s going to want to sit down for this.

“Okay, you cannot let Angus know anything we discuss here, okay?” Killian says, face set. “Because we’re going to need your help, in more ways than one.”

She describes, briefly, the situation - the deal, the desperation, the time limit. Lucretia’s decisions, Taako’s actions, the plan now, and the people involved.

“Artemis - can I call you Artemis?”

“Sure, I’m pretty sure that formality is discarded once you break into someone’s home.”

“Artemis, what do you know about Angus’s family?”

Sterling blinks. “Um, nothing, actually. I think he has a grandfather, right? That was in the Story?”

Killian sighs. “We don’t know, honestly. He’s been alarmingly good at hiding his past, and we legitimately can’t figure out who was supposed to be responsible for him. So for all intents and purposes, since the Rockport Limited debacle, the Bureau of Balance, Benevolence now, has been his family. And Lucretia… she’s the closest he has to a mom.”

“Well, fuck,” Sterling says, eloquently.

“Yeah, just about.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Killian looks Sterling dead in the eye. “Because we need you. Because Angus thinks he can fix this. And so one of two things is going to happen here. Your library is our best hope for any kind of historical evidence, any kind of precedent for this. You know your library better than us, you have connections, working with you is our best shot at making this work, of saving her.”

Killian pauses, and Sterling gently asks, “And the other?”

“We don’t…the odds…” And Killian’s voice breaks. “This probably won’t work, Artemis. Maybe we’ll find a solution. Maybe. But we’re talking about a magically binding contract with the Goddess of Death herself, and we’re good, okay, but we probably aren’t that good. Lucretia… we have to accept that she’s probably not going to make it out of this.”

Sterling awkwardly puts an arm around Killian’s shaking shoulders. She takes a breath. “The seven and Angus and the Bureau are good at what we do, and that’s the problem. He’s made it through the apocalypse, he’s seen the boys and the BoB take down every Relic, survive every year of the Century, he himself managed to uncover a massive magical conspiracy twice. He’s never… he’s never really failed, Artemis. And this… he thinks he can fix this. He’s laughing out there, messing around, because he legitimately thinks this will be fine. He’s a kid, Artemis, and he’s smart, but he’s a kid with too-high expectations.”

Killian takes a breath, and Sterling knows where this is going.

“So either you can help us save her, or you can help us when Angus realizes we can’t.”

Chapter Text

The wagon rattles and bumps along the rough dirt roads beyond Goldcliff, trees passing quickly past Lucretia’s staring eyes. She’s huddled in the back of the cart, tired and struggling to process the day’s events. Magnus gleefully helms the cart as Taako backseat drives, bickering with each other about petty choices. Hours pass this way, as pine forest fades into mountain chaparral that dries and fragments into true desert. The color of the soil slowly warms, from a dusty brown in the forest to a warm, rich red hue. That alone tells Lucretia where they’re going, and it’s not long after that they find themselves trundling along the main street of the quiet town of Refuge.

The cart pulls up alongside the Davy Lamp, and Taako deftly jumps down from the cart, knocking briskly on a side door. It opens, and Taako is immediately pulled into a hug which he sputters indignantly about but doesn’t resist. “Ren! Hello, yes, I guess it’s okay to see you too!”

Ren releases her flustered mentor, waving brightly at the cart. “Hi Magnus! Hi Lucretia! Taako’s told me the gist, y’all’d better come inside!”

They’re ushered up a back staircase of the Davy Lamp, Ren waving Magnus and Lucretia up to the top as she pulls Taako into her office for what she claims with a nefarious glint in her eye to be “just some good-ol’ fashioned catchin’ up!”

The room at the top of the stairs is simple but neat; four beds, a washbasin, and a few yellowed windows looking outer the town. Making is way to one, Magnus sighs, staring out the window with a mix of love and sadness in his eyes.

Lucretia walks over, gently touching his arm. “Magnus? You okay?”

He keeps staring out over the town, at the glows of lamp-lights warming as the sky dims to a warm red-black. A wistful smile tugs at his lips. “Lucretia… you went to Raven’s Roost, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, softly. “I did, when… yeah.” Refuge is all reds and oranges to Raven’s Roost’s sandy browns, but the similarities are unmistakeable. Sweeping cliffs, desert warmth, and a close-knit community that’s a family in all but name.

“I come back here a bunch, you know?” he continues. “It’s not… I can’t go back. I had that choice. I chose to stay, and gods do I stay up some nights hating myself for it. But… look at what would have been lost.” His hand waves over the town. “New life. Growth. Refuge… Refuge saw as much shit as Raven’s Roost, and it has the opportunity to rebuild, to become something better. I can’t take that away. She doesn’t want me to, anyway. There’s no rush.”

“She… doesn’t?” Lucretia asks, puzzling at the verb tense. “You mean… Julia, right?”

“Yeah, Jules,” Magnus grins, something bittersweet and soft in his eyes. “Back during everything… Kravitz has talked to her. He sneaks letters for us, sometimes, when he can get away with it. She has a house, a forge, and a woodshop waiting for me to get there. But she’s in no rush, and neither am I, anymore. I know I’ll see her eventually.”

Magnus could warm a room with his lovesick smiles, but Lucretia feels as if her stomach has frozen to ice. “That’s… that’s amazing, Magnus. I’m really glad.”

The evening quiets, conversation slowed to a gentle halt. They ready for and climb into their respective beds, Magnus dozing off with some truly impressive snoring. But Lucretia can’t sleep. She can’t stop turning over that conversation in her head. And eventually, she can’t take it anymore.

Silently, she climbs out of bed and slips on her shoes. Creeping her way down the stairs, she barely breathes - she can see a glimmer of light from Ren’s office, hear the murmur of voices. But she makes her way out of the small side door of the Davy Lamp unnoticed.

Lucretia shivers as she quietly steps through the sleeping town of Refuge. The desert is cold at night, colder than she’d anticipated. But it won’t matter soon, anyway. She makes her way toward the edge of town, until she stands besides the statues. She can’t stand to look at their faces. Instead, she looks up at the inscription on the gate.

“By Their Sacrifice, Our Home is Made Safe.”

She steels herself, nodding sharply in a private decision, and steps out into the open desert. Abandoning the worn dirt road, she follows no path or guide. She walks through sagebrush and cacti she can’t hope to name, along the inclines of the hard-packed sand until finally, she can’t stand to walk any more.

Lucretia collapses onto her knees, staring up at the stars, at the moons. The world around her is silent, the desert stretching out dark and endless before her. She exhales, once, and her hands go to her throat. Slowly, and almost with ceremony, she begins to lift the charm against scrying from her neck.

Two things occur in quick succession. First, with an electric shock she recognizes immediately as spellwork, her arms are frozen by her head, before she can remove the necklace. However, she hardly has time to recognize the Hold Person spell before she’s bodily tackled to the ground, a couple hundred pounds of human sending her sprawling in the dirt. Her bare arms grinding across the rough desert sands and something in her ribs crunching, she can’t hold back a shriek. “FUCKING OW!”

“Sorry not sorry!” Magnus shouts, wrapping his arms around her torso, pinning her own arms. “What the FUCK, Creesh?”

“Magnus, you can let go,” Taako says, his voice venomously soft. “My spell’s doing the job. You know, keeping Lucretia from undoing everything we’ve done for her.”

“I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS!” Lucretia nearly screams from her crumpled position. Magnus, beginning to let her go, stumbles back. She blinks hard, tears dripping onto the thirsty sands.

“I didn’t ask you to do this,” she whispers up at them, voice rough. Magnus looks horrified and hurt, and Taako’s eyes are wide in shock. “You didn’t give me a choice. I made this deal, I pay the consequences, that’s how this was supposed to work. I refuse… I refuse to let you risk everything to solve a problem I created for myself.”

She’s staring at Magnus now, almost pleading, and his face is white in horror. Taako glances quickly between them, hardened gaze settling on Magnus. “Mags, buddy, you seem to know what the fuck is going on here, care to share with the class?”

“I… you… Jules… oh, fuck,” Magnus nearly whispers. “I… that’s not what I meant! That’s not why I told you that!”

“Taako,” Lucretia says bluntly, “The greatest thing Magnus wants in life is to see his wife again when he dies. You know Reapers, you know the Queen’s law better than us, what would you say is the sentence for aiding and abetting a fugitive?”

He freezes for a moment, and teeth clenched hisses ”fuck.”

“I can’t let that happen,” she begs. “If I… I can turn myself in, and say- if I say this was my idea, you’ll be okay. I can take the fall, okay? I can’t keep dragging you into my mistakes,” she almost whispers.

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because Taako’s face, formerly open with shock and horror, shutters. “No.”

“What?”

”No,” he reiterates. “No, fuck no, fuck all of this fucking bullshit. Magnus?”

“Yeah?” His voice still faint with shock, Magnus shakily makes his way over to Taako.

The elf punches him on the shoulder. “Can you go to Paloma? Eat some scones, drink some tea, take a breather. And can you send… you know… over to the Davy Lamp? I think we need to move up our timetable.”

“I.. yeah,” Magnus says, his posture relaxing a hint with an actual task at hand. He can’t seem to take his eyes off Lucretia, though. “I’ll get them. And you’ll… take her to a healer, right?”

It’s at about that point Lucretia takes stock of her situation. Specifically, the unpleasant sensation that she now recognizes as the tackiness of blood on her arms, the grit of sand on open wounds. After all, Magnus is a fighter - even when well meaning, he can do some damage. Like cause some mean road rash.

Magnus didn’t come out of that unscathed either, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Homie, I am a healer,” Taako proclaims. “I can handle this. Go to Paloma.”

Nodding, he rushes off.

Taako walks over to Lucretia, who is still immobilized on the ground. “If I let you up, are you going to try again?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispers. “I don’t understand.”

Taako sighs. “I’ll explain. Promise. But first Magnus needs to get his head together and you need to talk to a friend here. Context, ya’know?”

He reaches out a hand. “Come with me?”

The spell dissolves, and Lucretia slowly stumbles upright. She takes Taako’s hand to pull her to standing and as she does she feels the coolness of a Cure Wounds slide up her arms, smoothing the cuts to weeks-old scars. Not new - healing spells only work so well, especially on the elderly. But healing.

Taako doesn’t let her hand go, just gently pulls her back to town. Head ringing with silence and confusion, she lets him.

They make their way down darkened streets, deep black skies scattered with more stars than Lucretia’s ever known. All the lanterns are dimmed, their owners long abed - except one. A single, flickering lantern shines from the Davy Lamp’s main room.

Taako stops at the door. “I’ll be next door, with Ren. This is something I can’t help with, something you two need to talk through on your own.”

He waits and watches as Lucretia hesitantly pushes the door open with a creak that pierces the silence, and steps through to the room beyond. At first she’s blinded by a lamp in the center of the saloon, too much to see the figure who sits beside it. But as her eyes adjust, she takes them in a few features at a time. Dark hair, split in two braids. Warm brown skin, washed out by the light. Dark eyes in a young face. And a warm, goldenrod yellow work shirt.

June smiles, slow and warm. “Hi, Lucretia. It’s good to meet you.”

She sighs. “Hi, June. June, right?”

“Yup.”

“Why, exactly, did Taako drag you out of bed at fuck-all-o’clock am?” She’s annoyed, and stressed, and no longer understands what’s happening here. Shifting her weight, she moves to turn, to walk back out, to ask Taako what the hell he thinks he’s doing here.

But June stops her with a quiet yet firm, “Wait.” She looks Lucretia over. “How old are you?”

Lucretia laughs at that non-sequitur, near hysterics. “Now that’s a loaded question.” Lucretia looks down at her hands, ink-stained and wrinkled, and counts back the decades.

But June takes her hand and stops her. “Yeah, I know,” she says gently, and Lucretia realizes with a shock that she maybe actually does. “How old do you feel?”

Lucretia half collapses into a seat, frozen, before turning the question back. “How old… were you? Are you?”

June smiles. “I was seven. Then… I’m not sure, really. Seven years frozen and I was old and grey and frail, then seven more years returning and I was fourteen. Currently, physically, I’m fifteen. Mentally… twenty-two or so, plus or minus a few decades?”

Lucretia almost laughs. “Depending on who you ask, or even when you ask, I guess that puts me somewhere between thirty-two, one hundred and thirty-two, fifty-two, or hell, there’s too many possibilities. Right now?” she pauses, eyes sad. “Definitely over a hundred.”

“Man, fuck time magic, right?” June asks wryly, and Lucretia snorts.

“Yeah, seriously.” Something in Lucretia’s sardonic smile cracks at that. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“Nope, we’re not having this discussion,” June chirps brightly. “For so many reasons. First off, I’ve had the whole emotional heart to heart with Magnus like, a year ago, and I’m not really up for that much crying right now. But the short version - Magnus created the Chalice and brought it to us. And even so he’s not at fault - he didn’t know, nobody knew, and he may be its creator but he is not the Chalice. You hardly had anything to do with what happened here. It’s not your fault.”

Lucretia stares. “You’ve spoken to Sloane, haven’t you.” It’s not a question.

June grins. “Yep! We have a club, kind of, a little relic thrall support group. Me, Sloane, Lucas, the whole squad, ya’know. You should join!”

Lucretia makes a sound somewhere between a bitter laugh and a surprised cough. “I really don’t think that would be appropriate.”

“Why?” And June looks so honestly confused and Lucretia can’t handle this.

“Because as kind and forgiving as you all are, I’m still responsible!” she almost shouts, voice thick with tears. “I ruined your lives, I am the exact thing you are trying to recover from! The Relics stole your lives from you, your agency, and made you do horrible things. And I am the reason they were out there to do that!”

June stares. “You need to talk to Lucas.”

“..what?”

“You need to talk to Lucas. Like, now.”

“Can we not drag him into this little therapy road trip?” Lucretia asks, exasperated and frustrated and tired.

“No, I think we need to,” June says, voice going hard, “Because you’re missing a really important piece of information that we all assumed you knew. But hey, ass of you and me, right? Fuck, goddamn it, I’m calling Lucas right now.”

“STOP.” Lucretia does yell, now, and June falls silent. “I’m fucking tired of this. I’m tired of being dragged around to different places, getting different people involved in this, never knowing what’s going on so people can hit me with random emotional bombshells. Tell me what the fuck is going on here, or I’m leaving.”

June looks chastened. “Okay, fine. He could explain it better, but fine. I know Sloane tried to bring this up too, but you had enough on your plate then. Anyway, the short version - Sloane was thralled. Lucas wasn’t. I wasn’t. You maybe were.”

Lucretia stares. “What.”

June sighs. “Have you spoken to Magnus about the Chalice? When it tried to convince them to use it? The Chalice doesn’t thrall. Most Relics do, right - they take over people, pull them into this shit. And Sloane’s the only person who’s survived that, because thrall makes people incredibly volatile and uncontrolled. Fuck, I mean, Sloane didn’t survive it. She did actually die. Everyone who’s been thralled has died, usually in horrible and destructive ways.”

“Yeah, I know, you don’t have to remind me,” Lucretia snaps. “Get on with it.”

“Okay, fine,” June snaps back, and Lucretia is horribly reminded that she’s still a teenager. “The Chalice doesn’t thrall. The Chalice convinces, and that makes it by far the most dangerous of the Relics. It’s sentient. It doesn’t thrall, because it doesn’t have to. The Gauntlet, the Sash, all those, they’re dumb and they rely on magic to ensure their use. But all the Chalice has to do is tell someone they can fix things. They can save a crowd of innocents from poisoning, they can go back and save their wife. Why bother with magic when telling a little girl you can bring her father back works just as well?”

Her voice is raised and she’s breathing hard, so she closes her eyes for a second to take a few breaths before continuing. “Once I picked up the Chalice, it was over, but I was never compelled to pick it up. I chose. And from there, it did its thing, it controlled me, and that fucking sucked. But it didn’t start with a thrall, and that’s important, for me, for Lucas, and for you.”

“The Chalice proves that the Relics have nuance. They can be a lot more insidious that we thought, they’re not just overwhelming magical force. They can thrall, they can convince, they can control, they can do any of that or none. They just do what they have to, and they can probably do more than we know, which is important for you and Lucas. Because they didn’t do anything to him.”

“How… how do you know this?” Lucretia asks, hoarse.

June’s eyes have too much behind them. “Because Lucas, Sloane, and I have spent the past few years researching the Relics intensively. I know your family made them, but no offense, you clearly didn’t fully understand them, because you let them be released the the world at large. Whereas the three of us have a very detailed understanding of precisely how they affect people. Lucas started researching in more detail after the thing with the Stone, and Sloane and I joined him later. That’s been most of what Lucas and I have been doing for the past year or so. We know the Relics better than anyone.”

“And that’s how we know the Philosopher’s Stone got lucky. It fell into the hands of someone who knew what it was, knew how to use it, and had an extremely strong reason to use it. Lucas chose to use the Stone, and it never took him over, because he did the Stone’s work for it.”

“And Lucretia… that takes us to you. Because, well… You were scared, and you wanted to protect your family, and gods do I get that. And that was all you. You made the choice to split your family, because people were dying and you were what, twenty-one years old?”

Lucretia nods, head in her hands, and June continues. “That was bad. That didn’t end great, I am very aware of that fact and I’m not going to brush past that. But that’s only half of what you’re beating yourself up over, right? You’re upset that you hurt people, and you’re upset that it took you ten years to undo the damage.”

Lucretia doesn’t look up, but her voice is raw and pained. “Of course I am.”

“Yeah, that was probably not on you.”

“How the fuck-“

“The Bulwark Staff. One of the first things you did was get the Staff back, and then you kept it with you. You spent ten years in close proximity with a Relic whose whole thing is protection. And in those ten years, you knew that the only way to protect those you loved also happened to be the exact thing that would keep the Relics out in the world for as long as possible. We’re probably not ever going to know for certain, but, well… you might not have been thralled, but the three of us are pretty sure you were nudged.”

Lucretia doesn’t know when she started shaking. “I need- I need to leave. To think. I - fuck.“

June’s eyes are warm and sad. “Of course. I’ll leave you to it.”

And she quietly steps out of the room, leaving Lucretia’s shattered worldview in her wake.

Chapter Text

Back on the moon base, high above, Lup and Barry move as one. Lup slams into Carey, yelling “Sorry, dude!” as she knocks the dragonborn flying. Carey lands deftly on her two rogue feet looking absolutely murderous, but it’s too late. Lup’s opened her own swirling black portal, just in time for Barry to flip Kravitz’s cape over the now entirely baffled Reaper’s head and shove him through. Lup dives after them, and lands skidding on a tiled floor. She scrambles to her feet, snaps the portal shut, and takes stock of their new circumstances.

Barry’s up and moving, sparks flying from his spectral fingers and dozens of locks thunking shut around him. He knows every entrance, every weak point to this house - of course he does, and Lup too. They have to live somewhere, after all, when they’re not off in the Astral Plane or hunting down necromancers. Can’t exactly host family game nights in the Sea of Souls. So they have their house, a humble little two-bedroom in a suburb of Neverwinter, the kind of place where children ride bikes in the street and no-one would even suspect they’re liches, let alone world heroes. They’ve lived here for about six months now, long enough for them to know every nook and cranny and structural weakness of the house and for Lup to begin her hostile takeover of the homeowner’s association.

(Barry is not on the homeowner’s association. Barry has strong opinions about the homeowner’s association.)

(So does Lup, but she believes in dismantling tyranny from the inside out. And Sharon brings some baller cookies to the meetings.)

Anyway, this is the first safe and defensible space Lup could think of. She grabs Kravitz by the arm, pulling him out of the kitchen and onto a living room couch just in time for him to get his own cape out of his face. Sometime, when circumstances are less dire, she’s going to tease the hell out of him for that. But not now.

“Take a seat. We need to talk this through.”

Kravitz’s face is flickering between skeletal and alive, somewhere between furious and terrified. He stands, shaking and scythe in hand, but Barry walks in to stop him.

“Kravitz, I just placed literally every spell I know for locking, warding, repelling magical beings, and generally dampening magic on this house. I used up all my goddamned spell slots for this. You’re not leaving this house, and nothing’s coming in, until we have this conversation, which will be completely private. Now sit down.” His red robe voice comes through at the end there, and Lup winces. That’s not great - nowadays, that only comes out in traumatic and high stress situations. But it’s not like any of them are pretending they’re coping with this.

Barry collapses onto the couch next to Lup, as Kravitz sinks back down, shaking. He lets out a wailing, inhuman shriek of frustration and pain and fear.

“Mood,” Lup says, deadpan.

Barry cracks, curling into himself and shaking with anxious laughter. “Well-“ he chokes out, “good to know we’re all on the same page here.”

Kravitz stares up at the ceiling, face settling into something more human. “Fuuuuuck.”

“Like, okay. We can’t let this happen, right?” Barry asks, desperation bleeding through his voice.

“I can’t-“ Kravitz’s voice cracks- “I can’t not hunt a death criminal. That’s like. It’s what I do, it’s what we do, and they know this, Taako knows this, why did- how did- what does he-“

“Man, how’d we end up with this fucked up of a family?” Lup asks offhandedly, voice forcibly light.

“Uh, a hundred and ten years of trauma and questionable decisions all around?” Barry suggests.

“Yeah, that tracks,” Kravitz sighs.

They sit there in silence for a minute.

“We should… we need a plan. Or bare fucking minimum, something to tell the Queen,” Kravitz says, defeated.

Lup leans forward, steeling her fingers. “Okay. Here’s what we’re dealing with. Kravitz, because of the contract, we have to- like, close to magically compelled levels of have to for you, and ‘we’d really like to stay not arrested’ levels of have to for me and Barry… We have to reap Lucretia’s soul.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s… we don’t have a way around that, yet,” Barry says. “I know a shit ton about loopholes to the laws of death - oh, don’t give me that look, Krav,” he adds, almost irritable. “You know what you’re dealing with by now.”

“Fair enough,” Kravitz mutters, and Barry moves on.

“We have to follow the wording of the contract. Kravitz, you have that on you?”

The Reaper grasps at empty air and suddenly there’s a crisp white sheet of stationery in his hand. “Yup.”

“Okay.” Barry takes it and reads it over. “As of today, the contract between Lucretia, also known as Madam Director of the Bureaus of Balance and Benevolence, and Her Majesty the Raven Queen of the Realm of Death, agreed upon precisely ten years hence, has come to an end. As agreed, the soul of Lucretia is now the property of Her Majesty, for all eternity, to be relinquished without complaint to any of Her Majesty’s Reapers. Failure to do so will void all factors.”

Barry pauses for a moment. “Yeah, we can work with this.”

“Fucking how!?” Kravitz shrieks. “Like, okay. I don’t like Lucretia, necessarily, that’s a whole fucking thing, but I respect her and would really rather not fucking kill her, but sorry if I don’t see an easy way out of a legally binding magical contract with a god! And that’s - that’s not even getting into the shit Taako’s pulling. I don’t - he’s breaking the fucking law!”

Lup grins crookedly. “Man, Krav, all these years and you’re still a real stick in the mud.”

Kravitz sputters, and she takes pity on him. “Okay, this is not a long term solution, but look.” She points at one line. “‘To be relinquished.’ Not to be taken. We are under no obligation to go take Lucretia’s-“ her voice falters, and she soldiers on. “To take Lucretia’s soul from her. It’s her responsibility to bring it to us. Which, as we’re currently in a completely warded home, with no way of locating or contacting us, is going to take some time. We have no proof that she, that Lucretia, specifically, is not intending on or even currently working on delivering her soul to us. The ball is in her court, not ours. We don’t have to do anything.”

Lup sits back, enjoying the stunned look on Kravitz’s face. “We have some time to get our shit together. Now for the love of- actually, now’s a bad time to be invoking deities, so whatever - anyway, just fucking chill.”

“Okay.” Kravitz takes a deep breath, and something in him settles at that. “This does not solve the Taako problem.”

“Oh, Taako doesn’t need to worry about old RQ,” Lup says, eyes burning with spectral fire. “He should be far more worried about me, and exactly what I think of him making a hare-brained, spur of the moment decision regarding someone we all care about, one that he knows will fuck some of us over, and that we also know for a fact would’ve worked significantly better if he just asked us for some motherfucking help.”

The coffee table is on fire. Lup doesn’t seem to notice. She’s breathing pretty heavily and gripping the couch cushions so hard that they are also smoking. Kravitz is glancing between the table and her hands, looking somewhere between frightened and impressed. Barry’s grinning.

He leans over and lightly kisses his wife on the cheek. “We’ve got this, dear. You’ll destroy him.” And then he claps his hands, a wave of mist extinguishing the flames.

“Now! We’re going to be stuck in here, just the three of us, with no contact to the outside world until my spells wear off, which will be quite some time. And you know what that means?” Barry almost sings.

“Oh, don’t you fucking dare,” Kravitz groans, but it’s too late.

“Who wants to play Fantasy Monopoly?”

Chapter Text

They leave Refuge in the morning, following the sunrise out of town. Lucretia almost says goodbye to June, and decides against it. She’s not sure what would come out if she tried. She does accept a hug from Ren, though, who sends them on their way with an enormous basket of scones from Paloma.

The trip out of the desert is mostly silent. Lucretia’s too fucking tired to talk about anything that went down last night, and Magnus and Taako seem to be respecting that - for now, anyway. They rattle across the dusty roads, reddish sand slowly making way to warm brown dirt, cacti and buttes trading out for pine trees and streams crossing the road.

Evening falls, and they stop to camp in a forested area that Lucretia’s unfamiliar with. Taako sure seems to know where they are, though, because as he wakes from a doze to look around he suddenly stiffens, eyes wide.

“Magnus,” he asks, voice tight, “you sure this is a good place to stop?”

“They’re gone,” Magnus replies, keeping his voice light but his hand close to his axe. “We killed them, pretty definitively, and we need to stop anyway. We’re too tired to keep moving tonight.”

“Fuck,” Taako concedes. “Okay.” He chuckles darkly. “Well, at least this is somewhere they won’t be looking for us, any of us - how fucking crazy would we have to be to come back here?”

Back? Lucretia wonders. When has she been here before? She tries to mentally retrace their route today. Out of the Woven Gulch, heading north-northeast, so a full day of travel would take them to…

”Shit,” she hisses. “This is the Felicity Wilds. Why the fuck are we here?”

“We’re running out of places to run,” Magnus says, tired. “Taako’s right, they won’t look for us here. And we’ll be safe - Edward and Lydia are like, very extremely extra dead.”

There’s no sign of the clearing that used to be Wonderland. For all Lucretia knows, it could be miles away or just behind a few trees. It’s still enough to put her on edge, and as she settles next to the campfire Magnus is building, she knows none of them will get much sleep tonight, either.

They sit quietly for an hour, sipping at a stew Taako prepared over a campfire (and it’s so telling how he shows off with fancy meals and complicated dishes but truly excels at trail food). Finally, though, Magnus sets his bowl aside with a sigh.

“So I know we weren’t talking about last night,” he says, and Lucretia tense. “But you two clearly have some shit you need to sort out. I’m going to do my best to stay out of it, but I am not letting us leave here without you two discussing this.” He’s more serious than Lucretia has ever seen him.

“Boy, just throwing it all out there, huh?” Taako sighs, glaring a little at Magnus. “Nice segue. Real smooth.”

Taako claps his hands together. “Well, okay, first off,” he says, voice falsely light, “getting this out there, I do not want you dead, I’m not okay with that, and frankly I’m somewhat horrified that you would think that of me!”

“I didn’t- I never thought-“ Lucretia blurts out, and Taako sighs.

“Okay, that was maybe too blunt. Maybe you don’t explicitly think I want you dead. But the fact that you’re constantly surprised that I’m keeping you from the Raven Queen’s clutches says some rather unflattering things about what you think of me.” His voice is just a bit too high pitched, and Lucretia can see that he’s truly hurt.

“You should hate me,” she whispers, baffled. “You should despise me for what I did.”

“Nope! I don’t!” Taako chirps, voice brittle.

“I ‘took everything from you,’” Lucretia snarls, not angry, exactly, but some kind of confrontational. “I ruined your life.”

“That is true,” Taako says contemplatively. “You did do that, and I will never forgive you for that.”

“I won’t apologize for it,” Lucretia says, gritting her teeth. “I will not apologize for saving my family and our world.”

“I wouldn’t accept it if you did,” Taako laughs bitterly, “because I’d know you didn’t mean it.”

They stare at each other for a moment, daring the other to break. Magnus glances between the two, as if watching a tennis match.

Lucretia snaps first. “Then why the hell don’t you hate me?”

“Because I REFUSE TO LOSE BOTH MY SISTERS!" Taako yells.

Lucretia stares. Taako sighs. Magnus looks on warily.

“I’m... I’m not.” Lucretia whispers.

Magnus raises his hand. “Uh, yeah, you totally fucking are.”

Both Lucretia and Taako glare at him, and he flinches defensively. “Look, okay, I said I’d stay out of it but he’s right. We lived together for a hundred years, which, I don’t know about you, or well I do but that ruins the drama- anyway, I’ve spent so much more of my life with you all than with my biological family. We’re family, that’s undeniable, don’t ask me how Barry and Lup fit into this family tree or it’s gonna get weird but yeah, Lucretia, you’re totally his sister.”

Lucretia looks down at her hands. “Shit.”

“And he’s your brother, but you knew that already,” Magnus adds helpfully.

“Oh, man, now we’re onto self worth shit, this is great,” Taako says. “Hey, guess what, Creesh! I care about you just as much as you care about me! Because Captain Subtlety over here is right, we’re family, have been for something like a hundred and twelve years, and one major fuckup that I’m still angry at you for does not negate the fact that I love you!”

“You two are really not making this any easier,” Lucretia grimaces.

“Uh, good, considering ‘this’ is, you know, effectively you killing yourself,” Taako snaps, faux anger not quite masking his real terror. “I’m quite happy to make that as difficult as physically possible.”

“I have to,” Lucretia says, not quite a whisper. “I made the deal, I have to do it. That’s how it works. I get what you’re trying to do, but you can’t stop me.”

“Why the fuck are you so okay with this?!” Taako almost shrieks, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Because it’s not like I have long left anyway!” Lucretia almost screams, tears running down her face.

Dead silence. Magnus stares, eyes wide, and Taako looks like someone’s smashed a bottle over his head. Lucretia takes a breath.

“Look. Taako, I’m human. We’re not… I get that by elven metrics, I’m a child. But look at me.” She gestures at her white hair, her wrinkled face, her shaking hands. “I’m somewhere around fifty-two, physically. Yes, I know!” she snaps, as Magnus opens his mouth to speak. “Humans usually get a few more decades on that, even more with magic. But you don’t get it, and that’s partially my fault, because I’ve never explained it.”

She takes a deep breath. “Do you think my age is the only thing they took from me?”

“Fuck,” Magnus breathes.

Lucretia’s fists clench. “They… they fucked me up pretty bad, guys. Physically and magically. They took… well, they took my health, on top of my age. I have to expend a lot of spell slots just to stay functional, to not be in pain like all the goddamn time. I have fucking magic arthritis, some very fun shit going on with my heart, you know, that little, unimportant stuff.” She’d been having so much trouble speaking earlier, but now the words flow freely, escaping almost sooner than she can process them.

She gestures vaguely at Taako. “And you should know, it’s not all magic. I didn’t get a washing machine dropped on me, but it was pretty fucking close. Turns out even if they wouldn’t let it kill me, some types of poison gas can cause irreparable lung damage. And I’ve got scar tissue in all kinds of fun places.”

“We can fix it, we can help you,” Taako blurts out, words tumbling in a rush. “There are spells, Greater Restoration, True Polymorph, I don’t know, shit! We’re the greatest magic users who’ve ever lived, we can make you better, I know we can, you don’t have to do this!”

“Do you think I haven’t tried that?” Lucretia laughs bitterly. “I’m not an idiot, Taako. I am, as you said, pretty fucking good at magic. If there is a spell that could even possibly fix me, I’ve tried it. Didn’t work. What they take from you in Wonderland… you don’t get back. The Relics were just too powerful, the Animus Bell was on some wack shit. I’ve managed to work out magic painkillers, and that’s it.”

“But…” Taako’s eyes frantically dart around, as if he expects solutions to be showing up any time now. Magnus still looks heartbroken.

“Taako… you mean well, I know.” Lucretia smiles sadly. “Nothing short of like, divine fucking intervention can help me at this point. I’m going to die, and probably fairly soon. I might as well make it worth something.”

Taako freezes, and then a wild, manic grin begins to spread across his face.

“Divine intervention, you say, hmmm?” he says, almost gleeful. “Now that’s something we can make happen.”

Chapter Text

“Uh, Taako, you realize we’re actively on the run from gods?”

Taako waves a hand. “Pssh, details.”

“Uh, no,” Magnus reiterates, frowning, “that’s kind of a relevant issue here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Lucretia agrees.

Taako flashes a strained grin. “Yup, oh I know, believe me. I am taking that into account, and boy am I balancing a lot of possibilities and variables here, but I think I’ve got a plan. Well, no, I definitely have a plan.”

“And it is…?” Magnus asks pointedly.

Jumping to his feet, Taako says, “Can’t tell you! Not yet! Same rules as the kidnapping with plausible deniability and all that jazz. But oh man we’ve gotta get moving, and I’m pretty sure none of us were planning on sleeping tonight anyway, so let’s go!”

Taako sure doesn’t look like he’ll be sleeping any time soon, hands waving and eyes lit with manic energy. He’s clearly as anxious as he is excited - whatever his plan is, it must be pretty high stakes. But then again, what isn’t, in their lives?

Magnus grumbles as he packs away the unused camping gear. “You really can’t tell us? Because man some sort of plan, guidance, merest hint of an idea would be nice…”

“Nope! Really can’t!”

“And also you’re a dramatic bastard,” Lucretia mutters under her breath.

Taako grins. “That too!”

Lucretia laughs, surprising even herself. “Fuck it. Let’s give your crazy secret plan a shot.”

Taako very neatly avoids rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. “Excellent. Mags, take the wheel, we’ve got some ground to cover.”

—

It’s half past two in Neverwinter, and the candles in Lord Artemis Sterling’s library are burning low. Carey is napping in an alcove, while Killian watches over an extremely drowsy Angus, still poring over ancient texts. Artemis himself has been sent in search of yet more books.

Killian’s pretty sure Angus isn’t actually processing what he’s reading anymore, as he’s spent a full five minutes trailing back and forth over a single paragraph, but she’s not about to bring it up. Every time she’s said something, Angus jolts awake, refocusing on the task at hand despite being clearly exhausted. Her current best bet at getting the kid to actually sleep is just letting him collapse onto his book.

Angus’s head drifts lower, and lower still, and Killian’s ready to let out a silent cheer when there’s suddenly an enormous, echoing knock. Angus shoots back up with a gasp, and Killian fixes her glare on the library’s ostentatious double doors.

“Who’s there?” she calls, suspicious and irritated.

Her ire shifts to both hope and worry when she hears a quiet voice reply, “Don’t worry, it’s just us.”

“Lucretia!” Carey, evidently awake now, shoots across the library to envelop the woman in a hug. “Hey!”

“Hey to you too,” Lucretia says, grinning weakly. She’s followed in by Taako and Magnus, who both look as road-weary as Lucretia.

“So, this is different,” Killian says, hopeful but wary. “I’ll take it that the plan’s changed then?”

“Oh, yeah, the plan has sure fucking changed, shit’s about to go down,” Taako grins. “But before we can really go for it I’ve gotta check some things with my genius research team, get official approval, you know.” He strolls over to Angus, who’s still trapped at his desk by an enormous pile of books, and leans over to whisper in his ear.

“Oh, I see, he gets to know the plan,” Magnus snidely remarks.

Angus’s face goes on a journey as Taako whispers, eyes widening further and further until they seem almost as big as his wide rimmed glasses. After a few minutes, Taako leans back and says, “So, whaddaya think, kiddo?”

Angus looks up at Taako with a mixture of horror, awe, and glee. “Sir, you’re an absolute lunatic. That just might work!” He slams his book shut, nearly upturning several candles. “Come on come on come ON!” He shouts, running - stumbling - for the door.

Magnus catches him before he makes it halfway. “Whoa, slow your roll, kid,” he says, neatly swooping the twelve year old off the ground and onto his shoulders. “We’re not running all the way there, so hold up before you fall on your face.”

“I won’t fall!” Angus argues petulantly, then is neatly contradicted when he tries to dismount Magnus’s shoulders. Two seconds later, through speed and possibly magic Angus is too tired to process, Killian is holding him upside down by his ankle.

She grins. “You were saying?”

Angus glowers as much as he can, but he’s sleep deprived and upside down so it just looks adorable. “Fine, I concede.”

“Great, glad that’s settled,” Taako breezes past. “We’ve got a drive ahead of us, so Research Squad, you’ve been promoted to Nap Squad.”

“Ooh, excellent,” Carey grins, and then she frowns. “Wait, no, we’re doing this in shifts.”

“What?”

“Taako, look at yourself,” she gestures, at both Taako’s road-wrinkled clothes and the deep, dark circles under his eyes, peeking out even past his Disguise Self. “You’ve been going as hard as we have, if not more. We need at least one driver and one other person awake, but it can’t just be you three all night.”

“Ye-aaaaaah,” Angus agrees, yawning mid-word. He misses several significant looks shot above his head.

“Okay, fine,” Taako concedes. “I have some calls to make, and Mags is driving, so we’re on first. We’ll swap out in a few hours. You four, hunker down.”

There’s a bit of a nest of blankets in the back of the cart, and the three women and Angus burrow into the pile. Within moments, Angus is asleep.

The five adults look at each other. “Okay, all agreed that he’s not taking a shift?” Firm nods all around.

They set off, trundling out of town along cobblestone roads. Lucretia’s lulled to sleep by the rumbling of the wheels and the gentle chatter of voices around her. Tired to her bones from the past few days’ events, not even her looming fate is enough to keep her awake.

The four remaining adults lock eyes. “Yup, she’s not either.”

“Glad we’re clear on that.”

They drive on, darkness deepening and then fading around them. Carey and Killian switch out with Magnus and Taako twice, each time painstakingly maneuvering so as to not wake Angus and Lucretia. But soon enough, the sky brightens, golden light bleaching the road that’s taken them so far from Neverwinter.

“…shit, did anyone tell Sterling we were leaving?”

They did not. At least his hair was already grey.

—

As day breaks, the weary travelers find their way to a quiet neighborhood, with white picket fences and children playing in the streets. They stop at a modest, unassuming house, completely nondescript as long as you ignore little details like an issue of Necromancy Monthly sitting in the mailbox.

Magnus hops down from the cart. “I really fucking hope you know what you’re doing…”

Taako’s not smiling anymore. “Me too.”

With that alarming pronouncement, he strides up to the front door and knocks three times. There’s a moment of silence, and then the door slowly creeps open and Lup’s head peeks around it. When she sees who it is, her eyes widen for a split second and she slams the door shut.

“Aw, Lulu, c’mon…” Taako whines. He knocks again.

This time, Lup glares at him so hard that it feels like he should combust on the spot. “Taako. My dear brother. Get the fuck away from here while we still have plausible deniability.”

“You don’t need it anymore, I swear!” He says hurriedly, holding his hands up. “I have a plan, it’s okay!”

“Oh, of fucking course you do.” Lup’s obviously quite pissed. “Care to share with the class?”

Taako slowly lowers his hands, looking sheepish. “Yeah, okay. Can you let us in though? We’re about to have company.”

Lup’s eyes narrow. “What kind of company.”

“Not gods! Nothing bad! Our family, that’s it, it’s part of the plan, I’ll explain when everyone gets here?”

Lup sighs. “You better know what you’re doing. Give me two seconds to explain to Kravitz and Barry.”

She closes the door, and for a interminable few minutes they stand awkwardly on the doorstep. A small dragonborn child on a bicycle rides past, staring.

Finally, she comes back to the door. “Come on in, I guess.” As Taako walks in, she pulls him into a hug. “We are having a talk about your trust issues after this,” she mutters.

Taako winces. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

They trail into the house, making their way to the living room. Kravitz is sprawled on the sofa like a swooning Victorian lady. Barry is pacing and occasionally giggling with stress, still spectral and levitating just a little bit higher with every lap of the room. The new arrivals are careful not to remark on the Fantasy Monopoly pieces strewn around the room and embedded in the walls, much like they politely ignore the charred wreck of a coffee table and the burn holes in the sofa.

Magnus waves. “Hey guys!”

Barry waves back. Kravitz groans. Lup sighs.

They settle down to wait, leaning against walls or sitting on the ground as everyone feels too guilty to displace Kravitz. A few minutes later, the others arrive, Merle choosing to not knock on the door and just barge in, Avi behind him.

“Hey guys!” He says brightly. “What’s the plan?”

Everyone turns to look pointedly at Taako. He smiles weakly. “Next is I negotiate with a goddess.”

“You’re going to talk the Raven Queen, the eternal goddess of death, out of arresting us all for death crimes and also into breaking a contract for Lucretia’s soul,” Magnus says slowly.

“Yup.”

Lucretia laughs, interrupting what was about to be an explosion of voices. “Fuck it, why not?” she says. “I’m tired of running.”

Taako gives her a quick side-hug. “I gotchu.” He addresses the rest of the group. “Don’t worry, there’s more to it than that. Here’s what we’ve gotta do though, and we have to time this right. When I count to three-“

“Okay, are we talking one, two, go on three, or one, two, three, go?” Merle interrupts.

Taako sighs. “Let’s go with one, two, three, go. Anyway. On go, here’s how it’s gonna go. Merle, you call on Pan. Magnus, you call Istus. Kravitz, if you’re up to it?” Kravitz shows no sign of registering the conversation, and Taako shrinks a little. “Okay, Lup then, you get RQ. Barry, you drop all your wards. Nice job on those, by the way.”

Barry beams. “Thanks! I’ll show you my notes later.”

Taako grins, face strained. “Sounds good. Everyone else, get to the sides of the room or the kitchen, we’re going to need some space. Everyone got it?”

There are nods all around as the group shuffles, clearing a space around the ruined coffee table. Once everyone is settled, Taako takes a deep breath, steeling himself.

“Okay, all right, here we go. One, two, three, GO!”

“My Lady-“

“Hey, uh, Istus-“

“YO PAN!”

And in the midst of the cacophony of shouting supplicants and locks clicking open, Taako deftly removes the charm from Lucretia’s neck.

There’s a split second of silence, just long enough to wonder if it worked, and then a deafening boom, like the loudest thunderclap imaginable. The air flashes black, white, green, blinding for just a moment, and when Taako blinks the spots out of his eyes, all the windows in the house have shattered and three new figures are standing before him.

They’re vaguely humanoid-sized, which is something Taako was banking on given the size of the house. Pan looks confused, but brightens and waves at Merle once he notices him. Istus is focused on her knitting, but her face is lit up with a sneaky smile, like she knows something the others don’t. Bolstered by that, Taako finally looks to the face of the Raven Queen.

Her face is impassive, deep, unending darkness all that’s visible behind her bird-skull mask. "TAAKO, BROTHER OF LUP,” her voice booms, a thousand voices intertwining, sounding just as much as it’s in his head as spoken aloud. ”DO YOU SURRENDER?”

He takes a breath. “See, here’s the thing. Yes, technically, but also no, not really.”

Lup facepalms. The Raven Queen doesn’t react. ”EXPLAIN.”

“Okay. I’ve looked at the contract, and well. It’s pretty solid. You’ve got some good lawyers,” Taako jokes. “But the thing is… this is supposed to be that part in a fairy tale where I reveal that I’ve found a loophole, a trick, a way to weasel out of it and win the day.” He closes his eyes, taking a breath. “But the thing is… I haven’t.”

A gasp is torn from what seems like all corners of the room, but Taako doesn’t react, other than to tighten his arm around Lucretia’s shoulders. He keeps his eyes on the Queen.

She cocks her head to the side, unsettlingly inhuman and birdlike. "SO. DO YOU SURRENDER?”

“Nope, not yet, because you haven’t heard my case yet!” he says brightly. “Because boy do I have one. See, here’s the thing about Lucretia. I don’t agree with her methods, or how we ended up here, but there’s one thing that’s pretty indisputable. Without her, we’d all be worse than dead.” He stares the Raven Queen dead in her deep, lightless eyes. “And that includes you.”

“Lucretia saved the goddamn multiverse,” he continues. “It’s Lucretia’s spell that trapped the Hunger, Lucretia’s plan that in the end, led to us winning. Without her, it would have won. It would have absorbed me, her, everyone on our plane - and you too. Every single being on every single plane, because it wouldn’t have stopped with us or even with you. It would have kept going. It would have destroyed everything, except for one person, one single human woman standing in its way. And I think that deserves some fucking recognition, at the very least, because Lucretia risked a hell of a lot to get there.”

”I AM AWARE OF THIS, AND LUCRETIA'S ACTIONS ARE ADMIRABLE,” The Raven Queen says, and despite everything Lucretia blushes. ”BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE TERMS.”

“No, it doesn’t, but here’s the thing. I’m not asking you to change the terms. I’m asking you to consider everything Lucretia has done, what she’s already sacrificed because…” He pauses for a moment, praying to everything he knows.

“I can’t stop you from taking Lucretia’s soul. But there’s absolutely nothing saying that you can’t give it back.”

Instant uproar. Taako faintly hears incomprehensible yelling, a shriek of ”THIS WAS YOUR PLAN?!” breaking through the noise. Beside him, Lucretia’s frozen stiff and shaking like a leaf. But Taako keeps staring straight ahead, refusing to back down. Not now, and not ever.

The Raven Queen stares back, and for just a moment, Taako sees the faintest glint of a light in her eyes. If he didn’t know better, and her face wasn’t an unmoving bone mask, he’d almost say she’s grinning.

“DEAL.”

The yelling stops abruptly. “I’m sorry, what?” Lucretia chokes out, and the Raven Queen turns to face her.

“I AGREE. I CANNOT AND WILL NOT BREAK THE TERMS OF OUR CONTRACT. BUT TAAKO IS CORRECT ON BOTH COUNTS. LUCRETIA, YOU SAVED US ALL,” she says. “THAT WAS PRETTY FUCKING BALLER.”

From behind her, Lucretia can hear what sounds like Kravitz choking to death. Taako starts giggling.

“THERE IS NO PRECEDENT FOR THIS, BUT AS THE ALL-POWERFUL RULER AND JUDGE OF LIFE AND DEATH, I DO WHAT I WANT. WE HAVE A DEAL. IF YOU SURRENDER YOUR SOUL TO ME, I WILL RETURN IT TO YOUR BODY." She holds out a black-gloved hand. “DO YOU ACCEPT?”

You could hear a pin drop as Lucretia stares at the Raven Queen, and then at Taako, before smiling and stepping forward. “I accept.” And she places her hand in the Raven Queen’s. It feels soft, like feathers.

Lucretia feels the strangest tugging and floating sensation as her soul is ripped from her body by the Raven Queen’s gentle pull on her hand. The colors of the world shift, everything going grey as she’s pulled from the Material to the Ethereal Plane. She glances back over her shoulder to see her physical body collapse, only to be caught by Pan and Istus, of all people.

Pan waves at her, grinning. “Don’t worry, we’ll give it back!”

Istus is smiling as well. “Just got some tune-ups to do first.”

They pull Lucretia’s body to the sofa, where it starts gently glowing. Nonplussed, Lucretia looks down on her own body, and gasps. It’s not just that her body is transparent, or even that she’s wearing what looks like her IPRE robes, but in the blues and silvers of her Bureau attire. No, it’s at her hands, suddenly smoother and softer than she’s seen them in just over a decade.

The Raven Queen squeezes her hand. “I'LL LEAVE YOU TWO TO IT MOMENTARILY, AS I NOW HAVE QUITE A LOT OF PAPERWORK TO SORT OUT."

“Two?” Lucretia asks, confused, but the Queen has already vanished.

“Yeah, heyo,” comes a voice from behind her, and she spins around.

Taako’s standing there, transparent as she is and grinning. “Magic Jar is a remarkably useful spell,” he says, and his face softens as he sees her. “Oh, Lucretia…”

She smiles. “How old am I, right now?” She pulls him into a hug, and Taako squeezes back.

“I’d say not a day over thirty-two,” he says softly.

They stand there for a while, hand in hand, as they watch events unfold back on the Material Plane. Kravitz has now been evicted from the couch to make room for Taako’s body as well. Barry’s started gathering up the Fantasy Monopoly pieces, Angus is running around the house powered by an adrenaline high, and Killian is in the kitchen making an ungodly amount of coffee. The gods themselves are still hovering over Lucretia’s body.

“Did you plan… whatever it is they’re doing?” Lucretia asks, gesturing at the gods.

Taako shrugs. “Uh, not really? But like, kind of? They were mostly here as backup if my original argument didn’t work, but it did, so fuck yeah to me. This thing now was an absolute long shot hope.”

“So… are you going to tell me what they’re doing?” Lucretia asks pointedly.

Taako smiles. “Nope!”

Lucretia punches him in the spectral shoulder, but not that hard. “We need to talk about your sense of drama.”

Taako laughs. “Oh, like you’re one to talk - you built an entire fake moon for your secret hideout.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Lucretia laughs.

After a few more minutes, Istus stands up. “Okay!” she calls. “You can come on back now!”

The Raven Queen reappears in the Ethereal Plane, smoothly as if she’d never left. “READY?” she asks, reaching out a hand again.

Lucretia smiles. “Ready.”

As she takes the Queen’s hand for a second time, Taako grins, saying “Race ya!” In a blink of light, he’s gone, returned to his body.

The Raven Queen walks Lucretia back over to the sofa, where her body rests. “So, uh, how do I do this?” She asks, nervous.

“JUST TOUCH IT, AND I'LL DO THE REST," the goddess says gently.

Slowly, carefully, Lucretia reaches out to tap herself on the shoulder. For an instant, nothing happens, and then she feels the world around her warp and spin. When she opens her eyes, she’s sitting on the sofa, surrounded by the stares of her anxious family.

She waves. “I’m back!”

The room breaks into cheers, yelling and laughing and maybe a few tears here and there. Lucretia grins, moving to stand up, before she pauses.

“This feels different,” she says, turning to face Istus and Pan with narrowed eyes. “What did you do?”

“Well… so I happen to not like things that fuck with the laws of nature, and she doesn’t like things that break the laws of time and fate, so we fixed it?” Pan says.

Istus smiles. “What Edward and Lydia did to you goes against everything we stand for. We can’t fix everything, we couldn’t undo your age, but, well. He fixed all your unnatural injuries, both magical and physical. And I can’t turn back time, I can’t make you thirty-two again, but I can make you stop aging until you actually turn fifty-two.”

Lucretia stares, jaw dropped, and then she pulls both deities in for a hug.

“Oof, watch the horns, lady,” Pan gripes, but he returns the hug just as strongly.

“I mean, you saved us all,” Istus says, a twinkle in her eye. “It’s really the least we could do.”

“Still… thank you,” Lucretia says, at a loss for words.

“It’s nothing, really,” Pan says, and then makes a shooing motion. “Go on, join the party! It’s for you, after all.”

Lucretia stands, delighting at the lack of pain and her new agility. All around her, music is playing loudly, with Avi as DJ, and the living room is filled with dancers. Someone’s cast Dancing Lights, illuminating the room with a shimmering glow.

She stands for a second, basking in the light and the sound and the joy of it all, and then she rushes in, joining the dance.

—

epilogue.

Sunlight streams in the windows of the Davy Lamp, settling on warm wooden tables and battered floorboards. A poker game takes center stage of the tavern, with Ash and the regulars playing, so very little attention is drawn to the corner table, where three unusual figures sit.

Sloane thankfully has normal clothes, as her goth racer aesthetic clashes a little with Refuge’s sense of taste, but she’s chosen to go so far the other way that Lucretia can’t help but giggle every time she sees the elven woman’s overalls. Lucretia herself has also dressed down, choosing a palette of greens that distances her from both her Bureau and IPRE uniforms - she doesn’t want any extra attention today. June, of course, looks the same as ever.

They sit chatting quietly for a minute about trivialities, Magnus’s dogs and June’s schoolwork and things with very little weight, until a shadow falls over their table.

Lucas Miller smiles awkwardly at the group, hand resting on the one conspicuously empty chair. “Hey, uh, this seat taken?”

“Well, now it is,” Sloane quips. “Sit down, you’re late!”

Lucretia freezes, heart in her throat at the sight of someone she hasn’t seen in a very long time. “Hi, Lucas,” she whispers, struck by uncertainty. What if this was a mistake? What if he doesn’t want to see her, or still blames her, or just hates her, or -

Lucas puts a stop to her fretting by pulling her in for a hug. “Hi, Lucretia,” he says, smiling faintly. “It’s been too long.”

She laughs, relieved. “It really fucking has.” A little choked up, she whispers, “Missed you.”

“Me too,” he whispers back.

He takes a seat, and June bangs her mug of hot cocoa on the table. “I hereby call this meeting of the Grand Relic Support Group to order!”

“Hear, hear!” Sloane calls, and Lucretia starts laughing. She looks around, at her friends, her family, and finally feels something like peace.