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“Are you alright?”
Icy contemplates murder for all of about three seconds before Darcy shoots her such venomous look she actually flinches, and resorts to glaring at Stormy instead.
“The fuck do you think?” She snaps back.
They’d have been able to escape in any other circumstance, and that was what burned so badly - as it was, still exhausted and spent from Domino, they’d barely been able to stay on their feet when the ship had been attacked.
The accusations of kidnapping had been adorable, frankly. Really funny. Bloom had had to be pulled away hissing and clawing at the guards, and the only reason the boys hadn’t gone down fighting was because they had not been cuddling with anyone at the time of attack.
It had been a week since their…arrest would imply some sort of legitimacy to it, which it wasn’t, but corrupt governments, etcetera etcetera. They’d had no contact with anyone except for the guards that delivered their meals. And, for fear of being overheard, they’d not spoken about anything.
Including it.
Stormy stretches her legs out in front of her and pats the ground at her side. Icy refuses to move from where she is leaning against their cell’s walls, positioned so the door is in her peripheral. Darcy heaves out a sigh from her spot on the only cot in their cell.
“They’re going to kill us with boredom.” Darcy says casually. Her body language reads casual too, but she’s been the fastest to recover of all of them, and she’s been twitchy. Icy’s not sure if it’s just the energy of whatever Council building they’re held in, the knowledge of what the Council can do, or because someone dangerous is nearby. She doesn’t know which is worse.
She doesn’t really know what to do.
There are memories in her head that aren’t - that aren’t really hers. She’s sure she lived them, but Icy is not that child and never has been, and she cannot afford to dwell on that girl-that-was lest she start bitching about it, lest their captors overhear her.
She’s never been that terrified, that passive, never would have bowed down for fourteen fucking years. Not ever, especially not when she had a sister on the line.
Which is a whole other fucking bucket of worms.
Darcy jolts to attention suddenly enough that Icy flinches, and the door swings open. A guard sneers at them, and then moves aside.
Griffin walks in. The guard doesn’t follow her; he slams the door shut behind her, and the heavy sound of locks engaging fills the ensuing silence.
Griffin looks terrible. There’s a tremor in her hands, her usually unnaturally pale face bloodless, her eyes exhausted. She holds herself like she’s hurt.
“Headmistress - “
Her gaze is still sharp enough to cut, when she silences them with nothing but a glare. Her gaze flits around the room, she sneers, and she lifts one hand and presses it against the door.
A sigil forms there, glistening wetly in the - frankly - poor lighting of their cell.
“We may speak now.” She says coolly.
“Are you okay?”
“They’ve taken the Tower. I have shattered the coven bond between myself and the…heads of the other schools.”
She says this simply, but Icy’s blood run colds nonetheless.
Covens weren’t meant to break. It’d -
“Did the pixies tell you what happened?” Stormy whispers. Griffin’s eyes sharpen.
“They know?”
“You cannot trust Faragonda, or Saladin, or the Magix Counsel. If none of them have reached out yet, contact Mother. It…knows.” Darcy’s tone is even. It’s better than Icy could have done.
Something almost like pain flits across Griffin’s face.
“Girls…”
“They’re not giving us a trial. What’s the verdict?” Icy asks. She doesn’t want assurances, or emotion, not from Griffin. That’d be a waste of time. Griffin looks away from them.
“You are to be sentenced in the morning. Faragonda was kind enough to inform me the day that you were captured; you will be banished to the Omega Dimension.”
That hangs in the air. Icy doesn’t think she can breathe.
The death penalty is considered too violent, for the most part. Banishing choice prisoners to the Omega Dimension is supposed to be a mercy, although it amounts to the same thing - nevermind that its use is a political statement in of itself, that it hasn’t been used for decades, that it is reserved for the most dangerous and unstoppable of the magical dimension’s criminals, that they are going to be sentenced to it -
Griffin’s sigil burbles, all of a sudden, which is horrifying and weird and shouldn’t be a thing, and then the lines of it bulge and peel apart, and out tumbles -
“Bloom?!”
The fairy looks just as shitty as Icy’s sure the rest of them do, and is also covered in soot, which is incredibly strange. She scrambles to her feet as the sigil returns to normal, takes one look at them, and bursts into furious tears.
Griffin inches away from her.
“We do not have much time.”
“This is so fucked up -“
“What are you doing here?!”
“We’ll be fine.”
“Fine!? They’re making an example out of you! You’re not going to get a - a second chance, or get lucky, or - they’re trying to fucking kill you!”
“Not the first time.” Stormy says, helpfully nodding towards Icy, because she’s just such a helpful person.
“We are powerful witches in our own right, and we know how to use your stupid pixie bullshit. We’ll be fine.” Darcy reiterates.
“No, you wouldn’t be. But you will.” Bloom has never sounded more threatening, or ominous, in all the time that Icy has known her. And she’s said some really weird shit. All three of them twitch at her tone, at the way Griffin leans even farther away from the fairy than she’d been.
The fairy blinks back angry tears and shoves her hand through the bars to their cell. The magic warps neatly around her wrist - the barrier was meant to contain and dispel witches, not fairies.
“Here. Take it.” She says, and Icy goes - cold.
“What.”
“You’re - what?!” Darcy slaps her hands over Stormy’s mouth and hisses and Stormy lowers her volume but all five of them still freeze, waiting for the door behind Bloom to slam open. Griffin reaches out and touches the sigil, as it to make sure, but no one comes barging in.
“I talked to Riven about it and you can already take it, can’t you? So just - I don’t know, borrow it. You can give it back when you’re back.” Bloom says. Icy swallows hard, but can’t - her only coherent thought is oh no and that’s -
“Honey that’s - you’ll be without your power.”
“They won’t be able to use my power without it.” Bloom stresses to Darcy, and she looks up at Icy pleadingly, eyes haunted and big and wet and -
And Icy just -
She reaches behind her and laces her fingers through her nearest sisters’, and then takes Bloom’s hand in her own.
“When we get back,” Icy says quietly, and she can’t really manage emotion in her voice right now but she’s talking so that’s a plus, “you all need to be ready to go.”
“I’m sorry.” Bloom says again, and sheer scales twist and twine over Bloom’s fingers and into Icy’s.
There’s no need for the Whisperian crystals, not now, not like this. Not when the power is willingly given, willingly lent. It settles like a volcano in her chest, and in any other situation Icy would be cataloging every change, every sensation - but she can’t look away from Bloom, Bloom who hardly even dims with the Dragon Flame passed on from her, who smiles genuinely and painfully and squeezes Icy’s hand so tightly her bones creak.
“This isn’t right.”
“Can’t promise we won’t do something downright horrendous with this, Bloom.” Stormy says behind her. Icy can’t feel the power spreading to her sisters, searching for equilibrium among them, but - Stormy sounds half-gone already. Bloom smiles at them, still watery and sad but - there’s teeth there, vicious enough to punch the air from Icy’s lungs.
“I’m counting on it.” She says quietly, and then she pulls back, frees herself from Icy’s grip and the twist of magic caging them in and steps back into the sigil she arrived from, the magic twisting and contorting itself to swallow her up again.
For all the dark magic she’s used to get here, she still leaves cerulean-orange sparkles behind as she departs, and Icy stares blankly at them until they, too, fade away.
Griffin is absolutely judging them, Icy thinks.
“Well. We will prepare ourselves for your return. Consider this your final exam, girls.” No one mentions that Griffin’s voice is unsteady. No one mentions that she has to stop and breathe for a moment before dispelling the sigil and rapping her knuckles neatly on the door.
They do not talk until she is long gone, and the heat in their blood has - settled. Not subsided. But - settled.
“I thought I lucked out.” Darcy finally says, and Icy shakes herself free of both of them - and when had that happened? - and sinks into a crouch, groaning as loudly as she dares.
“Holy shit Icy.”
“No. Nope. No. Don’t -”
“You don’t get to say no now! I can already feel her!” Stormy cackles, and Icy dares to look up at her. She’s wild-eyed and still a little manic, shivering in place with the fire settling into her bones, and she’s blinking rapidly -
Oh for fuck’s sake, they’re all crying.
“If we’d known all we’d have to do to get total control over creation itself was romance a pixie -”
“We did not romance her.” She hisses, and Darcy smirks at her, far too wide and glassy to be -
All three of them freeze at the same time.
“Are my eyes glowing? Because your eyes are glowing.”
“Babe, you’re steaming.” Darcy says, staring at her, and Stormy’s poking at her -
“You’re going to mess up your mascara.” Icy says automatically, and Stormy freezes.
“How the fuck are we going to hide this?” She demands, and Icy - well. Icy forces herself to her feet. Tosses an arm around Stormy’s shoulders and another around Darcy’s, as awkward as that makes their little huddle.
“Eyes down and smiles on, girls. I suppose we are overdue for a vacation - and how sweet that the Council is here to give us an all-expense paid stay in the Omega Dimension.” By the time she’s finished speaking, she’s gotten control of herself. Her voice smooths out, falls back into the familiar cadence of power and authority, and Icy grips her sanity with both hands and refuses to fucking let go.
They spend a sleepless night trying their best to cover up the - ah, well, physical signs of the power now housed within them. They don’t do a very good job, but Icy stops steaming - dehydration is a bitch - shortly before dawn, just before guards tear in and drag them through the long, winding halls of Magix’ City Hall.
They are all feverish, and keep their mouths firmly shut and their eyes firmly lowered, but no one seems to notice as manacles are clapped on their wrists and they are shoved out onto the front steps of the Hall.
The Nymph’s mural watches over them, while a sea of citizens and reporters gape and roar and sneer, while cameras flash and Faragonda and Saladin stand firm and solemn and resolute. It is they who summon the portal - an ugly thing, a whirlwind of blue energy spitting and sparking with instability.
Darcy huffs out a laugh behind her. Icy smirks, raises her chin, and walks forward. Neither she nor her sisters will give these fools the spectacle they want.
She hardly even feels the portals’ energy, with the fire in her veins.