Chapter Text
“You could’ve helped.” Irritation pulled at the corners of Kit’s mouth as she tried and failed to clap away the layer of dust ashing her gloves. No matter what she did they remained more gray than black and eventually she sighed in defeat before turning her attention back to the item in her hand.
“Whatd’ya call this?” Came the response.
There was little moonlight over New York’s Split Rock Quarry and what little there was fed the stark shadows cast by the quarry’s old stone crusher. Seeing in that darkness should’ve been virtually impossible-- but floating around her like a miniature cluster of stars, specks of light bathed her in warm, golden light. An illumination spell courtesy of Kit’s teacher: Tome.
“The least you could do.” Kit snipped and gestured at herself for him to get a better look at. Her red haori was dull and smokey, her black boots the same sad gray of her gloves and no doubt her usually pristine white fox mask hadn’t gotten off unscathed. “Look, I’m all dirty.”
Tome-- a brick wall of a man-- bowed, his green and gold cloak sweeping theatrically around him. “And my knees thank you for your service.”
Kit adjusted her hoari in a single, sharp tug and in a flash, her body was entirely consumed by blue-white flames. They dispersed just as quickly as they’d appeared. Kit was still standing there, but she was absolutely spotless of dirt-- her haori a bright, cherry red, her mask a gleaming white, and her gloves and boots back to a fine leather black at last. Kit hated being dirty.
“Wha- Hey! Be careful!” Tome tried to take the item (Kit’s very hard earned item) from Kit’s hand, but she twisted out of his way. “You don’t know how that’s gonna react to magic all willy-nilly like that.”
Kit tsked, holding her item away from him when he continued to reach for it. She didn’t particularly care for it-- but given all the trouble she’d gone through in digging it out of the side of the quarry’s stone walls, she wasn't inclined to hand it over so easily. Especially with the amount of close calls to her manicure. “Then you should’ve done it yourself,” she said.
At that, Tome’s left knee buckled under him and he sunk to the ground with a groan of an eighty year old man despite only being thirty-six, “My kneeeee...”
Kit just rolled her eyes. As much as she wanted to remind him it was his own fault after she’d explicitly told him yesterday’s LARP quest through Central Park was a bad idea, her words would be wasted. Come next month, he’d be right back out there with his old college pals, all geared up in foam weapons and armor. As if his real job didn’t blow any geek squad campaign out of the water. Besides, Kit was pretty sure Tome was faking it. His brilliance as a magician was unfortunately superseded by his laziness.
Ignoring Tome’s dramatic whining from the ground, she went back to formally studying her item. Her best guess? It was an amulet. It was small, round-- about the size of a pocket mirror with the glossy-black finish of onyx. Lines of segmented text were etched around it’s edges, but what they said Kit couldn’t figure. The centerpiece of the amulet, however, was the real eye-catcher-- literally. Staring back up at her, an amber, reptilian eye glinted under the lights of Tome’s illumination spell as she ran her thumb over it in an attempt to wipe it of dust.
Then she realized something. She looked at her left thumb, now smeared with dirt. She’d had to clean it even though Kit had been holding it during her grooming spell. She summoned her flame, concentrating on her left hand, and in a blink her glove had been left spotless again. Then she tried her right hand, the amulet still held tightly in her grip. It was still dirty.
Apparently the amulet’s reaction to magic was none at all.
Kit turned to face Tome, about to tell him about her findings, but instead found herself caught in the glow of a single candle.
“Ta-daa!” Tome beamed.
“What?” Kit leaned back to get a better look at what Tome was holding. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d gotten up from the ground. Big guy was sneaky when he wanted to be.
In his hands was a massive cupcake. It’s pink frosting was smeared thick and splotchy, splattered by a flurry of rainbow sprinkles. The single gold and white glitter candle stuck top it all listed precariously to the side. Kit’s first thought was that he’d somehow botched a spell, but the grin on his face suggested otherwise.
“Ta-daa!” He said again, attempting to nudge the candle into a more upright position, but it seemed intent on doing a Leaning Tower of Pisa impression, “Couldn’t let you leave without a little something, right?”
“You made that.”
“Yeah!” he said, eyes shining with pride, “I–Uh… well, we.”
From the folds of his cloak’s hood, a pair of hairy, bright orange legs tapped at his shoulder. Fangs followed, along with four pairs of eyes and three more pairs of legs. Stein the Tarantula had finally woken up from her nap.
“I baked it,” Tome said, “Stein made the icing.”
He gently returned a few taps on Stein’s carapace, then used his hand to cover her as he whispered, “I wouldn’t eat that. She doesn’t have taste buds.”
“Oh.” Kit took the cupcake from him, “This is…”
The smile trying to fight its way onto her face finally broke through. The cupcake was ugly. Tome and Stein could have magicked their way through the process if they’d wanted to, but opted to put in the effort for her. It made up for in thought what it lacked in edibility.
“This is actually really sweet.” Kit said as she reached her hand towards Stein. Tome leaned his shoulder in towards Kit, letting Stein crawl between them, “I would’ve sent you off with a little more pizazz, but… y’know–" Stein paused at Kit’s hand for a moment, reminding her of the amulet she still held as the tarantula inspected it. "--No magic."
She sighed, her smile nearly leaving with it. “Look, it’s nothing personal. It’d just be easier to get back to normal.”
Stein’s interest in the relic evaporated and she continued her trek up Kit’s arm. Besides being Tome’s familiar, Stein was also their ‘magic item detector.’ Anything remotely mystical anywhere in New York was something Stein already knew about. As soon as something pinged, Tome and Kit were right there looking for it, but it seemed Stein had come to the same conclusion Kit did. It’d make a creepy paperweight.
Kit and Tome watched Stein as she took rest on Kit’s shoulder, but neither was really paying her much mind.
“Can you?” Tome asked.
“What?” said Kit, although she knew what.
“Go back to normal.” Kit stroked Stein’s front leg.
“I mean, look at us.” Tome continued. “After everything we’ve been through… isn’t this your normal?”
Kit took a long look at Tome. He was a few years younger than her dad and most of the time acted even younger. A six foot ten mass of a man. He’d kind of scared her when they met two years ago, his eyes and hands crackling with magic, but now that seemed silly. There she was standing in a dark, abandoned quarry far from home with a man she wasn’t related to and she knew she had nothing to be scared about.
Kit couldn’t have imagined that back then. Now, she couldn’t imagine never seeing him again… but she couldn’t admit any of that.
Tome studied her over his half-moon glasses, but whatever he felt like saying bowed to a nod of his head. “I hope y’know you’ve pretty much screwed over any future assistant of mine.” He said, “It’s gonna be a pain in the neck to find anyone who’d do half the work you do.”
“What about Paige?” She caught the slightest wince in his shoulders.
“Kit. It’s been months.”
“Yeah, not years.”
“I’m looking, really, I am. But I can’t–”
“She’ll be back.” Kit pressed, “She’s being dramatic and throwing a tantrum somewhere, but she’ll be back. The Spiral’s too important for her to leave.”
Tome raised a caterpillar of an eyebrow. “But not for you.”
“That’s–” Kit took a breath, setting her shoulders. “That’s different.” Her eyes fell back on the amulet. “Give her time, she’ll come around eventually.” She held the relic out to Tome, “And when she does, just… tell her to give me a call, okay?”
Tome sniffed, his eyes so glossy, it made his already pale gray eyes virtually colorless.
Kit had never met a man so sentimental. It weirded her out at first. She’d seen him cry over manga, pet rescue stories, and Sound the Bugle from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack when he put it on repeat too many times. With one student gone and the other leaving, it was a miracle he wasn’t blubbering into oblivion. “Yeah… o-kay–” He said, voice cracking, just barely managing to hide his quivering chin behind his fist.
She pressed the amulet into his hand, unable to keep the smile from her face, “Thank you, Tome. For every–”
The eye moved.
It locked on Tome with a thin slit pupil. He yelped, flailing his hand in an attempt to throw the amulet away, but it stuck to him. The amulet’s markings glowed red-hot. Steam hissed from his palm and he screamed.
The sound snapped Kit out of her shock, “Tome!”
Her cupcake was left to splatter into the ground as she rushed to his side. She tried grabbing his wrist, but Tome held his hand away from her. The markings still glowed even when the eye had closed.
“It’s cool, it’s cool!” He rasped, “I got this!” He raised his other hand, gold sparking from his fingertips.
Kit had seen him weave symbols from thin air so many times, lines and spheres of light forming into shorthand. Tome taught her Pitman’s the first few weeks she studied under him.
Repel, dissolve, disperse. They read. Destroy, break. But they did nothing. The words fizzled into aether before getting anywhere near the amulet and soon enough they barely had any substance to pop into existence. Then he could summon nothing.
“Uhhhh…” said Tome, watching the amulet’s glow dim, “I’m not doing that.”
Ignoring the tightening knot in her gut, Kit yanked his arm down enough to clamp her hands around his, “Stein, get clear!” She felt more than saw Stein scuttle down to her back. As soon as Kit was sure she wouldn’t get caught in the splash zone, a brilliant blue flame– kitsunebi– erupted between her hands.
A shiver rolled through Tome. “Man, that’s c-cold–!”
“You’ll thank me later!”
The fire turned white with intensity when she saw the amulet hadn’t so much as singed. Tome would be fine, if a little sniffly for a few days, her kitsunebi couldn’t seriously harm mortals. Anything supernatural? Toast. So why wasn’t it working?
“You’ll find my gift counters many magicks.” said a new voice, “Except my own, of course.”
Kit and Tome whirled towards it. Between the steps of the stone crusher about a story above them stood a man in a floating magic circle. He dressed in a deep blue and gold accented robe. A matching mages’ hat adorned with a golden crescent shone in the moonlight.
He ignored Kit and instead bored down on Tome with a cruel smile. “I was beginning to think you didn’t get my invitation, Jenson.”
“Who is this?” Kit asked, keeping her voice steady despite her fluttering pulse.
Tome kept his eyes locked on the other man as he slid his cloak off his shoulders.
The weight of it fixed itself over Kit’s, “Hey-!”
“I know this’ll get ugly, Faust!” he said as he pulled the hood of it over Kit’s head even as she fought to see under it, “Let her walk away before it does.”
“Tome–”
“I have you dead to rights, yet you still find room to make demands…” Faust rubbed at his wispy, pathetic excuse of a goatee, “See, this is why I never liked you. The audacity.”
He floated a little lower and Tome ushered Kit behind him.
“Be still, I haven’t even told you what I’m here for.”
“I already know.” Tome stated, “Same way you already know my answer.”
In spite of herself, Kit rested her head on Tome’s back. His cloak was massive on her, more tarp than anything. She’d known why he’d given it to her. Woven into its fabric were a plethora of protection charms and wards most wizards and sorcerers would have taken decades stringing together. But Faust had lured them into a trap. Kit wasn’t sure what the history was, but he knew Tome well enough to not only use Stein’s magic detection to bait them out into the open, but created a seal attuned to their magic. With the amulet all but melted into Tome's palm, the cloak was useless on him.
But not on Kit. She pretended to cower behind him– although if she was being honest with herself, it was more a question of how efficiently she could channel the pit of fear in her stomach.
Slowly, as discreetly as she possibly could and with a prayer to whatever deity was listening, she reached into the inner pocket of her jacket.
"Come now, Jenson. I have you in a corner and I'm handing you a way out. I'll even swear to leave you be after this, contract and all." Faust drifted down to just a few meters ahead of them, "All I ask…is that you give the Library to me."
The Library? Kit snorted. Perfect. They would get to go home, all they had to do was surrender history's largest hold of magical academia known to mankind. What were the chances he’d turn out to be the World Conqueror type?
Tome spared Kit a glance over his shoulder, his face reading like ‘Can you believe this guy?’
At that single glance, some of her nerves ebbed away. He had a plan.
“Okay, so, first of all: It’s called the Spiral…and second–” Tome dove to the side as a half dozen ofuda sliced through the air, rattling the earth with explosions of billowing kitsunebi. Faust let out a squawk of surprise. Kit hoped her aim was true, but she knew it was too much to ask.
“Hold the fort!” Tome ordered. Kit heard the sound of faint sizzling before Tome howled in pain. Golden light sparked and flickered from his blistering hand, the amulet glowing.
She lunged in front of him just as from behind the wall of fire and smoke, an arc of lightning seared towards them.
“Am I to take that as a no?” said Faust.
Kit took the hit to the back. The impact sent her forward, nearly falling over Tome. Her heart slammed against her ribs, as if trying to break through her chest and flee when her feet wouldn’t. But she was alive. She felt no pain. The cloak held.
She twisted back around with the six more talismans fanned in her trembling fingers and stretched her arms in a wide circle. The ofuda stuck to the air, forming a wheel in front of her.
Faust clawed through the smoke, a trio of magic circles zipping around him like angry wasps– their stingers pointed at Kit.
“Tome?” She asked hopefully.
“...Little…more…” He said the words like if he were swallowing sandpaper. His golden light brightened and Kit got the sense it was forming a shape. He screamed. Kit tried to ignore the scent of burning flesh.
“I want my library, Jenson.” Faust sing-songed.
“SPIRAL!”
“Not now!” Kit snapped.
Faust’s circles lined up one in front of the other, turning a furious shade of red before a beam shot from their center.
A sharp shriek escaped Kit as the beam collided with her ofuda barrier, a sphere of blue encompassing her and Tome. Immediately, the edges of her talismans began to burn away like candle wicks. They’d be nothing but ash in seconds. Beneath her feet, the ground shifted and moved, winding down as though it were trying to eat them alive. Streaks of haunting purple light swam through the vortex. Soon, there was nothing but a bottomless pit beneath them.
Hope burned away with the last scraps of her ofuda and the barrier collapsed. Gold shimmered around her.
“Just remember,” Faust chided, “You only have your teacher to blame.”
As she fell through the infinite darkness, Kitsune caught sight of the form Tome had summoned. The radiant figure...of an ankh.