Chapter Text
“Raine Whispers is an idiot,” Darius says.
He’s standing at the window of his office, looking out into the courtyard of the Emperor’s castle. In the square below, scouts in beaked masks and guards in pointed ones are doing drills across the cobblestones. It’s a cloudy, unusually chilly morning, and those outside keep darting nervous glances at the sky, ready to run for cover at the first drops of boiling rain.
But Darius’s quarters on the top floor of the central keep are kept warm and well-lit by the amber fire burning in the fireplace and the purple torches on the walls. There’s a velvet blanket draped elegantly over the chaise lounge. A mahogany desk the exact same color as the door that leads into the bedroom stands against the opposite wall, with several neat stacks of paperwork on top of it. The room is decorated with precisely-shaped fake plants and a few tasteful, abstract art pieces. The only things clashing with the aesthetic are Eberwolf and the mouse he’s engaged in conversation with, both of whom are crouched on Darius’s beautiful gray carpet.
Darius’s best and only friend’s attention isn’t necessary for this monologue, but a purple tentacle rises out of the carpet to gently wrap around the mouse and deposit its dirty paws on the stone floor instead. “A violin, for Titan’s sake! You would think that if one was going to start an adorable little band with the sole purpose of undermining the Emperor’s work, it would be basic fucking common sense not to use one’s signature instrument!”
Eberwolf shrugs, waggles his head back and forth, and raises a bushy eyebrow.
Darius clenches his jaw. “I am not ‘one to talk’, as you well know, all abominations look and behave very similar and the work of a particular abominationist can only be discerned by a skilled practitioner of the art.” And any of Darius’s illicit activities are subtle and quiet. He knows that committing high treason requires an incredibly careful hand, unlike certain head witches of the Bard Coven that he could name.
It’s possible that Whispers is trying to hide behind their reputation. Half the Boiling Isles watched them run offstage at their own swearing-in ceremony, which doesn’t exactly call to mind images of the masked leader who’s been making inflammatory speeches in the town square.
But Darius went to Hexside with Raine Whispers. He remembers a flash of teal beside Edalyn Clawthorne’s flaming orange mane as two figures rounded the corner after setting the gym on fire. A glint of light off round glasses as a trill of clarinet notes caused Detention to vomit up its contents. No, insurrectionary activity is squarely within Raine Whispers’s field of expertise. Darius is kicking himself for not realizing sooner that of course they would share his misgivings about the Emperor and the Day of Unity.
Then again, there are plenty of people he knew in the past that he’s now found himself in opposition to.
Darius clicks his tongue and begins to pace. “Someone is going to bring them in, and soon. If it’s us, we can make sure they don’t just get killed by someone like Kikimora getting overzealous. We’ll drop a false tip. Then we can make a whole theatrical thing of it, grab them and their little band, stick the band somewhere out of the way, and explain the situation to Whispers.”
Eberwolf scurries closer to Darius and scrambles up the cabinet next to him, hissing right in Darius’s face.
“I care,” says Darius pointedly, “because in case you haven’t noticed we’re rather short on allies, and Whispers has always been incredibly talented.”
Eberwolf blows a raspberry.
“Shut up,” says Darius, rolling his eyes. “Fine. I also don’t want to see someone I went to school with get petrified. I have a heart, are you happy?”
Eberwolf purrs.
“Shut up,” Darius says again. “This only works if it all goes smoothly.”
Of course, it does not go smoothly.
In fact, it very nearly ends with Raine killing both Darius and Eberwolf and taking themself and the Owl Lady out with them. And while “critical miscommunication and too many secrets” would have been a hilarious way for four powerful enemies of Emperor Belos to die, Darius is too badly shaken to appreciate the dramatic irony. He probably should be learning some sort of lesson from this.
The degree to which everything went to shit also means that this is certainly not the time to be revealing traitorous intentions, even if Darius wasn’t still pissed at Whispers for getting mud all over his cloak.
And Kikimora shows up. Which is really not part of the plan. All Darius and Eber can do is watch as Raine’s coven sigil is used to paralyze them, which is a thrilling ability to learn that the sigils apparently have.
As Kikimora’s Abomaton starts to trudge its way through the forest, Eberwolf lets out one low growl.
“Yes, I’m well aware,” Darius says quietly. “I’ll figure something out, give me time. You heard Kikimora, they’re not going to die.”
He still feels a bubble of guilt in his chest as he watches Raine’s unnaturally still form being carried away, wrapped head to toe in red thorns.
The bubble only grows over the next three days. Even with all of Darius’s connections and Eberwolf’s senses, they can’t figure out where the hell the bard is. This means they’re almost certainly in one of the secure, hidden parts of the castle, where there are enough magical wards that abominations and beetles can’t get inside without detection.
The official word in the castle is that the Head Bard has unfortunately taken ill. The gossip in the castle is that the Head Bard was a traitor, that they’re being interrogated about wild witches and other treasonous activity somewhere in the catacombs below the castle, that if you get assigned guard duty on one of the lower floors you can hear screams echoing off stone.
Eberwolf’s big ears haven’t heard any screaming, so Darius thinks that last part is probably just some overactive imaginations.
Probably.
By the morning of the fourth day, Darius decides it’s been long enough. He’s going to have to fall back on one of his favorite tools: pulling rank.
There’s a meeting of the coven heads this morning. Everyone knows Darius and Eberwolf were the ones to find and subdue Whispers, and that gives Darius a position from which to demand an update. He can point out their absence from the meeting of head witches and insist on an explanation. He can drag the rumors right out into the open and raise hell about how this isn’t how a coven head should be treated, even if they are a traitor.
It might be too much. It might not be enough.
Darius is still turning this plan over in his head when he steps into the meeting room and comes face to face with Raine Whispers.
At first, he’s relieved. Whispers is alive, standing, and without visible injury, which are three good signs that Darius wasn’t convinced of thirty seconds ago.
But the relief drains quickly as Darius takes in everything else about the situation. Raine is standing perfectly still, their hands tucked into the sleeves of their robe. There’s a small, placid smile on their face, and their eyes are glassy. Terra Snapdragon stands right next to them, a smug look on her face, a vine wrapped around their shoulders possessively.
As Darius enters, Raine meets his eyes briefly. Darius would expect to see anger, the same fire that had burned in the bard’s eyes as they’d sliced his abomination arm with the bow of their violin. Or possibly cocky satisfaction, if their presence here is indicative of some victory, or genuine sorrow for their plight and Darius’s part in it.
All he gets is a glazed, vacant stare.
Darius feels sick.
This looks like magical interference. Perhaps their memory has been wiped, all key images pulled from their head and burned? Perhaps there’s some sort of spell ravaging their mindscape? There’s so much of what Belos is capable of that Darius still doesn’t know. The horror of it keeps sending cold ice down his spine.
He makes it through the meeting somehow, although he doesn’t hear much of it. Eberwolf, who entered a few minutes after Darius, is standing next to him with every single hair on his back sticking up, so he’s probably not listening either. Hopefully this isn’t one of the days that the Emperor drops a single crumb of information.
It’s not until the end of the meeting that the Emperor turns to Whispers. “One last matter to address,” he says, voice silky. “Some of you may have heard the rumors that our own dear Head Bard had a…lapse in judgment. I’d like to personally thank Head Witches Darius and Eberwolf for their assistance in bringing our lost sheep back into the fold.”
The worst part of Darius takes over and he sweeps a modest bow. “It was nothing, truly. Head Witch Whispers may play pretty little songs, but Eberwolf and I are very good at what we do.”
Eberwolf growls in agreement, and Darius hopes no one else will pick up on the underlying anger and frustration in his friend’s tone. Whatever their intentions may have been, the weight of their role in this atrocity sits heavily on both of their shoulders.
“I’d also like to thank Head Witches Vitimir and Snapdragon for their assistance in redeeming our bard.” Belos gestures, and Vitimir inclines his head, that stupid hat tipping down at a 45 degree angle. Terra Snapdragon smiles smugly and coils the vine more tightly around Whispers’s shoulders. The bard doesn’t even twitch. “Of course, I prefer to allow you all to operate independently and use your considerable skills as you see fit. But as we’ve discussed, the role you coven heads will play in the Day of Unity is a crucial one.” Behind his inscrutable mask, the Emperor stares at each of them in turn. “I will not allow anything to interfere with the Titan’s great plan.”
Because of course this is a threat. Raine Whispers is being used as an example.
Darius does not look at Eberwolf. And as he is intentionally and carefully not looking at Eberwolf, he happens to look at Raine, and because he does, he catches the first real expression he's seen on their face.
It's not much, just a small frown and a tightening of the skin around their eyes. Just a brief, clear flash of anger, quickly gone, but definitely not an expression that would be produced by a mind that had been fully wiped clean.
It’s enough to send a jolt of adrenaline to the back of Darius’s skull. Maybe it’s not too late.
He corners Terra Snapdragon after the meeting, when Belos has retreated to his lair and Hettie Cutburn is shining a bright light into Whispers’s eyes with the sort of sadistic medical curiosity only she can manage. Eberwolf is circling their ankles, his posture half curious-dog and half predatory-cat. Whispers isn’t even looking down. It’s a little terrifying how still they are.
Getting information out of anyone in this castle is an uphill battle. The Emperor is notoriously paranoid, and this tendency has trickled down to his most ardent supporters. Fortunately, Terra Snapdragon shares one of Darius’s own vices: pride.
“Head Witch Snapdragon, you’ve outdone yourself,” he says smoothly, sauntering up beside her with his hands clasped behind his back. “To not only neutralize an insurgent but entirely re-purpose them? Revolutionary. No pun intended. You simply have to tell me how you pulled this off.”
Terra preens, resting one claw-like hand under her wrinkled chin. “Well, thank you, Darius, it’s nice to be appreciated. The secret is some delicately crafted little flowers that were just a side project, something for my spare time, you know. It’s so nice to finally have someone to test them out on. Vitimir helped me figure out how to distill the flowers into a tea so they can be administered. I must admit, it’s been the most satisfying collaboration in all my decades as coven head.”
“So how does it work?” Darius presses, keeping his voice all earnest curiosity with a modest dash of skepticism.
“Trade secret, dear.” Terra winks at him, which makes it look like she has a bug caught in her eyelash.
Darius lifts an eyebrow. “Hm. I suppose memory modification is a rather basic procedure.”
Terra’s smug smile immediately drops into a scowl. “It’s not as simple as that. Yes, there’s some memory alteration, certainly. The Sprout doesn’t remember anything about the past several weeks--so you needn’t worry they’ll hold a grudge against you, dear--and the magic has picked its way through their mind, blurring any earlier memories of insurrection or any work done against our dearest Emperor.” Darius can hear the faint sarcasm under the end of her sentence. Terra Snapdragon has never been a true believer. She’s almost worse--sycophantic and ambitious, harboring no real respect for the Emperor but still believing that he’s her ticket to end up on top.
“Wow. That is impressive,” is all Darius says.
“But that’s not all, of course.” Terra’s gaze goes over to Raine, who is now nodding mechanically and saying something in response to Hettie. “Simply removing memories would likely let them fall into the same destructive patterns. I crossed in a strain of flowering Fairywither to induce a pliant, obedient, receptive temperament in the subject. Whatever sparks of confidence or foolishness made the Sprout want to rebel have been thoroughly suppressed.”
Darius has to consciously unclench his jaw before he speaks. “Naturally. Can’t have them acting like themself.”
“Exactly.” That smug smile again. “I’m thinking I may need to tweak the formula a little bit. The Emperor was very specific in his request for them to still be able to fulfill their duties as coven head. I may have pushed the obedience gene a bit too far, they’re a bit…flat. Wouldn’t want to wipe their talents entirely, now that would be a waste!” She tips her head back and laughs, high and shrill.
Darius laughs along with her. “No, certainly not, certainly not! But can you still adjust the formula? It’s not permanent?” His heart is in his throat.
“No, no, not at this stage, anyway. Daily doses still need to be administered. But once it’s been a few weeks…” she shrugs. “Eventually the mind loses its grip on its original state. Until then, I have a bit of time to experiment.” Her eyes are actually, honest-to-Titan sparkling.
“Great. Wonderful. Stupendous.” Darius needs to get out of this conversation before he explodes.
Fortunately, at that moment, Hettie looks over at Terra and gives her an impressed nod. “You’ve certainly managed something remarkable here, Terra,” she calls.
“Thank you,” Terra sing-songs. She squeezes Darius’s arm. “And thank you, dear, for capturing them in the first place. We couldn’t have managed it without you.”
“Simply doing my job,” Darius says quietly as Terra lets go of his arm and drifts over to Hettie and Raine.
Eberwolf finishes sniffing the hem of Raine’s cloak and walks back to Darius. He looks up at him and growls, eyes dark and sad.
“Agreed on all counts,” murmurs Darius, turning and letting his cloak sweep behind him as he and Eberwolf exit. “Time to do something stupid.”
And getting to Whispers before it’s too late to reverse what’s happened does require the kind of stupid risk Darius absolutely shouldn’t be taking, both because the bard is being so carefully watched and because Darius has no idea how they’re going to react. It’s exactly what makes trying to push back against the Emperor so dangerous: this entire castle is full of people who were misled or lied to or blackmailed or fed propaganda their entire lives and recruited when they were far too young to understand what they were signing up for. Magical mind alteration is a new one, or at least Darius really fucking hopes it is, but if Raine turns him in, the “why” won’t matter.
But apparently Darius has found the limit of what he can stand by and watch. And even though he knows Whispers would have eventually been captured and taken to the castle with or without his involvement, even if that was the whole point of it all--still the bubble of guilt is choking him.
So he finds a nice, secure broom closet in a back corner of the castle and he calls in a favor with a high-ranking Plant Coven member and gets Eberwolf to cause a distraction that results in Terra Snapdragon being called away on a pollen emergency, leaving Raine to walk back to their quarters alone. And then Darius sticks a long abomination tendril through the wall, grabs Raine, and pulls them through stone to drop them into the closet.
Raine lands in a slight crouch, fingers of one hand splayed against the wall behind them while their other arm curls protectively around their ribcage. They're graceful enough that they don't knock over any of the brooms or buckets in the small space, even as they look wildly around trying to get their bearings.
Darius snaps his fingers, illuminating a purple globe of goo hanging above his head. He's standing in the corner of the closet, framed by two mops, lit by the dim lilac light. Even in these circumstances he can’t resist the opportunity for a visually striking moment. "Calm down, Whispers, it's just me."
Raine straightens slowly, their expression shifting from fear to caution as their eyes adjust. "Evening, Darius. To what do I owe the--"
“We don’t have much time. You need to stop drinking the tea Snapdragon is giving you.”
Both of Raine’s eyebrows go up. They open their mouth, close it, frown. Darius is beginning to think he’s made a horrible mistake when Raine says, slowly and deliberately, “Why do you say that?”
Well, in for a snail, in for a bushel. “It’s altering some of your memories, removing others, making you more pliant. If you can stop drinking it, your mind should revert to being full of flute music instead of whatever cobwebs are up there now.” Raine is blinking at him from behind their round glasses and Darius lets out an impatient sigh. “Don’t just stare at me, Whispers. Surely you’ve recognized that something’s wrong, even with whatever havoc that stuff is wreaking on your delicate little brain.”
Whispers’s shocked, slightly vacant expression clarifies into something more like anger, and Darius’s stomach sinks. “Why in the Titan’s name would Terra be brainwashing me? That’s strong and deeply unethical magic. What could I have done to have merited something like that?”
“Take a wild guess, Songbird,” Darius half-snarls, matching the anger in case that will get through to them. “Put together every piece of evidence and every scrap of you that’s still in there and take a guess at why you would need to have your memories and personality altered to make you less of a threat.” Perhaps the bard really is too far gone, which means that Darius has put himself in a very dangerous situation. He’ll probably be able to talk his way out of it, but it’ll still be a suspicious incident for the Emperor to get paranoid over. After years of being so careful. He’s been a fool.
“Well it can’t possibly be treason,” Raine is saying, their voice low and deliberate. “Because if I was a traitor to the Emperor, if I had, just hypothetically, done something disruptive and effective enough to get myself captured, I would hope I’d at least have the sense to not drink suspicious tea offered to me by one of the other coven heads. Hypothetically.”
Hold on. What?
Now it’s Darius’s turn to blink, open his mouth, close it. “What?” he says aloud.
Raine just holds his gaze, eyes blazing. “You heard me.”
Darius exhales. His mind and heart are racing. “I rather assumed,” he says slowly, “that you hadn’t been given a choice.”
Raine flinches just a little at that. “Perhaps I wasn’t. Perhaps I could barely swallow the first draught, and it wasn’t potent enough to take full effect, so I was able to determine what the tea was intended to do and act as if it had worked.”
“How?” Darius asks, still suspicious. “Snapdragon certainly thinks you’ve been drinking it, I find it hard to believe she’s just been turning her back.”
“Oh, she absolutely hasn’t been turning her back,” Raine says with a bitter little laugh. “But you and I went to school together. You know I’ve got my tricks.” They purse their lips and let out a faint, floaty whistle, and while Darius isn’t familiar with this particular trick, he can take a pretty good guess at what it does. In spite of himself, he’s deeply impressed. In spite of himself, he’s deeply relieved .
He says the one thing he can think to say. “I thought you were a bad actor.”
Raine raises an eyebrow, and Darius thinks he can detect just a hint of smugness in their expression. “Nothing is better for someone who needs to lie than a reputation for being a bad actor. I thought you were self-absorbed and pompous.”
Darius shrugs, feeling a smile curl up the corner of his mouth, knowing there’s smugness on his face. “Oh, I assure you I am. But that’s not mutually exclusive with being a revolutionary.” There. He said it. He feels headier than he has in years.
Raine narrows their eyes. “So is that your game? Because I’m getting mixed signals between this conversation and the part where you captured me.”
Darius winces. “Would you believe that I was trying to protect you? Eber and I were trying to get to you before anyone else did. Unfortunately Kikimora showed up, and the whole plan had already gone a little out the window when you almost disintegrated us.”
“Right.” Raine grimaces. “Maybe we call it even, then.”
They regard each other for a long, silent moment, two people who may be seeing each other accurately for the first time in their entire lives.
Raine’s expression darkens. “What happened to the B.A.T.s?”
“The what?”
“It stands for Bards Against the Throne. The others you captured right before me.”
“Terrible name for a revolutionary group. They’re in the Conformitorium.”
“Excuse you, I thought it was rather clever. We had bat masks and everything. Have they been hurt?”
Darius shakes his head. “Acronyms are childish and passé. And no, not that I’m aware of. In the eyes of the law, they’re just troublemakers. You’re the one who’s a traitor.”
Raine visibly relaxes, leaning back against the stone wall behind them and pushing up their glasses to rub their eyes. “Any chance we can get them out of there? Katya doesn’t like cells.”
Darius frowns, annoyed. “I’ll add it to my extremely long list of current injustices and balance it against all the other ones I'm not doing anything about for fear of blowing my cover."
The glasses settle back on Raine's nose and the bard looks up at Darius, the corners of their eyes softening. “How many people do you have working with you?”
“Well there’s me, and there’s Eberwolf, and now there’s you.” Darius counts on his gloved fingers. It doesn’t seem like much against everyone and everything Belos has under his control. It never has.
“Three out of nine coven heads isn’t bad,” Raine says. “Any leads on others we might be able to swing? If even Lilith came to her senses...”
Darius scoffs. “The other coven heads? Hardly. You saw them at the meeting the other week, they’re thrilled about the Day of Unity. What about the Owl Lady, do you still have a way to--”
“No.” Raine cuts him off with surprising force, eyes blazing again. “We’re not involving her.”
Darius stares at them. “Right,” he says flatly, “because it’s not like she’s already involved, what with the public flaunting of her wild magic and the escape from right under the Emperor’s nose last month and the sister who’s a traitor and, lest we forget, trying to kill me-- ”
“Trying to kill you was my idea, first of all,” Raine points out, arms crossed, “and second of all, there’s a difference between Eda continuing to do exactly what she’s been doing for years and me intentionally dragging her into my whole situation.”
Something about the emphasis they put on “situation” punctures Darius’s irritation like a balloon. He leans back against the wall behind him and studies the bard for a moment. “How badly were you hurt?”
Raine hesitates, chewing their lip and looking at the broom in the corner, then pushes up one of their sleeves. Darius sucks in an inadvertent breath through his teeth at the angry red lines on their arm, the same spiderwebbing pattern he remembers from the spell Kikimora had cast on their coven sigil. The maroon tendrils are gone, but they've left behind burns, pink and raised and blistering. There are places where it looks like their skin has peeled away. “I’ll heal, now that they’ve decided to turn me into a puppet instead,” Raine says. “Did you know coven sigils can do that?”
“I certainly did not,” Darius says quietly.
“Belos can control it.” Raine’s rolling their sleeve back down, studiously looking at it rather than meeting Darius’s eyes. “Turn it from merely immobilizing to caustic. Constricting, too.” They look up, corners of their eyes wrinkled in concern and pain. “It’s bad, Darius. It’s a bad sign that that’s something the sigils can do.”
Darius’s chest hurts. “There have been more and more bad signs lately.”
“Do you still have my violin?” Raine asks suddenly.
Darius is momentarily caught off guard by the apparent non-sequitur. “It’s broken, but yes, I still have it.” No one had asked about it, so Darius had just kept it.
“The top is intact, though, right? The little carved fox?”
Darius thinks back to where the violin is sitting on his desk. “Yes, I’m fairly sure.”
Raine blows out a breath of relief. “Thank the Titan. It’s my palisman.”
“It’s your what? Titan’s sake, Whispers, how many stupid risks were you taking?”
“Coven heads are technically allowed to have palismen,” Raine says defensively.
“Yes, technically, no one does anymore and you certainly wouldn’t be allowed to.”
“And that’s why I’m glad you have her.”
“Titan’s sake,” Darius says again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll get the violin back to you.” And maybe some bandages, if he can get his hands on them. He refocuses. “Do you know what the Day of Unity is going to do?”
Raine shakes their head. “Only what Belos has told all the coven heads. Do you and Eberwolf?”
“A few more bits and pieces. Frustratingly little. We're trying to figure out what to do about that."
"Have you thought about just killing Belos?" Raine asks with full sincerity.
Darius snorts. "Every day for the past seven years. But he’s too strong. Even with me and Eberwolf--and you, now--the chance of any outcome other than all three of us dead and Belos still alive seems incredibly slim."
Raine shrugs. "Slim's not nothing."
"What is with you and this passion for totally reckless murder lately?"
"I won't let the Day of Unity happen if it's going to hurt people, which it certainly is. I want Belos out of these Isles," Raine says, like it's simple. Maybe it is.
"Well, I don't want to die, and I don't want Eber to die," says Darius bluntly. "So let’s save the doomed head-on attack for if we exhaust all other options."
"Call it Plan Z," Raine agrees. "You’re right, we can figure out something better. Later, though. The longest Snapdragon has left me alone since she pulled me out of my cell is ten minutes, and we’re coming right up on that now.”
Darius’s lip curls. “Speaking of which, you might need to tone down the brain-dead stare. She mentioned ‘experimenting’ with the formula to get you to act more like yourself.”
Raine frowns. “Unfortunate. It’s so much easier to act like I’m not even there.” Their tone is light, but Darius catches a hint of something brittle and fragile in it.
“Be careful with that woman. If you ever need Eberwolf or I to run interference, just let us know.”
“I can handle her.”
“Don’t be a martyr, Whispers. Now that you know my allegiances, I’ve got a vested interest in keeping you safe.”
Raine smirks. “Purely self-serving, I see.” They press their mouth into a line, eyes focused on the opposite wall of the closet. “I’ll pull on my earring. If something’s wrong and I need help.” They reach up and tug lightly on their single dangling earring, demonstrating.
“Good. I’ll send you a message in a few days, once I find a time and place where the three of us can have a real conversation and figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Raine nods. They take half a step toward the door and press their ear against it, listening for anyone in the hallway. “Wait a couple minutes after I go?”
“Naturally.” Darius watches their hand move to the doorknob. Apologies and thanks are bubbling up in his chest. They’ll have to wait, until a longer meeting or until the Emperor is dethroned. Or maybe just stay unspoken. “Don’t get brainwashed for real, Songbird,” is all he says.
Raine looks back and meets his eyes, their unguarded expression determined and desperate all at once. “Watch my back, then.”
“I will,” Darius promises. Raine holds his gaze a moment more, then opens the door and slips silently out into the hall, leaving Darius standing alone among the brooms and buckets.
Damn. He’s been so concerned for so long with secrecy and lies and caution, he’d really almost forgotten what hope feels like.