The Devil Doesn't Bargain (MatD part 2)

Chapter TWELVE - Quad Squad

The air in the undercroft felt thick, the remnants of my nightmare still stuck below my ribs. 

"I don't understand." Sebastian took a step back toward me, his jaw clenched, muscle shifting just beneath. The cut of his jaw dipped down to his neck where his rapid breathing swelled, pressing his collarbones against his crooked shirt. The neckline stretched, hand sewn whites fading into dark blacks like soot, or singed fabric.

My eyes dipped to his hand, the one I had been gripping when I'd woken, searching for any new signs of ancient magic burns but he'd shoved them into his pockets and was now watching me with something not quite concern and not quite anger. It was something else entirely and I shivered beneath its anonymity.

I pressed forward. "You're right. We seem to be getting nowhere with the Keepers, running circles and jumping through hoops... but there is someone who led us straight to a path we have been otherwise too... preoccupied to follow."

Sebastian's gaze flicked to the floor, brows pulled to the center as he nodded to himself. "The typtich."

"The triptych. Maybe if we can find the remaining canvas pieces, we can talk to her directly."

The silence sat like a rock on my chest as the last slivers of my nightmare dusted my memory.

Finally Sebastian took a sharp breath in, eyes locking back on mine and with a slight righting of his shoulders, that quiet anonymous something was replaced with the determination my Sebastian was born with.

A little grin crept up from beneath it all. "About time we told the Keepers to piss off if you ask me." 

I smiled in return, letting the reassuring familiarity of his goofiness wipe the rest of the fear from my skin. That seemed to spark a bit of something in him.

Sebastian rolled his shoulders back further and smacked a hand (a thankfully burn-less hand) to his forehead in mock solute, cocking one eyebrow. "What's the plan ma'am?"

----

The truth of the matter was that I hadn't any plan at all. I didn't even have much more to go on other than the gut feeling and Isidora's words that spiraled through the candle flames.

It is a source of strength- of focus.

I now sat cross-legged in front of the triptych, staring at the empty frames and tattered canvas on the left so intently, I worried the image would sear to my vision. My ancient magic text had been brushed to the side though a small part of me still ached to flip to the inside cover - just to see if the little symbol was lit.

Sebastian paced behind me, his boots scuffing at the floor with each pass by.

"Maybe we could return to the estate." He mused. "Perhaps there's something there we missed."

I was having a hard time recalling the trip to the estate where we had stumbled upon the Undercroft connection and the aforementioned triptych. It all seemed so very very long ago.

Pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose, my eyes shut tight, I brushed over the memories I did have and one by one they came back in small waves. There was the large tree, the broken estate, the burned painting and the bought of pain that now seemed all too familiar. I shifted past the thought quickly before I could think too hard on the exact reason for it. There was the mess of books - some burned, some preserved. There was the pile of debris Sebastian had blasted away so that we could investigate further. The stairs down. The Devil's Snare. The journal pages....

The journal pages.

"Sebastian."

His boots skidded to a halt behind me.