They couldn't sleep.
Even before Reela showed up, they just couldn't relax. Not for a moment.
But after she left, it wasn't just restlessness. They couldn't stop thinking. They couldn't stop questioning everything. Why did Reela show up? Why did she sit and talk to them?
And why did they answer her?
Why, in their right mind, would they have told her anything that she was asking for? Now, they have no idea what might happen because of this. They just gave Reela a look at potential weaknesses. They showed her a moment of vulnerability. Why? They know she's dangerous, but they may have just handed her the loaded gun to turn on them.
Reela clearly doesn't have Mind Magic. She can't with her Tene-Medeis. So how did she manage to get them talking last night?
Or, it's something else. Maybe Reela wasn't looking for their weaknesses as a weapon, but rather, to try to... help? That makes even less sense. They've given her no reason to trust or even like them, and that goes both ways. Granted, Reela has yet to really deceive them as they have her, but what if this is her attempt at turning the tables?
Which brings them back to wondering if she's trying to weaken them.
That train of thought ran on a loop all the way through morning. After Reela was gone, they opened their bottle of wine and by the time the sun came up, it was empty.
And now they pace the floor of their room. Their fingers irritably tap their bicep with their arms crossed. Every other time they pass the mirror above the fire, their eyes fall to the scar across their cheek. Reela did that to them. She broke them.
And she's still breaking them.
This isn't even the work of her magic. The Dark is powerful, but Reela alone is a danger if she's able to poison people's thoughts like this. She worked her way into their head and somehow made them open up about things they've kept buried under six feet of ice and snow.
They need to know how she's doing it and why. But if they go to her so soon after their talk, she might realize that they're cracking. They can't let her see their fear of her. No - they simply can't be afraid of her. They shouldn't be. They've seen plenty of her vulnerabilities already. What's to stop them from exploiting them?
They stop in front of the fire to look up at their reflection. Something about their face looks different to them, but they can't place it. The scar distracts from everything else in their eyes. But they can't stare for long when there's a sudden knock at the door. They jump and their hands and the fireplace both flare up, but they take a deep breath and turn around to look at the door.
'Reela wouldn't be back already, would she?'
Avinalyn straightens out their shoulders and holds their head higher. "Come in," they say coldly, but their voice also sounds off. But still, they can't figure out what it is.
The door swings open, and Mog rushes in. "Hey Boss! Guess who's back!" she beams and happily bounces in her place. "It's me. It's Mog. I know it's been a while, but hi!" she waves enthusiastically from across the room.
Avinalyn's shoulders slump a bit and their head also drops a little, but they sigh. "Mog..." they clear their throat and try reassessing their mind to focus, but their thoughts keep nagging at them. "Welcome back," they say and Mog gushes.
"Aw, thanks Boss!" she hurries over and stops in front of them. "Utopia was great! Unity City is so fascinating in a 'wow, everyone here is in a funny sacrificial cult' kinda way! And I got you a gift," she reaches into her bag and pulls out a live pigeon.
She holds it up in her fist. "You keep talking about birds or something so I thought you must like birds!" she says and fast-ball chucks the pigeon at them but it goes right over their shoulder, tries to flap its wings, and plummets straight into the fire.
Avinalyn stares wide-eyed at the fireplace with Mog behind them with a dumb look.
"Huh," Mog tilts her head at the fire. "Anyway; I also got you this!" she says and Avinalyn turns to face her again and sighs, walking past her and grabbing her shoulders to turn her away from the fireplace, when she takes out Reela's phone.
"It's fixed! The cellphone repair people were so nice! They threw a rock at me, so I threw the phone at them, then they threw another rock at me, and I threw my wallet at them – It was really very sweet and I'm happy I could participate in their cultural practices," she smiles proudly and holds out the phone to them.
Avinalyn stares at it for a second. "Reela's... phone," they clear their throat and absently nod. "Right. Of course. I almost... forgot," they say and take it from her quickly. It's all fixed. Like the damage from Reela's anger never even happened.
But they remember how she dealt with that woman back at the club. That won't be fixed so easily. That woman is probably scarred.
They quickly turn away from Mog to bring the phone to their desk, and Mog follows.
"You forgot? Damn, you must've been real busy while I was away," she says and Avinalyn just sets the phone down and leans forward on the desk to stare down at it. "Speaking of, did you get the shard thingy back from Reela?"
Avinalyn takes a deep breath and closes their eyes. "No... I've decided to let her keep it," they state. "It's easier to track her that way." Not technically a lie.
Mog cocks a brow and sits down on the second armchair – the one that Reela normally sits in.
'Normally'? She's been here two times. That doesn't make it a regular thing. That's the chair that their employer usually takes when they discuss their plans on the rare occasion that he checks in. Has Reela really gotten so into their head that she's making them think of all these little things as 'hers'? She isn't even here. Just how manipulative is she?
"So... What? Are you, like, stalking her now?" Mog asks curiously and Avinalyn lets go of the desk to turn around and lean back against it with their arms crossed.
"No. Not... 'stalking', just—"
Mog snorts. "You're totally stalking her," she dumbly laughs and Avinalyn growls and reaches into the drawer of their desk to retrieve an ornate flask and take a quick drink.
"Keeping tabs on our target," they mutter and close the drawer. "Was the data on the phone able to be recovered?" they snap and lower the flask, starting to fidget with it in their hands.
Mog nods happily. "Yes! It should all still be there!" she stops nodding and looks down. "Or, well, I think. Maybe. I don't actually know. Could you repeat the question?"
"Mog," Avinalyn sighs. "Why don't you know?"
She points at the phone behind them and sighs as well. "It's password protected. I tried bringing it to some hacker place, but no one could crack it," she shrugs and Avinalyn slowly nods.
Of course no one could crack it. Reela's father is a scientist. He works with technology, or he did years ago before he started turning his study towards magic. Knowing what they know about Regan, he probably made the phone himself with its own unique code. So to get it unlocked, they'd need either Regan himself and somehow force him to open it, or,
"I need to get the code from Reela..." Avinalyn says slowly as they turn around to look at the device once the realization dawns on them.
Right now, they are in a perfect position to try turning Reela's manipulative little mind games to their own benefit. She came to them last night and got them to open up about things they normally wouldn't. If Reela truly is the 'good girl' she makes herself out to be, she must see that now she owes them for their talk.
Whatever game Reela is playing to get in their head, they think they just found their key to playing it better.
________________________________
__________________
Reela stands over the table in the basement where Romeow is still lying motionless with Regan's letter in front of her. She gently pets Romeow with her eyes on the letter, feeling the cat's steady breathing under her hand to help focus her.
The excitement's over and now it's back to working on figuring out why this letter feels so off to her. As she had thought before Jules jumped in at the tavern, it's not like Regan to just give up the moment shit hits the fan. Regan is dramatic, sure, but he's also smart.
Had he always just given up when everything went tits-up, Cree would probably still be serving Anneliese Corbin. Oh yeah, and Anneliese Corbin wouldn't have been voted out by the Sage council and sentenced to exile for her crimes. The Imperium would still be around. Cree would still be an ass. And Edith would've probably died when she had Hope.
So why the hell would Regan see a cannon fire, and figure 'Dang, nothing to do about that!'
It doesn't add up.
Reela takes a deep breath and stops petting Romeow to pick up her pen and plant the tip on the blank page of her notebook, where it freezes once again. She hears a muffled snicker from the door behind her and she frowns before glancing back to see Todo leaned against the wall, watching her with his head tilted and an arched brow.
"What?" Reela deadpans.
Todo shrugs and crosses his arms. "Just thinking we should get you upstairs so you can lose your mind on the couch. More therapeutic. Also, maybe get you some sunlight. I think you might be starting to get a little pale," he snickers and Reela rolls her eyes, turning her head back down to resume looking over the letter.
"Not helping, asshole," she growls. "I'm telling you, there's something here."
Todo sighs and walks over to stand at her side and leans down to look at her face. "But what if there's not? What if your dad really was just scared of the possibility of dying and wrote the note just in case?" he questions. "He did say in the letter that he didn't want to leave 'so much unsaid.'"
Reela stops to think. "You're right..." she returns her attention to the line he's referring to, finally moving her pen across the notebook page as she writes down that line.
"I don't want to leave so much unsaid."
She underlines the word 'unsaid.' This line came right before the letters he left for Cree and Reela. She doesn't know what may have been 'unsaid' between her dads, but as far as her relationship with Regan went, it was clear that he hid a lot of things from her. She guesses she did too.
Could this line be referring to all of the things she wanted to hear him say when she accused him of using her as a trophy? But when she remembers that memory, he tried to tell her in the moment. As far as she knows, he did tell her, but she just couldn't hear him because of the Dark.
"Re? What's wrong?" Todo asks and Reela holds up her finger to tell him to wait, but starts speaking to herself for him to at least partially follow along as she works through her thought process.
"He didn't want to leave things unsaid," she mutters and skims her eyes over the letter he left for her at the end. "But... I thought everything here, aside from the things about Madhavi, he did say... I just didn't hear it. Although..."
Her eyes find one part she remembers and reads it again, out loud. "'I should have realized my own mistake...'" she mumbles and writes that under the last line in her notebook.
Todo leans forward on the table to examine the notebook and letter. "What, did he not realize how he was making you feel with all the Letroseli bullshit?" he asks.
Reela's eyes narrow in concentration. Her poor little ADD brain is really trying here. "...Or he didn't realize that he did it..." she says quietly. "He knew what he was doing. He knew that having an Adaliaen daughter would look good for him with the Council of Nerithal..." she shakes her head as she tries to keep her weak rusted gears turning. "...But maybe not why."
Todo looks at her as she writes down her questions. "Why what? Why he was doing it?"
Reela underlines the word 'why.' "Ten years ago, Regan managed to manipulate Sarabeth Blackwell into letting me go. Sarabeth Blackwell, Todo. The woman who spent over a century manipulating the entire Dev'al Ordon. And in Eutria, he held his own against Anneliese Corbin and he won. He literally stopped the Imperium with his mind," she recalls and looks over at him. "Maybe he was trying to win with the Council of Nerithal too. He knew what he was doing when he showed me off at parties. Yet, he claims in this letter that he 'didn't realize' his own mistake," she says and searches his eyes to see if he's following.
She slightly smiles when he starts slowly nodding. "...So, are you thinking that he did realize someone else's mistake in regards to you and the council?" he asks and Reela doesn't hesitate before turning her nose back into her book to write down what Todo just said.
"So, someone else was involved," Reela says and bites her lip. "Someone else made a mistake. He must have realized it sooner, and then – Regan being Regan – would try to fix it."
Todo carefully takes the letter to hold it between them so he can read over it too. "What you're getting at is; Someone else did something that had to do with the Council of Nerithal. Regan realized whatever this mysterious other person did and, essentially, his response was to start showing you off to the council? What would he gain from that?"
Reela shrugs and blows out a long, contemplative sigh. "Um, political favor, for one. The result of surviving Aramora? Maybe. I honestly can't say. I knew he'd been trying for an alliance between Lithonilynn and Sage, but it wasn't for a while that he started involving me. It was around that time when he started seeming... desperate, I guess."
Todo nods. "He was scared of something," he says and keeps looking over the letter. "From what it sounds like, when he was showing you off, he thought he was doing it to 'keep you safe.' How does placing your daughter on a pedestal keep her safe? You'd think that'd make her more of a target," he questions.
Reela slowly leans back to look up at him when she realizes. "...If the pedestal is too high for anyone to reach," she says quietly. "He thought... the Council of Nerithal would protect me?" she asks, despite knowing that Todo won't have the answers. If anyone will be able to tell her, it'll be Regan.
But this only raises more questions. Who was this 'someone else' and what mistake did they make that Regan would try to fix?
To help her try to think about it, she reaches over to start petting Romeow again. Toya is upstairs with Jules right now because her aunt decided to cook, so Reela's current emotional support pet is this husk of a mountainous cat. Feeling him breathing helps ease her mind, but seeing his state makes her remember the reason she's putting her poor hamster brain through so much stress.
It's for Regan. To save him from whatever has him in this state.
But as she runs her hand over Romeow's chest, she slowly realizes that he's even more motionless than he was just a few minutes ago.
Holding her hand still, she no longer feels him breathing.
She pushes the notebook and letter out of the way to lean over the table and press her ear to the cat's chest, and she feels Todo's hand on her back.
"Reela? What's wrong?" he asks cautiously.
Reela stares blankly at the basement wall.
There's no heartbeat.
Her blood turns to ice and she absently leans back to stare at the cat with broken eyes. "...go get Jules..." she barely whispers. She feels her legs beginning to tremble. "...Romeow is dead."
Todo doesn't waste time asking questions before he turns and sprints up the stairs to retrieve Jules from the kitchen and drag her to the basement as Reela snaps.
She drops to her knees as she breaks down sobbing as she watches Jules frantically search for signs of life from the cat, but just like Reela, she gets nothing.
This can't be happening.
Over and over for the last ten years she's heard the same thing be repeated. So long as Regan is alive, so is Romeow. The cat lives based on his connection with Regan. Romeow was their only indicator to tell them that Regan is okay. That he's alive.
So if Romeow is dead, that means Regan is too.
Her dad.
Jules checks everything Reela did. For breathing. For a heartbeat. She checks his eyes and feels his nose and mouth for any air leaving his lungs, but nothing happens. She checks everything over and over until it's clear that she knows damn well she's not going to find anything and is just desperate to not accept what's in front of her.
"No. No no no, fuck!" Jules slams her hands on the table and starts breathing heavily. "There..." she begins to choke over her own tears. "...There has to be a way! I-I have a friend in Eutria who's good with animals! But..." she growls, defiantly refusing to break as Reela shakily stands up. "But Romeow's SRL... Maybe... Maybe Utopia! One o-of my contacts in Unity City could... I... I have to—" she hits the table again when Reela rushes over to pull her into her arms and weep into her shoulder.
Jules tries fighting her trembling, but once Reela starts collapsing in her arms again is when she lets herself give in and break down with her. Jules wraps Reela in her arms and holds on painfully tight as they both drop to the floor, shaking and crying and not caring who hears them while Todo looks to the cat on the table and hesitantly walks over to stare down at Romeow and do the same thing Reela had done. Check for breathing. For any signs of life.
"Um... Guys?" Todo glances down at Reela and Jules. "He... still has a heartbeat."
Reela and Jules both snap their eyes open and hold their breaths. Reela shakily stands up first, but Jules can't seem to bring herself to get up. Reela slowly approaches the table to stand at Todo's side and feel for Romeow's heartbeat, and miraculously, it's back.
And he's breathing again.
She slowly starts shaking her head. "No... No, Jules and I both checked. He was—Romeow was dead! How...? How could he...?"
Todo lightly shrugs and wraps his arm around Reela to hold her, trying to help soothe her from her trembling. "I mean... Cree died and came back, didn't he?"
Jules swallows back her tears and shifts to sit on her knees. "That's... true," she shudders and grabs the edge of the table to also stand up and see the cat. Romeow begins blinking a bit faster and his tail twitches. His paws absently knead the air for a second before they stop.
Reela reaches down to pet his head again, and this time, the cat weakly licks her palm. But he doesn't get up. He doesn't move beyond his blinking and flicking tail. "So... Wherever Regan is..." she clears her throat to try resolving the brokenness to her voice. "...He just died, but..."
Jules' face hardens. "But something is keeping him alive..."
Todo looks down at both Reela and Jules. "Well... That's good, right? If whoever has him wants him to stay alive, that means he's safe," he says and attempts a hopeful smile, but Jules shakes her head and looks up at him.
"No... That means he must be getting tortured and brought back to extort more from him..."
Reela grabs Todo's hand but keeps staring at Romeow. "...When Cree died, he was brought back by Anneliese Corbin to turn him into some kind of 'secret weapon', right? Regan exiled her ten years ago, but could she... have taken him somehow?" she asks but Jules shrugs.
"There's a chance she could have somehow taken him, but she could only bring Cree back to life because of her Augmentation. 'Second Chance,' I believe it was called. Regan took that away and had it locked up in a secret vault somewhere so remote that even I don't know where it is. And besides, that ability could only bring people back from the dead once," she explains.
Todo sighs and looks at Romeow again. "There's always Life Magic," he adds. "According to Naomi and Nisha, the most talented Life Mars have the ability to bring people back from the dead so long as it's within an hour of their death. Romeow only died a few minutes ago by the looks of it, right Reela?"
Reela clears her throat. "Right... I've been stressed about Regan, so I thought that maybe... spending time near Romeow, even like this, would help clear my mind."
Jules gently pats her on the shoulder. "Well, thank Mazenya you did. Now we have our first real lead," she states and turns to face them both with a small smile.
Todo tilts his head. "We do?" he questions and Jules nods.
"Yes. As you said, only the most powerful Life Mars can bring people back from the dead. Which means Regan must be with one right now. I'll have to check with my sources, but if I can get a list of names of all of the worlds most renowned Life Mars, we can track them down until we find the one that has him," she says and gives Reela a quick kiss on the forehead. "I'll go start getting a list together now."
Todo nods. "And I'll call Nisha, since she's one of the more powerful Life Mars. Maybe there's a chance she somehow found him while we've been away. It's unlikely, but worth it to ask. To see if she knows anyone with the same magic as her, if nothing else," he says.
Reela wipes the tears from her eyes and smiles as she takes a deep breath. Who knew Regan dying would be such a good thing? They have an actual lead. At first, the thought of having to track down all of the world's Life Mars sounds impossible. But there's no Dev'al Ordon anymore.
Not many mages had gotten the chance to receive the same level of training that Nisha did. And Nisha already had a good grasp over her magic even before being taken into the High Order. Her magic made her valuable as a Narvadin spy. So that narrows it down even more. Very few Mars have reached the same level that Nisha has.
So Reela leaves Todo and Jules to start pulling strings to get that list together. The thought of her dad being tortured isn't exactly comforting, but at least he's in the hands of someone who wants to keep him alive. For what reason may be another concern, but right now, so long as they find this Life Mar, they find Regan and whoever is hurting him.
And Reela starts making her own list of what she's going to do to them when she finds them.