Alena had spotted the chain among Trild's things as Kal stripped him. She recognized the item by description.
Guillotines were fine silver chains normally worn by the woman of a house. They were heirlooms from the time of arch mages, as most magical items were.
Most of the good heirlooms were created by arch mages. They liked to make items do other things, magical things. Like the books that could copy themselves, archives that could expand on their own.
Yet somehow not a library that could keep itself.
The original creator of the guillotine meant for it to be worn and used by women to protect themselves and their children in the event of a mage attack. The women had, over the generations, forgotten or simply ignored the purpose of their fine chains, but one black chain was kept by the Seven, passed between executioners.
The position was normally assigned to a second son or the heir of a secondary family. She didn't understand why, but she did know some sought the position. Her husband had chosen to take an assignment. He wanted to be an executioner but had gone after Mander Salord.
The man who once referred to her as a table.
"Show you who's a fucking table," she muttered as she strode toward the teleportation office.
Kal flitted onto the path in front of her for the second time. She scowled at him and went around, leaving the first year standing on the path with his hands up as if that would stop her.
"You can help or get out of the way," she snapped.
She heard him turn and rush to catch up with her. Kal fell in beside her, his expression plaintive.
"How do you think it will look when he wakes in the morning and you are splattered across the lands?" Kal demanded as she huffed at him.
Her breath came out in a little cloud due to the time of the night and winter's encroaching spread. Alena only noticed the chill because of her breath. She felt none of it, instead finding the air brisk, making her more determined.
"Salord doesn't splatter, thank you very much," she said.
He muttered something beside her that sounded like what she said but in a higher voice.
Alena turned to him and planted her feet.
The first year stopped a step ahead of her but then stepped back and met her gaze.
"Or you could take me there so that you could get me out if I need it," she said.
"Feeling," Kal said, his hands on one side, then moving to the other, "bad. We stepped onto his land—"
"There were pickaxes, shovels, and a mess," she said. "They were digging out spells. You don't take Salord. Salord takes you. And they don't take prisoners. Every estate, every big building, has so many more spells than you might think. This is one of them. Now, you know it's there. You know what it feels like. You could find it again."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
Alena shrugged as Nillon and Maeno passed them.
"Triplets," Nillon protested. "I didn't even think we'd have one so soon. And they'll be the same age as their own great-uncles. That's madness."
"Uh, only legally their great-uncles," Maeno said as they walked further down the path. "Technically, they're uncles. Technically, if someone got off their ass and ordered the execution, their uncles would be the heirs, and you would be like three, four? Steps away."
Alena brought her hands before her and motioned as Kal watched. With a heaving sigh, the mage nodded and moved forward, holding out his hand.
"How do I get back there, though?" he asked. "He took us."
"First off, not in public," she muttered, motioning toward a bush nearby before she grabbed and pulled him. "Never in public, always out of sight and—oh, my, so sorry!"
As they rounded the corner, they came upon two students, backsides bare as one was—doing something to the other. Alena spun right around, and Kal tugged her further away, out of sight. He glanced around and then flitted them.
The Salord estate loomed like a crypt. It felt dead and abandoned, like a graveyard in the middle of a dark night.
Though it might have helped if she had visited during the day.
Kal motioned and tried to lead Alena one way. The front doors were right in front of her.
"I'm going through the front doors."
"If you do, everyone will know you visited," Kal said. "Do you wish the world to know that you keep your husband's promises? Never mind, don't answer that because now I hear it."
"Also, if you went in over there and they harbour illegal magics or thinking magic, then the gap is closed, and that way is a sure death, but the magic would see us walking in the front and think us visitors."
"That's a thing?"
"One that was supposedly destroyed, but... Salord isn't a family I'd want to underestimate. Also, women use the front door, not any other, and Mander is a man with... peculiar habits. That he enforces on his guests."
"What?"
"I'm not permitted to enter the estate by any other means," she said. "Again, I'm assuming he bound that in magic because," she finished with a little motion toward the house and half of an eye roll.
"Fine, let's walk in the front doors."
"If anyone asks, I know you're a war mage, and therefore, I assumed you worked for Kaulu, and you got wrapped up in it."
"Wrapped up in what?"
"Whatever happens," she said.
"And... what is about to happen?"
She shrugged again as she stepped up to the massive front doors.
They had always scared her when she was forced to visit with her family. Her grandfather was beholden to Salord, having incurred some debts with the family over the years.
Kal reached over her shoulder and banged on the door three times.
"Let's wake the whole house while we're at it," he said.
As the door creaked inward.
For a moment, Alena knew it was a bad idea. Doors did not simply creak as they opened of their own accord. Kal stared at her like he knew what she was thinking.
Like he was waiting for her to back out.
Her face burned as she realized Kal had knocked on the door to scare her off her goal. He thought she would twitch and run the other way at the first door creak. She scowled at him as he raised an eyebrow slowly, daring her to move forward.
"No one kills my husband until I've had my way with him."
"That can be fixed quite—" Kal whimpered off into nothing at her scathing look. "Right."
"Not what I meant," she muttered bitterly. "I think."
Drawing in a breath, she held it for just that fraction of a moment. Her mind recentered, and she knew what needed to be done.
Lord Salord wouldn't stop. He would never change his ways. He had had plenty of time to do something else or fix what he had done, yet he hadn't made any attempt.
The lives that could have been spared had this been done sooner and the lives that would not be spared if he were permitted to live were what mattered.
She stepped into the house.
It felt emptied of everything. She stopped, her face turning to Kal. The mage looked panicked for a second, but his features stilled when he realized she was looking at him.
Knowing where Mander's study was, she headed that way immediately. She entered without knocking, though the lack of a knock wasn't for any particular, reason. She simply marched in so quickly that she forgot polite company always knocked and waited to be granted entrance.
Polite company also visited during daylight hours.
She realized this as she swung to a stop, her skirts swishing gently to the right, then back to the left.
A circle of protection bound the inner hem of her dress and her belt. Circle, circle.
Two feet on the ground.
Dot, dot.
How precious are they? Practicing their etiquette. Never realizing the protections they will carry throughout their lifelong days, thanks to every motion their mothers teach them.
The words of Gray, written as he helped raise Pan's girls and teach them the magics, still woven into the etiquette carried forward by the women of the Seven. Those words were the only reason Alena learned her etiquette when she found it boring and controlling.
"Lord Salord," she said.
The man grunted at his desk and huffed something out dismissively. He muttered something at his desk and made a dismissive gesture that was hardly more than a flicker of his fingers. The quill returned to paper, scratching something out. When Alena didn't move, the man sighed heavily and sat up, leaning back in his chair.
"Tell the bitch, I'm not planting pansies," he said.
Alena's nose twitched. That was the only indication that she'd heard Mander.
His words settled in her mind as she wondered if pansies had some magical purpose she wasn't aware of. They grew on school grounds as garnishes and decorations only, kept by the kitchen staff, not even the regular gardening staff.
She had been searching for her answers, but everyone appeared puzzled over the questions.
"Maybe you should have," she said.
Her hand clenched around the guillotine as her mind drifted back to her readings from the gray books.
The first was always the worst. She knew she needed additional plans made in the room, just in case the guillotine didn't work for whatever reason. The chain would, at least, be spelled to prevent it from breaking. She could strangle him, but it was hard to watch a man strangle to death unless in a rage.
Alena took a second to determine her mood and decided she was not in a rage. Raging involved throwing things and screaming. That was definitely not her mood.
Instead, her mood was that of cold determination.
The room had a fire with a set of iron tools beside it. Stabbing or bashing would work, especially with iron as mages couldn't get magic worked around iron. The metal was also useful for hearths, fires, and cooking, so it was found in most homes.
The lamp on the desk, however, was better. It was a Salord heirloom made of a heavy metal with sharp edges. It wouldn't break on impact and had sharp edges.
There were several instances included in the books of taking out an eye and going straight through into the skull. That was said to stop a man quickly.
"My mistress bid I bring you a gift of good tidings," Alena said.
Step two in murdering someone was getting close enough to do it without alerting the target.
Alena knew she sounded annoyed, but she held up the silver chain that Trild must have borrowed from his mother. There was a chance Mander might know the purpose of the chain, but Alena knew it was slim.
"From her own neck?" Mander asked.
"Mine," she said, knowing rage was beginning to trickle out. "To place upon your neck by my own hand. You know how she is." She paused to sigh. "If I might? Then I can be out of your hair. Home. I will be out of your home."
He grunted and motioned as he reached for his quill again.
Alena moved around the desk, slipped the chain over his head, and let it settle on his chest.
Step three was knowing how to use your weapon.
Mouthing an angry curse, she looked to the door of the study, where Kal stood, eyebrows raised nearly to his headline. His mouth fell open as the blood drained from his face.
Alena looked down, and Mander slumped forward onto his desk, blood spilling freely across the top of the desk from the stump of his neck.
Her mouth fell open. She had expected to need to activate the magic to get it to work, not for it to immediately take the head.
"Oh, that is far too simple," she said as she snatched the chain off Mander and balled it into her hand.
She bolted around the desk and grabbed Kal. They left the study and made for the front doors as Alena took Kal wrist and gave it a squeeze.
"Flit as soon as you can," she said.
They made it to the front doors before they spotted anyone.
"Stop!" a voice shouted as the estate shook, and Kal slammed into Alena's back.
They hit the bathroom floor, his weight slamming into her, forcing the air from her lungs. He rolled off, and she rolled away, coughing and gasping. By the time she managed to breathe of her own free will, Kal was naked and using a mirror to look himself over. His hands shook, and the colour had yet to return to his flesh.
He had likely pushed his magic use. Magic could recover some over an hour, but repeated overuse across a day could take a mage's legs out from under him and leave him bedridden.
"Checks, Alena," he said. "You can breathe. You can check."
She grunted, got up, dropped the guillotine into the cleansing bowl with her clothing, and went about the checks herself. They checked each others' backs and difficult parts.
When they finished, she shuffled back to the bedroom and sighed. As she turned to Kal, he made a sound.
It was only then, standing by her marriage bed, her husband unaware, that it occurred to Alena she shouldn't have exposed herself to Kal. The checks were necessary for their safety. Trild would have understood.
But he also never needed to know about it.
In her hesitance, Kal nodded as if in understanding. He motioned to Trild, then the floor.
"You won't be able to lift him," he muttered. "I'll sleep on the floor."
"You're not a dog. It's late, and I won't stand for an argument."
"No sane man would argue with a woman who can make a mage's head disappear," Kal muttered.
"Sleep now, witty remarks later."
AN: It's probably a good thing to keep in mind that Alena grew up reading gray books. She grew up reading about the villains and the pairings. If a mage turns villain, she knows what to do, and she has read more than one example of what happens when someone doesn't follow through because of pity or mercy.
On the topic of gray books, not every shield writes them. Some only write one or two. Maeno has been bound to the books, so there will be books from them one day. They are, of course, named after Gray, the first shield, but what Alena has implied means that Gray's actual book(s) still exists.
And they gave those books to a pre-teen.