The door banged against the wall loudly enough to jolt Estia from zir slumber. Ze choked on a snore, and coughed, rubbing zir eyes. "So loud."
"Sorry," Leo grunted, not sparing a glance over his shoulder before he stepped inside the room with Takayoshi and Claudia closely behind.
Cobwebs hung from the bed thick enough to be curtains, fluttering softly in the cloying smell of rot, and earth. Something crunched beneath Takayoshi's boot. He glanced down, and jerked his foot away from the yellowing bones of some poor soul's hand. "Do not look down."
"Too late." Claudia's voice was strained and thick, like she was about to be sick. "There's a light over there, on the other side of the bed."
"I'll check it out." Leo tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. His boots were soft on the floor, not looking down, but also somehow carefully avoiding the biggest of the bones in his journey around the room. He let out a breath at whatever he found, and sheathed his weapon. "I think I've found what you're looking for."
Claudia scrambled to follow after him, tripping over a femur. Takayoshi caught her by her elbow, helping her get her balance back. "Thanks."
Takayoshi nodded. They moved slowly, nudging aside bones to clear a path to where Leo waited for them on the other side of the room. When Takayoshi rounded the bed, he found an array drawn in what appeared to be blood. It hummed loudly with magic, the sound almost enough to drown out his thoughts. In the center of it sat a piece of frosted amber glass with irregular edges.
"It looks like the illustrations." Claudia leaned in, her foot pressing to the edge of the array.
Takayoshi grabbed her elbow to stop her from going any closer.
"What?" She frowned looking down at where his fingers had gripped her arm tight enough to whiten his knuckles. "We should just grab it and go."
"We do not know what that array is, or what it does. We cannot enter it."
Claudia scoffed. "Don't be paranoid, Yoshi."
Takayoshi kicked a finger bone into the array where it promptly turned into not more than ash. He raised his brows.
"Styxx," Leo hissed.
"Well that's easy, we just break the array." Claudia shook her arm from Takayoshi's grip and moved around the array in a slow circle. "It's got to have something on here that will tell us how."
Takayoshi looked down at the characters again. They looked very similar to the ones Cricket used. Something about that felt strange, a set of hungry spirits who used Lunette magic in Cytherea. What were they doing here? Why would they come all this way to set up a hunting ground? Surely there was plenty of places in Lunette where they could have feasted.
"This is Lunette magic." His fingers twitched at his sides. Blood magic. Potent, but easy to twist into darkness.
Claudia stopped, her hands falling away from where she had been running them through her hair, making the short tight curls stick up all over.
"What? How do you know?" Leo asked his brows raised.
"I traveled with Prince Cricket some time ago." Takayoshi bent to get a better look at the characters. He did recognize some of them. They had used them on Cricket when the prince had insisted on making himself into a living tracking talisman, and before that on the paper talisman. Cricket had explained some of them to him when he had been making the first one. "He taught me some things about their magic."
"Plus... the blood." Claudia shrugged from where she had taken to staring at Takayoshi. He ignored it. He did not have the ability to answer her questions, and focus on the array at the same time, still dragged down by Alice's magic as he was. "Lunette magic has always used blood."
"Not always," Takayoshi said, doing an awkward crab walk around the edge of the circle.
Claudia made a curious sound at the back of her throat.
"My Prince did some very interesting things with ink, and fresh linen paper when I was with him."
"My Prince," Leo repeated.
Takayoshi's ears colored with embarrassment, but he did not take his eyes off the array. If he could just find— There it was!
"This one." He pointed to a boxy character slashed across the floor in rusty brown blood.
Leo and Claudia came to stand beside him, both looking at the symbol suspiciously.
"What is it?" Leo asked, tilting his head to one side.
"That's a binding character," Claudia said. A smile had taken over her face. "Brilliant Yoshi! You're brilliant! We just have to destroy that, and it should lower the barrier."
"How are we going to destroy it? We can't get near it." Leo sounded annoyed. Takayoshi was beginning to think Leo was in a perpetual state of annoyance. "I'm not sticking my hand in there."
"I assume you have an idea, Yoshi." Claudia did not look at him, her eyes were still focused solely on the softly glowing character.
Like calls to like, Cricket had said.
"It would be better if it were midday," Takayoshi said to himself. Helio's people were always strongest at midday, when the sun was at its zenith.
Like calls to like.
"What is the moon like tonight?"
"It's full." Leo had crossed his arms over his chest.
"Why?" Claudia was watching him now, brows pulled together.
It was perhaps not one of his better ideas. But then, Cricket had borrowed his magic when he had needed it that day on the pier. Why could Takayoshi not borrow Cricket's now? They had a connection, or at least he thought they did. And Cricket still had his earring.
Like calls to like.
"Takayoshi, you can't use Selene's power like that. You aren't one of her lineage." Claudia sounded worried. Takayoshi lifted his eyes to look at her, she was frowning at him.
"Then we will try something else if this does not work."
"I don't know that that's a good idea. The blow back—"
"You two should leave the room." Takayoshi bent to pull a dagger from his boot. Claudia and Leo looked at each other, uncertain. "Go. I will be fine."
"All right, but we'll be just outside."
Takayoshi nodded. He waited until they were outside the door, backed against the wall on the other side of the hall. Then he pulled up his sleeve, his eyes tracing the lines of the faded scars of the only two times he had ever spilled blood for magic. It was only natural that every time had been for Cricket in some way. First to bind himself to an impossible soulmate. Then to help his soulmate save his father. Now to sever their ties, and save him.
The knife bit into his skin, making his jaw clench. He waited a moment, letting it dribble down to his hand. Then he inhaled deeply, and flung the blood toward the character. It went through the barrier easily, splattering across the rusted bloody marks on the floor. Marring the brown binding character with crimson. The barrier shuddered, the glow dimming for a moment, before it fell completely. Leaving Takayoshi standing in the dark room with only a sliver of moonlight through the curtains for light. Silence fell, making his ears ring with it.
"It is safe to return." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to sop up the blood, and apply pressure to the wound.
Claudia came alone, a small sphere of magic floating just over her shoulder to light her way. "Leo is trying to wake Estia up again. He's worried about putting zir on a horse with zir asleep like ze is."
Takayoshi squatted down to grab the piece of glass from the middle of the circle. It was warm to the touch, unlike how he had thought it would be. And it hummed, softly, against his skin, not near as loud as the array had. He tucked it into the pouch on his belt.
"Did it go all right?" Claudia shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"Yes, it was fine."
"How did you...?" Claudia gestured to the array, and then to the still slowly bleeding cut on his arm. "How did you know that would work?"
Takayoshi blinked at her. "I did not. I just thought it would be worth trying."
Claudia narrowed her eyes on him. "So you're telling me, you just decided to try Selene ordained magic with no prior proof that you could use it?"
"I have used it before." Takayoshi picked his way around the array to lead her back toward the door. "Remember? The curse? And Cricket and I..." He pressed his lips together trying to think of the words to use. "He borrowed my magic when I was with him. I thought perhaps I might be able to do the same."
"Right." Claudia frowned. "Let me bandage that for you."
Takayoshi nodded, stepping out in the hall to wait as she pulled bandages and salve from her bag. Estia and Leo were both leaning against the wall still, Leo trying to get Estia to drink some water. He held his arm still as she tended to his wound, closing his eyes to feel the magic flowing back into the walls of the manor. Where once there had been naught by emptiness, he could feel the first tentative notes of the world reclaiming this blighted place. Soon, it would be humming with life again.
"What time is it?" Takayoshi pulled his sleeve back down over the knotted bandage.
"Four. The sun won't be rising for another couple of hours at best." Leo tucked the water skin he had offered Estia back into his own travel pouch.
"We were told the forest would be too dark to travel at night."
Leo snorted. "You have enough power for those little glowy orb things right?"
"We should have enough to maintain them until dawn." Takayoshi bit back a snide comment about 'glowy orb things'.
"We could just stay here until the sun comes up. Estia still isn't really awake." Claudia frowned at their companion who had slumped against Leo again.
"Ze can ride with me." Leo shrugged. "I don't mind."
"I would like to return to the inn in the village, and get proper sleep in a proper bed if at all possible before we have to continue our journey tomorrow. Estia will be... unhappy otherwise."
"You mean cranky." Claudia deadpanned.
Takayoshi nodded.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get the Styxx out of here." Leo bent down, and scooped Estia up into his arms, then headed to the stairs.
Claudia glanced at Takayoshi. "Are we all right with that?"
"I do not see where we have been given much choice in the matter." Takayoshi frowned.
Claudia waited a moment, listening to Leo's footsteps creak on the stairs. "Where did he come from, do you think?"
"I do not know."
"Do you think he'll stick around?"
"Claudia, I know as much about our new friend as you do." Takayoshi did not sound petulant, and he did not wrinkle his nose. But he wanted to. "Come. Tomorrow will be a long day of travel, we ought to get as much rest today as we can."
Claudia nodded. The stairs were just wide enough for them to walk down side by side, and Takayoshi was grateful for it. Although the ghosts were gone, and the house had begun to feel somehow more alive again, he did not think he wanted to be left even one step behind his friends in the place that had almost cost him his life.
"Where will we head next?" Claudia's fingers tapped at the bannister as she made her way down, filling the little stairwell with her noise. It was nice. Companionable.
"West, I believe."
Claudia nodded. "I'll look at our map once we're at the inn, and see where we're headed. I hope it's nothing like..." She made a sweeping motion at the house around them. "This again."
"I hope that too."
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