healing heart

She shifted where she sat, pulling the chains until she sat in a position that was more comfortable- one leg folded over the other, both hands resting on the arms of her chair. It was as if she was perched on a Throne of the Spirit World, rather than an object of her death.

Her snake eyes racked over the form of the other magic thief, the one that Inez knew by name. She smiled. "We don't need intoductions, thankfully. I know you. Well- I knew your plaything. Yvonne? She spoke about you at great length."

The thief made an attempt to speak as she walked forward, but Inez cut her off- "Shame, what happened to her," She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, "Though inevitable, with a constitution like hers-"

It was Rue's turn to cut Inez off then, with a sharp backhand that snapped Inez's face to the left. Already, Inez could taste blood on her lip where it had split. Inez laughed, a girlish giggle turned bloodthirsty.

Katie tilted her head to the side, peering over Inez, who still seemed cozy. The chains were overkill - dramatics. Katie had no belief that the voodoo girl could get out of her magical matrix. But it was best to keep her somewhat immobile. Inez giggled, laughed, and quipped at them, but Katie knew one thing that she didn't - Inez was well and thoroughly trapped. The Auror prowled around the edge of the Alchemist's Foundry, whistling softly, adjusting her pitch as she watched Rue take point.

Criminals were not all alike, as Katie learned over the years - some turn into slobbering cowards afraid of their own footfalls. Others cried for mercy or peace or forgiveness. The ones Katie respected held firm to their own beliefs. Others tried to run, chewing off limbs and cutting their own proverbial airways with lies and attempted entrapments of enchantments to attempt to escape justice. Katie had seen many of such villains in the walls of the Interrogation Rooms, of which she'd taken classes, though she did not enjoy nor excel in such circles. Others had dug their graves deeper, their pain sharper, their existence becoming less and less of an option.

"You don't really see people as much more than ingredients, do you? Parts of your grand plans. Mounds of flesh and magic and bone and soul to copy and paste where your cult needs."

Inez talked about souls and body parts like they were part of a special from the chip shop down the road - to be used, eaten, and discarded at a whim. It wasn't an unusual phenomenon among many serial killers, and even among potioneers and alchemists of Katie's caliber and above - at some point, the world around you is a pantry of options for magic. Human souls, human bodies, human magic - it was all quite delicious what you could do with all that power. Her Serial Killer certainly believed this about being folk. The Voodoo bitches did as well about certain bloodlines. If only Katie had more time, had the Department at her beck-and-call... the stories they could find in Inez's bones and blood would make them famous.

But Katie came here for vengeance, not another research paper. Priorities were set.

"I'll not sit here and waffle about, casting blame upon a victim of your schemes and chaos." Katie tottered forward, cracking her neck side to side. "Unluckily for you, I also see you as a mound of flesh and bone to play with at my disposal until I decide to send you away. Do you wanna see an interesting trick I learned from some Cajun wix who did a winter in England three years ago?"

Katie nudged Rue out of the way. The heat of her body made Katie sweat as she leaned over Inez's cheek, pursing her lips as if to kiss it.

Then whistled.

The squirt of blood in her eye made her curse, but Inez let out a short howl as the tender flesh of her face was skinned off, leaving a heaving exposed mass of bone and fat.

"Damn, Henri did it so much more neatly," Katie whined, wiping off the blood with a sigh. "You're so silly, Inez. All this chatter between us is just the appetizer. You're aching to soil our dinner! PopQuiz! Did you know that you're not the only one here who fiddled with souls and death?" Katie's free hand touched Inez's cheek where she'd flayed the skin, "I was once the budding necromancer when I was 16, then my Commander gave me purpose, made me better, made me someone worth knowing. You took her from me."

Katie entwined their hands and knelt down in front of Inez, smiling as her thumb soothed the back of the Voodoo cultist's hand. "You're going to be my masterpiece in alchemy, and it's such a shame I won't be able to show off my prize to the world. Just know that your existence has been meaningless until you choose to cross my path. But I will give you purpose -- I will fix you, make you better. I'm your divine retribution, and I hate you." Katie smiled and looked up at Rue.

But Rue was not a trained interrogator like Katie, schooled in keeping a level head in the face of outright insult; Rue’s blood ran hot, her temper prone to boiling up fast and forceful. Her hands clenched into fists, her lip curling up into a snarl the more Inez taunted her about Yvonne’s grisly fate, until finally she snapped, “You’re clapped if you think I won’t rip out your tongue an’ watch you choke on her name you EVIL FUCKING SLAG—!”

She launched herself at Inez, the woman’s detestable laugh echoing against the stone walls and causing Rue’s vision to cloud over with murderous red—but Katie’s arms around her middle, hauling her back and away prevented Rue from making good on her threat. Yet.

She shrugged the other woman off and then threw her coat into an angry heap at her feet, allowing the bitter ocean-chilled wind that whipped in from the gaping open-air wall to cool the adrenaline that pulsed hot and fiery through Rue’s body like magma. She shook out her shaking fists at her sides, brushing off the auror’s hushed mutterings regarding whether she could go through with their plan; yes she was alright, yes she could handle this. A calloused hand squeezed over the ink that adorned Rue’s bicep, and then the other woman trailed back to have her own crack at their captive, while Rue took in deep lungfuls of briny air that burned her lungs, in and out. 

She’d been thinking about this day—dreaming about having one of the Daughters within throttling distance of Rue’s fists for too many gods-damn years just to cock it all up now. And it wasn’t just about getting justice for Yvonne—though every fiber of the pyromancer’s being ached to make someone suffer for what had been done to her lover. But the fact was the mutual massacre that the Daughters and the former glory of FTB had delivered upon each other had decimated the coven—the only semblance of a real family that an orphan like Rue, unwanted by her inbred wix relations and their unimpeachable ancestral magical bloodlines and too volatile for the safe and flammable Muggle world in which her luckless mother had attempted to hide her, had ever known.

And Rue, like a comet blazing across the sky, had always been cursed and admonished and feared, for causing a catching fire of disaster and destruction, an inferno of misfortune and woe, wherever she went. A firestarter was anathema in almost every circle there was.

But now, that cursed fire that lived within her had purpose. And Rue resolved herself that she would not squander it today.

She rejoined Katie, meeting her eyes and nodding a silent I’m all good to the other woman before crossing her arms across her chest and watching the auror at work. Under Rue’s smoldering gaze, Katie amped up the show—as if torturing a cunt that they both wanted dead was all a bit of foreplay, a burlesque performance for the unhinged and bloodthirsty beasts that embodied their darkest desires. 

And Rue had to admit—watching as that venomous smirk was literally peeled from said cunt’s once-beautiful face did help to get her into character.

“Gladly…” she said, cracking her knuckles as she moved to stand in front of Inez, Katie moving aside to give her the floor. She had every intention of ignoring Inez’s incoherent gargling and the pinkish blood and saliva spilling over the ruins of her jaw, down her neck and chest before drip drip dripping on the stone floor. But then a few distinct sounds strung together gave Rue pause.

“Hold up—” Rue stiffened, leaning closer to Inez as she hissed, “—the fuck did you just say?” And she knew she was giving the snake exactly what she wanted, but still—Rue could never forgive herself if she let even the barest scrap of real, actual intel slip away. 

She lifted up her hands and did a basic mending tut—ironically, it was perhaps Yvonne’s most lasting contribution to FTB, a spell that every Free Trader knew. Rue didn’t like to do it; it clawed at her heart to allow her fingers to shift into each position by muscle memory. The result was shoddy, sloppy, and surely still incredibly painful for Inez—which suited Rue just fine as she watched the woman twitch and squirm while threads of fine flesh on Inez’s gaping cheek tore apart and stretched to haphazardly cover the wound. It was a temporary fix, no replacement for real healing, and so thin and fragile that it would tear open and repeat every time Inez spoke.

But Rue didn’t care about that. She loomed over Inez and demanded, “Say that again.”

“I said…” snarled Inez, her blood-soaked chest heaving, red coating the inside of her mouth and her teeth as her lips pulled back despite the gruesome sight of her face splitting open and patching itself over and over and over again. “…that I’m disappointed by you, Prudence—” She spat out Rue’s full name with a French-Creole affectation that made the hedge’s stomach twist in revulsion. “—after all the talk of you and your vengeance, your endless burning, Ogoun given mortal form. That you’d allow this colonizer bitch to hold your leash…” The vodouiste spat a glob of red on the ground in disgust, then leaned up toward Rue as much as her chains would allow, until their faces were inches apart and she could whisper, soft and vicious: “…I guess licking out that pale slut’s koko santi is more important than laying to rest your poor, sweet Yvonne.”

Embers flared in Rue’s green eyes as she studied Inez, not flinching, not taking the bait, this time. But the doubt burned her from the inside out; was it possible there was still something left of Yvonne to bury, or was the cunt just full of shit?

Rue straightened slowly, a draconian smile stretching across her face. If there was information Inez was holding on to, she’d just have to smoke it out of her.

“You wanna know the interestin’ thing about tryin’ to immolate yourself when fire won’t harm ya?” Rue drawled, loud enough for Katie to hear as she prowled around behind Inez and placed her hands over the woman's eyes, as if she were about to be handed a Christmas gift. “You learn intimately, every worst fuckin’ way to burn.” Then she let flames lick along the creases of her palms, holding tight to Inez’s face as the woman jerked and thrashed until her lashes had burned clean off, until the blood vessels in her eyes had blistered and popped, turning her sclera an angry violet hue inside cracked, blackened lids.

She made tiny crackling fires under each and every nail bed, pain so acute and unreachable that it had Inez howling in minutes as she clawed at her own skin.

And finally, Rue crouched low to the ground until she could grip the heavy chains, allowing heat like the inside of a forge to seep slowly into the thick links of iron until they blazed a bright white-orange, one after the other, crawling closer and closer to Inez while she scrambled frantically in her seat like a caged animal. But it was in vain; there was nowhere to go, and when the chains that bound her seared her skin they burned deep, sunken welts into her flesh, melting and molding until woman and iron had merged into one. 

Her wails of rage and agony rattled through Rue’s skull as she rose and turned to find Katie, grinning with vindication and approval. Rue didn’t think; she reached out and grabbed Katie by the jaw, her hands feeling simply sun-warmed after pouring nearly all the fire within her into those scalding chains. Her fingers sizzled and smoked as they cooled, and Rue threaded them back into the hair at Katie’s nape as she pulled the auror in for a proper kiss, angling their bodies together.

It was selfish, and she would have chastised herself for it, if she had the strength. She’d signed up for this. To suffer, to die, to commit her spirit, forced vengeful and tortured, to the service of her Sisters.

She’d been proud of the opportunity, gloated about being chosen, considered herself a higher rank than those around her. In the world, but not of it. Of something higher. Better.

It didn’t make it any easier.

The pain was beyond description. Her vision, seared away through dark crimson blotches. Her skin, melted and twisted, exposing raw bone and sinew against forged iron. Even screaming hurt, as her skin was forced to tear, and heal, and tear, and heal, and tear, and heal…

“Samedi,” She sobbed, she begged. Her desire not to die was overtaken only by her pain. She begged her loa, the bringer of death, to free her. Release her from mortal chains so she could rest.

The dried oranges glistened in the mid-morning light when Catelyn picked them up to thread them on twine, filling her home with the warm, comforting scent of Christmas. She bunched herbs together to twist around the twine, and after an hour, she was left with a beautiful, cosy garland.

She stood, brushing her hands off on her sweats, then removed her wand. She hummed to herself as she raised it, her free hand sweeping through the air to raise the garland. Her wand shifted left to right to adjust its positioning, just as she felt the wards of her home being disrupted.

She cocked her head, considering the signatures for a moment. The twins. She smiled, extending the hand that wasn't holding her wand to flick towards the door so that it unlocked. "Come in!" She called, then returned to the garland, a dent in her forehead as she tried to apply a sticking charm while maintaining its positioning.

"Would one of you come in here and help me with this?" She asked, not having a chance to turn to face her niece and nephew. One of them did help, and then Cat let her hands drop, pocketing her wand as she headed into the living room.

Catelyn was taken aback. It wasn't abnormal for Nate to appear on her doorstep, dishevelled and generally unwell, but Harriet looked as though someone had put her through a tumble-dryer as well. She blinked, opening her mouth with a frown and then deciding to close it.

Nate went to say something, but she shook her head, raising a hand. "I need to know if you are safe. Do either of you need medical attention?" She looked between the two, and Harriet shook her head stiffly. "No? Okay. You both go clean up. There's towels under the sink. I'll get a pot of coffee going."

Before Nate could protest further- and he very much looked like he wanted to- Cat turned back to her kitchen to set about preparing the pot. She heared movement, and she leaned back to see a set of muddy (or... sooty?) footprints down her carpet. Catelyn scowled, pointing her wand down at the floor to vanish them away, before calling out, "And take those shoes off, Harriet Pinnock! Merlin knows your mother raised you better than that!"

They butted shoulders against each other and got stuck trying to walk through the door at the same time, and with a very unnecessarily loud and begrudging sigh, Nate conceded to Harriet showering first. She promptly shut the door in his face without saying a word, but instead gave him an extremely cryptic look that even with their freakish ability to communicate with near-telepathic levels of intuition, Nate couldn’t, in his drained and exhausted state, make any sense of.

He went instead into the room that Loxley and Dona had shared as kids and sat down on one of the beds. He’d only intended to sit and process what had just happened for a moment, but in the span of time that his foggy brain comprehended as a single blink, Harriet was already entering the bedroom wrapped in a bath towel and hissing, “What are you even doing?” And Nate realized he’d just been sitting here, staring into space for God-knows how long. 

Nate rubbed at his eyes and gave a groan. Fuck, he was so fucking tired. And likely he meant the question to be rhetorical, but Harriet had often served as the sounding board for Nate’s stupid and/or existential rhetorical queries over the years, so he looked at her and asked, “Did that all actually just fucking happen?”

A complex emotion crossed over Harriet’s face, before she repositioned it into her practiced blank stare again. “Do not start with that mopey shit, Nate—we’re better off without her,” Harriet insisted.

And just because Nate was legitimately too fucking tired to get defensive and argue that he wasn’t ‘moping’ over the woman who had basically ruined his entire life and literally just tried to blow him up—again—(definitely not because his chest was actually throbbing thinking about everything she’d said and everything she hadn’t said and the fucking finality of the way she’d told him ‘we’re done’—), Nate showed a rare moment of being able to hold his fucking tongue as he walked into Cat’s bathroom, and shut the door, and stood underneath the hot water until it ran cold. Which his aunt would scold him for, Nate was sure of it. Maybe he deserved it.

Maybe he deserved all of it.

Morning slipped into afternoon, and Nate and Harriet found themselves sitting at the small table in Catelyn’s kitchen, not talking, slurping at mugs of coffee and generally acting like zombies until finally Cat said, “Is one of you going to tell me what’s going on?”

The siblings exchanged a quick glance, and then rather than answering his aunt’s question directly, Nate instead asked, “Is Loxley planning to come home for the holidays?” He didn’t bother asking about Dona—he already knew the answer, and knew that nobody wanted to think or talk about that. “Or…is it gonna put you out, if we stay here?”

Catelyn curled her fingers around the mug's handle at Nate's line of questioning, then nodded at Harriet's addition. "You're both welcome to stay," She began, before admitting, "I don't have plans for Christmas, other than going to see Loxley. I guess I was just waiting for-"

She pursed her lips, then sighed, letting her shoulders drop.

Cat Outterridge was coming to accept the fact that none of her children would tell her what was happening in their lives. Dona, gone without a trace. Loxley, alone in hospital but insisting that he would be taken care of by his friends. Harriet and Nate, suddenly in need of a home for the holidays. For 'a while'.

"It's good you're here, though. I wanted to talk to you about your Mom."

She was mindful of the way Harriet stiffened and averted her gaze, and the way Nate looked like someone had seized his throat. It was uncomfortable, but she had to persevere. She had to.

Inez knew she was destined for greatness. She knew she was powerful, more-so than the others. She was more clever, more attractive, more skilled. 

She’d chosen Rozalie to prepare her, aiding in the deceiver’s debasement. While she bathed in milk, the other witch poured salts and petals into the tub, scrubbed her arms, and hand-fed her fruits so ripe, the juice spilled down her chin. Roz had a natural cotton robe for her to don when she left the bath, and it was that robe she was wearing as her Sisters, the Lost Daughter and the Boy left for home, leaving Inez behind in the space they had deliberately created for this event.

Mambo had left her a chair, which was delightful, as after many hours of meditating, Inez's knees began to ache. The magic-thieves truly were taking their sweet time to find her, despite the obvious trails they had left behind. She entertained herself by singing, an old tune that she'd learned as a child. Something about the Spirits guiding their hands. How poignant that years since learning the song, she would become one of its subjects.

Mid-lyric, Inez paused, feeling the familiar warmth in her chest that indicated her guiding Spirits were telling her something. A warning. I'll be home soon, Sisters. The door to the warehouse swung open, and Inez smiled, sitting up in her chair.

Three days for Katie to smuggle out materials from her lab at the Ministry of Magic, for her to fill up pages upon blank pages with magical equations and alchemical calculations, for her to nearly burn her flat down molding a rune-etched round vessel out of glass while Rue blasted it with a scorching beam of dazzling blue-white flame, Chickadee tittering at her ankles in delight.

Three days for Rue to track down an old contact from her street heist days, a hedge witch broker who peddled in objects meant for hasty getaways—discarded and used portkeys that were refurbished and sold for unsanctioned travel across short, one-way distances. 

And three days for Oz to work up the nerve to dial a number he never thought he would call again.

They spent the final night passing a bottle of liquor between them, going over every detail of their intricate plan over and over and over again until they could all recite it in their sleep—not that any of them got a wink of it.

Then the day arrived before any of them could stop and really think about the insanity of all of it. How unlikely their chances at success were. 

They bid each other a brief goodbye before going their separate ways—Rue and Katie to the warehouse to which they’d tracked Inez using a pair of the voodoo witch’s earrings, and Oz to make sure everything was set up for their arrival in an hour’s time.

An Tiaract, a tiny island steep with rocks among the uninhabited Blasket Islands off the Western coast of Ireland, was a harsh place that Oz unfortunately knew quite well. Nestled atop the rocky precipice of a seaside cliff was a decrepit, abandoned lighthouse that Morrigan had long ago fashioned into a holding cell, of sorts. The room at the top was built into the cliffside itself, with a metal chair bolted to the ground and heavy chains attached to the floor, the stone walls, the ceiling—an interrogation chamber, Oz had witnessed it used as before. Or a place for those who disobeyed Morrigan to be taught a lesson.

Oz’s travel token was literally that—a rusty token from an arcade that had closed years ago, and he grasped it with trembling fingers before he was dumped unceremoniously at the coordinates the magic had been assigned to deliver him. The brand mark that still adorned his wrist flared up with heat in a way Oz hadn’t felt in many years as he pressed a hand against the front door of the lighthouse and pushed it open with a low, groaning creak. It was dark inside, and quiet, and bitterly cold—a layer of dust coated the interior, as if the building had stood empty for some time, and that fact alone calmed Oz’s wildly racing pulse just a smidge as he climbed the stairs up, and up, and up.

But his reprieve from terror was short-lived; Oz opened the door to the holding cell at the top of the lighthouse and found there was indeed someone there, smiling like a cat would to a cornered canary. Waiting for him.

“Hiya, Morrigan.”

“Ozzie…” she purred, studying him, trailing closer to him like a vulture to a carcass. “…thought you'da known better ’n ta come crawlin’ back here…Still gettin’ into trouble?”

Oz swallowed, and aimed for a flippant shrug that more closely resembled a wince. “Oh, ya know me, Mor—trouble always seems ta follow me around…”

Morrigan grinned knowingly at that, and raised a hand that slammed the door behind Oz shut. She didn’t stop moving until she’d stopped right inside Oz’s space, her pixie face flickering gruesomely in the room’s dim lighting. Oz drew in a breath, and Morrigan chuckled, reaching out to drag her nails lightly along the edge of his curly hair, down his neck, dipping toward the center of his chest to halt precisely at the tip of the tattoo that adorned his abdomen, hidden beneath his clothes. Morrigan’s ministrations caused an involuntary shiver to travel up his whole body, all the way from his toes. “You haven't changed a bit, have ya? Still the same needy boy…” Oz was too familiar, intimately familiar with this tone; Morrigan wasn’t asking for an answer and he didn’t give her one. 

Her hand closed around his left wrist and flipped it over, drawing it toward her to examine. She ran her fingertips lightly, almost lovingly, over the faded brand mark that was still etched onto Oz’s skin. He shivered again.

Then Morrigan’s expression darkened in an instant, and she dug her thumbnail into the center of the mark. Her magic pulsed through him, lighting up all his nerves with a relentless current, a rapid oscillation between pain and pleasure that shifted too frequently between the two to allow him to feel either. This, too, was magic Oz knew well—magic he still dreamt about sometimes, and woke up gasping in a pool of cold sweat.

His teeth ground together and he squirmed at the onslaught of overstimulation until his uncontrolled trembling knocked him to his knees. “Please—” he panted over the deafening roar of his own blood in his ears.

Morrigan released him and Oz crumbled downward, catching himself with his palms pressed down in the dirt so that he cowered before Morrigan on his hands and knees, like a dog that had been kicked. She gripped one hand in the back of his hair and sneered, in that voice that was affection and ownership and wrath all wrapped up in one, “Cé leis a mbaineann tú?”

“You–!” Oz choked out desperately, a strangled sort of sob, “–i gcónaí, please, I swear–”

“Agus nach mbeidh tú thréigean arís mé?” Morrigan demanded, but before Oz was forced to give her any sort of answer, there was a suctioning sound of air in the middle of the room, followed by the sound of feet landing hard onto stone. Oz heard Rue give a nauseated groan, and Katie muttered something about a spell not holding her for long before there were grunts of effort, a body being dragged, chains rattling as they were fastened into place. 

Morrigan dropped her hold on Oz’s hair with a slight hiss of annoyance and Oz slumped in relief, but didn’t look up. “And these must be the friends Ozzie spoke so highly of…?” Morrigan mocked, her attention momentarily drifting from the heap that was Oz on the floor as she walked leisurely toward her interrogation chair, to better examine their prisoner.

Oz managed to push himself up to a shaky crouch and look up in time to see Rue and Katie backing away from a chained-up, unconscious Inez while Morrigan got closer—Rue with her hands raised in a defensive tut-ready position, and Katie with her wand held out in front of her—though thankfully they’d both heeded Oz’s precautionary earlier warnings about Morrigan’s many and powerful magical enhancements that protected her from most minor offensive spells made against her, and neither tried to cast anything at her just yet.

Katie met his eyes, questioning and impatient, and Oz shook his head at her frantically—if he could just draw Morrigan’s attention back on him, convince her it was him alone she wanted to unleash her fury on, maybe it would give the women a chance to—

Oz’s mouth fell open in shock as Morrigan’s body tumbled unconscious to the ground with a heavy thud, a fucking baseball bat pulled from gods-knew where raised aloft and triumphant in Rue’s hands. Katie cackled at the brutal yet—Oz had to admit, effective—simplicity of it, while Rue just shrugged and said, “Ya said no magic, innit.”

They made quick work of dragging Morrigan to a corner of the room, and though Rue encircled her with a ring of flames as a temporary precaution, they all agreed the ruthless coven leader would be pissed as all the seven hells when she woke up, so they needed to work fast. 

And so, from the magically enchanted backpack from which Rue had, presumably, stashed the baseball bat, Katie reached inside and retrieved the glass bottle wrapped in cloth and carefully handed it over to Oz. It would need to be charged up with a fucktonne of ambient magic, and they didn’t have much time—and so Oz’s job now was to find and siphon the entire stash of ambient-imbued magical batteries that Morrigan had squirreled away in this place for a rainy day, while the girls kept Inez…occupied, for as long as they were able to give him.

The baseball bat was ingenious, a bit of a muggle touch and Katie felt absolutely high off watching that creepy bitch hit the ground. Her Oz had a quake in his skin that she misliked, and faintly wondered if she ought to add another kill this night. But a rattled moan beside them ensured Katie had no choice but to hurry things along.

Not a soul blinked an eye as Katie filtched an assortment of goodies from the laboratories. Even before being raised to Captain the young Auror was trusted enough with their enormous stock, and the inventory cycle counts - not as a punishment but because Katie was exact. It was a hard thing to picture, Katherine Elizabeth Thorne was not known for her exacting nature, but it was true. When it came to the important things Katie knew each thread she pulled, every microgram accounted for - and everyone who worked the labs knew it too. If Katie said a single hippogriff feather was out of place in their inventory she was well believed.Granted this was much more than a hippogriff feather, but she'd likely be returning most of these items in a short spell. Only a few were going to be destroyed in use, and Katie had backdoor favors to call for replacements so the Captain was reassured that her black bag of goodies crossed across her chest wasn't going to be noticed.

Katie flicked her fingers in a trick she learned that first week of Hogwarts. Bluebell flames formed at the edge of her fingertips and she blew into them until the fireballs grew, then they scattered to form the points of a pentagram.

“I was known as a bit of a Pyro too,” Katie hummed to Rue and Oz, face crinkled with manic mirth, her heart beating wildly in her chest, “made fireworks, made fire dragons...” the easy days, the days where she may have gotten the living shit kicked out of her for three months but it was worth the nine months of magical bliss. Katie didn't continue her memory lane, and instead pulled from her black bag of goodies two red velvet baggies.

Rue asked to help but Katie shook her head.

“This requires an expert touch... and speed.” The Auror tilted the bag into her hand and Rue's eyes widened as the silvery sand hovered above her skin, moving like water - “Demetors have such interesting properties when you banish them properly, of course it's rarely done and very difficult. But the essence they leave behind the way it can be infused is marvelous.” Dementor Sand was particularly vicious in interrogation circles, all the dangers of the victim being trapped in the room with a Dementor and none of the danger to the proponents of the torture. Though Katie could hear her Uncle’s voice in her ears, faintly she wondered when her personal boogeyman wouldn't be her father's twin, his fists dripping with her blood, hissing her failures. The downfalls of this magical property, until she could clean it off, her personal boogeyman would remain a ghostly reckoning in the back of her skull. It was going to be worth it though, she'd take all the reminders of that man to impart justice. After all - Katie learned from his feet and fists how to make a bruise break someone down.

Katie moved quickly, making the barrier and carving runes into the floor with her wand. Katie had raw power in spades and as long as she breathed the barrier would keep anything inside.

“Are we sure it's gonna hold her here?” Rue hissed, Inez was rousing softly, “These voodoo bitches are real slippery--”

“Yes.” Without so much as a by your leave she grabbed Rue by the jaw and pulled her down, their lips locking, Katie's tongue snuck into her mouth. Oz shrieked something between a hoot and a cackle at the display. Then she pulled away, their spit intermixing into a glob on her tongue, careful not to swallow she fumbled for the vial in her bag.

That disgusting thread of magic she’d found at the crime scene, bottled up and kept. Katie poured it over Inez's unconscious face, watching as it sunk back into her skin, then dripped down over the chair and into the rune itself, knotting her body to the alchemy shed drawn. Rue was gaping but Katie tilted her head back and with a disgusting sound hacked a loogie into one of her floating flames which then spun from blue to purple then faded out.

“What the fu--” Oz started as the tempature dropped.

Then there was a shockwave under their feet, as Inez was forcibly pulled from unconsciousness - may cause some brain damange but who gave a fuck. A mix of Katie's magic and Inez’s threading into Inez's skin, the rune glowing and it knotted around her body and magic. The flames burned brighter then faded. Inez was awake and Katie strolled up to the barrier and waved.

“Good Morning sunshine!” Katie began brightly, “It's nice to meet you, I'm Katherine Thorne and you killed my Commander, prepare to die! I do hope you're excited to see what I'm going to do with you.” Katie walked around the alchemical barrier and teasingly put her foot through it. “Please, try to leave!” The woman was staring, nose wrinkling to snarl, and Katie felt a pull of Inez's magic being used then very quickly, fading and being eaten by her own stores. She burped, loudly.

“Siphoning alchemy is sooo tricky,” Katie felt a rush in her skin and Rue probably did too judging by the way her pretty face wrinkled. “But it's easy if you make the right cables and links. You can't hurt us. You can't leave this barrier. You can't use your magic. In other words, you're marvelously fucked and in my perfect personal creation - The Alchemist's Foundry.” Katie grinned. “So let's play a game, it's called how many screams can I make you scrum?”

She shifted where she sat, pulling the chains until she sat in a position that was more comfortable- one leg folded over the other, both hands resting on the arms of her chair. It was as if she was perched on a Throne of the Spirit World, rather than an object of her death.

Her snake eyes racked over the form of the other magic thief, the one that Inez knew by name. She smiled. "We don't need intoductions, thankfully. I know you. Well- I knew your plaything. Yvonne? She spoke about you at great length."

The thief made an attempt to speak as she walked forward, but Inez cut her off- "Shame, what happened to her," She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, "Though inevitable, with a constitution like hers-"

It was Rue's turn to cut Inez off then, with a sharp backhand that snapped Inez's face to the left. Already, Inez could taste blood on her lip where it had split. Inez laughed, a girlish giggle turned bloodthirsty.

Katie had almost forgotten how refreshing it was to be around folk who didn't attend Hogwarts. There were a handful within the Department who attended other legacy institutions such as Durmstrang or Beauxbatons. Thus, they didn't exactly follow House Politics and also knew nothing of Katie during her years at Hogwarts.

It was nice to not be immediately spotted as the Gryffindor with more detentions than sense and could avoid the scrutiny of her previous reputation. It made it easier for Rue to simply trust that Katie knew what she was doing (she did), without being questioned of her intelligence or ability for having not been a Ravenclaw or Slytherin (the Hat offered Slytherin - she didn't look good in green). So as Katie clocked Rue's questions and comments, she wasn't expected to look up from the notebook in hand to answer, as if Katie had to try and multitask - her brain was hardwired to move fast, and she got bored if she had to do things one at a time, it's why class at Hogwarts was numbing.

"Gryffindor - brave, bold, and exceedingly reckless."

Ashworth could see through the veneer Katie had positioned around her and challenged her in those early days of mentorship to keep her mind sharp and moving, her hands working, her mouth on a constant stream. Three tasks at once, fighting and painting runes, brewing and plotting an attack on the blackboard, and paperwork while also writing alchemy papers and keeping a conversation going. All things that mattered in the field, in the laboratories, all the things that had moved Katie from lowly lab rat to dangerous Captain.

So, as she flicked through Yvonne's work, her fingers still making signs, and occasionally stopping to paint a rune in the air between herself and Rue, Katie could listen to how the Hedges worked and figure out their magic.

"...molecular manipulation, a regular scanning at work; it's too bad I never saw it in action. I'll bet it was something - energy and magic manipulation on this kind of level with a brain rivaling my own," Katie closed the journal with a smile, "I would have been terrified of her abilities."

Spirits - goddamn, it always came back to the dead with Katie, didn't it? Always came back around to those who fuck around with the River Styx, and Katie had dipped her toes in and was yanked out fasted than a tick on a July Tuesday. Blood Magic. Spirit Magic. Necromancy. Blood bonds. Katie knew this magic; she'd dabbled, studied, and knifed it in the cradle of a few dark magicians in her career. But Voodoo was a different breed.

"Anyone can be killed - no one is immortal, and Spirit Work is delicate but also incredibly strange. There are tales of souls being bottled into jars, genies in lamps using their magic to grant wishes to muggles, of trapping spirits in gems and locking them into caverns until their final resting place is forgotten and they are kept on the mortal plane." Katie could think of no worse fate than an eternity trapped in anonymity, used like a battery cell, fated to never truly die until the heat death of the universe or until the main character of a manga needs your power to reach their goals for Love and Friendship.

"Voodoo Smoodoo," Katie crowned, kicking up her feet, "I can trap a soul better than these swamp fucks - cut them off from the sacrificial lambs they used as a battery, and they'll cook."

Dimensional pockets, Genie Lamps, soul renting, and Spirit Trapping—it wasn't easy magical working, but then again, Katie hated being bored.

Of course, he’d heard all about Gryffindor House—where Maeko had faced scrutiny from her peers who did not believe she belonged with them, until Katie came along.

Oz peered into the room from his hiding place, watching the hedge witch and auror captain continue to converse, circling round each other with magnetic push and pull—a little song and dance that Oz knew well. It was rather beautiful, really. Oz thought Paxton might have said something about their auras tangling.

Rue paced the length of the small space like a caged animal, restless, tossing a small sphere of flame between her hands like a ball. Even from here, Oz could see the way her eyes seemed to gleam like emeralds in a cave illuminated by the torchfire of a wandering explorer as Katie sent her mind spinning with terrifying possibilities. She hummed, pondering their predicament, then said, “The Free Trader haunts are out, I reckon. There’s heat on us—our safehouse got shaken down a beat ago, word is some a your Comrades in Arms are trackin’ ambient spikes and unsanctioned magic signatures all over England.”

Katie made a thoughtful noise as she processed this information, one hand scratching through the scruffy, loose curls at the crown of her head. After a moment, she asked, “I don’t suppose your coven has friends elsewhere on this island? Scotland…Ireland?”

Rue gave a snort and her cheeky reply was lost to the sudden rush of dread that washed through Oz. He knew exactly what fate would befall anyone who dared to trespass in that territory unannounced, who tried conducting magical business without attaining the right permission from the right people—the right person. His palms itched.

Ah, shite…

By the time Oz had settled enough to peek into the room again, Rue and Katie had been blessedly, momentarily sidetracked by Katie’s pet salamander Chickadee seemingly launching itself from its napping place in the ash of the fireplace at the ball of flame between Rue’s hands, and she was cooing and laughing in adoration over the tittering fire sprite as it crawled along her arms and nestled down the front of her shirt, with Katie jumping up to snap photos with her phone.

It was enough of a distraction that Oz hoped they’d forget about the trap they were walking into with this foolhardy revenge mission. But soon enough, the two women settled on the couch, angled toward each other, with Rue stroking Chickadee as he snoozed atop her chest. Picking up the thread of thought, Katie mused, “The Department’s got boots on the ground in Scotland, and I can’t risk this getting traced back to me…”

“Ireland it is, then,” Rue replied decisively, almost gleefully, and Oz swallowed. 

Katie again opened the journal Rue had brought and studied a few pages, muttering to herself. Then she reached out to pop the cap off the whiskey bottle and took a long swig before passing it off to Rue, scurrying over to the chalkboard to scribble out complex symbols and equations, deep in her own thoughts. 

The board was half-full by the time Katie turned, dusting her forehead and hairline with chalk from her fingers as she said, “Your girl was thinking in terms of huge power reserves—spirit magic, combined with the unstable source you all use—the ambient. We’d need a boost like that to contain the bitch’s spirit in a vessel, and…” She drew a small diagram on the chalkboard with exes and dashed lines and arrows, like a football coach mapping a play. “…we would also need a way to stabilize all the ambient magic in a small, contained area, so that when we actually get her in the damn thing, matter doesn’t collapse in on itself and combust and—"

Rue mimicked the sound of an explosion with her mouth, and even summoned a little miniature mushroom cloud in the air for further illustration.

Katie grinned, gesturing with the chalk. “—exactly. Not the kind of mess that would look good on you, darlin’…”

Rue snickered in response, and then added, “Might be there’s a local coven could negotiate some extra ambient with…?”

Double, triple shite…

And that’s when Oz finally stepped into the room, resigned in what he knew he had to do—but really not wanting to do it. “I know who ya need ta talk to, if it’s Ireland ya need ta go…”

Katie raised a curious brow at him, too deep into her scheming to be annoyed that he’d deliberately disobeyed her request to stay out of their way, today. And Rue, who was used to the way things were run in a safehouse, was not startled whatsoever by Oz showing up unannounced. 

Their eyes met, impish blue against smoldering green, and all Oz could think was, I chose you, that day, over my own blood. And Mae won’t ever forget it. His heart throbbed in his chest; that was the last time Oz had seen or spoken to Maeko, that day after Halloween at the FTB safehouse. When he’d put himself in front of her wand to protect some hedges that he barely knew. 

Oz hadn’t been able to get that wail of betrayal that Maeko had shrieked at him out of his head these long weeks. He’d disappointed her, and she’d abandoned him in the company of hedges—just like his father had done. 

So they’d chosen their sides, both shown their true colors when their backs were up against a wall. And though he ached without Maeko’s company every single day, looking back, Oz didn’t think he would have made a different choice. Self-sacrifice was the way he was wired. 

But now, as he’d resigned himself to willingly jump into harm’s way yet again, but on a whole different scale, Oz did feel regret that he wouldn’t get to see Maeko one last time. Because he knew, deep down, that when Morrigan got her hands on him again, he likely wouldn’t be coming back.

He looked over at Katie and gave her a sad, wincing smile, holding up his palms to flash HELLO and GOODBYE. “…an’ I know how ta get ya that power boost, too.”

Inez knew she was destined for greatness. She knew she was powerful, more-so than the others. She was more clever, more attractive, more skilled. 

She’d chosen Rozalie to prepare her, aiding in the deceiver’s debasement. While she bathed in milk, the other witch poured salts and petals into the tub, scrubbed her arms, and hand-fed her fruits so ripe, the juice spilled down her chin. Roz had a natural cotton robe for her to don when she left the bath, and it was that robe she was wearing as her Sisters, the Lost Daughter and the Boy left for home, leaving Inez behind in the space they had deliberately created for this event.

Mambo had left her a chair, which was delightful, as after many hours of meditating, Inez's knees began to ache. The magic-thieves truly were taking their sweet time to find her, despite the obvious trails they had left behind. She entertained herself by singing, an old tune that she'd learned as a child. Something about the Spirits guiding their hands. How poignant that years since learning the song, she would become one of its subjects.

Mid-lyric, Inez paused, feeling the familiar warmth in her chest that indicated her guiding Spirits were telling her something. A warning. I'll be home soon, Sisters. The door to the warehouse swung open, and Inez smiled, sitting up in her chair.

JAZ SINCLAIR as MARIE MOREAU