#...not a problem for now

Her particle manipulation powers and her prowess with magic relating to all manner of heavenly bodies had raised more than concerns as soon as she’d altered the trajectory of the biggest meteor shower in the known universe.

The Dragon Scales rained harmlessly over the Magic Dimension, riding the ripples of space currents believed to be the Great Dragon shivering and shedding her skin. Over thousands of years no scholars, scribes and astronomers had succeeded in deciphering the pattern behind the phenomenon.

Griffin had not only predicted it successfully this once, but also influenced its course. To the point where the meteors had blazed through the atmosphere of several planets leaving behind a fiery trail in the sky, small craters and hard rock on the ground, and not a shred of mysticism.

Griffin’s appointment as the newest addition to the Cloud Tower faculty had stirred unrest all over the Magic Dimension, all of its leaders left to ask what would happen if she decided to repeat her magic show but this time take it further. Marion suspected that had been the whole point of it – to make all the monarchs aware of the force they’d be facing if they decided to go against witchkind. The effect had rippled further, of course, other dark magic users who shared Griffin’s views witnessing it as well.

Learning who’d reached out to her would be of great use to Marion in light of her mother’s refusal to consider anyone else’s power but their own, given to them as a birthright. Even in the face of a magical show that would’ve exhausted Marion’s own powers to the point of inducing magic depletion syndrome for the next few days.

Instead of examining the pattern of odd and worrisome magic thefts all over the dimension, the Queen of Domino had preferred to focus on Marion’s interest in Griffin and had set out to present it to anyone that noticed it as dutiful yet unfounded concern over state affairs, as overzealous protectiveness. She may as well have called it paranoia to Marion’s own face. In doing so she’d only left Marion one option – pursue it to the very end.

They’d descended deep into the castle – on the cusp of the caverns running under it and out to the nearby surroundings. If Griffin was headed out, Marion would have to go back to the auditorium where Headmistress Annora had welcomed the Domino delegation. Her mother would have already noticed how faint the presence of her Dragon Fire had grown but she couldn’t afford the risk of being seen somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

Getting caught sneaking after a member of Cloud Tower’s faculty into the crypt of the castle would be just as disastrous for Domino’s image as being spotted out in the open on Magix. The crypt wasn’t restricted to witches only but any visitors not affiliated with the college required an official permission to enter. Especially someone with as much influence and diverging self-interests as herself.

The staircase leading into the crypt was swallowed by swarming, pitch-black darkness that appeared to be its own realm even compared to the murky hallways throughout the rest of the castle. She had to slow down and carefully feel for every next step unless she wanted to give herself away. Only her wings would be able to catch her in the opaque nothingness and the faintest pulse of light magic would rumble through the crypt stirring an avalanche of all the looming negative energy.

At least there was nowhere to lose Griffin now. This path only led to one place.

A heady current of magic billowed through the air like smoke tingling at her nose, her eyes, her fingertips. She startled and would have tripped if not for the power itself acting like a beacon. Almost tangible, it enveloped her, mapping out every inch of her body and the path of her steps down the stairs as if she’d walked them her whole life.

There was a nostalgic note claiming the air alongside something colder making her heart shudder and retreat further into her rib cage. She held her breath in anticipation of chilling fingers clawing their way through her chest to pluck it out, still beating and quivering, but the air remained stiff in the emptiness around her.

Somehow that was worse. She could feel the lingering stares on her form, magic hanging heavy in the air, just waiting for a sudden, gasping breath to flurry through the crypt and kick it into motion. Still, there was nothing but quiet stuffed with building tension that rose and rose with nowhere to go. It would’ve crushed her by now if allowed to bleed back into a dimension lost to all the souls draped over the stone walls and lingering overhead.

Knowing the phantom shadows couldn’t touch her did nothing to settle her stomach. In the back of her mind a familiar energetic voice prickled like a cold draft biting into her tender flesh.

Marion had to clench her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She couldn’t reach for the obliterating heat of her flames now that she’d caught a glimpse of the tall, slender figure she’d stalked throughout the castle.

She halted on the winding staircase, back pressed tightly to the freezing stone wall. Even Griffin’s golden eyes wouldn’t spot her there, amidst the cloying shadows clinging to the place like a mantle.

Griffin’s form was bathed in the firelight flickering from the cresset on the wall. The shadow she cast stretched all the way to the darkness cloaking Marion as if it would merge with it and slither up her legs to drag her into Griffin’s field of vision.

It was impossible to tell what she was doing, the table in front of her obscured immoderately by her lithe body. All Marion had to go off of was the acrid air redolent of burned thread. Not an outcome that could be achieved through ordinary fire, though.

A spell had been used to fray the very fabric of existence and the edges of Marion’s own thoughts. It almost camouflaged the warm breath tingling at the tiniest expanse of naked shoulder peeking between her dress and the thick curtain of her hair.

Marion’s head snapped to the offender, a rush of power gathering in her palm and prickling painfully to be ignited.

“Ready to add more offenses to the list?”

Griffin’s voice and the cool fingers circling her wrist made the magic fizzle out in her fingertips. It was her loud gasp that lured the fire from the cresset towards them.

She had to scramble to catch it with her free hand to avoid setting Griffin ablaze... Or herself.

The flames dancing in her palm illuminated the witch towering over her, blocking her escape back up the stairs. The light spilled into the suchlike sea of her irises to drown out any emotion from them. Only Griffin’s straightened shoulders spoke of haughtiness and the upturned corners of her mouth – of amusement.

Marion swallowed, her gaze just as gripped by Griffin as her wrist was. She didn't have to look over her shoulder to confirm that the figure she'd been watching had evaporated. The magical pressure in the air had lessened an iota. Though not even remotely enough to balance out the tension building between her and the real Griffin.

"You need permission to be here and you wouldn't be sneaking around if you had it."

There was an edge to Griffin's voice that was hard to pinpoint. She wasn't frustrated per se but the emotion in her words was just as unyielding as her fingers on Marion. It would run her through, hollow her out until there was nothing left in contrast to the vise-like grip keeping her in place.

"Cloud Tower doesn't take kindly to intruders, princess. I'd hate to be demoted further to the position of your babysitter."

There it was. The derision that had been held at bay by Headmistress Annora’s presence. Griffin would only censor herself for the woman’s sake. From what Marion had gathered in the couple short hours they’d known each other, Griffin refused to compromise with herself in any other way. She was just what Marion needed, no matter how counterintuitive it seemed.

"You don't have a choice," Marion fired out before her tongue could betray her and start shaking in lieu of her occupied fingers. "I'm already here."

Griffin's eyes narrowed, leaving behind a cutting coldness where her bright gaze had shone in the firelight. "Very well."

The air stirred around them, space itself thinning on the edges of the vortex of power conjured by Griffin. The ground opened underneath Marion's feet to swallow her heart. It almost tore from her chest when she jerked her hand from Griffin's grip. Her own magic was gathering in every little pore of her skin, threatening to turn them all into volcanoes spilling liquid fire. It would set space itself ablaze if she let the flames scatter and surge, stoked by the violent currents of Griffin’s spell.

"What are you doing?" she rasped, just barely teetering on the edge of the stairs once the whirl of magic died down.

Griffin didn't reach for her or her own magic in another teleportation attempt and Marion's lungs started to settle.

As if to undermine them, Griffin said, "Just doing my job – babysitting you. What are you doing? Why did you follow me?"

Abandoning all hope to do so inconspicuously, Marion swallowed. Griffin wasn’t impressed by her like everyone else that approached her with admiration and even awe, having heard the tales of the ancient and sacred power she wielded like a part of her. Marion would have to be the one to win her over.

“I’m perfectly convinced that you only agreed to this collaboration”–Griffin had done everything herself–“in the hopes of catching everyone’s attention.”

“And what caught your interest? My magic or I?” Griffin lowered herself to the step where Marion was standing.

The distance between them was now only perpetuated by their will. Marion didn’t even have to move. If she left herself to the pull of Griffin's body heat–palpable in the desolation of the crypt–and the push of urgency from the flames raging under her skin and in her palm, she’d stumble right into the crook of Griffin's neck. It seemed like the safest place in the crypt, Griffin’s own heartbeat hidden securely and not revealing anything from her pulse point.

“I wasn’t aware that they came separately so both, I suppose,” Marion held her ground.

Griffin smiled, the show of teeth just as sexual as it was menacing. “So you didn’t take your eyes off me in the meeting, ran away from your duties and followed me all the way here before you were even aware of my plans to cast a spell just so that we could find ourselves perfectly alone in the darkest, most remote part of the castle outside anyone’s knowledge where we are?”

It was hard to believe that Griffin had done her research on Marion, too. All public knowledge on Marion was not just readily available, but forced upon even the rare individuals that had no investment whatsoever in Domino’s royal affairs or even peripheral curiosity. She’d probably reached her conclusions after they’d met. Watching Marion like everyone else did but seeing considerably more if she’d figured out the correct buttons to push.

Her gaze skirting Marion’s mouth didn’t help the closing of her throat – like invisible fingers choking her. Alas, it wasn’t Oritel – just his striking absence, still so fresh even years later. He’d been the only one who’d seen through her facade. He’d helped her see through it as well and learn to tear it down when it’d been ingrained in her mind, made a part of her.

She needed to disappear into the image of Domino’s Crown Princess now – the only face she’d allowed herself to wear since she’d put Oritel to rest. Instead, her fingers only brushed against the bursting flames in her palm, licking fervently at reddening skin, her blood rushing to the surface of her body as if to spill along with her magic. The very fire in her core should have been snuffed out by now by the potency of the stale, stiff air only reaching her lips for years on end, yet the one in her palm still burned. Just like the thrill of Griffin's eyes on her bare skin scorched her cheeks and the sides of her neck.

“Everyone made sure I was aware of your reputation before this visit was even arranged. They all warned me to stay away from you and your... radical understanding of magic,” she decided on the truth.

Throwing Griffin off her game wouldn't be an advantage when she was just as shaken herself but at least it would level the playing field.

“And yet, here you are,” Griffin inched closer, leaving so little space between them that a full, deep breath from either of them would leave their chests brushing.

“Here I am,” Marion croaked.

Radical was necessary, good even. Griffin already agreed. Marion just had to convince her they were working towards the same goal – dissuading the tension inching closer to escalation every time an obscure but powerful magical artifact or spell disappeared and the finger was pointed towards dark magic users.

Her confession gave Griffin pause. The golden eyes rose back to Marion’s own and whatever she saw in there made her call off the attack.

She brushed past Marion, the whirl of air around her swiping the fire blossom out of Marion’s palm.

It was out before it could hit the cold floor, extinguished with the might of her heart seizing in her chest. She startled at the possibility of its wailing echoing through the crypt to be caught there forever like the rest of the ghosts haunting the place.

“You should listen to them, Princess,” Griffin concentrated her lack of respect in the title, letting none of it touch Marion where she was standing vulnerable in the flesh. “Who knows what I could do were you to give me a weakness to attack.”

Marion's steps echoed in the very core of the castle as she approached Griffin. The bait was outright offensive but she had to settle for only figuratively slapping it out of Griffin's hand. Otherwise, it would be the same as falling for it.

"We all witnessed what you can do, Griffin," Marion bit into the name, refusing the witch the satisfaction of startling at the taste of it.

She could swear she'd bitten through her own tongue. She had to have for the familiar metallic odor to choke her so viciously.

All her blood could spill and it would mean nothing. It had no value. She came from the bloodline with the greatest heritage and she had nothing to leave to Daphne, only grief. Oritel had died protecting her Dragon Fire, the thing she’d taken pride in every time she’d heard her title announced – Crown Princess of Domino. The thing that had led her to Griffin – by failing.

“Then you can imagine what could happen to a princess in my company. Even one with all of your gifts and abilities.” Griffin tilted her head, allowing the light to emphasize the seriousness in her eyes, “You’re not the beginning and end of all magic.”

Marion licked her lips but no words came out despite the coaxing heat from the fire still blooming in the cresset. She couldn’t disagree, especially after Griffin's thorough demonstration earlier. But she couldn’t agree either. Not even here where the only ones that would hear were Cloud Tower and Griffin. And herself.

She hadn’t had the will to leave the prison she’d called home before Oritel’s warmth had overwhelmed that of her inner flames. She hadn’t had the power to protect Oritel from the dark magic twisting his own until it’d frozen in his veins and killed him. She hadn’t had the heart to leave Daphne’s side and incinerate his murderer lest her daughter figured out that her presence didn’t amount to much more than her absence did. Her mother had seized the opportunity to take over Daphne’s schedule and life when Marion hadn’t had the presence of mind to care for her own child. She didn’t even have the voice to speak up and reassert herself as the only parent Daphne had left.

Marion raised her chin. “You won’t hurt me. Your job is to keep me safe.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw the error in them. It was the truth, and yet, a grave mistake that had been made eons ago. She was just doomed to repeat it or find herself stranded beyond the limits of the Dragon Fire.

“We do live in your world,” Griffin seemingly conceded but her hand closed around the lone golden chalice on the table and raised it against Marion like a loaded weapon. “We follow your rules.”

Griffin held her gaze, inserting herself into her chest with an even more frigid demand for her attention than the hole she’d been nursing there for years.

Marion swallowed, her breath coming out in short puffs through her nose. All she could focus on was not crumbling with each one and not letting her gaze drop to the challenge in Griffin’s hand like a shot bird.

The liquid inside the chalice was blue – the color of a flame burning too hot, ready to reduce her insides to cinders. The light coming from the cresset glimmered on the surface like a flickering sun blinding Marion. She couldn’t tell if her fingers would brush cold metal or colder magic but running away was not an option. She had to pass this test, had to come out on the other side despite feeling like a small speck of ash drowning into the sea of a potion held up against her.

“You gain nothing from this.”

Marion grabbed the chalice and chugged it down in a most undignified manner. The liquid glided down her throat more like a fabric than a drink. Loamy notes and a whiff of ink underlay the needling taste of ozone.

Griffin pried the chalice from her grasp and set it aside. “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.”

She took Marion’s hands in her own and laced their fingers together. Hers were so cold on Marion’s feverish flesh. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she was touched by a ghost.

“Don’t lose me. I’d hate to have to explain how you were erased out of existence,” she was dead serious behind the teasing tone and Marion grabbed on for dear life.

Her palms were slick with sweat and her curls were sticking to her damp forehead, little hairs tickling her already strained sensibilities. Her face was burning – both with the magic soaking every fiber of her being and the fear of charring Griffin with her breath alone. It heated up as soon as it formed in her lungs as if she was preparing to breathe fire, yet it did nothing to free her from her clothes wrapped around her like a snake’s skin. Her chest strained fruitlessly against the invisible threads cocooning her to weave her into an incomprehensible tapestry.

The fire in the cresset burned too bright. She had to scrunch her eyes shut.

The darkness exploded in her every cell with a million different sensations. There was moisture around her, oozing into her pores concurrently with streaming rays of light – the heat of a burning star inside her core. Her taste buds were assaulted with the putrid stench of dead, rotting meat and the wispy scent of fresh raspberries. Wind caressed her – first gently, then so aggressively she felt herself bending, fingers and lips brushing against moist soil. Something weighed on her, pressing her in a vise as if her mind was a coin flipped and now she was the earth underfoot.

Griffin's body slammed into hers and knocked her to the ground. Her lithe frame threatened to crush Marion’s empty lungs without a single protest coming out through her breathlessness.

Cold prickled over Marion’s skin where Griffin’s weight disappeared. Her eyes could barely focus on the blurry nighttime blue of the sky above but something carved each of Griffin’s movements into her mind even amidst the cacophony in there.

Her insides swished around like she was an ocean crashing against the shore containing it. She was weightless, free-falling despite the hard ground under her back only to be swept up, stomach dropping into her heels as if she was a fallen leaf caught up in a gust of wind. Heaps of bugs crawled over and inside her body, their tiny legs moving over the same grass, leaves, bark and soil Marion’s skin brushed against almost tangibly as if she was both the insects and the environment. There were echoes to her breath, warped reflections of it following different rhythms altogether as if there was a buzzing swarm of creatures inside her, each living its own life but with her life force.

Only Griffin stood out, her magic sizzling in the air and seeping into the breath Marion drew in her lungs to distinguish it from the phantom organisms latched to her senses. There was no mirror image of Marion herself making the same steps as Griffin, feeling what she did with every footfall. She was only the ground under Griffin’s soles, the air writhing around her form, the glass transmuting into sand with the barest whisper of Griffin’s magic.

Griffin flashed out of existence, only a flow of energy left behind her that slithered between the atoms of matter around. Out of it, Griffin’s body materialized again – kneeling on the ground next to Marion, her fingers clasping tightly at Marion’s bicep before panic could replace the different patterns of life pulsing through her chest.

Marion hurried to mirror the grasp on her.

The soft earth unraveled underneath her back that slammed into the stone floor of Cloud Tower’s crypt again. The rest of her body poured back into its shape like she was made of ink. The taste of the potion finally rang a bell in her head.

Lifting her head took too much effort. She had no energy to spare on glaring at the witch, already on her feet, or slapping away the offered hand. She could swear she had sweated out her magic, the well of it in her core barely flickering with leftover sparks.

It was mostly Griffin pulling her off the floor and supporting her weight until she was steady on her feet again. The stiff coldness of the crypt was like a solid wall around her that wasn’t swayed by the timid motions of her chest. Her breath was once again the single force moving it – so faint in the absence of all the surrounding life that had been a part of her.

“Did we just change time?” Marion shivered, the power of the spell they’d used still rattling her bones.

“Of course not,” Griffin set the crystal cube in her hand on the table next to a small leather-bound book. “We created a fragment of an alternate universe based on a change I made in one of the journal entries detailing the history of the Startrap.”

Her fingers stroked the pages absentmindedly yet gently.

The dim light starting to flicker out in the cresset wasn’t the reason why Marion couldn’t spot telltale signs of alterations in the open journal. Griffin's work was just that skillful.

“We took it from a moment when no one would have missed it and brought it here so now our universe stirs to catch up. All it does is remove the little cube from where it’s supposed to be locked away since it’s right here with us. It’s just as though we conjured it out of its little prison by going around the impossibility of that.”

“By doing something else that’s impossible,” Marion’s head was spinning at the realization that the word probably meant nothing where Griffin was concerned.

They’d altered the natural course of the universe. Whether they’d changed time or manipulated their reality through a parallel one. It was still black magic. Forbidden magic. Unfamiliar magic. And Griffin had used it like it was second nature.

“Not when you add a little Dragon Fire,” Griffin smirked, all boldness despite having had to rely on Marion’s power.

Everything inside her was quaking, the tremors visible in her hands. The will of the power inside her, the warmth of her flames, had woven together a whole universe. A small universe but filled with life moved by her magic. It had been at her fingertips, under her skin and soaking her mind. She had the power to be one with anything, anyone. Maybe even...

She eyed the Startrap with vitriol. It had been designed by a witch, who had spent her whole life walking the very corridors of Cloud Tower, to store unlimited amounts of starlight. Before it could have been thoroughly tested, the Council had confiscated it out of concern that it could plunge the whole universe in darkness. It had been sealed away–along with the political leverage it would have given Cloud Tower–in an impenetrable trap of magic and void on a remote island centuries ago only for Griffin to rewrite history, shaping it like it was hers to mold and doing the same with Marion’s magic as well.

“Don’t look so wary,” Griffin leaned back against the table, hands braced comfortably at the edge. “The Startrap belongs here. As I said, Cloud Tower doesn’t like intruders – regardless of their kind of magic. We can make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Take it off the list of magic you’ve been trying to safeguard.”

The need for air slipped from Marion’s mind. Griffin had researched her, in detail. There was no other way she’d know about Marion’s mission – started nearly a decade ago with Oritel’s ardent and unwavering support. Her own mother remained more or less uninformed on the matter, though not through effort on Marion’s part.

Her voice grated against her parched throat, “You should have asked permission to use my magic.”

Performing black magic aside–Griffin wouldn’t risk drawing more ire towards dark magic users and the theft could never be traced back to them once it was noticed either–she could have been erased out of existence like Griffin had warned. Or lost her mind from the overload of sensation. Or gone mad chasing the high of pulling off a feat none in her family could have dreamed of.

The multitude of sensations was already fading from her mind but every lick of heat in her fingers sent her heart soaring – up in her mouth and outside her body to the depths of space. Her magic had expanded past the limits of her being and the very fabric of reality. The life of an entire universe sat inside her chest to kindle her inner flames furiously any time they might falter. And in the core of all that was nestled the firm grip on her hands, the warmth of Griffin’s touch on her skin.

“I didn’t make you drink the potion.” Griffin pushed off the table to come face to face with Marion, “Why did you?”

The question startled with the lack of smugness in it. Marion would have expected it to be teeth gnawing at her ribs to reach the flames inside her core and tear them apart as well. The gentle push of the words was unforeseen, like a caress through her curls unraveling her feverish thoughts. They’d spent too long rotting in her head. She had spent too long rotting in there.

Marion closed the gap between them, the warmth of Griffin’s breath guiding her to the witch’s lips. The kiss fell together, their lips fitting in one whole so naturally. The taste of it had Marion fighting the smile threatening to pull them apart yet growing wider at the rush of having caught Griffin off-guard, short-lived as it was.

Griffin’s teeth nibbled on Marion’s lips that parted leisurely to let her tongue in. It was her own heart bursting out and landing in Griffin’s mouth, following her withdrawing body. Marion stumbled after it blindly to stay locked between the warm arms around her. Her chest only settled once she was flush against Griffin, both of them braced against the table which had been the plan all along.

Griffin’s hands wove through Marion’s hairdo to ruin it like even the most monstrous of days and responsibilities couldn’t dream of doing. The wisps of hair falling out were like ribbons of fire tickling Marion’s neck and teasing her mind with visions of what else her powers could achieve in Griffin’s proximity. The sparks in her core flared anew, striving to erupt and rain around in a meteor shower of their own.

Griffin's magic answered her searching touch. It gathered on Griffin's skin where Marion could run her fingers over it, draw patterns in it and move it around like it was hers too. Like she could dip her fingertips into Griffin’s soul, unfettered.

For one glorious moment stretching past Marion’s expectations but still ending too soon Griffin was the only thing in the world. Griffin and the barest hint of a moan at the brush of Marion’s fingers against Griffin's pulse point, the heartbeat underneath racing faster as if to entice her into further strokes.

It slipped from her touch to be replaced by the need to hear the full sound blazing through her nerves.

Griffin's ragged breathing anchored her in the moment. The air in the crypt was dancing around them, moved by the passion continuing to spill from their parted lips and into the auras of magic around them – still touching despite the distance between their bodies. There was no loss for Marion to mourn.

“Should I assume we’re done with the attempts at persuading each other of the benefits of a partnership between us?” Griffin arched a brow at her dramatically but the corner of her mouth twitched up.

“I should hope so. I’d be afraid of discovering your other techniques of persuasion if your favored approach is hijacking someone’s magic,” Marion had to suppress the laughter bubbling behind her scandalized act.

It was pure joy bursting in her heart and kindling not just her flames, but her very soul.

“Maybe you should stay home with your daughter then, Princess,” Griffin teased, hands smoothing her skirt where it had bunched up against the table.

Marion couldn’t help the wistful smile clawing at her face. "I think that between the two of us Daphne would be more successful in acting the part of a caretaker."

Griffin considered her for a moment before sashaying past her, "Let me show you the way back. That way we'll both have an alibi in front of Her Majesty."

"And Headmistress Annora," Marion chimed, a quick touch of magic bringing order to her hairdo again.

"She doesn't want to know what I do. Lets her keep some plausible deniability." Griffin smirked at her over her shoulder.