#jentaine

While you still can, was unspoken.

"I'll text them, or something, but I'm not leaving your side," Claire said. "Not after the amount of dark magic you used. Even I haven't ever tapped beyond my resevoir and into my life force that much. Probably because I was taught to drain the life out of other things, but still."

Some part of Claire wondered if Decimaar functioned in a similar way. She wasn't sure if that was any use, though. Morgana hadn't taught her much about how to put the life force back into a creature, much less a soul.

"Is it really that bad?"

"It's a miracle you're alive. And I don't trust miracles." In Claire's experience, miracles were just the product of meddling wizards, ones more powerful than Claire and Jen.

It had been some sort of miracle that the amulet had chosen her, a seeming human, and called her by her true name. (It had been Merlin using Morgana's apprentice against her.)

It had been a miracle that a fairy was walking the streets of Arcadia despite the centuries of exile after the war with the pixies. (It had been eight years of Morgana's meddling.)

"Okay, then when I see my mom again she can explain why it wasn't a miracle." The way Jen's voice wavered spoke volumes about how much of a miracle it would be for Dr. Lake to still be alive.

"I just hope the Lady hasn't sunk her claws into you."

"You don't call M -" Jen cut herself off at the look Claire gave her. "You don't use her other names anymore. Why now?"

Claire had refused to call Morgana by any of her titles out loud ever since she had come to terms with the knowledge of what Morgana had done to her. She had had parents who loved her. She hadn't been abandoned at the mouth of Morgana's cave. She had had a name, and for eight years Claire had had no name when Morgana had so many names. Even the false name she had been given, Fontaine de Morgan, still had been a way to lay claim over Claire. A fountain of Morgana's magic.

"Names can have power when spoken aloud. You used her staff. I don't want to take any risks."

"I think if her staff was that powerful, it would've been a lot harder for you to fight Angor Rot. You have more of a connection than me, between her hand in your amulet and being raised by her. The magical genetic manipulation is something we both have."

"Please don't take any more risks."

Jen leaned foward and kissed Claire. She began to lean into the kiss before pulling away. "You can't just kiss me expecting that to make me not worried about you."

"We're at war. I don't think we can get away with not taking risks."

"I know, but you know what I mean. No unnecessary risks. You really scared Toby."

And me.

"Okay, okay, no unnecessary risks. Dark magic isn't like a concussion, right?" Jen half-asked, half-yawned.

"What do you mean?"

"Can I go to sleep? Or will I not wake up again?"

"I'll watch over you, but I don't think so."

Jen pulled out her phone as she made herself comfortable on Claire's bed. "Tell your parents."

Claire waited for Jen to fall asleep before unlocking Jen's phone.

This is Claire, she typed. That was the easy part. She kept on typing and hitting the backspace button, trying to figure out what to say. This was why she had considered not going home again, staying Fontaine the Trollhunter instead of becoming Claire once more. Her parents had already lost her once. At least if she hadn't become Claire again, they wouldn't have known it possible to lose her again. The fact that Jen was tossing and turning wasn't helping Claire's concentration.

Jen was likely having a nightmare. Was it induced by the dark magic? Claire having been sent to the Deep with heavy chains binding her wings? The Janus Order?

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw Jen's eyelids move. At least whatever nightmare she was having couldn't hurt her here in Claire's room.

Jen's glowing eyes snapped open. This wasn't the first time Jen's eyes had glowed; it was a side effect of her changeling side.

But her eyes weren't glowing blue. Oh, no, they were glowing gold. The same gold that Claire had grown up surrounded by as long as Morgana wasn't ignoring her. The same gold that Claire had once wished her magic had been the same color as, the same gold that Claire had always been thankful that Jen's magic didn't manifest as.

Claire summoned her armor at the same time that Morgana summoned the Skathe-Hrün to Jen's hand. Claire barely raised her shield in time to block the sharp points.

If Jen was controlling her body, Claire wouldn't have been able to dodge what would have been a non-lethal blow in an impromptu sparring session. If Morgana was truly focused on killing Claire, then Claire would probably be dead by now. (She needed to work on her reaction time.)

Claire did the calculations in her head. She couldn't let Morgana take Jen away. Morgana would be more powerful with a physical host, meaning that she probably wanted to take Jen back to the cave to more easily possess her. She was likely more focused on having a host than using her puppet as a lethal weapon.

They wanted to protect her.

“What? No! I’m not going to kill you,” Jen said. She dismissed her armor to prove it, leaned her bike against a tree, and then knelt down next to her. Fontaine opened her eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “Let’s face it, I’ve double-crossed you before.” She moved her injured shoulder about a centimeter and gasped in pain. Tears formed in her brown eyes, and she barely made an effort to blink them away.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to make a habit of kicking people while they’re down, and the fact that you want me to mercy-kill you means that you’re in really bad shape and likely not to try and fireball my face off. What’s your parents’ number?”

Somehow Fontaine looked even more crestfallen. “I don’t have... no, that isn’t true. I don’t know who they are. That’s probably the reason why this happened.”

“Who would try stabbing you for something like that?” In addition to outrage, Jen couldn’t help but be worried. Was there someone trying to hurt people for being orphans or something? If so, then Toby could be in danger.

“Angor Rot.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be working with you? I’m gonna try to get to get you on your feet, sorry if it hurts.”

Fontaine gasped as she was lifted, but to her credit once she started to unfold her legs she was able to push herself into a standing position. A hunched-over standing position, and she leaned on Jen heavily, but it was still standing.

“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to really walk,” Fontaine said. Her voice was strained, and unusually soft.

Jen carefully took Fontaine’s hand, and with her other arm she grabbed her bike and dragged it over to the two of them.

“Would you rather sit behind me or in front of me? Also, can you conjure a fireball or anything, for light?”

“Behind, you know I have a back injury.” Jen bit her lip slightly. She had exploited the fact that Fontaine had a bad back before, if only to keep the spellcaster from hurting her and Toby. Now that she thought about it, they hadn’t fought Fontaine much since the play and Killahead.

“You also have a stab wound on the front side of you so it’s kind of a moot point.” Jen climbed on the bike in front of Fontaine; Fontaine reached around her to grip one of the handles. When she released the handle, it glowed with a slightly flickering purple light.

“Thanks,” Jen said, glancing behind herself. Fontaine was looking a little pale. “I’m going to take you to my house, unless you would rather go to the hospital? I don’t know if my mom’s home or not.”

“No hospital.” Fontaine snaked her arms around Jen’s torso and held on tightly as Jen peddled. Jen was glad Fontaine couldn’t see her face, because a blush was creeping onto Jen’s face. She had had a crush on Fontaine before Fontaine had revealed that she was working with the changelings, and maybe it hadn’t fully gone away.

Jen’s mom wasn’t home. There was a note stuck to the inside of the door, saying that she needed to cover a shift at the hospital. Well, at least Jen could avoid telling her mom the truth about trolls and magic for at least a little while longer. Jen knew enough about first aid and patching herself and Toby up after fights that she could hopefully fix Fontaine’s stab wound.

“Can you make it up the stairs?” Jen asked. “If not, I can bring the bandages and stuff down from where I’ve been keeping them.”

She had been keeping a second kit away from where her mom would find it, if only so that Jen could keep her from worrying and finding out the truth.

“I, I can,” Fontaine said, voice wavering. She was leaning very heavily on Jen; Jen was glad they were similar heights.

“So, um, you mentioned that Angor stabbed you because you don’t know who your parents are?”

“I was told I was abandoned at the mouth of the cave I grew up in,” Fontaine said. Her voice was slurred. “That’s what my Lady told me, and why would I disbelieve her?”

It was hard for Jen to tell if that last part was genuinely sarcastic or just sounded that way because Fontaine was in pain. Jen guided Fontaine towards her room.

“Except,” Fontaine continued, “when she sent me to Arcadia, to stop you, I started to remember being eight and younger and living in Arcadia, and the cave was in Bulgaria, and that didn’t make sense.” The last word was hissed in pain.

Jen sat Fontaine down on her bed. When Jen finished getting the first aid kit from under her bed, Fontaine had collapsed into a fetal position. Jen pressed her lips together.

“Okay, I’m going to need to take your shirt off so I can clean the wound. Are you allergic to any pain medications?”

“Never, well, haven’t had any since I was eight.”

Jen gave Fontaine the pills and her half-full water bottle, and then helped Fontaine take her shirt off.

The stab wound had scabbed over, but the veins around it had turned an inky black and glowed with an eldritch purple light.

“Uh, has this ever happened to you before?” Jen asked as she covered her hands in sanitizer. She knew it would be better if she washed her hands, but she also felt uneasy about leaving Fontaine alone.

“It’s dark magic,” Fontaine said. “But, I’ve never gotten cracks from a wound before.”

“This is gonna sting but it’s supposed to,” Jen said, pouring disinfectant onto a cotton ball. She leaned in as she pressed it to Fontaine’s wound, partially due to the way Fontaine hugged Jen and hissed at the pain. Jen’s eyes widened as she was able to glance at Fontaine’s back. “Hey, Fontaine? I know you have a bad back, but does it normally glow and cracks the way your wound is?”

“What?”

Jen pulled out her phone and took a picture before showing it to Fontaine.

“That’s not -” Fontaine whimpered - “normal.”

“Okay. Is it okay if I touch it? I don’t want to use the wrong bandage and hurt you further.” Fontaine nodded, but then screamed as Jen touched one of the two raised lines along her back.

“Too much pressure!” Fontaine didn’t stop hugging Jen, though.

“Sorry, sorry, I barely touched you but sorry.” Jen pulled away slightly to grab an adhesive bandage and stick it over the stab wound.

“I didn’t think she’d be so, mad, at me,” Fontaine said softly, eyes downcast. “I thought she’d be okay with me trying to find my parents. Let me choose if I wanted to spare them from the Eternal Night. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to save everyone I cared about, but... I thought she wouldn’t take it as a betrayal.”

“Are you still loyal to her?”

Fontaine’s shoulders raised defensively, and she hissed in pain at the movement. “She betrayed me first. I guess I should’ve known. I mean, she has so many names, and it was only because of you that I got to have one.” Fontaine’s face scrunched, and Jen couldn’t tell if it was in pain or in anger. “Then again, she also stole my first name from me, just like she must’ve had her changelings steal me from my parents.”

After a few minutes, Jen pulled away. “My mom won’t be home until tomorrow afternoon, so you can take my bed. I’ll take the floor, feel free to wake me if you need anything.”

Jen awoke several hours later to the sound of pained sobs. She sat up, and gasped at the sight of Fontaine. Inky veins surrounded her eyes, which had changed to purple and black. Fontaine’s ears were bloody, and the tops of the skin had peeled back to reveal raw flesh and pointed tips. The worst of it was her back, though.

Fontaine had borrowed a set of Jen’s pajamas for the night, and had put the button-up shirt on backwards. Jen hadn’t been sure if it was because Fontaine genuinely didn’t know she was putting on the shirt wrong, or if she was trying to just keep the pressure off her back, but either way the horror of it was fully exposed to Jen. The cracks had multiplied, and they wept a fluid that reminded Jen of oil. Black, but in the light of the amulet it reflected purple light.

“Fontaine, do you want me to take you to the hospital?” Jen’s voice shook. She had been less scared when Angor had first used Daylight against her, less scared than she was now.

“No,” Fontaine half-moaned, half-croaked. “Water?”

Jen grabbed her water bottle, and maneuvered Fontaine into a semi-sitting position so she could drink.

Fontaine’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she pitched forward. Jen rushed to catch her before she could hit the floor.

Two large, iridescent dark purple wings erupted from Fontaine’s back.

“H-hey,” Fontaine said when she came to half a minute later. “My back feels bet- what are those?”

“Um, so I guess you weren’t expecting wings either?”

“But how? Fairies are extinct, and, and, and I’m human.” Fontaine’s voice edged on hysterical. “My parents are human. I don’t remember them, but I’d think I’d remember if they had wings!”

“Maybe the Pale Lady tried to kill you by turning you into a fairy? We could ask Blinky.”

“Jen, I appreciate your help, but I doubt your allies feel the same way about helping me.”