Chapter 56: All So Wasted On Myself

Promises, Nero

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A pinch of this, and a pinch of that, and… she thought that was the right colour. Wait, what had her mother said? Cassandra frowned to herself, scooting around the cauldron she’d set up on the balcony, to have a look at the potions book Bella had given her. She felt like she was missing something here, because the cauldron’s contents looked okay, but seemed to be the wrong colour. Or was she misremembering?

Truth be told, Cassandra wasn’t skilled enough at this potion hullabaloo to be able to pick out what was wrong with her potions right off. This was a very simple potion to be working on, should be one of the easiest ones to make, but she didn’t seem to be having a whole tonne of luck.

As her mother had said, Bella was teaching her the basics of potion-brewing, what herbs, spices, and random natural bits and bobs did, how to create salves. We are not witch, you see, Bella had said. Not exactly. Bachelors, we are healers. The strength that witch needs.

Cassandra flipped through the pages, until she found the entry she was looking for. The interesting thing about the book that Bella had given her was that it was a very old book, most of it seemed to be handwritten, and then there were notes scribbled on the page margins, bits crossed out and corrected. Generations of Bachelors before her had owned this book, held this book and added knowledge to it. It was almost like having a direct link to her ancestors in a bit of paper and some binding twine.

While Cassandra scoured the pages, someone came out onto the balcony with her. The door opened and closed. Mayor loosed a quiet meow from where he was sleeping on a nearby chair, stretched out, and curled up tighter. He wasn’t as talkative, now that Ezio had gone.

It’d been seven days. It was seven days too many.

She looked up, as the footsteps drew closer to her, and smiled slightly to find Liberty watching her work with a seemingly amused and befuddled expression on her face.

“That is the only thing that I never did start to understand,” Liberty said, watching the cauldron’s contents bubble.

Cassandra smiled slightly. “Well, given you’re into science and all,” Cassandra said, “alchemy and potion-craft would likely be more your thing than offensive spell-craft. It’s kind of like chemistry. You have to mix the right things together to get the reactions and results you want.”

Liberty gave the younger woman a strained smile. “I was never very good at chemistry,” she said.

Cassandra tried not to snort at her. “I see,” she said.

“What are you trying to make?” Liberty asked, shuffling around so she was out of Cassandra’s way.

“The potion of good fortune,” Cassandra answered. “Luck in a bottle, I guess. It’s my first potion, but the fact my mother’s even teaching me at all is kind of amazing. My parents didn’t want me to start learning magic yet. I’m not sure they would’ve ever changed their mind if I hadn’t given them no choice.”

Liberty looked bemused and sympathetic. “I’m Chinese,” she said. “Our family is one part lawyer, one part doctor, and the rest are impressive things like programmers and engineers. And then there’s me, and I work at the space centre. Not even with the rockets.”

Cassandra winced. “That sounds awfully pressurised,” she said.

“I try not to think about it,” Liberty said. “I think part of my family feels like I’m a clumsy mess and need to find a husband to take care of me because otherwise I’m going to accidentally kill myself or something.”

“Yeah, I get that feeling sometimes too,” Cassandra said.

“Anyway, I was just on my way home, been training with Morgyn all day,” Liberty said. “I haven’t managed to blow myself up too much. It’s almost a miracle.”

“You blow yourself up a lot?” Cassandra asked, and then frowned slightly and dropped something into the cauldron. She thought she knew where she’d gone wrong now.

“Well, not extremely commonly,” Liberty said, “but definitely more often than not. If there’s a way to hurt myself doing something, I’ll probably do it at some point.”

Cassandra snorted. “That sounds really annoying,” she said.

“Yeah, I just kind of got used to it,” Liberty said. “I’ve never been terribly graceful and just kind of got accustomed to that fact. Most of the time, I can find it funny now, but there are times when I’d really rather just… not have it happen. I get frustrated with it all.”

Cassandra gave her a knowing look. She could sense the unspoken ‘why can’t I be like everyone else’, because of course that was how she’d feel about it. “Is Morgyn hard to be friends with?” Cassandra asked. Morgyn never seemed like a terribly open person to Cassandra. Admittedly, they hadn’t spoken very much, because Cassie never knew what to say and couldn’t really get over how somehow unnerving Morgyn was.

If she intended to stay with Ezio, maybe she should figure out how to talk to his twin.

Liberty blinked, her eyebrows raising. “No,” she said. “It was almost like Morgyn made friends with me and not the other way around. Whenever we’re around each other, I don’t know, I kind of relax and stop trying to be something I’m not because Morgyn’s never made me feel like I had to be. We can talk for hours. I’ve never been able to talk to someone so easily before.”

Cassandra tilted her head. “I’m dating Ezio,” she said. “And somehow, I’ve just never really been able to talk to Morgyn very well. I mean, we talk, just, not usually about anything important.” Honestly, they were only interacting as much as they were right now because Cassandra literally had no one else in Spire to talk to. Ezio was gone, Drake was hibernating, Lilith and Caleb were inexplicably missing…

And she needed someone to teach her magic, anyway. That was what sages did.

Liberty tilted her head. “You both love the same person,” she said. “I think you could find some things in common, if you tried to.”

Yes, most likely she was right. Cassandra and Morgyn had already almost managed to bond with each other over their love of Ezio. Morgyn’s was probably stronger than hers, but it didn’t make it any less there.

Maybe, what she needed to do, was find her voice the way she had with her mother.

“Say, Liberty,” Cassandra started, “want to learn potions?” As she asked that, the cauldron’s contents turned a greenish colour. She’d made her first potion, it would seem.

“Sure?” Liberty asked. “I asked Morgyn about it, but we probably won’t have time.”

“Well, Morgyn doesn’t really have the time to teach me much offensive casting,” Cassandra said. “So maybe you’d be up for a trade. You teach me whatever Morgyn taught you for the day, and I’ll teach you whatever potion stuff I learnt.”

Cassandra hoped to be an Ember someday; it was only fitting if she learnt to fight like one.

Liberty considered it, for a moment, and then she smiled. “I think that’d work quite well,” she said.

“Good,” Cassandra answered. “We’ll start tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” Liberty agreed. “See you then.”

* * *

Her training was going decently well. Her mother wasn’t resistant to teaching her potions and such as much anymore, and seemed to be slowly warming up to the idea of teaching in general. Morgyn had thoughts about asking Bella and Mortimer to eventually come assist in training the less-skilled spellcasters that were present on this side of the magic realm barrier, but Cassandra hadn’t mentioned it to either one just yet.

They had to get used to the idea of teaching magic at all, because they weren’t quite ready to when Cassandra had given them no other choice. Her mother was teaching her potions, herbalism, and protective spell-craft, and her father was building a foundation for offensive magic.

With Liberty’s help, Cassandra was now also actually starting to learn some offensive casting in Morgyn-style, which Cassandra assumed was similar to Ezio-style. The twins were a lot alike in many ways, why not that one? And for ice magic, she was copying what she knew Ezio did with it. She’d seen it so many times, even though he hadn’t shown it to her before, in dreams.

She was making a lot of progress, had come a long way from where she’d started already, but it still felt like she wasn’t making enough progress quickly enough. Thus, one early morning, as she was making tea and finding something to eat in the fridge (she may have to restock it soon, but then Morgyn had been living on needs potions for the last week), she set the teapot to doing its thing and headed up the stairs.

It was so quiet on the upper floor, without Ezio, Lilith, and Caleb here, and Morgyn not sleeping now. Purple smoke slipped out from under Drake’s door, and Cassandra tried the knob. It was locked, of course it was. Cassandra released a sigh, and then shuffled off to the bathroom. She popped open one of the cabinets, took a bobby pin out, and headed back to Drake’s door. Cassandra knelt down on the floor, wiggled the pin into the keyhole, and rummaged around in it.

She’d figured out how to pick locks because she had a habit of locking herself out of her own room. It was ridiculous. Ah, there, the tell-tale click of it unlocking. Cassandra stood up, slipped the pin into her hair, just to hold it, and popped the door open, closing it behind her.

Cassandra marched over to the coffin, and unceremoniously pulled the lid up. The glow of Drake’s eyes was stronger than she was used to seeing it when he looked up at her. If she was anyone but a Goth, that might’ve been a little freaky.

“Go away,” Drake said, sounding melancholy and depressed.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “I think not,” she said. “Quit moping and come out here.”

“I have little interest in doing that,” Drake answered. “Why should I? What do you want?”

“Ezio’s going to stay gone if we don’t find him,” Cassandra said. “It’s also been over a week and I don’t think Morgyn’s slept or eaten in that time frame, and I’m trying to learn magic. Giving up only proves that if you do nothing, just as much changes.”

Drake released a sigh, raising his head and then dropping it back down into the coffin.

“Drake he doesn’t have his medication,” Cassandra said quietly.

“I know he doesn’t,” Drake answered. “And he is my sire. I can feel him slipping away, and I don’t think I can stand it if I end up feeling him die.”

Cassandra looked saddened, reaching down and taking one of his hands in hers. She and Drake didn’t really love each other, not like they both loved Ezio, but there was a kind of love there all the same.

Drake didn’t say anything at first, and then picked himself up, and climbed out of the coffin. Cassandra let the lid go. Surprisingly, it didn’t slam shut.

“What’s your plan, then?” Drake asked.

Well, see, she hadn’t quite thought that far ahead… “I’m learning potions from my mother,” she said. “Morgyn’s teaching Liberty how to use offensive magic, and I’m doing a trade with her where I teach her potions and she teaches me whatever Morgyn taught her. But I can learn faster than this. And I can’t seem to get Morgyn to eat anything. Caleb would be better at it than either of us, but maybe you can do it. Morgyn knows you better.” Caleb still hadn’t come home, so who knew where the hell he even was.

Neither had Lilith come home, though, so it suggested something had gone seriously wrong in Forgotten Hollow. But it was a wonder if they had the time to spare for checking on the situation in the Hollow given they were racing against time to bring Ezio home before he died and stop Sarnai before she got to the All, whatever that was.

No one had told her. She didn’t really ask.

“I’m not as good at offensive magic as Ezio and Morgyn are,” Drake said. “But I can at least teach you the semantics. I’ve also got decent understanding of the other two branches, I’m decent at potions, barriers are my thing. I can also arm you against a vampire.”

“That reminds me,” Cassandra said, “I know vampires can learn to go out in the sunlight, but is it possible that they’re never really immune to sunlight so much as so resistant to it that the short time a day lasts no longer is enough to kill?”

Drake made a face. “Well, you may have to ask Morgyn that,” he said. “But I’d imagine it’s possible. The science behind it isn’t entirely understood, but neither is the science behind vampires in general. Truthfully, we know very little about them and how they work, save for vampires seem to be powered by blood magic.”

Cassandra supposed that was something for her to play with at a later time, then. “Thanks,” she said.

“What are you thinking?” Drake asked.

“If it’s possible to take down an ancient vampire in the one way they won’t be expecting,” Cassandra answered, a slight smile crossing her face, and then she turned around and headed back downstairs. There was work to be done.

* * *

“Now,” Drake said, backing away. The gold shimmer of light was still there, even though Cassandra was quite sure it should’ve fallen a long time ago. “I want you to try and take it down on purpose.”

Cassandra groaned. She wasn’t terribly good at barriers. Or untamed magic, as they’d found incidentally. Somehow she managed to use ice just fine, but that was probably only because she was copying Ezio in her head.

She’d never told Ezio as much, but she knew him long before they’d ever met. When she was young, she used to dream of him. It was quite the experience when she saw him on the street one day. It’d taken her a minute or two to figure out if she was awake or not.

In some of those dreams he was in, his own ice destroyed him. Cassandra had no idea what that meant, only that it probably wasn’t a good sign. Other times, she’d lose him in darkness. They always felt so real, it was hard to believe they weren’t.

Cassandra released a sigh, her lips pursing together, and then tweaked the energy slightly. The barrier shimmered and wavered, and then shattered. Cassandra winced.

“That was not what I had in mind,” Drake said, “but you did take it down.”

Cassandra sighed. “Yeah, that wasn’t what I meant to do either,” she said, one hand resting on her hip. “Barriers are harder than I thought they’d be.”

“There’s a trick to them,” Drake said, smiling slightly. “Once you figure out that trick, it’s very easy, but unfortunately, as most things go, the trick isn’t easily teachable. It’s a thing that you just sense. Or you don’t. Either one.”

Cassandra snorted.

“Well, there are two other branches of magic besides untamed,” Drake said. “We also have mischief and practical. They do what they sound like they do.”

“Mischief is all illusions and mind games, and practical is cleaning and fetching slippers, right?” Cassandra asked.

“Yep, basically,” Drake replied. “I’m not sure if you’ll be any good at them, either. It’s possible to not be very good at spellcasting. Believe it or not, your mother’s not very good at it herself. Personally, I think she underestimates herself, puts too much oomph into it, and then can’t direct the oomph and loses control of it. But I wouldn’t really know.”

Cassandra snorted. “I could also see her trying to control it too strictly,” she said. “Sometimes mother likes things the way she likes them, down to the last minute detail.”

“Insufferable, is it?” Drake asked.

“Ridiculously,” Cassandra said.

“Well, let’s try a spell from both then, and we’ll see if maybe you’re just better suited to a different branch,” Drake said. “Though you’re pretty good at ice.”

Cassandra smiled. “I was just doing what Ezio does,” she said.

“And you copied him very well,” Drake answered.

Yeah, she supposed Drake had seen Ezio’s magic enough times to know when she was copying him very well.

Drake showed her a simple low-level mischief spell, apparently it simply caused sadness in another person. Cassandra found it amusing that the one with chronic depression was learning how to cause sadness in others on purpose. She didn’t comment on this.

She watched him, and then took a breath in, and tried to do exactly what he’d just done. Whatever he saw in the burst of golden sparkles that resulted, he seemed to be pleased with.

“You’re rather good at that one,” Drake said. “Hmm. That’s interesting.”

“Is it?” Cassandra asked.

“Ezio is an untamed master,” Drake said. “You seem like you have decent potential to become a mischief master someday. And I’m best at practical magic.”

Cassandra blinked, and then giggled. “We’re almost a sage set on our own,” she said.

“Just about,” Drake replied.

“Domestic vampire is domestic,” Cassandra said, smiling.

“Only with Ezio,” Drake answered.

“Nope,” Cassandra replied, “everyone, really. It’s sweet, and it suits you pretty well.” He always seemed to her like he was most concerned with maintaining a home, even if he may not do it in conventional ways. But then, there was little conventional about anyone in Spire anyway, and the Embers were most of the reason why.

“Strange you don’t seem to think it’s a bad thing,” Drake said.

“Why would I?” Cassandra asked. “Hey, it’s not like I can cook.” She could if she tried, mind. But most of the time, she had no interest in trying. Especially since everyone else cooked a thousand times better. Bella was worse at it than she was. That was the only reason Cassandra had learnt cooking at all.

“I don’t know,” Drake said, “I hear your peanut butter jelly sandwiches are five star.”

“Morgyn thinks anything that’s full of peanut butter is five star,” Cassandra said, raising an eyebrow.

Drake snorted.

“Speaking of,” Cassandra said, “knowing Morgyn, he’ll go straight to trying to do the straight-forward thing, and go right for the throat.” That is, make all the wrong choices and dive into things headlong, probably screaming geronimo because this was Morgyn, and what the fuck was caution? Morgyn didn’t know her.

Drake frowned. “Unfortunately, I’d have to agree,” he said.

Cassandra drew a breath in. “I think maybe we should come up with plan B,” she said. “And C. And maybe D for good measure. I have an idea for something, but I don’t know if I can pull it off.”

“I’d be willing to try and help if I can,” Drake said.

Cassandra smiled. Good. That just happened to be what she wanted to hear.

* * *

She and Drake had fiddled with the potion she was trying to make. Drake wasn’t entirely sure it was possible to do what she wanted, but she was learning enough about herbs and various minerals and other natural matter, maybe eventually she’d stumble into genius.

The reality was, as much as Cassandra’s first instinct was to question whether she was capable of doing this or not, the fact was she didn’t have the time or the leisure. Every day that went by, if Drake was to be believed, and Cassandra had no reason to question what he said, Ezio grew a little weaker.

His heart, it’d seem, wasn’t holding up quite so well as they were hoping it would without his medications. But there was a reason he was on those every day, too, and so it was as unsurprising as it was frustrating.

Cassandra’s pen, a beautiful fountain pen with a feather attached to it, a ring of rhinestones around the base of the nib, waved slightly in the air as she wrote along in her journal. It was easier to keep track of her thoughts and what she was learning to write in a journal, and the practise was turning out to be rather useful. Through writing them down, she could examine experiences and events a little more analytically, and think up new questions to ask and experiments to try.

She paused in the sentence she was writing, thought for a moment, and then went back to writing it. Then, she felt something that she’d eventually identified as a spirit being in close proximity to her. The spirits that used to inhabit Spire while Ezio was still here, they’d mostly moved on by now.

It was interesting to sense one, then. Cassandra set her pen into its holder, and then turned around. She was as clear as day, in colour, her hair in a strange ombre of colours, sparkles in the strands, dark eyes, deep toned skin. Her face had laugh lines etched into the skin, lines that said she’d lived and laughed and loved.

It took some time to recognise her, as Cassandra had never seen her so clearly before. Makana.

She seemed to notice it, when Cassandra pieced it together, and figured out who she was. The woman gazed down at her, and then she smiled, but there wasn’t exactly warmth in the expression. It was almost saddened.

“Is he okay?” Cassandra asked. She was almost afraid of Makana’s answer, but if Makana was going to be here, Cassandra was going to take the opportunity to ask. All Drake had was whatever he could parse out from what he felt. Presumably, Makana could see him.

“He is alive, at least,” Makana answered. “But his heart is weaker on its own than I was afraid of.”

The implication that she didn’t think he was going to make it very long was very clear in her tone. Cassandra tried to ignore it.

“How long do you think he can make it?” Cassandra asked. If they had a time frame of some kind, maybe it would be a little bit easier to figure out what to do and when to do it. Or maybe she just wanted to know because she wanted to know what the chances were of them winning this one.

She shouldn’t think like that.

“I don’t really think we should get our hopes up with a particular time frame, Cassandra,” Makana said. “He still draws breath, for now.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed in sadness, her gaze falling to the floor. And the more she thought about it, the more sure she was that she couldn’t deal with losing him. He meant more to her than she’d expected him to, wormed his way into her heart maybe a long time before.

He’d given her wings, and then he’d set her free. And for all that he had, she couldn’t imagine her life without him somewhere in it, not anymore. She wasn’t ready to lose him.

“I will set him free,” she said, her voice steady, eyes hardening in determination. She looked up at Makana. “I will do it.” Somehow, some way. She was going to do it.

Makana smiled softly, and settled down on the bed behind her. The mattress depressed. “I know that you believe you will, Cassandra,” she said. “Half of doing things, certainly, is believing that you can do them. But there are times in life when we may try our best, and things… just don’t work out the way that we want them to.”

Cassandra’s gaze narrowed, her lips flattening into a line. No. Makana didn’t quite understand what she’d said. Cassandra didn’t say anything right away, turning back to her journal, and closing the book. She slid it across her desk, then stood up, and turned back to Makana.

“I don’t think you understood,” she said. “I will set him free. I will bring him home. Don’t you see? I don’t have another choice. There is no other option. If it’s either bring him home, or lose him forever, then I’m bringing him home.”

Makana’s expression remained unreadable for several moments. Cassandra was almost nervous, talking to Ezio’s spirit guide that way, who was, most likely, many times her senior, older and far wiser. Maybe she sounded like an impetuous child to everyone she said anything to, whining about not getting her way.

That wasn’t quite right. It was just that, Ezio made her feel some kind of way. Like maybe she mattered somehow, even if she only mattered to him. Like she could make some kind of a difference in things. Be more than Bella Goth’s daughter.

Now that she had tasted sunlight, shadow was not enough.

Makana stood up. And strangely, she didn’t chastise the young woman, but instead simply smiled, turned, and walked away. She vanished before she reached the door.

And Cassandra could only really hope that she was right, and she did bring him home. Because if she tried this hard for something, only to fail in the end, maybe she’d never try for anything ever again.

* * *

If he was being honest, Ezio was tired. The kind of tired that seeped into your bones, the kind that didn’t go away with mere sleep. He drifted in and out of it, at least as well as he could when his arms were numb half the time.

This reminded him strangely of that one time back at France, that Jean had decided to tie him to the bed frame. Now that he was older, and that was a very long time ago, Ezio couldn’t even remember why. Maybe he hadn’t whined the right way. But he did distinctly remember one of his arms going numb a lot because of the particular way he’d had to do anything.

Ezio had lost track of how long he’d been here. He’d got the damned vampire into magic realm alright. The All seemed to have reacted in defence of everyone that was here, and encased them all in crystal. Why it wouldn’t be merciful and just skewer him with one of those nice crystals, that one Ezio didn’t know. Maybe he was supposed to be able to do something.

Well currently, he could barely see straight, his thought processes were a little bit jumbled, his chest ached off and on and he was having notable trouble breathing. At this point, he couldn’t even hold himself up anymore, and his arms were going numb so much because he had to let the ropes around his wrists hold him up instead.

Turned out, that was kind of painful, incidentally. Who would’ve figured that? Not him.

Once in a while, one of the few remaining spirits in magic realm would drag a mote over to him. It was probably the only thing keeping him remotely stable, the energy from the motes. From time to time, Ezio could almost see the star whale, but it didn’t come very close to him. It did seem very distressed, and Ezio would wonder why, but he supposed he knew very well why.

It did occasionally throw motes where he could reach them, too. In its way, it was trying to help, and Ezio could appreciate it.

“The damned thing has to be here somewhere,” Sarnai’s voice said.

Ezio didn’t bother moving. He could at least hear her just fine.

“I don’t know of anyone that’s ever found it,” the other one said. Ezio had figured out that her name was Lakshmi, and the cat that was around here somewhere, his name was Kit, seemed to be Lakshmi’s familiar. What Ezio didn’t know was why these two were apparently in cahoots with each other.

Sarnai seemed not so fond of Lakshmi sometimes. And Lakshmi seemed a little wary of her right back. Girls were confusing.

“No one knows where it is,” Lakshmi went on. “Not even the sages know. It was done that way on purpose.”

Well, Ezio knew of one person that had found it. But that was a long, long time ago, he’d killed one of the Crowleys to do it, pissed the All off, and his entire line was banished from magic realm.

His name was Estienne Dussault, Jean’s grandfather.

Fortunately, Sarnai didn’t really have a Crowley around to sacrifice and summon the All with.

“Oh, someone knows,” Sarnai said. “Even if the knowledge of it is only in their blood. The spellcasters have the five families, do they not? Powerful magical bloodlines that founded magic realm, and bound the All in protections.”

“No one has seen one of the five families in actual centuries, Sarnai,” Lakshmi said, her eyebrows raising. “I can’t help you find one of those.”

Sarnai snorted. “No need,” she said. “We’ve already found one. She comes and goes around the sage out there, one eye green, the other brown. We can’t figure out where she goes when she isn’t with the sage. Find out, Laky.”

Ezio raised his head, despite the wave of dizziness that caused. One eye green… didn’t Morgyn say one of Liberty’s eyes was green? Wait, no, Liberty was a Li-

He should’ve thought about it. Instead, Ezio just reacted, activating the collection of motes he’d gathered and consumed over time. The ropes shredded from the force of it, and released him, and Ezio immediately stood up and blasted ice not at Sarnai, but at Lakshmi.

Lakshmi wasn’t expecting it, loosed a yelp and slid right off the island’s edge. She’d be fine. He just wanted her out of the way. Then, he twisted around and threw ice at Sarnai. She was expecting it, however, shifted out of the way, and aimed a punch at his throat. Her hand hit a barrier. Ezio aimed at her nose and fired more ice.

Fire or electricity would be more useful about now, but Ezio was afraid of using electricity lest it backfire and kill him. She fired psychic energy at him, as she loved to do, and Ezio transportalated out of the way.

And so they danced around in an almost evenly-matched circle, bursts of darkness, tendrils of shadow, streaks of psychic energy, ice, and golden light trading blows at a rapid pace. Ezio didn’t think he could win this one. The energy the motes had given him was already waning, he could feel it, and his chest was starting to hurt stronger. But he hoped.

Liberty had no hope of being able to stop Sarnai. And Ezio didn’t want this one to go down in the history books as that time the crazy vampire sacrificed a Li to summon the All.

He almost thought, maybe he was wrong, as they traded blows, coating the island in their magic, and maybe he was going to win this. But then he made one miscalculation. Ezio was far too delicate to be making mistakes, but neither was he thinking straight, and it cost him.

Sarnai appeared to one side of him, and as he was turning towards her, she teleported to the other side. His reflexes were too slow. Sarnai fired a psychic burst at point blank. A blinding pain shot through his skull, and he skittered across the cobblestone.

“Well, that was right rude,” Lakshmi said, appearing back on the island and brushing her dress off. “Did he turn on you too?”

“Of course he did,” Sarnai said. “He is cunning, we will give him that. But not cunning enough. He won’t be doing much of anything anymore.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Lakshmi asked.

“No,” Sarnai said. “Just scrambled his head a little more than it was.”

Ah. That must be why he couldn’t feel anything. But it was nice, not to be in pain anymore. Ezio’s eyes slid closed, then, his breathing evening out. Valiant defeat.

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