Chapter 37

Gasping. I am gasping for air. I don't know why I am gasping for air, but I can't breath.

I can't breathe and I don't know why. I am afraid. I am leaving everyone behind. I have died too many times to not recognize it.

I know, or I think, that the tears have come and gone and I am empty. My blood is dried up and gone, my teeth have fallen out, my face is going to become but of husk of what it once was.

I am dying and I can't feel anything but the vast lack or something there.

The skin is gone from my bones and life is fading from my eyes. I feel so calm. I know what is coming and I cannot stop it. Let it come for me and try to snake me away from the poisonous grip of life. Ti will try and It will fail. Death will be dead at my door.

Let it come.

Gislee and Mary, after a solid hour of picking at their food over awkward conversation, have moved into one of the many sitting rooms. Now Elliot, Leander, Draven, Aaliyah and I sit eating slivers of skillet cod with lemon and capers, drinking the occasional sip of the nineteen twenties Bordeaux red wine.

Prohibition had been my favorite era in Human history and my favorite time to start my own wine collection. I had given some of my stores to Gislee when the fourty's hit and world war two had begun.

Se, I hadn't actually been to Earth at the time since I was rotting in a prison, but my Spector are practically an extension of me, so they started a collection on my behalf.

Elliot sets her fork down and it clacks against the rim of the plate, she crosses her knife over the fork and leans back, looking rather tired. She eyes Aaliyah with caution, "So what is it you do, exactly?"

Aaliyah puts her own set of utensils down and crosses them perfectly, coping Elliot, and finishes chewing a particularly good bite of cod with a few capers on top. "I'm a general of Highstone. What of you?"

Elliot shifts uneasily, her blue eyes nervous, "well, I used to work on the borders and I helped people get in and out of the city. I can bend light, but," she hesitates, not wanting to admit anything that might count as a mark against her.

I finished eating and look at her, trying not to focus on her eyes or the way they look when she is truly alive with fire, "It's fine. They won't hurt you."

My words do little to ease her. The discrimination against blood and death mages had been awful back in the day, to the point at which very few are alive today. Those who survived the purges are still hiding.

"I work with the dead." She says after a moment's pause. Leander's eyes widen, giving the illusion that the almond shapes have almost doubled in size. Draven doesn't react. Not that I expect him to and Aaliyah looks casual, her face not shifting.

With how old she is, I suspect that she has seen her fair share of mages of all kinds. Aaliyah smiles at Elliot. It's not a smile that tells her to back down or to go somewhere else and die, but an almost warm one. I wonder if anyone has ever looked at Aaliyah Keita warmly.

She is a fairly intimidating woman and most people are put off by her, or they try to kill her. When I had briefly scanned her memory, I had seen Aaliyah visit Earth. Aaliyah hadn't been well received. In fact, they had tried to put her into mines and work her to death. Apparently people of brown color are persecuted there.

It's another strange Earth custom and one that I wish they would be rid of soon. Then again the world can't be all rainbows and sunshine. At least not in this day and age.

"My mother was a blood mage herself. She helped ascend at least twenty Aculiacs. You won't be persecuted at this table, if that is your concern." Aaliyah says, still looking at Elliot with that calm, unfaltering face and an even voice.

Elliot seems to let some of her tension go, but not all of it. Two hundred years of being told to hide herself away isn't going to change in one afternoon after one sentence.

Aaliyah must have met Marulia when Aaliyah's mother ascended my mom. Strange how the worlds are so vast and yet so small.

Draven doesn't react still, but he nods at Elliot in reassurance, or what reassurance from him looks like. I think his attention on her just unearves Elliot.

Aaliyah tries to carry the conversation now that our awkward group has fallen into another bout of silence that feels all too wrong, "have you ever been Mareelic?"

At this Elliot perks up some, Leander and Draven still picking at their food, leaving their wine untouched. Elliot's focus narrows in on Aaliyah as she practically buzzes with excitement, "I haven't been, but I've done a lot of research and I want to go, someday."

Aaliyah continues to stare at Elliot like she's her long lost redemption. It's not a look that implies neither attraction nor any romantic feelings, it's the look I gave Cassandra when she was born. I don't understand the look Aaliyah gives, completely and I don't know if I want to.

"I might take you someday then. The markets come alive at night. It would be fun."

Elliot nods eagerly at Aaliyah, her nerves and fear gone, "That sounds great."

Aaliyah bobs her head in response, "It's a plan then. When this war clears up, you and I will have to set a date."

Elliot laughs with something I can only describe as pure joy, her eyes absolutely sparkling in the dim lighting, her face so very vivacious, "Great! I can't wait."

Leander looks in on the exchange with warm eyes and I can tell he thinks the two of them have some kind of chemistry even though that could not be further from the truth. I let him revel in the fact that there are others like him, others who just want to love whoever they love.

There are people who feel that way, it's just no Elliot and Aaliyah.

Just then Mary Halowin enters the room with Gislee on her coat tails. Gislee sends me a look that says help and Mary looks, well, like a whore. There's just no other word for the energy she gives off paired with her outfit choice. "Gislee was just telling me all about-" Mary cuts herself off at the moment she is so clearly interrupting. "Oh, was I interrupting something?"

"No, mom."

"Well, Elliot, my darling, we should talk later, yes?"

"Of course, but I promised Evelyn I would stay with her." Elliot shoots me a pleading look and although I want to curl up into a ball and shy aways I nod my head at Mary, not willing to say a word.

If Mary needs anymore confirmation that I'm having relations with her daughter, here it is. Then again, Mary Halowin is almost just like Jezebel, except Jezebel's oblivious act is an act, Mary isn't messing around. I've known her for nearly four hundred years and never has she once shown an ounce of understanding on the more subtle finesse of life.

"Fine, sweetie, but we really need to talk."

"There are guests here. I think it best to keep our private affairs private."

Mary, still oblivious to the tension in the room, replies. "Of course."

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