Aísē: My Five Supernatural Wives

Chapter 168: Two Days

The door to the sealed room had been closed for two days.Isabella had chosen the smallest guest room in the Faust estate, which said something about her, and had been inside it with the curtains drawn and the door shut since the morning after the contract. No one had pushed. Mephistopheles had explained it to the group in a single sentence...the body needs time to recover from long-term possession, and forcing it back into activity before it’s ready tends to end badly...and after that no one had knocked.

But Mephistopheles had visited. Twice.

The first time, two mornings in, she’d slipped through the door without knocking the way she did most things, and found Isabella sitting cross-legged on the bed with her eyes closed, breathing the slow measured rhythm of someone who had been taught formal meditation and was using it to keep themselves together.

Isabella heard her come in. Didn’t open her eyes immediately.

"How is he," she asked.

"He had entered the realm of Holy Spring," Mephistopheles said. She sat down on the edge of the bed. "With Aisha."

"What realm?." Isabella opened her eyes.

And Mephistopheles told her.

...

Isabella’s expression had gone through several things in quick succession while Mephistopheles talked. Confusion first. Then understanding. Then something that settled in her face like a stone dropping into still water.

"He went into a holy spring," she said. "With his bloodlines."

"Yes."

"The kind that burns things like him."

"Yes."

"On purpose."

"To fulfill Aisha’s vow," Mephistopheles said. "So the corruption wouldn’t kill her."

Isabella was quiet for a long moment.

"How many times does he have to suffer," she said finally, her eyes already wet with Disappointment.

At herself... and the others.

To be able to do nothing while he suffers alone for them.

Mephistopheles looked at her.

"He Almost died, Three Times," she said. "That I counted from my contract with him."

Isabella put both hands over her face. Sat like that for a while. Then lowered them slowly, expression gone very flat and very controlled in the way of someone managing something they didn’t trust themselves to express yet.

"Is he coming back," she said. Her voice was perfectly even.

"We don’t know," Mephistopheles said honestly. "But his regeneration has never failed before. And the Divine Seal in Matrix gave him a foothold nothing else could have."

"That’s not a yes."

"No," Mephistopheles said. "It isn’t."

Isabella looked at the curtained window.

"He’s the most infuriating person I’ve ever met," she said. Very quietly. "He’s also the only person who’s ever looked at me like I was a person rather than a tool or a pawn or an asset to be managed." She stopped. "My family is gone. My father is...whatever my father is now. And Valerian is the only thing in the last several years of my life that has felt like it was actually mine." She paused. "If he dies in a holy spring because of someone else’s vow I’m going to be extremely upset."

Mephistopheles, for once, didn’t have a quip for that.

"I know," she said.

...

The second visit had been the morning of the second day.

Mephistopheles had brought tea.

Isabella had looked at the cup, then at her, and something in the careful composure had slipped just slightly.

"Why did he went in," she asked to the air. "Even knowing what it would do."

Her expression was blank as she couldn’t even exit the room to Try and search for him.

"He did," Mephistopheles said.

"For her."

"Yes."

Isabella wrapped both hands around the cup.

"I’m not jealous," she said. Like she was testing the sentence to see if it was true. A pause. "I’m not. She deserves it. I just..." She stopped. "He’s going to be fine, right. He’s going to come back through that wall and he’s going to be fine."

"That’s the plan," Mephistopheles said.

"That’s not an answer."

"No," Mephistopheles said. "But it’s the best one I have right now."

...

The wall opened on the afternoon of the second day.

Valerian came through first, supporting Aisha, both of them damp and tired and carrying the specific quality of people who had been somewhere very far away and had come back different in ways that didn’t show on the surface yet.

Liliana and Eva were there when the door opened. Eve, who had taken the current shift alone, was on her feet before either of them moved.

Liliana looked at Valerian.

"You’re late," she said.

Her voice was completely steady. Her eyes weren’t.

He crossed to her immediately, and she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him into a hug that was not elegant or composed in any way, just fierce and tight and completely honest, her face against his shoulder and her knuckles white in the fabric.

"Don’t," she said. "Don’t you dare say something funny right now. Don’t."

"I wasn’t going to," he said.

"Good." She didn’t let go. "Two days, Valerian. Two entire days."

"I know."

"We counted."

"I know."

She finally released him, stepped back, looked at his face with the careful attention of someone checking for damage. Found none she could see. Exhaled once.

"Okay," she said. "You’re fine."

"I’m fine."

"Good," Liliana said, and hit him once on the shoulder with a closed fist, not hard, just enough to have done it. "Don’t do that again."

...

Eva had gone to Aisha first. Her hands went to Aisha’s face, cupping it gently, looking at the skin where the black cracks had been. Found nothing.

"It’s gone," Eva said. Soft with relief.

"It’s gone," Aisha confirmed.

Eva pressed her forehead briefly to Aisha’s. Then stepped back and let Éve in.

Éve looked at Valerian for a long moment. Then she adjusted his collar. Same as always. Her hands lingered.

"Three times," she said.

"You counted."

"Mephistopheles told us. Yes." She smoothed the collar down. "Don’t make a habit of it."

"I’ll try."

"Don’t try," she said. "Just don’t."

...

They moved upstairs. Back into warmth and light.

Braham appeared at the top of the stairs with the expression of a man who had been not-worrying for two days with great effort and was very pleased to be able to stop.

"You look terrible but alive," he said, "which is better than the alternative." He looked at Aisha. At the clear skin at her collarbone. Something in his face settled. "Good. Good." He turned toward his study. "There’s food. Someone eat something, for heaven’s sake."

...

Victor was in the sitting room when they arrived.

He stood up when Valerian walked in. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at him for a moment with the expression he only had when something had gotten genuinely through and he wasn’t managing it gracefully.

"Don’t say anything," Valerian said.

"I wasn’t going to say anything," Victor said.

"You were going to say something."

"I was going to say something," Victor admitted. "But I’ve decided not to, because whatever I say will be inadequate, and I hate being inadequate." He cleared his throat. "I’m glad you’re back."

"I know," Valerian said.

Victor sat back down. Picked up his coffee. Put it down again.

"Also," he said, to the middle distance, "I’m never doing a night shift in a cold stone corridor again. My back has opinions about it that I’m going to be hearing from for a week."

Mariabell, beside him, reached over and patted his arm without comment.

...

The door at the end of the hall opened.

Isabella stood in it.

Still tired. Still carrying fragility as her body hadn’t finished processing everything. But upright. Present. She looked at Valerian.

He looked at her.

And then she crossed the room. The walk of someone who had decided they were going to do something and had committed to it entirely.

She stopped in front of him.

"Dummy," she said.

Then she hit him.

Both hands, fists, against his chest, once, twice, three times, the word repeating with each one. "Dummy. Dummy. Dummy." Her voice cracking on the third.

"My family is already gone," she said. "What was I supposed to do if you had gone too? What—" She stopped. Hit him once more. "Dummy."

Valerian caught her hands on the last one. Gently.

"I didn’t go," he said.

"You almost did. Three times."

"I came back three times."

"That’s not the point."

"I know," he said.

She stood there with her hands caught in his.

"You still had Victor, at least," he said. "If anything had—"

"Victor," Isabella said immediately, with the flat absolute conviction of someone stating an obvious fact, "is my lackey. He doesn’t count."

From across the room, Victor made a sound like he’d inhaled his coffee sideways.

"Your—" He stopped. Coughed properly. Set the cup down with more force than necessary. "I’m sorry, your what?"

"My lackey," Isabella said, not even looking at him. "Everyone knows this, Victor."

"I am not— I have never been—" He stopped again. Something was happening on his face that was trying to be indignation but kept getting derailed by very specific bad memories arriving uninvited. The birthday party. The drink. One job. One simple task. "I was not your lackey. I had my own—"

"You pretended to be my boyfriend for eight months because I asked you to," Isabella said.

"That was a complicated situation."

"You also failed at your one job at the birthday party."

Victor’s expression went somewhere private and deeply unhappy.

"I would like to formally request," he said, to no one in particular, "that we never discuss that birthday party again."

"It was your birthday party," Valerian said.

"I know whose birthday party it was. I was there. I remember. In great and terrible detail. I’d still prefer never to discuss it."

Mariabell had both hands over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking.

She barely contained her laugh.

...

Valerian looked at the room. At all of them. At Aisha beside him, standing without the careful managed posture she’d needed for months.

"The baptism worked," he said. "And while we were in the realm, the Pope conducted the ceremony."

Silence.

"What ceremony," Liliana said.

"The marriage ceremony," Valerian said.

Everyone spoke at once.

...

Liliana recovered first.

She looked at Aisha. At the clear skin. At the way she was standing next to Valerian, close and unguarded.

Then she sighed. Long, resigned, fond.

"If I hadn’t gotten to know Aisha," she said, "and if I didn’t genuinely like her, I would not have let you do something this reckless." She pointed at Valerian. "For the record. That is on record."

"On record," Valerian agreed.

"Good. Congratulations, both of you. I mean that. I’m also furious. I can hold both."

"Thank you, Liliana," Aisha said quietly. "For being there. For all of it."

Liliana made a small dismissive gesture that meant she was quite touched and didn’t want to show it.

...

"I always believed you’d come back," Eva said. Simple. True. "That was never the part I was afraid of."

"What were you afraid of," Valerian asked.

"That you’d come back different in ways that didn’t show. And that you wouldn’t tell us." She looked at him carefully. "Are you different?"

He thought about it honestly.

"A little. Something in the Seal changed. The way it feels is different. Not worse. Fuller."

Eva considered this. Then nodded, satisfied.

...

Éve was looking at Aisha.

"You kissed him before he went in," she said. "To charge the Seal. And it worsened your own condition deliberately."

"Yes," Aisha said.

Éve was quiet for a moment.

"That was very stupid," she said. "And very you." A pause. "I would have done the same." She didn’t elaborate.

...

Isabella, still slightly red from the lackey comment, looked up from the armchair.

"What happens now. The Association meeting is still happening, isn’t it."

"Two days," Braham said from the doorway. He’d reappeared at some point with tea, listening without announcing himself. "Tomorrow you prepare. The day after you walk into the most important room you’ve ever walked into." He looked at Valerian. "Which means tonight everyone sleeps."

Liliana stood.

She looked at Valerian. Then at Aisha. Then back at Valerian with an expression that was, depending on the light, either completely innocent or precisely the opposite.

"Well," she said. "Since the newly married couple should probably have the room tonight." She gestured grandly toward the hallway. "Uncrowded. Uninterrupted. The whole night."

Eva nodded serenely.

Éve said nothing but stood.

Mephistopheles: "That seems reasonable." She stood as well.

Isabella, from the armchair: "Obviously."

Victor looked at Mariabell. She looked at him. They both stood without comment, which was more dignified than anything Victor had managed in the last ten minutes.

Braham disappeared back down the hallway.

"I will pretend," he called from somewhere beyond the doorframe, "that I didn’t hear any of that."

...

It was quieter without all of them.

The room had tall windows and moonlight coming through them in long silver lines, London outside doing what it always did, cold and old and indifferent.

Aisha stood by the window.

The moonlight fell across her figure, catching the line of her jaw and the white of her hair and the clear skin at her collarbone where the black cracks had been for so many months and were simply...gone.

She heard the door close behind them.

The lock clicked.

She didn’t turn immediately. Just stood there, looking out at the old rooftops in the dark, her hands folded in front of her.

Then the color rose in her face. Slow and inevitable, the way it always did with her.

She was still standing in moonlight.

And for the first time in a very long time, she had nowhere else she needed to be except here.