Chapter 38: Legacy of the Belltower WitchMiz’ri and Talisa returned to the common room of the Iron Wing Inn, which had become the unofficial war room for the Garden Gang. It was a strange kingdom to rule, velvet cushions, expensive brandy, and the constant, low-level threat of Danni Emereneaux hovering in the background like a vulture with a liquor license, but it was theirs for now. Miz’ri sat on the arm of the loveseat, her legs crossed, cleaning her fingernails with a small, stolen paring knife. She wasn't really cleaning them; she was just restless. Her hands felt too light, the Silence gnawing at the back of her mind. She felt it better to keep her hands busy.

  Across the room, Marissa Magleby was pacing. The Matriarch of High Haven looked out of pce in the industrial grimness of Rurokitarin. Her robes were too clean, her posture too rigid. Every time a steam whistle blew from the distant factories, she flinched, not out of fear, but out of sheer offense that the world could be so loud. "She should have been back by now," Marissa muttered, checking the clock on the mantle for the third time. "It does not take two hours to query a librarian."

  "She said she had a hunch, plus I think she thought the librarian was cute," Artie piped up from the floor, where he was sharpening his collection of throwing knives. He smirked, gncing over at the front desk. "Baby, well,she gets... distracted.."

  “Then why did you let her go on her own?” Marissa pressed.

  “I trust her,” Artie said ftly, as if there were no other possible answer to that question. “Her methods may be a bit chaotic, but they produce results.”

  From the shadows of the concierge desk, Danni Emereneaux let out a sharp, cold noise that might have been a ugh if it had any warmth in it. The Altan High Elf was nursing a gss of wine, her violet eyes fixed on the door with an intensity that betrayed her aloof pose. “Chaotic is Beatrice Jones’ middle name,’" Danni drawled, though her knuckles were white against the stem of her gss. "That little Bea tends to go where the pretty flowers are…”

  "Jealous, Danni?" Artie teased, fshing a toothy grin.

  "Informed, darling," Danni snapped, her eyes narrowing. "Beatrice Jones is nothing if not a liability when left unsupervised."

  Before Artie could retort, the heavy oak door didn't just open; it was thrown wide with enough force to rattle the hinges. Beatrice Jones, aka Baby Bok Choy strode in, bringing a gust of wind and drama with her. The pyromancer was a riot of color against the grey backdrop of the city—wild blonde curls spilling over a colr of emerald silk, gold bangles chiming on her wrists, and a smell radiating off her that was equal parts expensive perfume and the distinct, sulfurous tang of ozone. She wasn't hiding; granted Baby never hid. She took up space she felt she deserved in the world, which was all it would give her.

  She tossed a leather satchel onto the center table. It nded with a heavy thud. "Miss me?" Baby winked at Danni, blowing a smoke ring from her lips, just a little cantrip of vanity.

  Danni rolled her eyes, but her shoulders visibly rexed. "Hardly. You're te, Bea."

  "I'm fashionable," Baby corrected, shrugging off her coat. “As always.” But as the fir settled, the room noticed the tension beneath it. Baby usually wore secrets like expensive jewelry, showing them off with a smirk. Today, she looked rattled. There was a strange, vibrating energy to her, a mix of terror and begrudging respect.

  "Well?" Marissa demanded, stopping her pacing. "Did you speak with someone? Did you invoke my title?"

  Baby walked to the sideboard, poured herself a gss of water, and downed it in one gulp, steam hissing slightly as the water hit her overheated throat. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and turned to face the Matriarch.

  "I didn't have to invoke anything, dy," Baby said, her voice tight. "I just mentioned the name 'Magleby' and three arch-magis turned pale."

  Marissa straightened her spine, a flicker of pride crossing her face. "They must respect her, perhaps hold her in quite high esteem. Seems my mother left quite a mark in this city."

  Baby ughed. It was a sharp, humorless sound. "Oh, honey. She left a hell of a mark. They don't respect your family, everyone’s terrified of you. Or, more specifically, they’re terrified of your mother."

  The room went quiet. Miz’ri looked up from her knife. Talisa froze, her hand resting on Pappy’s bundled arm where the skeleton stood disguised in the corner.

  "Miriam?" Marissa frowned. "My mother was a book worm, a schor far and beyond even my Talisa. She was a devout pilgrim who..."

  "She was the Belltower Witch," Baby interrupted.

  Marissa blinked. "The what?"

  "That’s what they call her," Baby said, leaning back against the table, her fingers dancing with nervous sparks. "Campus legend, city-wide really. The story goes that many years ago, a Julisian pilgrim named Miriam Magleby came through Rurokitarin on her way to the Vigil. This isn’t unusual, many pilgrims pass through here. What was unusual was that her traveling companion, Herkel, was a dying man.”

  Pappy let out a loud cck of his jaw from beneath his scarf.

  "Right," Baby nodded at the skeleton. "Him. He died here, didn't he?"

  “But my Father died in his te 60s…” Marissa’s face nodded as it paled. “Mother…what did you do…”

  “I know!" Baby chimed in with the snap of her finger. "She barricaded herself in the North Tower of the University, the Belltower. She dragged his body up three hundred stairs, welded the door shut with a heating hex that is still warm to the touch today, and refused to come down. For thirty days, the students heard chanting. Wailing. Voices from the void itself leaking into people’s dreams. The kind of magic that makes the air taste like coppery. Spicy forbidden magic."

  Miz’ri felt a shiver run down her spine.

  “The head magus of the college of Abjuration tried to breach the door," Baby continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Even they couldn't! Miriam had seals up so strong that would have peeled the skin off an apprentice if they dared fuck with it. After that they tried to stay the hell away from her. Finally, a month ter, she opens the door and just walks out with her man behind her. What a legend." The sorceress was beaming, having become a fangirl of ‘Belltower Witch’ seemingly instantaneously.

  Baby pointed a trembling finger at Pappy. "She pulled his very soul back from the Abyss and stitched him into his own bones. Even now we see her lingering power in his old bones. He’s a lot stronger and smarter than you’d expect from just a skeleton, she must have ced him with magic wards a long time ago. Your Granny was something else, she performed the greatest act of necromancy this city, hell probably this continent has ever seen."

  There was a long quiet in the room. Even Danni, who had been pretending to ignore them, was listening now, her gss of wine forgotten in her hand. She couldn’t help but chime in, adding her own voice to the chorus. “Wow…I didn’t know I had the progeny of the Belltower witch staying in my inn. That expins a lot.” She kept staring at the Magleby women with curious eyes.

  "The Belltower Witch," Talisa whispered, looking up at Pappy with wide, awestruck eyes. "Granny fought against everything for you, didn’t she?" Pappy nodded his rattling head.

  "And the University?" Miz’ri asked, her voice cutting through the awe. "What did they keep?" Her mind fully invested in the story of Talisa’s bloodline, which seemed to be littered with powerfully-willed women. She saw the same fierce nature in Marissa, and Talisa, and equally in all these stories about Miriam.

  "Everything she left behind," Baby said. "They were too scared to stop her from leaving, but they raided the tower the second she was gone. They scraped the runes off the walls. They collected the vials. And they found her journal."

  Baby tapped the leather satchel on the table. "They called it the ‘Ars Magleby’. It’s in the High Vault. Labeled 'Hazardous and Heretical Materials.' They treat it like a bomb that hasn't gone off yet, but they aren’t quite sure what to do with it yet.”

  Marissa sank onto the nearest chair. Her legs seemed to have given out. She looked small suddenly, the weight of her mother's legacy crushing the simple narrative she had built for herself.

  "She never told me," Marissa whispered. "She told me she prayed, and the Saints answered. She never said she... that she took him back herself."

  "I admire the depths of her loyalty," Artie muttered admiringly. “The lengths she would go to for that one person who truly sees you…that I understand.”

  "Right now I feel like I hardly knew her," Marissa said solemnly, before turning towards Talisa. Chest in a sorrowful heave. “I hope I haven’t been putting up that much of a front, dear, I hope you know who I am.

  “I do Mom,” Talisa said, reaching out her hand to touch her Mother’s. “I think now is the time for truth in the Magleby family, rather than secrets.” Marissa could only nod, little drops of tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

  "So," Miz’ri said, standing up. She sheathed the paring knife. "We are not going to a library to nab a book. We are breaking into a vault to steal what they consider a weapon."

  "Essentially," Baby nodded. "Getting caught is out of the question. We’d end up in some timeless arcane prison until they feel like interrogating us. Been there, done that. I hated detention." Eyes rolling as she thought of her own days at an arcane university.

  Marissa looked up. The fear in her eyes was hardening into something else. Something colder. Something that looked remarkably like the steel Miz’ri had seen in Talisa’s eyes when she faced down the horrors of the Hive "My mother left that book," Marissa said quietly. "It is the only record of how she saved my father. It does not belong to them. It belongs to us." She looked at Miz’ri. "Miz’ri, I overheard you before, you said you could pick locks, yes?"

  Miz’ri met the Matriarch’s gaze. For the first time, there was no judgment in Marissa’s eyes. only a fierce, calcuting trust as if she wasn't looking at Miz’ri as the degenerate who had seduced her daughter.

  "I can," Miz’ri confirmed, her voice steady. "If the locks are physical, I can bypass them. I was trained to open doors that were meant to stay shut."

  "And the guards?" Marissa asked, her voice tight but unwavering. "There will be sentries. Students on patrol. Watchmen."

  Miz’ri gnced at Talisa, who gave a small, encouraging nod. "Silence is a kindness in a library, yes?" Miz’ri murmured, a dark calmness settling over her. "I can make them very quiet. I will ensure they see nothing, hear nothing, and remember nothing."

  "Good," Marissa exhaled, smoothing the front of her robes. "Then we go tonight."

  Miz’ri shifted her weight, and the confidence faltered for a fraction of a second. Her hand drifted automatically to her left hip, grasping at empty air. The phantom weight of her longsword was still there in her muscle memory, but the belt loop was empty.

  "I am... hindered," Miz’ri admitted, the words tasting like ash. "I can open the doors, Matriarch. But I am a soldier without a sword. A predator without cws. If things go wrong... I have nothing but a paring knife to defend your daughter." She hated saying it. It felt like admitting she was broken. Useless.

  "You're not empty-handed, Rosie." The voice came from the floor. Artie stood up, wiping the bde oil from his hands onto his trousers "We got this while we were out, had it fixed up for you." Artie said. He reached behind his back and pulled a bundle wrapped in rough, oil-stained cloth from his belt. "I was waiting for the right time. Figured now is as good as any."

  Miz’ri frowned. "What is this?"

  "Outside the Hive. When you had your, uh, moment." Artie said quietly, pressing the heavy bundle into her hands. "Do you remember throwing your sword away?."

  Miz’ri flinched at the memory. The screaming. The blood. The sound of her ancestral bde snapping against the sheer density of the horror they had fought.

  "It was garbage," Miz’ri whispered. "It was broken."

  "So were you," Artie countered, his voice soft but firm. "But we didn't leave you there, did we?"

  Miz’ri looked at him, stunned. Artie reached out and pulled the cloth away.

  It wasn't a sword. Not anymore. The long, elegant curve of the Niranath steel had been cut down, heated, and beaten into something new. It was a dagger now, a heavy, brutal boot knife with a thick spine and a wicked, drop-point tip. It cked the grace of the dueling bde it had once been; this was a weapon for close quarters. A weapon for fighting for your life rather than just for sport.

  But it was the handle that made Miz’ri’s breath hitch. The original bck-and-silver wire wrap of her House was gone. In its pce, the hilt had been painstakingly re-wrapped in braided leather. Deep, blood-red strands interwoven with stark, pristine white. Like the white and red she wore, the cool clothes that Talisa picked out for her in Valienta.

  "I took the shards to a smith in the lower district when we got in," Artie expined, watching her face. "Cost me a week’s winnings at cards, but he did good work. It’s the same steel, Cousin. Just, different. Harder."

  Miz’ri ran her thumb over the leather wrapping. It felt warm. It felt right. She gripped the hilt. The bance was perfect. It felt heavy in her hand, grounding her. The anxiety that had been vibrating under her skin all day suddenly focused, sharpening into a single point of crity. She looked at the red and white leather, Red for the blood she would spill, White for the girl she would spill it for.

  "Yes," Miz’ri said, her voice dropping an octave, returning to the cool, dangerous contralto of a woman who knew exactly what she was capable of. "It fits perfectly."

  She slid the dagger into the empty sheath on her boot. It snapped into pce with a satisfying click. Miz’ri stood up straighter. The slump of the victim vanished. Her shoulders went back, her chin lifted, and the predator returned to the room. She looked at Marissa Magleby, and this time, she looked like a soldier reporting for duty.

  "I am ready, Matriarch," Miz’ri said. "Give the order."

  Miz’ri stood rigidly, incapable of sitting back down. The weight of the dagger on her ankle was a magnetic pull, a center of gravity she hadn’t realized she was missing. She flexed her calf muscle, feeling the sheath shift against her leather boot, a secret reassurance that she was no longer just a victim of circumstance.The Silence in her head was still there, a low hum of static, but it was quieter now. It was being drowned out by a new unfamiliar internal sound of a purpose beyond simple survival.

  "If we enter through the service tunnels," Miz’ri began, her mind already dissecting the University’s yout Baby had provided, "we can bypass the main wards. I will need ten minutes to—"

  CLACK.

  The sound was sharp, dry, and loud enough to cut through the conversation like a gunshot. Miz’ri spun around, her hand instinctively going to her boot. In the corner, the tall, bundled shape of Pappy was shaking. The yers of wool coats and scarves Talisa had piled on him were trembling violently. His wide-brimmed hat was askew, and from beneath the thick woolen muffler wrapped around his face came that sound again.

  CLACK-CLACK-RATTLE.

  It was the sound of bone striking bone. He was gnashing his teeth.

  "Pappy?" Talisa rushed over, her hands fluttering anxiously around the skeleton's shoulders. "Shhh, Pappy, what do you need?"

  The skeleton didn't stop. He jerked away from Talisa’s touch, his skeletal hands, gloved in thick mittens, banging rhythmically against his own chest. It was frantic. Desperate.

  "Is he under control?" Artie noted, stepping back. "Like, he’s not about to freak out, right?"

  "He is stable!" Talisa insisted, though panic was rising in her voice. "He’s just... maybe the topic is upsetting him, ."

  "Of course, child." Marissa’s voice cut through the panic. “Wouldn’t you be if a room was discussing the love of your life’s worst moments?” The Matriarch walked across the room, her movements fluid and calm. She didn't approach Pappy with fear, or with the frantic worry of Talisa. She approached him with the authority of a woman who had grown up in a house where the dead served tea. She pced a hand on the shoulder of the trembling coat. "Hush, Papa," Marissa said softly. "I hear you."

  Talisa blinked, looking up at her mother. "You... hear him? But he doesn't have a tongue. He can't speak."

  "Of course he can speak," Marissa said, closing her eyes and tilting her head, as if listening to a faint melody only she could hear. "I forget you’re only an aspirant. You haven’t been taught to listen to the resonance yet, Talisa. You focus too much on the mechanics of the spell, the memorization of those complex rites. But you forget the most important part, how to quiet your own soul enough to listen to theirs." She opened her eyes, and they were dark, filled with a strange, ancient knowledge. "You must learn to listen.."

  The rattling slowed. Pappy’s trembling ceased, though a low, vibrating hum seemed to emanate from his chest cavity. Marissa nodded slowly, her lips moving silently as she transted the rhythmic clicking of his jaw.

  "He says..." Marissa paused, her expression softening into something deeply sad and incredibly tender. "He says, 'Maggy is my wife.'"

  Talisa gasped. "Maggy... that's what he called Grandmother."

  Marissa nodded, continuing to listen. "He says, 'I need to be the one. I need to see it. Only I know her handwriting. Only I know if it's real. I'm coming.'"

  The room was silent for a moment, save for the crackling of the fire. "He wants to come on the heist?" Baby asked, arching an eyebrow. "Mrs. Maglenby, with all due respect to your daddy, isn’t he just going to get in the way?"

  "He is insistent," Marissa said, looking at the bundled figure. “Always was bullheaded, loved him for that.” Pappy nodded his head, a jerky, mechanical motion, but undeniable. "And he is right. If the University has had forty years to study that book, they likely have forged copies for safer examination of its contents. My father is the only way to verify which is which."

  Miz’ri let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She looked at Pappy, really looked at him. Not as a monster, or a tool, or a burden. But as a man who loved his wife so much he had cwed his way back from the grave, and was now demanding to protect her legacy. It was strangely inspiring.

  "Then he comes," Miz’ri said, her voice firm.

  "Miz?" Talisa looked at her, worried. "Can we do that? Can we keep him hidden?"

  "An old man walking into a library? No one is going to bat an eye at that.” Miz shot back as a smirk raced across her face. "We’re the obvious ones here, more so together..” She turned to the group, her hand resting comfortably on her belt. The pn had just gotten harder, the risks higher, but she didn't care. She felt formidable. "We can’t approach as a group, too conspicuous,” Miz’ri ordered. "If you each cause a little distraction at a corner library far enough from the vaults, I’ll have enough time to show Pappy the books, and put the dupes back.

  Next she looked at Marissa. "And Matriarch... I, we need you to keep listening. If he sees something we don't, we need to know."

  Marissa nodded, a look of profound relief washing over her face. "Thank you, Miz’ri."

  "Don't thank me yet," Miz’ri said, turning toward the door. "Thank me when we're out.

  As Miz’ri prepared to leave, checking the bance of her new bde and calcuting kill zones in her head, Marissa stepped directly in her path. The relief on the Matriarch’s face had hardened back into resolve. Her eyes were wet, but fierce.

  "Stop," Marissa commanded.

  Miz’ri paused, her hand hovering near her boot. "Matriarch?"

  "Before you take one step out that door," Marissa said, her voice trembling slightly with the weight of her demand, "you will swear to me."

  The Matriarch reached out and grabbed Miz’ri’s arm. It was a shocking breach of contact for the usually reserved woman, her fingers digging into the leather of Miz’ri’s sleeve.

  "I will not have fresh ghosts haunting my family because you were too efficient.," Marissa hissed, her blue eyes locking onto Miz’ri’s red ones. “Swear to me. On the love you have for my daughter. Swear you will not kill tonight."

  Miz’ri trembled, she looked at Talisa. Her lover was watching her, eyes wide and trusting, holding Pappy’s hand.The dark elf looked back to the Matriarch, nodding, slow and solemn. "I swear, no blood on your name" Miz’ri whispered, her voice rough. "On all the love I carry for Talisa."

  The tension in the room was palpable. Miz’ri had accepted a handicap that terrified her, leaving enemies alive meant leaving witnesses, meant leaving threats behind her back. But she did it for the pact. She did it because she was no longer just a weapon, and she was no longer afraid to speak the truth of her feelings for Talisa.

  "Good," Marissa breathed, releasing her arm. “I trust you.”

  Talisa adjusted Pappy's scarf one st time to ensure his jawbone was hidden, treating him like a grandfather bundling up for a walk rather than a walking corpse. The Gang, plus one Matriarch and skeleton in tow, headed out into the smog. The heavy door of the Iron Wing closed behind them, leaving the safety of the inn for the dark, gothic silhouette of the University rising in the distance.

  The heist was on, but the stakes were now personal, moral, and absolute.