The dorms beside the Wonderworks toy store were nearly abandoned tonight. It was a Saturday night and the Club Lyon in the Beer Gardens was the event of the city, just as it was every week. Even louder than the toy trains that ran constantly in the Wonderworks store, the trance music from the club was more than Raoul could stand. Tonight had been a good night, at least until he got back to his room.
After Amavia had left, Gabriel Kaed had kept him company and they had discussed everything from the company to Mr. Kaed's meeting with Jaina Proudmoore on one occasion. Though it had not been a spectacular encounter, it was closer to the master of Transmutation than Raoul had certainly ever been. The young man had been in awe.
Now he was only enraged.
A stream of curses left him as he slammed the door behind him. Light damn that music! He slumped back against the door, two heavy bags weighing down his arms. This week had been hard on his spirit, but harder on his coin purse. Still, this was nothing compared to what Valerie had once demanded. It felt good to give it freely, to give it because he wanted to and not because Hawkins expected it.
The thought brought the briefest smile to his lips before more music filled his ears and he almost started to scream. "Light!" A bag dropped and he stretched out a hand to put a temporary sound barrier over the walls. It was translucent and sparkling, even when the shifting arcane current forced his magic lamps to shatter.
Like a night light, the powerful wall continued to shift and serve its purpose. Its light danced over his face, muffling the sounds to only a quiet whisper. He stood there panting and staring at it, grateful for the relief on his ears. Quickly then he swiped up the bag and started to carry it and its companion to the bed.
The elven blanket was comforting, and it reminded him of the power of the Sin'dorei. They could have held a barrier up like that every night. He wished he had that kind of power inside of him. Just to think- he'd never worry about sleep again. No more trains, no trance music, no distant thundering sounds from Icecrown where the struggle against the undead was far from over. Raoul's bright blue eyes almost rolled back from the sheer heaven of the idea as they closed.
Ah, that would be something.
What he had wasn't bad though. The trains were worth enduring to be as close to Amavia's dorm as he was. Right down the road and around the corner. That was more than some couples, especially secret affair ones, could ask for.
Just then, a tiny bell rolled out of the bag and he picked it up with a smile. He jingled it in time to the faint beat (far more pleasurable now that it wasn't killing his ears) as stiletto heels ascended the stairs to his floor. The long boots, laced up the back, were as dark brown as Raoul's hair, and they moved with a graceful speed. They trailed up to form-fitting leather that was like a second skin on the older woman, particularly around the corset where the lacing was particularly thin.
Some of the laces had an almost metallic gleam to them.
Back in his room, Raoul collapsed back on the bed and spread himself out in exhaustion, one leg draped over the side and an arm laying loosely over his head. His eyes fluttered closed again, chin nodding to the beat. Hawkins would be here soon. Light he missed her.
He missed her so much he could almost smell the fields of Westfall that seemed to cling to her some days. So real, so vivid. He took a deep breath and relaxed. Perhaps she would reward him when she arrived. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.
The woman who walked down the hall with swaying hips and a confident swagger smirked too.
While the music upset Raoul, Amavia found it enchanting and she practically danced up the stairway to the Wonderworks. Changed out of her apprentice robes, the purple and white dress laced in the front and her purple slippers barely made a whisper on the clean white stones. She paused on the landing and smiled, doing a happy little dance in place. It was clumsy and not the graceful moves some of the more lithe girls at the club may possess but she was delighted and the pleasure in her movements was clear.
Her auburn hair brushed over her shoulders and she smiled up at the train as it disappeared through the door in the wall. It was almost eye level now as she disappeared into the dormitory entrance and shut the door carefully behind her. One brow ticked upward and she paused a moment. Something was a little off but she couldn’t tell what.
Caramel hair that normally fell to the middle of her back was pulled into a sloppy bun by slender fingers. They were dressed in black leather, gloves running all the way up to her elbows so they could not be easily pried off. Even under that there were thin bandages and gauze. Svafa Hawkins was a woman that was always prepared.
Except for tonight perhaps, as she had been so sure she would catch Raoul alone for the evening. Her boys had told her in no uncertain terms that Amavia was almost always at his side. If she wasn’t now, she likely wouldn’t be for some time. Business would keep her occupied elsewhere. A mother could only hope.
This wasn’t about Amavia though. This wasn’t about avenging Lian’s death, for which she believed the blame solely rested on Jeffrey Worthington’s shoulders, or even about her own farewell. This was about the Brotherhood and the operation that Raoul and his master were endangering. Truthfully, Amavia was endangering it too, but Svafa hadn’t quite yet figured out how to salvage that.
She had always planned to run and protect her brothers simply by keeping the distance from Amavia if the girl ever found out, but she was loathe to do that. Amavia was her daughter. Her only child at all. Amavia meant more to her than anything.
Really? More than anything?
Her smirk fell into a frown and she silently disabled the string of arcane lights in the tower. It was a simple enchantment to undo by overloading the ones in the hallway, and if Raoul had not already broken his, he would have been plunged into darkness. The few others that remained in the tower this night were tired students who’d plugged their ears and were already sleeping.
It seemed like the perfect opportunity to ambush her prey.
Lightly painted lips pursed together when she stopped at his door. The golden number 36 hung on the center of the door and for some reason gave her pause. No, the number itself didn’t mean anything, but something about it got under her skin tonight. Quietly, she pried off the 6 and hung it upside as a 9 instead. In a strange way, that made her feel better.
Raoul was too excited for Amavia to be back with him again to consider falling asleep, but that didn’t stop him from getting lost in his day dreams and from jingling the bell closer to his ears. He didn’t notice the door opening, for the handle was turned far to the side before it was pushed in, and didn’t click as it would have if opened with any less care.
Svafa Hawkins closed the door behind her as the music began to speed up.
Amavia’s ascension up the stairs had been easy and her footsteps as light as her mood. The beat of the music outside made her smile a little brighter and she lifted the hem of her dress in one hand as she practically hopped up the steps. All that chipper behavior fled when the lights dimmed.
Her mother was the farthest concern from her mind and her eyes widened in concern. This would be a dramatic entrance for a former actress and it was Valerie’s image that reigned in her thoughts as she conjured a little firefly lantern of light and all but ran up the steps now.
She was a fit girl and used to a more playful lifestyle than some other mages so she was hardly out of breath when she reached the landing of his floor. The light at her shoulder bobbed, casting a pale yellow glow around the hall. Hands bare of her gloves for this evening clenched and sparks of arcane mage left them. Temper was rising and she could feel the heat of it in her veins as she stormed to his door.
Or was it his door. She stared hard at the 9 and canted her head to the side. Raoul was in 36 but she was certain this was his! She’d spent a few nights here. Enough now to remember where it was. A steady hand opened the door with far less stealth than her mother had.
While Amavia Hawkins was fleet of foot, Svafa Hawkins had the advantage of already being in the room. Her back was turned away from the door, allowing Amavia to clearly see her profile from the side as she held out a card between her middle and index fingers. Almost like a business card.
Raoul scrambled up off the bed, wand drawn, and kept it pointed at the woman with her severe expression. The shock of someone in his room without his knowledge was easily overwritten by his shock and concern to find Svafa Hawkins there. Of all people!
“Don’t make me wait, boy. Take it.”
The girl was equally surprised and she stared in shock a moment at her mother. Were it not for the older woman speaking Amavia may have been as frozen as a lamb in a chopper’s single headlight.
“Mama? Light, what are you doing here?” There was accusation in the tone and Amavia shut the door behind her with a firm gesture. “I was surprised not to see you with Idle Hands at the faire today. Perhaps you had another job?”
A thin brow quirked and she rested a hand on her hip.
I know. Her expression screamed. Eyes narrowed and her lips set in what had to be the thinnest line yet to cross her face.
Svafa’s eyes flicked to the side. They were a hard, tempered steel blue. Hard eyes that had witnessed a hard life. Usually they softened for Amavia though, and even in the tense moment they softened now. Amavia was still her daughter, no matter what.
She was only sorry she had allowed her daughter to make so many mistakes.
The glove holding the card was twitched for emphasis on her impatience and she glanced back to Raoul. The young man’s eyebrows raised and he glanced at Amavia. Before he did anything, he would see what she would do. This was her mother, after all. Defias scum or murderess, neither of which had been completely proven yet, she was still Amavia’s mother.
“Use your eyes, baby girl. They’re sharper than that; I know they are. I’m giving your partner evidence to help with his investigation. You’d think you’d be a little happier to see me under the circumstances.” Svafa’s eyes darted back to Amavia every few words, but she didn’t trust Raoul not to put that wand to use and so it was hard to keep her eyes off of him.
The girl leaned against Raoul’s desk and nodded. “Sometimes the eyes deceive, mama. And after what you gave my last partner I’m a little concerned.” Her fingers brushed the back of her neck and she looked at Svafa’s stilettos for a long moment.
“Let’s just cut the act, mama. I know. I know about the man in Westfall and I know about your other job. I know what you did to Jeffrey. And I know you let Lian take the fall for you with me. I know you killed my blood father.” Amber eyes narrowed and her hands clenched the wood of the desk’s lip hard.
“I love you so much mama. And I’m trying to understand but I don’t. I just...I just don’t get it. How can you be so good to me and so cruel to others? I saw what you did to Jeffrey. Thanks to what you did.”
Mama kept a lot of secrets, withheld a lot of truths, but she had never blatantly lied. Though equally sinister, there was just something about speaking falsehoods that hadn’t appealed to her. Don’t get caught was a better path than having to deceive. That wasn’t an option tonight though.
As she spoke, she took careful, sideways steps in a circle away from Amavia, “Jeffrey Worthington was a grotesque example of self-righteous entitlement. He had the gall to deflower my daughter and to break my family when I had nothing but those things left. And he did it because in his warped mind, he deserved to. For his love of you, he deserved those things. No other man could have or was worth them.”
The card was still outheld, but now her free hand was on a burnished rapier that hung from her belt. Much more simple in design than Amavia’s, the rapier was something practical and definitely not for decoration. Raoul circled in time with her, but he moved closer to Amavia in a protective way and put himself between them. Not enough to block Amavia’s view, but just enough to take a charge or an unexpected spell that could be flung.
“He repaid me not even a pittance, so I will brook him no sympathy. Especially considering the true colors of his love in the end, baby girl. You didn’t even go to his funeral. I did. So tell me who really cared about him more? I at least respected him what he was able to provide, though that wasn’t much. You hate him. If you don’t, you should. Don’t take his path and act the indignant one now. He was damned from the beginning. The two of you were.”
Raoul’s fingers twitched at his side and on the wand. He wanted to take the card before anything happened, before Svafa possibly attacked or fled. This wasn’t his moment though, and the drama unfolding between the two women in the room kept him silent and cowed. What if it was a trap anyway?
“I also went to Lian’s... Light, Lian’s, cell the night before he died. I begged him, begged him, to change his mind. I snuck into a prison and begged the man I loved to come back to the Brotherhood. But we couldn’t have made it right. We couldn’t have been a family again, and he understood that. He’s at more peace now than he ever was when your foolishness was destroying us. Tearing us apart..”
She narrowed her eyes and circled a bit more, putting herself near the window and the bed now.
“Your father was another self-righteous, entitled noble. Soft on the eyes but his heart was made of stone like none other I’ve ever known. You probably don’t want to hear it, but since we’re laying it all on the table I’m going to tell you anyway. Your sire gave you only one decent thing, baby girl, and that was life. Before you were even born he had abandoned you and he was grateful to be rid of us. That’s fine. We didn’t need him.”
She clucked her tongue.
“But then he came back. He came back to take more of us because that was his right. He was a noble and we were Westfall trash. So you tell me, what was I to do to spare us? To protect our only source of food and family? Pa was sick, I had a baby, and the Lions weren’t going to do us a damn favor. They wouldn’t even put an arrow in your back to end your suffering if you were like us, baby girl. The Brotherhood did everything that we needed. Like it or not, baby girl, you would be dead if I hadn’t helped them and rid the world of that lecherous man.”
Her gloves made a slight squeaking sound as her fingers pinched the card tighter.
“And that man in Westfall... I read in the paper he’s dead now. Good. But that was a long time ago and doesn’t have anything to do with right now. I’m trying to help your man, baby girl. Let me.”
“Then help him. He’s the one that killed him. But know this mama,” Amavia scooted around Raoul, resting a hand lightly on his elbow. “What you did to Jeffrey was cruel. What you did to him led to his suicide on my dorm floor. I didn’t go to his funeral because I didn’t want his family to have to look at me. To know that their little boy left because of me and returned because of me too. What you did to him was wrong and led to his corruption so severe he tortured me. When I think about him ripping away my soul, when I think about him violating me I don’t think about him now.”
Her hand quivered on Raoul’s elbow and she wet her lips. Light, she’d practiced this so many times. What she would say, what she would do, but it didn’t matter. The words she’d came up with were gone.
“I think about you. You’re the entitled one here, mama. Thinking your Brotherhood deserves everything. They’re little more than thugs and thieves. Good people don’t torture people that their daughters love. Good people don’t behave that way. I didn’t ruin our family. No, the Brotherhood did that.”
Shoulders stiffened and she shook her head. “You told me a life is a life and I need to think about that before I kill. But did you ever stop to think about what working for your Brotherhood would do? To us? They’re not a family, mama, they’re a gang. A family loves you and doesn’t do the things they do. I want no part of it and well, knowing you...”
She trailed off a second and took a deep breath. “Knowing you, you won’t quit. I respect your dedication but I cannot respect your cause. I want none of it. Ever again.”
“You’re ungrateful and heard nothing I said. You owe them your life, child. You owe me your life. If they were the gang you ignorantly think they are, then they would have collected on that long ago. They wouldn’t be funding your education, in law enforcement no less, to make you a model citizen- dreams you almost threw away for the nobility that almost made your dreams an impossibility in the first place! They saved our lives not once, not twice, but hundreds of times! Who do you think carried us away from the orchard? Who do you think fed us and protected our apples? Who do you think our only friends were, baby girl? Don’t dismiss every good thing they’ve done because a few of them are corrupted.”
Svafa looked down for just a second and found her breath was short.
“A life is a life is a life, Amy. It doesn’t matter if you kill a monster or you kill a baby. They all stain your soul as black as taking any other life does. At least the Brotherhood never lied to my face. At least the Brotherhood never abandoned me. How can you judge them when you reap the harvest of their labors and have betrayed your own mother for a boy on several occasions? You LIED to me, Amavia Hawkins. You ABANDONED me, Amavia Hawkins. Love is not a right, it is a privilege. Respect is not a right, it is a privilege. You make it hard to give either but I always will because you’re my baby girl.”
She took a sudden step forward, drawing her rapier just a bit so it would be loosened if she needed it. Raoul, despite himself, stepped forward too and snatched the card out of her hand like she had been waiting for him to the entire time.
“The worst part is that you did it for a love that didn’t even live as long as it took you to hang Lian. I may have made him unstable,” She lifted the back of her glove and used her knuckles to wipe away the tears. Strong women didn’t cry. They didn’t beg.
Begging was useless.
“But he was already breaking the law and dabbling in black magic before he ever felt a syringe. Even when he knew he was slipping, he didn’t stop. He made that choice himself, just like he made the choice to let me do what I did. Family is everything. The Brotherhood is a family. They’re my family. You’ve got enough sense left in you to know I wouldn’t abandon them any sooner than I’d kill you.”
She didn’t draw the rapier any further, but she did twist the blade so that it flashed in the light from the sound barrier.
“I came here to silence your man and protect my Brotherhood. I could have killed him. That would have been the easier way.” A black glove tightened and the light flashed white on it as if gleaming off the intricate hilt of the rapier she’d given Amavia. “But it wouldn’t have been the better way. There’s always a better way. There probably was a better way to stop your father too, but I was young and the paths were dark. I made a choice and I saved countless men from the noose in doing so. The same men that saved us from Deathwing’s reawakening.”
She took a step back then, quickly and not shaking once on her high heeled boots.
“They’re good men that deserve better than your selectively blind justice. Blind when the lives don’t quite reach the measure of worth, patient and forgiving when they exceed it. It’s a broken system, one that needs to change. If not in our revolution, than in the revolution that will follow. My rebellion won’t spill any more or less blood than the ones before and the ones to come.”
During her mother’s rant the girl kept quiet. A stony silence of pressed lips and barely suppressed rage. The only silver lining was that she hadn’t found Valerie Starlet in this room.
“Tell them to stop. I want no part of your family, Svafa Hawkins. None of it. I will find a way to fund my own education. ‘The machine will not run smoothly if the parts go renegade’, isn’t that their little motto? If you know you have corrupt members in your own gang why aren’t they silenced? Wasn’t the whole point to be better than the government they were trying to usurp? They torture people - you torture people - and have ruined countless other farms in Westfall. We were lucky because you joined them. I’m sure if you hadn’t we’d have been killed or ruined too. I’m grateful for the reprieve of their wanton violence but how long will that last? When you’re no longer useful won’t they rid themselves of you? Like they did Lian? When they hear of this won’t they rid you of a squeaky wheel?”
Fingers raked through her hair and she stared wide-eyed at her mother. Tears didn’t fall but they welled heavy along the lashes.
“You made him far more than unstable. He was willing to endure what you did because he loved me. He died because he loved me and I refused to take him back. I have seen what you did. I will always carry those memories now because you broke his fragile mind. Because of him, because of you, I will never be whole again. There hasn’t been a day that’s passed where I’m not sharing memories - yours, Raoul’s, Jeffrey’s, other peoples’ minds. I hope your Brotherhood’s goals were worth my sanity.”
Her tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth and she closed her eyes a second, stemming the tide of words. “You should go. I’m legally bound to try and apprehend you and I just can’t. I can’t do this right now. I don’t want to do it ever. You’re my mother and Light, help me I can’t. You’ll never understand my desires, my dreams, just as I will never be able to fathom yours. I’m not going to rat you out to Idle Hands, so don’t worry about that. But we can’t cross paths anymore. You picked your Brotherhood and I choose my Law. I’m half what you hate anyhow.”
Raoul was the one to interrupt, rather than Svafa, though her lips did hang open with objections. “Actually, Hawkins...” He winced, looking from Svafa to Amavia to differentiate who he was speaking to. “We’re not obligated to do anything. The Brotherhood is not the Mageocracy’s problem. It’s Stormwind. George is hoping to bring in a murderer and a Defias because the scandal of their double-life would help take his career to new heights.”
He pulled the paper up closer, somehow keeping his voice implacably calm. He forced it to be so.
“Thank you, ma’am, for your evidence.” It was quiet but steady and he held out an arm to try and nudge Amavia back from the door so Svafa could leave. Wary of a trap, the older woman headed for the window anyway. Over her shoulder, she flashed Amavia a dark look of remorse.
“He loved you and you have swept him under the rug in the self-interest of moving on. I don’t fault you for that, baby girl, because I encourage you to keep doing it, but don’t fall into the trap of hypocrisy. The Brotherhood didn’t kill Jeffrey Worthington. It didn’t kill Liandar Westbrook.”
The window opened and she quickly climbed out, pulling a small grappling hook from the bosom of her corset and unfolding it before casting it up and securing the line. Her gaze was more even now, more full of the unwavering decision that she prided herself in having instilled in her daughter.
“At the end of the day, you did.”
With that, she gone.
Raoul hissed sharply for a reason he couldn’t explain and then released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Fingertips pinched the bridge of her nose and Amavia stood there silent as the walls a moment. Whatever she was feeling, frustration or wracking guilt or plain anger it was hard to tell with the way her thin shoulders shook and she ducked her head. If tears brightened her gemlike eyes they wouldn’t be seen.
Tears were useless things and she’d cried enough rivers of them.
“Is her evidence at least something worthwhile?”
The hand dropped and she took a long pull of air before going to close his window. Light damn. If she had her own home someday the windows would be enchanted to only open at a special phrase or key that few would possess. Windows were oddly dangerous things.
As if they had no more unwelcome of a visitor than a wayward, lost apprentice in need of directions Amavia sank onto the edge of his bed and ran her fingers over the beautiful blanket. It was a welcome sensation under her trembling fingers and she closed her eyes gently.
“I don’t want to go dancing anymore.”
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