Til My Last Breath
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean, exactly?” Aria asked, annoyed as she glared at Captain Mooring Line.
The captain gave a noncommittal shrug. “It’s the only free bit’a advice yer gonna get in the ports’a Manehattan, and only cuz we’re friends, savvy?”
Aria sighed, dragging her hand down her face. The trip across the ocean had been bad enough; these humans could barely manage their ships in a storm and had no sense at all for changes in weather. Even the experienced ones would’ve been outstripped in skill by a Siren fledgling.
Now, though, they were just sailing into the port of what was gearing up to be one of the largest trade cities in the world as well as the last known place her younger sister had come through.
“We’ve known each other for fifteen years, Moor,” Aria snapped, “so excuse me if I want a little more than ‘don’t go to Crotus Prenn’, whatever that means.”
“Yeah, and I wanna know why y’look ‘xactly the same as the stowaway I taught rigging to fifteen years ago when I was just a bosun, but I don’t ask,” Moor countered with a sly grin. “Sailor’s ain’t like other folks, we know when not to ask questions.”
“Ugh, whatever,” Aria waved her hand and turned away, heading back down into the lower decks as Moor chuckled behind her and went back to the wheel.
Mooring Line was nice, as humans went. He’d taken a shine to Aria years ago and she hadn’t forgotten his kindness. He hadn’t forgotten that she was a damn steady hand at the mast even in the worst storms, either, which was how she’d managed to get a ride to the ‘new world’ for her and Adagio. Her elder sister had fit in well enough; her sense for the oceans moods was easily the superior of Aria’s to the point that the crew now affectionately referred to the redhead as their ‘weather witch’.
Adagio’s advice had allowed Moor to steer them around no less than three major storm fronts resulting in what Moor had claimed was his easiest voyage in years. He’d made far better time than he’d expected and was set up to get a steady lead in profits this year which, Aria suspected, was the main reason that he was in such a good mood.
“Hey, ‘Dagi, we’re coming up on port,” Aria called out as she opened the door to their shared quarters. “You alright, ‘Dagi?” Her red-haired sister was curled up in bed with a glassy look in her eyes. “Adagio? What’s wrong?”
Turning her head, Adagio seemed to struggle with focusing her eyes for a moment. “Aria?”
Aria sat down at the edge of the bed and reached out, feeling her sister’s forehead for a fever. They didn’t normally get sick thanks to their magic but Adagio had been cut off from hers for so long that Aria wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Aria responded after a moment. “And we’re about to hit port.”
“What port?” Adagio asked blearily.
Sighing, Aria ran her hands through Adagio’s hair. “Manehattan port, remember? We’re going to Manehattan to try to pick up Sonata’s trail?”
Shaking her head, Adagio’s nest of wild red curls draped over her shoulders and face giving her a decidedly unkempt look. “Where’s Sonata?”
Aria slapped her palm to her face and groaned.
It had been like this for the whole trip. One minute Adagio was there and present, the next she was completely useless with her mind little more than a slurry of disconnected memories drifting in grey mists. Not that Aria was surprised, honestly. Neither of them had ever removed more than a few memories before, a day or two’s worth at most.
Then Aria had been forced to rip almost three decades worth of memories out of her sister’s mind in a single go.
Despite that affliction, Aria knew that she needed Adagio’s skills as well as her political acumen. The frustrating fact of the matter was that Aria, for all her capabilities, was just not good with people. Her magic was also well below Adagio’s skill too. Before their banishment Aria had been a Myrmidon, one of the Siren’s warrior elite, she wasn't a sorceress like Adagio.
Right now, though, it was like Aria’s sister was no more than an invalid.
“We don’t know,” Aria repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “All I know is that I cast out our little Finder spell to track her down and see how she was doing, y’know? And I got two different returns; one said she was dead, the other that she was alive. Both came from this part of the world though.”
“Oh,” Adagio said quietly, blinking sleep out her eyes. “How peculiar.”
“Right, yeah, understatement of the goddamn century there, ‘Dagi,” Aria retorted with a grimace. “Lay back down, I’m gonna check your meridians again.”
Adagio obeyed, which was a little unsettling in and of itself. The elder Siren was generally more interested in giving orders than taking them, but at the moment it was almost like she was in some kind of fugue state.
Aria leaned in and sang softly, holding out her hands to run her fingers along Adagio’s arms, up to her neck, and illuminating her crisscrossing lines of energy, her meridians; the veins of magic. They guide the flow of magical energy in the physical body, and even in the human world the sisters had always had particularly strong ones, especially clustered around their vocal chords.
Adagio’s were much fainter than they ought to be, but Aria didn’t know if it had to do with some kind of damage from the memory song or if Adagio’s disuse of her magic for so long had atrophied them. One way or another, all Aria could do was wait and see if her sister’s health and demeanor improved.
“Aria?” Adagio glanced up, her eyes slowly coming into focus.
Aria glanced over at her sister. “Yeah?”
“Where are we?”
“Godammit!”
Manehattan Immigration Offices, One Day Later
“I really do despise humans,” Adagio remarked quietly as they stood in the chaotic line. “They stink, they argue, they’re cantankerous and unreasonable. How they managed to create a civilization that lasted more than a fortnight I’ll never know.”
Aria sighed as the line advanced at a glacial pace. Adagio had been bitching for about an hour now, which was business as usual and better than being an invalid, at least; she spent half the trip across the ocean half-asleep, and the other half convincing the crew she was some kind of seer.
“You’re not wrong, but we still have to put up with them,” Aria replied dryly. “Pretty sure they outnumber us on this planet by a couple billion to one.”
“Don’t remind me,” Adagio sneered. “Just the thought of that many of these wretched creatures makes me want to vomit.”
Rolling her eyes and then peering ahead, Aria nudged her sister with an elbow. “Alright, we’re coming up, and ‘Nata had to have come through these offices unless she was smuggled and…”
“Dearest little sister does not have the acumen necessary to pull of a proper human smuggling,” Adagio replied with a chuckle. “It was probably years ago, though. A decade, maybe.”
“The records will still be there,” Aria insisted, as they moved another two inches up. “We know she came through here one way or the other.”
“We don’t have the magic to perform a more accurate Finder spell, Aria,” Adagio sighed, bringing her fingers up to the bridge of her nose. Migraines had been plaguing her for weeks now. “If this doesn’t pan out we’ll basically be back to square zero.”
Aria scowled, but didn’t disagree. Her sister wasn’t wrong; they were following a very slim trail that was an indeterminate number of years cold and was mostly held up by a series of assumptions propped up by half-decent guesswork. Neither Adagio nor Aria were going to admit it but no matter how hard it got they wouldn’t abandon their youngest sister. If it took them a century or two to track her down then that’s what it took. They had nothing but time and very little to fill it with, and they were the only ones of their entire species on the planet.
“Yeah…” Aria replied finally, looking downcast. “I know, I just… wish we’d never split up.”
“You seemed pretty keen on it when I made the suggestion, sister,” Adagio retorted, not unkindly. “What did you even do with your time?”
“A lot of wandering,” Aria answered, waving it off with her hand. “In the meantime you ended up needing the mother of all memory songs working into your mind, and Sonata might be dead.”
“Fair enough,” Adagio retorted with a smirk before turning back to look forward. “Alright, limber up because we’re about to start.”
They reached the head of the line and presented the officer with their, meticulously forged, documents which passed muster easily. He set them down and examined them carefully but their provenance would’ve have required an absurd amount of cross-referencing since all of the materials used in their construction were legitimate. Finally, he passed them back.
“Anything to declare?” the officer asked in a slightly nasally voice.
“No,” Adagio responded, leaning in a giving the officer a small, pouting smile, “but we were hoping to track down a relative of ours, a sister. Would you be so kind as to point us in the direction of someone who could help us with that, darling?”
Adagio had cranked up the charm for that one, Aria noted as she rolled her eyes. The immigration officer was already smiling and nodding along.
“Of course, my dear, of course,” he gestured behind him toward a quartet of windows. “We at Manehattan port authority maintain very strict records going back to our founding, I dare say if your sister passed through this port we will have a log of it in there.”
“You’re a gem,” Adagio crooned, leaning in to put a small peck on his cheek before sauntering off.
Aria stifled a groan as she followed her elder sister. “That was nauseating to watch, ‘Dagi.”
“I kissed his cheek, sister, how do you think I feel?” Adagio sneered back, all trace of her honey-like voice gone under a thick veneer of acid.
The two sister strode up to the windowed office and around to the door, which Adagio didn’t even bother knocking on first before entering imperiously. That was always step one of Adagio’s strategy when dealing with humans; walk into a place acting like you own it and people will, at least initially, assume that you do. Or at least that you are supposed to be there.
“C-can I help you?” The man at the desk was a small, ratty fellow with watery eyes and a combover, wearing an ill-fitting sweater. “If you’re looking for customs it’s across the hall.”
Adagio shook her head as Aria closes the door behind them. “Actually, little man, we need you to go through some old records for us. We’re looking for our sister, she almost certainly came through here some time ago.”
“O-oh, well, in that case I suppose you’re in the right place,” he said after a moment, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “Uhm, what was her legal name and time of entry?”
Aria glanced over at Adagio. “She’s too dumb to use an alias, ‘Dagi,” Aria whispered, “so probably just her real name.”
Nodding in agreement, Adagio favored the man with a curving smile. “Dusk, her name is Sonata Dusk. Her time of entry would have been anywhere between eight to ten years ago.”
The man’s eyes practically bug out. “E-e-eight to ten years?! That’s absurd! I’m not looking that far back for a single moppet! That could take all day! I-!”
His protests died in his throat as the two girls stared down at him, their eyes shining strangely as they both opened their mouths and began to sing. Adagio set the pace and beat of the wordless song while Aria fell into her usual role harmonizing with her elder sister.
“A~h, ah-a~h~.... A~h…. A~a~h….”
The officious man’s eyes glazed over almost immediately and his body went slack as the siren’s magic flowed through him, blitzing his mind clean of thought for a moment and replacing it with a desire to do whatever the girls in front of him desired.
“Good, now,” Adagio stalked forward with a predatory grin. “Sonata. Dusk. You will find her records and do try to be quick about it.”
Nodding dumbly, he stood up and walked over to a bank of file cabinets and began searching. Flipping through file after file after file. Rolling her eyes, Aria walked up to Adagio’s side and scowled at the man.
“Ugh, he was right though,” Aria groused. “Look at all those cabinets, this is gonna take all day.”
When no response came from her sister, Aria glanced over at Adagio and grimaced. The older siren was staring straight ahead in daze.
“Ah, shit,” Aria swore, stepping around and in front of Adagio and snapping her fingers under Adagio’s nose. “Oy, hey! Snap out of it!” Aria hissed, stealing a glance outside the window. “God dammit, this is not the time to go empty-headed!”
“Aria?” Adagio said finally, after several moments of uncomfortable silence. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft. “What’s going on?”
“Damn it, c’mon ‘Dagi,” Aria felt a surge of panic as she brought her hands up to her sister’s face, dragging her eyes to meet Aria’s sharp gaze. “C’mon, you’ve gotta come back to me!”
“Where are we?”
“Ffffff~....” Aria bit her lip and stepped away, pulling Adagio along to the back of the office while frantically looking around and finally spying a chair out of the way of any of the windows. “Okay, sit down on this chair and for the love of song stay there.”
Adagio didn’t respond, instead opting to stare quietly ahead with her eyes unfocused on anything in particular. Aria cursed inwardly, she did not need this right now, but at the same time she needed Adagio’s skills and her music. Aria’s song wasn’t weak, per se; she was stronger singer than Sonata at least, but Adagio was always the most powerful of the three of them. That’s why Aria and Sonata had always been content as the backup harmony while Adagio led.
Maybe it was demeanor, Aria was too blunt to manipulate minds and emotions the way Adagio did, and Sonata probably didn’t have an ounce of guile in her body.
“Aria?” Adagio’s voice snapped Aria out of her musing and she glanced back to see Adagio staring up at her. “Where’s Sonata? You know she gets lost easily.”
Aria sighed. “She is lost, remember? We’re trying to find her.”
Adagio glowered at Aria, although her eyes were still shot through with confusion. “You’re supposed to watch out for her, Ari’! I can’t do everything! I can’t keep us safe and keep us alive and watch out for Sonata, too!”
“H-hey, keep your voice down,” Aria hissed, holding her hands out. “And besides, splitting up was your stupid idea, ‘Dagi!”
“I… I don’t…” Adagio blinked and furrowed her brow, bringing her hands up to her temples. “W-was it? Was it my idea? I can’t… Aria, I can’t remember.” Adagio muttered, staring up at her sister with panic in her eyes, “why can’t I remember?”
Letting out a slow, even breath, Aria knelt next to Adagio and wrapped her arms around her older sister, pulling her down into an embrace. “You’re not well, sister, it’ll take some time but you’ll get better, okay?” Aria said and dearly hoped she wasn’t lying. “Just be patient, it’ll be fine I promise.”
“I don’t… I…” Adagio struggled for words, wrapping her own arms around Arai and holding tight while blinking rapidly as Adagio tried to find her focus. “Aria I can’t… I can’t think straight, everything is scattered. I’m scared…”
Aria clenched her jaw and pulled her sister tighter. “Yeah, I know, me too.”
“I’m sorry…” Adagio mumbled, burying her face in Aria’s shoulder, who froze at the words. Adagio did not apologise. “I’m so sorry… I love you both so much, I can’t… I can’t focus, I keep forgetting things. I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I don’t want to forget you two, please… you’re all I’ve got left.”
Choking back a wall of emotions she did not have time to deal with right now, Aria just nodded. “I know, ‘Dagi, and I know I’m a huge bitch sometimes. I know I get under your skin and I question your leadership and I constantly undermine you but I don’t… I don’t want you to go away either. I’m sorry, and I love you too.”
“Please, don’t let me forget you, Ari’,” Adagio pleaded quietly, shaking in her sisters arms. “Please, don’t let me forget about Sonata either, okay? She needs me. She needs us.”
“I won’t,” Aria promised, “we’ll find our little sister, ‘Dagi, I swear it.”
They remained that way for some time, Adagio fading in and out of coherence while Aria rocked her back and forth, periodically muttering assurances as her confusion rose and fell like the tide.
Hours passed until finally… “Sonata Dusk, here we are.”
The voice of the officious immigration agent came from the snapped both of our attentions back to him and I see the focus slide back into Adagio’s eyes. She wanted to find Sonata just as badly as Aria did, maybe more, and somehow it was keeping her mind from falling apart. All Aria could do was pray to the great ocean that it would keep her together long enough for her to heal on her own.
“We’re in luck,” he said, dazedly. “Nine years and four months ago a girl by the name of Sonata Dusk entered our port, paid her fees, and entered the city on a temporary five-year visa.”
Standing with a smile for the first time in months, Aria scampered over to grab the paper from his hands. “Where is she now? It’s a five year visa right? She had to have come in to renew it right?”
He points to a particular line on a section of the paper. “It was upgraded to a permanent work visa, she was hired on by a public health institute just prior to her first renewal.” His finger trailed down then he handed Aria another set of pages. “It came with the stipulation that her visa would not expire so long as she worked for them and after a period of ten years the visa would be discarded for full citizenship.”
“She has a job?” Aria said in surprise. “Huh, this could be a lot easier than we thought, ‘Dagi,” she said, glancing back to the smiling red-haired siren. “Sonata got a job!”
“Is she still there?” Adagio asked carefully, looking at the agent who thumbed through the papers.
“I would assume,” he said after a moment. “There’s been no notice of revocation from the institute. If she’d left their employ then, one way or another, they would have to give us notice to cancel her work visa.”
“Perfect,” Adagio said hopefully. “What’s the name of her employer?”
The agent flipped through more pages before pulling one loose and examining it.
“Crotus Prenn Asylum.”
Two Days Later
“I don’t like this, ‘Dagi,” Aria practically snarled. “I don’t like this at all.”
Adagio nodded as their carriage approached the large, iron-wrought gates of the Asylum. “Neither do I, Ari’, but this is our only real lead. It’s the closest thing we’ve got to finding our sister.”
“This place is shadier than the Tirek’s arsehole, ‘Dagi,” Aria hissed quietly. “It has a worse reputation than that Prussian abattoir, and even Mooring Line gave me the same advice that pretty much every single person has given us when we asked about this place.”
“Do not go to Crotus Prenn,” Adagio recited.
It had been the only advice they’d gotten when they went about gathering information. Manehattan was a notoriously unfriendly city, and nothing was ever free on its streets. Nothing, of course, except for one piece of advice that every Manehattanite would happily give with either a sneer or a shrug.
Do not go to Crotus Prenn.
The gates were always locked and, as far as the two Siren sisters could gather, no one had ever come out of that place cured. In fact, there was a mortuary office and a potter’s field nearby just to keep up with those who passed away in its walls. It was a place for the criminally insane and the incurably mad. I'm addition, according to local popular rumour at least, it was also a place that was horrifically haunted.
Locals in the boroughs of Manehattan held to the other regular rumour which said that the doctors there were secretly performing horrible experiments on the patients. Screams could be heard even in the dead of night which, of course, the local authority were assured was simply one or more of the patients having a particularly bad episode.
“The way people talk about this place it’s like some kind of Tartarus on Earth,” Aria said with a scowl. “The idea that Sonata is working there? No way that’s a good thing.”
“Agreed,” Adagio replied with a scowl. “We’re getting in there, finding our sister or at least where she went, and then we’re leaving.”
“I doubt it’s going to go that smoothly, ‘Dagi,” Aria replies dryly. “Call me a pessimist but I don’t think any of your plans have ever gone like that.”
“Don’t make me come over there,” Adagio retorted, “at least I have plans.”
Aria grimaced, biting back another scathing remark that would’ve turned into another fight. They bickered, a lot, but then again they were sisters. Aria and Adagio had always butted heads for as long as they could remember, but…
“Yeah, you’re right,” Aria said finally, “I’m… sorry.”
Adagio stared back at Aria incredulously, barely believing the words she’d just heard uttered by her sister. Had Aria just… backed down?
“It’s… it’s fine,” Adagio said after a moment of finding her tongue. “I know you’re just trying to help. We both want to find Sonata, but diving into this headfirst without a plan is a bad idea. Even if the plan goes off the rails at least we’ll have a place to start from. Better that than just plunging in with out arms flailing about.”
Nodding, Aria edged over a little closer to Adagio and let out a slow breath, calming herself down. “So what’s the real plan, ‘Dagi?”
“If she’s an employee, a nurse maybe, it should be easy,” Adagio began slowly, only to trail off. “But let’s assume it’s not that easy.”
“She is employed here though, right?” Aria said. “She’s not a patient, or the papers would’ve been changed.”
“If they bothered to submit the changes,” Adagio countered. “Humans are so enormously inept at these things. Where they aren’t inept, they’re corrupt, and where they’re not corrupt they’re lazy.”
“Yeah, okay,” Aria nodded along, not really finding a reason to disagree. Adagio had it out for humans for the most part, but at least where this situation was concerned Aria couldn’t find fault with her assumptions. “Worst case scenario, then. What if she’s locked up?”
“We break her out,” Adagio said simply. “It’s literally a madhouse, half our work is already done. We’ll rile up the patients and the orderlies, then get a good old fashioned riot going, retrieve our sister, and vanish in the aftermath. We’ve got plenty of practice at that, if nothing else.”
“Fair enough,” Aria replied with an arid smile. “We do have a decent track record when it comes to surviving riots, I suppose.”
“That business with the church in Pamplona was not my fault,” Adagio remarked with a huff. “I hardly thought I was being obvious, how was I to know that Tomás fellow was a hardline zealot?”
Aria chuckled, patting her sister on the shoulder. “You can’t expect every outcome, who knew they’d get that riled up?”
“Pity about all the deaths,” Adagio said, surprising Aria a little. “Well, there are always more humans where they came from, I suppose.” Nevermind.
The iron gates of Crotus Prenn creaked open to admit the carriage and, as they closed in on the main building, both Adagio and Aria scowled.
“Can you taste that?” Aria asked, her face contorting into a look of disgust. “Ugh, it’s disgusting… it’s like… like… what even is that?” Aria looked over at her sister and started at the combined look of fury and terror.
“Backwash,” Adagio muttered gravely. “It’s backwash.”
“What?!” Aria’s mouth hung open at the revelation. “Even Sonata knows better than to feed in the same place for that long! We’ve never been that desperate, especially not here! This place may not have much magic, but it’s got no shortage of tempers and strife.”
Adagio scowled furiously. “You’re right, Sonata does know better, but more importantly she knows the side effects on both us and on our prey.”
Wincing, Aria slowly began to nod in agreement before realising what Adagio was getting at. “Sonata is too nice for this…” Aria said slowly.
“Yes, she’s always been the gentlest of us,” Adagio admitted, shaking her head. “Even when it didn’t suit our needs she always preferred to take magic in sips, and always protested us going ‘too far’.”
Leaning to look out the window at the squat, unpleasant two and half story asylum, Aria felt a stony weight settle in the pit of her stomach. Sonata was way too nice for her own good, she should never have been banished here. That said, there was no way she’d feed so deeply of one area that it created backwash. A sort of ambient poison of emotional strife that would suffuse the air. Sonata knew better than to do that.
Strife and fury were the byproducts of their feeding process, but it was the catalyst for it as well. When a Siren fed, it created these emotions in abundance in the hearts of those they fed on. But feed on the same people long enough and it would overflow, filling the air and poisoning it until there was nothing left. Feeding from such a place would give the Siren’s something equivalent to human ‘food poisoning’ only far worse.
“So if we agree that Sonata would never willingly do this then…” Aria meets her sister’s gaze and Adagio gives her sister a sharp nod.
“There’s next to no chance that she’s here voluntarily,” Adagio confirmed with a snarl. “Sonata’s a ditz but even she’s not this dense.”
“Then this just got a lot messier,” Aria nearly spat. “What’s the plan now?”
Adagio closed her eyes, her mind wheeling through the possibilities. They already had their cover story; young, nouveau riche benefactors inspecting the grounds to see about giving charitably to a health institution. Throwing money around philanthropically was a fashionable thing to do lately, and the field of the mind being so new it was certainly a conversation piece. Not an airtight story but one that would be hard to disprove.
“We keep going,” Adagio said, finally, her eyes snapping open. “We need to get them talking. If Sonata is feeding like this there’s almost no chance someone hasn’t noticed something. We find out who knows what and then rip it out of them.”
Grinning viciously, Aria gave a sharp nod and turned back to glare at the rising Asylum as the carriage turned into the small but open grounds to park.
A thin, raw-boned woman with stringy brown hair, pale skin, and sunken eyes stepped out of the entrance to the asylum as the driver steps around to open the door. Adagio exited first, her self-assured walk and direct gaze is always the best first impression to give, with a glowering Aria leaving just behind her.
“Welcome to Crotus Prenn Asylum,” the woman said, her voice dry and brittle. “You are the Dazzle sisters, correct?”
“We are,” Adagio gave a small, perfect curtsy. “My name is Serene, and this is my sister Belle,” she said, gesturing to Aria who was scanning the area with a bored glare. “We were hoping to speak with the asylum’s Director about some almsgiving.”
“Of course,” the woman replied, almost tonelessly, “Director Bones will see you momentarily, ladies, please follow me.”
Adagio and Aria share a glance. If they hadn’t already known they were walking into an unpleasant situation then this would’ve been suspicious enough to put them on edge. As it was it only deepened their concern.
Sharing a brief nod, Adagio turned away to keep her eyes forward while Aria moved to put her sister between her and the nurse so as to keep her head surreptitiously on a swivel.
The walk was short as the asylum wasn’t terribly large, but the noise more than made up for it. Groans and the occasional shriek was set to a backdrop of insane murmurings and constant sobbing, and every so often they would pass a room that a loud thumping was coming from. The path led up a staircase and around to a large room in the center of the asylum, on the door were the words: Brittle Bones, Director.
The nurse gave two short knocks, then opened the door and stood to the side.
“The Director is expecting you, ladies,” she said in that empty voice of hers.
Adagio gave another small curtsy and smiled. “Thank you for your help, Nurse…?”
“Wicket,” the nurse replied.
“Nurse Wicket, then,” Adagio said, “we’ll remember you.”
The two girls stepped into the sparsely furnished but somehow still cramped-feeling room. There was a single desk in poor condition and covered in papers, and the walls were almost fully hidden by cabinets and piles of yellow papers and folders. Two chairs had been unceremoniously stuffed into the room where there was clearly not room for them but space had been made nevertheless.
The man behind the desk was tall and rickety-looking. A beanpole if there ever was one, even with his stooped posture and narrow face he had a broad shoulders that were all bones and his face had that same hollow, sunken look that Nurse Wicket’s possessed. The difference was that, while Nurse Wicket had seem barely coherent, Director Bones looked almost manic. His hands rattled and shook, and there was a nearly constant tapping sound from his foot. The Director wore a stained button-up shirt, tie, grey trousers, and a long lab coat.
Adagio and Aria took their seats, but not before Aria had adjusted her dress slightly to allow for her to more easily reach the short, thin bar of metal strapped to her leg. She touched the leather grip slightly to assure she could pull it easily. Adagio had her stiletto but both of them agreed they’d prefer not to leave a bloodbath.
Finally, the Director looked up to regard them and grinned feverishly. “W-welcome to Crotus Prenn, ladies, I’m ever so happy to have you here,” he chortled, his eye twitching a little alarmingly. “I understand you’re considering making a charitable donation?”
“Yes,” Adagio said, her voice dripping honey. “It’s so very important to us that those poor and helpless, whose minds are so weary, are given a proper place to convalesce.”
“I must say we’re in agreement,” Director Bones said, his smile widening. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to understand we have a cutting edge approach here, yes, quite cutting edge.”
Nodding along, Adagio kept her smile up, though she was boiling on in the inside. “I’m certain, still I’m sure you’re aware of the… reputation, that your institute has in the area.”
The Director scowls and waves his hands theatrically. “The mumblings and groanings of unenlightened minds, nothing more! They couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of the human mind! The sheer impossibility of what we do here to tap into the furthest reaches of humanity!”
“My sister and I aren’t one to believe rumours on nothing but the word of gossipmongers, of course, dear Director,” Adagio cooed, leaning in slightly. “We prefer to see with our own eyes and make our own judgments, such is a far more reliable manner of living, we think.”
“Obviously,” Director Bones nearly shouted, his expression reversing alarmingly fast. “Obviously, yes, yes of course! The wise see with eyes unshrouded, I would love to give you a tour!”
Standing with a single sharp movement, Director Bones stepped around his chaotic mess of his office and gestured for the two sisters to follow him. Opening the door, he politely bowed them out of his office before following and locking it behind him and striding quickly down the stairs.
“Follow me then, these areas up here are mostly the quarters,” the Director explained, talking quickly and breathlessly. “Residentials, if you will, but they’re quite well barred so don’t worry. The majority of our treatment rooms are in the basement level.”
“That seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?” Adagio replied as she followed with Aria on her heels. “Why the basement?”
“Well, of course many of our patients are incurably insane by most standards,” Bones replied, still grinning. “You can’t be too careful, and besides it was more a matter of giving those poor souls rooms that have a bit of a view, even if it is barred.”
“How generous,” Aria replied dryly, speaking up for the first time. “So what kind of treatments do you have?”
“Oh you’ll see,” the Director replied, his grin widening. “You’ll be quite surprised I guarantee it, it’s not something most people would imagine!”
Adagio shot her sister a worried glance as the Director turned away and led them towards the basement stairs and down into the bowels of the asylum.
“I don’t like this, ‘Dagi,” Aria hissed quietly. “The Director is as loony as his patients. Maybe worse.”
“I quite agree,” Adagio replied, grimacing. “But I can feel her, we’re getting closer to our sister so let’s go along with it for now. Be ready, though.”
Nodding, Aria kept in step with her sister as Adagio turned back to the Director and followed him into a narrow hallway. There were doors on either side every several meters and the hall split into a t-junction at its end. The Director took an immediate left, gesturing for them to follow him.
“Our most incredible treatment room is at the end of this hall,” Bones said as he walked, his long legs covering distance quickly and his movements becoming more erratic. “You’ll see, it’s quite unbelievable.”
“I can only imagine,” Adagio replied, feeling uneasy as they got closer to the ironclad door. “What kind of treatment is it?”
“Exposure treatment,” Bones replied as he reached the door and pulled a ring of keys from his belt and shoved a particularly ornate key into the lock.
Looking past Adagio at the door, Aria grimaced and asked; “exposure to what?”
Grinning, the Director turned back to the girls as he swung the door open. “Exposure to the divine.”
Adagio stepped into the dim, gas-lantern-lit room. It was wide but almost empty. There were a half dozen restraint chairs near the middle of the room set in a half-moon formation in front of a covered cross and the whole place had the feeling of some sort of chapel. Aria was inside a moment later and staring at the stange setup. There were tables along the sides with all manner of brutish-looking tools that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a torture chamber, and several sets of headgear with bars set to force the eyes open.
“What… is this place?” Adagio asked, her mask of gentility falling for a moment. The air of sickness and poison that pervaded the asylum was many times stronger. “What have you done?”
Aria stared up at the cross, trying to decide why it looked so off, and a moment later it struck her. “Oh… holy oceans… Adagio look!” Aria swore, forgetting their subterfuge in her moment of realisation as she pointed up at the cross.
Covered under a tarp of burlap, there was the distinct outline of a figure.
The Director gave a high-pitched laugh as he pulled a cord to the side of the door to raise the covering. “I have done the impossible,” Bones said, his eyes lit with fever and madness. “I have found Minerva, beloved goddess of the mind.”
The tarp lifted to reveal a familiar shape, her body thin and battered. Her hair hung lank and greasy in front of her face and her lips were cracked and chapped. She was wearing a tattered nurses gown and there were shackles around her arms and legs and a knotted cord of thick rope around her narrow, graceful neck.
“Sonata…” Adagio sobbed, her hand lifting to her mouth in horror.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t recognise two more goddesses on sight?” Director Bones asked quietly, his eyes narrowed as the two Sirens whipped around, with both of their hands going to their weapons but stopping as he drew out and pointed a flintlock pistol at them. “To think there are more of you,” he muttered feverishly, “more divinity in this uncouth and drab world.”
“You have no idea what you’re playing with, Director,” Aria hissed, her fingers twitching as they hovered near the leather-wrapped grip of her bludgeon. “You’ve hurt someone more gentle than you can imagine, but we are not like her.”
“I have discovered true divinity,” Director Bones hissed, his face contorting with madness. “A goddess whose voice can touch the very essence of the human mind! Once I have learned to harness it I’ll be able to weave the human mind at will!”
“How dare you, you primitive monkey,” Adagio spat, her eyes wide with hate. “How dare you even imagine that you could control one of us. How dare you even think of it!”
“I dare,” the Director retorted in a low voice that was slowly rising, his face twitching and limbs shaking. “I am human and we dare provoke even the wrath of the gods themselves for our knowledge!” The last words came out in a shriek as he pointed his gun at Adagio.
Aria hand snapped her bludgeon out in that instant of distraction and sent it hurtling at the Director. The hard-edged tip cracked into his temple sending him staggering to his knees, stunned, and the gun fell from his grip. Adagio let out a scream of rage and her body seemed to blur with speed as she ripped her jeweled stiletto from its sheath.
A dull sound of meat and bone being punctured was the only noise made as Adagio slammed the long, thin blade into the Director’s jaw and up into his shattered brain to pierce out of the top of his skull like a bloody crown.
“Consider that wrath provoked, you wretched little man,” Adagio hissed mercilessly as she ripped her blade from the Director’s body.
The sound of creaking metal filled the room as Aria had rushed to the winch that kept the cross suspended and began lowering it. Adagio grabbed the Director’s keyring before moving to the metal prison that held her sister, and sobbed softly as she saw the extent of the damage that had been wrought on Sonata.
Sonata’s arms were covered in track marks from countless injections and her body was thin and badly malnourished. The worst of it was her neck though, it was nearly broken by a combination of rough treatment and hanging from that horrible cross. She was only alive by dint of her magic, and only because she was in a place so saturated by strife and pain that it was a rich, if repulsive, feeding ground.
Fitting the various keys to their locks on the manacles, Adagio carefully freed her younger sister from her bonds before reaching out to brush the hair from her face.
“Sonata?” Adagio whispered quietly, leaning in to kneel at her sister’s side. “Sonata please answer me… please.”
Aria knelt as well, cradling her sister’s head in her lap with tears flowing down her face. With great care, she reached down to open on of Sonata’s eyes, they were glassy and frantic, unseeing but twitching.
“No…” Aria muttered, choking back a sob.
Adagio shook quietly for a moment before shaking hear. “She’s fed too deeply from a poisoned well, sister,” she said after a moment. “I doubt there’s much left of our poor Sonata’s mind after feeding exclusively from the insane for so long.”
“Isn’t there… anything?” Aria cried, “please, Adagio you’re the sorceress not me! No one is better at our magic than you! You created the spell that made us immortal! There has to be some way to bring her back! Can’t I just… take her memories like I did yours?”
“No, Ari’, I’m afraid not,” Adagio answered grimly. “My mind was crushed under the weight of whatever it was you took from me, but free of that burden I can still… function.” Looking down at Sonata, Adagio just shook her head and leaned in to kiss their younger sister softly on the forehead. “Sonata’s mind is bent and broken entirely, poisoned at the groundwater by her food source.”
“Can’t we clean her out then?” Aria sobbed, grasping at straws, even if she knew they were absurd. “I can’t lose her, ‘Dagi!”
Adagio blinked as a stray thought crossed her mind. In an instant her mental acuity was chasing after it like a starving wolf after a fat hare. Clean her out? That was… that was absurd right? Except… “Maybe… we can.”
The silence in the room was deafening as Aria stared at the elder siren, her eyes wide with hope. “Tell me what to do!”
“It will be singularly unpleasant, dear sister,” Adagio warned. “We’re going to meld our minds with hers and bleed out the poison of her insanity. We’ll have to share our magic reserves with hers and, well, force her to vomit out the poisoned magic she’s been drawing in. At least enough to recover.”
“That… that sounds dangerous,” Aria replied slowly, before also saying “actually that sounds like you just made it up on the spot.”
Adagio gave a wry grin and a nod. “Well, I did, actually, but I can assure you the theory, at least, is sound. It will probably work, but that’s better than leaving our sister to a fate of insanity and death.”
“So we’re going to shove the power of three Sirens into one frail body?” Aria clarified, looking down at Sonata and grimacing. “Will she survive that?”
Adagio sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know, sister, I truly don’t… but her time is shortening as we speak. Her injuries are severe and who knows what foul opiates and tinctures she’s been pumped full of by these hack artists.”
“What happens to her magic, though?” Aria asked suspiciously as Adagio settled in across from her. “I know I’m just a Myrmidon, my job is to hit things hard and that’s about it, but even I know magic doesn’t just disappear.”
“Most likely it will seep into the air and drive insane everything not inured to its effects,” Adagio answered cooly, “not unlike a cloud of noxious fumes.”
Aria let out a low whistle but didn’t protest, instead just nodding. “Fine, I’ll sacrifice the sanity of however many of these animals I need to if it means saving my sister.”
“Good, because that’s what we’re about to do,” Adagio said darkly as she place on hand on each of Sonata’s temples. “Now put your hands over mine and follow my lead.”
As soon as Aria had done so, Adagio began to sing a low, haunting tune. A soft lullaby with no words, only strange, tonal inflections that were the closest the human body could get to producing the Siren’s native Aquan language. After a moment of listening, Aria joined in, lending her voice and the entire weight of her magic to Adagio in harmony. Seizing the power that Aria offered, Adagio opened the floodgates of her own reserves and let them mix.
The gaslights around them flickered through a myriad of strange and unearthly colors and the air took on an electric quality to it that tasted vaguely of saltwater. As the mystic turmoil settled Adagio reached out with her spell, riding the waves of her and Aria’s magic, to touch Sonata’s fractured mind.
There was a lot of magic there, poisonous and rotting in her meridians and Adagio winced as she felt the fire of madness burning in Sonata’s psychic imprint. Steeling herself, Adagio completed her spell, tearing open Sonata’s own reserves and forced their magic in.
Siren magic had always behaved like the water of their home. Ebbing and flowing, mixing and melting. It was why they were so good at manipulating emotions. Their magic washed over everything like a universal medium.
Now it was being used to clean their sister’s mind of her madness and poisoned inner well. As Adagio and Aria’s magic poured into her, overwhelming Sonata’s own power, her magic sought the path of least resistance and rushed out of body with a cataclysmic roar of oceanic thunder. A strangled scream split the air as Sonata’s body arched, going rigid as her eyes shot open and her mouth went wide. A torrent of black energy poured out of her in a vomitous surge and seconds later the screams of the patients, the orderlies, the nurses, and the doctors became deafening.
The process was excruciating, Adagio and Aria shook and shuddered and it took every ounce of will not to break the connection.
An act that became harder as the next part came. A spectral hand reached up out of Sonata’s gaping mouth, frail and cracked, then another, and then they braced themselves on the floor to either side of Sonata’s head and out of her body Sonata’s madness wrenched itself free.
Floating like a vengeful wraith was a horrible facsimile of Sonata, a specter with mad eyes and a broken neck. Adagio and Aria stared in horror at their sister’s spirit in the moments before it reached out towards the upper levels and then vanished with a strangled shriek.
“A-adagio?” Aria gasped, pain wracking her body as it was forcibly divested of magic. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” Adagio answered raspily, “I’ve never done anything like this before. I think… I think it was a portion of our sister’s mind, animate and very… very angry.”
An hour passed and slowly, the screams died down. Adagio and Aria were pallid and their faces were wan with pain and effort. Finally, though, Adagio nodded to Aria and pulled her hands away. Sonata went limp, her body mostly healed by the influx of pure magic. They had nearly emptied her of magic, and Adagio had taken hers and Aria’s reserves and split them between the three.
They would be hungry for a while, but nothing they couldn’t make up for in a century or so. Sonata was sleeping, now, utterly exhausted and spent, so Aria stood on shaky legs and reached down to picked her up, letting their gentle sister rest against Aria’s shoulder.
“Good girl, ‘Nata,” Aria said softly. “Sleep, you deserve it.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Adagio remarked in a brittle voice. “There’s no way someone didn’t hear that, it’s a small miracle we weren’t interrupted.”
“With that volume of shrieking,” Aria countered as they walked out of the room and into the hall to make their way slowly out of the basement, “I’d be impressed if any of these humans work up the courage to check this place out in the next decade.”
They walked down the last hall and up the stairs, with Aria pausing only so Adagio could move in front to open the door. It took some effort, and eventually Adagio could only shoulder it open. As she did the source of its difficulty became clear.
A body was blocking the door, slumped against it, and whoever it was had clearly been trying to get into the basement. His fingers were shredded and there were scratch marks all over the outside of the door.
Kneeling, Adagio examined the corpse. It was one of the orderlies they’d passed in the hall, he was laid out with his cheeks sunken in and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Most telling, though, were two things; first was the manner in which his head hung loose to the side, his neck had been violently broken. The other was the look of absolute, maniacal terror on his face.
Standing up, Adagio nodded towards the exit. “Let’s get out of here.”
They passed multiple bodies in the hall, all in the same condition as the first one. Sunken, drained, and terrified with broken necks. When the sisters finally reached the exit they stopped, staring at what stood between them and the closed door.
A floating, spectral nurse with its face turned away from them.
Cautiously, Aria sidled around towards the door with Adagio right behind her, the figure didn’t move, except to float silently in the entrance hall, staring at its handiwork. Reaching for the door, Aria tried the handle only to find it locked.
“Psst, ‘Dagi,” Aria hissed, “the keyring!”
Adagio nodded silently, pulling the keyring out as quietly as possible and kneeling in front of the door to test them. It took a few tries, and a couple of heart-stopping rattles of metal, but finally one of them fit.
The lock released with a loud clunk.
Aria’s eyes snapped up to the nurse who hung in the air idly for a moment before turning slowly. Cursing under her breath, she frantically tapped Adagio on the shoulder who just nodded in a panic as she stood up and tore the door open. Both sisters sprinted outside, ignoring the punishment their bodies had endured and getting as far away from the cursed asylum as possible.
They only turned around once they were at the gates, and both sisters saw her. Their sister, or at least a shadow of her, a wraith of her madness, floating at the doorway. Her terribly familiar face staring after them.
“Good thing everyone already thinks it’s haunted,” Aria remarked, panting heavily. “Because it sure is now.”
“Agreed,” Adagio remarked, turning to leave the iron-wrought gates and pushing the cold, heavy things shut. “Let this place fade into ruin, it’s more than it deserves.”
With a final spit on the ground, Adagio raised the keys, locked the gates, and pitched them over the wall and into the grass to rust away.
“Let’s get our sister home,” Aria said, gently cradling Sonata’s sleeping form. “I’m never letting you two out of my sight ever again, no matter how annoying you get.
“Also agreed,” Adagio replied with a sardonic smile. “Together forever.”
Aria just nodded and gave a rare smile of her own. “Yeah, forever.”