Chapter Twenty-Six • Crossover Episode • Damien #2
The week has been pretty blissful. There have been a few days where I’ve had to be in the studio with the guys, or had to leave to get provisions for Lillith so she doesn’t have to use DoorDash or Instacart or something. But the rest of the time is time I’ve spent getting to know Lillith.
I want to do nothing more than take care of her.
I know she’d never let me, but I’d quit drumming for her.
I’d leave it all behind. And I love her for the fact that she’d never ask me to do that.
I love her for the fact that she tempers our whirlwind romance and makes it feel like a soft summer breeze instead.
I just love her. So damn much.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I fish it out. It’s Wren.
Are you guys fucking?
I thought you could see the future. Just do your ole magic razzle dazzle.
That’s not how it works. I know you know that.
We are not fucking. Unfortunately. Why? Did you want to watch?
Gods, no. Alright, I’m coming in.
The door opens just as I get her final message. She groans when she doesn’t find us in the kitchen or in the living room. “You fucking liars,” she calls.
“We aren’t fucking,” I call back. “We’re cuddling.”
Wren appears in the open door and leans against it, her tan arms crossing over her front. She’s wearing a yellow sundress that Satoshi is going to come in his jeans over. When she takes in the scene, her dry expression crumples into something gently concerned. “Aww, Lilipad... ”
“Don’t perceive me,” Lillith whimpers, hiding her face in my chest. “I’m not here.”
“We’re having a tough morning,” I say, giving Wren a pressed smile.
“I can see that,” Wren answers, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. She smooths her hand over Lillith’s back in calming circles. “Lilipad, sweetie. What’s going on?”
“I don’t want him to go,” she says, though it’s muffled.
“I’ll keep him safe. You don’t have to worry, Lilipad,” she says.
“I know you will,” she says as the front of my shirt gets wetter. “I just wish I could go, too.”
Wren blinks twice, surprised. Then her amber eyes meet mine, narrow just a fraction, and fall softly back on Lillith again. “Do you want me to send you pics the whole time? And videos? So it feels like you’re there too?”
She sniffles and nods. “If... if it won’t bother you.”
“It won’t,” she says.
It occurs to me that Lillith... She avoided asking me for that from me, because she thought I would be bothered by it.
That’s stupid. I’m going to drain all of my unlimited data sending her so many fucking videos. Just fucking watch me.
“When are we getting picked up again?” Wren asks me as a quiet aside.
“In about twenty minutes,” I mouth over Lillith’s head, trying not to upset her.
Wren nods and leans forward to press a kiss to the back of Lillith’s head. “Come on, Lilipad. I need your help for the wards.”
Lillith gives a little whimper of protest and lags, but, eventually, she does sit up. Her eyes are puffy and red, and so is her adorable little nose. She lifts the hem of her shirt and wipes her face with it before giving a sullen little nod.
“You’re up too, pretty boy,” Wren says.
“Is this more magical pissing?” I ask.
“Excuse me?” Wren says, genuinely affronted.
Lillith sniffs and interjects miserably, “That’s what he calls the mark,” she says. “Magical pissing.”
I lift my wrist with the red mark on it and Wren shakes her head with a laugh. “Uh. No. And don’t ever let Bastion hear you call it that. He will be so offended,” she says.
“I’m sorry; that sounds like a reason to do exactly what you just said not to do.”
“You are such a menace,” Wren says. “Like, wow. How did sweet little Lilipad fall for you?”
“It’s called balance, Wren.”
Lillith’s lip quivers and she melts into a teary puddle again. “I love you guys so much,” she sobs.
I wrap her up in my arms as I get out of the bed, peppering the top of her head with kisses and lifting her just long enough to put her feet on top of mine and start walking us into the living room.
Wren instructs me to set us up at Lillith’s breakfasting table. Lillith’s eyes look a little clearer as she sits in the little nook, like she’s collecting herself to do something important. Wren and I hem her in on either side. I rest my forearms on the table.
“So, are we doing more blood stuff?” I ask.
Wren shakes her head. “Blood is a very powerful taglock. We only really use that if we’re ready to be bound to the other person in perpetuity because it’s a very hard bond to untangle.”
I look over at Lillith. She doesn’t look back at me. Her face flushes faintly, though—just a little dusting of it on her cheekbones. I want to ask her about that—verify if it’s true. If she wants to be bound to me in perpetuity.
“Alright,” I make myself say. “So, what are we doing instead?”
“Intention and a chime candle. Maybe a little something you can wear to give it something to tether to,” she says.
“So, we’re just going to... think a ward into existence?” I ask.
“Oh, Mister Skeptical doesn’t believe in the power of intention, huh?” she asks in a mocking tone. “That’s how all things come into existence, dummy. How else do you think you make your music?”
“But—I mean—okay. Isn’t that different?”
Lillith takes my hand and squeezes it. “All things start as a thought, Damien,” she says.
“Music, cities, spells—even people. They all start as ideas and intentions before they’re acted on.
The way we do it with magic is just a little bit more...
umm.” She uses her free hand to gesture above herself and around her head. “Up here. In the Aether.”
“Is that what that As Above, So Below thing is about?” I ask.
She nods and gives me a proud smile. Like I’m a five-year-old that just spelled his name for the first time.
“It’s called Sympathetic Magic,” she says.
“By causing a change on a microcosmic level, we create the same change at a macrocosmic level. When we blow out a candle to carry our hopes and wishes, they get carried on gales way above us, across waves of dark matter in the universe, to the seed of power at the center of all of it. Whatever you believe that to be.”
“It sounds like... like ants telling someone what food they want to eat in the hopes that they make it for them,” I say.
“And it feels like we are the ants in that metaphor a lot of the time, but sometimes you can practice enough that you get really good at it,” Wren says.
“And Wren is very good at it,” Lillith says.
Wren gives a shrug. “Just with protections,” she says modestly.
Lillith nods. “A good one to be good at though,” she says.
All in all, it’s honestly kind of anticlimactic.
Wren and Lillith work together doing what they call “dressing” a candle with some eucalyptus oil and some herbs.
Cayenne, basil, nettle, juniper and vervain all get ground in a mortar and pestle before Lillith anoints the small candle with the oil while whispering something to herself that I can’t hear because of my stupid damaged eardrums.
They roll the candle in the ground herbs so the mixture sticks to the sides, then Wren melts the bottom of the small candle with a lighter so it’ll stick to an old pewter plate in the center of the table.
While Wren scribbles down some instructions on a piece of paper and ties it to the thin candle—called a chime candle, apparently—with some black thread, Lillith gets up from the table, crawling beneath.
“Whoa, hey, be careful,” I say, hovering my hand over top of her head so she doesn’t hurt herself.
“I’m fine, I’m tiny!” She says as she sprints into the house.
Wren pats the seat she just vacated and jerks her chin back. “C’mere, prettyboy,” she says.
I quirk a brow as I scoot closer to her, when Lillith returns, she doesn’t even hesitate or act awkward about the displacement. She just slips into the spot beside me and grabs my left hand. She slips a ring onto the first digit of my ring finger when Wren clucks.
“Alright, Miss Hopeless Romantic, nice try. This is an active protection, not a receptive one,” she says.
Lillith pouts at her for a moment before grabbing my right hand and trying the ring on all of those fingers instead. I chuckle.
“Can we get a translation?” I ask.
“So, within magic, there are some different types of energy. The Old Timers call it ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ energy, but that’s obviously a little outdated now with how our understanding of gender and gender roles continues to change.”
“Sure,” I say. “Feminism and pegging and all that.”
Wren cackles and Lillith’s lips curl into that private smile she gives me when she finds something funny but doesn’t want to stoop to laughing at it.
She slips the ring onto my middle finger—too big—takes it off.
“Right,” she says softly. “So now we differentiate with the use of the terms ‘receptive’ and ‘active’.”
“Or ‘receptive’ and ‘projective’,” Wren says.
“Okay,” I say.
“The left hand is the receptive hand, the right hand is the active one,” Lillith continues.
“We’re doing what’s called a baneful protection.
Which means that when something or someone tries to use any magic on you that you don’t consent to, it will harm the caster.
So, this is an active or a projective protection. ”
She slips the ring onto my thumb finally and it’s a perfect fit there. “Can you play comfortably with a ring on your thumb?” she asks me.
The question strikes me as... sweet. Really sweet.
She could give me a fucking protective cock cage and I’d wear it, no question.
But making sure I can play drums comfortably with a protective charm that she’s sending me off with to keep me safe from what might be mortal peril is... well. Damn, she’s so thoughtful.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling softly at her.
She looks up from my hand and meets eyes with me. Hers crinkle with faint crowsfeet, and I lean forward to kiss her softly. A slower, gentler kiss than normal. A sort of thank you.
“You guys are disgustingly perfect. Can you stop,” Wren gripes.