THIS IS NOT what Hadley is used to.

            He's used to the presence of teenage destitution—pizza boxes, papers scattered all around, empty take-out containers no one's bothered to clean up. All of that is gone, replaced by polished floorboards, oak-paneled walls, and the smell of beeswax. The lamps on the walls cast their dim light onto the floor, in patches of murky yellow. This doesn't feel like Molly.

            For a moment, Hadley thinks that he's opened the wrong door, maybe turned into the wrong alleyway, into some eccentric private country club on the outskirts of Chinatown, but before he even considers leaving, Hassan calls out his name.

            "Bishop!" Hassan exclaims, sitting in an armchair at the far end of the room. His eyes are half-lidded, almost arrogant. "You showed up."

            Molly greets him too, in the strange and eerie language of wall and wood. It is a little disconcerting to think that he's used to this. 

            Opposite Hassan sits Benji, who is idly scrolling through his phone. Once he's aware of Hadley's presence, however, he looks away and at him.

            "Did you walk here?" Benji asks, putting his phone away. "Or are you suffering from some severe dandruff problem?"

            "I walked," Hadley says, smiling. "Just two blocks though." He looks around the room again, and the sheer style of it wipes the smile off his face. "What happened here?"

            "We have important guests," Hassan says, like that's a perfectly serviceable answer. "Take a seat. There's a chair right by me. There we go. Attaboy."

            Upon closer examination, Hadley realizes that Hassan is tired. What Hadley mistook for a lazy, arrogant gaze is just Hassan struggling to keep his eyes open.

            "Why's he here?" Benji asks.

            "Character witness," Hassan says, with a yawn.

            Something is wrong with Benji's hair.

            "My eyes are down here," he says, faintly amused.

            "Your hair," Hadley says, not trusting himself to finish the rest of his sentence.

            Benji touches his hair, playing with a strand near his temple. "What about my hair?"

            "It's not shining. It's—" Hadley's suddenly aware of how silly this conversation is. "Never mind."

            "You don't have any gel in your hair," Hassan says, his eyes closed. "That's what he's trying to say."

            Benji puts his foot on Hassan's knee, and the casualness of the gesture startles Hadley. Benji doesn't look like the sort of person who would deign to put his foot on someone else. Hassan doesn't look like the sort of person who would accept being a footstool for someone else. But there they are, anyway. Benji with his foot on Hassan's knee, Hassan barely holding onto the waking world.

            "Didn't have time," Benji says.

            Hassan grumbles out some words and before either Benji or Hadley can decipher what he's trying to say, Hassan dozes off. A look of mild exasperation crosses Benji's face and he takes his foot off of Hassan's knee.

            "Where are the rest?" Hadley asks.

            "Shani and Vic are talking with Sophia," says Benji, and upon Hadley's confused frown, he adds, "Some Coterie lady. Francis is getting doughnuts. Jeanne is talking with Duchess."

            "Duchess?" Hadley says, with a start. It's hard to picture stately and solid Duchess coming to something as whimsical and senseless as Molly. Harder to picture her outside of her homely little cottage.

            "Yes, Duchess," Benji says. "And Sally too. Salome, I mean. You've met them, right? David told me."

            "David," Hadley says, feeling his jaw tense. How stupid to get a reaction from just a name. He tries to relax. "Right."

            Benji gives Hadley a curious look and Hadley tries the only tactic he knows: changing the subject.

            "Why's Duchess here?" he asks, shifting in his seat.

            Benji's curious expression hasn't disappeared from his face, but he answers anyway. "Duchess is kind of a big deal. Back when she wasn't Duchess, she was some head honcho or something. Kind of the leader of the people who made up the Coterie, back then. Worked for the Coven." Benji makes a vague gesture with his hand, and concludes his half-baked explanation with: "Bureaucracy."

            "So," Hadley says, stubbornly, "why's she here?"

            "Because she wanted to be," Benji says. "David's really made a stink of the whole fucking business, no wonder she'd want to come up here and see what all the fuss was about." He lets out a forlorn and oddly melancholy sigh. "And now we have Charlie fucking shit up, too. Perfect goddamn timing for a coup."

            Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. All Hadley hears is that name, but nothing of its owner. What does he know so far? Only that he's David's best friend. Ex-best friend. Whatever. Another one of David's mysteries.

            "Charlie's part of the Coven," says Benji. "He's pretty important."

            Well. That's an answer.

            Benji is staring at the fire, looking deep in thought. In the orange glow of the firelight, there is something tender about his Benji's profile, like a pageboy in a painting, and it strikes Hadley how young Benji is, how young everyone in curse club is. It can't be a coincidence.

            "How'd you end up here?" Hadley asks. "At curse club?"

            Benji doesn't look away from the fire. "Would you believe me if I told you that I don't remember?"

            Hadley seriously considers. "I would."

            "People like me—magicians, psychics, whatever the hell you want to call us—are naturally just attracted to places like Molly. Liminal spaces are excellent gathering places for amateur magicians like me." Benji stretches out his legs, in front of the fire. "We either seek these places, or these places seek us."

            "Just young people?"

            Benji stays silent for a long time, so long that Hadley thinks that he hasn't heard the question. But then, he speaks.

            "Do you want to hear something depressing?" he asks.

            Hassan has started to snore, gently.

            "I guess I do," Hadley answers.

            "Most of us don't do this past thirty," Benji says. He lets out a breath, as if steadying himself. "Liminal spaces are dying out, and with that, independent magicians. You could have pulled it off in the old days, I guess. Course—" he rubs his neck—"there was a lot more space, back then. It's hard to explain. Just—more spaces like Molly used to exist. Now they don't. So we don't. Burn ourselves out, with all that magic nowhere to go."

            "Amateur magicians," Hadley repeats.

            "We're going to have to join the Coven or the Coterie, eventually." Benji leans back in his seat, his gaze growing distant. "This is all just play-acting. A distraction."

            "Is that just your opinion," Hadley says, "or is it David's too?"

            Benji lets out a bitter little laugh. "Like David doesn't know exactly how temporary this is." He looks so, so tired. "It's the elephant in the room, it is."

            Just as Hadley is about to ask what he means, the door to the staircase swings open. And out steps Jeanne and a little girl—no, not just any little girl. It's Salome. It takes a second to recognize her because she no longer looks like what Hadley remembers her as. Her long black hair has been twisted into two neat little buns, and she's not dressed like how he'd have expected children who still wore dressing gowns to dress like. A jacket, woolly leggings, boots that go up past her knees.

            "So, he's actually here," Jeanne says, in lieu of a proper greeting. They're looking at Hadley with some measure of disbelief. "Huh."

            Hassan rouses himself from his nap, sluggishly. "What?" he croaks.

            "I told you he'd be here," says Salome, to Jeanne. She looks at Hadley, and points at him. "I knew you'd be here."

            "What's going on?" Hassan says, rubbing his eyes.

            "What are you doing here?" Jeanne asks Hadley, their gaze narrowing in on him.

            "Character witness," Benji says.

            "I called him," Hassan says, rubbing the right side of his face.

            "And I came," Hadley says.

            Salome sneezes, hard.

            "Gesundheit," Hadley says.

             "Sally," Hassan says. "Aren't you boiling hot in those clothes? It's pretty warm in here."

            Sally—Salome—shrugs, but it looks more like a lurch of her shoulders. "I'm sick," she says, and as if to make her point, she lets out a wet sniff.     

            "Come over here," Benji says, standing up from his chair, pushing it closer to the fire. "You look absolutely pathetic."

            Salome sticks her tongue out, but waddles over to the Benji's empty chair. Hadley watches her, and something about her is familiar, an echo of someone else's gestures. But she's so small, it's hard to tell who exactly she reminds him of.

            "How old are you?" Hadley asks.

            Her answer is confident. "Seventy."

            "She's seven," says Jeanne.

            Salome makes a face as she climbs onto Benji's chair. Her legs dangle a good few inches off of the ground. "You don't know that."

            "I know a great deal more than you do," Jeanne says, and walks towards Hassan's chair. "I know, for example, that the Coterie woman set up a little barrier in here."

            Hassan cranes his head to look at Jeanne. "You're joking. No way."

            "Yes way," Jeanne says, folding their arms on the top rail of Hassan's chair. "I tried to get in, hear in what they were saying but—" they take their arms off—"she must have noticed me and just kicked me out, set up a barrier, and then I couldn't get back in."

            Salome has pulled her legs up onto the chair, and she's trying to tuck them into her jacket. She seems completely and utterly uninterested in the conversation.

            "Shadow-walking?" Benji asks, pulling another chair from some corner of the room.

            "Didn't work," Jeanne says. "I did hear some things, though."

            Benji seats himself down, makes himself comfortable. "Like?"

            "Nothing we don't know already," Jeanne says, approaching the fire place. They pick up a fire-poker and half-twirl it in their hand. "Charles's speech last-night calling the magisters a bunch of lard-asses, no official leads so far, but—" the stab the logs of wood in the fire-place with the poker, making the flames leap up—"just a matter of time they figure out it's David." 

            "It wasn't," Hadley says, without thinking.

            All three of them turn to look at him, with varied expressions of surprise. Benji just has his chin cupped and elbow resting on the armrest and the faintest suggestion of a smile on his lips—this should be good—while Jeanne is frowning at him, and Hassan is just staring at Hadley.

            Salome sniffles, and in the silence, it's a particularly loud sound.

            Hadley resists the urge to shift in his seat. "I mean, I was there."

            It's hard to put into words, the reasons why Hadley believed it couldn't have been David. It was just a culmination of behavior. The easy way that David asked for a ride to the graveyard (was that planned?). The week before, spent away, David meditating and Hadley watching the cat-like curve of his mouth, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the sheen of sweat on his dark skin (was that planned, too?). The conversation, the everyday company (another plan?).

            But. There was also the terror in David's eyes, that night, when something ripped right through reality. There was also David retching uncontrollably into a trash can. There was also David groaning in his sleep, clearly having a nightmare, while Hadley only watched and dozed off and fell asleep to rhythm of David's troubled and shallow breathing.

            That couldn't have been planned. 

            "It wasn't him," Hadley repeats, quashing out his own doubts. "I was there. I saw him. The way he just froze up when that thing came, and the way he was yelling at me to get out—that isn't someone who does something like that on purpose. He was scared. You're not scared if you've been expecting something like that."

            Silence stretches out between them. The only sound is that of Salome's wet sniffling. Hassan sighs, breaking the spell.

            "One could make the argument that even if you expected a nyx, you'd be pretty damn terrified anyway," Hassan says. "But I guess I'll take your word for it."

            "It doesn't matter," Jeanne says. "Warren's already sniffed the magic at the graveyard as belonging to David. The Coven will follow with their own trackers."

            "So what's the point of having me here, if the Coterie's already so sure?" Hadley asks. "And who's Warren?"

            "The point of having you here," Hassan says, "was so that we could convince that maybe the nyx wasn't entirely David's fault. But Warren, the Coterie's tracker, has already named David as the most likely, hmm, what's the word, Benji?"

            "Culprit," Benji answers, scratching the underside of his chin.

            "Culprit," Hassan says, decisively. "Don't know what we're going to do with you now, though."

            "Oh!" Salome exclaims, looking up at all of them. "Now I remember why I came down!"

            "Bravo," Benji says.

            "Shut up." Salome points at Hadley for the second time that day. "You. Duchess wants to speak to you."

            "She does?" Hadley says.

            Hassan scowls at Benji, who only shrugs in return.

            "Yeah," Jeanne says, frowning. "She does? She didn't tell this to me."

            "Because you wouldn't have heard." Salome slides out of the chair and nearly trips, but quickly regains her balance. She brushes off imaginary lint off of her jacket, and looks at Hadley expectantly.

            "What, now?" he says.

            "Yes, now. Do you have anything better to do?"

            Hadley glances around the room, and is unsurprised to meet expressions that are as confused as he feels. Except for Benji, who has moved on from this conversation and has started to play some game on his phone.

            Hadley slowly rises out of his chair, and Salome takes that as agreement. She heads for the stairs, and Hadley waits for a second, two seconds, three, for someone to say something. Nothing. They're waiting for him to follow Salome.

            So, he does. She races up the stairs, faster than he'd expect a seven-year-old with a cold to. She doesn't expect any conversation from him. Which is good, because Hadley doesn't know the first thing about making conversation with a seven-year-old that wasn't some fucked up not-quite-evil dream version of him. The first door at the first landing that they pass is ominously quiet. All other parts of Molly whisper and creak, except this part, where it feels muffled and heavy. As if someone's silenced it, forcefully.

            The irony doesn't escape Hadley, how he's come to think of silent houses as ominous, and how noisy houses are comforting.

            The second landing feels much lighter. Hadley feels like he can breathe easy. The door here is old, the polish on the wood peeling to reveal patches of beige. It sags under its own weight, but it feels better, more alive.

            Salome knocks, once. The door swings open, and she looks up at Hadley with those familiar eyes.

            "After you," she says, and wipes her nose on the back of her hand.

            "Gross," Hadley says, and steps into the room.

            The room beyond is much like the ground floor—dark wood paneling on the walls, candlewax, country-club-feel—but unlike that floor, it is much better lit. There are gilded mirrors on either side of the room, right opposite each other, such that when Hadley glances at one of them, he sees infinite reflections of himself.

            There is a large window on the opposite side of the room, letting light in by the bucketful. Sitting right next to the window is a woman—no, it's Duchess. The light makes her look younger, softer, more radiant. It smooths out the wrinkles in her face, brings out what she must've been, in her prime. There are glasses perched on her nose as she squints at a book.

            The book is small and bound in black. Hadley's seen it before, a long time ago, in someone else's hands.

            Behind him, Salome clears her throat.

            Duchess looks up at him, and raises an eyebrow. She looks less like a weird psychic lady than Hadley remembers. More stern-grandmother than anything.

             It's the stern-grandmother stare that makes Hadley remember himself.

            "Good morning," he says.

            Duchess is dressed differently. More modern, less mystique. Like a woman Hadley might pass on the street.

            "Good morning," she says. She closes the book, sets it down on the table next to her. "Salome, dear, you may leave."

            The sound of shuffling feet. A door shutting. Hadley is alone with this woman and her bored gaze.

            "Sit," she says.

            The only chair in the room is the one right opposite her. Of course.

            Hadley sits in that chair.

            "No tarot readings today," Duchess says.

            "That's fine," Hadley says. "Last one I had didn't exactly go well for me."

            Duchess exhales sharply out of her nose, and it takes Hadley a moment to realize that she's snorting. It's hard to tell, especially since the rest of her face doesn't even move to suggest that she's amused.

            "So," Hadley says, making himself comfortable. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

            "Your curse. How is it?" Duchess asks.

            Hadley has to struggle to keep his expression neutral. Why would Duchess be interested? Or is this just her version of small talk?

            "It hasn't gotten any worse," Hadley says. Absently, he tugs on the pendant. "Nightmares stopped. Now I just sleep. Less people staring, less shadows following." He traces a thumb over the pendant. "Whatever David was doing must have worked. I don't really think about it."

            "Hmm," Duchess says. She raises her hand, and the metal bracelets on her wrist all make a faint click. "How often do you take off that necklace?"

            "Not often," he answers.

            "Ah," she says. "Can you take it off?"

            "Now?"

            "When else? Unless—" there's a strange look in her eyes—"you can't take it off?"

            "Of course, I can take it off," Hadley scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous."

            "Then take it off."

            A moment passes.

            "You're not taking it off," Duchess says. She leans out of her chair, towards him. "Instead of just sitting there, not moving, why don't you simply lift the thing over your head? Remove it."

            Hadley touches the pendant again, and out of no volition of his own, he says, "No."

            Duchess raises one eyebrow. Hadley blinks. The word wasn't his. Was it? No. Something's wrong. Hadley frowns—some thought comes to him, and he struggles to catch it but it leaves, quick and elusive as an eel. This can't possibly be happening.

            "I mean," Hadley says. Struggles for breath. Tries to get words out, but the only thing that comes out is "No."

            Panic bubbles up his throat. He takes a breath, two, three, and works his jaw. But no words come out. My mind is not my own. He tugs on his hair, as if pulling it will pull out whatever thing is lodged in his head. How did he not notice this before? Has it always been there? Why is this happening only now, when David's not here? Is it because of him? Panic gives way to frustration, anger. Fucking David and his stupid fucking stunts, just fucking disappearing, leaving Hadley to deal with something he was supposed to deal with, shit, how long have I been like this—

            "Don't move," Duchess says, and when Hadley looks up, he sees that she's standing in front of him.

            Before he can even guess at what she's trying to do, she leans over and takes off the pendant.

            Nothing happens, not at first. Hadley stares up at her, mouth agape.

            And then it hits.

            His vision blurs, just for a moment. The world rearranges itself, ever so slightly. Something's permeated him and everything around him, and it's hard to tell what, exactly. A heaviness, a wrongness so deep and fundamental it's hard to believe that he never noticed. It's like someone's turned down the lights on the universe—or maybe turned it up. Details he can't quite name make themselves known. Has the world always been like this?

            "When was the last time," Duchess asks, slowly, "you took off this pendant?"

            Hadley looks at the floorboards. "I don't remember."

            "Well," Duchess says. "That's certainly something."

            Hadley looks up at her, something scuttles in the shadows. He knows better than to look at it.

            She's turning the necklace over in her hand, and Hadley feels irrationally sick watching her do it. That's mine, he thinks. Stop touching it.

            "David gave this to you," she says.

            "Yes," Hadley says, and something dark is hovering in the corner of his vision and he knows it's because of the curse. Whatever the curse is. Whatever someone's sick idea of cursing someone is. He closes his eyes. "David gave it to me."

            "He did a very good job, too," Duchess says. She taps the pendant with a finger. "Creative, I should say. But a little barbaric."

            God, fuck this. Hadley closes his eyes, digs the heels of his palms into his skull. "What did he do?"

            "Protect you," Duchess says. "Violently."

            Hadley's heart splits into two. He knows this, of course he knows David's been protecting him, but hearing it come out of someone else's mouth is almost too much to bear. So much about David he doesn't know. So much he doesn't trust. And yet, still protecting him. Still probably using him. Betrayer, betrayer.

            "Has he really been protecting me?" Hadley asks, his voice a croak.

            "Yes. It would've been worse, much worse, without the necklace. You haven't noticed, have you?"

            Hadley opens one eye. "I don't think about it."

            "He stuck this onto you, in such a way that you'd never even think to take it off. Primitive, but it does its job effectively." She scowls at Hadley. "You cannot afford to not think. Be careful. Others will take interest in you, especially after the night in the graveyard."

            Hadley starts from his seat. "How did you—"

            "I'm not the only person who knows where you've been," says Duchess. "More people will find you. You're excellent bait. David knew."

            He looks at her, this strange old woman. She holds out the pendant for him, and he snatches it all too eagerly. When he wears it, the shadows that seemed to permeate the world disappear. There's only the sick feeling in Hadley's stomach that remains as proof that the world had ever changed in the first place. The pendant thrums at his neck, warm and welcoming, plastic made magic.

            Duchess isn't saying anything else, just staring at him. Waiting for him to leave.

            Hadley rises from the chair.

            "Keep your eyes open, fool," Duchess says, as he heads to the door. "And try and believe in the right people."

            "Are you and David the right people?"

            She laughs—no, she nose-exhales. "What do you think?"

            "Like I said," Hadley says, "I don't think."

            This time, she laughs with her mouth. It's not a bad sound.

            Outside of the room, in the six seconds it takes for Salome to reappear and guide Hadley down back the stairs, Hadley looks at the pendant, without taking it off of him.

            A necklace so loose he never thought of it as a collar. Protective and restrictive. Its magic—he's gotten better at feeling magic, now—pulses through his hand as he holds it. How strange, to be used—because surely, David is using Hadley—and protected at the same time. David's protection from a necklace. David's necklace. This pendant was on his skin before it was ever on Hadley's.      

     What comes next takes absolutely no amount of thought.

     Hadley lifts up the pendant and puts it to his mouth.

***

a/n: guess who won a wattys lol now someone PLEASE write this for me cause i'm just. retconning everything lol and god. i keep getting worse at this. Anyway. how are y'all. you know the drill. theories conspiracies playlists whatever the fuck i literally thrive off of praise regardless of how shitty some chapters are