Post by gemma on Jul 23, 2012 15:19:23 GMT -8
December 25th, 5:00pm - December 26th, 6:00pm
Everyone was finally gone: the morbid well-wishers, the far-flung family, those who actually mourned... everyone. All that was left was her and her parents-in-law, and finally, finally, she could satisfy the almost-painful desire within her to learn what she could from the body of the man everyone had come there to see.
The man whom, Gemma was completely sure, was not actually her husband.
She would have to do some research first, she knew; she'd never done an autopsy of any kind before, and messing this up was definitely not something she wanted to do. She had to be precise, so as not to miss anything that needed to be seen. She had to be perfect... this was not a class, there was no chance for redemption if she failed at this.
With that in mind, she sought out the libraries of the Burgess manor; there were at minimum three per wing, each filled to the brim with more books than even her voracious appetite could manage in five years... maybe even ten. Still, the family's apparently in-born desire for order when it came to knowledge was prevalent even in these vast, book-filled domains, for each contained an extensive and highly cross-referenced card catalog. Even with its help, though, it took Gemma well over three hours to find the books she thought she might need, from a total of five of the libraries.
Ignoring the plebeian desire to eat -- though her body did likely need sustenance, seeing as it was now eight in the evening -- she settled herself beside the fire in the library within the south wing that was nearest to her husband's old quarters. If her body failed her in this time, she'd decided, she would retreat there and catch up on sleep before beginning again. Her only concessions to the fact that she did need things like food, drink, and rest were the pot of tea beside her and the pillow behind her back to prop her body up more fully, should her back start to ache.
Ache it did, after nearly six hours of reading. Her head ached, as well, and her stomach begged her for food in a way that was unable to be avoided. Staggering to her feet, she managed to locate a kitchen, where she consumed an apple and some hastily-made toast before heading back upstairs to Orion's room. Curling up fully-clothed on his bed, which decked out in deep blue, she gradually drifted to sleep, trying her best to ignore the fact that the blankets and pillows all around her still held the tiniest trace of her husband's scent.
She woke with a start at precisely seven in the morning, five hours after she had retired. For a moment, she was utterly at a loss as to where she was; the room looked nothing like the one she and Orion had shared within their home in the City of Shadows, and she was still not used to the idea of waking up with no-one else in evidence, seeing as the past few days without Orion she had been confined to the Healing wing in the Hub of the City, drugged out of her mind to keep her from harming herself. She had no such worry, now; her only preoccupation was finding out exactly what had happened to her husband... and why there was another body in his place.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, brushing back her long, dyed-dark hair. Her hair felt oddly stringy to her, and her skin felt itchy after sleeping atop slightly dusty sheets. With a sigh, she got up completely, heading off to the nearest bathroom she could find. She took a bath, and, wrapped in a towel, headed back to Orion's room, finding an old bathrobe of his there and donning it in place of her funeral clothes. It carried his scent rather more strongly than the sheets had, seeing as it had been shut up in a wardrobe all this time, and she couldn't help burying her nose into the sleeves, inhaling deeply. She felt her eyes prickle with tears and hastily desisted; she had no proof that he was actually dead yet, and there was no sense mourning like this if he wasn't.
With this in mind, she turned towards the small mirror in his room, staring deeply at her reflection. Did the stress of what she had endured the past few days show, she wondered? Even the smallest glance showed that it did: there were dark circles under her eyes, accentuated by the dark hair, and her shoulders were slumped slightly. She forced herself to stand straight, brushing her hair back over her shoulders, but it still didn't make enough of a difference to satisfy her. With a sigh, she Summoned her wand to herself and, almost rashly, began to strip the dark dye out of her hair. Only when every last particle of it was out, and her glorious white-blonde hair was showing once more, proclaiming to all the world that she had distant relatives who were something other than human, was she pleased with her efforts.
She was not mourning anymore. Now... now she was herself again.
"Now... to see about that body."
Her voice sounded strange to herself, husky and lower even than usual, but it was likely due to the fact that she hadn't spoken aloud in at least twelve hours. Other than a passing notice, however, it didn't hold her attention; her focus was several floors beneath her, in the cellars of this wing of the house. Before she could go there, however, she knew she had still more reading to do... and her body would likely require more sustenance.
Time to get working, then...
She left the room, not noticing or caring that she'd left her discarded clothes, there as well, and headed down to the kitchens again. Once more she made tea and toast before heading back to the library, where she had left her collection of books the night before. She remembered all of the necessary things she had read at that time well enough to satisfy her, and so she set to working her way through the rest of the stack. The subjects about which she read varied widely, ranging from anatomy to spell detection to unraveling layers of spellwork to the science of deduction.
It was around 1:30 pm before she'd gleaned all she wanted from the books. Her body was starting to feel tired again, due to her decidedly short amount of sleep earlier, but she knew that if she could push through it, she could get her work done within the next couple of hours. Perhaps then she could rest more. Besides, her mind was anything but tired; it thrummed with energy, racing around in circles of new and old knowledge, waiting until the moment she could unleash it on the task ahead.
It was time.
She headed downstairs, moving unerringly to the door that would take her to the cellars, the books she had read Levitating behind her in one tall, slightly wobbly stack. Once within the cellars, she caught her breath, for there, as she had requested it be placed, was the body... the body of a man who, currently, looked nearly identical to that of her husband. The funeral clothes had been removed from him; he was now only covered in a sheet, and that only from the waist down.
Biting her lip, trying to resist the urge to shrink back from this apparent tableau of her worst nightmare, she took a deep breath, clearing her mind. She had already found enough proof to satisfy her emotions that this was not actually Orion. All she had to do now was find out proof that would convince everyone else, as well... and also learn how it was that this body had come to look as it did. This was no time to give into emotions. This was a time for reason.
Flicking her wand, she dispensed small packages of blue flames about the room, ones that did not give off anything more than light and a small amount of heat; they would cause nothing to burn. Once the room was lit to her specifications, she drew nearer to the slab upon which the body lay. It really did look remarkably like Orion, and, now that she had convinced herself that logic was in charge here, not emotions, she found herself appreciating the artistry of the person who had done the modifications. Still... now was not the time for admiration, either. All of these spells would have to go.
"Specialis Revelio."
A wave of her wand had the body lighting up with the revealed spells, and she couldn't help gasping: they numbered in the tens, if not hundreds, each lighting up a slightly different color than its neighbor. She would have to remove each of them, and catalog its specific task in the transformation. Staring unblinking at the task before her, she absent-mindedly waved her wand in the direction of the door.
She would be needing parchment and a quill, apparently.
She worked over the course of the next several hours, carefully identifying and then removing each spell, one at a time, and dictating to the quill what purpose it had performed and what specific incantation had been used. Occasionally, she dipped into the books she'd brought with her. She chose to start at the man's head, wishing to get the look of Orion's face off of him before anything else, as it was definitely the most distracting, not to mention the most distressing. By the time she'd reached his waist, her voice was starting to crack; after having not been used for so long, it was now deciding to rebel against being used as much as it was now.
A break seemed in order.
Gemma headed back upstairs and made still more tea, using the loo while it brewed and taking the opportunity to sit down while she consumed another apple and a bowl of oatmeal, which had been the only filling thing she could find. She didn't want to have to take another break if she could help it, and so filling foods seemed to be in order. With the tea following along behind her in midair, she retreated back to the cellars and started working again.
It was five in the afternoon, twenty-four hours after she had started this project, before she found it. She had finally reached the man's -- for it was obviously not Orion, now, with all of the spells removed -- feet and ankles, and was preparing to finish up the job, when something most unusual caught her eye. So far, every last detail put into the man's bodily appearance had been in an obvious attempt to make it look as perfectly like her husband as could be managed without Polyjuice Potion (which she had concluded had not been used because the body had been dead before the charms had been placed on it). But this...
This is... my mark...
Tucked away behind the protruding bone of the ankle, out of sight unless one was specifically looking for it, was a small, whitish mark. It could easily be mistaken for a scar, seeing as only the closest of examinations revealed that it was of a shape that no scar would ever assume. Four interlocking rings, forming a rounded square...
Gemma's hand drifted unconsciously to her left hip, where she knew the exact same shape was inscribed in black. Her tattoo, the one she'd given herself after her teacher had attacked her, the promise to herself that no man save the one she chose would ever touch her in that manner again. The promise to be faithful to that one person alone. The promise that no-one would see it, save that person.
"Ri..."
Her voice came out in a croak, but she hardly noticed. Only Orion knew of the mark, she was sure of it. Only he would place it somewhere on this body, even though normally it did not belong on his, but rather on hers. Only he would do such a thing, and hide it someplace so small, so insignificant, that anyone else's eyes would glide right past it, unseeing... everyone's eyes but hers.
Only he would send her a message like this.
"I know you're looking at this, and I want you to know it's not me... I want you to know I knew of this plan, this plot... I want you to know."
"He put this here so I would see... so I would see..."
She suddenly couldn't breathe. Orion had known this was going to happen... that a body would be left in his place, so that he could go... where? Where would he have gone?
Gemma wracked her brains, trying to understand this, the implications it gave. Orion had known this would happen. He must've been present when the modifications to the body were made... that would explain why they were so perfectly accurate. But he had also had this mark added, or had added it himself, so that she, she, would see it and know. Know what, though? Know he wasn't dead? She couldn't prove that, not without looking...
... looking. She could go looking for him. She knew now at least that this definitely wasn't him, but that he was aware that she would be seeing it. If he'd wanted to disappear completely -- to get away from her, for instance -- he wouldn't have put the mark at all; he would have let her believe that the body really was him. So he wanted her to know that, even though he was away, he wasn't deserting her.
That was reassuring.
Gemma sighed, running her hands through her once-more blonde hair, pushing it back from her face. She would have to go looking for him, that was without question. He had started a trail for her to follow by leaving that mark on this dead body... all she had to do now was follow it, or figure out a way to hunt through the tangled web woven by those who wished him hidden from her.
That thought gave her pause. Why would anyone want to hide Orion from her? What was he doing that required that he appear dead to all?
... all in the Wizarding world... but not all the world... there's a lot outside what wizards are even aware of...
So... was he in the Muggle world? No witch or wizard would go looking for him there, especially with the current state of things. Everyone was in-hiding more than ever, in hiding even from their own kind, so that they could try to escape the slaughter occurring within their own world.
But... I could look for him there...
"I need to leave it." The words that came unbidden from her lips startled her, but after puzzling over them for a minute, she realized what her subconscious had instinctively decided. "... I need to leave the Syndicate.... so that I can look for him."
And just like that, she was decided. She wasn't even sure how she had come to that conclusion, but the more she considered it, weighed it, the more she knew her subconscious had been right. She needed to be outside the City so that she could travel about more easily. She needed to do this, this search, alone... and now.
"... I'd better go pack..." The words made her grin, made her heart feel lighter than it had in quite a while... perhaps not since the wedding. She was decided on her course of action, and it made her feel powerful. Flicking her wand at the scattered books, she gathered them into a pile once more, picking up the parchment and quill in her free hand. She was almost to the door when she remembered the body behind her; setting down the parchment and leaving the books Levitating, she went back to it, gently pulling up the sheet until it covered all but the man's face. She stared down at it, feeling oddly sorry for the body... his face had been hidden in death, so that he had lost his own identity. Had he even known this would be his fate?
"I'm sorry..." she whispered to it. The man had been handsome in an unassuming way, at least in her opinion; his dark hair and coffee-colored skin where so very different from Orion's, and yet their builds were nearly identical, which was likely why he had been chosen to replace her husband. Leaning down, she lightly kissed the man's forehead in a silent blessing, then tugged the sheet up the rest of the way, hiding his death from the world.
The books were still waiting for her at the door, and she left the cellars with them, bringing along the parchment as well. As she walked back up to Orion's old room, she casually Banished the books back to their proper locations, all save the book on deduction. She wanted at least one more good look at that one... she had a feeling she would need all the information it could give her, for her hunt. Reaching the blue-dressed room, she lit a fire in the fireplace, gathered up the clothing she'd left there, and threw a pinch of purple powder into the flames once they were high enough. Stepping into them, she was transported to the Platform of Eternal Flame within the City of Shadows.
First things first, she thought, nodding to the Flame Guards, who seemed rather surprised to see her, though she wasn't sure if it was because they hadn't expected her to come back at this time or if it was due to her appearance. None within the Syndicate had seen her with her real hair color, and definitely none had seen her in a silk bathrobe and nothing else. The thought made her smirk.
I need to get back to the flat and pack... I should probably put on proper clothes, as well. Something... celebratory. It's not every day one figures out the sorts of things I just did. She entered the City proper and headed towards the Housing Quarter, where she and Orion had lived for the past month and a half. Staying at the Leaky Cauldron probably isn't the safest at the moment, but then again, it was someone I actually know who set up that bombing... Besides, I won't be there long. Just long enough. But I'll need money, more money than I have on-hand at the moment... maybe I can sell something before I leave...
She finally reached her and Orion's flat; it seemed forever since she'd been there, even though really it had only been a few days. She stared around it for several minutes, wandering around through all the rooms, taking it all in. Eclipse had met her at the door, and halfway through her silent tour she'd picked him up, stroking behind his ears while he purred.
Finally, she reached the bedroom. She sat down on the edge of the bed, closing her eyes for a few moments; Eclipse jumped out of her arms, preferring instead to curl up on her pillow. Gemma sighed, running one hand over her face, before reopening her eyes, a small grin on her face.
"Alright. C'est le moment." She stared at her wardrobe, unable to keep from smirking. "Showtime."
[Note: The idea of the mark being put on the body for Gemma to see was something Orion and I discussed a while ago... just a head's-up, that is all according to plan. XD]
Everyone was finally gone: the morbid well-wishers, the far-flung family, those who actually mourned... everyone. All that was left was her and her parents-in-law, and finally, finally, she could satisfy the almost-painful desire within her to learn what she could from the body of the man everyone had come there to see.
The man whom, Gemma was completely sure, was not actually her husband.
She would have to do some research first, she knew; she'd never done an autopsy of any kind before, and messing this up was definitely not something she wanted to do. She had to be precise, so as not to miss anything that needed to be seen. She had to be perfect... this was not a class, there was no chance for redemption if she failed at this.
With that in mind, she sought out the libraries of the Burgess manor; there were at minimum three per wing, each filled to the brim with more books than even her voracious appetite could manage in five years... maybe even ten. Still, the family's apparently in-born desire for order when it came to knowledge was prevalent even in these vast, book-filled domains, for each contained an extensive and highly cross-referenced card catalog. Even with its help, though, it took Gemma well over three hours to find the books she thought she might need, from a total of five of the libraries.
Ignoring the plebeian desire to eat -- though her body did likely need sustenance, seeing as it was now eight in the evening -- she settled herself beside the fire in the library within the south wing that was nearest to her husband's old quarters. If her body failed her in this time, she'd decided, she would retreat there and catch up on sleep before beginning again. Her only concessions to the fact that she did need things like food, drink, and rest were the pot of tea beside her and the pillow behind her back to prop her body up more fully, should her back start to ache.
Ache it did, after nearly six hours of reading. Her head ached, as well, and her stomach begged her for food in a way that was unable to be avoided. Staggering to her feet, she managed to locate a kitchen, where she consumed an apple and some hastily-made toast before heading back upstairs to Orion's room. Curling up fully-clothed on his bed, which decked out in deep blue, she gradually drifted to sleep, trying her best to ignore the fact that the blankets and pillows all around her still held the tiniest trace of her husband's scent.
She woke with a start at precisely seven in the morning, five hours after she had retired. For a moment, she was utterly at a loss as to where she was; the room looked nothing like the one she and Orion had shared within their home in the City of Shadows, and she was still not used to the idea of waking up with no-one else in evidence, seeing as the past few days without Orion she had been confined to the Healing wing in the Hub of the City, drugged out of her mind to keep her from harming herself. She had no such worry, now; her only preoccupation was finding out exactly what had happened to her husband... and why there was another body in his place.
She pushed herself into a sitting position, brushing back her long, dyed-dark hair. Her hair felt oddly stringy to her, and her skin felt itchy after sleeping atop slightly dusty sheets. With a sigh, she got up completely, heading off to the nearest bathroom she could find. She took a bath, and, wrapped in a towel, headed back to Orion's room, finding an old bathrobe of his there and donning it in place of her funeral clothes. It carried his scent rather more strongly than the sheets had, seeing as it had been shut up in a wardrobe all this time, and she couldn't help burying her nose into the sleeves, inhaling deeply. She felt her eyes prickle with tears and hastily desisted; she had no proof that he was actually dead yet, and there was no sense mourning like this if he wasn't.
With this in mind, she turned towards the small mirror in his room, staring deeply at her reflection. Did the stress of what she had endured the past few days show, she wondered? Even the smallest glance showed that it did: there were dark circles under her eyes, accentuated by the dark hair, and her shoulders were slumped slightly. She forced herself to stand straight, brushing her hair back over her shoulders, but it still didn't make enough of a difference to satisfy her. With a sigh, she Summoned her wand to herself and, almost rashly, began to strip the dark dye out of her hair. Only when every last particle of it was out, and her glorious white-blonde hair was showing once more, proclaiming to all the world that she had distant relatives who were something other than human, was she pleased with her efforts.
She was not mourning anymore. Now... now she was herself again.
"Now... to see about that body."
Her voice sounded strange to herself, husky and lower even than usual, but it was likely due to the fact that she hadn't spoken aloud in at least twelve hours. Other than a passing notice, however, it didn't hold her attention; her focus was several floors beneath her, in the cellars of this wing of the house. Before she could go there, however, she knew she had still more reading to do... and her body would likely require more sustenance.
Time to get working, then...
She left the room, not noticing or caring that she'd left her discarded clothes, there as well, and headed down to the kitchens again. Once more she made tea and toast before heading back to the library, where she had left her collection of books the night before. She remembered all of the necessary things she had read at that time well enough to satisfy her, and so she set to working her way through the rest of the stack. The subjects about which she read varied widely, ranging from anatomy to spell detection to unraveling layers of spellwork to the science of deduction.
It was around 1:30 pm before she'd gleaned all she wanted from the books. Her body was starting to feel tired again, due to her decidedly short amount of sleep earlier, but she knew that if she could push through it, she could get her work done within the next couple of hours. Perhaps then she could rest more. Besides, her mind was anything but tired; it thrummed with energy, racing around in circles of new and old knowledge, waiting until the moment she could unleash it on the task ahead.
It was time.
She headed downstairs, moving unerringly to the door that would take her to the cellars, the books she had read Levitating behind her in one tall, slightly wobbly stack. Once within the cellars, she caught her breath, for there, as she had requested it be placed, was the body... the body of a man who, currently, looked nearly identical to that of her husband. The funeral clothes had been removed from him; he was now only covered in a sheet, and that only from the waist down.
Biting her lip, trying to resist the urge to shrink back from this apparent tableau of her worst nightmare, she took a deep breath, clearing her mind. She had already found enough proof to satisfy her emotions that this was not actually Orion. All she had to do now was find out proof that would convince everyone else, as well... and also learn how it was that this body had come to look as it did. This was no time to give into emotions. This was a time for reason.
Flicking her wand, she dispensed small packages of blue flames about the room, ones that did not give off anything more than light and a small amount of heat; they would cause nothing to burn. Once the room was lit to her specifications, she drew nearer to the slab upon which the body lay. It really did look remarkably like Orion, and, now that she had convinced herself that logic was in charge here, not emotions, she found herself appreciating the artistry of the person who had done the modifications. Still... now was not the time for admiration, either. All of these spells would have to go.
"Specialis Revelio."
A wave of her wand had the body lighting up with the revealed spells, and she couldn't help gasping: they numbered in the tens, if not hundreds, each lighting up a slightly different color than its neighbor. She would have to remove each of them, and catalog its specific task in the transformation. Staring unblinking at the task before her, she absent-mindedly waved her wand in the direction of the door.
She would be needing parchment and a quill, apparently.
She worked over the course of the next several hours, carefully identifying and then removing each spell, one at a time, and dictating to the quill what purpose it had performed and what specific incantation had been used. Occasionally, she dipped into the books she'd brought with her. She chose to start at the man's head, wishing to get the look of Orion's face off of him before anything else, as it was definitely the most distracting, not to mention the most distressing. By the time she'd reached his waist, her voice was starting to crack; after having not been used for so long, it was now deciding to rebel against being used as much as it was now.
A break seemed in order.
Gemma headed back upstairs and made still more tea, using the loo while it brewed and taking the opportunity to sit down while she consumed another apple and a bowl of oatmeal, which had been the only filling thing she could find. She didn't want to have to take another break if she could help it, and so filling foods seemed to be in order. With the tea following along behind her in midair, she retreated back to the cellars and started working again.
It was five in the afternoon, twenty-four hours after she had started this project, before she found it. She had finally reached the man's -- for it was obviously not Orion, now, with all of the spells removed -- feet and ankles, and was preparing to finish up the job, when something most unusual caught her eye. So far, every last detail put into the man's bodily appearance had been in an obvious attempt to make it look as perfectly like her husband as could be managed without Polyjuice Potion (which she had concluded had not been used because the body had been dead before the charms had been placed on it). But this...
This is... my mark...
Tucked away behind the protruding bone of the ankle, out of sight unless one was specifically looking for it, was a small, whitish mark. It could easily be mistaken for a scar, seeing as only the closest of examinations revealed that it was of a shape that no scar would ever assume. Four interlocking rings, forming a rounded square...
Gemma's hand drifted unconsciously to her left hip, where she knew the exact same shape was inscribed in black. Her tattoo, the one she'd given herself after her teacher had attacked her, the promise to herself that no man save the one she chose would ever touch her in that manner again. The promise to be faithful to that one person alone. The promise that no-one would see it, save that person.
"Ri..."
Her voice came out in a croak, but she hardly noticed. Only Orion knew of the mark, she was sure of it. Only he would place it somewhere on this body, even though normally it did not belong on his, but rather on hers. Only he would do such a thing, and hide it someplace so small, so insignificant, that anyone else's eyes would glide right past it, unseeing... everyone's eyes but hers.
Only he would send her a message like this.
"I know you're looking at this, and I want you to know it's not me... I want you to know I knew of this plan, this plot... I want you to know."
"He put this here so I would see... so I would see..."
She suddenly couldn't breathe. Orion had known this was going to happen... that a body would be left in his place, so that he could go... where? Where would he have gone?
Gemma wracked her brains, trying to understand this, the implications it gave. Orion had known this would happen. He must've been present when the modifications to the body were made... that would explain why they were so perfectly accurate. But he had also had this mark added, or had added it himself, so that she, she, would see it and know. Know what, though? Know he wasn't dead? She couldn't prove that, not without looking...
... looking. She could go looking for him. She knew now at least that this definitely wasn't him, but that he was aware that she would be seeing it. If he'd wanted to disappear completely -- to get away from her, for instance -- he wouldn't have put the mark at all; he would have let her believe that the body really was him. So he wanted her to know that, even though he was away, he wasn't deserting her.
That was reassuring.
Gemma sighed, running her hands through her once-more blonde hair, pushing it back from her face. She would have to go looking for him, that was without question. He had started a trail for her to follow by leaving that mark on this dead body... all she had to do now was follow it, or figure out a way to hunt through the tangled web woven by those who wished him hidden from her.
That thought gave her pause. Why would anyone want to hide Orion from her? What was he doing that required that he appear dead to all?
... all in the Wizarding world... but not all the world... there's a lot outside what wizards are even aware of...
So... was he in the Muggle world? No witch or wizard would go looking for him there, especially with the current state of things. Everyone was in-hiding more than ever, in hiding even from their own kind, so that they could try to escape the slaughter occurring within their own world.
But... I could look for him there...
"I need to leave it." The words that came unbidden from her lips startled her, but after puzzling over them for a minute, she realized what her subconscious had instinctively decided. "... I need to leave the Syndicate.... so that I can look for him."
And just like that, she was decided. She wasn't even sure how she had come to that conclusion, but the more she considered it, weighed it, the more she knew her subconscious had been right. She needed to be outside the City so that she could travel about more easily. She needed to do this, this search, alone... and now.
"... I'd better go pack..." The words made her grin, made her heart feel lighter than it had in quite a while... perhaps not since the wedding. She was decided on her course of action, and it made her feel powerful. Flicking her wand at the scattered books, she gathered them into a pile once more, picking up the parchment and quill in her free hand. She was almost to the door when she remembered the body behind her; setting down the parchment and leaving the books Levitating, she went back to it, gently pulling up the sheet until it covered all but the man's face. She stared down at it, feeling oddly sorry for the body... his face had been hidden in death, so that he had lost his own identity. Had he even known this would be his fate?
"I'm sorry..." she whispered to it. The man had been handsome in an unassuming way, at least in her opinion; his dark hair and coffee-colored skin where so very different from Orion's, and yet their builds were nearly identical, which was likely why he had been chosen to replace her husband. Leaning down, she lightly kissed the man's forehead in a silent blessing, then tugged the sheet up the rest of the way, hiding his death from the world.
The books were still waiting for her at the door, and she left the cellars with them, bringing along the parchment as well. As she walked back up to Orion's old room, she casually Banished the books back to their proper locations, all save the book on deduction. She wanted at least one more good look at that one... she had a feeling she would need all the information it could give her, for her hunt. Reaching the blue-dressed room, she lit a fire in the fireplace, gathered up the clothing she'd left there, and threw a pinch of purple powder into the flames once they were high enough. Stepping into them, she was transported to the Platform of Eternal Flame within the City of Shadows.
First things first, she thought, nodding to the Flame Guards, who seemed rather surprised to see her, though she wasn't sure if it was because they hadn't expected her to come back at this time or if it was due to her appearance. None within the Syndicate had seen her with her real hair color, and definitely none had seen her in a silk bathrobe and nothing else. The thought made her smirk.
I need to get back to the flat and pack... I should probably put on proper clothes, as well. Something... celebratory. It's not every day one figures out the sorts of things I just did. She entered the City proper and headed towards the Housing Quarter, where she and Orion had lived for the past month and a half. Staying at the Leaky Cauldron probably isn't the safest at the moment, but then again, it was someone I actually know who set up that bombing... Besides, I won't be there long. Just long enough. But I'll need money, more money than I have on-hand at the moment... maybe I can sell something before I leave...
She finally reached her and Orion's flat; it seemed forever since she'd been there, even though really it had only been a few days. She stared around it for several minutes, wandering around through all the rooms, taking it all in. Eclipse had met her at the door, and halfway through her silent tour she'd picked him up, stroking behind his ears while he purred.
Finally, she reached the bedroom. She sat down on the edge of the bed, closing her eyes for a few moments; Eclipse jumped out of her arms, preferring instead to curl up on her pillow. Gemma sighed, running one hand over her face, before reopening her eyes, a small grin on her face.
"Alright. C'est le moment." She stared at her wardrobe, unable to keep from smirking. "Showtime."
[Note: The idea of the mark being put on the body for Gemma to see was something Orion and I discussed a while ago... just a head's-up, that is all according to plan. XD]