“There are various types of women. Some are unusable. Some are useful. Others are convenient. But the ones who are usable should always be kept close to the chest.”

- A memory of the Old Ones.

***Carinthia***

***Sely***

Magnus said nothing on our way back. Instead, he gave me time to sort out my issues. I still don't want to believe that Cecilia had been a doll since before I was born. It would mean that I failed on so many levels. Sadly, the whole theory makes a lot of sense. I never heard Gavin talk about any other experiments. He always referred to Annia or me. But he always worded his sentences as if he knew that his spell would work. Something which should have alarmed me.

I studied every method of mind control or mind altering spells. Everything I learned told me that such spells are complicated and dangerous. Certainly nothing that should be done without a lot of experience. In my case, I simply took the gamble since their success meant my demise. But Gavin seemed always so sure of the results. There must have been previous experiments which assured him of his method. Otherwise it would have been madness to perform the spell at an important wedding. I was so stupid.

I follow Magnus as if on autopilot, deeply entranced by my own thoughts. At some point, I realize that we are back inside the reality marble and on our way to Fiacre's place. “Are you sure that you'll be fine meeting her?”

He grunts. “Not sure, but it's necessary. Keeping you here means that the Bathomeus will become involved in supernatural politics again. That's unavoidable. Others will watch the conflict with the Hammons and use every weakness I allow to be seen. Fiacre has some contacts to other clans and I need those contacts to get things into motion.”

We walk in silence while I debate if I should stop him. If it's just about the contacts I can get them from Fiacre as well. But I suppose he needs a reason to meet his aunt. The contacts seem to provide an adequate excuse to break the silence between him and her. Then I realize that he is probably also doing it for Annia and me.

We enter Fiacre's garden and find her with Annia and Oilell. The brownie is preparing tea and coffee at a table. As always, she is moving with incredible speed, creating a blurred line of gold as she moves back and forth between her tea party and Fiacre's house.

Fiacre is teaching Annia magic. My sister raises her hands and a rough pillar of stone rises from the earth. The two of them did a lot of work. There is a whole field of attempted earth-summonings littering the garden. Some of the stone sculptures look perfect, surely Fiacre's. Most are unfinished or crumbled. As if the caster lacked the expertise to transmute the earth to solid stone.

We enter the garden and Fiacre steps away from Annia. She smiles at Magnus who glares at her as if he just found a viper in his bed. “I need your contacts to reach the other clan-heads.”

His aunt gestures to the house. “The brown booklet next to the telephone.”

He nods and walks away, heading towards the house. Oilell immediately appears at his side, trying to appease him with cake and coffee.

I let out the breath which I didn't realize I was holding. So do Fiacre and Annia.

My sister is the first to recover completely. “Look, Sis! Fiacre is teaching me earth magic! She says that I can create golems to serve me, given that I put enough effort into it.” She points at her latest creation, the pillar.

I purse my lips, realizing that it wasn't meant to be a pillar. There are two nubs where the arms should be, and the head is missing. With a lot of fantasising, I can imagine the bottom part as two legs which were fused together. Yeah, maybe Annia will be able to summon a golem in ten to twenty years if she sticks to a hard training schedule. “That's wonderful. Keep up the good work. Looks like you'll achieve your goal soon enough.”

Fiacre smiles at me. She probably knows better than me that Annia won't achieve her desired result anywhere as fast as she wants. But it's better not to discourage the young ones. Annia's perception of time is still close to a human's. Telling her that mastering a certain skill may take decades will just discourage her at this point. Let her play and be glad for the small results.

I am proud of her anyway. Annia already has a decent set of spells which is impressive at her age. Most of her spells involve water. Those can easily be combined with earth related magic, granting access to a lot of new possibilities. Once Annia’s control increases and her creations don't look like an oversized phallus.

That's when Magnus leaves the house, his mobile phone at his ear. “... such deprived means. Would've never thought that you'd sell one of your own as a kinky sex-doll. It was always a fetish of mine to have an obedient wife at my fingertips. One that bends over at my command. Normal women are reluctant to fulfil my depraved fantasies, so your product would be ideal for me. Can I buy one of the younger ones? I thought about getting my own harem. Hello? Are you still there?”

He scratches his head, looking at the phone. Realizing that the line was disconnected, he raises the brown booklet in his other hand to flip through the pages.

I approach him to take a look at the booklet. There are various telephone numbers with the name of a clan next to it. “Who was that?”

“The Rhondu matriarch. Seemed like she had no idea as to the whereabouts of her sister, your Mom. Oh, boy. I swear I heard her sizzling on the other end. If it's like that with all of Gavin's wives then I won't have to lift a single finger against him. The other clans will tear him and his little empire apart. Do you know of any other women who joined the Hammons from outside the clan?”

Befuddled, I give him a short list of names, including two more of Gavin's wives. As far as I know, his first wife was from our own clan. Normally, marriages within the clan aren't taken well. Inbreeding is looked down upon. But Gavin's first wife was the third generation daughter of a newly joined line from one of our servant clans. So the relationship was distant enough to legitimize them as a couple.

“The Pavlos? Aren't they direct neighbours of the Hammons? It gets better and better.” He dials a number and returns the phone to his ear. The call is taken a few moments later. “Hello! I heard that you are selling your women. Gavin made one of yours his bitch and-” Magnus halts mid sentence, listening to the person on the other end.

“Oh, sorry. I thought that you are working together with the Hammons. Gavin, their leader, has this nice, little spell which turns his clan's women into mindless breeding machines. They don't take offence at being gang-banged by all of his subordinates. He even bragged that he has a male fae in his basement who is giving him tips. I always wondered why his clan has so many members. The only problem I have now is to find some women to start my own slave harem. So I thought that I would ask the clans from whom he got his dolls. Hello?”

Is that guy really serious? No. It can’t be. He didn’t talk like that to the head of another clan.

Magnus looks at the phone. “Why are they all immediately disconnecting the call? All I have to say is Gavin and Hammon,” He mumbles and flips the pages of the booklet. “Annia, come here. I've a job for you. I need you to upload some pictures.”

“Pictures?” I ask.

He answers without hesitation. “Of Gavin and your Mom, of course.”

When did he manage to take photos of them? I shake my head and decide to have some coffee. There is no need to listen to him stirring up a war. I walk to Oilell's table while Annia rushes over to Magnus's side to receive her instructions.

Fiacre is already at the table, sipping on some tea. “Am I right to assume that the negotiations went bad?”

I nod and take the cup of coffee from Oilell, who mysteriously appeared at my side. “Now Magnus is trying to provoke a war between the Hammons and everyone else. He counts on the fact that the clans who had their women marry into the Hammons won't tolerate the accusation that they sold their people into slavery.”

I down the coffee in a single gulp and relish the burning heat of the liquid. “Do you have something stronger, Oilell? I need a drink.”

Fiacre sighs. “I've also heard that you decided to try your luck with Magnus. Welcome to the family.”

Oilell flickers away and reappears with a small glass, a shiny, green substance inside. “My own brew. That's strong enough to affect even Old Ones.”

“Sorry that you had to hear it from someone else. And the whole thing is just propitiatory. So withhold your congratulations until it's sure that Annia and I don't have to leave after all of this is over. It looks like the whole shitstorm is just starting.” I down the liquid and immediately regret it.

There wasn't much more than a single, small sip. It still burns down my throat like liquid fire. I cough and try to get it out again, but the thought at barfing up fire stops me from doing anything. “This packs a punch. Remind me not to ask you for alcohol, Oilell.”

Fiacre laughs. “Yeah, she actually has her own brewery behind the mansion. And in regard to your assumed departure, there is no chance of that. If Magnus hasn't said no, then he is in on the idea. If he takes something for himself, he won't let go. Try to run away and he is sure to drag you back against your will if he has to.”

“I never wanted to be some caveman's woman.” I sit down and try to ignore the burning sensation inside my belly. Oilell's drinks are pure witchcraft.

I continue to chat with Fiacre until the sky slowly starts dimming. There is no sun in this reality marble. Instead, the light seems to come from the whole sky. By the end of the day I have the feeling that I could become real friends with Fiacre. She is way older than me, but she kept up with the times and is a nice person. And Annia has also taken a liking to her.

Magnus returns to us and throws the booklet onto the table. “I think this was a very productive day.”

I yawn and look around. “Where is Annia?”

“At my computer. She has a lot of work to do and knows her stuff when it comes to electronics. I'm always trying my best to keep up with the computer market and she knows at least as much as I do,” he answers, slightly impressed.

Fiacre looks up and directly at Magnus. That's something she avoided doing so far. “Magnus, can we talk?”

I get to my feet and excuse myself, leaving Magnus and Fiacre to their discussion. They don't look as if they'll go for each other's throats and I don't think that I should listen to the issues between them. Taking my time, I return to the mansion and indulge in a long shower in my quarters.

Both Annia and I have rather large quarters with a bedroom, bathroom and a big study to connect both rooms and serve as an entrance. I am about to call it a day, when the door to my study opens and Magnus steps inside. He smiles, having caught me in nothing but a bathrobe. “Who said that you are going to sleep alone? Aren't we an item?”

The idea startles me. “I've slept alone for over a hundred years. I see no real reason to change that now.”

“Then I'll have to change that.” He approaches and gets to one knee in front of me. Apparently he likes to do that in order to appease me. I admit that it gives me a thrill to have him kneeling to me. Suddenly he sweeps his arms around my waist and stands up, shouldering me with ease.

“Hey!” I hit his back, but my position doesn't allow me to deliver enough force. My protest does nothing more than to make him chuckle. His hand slides up under my bathrobe and touches my privates. My blood rushes immediately to my head and I gasp. He plays with me, and a minute later, his attention has me moaning and squirming. It's so degrading that I want down, so I pinch him, using my fingernails to ensure that he feels it.

Magnus sets me down and my knees almost give way, but I manage to stand on my own. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and studies me expectantly. “If you don't like something, then you have to tell me and I'll stop.”

Why is he asking? Does this really mean that he brought me to this point and would simply leave if I say no? My eyes wander to his trousers and I remember the time we shared in the living room. It never felt that right with others. In the end, anything I say now would just destroy the moment or sound stupid. So I let my body speak. I drop the robe and walk over to the couch, bending over.

For some reason that was exactly the right thing to do, because it destroyed his cool superiority. A moment later, he is all over me like some beast. Maybe he is just the type who likes the rear view? Luckily I was already prepared, because this time it was hard and rough, which I could get used to.

One destroyed couch later we found some sleep in my bed. Turned out that the couch wasn't constructed with the intention of withstanding two adults hopping up and down on top of it.

We kept going like a pair of bunnies until late in the evening, turning the encounter into an exercise. So, since I slept like a log, I didn't even get the chance to find out if he snores. The next morning I wake up alone, which is a big disappointment. I had hopes to use his morning wood for a little payback.

I get up and am about to leave the bedroom when Magnus enters with a pile of equipment in his hands. He is fully dressed in a ski suit and winter equipment. As if there is no environmental magic to take care of such issues. “Here! Get dressed. I already saw to it that Annia is also equipped.”

Equipped? I furrow my forehead and study the pile of items which he dropped unceremoniously onto the bed. It's a ski suit, helmet, boots, gloves, goggles. I wonder how he learned my sizes. Curling the corners of my mouth downwards, I realize that he had undressed me twice up until now. Someone who pays attention would have had more than enough opportunity to learn such details. “Are we going somewhere?”

“What do you mean? It's Sunday! I go skiing every Sunday, no matter the weather. Get dressed! I'll go and prepare the skis.” He turns and dashes out of the room, not giving me a chance for further discussion.

After getting dressed, I find Annia, Oilell and him in the entrance hall. He is patiently trying to show Annia the correct position for beginners. My sister and I never went skiing. Even I had to stay at the Hammon complex most of the time. When I went outside there was always a guard, so it was hard to indulge in such activities... One moment! Why do I have to?

“I-” I don't get any further.

“Sely, come.” He is at my side and quickly has me attached to the skis waiting on the floor. Then I've to join my sister with warm-up training while Magnus's mouth talks non-stop about the correct position and what's important to look out for as a beginner. Annia seems happy enough, so I don't have the heart to spoil the fun by announcing that I am not into skiing.

Well, that's until I notice a little problem. “Why are we doing this in your mansion's entrance hall?”

“I warned Master that you might want to take it slow. But if you think that you are ready, then we can go to the mountains.” Oilell walks over to the door which leads back to the apartment. On the door is something like a golden ring with numbers. It looks like an old fashioned clock dial.

Up until this point I thought of it as nothing more than a strange ornament. But Oilell turns the ring to another position and opens the door, revealing a scene with snowy mountains and a ski-run. And not a human soul in sight.

I don't bother to get off the skis as I walk through the doorway to take a look around. There is one freshly prepared ski-run in the middle of nowhere. No humans, no tools, no lift. “Ahem, where are we?”

Magnus steps to my side. “A glacier in a nature preserve in the west of my territory. Getting to the foot of the mountain takes half an hour. Then you take another door back to the hallway, and from there you return back here.”

I blink. “Can you open doorways wherever you want?”

“Only inside my territory, and at places with a prepared door. There are ninety-eight doors all over my territory.” He points at the door behind me. It was built into the mountain and hidden with camouflage. “Don't worry. Only persons who are keyed into the network can enter the reality marble.”

Annia follows us and Oilell closes the door behind her.

“Haaah.” I turn back to study the scenery. Who is he paying to have his own secret mountain resort on a glacier? “Look, Magnus. All of this is wonderful. But do you really think that it's the right thing to do if Gavin and his minions could turn up at any moment? And it's a little late now, but I would like to learn if my mother is really spelled.”

He scratches his chin. “I can't attack your clan's headquarters alone. Even if there is a way to sneak inside, there is little hope to abduct your mother without having control of the entire complex. She won't be cooperative. I did my best to cause as much bad blood between the Hammons and everyone else. Other than that, I can only wait until they enter my territory. Here at least, I can fight on my own terms. I'll know once they break the Veil.”

His hand waves at the entire area in a grand gesture. “So do you really want to tell me that you would hunker down in a room and worry all day long until Gavin decides to make a move? Or would you have some of the fun they denied you your entire life? I'm guessing that as an unattached, untrusted woman you weren't allowed outside the complex as often as you wished?”

I clench my teeth instead of answering him.

“I'll have some fun while you two have your first domestic quarrel.” Annia pushes herself forward, using her ski sticks. Then she slides down the ski-run, using her skis like a plough.

Maybe they are right? If I worry all day long about Gavin, I may not have any fun for a long, long time. Following the impulse, I use my own sticks to get things going. At first I copy Annia's technique, but that gets boring quickly. Feeling confident in my athletic abilities, I set my skis straight to gain some speed.

I get faster and faster quicker than I anticipated. The speed gets worrisome, so I try to brake by using my ski as a plough. Due to inexperience, I cross my skis. The next thing I know, is that I am flying. The applied force caused the safety mechanism of my skis to release my skiboots.

I land ungraciously, face first on my belly and keep sliding forward. The impact took the breath out of me and I keep sliding until I reach a less steep part of the ski-run. At last, I stop and roll over, spitting out snow. My nose feels broken.

“Hahaha! Sis, Magnus said that only a tourist brakes with his face.” Annia slides past me, slowly but uninjured compared to me.

Magnus stops next to us, shaking his head. “Told you. Beginners should take it slow and easy. We aren't in a competition.”

I groan and set my nose to its correct position. This is so embarrassing. “I swear that I'll train and then I'll beat all of you to the goal.”

But first I need my skis back. And the sticks. Damn, I even lost the goggles. My equipment is all over the ski-run. I groan and get to my feet, resigning myself to the walk of shame to collect everything instead of using my magic to do so.