mirror shards // matthew fairchild {1}

twenty-seven // by the fireplace

"So you're marrying Cordelia." Sydney puts her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms and stares into the drawing room fire. "Good."

James nods. "There's no other option," James answers. "I'm not going to let her reputation be destroyed."

"And yet you don't love her." Sydney meets James's eyes. "You're still in love with Grace."

James nods. "How did you know?"

Sydney shrugs. "Sometimes I just do."

"Like how you knew that your Zmeul Zmeilor was our demon grandfather."

"That wasn't knowing. That was research – a lot of research."

"So where'd that research start?" James asks. "What set you down the path, to finding the Zmeul Zmeilor?"

"Agasha told me the legend first. I don't think she knew, she knows less than I'd thought she did. But she knew I was...zmey bogatyr, as they'd call it, she thought she ought to teach me some history. I took it far more seriously than she meant for me to."

"So what're you doing now? Where are you going now?"

"I've got reasons to stay, now. But not here, not in the Institute. I'm gonna get myself a flat or a townhouse or something, I think. Get a bigger fireplace, something I can really stare into like a Byronic madman, since I do so much of that anyway."

"So you're leaving again."

"No. I'm just not living at the Institute. But I'll leave a forwarding address. I'll come eat dinners here, probably, most nights. I can't cook if my survival depends on it, you know that. I'll come to the wedding if you want me there." Sydney closes her eyes. "I'm trying, James. I'm really trying. I'm just...I made a lot of habits and they're hard to break."

"Sydney, something you said in your grand melodramatic speech. Something about the price of things in SoHo."

"Yeah."

"Did you –"

"It's none of your –"

"Ah."

"Business."

"I see."

"We didn't, for the record. Not yet."

"Not that I particularly care, it's just..."

"You need to know who to punch in the teeth."

"Something like that."

"Punch me. I'd rather you punch me than him."

"Sydney. I'm not going to be punching anybody."

"I know. I'm just saying Math's been punched in the teeth enough already."

James nods. "Believe me, I know." He glances over at Sydney. "He told me...he told me he told you something about that."

"He did. But it's...not mine to tell. He can tell you that himself someday." 

Sydney closes her eyes. "Sometimes I'm not so sure about the two of us, you know? You said you didn't trust me. That hurt. That really hurt, Jamie. But Math...he does trust me and sometimes I wonder...yeah, I helped him cut back on his drinking but I also threw his flask into the river. Into the fucking river. Because I was angry about something I did. I've leaned on him too much sometimes, I've expected things and said things and...I'm fucking this up, Jamie. I'm fucking this up and I don't know how to fix it."

"Then maybe you need to tell him that. Try to break your own bad habits and you can work it out together."

"So wise," Sydney murmurs. "So wise, you. You do a better job of being an older sibling than I do, you know that? You really do."

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Author's Notes:
This, ah, this just disappeared off the face of the earth for an entire three weeks and I am so sorry. I've been tied up by Terrible Fictions for a while and I have another project I'm working on and I still have the African-American history class I'm taking.

Speaking of which: I have decided to make this not quite as long as it originally was, simply because I feel like the way it is right now, it's currently leading itself toward an ending, and it would make no sense to try and extend it too much. So expect a few more updates, but we're not going to get a whole second act.