Chapter 78 - Curfew is a suggestion I (Patreon)

The other three stared at Felix like he’d grown a second head.

“What?” Sora dumbly asked.

“Sneak out. You know, like…” Looking around, Felix quickly realized the others didn’t know. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, okay, how to explain this…” He muttered, trying to organize his thoughts. He realized how easy it was to make a Sora-tier explanation, and that he was sitting on so much cultural context that needed to get sorted.

Or not.

“Right, then. Back where I come from, it’s common, almost expected, that parents will set down a bunch of rules, and teenagers will rebel against them and do their own thing.” Felix said. 

Sora gasped.

“And not get tortured horribly? They keep all their fingers? They-”

Erik swatted the girl. 

“Stop making things up!” He practically yelled. 

Sora flashed them all a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, that was too good to pass up.”

Alexandria poked Sora in the ribs. Hard.

“This is serious!” She hissed. “Be helpful or shut up, don’t sabotage this!”

Sora mimed spelling her mouth shut.

“Go on.” Erik encouraged.

“Well. One of the things that supposedly happens a lot is teenagers sneaking out of their house at night. Maybe they’re going to drink at the park, or go to a party, or-”

“Sneak out to see a boyfriend?” Alexandria jumped in with a whisper.

Felix nodded.

“Yeah! You get the idea. Anyway, both Paris and Dublin have huge argos, yeah? They can just connect to each other? We go to Paris, you know where Vivian lives, convince her to sneak out and join us, do the ritual, and done! She might get in trouble after, sure, but she’d be a bound member of our group. Problem solved?”

“That’s kidnapping.” Alexandria whispered, but she was clearly conflicted.

“No, it’s not.” Erik rebutted. 

Sora was busy in the background, miming various reactions. Cheering at Felix’s plan, miming horror at Alex’s kidnapping comment, nodding along furiously to Erik’s rebuttal - it was almost more distracting than if she were talking. 

Alex tilted her head. Erik explained.

“It’d be kidnapping if we took her, or refused to let her go back, or stopped her parents from getting her. Well, the last one’s a bit of a debate. Runaway kid, sheepishly going back home once she’s caught? That’s purely an internal family matter. Add in ‘we made sure she had shelter, food, and contacted her family as soon as reasonably possible’, and we’re legally in the clear.”

“Not like they can DO anything to us.” Sora muttered. Erik half-heartedly swatted in her direction.

“That’s not the point.” He said.

“Well, what IS the point?” Sora asked.

Erik started to answer when Alexandria cut him off.

“No.” She hissed. “Save it for later.”

“I mean, I’m not hearing a no.” Felix said. “Why don’t we just go?”

Sora got a look of maniacal delight on her face. Felix reviewed what he’d just said, and facepalmed.

Erik shook his head, and Alex frowned at that.

“Why not?” She whispered. Erik started to tick points off his fingers.

“Okay, first. I’d need my dad’s permission to do this.”Alex snorted.

“Isn’t the whole point of this not doing what our parents say?” Sora asked.

“Yes, but when was the last time you saw Duke Morsin upset?” Erik retorted.

“Ah.” Sora said.

“Yeah, he’s super permissive, he just wants to know what’s going on.” Erik said. “Second. It’s not the equinox yet. If we get Vivian now, then there’s more time for her parents to pull her back, and she could be gone by the time we do the ritual.”

“But if we fail, we have more room to find a fifth.” Alexandria whispered.

“True…”

Sora waved her arms frantically. Erik sighed.

“Yes?” He asked.

Sora went through a whole play of dispelling the silencing charm on herself - because she couldn’t speak, it was extra hard, if Felix was getting all the pantomimes right - and finally contributed.

“But like, why send everyone?” She asked. “Why doesn’t just Alex go? It’s not like you need everyone, Alex is her friend, why add the risk? You get recognized in Paris, it’s bad. Alex? She’s probably walked the streets in question a dozen times, and was fine.”

Alex started to lift her wand to curse Sora, but Erik quickly grabbed her hand and pushed down her wand.

“That’s a good idea.” He said. Alex stomped on his foot. Erik swore and hopped around, but Alex looked vaguely mollified.

“Details aside, it’s a better plan than all of us going.” Erik said, collapsing in a comfortable chair. “There’s no reason to make it complicated. BUT!” He held up a finger. “We still need to talk with Duke Morsin.”

Felix frowned.

“Isn’t he your dad?” He asked. From the Looks he got from everyone else, he’d stepped in it somehow. Erik sighed.

“Yes, but I need to be careful to separate personal life and formal life. I’m not letting him know because I’m his son and he’s my dad, I’m letting him know because he’s the Duke of Ireland. Hence, in this situation, he’s Duke Morsin, not my dad.”

Sora bounced up and down.

“Also! Also! He’s Duke Morsin. The R-word can get you in trouble. And not the ‘that’s illegal’ type of trouble, the ‘those dudes have arms wider than my waist and will dislike what they’re hearing’ type of trouble, which frankly, is both worse but easier to escape. Also easy to bait them.”

Erik was burying his face in his hands.

“I both want to know, and strongly suspect I don’t want to know.” Felix said. 

Sora shrugged with a grin.

“It’s really simple!” She said. “It’s His Grace, Duke Morsin, and you hex anyone who says otherwise. By the way, Alex, shouldn’t you leave? Like, yeah, it’s best if Vivian comes later, but if you go now, you’ve got more time to convince her to sneak out right before the equinox. Erik, get her a big bag of aureli so she can bribe her way through problems, and boom! Magic’s the word, we dance naked on the equinox, one neat little coven formed.”

The three of them stared at Sora. Felix wondered if they actually danced naked on the equinox.

“I have no idea if the plan is genius or dumb,” Erik said slowly. “But I imagine you’ve got the experience to know, and I don’t see anything obviously wrong with it.”

Sora shrugged again, but was beaming.

“You tricky types try to make things complicated. Just don’t. Make a simple plan, do it, and be out before anyone catches you. Right, before you can overthink it, time to go!”

Erik cracked a lazy smile.

 “I think Alex is going to have a different problem than we anticipate.” He said.

“What?” Sora asked.

“Well. Alex has to convince Vivian to sneak out to see a boy or two. I think the issue is going to be stopping her from heading out too fast.”

Sora howled with laughter, and even Alex cracked a pained smile, her lips stretching the scar tissue all over her cheeks and neck.

“Yeah… that should work.” Alex said.

Erik clapped his hands and stood up.

“Excellent! Let’s get going, no time to waste. Felix, let’s introduce you quickly to the Duke. Just a simple ‘he exists, he’ll be in your son’s coven’ sort of thing. He’s pretty busy so it won’t take long. Then let’s go unpack, and by then we’ll see if Hazel wants to join us for dinner.”

“And we’ll see if Vivian’s broken all known laws of magic to be here by then.” Sora joked.

Felix wasn’t sure if he liked the speculative gleam in Alexandria’s eye.

“No using Vivian’s crushes to break the laws of magic.” He joked. Well. Tried to joke.

“I’ll wait until my third year then.” Alexandria said as she left the room.

Felix hoped she’d wait until their third year. Then he might know enough magic to recognize if a law of magic was being broken!

Erik left, and Felix was right behind him when he saw the lighting in the room change. He whirled around, only to see Sora jumping up and grabbing the hanging magelights. His jaw dropped open as she tucked them away in a box.

“What?” She asked. “You’re blocking the door.”

“THAT’S how you turn off the lights!?” He asked.

“Yeah!” Sora said. “Much more sensible than pressing a random switch on the wall, and guessing which lights will turn on and off. It’s the weirdest thing.”

Erik started laughing.

“Wait, don’t tell me you’ve been sleeping with the lights on every night in Camelot since you started.”

Felix crossed his arms, and Alex started to laugh as well.

“It’s not funny!” He protested.

Sora started to howl.

“It’s not!”