deathsmajesty | Vess Manor, Stensia, Innistrad, Sunday Evening (Fandom Time)

Horses' hoofbeats drummed a leisurely rhythm. The jagged mountains of the province called Stensia loomed ahead of them, but Jace's goal wasn't far beyond the border, and he had read enough of his guide's thoughts to know that they were close. "I don't know why I'm even bothering with her," said Jace. "I know better. And we didn't exactly leave off on the best of terms."

"Mm," said his guide. He was weathered and bearded, a man of few words. Jace had started filling the silence out of boredom, and had eventually gotten around to the subject of his visit.

"I mean, I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life, even just counting the ones I can remember. And an awful lot of them involve her."

"Hm," said his guide.

A chill rain fell from patchy clouds, and something howled in the night. Jace had only been on Innistrad for two days, and he already hated it. The only saving grace so far was a new leather coat he'd bought to keep the rain and some of the cold at bay. "Hell, part of me's hoping she'll throw me out on my ear and I can be done with her."

"Ah," said his guide.

The full moon peeked out from behind the clouds, its huge silver face marked with a shape that the locals called a heron. Jace could see the resemblance. "Problem is, I actually need her help this time," he said.

"Ahhhhh," said his guide, a strangled sound that Jace took to indicate boredom.

"I'm sorry," said Jace. "I shouldn't be burdening you with my problems." He prepared a spell that would cleanly excise the last few minutes of conversation from the man's mind.

"Ahhhhhrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh," said his guide. Not boredom. Anger?

Jace reached into the man's mind - and hit a wall of pure, all-encompassing rage, the savage half-thoughts of a predator. His guide turned to him, accompanied by the stomach-churning sounds of bones cracking and clothes tearing. His face had bulged horribly, one eye grown large and yellow, his jaw jutting outward. Both horses shifted nervously.

"Oh," said Jace.

Jace spurred his own horse to a gallop, past the thing that had been his guide and the terrified, screaming horse. He was close. He could get there on his own. Behind him, the guide's horse's scream was cut short with a wet crunch. The werewolf let loose a full-throated howl, and howls broke out in answer from the woods around them—one, then two, then more, mingled together until he couldn't be sure how big the pack might be. Jace's moonlit gallop ate up the road, faster than was safe. He saw the lights of a large manor house ahead, tantalizingly close, but a ravine yawned before it. He jerked the horse's reins to the left and stole a glance backward.

The creature that had been his guide loped after him, a hideous amalgamation of human and wolf. It wasn't like the krasis experiments of the Simic Combine, whose parts always seemed to show that they had come from separate species. Human-like hands with sharp claws, muscular arms covered in fur, lupine face that nonetheless held a spark of intelligence - he was almost fully human, and almost fully wolf, all at once.

He'd heard of werewolves, but had hoped never to see them.

Jace let his horse run as fast as he dared, the lights of the manor taunting him. The trail wound around the ravine, cut through thickets, and splashed across little rills that tumbled noisily into the ravine in the darkness to his right. He couldn't hear the footfalls of the wolf-thing over his horse's hoofbeats and the furious pounding of his own heart.

As he turned forward again in his saddle, his horse stumbled, just for a moment. It was enough. In a few breaths the werewolf was close behind him, claws swiping and jaws snapping. The poor horse was frothing now, exhausted and panicked. The werewolf's breath was hot and rank, steaming in the cool night air, and Jace could almost feel its hot breath on his neck. He looked back - he was imagining it, but not by much. The agile creature could navigate the switchbacks much better than Jace's horse, and it was gaining fast.

At last, the terrain opened up ahead of him and the ravine curved away, leaving nothing but a flat, muddy road between him and the welcoming lights of the manor. And not just any manor, he realized as it loomed. Her manor. His destination.

Hopefully she'd forgive him for bringing a guest.

He was within shouting distance of the gate when the werewolf struck. One claw raked sideways across the horse's rump, sending its rear legs tumbling sideways. Jace sprang from the saddle, landed in the mud, and rolled. He clambered to his feet and started running. Behind him, the werewolf attacked the fallen horse with a growl.

He mentally apologized to the horse, but took the time the horse's messy death bought him to dash for the questionable safety of the manor. Crashing through the iron gates, he turned and kicked them shut behind him, then mentally sent the tumblers in the lock spinning back into place just as the werewolf slammed into the gate. Jace crawled backward, away from its reaching claws, but the werewolf sniffed loudly - once, then twice, muzzle wrinkling in disgust - and then it was gone, off to hunt some other prey.

Something moved behind Jace. He rose to his feet and turned. In the darkness of the manor's yard, he could just barely make out a dozen figures standing silently around him. Now he smelled it, too, the stench of rot that had sent the werewolf on its way. A quick mental check confirmed it - there were no minds in these bodies. They were dead. They crowded around him without a sound, backing him up against the gates. Zombies crowding around him, a werewolf somewhere behind him, that damned moon glaring down over all of it...

The zombies stopped, then stirred and parted, leaving him a clear path to the mansion's ornate door. A welcoming committee. Her hospitality was everything he'd expected and then some.

Welcoming Committee	Just as he reached the top of a small flight of stone stairs that led to the entryway, the door swung open to reveal a dark hallway. He stopped at the threshold. "Can I come in?" he asked. Another zombie stepped out from behind the door, this one clothed in some mockery of a servant's livery, and beckoned for Jace to follow. Fine. Jace lowered his hood and followed this new guide, surprised to find that the scent within the manor was fresh and clean, lightly touched by her new perfume. At last, his guide led him into a large room illuminated by moonlight and spellcraft, where half a dozen zombies shuffled about.
Liliana	And there, sitting easily on a chair - more a throne - was Liliana Vess. She shut a large, leather-bound tome she'd been reading and handed it to one of her undead servants. "Hello, Jace," she said. She looked him up and down in obvious appraisal. "Nice coat." She rose and walked toward him, her movements as fluid and languorous as a cat's, and stopped when she was standing just slightly too close to him. She studied him with those ancient violet eyes, took in his face one detail at a time. She must be quite aware, it occurred to him, of how his muscles moved beneath the skin. This time he looked her in the eye, despite the memories it dredged up. She reached up to his face...and flicked the tip of his nose. "Ow! What--" "Just making sure you came in person," she said.
Jace	"I can make my illusions solid, you know," said Jace, rubbing his nose. "Oh yes. But I doubt you can make them yelp so convincingly." "I was hoping for a warmer welcome," said Jace. "You've got some very disagreeable neighbors."
Liliana	"I heard," she said. "I've got zombies out rotting in the fields so the farmers can work there. The anti-scarecrow, but better than being attacked. And there's worse out there than werewolves." "Like vampires?" "Angels," she said with disgust.
Jace	Jace rolled his eyes. "Your feelings on the subject are well documented," he said. "Personally, I'd have been thankful for a little angelic assistance out there."
Liliana	"That's not--" said Liliana, then cut herself off. "Well. Who you choose to trust is your own business, I suppose. But I wouldn't trust an angel if I were you."
Jace	"My default stance is to trust no one," said Jace. "Nothing that's happened so far has changed my mind."
Liliana	"Clever boy," she said. "Something to drink?" Liliana walked back to her throne and sat, as a zombie shuffled forward with a bottle of...something. "Thanks, but I'll pass," he said. Liliana poured herself a glass and sipped from it. "Now then," she said. "This is a first. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Jace	"I..." Jace weighed pride against practicality and finally reached a decision. "I'm here to apologize."
Liliana	Liliana raised an eyebrow in feigned curiosity. "Really? Whatever for?" "For leaving Ravnica with...unfinished business between us." "For abandoning me, you mean," she said, with a cruel smile. "And heading off to some wilderness plane with that walking anatomical diagram."
Jace	Gideon, she meant. Jace stifled a laugh. "I doubt he'd take that as a compliment."
Liliana	"It is!" she said. "He'll make a perfect corpse, if he gets around to dying before it all goes soft."
Jace	"And I'm certain he wouldn't take that as a compliment," said Jace. She always had to push. Of course she did. She was Liliana Vess. "So you regret going with him?" "Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Jace. "We did good work. Saved the whole plane, in fact, with help from two other Planeswalkers." He smiled. "We even took an oath, to...to keep doing this. Keep going after interplanar threats."
Liliana	"Lovely," said Liliana. "Very heroic. And now...what? You're here to ask me to join your little club?" "No," said Jace. "I know you better than that." Liliana waited. She knew him better than that, too
Jace	"I considered it, of course," he said, with a shrug. "You could use a few friends to watch your back. But I knew you wouldn't go for it." "I'm not interested," said Liliana flatly. "In your friends, or your oaths." "I didn't think you were," said Jace.
Liliana	Liliana sighed. "Jace, I know you're not here to recruit me," she said. "You're not here to help me. And you're not here to apologize." "What makes you say that?" he asked, then added: "I did apologize!" "You said it yourself," she went on. "I betrayed you. I cursed Garruk. I still have the Chain Veil. I've never been a friend to you, not really. And you know, I never did ask for your help. Has any of that changed?" "No." "Which means that you're actually here because you need something from me. You know I have troubles, and you think you can make a deal." She waited long enough for him to say "I--" then cut him off. "Prove me wrong," she said. She stood and raised her head proudly. "I refuse your freely given aid, Jace Beleren. If you're here to help me and ask nothing in exchange, turn around and walk out that door."
Jace	Jace said nothing. Even if it was a bluff, he couldn't afford to call it.
Liliana	"All right then," said Liliana, draping herself back over her throne. "Now that we both know exactly how much our personal history means to us...what can I do for you, dear?" She smiled, predatory and alluring. She could be quite magnanimous, provided she was in complete control of the situation.
Jace	"Out of curiosity," said Jace, "would you really have kicked me out if I were just here to help you?"
Liliana	"Fascinating question," said Liliana. "If it ever comes up, perhaps you'll find out." She took a sip from her glass and waited.
Jace	"I'm looking for Sorin Markov," said Jace. Liliana's face betrayed genuine surprise. Jace let himself take a little pleasure in that.
Jace	Traversing at night on Innistrad might, to most, be something considered deeply inadvisable, but, the more time he spent on this plane, the more he found an odd sort of comfort in it. The danger was, after all, a familiar one, and he'd yet to encounter a werewolf who gave him even a fraction of the trouble the multitude of daemons and scourge-ridden beasts of Eos had for ten years before his return to Fandom. And it was good, too, to not let those skills and talent dull with disuse. It was encouraging, knowing that the relative safety of the island didn't leave him complacent to the point of softening. So he was in a good, almost smug mood on his return to the manor, not only from a rather productive meeting with Havisham (to discuss, of course, exactly how much of a dent the last party had put into the funds so that they can be sure to set aside a slightly more extravagant amount aside for the next one, as well as how the progress on the plans for the property and tenants was turning out, and certainly nothing, nothing else), but for a good deal of exercise on the way home in the form of an encounter that also netted him the somewhat sacrificial corpse of a well-fed deer. That he immediately planned to butcher and put to good use in the kitchen, which is why he'd slipped through that door to set to the task before Liliana could distract him. Alas, it would seem that he'd barely even gotten his prize onto the cutting block before a distraction already arrived. Even with his excellent hearing, it was muffled and distant, but the manor was quiet, and so he could tell that there was a conversation going on in the large reception chamber. Frowning, he put a pause on his machinations, murmured something to a zombie about putting the thing on ice, and went forth to investigate further.
Liliana	"Jace, do you know what you're asking?" she said. "Do you know who he is? What he is?"
Jace	"I know he's a vampire, the so-called Lord of Innistrad," said Jace. "I know he's ancient and more than a little untrustworthy, and I know right now he's either in trouble or causing trouble. Either way, I need to find him." "Why?" said Liliana. "Thousands of years ago--" Liliana groaned. "Short version, then. Three Planeswalkers worked together to trap extraplanar, world-devouring monstrosities called the Eldrazi on Zendikar. Sorin was one of the three." "Really?" said Liliana. "That doesn't sound like him." "My source - one of Sorin's old allies - said he did it out of a sense of...'high-minded self-interest,' something like that. He knew that eventually the Eldrazi might make their way to Innistrad, so he cooperated to trap them somewhere else."
Liliana	"And then...you let them out," she said, smiling. "Am I remembering that right?" Countdown to him explaining it wasn't exactly his fault in three...two...
Jace	He wished she weren't enjoying this quite so much. "Yes," said Jace. "Manipulated and coerced, two other Planeswalkers and I inadvertently released the Eldrazi titans from their prison. Sorin showed up, briefly, then departed after trying to use some kind of failsafe to keep them in. He was supposed to meet one of his allies, my source, back on Zendikar, but he hasn't shown." "That sounds more like him," said Liliana. "Of course, now there's no need for him to go to Zendikar," Jace went on. "But the Planeswalker I was working with won't speak to me anymore, and Sorin and the third member of the trio are missing in action. I'm worried that a certain dragon Planeswalker might have taken an interest in them...but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" "I told you, I don't work for him anymore." "You have many fine qualities, Liliana, but scrupulous honesty is not among them."
Liliana	"Jace," said Liliana, "listen to me. Sorin won't help you. You think I'm selfish? You think I'm cruel? Sorin's had thousands of years to get used to the idea that humans are cattle and mortal lives are cheap." "You know him?" "I met him," said Liliana. "Several times. The first shortly after I first arrived on Innistrad. He sought me out, tested my strength in battle, and pronounced me too weak to be a threat. Then he told me that Innistrad was his, and that I'd best be a civil guest--or he'd find me and kill me." "Charming," said Jace. "When was this?" "Long ago," said Liliana. "And yes, that kind of run-in was a lot more common then. But he hasn't changed. He threatened to end my 'miserable existence' the last time we ran into each other, which was at the beginning of last year. Sorin has no more reason to be friendly to you than this other Planeswalker you've been talking to, and his take on not speaking to you might just be to kill you. Don't. Go."
Ignis	Having felt he'd had his fill of eavesdropping to the point where he felt...decently up to speed, Ignis slipped away again to a less conspicuous spot for his voice to carry from as he approached the room. "Liliana?" he called. "Darling? I've returned! And I have the most excellent news regarding dinner..." He paused, in the doorway, as if taking a moment to assess and then a smile surfaced on his face. "Ah," he said, with a step inside. "There you are." But his steps halted as his attention shifted elsewhere, with a curious tilt of his head. "And we have....company. My apologies. I didn't mean to interrupt."
Jace	That's not an opti--huh?" Jace had been so shaken by his run-in with the werewolves and then so busy playing Liliana's little games that he hadn't noticed the presence of another living mind in the manor. He was almost comically startled. "Who in the hells are you?" he sputtered. His hand immediately went to his hair, trying to flatten it down before giving it up for a loss.
Liliana	Liliana raised an amused eyebrow at Ignis. He'd known that they had company from the moment he'd returned to the manor, no doubt. She didn't know precisely what he was playing at, but she was more than happy to watch him do it. They did so love their games. "Welcome home, my darling," she said. "And we do. Ignis, may I introduce you to Jace Beleren, the Living Guildpact. Now, he should be on Ravnica, doing whatever Living Guildpacts do, but he's decided to play hero and is here on Innistrad, asking for advice he is now ignoring. Jace, this is Ignis Scientia. My paramour." She sipped her wine, watching this tableau with those fathomless violet eyes. "How did you find the roads, my darling? Jace was attacked by werewolves on the way here." Innistrad had never been a safe place. But this...this was something new. Like the plane was slowly devolving into madness and taking everyone with it.
Ignis	"They're quite a bit rambunctious this evening then, it seems," Ignis noted, as he moved across the room to stand beside Jace, finding it easy enough to track his position even without the added assistance from the scent of his sweat and the mud and the night clinging to him; not unlike a werewolf himself, he mused with a soft, amused huff. "I, thankfully, was able to emerge from my own encounter unscathed, although I cannot say the same for the poor deer that managed to get itself caught up in the fray. But its loss will surely be our gain. I have excellent plans for a new recipeh already." His attention then shifted to the man next to him. "And Mr. Beleren," he said. "How nice to finally put a voice to the name. I'd extend an invite to dinner, we'll certainly have plenty, but it sounds," there was a questioning lilt to it, a shift in his attention toward Liliana as if to confirm, "as though you'll not be staying long?"
Liliana	"That's currently up for discussion," Liliana said before Jace could reply. "Jace. For once, listen to me. Sorin Markov is ancient, ruthless, and powerful. You're in over your head."
Jace	Jace was studying the man that Liliana had proclaimed her new paramour. Lover, he would have expected, possibly even had expected but...was this just her way of being pretentious? Or something else? He was tempted to rifle through this Ignis' thoughts to find out for sure, but then Liliana's argument pulled his attention back to her. Right. He could sort out possible romantic entanglements later. Mission first. "Because listening to you has done me so well in the past," he scoffed. "And I'm in over my head? You're one to talk."
Liliana	"Yes," said Liliana. There was no more mirth in her voice. "I am. And I am telling you, don't go. He's not going to help you, and you can't clever your way out of being killed by a millennia-old vampire."
Ignis	The brow that had lifted in response to Jace didn't smooth, but rather furrowed now with a frown. "What seems to be trouble?" he asked, especially since he realized it wasn't just him playing at ignorance. He'd caught enough, to be sure, understand the general shape of the thing, but hardly any of the finer points. And he was rather curious how the explanation might change, if at all, with a different audience. "Someone catch me up to speed."
Jace	Jace looked like he was about to balk at repeating himself, but a glance at Liliana and her raised eyebrow had him changing what he was about to say. "There are these creatures, the Eldrazi," he explained. "Extraplanar world-devourerers. Three of them were imprisoned on a plane called Zendikar. A few months ago, they were released." Excellent use of passive voice there, Jace. "Several other Planeswalkers and I managed to kill two of them, but the third vanished. Sorin Markov was one of people who had originally trapped the three of them. I thought perhaps he might have ideas for how to find and handle the third, and perhaps join our group, the Gatewatch to help handle interplanar threats...but now I'm worried that he might have run afoul of one of those very same threats himself."
Liliana	Liliana burst out laughing. "You want to see if Sorin Markov will join your little superhero group?" she asked. "Of all the idiotic-- Sorin is less of a joiner than I am. And even if he has run into trouble, what do you think you're going to do about it? Even without our old powers, he's still a six thousand year old Planeswalker, Jace. Whatever is strong enough to endanger him will swat you out of the air like a fly and not even notice." She shook her head, leaning back against her chair. "What's likely is that Sorin doesn't care enough to bother with whatever he was supposed to do for you and will see your presence as meddling in his affairs. For the hundredth time, don't go."
Jace	"If I didn't know better," said Jace, "I'd say you were concerned for my safety."
Liliana	If he thought alluding to their previous relationship in front of her paramour was going to discomfit Liliana, he had clearly forgotten she had only a nodding acquaintance with shame. "Don't make this about us," she said, rolling her eyes. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't have something to offer me. I'd like to find out what it is before you throw yourself on Sorin's sword, if it's all the same to you."
Jace	...Or had been counting on her general lack of honesty to have made that revelation a surprise. And now he wasn't really sure how to feel that it clearly had not been one. She'd mentioned him to this new lover of hers? How? When? Why? "If you're that worried about me, come along. Maybe you can introduce us."
Liliana	"What?" she said. "No. I already told you, I have my own problems, and my own solutions. And I don't care how much help you think you can be to me in exchange—none of it does me any good if Sorin kills both of us. And that's assuming we can even find him, when the roads out there are worse than ever. I'm not going anywhere."
Ignis	At this point, Ignis, feeling a bit like a sort of glorified fly on the wall, couldn't help but let out a soft, low, thoughtful sort of hum as he worked his way through the bickering banter to uncover the important parts of the conversation, and tried to decide exactly what he could do with them. "If I may," he said, lifting a finger as if to draw attention to himself when he stepped forward, then promptly folded that finger into his chin thoughtfully, "interject just a moment, but I can't help but be curious: is there truly strong evidence that an appeal to Markov is the best strategy at this juncture? Or is it simply the most obvious one, due to his previous association with these creatures....these...Eldrazi, was it?"
Jace	"He's the only one of the original three I have even the slightest lead on," Jace said. "My, ah, previous contact is no longer in communication with us--" Because Jace had gone back on his word and killed the two Eldrazi instead of just trapping them. "--and I don't even know who the third person was. Just my contact and Markov. I've searched through as much lore and as many libraries as I could on Zendikar and Ravnica and even put feelers out through the tatters of the Infinite Consortium and it seems that no one's ever heard of the Eldrazi, never mind have any useful information about them."
Ignis	"...ah," said Ignis, after a brief moment of consideration, "so much less a convenient tug at the most obvious thread as it is a rather desperate pull at the only one..."
Jace	"Exactly!" Jace said, relieved that someone understood. "There's a plane-eating monstrosity out there and we don't know where and we need to stop it before it attacks somewhere else." He turned to give a disappointed look to Liliana, who gave him an unimpressed look in return. "I was hoping Liliana could help me, but I guess I'll have to follow the only lead I have left. Markov Manor is that way, right?" He pointed in what he was fairly sure was the right direction.
Liliana	"Markov Manor?" Liliana asked. She rolled her eyes, rising from her throne to grab his wrist and moved it several inches. "Jace, that's even worse!" "It's his ancestral home, right? Wouldn't his family know where he is?" "Do you know anything about Innistrad?" she snapped. "Or did you just see 'Markov Manor' on a map and think, 'Hey, great, there's no way that could result in me being brutally murdered'?"
Jace	"I read a few minds, but they didn't know much," Jace admitted, looking at Ignis to see his opinion on the matter. "Why, what am I missing?" How much more research did he have to do? Read a few minds, make a decision.
Ignis	Looking at Ignis would reveal the man pinching the bridge of his nose and thinking that whichever minds Beleren deigned to read weren't the only ones that didn't know anything. Ignis himself had managed to collect an almost staggeringly more detailed dossier on the vampires of Innistrad in a handful of meetings than Jace had in the pursuit of a plane-destroying entity that he'd apparently just lost track of? And couldn't get assistance from a colleague who would no longer talk to him.... Obviously, he didn't have an inkling of the details, but he was already starting to build a reasonable case as to why. And, for a brief moment, he considered suggesting that Jace did take a peek into a mind that actually knew something, but how in the world would he possibly explain to Liliana that he could not only point him more directly to Sorin Markov, but also suggest what wine to bring as a peace offering. Good gods, Beleren probably wouldn't have even thought to bring wine. Finally, he sighed. "It sounds to me," he murmured, "you are missing nearly every single pertinent detail you could possibly need. Did you truly expect to just go waltzing--" But he stopped himself. "Well, no," he amended, "of course not. You expected Liliana to do all the heavy lifting for you." And did he really need to point out what an absurd pipe dream that was?
Liliana	Apparently he did, because he's really thought that Liliana would help him. "Wine, my darling?" she offered Ignis. He could join her in drinking away her headache while Jace sputtered. It was lovely having someone else explain to Jace that he was being a high-handed idiot while she got to watch.
Ignis	There was another sigh and a hand went out expectantly. "Yes, please," he murmured, "though I'm wondering if I might be needing something quite a bit stronger." He'd almost considered bolstering himself with some Ebony, but it would be wasted, what with the sour taste in his mouth.
Jace	It matched the sour expression on Jace's face! "If the two of you are done being cute, you still haven't told me why going to Markov Manor is such a terrible idea."
Liliana	A zombie was en route to hand a glass of wine to Ignis, but a silent command had him handing it to Liliana instead, and it was she that passed him the wine. Inefficient, yes, but she assumed the brush of her fingers over his made the inefficiency worth it. "Sorin's a pariah among his own people," she informed Jace. "He hasn't been welcome in Markov Manor for hundreds of years at least. Maybe longer. If you show up asking about him, they'll kill you or worse." Because there was always a worse, Jace. How had you not yet realized that?
Jace	"Even so," said Jace, "if you won't help me, I don't have much choice. Markov Manor is the best lead I have."
Liliana	With another brush of her cold fingers against Ignis' wrist, Liliana settled back in her chair. At Jace's continued insistence, her expression hardened, and her eyes began to glow purple. "What--" Her zombie servants lurched forward. Jace's heart pounded. "Lili, what are you doing?" The zombies kept coming. "Making a point," she said. Any hesitation or guilt she might have had about this was erased as soon as he called her 'Lili.'
Jace	Too close. They were too close. Jace cast a quick invisibility spell, but the zombies still stumbled toward him. Half of them didn't have eyes anyway. A cold hand clamped around his arm. He concentrated, and a cloud of illusionary duplicates sprang from his body. Half a dozen Jaces, casting spells or diving for the window or running to attack Liliana.
Liliana's Servitors	The zombies ignored them. Now there were grasping hands all over him, the mob of zombies pushing him against the wall- frigid stone, icy flesh. Fingers closed around his arms, his legs, his throat. Sleep spells, illusionary bindings...the zombies were immune to some of it, and there were too many of them for the rest. Jace was helpless.
Jace	She wouldn't really hurt him. Not without a reason, anyway. "Lili," he choked out. "I'm no good against the dead, but I can fight...a necromancer. If this were a real fight, I'd have blanked your mind by now."
Liliana	The zombie mob stopped, holding him in place. "Perhaps," she conceded, rising and walking toward him. "Of course, without my control, they'd tear you apart. Wouldn't be much consolation to me...but I doubt that would be much consolation to you, either." "What's your point?" She stood over him, the zombies parting so she could glare down at him. "This world is dangerous," she said. "For you especially. And you can't beat an ancient Planeswalker whose mind you can't - or won't - touch."
Jace	She seemed very alien in that moment, bathed in moonlight and necromantic power. He sometimes forgot how old she was; well over a century and a half older than him at least, a relic of a time when Planeswalkers were something more and less than human. And Sorin was far older. "What about your vaunted paramour?" he rasped out. "Not worried about what an uncontrolled zombie horde would do to him?"
Ignis	Ignis had stepped back, when the zombies began to move, his senses intently sharp as he tracked them to assess exactly what point Liliana was attempting to make just now. His natural protective instincts did have him tense slightly with the effort to not intervene, made exceptionally easier by his curiosity and his trust in her process. But it was still there, hand drifting toward his dagger, especially once it was evident that Jace was struggling. And that cold energy he felt practically radiating off of Liliana... When she started toward him, he relaxed again. It had became quite clear that he had little part in this pointed display... ...until Jace had brought him into it, anyway, and, despite himself, he had to give a faint huff. He really shouldn't stoop to his level. It was fairly clear that he had absolutely nothing to prove to this hare-brained upstart making demands based on only the barest of research, but, well, if they were going to be making a point... One moment to get a sense for where Jace's voice had come from, from where Liliana's lorded over him, that distinctive creak of old bones moving under decayed skin, and another of hesitation, because it always felt somewhat more difficult when they were Liliana's... The first dagger neatly found the skull of the zombie directly to Jace's side from where Ignis stood; that was the easy one. The second one found itself in the closest on one his other side, cutting through the air between Jace and Liliana to find its mark, and, a second after that, his hand reached out to call up the Katana, which he twirled in his hand a moment before settling it into a ready position. "I daresay," he stated simply, "that it's hardly a concern for her at all."
Liliana	Sweet Serra, Liliana loved that man. That had been masterfully played, both demonstrating his own competence while also using ambiguous enough wording that it left her mystique intact while remaining perfectly true. Had they been alone-- Well, had they been alone, none of that would have been needed at all. So instead, she continued her imperious glowering down at the Planeswalker below her and hoped that this time, he would heed her words. "This is a dead end," she said. "Go home, Jace. I'm sure you've got forms to file."
Jace	Of course he wouldn't. Don't be silly, Liliana. Undead hands released him, and he rose, rubbing his throat. He felt the sudden need for a bath. "I'm sorry for bothering you," he croaked. "I'll head to Markov Manor on my own, then." He turned toward the door.
Liliana	"Nine hells, you are a reckless fool!"
Jace	He turned back to her. "Of course I am," he said. "That's how I got tangled up with you. I'll be going now." He turned to leave again, trying not to think about moonlight and bloody muzzles and Liliana's eyes and the fact that his guide and his horse were both gone.
Liliana	Don't be stupid," she said. "You can leave in the morning." Gaea forbid he should get messily devoured by werewolves on her property instead of waiting to be messily devoured by vampires on their own.
Jace	"Really?" he asked, incredulous. "After that grand display of mutual indifference, you're asking me to stay the night?"
Liliana	She walked toward him and leaned close, her lips almost touching his ear. His throat tightened. "Indifference," she told him, "doesn't make your heartbeat quicken or your face flush."
Jace	He could feel the presence of her body next to his, and her breath on his cheek was cold as ice. The chill lingered as she stepped away. A momentary impulse fled back into the shadows, where it belonged. "Liliana--" he said, eyes darting over to where Ignis stood.
Liliana	"Don't flatter yourself," she said, unwilling to hide her amusement at his reaction. And then she turned and walked away to Ignis, sliding her arm through his. "The servants will show you to your room," she said, over her shoulder, looking back at him from a distance that seemed much longer than it was. "Until morning," she said firmly. "After that, you're on your own."
Ignis	The faint lift of Ignis' good brow settled as Liliana's arm linked through his, and, before she pulled them away entirely, he offered a cool nod in Jace's direction. "Mr. Beleren," he acknowledged by way of a good-bye, and he considered adding something else, but...no. Probably best to leave it simply at that.