Fic Post - Got the Magic (Everybody Wants Some Presto)

[damkianna]

So, what I meant by "tonight" was obviously "tomorrow night". :D But! In my continued quest to conquer the alphabet one fandom at a time, I can now cross off the letter B. \o/

Title: Got the Magic (Everybody Wants Some Presto)
Fandom: Burn Notice
Rating: PGish? Some swearing; I don't think there's anything that requires a warning.
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble: Michael, Fiona, Sam, Madeline, Barry, and Lucy Chen, plus minor characters from canon.
Wordcount: Not quite 11,000 words.
Summary: Fiona is part leprechaun - enough to be short, enough to love shoes, and enough that she can sometimes follow rainbows to hidden stashes of M16s. Magic!AU of the series pilot, for my genretwisting bingo "contemporary fantasy" square. (Also @ AO3.)
Disclaimer: Places and people you recognize from canon are not mine. In this case, because this is an AU of a specific episode, some dialogue was also taken or adapted right from the show. Title from the lyrics to B.O.B's "Magic".
Acknowledgements: As always, I owe idriya big time for reading through this for me! And, of course, to ilthit, for running the genretwisting bingo challenge that prompted this story.

Other Notes: This story owes a little worldbuilding, its depiction of the sidhe, and one minor plot point (the iron trick) to Harry Dresden; in most respects, though, the world and what vague motions there are toward a magic system are made up out of whole cloth, folk traditions, and a little Googling.

For those who may be unfamiliar with some of the references: the word "sidhe" refers to Irish fairies (also referred to as "Folk", "Fair Folk", etc., although in this fic Folk is a more general term) who were said to live in fairy mounds, steal children, entrance people, and so on. The Dresden Files is not the only source to portray such fairies as tall, powerful, and a little scary, but it's the one that's influenced this story the most. Leprechauns are Irish fairies who are usually depicted as quite short, have associations with cobblers and shoemaking, and popularly guard the "pot of gold" said to rest at the end of the rainbow. Satyrs are creatures from Ancient Greek legend, half goat and half human, and are associated with Dionysus; they spend a lot of their time drinking and lusting after beautiful women. A 狐狸精 (húli jīng, in Mandarin) is a Chinese fox spirit, often also able to appear as a lovely woman; they are usually described as dangerous, but not necessarily good or evil. "天公" is one name for 玉皇 (Yù Huáng, in Mandarin), known in English as the Jade Emperor, a powerful and benevolent figure usually associated with Taoism who rules several realms of existence (sources vary as to which); this particular term translates approximately as "Heavenly Grandfather". An alux is a kind of sprite in certain Maya mythological traditions in southern Mexico and Guatemala; they are typically knee-high, and while they are often described as tricking or frightening people, it is also said that they can be appeased with offerings and will then bring good luck or help crops grow.

My research for this story was broad but shallow; please let me know if any of these interpretations strike you as incorrect or offensive! That is not my intention at all, and I will be grateful for the chance to make necessary changes. The above notes are intended to give the briefest possible context for references made in this story, and undoubtedly gloss over important details and nuances, for which I apologize.

---

Fiona is part leprechaun - enough to be short, enough to love shoes, and enough that she can sometimes follow rainbows to hidden stashes of M16s. But not enough that she doesn't have to latch her windows with iron when the Wild Hunt rides.

It was a pain in the ass to get the latches installed, and touching them gives Fiona pins-and-needles in her fingertips. But it's what you have to do if you want to live through the night, and Fiona has developed a certain fondness for being alive.

She's careful; she doesn't cut it fine like some people do. She closes everything up as soon as the sun sets, and by the time the hounds start baying down the expressway, she's safe behind triple-checked shutters.

The baying makes her neck tingle, makes the hair on her arms rise, but it mostly sounds like normal dogs to her. Michael's mother has told her, though, that they sound unearthly to full humans - too-high and clear and echoing. Humans, Fiona thinks, are interesting, but she's not sure she'd want to be one.

When the hounds pass, the hooves are next, clattering like jackhammers over the rooftops, and Fiona grimaces. She hates the noise. It's always like that, too - you could build your roof out of eiderdown and the Hunt would still thunder as it passed over you. Fiona might not be sure about humanity, but she knows she doesn't want to be part of the Folk. Fairies are assholes.

The Accords cover a lot of ground, because there's a lot of ground to cover when it comes to relations between the sidhe Courts and the US government. But when you cut through the bullshit, they're pretty clear about some things: at the new moon, the Wild Hunt rides where it will, which happens to be Miami this time of year; the humans shut themselves away, and as long as they follow the rules, they live. The rest of the time, the fairies of the Courts do as they please, and the humans keep their heads down and don't ask questions they don't want to know the answers to. The ones like Fiona who are on the fringes get to live in between, picking and choosing who they do business with. Fiona sticks to mostly humans; she might be an arms dealer, but she doesn't supply people who steal children in their spare time.

She waits for the thundering hooves to pass with a pillow over her head, which brings the volume from bone-shaking to just tooth-rattling. To be honest, by the time it's gone her ears are ringing so much that she might not have noticed anything if the body hadn't made the floor tremble when it landed.

"The hell," she says, and opens the door. It's safe now, the Hunt is gone; she can tell, because the porch light is feebly flickering back to life. It's dim, though, so she has to bend down to peer at the face pressed against her front step. "Michael?"

*

"What the fuck," she says, more than once, as she drags Michael inside, down the hall, and into the spare bedroom. He's unconscious, so he can't exactly answer; but she feels it needs to be said.

She hasn't seen Michael in years, not since he left - he was already working for the Summer Court when they met, she just hadn't known it then. She'd hated him for a good long while, but she kept his secret, because she's never actually wanted him to die. Summer Court - Michael had talked about it like that made it all right, like they were somehow not as bad as Winter just because they liked green. Michael has always been an idiot.

And now Fiona is going to get to tell him so to his face. She gives one last heave, and Michael flops limply from her shoulder to the unmade bed. Maybe this is actually going to be a really good day.

He's bleeding a little - nasty cut on his cheek, deep and curving, like maybe one of the horses clipped him with a hoof while he was on his way down. And it must have been barely a clip, because those horses are bloody huge. At least it wasn't a hound; regular dog bites are nothing next to what you can get from the teeth of a hound of the Hunt.

She stares down at his stupid blood-smeared face for a long moment, and then sighs. It's a lot harder to be angry with him when he's not talking. Plus the blood makes him look sort of pathetic.

She goes and gets a damp cloth to wipe it off his face, and because he's unconscious, she lets herself be gentle with him. "Oh, Michael," she says quietly, when she's done smoothing the bandage down. "What have you done now?"

*

They did something to him, to make him sleep, and Fiona's not stupid enough to screw around with somebody else's spell, so she leaves him on the spare bed.

She wakes up the next morning to the sound of him groaning; she in no way slept on the couch so that she'd hear it if he woke in the middle of the night. She scrambles up so that she can be standing smugly in the doorway by the time he rolls over. This is going to be so much fun.

When she gets to the doorway, leaning casually against the frame with her arms crossed, it looks like he's only just pried his eyes open, and he's too busy feeling stiffly at the bandage on his cheek to turn over. "Where am I?" he grunts into the mattress. Truthfully, it comes out a lot less comprehensible than that, but Fiona is unfortunately well-versed in sleepy Michaelspeak.

"Miami," she says, and she lets her accent fill the vowels like she hasn't done in weeks, just so he'll know it's her.

He groans again and puts his hands over his head, and she grins. Yeah, he knows. "Why am I here?"

"Wild Hunt dumped you on my doorstep as they went over," she says. "Which is why you look like you fell off a roof." She pauses to consider the colorful bruising going down Michael's arm. Probably his side, too, under the shirt. "Actually, they may have dumped you on the roof and let you roll off. I'm not quite sure."

He rolls over, grimacing the whole way, and then sits up, prodding his own ribs gingerly.

"But enough chat," Fiona says brightly. "I should call your mum. She'll be so pleased you're home!"

"Fi. Fi! Fiona-"

She knew that would get Michael off the bed.

*

He doesn't get the phone away from her before she can dial - his mother is third on Fiona's speed dial, has been ever since she moved to Miami. He tries, of course; but Fiona delivers a solid punch to his bruised ribs and makes the call while he's still bent over and wheezing.

"I knew she'd be happy," she tells Michael, snapping the phone shut again; he tilts his head to look up at her balefully, and she smiles. "She's always hoped that someday you'd be home in time for Christmas."

Michael finally manages to straighten up far enough to hobble to a chair. "I don't understand," he says, a hand still pressed to his side. "What are you even doing here, Fi?"

"New York was getting boring," she explains. "A few too many old enemies leaving stupid death threats, not enough guns." She looks down at the phone, and busies herself turning and sliding it back into her purse. "Besides, somebody had to look after your mother."

When she's turned back around, Michael isn't breathing so sharply anymore; he's gone still, looking at her, and he's got that stupid soft look on, the one that always makes her equally stupid. "Thank you, Fi," he says quietly.

She shrugs dismissively. If they get into this now, he's going to keep looking at her like that, and she's not sure she could stand it. He left her; she hasn't forgotten it just because he's back now. Hell, he didn't even come back himself - he had to get dropped on her house. "So," she says. "You're a free man. What are you going to do?"

"Something's gone wrong," Michael says. "I need to find out what it is."

Fiona blinks. "Are you serious? You've got a free ticket out, and all you want to do with it is try to figure out where it came from?"

Michael gives her a look. Not the soft kind, this time. "When was the last time you saw a fairy just break a deal?" he says. "I contracted with the Knight of Summer for life, Fi. That doesn't just go away."

Except it has, Fiona wants to snap, so let it get gone. But Michael's not going to listen if she does. Michael never had any sense, or he wouldn't have made the goddamn deal in the first place.

"Well," she says, stalking over to the window, "at least you know he still cares." She touches the window box gently. She's crap with flowers, but Michael's mother keeps bringing them over anyway, and yesterday, this batch was just about dead.

This morning, though, they're a foot tall, leaves all bright green, flowers so heavy their stems bend with the weight - and Fiona's pretty sure Madeline didn't put lilies in a window box, but there's a bloom inches from her face, a pink so deep it almost hurts Fiona's eyes.

When she looks back over her shoulder, Michael is staring at the flower. "I need to talk to Dain," he says.

*

She's got a circle inlaid in the floor of every room - you never know where you're going to be when you need an emergency call out to somebody who doesn't keep with cell phones. Fiona wouldn't let anybody call the Knight of Summer from her living room, but Dain's not the Knight, he's just a minor noble in the Court. She moves the rug and gets out the honey, flour, and lavender; bread would be better than flour, but if you haven't baked it yourself, it won't work, and it's been a while since Fiona's cooked. It's her fairy side; food she makes herself never tastes nearly as good as something somebody else offers her. Even if "somebody else" is the takeout delivery chick.

Michael sweeps the floor, so loose dust won't break the circle, and finds a candle in one of her drawers; with both of them together, it takes about five minutes to finish setting up, and then Michael only has to sit in the circle, and say, "Dain."

The air starts humming, faint but there - it's clearly going through, until suddenly it isn't. The hum stops abruptly, like someone just turned it off.

Michael frowns. "Dain," he says, a little more insistently. "Dain of the Court."

It happens again: the hum comes, and for a second Fiona thinks it's going to work this time, but suddenly it hits a wall, and it's like Michael never said anything.

"Looks like he's put up wards against you," she says. She's lying on the couch, chin propped up on her hands; when Michael turns to look at her, she raises her eyebrows helpfully. "I guess he doesn't like you anymore."

Michael's expression clouds over, and Fiona takes pity on him. She knows what he's thinking: he could push, end up with somebody in Dain's vicinity, but that's not a great idea when he doesn't even know why he's out.

"Time to see Lucy, then." Probably she won't be too happy to see him, but she's the safest option right now. Lucy's outside the Courts' jurisdiction; she's got no reason to hurt Michael, and she might be able to help him.

Michael, halfway through getting up from the circle, turns to look at her consideringly. "I can't just walk into her building," he says. "I need something - a uniform-"

"A glamour," Fiona says. "I can handle it."

*

She can. Michael probably could, too, but he's human; it would take candles and herbs and more circles, and probably some chanting, and it wouldn't stick nearly as long. But leprechauns obviously have natural skill when it comes to hiding things with magic. Usually themselves and money are the simplest - no would-be mugger has ever managed to find Fiona's wallet - but anything of value isn't too hard.

Of course, Fiona doesn't say it like that when she tells Michael it'll probably be easy for her to hide him. "You're pretty boring-looking already," she says instead. "I'm sure it won't take much."

She gets out her favorite quartz to anchor it, and holds it in one hand while she touches Michael's head, thinking about, literally, nobody in particular - delivery men, maintenance guys, everybody male that her eyes just kind of skipped over this week because they were boring and supposed to be there.

It doesn't work on her, of course, because she's the one who cast it; but Michael tests it by going out into the street and standing right in front of somebody. The woman gives him a cursory glance and that faint sort of only-the-cheeks smile you give strangers - and when she tries to pass by and Michael moves into her path again, you wouldn't know it to look at her. It's like she's forgotten about him completely in the span of time her eyes were off him, and she just throws him the same faint smile all over again and keeps walking, not even the slightest hint of puzzlement in her face.

"Looks good," Michael says. "Lucy it is."

***

"Goodbye," Lucy says, smiling, and hangs up the phone.

It's important to smile - people can tell about that stuff, even over the phone. They can hear it in your voice. Even humans.

Lucy's human - well, a quarter, at least - but she still has the ears of a 狐狸精. Metaphorically; she doesn't usually look like a fox while she's in the office.

People laugh sometimes, when they first hear that she works in security now; it seems like too straightforward a career for a 狐狸精, how could it suit her better than the spy thing? But she likes it - she gets to choose her own jobs, her own clients, and she doesn't have to have a dozen backup plans in case the boss isn't telling her everything. Not when she's the boss.

She's barely let go of the phone when it rings again - Janet, it says, so Lucy picks up. "Yeah?"

"There's somebody here with a delivery," Janet says. "Should I let him in?"

Lucy considers. She wasn't expecting anything today, which means it's probably not a genuine delivery; but she doubts any of her enemies would have come alone. "What does he look like?"

"Mm, I don't know," Janet says, sounding bored, and then stops. "I don't know," she repeats, and then there's a sound, a shuffling of paper, like she's trying to cover it up, make the guy think she's talking about something else. "It's probably at the front desk."

Translation: he's standing right there, right in front of Janet's desk, and she still can't tell Lucy what he looks like. Magic, then, and pretty strong. "All right," Lucy says. "I've got it. Send him in."

A second later, her door creaks open. No wonder Janet was having trouble; Lucy has to close her eyes and think hard about the door moving before she can even convince herself there's somebody there that she needs to look at.

"Michael," she says. "I'd say you're overdoing it, except that would be a lie." The word is already out, she's heard it from three people this morning: Michael Westen's out of the Summer Court, and no one is supposed to touch him, nobody's supposed to have anything to do with him. Not that Lucy answers to them - the Courts are sidhe, Chinese diaspora's not their business. But even so, she'd have to have a good reason to spit in their faces.

Luckily, having him in her office is more like glaring at them from fifty paces.

"So you've heard," he says.

"Yeah," Lucy says, a little offended.

"Right, no, of course," Michael amends, hands up. "Of course you have. Tell me?"

Lucy sniffs and rolls her shoulders, considering. Underneath the rude and the stupid, Michael's a good guy, and it's not like she owes the sidhe any favors. If they try to come down on her for something as small as telling him what everybody knows, 天公 will wipe the floor with them. Benevolently. "Not much," she admits - she could find out more, but there's a difference between hearing and digging for details. "You're out. Summer's washed its hands of you; the Knight's dropped you like a rock." She shakes her head. "You were always good at pissing people off, but this is something else."

It's getting easier, the longer she focuses on him; she doesn't even have to work to keep her eyes on him as he frowns. "Dropped me," he echoes.

"Like a rock," Lucy repeats helpfully.

He turns his giant serious eyes on her, and she starts shaking her head even before he can say her name. She knows what that look means.

"No," she says, "no, so much no. I am not here to make your life easier, Michael-"

"Lucy," he repeats, pleading. "I've been in the Court for years, I've - I don't even have a driver's license, I don't even have a wallet. There's no point, fairy gold dissolves in half an hour. If I'm going to figure this out, I need a little more than two dusty shelves of herbs and blessed chalk in my mom's garage, and I need money to get it."

Lucy sighs and rubs her temples. Giving Michael a job wouldn't be spitting in the Courts' faces, no; more like waiting until they're looking away and then flipping them off. But if something ever happened to her, she admits to herself, she'd want Michael to give her a shot. "No guarantees," she says warningly, and waits until he nods to continue. "I'll check with Sam."

Michael blinks. "Sam?" he says. "Sam Axe?"

"Yeah," Lucy says. "For somebody who's only like an eighth satyr, he takes that whole booze-and-parties thing pretty seriously; but he can be useful when he tries. I throw him jobs now and then, when he's out of beer money."

"Wait, hang on - is he on one now?" Michael says.

***

"No," Fiona says. "Absolutely not."

"Hey! It's great to see you, too, Fi," says Sam Axe, who is inexplicably inside her front door, and somehow there's no gun in her hands; he takes another swig from his beer bottle. The fucking useless - drunken-

"Fi," Michael says, wary, "Fi, come on. He's out, same as me-"

"He's out because he's incompetent," Fi snaps, "not because he got lucky."

"Hey, come on," Sam says, affecting a hurt look. "I resent that, I am plenty competent."

Fi raises an eyebrow, and looks pointedly at the bottle in his hand.

"I can't help that I function best with beer." He shrugs. "It's my nature, I'm Folk."

"Like an eighth!" Fiona says. And she hates satyrs anyway, they're so - ugh. Downright embarrassing. Fiona might not be as picky as full Folk, but she still has standards.

"And I'm not out," Sam adds. "I'm just - not in, either. Enough not in that I'm not committing career suicide talking to Mike, anyway."

"You-" Fiona starts, but Michael catches her wrist before she can finish the swing.

"Fi, please," he says, and, damn him, he's doing that soft-eyed thing again. "It's for a job-"

"What, he's the job?" Fiona says. "Is Lucy paying you to sober him up? You should have offered to drain the Gulf, it would take less time."

Michael's hand is still around her wrist. "He's not the job; he's just helping."

"More like selflessly donating," Sam says. "I could do this job myself, easy, but my buddy is in need."

"So instead of working, you can sit around doing nothing," Fiona says. "Sounds like that must be a real wrench."

"Yeah, Mikey's doing all the work," Sam concedes, "but that means he gets most of the money - less a small finder's fee, of course."

"Oh, I'm so sorry - maybe you actually can see generous from where you are," Fiona snaps.

"Hey, sister, this is serious," Sam protests. "I'm already low - without this job, I could run out of beer."

"Sam," Michael says, "stop helping." He's let go of her wrist, and he's talking to Sam, but he's still looking at her. Still gentle around the eyes, and the corners of his mouth are beginning to twitch upward.

He obviously thinks this is hilarious. Which is a load of shit, and she's going to make him pay for it later; but it's nice to see him smile. Fiona clears her throat. At least somebody's getting something out of this.

"Fine," she says, sharp. "What's the job?"

"Fi," Michael says, but she rolls her eyes and doesn't let him finish.

"I'm not letting you go running off with just that idiot for backup," Fiona says, "you'll get yourselves killed. What's the job?"

*

The job's straightforward, is what it is; or at least it seems that way at the start. The details vary, but the basic story is pretty familiar: somebody stole a thing from a guy, and the guy wants it back. Some jewelry, this time, and some artwork, but the game is the same, whether it's art or drugs or money. Not very complicated.

Granted, Fiona's usually the one stealing the things from the guys, not the one trying to get them back. But sometimes life takes you places you never expected to go.

The guy who asked Lucy for help - and would've gotten Sam Axe in return, so lucky for him Michael got dumped by the Court - isn't the guy, though. He's the guy's groundskeeper, and it takes Michael about three seconds to figure out why he needs them.

"You're a person of interest," he says.

The groundskeeper, Javier, looks away. "I told them, okay," he says. "I've got my kid to think about, I turned over a new leaf; Mr. Pyne leaves the offerings like clockwork, I've got no reason to mess with him. But the police - they're humans. No offense-"

"None taken," Michael says agreeably.

"-but they see I'm an alux, and-" Javier shifts uncomfortably. "Case closed, as far as they're concerned."

"An alux?" Fiona says, eyeing him. He's awfully tall.

"It's hard to enter codes in the alarm pads if I stay knee-height all the time," Javier says. He looks at Michael. "Please. Mr. Pyne knows it wasn't me, but the police, they won't listen. I don't have anybody else to ask. I need your help."

Fiona doesn't even have to look at Michael. Javier said the magic words: I need your help. Not literally magic, in this particular instance, but to Michael they might as well be. Pin your hopes on Michael's ability to have an honest conversation, and you're fucked; on his ability to hunt people down in the name of justice, and you're golden.

Javier has a file, newspaper clippings and reports he's collected to fill in the background. Michael takes it, and scans the first sheet. "Twenty-two million dollars?" he says.

Javier nods miserably, and shrugs one shoulder. "They were really nice paintings."

*

They talk to Mr. Pyne, too, but he doesn't have anything to tell them that isn't in Javier's papers. Fiona doesn't listen closely, she's mostly keeping an eye out in case guns or explosives or hexes pop up; but for a guy who's missing twenty-two million dollars worth of stuff, his body language is remarkably relaxed.

"Impressionist, mostly," she hears, as Pyne's leading them through the front hallway, and then Fiona's fingers start to tingle. Maybe Pyne had iron laid into the foundation?

Michael's making nice with Pyne, listening to him describe the paintings, so Sam can turn around and glare at her without Pyne noticing. "Hey, turn that off, will you?" Sam hisses over his shoulder.

Fiona blinks, and then looks up, and sees what he means. It's not really obvious yet, nothing Pyne would see unless he were looking for it, but there are colors starting to glimmer in the air, faint and dusty, a disorganized cloud. She waits a moment, and they start to coalesce, arching down from the huge high ceiling. A rainbow.

"It's not up to me," she spits back, under her breath, and glances around.

Everything in here is valuable, sleek and shining, marble and chrome; but when she lets her eyes follow the arc, tracing down past where the colors fade, she comes to a simple manila folder, sitting on a mahogany side table.

"-just, very beautiful stuff," Pyne is saying to Michael, and as they pass the side table, he picks up the folder.

The half-formed rainbow shimmers away, with a low soft sound like a sigh in Fiona's ears, and she follows Michael and Pyne around the corner and keeps her eyes on the folder.

"And it's just awful how they're treating him," Pyne continues, turning from another long hallway into a kitchen. "But you know how the police are - even the slightest whiff of magic, and they're all over it. Half my staff is magic one way or another, it's been a nightmare." He edges past the kitchen island and toward a little nook on the other side of the room - a safe, and that's not chrome it's fronted with, that's silver. Etched with runes around the edges, sharp-angled and dignified enough that they don't look especially out of place; and when Pyne touches it with his finger, tracing something out over the surface, the air hums a little.

"You use nonmagical security systems on most of the house, don't you?" Michael says.

"Actually, it's a hybrid system," Pyne says easily, sliding the folder into the safe and closing it again. "I still employ quite a few humans. It makes it easier if we use normal security pads to interface with the wards. Quite complicated stuff, I'm told - they're still working out the kinks, of course, but I really couldn't tell you much about it. That's the sort of thing you'll want to talk to my head of security about."

*

The head of security is a guy named Vincent; quarter giant or so, unless Fiona's completely lost her touch. Humans tend to think of giants as stupid, but that's a simplistic way to think about it. Really, giants are just like humans: only most of them are stupid.

"We've already talked to the police," Vincent says, low and rumbling.

"Yeah, Mr. Pyne mentioned," Michael says, and he sounds especially flippant by contrast. "We just had a couple more questions we wanted to ask - can't be too careful, you know."

Vincent says nothing.

Michael clears his throat. "So," he says. "Does Mr. Pyne have any enemies?"

"He's worth a hundred mil," Vincent says, which is, in a way, an answer. "You're wasting your time. He's got a soft spot for that sprite, but we all know who did it."

"That's a very helpful attitude," Michael observes. Vincent eyes him, but Michael's face is blank and guileless. He was always good at that.

"We each have a code," Vincent says, gesturing toward the keypad on the wall with one massive hand. "Tells the wards to back off. Guess whose code got used the night everything went missing."

Michael doesn't guess; he thanks Vincent for his time, bright and harmless, and doesn't say anything until they're back outside.

"Mike," Sam says, when they're outside the gate and halfway to the car. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Guy's been working here fifteen years," Michael says, "knows this place like the back of his hand - and he uses his personal code to get through the wards?"

"Bullshit," Fiona summarizes. "He'd know they could find out."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with you, but damn right," Sam says. "It'd be like robbing a bank and leaving your photo at the desk before you left. The guy seemed nice, not stupid."

"Which means he was right," Michael says slowly. "There's something going on here, and he needs our help."

*

Michael can't live with her; it's not an option, after everything that happened in Dublin. But she has to say, his taste in living arrangements is shit.

"Are you serious?" she says, stepping gingerly over the chipped piece of wood serving as a threshold. "An abandoned warehouse."

"I don't know what you mean," Michael says, utterly straightfaced. "Four walls, a ceiling, a floor; lots of space, and there's only one drug dealer in the building."

Fiona eyes him. "Sometimes I wonder how you've managed to live this long."

"It came with mattresses," he points out, and then meets her eyes for a little too long; he looks away after, so smooth and easy that he must be incredibly uncomfortable.

She takes pity on him. "No refrigerator," she says. "Where will you keep your yogurt?"

He spreads his hands and opens his mouth, and then his phone rings. "One second," he says, and flips it open. "Hello?" he says warily.

Fiona can hear the dulcet tones of Madeline's voice from twenty feet away.

"Mom - Mom, hey - how did you get this number?" He pinches the bridge of his nose.

Fiona can tell that her grin at that is mostly teeth. She loves Madeline so much sometimes.

She takes a closer look around while Michael's on the phone, and, fine, he wasn't completely wrong. It's a dump, but it's big, and it seems fairly secure - they'll need to do some repairs on the doorway, fix up the windowframes, lay a few circles, but there's not a lot of other buildings in the area, there's decent cover, and she's pretty sure the river's not far away. And if there's a drug dealer living happily downstairs, the police must not come around very often.

"I would love to drive you to the hospital, Mom," Michael says through clenched teeth. "But I've got this thing - no, Mom, I'm not waiting for you to die - no, Mom, I don't want the house-"

Fiona settles in to wait.

Finally, Michael hangs up, and lets out a harsh breath. "I - need to do my mother a favor," he says.

"Fine, fine," Fiona says airily. "I just came by to tell you: there was something up with that folder Pyne was putting away."

Michael blinks. "You rainbowed on it?"

Fiona nods. "A folder, in the middle of all that other crap he had?" She raises her eyebrows. "There must be something valuable in there - papers, contracts, I don't know. Maybe it's nothing, but as long as we're looking for things that don't add up-"

"No, that's - thank you, Fi." Michael hesitates, so long that Fiona has to roll her eyes.

"Just ask already," she says on a sigh. "Whatever it is, the worst I can do is say no. And maybe punch you in the ribs again."

Michael eyes her, and conspicuously turns so his bruised side is away from her. "This place is good - I mean, it will be, but it's not like your place. I haven't had time to put anything up, and my mother's appointment is in an hour."

Fiona purses her lips and thinks it over. It probably wouldn't take long for her to set up some basic security - grab a few candles, some iron nails for the walls, maybe some salt. And she doesn't have anything else to do today; her silver ammo deal with the guys from Kansas isn't going down until tomorrow afternoon.

"Okay," she says, "but you owe me one."

***

Madeline takes a drag from her cigarette and then taps it on the windowsill - a second before Michael grabs it and throws it out the window.

"Michael-"

"Mom!" Michael's always so angry - and there's really no reason for it, either. She's not the one who's missed their last ten Thanksgivings. And Christmases. "This car isn't mine, you can't smoke in here."

"What do you mean, it isn't yours?"

Michael makes that face that means he's clenching his teeth. He always did overreact to things. "I don't have a car, Mom - the Court travels by circles, you know that."

"Circles make me sick, all that taking you apart and putting you back together-"

"They don't-" Michael cuts himself off, and sucks in a deep breath. Why does he have to act like she's such a burden? "I know that, Mom, that's why I - borrowed the car. But it's not mine, and you can't smoke in it."

Madeline's ready with a reply, but the car swings suddenly around a corner, even though Michael didn't put on his signal. "Michael!" she says instead, bracing herself against the door. "You'd think you'd drive a little more carefully, if it's not your car. You know, I still have the Charger; I never use it, but your father never stopped working on it. I'm sure he'd want you to have it."

But he's not listening - he never listens. He's staring into the rearview, frowning, like there's anything in the road behind them that could be half as important as family.

"You and your father are so alike," she says, sighing. "I don't know why you two always had to fight so much."

"If we'd been fighting," Michael says, "I would have been punching him back."

"You're the one who left," she says.

Michael keeps his eyes on the road, and doesn't look at her. "I sent whatever I could get," he says.

Whatever he could get. Not that it hasn't been a help, it has, but he says it like that's enough - like that's ever enough, like a silver amulet or an oak talisman appearing in a ring of soot on her doorstep every now and then was just as good as seeing her son's face would have been. "And what about Christmas? Thanksgiving? You don't call, you don't write - what about Nate? Your brother hasn't seen you in-"

"Ma, I really don't think that's a good idea," Michael says.

"And how would you know?" she demands, crossing her arms. "I don't tell you everything, Michael, you have no idea what it's been like."

He doesn't say anything for a minute, yanking on the wheel again instead - the hospital drive, she realizes. He hits the brake. "I don't need to know, Mom," he says, quiet, when the car has stopped. "I'm not staying."

"Hah," she says, yanking her purse handles up over her shoulder, and she slams the door when she gets out. The doctor told her to report sources of stress in her life; she is definitely telling him about this.

***

Fiona's about three-quarters done when Michael gets back, slamming the door behind him and then turning to press his head against it.

"So you had fun, huh?" she says, one last sharp swing of the hammer driving another nail in.

"Never let me do that again," he says into the door, muffled.

He turns around, and she stands up, knees protesting; she was getting the lower corner near the balcony, you never know what size a fairy will be. He's got that look on his face, that itchy I'm-only-patient-when-I'm-being-shot-at look, and a second later it firms up into determination. "I need to try Dain again," he says. "On the way to the hospital, there was something following me, I could see the air wavering in the rearview every time I took a corner."

"Maybe they just want to be sure you aren't going anywhere," Fiona says, but she knows it won't help even before Michael shakes his head.

"No, they're keeping an eye on me for a reason," he says. "Either Dain's doing it, or he knows who is." He shakes his head. "I don't know what's going on, Fi, I don't know why this is happening."

Fiona wants to roll her eyes, but she's not exactly surprised. Even back in Dublin, when he was pretending to be someone else entirely, he never lost that need for control, that need to know. She can even understand it, if she squints: information was the best weapon he had in a world where he was surrounded by Folk who could - literally - crush him with a word.

Which is why he should never have started working for them in the first place, of course, but he'd already made that particular mistake long before she met him.

He passed Madeline's place on the way back and picked up some of his things, so he's got the stuff for the call and chalk to draw a circle; the warehouse floor isn't quite level, but it'll do. Right this second, it's actually a good thing that there's no furniture or rugs.

It happens just like last time, of course, because whatever Dain's reason is for warding Michael away from him, it hasn't gone away. But this time, Michael pushes - concentrates, holds the connection to that blank wall of silence until he slides to one side of it.

"You really can't keep doing this, Michael," a woman's voice says. Not human. No human voice could remind you so strongly of breezes and birdcalls and the sound of water; Court, most likely. And she sounds completely and utterly disinterested, like a receptionist who's got Solitaire open.

"Alva," Michael says. "What the hell is going on? Dain-"

"Dain?" Alva's voice is amused, now; it's faint, but Fiona can tell. "Dain? I don't know anyone-"

"-by that name, yeah, yeah," Michael says, sighing.

Fucking fairies - of course Dain's not the guy's real name, fairy names are like twelve syllables long and sound like a thrush coughing. But it's the name he'd have given Michael whenever they talked, and Fiona would bet her favorite Walther that Alva knows it. Folk and their bloody technicalities.

"Look," Michael says, "just tell him I'll be in touch," and he smudges three fingers across the chalk before Alva can say anything else.

"Be in touch?" Fiona says, as Michael levers himself off the floor. She doesn't like the sound of that.

But Michael grins at her. "I haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping," he says. "Do you have some spare sugar?"

*

It's a fairly well-known fact that fairies don't like some things. After the Exposure, while the Accords and all the other treaties that govern relations between species were still being negotiated, there was a real run on iron and salt in particular, and the price of silver skyrocketed.

So the Court, Fiona's given to understand, is pretty paranoid. They learned long ago what things tend to be made of iron, they know what salt looks like - and if you should, say, translocate a pile of nails and something whitish and grainy into the domain of a sidhe, they're probably going to notice.

Even if it's aluminum nails with a generous helping of sugar.

Michael concentrates a little harder, and the chalk goes up in smoke, aluminum and sugar vanishing with a little ripple of the air; nothing's left where it was but bare floorboards and a little circle of soot. And somewhere on the fringes of the Summer Court's towers and gardens, there's going to be another little circle of soot in the grass, and the Folk equivalent of a lot of running and shouting.

Fiona grins. They should do this every day, just to keep the sidhe on their toes.

"So," she says. "Have we decided what we're doing about Javier and his twenty-two million dollar problem?"

"I'm taking the job," Michael says, like there was ever any doubt. "But I need to talk to Javier first, see if he knows anything about that safe in the kitchen."

"And maybe get his security code," Fiona says.

Michael blinks at her.

"How else are we going to get past those wards? Or were you going to ask him about the safe out of professional curiosity?"

"We're trying to get him out of trouble, Fi," Michael says. "Another break-in done with his code isn't really going to help his case here."

"We wouldn't necessarily have to use it," Fiona says. "But it would give you a place to start, if you're going to try to unravel their wards by hand."

Michael grimaces - understandably. It would be hard enough with normal wards, never mind the half-electronic hybrid system Pyne's so casual about.

But then he smiles, which means she isn't going to like this. "Of course," he says. "We need Barry."

*

Fiona doesn't know Barry, for a very good reason: Barry is one of Sam's "guys", which means Fiona dislikes him by default. But aside from his abysmal taste in friends, Barry's not all that bad. Short, plump, fully human in every respect - except for the thing where he can see magic.

Not see a circle glow when you use it, or see something appear when you conjure it; even the most bog-standard humans can manage that. He can see the spells themselves - he can tell when things have charms laid on them, see wards in front of him as easily as walls, and, most importantly, he can see where spells interact with each other.

"It's like a lot of little wires," he murmurs, staring intently at the keypad by the outer gate of Pyne's place. It's a bit past midnight, sky dark as pitch, and Javier promised he'd have all the grounds guys out of their way. "Like the guy said, it's a hybrid system - nice work, too. The keys are tied into the wards, bound into the spells, which is why pressing them in a certain order can bring the wards down. And," he adds, leaning a little closer, "lucky for you, the system really is split."

Michael raises an eyebrow at him.

"When the codes are entered," Barry explains, "they move the wards around - but the entry gets recorded on the digital side. You've got to actually press the physical keys in for the system to register that a code's been used. But the spell-lines they're tied into go right down the wall. You got something with a charge?"

"Don't look at me," Sam says. "All I've got is my beer, and you aren't getting that."

Fi rolls her eyes, and digs her usual quartz out of her purse. She never cleaned the stone out after she glamoured Michael up, there should be a little stray power left in it.

"Great, perfect," Barry says, and takes it. "What's the code?"

Michael tells him Javier's, one number at a time; and Barry, peering intently at something no one else can see, taps the quartz against the wall like he's using it to pluck the strings of an invisible harp. The quartz glows a little every time he does it, activating the spells one by one, and when Michael tells him the last number, he touches the wall one more time and then squints to the left, toward Pyne's mansion.

"Yup," he says, "there she goes. You can go right through the gate and she shouldn't make a peep."

"We," Michael says, and claps Barry on the shoulder.

"Um," Barry says. "Look, I - I respect you, okay, I'm glad to help a guy out when he's down, especially if his name is Michael Westen and he could kill me with his foot. I want to be friends. You got a talisman you need stripped all shiny clean, you know who to call. And you know who not to call when you're going to break into a mansion-"

"I want to be friends, too, Barry," Michael says, very very nicely. "There's a safe in there, and I have no idea what it's got on it. You're the guy to call."

Barry glances at Michael's hand on his shoulder, at the shadowy lawns of Pyne's place, and sighs. "You're not going to let me get cursed?" he says.

"I'm not going to let you get cursed." Michael turns suddenly serious. "I don't do that to my friends."

"Okay," Barry says. "All right. Where's the safe?"

*

"That is a great safe," Barry says. "That is an awesome safe. Seriously, who designed this thing?"

"Make out with it later," Sam advises. "Right now we just have to get it open and get out." He takes a swig from his beer.

"Couldn't you have left that outside?" Fiona snaps.

"Actually," Michael says, because he ruins everything, "it'll probably help. People don't sneak in to steal stuff with beers in their hands. Might give us some plausible deniability if Vincent comes around."

Barry's still crouched down by the safe, peering at the front; Fiona leans her elbows on the island and watches him frown. "What?" she says. "Something wrong?"

"Man, I don't even know," Barry says. "I'm not sure you can even get this open without Pyne."

"Hey, come on, Barry," Sam says, "don't be like that."

"It's not me," Barry says. "Look, everybody interacts with magic a little differently - it's like a signature, or a - a fingerprint. Even if you knew the rune code, which you don't, you'd still have to be Pyne to get this open."

"Rune code?" Fiona says.

"Oh - yeah." Barry points to the edge of the safe, the stiff-angled runes carved so neatly into it. "A couple of those, I think. Sort of superfluous, all they really needed was to key it to Pyne; but I guess they wanted to be careful."

"Careful," Sam says, snorting. "Not exactly subtle, is it, writing the alphabet right there."

Barry shrugs. "Hey, I'm assuming you know your single-digit numbers," he says, "but that doesn't mean you could have gotten past the keypad without the code."

"Maybe you're assuming too much," Fiona says sweetly, and meets Sam's glare with a bright smile.

Michael is bent over near Barry, gazing intently at the shining silver safe; and then he stands up, and looks at her. "Barry," he says. "Barry, things get magic on them, don't they?"

"Well, yeah, sure, but - oh," Barry says. "Oh, Westen, nice - but it's got to be something he uses all the time, it's got to really have him all over it or this is never going to work."

"... Care to share with the class?" Sam says.

*

When they lay it all out, it's not a completely terrible plan. She chooses to attribute that to herself having been the inspiration for it: her quartz, to be precise, still touched with spare power. All they need to do is find something like it, something Pyne uses - something that gets soaked in his magic day in and day out, enough to pass for him as far as the ward on the safe is concerned.

Of course, that "all they need to do" covers quite a bit of ground. The mansion's bloody enormous, and it's like she told Sam, the rainbow thing doesn't come with a switch. They've searched half the place, barely managing to avoid a door with a gargoyle stationed overhead, before she pauses with a tingle in her fingers. "There," she whispers to Michael. "By the desk."

They're on the second floor, and this must be one of Pyne's offices - not his private study, Javier told them his code wouldn't get them past any interior rounds of keypads, but there's a big mahogany desk with charm seals inlaid in the sides, covered in papers and blueprints and diagrams. And in the stand beside it, there's a couple different rods. Cedar for healing, oak for offensive spells, elm for anchoring - Pyne's pretty well-equipped.

Barry's down the hall with Sam, but he comes when Michael waves a hand at him, and squints down at the rods. "This one," he says, pointing at the elm rod. "He must use this thing every day, it's like a freaking glowstick. No, no, don't touch it!" he adds, when Michael leans down and reaches for it. "Don't touch it, Westen, you'll get you on it." Barry stuffs a hand into his own pocket, and pulls out a white handkerchief, plain clean cotton - and if Fiona had to guess, she'd bet that it's handwoven, never been bleached or treated. He wraps it around the end of the elm casting rod, and lifts it carefully out of the stand. "Okay," he says, "back to the safe."

They don't have the rune code, of course, but Michael peers at the surface of the safe and then smiles. "People never think," he murmurs.

"Does he do this a lot?" Barry asks her.

Fiona nods. "All the time."

"Pyne traced them with his hand," Michael says, taking the casting rod from Barry with the handkerchief still wrapped around it. "His finger - over and over again, he's opened this thing."

Fiona rounds the kitchen island and crouches down beside him, and yeah, she can see it from here. The silver's high-quality, burnished smooth; but there's spots that are smoother than the rest, worn by the brush of Pyne's fingertips. Not the lines of the runes, Pyne would've noticed that a while ago - but at the corners, the places where his fingers pause to change direction. Fiona eyes the spots, and tries to put them together into lines. "Looks like that one," she says, pointing to a rune, "and that one."

"Possession and wealth," Sam says, nodding wisely. "Very thematic."

Fiona raises an eyebrow.

"What?" Sam says. "I take breaks between beers for a little reading now and then."

Michael tips the casting rod, touches the end to the door of the safe, and they all freeze for a second; but nothing happens, the rod must be good enough. Michael traces out the sharp-cornered runes, and the safe comes open like it was just waiting for him to ask.

"Booyah," Sam says.

*

Javier falls back onto the couch, a hand to his mouth, when Michael spreads the folder's contents on the coffee table in front of him.

"Dad? Dad?"

"I'm okay, David," Javier says, and he makes a space beside him for his son to scramble up. He rubs his face, and looks up at Michael. "Insurance."

Michael nods, and Fiona could punch people for the look on Javier's face, could hex a city block into fire and rubble. The papers inside the folder explain everything, in bits and pieces. The insurance forms are the reason Fiona rainbowed on the folder, being indirectly worth twenty-two million dollars; but they're suspicious because they're in there alongside the papers outlining Pyne's investment failures, the hole he's dug himself into, the art appraisals he had done barely two months ago - and the employee listing with Javier's name circled.

"Mr. Pyne, he - he did it," Javier says, "he framed me to get the insurance. And Vincent - he couldn't have done it without Vincent. I can't believe this."

"I'm sorry," Michael says. "He won't get away with it."

Javier is staring at the coffee table, but then he drags his eyes up again.

"I promise you," Michael says, and Fiona looks at him; there's something steel in his voice, that sharp edge he gets when he needs to set things right, to make someone sorry. She almost likes that edge, just because it usually means she's about to get to blow something up. "He won't get away with it."

"Probably time to look for a new gig, though," Sam adds. "Just a tip."

"One other thing," Michael says, and sets a fat envelope on the coffee table.

Javier stares at it. "The money - the money for the job?"

"Expenses weren't as bad as I thought," Michael says. "Keep it. And while we're here: how are your wards?"

*

"Expenses weren't as bad as you thought," Fiona repeats later, as they head up Pyne's drive.

"We got a close-future-friends discount on Barry's fee," Michael says. "After I stocked the warehouse, there was still plenty left." He shrugs awkwardly, one-shouldered. "Guy's got a kid."

Fiona looks at him, and can't quite crush the smile that wants to peek out the corner of her mouth. "See, it's good for you," she says, "being out. Gives you a chance to indulge your secret taste for puppies and sunshine."

The gate opens before Michael can answer, and Pyne's waiting for them in a chair by the mansion swimming pool, Vincent looming alongside like a tree. He's got nice sunglasses; Michael's are nicer. Fiona tries not to smirk too much.

"Ah, Mr. Westen," Pyne says, and sets down his drink. "A pleasure. I was very glad to hear your efforts yielded results-"

"You won't be in a minute," Fiona says, crossing her arms, and Michael slides the folder out of his jacket, easy and casual like he hasn't been pinning it there with his elbow for the last ten minutes.

Fiona wants to laugh at the expression that comes over Pyne's face when Michael lets the folder drop to the table; he blanches, first, and then he can't seem to decide whether to look pissed or just afraid. "Where did you get that," he says, so flatly it doesn't come out sounding like a question.

"Doesn't matter," Michael says. "We know, we've got copies of everything in there, and if you don't give Javier a glowing recommendation and the nicest severance package a groundskeeper ever got, we're going to make you very unhappy."

Pyne's face hardens. He picked anger. "I'm already unhappy, Mr. Westen," he says. "If you'd like to avoid the same fate, I suggest you get off my property."

"A pleasure," Michael says, a deliberate echo, and gives Pyne and Vincent both a nod.

"It's a gift," Fiona tells him as they walk away, "the way you make people hate you."

Michael turns to give her a long look, mouth pursed, and she has to work not to grin. And then he completes the turn, studiously casual; and she matches it, crossing her arms. "Mr. Pyne," he says, raising his voice, and Pyne looks up, face still tight with irritation. "Before you do anything stupid, I should tell you: the wards at Javier's apartment have been ... upgraded."

And that's her cue: Fiona slides Pyne's elm casting rod from her purse and tosses it so that it lands with a clatter on the table, rolling until it bumps the folder's edge.

"By which we mean you'll catch on fire if you step over his threshold," Fiona says. She spelled it in herself; she's always been skilled with the more pyrotechnic curses.

"And who knows what might happen to Vincent," Michael adds. It's a bluff, to some degree - they didn't have anything of Vincent's, they couldn't key it to him specifically the way they could to Pyne. But, looking at Michael's face, Fiona would guess it's safe to say that Vincent's going to end up in pain if he comes around Javier's place, even if it's not the wards that do it. "Nice talking to you, Mr. Pyne," Michael says, and Fiona matches his stride all the way to the mansion gates, just to complete the effect.

***

Madeline opens the door the second she sees who it is through the peephole; it's always so nice to see Fiona. "Fiona!" she says. "And Michael. How nice to see you," and she makes sure to aim most of her smile at Fiona. People who were here for Thanksgiving get smiles.

"Mom," Michael says, and holds up a paper bag. "You left your prescription in the car before, and I was - doing an errand. I figured I'd go ahead and pick it up for you."

"I don't suppose this errand involved guns," Madeline says sharply, taking the bag out of his hand. "Or hexes."

"Not directly," Fiona promises, and smiles. Such a charming girl; if only Michael would hurry up and get his head out of his ass.

"It's for the stress, you know," Madeline says over her shoulder, carrying the pills to the kitchen. "My doctor says that I have too much stress in my life, and it's making me sick."

"I know, Ma," Michael says.

"You know, it's nearly Christmas, and your brother's not returning any of my calls-" She breaks off to wrestle with the drawer - it's where she always keeps her medications, if they aren't dailies, but it's been sticky lately. Michael really ought to fix it - he owes her, not even picking up a phone all that time-

The rush of air takes her by surprise, and she nearly drops the bottle.

"Michael," she says, turning around, and straightens up at the same moment she notices that the kitchen suddenly smells like violets.

"Dain," Michael says to the man who wasn't in her living room a minute ago.

"Michael, who is this?" she says. If it's one of his friends from his oh-so-secret job, he's never going to introduce her properly, of course, but it's worth a try.

But it's Fiona who turns to look at her. "Just a minute, Madeline," she says quietly.

Michael and this Dain person are still staring at each other. "Bet you thought that was really funny, Michael," Dain says.

Michael's face goes studiously blank in that way that means the answer is yes. "It got your attention," he says.

Dain snorts. "Yeah, and a lot of good it'll do you. I don't handle your deal anymore, Michael, there's no point in going after me."

"You don't handle it," Michael repeats, and his eyes narrow. "But it's still in effect - it's not broken?"

"It's not mine anymore," Dain says lazily. "That's all I know."

Behind him, the bowl of potpourri on the coffee table is filling, petals expanding and slowly drawing together into flowers that look like they got cut about five minutes ago. Madeline only notices it because Fi is staring at it, and she touches Michael's elbow and nods toward it.

"But one of you is following me," Michael says, glancing at the potpourri. "I need to know who it is, Dain, I need to know what the hell is going on-"

"I can't tell you what I don't know," Dain says, and now there's a little thread of irritation in his voice - and something else alongside it, something that makes Madeline think for a second that a bird's flown into the house. "You're not beholden to the Knight of Summer anymore, but you're not free either." He pauses briefly. "You've done a lot of work for me, Michael, and you know how we hate to feel indebted - so if I had to guess, I'd say your deal's been traded out. But the Knight of Summer doesn't let go of anything he doesn't think he can get back; I wouldn't be surprised if he's got someone keeping an eye on you."

Michael stares into the middle distance for a moment; he's not angry anymore, there's too much expression on his face for that. Mostly he looks tired.

He should have come home more often.

"All right," Michael says. "All right - thanks, Dain."

"Don't thank me," Dain says, "we're even now," and then he vanishes with a little swirl of wind - this time, Madeline notices, it smells like honeysuckle.

There's a moment of silence. Madeline waits, but it doesn't seem like Michael's about to break it - typical - so she does it herself. "What the hell is going on?"

"Mom-"

"Don't mom me," she snaps. "That was a fairy, Michael, that was Summer Court in my living room. The least you could do is have the decency to explain yourself."

Michael looks at her, and then at Fiona, and then back at her; opens his mouth, closes it, and then sighs. "I'm - temporarily out of work," he says at last. "That was me trying to figure out why."

"And getting about a sixteenth of an answer," Fiona says. She gives Madeline an almost sympathetic glance - poor dear, she's had to deal with nearly as much of Michael's pigheadedness as Madeline.

"It's something to go on, at least," Michael says, giving the potpourri another distant look; and then he turns back toward her. "I'm sorry, Ma, I didn't mean for him to come here."

Madeline leans down to shove the pill drawer shut, considering. "Well," she says, "as long as you're here, you could always stay for dinner."

"We'd love to," Fiona says warmly while Michael's mouth is still opening, and Madeline smiles.

***

They came through public circles, Miami is dotted with them; but they don't leave that way. The car is from Madeline - Michael's father's car, actually. Even if Madeline hadn't said it, Fiona would have known by the way Michael looked at it.

But Madeline doesn't have any circles laid in her house, and after all the magic Michael's expended in the last few days on Javier's wards, he'd never be able to do a full transportation by himself. Fiona refuses to walk all the way back to the nearest public circle station just because Michael's feeling stubborn.

So they take the car.

"Really, Fi?" Michael says, once they're safely inside, stuffed with salad and Madeline's extra-cheesy lasagna. The way he pulls away from the curb, you'd think there were hellhounds after him.

"I just thought you could use a chance to start adjusting," Fiona says airily. "You know she's going to have you over for Christmas-"

"Well, maybe I could-"

"Christmas," Fiona repeats.

Michael sighs. "I know she's going to have me over for Christmas," he agrees.

Fiona beams. "So you might as well get reacquainted with dinner at your mother's house before the holidays strike. Baby steps," she adds knowingly, and pats him on the shoulder.

Michael gives her a flat look. "I'm not calling my brother," he says.

Fiona gives the dashboard a thoughtful glance, eyebrows raised.

"I'm not."

Best not to strip him of all his illusions at once, Fiona decides, and says nothing. It's a nice night; she rolls down her window a little instead.

Michael stays stonily silent for a few minutes, but he can't keep it up for the whole drive back to the warehouse; by the time they're out of Madeline's neighborhood, his shoulders have relaxed again. "Fi," he says into the quiet a minute later, and then clears his throat. "I should have done this before, but - thank you. I couldn't have done any of this without you."

"No," Fiona agrees, "you couldn't have. I've been quite accomodating, I think, considering I hadn't seen you in years before you got dumped on my roof."

Michael grimaces, and then sneaks a glance at her across the car. "I'm sorry," he says, "about Dublin - I never meant to leave that way-"

"Bit late for that," Fiona says sharply. Usually she loves accepting apologies, particularly ones she deserves; but at this point it's nothing but a reminder.

"I know," Michael says, "but it's the truth."

Fiona sighs. "I should have shot you the second you landed on my doorstep," she says, but she doesn't really mean it, and Michael can probably tell.

"Thank you for not doing that," Michael says anyway; and if they're quiet the rest of the way back, well, it's not a wholly unpleasant quiet.

If Michael really did do some shopping, he's probably already charged some stones for himself; but Fiona's window is open, and it's easy enough for her to flick a spark of power at the seal beside the warehouse gate. The opening spell activates with a groan of metal, and the gate rattles out of the way long enough for the car to get in.

"You don't have to get out," Michael says, "I just want to drop a couple things off."

"No, no," Fiona says, "I might as well have a yogurt," and closes her door. "Really," she adds, "we should do that more often."

"You just liked it because the cooking was all somebody else's," Michael says.

"Your mother is a very pleasant woman, Michael," Fiona says, with studious mildness, and then stops at the top of the stairs.

"Fi, what-" Michael starts, and then stops, because he's seen it, too.

The warehouse door is basically a sheet of scrap metal on hinges, because Michael hasn't gotten a chance to fix it up yet; and traced over the outer surface of it is the shape of a snowflake the size of a hubcap, which Fiona's pretty sure wasn't there before. It's intricately detailed, a ridiculously complex pattern - and it's drawn on the door in frost, so fresh that it's only barely started to melt in the mildness of winter in Miami.

"Well, that's just fantastic." Fiona touches two fingers to the door, and the chill makes her fingertips stick for a second before she yanks them away. "Like the Summer Court wasn't enough, now the Winter Court's leaving you presents."

"Yeah," Michael says flatly.

"Welcome to Miami," Fiona says, and nudges the door open with her shoe. "So, where are you keeping the yogurt?"