Who is Magpie?

Ezekiel chose one of the individual medical rooms, turning the heat up as he entered. He unwrapped her blankets, taking some liberties now as he saw her eyes spending less time open, and getting desperate to warm her. Her hand still clutched his shirt desperately, and he wrapped the blanket around them both.

Her left eye twitched as it struggled to open before she gave up and looked up at him with just the right. “I have no right to ask,” she began. “But wi-…. Will you be here if I wake up?”

“You’re waking up.” He demanded, meaning to encourage her not to sleep until the doctor told him it was ok.

She closed both eyes now. “If you can’t say yes just say no.”

“Yes, I will be here. I won’t leave you alone until you wake.” He assured.

With that she almost immediately fell back asleep; to her, but to him she had just passed out and his heart raced in concern.

Bronx arrived first, seeing Magpie now laying on top of Ezekiel with his shirt in both of her fists. He was understandably confused and said as much quite loudly before Ezekiel threatened to tear his throat out if he startled her. After that, him explaining why he cared for Magpie and why he’d had him woken up to talk to him before the council meeting made sense.

Ezekiel updated his Beta on some of the other things mentioned during his last conversations with Magpie, and Bronx sheepishly admitted why he had gone to see her earlier. Magpie only stirred twice during this time while Doctor Pon had done some tests. He popped in and out of the room, muttering to himself several times along the way.

“What’s going on doc?” Ezekiel asked finally, finding his anxious behaviour was directly affecting his joy in feeling Magpie warming up.

“Nothing makes sense, everything is… gambles.” Doctor Pon said tersely. “For a human, living with the Fae you would expect some things. Her smell and size are going to be somewhat affected by her food and lifestyle. Her body temperature is low, her heart rate is high, and she has a fever.”

“So, what do we do?” Bronx asked before Ezekiel could.

“I’m tempted-“ The doctor paused to emphasize that he did not think that this was the best idea. “To make her that tea. But I can’t be sure I’ve even identified everything in it, let alone pick out all the bits that will slow her recovery.”

As Ezekiel started to speak, he was again interrupted, this time by Bronx’s phone. He answered it shortly, feeling the same frustration that Ezekiel had in being interrupted. He watched as his Beta got concerned and told the person on the other end where to find them. Barely looking at Ezekiel as he darted out into to the hall and returned with an arrow of all things.

“Patrols found this this morning, it was shot just behind the main entrance gates and sticking in the grass. It’s addressed to you, and there’s one for her.” He jutted his chin toward the girl on his chest and handed him the first note.

Ezekiel read it over once, and then read it a second time out loud. “Wolven Alpha, I have reason to believe you have a girl who answers to Magpie in your cells. If not please disregard both messages.

If you do, around now she’s likely starting to die. She is going through withdrawals and her body is shutting down. If you want to help her, I will provide instructions on how to help her here.

She has been on a tea for six years, I hid a sample in her bag, and she needs to be taken off it slowly...”

The note proceeded to give detailed instructions on how to stabilize Magpie’s withdrawal, starting with over steeping the tea in a large juice jug. Her instructions specified to not use the original tea bag, and to transplant the leaves to another bag or steeper bulb, which everyone present thought was weird, but that was a thought pinned for later.

She was to receive one cup of this liquid a day, removing some of the tea each day, at a specific rate and replacing it with water. At that rate it would take nearly two weeks, ten days, for her to be rid of it, which Ezekiel thought was rushed.

Ezekiel finished reading the hastily written note after the instructions. “And tell her I’m sorry for my part, but for the first time in seven years her best chance of getting help is where she is…” Ezekiel trailed off. “What kind of cryptic ass…. What’s the other papers?” He asked Bronx, moving to point and regretting it as Magpie moved against him.

“I’m sorry am I in your way?” She murmured against him, a small spot of drool in the corner of her mouth.

“Of course not.” Ezekiel remarked quickly, kissing the top of her head.

Her head lifted slightly off his chest to look around the room. Her eyes drooped lazily like she was exhausted, which she was, but she also had never slept so well in her life. Magpie also couldn’t remember ever sleeping off the ground before, and while in the cell she had constantly worried about falling, she now felt remarkably safe in his arms.

Her eyes met Bronx’s and she laughed. It sounded half-assed, but she could barely stay awake despite not wanting to sleep anymore. “I had a dream the flashlight was used to hold my ashes when they buried me, so I didn’t overpack anything.”

Ezekiel shook his head sadly. “They are not going to burry you in your flashlight.”

“Of course not.” She chided. “Even if I had gone out in a fiery blaze of what they consider glory, to be returned to the ground is a great honour. And they would never burry their favourite pariah.”

The room fell silent and Ezekiel’s chest tightened beneath her. She touched her hand gently to it, meeting his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m..- glad I failed.” The words came out true, but admitting she was happy about failure went against everything they had drilled into her.

“You don’t sound happy.” Bronx muttered; understanding his Alpha’s feelings didn’t mean he trusted her.

Ezekiel glared at him but it was Magpie who spoke first. “I can’t pretend I haven’t done all the horrible things I’ve done.” A shiver raked through her as she turned further to look Bronx straight on and the blanket slid off her back. “Those memories will stay with me for the rest of my life, regardless of how much tea I drink that pain has never gone away. But if I had killed Ezekiel I never would have known that it’s him that smells like a garden and feels like warm rain.”

Something slammed against the wall that joined their room to the next and Magpie flipped off the bed, fists ready to fight someone. She looked around like a frightened animal but her face remained composed. Bronx appeared even more startled by Magpie than the sound and it was only Ezekiel’s hand on his chest that held him away from her.

She saw Ezekiel protecting her from his overprotective Beta and immediately realized her mistake. Her heart began to slow but as it did the blood drained from her face and her skin almost began looking green. She darted to the nearest trash can, vomiting nothing but bile and blood.

She didn’t move after she was done, keeping her head down as she spoke. “Ew.”

Ezekiel ran to grab a towel from the bathroom, dropping to his knees to give it to her. She wiped her face slowly, embarrassed that everyone had just seen that, but both of the men had skipped right passed being grossed out to freaking out. Ezekiel kept trying to help her up but she kept shaking him off.

“I’m fine!” Magpie finally yelled, backing up away from him. “I’ve never been sick in my whole life and no one has ever taken care of me.”

‘No one but Kay.’ Her thoughts rang out, leaving a prickling sensation in her eyes.

She backed herself into a corner, still feeling like she could be sick but with her stomach completely empty she didn’t know what would come up. She closed her eyes to avoid looking at Ezekiel and seeing the disapproval she would have received in the Garden.

Ezekiel stayed back, missing feeling Magpie’s body safely against him. The six feet between them, with her sick and angry, felt like the other side of the world. To Magpie, time felt like seconds were lasting minutes. Every part of her felt exhausted and sore, so leaning against the cool wall beside her had her already feeling like she could return to sleep.

She was fighting to stay awake despite the sun sitting high in the sky. It was a losing battle, but suddenly, far from Ezekiel, she didn’t feel safe to sleep. Magpie had never lashed out at someone before and now it added to her embarrassment, decreasing her ability to do anything to correct it.

Then Ezekiel’s arms were around her, lifting her into the air and back to the bed. She bit her lip, hard, to avoid making a defensive remark because while she felt she should be snippy, this is what she actually wanted.

He laid her back in the bed gently, and smoothed any hair from her face. “Do you want me to stay with you?” He asked softly, and she nodded, slowly opening her eyes. “Do you want me to lay down with you?”

Her eyes met his and and she blushed, but then nodded again slowly, looking down from his gaze.

He smiled, taking this victory in strides as he eased himself into the bed beside her and she closed the gap between them. Bronx had moved just outside the door now, feeling like he was interrupting a moment, and went to check on the cause of the sound. Magpie curled against Ezekiel, feeling less dizzy with her head now horizontal and supported.

When Bronx returned he held a small cup of tea in a plain brown ceramic. Magpie looked at it, somewhat disgusted, and didn’t move to take it. Ezekiel moved on the bed to sit up further, pulling her up with him.

He pulled the note they’d received off the table and handed it to her. “How much of it did you hear?”

She took the note, looking at it instead of him as she spoke. “Everything. Swan was generally kind to me, but she did so while following every order to a T. Her defection will come as a surprise.” Magpie flipped the page over, and then looked at the next ones and halted.

Her hands froze on the papers, trembling slightly, a small movement that Ezekiel’s eyes did not miss. “What is it?” He looked over the page that looked like it had been written with bird feet, all strange lines and criss-crosses.

Magpie used her other hand to hold it steady, reading the coded note. Her voice broke when she finally spoke. “She doesn’t hate me.”

A tremble rippled through her as her mind seemed to fold in half. Kay’s approval meant everything to her, but as she lay literally in bed with the wolven alpha she was sent to kill, she wondered if she would still have her approval. She could feel her eyes growing red as she bit her lip to hold back the tears.

The pain of her conflicting feelings burned in her head. She tried to will herself to leave Ezekiel’s side, to remain true to the Garden, but it was only Kay who she wished to be true for. Her hand on Ezekiel’s chest tightened, grabbing a fistful of his shirt only after unintentionally clawing his chest.

He had also done something unintentionally, groaning at the sensation in spite of himself.

‘I can’t go back,’ she reminded herself, and then again out loud. “I won’t go back.”

Bronx tapped his fingers on the cup, reminding them all of the tea he held and Ezekiel took it from him. “Magpie.” He spoke softly, so softly she wasn’t sure that he spoke. “I know you probably don’t want this, but if we don’t taper it off slowly you could die.””

She sighed deeply, taking the cup. “After everything I’ve done, being taken out by the thing that made me do it feels like….”

“A terrible, unjust loss.” Ezekiel cut in before she could say something self-deprecating like it being poetic justice.

She sipped the tea slowly, only because she felt she had to. Her stupid will to survive still encouraged her to want to not die despite what her returning emotions told her. She still felt incredibly torn but she rationalized that she would have to live to be able to sort that mess in her head out.