.:| honi soit qui mal y pense |:.

Mysteries...missed it, somehow. This morning I remembered it, that there was something in the ruins of the house that the thing inside me didn't want Thomas Endymion ever to get. I thought for certain that Mysteries would have found it in the ruins, too, but I decided to go and look, and I went up there this morning, all by myself, and wandered in. They have the place warded to hell and back, appropriately; but the caves are mine and they know me. It wasn't too hard to find. I suppose they didn't find it because the box is lined in lead, under the velvet and silk, and it's awfully hard to do magick on lead, harder even than cold iron. It's very pretty. Like a ruby the size of a baby's fist, but it isn't a ruby; rubies don't turn from red to pink to green when you hold them up in the light. The chain is made of platinum.

It's used for transmutation, but we never, ever wear it. Every Dashwood who's actually worn it for any length of time has contracted a terrible wasting illness and died. But no-one can figure out what the curse on it is; in fact the demons think it isn't magickal at all, for all that it was made by alchemy...we only know that if you keep it in lead, it doesn't hurt anyone.

Thomas Endymion wanted it, once. I never knew why. It was meant to be a Philosopher's Stone, that I know; but it isn't. It's a failure. But Thomas Endymion says you can often learn more from your failures than you can your successes. I wonder if that's true, or just something he says because otherwise it would hurt him so when his strange experiments fail, especially given the way that he had to earn some of the cash he put into them. I wonder if I ought to let him have it. Or if there isn't something I should ask of him, in return. He's my brother, but he's still a Dashwood. And a Slytherin.

I seem to have got home just in time; there's a queer smell in the air, I don't like it at all, it smells like Thomas Endymion's lab does sometimes.

I should rest but I feel as though I've been sleeping for weeks. They said at Mungo's that I would be tired soon enough, when it hit. But I'm not, not yet.

Whenever I think Hadrian Kyteler is almost tolerable, because Thomas Endymion loves him (though God alone knows why) he has to go and open up his mouth. To hear him talk I've got no reason in the world to be upset with him. I suppose it isn't his fault that the reason the Kytelers, Susie included, are all incredibly bad at transfiguration is that they're dense as London fog. Not that I don't like Susie, because I do, as much as I like anyone (she's got another man old enough to be her father--if she were a member of my family, she'd just admit her complex and go and seduce him already) but no, Hadrian, as a matter of fact I don't like you, it's nice of you to have finally noticed my brother was renting his arse a few minutes before it got into the papers. Am I supposed to be impressed?

Zitek and I had another short conversation on the way to Mungo's (he insisted on walking me there) and apparently his sons are friends of Thomas Endymion's. More than friends, I'd wager, but I didn't say so, especially now that Thomas Endymion's faithful and true and incredibly boring. I wonder what Jon thinks of them. I need to have a talk with Uncle Jamie about Jon. I don't mind Jon living with him and Aunt Lissa, it's not as though I have a stable home, but I worry, because Aunt Lissa isn't very interested in children and it's not as though Uncle Jamie noticed Thomas Endymion's problems, either. Also, I really do not like the way that Aunt Lissa has taken to looking at me. She's in Mysteries. Aren't they supposed to notice little things like demonic possession? I should have a chat with her boss about that. But then she's just a secretary.

I'm at Uncle Ozzer's house. Will has been here with me all day so of course we could not talk about anything at all of importance. It is very annoying. He pretends he's so solicitous, so very concerned...but we both know he's just worried about losing his hold on me. It's not as though we're in love, though I do remember, dimly, a time when we used to be friends--the best of friends, like Cel Warrington and Endymion were once. I think whenever friendship and inheritance meet, friendship soon yields. I sometimes wonder if the kindest thing I couldn't do to Endymion wouldn't be to disinherit him as thoroughly as possible. I would like to believe that Hadrian will always take care of him, but I have to wonder, because he wasn't always as good at that as he is right now.

Finally Will is gone. I wish I could sleep. I look out at the city under the blackout wards and the sky full of stars and I fancy I see drifting mists in the moonlight, will o' the wisps and the like. In windows, in mirrors, it's as though there's a spark that I don't dare look at too closely. When I took down my hair and braided it, tonight, I looked into the mirror and saw someone I didn't know looking back at me: someone whose hair was golden, not dark, someone who wasn't a creature of shadow, but rather a creature of fire.

How very strange. I always wanted to be braver, but now that I am, I'm seeing things.

So much to think about. Will wants me to let him take care of everything. I don't think that's a good idea. For one thing, he had one of my brothers, and there was nothing I could do about that, but I've no intention of letting him have the other, no matter what he thinks I don't know.

I was a Slytherin, too, and everyone seems to forget that.

One thing I do know; the people who died weren't my parents. My parents died years ago. I need to get mourning clothes, but there's a part of me that wants to rejoice at the thought that my real mother and father are finally free.

Well. Perhaps not my father. He did make a contract. Contracts and cards, always did get my father in trouble.