“Hmm? Not bad!”

I turned slightly in the mirror to check out how the skirt of this latest Rosemary-fashioned abomination to my dying sense of masculinity showed my ass as being somewhat less flat than Old Magic made it. The top half of the dress is great, honestly, I’m just not fully convinced about the bottom skirt-half.

Rosemary was right to define the dress as a blend between Chinese and Spanish designs. She may have leaned a little heavily on stereotypes in that definition, of course, but I can see what she intended and the mix isn’t too ‘in your face’, to my eyes.

The top half shows a lot of skin, but not in the usual sense of that term, because it actually shows zero cleavage. Something I can greatly appreciate after last night’s uplifting dress of choice. Most of the skin I have on display currently is in the ‘twiggy little pale arms’ department, unfortunately. The straight-cut neckline reminds me of a traditional cheongsam-style dress, without the distinctive buttons and side seams to go with it, while the sleeveless design goes along with that suggestion quite well even if it is a little embarrassing to see just how pathetically weak my arms look now in full monochromatic color.

The only things distracting from my stupid lack of a proper tan are the dress’s jade green coloring which I’m guessing Rosemary used with my currently red hair in consideration, because the jade green really does go well with it, while possibly making me look slightly Irish, I’ll admit. And the bottom half’s explosion of ruffles, even if the flared design of the skirt portion, along with its flamenco-inspired split seam at the front, show off a lot of equally pale and twiggy legs to match my upper body as well. The ruffles around the dress’s high, front-cut hemline are a rather eye-catching mix of red and black with the red complimenting my hair really well by almost matching it in shade and tone, while the black surprisingly compliments my new gloves, short cape and arm-strap accessories in a way that just had to be planned in some way.

Overall, it could be a lot worse. I’m pretty sure no one is going to call me out for cultural appropriation the minute I walk into this meeting that we’ve got to go to and I don’t feel too exposed, even if I’m very aware of just how girly my new smaller limbs really are for what feels like the first time since my unwanted change and awakening.

“It could be worse. I just hope John doesn’t say anything crude about it.”

The version of me in the mirror really didn’t seem convinced that my erstwhile best friend could control himself that much in the face of my wearing something so eye-catchingly feminine with somewhat bare shoulders and a tantalizingly high, yet modest, slit in my dress potentially exposing a bit of thigh if I’m not careful.
…Sadly, I’m not expecting much from the stupid bastard, either…

“Let’s get this over with already. Today is gonna suck.”

…Secret seer powers activated!...
Powers, do I hope not!

=======

“Hey, what do you all thi—Fena?”

My question and voice trailed off into an almost squeaked exclamation at the unexpected sight before me. A few seconds later Fena turned around and showed me instantly that I’d been incorrect in my initial suspicion, but it doesn’t change the fact that when I first stepped out I honestly thought she was standing in the kitchen talking to everyone else while topless!

She’s apparently taken her new ability to step out into daylight as an excuse to have Rosemary design her a new outfit for today, one which happens to be completely backless. It’s halter-styled from the front, with a skirt portion that can generously be called ‘not a belt’ by the very real possibility that an actual belt may cover more skin somehow. She’s not technically indecent, at least. The whole outfit she has on covers slightly more skin than a bikini would, after all, but she’s also showing off a lot more skin and cleavage than I even thought she had to show until now, at the same time.
…That really is a lot of cleavage…

Lots and lots of creamy white cleavage on a killer body and a beautiful face with a smug grin on her pretty lips showing just a flash of fang in her amusement at having caught me—

Oh, Powers! She knows I’m checking her out!
…Busted! Abort! Abort!…

Following some natural human response to oncoming embarrassment I found myself turning on the spot and walking back into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me before anyone could say anything one way or another. Even with the door closed I could still hear Fena’s Edith-like cackle break out a few moments later unfortunately and I’d barely managed to get myself back under control before the door flew open again anyway. I staggered back slightly as the door almost hit me in the face and that was all the distraction needed for Fena to swoop in and bury my face in her now much more publically accessible cleavage while cooing over how adorably easy to fluster I am.

“I love this side of you, and that dress is perfect for your streamlined little figure!”

My hand came up and effectively ‘tapped out’ on her shoulder as air became a rather important factor in my continuing survival. For once, Fena seemed to actually realise that her hugs can be dangerous thanks to her vampire strength and huge, very exposed pillow-like—

“Sorry, Hannah. I get carried away sometimes, ya know, and your reaction was just so cute. Still, I may be running on a high from the whole Sun-thing, too, of course. Did you know that Normals now have slabs of slate on their roofs that can soak up sunlight and turn it into lightning magic? Your sister explained it to me earlier after she made a throwaway comment about them I didn’t get and now it’s opened a whole new door of things for me to research because, while I’m not exactly stuck in the middle ages or anything, Edith didn’t believe in having that new ‘inda-net’ thing in the shop, and she used to hog the TV all the damn time, and I couldn’t exactly go out to buy myself reference books when the only bookshop in town shut before nightfall, could I?”

Slowly my eyes blinked a few times as my brain tried to catch up with the long, naturally breathless string of words that had poured out of Fena’s mouth. Keeping up with a vampire in a conversation can be a bit of a struggle sometimes, but I think I understand what she was saying now, at least. I’ll probably have to explain to her at some point that she needs a computer first before she can get any internet and possibly what the internet actually is, too—considering how badly she managed to mangle just pronouncing it as a whole. But progress is progress and far be it from me to hold a friend back from doing exactly what I often wish most mages would do, trying to catch up with the twenty-first century of their own free will and for their curiosity’s sake more than anything else!

“That’s great, Fena. I’ll help you set things up if you want, maybe get you a phone or tablet first so you can get used to the tech before we bump you up to the bigger stu—”

…I’ve honestly never seen someone’s eyes literally glaze over in confusion before…

“Uh, I’ll help you get access to internet reference things when we have some spare time.”

This time she seemed to understand me at least. I dread to think where her mind went when I said ‘tablet’, let alone ‘phone’. Even if she has seen my cellphone in the past, I really doubt she understood how it worked at the time, because Edith was always in such a rush to shoo me and ‘that demon-spawned technological monstrosity’ out the door whenever it rang, thanks to her apparent hatred for technomancy of any kind.

“Thanks, Han…”

The slight cringe to Fena’s face, followed by her accompanying body language told me quite easily that if she could, she would be blushing right now. Given the circumstances and the fact she’s let me off the hook for going all ‘hormonal teenaged boy’ over her outfit choice today, I think it was the least I could do to lean in and offer her a reassuring hug in response.
…This time, without having our face buried in the twin vampire-mountains of doom!…
Not being choked for breath by squidgy, mostly-human flesh is preferable to the alternative, when I’m trying to be the comforting one here, at least.

“Now, not that I don’t love cuddles with people of the warm-blooded variety, but we really must get moving before you miss your own induction ceremony and Magical America becomes a war zone of epic proportions as every mage worth his awakening tries to steal a state or two for himself.”

…She makes a good point…

That being said, we pulled apart and shared a gentle smile between ourselves before turning back to face the watching audience of my entourage who appeared to mostly be amused by what they had just witnessed; with the possible exception of Eris who seemed to be frowning for some reason. That frown is a problem which I’m sure I’ll have to deal with at some point when I’m not dressed up like an Irish flamenco-dancing China-doll in preparation for my formal induction into the magi-political world as a representative of three Numbers who either can’t or won’t represent themselves at this fiasco of a crisis situation. I’ve got enough of my plate as it is without adding comforting my daughter, who doesn’t even remember she’s my daughter, after all, thank-you-very-much!

“Let’s get this show on the road people. Daylights burning and I really want to sleep in my own bed tonight!”

That comment got me a smattering of approving laughter for my troubles and more importantly, seemed to shake Eris out of whatever funk she’d gotten into during my absence. Now, all I have to do is to find some shoes and we’re ready to go.

…This is going to be fun. I can just tell…

Exactly! Powers save us from politicians, because no one else will, apparently!

======

The elevator glided to a stop at the top of the tower and I let out a huff of annoyance when it became obvious that security up here is a lot higher when the actual Congress is in session, because the glass walls around us have all been darkened out and the doorway that leads out into the glass flame tower tip now leads to a small room with several security mages of different nationalities standing around the rather flustered looking form of our walrus-tash-wearing announcer from last night.

Having long been used to security checkpoints when dealing with the upper crust of the magical world, I have to say it was just a little bit reassuring to be back on solid ground with this lot. Usually it’s more of a formality than anything else but it’s often a way for different mages to flex their political muscles by showing they have enough influence to warrant their own security representative at the door.

Come to think of it, I should probably have my own representative, shouldn’t I?
…This whole thing is technically dependent on us after all…
Pauly is busy already, so that leaves only one option, I’m afraid!

“Felix! Are you free, buddy?”

Everyone looked at me in confusion for a few seconds. It took that long, at least, for my own group to realise what I was thinking, but I assume they worked it out pretty quickly because I could hear a few sniggers of amusement behind me brewing already. The security mages in front of us, however, still looked tense for some reason, and moments later that tension went up a notch or two when Felix made his appearance with a rather flashy burst of sulphurous fire.

“Lady-Death!”

His little wings flapped away happily as he grinned at me in greeting and I couldn’t help but grin back at him mischievously in response.

“How do you fancy being my security representative here, little buddy?”

If anything, his grin got even wider and he seemed to be vibrating in place with suppressed laughter, just from the very idea that I’d want an Imp, of all people, to provide security at a big public event. The little guy isn’t oblivious to the way people think of Imps in general, after all. The idea of someone assigning a member of one of the biggest Fae prankster species out there to mind the door to a Congressional meeting of such importance even amuses me, honestly.
…It’s why we thought to try it in the first place, after all…

“Uh, M’Lady, I do not know why you would summon a Fae among us but I must ask that you—”

“He’s my security representative like these no-doubt excellent examples of magical security guards from… I’m assuming the Chinese representative, the Spanish one, the British one and the Swedish?”

It was hard to keep the amusement from my face as each of those named mages flinched at me picking their represented nationality out so easily, not as most would imagine by their own nationalities, considering the Chinese rep appears to be Native American and the Swedish one is most definitely Japanese, but by subtle differences in the cuts of their uniformly black robes instead. I’ve been around the world enough times that I’ve picked up on those subtle differences in style long ago.

At least the Canadians don’t have anyone on the door. I still have nightmares about a swarm of their Royal Guard’s mages somehow sneaking up on me in order to whisk me back to Princess Nova and the marriage contract that I managed to avoid by simple virtue of running away very fast while thanking the King profusely for his kind offer!

“Rose, do you think you can make some robes of office for Felix that will still let him flap his wings as needed?”

Rosemary’s face lit up in excitement at having a new project as my stylist before morphing into concentration as she took in Felix’s form with an intense eye that made me feel slightly unsettled coming from her usually so gentle-looking face.

“I’m sorry to be a bother, gentlemen, but you all know how this goes, right?”

Reluctantly, the gaggle in front of me relaxed slightly while sharing significant looks between themselves for some reason. Just to help keep them all happy, I stepped forward a few paces into the obvious space marked out on the floor for people to stand while being checked over by the security mages.

In seconds they all set to work, some pulling out little detection rods to scan me for active magic with, others prodding my aura with their own to ensure I was who they believed me to be, while the Swedish one offering me a kind smile before activating magesight and staring at me thoughtfully, his focus flickering among the most enchanted objects on me, currently in search of anything which may be some form of dangerous weapon. Luckily for me, most security people in my experience don’t know enough about runes to tell an Abrax rune from a Zelos, usually only knowing enough to pick out standard runes used by basic enchanters to make weapons sharper, stronger, empowered, or secured. It only took half a minute, if that, for them all to step back in approval of me and most of that time was because the Swedish rep wasn’t too sure what to do with the many runes that were actually present on my gloves and cape, mostly ones that he’d obviously never encountered before at that.

After me, people started making their way through the scanning point as well, most taking less than fifteen seconds at a time until only Rosemary and Fena remained. Fena went to step forward but was cut short by Rosemary jerking her hand up suddenly, making all the security mages jump back with worry. For all our sakes, I was glad when a few moments later a little black robe appeared in her hand and the mages all calmed the hell down at last. The one thing we don’t need is some kind of major security alert going off before we’ve even gotten into the chamber itself!

Felix let out a high-pitched chirrup of joy and practically swooped down into Rosemary’s waiting arms so she could drape the cloth bundle over his head with obvious enjoyment at how much the little guy seemed to appreciate her work already. She’d barely gotten the shoulders on straight before he was off again, flapping around the room while babbling away his thanks to the only person who could understand him, namely me.

I passed on his thanks to Rosemary and received a warm smile in return from her before she also stepped up to be scanned like everyone else. Having seen her magic in action, the mages seemed to take even less time scanning her than I would have expected and she was quickly flagged through, leaving Fena as our last holdout.

She stepped into position somewhat nervously and it took me a moment to realise why, a moment which came a little too late as all the security mages around her jolted back in surprise and fear as her vampire nature became known to them through their variety of testing means. One mage raised his hand to form a fireball, but with two steps and a precise chop to his wrist I made the flame die out entirely, while glaring at everyone else as if daring them to even think about doing something so stupid again.

“M’Lady! She’s a vampire! To think that one of her ilk could invade our tower so easily is—”

My eyes cut over to the speaking idiot, security mage, and his words stalled out in surprise from the glare I had to offer him at the moment.

“Do you think I am not aware of her nature? She’s part of my entourage.”
…Idiot!…
“Attacking a member of my entourage without provocation would be a very bad idea. Do you understand?”

“But M’Lady, I—”

I cut my hand down in front of the speaking guard for silence and he followed my command, possibly in fear, considering how much of my aura I can feel leaking out, despite my best attempts to control and confine it at the moment.

“She is my personal bodyguard and will be treated as such. Understand?”
Everyone took a step further back from me in a sign of submission at that almost growled statement of fact.
“Good.”

“M’Lady, be that as it may, I must protest allowing this—thing into the chamber beyond. If I had known her nature last night I would have put a stop to it then; our rules clearly dictate that entourage members must be human in nature.”

Nice try, Walrus-tash! I suppose he was about to use that rule, anyway, to stop Felix from being placed as my door representative and that’s why it’s fresh in his mind. But unfortunately for Walrus-tash, I’m not an idiot and I do think ahead---sometimes, at least.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the rule you’re quoting is actually defunct, isn’t it? It was revised in eighteen ninety-eight in order to let the Fae Queen Maven enter these exact chamber for a peace summit that year and never adjusted back afterwards, yes?”

Felix visibly flinched at my utterance of Maven’s name and former title, but perked up again when he realised where I was going with this and that it may also involve him as well.

“The rule, as it stands, states that any entourage member must be humanoid in nature, possessing of no more than four recognisable limbs and two opposable thumbs, correct?”

Slowly, Walrus-tash nodded to me in begrudging acceptance of my point. Even then, the guards around us did not look happy about this situation.
…I guess it’s time to sweeten the deal a little more!...

“Fena, come place your hand on mine for a moment.”

Somewhat nervously, with her eyes scanning the line of security watching her every movement, my newly sun-loving vampire friend stepped toward me and placed her hand in mine carefully.

“I, Arista Hannah Margret Cooper-Garnier-Suttonsborough, hereby decree that the being before me, known as ‘Fena’, is blood of my blood, kin of my kin, and in doing so pass on to her a nominal title of headship within my family.”

Magic swirled around us both visibly, almost palpably, in ribbon-like strands which wound around our bodies and converged on our joined hands in the middle. This stuff is a lot less flashy when you do it with paper, but I don’t have paper to hand and I can totally do flashy right now, considering I’m trying to make a bloody statement here, anyway!

“Do you, Fena, accept this decree and the responsibilities that come with it?”

Fena’s mouth had dropped open at some point in my speech and as the magic around us swelled she actually dropped to her knees under the pressure pushing down on us from all sides, bowing her head until it touched our joined hands in reverence that I really didn’t think I’d ever see from her in any situation.

I thought of doing this yesterday after I ‘earned’ the kinda unwanted title of Lady Suttonsborough in my defeat of the previous Lord.

Originally, I was going to keep it in reserve for whenever it became vitally important for someone else to hold a position of authority aside from me within our group, but at this point in time I can’t think of a better use for it than to completely undermine the stupid, racist rules Walrus-tash and the trigger-happy guard troop just tried to use against Fena!

Speaking of Fena, her lips moved a few times without sound before she gulped visibly and tried again. Finally she managed to eke out a subdued, “I do”, which was more than enough for me and apparently for the magic around us as well, because it swelled in power again moments later.

As far as I know, these kind of deals are enforced by both parties’ magic combined. With my seemingly limitless magical resources involved and Fena’s core being, for all intents and purposes, dead, it’s not hard to think that my magic may be taking the dominant position in this situation. That means I should probably finish this up quickly before we accidentally blow something up by an overload of raw magic building up in the very air around us.

“So it is spoken, so it is agreed. By right of my position as head of the Suttonsborough family, I pass my name and role in perpetuity to my battle-sister, Fena. By my magic do I decree, by my magic do I agree.”

The magic around us swelled once more. I have no doubt that people on the other side of the door leading into the flame chamber can feel it by now. We’re going to face more than a little curiosity when we finally get out of here at long last!

That all didn’t matter at this exact moment, though, because with little more than a wince from me and an audible whimper from Fena, the magic around us swirled one more time before converging on our hands. With one last visible blast of electric blue force, the built-up power around us flashed blindingly bright for a moment and divided itself between the two of us, spreading its way up each of our arms and racing to our cores with a crackle of electrical sparks.

Fena jolted from her kneeling position, shaking a few times until the magic of the inheritance ceremony, that I’d just done effectively to pass my ill-gotten title as Matriarch of the Suttonsborough family over to her, ran its course.

It was pretty obvious when it all finished by the almost orgasmic sounding sigh that left Fena’s somewhat limp body. Pauly’s soldiers were there to catch her, fortunately, and in no time at all she was already recovering, getting her feet under herself so she could face me with a worryingly large fang-filled grin that would probably have set baser human alarm bells off in my head if I hadn’t already started to get moderately used to getting these kind of looks from her over the last few days.

“You gave me a new family, Han—your family!”

I wouldn’t quite go that far. Technically, you could call us sisters of a sort at this point, I guess. Even with me passing the actual title off to someone else, the very fact that I did that at all, while I could, leaves the Suttonsborough family line as a cadet branch to the Cooper-Garniers’ for now. Thankfully, that only lasts for the period of my ‘rule’ and the moment I’m dead for more than twenty-five years, that status is removed formally.

Until that time, I’m technically Fena’s boss in a Godfather-like mafia kinda way, but it’s not like I’m actually gonna use that position of power for any reason, so it’s pretty irrelevant in the long run. The main thing to focus on is the fact that Fena is now the recognised head of an entire magical dynasty, albeit a small one, which means she’s untouchable in a place like this where politics rules.

I’ll admit to a smug little smirk that may have formed on my lips as I glanced around at the suddenly much more subdued and reverent group of security representatives, as they probably should be in the presence of two VIP guests of the chamber they are supposed to protect.

“Shall we go forth so I can save America from a bureaucratic death, Lady Suttonsborough?”

Fena’s eyes had never left myface in the time I’d taken to assess the guards around us and the sparkle of joy in her eyes hadn’t lessened at all in that time, either, but her face as a whole seemed to somehow brighten even more at my question, probably helped by the rather British-sounding delivery I’d given it as my best attempt at sounding like a stuck-up posh politician and Lady in general.

“Why, I do believe we shall! Lead on, Lady Cooper-Garnier, lead on! You, guard, be a dear and open the door for us, wouldn’t you?”

A shudder went down my spine at the pitch-perfect, aristocratic British accent that left Fena’s lips with a worrying ease.
…She was alive before America existed. It’s not that surprising, even if it is a bit—…
Hot!

…I was going to say creepy, but fine—let’s run with our hormones, why don’t we?…

“Oh, sure! When she uses her King’s Court-earned British accent, she makes you shudder in lust, but when I do it, you tell me to stop being a dick!”

Shut up, John-Boy!

======

“I swear this place has gotten bigger overnight?”

Reluctantly, I pulled my eyes away from the huge floating chandelier of seemingly captured rainbow-light, bobbing away high above us near the peak of the chamber’s glass outer flame shape to look at Sarah with a raised eyebrow. I’m kind of amazed she even has to ask, honestly.

I have my suspicions on how it works already, a noticeable lack of floating golden bands visible outside the glass walls around us being the biggest clue that an expansion charm has been either applied to the room, or more likely a shrinking charm removed instead, judging by the lack of any kind of visible expansion runes around us, at least. Either way, it is kind of impressive work, I guess.

It’s not amazing, but kind of impressive all the same, simply because glass isn’t exactly the best material to work with in magic. Plastic or clear quartz would have likely been a lot easier to do something like this with in the long run.

As it is, we’re currently stood in a chamber that’s about twice the width and three times the length of the more rounded version of this room we visited yesterday. The change in shape is actually the most interesting part of it all, to be honest, and even that is tempered by the fact that I already had my suspicions that this entire tower has a bit of a TARDIS ‘bigger on the inside’ thing going on from the elevator ride and the size of our suite a few floors down.

For me, at least, the people around us are actually more interesting than the rooms shape at the moment.

While some mages seem to have stuck to a theme or look which makes them relatively easy to recognise vaguely as their last famous incarnations, quite a high number of them are just people from the look of it, people still in outdated fashion, of course, but just people who could easily blend into a crowd as they are currently doing quite skillfully. My eyes keep being drawn to quite a few people I recognise, though, either from the party last night or even the meeting we got dragged into before that, unfortunately.

The real focal point of the room is the center staging area at the very far end, preceded by a rather tacky-looking plush red carpet with chairs lining it on either side, facing forward, like some kind of giant school assembly. The whole thing was likely designed after an overgrown version of a classic throne room, considering we’re here for something that only involves a few people from all the gathered masses around us, realistically speaking.

Standing on the staging area already were two recognisable faces, one of which I’d prefer not to have smiling at me in quite that way right now and the other giving me his apparently standard gormless thunder god-puppy smile of pride. Everyone else on the stage were stood slightly apart from Thor and Lilith, most of them standing in a ridged manner of people who are more than a little uncomfortable at the attention currently on them as they pose in front of their individual national flags, of choice.

Lilith took the chance given to her to wave at me childishly while her eyes and lips were anything but childish in their intent. This simple action drew the attention of practically every person in the room onto me, much to her obvious delight and my heartfelt regret, as they all started to swarm in to get a better look at me, thanks to my position as the guest of honor today.

“She totally did that on purpose.”

…Definitely, she’s so evil!…

This is gonna suck so much!

“Just keep calm people, if you all follow Fena I’ll make my way up there and this will all be over with before you know it, okay?”

John opened his mouth to complain, probably at the idea of him not getting to go up there and be the center of attention or something equally asinine, but a warning glance from me made him shut up pretty quickly as we held a silent little conversation which could basically be summarized by me telling him to keep an eye on everyone and if anyone gets hurt while I’m up there on stage, I’ll hold him personally responsible. Eventually, he smirked slightly and moved into a better defensive position to watch the group as a whole, which I took as a minor victory I’m probably going to need to cling to in the next hour or so.

I hate official stuff like this!

…Oh well, no use complaining. It's showtime!…