Chapter Text
Lucretia is used to coming across unexpected sights in the Bureau of Balance headquarters.
She is not certain whether the nature of the work attracts people with their own unique ways of doing things, or whether living on a moonbase lowers one’s inhibitions, but between Carey and Killian’s antics, the increasingly complex contraptions that Avi builds in the cannon bay, and the roulette wheel that is any trip to the Fantasy Costco, she thinks that there is nothing left that could possibly surprise her.
But nothing could have prepared her for entering the dining hall to see Lup’s name burned into the wall.
She stops dead in the doorway when she sees it. The letters are six feet high, charcoal black; the edges of the "P" are still smoldering. For a moment she is completely empty. She can't form a single thought, she can't breathe, she's fairly certain her heart stops beating.
And when her brain restarts, all she can think is, no one here knows Lup's name.
Lup has been erased, as thoroughly as Brian or Bain or any of the other fallen Bureau employees--more so, because she’s been erased by Fisher’s child, too. No one here should know Lup's name.
So how can it be here?
“Director?”
Lucretia starts. She hadn’t realized that she wasn’t alone. Now she looks, and realizes that Angus is kneeling behind one of the tables near the back of the hall. He looks like he was probably examining the bottom of the “L” scorched into the wall, but now he is examining her.
“Ma’am, are--are you okay?”
Lucretia doesn’t know how to even begin answering that question. She knows that she should move, should look at Angus, should be calm and professional and tell Angus that yes, of course she is all right.
It would be a lie, of course. But how is that different from anything else she says these days?
Instead what comes out of her mouth is halting and not at all Director-like.
“Who--how--Angus, who wrote that?”
Angus’s face lights up the way it always does when there is a mystery to solve.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to ascertain, ma’am! There’s something wrong with Taako’s umbrastaff. We were doing a magic lesson, and it suddenly went rogue and incinerated my macarons! They were pretty bad, but I don’t think Taako would have burnt them up on purpose. Then the staff blasted this word into the wall.”
“The--the staff did?”
“Yes, ma’am! Taako didn’t know what L-U-P was anymore than I did. He said the staff moved all by itself.”
Lucretia has to close her eyes for a moment. Taako not remembering Lup was her choice, her attempt to spare him a sorrow he would have no way of repairing. But the reality of it, when she is confronted with it, still hits her like a freight train.
She forces her thoughts away from her guilt and back to the situation at hand.
The staff blasted Lup’s name into the wall.
Lup’s staff, her arcane focus, that she took with her when she left. That Taako took from the remains of her body. That had been next to her, presumably, when she died--
Oh. Oh, gods.
Lucretia remembers Lup talking about the abilities of the umbrastaff, how it consumed the power of defeated magic users.
When Lup died, she would have emerged as a lich, a being of pure magic, and if the staff was next to her when she did--
Oh, gods. Oh gods oh gods.
Lucretia has to fight to keep her face neutral, her breathing steady, as the realization washes over her.
It would explain why Lup hadn’t returned, why they had never found her, how she had managed to vanish without a trace. Why even when they finally came across her bones, her soul was nowhere to be found.
When Magnus and Merle and Taako had told her about the skeleton they had found in Wave Echo Cave, Lucretia had resigned herself to the possibility that Lup might just be gone--that the grief of what they had done to this world had been too much, and she had lost herself. She had cried in her room that night, for Lup’s loss, and for Taako, that he had found all that was left of his sister and hadn’t even known.
And all that time, Lup had been right there.
"Ma'am?"
Lucretia blinks. She doesn’t know how long she’s been lost in thought, and she realizes that Angus is still watching her. She wonders how much of what just went through her head played across her face. Her heart is pounding so hard in her chest she wouldn't be surprised if Angus could hear it.
“Angus, where is Taako now?”
“He went back to his room, I think.” Angus is looking at her with far too sharp an expression. “Ma’am, do you know what L-U-P is?”
“No--that is--I don’t--we can talk about it later, Angus, right now I need to--excuse me.”
She turns and rushes out before Angus can ask any more questions, cursing herself as she goes. She couldn’t have done more to raise Angus’s suspicions if she’d been wearing a sign that said “I have secrets.”
Well, it can’t be helped. She’ll have to find a way later to put Angus off, give him a false trail to follow.
Right now, she needs to find Taako, and figure out some way to get the umbrastaff from him. And then…? Her steps slow as she tries to work through the problem.
She can’t let Lup out in the headquarters. Being in the umbrella seems to have protected her from the lich wards so far, but once she’s free they’ll activitate at once. Lucretia isn’t sure what state Lup is in, but the last thing she wants to do is damage her more.
She’ll have to take the staff down to the surface, then. And then--what? Break it? Would breaking it set Lup free, or would it hurt her? Is there a way to somehow extract the magic that the umbrella has absorbed?
The corridor is empty, so there is no one to see Lucretia drop her head in her hands in despair.
This was never the sort of problem she was good at solving. Barry and Lup were always the ones who could think through a problem and see all the potential consequences of one solution or another.
She wishes Barry were here. A stupid wish, she knows, given that she’s the one who cast the wards that are keeping him out.
But still.
She tries to think of what he would say, how he would approach the problem.
One problem at a time, Luce, says Barry's voice in her mind. You can't fix everything at once.
Lucretia takes a deep breath, draws herself up, and squares her shoulders. One problem at a time.
First, she’ll get the staff.
And then, she’ll find a way to set Lup free.
She makes it all the way to the door of the Reclaimers quarters before she stops again. She hasn't been down here since Candlenights; apart from the spa trip with Merle, she hasn't seen any of them much in recent weeks. The distance between them keeps collapsing--they know her name, now, and they keep finding ways to get under her defenses. The best thing she can do is stay away, even if it hurts.
Lucretia reaches out to knock, then hesitates. What will she say, if Merle opens the door, or Magnus? She would like to avoid involving them in this if at all possible. Would asking to speak privately with Taako put them off, or just raise their suspicions? Do they even know what happened? Taako is tight-lipped enough that he might not talk about it with them, but keep it a problem to solve on his own.
Her mind is swirling with questions and indecision, so much so that she doesn’t notice someone come up behind her.
'Hey, Madam D. What brings you down here amongst the peons?"
Lucretia startles a little and drops her hand. She turns and there is Taako behind her, casually holding the umbrastaff across his shoulders. She tries hard not to stare at it as she greets him.
"Oh, Taako. I was looking for you."
Taako smiles, and a now-familiar stab of pain goes through her heart. His smile is so much sharper now.
"Boss coming down to find me in my room after hours? Either you're about to suggest something wildly inappropriate, or you're here to fire me."
It's all Lucretia can do to not burst out in wild laughter. Her nerves are all raw edges right now; the adrenaline of her revelation spiking again as she looks at the umbrastaff in Taako's hand, and the idea of her coming down here to propose some sort of tryst almost sends her over the edge.
"Neither, I promise," she says, forcing a smile. "Angus told me what happened with your staff. I just wanted to check on you."
"That's sweet of you," Taako says. "I'm peachy. Feel kind of bad about Ango's cookies, but." He shrugs. "All good in Taako-land."
"And the umbrastaff? Has it...does it seem...normal?"
"Yeah." He holds it up for her to see. "Just an umbrella. I mean, a super magic one, but, you know. No more stray fireballs."
"May I see it?" She holds her hand out, trying to be calm, trying to not seem too eager, but her hand is shaking and her heart is in her throat.
"Sure," he says. He hands it over, and as she takes it she thinks her heart might burst out of her chest. Lup is here, right here, nothing separating them but a few layers of cloth and metal and some powerful magic.
Hey, Lup , she thinks. Just hold on. I'm going to get you out of there.
She runs her hand along one of the spokes, trying to get a feel for what magic might be holding Lup captive. But it's too complex to parse just from feeling.
"Has it ever done anything like this before?" she asks. How active has Lup been, since Taako found her?
"Has my umbrella ever taken on a mind of its own before and written a word I don't know into the wall? No, can't say it has. Does it matter?"
"Well, if it's a repeated instance, it could indicate that something's gone wrong with the construction--" she's talking like Barry, she realizes, analytical and technical, and she stops at the look on Taako's face.
"I just want to make sure it's safe," she says. "I don't suppose you have any ideas?"
"Yeah, I dunno. I thought I just cast the wrong spell when it toasted Ango's macarons, but then it moved on its own; nearly tore itself out of my hand. Think it's possessed?"
He grins at her, inviting her to join the joke, and it's all she can do to keep her composure.
"I doubt it," she says, as drily as she can. "But I've never heard of an umbrastaff acting autonomously before. Would you mind if I take it for a bit to run some tests? If there is something wrong with it, there may be a way to fix it."
Taako's demeanor changes instantly. He crosses his arms, and something about his expression hardens, all the humor that was there a moment ago suddenly gone.
"Do I mind you taking my very powerful arcane weapon off to run mysterious tests? Uh, yeah, I mind." He's studying her now, too closely. "What's this all about?"
Trust Taako to pick up that there's something else going on. He's always been sharp, and this new version of him is twice as suspicious of everyone's motives, especially hers.
"I'm only concerned for your safety, Taako; if something were to go wrong again--"
"Well, don't be," Taako says. Lucretia can't help but be hurt at the curtness in his tone. "If something happens again, I'll handle it on my own. It's how I work best."
He holds his hand out to her.
"I'll take my umbrella back, now."
Lucretia looks down at the umbrastaff. She imagines what would happen if she just bolted right now, umbrella in hand. The thought of the look on Taako's face if she did brings a laugh bubbling up in her chest. It's something the old version of her might have done, back on the Starblaster; she can hear Lup laughing and egging her on as Taako shouts indignantly after her.
But none of those people exist anymore, and she can't risk everything she's built on a stunt like that.
She'll have to find another way.
She hands the umbrella back to Taako, reluctantly.
"Please think about it," she says. "And let me know if you change your mind. If that staff is unstable it could be dangerous, and I don't want you to get hurt."
Taako twirls the umbrella nonchalantly before resting it on his shoulder. "Don't worry about me. I know how to take care of myself."
He winks at her, his mask of nonchalance and charm firmly back in place. Then he pushes past her and disappears into the Reclaimer suite, closing the door with a firm click behind him. Lucretia is left standing alone in the hallway, contemplating her failure.
That didn’t go quite as planned.
She looks down at her hands, remembering the weight of the umbrastaff in them, the knowledge that Lup was so, so close.
Well. If Taako won't give the umbrastaff to her willingly, she's just going to have to steal it.