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The room that the teen adventurers had rented at the Gold Gardens was at least ten times bigger than the one her mother had gotten them.
Adaine hadn't wanted to come back here so soon, not when the chances of her being seen with the kids who apparently got her sister arrested last year were astronomically high. However, she had promised that she would help them catch her mother, which means she has no room to protest.
"Here's where we've been staying," the tiefling – Fig, she had introduced herself as – is saying, one of her hands clamped on Adaine's arm. "Kinda neat that we were in the same area for so long, isn't it?"
Adaine doesn't answer. Though the panic attack from the previous day was long gone, the remnants of the episode had her chest still tight, her head still swimming. Worse yet, her hands are aching something fierce; a storm has been looming over Leviathan all morning, making her curse-stained skin throb moreso than usual.
"This room's also warded, so our nightly visitor won't be able to see what we're doing," Riz calls from across the room, where he's already perched on the couch, giving Adaine a searching look that makes her squirm in place.
"Here, come on, take a seat!" Fig guides Adaine over to the couches, where she immediately plops down, releasing her hold on Adaine's arm in the process. "Kristen went to get Garthy, they'll be just a few minutes behind us but that doesn't mean you should be comfortable."
"Garthy?" Adaine nervously sits down, awkwardly putting her hands in her lap even as they tremble and shake against her own will. "Why are they coming here?"
Fig and Riz exchange matching looks. "It's helping," Fig finally says, her gaze trailing down to Adaine's lap. "They might know how long your mom's gonna be here, get us access into her room, look into the crown's curse for you–"
"--they've already done that, it didn't do much," Adaine says miserably, and despite herself she leans into the couch's cushions, staring down at her gloves. "I already told you guys, I can just go in and grab the crown, it's not like she's spending all of her time in the room or anything."
There's a long pause, and then Fig is scooching into Adaine's line of sight, her expression completely unreadable even as her brows knit together in what might be concern. "Nobody should have to touch that thing on their own," she says, almost in frustration. It's… probably not directed at her, but Adaine flinches from it anyways.
Before she has the chance to make a rebuttal – I've already touched it plenty, it's better than anyone else getting cursed, why does it even matter if I'm the one to get hurt? – the door swings open, bringing in the human girl – Kristen – and the familiar visage of Garthy O'Brien.
"Hey Garthy," Riz greets, and his tail flicks as he jumps off of the armrest he was perched on. "We're not inconveniencing you, are we?"
"Not at all," Garthy says, and when Adaine glances up at them she finds them smiling at her, unwaveringly kind just like in their first meeting. "Hello, lovey. I wish I could say I'm surprised to see you here."
"What do you mean?" Fig asks, and she too is leaning out of her seat as Garthy approaches the couch, Adaine still trembling in place even as she feels completely frozen.
"Her mother already checked out," Garthy says easily, and Adaine's heart stops right in her chest. "But I did not see her daughter with her, so I had assumed she had stayed behind."
"My mom left?" Adaine blurts out, and the all-too-familiar panic seizes in her chest, her heart hammering and her breathing coming in too-quick gasps. No, no I was supposed to get the crown for them, how else am I supposed to prove myself? Oh gods, they're going to kill me now, I'm such a liability for them, stupid, useless–
Riz and Fig are still talking with Garthy, but Adaine can't focus on the conversation, not with how loud her blood is pulsing in her ears, her vision blurring in and out of focus. Her hands are shaking so badly now, each quiver sending new twinges of pain racing down her arms– she clasps them together, but that only makes it worse, enough so that she has to bite her own lip to stop herself from crying out.
And then– it stops. The panic ebbs away, replaced with a cool haze that leaves Adaine almost numb instead, her trembling easing up for a moment.
"Sorry," Fig says, the first thing Adaine's been able to hear since Garthy broke the news. Fig's hands are shimmering with signs of her magic, and she has one of them placed ever so gently on Adaine's shoulder. "Didn't know how else to stop you."
Calm emotions, Adaine realizes. The thought that one of the adventurers had cast a spell at her to force her to calm down should send her into another fit – of rage, if nothing else – but the spell in question tampers even that down, making her just nod slowly instead.
"Garthy, you said you already looked at Adaine's curse, but are you sure you can't break it?" That's Riz again. "Now that you know what it is?"
"I'm afraid not. I wasn't lying to Adaine's mother when I told her that it was too ancient, even for me. However, I do have a way to relieve some of the pain." Garthy enters Adaine's field of vision, kneeling to meet her gaze with that kind smile still present on their face. "I know I already offered it to you, lovey, but–"
"-my mom said it would just make me feel worse in the long run," Adaine interrupts in a quiet murmur, and she can't help but to look down at her lap so she doesn't have to face the other occupants of the room. The calm emotions is slowly starting to fade, her tampered down emotions seeping back into her.
"Perhaps it would, if you were still actively interacting with the curse," Garthy says, "but from what your friends have told me, that is no longer true. It's the least I can do to help."
Right. Because her mom left with the crown, which means the entire time she was forcing Adaine to carry it for her, she knew she'd be willing to take on the curse herself if it meant executing her ambitions. Adaine could've backed out at any moment and her mother would not have cared. This whole time, she was bearing that curse for nothing.
Shaking again, Adaine can only nod her consent and clumsily peel her gloves off so that nobody else has to do that for her. There's an audible gasp next to her when she finally manages to get the offending fabric off, but Adaine ignores it, focusing intensely on Garthy instead as they pull out a vial.
"This might sting at first, okay?" Garthy warns, and once again Adaine can only nod. Then, they are pouring the contents of the vial onto her arms– they're right, it does sting, but not nearly as much as the scars had been aching before, and that ache almost instantly goes away, completely soothed by the salve.
"There, all done," Garthy says when they've finished, and they step back, procuring a much larger vial from somewhere on their person. "And for you; you can reapply this salve anytime your scars are bothering you, and it should ease the ache for a little while longer. Eventually, the pain will cease altogether."
Adaine's hands – no longer shaking, though the absence of the pain she had become accustomed is almost as jarring – reach out of their own accord, and she takes the jar from Garthy, clutching it to her chest. "Thank you," she says, and it comes out a hoarse whisper. "What… what do I owe you?"
"You owe me nothing," Garthy says far too kindly, and they're still smiling at Adaine. "This is the least I can do; for your troubles, and because I've heard you made quite the impression with my Ayda."
Ayda! Adaine had almost forgotten, in the torturous hours after the library visit and the events of the past day, about her new friend. If she can even call Ayda a friend, considering how quickly she had to bolt.
"Speaking of which, if it's information your party is seeking, there ought to be a good selection of it at the Compass Points Library," Garthy says, but they don't seem to be talking to Adaine this time, focused instead on Fig and Riz. "I will write a letter for you to take there, Ayda should be willing to help."
"Thank you very much," Riz says, and the two of them keep chatting, the sounds fading away as Adaine sinks into the cushions and breathes.
Her arms don't hurt anymore, though she is smart enough to know that it won't last forever. Fig still has a hand on her shoulder, and when Adaine looks over at her, she has that same unreadable near-concern as before; why she would be concerned about someone she had only just met, Adaine will never know.
Fig must catch her looking though, because she squeezes Adaine's shoulder, eyes twinkling in the dim lighting. "Hey, don't worry about your mom," she says, almost sincere enough for Adaine to believe her words– almost. "If she has the crown, we'll find her. You're safe with us."
Adaine doesn't believe her. However, she's too tired to protest, too wound up from Garthy's kindness, and it isn't as though she has any other choice; if the self-proclaimed Bad Kids decide she's not worth the trouble anymore, they could just leave her behind and then she'd be truly on her own.
So, instead of fighting, she just forces a smile, and doesn't protest when Fig tugs her sideways until she's leaning against the tiefling, Fig's arm wrapping around Adaine's waist to hold her there in a strange facsimile of affection.
They aren't friends. This is dangerous, letting herself be fooled by simple acts of physical affection. They won't save her if she ends up unable to help them, and they certainly won't care about her once she's helped them find her mother and sister. Adaine will only end up hurt in the long run if she lets herself be fooled.
But she's just so tired. Maybe for one night I can pretend, she tells herself, and when Fig's hands end up tangled in Adaine's hair, she doesn't protest. Just for the night.