Episode Seven: "Coffin"

In which a blindfolded Ash endures a chaotic ride to an unknown destination.

Story by Mabel Harper and Weaver Webb
Written by Weaver Webb

For content warnings, see Episode One.

Ash did not like any of this one bit.

Not having to cooperate with the hex-slinging man-child.

Not riding in the tiny back seat of this absurdly impractical vehicle with whiny music blaring from a speaker mounted right behind his head, even his short legs so crammed up against the passenger seat in front of him that the aforementioned man-child’s gesticulations jostled him nonstop.

Not being blindfolded, unable to see a thing that was happening around him.

And especially not having dampening bracers on his wrists. Not just for the obvious reason that, with the adamantine-alloy rings disrupting his mana channels, he wouldn’t be able to use magic to defend himself if needed. (And in this, of all situations, he felt like it might be needed.) But also because, without being able to perceive the microscopic world through his tattoos, he couldn’t access his habitual escape from sensory overload—or from the jumbled voices and flashing images that kept looping in his head: audio/visual vestiges of old, ugly, unmentionable things…things that must have waited ages to catch him alone in the dark.

Even his connection to Creuch in the Aether was severed. Never in his life had Ash imagined he’d actually miss the little dickbag crowing Burn, boy, burn! in the back of his head.

He was aware of Navarrete on his left, making some small violent repetitive movement that kept vibrating the seat. Punching her thigh, he guessed—he’d observed it to be a nervous habit of hers. But she was also singing along with Betancourt’s music, the 2000s pop punk or emo or whatever it was currently assaulting Ash’s right eardrum. Ash wondered how she could be so good at putting up a careless front. The best Ash could ever manage was a blank face. Though at least with that, he never had to try. The freeze response came naturally.

“Hey, I really am sorry about the bracers and blindfolds,” said Betancourt. “It’s nothing personal at all. Just a precautionary protocol, and feels all the more important to stick to it, after, well, you know…what happened.”

Ash had no idea what he was talking about. But he guessed Navarrete might.

“Gotta do what you gotta do, bruh,” replied the ratcatcher, with a shrug in her voice.

The two continued making smalltalk, which Ash found unfathomable. Their chitchat became a background drone. Ash’s hands started to twitch—him fighting a compulsion to cover his ears. He ended up rubbing his fingers and thumbs together instead…then rubbing his wrists in turns, because adamantine, the alchemical iron used in the alloy for mana dampening bracers, was always freezing cold.

Ash had worked with so-called “cold iron” in the lab and in the field—understood its properties well. But this was the first time he’d ever worn adamantine bracers. He wondered if it was this hellish for everyone, and other mages—like Navarrete right now, or the countless apostates he’d processed as a desk jockey at Enforcement HQ—just hid their discomfort really well…or if Ash himself was just some special kind of weirdo who tended to hang out in his gnostic sense more than most.

It made him think of what he’d found at the crime scenes that morning…

…the part he hadn’t told Navarrete.