Chapter 17: The Naked Landing
The final stroke of Mara’s gavel echoed through the Lodge’s great hall like a gunshot. It wasn’t loud, but it carried a finality that silenced the last murmur of debate. The compact—a scroll of magically-treated vellum inscribed with the newly-ratified articles—glowed with a soft, gold-and-green light. Aaron Sweeney, his ink-stained fingers steady, applied the final signature on behalf of the Fair Bargain.
As the last character was drawn, the scroll didn’t just vanish; it unraveled into strands of pure intention, swirling upward in a vortex of light before being sucked into the very fabric of the room, destined for the now-stable Nexus. A collective exhale, a release of tension held for days, swept through the assembled delegates.
The portal opened directly above the massive oak table with a sound like tearing silk.
Two bodies, tangled and glistening, dropped three feet and landed with a heavy, wet thud amidst the abandoned whiskey glasses and notepads. Jan and Bethany, naked, sweat-sheened, and smelling distinctly of sex and ozone, sprawled across the polished wood.
For a second, there was absolute, stunned silence.
Bethany was on her back, Jan half on top of her, one of Bethany’s legs hooked over Jan’s hip. Bethany’s eyes, wide with post-coital haze, focused on the vaulted ceiling, then shifted to the ring of faces staring down at them. She saw Percival first. His expression was one of profound, career-ending horror. Next to him, Calista Gunderson had one perfectly manicured hand covering her eyes, but her shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
Bethany’s face ignited. “Is this,” she hissed through gritted teeth to Jan, “the most embarrassing thing that could possibly happen?”
Jan, who had the advantage of facing the room, lifted her head from Bethany’s breast. She scanned the crowd. She saw Fatima’s raised eyebrow, Mike’s goofy thumbs-up, Casey’s snorted laughter. Then her gaze landed on a familiar, stern face framed by fierce red hair. Shiv O’Connor stood by the fireplace, arms crossed, one foot tapping silently on the stone hearth.
Jan’s face fell. She dropped her forehead back to Bethany’s collarbone with a soft groan. “Is your mother here?”
“No,” Bethany whispered, mortified.
“Then it can always get worse. Mine is. Twelve o’clock, by the fire.”
A joyful bark cut through the tension. Godfrey II, tethered to a leg of the heavy table, wagged his entire rear end, tail thumping against the floor. He was genuinely happy to see Jan, utterly unconcerned with her nudity or the circumstances.
The sound broke the spell. Fatima was the first to move, stepping forward with a long-suffering sigh. She grabbed a velvet table runner and tossed it over the two women. “A little dignity, you lunatics. The negotiations are concluded. Successfully, thanks to you.”
“We felt it snap into place,” Jan said, her voice muffled by Bethany’s skin. She pushed herself up, wrapping the runner around herself like a toga. Bethany sat up, clutching a corner to her chest, her pink hair in disarray. “It’s solid. The Nexus is… friendly now. Or at least, not actively hostile.”
Percival found his voice, cold and clipped. “Your methods of anchoring are, and will remain, a point of severe procedural contention, Agent Pendragon.”
“But the anchor holds, Percival,” Calista said, dropping her hand, her face composed though her eyes still sparkled. “The results are what matter. The accords are sealed. The sharing committee is formed.” She looked at her niece, Casey, who gave her a proud smile. “A new way begins. Even if it starts with a… dramatic re-entry.”
Shiv approached the table. The crowd parted for her. She stopped, looking down at her disheveled daughter. “Jan Siobhan.”
“Mam.”
“You’re naked on a table.”
“It’s a very nice table.”
Shiv’s lips twitched, but she didn’t smile. “You’ve done good work. Reckless, obscene, and likely to give me new grey hairs, but good work.” She reached out and briefly squeezed Jan’s shoulder. The gesture, small as it was, felt like a benediction. Then she turned to Bethany. “And you. Keeping her in one piece is a task I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Thank you.”
Bethany, still flushed, managed a nod. “You’re welcome, Mrs. O’Connor.”
The formalities dissolved into the palpable relief of a job done. Bottles were opened. Annie Schmidt produced a basket of still-warm apple tarts from somewhere. Conversations erupted, no longer about clauses and amendments, but about next steps, about going home.
Jan, wrapped in her velvet toga, found Fatima by the towering fireplace. The enchanted flames cast warm light over Fatima’s features. “You look exhausted, Fati.”
“I had to argue with a man who believes joy is a security risk for eight hours straight. It is draining.” She took a sip of water, eyeing Jan. “You, however, look thoroughly used. A successful anchor, I take it?”
“Very.” Jan grinned, then it softened. “It was intense. Not just the sex. The… the joining of it. Felt like we were weaving something real.”
“You were.” Fatima set her glass down. “I felt the echoes here. A stability I’ve never sensed before. It seems your chaotic methodology has its merits.” This was high praise from her.
Jan leaned against the mantle, the heat of the fire seeping into her bare back through the fabric. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a deep, buzzing fatigue in its wake—and a lingering, restless energy. Her eyes traced the lines of Fatima’s body, the elegant curve of her neck, the swell of her breasts under her silk blouse. The anchor had been with Bethany, a partnership of necessity and deep friendship. But this… this was her foundation.
“Hey,” Jan said, her voice dropping.
Fatima knew that tone. “Jan. We are in a room full of the most powerful mages in the Midwest. Your mother is thirty feet away.”
“And they’re all celebrating. And I’m riding the biggest magical high of my life.” Jan’s hand slipped from the mantle to brush Fatima’s wrist. “And I want my best friend. I need to come down, and I need you to do it.”
Fatima held her gaze. She saw the truth there—not just mischief, but a genuine need for connection, for grounding after an act that had brushed against the cosmic. She sighed, a sound of surrender. “The side room. The one Jules used. It’s warded for sound. Five minutes.”
“That’s all I need.”
They slipped away, unseen by the celebrating crowd. The side room was a small, wood-paneled library. It still smelled faintly of jasmine and sex. Fatima closed the door and the wards on the walls glimmered faintly, swallowing all sound.
Jan dropped the velvet runner. She stood naked before Fatima, still shimmering with sweat from the Nexus, her freckles stark in the dim light. “I feel like I’m vibrating out of my skin.”
“Then let’s settle you.” Fatima didn’t undress slowly. She was efficient, unbuttoning her blouse, stepping out of her trousers, until she stood in just her lace-trimmed underwear. Her body was a lush contrast to Jan’s wiry frame—full hips, heavy breasts, a softness that Jan craved.
Jan closed the distance and kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was hungry, a reclaiming. Fatima kissed back with equal ferocity, her hands coming up to tangle in Jan’s short, fiery hair. They stumbled towards a heavy, leather sofa, falling onto it in a tangle of limbs.
Fatima pushed Jan onto her back and straddled her, her thick thighs caging Jan’s hips. She leaned down, taking one of Jan’s nipples into her mouth, sucking hard, her tongue circling the tight peak. Jan arched off the couch with a sharp cry, her hands flying to Fatima’s head.
“Yes, fuck, just like that,” Jan panted. “Need your mouth everywhere.”
Fatima obliged, kissing down Jan’s trembling stomach, her tongue dipping into her navel. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of Jan’s underwear—the only garment she still wore—and yanked them down. Jan kicked them off.
Then Fatima’s mouth was on her, and Jan saw stars. Fatima ate pussy with the same precise, studious intensity she applied to everything. She didn’t just lap; she analyzed. She learned what made Jan’s thighs shake, what pitch of groan meant she’d found the perfect rhythm. Tonight, she was relentless. She flattened her tongue against Jan’s clit, applying a steady, firm pressure, before spearing her tongue deep inside Jan’s cunt, fucking her with it.
“Oh my God, Fati… right there, your tongue, fuck…” Jan babbled, her hips bucking off the couch. The coil of tension that had been with her since the Nexus began to wind impossibly tighter, focused now solely on Fatima’s expert mouth.
Fatima added fingers, pushing two inside Jan, curling them upward. The wet, squelching sound filled the quiet room. Jan’s back arched, her heels digging into the leather. “I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come so hard, don’t stop, please don’t stop!”
Fatima didn’t stop. She sucked Jan’s clit into her mouth, humming around it, while her fingers pumped in and out, faster now. The dual sensation was too much. Jan’s orgasm shattered through her, a silent, breathless scream before the sound tore free—a raw, guttural cry that the wards swallowed whole. Her cunt clamped down on Fatima’s fingers, pulsing in rapid, intense waves that seemed to pull the very vibration from her bones.
As Jan twitched through the aftershocks, Fatima crawled back up her body, kissing her stomach, her breasts, her mouth, letting Jan taste herself. Jan kissed her back, languid and grateful.
“My turn,” Jan murmured, her strength returning. She rolled them over, pinning Fatima beneath her. She kissed down Fatima’s body, worshipping her breasts, sucking her dark nipples until Fatima was gasping and cursing in a fluid mix of English and Arabic.
Jan settled between Fatima’s thighs, pushing her lace panties aside. Fatima was already soaked, her folds swollen and glistening. Jan didn’t tease. She buried her face in her, inhaling her musky, sweet scent. She licked a broad stripe from her entrance to her clit, then zeroed in on that sensitive nub, flicking it with the tip of her tongue.
“Ya ibn el sharmoota!” Fatima cried out, her hands fisting in Jan’s hair. “Just like that, yes!”
Jan slid three fingers inside Fatima’s tight, hot cunt, feeling her walls clench instantly. She fucked her with deep, sure strokes, her mouth locked on Fatima’s clit, sucking and licking in time with her thrusts. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of Jan’s hand, the slick noise of her mouth, Fatima’s increasingly desperate pleas.
“Harder, Jan, wallah, fuck me harder!”
Jan added a fourth finger, stretching her, filling her completely. She redoubled the suction on Fatima’s clit, her tongue a blur. Fatima’s thighs began to tremble violently. Her cries climbed, wordless and sharp.
“Come for me, Fati,” Jan growled against her, her voice ragged. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
Fatima’s climax hit her like a seizure. Her body bowed off the couch, a strangled scream tearing from her throat as her cunt convulsed around Jan’s fingers, gushing around them. Jan kept licking, gentler now, drawing out the pulses until Fatima collapsed, boneless and gasping.
Jan crawled up and collapsed beside her, their sweat-slick skin sticking together. They lay in the quiet, the only sound their slowing breath.
After a moment, Fatima spoke, her voice hoarse. “Feel settled?”
Jan turned her head, a soft, genuine smile on her face. “Yeah. I do.” She reached out, lacing her fingers with Fatima’s. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Back in the main hall, the party had properly started. Johnny O’Connor had appeared from nowhere, contributing a case of oddly timeless beer. Brigid, Will, and Sarah sat in a close knot, sharing a single dessert plate, their quiet connection palpable. Mike and Casey were showing off pictures of baby Rick to a politely interested Hans Jäger.
Jan and Fatima emerged, dressed again, joining the fray. They were handed drinks. They accepted hugs. The weight of what they’d accomplished settled over the room not as a burden, but as a warm, shared blanket.
At the head of the table, Calista Gunderson raised her glass. The room quieted.
“To the accords,” she said, her voice clear. “To new alliances. And to the messy, brilliant, necessary people who make them possible.”
The cheer was loud and full-hearted. As the glasses clinked, a faint, harmonious chime seemed to resonate through the Lodge itself, as if the building was approving.
Outside, the Chicago night deepened, oblivious to the rearrangement of magical reality that had just occurred within its borders. Inside, for the first time in a long time, there was no looming threat, no secret crisis. There was just this: friends, family, allies, and the simple, profound joy of a hard-won peace.
Godfrey, chewing contentedly on a stolen piece of crust, sighed and put his head on his paws. Everything, for the moment, was exactly as it should be. Glasses clinked. Laughter, real and unforced, bounced off the ancient wood. Jan leaned against the fireplace, Bethany now beside her wearing a borrowed Lodge robe, and a deep, fatigued contentment settled into Jan’s bones. Across the room, she saw her mother actually smile at something Aunt Noor said.
The peace was delicate. It was noticed.
Near the dwindling dessert table, three women observed the tapestry of celebration with sharper eyes. Calista Gunderson finished a quiet word with Arlene, whose wildflower scent seemed to deepen with thought. Aunt Noor nodded once, a decisive motion that sent her silver earrings swinging. Their consultation was a silent agreement, a triangulation of responsibilities—one Merlin, one elder, one independent who knew where all the family bodies were buried.
They moved as one through the crowd, a subtle but immovable force. They found Fatima just as she was accepting a fresh cup of tea from a beaming Annie Schmidt.
“Fatima,” Calista began, her voice leaving no room for casual dismissal. “A word.”
Fatima’s welcoming smile stiffened. She excused herself from Annie and followed the three women to a slightly quieter corner near a towering bookshelf. The ambient noise of the party became a muffled backdrop.
“It has been brought to my attention,” Calista said, her grey eyes unwavering, “that you and your brother Amir have not completely reconciled. The schism remains.”
Fatima’s posture straightened, a defensive reflex. “I’m aware. And I’m working on it. These things take time. He was complicit with Bedivere. He saw what was done.” Her voice was cool, each word a chip of ice.
Arlene stepped forward. The gentle grandmotherly aura she usually projected hardened into something older and more formidable. She leaned in, the smell of damp earth and lavender pushing at the edges of Fatima’s anger. “Child, I ask you with all the authority my ring carries: have you been working as hard as you could? Or are you nursing that righteous wound because it’s easier than the messy work of stitching flesh back together?”
Fatima opened her mouth, a sharp retort ready.
Arlene didn’t let her speak. “The Accords we just sealed are not parchment. They are a spirit. It begins here, in this room, with us. It begins with you trying some more.”
The words landed not as an attack, but as a profound challenge. Fatima looked at Calista’s expectant face, at Aunt Noor’s knowing one, and finally at Arlene’s unyielding gaze. The fight went out of her shoulders. She sighed, a long, weary exhalation that conceded the point. “Fine. I’ll try. Right now.”
“Good,” Arlene said, her demeanor softening back into its usual kindness. “The path is always clearer once you start walking.”
Fatima wove through the crowd, her earlier serenity replaced by a grim sense of duty. She found Hank first, predictably near the actual bar, laughing with a blonde woman in a sharp pantsuit. It was Becky, Amir’s… whatever she was. They were discussing, of all things, the torque specifications on a BMW E46 M3. Hank was gesturing with a bottle cap, Becky nodding along with genuine technical interest.
“Hank,” Fatima interrupted.
“Hey, Fati! Becky here knows her way around a strut tower.”
“I need to find Amir. Have you seen him?”
Hank’s easy grin faded slightly at her tone. “Yeah, he stepped out onto the side terrace like ten minutes ago. Looked like he was having a smoke. Or a crisis. Hard to tell with that guy.” He set his beer down. “You want company?”
Becky mirrored the action, her chipper demeanor shifting into something more professional. “I should probably be there too.”
Fatima gave a curt nod. The three of them moved through the grand hall, out through a set of French doors, and into the cool Chicago night air on a secluded stone terrace. Amir stood at the parapet, his back to the party, staring at the dark expanse of the Lodge’s grounds. The ember of a cigarette glowed in his hand.
“Amir,” Fatima said.
He turned. He saw her, then Hank, then Becky. His face, usually arranged in a too-friendly mask, was drawn and tired. “Fatima. Come to finally read me my full list of failures?”
“I’m disappointed in you,” she stated, the words blunt and heavy. No magic, no embellishment. “You were my older brother. I looked up to you. You were supposed to be better than getting lost in a craven order’s nonsense. You were supposed to protect people, not help a monster cage them.”
Amir flinched as if struck. He dropped the cigarette, grinding it out under his heel. The false cheer was completely gone, leaving raw hurt. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think it doesn’t eat at me every time I close my eyes? I see Jan in that cell. I see the others. I followed orders because I was told it was for the greater good, and I was too much of a coward to question it until it was almost too late.” His voice cracked. “But your anger, little sister… that’s the worst punishment. Seeing you look at me like I’m a stranger you despise.”
The raw confession hung in the chilly air. Hank shifted uncomfortably. Becky watched, her expression unreadable.
Fatima’s hard edge softened, just a fraction. She hadn’t expected the pain. She’d expected defensiveness, justifications. This was harder. “I don’t despise you. I just don’t recognize you.”
“Then help me find myself again,” Amir whispered.
A sudden, rhythmic thumping noise, muffled but insistent, came from below the terrace. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump, followed by a high, feminine gasp that was absolutely not one of pain.
Then a man’s voice, strained and ecstatic: “Oh, shit, Zara, I’m gonna—!”
Another crash, louder, like a piece of furniture being knocked over.
All four of them froze, the emotional rawness instantly eclipsed by bewildered alarm.
“What the hell is that?” Hank muttered, peering over the stone ledge.
The sounds were coming from a ground-level window of what looked like a gardener’s shed, its glass fogged completely opaque with condensation. The thumping resumed, faster now, a frantic, slamming rhythm accompanied by the distinct, wet slap of skin on skin.
“Is that…?” Becky began.
Amir’s eyes widened in dawning horror. “Youssef. He said he was giving Zara a tour of the estate grounds. She’s never seen a place like this.”
Fatima’s own eyes narrowed, her familial frustration instantly re-channeled. “They have been in that shed for over an hour. They have no magic. They have no protection. And they are apparently trying to break the shed, and possibly each other, with their bare… everything.”
A united front snapped into existence. The Abaza siblings, for the first time in a month, were in perfect, appalled agreement.
They stormed down the terrace steps and across the damp grass, the grunts and moans from the shed growing louder with every step. Through the fogged glass, they could see two blurred, frantic shadows moving in a relentless, hungry cadence.
“We need to get them off each other,” Amir said, his voice a mix of outrage and profound embarrassment.
“Agreed,” Fatima said, her hand reaching for the doorknob. It was locked from the inside.
Hank surveyed the situation, his mechanic’s mind assessing the problem. He looked at the overgrown garden hose coiled nearby. He looked at the rusty crowbar leaning against a rain barrel. He scratched his head.
“Okay, practical question,” Hank asked, his voice low. “Would it be better to use a hose or a crowbar?”