She comes to enjoy her life in Miracle City. The people are about as kind to necromancers as they are everywhere else, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t like the clean slate. There’s a certain levity that comes with walking past a funeral parlor and not garnering dirty looks because she once raised someone’s dead grandfather in the midst of his service. It’s relieving in a way she hadn’t considered when she first came here. And maybe it’s because of that that she finds her control over her powers strengthening. Spells that once came as easy as pulling teeth she can now do with ease.

Val tells her she always had it in her, thankfully refraining from mentioning Damian, but the absence of his name rings out louder than if she would’ve actually said it.

“Don’t give me that look”, Mara says when she glances up over her spellbook and finds Jefferson eyeing her with flaming eyes of disapproval. “I’m done with him and Calamity City, okay? It’s been months, okay, I barely even think about him.”

Jefferson simply lets out a disgruntled grunt before turning to bite at the cobwebs stringing from one end of the room to the other. She lets out a huff, the breath blowing her lavender bangs out of her face. This is ridiculous. She knows she might’ve spent five years pining for a man that never so much as gave her the time of day, but she’s put that behind her. 

But of course, with that being said…

Sat with her legs criss-cross applesauce, she allows her stare to drift to where her spellbook sits atop her night stand. She’s over him. She is. And because she’s over him, it stands to reason that it couldn’t hurt to simply call him up.

Right?

In any case, she never knows for certain because it’s then that her spellbook begins to levitate, the green hue clinging to it identifying it as Beau’s. Heart beating loudly in her chest, she crawls over to the side of her bed, legs dangled over the ledge as she swipes a hand over the pages and clears her throat. His image is fuzzy when he says, “Tombs. I need an assist for a ghost situation on the East Side…Are you all right? You look flustered.”

“Yes!” She hops off her bed, cheeks warm when she drops her spellbook. With a wince, she lowers to scoop it up and set it atop her night stand once more before grabbing hold of Beau’s cloak and tossing it about her shoulders. She really should put in a call for Gossamer to get another one, but truth be told, she’s grown to like it. “Y-Yeah, I’m fine, I was just, uh, exercising. Gotta stay on my toes, you know. W-Where are you?”

His image flickers, his stare doubtful before he nods and, to her relief, allows the matter to pass. “It’s a house on 13th Street. The one with the giant owls.”

“Really? Well, I guess that makes sense. Lucky number 13, tends to be a hub for all things dead or dying”, Mara explains. Grateful for the distraction, she calls forth a portal to the house in question. She whistles once she steps through, eyes glowing lavender as she eyes the massive mansion. “Okay, yeah, that tracks. Whoever owns this place must only rent to serial killers or something. There are more ghosts here than in Calamity Cemetery.”

Beau just watches her for a moment, his expression curious when he says, “Really? You mean you can see all that, just from one look?” At the nod she gives in return, he hums to himself. “So can you…always see ghosts?”

“Mm, kinda.” She ascends the stairs, eyes and hands glowing a matching lavender with each step. She tucks her spellbook away in exchange for her scythe, as well as calling forth a few of her best spells. Something tells her she’s gonna need ‘em. “There’s this, uh, filter, I guess. I use it to block ‘em out if they get to be too loud. You wouldn’t believe how chatty they can get, especially if there’s a lot in one place.” She pauses as they push open the door, dust and cobwebs and bats spewing out as she casts a look back at Beau. “What about you? Do you hear plants all the time?”

The question seems to catch him off guard. Cacti surrounds his fist, his steps light as feathers as they stride deeper into the mansion. “Yes. Though not in quite the same way. Chlorokinesis is more…feelings. My weeds can’t tell me that they need more sunlight, but I can sense it. If that makes sense.” He’s silent for a moment more as they step out into what looks like a room that might’ve housed parties at one point. “I was surprised you came. You’ve been holed up in your room for days.”

“Oh. Well, you know, I’ve been studying up some spells”, she explains, not yet ready to admit that she’d been sulking over Damian. When Beau raises an eyebrow, she wills a smile to her face, aiming for nonchalance. She brings her scythe to rest against the back of her neck, arms draped over the sides as she affords him a cheeky stare. “Why? Did ya miss me?”

Beau’s cheeks glow a deep shade of green, dandelions blossoming from his hair before he averts his stare and thickly answers, “Of course not. I barely noticed you were gone”. Whatever he’s about to say next is lost as a loud creak echoes throughout the room. The two draw closer together, back to back before they slowly turn their stare upward. The chandelier overhead creaks, and the world turns to lavender as her eyes glow. Something must show in her face because Beau looks at her, his stare concerned. “Tombs. What are you seeing?”

“C-Class Three. No, Four. Five!” She blinks, eyes glowing so bright, they might as well be headlights. She tightens her grip on her scythe, teeth gritted as she grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the way just before the chandelier can turn them both into pancakes. “That was close.”

Beau just breathes in deep. “That’s putting it mildly.” She gently pulls her hand away from his wrist, and he stares at it for a moment, his movement slow when he lifts a hand to rub at where her fingers had been moments before. “There’s nothing living here.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a haunted mansion if there were many living people here”, Mara quips, lips twitching with a smile. 

Beau just rolls his eyes, then explains, “I’ve been in plenty of dilapidated buildings before, Tombs. After a certain point, they become so overgrown, they might as well be another empty field. But here? There isn’t so much as a speck of moss”.

“Yeah, that is pretty weird.” She tilts her head to the side, considering this. “It could be you. Trying to dampen your strength?”

Beau just raises his eyebrows as if incredulous. “Well, I’m nothing if not resourceful.” As if on cue, another groan echoes throughout the mansion. Silence follows it before shrieking as an apparition peels itself free of an old portrait. It launches itself at them, and Beau reaches into his sleeves before he tosses some seeds at it. When the resulting vines struggle to latch on, he grits his teeth. “Shit.”

“That’s a Class Three, anything physical is gonna go right through it”, Mara shouts, a thought forming as the apparition darts into a statue. She calls forth an exorcism spell, only to falter as her grip on her scythe loosens. It dawns upon her that this has never happened before.

Back in Calamity City, Canis rarely ever took on missions of the undead nature. And on the rare occasion that he did, he always wanted Mara to let him get the finishing blow. So standing here now, with the means to take down this ghost… It’s weird.

Then a hand reaches out for her wrist, strong and warm. She breathes in deep, then looks up at Beau. He just stares at her, a dandelion blossoming between where his hand meets her wrist, and says, “It’s okay. You got this”.

For a long moment, she can only stand there, stricken with indecision. Then she nods to herself, straightening her shoulders before she breaks into a sprint. She hops atop several skeleton-shaped force fields and calls out her exorcism. “Bright as day, dark as night. A world beyond, a world between. I call for a portal to the world unseen.” The spirit springs free of the statue, crying out as Mara drags her scythe through it. Several other spirits come forward then, and she feels her veins pulse purple before she unleashes a tidal wave of dark clouds that leaves her ears ringing.

“That was impressive.” When she comes to, she finds Beau standing beside her, his shoulders lax. 

A scoff is all Mara can afford. She tucks a lock of purple hair behind her ear. “Not really. A real necromancer would’ve been able to read those ghosts from a mile away, and they wouldn’t have needed a spellbook to send ‘em back to whatever hole they crawled out of.”

“You’re kidding, right?”, Beau asks, then gestures to the gallons of ectoplasm currently leaking from the walls. “I came here earlier. Wasn’t even sure if the place was haunted, and I searched it up and down. You knew within one moment of being here. And maybe you didn’t exorcise them the moment you saw ‘em, and maybe you do need a spellbook. But you exorcised a whole house in one move. How many necromancers do you know that can do that?”

For a long moment, Mara can only stare. She then averts her stare, her eyes strangely damp. She laughs at herself, looking away so he can’t see, but she catches his eye just before she does. He’s already seen. She wills herself to smile, then says, “Sorry. I just…no one’s ever said anything nice about my powers before”. She shakes her head at herself, then falters at the sight of something colorful out of the corner of her eye. She turns, and growing along the balcony is a bunch of purple flowers. A smile tugs at her lips. “Hey. Lavender. What are the odds of that?”

“Yeah.” Beau’s voice is slightly uneven, and he swallows. “Odds.”

Mara just smiles, sympathetic. She picks up a stalk of lavender, cradling it gently between her fingers. “You may not be able to make roses anymore. But these are pretty nice. And I’m not just saying that cuz I’m biased.” Beau continues to stare at her, seeming vaguely distressed, and she’s about to say something when her spellbook begins to glow once more. She gives him an apologetic smile. “Can I take this? It’ll just be a sec.”

At his nod in approval, she walks away, her smile giving way as she notes the dark clouds clinging to the book in question. The clouds gather atop her spellbook, arranging themselves in the form of a name she knows like the back of her hand.

It’s Damian.