"Maoth."

The least complicated of the spells. She's quite sure, she reflects, sitting crosslegged on the cold tile of her mother's kitchen floor where, she supposes, chalk is cleaned back up easiest later.

"Maveth."

She'd done research, after all. She'd been so relieved to find her notes still secreted away with the book at Jacobson's, hidden in an odd corner by her own habitual armchair there.

"Nephesh te laman."

The ingrediants had been easy. There was the little apothecary on Elm Moira had always gone to for oils and things- an excellent supplier, everything from liquid to dried to fresh.

"Tsalmaveth."

Except for the ceremonial blade, which was about as ceremonial as a Swiss Army knife (which it was), it didn't look half bad, either, said some distantly observant corner of Kristopher Hekas' brain.

"Maoth."

Kits pricks her tongue with the fruit peeler. It's always the only sharp blade, because she never uses it. She can't feel it at all, and wonders briefly if it didn't pierce the skin- but then there's blood running over her lip and she manages to catch some of it in the pungent, earthy-smelling mixture and wipes the rest of the blood away with the back of her hand, unconciously wiping her hand off on her jeans.

At least it's her own house- or at least her mother's house. It's quieted down some, as though recognising that Kits is as suitable a substitute for Moira as exists; and the cats, at the very least, seemed pleased to see her- especially bearing a bag of cans of catfood as she was.

If the house had really seemed averse to this double intrusion she would have left. She would have. She'd have performed the spell somewhere else- at work after hours, or something.

But maybe not at Fyodor's.

That would be a bit.. much.

Kittio leans back on her hands... and waits.

Maybe it's curiosity.

Death's a cat you can't exactly kill.

Maybe it's curiosity-- maybe that's why he shows up.

At the start, it's just frost. Frost expanding outwards in crystal patterns from the centre of Kittio's circle. Frost like searching fingers.

It stops at the edge of the chalked lines like it yearns to get out.

Then it's voices. They aren't saying anything-- if they are, it's probably best unheard. They whisper for a bit and then, suddenly, rise into a shout.

It sounds like "Azra'el."

Which makes sense, since that's who has appeared in the circle.

He's lounging in a decadent white and white-satin striped chair-- one of the kinds with big backs and puffy armrests and legs ornately carved of dark wood. Apparently, he brought the chair with him, as it appeared as he did.

He, himself, is wearing a matte black suit that wouldn't have been out of place in the twenties. The collar is high and white, crisp against his smooth white skin. His hair is black and smoothed back. His long legs drape off the chair, casually crossed, and a long black cigarette holder smokes gently between the fingers of one hand.

His snowflake eyes, accented with black eyeliner as always, focus on Kristopher.

"Yes?"

Kittio holds her breath as the pervading presense of Death makes itself at home in her mother's kitchen. The cold is already there, in spirit (ahaha) at the very least- the suggestion of frost creeping up her bare arms and the back of her neck that makes her hair rise and teeth chatter already.

And the shadows under her eyes and sleep under her nails and the cat and the bird lurking in the back of her mind all funnel down into the pit of her stomach so literally she can nearly feel the butterflies turning somersaults somewhere under her ribcage, and Kits decides to get right to the point.

"Moira took off. And the wings won't not exist."

Her voice, to her surprise, is fairly level. Matter of fact. Businesslike. A desperate corner of her mind hopes beyond belief that the god can't see that her hands are shaking even though they're at rest; the rest of her mind figures it's a lost cause.

The wispy cigarette smoke forms figures in the air, drifting into focus for but a second. The smoke itself remains contained entirely within the invisible circle of the spell.

"I'm surprised she stayed in one place this long," the god says, cooly. He doesn't care that the girl's mother took off, and it's obvious.

He sets the end of the black cigarette holder between his lips for a moment, and then takes it out again. Smoke curls from his lips as he speaks, forming vague letters in some other language. Or maybe not.

"As for the wings, perhaps they like existing."

"I think that my opinion is slightly more important than theirs at the moment," she replies flatly, eyes focused on the cigarette. Kristopher wonders, briefly, if that's real nicotine, or fabricated smoke just like his clothes are fabricated- not, that is, from fabric, but from some anonymous godstuff, manipulable and unreal.

"And I haven't been sleeping. At all. Not on purpose, I mean, not when I want to." Which is frequently, lately. Kittio rearranges herself so she's sitting cross-legged, and leans forward.

"Mr Azrael, I'm tired. I'm tired and I don't want to ask you questions. I'd love to know the answers. But all I want right now, at this exact moment right now, is how to make the wings stop and how to sleep."

She takes a breath, licks her dry lips with a tongue that tastes of her own blood.

"And maybe after that I can do things like ask questions."

Azrael-- Mister Azrael-- gestures at the thinly defined barriers the spell created, using his cigarette for this purpose.

"Then release me. I can't do much from in here." Admittedly, he isn't actually bound-- but he's going to make her do it. He doesn't like to shatter the illusion.

Kits sighs wearily.

"Tho'am. Thevamlast. Namal et shephen. Thevem. Tho'am." The words tumble out like stones, heavy and grey and tired. She tries not to think about them too much as she says them.

With a satisfied breath, he stands and takes a few steps, ending up directly in front of Kits.

A gesture with his cigarette holder, like a smoking magic wand, and the wings shiver and furl back into kristopher's back.

"Ew," she manages, eyes shut tight and larynx tense as though she's just eaten something ridiculously sour. Feels like suction. Except worse.

The part of her that isn't recoiling in disgust calmly files the sensation away for future reference.

"Uh. Thanks. I mean."

She feels... lighter. Sort of. She rolls her shoulders back, forward, stretches, reaches behind herself to touch her shoulderblades. Nothing there. But their absense hasn't lifted the weight, and Kittio wonders if they matter.

"Right. Then, uh..."

Unfortunately that one step closer to normality has brought into sharp relief the fact that Mister Azrael, Death, is standing in front of her and Kristopher's train of thought hits a mental cow.

"There was something else you wanted?" he says, his cool voice drifting on the air like cigarette smoke.

"...There was something else I wanted..?" There was, wasn't there?

Oh yes.

"Sleep. Yes. Because, you know, I can't. Um."

And the worry sets in. Kits is fairly sure she's been told that Death doesn't give favours for nothing.

He ashes his cigarette to one side and then, holding it out of the way, kneels.

His smile, now almot on a level with her face, seems kind.

"Then sleep, and dream of great things."

He touches her forehead.

"Oh."

Kristopher relaxes visibly, slowly, and it seems to her that it takes aeons to slump to the floor.

Oh.