Chapter 374: Deviated Septum Domestication & Penile Postal Punishment

Once upon a time there was a mage named Brennan Pike, whose dating history would confound philosophers and historians alike. He would be the first to tell you that he ignored red flags like his brain was on strike and hindsight only shows up when it damn well likes.

He was also under the influence of potions and curses.

Yes, you read that right.

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THE EMMA ELDRITCH EXPERIENCE

EARLY RED FLAGS: The Three D’s Of Don’t Date That

1) Delusional Date’s Draft of Doom:

Save-the-date invitations after their first date. Mr. and Mrs. Pike. She told him it was a joke. She had three hundred made. That should have been a red flag the size of Velkaris.

2) Deviated Septum Domestication:

She cursed him so that anytime he mentioned a female name, he full-body sneezed like he was having an exorcism. It was meant to be funny, Brennan, she swore. That should have been the confirmation he needed that this bitch was crazy.

3) Demonic Dollhouse of the Damned:

Voodoo dolls lined her shelves. Heads ripped off most. Her exes had their own pile. Romantic, really. That should’ve been the moment he faked his own death. Alas, it was not.

HELL’S HIGHLIGHT REEL: The Four H’s of the Horsemen Apocalypse

1) Homicide Hoodwink:

Faking a near-death mid-argument. She dropped. Veins turned black. Gasping for air. Brennan poured every drop of magic he had into her, thinking he pulled her back from Satan’s waiting room. Two-week coma followed. Guilt ate him alive. Post-breakup he found out she faked that shit. She’d chugged a potion to make it look like she was dying, followed by coma method acting for two goddamn weeks.

2) Hired-Hostage Heist:

An entire goddamn abduction with a bounty. Brennan was outnumbered fifty to one, trying to protect her. He was put in warded cuffs and watched the abductors take her. He spent the next forty-eight hours losing his shit until he rescued her. Post-breakup he found out she’d hired them, given notes, and complained when they were five minutes late.

3) Hellfire Hoax:

Joint siege contract. Mid-takeover the Keep decided to become a bonfire. Magic would not work to extinguish it. Brennan ran through flames to rescue her. Third-degree burns. Post-breakup he found out from one of the other contractors on the job that Emma did it. Everyone was in on it except for him.

4) Horizontal-to-Hostile:

Fainting dramatically on a weekly basis. Usually in public. Always during an argument. Once after a fake pregnancy bomb when he tried to speak to her about the sneeze curse. From stress. It’s all too much, she would say. Brennan would scoop her up and like clockwork, she would start bitching mid-bridal-carry forgetting she was supposed to be unconscious.

SATAN’S GASLIGHTING ARC - The Two S’s of Self-Rescue

1) Screw and Scrub:

Busted on her affair with Marek Navarre. She memory-cursed Brennan every time he caught her. Rinse and repeat. It took him six goddamn months to figure it out and it was only because she got sloppy and did it in a warded location and he had the sense to keep his mouth shut until he figured out a breakup strategy.

2) Sanity Scribbles:

Excessive memory and love potions. The combo pack. Brennan thought he was losing his mind. Chunks of days would go missing from his memory. He’d wake up thinking it was Monday only for it to be Friday and no memory of how he got there. He got suspicious. Started writing warnings for future-him.

Bad idea, it turned out. Nothing says "I’m fine" like finding your own handwriting telling you you’re not. Future-him concluded he was going insane. Emma doubled down on that. Took him to couples therapy. Which turned out was not a therapist. It was a Noxari practitioner. More memory curses. This cycle happened three times.

THE BREAKUP - The Three P’s of Post-Relationship Persecution

1) Penile Postal Punishment:

Opened letter addressed to him. Someone else’s penmanship. Boom. Woke up with a penis on his face for two weeks. Wore gloves for three months. Moved so she didn’t know his address.

2) Post-Breakup Playback:

As the memory curses wore off, the nightmares punched in. Six months of remembering what she’d done in high definition. Sleep became a documentary he couldn’t pause.

3) Phantom Pain Protocol:

Aches and pains for no reason. Voodoo shit, obviously. He warded the house, the robes, the coffee mug, his entire existence. If it had a surface, it got a rune.

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DRAKENCREST WAR ROOM

Blair was a desk-raiding, door-ghosting, damn-the-consequences dictator dragon princess who had broken into her brother’s study while he slept and returned with receipts.

It turned out the key to the conspiracy wasn’t just a cipher. It was Brennan’s dating life, which was a war crime.

"She targets men," Brennan explained. "It starts with the letters. That’s how she got me. I kept running into her on top of those. She wanted to grab drinks and I said, sure why the hell not. I didn’t learn until much later that she memorized my schedule, knew what contracts I took, and had set up every run-in. Knowing her, she probably knows Maddox’s entire schedule. She’ll try different angles until she gets into his bed with him." He paused. "There’s a chance she was already in his chambers and dropped those on his desk. I wouldn’t put it past her."

Kael blinked once, slowly, the blink of a man manually restarting his brain after receiving information it wanted to reject.

"Is she Lux-Nash-level good? As in able to build a Mirrorlock?" he asked.

Brennan looked at him. The answer was on his face before it left his mouth.

"She’s good. Very good. Her magic is from her mother’s side. Mage-based. Noxari women don’t manifest magic supposedly. But I always thought there was more to the story. Her magic had a unique signature." He stared at the table. "The memory part is what gives me pause because she did that to me."

Blair placed both hands flat on the table.

"Guinevere won’t be able to remember this. But here’s the timeline. Maddox’s memories were gone after the siege. He doesn’t have all of them back yet. We were thinking the Mirrorlock was inside Maddox because he was the one showing symptoms." She looked at Kael. "But as Landon Solveil pointed out, it was inside Guinevere the whole time. Symptoms were projected onto Maddox." She tapped the stack of Emma’s letters. "If Guinevere saw these, that means she touched them. Something activated in Guinevere. That means these were meant for her to look at equally as much as Maddox."

The room went very, very still.

Kael’s token hit the center of the table. "We have a suspect finally that isn’t just Marek Navarre. She has a name. She has a face. She has a history of memory curses, arson, and writing letters. She also has a body count of ex-boyfriends. And she’s probably still in this Keep." He paused. "Fantastic."