Chapter Text
Gerry wanted to go away. It wasn’t a new wish but one that had followed him through most of his life. He was sixteen and it had only gotten more persistent when his left eye had turned black three years earlier and his mother’s grip on his life had tightened. It was ironic, really. The idea of Antari, of those magicians who could use blood magic and with it move between worlds without using the doors that were heavily guarded, had appealed to him before.
He had never wished to be one, but he thought that if he were, he could finally escape from this place, their house in the middle of nowhere - just far enough from London that Gerry had a difficult time sneaking away to it without it being noticed - and his mother’s strange lessons. He didn’t know what she wanted to achieve with her research, but Gerry didn’t want anything to do with it.
Of all elements - earth, fire, water, air and bone - Gerry had only ever had any affinity for fire. His mother didn’t seem satisfied with that and despite it being well-known that magic couldn’t be forced, that it chose the host and not vice versa, she seemed determined to make Gerry master everything else. An experiment. Gerry was fairly sure that what she really wanted was to gain power over the elements herself. Mary, as far as Gerry was aware, seemed to have no skill for any of them. Gerry assumed she was hoping to find a way to change that using him. Or starting with him. Gerry could only guess her plans. He had long learned that asking too many questions resulted in pain, so he had stopped.
And then his eye had turned black, and he had felt the power humming in his blood. He knew he had the ability to leave . He didn’t know how, not right at the beginning. The words had come with time as he tried to exercise his powers. Or rather, as his mother made him do so, pushed him until he was dizzy with blood loss.
But the words had come to him, more often when he was alone and decided to try something out himself rather than wait for the next time his mother decided to make him part of one of her tests. Sometimes it wasn’t even blood magic he was playing around with. The Antari mark came with the ability to use all elements on top of blood magic. While his mother hadn’t focused on that much, Gerry found it fun to explore his new powers. He would sometimes be blowing up leaves with some air and suddenly, he’d feel the knowledge of a new command, the words that made his blood magic.
Even when Gerry had learned the words that could take him away, he didn’t have anything that could bring him from one world to another. He had the blood, the command. But he didn’t have an item, nothing that was from any of those strange places he learned about in his mother’s books.
They were rare, from what he knew. He had seen shops with such items when Mary brought him into the city - a rare occasion - but he had also been warned from getting caught anywhere near them. She was well known in those circles, and Gerry found out the hard way that even if he dared trying to get close, she would hear of it. And she would make him regret it.
In general, Mary kept an even closer eye on him after his eye turned black. Antari weren’t necessarily rare , but still valuable and she clearly did not want anyone to find out Gerry was one. She made sure Gerry wouldn’t want to be found out, either, taking every opportunity to tell him horrifying stories of people who would take his eye or kidnap him to bleed him dry. At least she finally let him grow his hair out. It was easier to hide the eye that way.
If anything, the Antari powers brought him even less freedom, really. He barely tried to get to the city anymore. Mary kept warning him about all the scum that lurked in alleys and dark corners, ready to take him. Instead, Gerry opted for escaping to the woods in front of the house. He had learned to conceal his powers, but there was still anxiety in going to the city now. He didn’t want to feel anxious. He wanted to feel free, to pretend that he wasn’t trapped. So the woods it was.
Sometimes he considered not stopping to walk, to run away for good and never turn back. How long could he make it? How far before he was found out and people would try to catch him? Gerry had an okay grasp on his powers by now, and he knew that, in theory, he should be stronger than anyone who might try, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think he could take them on. He had little practice in actually using any of his magic in combat. And even if he’d had, he probably still wouldn’t try to run.
Something about Mary always brought him back to her door sooner or later. Especially now. Since his eye turned black, she occasionally actually looked at him. Maybe even smiled her strangely twisted, proud smile. Gerry knew it wasn’t for him , but he couldn’t help the eagerness he felt at making her look at him like that again. So he came back and helped her with her work when she requested, even if it often ended up with him having to draw far too much blood. It was fine. He had quickly found out that the rumours about Antari healing powers were true. They healed quickly.
*
Sometimes, Mary had people over. Collectors, she called them. Gerry usually was sent to his room - where he rarely stayed - or he wasn’t at home for the meeting in the first place. He did still try to not be at home too much. He only had so much blood and when his mother got her mind set on something, she tended to push him until his vision grew hazy. It wasn’t pleasant. It was still worth it, for her proud smile, maybe a stray word of encouragement. But Gerry still tried to avoid doing that too much.
It was one of those Collector’s Gerry stole from. It had been easy, Mary barely looking at him as she waved for him to leave, the man already talking business with her. The hallway was narrow and the fact that Gerry nearly brushed against him - and his fingers, for that matter, did - wasn’t a set-up. Gerry simply used the opportunity. He never saw what those people brought with them, his mother kept her things very secure and out of his reach. Gerry had stopped attempting to get into that room after a particularly bad beating and two days without food.
But he never stopped being curious about it. His questions, of course, were never answered, but he could guess, from context, that the things these people ‘collected’ weren’t strictly legal. Gerry’s hand closed around the item now in his own pocket as he made his way up to his room, then out the window and into the woods. It was cool, whatever it was - he didn’t dare look so close to his house - and it felt foreign . It was smooth and hard as Gerry kept turning it between his fingers. A rock, maybe? He couldn’t discern any specific shape just from feeling it. But it felt different .
Gerry finally came to a stop when he felt like he was far enough from the house. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and took in the flat, white object in the palm of his hand. It did look like a rock, nearly a perfect circle. Gerry ran his thumb over it. Its surface felt strange. Unlike anything Gerry had touched before. Like it wasn’t from here .
He had suspected, of course, that the items in question might come from the other Londons. It wasn’t illegal to transport things between the worlds, as far as Gerry understood, as long as you did so in a very specific way. Gerry assumed this man had probably not done that. But he didn’t care, because if this was what he thought it was, Gerry could go .
Mary hadn’t allowed him to carry anything sharp after the eye turned black - if he was going to spill any blood and do magic with it, it should be for her - but Gerry had had over two years now to find ways to break skin with what he could find in the woods. Sometimes it was enough to find a tree with rough enough bark. Gerry knew where to look by now, and he didn’t even flinch as he pressed his hand further into the rough wood. From what he had read, he didn’t need much. Just blood at all, the right words, an item from where he wanted to go. Gerry just wanted to go away .
He took the smooth stone into his now bloody palm and pressed it against the side of the tree. He wondered if there’d be trees on the other side. Gerry knew he could only move between the exact same point in between the worlds. He had seen maps of them, but it had been too long for him to remember any details. And of course, he didn’t know which London the stone would lead him to. And he didn’t care. He whispered the words nearly reverently. As Travars . He had mumbled them before, tried to get a feeling for them. But for the first time since his eye had turned black, Gerry felt actual magic behind them, felt a warm tingling in his blood.
And then he was gone.