Chapter Text
Morning sunlight poured through the high windows of the old estate, touching the long table where half-drunk mugs of coffee and plates of cooling toast sat abandoned. The chaos of breakfast had faded; laughter and clatter had been replaced by the muffled hum of purpose. Outside, in the courtyard, the older Slayers moved through their katas, sharp breaths cutting through the morning chill as Kennedy barked corrections and Rona countered with encouragement. The rhythm of training was almost meditative, the slap of palms against the mat steady as a heartbeat.
Inside, in the ritual room, it was quieter, but no less charged. The air smelled faintly of sage and chalk. Candles burned in concentric circles around the sigil Willow was finishing on the floor. The rest of them sat nearby: Buffy and Faith against the far wall, Dean standing by the door with his arms folded, Xander and Dawn beside the worktable, and Coy at the center of it all, his quiet, tense eyes tracing the lines Willow drew as if they were spelling out his life.
“Okay,” Willow murmured, biting her lip as she leaned over the final arc. “That should be it.” She blew a stray strand of hair from her face, then paused. The hairs on her arm prickled. “Right… about… now.”
A ripple passed through the room. The air shimmered, bending light like heat off asphalt. Then, with a faint sound like a sigh, a circle of gold light bloomed in midair.
Dean tilted his head, lips quirking. “Well, look who’s making a dramatic entrance. Guess punctuality’s not really a witch thing.”
Sam shot him a look, but Rowena only smiled as she stepped through the portal, graceful as ever, robes flowing, eyes glittering with amusement. “You make it sound as though you prefer subtlety, darling,” she said lightly. “I thought a little flair might keep you from falling asleep.”
Dean gave a half-shrug. “You’re not wrong.”
Rowena’s gaze swept the room, pausing briefly on each of them before settling on Willow, who knelt by the glowing sigil. “Lovely work. Balanced, elegant. You’ve gotten stronger.”
Willow flushed faintly but kept her focus on the chalk lines. “I didn’t want to risk doing this without someone who knows the edges.”
“Smart girl,” Rowena said. Then she turned her attention to Coy, who sat inside the circle, shoulders tight, hands clasped in his lap. His eyes followed her, uncertain but steady.
“Mr. Duke,” she greeted softly. “Are you ready to remember who you were?”
Coy swallowed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m ready to stop not knowing.”
The air grew heavier. Willow and Rowena exchanged a look, one part trust, one part silent calculation, and began to chant.
The ritual room had been cleared to silence. Morning light pooled like honey through the blinds, golden dust swirling lazily in the air. On the floor, painted runes curved and knotted in the pattern Willow had drawn, symbols for truth, memory, and return gleaming faintly beneath the faint shimmer of Rowena’s added runes. Sharper, older, edged with power that smelled faintly of heather and iron.
Willow lifted her hands, Rowena mirroring her. Neither candle was lit.
For a single, breathless heartbeat, the room was still.
Then… with a whoosh, every candle burst to life. The circle bloomed in golden-white and ember-red light, the flames swirling higher, pulled upward as if they knew the women calling them. Willow’s eyes shifted, full of the calm fury of the goddess that sometimes answered her call, her auburn hair bleaching strand by strand until it fell over her shoulders in silver-white waves. Rowena’s own gaze glowed bronze, and the air around her rippled with that old, wild magic that never quite bent to human hands.
The two witches spoke, voices rising and falling together, their words overlapping like an incantation sung in two tongues at once:
> Willow (Latin):
“Per sanguinem et memoriam, per animam et lucem,
Revela veritatem quae sub umbra iacet.
Claudatur falsum, aperiatur verum,
Praeteritum vocamus, redeat nunc.”
(Through blood and memory, through soul and light,
Reveal the truth that lies beneath shadow.
Let falsehood be sealed, truth laid bare,
The past we call, return to now.)
> Rowena (Gaelic):
“Leig air ais na cuimhneachan fo dhìon,
Togaibh am bràighe den amnesia seo!
Le fuil is cridhe, bidh e slàn,
Till dhachaigh, anam callta, gun nàire, gun chràdh.”
(Release the memories under ward,
Lift the shroud of this forgetting!
With blood and heart, he shall be whole,
Come home, lost soul, without shame or pain.)
Latin twined with Gaelic, gold with red, sky with storm. The energy thrummed underfoot, pulsing in time with Coy’s heartbeat. His breath hitched.
Their final words came together, the cadence heavy, inevitable:
> Together:
“Anam is cuimhne, fuil is fàs Tha an fhìrinn seo againn le chèile. Sic fiat. So mote it be.”
(Soul and memory, blood and growth this truth we share together. So be it.)
The instant be left their lips, Coy stiffened. His head jerked back, eyes wide, then distant.
The light from the candles bent toward him, threads of fire and color spinning up into his pupils until they turned a deep, molten gold.
His voice came slow at first, almost a whisper.
“I’m… in a circle,” he murmured, gaze unfocused. “There’s chalk. And… her. Blonde hair, Amy.”
His fingers twitched, echoing the gestures of the memory.
“She’s… she’s setting something up. A protection, maybe. But I’m…” his brow furrowed. “I’m standing beside her… no. I’m in the circle, but I’m also standing beside it. Watching myself. His hair’s shorter than mine… but it’s me. Exactly me.”
A small gasp came from Willow, but Rowena gestured sharply for silence.
“There’s… another woman,” Coy went on, his tone drifting somewhere between wonder and confusion. “She’s writing something down. Her voice, she says something about… being in a lost Carver Edlund book.”
Dean shifted uncomfortably. “You mean our books?”
But Coy didn’t hear him. His breathing grew shallow. “I think… I think my name’s not Coy,” he said quietly, the words tasting strange in his mouth. “I think it’s…”
He paused, trembling.
“Lindsey.”
The name hit the air like a gunshot.
Spike’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “Bloody hell.”
And somewhere, buried deep beneath Coy’s confusion, a second name surfaced, soft, certain, carrying a phantom ache…
“Lee.”
The flashes slammed into Lindsay all at once, blinding, fragmentary, incoherent. Images of people, places, and events he couldn’t fully place collided in his mind. He gasped, clutching his head as his knees buckled.
The candles flared wildly, the painted runes beneath him pulsing and twisting with unstable energy. Lindsay’s body convulsed in the circle, arms thrashing, head snapping side to side as though the memories themselves were clawing their way out.
“Lindsay!” Willow shouted, weaving her hands through the air. “He’s getting too much at once! Something’s blocking the memories from settling!”
Rowena’s voice cut through, sharp and commanding. “Of course! The spell is straining him beyond what it can bear!”
Lindsay let out a strangled cry, his vision flickering white. “I. Can’t. Hold it!”
“Enough!” Willow yelled, swinging her hands downward, pulling the energy tight around him. Rowena’s voice joined hers, booming and precise:
Rowena (Gaelic):
“Crìochnaich an spiorad, dùin na cuimhneachan gu sàbhailte!
Gun chron, gun bròn till e gu làn shàbhailte.”
(End the spirit’s surge, close the memories safely!
No harm, no grief return him whole and safe.)
Willow (Latin):
“Suffoca fluctus memoriam, redde corpus et animam intacta.
Sic fiat, protegat et servet eum.”
(Quench the waves of memory, return body and soul intact.
So be it, may it protect and keep him.)
The flames flared violently once more, then softened, coiling around Lindsay in gentle golden-white light. His body shuddered, finally stilling. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he trembled, gasping for air.
Slowly, he lifted his head, voice hoarse, trembling. “Nothing… nothing was clear… but… I think… I think I have a twin brother. And… I think he was involved in the spell too.”
Willow pressed a hand to his shoulder, steadying him. “That’s enough for now. You’re safe. That’s what matters.”
He swallowed hard, trying to make sense of the fragments still swirling at the edges of his mind. The spell had been ended just in time. His body safe, his mind mostly intact, but the truth of what he’d glimpsed, the sense of another presence, lingered like a shadow just out of reach.
No one else in the room understood what he meant yet. All they knew was that Lindsay had almost been lost to the spell, and that whatever he had glimpsed was powerful enough to nearly destroy him.
The last of the spelllight faded like dawn burning off mist. The candles guttered, their flames shrinking back to ordinary size. Willow’s white hair dimmed to red again, and Rowena’s bronze glow cooled to human warmth.
Lindsey lay half-slumped against the edge of the circle, sweat beading his temples. His breathing came fast and shallow, eyes glassy and unfocused as though he’d just surfaced from drowning.
“Easy,” Buffy said quietly, crouching near him but not touching the chalk lines. “It’s over.”
“Over,” Willow echoed, rubbing trembling hands together. “But something fought back. Like a, like a mirror closing.”
Rowena frowned, scanning the chalk lines. “Aye. As if the lad’s mind is tethered elsewhere. Another mind, another thread. I dinna like it.”
Coy blinked slowly, his voice rough. “There were two women… Amy. And another, she said something about Edlund, but,” he winced, hand to his head. “Everything after that’s a blur. Just… this feeling. Someone else was there. Close.”
Before anyone could press him, the sharp trill of a ringtone broke the air. Lindsey startled, patting his pocket before pulling out his phone. The name Amy glowed across the screen.
Willow and Buffy exchanged quick glances.
Lindsey hesitated, then answered. “Hey, Ames.”
“Coy?” Her voice crackled through the speaker, soft and uncertain. “Are you okay? I just… had this weird feeling, like something was wrong.”
Lindsey swallowed, glancing around the room as if he had to remind himself where he was. “I’m fine. Just a headache. Long morning.”
>“Are you sure?” she pressed. “You sound off. You didn’t,” there was a pause, a tiny inhale. “you didn’t get dizzy again, did you?”
“No, nothing like that.” He tried to smile into the phone, the way he always did when she fussed. “Just need coffee. Maybe a nap.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I just… I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was happening. Promise me you’ll take it easy?”
“I promise.”
Spike, standing near the doorway, had gone still. The conversation was ordinary enough, words a human might say to the man she loved, but there was no edge of guilt, no fear of discovery. The tone that reached his vampire hearing wasn’t deceit; it was worry. Real, tender worry.
“I’ll check in later, yeah?” Amy added, voice almost trembling now. “I love you.”
The line clicked before Lindsey could answer.
Spike exhaled through his nose, arms folding. “She meant that,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Every word of it.”
Willow turned. “What?”
“She’s not coverin’ her tracks,” Spike said quietly. “That wasn’t a witch worried she’d been found out. That was a woman afraid her bloke’s about to shatter.”
Coy blinked, phone still in his hand. “She’s just… like that. She worries. I don’t know why she’d think anything’s wrong, though.”
Rowena’s gaze lingered on him, sharp and knowing. “Because, dear heart,” she said gently, “something is.”
“You said you have a twin,” Willow began, eyes flicking toward Lindsay. “We have this bloodline potion, it’s how we found Sam and Dean before. It can show us where your family is, if they’re still alive.”
Lindsay hesitated, glancing around the room before nodding. “If it’ll give us answers, let’s do it.”
Willow was already moving, pulling jars and vials from her kit. “Mullein, mugwort, powdered antler… and a consecrated map.” She laid the laminated map across the table beside a softly glowing cauldron. “Good thing I keep one of these handy.”
The others watched as she measured herbs and powders into the cauldron, the liquid inside swirling into a shimmering bronze-gold hue. When it reached a soft simmer, Willow extended a small, ceremonial blade toward Lindsay.
“Just a drop,” she said gently.
Lindsay pricked his finger without flinching. A few crimson drops fell into the potion, which hissed faintly before glowing brighter. Willow murmured an incantation under her breath and stirred clockwise three times.
She dipped her fingers into the mixture and spread it across the runes printed on the laminated map. The markings lit up instantly, golden veins branching across the United States like a web of living light.
Everyone leaned closer.
“Okay,” Willow said, scanning the glowing points as they appeared. “These are direct blood connections, strongest first.”
A bright pulse shone from Cleveland, then another flickered into existence further east.
“New York City,” Willow said, frowning slightly. “There’s someone there, same signature. Same bloodline.”
Lindsay’s breath caught, a mixture of disbelief and something deeper tightening his expression. “So… I really do have family.”
Willow nodded, wiping her hands. “You do. And whoever they are, they’re alive.”
Dean tilted his head, half-skeptical, half-grinning. “Isn’t that just convenient? Crazy vampire chick says ‘go to New York,’ and now your long-lost twin’s lighting up the place like Times Square.”
Willow didn’t look away from the map. “Coincidence or not, that’s where the blood says to go.”
The glowing line between Cleveland and New York pulsed, steady, insistent, undeniable.