one door opens
The pizza had been good, but they'd mostly argued over where they thought the candle had come from- Grace thought it had been seeded to cause trouble, while Stephen suspected it had been used for some kind of ritual and most likely left to rot when something had happened to the caster.
He'd then decided that it couldn't hurt to ask her out for dinner in a couple of nights. She'd grinned up at him, gathering up her napkin and plates, and said it was a date.
He shouldn't be grinning so foolishly at that, but the mix of relief and delight meant he couldn't help it, not even when he came back into the Sanctum and saw Wong, who rolled his eyes.
“Please tell me that you didn't have a date with the thief's cousin,” Wong said, before turning back to studying what looked like a brass puzzle box with a frown. “I thought you were checking for a curse.”
“Mmm, chaos magic bound to an old candle,” Stephen said, shaking his head. “Pinhead's not going to come out of there, right?”
Wong gently lifted it, studying a line of carvings. “No, this is a map, I believe. Sara Wolfe found it while trying to audit some of the finances Alistair was handling.”
“Why did we let Alistair handle money, again?” Stephen asked. They had divided the duties of the Order, trying to keep a good balance, mostly because no one thought Stephen should be allowed to handle admin. Wong still found himself dealing with various threats, usually when Stephen was stuck in some other dimension, reminding himself he could not turn feuding parties into toads, or trying to make sense of what was happening there. Or dealing with superheroes.
“He was a stockbroker!” Wong protested, nudging one of the engraved bands.
“In the eighties!” Stephen countered, slumping into a particularly comfortable armchair, the Cloak draping itself over the back. “He survived a vampire attack because of all the cocaine in his system!”
“Also no one else wanted the job, until Sara came along,” Wong added, which Stephen couldn't really argue with. He'd been about to ask Bobby Drake for help, figuring that an X-man with an accounting degree wouldn't be a bad fit.
“I suppose we never ran out of money,” Stephen admitted, because Wong had been in an impossible situation. “Still, he needed to retire.”
“Mmm,” Wong hummed, looking at the box again. “Stephen, can you have a shield ready, just in case? Or are you going to keep complaining?”
“I can do both,” Stephen said, because he'd just sat down. He had a clear line of sight, at least, and if Wong was truly concerned, he wouldn't be working on it in the living room. “We were debating who might have created the candle- it would have been about twenty years ago, at least.”
Wong looked up, a bit concerned. Deep down. “I wasn't debating with you, Strange.”
“No, with Grace Learmont,” Stephen waved a hand. “Should I check the box out with the Eye first?”
“You were the sort of child who insisted on trying to guess what was in wrapping paper, weren't you?” Wong asked. “And Grace Learmont? Is she a seer, or is she one of the Midnight Lady's girls?”
“Second, definitely, I'm not sure about the first,” Stephen admitted. “She thought it might have been left in a cave system to cause problems.”
“Maybe,” Wong mused, picking up a knife and tapping it against an edge. “Either through people, or because if the cave was the sort to catch on fire it would amplify what it was trying to do. I can't see it not extending the curse...”
“A couple of miles, if the cave went up, and as long as it burned,” Stephen finished. “I was perhaps thinking it might have been leftover from a careless practitioner. Most of the practitioners I know aren't the right age, or no ties to the area, or both.”
“George Yardley?” Wong offered. “Depending on how old the candle had been. I believe he vanished about twenty-five years ago.”
“Ah, the one who went on talk shows,” Stephen frowned. “I think we received confirmation of his death?”
Wong turned the box over before putting it back on the side table. “No, we found a cache of items and some blood, but that's all.”
Stephen raised his eyebrows, but settled further back in his chair. He swore... “I think I heard it from someone else. But would the candle outlast his death? Or would it go awry? He knew beeswax was a remarkably stable material for storing magic, but he didn't know exactly what the candle did.
“Agatha Harkness, if it served a purpose,” Wong continued.
“Finding a perfect new student?” Stephen thought about it, crossing his legs. “I doubt it.”
“One of the Courts might have,” Wong stood back from the side table with his box in it, before going for a light switch.
Grace would have been a teenager, old enough to hear any gossip.
Then his phone went off.
“Emergencies only, of course,” Stephen said, pulling it out. “And speak of the devil...”
He stared at the phone. “Damn it. That cannot be a coincidence.”
“Stephen?” Wong asked, putting down the box and heading over.
“It was Jess- she wanted to let me know a magician came out of a portal, claiming it was about twenty-five years in the past.” Stephen frowned, trying to remember whatever practitioners Fury might have on-call. Wanda, of course, and she should probably know, if chaos magic was involved.
“You think dispelling the curse freed him?” Wong mused. “Time bubble...”
“Lie?” Stephen countered. He sent off a message to Jess thanking her, then letting Grace know, wincing as his fingers protested that much movement.
“I could have done that for you,” Wong said, frowning at him.
“Autopopulate is a wonderful thing,” Stephen stood up. “I suppose I'll see if we can get in to see Yardley, if it is him. I also let Grace know.”
“Never mind,” Wong shook his head. “I don't want to see any of those messages.”
Stephen rolled his eyes.