amongst the things left unforgiven

Essek’s reaction to the two scourgers on his doorstep is far more muted than it would’ve been six weeks ago.

“Can I help you?” he asks, and it doesn’t even sound like he’s panicking.

“May we come in?” says the shorter one, a human woman with a scarred face. She makes it sound like a perfectly reasonable question instead of a death sentence.

“Do I have a choice?” he asks anyway.

“Not a very good one,” says the taller one—another human, male, dark hair.

Essek lets them into his tower.

They end up sitting at the dining room table that he never uses. He briefly entertains the thought of making them tea, but it’s a ridiculous impulse. He’d have to turn his back to them. They probably wouldn’t even drink it.

The irony is that he wasn’t anticipating this. Not anymore. The Dynasty still seeks the cancer in its own ranks, and there is nothing left he can do to stave off that inevitable discovery. But for some ridiculous reason he’d thought he no longer had to worry about this particular end. It’s caught him off-balance.

“Why are you here?” Essek asks. Blunt, maybe, but neither of them seems to be in a rush to begin speaking and it’s making him sweat. “You haven’t killed me already, which leads me to believe that it’s information you’re after. I must warn you that I have few answers to give you.”

They probably know what he’s done. They probably also know that he knows that they know. Beyond that, he’s lost.

“The Mighty Nein,” the woman says. Essek doesn’t let himself react, not visibly, but he can feel his heart rate pick up. “You were the one who taught their wizard dunamancy.”

“I have extremely few answers for you in that particular area, I’m afraid.”

“We just want to know why. Were you aiming to gain his trust, his favor? Something else?” She says you like she means the entire Dynasty, but it seems more likely that she’s interested about him in particular.

It’s a strange question. His impulse is to lie just because of the topic, but it feels like a trick, the sort of question someone asks because they already know the answer. Essek takes a moment to consider his response. “A bit of that. I also needed to learn what motivated him, what he was after. Sometimes it’s easier to gain information if you give some away first,” he adds pointedly, which the woman smiles at. It’s a gentle smile, the sort of smile meant to reassure a child before you clean scraped knees with alcohol.

“You can take your hint back,” the tall one says. “That’s all we need, anyway.”

They walk out of the door and back into the street before teleporting away, turning their backs to him when they leave. That show of confidence only serves to make him more anxious.

He searches his towers for any signs of disturbance, then does the thing he wishes he’d done years ago, the very first time he’d been visited by agents of the late Cerberus Assembly: he sends a message to the Bright Queen.

— 

Every meeting he has with the Court nowadays feels dangerous. He wears that fear like a second mantle, the creeping dread of the hunt drawing closer, the noose indistinct but ever tighter. Two years, two months, two weeks—it all seems so optimistic, now. But that’s something he expects, at least, something he can see coming.

This was a surprise, and the most surprising part of it is that he isn’t dead already.

It's strange, to have a meeting with the Bright Queen where the main reason he's nervous is not because the investigation is looming but because he's still coming down from the adrenaline high of being accosted by scourgers. He explains what he remembers—the figures at his door, letting them in, answering a single question—and then asks for a Greater Restoration, because the visit was less than ten minutes and the only thing he can think of is that perhaps it was a cover memory for a magically-coerced interrogation. He still has the amulet from the Nein, so at least mind reading isn't a concern, but there are so many things he could have—

Of course, the Greater Restoration does nothing and he looks like a paranoid idiot. His composure is failing him, just slightly, and he hates that the Court gets to see him shaken by this. There have been enough concerns about his emotional stability as of late.

They assign some guards to his front gate, like that will do anything, and send him off on his merry way. If he goes home and curls up under his bed to hyperventilate for half an hour...well. He knows he’s being spied on, but at least with the amulet the chance that anyone will notice is relatively small.

—

He makes them tea, the second time around.

It’s not his favorite blend, of the ones Caduceus gave him, so it’s no great loss if it goes to waste. Neither seems interested initially, but the man smells the cup, mutters something in Zemnian. The woman raises a brow, takes a small sip. Nods, in politely surprised affirmation.

“Are you going to ask me a single question and disappear again?”

“You’ve stayed in contact with the Mighty Nein after the end of the war, yes?” the woman asks, ignoring his question.

“That’s common knowledge.” He doesn’t like that the Nein are a topic of conversation, still. He’d assumed that the scourgers were interested in dunamancy, not them.

She gives him a practiced smile, equal parts amused and condescending. “But you know what kind of... uncommon knowledge we have about you. Do they know what we do?”

“I cannot answer that question.”

“We could make it worth your time,” the man says.

“You really can’t.”

They both stare at him, predatory, waiting for an opening. He stares back, unflinching.

Finally the woman tilts her head and shrugs, like the matter has been settled. “Vess is dead. Ludinus is dead. Trent is dead. The Assembly has been dismantled. All of that has to be very convenient for you. How much of a role did you have in all that?”

“Very little. They dug other graves for themselves, things that I had nothing to do with.”

“But it was, as I said, very convenient for you. Safer.”

“Just because there are fewer people left to borrow that shovel doesn’t mean I haven’t already dug a grave for myself. Are you here to sit around and threaten me? Or would you like more tea?”

The man slides his empty cup across the table. Essek refills it, slides it back.

“Why are you here?” he asks them both.

“We’re just very curious about you,” the woman says. “Surely you can appreciate that.”

“I do, but I suspect you misunderstand the nature of my relationship with curiosity.”

“We aren’t getting anywhere,” the tall one says. “You still refuse to answer our first question?”

“I didn’t refuse to answer. I said that I couldn’t.”

“Hm.” The woman smiles—she seems to have many smiles, this one polite and threatening—and stands. “Maybe we’ll see you around some other time, then.”

The man downs his second cup and gives Essek a curt nod before following her out. He watches them from his window as they walk to the street, waving to the utterly useless guards as they leave. His hands feel numb. Part of him is already calculating how to best censor this particular conversation when he explains it to the Court.

But first, he has another Sending to cast. “I have reason to believe that some surviving scourgers suspect that the Nein knows what I did. Be wary. Stay on guard.”

There’s a brief pause before he hears Caleb’s voice in his head. “Ja, we know they know. You don’t need to worry about us. Not in that regard, at least—Jester did cause an explosion, yesterday.”

Essek laughs, which is strange considering it doesn’t feel like he can actually breathe right now.

He searches his towers top to bottom, twice, like maybe this time something will be out of place, like it will reveal a reason for the scourgers’ visit. But he finds nothing. There’s the plants Caduceus gave him, which are either dying because he hasn’t given them enough water or because he’s given them too much. There’s the components for an experiment he’d begun to set up in his lab, before he’d realized that it would take at least two years to complete and, at the rate the investigation is going, Essek will be arrested and dead within six months. There’s the flower Yasha gave him, which was, at least, already dead when he received it. The pile of books he’d been meaning to read before Eiselcross now has months of dust blanketing them. The chronometer for the apparatus on his roof is still in need of repair, and he still hasn’t repaired it, because what use would it be? What point is there in measuring the time, when he has so little left?

—

There were wolves, up north, sharp-eyed creatures that would ghost across the landscape in single file, there and gone again. There are many things he misses about his time at the outpost, the rapid change of light with the seasons, the simple satisfaction of performing his duties and performing them well, the quiet vast emptiness, the feeling that perhaps everyone there was running from something.

But he feels foolish, now, for ever having missed the wolves.

—

The third time, the scourger woman throws a knife into the wall next to his head and he almost disintegrates her in return.

After they’ve finished throwing Counterspells back and forth, the woman snaps, “Relax. There was a spider.”

“And you didn’t think to explain that beforehand?” Hands still raised to cast, he backs away so he can look at the wall while still keeping both of the scourgers in his peripheral vision. No traces of a spider, or at least not a mundane one.

“She didn’t miss. You have someone paying attention to this,” the tall one says.

“It’d better be one of mine and not one of yours,” Essek mutters, and sits down at his table without bothering to remove the weapon from his wall.

“I’d assume you’d be more worried if it were yours.”

“Do you think I’ve kept it secret that a pair of Empire agents keeps visiting my home at odd intervals? If it’s one of mine, I have someone to yell at after I give my report. Yours, I can’t do anything about.”

“Fair enough,” says the scarred woman. Then, with a reconciliatory smile, “How about we set up a meeting in advance, next time? Somewhere more...neutral, perhaps.”

“I cannot imagine anywhere neutral enough that it would be safer than my own home,” he mutters tersely. He can, actually. He’s just been trying to avoid getting them caught in the aftermath of his own stupidity.

—

He does complain about the familiar, especially the fact that it wasn’t well-hidden and that he could've started an international incident over it, had it not been for the fact that he is hopelessly outnumbered for Counterspells and is therefore entirely defenseless. He details the precautions he is taking—a Contingency set to destroy his own spellbook upon access by outside parties, the amulet protecting against divination magic, mechanical alarms at his doors and windows, scouring his home for any classified information he’d previously overlooked—methodically, in an even tone, trying his best not to sound like a hysterical child in front of the Court and probably failing just a little.

And then he gets to the request for a neutral meeting space, hesitates. He's been trying not to bring up the Nein as a topic of conversation, after what happened in Aeor—or rather, what happened after he got back from Aeor. The Bright Queen had suggested that perhaps he was emotionally compromised by the Nein. Essek had snapped, I am allowed to have emotions. That does not mean I am compromised, which, while technically true, is not something one should say in front of the entire Court if one is trying to prove that they are reliable and emotionally stable. He's been on thin ice ever since, which is saying something considering the previous thickness of the metaphorical ice had already been questionable.

But the scourgers have been asking about the Nein. It would force them to reveal their hand, one way or another, if he suggests that they meet at a space facilitated by them. And it would be safer, for Essek, to have numbers on his side. 

He explains this, carefully, trying to look exceptionally emotionally stable about it. The Bright Queen agrees, but the hint of doubt on her face suggests Essek has utterly failed at feigning neutrality.

He’s been avoiding the Nein as much as feasible. He rarely has official reasons to visit them, and he doesn’t want to give any more impression of being too close than he already has. There’s the matter of not getting them involved in his eventual arrest, of course. But there’s also the matter of not accelerating that process. He can’t appear too eager to travel to the Empire, doesn’t need to give the Court any ideas about him being overly fond of their supposed enemy, of being compromised.

But at least within the Empire there is something that loves him. Not the terrifying and divinely perfect love of his umavi mother, so vast that it never actually felt like love, and not the void of indifference and mistrust from his peers. Something worn and unsimple, something he tried so hard to earn, something that was given to him even after he utterly failed to earn it. 

He casts a Sending targeting Beau, since the Nein have made a habit of setting Caleb’s tower inside her room in Zadash. “Would now be a good time for me to visit? I have a...complicated request.”

“Uhhhhhh. Sure, yeah, I guess. I’m away right now, but I think Caleb and Fjord and Jester are all in the usual spot.”

He teleports to the Cobalt Soul, not bothering to disguise himself because his destination is a closet. The door to Caleb’s tower is there, open. He steps inside, almost immediately runs into Jester. There’s a streak of orange paint in her hair. 

“Oh, hi!” she says, then practically smothers him in a hug. He wraps his arms around her tentatively, already more puddle than person. He’s just—he’s been tense, as of late. “I didn’t know you were going to come over.”

“I sent a message to Beau. Though she said she wasn’t in the tower?”

“Oh, yeah, no. Her and Yasha are in Rexxentrum again.” Jester pulls away from the hug. It takes more self-control than he’d like to admit not to cling to her. “She’s still trying to figure out political stuff so we can start planning a trip. But Caduceus is finally here! And me, and Fjord, and then Caleb’s got some friends over.”

“Friends?” Caleb has been...rather selective about letting people know where he keeps the tower.

“Yep. Have you ever met—huh. Yeah, that actually might be kind of weird, actually.” She casts Sending. “Hey Caleb, is it okay if Essek knows about yooouuuur secret guests? Or if they know about him being here, like, right now? Because otherwise we should probably—”

“You’ve already run out of words.”

Jester cocks her head, listening. Starts nodding, casts again. “Hey, Caduceus? Caleb says everything’s probably fine, but Essek’s here and so are Astrid and Eadwulf, so could you come to the dining room just in case things get weird?”

“You ran out again.”

Jester holds up a finger while Caduceus finishes speaking. Then, turning back to Essek, “Okay, cool, so you know that Caleb was kind of going to be a scourger, right?”

Now he remembers why the name Astrid sounds familiar. “Yes? Are there scourgers here?”

“I mean, technically they’re ex -scourgers. And also one’s his ex-girlfriend. Technically maybe both of them are his exes, but he doesn’t really talk about it that much so I’m not really sure sure. But they’re friendly! Mostly.”

The realization hits him like a Counterspell—ephemeral, disorienting. “I don’t suppose one is a tall man with dark hair, or a woman with a scar on her neck? Both human? Vaguely terrifying?”

“Yep! I mean, they’re not terrifying, really. Unless you had to fight them? Did you?” Her eyes widen, her expression teetering between curiosity and concern, tail flicking slightly.

“No,” he says, because it’s close enough to the truth. “We’ve just never been formally introduced. This should be...interesting.”

He goes to the central platform, thinks up. It’s the most natural thing for him, one of many little things he adores about Caleb’s tower.

The scourgers must have had some warning from Caleb, because they don’t look surprised, just uncomfortable. The man—Eadwulf, presumably—looks downright skittish. Astrid is either less uneasy or just better at hiding it.

“Ah, Essek. Hello.” Caleb doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and finally ends up gesturing to the two scourgers at his table. “I don’t believe you’ve met before? This is Astrid, and Eadwulf. They are, ah. Childhood friends of mine.”

“That makes sense, yes. It’s a pleasure to be formally introduced to you both,” Essek says.

“You as well,” Astrid says coolly.

“Oh,” says Caduceus, slightly too loud. Everyone turns to look at him. “I was wondering how they knew about that blend,” he says to Essek.

Caleb looks mildly bewildered. Blinks several times, clears his throat. “Have you. Met?”

“We’ve chatted briefly,” Essek says. He’s polite about it, his tone neutral, not even a hint of delighted gloating.

“Right. Well. We’d best be going,” Eadwulf says, standing abruptly. “We’ll see you around.”

Astrid sighs infinitesimally. “We can finish our conversation later,” she tells Caleb, and both scourgers slip past him to retreat from the tower.

A beat of silence. Then, “That really wasn’t that bad,” Caduceus says to Jester. “All things considered.”

“My apologies, Essek,” says Caleb, wringing his hands. “I didn’t realize that you would be here today, or that you had, ah, bad blood between you. Despite their previous employment, they’ve remained—good friends. Allies.”

“Oh, there’s no need to apologize—if anything, I should be apologizing for not announcing myself adequately. Regardless, this is the best thing that’s happened to me all week.” He’s smiling now, can’t really help himself. It’s a heady combination, the joy of seeing the Nein again and the relief of having questions answered.

“Waaaaaaiiiit. Did you guys have like, a one-night stand that you maybe wanted to be something more, but then they left in the middle of the night and you didn’t know how to find them, and now you’re all smug because you know who they are?”

“What? No.”

Jester pouts slightly.

“I’m not—no. Thrice over the past couple weeks, two scourgers have shown up at my door, asking questions about you and refusing to answer any of mine. I thought I was going to be assassinated, or that you were in danger. I came here to ask for your help, and now it seems rather unnecessary.”

Caleb drops his face into his hands and mutters something in Zemnian. “I am extremely sorry,” he says, louder.

“I will admit that I’m still slightly concerned about the company you keep, but—” Essek gestures to himself. “—that isn’t anything new. I just need to find a way to explain this situation to the Court that won’t result in public ridicule.”

—

He casts a Sending to the Bright Queen, hoping that she isn’t in the middle of a meeting. “It turns out that the scourgers are childhood friends of Caleb, and may have been...attempting to ascertain if I was a threat to him.”

He receives poorly-suppressed laughter in response, and, dashing any hopes he’d had of catching her alone, “One moment. I’ve just received word from the Shadowhand. Remain vigilant, Essek, but I think written reports should suffice from this point forward.”

He grimaces, casts the spell again. “Of course. Apologies for wasting your time with frivolous concerns.” He hesitates half a second before adding, “In my defense, they are scourgers. I had reason to be paranoid. I still do.”

“I understand. Better for you to be made a fool on occasion than to end up doing irreparable damage due to an underabundance of caution.”

Essek considers a third Sending, then decides it’s better to stop while the Bright Queen still has amused patience to spare.

—

Essek receives a number of classified updates and has access to various restricted documents, despite technically not being affiliated with the Lens. They haven’t revoked his access to anything regarding the investigation into the theft of the beacons, which probably just means that there are reports that aren’t written down anywhere, and that they’re watching him closely, waiting to see if he attempts to sabotage it. He doesn’t let himself check that often, just every other week, because even that is probably too suspicious.

It’s become a bit of a ritual, checking whom they last interviewed, if any new suspects have been added, watching the snare draw tighter around him, and then going home to have a nervous breakdown in the privacy of his own home.

Some days, he thinks of running. Some, he thinks he’s getting exactly what he deserves.

—

Ironically, seeing only one figure at his door makes him more nervous.

“He isn’t here,” Astrid says, presumably having noticed Essek frantically checking shadows. “Caleb suggested that you might be more comfortable if you weren’t...outnumbered.”

“I didn’t expect you to show up here, now that I know who you are,” he comments as they head inside. He considers digging out his teapot. Shrugs, pulls out a bottle of wine instead.

“You still don’t know who we are. But yes, there’s no point in keeping up that particular pretense.”

He pours her a glass, then one for himself. “I still don’t trust you.”

“Good. I don’t trust you.”

Astrid scans the dining room, taking her time, checking the ceiling, peering around doorways, crouching low to check the underside of the table and chairs. Essek watches her search, noting the hint of tattoos peeking out from sleeves, the burn scar on her neck, spots where knives are likely hidden, the residue on her eyelashes. He suspects that that’s from a recent casting of True Seeing, which makes him both anxious and strangely reassured. It’s nice to have someone else be as paranoid as he is, even though he’s now very worried about what she plans to talk about.

Finally, she sits down and takes the wine glass. She doesn’t take a sip, doesn’t even look at it, just lets it slosh back and forth. He suspects he’ll be drinking her entire glass after she leaves.

“So,” he says when she still hasn’t said anything. “You’re supposedly friends with the Nein—with Caleb, at least,” he amends at the dubious look she gives him. “That doesn't tell me anything about why you’re interested in me. What are you about, exactly? Are you two free agents now, or are you still working for someone?”

“That’s nothing you have to worry about,” she says, and Essek immediately starts worrying about it. “We don’t trust you. Most of the Mighty Nein would have us believe that you’ve undergone some seismic change in heart, that you no longer pose a significant threat. To the Empire, to the Dynasty, to whatever fragile peace hangs between them.”

Essek winces. “They like me too much.”

“They do. And we don’t trust them to recognize it, because they lack the necessary distance to appraise you clearly. So that is why we’re interested in you. What are you about, Essek Thelyss?”

He sighs, takes a sip of wine. She has the sharp-eyed gaze of a canny predator, unblinking and steady, documenting every movement he makes, however small. “I don’t know how much time I have left before things fall apart. Likely very little, so whatever impact I can still make may be negligible. But I do intend to do some small good with however long I have remaining.”

She blinks. “Is that the line you’re going with? You’ll probably be dead soon, so you aren’t dangerous anymore?”

“Is there anything wrong with the truth?”

She scoffs. There’s something uncanny about the way she does it, like she’s rehearsed the expression in a mirror, the exact huff of disbelief. Everything about her feels carefully practiced, contained and calculated.

“You’re a fool,” she says, swirling the wine inside her glass, “if you actually believe your fate is out of your control.”

“Call me a fool, then, for being correct.”

“The only reason you might be running low on time is that you’re letting someone take it from you. I know your type. You probably started with a dozen contingency plans and continued adding more as you went. You can’t convince me that none of them are viable anymore.” 

A few drops of wine escape the rim of her glass, splashing across the embroidery on her sleeve. Essek casts Prestidigitation with barely a conscious thought. Astrid counters the cantrip. He doesn’t cast Counterspell in return, just stares incredulously.

“I did not ask you to do that,” she says, cold, clipped.

“My apologies.” He dips his head slightly, anxiety growing as he tries to regain his footing. “I didn’t think. You can handle yourself, clearly.”

“I’m not sure that you can, though,” she says, setting the glass down and standing. “Which is a shame, because I suspect we’ll only be seeing more of each other.”

“You say that as if you haven’t been the one initiating all of our meetings,” he calls out after her as she heads to the door. She doesn’t hesitate or turn.

“I don’t trust you,” she says once more, and then she’s gone.

—

There are different kinds of ignorance. There’s knowledge that you know is out of your grasp, questions without answers, who are they what do they want with me, ignorance that you know is ignorance. There’s willful ignorance, answers that you refuse to accept, I can deal with the Assembly I have everything under control, information that turns out to be correct despite your intent to prove it otherwise. And then there’s ignorance of your own ignorance, questions you didn’t even know to ask, do the Nein trust them do they realize how dangerous that is, all the unknowns past the limits of your imagination. 

He feels like he knows more about the scourgers and less about them than he ever did.

He cannot place any confidence in their intentions or motivations, cannot believe them to be uncomplicated or pure. They are concerningly indifferent towards the Nein as a whole. Caleb called them friends, true. But they are scourgers, born of the Empire, hungry-eyed and ambitious like the Empire. Even if they are fond of Caleb, Essek isn’t sure that affection will actually matter in the end. He doesn’t even know who they’re working for, now. Perhaps they’re loyal to the Crown even after the fall of the Assembly, but if they are anything like Essek—well.

The Dynasty may be Essek’s home, but he knows it too well to love it anymore.

Still. Essek’s loyalty to any nation may be threadbare, his ambitions may be limited by the sand left in the hourglass, but his motivations are simple enough. He has his love for the Nein. There’s still the notion that he has a job and he’s going to do it well, even if his definition of well conflicts with what his Den or the Court would prefer him to do. In distant third is the vague idea of making up for what he’s done, though that would involve more time than he has. 

And frankly, the more he contemplates the state of the world, the more that creating any semblance of lasting peace feels impossible, regardless of how long he has left.

The problem with peace, he thinks, is that the Dynasty has too long a memory. Every violent act it has survived, every terrible slight and tragedy, it holds onto, feeding into its grim insistence that history can only repeat itself.

This is the exact reason that Essek grew disillusioned with his home. The adherence to tradition, the reluctance to seek knowledge beyond the limits of its imagination, the cyclical recycling of itself to create a flawed kind of perfection, the conviction that the world is filled with uniquely terrible predators whose only goal in common is its annihilation. It is too insular, too untrusting of anything that is not already of itself, of new ideas, new people. The Dynasty has always wanted things from him, but has never wanted him, except when it wanted him to be someone else.

Perhaps the other half of his issue is that the Empire is not uniquely terrible. It is also full of lovely things, fascinating things, things that know how to tempt him. Some of these things mean him harm, and some of these things will love him back, and he’s not sure he can tell the difference between them, and he’s not sure that the difference actually matters in the end.

That’s the other problem with peace. The things the Empire hates, it devours. But it also doesn’t know how to love without devouring, and perhaps it is too late for it to learn.

He doesn’t set up a specific meeting time, or declare his intentions. He simply begins to show up at Caleb’s tower on what is technically his day off, and they are almost always there, somewhere on the periphery. 

The first week they say maybe three words to each other the entire time, too caught up in the Nein's conversation about the various things in the ocean that want them dead. But he pays close attention to what they say during the conversation, vague allusions to activity on Darktow, intimations that the Empire's shipping agreement with the Clovis Concord is less stable than it appears, ambiguous phrasings that may mean nothing or may hint at more.

The second week Essek makes more of an attempt to disengage from the Nein. Jester and Yasha make some flimsy excuse to come with them to the dining room, and he realizes that perhaps they’re being chaperoned. He wonders if the Nein is more worried about him or the scourgers.

The third week, they end up in the library together, with Yasha and Fjord hovering in the background. They talk about historical property rights near Deastok, except none of them are actually talking about that. The scourgers are trying to figure out what Essek knows about some meteorological event (or perhaps not—the way Astrid says it, with a hint of irony, meteorological events notwithstanding, suggests that he’s missing out on some kind of wordplay or reference that has nothing to do with weather) that happened years ago, and Essek is trying to convince them that he knows exactly what they’re talking about so that he can figure out why it’s significant. He comes away from the conversation knowing a ludicrous amount of irrelevant information about the region, and only the vaguest inkling that perhaps one of the Assembly’s projects began there.

—

After the third time that he teleports into Zadash, Caleb has set the guest room to match the aesthetic of Essek’s towers, except that the ceiling has been replaced with stars—not the same limitless expanse as the top floor of his tower, but an accurate view of the night sky.

When Essek finishes his trance there, he opens his eyes and finds himself disoriented. It takes a while for him to realize that it’s because the sky is the same as when he started. It’s a stationary illusion.

He thinks about mentioning it to Caleb, who, accustomed to living where there’s a sun, is probably not used to the idea of keeping track of the hour by the position of stars. But the ceiling is slightly different, the next week. A snapshot, he realizes, of the last time that Caleb saw the night sky. Essek finds this charming—comforting, even—in a way that the real stars cannot offer him.

—

The scourgers aren’t there, the fourth week. Nor are Jester or Fjord or Beau. According to Yasha, most of the Nein are off in Nicodranas planning some kind of boat vacation.

“Caleb’s here, though, up in the library. If you want to, you know, talk to him,” she adds awkwardly.

If he’s awkward in thanking her for the information, then at least there’s no one around to judge their social ineptitude. 

Probably.

“Your scourger friends aren’t hiding somewhere around here, are they?” he asks as soon as he finds Caleb.

He looks up from a stack of paper. Not for arcane research, but paperwork of the tedious sort. He and Beau have taken on some official responsibilities in the wake of the Assembly’s collapse, Caleb in reconfiguring the Soltryce Academy and the Halls of Erudition so that they function independent of the Crown, and Beau...well. When Essek had asked her what she’s been doing, she’d responded with secret monk shit, and he’s interacted with her enough to know when she’s telling him to fuck off.

“I haven’t seen them, if they are. I’m fairly sure they’re off doing...something.” He waves his hand in a vague motion. “Some sort of mission, I don’t know the specifics of this one. Why?”

Essek shrugs. “It’s...rather stressful to watch everything I’m saying, while they hover around.”

Caleb hums noncommittally. “They aren’t as dangerous to the Dynasty as they used to be,” he says, which just confirms that they are some danger to the Dynasty, still.

“They’re always paying attention. I mentioned the weather in Rosohna once and I could see them taking mental notes.” He pauses, adds, “I haven’t so much as thought about dunamancy in front of them, in case they try to reverse-engineer Gravity Sinkhole from scratch. Not that that’s possible, of course.”

“You did cast it in front of me, once,” Caleb points out.

“Once. You recreated it after seeing it once. Under any other circumstance I’d consider myself paranoid, but in this instance I’m not sure there’s a way to be too careful.”

“I have a better memory than them,” Caleb says mildly. “You should not worry too much about casting in front of them.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Essek hesitates, sighs. “Though I still really would like to know how you did it.”

Which is how they end up sitting together at a table, Caleb picking through his old notes, gesturing animatedly as he speaks. It does reassure Essek somewhat, that the chances of someone else replicating the feat are relatively low—much of Caleb’s work was based off of his pre-existing understanding of dunamancy, and the rest of it involves a series of logical leaps that even Essek, trained graviturgist, dunamancy prodigy, etcetera etcetera, can barely follow his reasoning.

He’s missed this. He’d forgotten what it was like, but it turns out that he’s missed this. For an hour or two he can just talk spellwork, ask Caleb questions, point out various inefficiencies in his equations, compare notes, set the fear aside to remember later.

Caleb digs out a few material components from various coat pockets. An iron nail, a vial of oil, a handful of pearls, a sizable rock, and finally several black marbles.

“I wasn’t sure if there was a standard diameter or material, so I experimented with several types to—” He breaks off as Essek picks up the rock, peering over it with interest.

“Is this a component for something?”

“It’s a transmuter stone.”

“Oh.” He knew that Caleb would have one, but he expected—he’s not sure what he expected, really, but not a mundane rock. “I wouldn’t have guessed, based on the appearance. It’s very similar to the ones you’ve collected as teleportation focuses.”

Of course, Essek isn’t the transmutation expert, so perhaps the fact that he was expecting something more impressive speaks more to his own sensibilities than anything else. Transmutation is arguably the school of magic most related to dunamancy, though in practice it’s always struck him as more finicky, cruder and prone to disobeying the caster. He admires Caleb’s patience in continuing to master the practice, despite the frustrating lack of control it offers.

“It has a ring around it. It’s a lucky rock,” Caleb says, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

It does have a ring. What that has to do with luck Essek doesn’t know, but he’s not going to argue when the topic has turned Caleb stiff and guarded. “Indeed. It has hidden depths,” he says instead, and sets it back down.

—

It becomes a game of sorts, to end up in a casual conversation about politics or magic or current events, trying to say nothing of consequence and attempting to glean something useful from each other’s responses. Sometimes the scourgers will mention something to Caleb or one of the Nein, or they will overhear Essek saying something and exhibit some curiosity about it, and he will write down everything he remembers about the interaction, speculation on what it might mean.

Essek sends a report every week, teleported directly to the Bright Queen’s desk, about anything he may have learned and anything he’s worried that the scourgers may have picked up on. He’s not sure if any of it has been useful, but he hasn’t been ordered to stop yet.

They’re clever bastards, well-acquainted with the art of subterfuge. They’ve clearly been trained well—Trent Ikithon may have been the vilest human Essek’s ever had the displeasure of meeting, but there’s a reason he was the Empire’s propagandist. No detail goes unnoticed, no nuance is overlooked, each word is carefully selected. No doubt they’ve spent the entirety of their adult lives honing their craft.

On a good day, Essek can talk circles around them.

He has an unfair advantage, he supposes. Any child born into a prominent den who shows unusual aptitude will have played this game practically since they could talk, their own family carefully trying to ascertain whose soul they might have, whether they are a respected member of their own den or the soul of a bitter rival who will leave upon anamnesis and take all their precious secrets with them. And if that child turns out to be no one at all—well. Essek may not enjoy politics, but he would not have attained the position he has had he not been both extraordinarily gifted and adept at the entire song and dance.

Normally he’d say that working alone is another advantage for him, that he doesn’t need to worry about anyone else’s missteps, whereas the scourgers’ own attempts to coordinate will give him additional information. But they know each other extremely well. What additional intelligence he may glean from having two people to read is often balanced by the fact that they practically finish each other’s sentences, that they work together to throw him off-balance, that it takes more of his attention to keep track of both of them. Like wolves, circling.

He may have a slight edge in conversations, but he shudders at the thought of ever having to fight both of them.

—

The Nein drag all of them, Essek included, for an outing in Zadash, citing the overcast sky and some minor festival as perfect reasons to leave the tower. Essek humors them for an hour or so, then claims a headache as excuse to retreat. 

Everyone knows it’s a lie, of course, but they let him go and he lets them believe that he’s leaving because he isn’t enjoying himself. In truth, he’s enjoying himself all too much, and he doesn’t want to like this city.

Eadwulf offers to escort him back to the tower. There’s a bit of back and forth where the Nein make them promise to be nice to each other before letting them leave. When they reach the Cobalt Soul, there’s a brief staring contest before Essek proffers a hand and pulls them both through a Dimension Door to Beau’s closet.

“You don’t go in disguise, here,” Eadwulf notes, after they enter the tower.

“Not when I’m with the Nein, no. It seems a bit hypocritical, since they don’t disguise themselves walking around Rosohna.” He steps on the center platform and drifts up into the library.

Eadwulf follows only a moment later. “You aren’t worried?”

“Should I be? It seems I’m equally in danger of being accosted by scourgers here as I am in my own home.”

Eadwulf’s mouth quirks slightly at that.

“And as for the civilian population, I don’t think staring is going to cause me much damage. I’m already used to feeling out of place.” He’s never minded being stared at, really, though it’s strange to be stared at for something he is instead of something he’s doing.

“You could be arrested for something. Religious heresy, maybe.”

Essek laughs at the thought. “Here? Ironically, no. That’s more likely to happen at home.” He sits, leans back in his seat. “I’ve only gotten this far by keeping my personal views on religion to myself, and playing along with popular expectations.”

He hums. “I get that.”

“With all due respect, you obviously do not,” Essek says, nodding to the pendant at Eadwulf’s neck, which he’s started fiddling with absentmindedly.

He looks at Essek. At the feather symbol, back at Essek. Tilts his head slightly. Then, “It’s meant to be obvious.” 

He pulls a second necklace out from under his shirt.

It has a small holy symbol—Corellon, definitely not an Empire-approved god, certainly nothing he would expect from a scourger—but Essek is just as interested in the prayer beads strung along the cord. He’d have to look up the specific types to know what they do, but he knows enough to recognize this as a significant insight, tactical and personal information given away for very little in return.

Essek doesn’t know why he would reveal it, though. Trying to foster a sense of camaraderie, perhaps—get him alone in a room, share a personal detail to create a sense of intimacy, the illusion of trust. Or maybe just to throw him off-balance, to have Essek second-guessing the things he knows about him. Or it might be a lie, a setup for some later ploy.

Eadwulf puts the necklace back beneath his shirt, says, “So. You mentioned visiting Eiselcross,” and the strange interlude is over.

—

Whereas they are bright and dangerous talking to him, the scourgers approach interactions with the Nein more tentatively, like they’re not sure how it’s supposed to be done. That, at least, Essek can relate to.

Some they tolerate more than others. Astrid avoids Caduceus entirely, though Eadwulf seems to enjoy his company. They’re both exceedingly civil to Fjord, but they always keep one eye on him when he’s in the room. Towards Yasha they are more friendly and more dismissive—not necessarily in a way that suggests she isn’t dangerous, but more that she is the kind of dangerous they know how to deal with. Beau is the only one both of them seem comfortable around, which baffles Essek. Jester they skirt around with wary interest, perhaps uncertain what to make of her...everything.

At one point Eadwulf asks about her tattoos and she pulls out a sketchbook, flipping through designs. He seems genuinely interested in her work, and they begin discussing a potential piece for him—at which point Caleb stands abruptly and leaves the room. Eadwulf’s eyes follow him as he goes, not like a wolf tracking prey, not wary, not dismissive. Intent. Concerned.

Both scourgers pay a lot of attention to Caleb. Neither seems to know what to do with him.

He starts to show up twice a week, just because he can.

There’s usually only a handful of the Nein present, when he visits. They’d scattered a bit after the fall of the Assembly, and even though they’re supposedly all back in town to plan their vacation, they visit Rexxentrum or the Menagerie Coast just as often as they stay in Zadash, drawn by business or pleasure or the force of Jester’s whimsy. Their rooms in the tower always remain, regardless of whether or not they’re present.

Caleb invites him up to the laboratory to demonstrate a spell he’s been working on, and Essek can’t help but notice that Veth’s room is still there, though as far as he knows she hasn’t visited in over a month.

There are always two bedroom doors besides his and the Nein’s. It takes him a while to realize that they are not spare guest rooms, but rooms for Eadwulf and Astrid, on the chance that they might come around that day.

—

Eadwulf tends to keep his hands busy, when they speak. Sometimes he will fiddle with an errant scrap of paper or string, but more often than not he’ll do something productive. Whittling, most frequently, but embroidery as well, and apparently he’d knitted the hat that Caleb wears sometimes.

Essek begins to notice small details, once he knows to look for them. A lattice of green vines and white roses on the collar of Astrid’s coat. A pattern of black feathers on a black shirt Eadwulf wears, almost invisible until the light hits it. Details at the edges of sleeves, along pockets, on the inside edge of a cloak.

—

He’s been trying to be more honest, with the Nein. And it turns out that being honest and not lying are only distant cousins.

The night on the boat, after he’d been discovered, he hadn’t spoken a single lie. But he’d been terrified, hadn’t trusted them, was convinced that the Nein would turn him in. Each truth was presented with intent, with the desperate pleading guile of a snake trying to save his own skin. He hadn’t been lying, but he wasn’t really telling the truth, either.

Now Essek is learning that it can go the other way around, that you can spend most of your time lying to someone and still be terribly honest about it.

—

“If you’re ever in the area, you should take their wine tour. I’m told it’s quite the experience.”

“Is that so?” Astrid says, with a pleasant smile. Essek isn’t fooled. She’s an excellent liar, much better at masking her emotions than Eadwulf, but she doesn’t have his knack for suppressing them altogether and she can’t do anything about the way her pupils contract when she’s frustrated.

Essek, meanwhile, has been very successful in concealing his amusement. She’s been fishing for information for the last half hour without success, whereas Essek has learned a significant deal about her understanding of den politics, the Luxon, and the layout of Rosohna. He hasn’t even let on which parts are new information and which were things he already knew that she knew. So he’s fairly pleased with how this particular conversation is going.

He may be in poor standing with the Court, his own den may view him as a liability, he’ll probably be dead in a few months—but at least he’s still competent.

“Indeed. I haven’t gone myself, unfortunately. You may find—”

“Why do you guys always talk about boring shit?” Jester complains, flopping onto the couch next to Astrid. She’s been puttering around the room for the entirety of the conversation, apparently not thrilled to be their unofficial chaperone for the day. “All you do is talk about weird politics stuff and smile at each other in a super mean way. Don’t you have anything else to do? You probably have a lot in common, you know. You could talk about, like, fashion or cool things you’ve seen or your favorite torture methods or something.”

“Ah. Well.” Essek has absolutely no interest in knowing Astrid’s preferred method of torture. “Perhaps we—”

“I bet I could make up better ways to torture people than whatever you usually do, probably,” Jester continues. “I’m pretty creative.”

“Do enlighten us,” Astrid says dryly. She probably welcomes the change in subject, considering how poorly the previous topic was going for her.

Jester shifts into something approximating a sitting position. “Okay, well, for a start I could turn someone into a fish and put them in a bathtub. And then I’d just add maple syrup to the water until they die —but you don’t really die die when you’re polymorphed, you just turn back into yourself, so it wouldn’t actually hurt them at all. So I could just keep making them a syrup fish until they tell me whatever it is I need to know.”

A beat of silence, in which Astrid doesn’t move. Then, enunciating very clearly, “What the fuck.”

“I know, right? You can do a lot of crazy shit with certain spells if you’re willing to get weird about it. Polymorph is kind of fucked up.”

“I will...keep that in mind?”

“Hey Essek, what’s the most fucked up spell you know?”

His mind immediately jumps to all number of terrifying things that Jester Lavorre could do with Tether Essence, but he’s not about to talk dunamancy in front of a scourger. “It...depends on your definition of ‘fucked up.’ Life Transference is unpleasant enough that I’ve never actually cast it, but for purposes of creative torture, Bestow Curse has a wider range of applications.”

“That’s boring, though. I could cast both of those if I wanted to. What’s your favorite torture spell?”

“Zone of Truth.”

“That’s not what—can wizards even do that one?”

“No, but Wulf can. And considering that it’s the only thing that makes torture effective, any other spells are irrelevant.” Astrid shrugs. “Besides, there are more efficient ways to extract information, before resorting to torture.”

Essek tries very hard not to interpret this as a threat.

—

He has a little experiment to run.

It’s nothing complicated, just a book left in the tower. No one will notice it, except possibly the scourgers if they go through his room. But it’ll be discovered when Caleb recasts the tower.

Essek does deliberate a while over which book to use. It can’t be anything incriminating, if the scourgers do find it. Nothing embarrassing, if the Nein figure out who left it there. Nothing too valuable, nothing he’s emotionally attached to. And it needs to be in Common, of course.

He finally finds a tattered paperback on one of his shelves, some collection of short stories and poetry, which he’d presumably bought decades ago, back when he still had time to read fiction. Leaves it on the bed, when he leaves the tower.

Essek browses the library shelves, next time he visits, and finds among the other books a familiar paperback, identical down to the broken spine, each page enshrined in Caleb’s memory.

—

The Nein have gotten lax about keeping an eye on them, after weeks of ostentatious civility. Caleb is halfway across the library, engrossed in a bit of paperwork and apparently unconcerned about the knife Eadwulf’s been using to shave curls off of a block of wood. Essek is trying very hard not to be intimidated by the casual ease with which he yields it.

Astrid has been doing most of the talking. Chitchat about world affairs at first, but then she’d gone on a tangent about the history of Ank’Harel that has Essek baffled and wary. She’s been talking about the dragon Devo’ssa, which sightings can be verified and which are likely myth, seemingly unbothered by the laconic responses he’s been giving. He can’t tell what she’s fishing for.

Finally Essek realizes that maybe she just likes Marquesian history, and there is no ulterior motive, nothing important to be learned. Maybe they’re just people. Maybe they’re just people who carve things out of wood and talk about mythology without meaning any threat by it.

For a moment he imagines a world where that’s all there was, here. Just sitting in a room with a couple of Caleb’s friends, having a pleasant conversation about nothing of importance, with Eadwulf and Caleb mostly doing their own work and chiming in on occasion. Nothing more.

The amount of blood on all of their hands says otherwise. But it’s a nice thought.

—

There’s something wrong with them, something he recognizes from mirrors. He suspects it’s been a very long time since they had the opportunity to be happy, and they don’t remember how it works. They’re more elegant about it than he is, not stumbling their way through friendship and love and regrowth with his artless ineptitude. 

But it’s there. He notices.

 —

“It is a little fun,” Caleb says one day, after the scourgers have left, “to watch you all interact.”

“I’m glad to serve as entertainment,” Essek says dryly.

“You just, ah. You all take yourselves very seriously, even when you’re talking about the king’s wardrobe choices.”

“I was trying to determine if they know what magical protections he has on him,” Essek points out. “And I suspect they were trying to determine if the Dynasty is planning on assassinating him anytime soon.”

Caleb just smiles. “It’s cute,” he says, which does something interesting to Essek’s internal organs. “And it’s nice to have them show up on a predictable basis, even if it’s just because they’re here to supervise you.”

“I don’t know if nice is the word I would use. They don’t trust me. I don’t trust them. We’re on opposite sides of a centuries-old conflict.”

“That’s fair. They—” He pauses, perhaps considering his words for a moment. “They have grown rather protective, now that they have more agency. I don’t believe their distrust is based entirely off of your affiliation with the Dynasty. They also had a...complicated relationship with your former collaborators. You aren’t someone they know how to predict, and you’re sitting in a precarious position.” He shrugs slightly. “Astrid used a metaphor about an animal in a snare, at one point.”

“Apt, though I’d like to imagine I’m a fairly tame and resigned animal at this point.”

Something melancholy flits across Caleb’s face, before his neutral expression returns. “I do think they’re starting to like you, despite their reservations. Though I’ll admit it’s hard to tell, with them.”

“You do seem to know them well.”

“Ja. I used to, at least. We went through the same training together.”

Essek hesitates, torn between the chance to learn more about his enemies and respecting Caleb’s privacy. He wants to know what made them turn out so differently, in the end.

His stifled curiosity doesn’t go unnoticed. “You’re allowed to ask questions, you know.”

Essek winces. “I’ve been trying to curb my...sense of entitlement to knowledge, as of late.”

“I won’t answer if I don’t think you should know. But you can ask, Essek.”

Silence. Then, “What did you do?”

Caleb purses his lips, hesitant in a way that tells Essek that he understands exactly what he’s asking despite the vagueness of the question. He sighs. “Do you want the entire list, or what made me realize I’d gone too far?”

“Start with the latter, I suppose.”

“Well. I, ah. I—” He exhales. Takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment. Starts over, spitting the words out very quickly, like that’s the only way he’ll get them out. “I murdered my parents because I was convinced they were traitors to the Empire.” 

Then Caleb waits, not quite making eye contact.

Essek sits quietly for a moment, absorbing. He’s not—he isn’t surprised, exactly, considering what he knows about scourgers and what they’re trained to do, but for some reason he is surprised that it took something so personal, for Caleb. Which is ridiculous. That’s what it took for Essek, and Caleb does have a reason for the mirror metaphors, despite their dissimilarities.

Finally he asks, “How long did it take for you to regret everything else? The people you didn’t care about, personally.”

Caleb looks up, eyes wide. Maybe he forgets about the reasons for the mirror metaphors, himself.

“I...don’t know. There was no turning point, I didn’t notice it happening. I just couldn’t justify it to myself, one day, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had been able to justify any of it. Do you...?”

Essek shrugs. “Sometimes I think I regret it for all the people affected, and not just—” He gestures at the space between them. “But then again, I spend so much time worrying about the personal consequences, it seems disingenuous to actually claim I care about the rest. Shouldn’t I be more—?” He doesn’t know, exactly. Shouldn’t he be more miserable, somehow? Shouldn’t he want to be punished, shouldn’t he hate himself more? Why is he still afraid of dying, if he really regrets it enough?

He sighs, says instead, “I think too much about going back and fixing it for my own selfish reasons, and not enough for everyone else’s sake.”

Caleb fixes him with an intent stare. “We’ve talked a little, about doing that. Meddling with time, undoing our mistakes, making things better.” He pauses. “Have you done the math yet?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific, Widogast.”

“If you prevent the war, you’ll never meet the Nein. And they made you into a different person, a better person. How far back do you have to go to find a version of yourself that you can save without them?”

Essek frowns, shakes his head slightly. “There was never—a turning point, for me. I could stop myself from stealing the beacons. I can’t prevent myself from becoming...like this.”

“Then what’s to prevent you from doing something else that’s just as terrible?”

Essek isn’t sure what Caleb sees on his face, that inspires him to reach out and grab his arm. Naked despair, perhaps.

“Essek. If this is the best version of you, then so be it,” he says firmly, his grip tight, staring him in the eye with a frightening intensity. “Keep moving forward. We can work with whatever we have.”

Essek swallows, looks away. Says, “I don’t expect you to save me,” in a smaller voice than he intends. “I don’t think that you can.”

“Can you?”

Essek can only grimace at the ground in response.

“Will you try, anyway?”

“I don’t know, Caleb. I can’t outrun my own shadow. I’m not about to go turning myself in, but I have fewer and fewer options as time progresses, and none of them are exactly appealing. When—not if, when —I get caught, the only reasonable option left will be to accept the punishment I deserve.”

Caleb remains silent, searching his face like he’ll find a different answer there. Essek still can’t look him in the eye.

“It isn’t about what you deserve,” he says at last. “What does the world deserve? Do not let them settle for mere revenge if you are willing to attempt restitution.”

He can’t argue, not with Caleb, about impossibilities. He doesn’t have the energy for it. He just nods, and lets himself believe it for as long as it takes for Caleb to release his arm.

He goes, on a day when the terror of his impending doom has leeched its way into his bones and he can't quite think clearly or breathe deeply or feel his fingertips, to their house in Rosohna.

It's days before his next chance to flee Xhorhas, to talk to whichever collection of the Nein are hanging out in Caleb's tower that day, to feel like he's an entire person again. But he can Dimension Door up to their roof, with the tree and overgrown garden and the little shrines. He can delude himself into thinking they are near, that he is safe, that life is simpler than it is. He can dig his hands into the dirt until his fingers aren't numb anymore.

The refuge isn't real. He isn't safe anywhere. But he can trick himself, for just a little while, enough so that he can go back home and clean himself up and face the rest of the world that does not yet know what kind of monster he is.

—

He’s talking with Astrid again, trying to figure out which surviving members of the Assembly she’s keeping tabs on, if she’s working for any of them, if any of the Assembly’s research has continued—all with relatively little luck.

Then, Fjord falls out of his chair.

For a moment Essek assumes that he’s finally dozed off and toppled over—he hasn’t seemed terribly interested in the topic at hand. But after a few seconds Fjord says, “I was just there yesterday. And he’s busy. Can’t you take him yourself, maybe next time he’s here?”

Several seconds pass. Then, inside his own head, “Hey, tell Fjord to take you to Pumat Sol’s because there’s a really cool cape there and I’m worried it’ll be gone if you don’t—”

Essek sighs as Jester runs out of words. “I’m in the middle of a conversation with Astrid, and I already have a very nice cape. The thought is appreciated, though.”

“Why would you tell her—” Astrid cuts the question short, gritting her teeth. A pause. Then, in a dangerously even tone, “If I bring him to the Invulnerable Vagrant, will you stop burning all of your spells on Sendings?” Another pause. “Fine.”

She looks over at Fjord, still getting to his feet, and he glares back. “No. Nope, nuh-uh, you said I, you don’t get to turn around and volunteer me.”

“You’re going to make some ridiculous excuse to watch us anyway. You might as well go without me and save us all the trouble.”

“Or,” Fjord says, “you can both promise not to kill each other or get arrested, and I can take a nap.”

Which is how Essek ends up trailing Astrid through the streets of Zadash. She’d insisted he disguise himself as someone innocuous, donned a simple cloak herself. It’s strange, to move through the city not as one unusual figure amongst a group of unusual figures, but as someone unnoticeable, unimportant, nonthreatening. He can watch the crowds and they don’t watch him back.

Essek has the entirely inadvisable urge to ask Astrid if they can explore a bit. Instead he settles for walking slowly and looking around as they go, though the sunlight doesn’t make it particularly easy for him.

His distraction means that he doesn’t actually see what happens, just hears a cut-off snarl and the incantation for Banishment. He whips around, instinctively moving to counter, but he isn’t Astrid’s target. He only catches a glimpse of a man next to her, hand thrown up in a thwarted Counterspell, before the spell takes hold and he disappears.

Astrid surveys the area briefly, scanning the crowd and the alley the man must’ve come from. Casts Sending, says something brief in Zemnian. Then, to Essek, “Stop staring and come over here.”

He finds himself obeying before he can think better of it. “Who was that?”

“Oh, just an old friend who wasn’t particularly happy to run into me.” She smiles an easy smile, but there’s a slight strain to her voice. “Unfortunately, we need to leave before he gets back. We’ll be meeting up with Wulf. Do keep up.”

She casts Teleport. It seems like a terrible idea to let her take him to some unknown location, to trust the waver in her voice. On the other hand, staying behind with a spellcaster that Astrid wants to run from seems even less wise. He lets the spell pull him along.

They end up in an alley in the more affluent area of Zadash. Trispires District, if he remembers correctly.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

“Just across the street. Pillow Trove, room ten.” Essek turns to head that direction, and she sighs. “Wait. I’d prefer to Dimension Door there.”

“If you’re worried about being seen crossing a road—”

“Essek. I need you not to panic.”

“About what?”

“I would prefer to Dimension Door there because I’ve been stabbed.”

Essek panics. Astrid rolls her eyes and leans over just enough to grab his arm, and yanks him through a Dimension Door.

Eadwulf is waiting in the small but lavishly decorated room they end up in. “Is he hurt?”

“No, I am. Left leg. No poison that I can tell. He’s just overreacting.”

Essek spends the next minute reacting an appropriate amount to the fact that someone has a dagger in her leg. On an intellectual level he’s aware that leaving it in was a very good idea, that it’s probably missed any important blood vessels, and that everything will be fine. But the scourgers are just—they have a system, Astrid initiating a countdown so Eadwulf can finish casting Cure Wounds just as she pulls out the blade, and he’s more horrified by their complete lack of concern than he is by the amount of blood.

“You could’ve mentioned something earlier,” he says, “instead of lying about having a stab wound.”

Astrid scoffs, examining the bloody tear in her trousers. “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t update you on certain developments. It’s not my fault you didn’t notice earlier.”

“That’s still lying, in context. Especially considering that you hid it with your cloak.”

“Considering how you reacted once you knew, I feel perfectly justified—”

“We should argue somewhere else,” Eadwulf cuts in. “Can you teleport us to Beauregard’s room?”

He’s asking Essek. Apparently they’ve all reached the point where they’re okay, or at least situationally okayish, with accepting Teleports to unknown locations. Essek could very easily bring them into a room full of Dynasty soldiers and have them imprisoned. Caleb would be disappointed, though. And Essek wouldn’t have an excuse to keep visiting the Nein.

Instead he teleports them to Beau’s closet, which is a bit more cramped with two extra people in it. They all file into the tower. The scourgers start talking in Zemnian, in casual tones, like it’s been like any other day for them—

It might. Essek wouldn’t be surprised, really, considering the way they are.

—

There’s still a hole in his dining room wall, from the knife that Astrid threw at the familiar. It’s been well over a month now, approaching two, and he still hasn’t made any plans to fix it.

It’s a reminder. He’s not sure of what. Perhaps that the Dynasty has eyes on him, or that he is one well-aimed dagger away from a sudden end, or that there are things in the world that could kill him but have decided not to. 

—

Beau and Yasha leave to go do some extremely vague “errands,” and Essek has about five minutes of peaceful study in the library before the scourgers show up, so quietly that he jumps when he notices them there.

“Relax. We aren’t planning to hurt you unless we’re ordered to,” Eadwulf says, completely failing at conveying any sense of reassurance as he drops onto the couch across from Essek.

“We’re also not planning on destroying the Dynasty, but I doubt he’d believe that, either,” Astrid points out.

Essek scowls and closes his book. “You’ve given me absolutely no reason to relax for the entirety of our acquaintance, nor any reason to believe you. I still don’t know your loyalties or your motivations.”

“Nor us, yours.”

Essek scoffs. “I think I’ve been fairly clear. Whatever risk you pose to the Dynasty, to my own person, those I might accept. But the risk you pose to the Nein?” He shakes his head. “I don’t trust you.”

Astrid perches on the arm of the couch next to Eadwulf. “We’ve been their ally for almost as long as you have,” she points out placidly. “Even ignoring our history with Caleb. We helped him—all of them—at considerable risk to ourselves.”

“Did you help them because you cared about Caleb, or because you needed him to deal with Ikithon?” Essek asks, unimpressed.

Eadwulf winces slightly. Astrid only blinks at him, but that’s more of a reaction than he normally gets from her.

“There comes a point,” she says, “where you’ve woven so many layers of lies that you want the truth to be false, and the lie to be real.”

That, at least, Essek understands all too well. He sighs, concedes with a small nod. “I still don’t trust you. Maybe for the same reasons I don’t trust myself.”

Eadwulf says something in Zemnian, and the corners of Astrid’s mouth twitch up in a suppressed smile. She responds in kind, asks some kind of question. Eadwulf shrugs.

“I don’t have conversations you don’t understand in front of you,” Essek mutters to himself in Undercommon. Both sets of eyes dart over to him, and he’s struck with the unfair certainty that both of them understand exactly what he’s just said. He scowls.

“Conspiring in front of me isn’t doing my opinion of you any favors,” he points out in Common.

Eadwulf snorts. Astrid smiles and says, “If it bothers you, then we can stop. I would hate to cause you any distress.”

“That hasn’t stopped you thus far,” Essek points out. “The only reason I talk to you is that interacting with you is still marginally less stressful than thinking of the impending consequences of my own actions.”

Astrid raises a brow. “You really think there will be consequences? The natural tendency of the world is that evil people get away with it while the powerful look the other way.”

Essek tries not to flinch, but he’s not sure that he’s succeeded. “I am trying to be...less evil, as it were. So I am worried, because the natural tendency of the world is cruel irony.”

Eadwulf laughs.

“Not that you can trust anything we say,” Astrid says, “but I can tell you that the danger from our side of things has abated significantly. Is your side dogged enough to keep hunting?”

“I also can’t trust you enough to answer that question in any detail. Regardless, whether or not the searchlight is pointing in my direction at the moment says nothing about where it will land in the future. It’s only a matter of time. How much, I don’t know.”

“Sounds like you went into it without planning for the aftermath,” Eadwulf mutters.

Essek opens his mouth, but the retort dies in his throat. He glances towards the tiny cat doors, to check if they’re actually alone in the room. A stupid instinct—both of the scourgers notice, their posture shifting, gazes sharpening. He’s gotten complacent, forgotten that he is socializing with wolves.

“What are you hiding from him?” Astrid asks when Essek still hasn’t spoken.

“I—” He clears his throat, starts again. “I don’t want him—any of them—to blame themselves when I get caught. The Dynasty didn’t suspect a mole, until...”

“Until the Mighty Nein started looking for one?”

He nods, sighs. “I had everything set. I thought I knew every way the pieces could fall. But they were never part of the plan.” He purses his lips. “Even so, I don’t regret meeting them. I just wish my meeting them wasn’t contingent on me having started an entire war.”

Astrid and Eadwulf seem to have graduated from Zemnian to having an entire private conversation in facial expressions. Essek would assume they’re speaking via Telepathic Bond, if not for the fact that it’s a divination spell and they wear the same amulet that he does.

Finally, Astrid laughs, slumps back against the couch.

“You could’ve met them, still, if it hadn’t been you who took Ludinus’ offer,” she says dismissively. “You weren’t special. Just a name on a list.”

Clever bastards. They’ve gotten under his skin, and now she’s toying with him. He isn’t going to take the bait. He’s—

“It would’ve had to be one of the ones earlier on the list,” Eadwulf points out. “For them to meet.”

“Hm. Fair. Being alive is usually a requirement for making friends.”

He’s absolutely going to take the bait. “Who else—how many people did the Assembly contact before me?”

Astrid smirks at him. “Oh, aren’t you curious? Good luck finding out without leading the Kryn to your doorstep.” She stretches, slides off the arm of the couch. “Needless to say, there’s no purpose to your moralizing and what-ifs. The war was inevitable. The peace was one chance in a million. Stay alive long enough to help keep it, and you’d make far more of a difference than you would have as a loyal martyr.”

—

Essek begins to write a report, burns it, starts over, and then burns that one, too.

He shouldn’t tell the Dynasty about his unlucky predecessors, if they even existed. But that damned if keeps haunting him. He wants to know, not just because he is a creature of reckless curiosity, but because he wants it to be true. He wants it to be true even more than he wants to stay alive for another month. It’s possible he has never wanted anything more, and that is dangerous.

And it would be a cold comfort to have it confirmed, right? To have a list of people who were better than him, who died because they were good and refused the Assembly’s offer, unlike Essek, who will die because he is not and did not.

Besides. The scourgers were not being particularly subtle about baiting him with the information. Setting the Dynasty down this trail will lead directly to him. It would be more efficient to turn himself in.

He writes, The scourgers have all but confirmed that there was an individual from within the Dynasty who aided the Assembly in stealing the Luxon beacons. They also implied that they’d petitioned multiple sources before finding someone to assist them. Were there any unusual fatalities leading up to the event? Seemingly unrelated deaths, something that would have gone unnoticed, people who might have had access to the beacons. The scourgers implied that those who’d refused were assassinated.

He stares at the page for a solid minute, then steps out of the tower and teleports the report off to its destination before he can think better of it.

—

A fun fact Essek is learning about being a spineless coward: there is always a way for you to become more terrified.

Astrid is the one who finds him hyperventilating in a corner of the library under a desk a short while later. She assesses the situation, sighs. Says something in Zemnian to one of the cat servants before crouching down to look at him, keeping a solid twenty feet away.

“Is it worse for you if there’s someone watching?”

Words are a little difficult by this point, but he manages to shrug in between gasps.

“Would you like assistance?”

He can nod. Nodding is something he can still do.

She sighs, though her expression remains carefully neutral. “Are you able to move out from under there?”

He has no idea. He doesn’t really know why he ended up here in the first place. But he does manage to slide out from under the desk. Makes a vague attempt at standing before realizing that’s still off the cards.

“May I touch you?”

It takes him a while to nod again.

Telegraphing each movement, Astrid removes several knives from her person, all of the ones that Essek had previously noted and a couple he hasn’t, and sets them on the ground next to her before standing. She keeps her hands visible as she steps closer, arms out at her sides. Stops in front of him. Extends one arm towards him, waits until he finally takes her hand before hauling him upright.

It would be incredibly disingenuous to say she hugs Essek, but she does bodily maneuver him over to one of the more comfortable chairs and set him down again. A cat appears with a mug, and she sets it on the table next to him. Others appear, dragging pillows, blankets, cushions.

“Focus on moving your toes,” Astrid orders, going back to pick up her knives.

That helps, actually, as does being buried under a small mountain of cushions. It’s easier to breathe when he’s thinking about something else, and moving his extremities helps with the numbness.

Astrid finishes tucking her weapons away, looks him over again. Nods. Turns, walks back the way she came.

“Thank you,” Essek says, quieter than he’d intended, right before she reaches the doorway. She still hears him. Looks back over her shoulder for just a moment.

“Ja,” she says, and leaves.

“Do you know how to cast Feeblemind?” Caleb asks as he finishes putting away the notes they’d been going over.

“No, not that particular one. Why?”

Caleb closes his spellbook, shrugs in a way that’s slightly too casual to actually look casual. “I still have some unanswered questions. For a very long time, over a decade, I had been—I was, ah. Mad?”

He scratches at his arm. Essek doesn’t know how to respond.

“I was kept in an asylum of sorts. Not just an asylum, but that’s their explanation for what it was. That’s where we retrieved these from,” he adds, pulling out the amulet. “Anyway. There was someone there who cast a spell on me, to clear my head, and I left. I don’t know who it was—I didn’t recognize her, and if they kept any records of the people there, I have yet to find them.”

“Someone who...worked there?” Essek doesn’t exactly know what this has to do with Caleb’s initial question, but he doesn’t want to prod.

“No, one of the other residents. She had a holy symbol of the Archheart, so I had assumed she had been arrested for idol worship, but...” He trails off, sighs. “I didn’t think to speak to her. I thought she was—mad. In the same state as the rest of us there. But if that were actually the case, I don’t know how she could cast. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have—” Caleb cuts himself off, shakes his head. “No. Even if I had been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have helped her escape as well. Not who I was back then. But I do regret it now.”

“Ah. Do you think that she was pretending to be unwell? Or that someone else was there, pretending to be her?”

“Probably the latter. It would be difficult to fake it for so long—that is, if the effect they had us under was actually Feeblemind. The problem is that I’m not sure, and I don’t have any other experiences with Feeblemind to compare to.”

A chill runs down Essek’s spine as he finally connects the dots. The idea of a Feebleminded Caleb is disturbing. The idea of doing that to him intentionally is—unthinkable, desecration, abhorrent. It’s not at all like when Caleb chooses to don an animal form and all the limits it entails, when he can drop concentration at will, regain his mind in an instant. Feeblemind is a violent spell, psychically damaging but also horrifically violating in a way that Essek cannot articulate. 

“Even if I did know the spell, I couldn’t cast it on you, Caleb. Even as an experiment, even if you asked.” He stares Caleb in the eye as he says it, trying to convey what emotion he cannot through words. “Aren’t there any simpler ways to validate the hypothesis?”

Caleb shrugs, but he doesn’t break eye contact. “There are great lengths—some would say reckless ones—that I would go to in the search of answers. Surely you of all people understand the impulse.”

“Yes, but I think I serve better as a warning than a role model,” Essek says, and turns away before Caleb can press any further.

—

He doesn’t really expect to get a response, about the information the scourgers revealed, so much as he expects to get summoned and arrested. So it’s a surprise, when a brief update is included among his correspondence.

The strange thing is that the scourgers weren’t lying, or at the very least they weren’t lying about everything. We’ve gone over records and reexamined half a dozen unrelated deaths during the time period, mostly clerics of the Luxon. There’s also a priest, Levran Hythenos, who supposedly moved to Urzin shortly before the theft and never arrived at his destination. If you have any way to trace his whereabouts, he’s the last link in the pattern we’ve established thus far.

Priests, not wayward arcanists. Essek is quite certain that Levran Hythenos will prove to be a false lead once they find him—find his body, more likely—but at the moment, at least, it is attention directed away from him. He considers sending a response immediately, but he’s not particularly invested in helping the Dynasty realize their mistake.

—

“I suppose it would be forward of me to ask you a favor,” he says to the scourgers, when they’ve run out of petty political drivel. It’s only them in the room now, the Nein having gone on a shopping adventure despite Fjord’s protests.

“It depends what we’d be getting in return,” Eadwulf says, looking up from his whittling. “And what the favor is.”

Essek sighs. “At some point—likely within the next four months, definitely within the next year—the Dynasty is going to figure out who stole the beacons for the Assembly. I’ll be executed, of course, but before that I’ll probably be tortured. As if this hasn’t dragged on long enough.”

“We’ll pass,” Astrid says. “It’s not our problem.”

“I haven’t even asked.”

“If you need someone to mercy kill you,” she says softly, her face a mask of gentle concern, “ask somebody who actually cares about your pain.”

“Or at least someone who has a sense of mercy,” Eadwulf adds, looking back at the dragon he’s been carving. “You know a few.”

Essek flounders for a moment. “I—I can’t ask any of the Nein to do that. I don’t want them to get involved.”

“So what makes you think you can ask us?” Astrid says, dropping the gentle facade. “I don’t want to end up on their bad side because you can’t get your act together long enough to avoid arrest.”

“It’s too big to avoid, at this point.” It isn’t as if he hasn’t considered it, various contingency plans that are still technically viable. The chances of successfully shifting the blame elsewhere have dwindled to nothing, with the resources he has and the attention currently on him. He still has numerous ways to fake his own death, but—

The Nein couldn’t know about his plans. They would be questioned. They would have to believe he was dead, too, and he would be alone.

Astrid raises one brow, staring at him like it’ll make him change his answer. Rolls her eyes when Essek doesn’t say anything more.

—

He still hasn’t figured out who they’re working for or in what capacity, though at this point he is fairly certain they are working for someone other than themselves. They, in turn, seem to be very amused that he’s still fishing for answers in that regard. But he can guess the vaguest outline of their motives based on which topics they seem most invested in. 

They act like their loyalty to the Empire is professional, not personal, in a way that reminds him of an adult who hasn’t thrown out an old toy—pretending that any attachment is mere nostalgia, that they’ve grown past it, attempting to disguise the fact that they still love it dearly. Their respect for the King, however, is threadbare at best—they seem to view him like the chess piece. Something to protect so that the game can continue, but not particularly useful in of itself. They’re intensely wary when it comes to information about the Assembly, growing guarded and prickly if Essek brings it up on his own. They either care little for formal military matters or have done an excellent job of pretending they don’t.

They do know a concerning amount about the Dynasty, especially its capitol. He hasn’t gotten them to admit that they speak Undercommon, but he suspects that they started visiting Rosohna years before they showed up at his door. Still, there are gaps in their knowledge. Dunamancy, for one—they certainly have a grasp of the basics, they seem familiar with specific places that contain knowledge regarding it, but he can tell that they’re guessing at most of the more advanced concepts. It makes sense that they haven’t infiltrated the Marble Tomes Conservatory—too many people there who would see through disguises, too many magical safeguards.

Other entities are a mixed bag. Most of what they know about the Cobalt Soul is the kind of information one learns about one’s enemies—weak points, blind spots, potential blackmail—though they do seem to have a begrudging respect for it. They know enough about Vasselheim that Essek’s had to do research to keep up, though they don’t seem to be seeking new information with any urgency—probably an old mission there, since completed. Their level of interest in the Gentleman and related entities is difficult to parse, because even the slightest comment about him has Jester launching into a story, and Essek can’t tell if they’re interested or just humoring her.

The things the scourgers know about the Nein could be from stories Jester has told them, or it could be from spending a significant amount of time spying on them. Essek doesn’t trust them enough to believe that it’s the former.

—

After several hours of waiting, Essek has given up on the scourgers appearing, having instead melted into the couch that they usually sit at, reading a terrible romance novel that Jester recommended. Of course, that’s when Astrid does show up, heading over to where Caleb is working.

“Some of your spells consume valuable components, correct?” she asks him.

He looks up briefly. “Ja. I am set for most of them, though.”

“Well. If there’s anything that’s difficult for you to obtain—” She reaches into a pocket. “—we got this, the other day.”

She sets down a large shard of greenish glass—residuum, fuck, where did she get a piece that large?—and Caleb flinches like he’s just been electrocuted.

Astrid is very good at maintaining a mask, at hiding her reactions, at lying. At times she plays her part so well Essek wonders if she’s also lying to herself. But there is no control, no measured intent or artifice to her reaction now—dawning realization, regret, regret.

She says something in Zemnian, almost certainly an apology, rushed and uncertain and brittle. Moves to take the shard back, and Caleb recovers slightly, stills her hand with his own. He says something, so quietly that Essek can’t even guess in what language. They linger for slightly longer than necessary, hands still touching over the piece of residuum.

Then Caleb mumbles something, pockets the shard, nods. Astrid withdraws her hand, nods back. Caleb goes back to his report, a new tension draped across his shoulders.

She watches him a moment longer, bitter regret and longing in her gaze. An old heartbreak, mostly scar tissue but perhaps with some scabs still fresh.

Then Astrid glances up, notices Essek. Her face shutters back to a neutral expression, her posture straightening into something unbothered, but there is a terrible glint in her eye.

For a long time now, he’s been aware that Astrid could probably kill him if she wanted to. But for all their scheming antipathy, that’s remained a hypothetical. He’s suddenly quite certain that she’s never even contemplated killing him until now, because he would’ve noticed a look like this.

Essek doesn’t breathe, doesn’t break eye contact, doesn’t blink.

Astrid tilts her head. Smiles. Turns away, and the moment passes. Essek is left listening to the panicked rhythm of his own heartbeat, thinking about the hole she left in his wall, the spider.

—

The Nein rope Essek into yet another planning session for their vacation, which has been postponed so many times that Essek’s beginning to wonder if they don’t actually want to go. Or maybe it’s just Essek who’s hoping they won’t leave. Regardless, he tires of the topic fairly quickly and excuses himself to go read in the library, where the scourgers descend upon him like deceptively casual scavengers.

“Do you think you’ve actually changed since meeting them,” Astrid asks him, “or is that just one of the lies you want to be true?”

Essek closes his book, sighs. “I have changed. Not enough, probably. I don’t know if anyone would claim I’ve become better, just more self-aware.” He twists his lips into something approaching a self-deprecating smile. “I think that would take more time than I have.”

Eadwulf snorts.

“What about you, then? Have you decided to become a force for good in the world?”

“No,” Astrid says breezily. “Of course not.” Perhaps she’s lying. Perhaps she wishes she was lying.

“We’re only as good as the person we’re taking orders from,” Eadwulf adds, an ironic twist to his lips.

“And that is...?”

They both smirk at him and let the question go unanswered.

Essek shakes his head. “I don’t understand how you could ever function like that. Without questioning orders, without—questioning. Or even how you can interact with people like the Nein and not—” hate yourself, he doesn’t say. Sighs. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for someone who started a war out of selfish curiosity to ask advice from a couple of scourgers who’ve followed terrible orders without question. I don’t think the atrocities cancel out. But you do seem to be doing a better job of living with yourselves.”

Astrid levels a cool look at him, unimpressed. “The Volstrucker weren’t taught, Essek Thelyss. They were made. You cannot take any citizen from the street, order them to commit atrocities, and expect them to obey. You hone your weapons well and temper them in flame. Most will not survive the process, but the best among them—”

Eadwulf says something in Zemnian. Astrid pauses, cocks her head slightly.

“Or maybe the worst among them, those are the ones who grow stronger.”

“And you don’t...regret any of it, now?”

“Don’t envy us,” Eadwulf says sharply.

Silence. Then Astrid leans back against the couch. “If you’re honestly looking for advice, all I can say is that you have to find a way to sit with what you’ve done. You don’t have to be at peace with it, you can regret it, you can try to not repeat it. But either you learn to live with your crimes, or you go mad.”

“That’s...not particularly comforting.”

“It isn’t meant to be,” Eadwulf says.

—

What galls him is that for all that he doesn’t trust them, their advice is frustratingly pertinent.

Every week or so Essek will give himself too much time to think and wander down the worn mental lane of the Nein should hate me, so many dead, they were all people, how could I even begin to—?

The end result of these guilt spirals is that he becomes exceptionally useless for a while. Despite that, it’s a very enticing thought, that maybe if he could comprehend exactly how terrible a thing he’s done it will turn him into someone better, something golden and safe and worthy.

But then he remembers that it’s a trap. Drowning himself in regret will not make him pure. There is no amount of noble suffering that can undo what he’s done. He may have to grapple with guilt for the rest of his very short life, it may be the natural consequence of being an incredibly flawed being—but guilt is not a useful emotion.

Instead he tries to think about it in terribly practical terms. He started a war. This is a bad thing. The ideal state of affairs would be that there hadn’t been a war, but he cannot safely go back in time and even if he could, Essek might not actually be able to prevent the war, just prevent it happening then, by his hand. A good goal would be to prevent future occurrences of war. So do that.

Of course that feels just as breathtakingly impossible as reversing time, so he simplifies it down to metaphor. If a single uncaring apprentice could burn down your entire lab in one inadvisable experiment, there was something wrong with your lab setup, that this was even possible. It would be easier, less costly, to fireproof the lab before it had turned to a blackened husk. But it’s too late for that. Rebuild the damn thing, change the system, idiot-proof it, make it impossible for it to ignite so damn easily, fuck, how could he be so stupid, he started a war, he knew it could happen and he didn’t care and they’re going to kill him for this and he’ll never even have a chance to make up for it and it’s going to hurt when they do it and he wants to run so very badly—

Guilt is not a useful emotion, but the fear is much harder to reason with.

—

Essek goes to the library, where Eadwulf is already sitting, and knows somehow that Astrid is not in the tower.

He puzzles over that certainty for a while, trying to determine what detail his unconscious mind has picked up on, how he could know. Finally he realizes that Eadwulf is sitting in a chair, the comfortable one in the corner, and that the scourgers always sit on the couch if there’s a chance that the other might join them.

He’s been spending too much time around them, to know useless things like this. Essek wonders what details they’ve picked up about him.

—

Essek does have a unique insight into the war, having been the one to kick it off. He knows exactly what he did, and why he was able to do it.

War may be a terribly complicated thing to prevent, especially now, but to avoid starting one in the same way, the answer is unfortunately obvious. There is a certain level of power that’s dangerous for any one individual to have, no matter how good or bad their intentions. Most wouldn’t claim the Shadowhand is as powerful as other high-ranking members of the Court—with less reach, less control, than many of the others—but knowledge is a type of power, and there are very few limits on what the Shadowhand knows. Access to all of the Dynasty’s weaknesses, all of its flaws to be exploited. The location of the beacons, the protections surrounding them, the spells necessary to spirit them away with no one the wiser.

But it is one thing to understand, on a theoretical level, that the Shadowhand shouldn’t have unlimited access, and another thing for Essek himself to accept that some of his questions are best left unanswered.

—

There are moments, in between, where they aren’t trying to test each other. Somewhere above them Jester and Beau are conducting an experiment on how many spectral cats they can stack on top of each other, but in the dining room Essek, Caduceus, and the scourgers have a pleasant lunch and ignore it, and no one talks of war or politics or trade. Caduceus’ family is doing well. Some of them are thinking of visiting Rexxentrum a few months from now, whenever the Nein return from their voyage.

“I thought your vacation was only going to be a couple weeks long?” Essek asks.

Caduceus shrugs. “The longer we put it off, the more Jester adds. If we do everything on the list, I can’t imagine it’ll take less than a month.”

Essek sighs, though part of him wishes he could take a month off to wander around the ocean taunting sea serpents and exploring random shipwrecks. “It’s been nice, to have an excuse to leave Rosohna every few days. I’ll miss you.”

“On the bright side, we know where you live,” Eadwulf says, as if it isn’t an incredibly ominous statement coming from him. “You could still have company.”

“I could move.”

Eadwulf laughs, flicks a berry at him. Essek scowls and brushes it off his shirt, prestidigitates the stain—or at least, he tries to. Astrid counters the cantrip, smirks at his bewildered reaction.

“If you’re going to be rude,” Essek says, giving up on the stain, “you could at least tell me why you do that little flick at the end of your Counterspells. I’ve tried it myself, and I can’t see any point to it. It isn’t part of the somatics. I’ve seen Caleb do it after an Alarm, too, so I assume you were all trained that way.”

He’s probably broken their truce, asking about magic. But Astrid just scoffs, says, “You’re such an academic. Anyone who’s trained for combat casting could tell you that one.”

“I could ask Caleb, then.”

“The end form of most abjuration spells is incompatible with the starting state of the somatic components for evocation, illusion, and enchantment schools of magic,” Eadwulf says, like he’s reciting from a book. “Opening the hand prepares you to cast as quickly as possible, unless your next spell is conjuration.”

“It’s just good form.” Astrid shrugs. “It doesn’t have as much point for a transmuter, but Caleb does like to play with fire.”

Essek tries the transition between the somatic components for Counterspell and Ray of Frost. Tilts his head in begrudging concession as he realizes they’re correct. “I’ve never seen anyone in the Dynasty use it.”

“Sounds like just a wizard thing to me,” Caduceus adds. “Or maybe just an Empire wizard thing. Sometimes things you assume are common experiences turn out to be unique to you.”

Eadwulf snorts and raises his cup of dead-people tea. “Cheers to that.”

—

Essek goes home, and there is no one waiting at his door. This should be some manner of relief. But his towers haven’t felt like a safe haven for a long time now, long before errant scourgers appeared to harass him with strange questions. He misses the immediacy of that threat, prefers it over the slow and indulgent terror of whatever punishment is coming for him, someday soon.

He tells himself that he misses only that, the simplicity of being unsafe in the company of predators, and that he does not miss the company itself.

Essek’s bookshelves have been in a state of disarray, ever since he went looking for a book to donate to Caleb’s collection. He’d realized that his organizational system was in desperate need of updating, books kept purely for nostalgia’s sake randomly interspersed with useful tomes, and he’d begun to pull all the dustiest ones from the shelves—but it would take so much time. And he has so little of that.

But it’s depressing, to have them lying in a stack next to the ones he hasn’t read. Mostly fiction, old favorites that he hasn’t touched in decades, with the good bits underlined, notes scribbled in the margins, pages dog-eared and ribbons frayed. He lets them sit there for a week or so. And then he picks one off the pile and leaves it in Caleb’s tower.

It’s there on the shelves next time he visits. Essek starts to bring one or two every week—anything in Common that he’d been too attached to to throw out. More often than not his notes are in Undercommon, but even those are perfectly preserved in Caleb’s copies.

He tries not to think too hard about what happens to the originals, reminds himself that his entire collection will likely be destroyed after he’s arrested. This is a way to share his favorites, to preserve them, more or less. 

And it’s a nice thought, that even when he’s gone, Essek will exist as a ghost in the margins of Caleb’s memory. A younger version of himself, with sharper handwriting, someone more foolish and more hopeful and with far less blood on his hands.

—

Apparently Veth came by on one of the days Essek wasn’t around, and apparently the Nein had an argument over which wizard is the most attractive.

“Like, just which one’s the hottest objectively,” Beau clarifies over a mug of cocoa. “’Cause if it were personal preference, I’m pretty sure Astrid would’ve won by default.”

“You won by a lot, you know. We didn’t let any wizards vote because that wouldn’t really be fair, but I bet that if they could they would’ve voted for you, too.”

Essek cannot imagine either scourger taking such a contest seriously, and if they were forced to answer honestly he suspects they would vote for Caleb, but he doesn’t tell Jester either of these.

“I still don’t know that it was fair,” Fjord points out. “Seeing as Essek wasn’t there to compare to, I mean. Just look at him. His hair isn’t nearly as perfect as I remembered it.”

Esesk doesn’t quite manage to stifle the urge to smooth back his hair, and Beau laughs.

“Hey, if you ever want a makeover, me and Beau could help you out. Not that you look bad or anything,” Jester amends. “But silver eyeliner would look really cool on you. And maybe a cloak with fancy embroidery. And we could braid your hair. So, you know, if you ever have an occasion where you’re trying to look extra fancy...” She waggles her eyebrows at him.

Essek remains unconvinced. Mostly. Silver is his color. “I’ll keep the offer in mind if such an occasion comes up,” he says.

—

There’s a crow, on the roof of the building opposite Beau’s window.

Essek can’t tell if it’s looking inside the room, but it feels like it. He’s not certain if the paranoia is justified or if his nerves are so shot at this point that he’s jumping at his own shadow. After waffling back and forth for several minutes, he disguises himself as a monk and walks down to the street. The crow is still there when he gets outside.

Essek throws a rock at it. This does not turn out nearly as well as Astrid throwing a dagger at a spider. Rocks are not as aerodynamic as throwing knives, and Essek is not very good at aiming. He has to dive out of the way when the rock drops back down, having gone nowhere near the bird.

It caws at him. He scowls, picks up the rock again, considering it for a moment. He’d have better luck with a cantrip, but there are people passing by on the street. Embarrassing himself in front of strangers will draw less attention than casting a spell, even if his dignity protests. As he weighs the rock, thinking of looking for a lighter one, the crow caws again and flies away.

Right. He’s being ridiculous. Essek almost tosses the stone aside, pauses.

It does have a ring around it. “Lucky rock,” he mumbles to himself, shrugging and placing it in a pocket before he heads back upstairs.

—

The rest of the Nein have gone to bed or fucked off to a different city entirely, and there’s still no sign of the scourgers. Essek could leave, but instead he ends up sitting on their couch, reading. After twenty or so minutes, Caleb joins him.

They start off a respectable distance away from each other, but in truth Caleb really should have gone to bed as well, because he begins to nod off within half an hour, slowly sliding down until he’s horizontal, head ending up in Essek’s lap.

And. Fuck. He’s still a little touch-starved, apparently. Even after getting used to hugs from Jester and Caduceus, and awkward pats on the back from Yasha, and affectionate violence from Beau, he’s still not really used to physical contact, is he? Because that would explain why his blood is singing with some nameless emotion, some strange cousin of giddy and content.

Essek sets his book aside after turning a few pages without absorbing anything on them. Brushes a strand of hair out of Caleb’s face. Caleb sighs, presses into the touch ever so slightly. Essek takes that as invitation to run his fingers over the reddish locks, smoothing them out.

After several minutes of this, Caleb shifts slightly, mumbles something in Zemnian. The only word Essek can make out is Astrid, which evokes a different sort of nameless emotion. He mistakes it for jealousy, at first, some kind of jealousy without any vitriol to it. But that’s not quite it. He doesn’t want Caleb to be saying his own name, doesn’t want to worry about breaking his heart whenever the Dynasty arrests him. 

He wants—he wants Caleb to say Astrid’s name like he doesn’t miss her, terribly.

It’s a strange and melancholy thought, that they all still talk to each other but Caleb doesn’t really know them like he must have. They’ve all become something else.

He hears the slightest noise from the door downstairs, and wrestles with the mortifying idea of Beau coming across this scene versus his unwillingness to wake Caleb up. The desire to maintain contact wins out.

It isn’t Beau who comes up into the library, though. He can see the exact moment that the scourgers notice him and Caleb, a flash of longing on their faces before they school their expressions back to something neutral.

It doesn’t seem fair to Essek, that they also miss Caleb.

—

“What’s he to you?” Eadwulf asks, days later, when they’re alone.

For a moment Essek considers lying, and for another he considers telling the truth. He’s a good friend, nothing more. He’s the closest that I’ve come to understanding religion, wanting to look at something even when it’s so bright that it hurts.

Instead he says, “What is he to you?”

It’s a question, but it’s also an answer, and Eadwulf doesn’t say anything more.

—

They’ve been speaking for hours, mostly Dynasty politics disguised as casual gossip about various dens. The fact that the scourgers have been able to keep up for so long says a lot about the depth of their knowledge in that particular area.

“Hm. Did they ever settle the property dispute with Den Hythenos?” Eadwulf says, playing with the clasp on his necklace.

“That’s a question better suited for someone else, I’m afraid,” Essek says. “I haven’t checked in with either party in years. Not since the departure of Levran Hythenos,” he adds, wanting to test their reaction to the name. But he regrets it as soon as he says it, because the scourgers look so triumphant, and they aren’t bother to hide their reactions from him, and—

He’s made a mistake.

All of this has been tremendously risky, one of the most knowledgeable people in the Dynasty trading jabs with scourgers, but Essek has continued because he’s gotten quality information and he’s been confident that he could mitigate the risk, because he knows better, he has enough control over himself—

He can’t afford to make mistakes. And this one is so stupid, letting the scourgers know that the Dynasty has been investigating the lead they gave him, just his personal curiosity overriding his common sense, because he never learns, and now they know how to get to him—

“I haven’t heard of him, unfortunately,” Astrid says, and she’s so smug about it, like she’s confirmed a hypothesis, like she’s in control.

His fingertips are buzzing. It feels like his bones don’t fit right. He can’t—he’s made a mistake.

“Was he important?” Eadwulf asks, not really bothering to be sincere about it.

“Don’t—don’t toy with me,” Essek says.

“What do you mean?” Astrid tilts her head, still smiling.

“You wanted the Dynasty to know about Levran Hythenos. And the fact that you’re letting me know that—what game are you playing at? I don’t appreciate being led around like some kind of herd animal.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, now. We’re not going to tell you just because you ask outright. And besides,” she says, “that’s a terrible metaphor. Sheep are easily led because they believe they aren’t being led. Merely wearing the skin of one offers you no such comfort.”

Essek scowls, tries to regain some semblance of composure. “That implies that I’m the dangerous one. You can’t be claiming that you’re the sheep.”

Eadwulf snorts. “At least the sheepdog knows it’s controlled by the shepherd.”

Perhaps Essek should be concerned by this statement, but he finds himself concerned for the wrong reason. What was done to the wolf, that it thinks itself a dog?

“And who would the shepherd be?” he asks, because he still hasn’t the slightest idea who they’re working for.

“You don’t actually care for the Dynasty,” Eadwulf says. “You don’t have any principles.” It’s such an egregious change in subject that Essek considers pointing it out, pressing the question. But he’s never gotten them to answer that one.

“Correct,” he says instead. “Also entirely incorrect.”

“Oh?” Astrid raises a single brow.

“You shouldn’t mistake a lack of nationalism for a lack of principles.”

“What are your principles worth if you only care about yourself and a select few friends?” she asks.

“What are your principles worth if they’re constrained to lines on a map?” he snaps back. “Please, keep telling yourself that you think only of the good of your Empire, and never wonder why you can’t think for yourself.”

He’s gotten too heated, still too emotional, and both of them look on dispassionately.

“Caleb’s rubbed off on you, hasn’t he?” Eadwulf finally says.

“Though it sounds nonsensical, coming from you,” says Astrid.

“Do tell,” he says acidly.

She waves a hand through the air lazily. “You’ve committed treason, and now you’re holding your breath, hiding, patiently dreading your own execution. If you cared about the laws of the Kryn, you would’ve turned yourself in by now. If you thought you have anything to offer the world, if you cared about anything greater than your own guilt, you would break whatever laws necessary to keep the peace. Instead you’re wringing your hands like an anxious child, doing nothing. I don’t see what that has to do with principles.”

“I’m not—I started a war. All of my actions to cover up that fact have only served to further box myself in. I have very thoroughly dug my own grave. The least I can do is stop digging deeper and direct my attention elsewhere.”

“You can’t do much from inside a grave,” Eadwulf says, fiddling with the feather necklace.

“Better to dig yourself an escape tunnel,” Astrid says, “while you still have access to the shovel.”

Essek takes a very deep breath, holds it until the notion of bashing his head against a wall seems less productive than continuing this conversation. “If you’re so certain that I have the ability to evade punishment,” he finally says, voice level, “then tell me how you’d do it.”

She eyes him disdainfully, along with a hint of what might be pity. “All they have on you is the fact that you’re a wizard with the resources and motive to have done it, and that you’re acting suspiciously. The thing with Adeen Tasithar was sloppy—you don’t need a scapegoat. They’ll find their own if they believe that you didn’t do it.”

“That’s not a real answer.”

“Act innocent. They’ll believe it. They want to believe it.”

“That’s also not a real answer. You’re taking an incredibly complex situation and simplifying it to the point of absurdity.”

“You’ve gotten this far. You’re the only surviving member of the conspiracy. It is absurdly simple.”

Essek gets the feeling, suddenly, that she’s giving useless answers because she doesn’t think he can do anything. That it’s absurdly simple because he’s just told her what the Dynasty is investigating and she already knows how that ends for him. They’re just toying with him, giving him false hope. 

“It doesn’t matter that the rest are dead—there’s still evidence. And other people know, now. You know. You could tell the Bright Queen everything later this afternoon.”

Astrid rolls her eyes. Stands with a flourish. Dons an oily smile, politeness barely hiding derision, and bows slightly to an empty chair. “Your Highness, as much as it must pain you to replace him, your Shadowhand has indeed been working against you. Surely you knew better than to trust him. He’s young, ambitious...easy to lead.” Her smile turns sickly sweet, smug and conciliatory. “You don’t need to investigate any further than the proverbial tip of your nose, I’m afraid.”

She plays the part of a snake so well that for a moment he’s convinced, beyond sanity and reason, that she’s trying to turn the Court against itself for the gain of the Empire. Then he remembers that they are in Caleb’s tower, and she is telling the truth to a chair.

“Don’t you ever get tired of lying?” he asks desperately. Eadwulf snorts.

Astrid steps over to the imagined throne and drapes herself across it. Smiles sweetly. “No. I don’t even remember how to tell the truth.”

—

The scope of this particular mistake doesn’t matter so much as the realization that it could have been significant, that he could just as easily have given away something important. Considering who he’s dealing with and how little he knows about who they work for—fuck. The war’s only just ended, in the grand scheme of things. Nothing’s stable yet, nothing is secure.

If there was ever concrete proof that Essek will never be a good person, it is this: his shame over having ignited a war because his priorities were incorrect, placing his own curiosity above people’s lives, an unforgivable fault in moral reasoning—that pales next to his disgust at the possibility of starting a war due to incompetence.

It is one thing to not be able to trust his own conscience, to always second-guess his moral judgement. But the prospect of inept mediocrity eats at him. He doesn’t have many principles, fine, most of them are shaky and new and uncertain—but this, this is the only thing he’s managed to hold on to. If he decides to do something—a job, a project, an impossible attempt  at preventing war—he will do it well.

It isn’t rational, he knows. But his pride is all he has left of himself.

He requests a small audience, with the Bright Queen and various others who have been keeping track of the situation with the scourgers. He’s too indignant and self-loathing to even be nervous about what he’s about to do, too shaken to really mask it.

“Why have you called this meeting, Shadowhand?” He can’t tell if the expression on the Bright Queen’s face is concern or pity, and he doesn’t even care.

“I believe I have become...emotionally compromised.”

The Skysybil’s cackle echoes across the chamber, and Essek grits his teeth. “It took you this long to come around, then?”

The Bright Queen does not laugh. “Explain.”

He holds her gaze. “I still contend that there is no danger from the Mighty Nein. They may not be reliable in the traditional sense, but we can trust their intentions. I cannot, however, say the same for their scourger...allies. They’re a dangerous unknown, and the fact that I’ve been interacting with them so frequently means that I am a danger by proxy.”

She looks at him for a long moment. Then, “What did you do?”

“I’m not sure. I made the mistake of mentioning Levran Hythenos in passing. I thought to test if they recognized the name. I only realized afterwards that they were the ones testing me, trying to see if the Dynasty had followed through on the lead they’d given earlier. The fact that they were open in their reaction makes me wonder if they aren’t trying to convince me that the information they gave was intentionally misleading.” He shakes his head. “The important part isn’t whether or not this was a significant mistake. They know me well enough to play mind games with me. They know how to get me to make mistakes, and that is unacceptable if I am to continue interacting with people like them. I have access to too much classified information.”

The shift in her expression is almost imperceptible, just the slightest lift of her brows, a slow blink. “Perhaps so. But some of the information we’ve gained from your association with them has been indispensable. They’re a unique source of intelligence, and losing that would be...tactically disadvantageous. If you’re unable to avoid further error then we may have to reassess the situation, but ideally, we would simply have you proceed with more caution.”

“Ideally, yes, I will not make another mistake. But it’s irresponsible to maintain a system that relies on a single mortal acting without error. I have access to too much information,” he repeats. “Some of which could start another war in the wrong hands, much of which is not relevant to my duties at any point. That is a security threat. Even if I never slip up again, which I cannot guarantee, what’s to say that the next Shadowhand will be so meticulous? I am not a perfect being.” He doesn’t add no such thing exists, because the blasphemy would undermine his point. “One person has a disproportionate ability to cause damage. This goes deeper than the danger of speaking too freely around a couple of scourgers.”

The chamber is so quiet after he finishes that all he can hear is a faint ringing in his ears. The Bright Queen’s voice is slightly quieter when she finally speaks again, more careful. “Are you suggesting that we limit the reach of the Shadowhand? The assumption for someone of your station is that having open access to otherwise classified information will allow you to act more effectively.”

“That is exactly what I am suggesting. Any classified information that is not relevant to my work has as much potential for mishandling as it does utility.”

The queen tilts her head slightly. “I’ll admit to being surprised by this request. It seems very...unlike you.”

“Oh, it galls me on a personal level. But the fact remains that knowledge is power, and there must be limits on how much power is afforded to any individual. The Shadowhand cannot run unchecked. I’ve known this before now, but I’d deluded myself into believing that I was an exception.” He shakes his head. “At the end of the day, my curiosity is unimportant.”

She gives him a searching look, like she’s waiting for him to change his mind. He looks back, unwavering. Then, finally, “You make a strong point. We’ll reevaluate which reports make their way to your desk, from this point forward, and consider permanently altering certain aspects of your station if that goes smoothly.”

—

One classified report that he will undoubtedly lose access to: updates on the investigation into the theft of the beacons.

—  

He expects to be—more terrified, afterwards. Certainly not numb and contemplative. But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? He’s known this is something that needed to happen for a long time now. This was the next inevitable step in a dance that’s been playing out for centuries, just a terrible waltz that he got caught up in to disastrous result, Empire and Dynasty at each other’s throats. It’s far older than he is, decade after decade of rot and structural decline, the entire frame unstable, and Essek was just one callous adolescent with stolen matches. 

He has the thought, then, that it’s too late. That this might prevent someone from following in his footsteps, but it can’t stop what he’s already done, what he’s already become. That maybe the relationship between the two nations could have been fixed, if someone had just—if, earlier on, something hadn’t—it could have been different. But it isn’t. And maybe he’d been born too late to change anything for the better.

Essek drifts home, and closes the door behind him, and starts sobbing. Not over the death he no longer has a chance of fleeing, or the war that he caused, but for the peace that could have been. It didn’t have to end up this way, broken and impossibly complicated to fix, but it did, and he doesn’t even have the bitter consolation of being able to blame himself for all of it.

Dread settles into his bones, an unfriendly and familiar thing. He has no warning now, no signs to let him know how close they are to the final discovery. It’s the difference between anticipating his death and knowing that he is dead already.

The only upside to having given in to the inevitable is that he’s stopped giving a fuck about many of the petty things. His den and political standing have become completely meaningless. He begins to subtly editorialize in his reports, because no matter how poorly his personal opinions may be received, it’s nothing next to how unpopular he’ll be when he’s arrested.

He gives the most pertinent information first, because he isn’t trying to be obtuse. But he lays out other details, observations about the Empire’s history of religious persecution, various institutions that hold sway there, important individuals, the shape of public sentiment regarding the Crown. None of it is new information, exactly, but in context, next to his observations from the scourgers, the things he lays out imply potential courses of action, opportunities, old mistakes to avoid repeating.

—

“Oh, hello. I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Yasha says when he comes by later than usual.

“Is there a schedule I’m supposed to stick to?”

“No. I don’t, uh, keep track. Caleb just adds an extra room for you, on the days he knows you’re going to be here.” She shrugs stiffly. “I don’t know if he’s still here. If you were even wondering about that. Maybe you aren’t and I’m just making it weird now.”

He doesn’t respond fast enough, still thinking through the implications of what she’s said. Yasha mumbles something incomprehensible and apology-shaped, shuffles past him and out of the tower.

Essek goes to his room, checks the state of the stars on his ceiling. He’s not sure if it’s comforting, to know that Caleb looks forward to his visits, or deeply disappointing, that Essek’s room is only a temporary fixture here, out of all the others, and that he has no time left to become anything more.

—

He returns from the Lucid Bastion to find a package wrapped in paper sitting on his doorstep.

He’s only been gone a few hours, and it rained during some of that time, so it must’ve been dropped off very recently. He isn’t expecting any packages, and any official deliveries would be sent to his desk in the Bastion. He approaches cautiously, casts Detect Magic. Nothing unusual. Then Mage Hand, to lift the package in the air and hopefully set off any mundane traps. Nothing.

He brings it inside, tears open the paper to reveal a book. A Complete and Illustrated History of Ank’Harel, the Jewel of Marquet.

He stares at it, for a little while. Flips through the pages to check for any writing or inscriptions, as if he needs more evidence to determine who left it.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

This feels different, somehow, than an actual person showing up at his door. It could have been teleported there, but he doubts it—the book is dry despite the recent rain, suggesting not only knowledge of his schedule but an awareness of local weather. His scourgers are nearby, on business that has nothing to do with him, and they took a detour just to drop off a book.

Essek knows that they’ve spent a significant amount of time in Rosohna. They understand it too well, the intricacies of den politics, the layout, the social structure. Not an outsider’s perspective on its form but an understanding of its nature, that the Dynasty is a snake eating its own tail. They likely know Undercommon. They haven’t learned too much about dunamancy but they do know places that they could, if only they could infiltrate them. And they’ve always been very interested in what he has to say about the city, always known the right questions to ask.

But it’s one thing to understand this on an intellectual level, and another to know that they are here, now, and they want him to know it.

—

Eadwulf’s carving a rabbit, next time he visits, just finishing up the fine details with the point of a small knife.

“Do you sell those when you’re done with them?”

He looks up briefly, then resumes carving. “No. I burn them, throw them away.”

“Why?” It feels like sacrilege. Maybe that’s intentional.

“I don’t need the money. I don’t need to keep them. The point isn’t that they look nice when they’re done. The point is that even if—if one gets lost or destroyed, I can make another. Process, not end result.”

“Oh.” Essek tries not to read too much into the explanation, not to project anything onto it, but despite his best efforts he feels a pang of heartbreak, for this person he cannot trust.

He’s probably not regulating his expression as well as he should, because Eadwulf looks up again and raises his eyebrows. Essek schools his face back to polite interest. Eadwulf maintains eye contact for a moment longer. Blinks. Goes back to carving.

“I used to be very bad at it, and I’d gift them anyway. Bren kept all my first attempts, but we still don’t know what happened to his possessions, after he—” The knife slips, slightly, cutting a gash across one finger. Eadwulf doesn’t flinch or make a noise, just stops, sets the figurine aside, sighs as he examines the cut. Heals himself. Picks it back up again.

“Sometimes you call him Bren, and sometimes you call him Caleb,” Essek observes.

“Mm. Sometimes because I’m talking about the past. Sometimes I just forget Bren is dead.”

“Saying he’s dead seems...” Mentally unhealthy, he doesn’t say, nor strangely apt.

“It’s true. The Eadwulf he knew is dead, too, even if I never changed my name. He got better eventually, we got worse, but none of us survived.”

There’s a smear of blood left on the little rabbit. Eadwulf squints at it, frowns. Essek expects him to prestidigitate it away, but maybe that’s not the point, because instead he begins to shave away the surface to reveal fresh wood, destroying details in the process of removing the stain.

“I think you would’ve liked the Bren I knew.” He says it like a compliment. He says it like he wishes he could’ve seen them meet.

On impulse, Essek asks, “Did you love him?” It’s probably not an appropriate question, considering the kind of relationship he has with Eadwulf. Only he’s not sure what kind of relationship they do have.

Eadwulf just laughs, casually, like the answer can’t hurt him. “Of course. And then he was gone and this Caleb fucker shows up.” He shrugs, folds the knife, tucks the figurine into a pocket. “Just my luck, to fall for him, too.”

—

Essek goes home, and sits at his desk, and misses Zadash. 

Of course it's not actually Zadash that he misses, just the concept of Zadash, of being dragged around the city in all its uncomfortable light and color by the Nein, of visiting Caleb's tower, of a change in scenery, of the distance between him and Rosohna, of long and twisting conversations with—

He doesn’t miss Zadash.

—

The only people in the tower are Beau and Yasha, next time he visits, hanging out in a hot tub. They reassure him that he wasn’t interrupting anything, but there are several hickeys blooming on Yasha’s neck.

“You kinda have a point, though. Maybe we shouldn’t leave the door open. Anyone could get in my room with a good set of thieve’s tools, if you think about it.”

“It would be inconvenient to message Caleb every time someone wanted to enter the tower,” Essek points out.

“And just because it’s easy to get in doesn’t mean it’s easy to get out in one piece. That could even be a little fun.” Apparently Yasha hasn’t been in a fight for a while, because she doesn’t really sound like she’s joking.

“Yeah, I guess.” Beau scratches the back of her head—it’s been shorn since the last time he saw her, the tattoo visible through the stubble. “If we have Jester do one of those Symbols in my closet, it’d probably kill a random monk instead of anyone dangerous. And that can probably get dispelled or whatever.”

“So could the entire tower,” Essek points out.

“Yeah, but if they dispel that then they have to fight us all at once instead of picking us off one at a time.”

Yasha hums. “Maybe Caleb could have the cats warn us if someone comes in. And if it was something really bad, we could just hide on the upper floor and send the ninjas after it.” 

Essek tries not to look extremely confused at this. It’s something he finds himself doing a lot around them.

“What if they could like, turn the cats against us with magic, though? Hey, can you trick the tower into obeying you instead of Caleb? Like, have you managed to unlock any of the doors or anything?”

He shrugs. “I’ve never had any reason to try. I’ve already seen the top floor.”

Beau snorts. “Come on man, don’t play stupid with me.”

Essek bristles at the mere notion. “I don’t play stupid with anyone.”

“Right, yeah, because no one would believe it, sure. But you’re not gonna convince me you’ve never tried fucking with the lock on Wulf or Astrid’s doors.”

“They’re locked?”

She stares at him for a moment. Then, “Shit, you aren’t joking. You’re a terrible spy, dude.”

“Did I ever claim to be one?”

“No, but—come on. Are you really above a little breaking and entering?”

“Yes,” he says. The derision is mostly an act. He has done that kind of espionage, under different circumstances. 

The idea of looking through their rooms, though—maybe he’s being hypocritical, still expecting them to go through his things, still checking his own rooms for signs of disturbance, almost anticipating it because then he could learn more about what they’re looking for. But he’s never attempted to spy on them like that. At first because it had seemed suicidal, and now because it seems like a violation of—

They don’t trust him. He doesn’t trust them. But it would violate something, something that he does not want to.

—

Every once in a while, a cat he doesn’t recognize will rub against his shins or hop onto his lap, abnormally corporeal for one of the tower servants. He knows who it actually is, of course. Caleb doesn’t possess the same capacity for guile, polymorphed. But Essek plays along, scritches ears absentmindedly while continuing to read.

There’s something—bitter and sad, so desperately sad—about this. He can think of many instances where Caleb has touched him, and each is so...intentional, deliberate. As a human, Caleb never touches Essek without having some purpose for it, some ulterior motive—

Well. That’s not entirely true. There was a moment after they’d completed the spell for Veth, where he’d pulled them both in for a hug, thoughtless and jubilant. Essek remembers, very clearly, thinking it would be so easy to fall in love with this man, as if he hadn’t already.

And then Caleb had discovered what he’d done, and things went back to how they’d always been, touch as a tool to persuade.

He’d think that that’s all there is to it, that he’s terrible and undeserving and Caleb doesn’t want to touch him anymore, if not for the way he seeks contact with Essek while polymorphed, while running on the adrenaline of battle, while falling asleep on a couch. Times when he doesn’t have the mental acuity to overthink it.

Sometimes Essek still blames himself for making everything so complicated, but the truth is that things had never been going well between them, that it had been broken before they’d started. Essek betrayed the Nein before he’d even met them. And Caleb has believed that physical contact is a tool for long enough that he sometimes hesitates even with the Nein, who are so much more tactile, more trustworthy, than Essek.

There are occasions where Essek has forgotten himself, initiated contact. Perhaps if he made it a habit, Caleb wouldn’t feel the need to seek him out as a cat. But as tempting as it is to test that hypothesis, Essek has been trying to be better, to learn to not take things he shouldn’t have.

And he shouldn’t. It’s a selfish impulse. But every time Caleb grips his arm with an insistent word, places a careful hand on his shoulder, brushes against him with deliberate intent, Essek thinks the same pointless desire. I want you to touch me without thinking about it.

Caleb almost never touches the scourgers, and they never touch him, moving around each other like magnets with the same polarity. But whenever there’s an extra cat in the tower, it curls around their ankles, hops onto their shoulders, sits on their laps, walks across their books or bats at loose embroidery threads, relentlessly friendly. Like Caleb still remembers what it’s like to be held by them, and misses it very much.

—

“Man, I really hope that Beau can find someone else to do her shit so she can come with us,” Jester says, stuffing various items of clothing into her haversack. Fjord has dumped his bag of holding out to reorganize, and she’s been taking miscellaneous bits and pieces out of her own in solidarity.

“It wouldn’t be the same if she doesn’t come. First mate and all.”

“Yeah, and she would be so lonely. She’d have to sleep in her actual room.”

“It’s a perfectly nice room,” Essek says, sipping a cup of tea.

“It smells like old books. And all she would have for company would be like, monks and stuff.”

“Astrid and Eadwulf are here more often than not,” he points out. “They seem to like her.” It’s true. Beau may be the only member of the Nein that the scourgers have genuine respect for, besides Caleb.

“They drop by occasionally, but not that often.” Fjord frowns, looking at a yellow sock. “They do tend to show up whenever you’re around, though. I don’t think they trust you very much.”

“Yeah, they’ll disappear for days without telling anyone where they’re going. One time we didn’t see them for three weeks, except for a few hours each day when you were here. I think they’re cockblocking you,” she adds, and Essek chokes on a mouthful of tea.

“What?”

“That, oooorr they want a threesome.”

“I’m fairly certain they just don’t trust him,” Fjord says, giving up on finding the matching sock and tossing it aside.

“They absolutely do not trust me,” Essek says. “And they’ve shown no romantic interest in me whatsoever.”

“I’m just saying, they might have a thing for you. Eadwulf called you intriguing, you know,” Jester adds, waggling her eyebrows at him.

“I highly doubt that.”

“He did, actually, but not with romantic implications.” Fjord gestures vaguely, a new sock in hand. “It was more along the lines of, you know, they miss the whole political intrigue thing and you provide some of that with lower stakes. Which could still be romantic if you spin it the right way, but it felt more like—have you ever been to Port Damali?”

“No, why?”

“They have a zoo there. Sometimes they give the lions a squash filled with meat, so they can roll it around and pretend to hunt. Mental enrichment.”

“I’m glad to be enriching to our scourger friends, then,” Essek says dryly, though privately he’s glad he isn’t the only one who imagines them as predators.

“Are they still scourgers, though?” Jester asks. “The Volstrucker don’t really exist anymore.”

“Considering they supposedly never existed in the first place, I don’t find that argument particularly valid.”

What Essek doesn’t tell her is that there are certain actions that define what you are, things that don’t leave you. You can be a thief, as a profession, and then stop, and then you are no longer a thief. But if you murder people for a living you will never not be a murderer. Essek will always be a traitor, no matter how much he regrets it. Even if Astrid and Eadwulf were right and there was some way for him to get away with it, if he could spend the next six centuries trying to keep the peace between their nations, if he was consecuted and reborn again—he would, even then, be the traitor who ignited a war. The Volstrucker may no longer exist as an organized entity, they can find other professions, learn to be people again—but they will never not be scourgers.

“Well, they’re trying really hard to be nicer, you know,” Jester says. “And they’re helping out all the other ex-scourgers, too.”

“Um,” Fjord says, half an octave too high.

“Okay, fine, they’re helping all the ones who don’t want to be evil anymore and then killing all the extra-evil ones who still want to bring the Assembly back. But that’s still good for the world overall, so it’s not bad murder.”

It’s probably for the best that Essek didn’t try to start an argument with her about semantics and relative morality, actually.

“Is that what they’re doing?” he asks lightly. “They haven’t told me much about what they’ve been up to.”

“I mean, yeah. It’s probably not the only thing they’re doing, probably, but they’ve got a whole secret mission and stuff.” Jester pauses, then fishes out a rusty hunk of metal from one of the side pockets. “I bet that’s just an excuse for how long they’re gone, though. They’re probably setting up lots of threesomes in their free time.”

“You are very invested in their sex lives considering we don’t even know if they’re dating,” Fjord says.

“Of course they’re dating.”

“Have you ever seen them kiss? Hold hands? Hug? Touch each other at all?”

Now that Fjord brings it up, Essek can’t think of a single instance of any romantic gestures between the scourgers. Which is strange, because he was also under the impression that they were a couple, despite the complete lack of evidence. They’re just very—in sync, with each other. Nothing as trite as them being two halves of a whole—they aren’t incomplete alone, they don’t seem to miss each other when they’re separated. But they are different, when they’re together, in a way that’s difficult to quantify.

“I think they are dating,” Jester says softly, jamming the rusted rod into a different pocket. “But they’re too scared to let people know. Because they weren’t allowed to love anyone before.”

That could be it. There’s a deep mutual understanding between them regardless, but there is some intangible difference between the presence of platonic affection and the quiet discomfort of romance, withheld.

“Are you only hunting the scourgers that are still aligned with the Assembly,” he asks Astrid when he finds her alone in a corner of the library, “or is it any that don’t comply with your new employer?”

Astrid stops writing for a moment. All he really needs is confirmation that they are indeed hunting down other scourgers, and she’s already given it, just in the slight tensing of her jaw. She stares at the page for a few moments, likely processing this or trying to formulate a way she can still deny it. A sigh. Then, “From the perspective of those you tattle to, there isn’t a practical difference. You can report that there’s only a dozen left that haven’t fallen in line,” she adds, and dips her pen into the inkwell again.

“Do you want me to report that?”

Now she looks up. “Would my opinion on the matter affect what you do?”

“Sorry.” He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have asked if I wasn't offering.”

She raises a single eyebrow. “You’d be a fool to offer me anything. Though the fact that you’re listening to anything we say at all suggests that you already trust us too much.”

“I don’t trust you,” he says. “I’m not that foolish. But I do trust how I cannot trust you.”

Her gaze is steady. A little melancholy, a little bitter, but maybe he’s imagining things that aren’t there. Finally she says, “It is refreshing, to be open about the ways we are using each other.” She shrugs, then. “Tell them. They should know that we can deal with our own problems.”

—

It’s raining in Rosohna. A cold, thin drizzle, not enough to warrant an umbrella but enough to make everyone miserable. Essek briefly considers taking the day off and teleporting to Zadash, where it’s probably not raining, but then he’d have to contend with sunlight.

It takes him several minutes to convince himself not to do it anyway. He doesn’t have much time before the Nein take their vacation, assuming they don't postpone it yet again. He’s mostly gotten used to the sun. It’s inconvenient, sure, painful even. But the change in seasons sneaks up on you, in Rosohna. One week it’s snowing and the next it’s rain, with no warning except the slow retreat of frost from window panes. But each time he goes to Zadash the sun has been setting a little later, so spring didn’t surprise him this year. 

Which is good, he supposes. He should savor it, as wet and unpleasant as it is, considering it’s the last one he’ll get.

—

The Nein are at the largest table in the library, trying to turn the audacious list of vacation plans into something that can actually be accomplished on a linear voyage. The scourgers lounge on their couch, throwing out comments and suggestions on occasion. Beau is the only one not participating, sitting at the table nearest Essek, too busy with paperwork to pay attention to the planning.

“Do you know if they speak Undercommon?” he asks her.

She looks up from her paperwork. “Who?”

“The scourgers.”

Beau peers over at them, yells, “Hey, do you guys know Undercommon?” in the aforementioned language.

Astrid raises a brow. “I’m assuming you asked that in Undercommon?”

“Oh, right. Monk shit. People just know what I’m saying now.” She goes back to whatever report she’s reading. “Good luck figuring it out yourself, man.”

Essek sighs and ignores the smugness radiating from the scourgers’ couch.

“Hey Beau, do you want to go to the Port Damali Archive when we visit and see if we’re still banned there?”

Beau cringes and looks over at Jester. “Yeah, so. About that. I don’t know if I can go with you guys. It’s just—there’s no way for me to wrap this shit up in time, and all the people I trust to take over can’t actually do it, and all of the people who could actually do it, I can't trust to do it right. And I know that makes me sound like a fucking control freak or something, but it’s true. I can’t let this project fall apart because I wanna go on a cruise.”

“Oh.” Jester frowns. “Do you think we could wait another month? Or is it more like we’d have to wait another year?”

“No, fuck that. I don’t want you guys to cancel the trip just because I can’t come. It’ll be fine. Really.”

The resulting silence suggests none of them believe her.

“Beau,” Caleb says quietly. “If I stayed, could I do it?”

She levels a hard stare at him. “Technically, yeah. But I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

Caleb shrugs. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s better for me to stay back, the way my own work has been going. And if I’m going to stay behind anyway, it only makes sense.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I can do it. I’m offering. Besides, if you stay behind and take on all of my responsibilities, I wouldn’t get to stay in my tower.” The Nein have apparently run some experiments, and, unlike a Tiny Hut cast upon a surface, the door of the tower is anchored to a fixed point in space and has a tendency to get left behind on a boat.

Essek pretends that he isn’t eavesdropping as the Nein bicker back and forth before they finally concede Caleb’s point, promising to keep him updated. Essek hangs around for a while after they’ve dispersed, but the scourgers have slipped away at some point and, as glad as he is that Caleb will be staying, all the talk of the Nein’s absence is making him morose. They’ve been discussing the possibility of this vacation for so long that he’d started to believe that it was never actually going to happen.

“Hey,” Beau says as soon as he leaves the tower. Essek jumps. He shouldn’t be upset, really—it is her room, she’s allowed to stand in her closet—but he’s getting very tired of people lurking by doors waiting to ambush him.

“May I help you?” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, suddenly, which is especially ridiculous because they’re hidden beneath his mantle.

“You’re gonna visit Caleb when we’re gone, right,” she says. Maybe it’s supposed to be a question. It doesn’t sound like a question.

“Yes?”

“Great. I’m kinda worried about him, ‘cause he’s gonna have a ton on his plate. So can you try to be, like, emotionally supportive and shit? I know you have the social skills of a turtle, but you guys are wizard buddies, so. Do that.”

“...I can try.”

“Cool. And don’t do anything stupid while we’re gone.”

“Define ‘stupid.’”

She scowls. “You’re really not making it easy to trust you with this. Don’t do anything that gets any of you killed? Or, I don’t know, don’t cause an international crisis? The bar isn’t that high, dude.”

He nods, and she seems to take that as a promise. It isn’t. The problem is that he’s already done something that’s going to get him killed, and he doesn’t have any idea when it’s going to happen.

—

Essek arrives earlier than usual, on the day the Nein leave for their trip. There is hugging and what might be a vague shovel talk on Caleb’s behalf and a charming attempt by Jester to put something in his pocket without him noticing, which turns out to be a little jar of silver makeup. They invite him to accompany them to the docks of Nicodranas, and he declines, citing the sun as excuse.

“See you in like, six weeks!” Jester calls as Caleb finishes drawing his Teleportation Circle. They all step in, and Essek is left alone in Beau’s room.

He goes to the closet, the tower, the library, his favorite chair. Sits with his head between his knees, takes deep even breaths and wiggles his toes and resists the urge to cry.

He doesn’t know if he has six weeks. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see them again.

After perhaps fifteen minutes, there's the subtle sound of one of the doors downstairs opening, then another, closer, and then the one up into the library. Essek doesn't look up. 

There’s a slight pause. Then, two sets of footsteps, louder than they usually walk, heading in his direction. The slight creak of couch cushions across from him. The faint sound of pages being turned, of thread being pulled through fabric.

They don't ask questions, don't say anything at all, just sit in the same space and keep an eye on him. Essek tries not to think too hard about why this makes him feel better.

—

“I worry for you,” Caleb begins, when they are sitting at a table in the library, waiting for the cats to retrieve a couple glasses so they can sample one of the bottles of wine that Essek has brought with him.

“You don’t have to. Any danger I am facing is merely the fallout of my own selfish actions.”

He pauses. Shakes his head slightly. “That as well, but it wasn’t the worry I was thinking of. You’re getting comfortable with them.” He nods in the general direction of the scourgers’ couch, though they haven’t made an appearance today.

“Oh. Well. Comfortable is a very strong word.” It’s also uncomfortably accurate.

Caleb laughs. “They know how to be charming, you know. Everything is calculated. It’s how we were taught, and they’ve had a decade of practice.”

“I’m aware.”

“Just. I remember how we started off,” he says, gesturing between the two of them. “You were too easy to persuade.”

“Not to wound your pride, but you weren’t that subtle. I was letting you think you were persuading me, most of the time.”

Caleb concedes with a nod and the ghost of a smile. “Most of the time.”

“They also haven’t made any attempts to seduce me,” he adds. It’s—it’s mostly a joke, and he expects Caleb to deny that that was ever his intention, but instead he winces.

“Ja. I told them that wouldn’t work out so well.”

What follows is a melancholy silence as they look at each other, ignoring the cat that jumps onto the table to set down a pair of wine glasses.

Essek sighs. Pours them both a sensible measure. Asks, “Is the foundation rotted? Is there anything to salvage, between us, or was there never anything there in the first place?”

Caleb takes some time to consider the question. Takes in a long breath, holds it for a moment. “There was a brief period,” he says, “where I trusted you. And I let myself have a lot of ideas, then, things that could never be. Because I knew exactly who I was, and the person I liked, that I trusted, this idea of you I had...”

If Essek puts all of his effort into regulating his expression, maybe it will distract from the miserable agony of hearing the word trust in past tense.

“If that person existed? There would never be a chance,” Caleb continues. “That was an untouchable ideal. Something I could’ve had if my life had gone impossibly right. You, though? I cannot claim to like you better, but you are real. I cannot make guarantees. I cannot say if I will ever trust you in the same way, and I do not know if you can trust me, but—” He breaks off, because Essek has started laughing, with just the slightest edge of hysteria.

“I know it’s not worth much, coming from me,” he says, “but I trust you more than I have trusted anyone in my entire life.”

“Oh.”

“It’s more of a burden than a relief, I know. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t feel that I am your responsibility, but...you should know. That’s all.”

Caleb is quiet, pensive, for a long moment. Then, “Do you think you could trust them, one day? If you had time.”

He wonders if Caleb is asking Essek or himself. The real answer for Essek is terribly simple. I don’t have enough time before I’m caught, and they helped lay the trap themselves. But Caleb wants the complicated answer, the impossible hypothetical.

“It depends on what your definition of trust is. There are some ways—not many, but some—that I already trust them. Others...no. Possibly never.”

“That’s fair.”

“So long as we’re on opposing sides—so long as there are opposing sides—it will always be a little uneasy.”

Caleb picks up his wine glass, considering the contents without imbibing. “Maybe it’s good that people like us grow fond of each other. It gives us selfish reasons to keep the peace.”

Essek scoffs. “As someone who has embodied the very pinnacle of selfishness, I think that you’re changing that word to mean something else. You’re allowed to admit that some of your motives are good, Caleb.”

A long look, impossible to parse. “You as well, Essek.”

—

Hours later, Eadwulf finds him on the roof of the archive, watching the sun set.

He knows that it’s Eadwulf because there is no one there, and then suddenly there is. He’s not a man that gives the impression of silent movement, but by this point Essek knows better. If Astrid is sharp lines and glass and twenty different smiles, then Eadwulf is some kind of vapor. But a vapor that’s solid only when it wants to be. Or maybe it’s never solid, just very heavy for some reason, and that’s why it gives the impression of being solid, even though once you’ve been watching it for a while you realize that it’s actually not.

Essek may be on his second bottle of wine by this point.

“You know, we can turn the light off,” he says to the presence next to him. “The sun.”

“Caleb thought that we missed you. That you went home hours ago.”

“Hm. It would be dark there already. It usually is, because it’s more comfortable that way. But then sometimes we just turn the damn thing back on.”

Eadwulf doesn’t respond, but he crouches down, sits several feet away.

“For religious reasons, of course, but you already know what I think about religion. Without that it’s just petty torture. But things do look different in the light, even if it’s uncomfortable. Which is a metaphor, I suppose.”

Next to him, Eadwulf hums noncommittally.

“Beauty is worth the pain, or the truth hurts, or something like that. I think there’s something wrong with me, because I still don’t care for it, even after everything.” He sighs, rubs his face. “I was always a fan of stars, but that’s a different kind of beauty. You can’t touch any of them. It’s nice to know that you’ll never touch them, and they’ll never care about you.”

Eadwulf leans over to pluck the bottle off the outcropping next to Essek. Weighs it for a moment. “You’re small, but even you can’t be that much of a lightw—”

Essek pulls out the empty one from behind him.

“Ah.”

“I’m fine. Except it turns out he trusted me. Everything else seems inconsequential in comparison.” He sighs. “At least the stars don’t care about anything I’ve done. Do you know any constellations?”

Silence. Then, “If I did, would they be the same ones?”

“Hm. I should look that up, when I get the chance. I’ve never checked. The stars are still the same, at least.” He points to a bright speck to the south. “My favorite used to be Haidel. Do you know anything about, hm—about light moving through space?”

“It still takes time?”

“Right. Exactly. It takes close to a hundred thousand-ish years for it to get here, from Haidel. And we think the star has been dead for almost that long. It’s large enough to make a supernova that we could see from here, but that hasn’t arrived yet. If we’re lucky, it might be within this lifetime. Not a human one,” he amends. “But. Maybe five hundred years, on the early end.”

Eadwulf shifts, slightly, and says nothing.

“Anyhow, that’s why I used to like it. I looked forward to watching it go out. But instead it’s become another fucking metaphor. Death, and time, and—impossible things.”

“That’s not the star’s problem.”

“What do you want most from him?” Essek asks. “His love, his trust, or his forgiveness?”

Eadwulf flinches, his hand curling into the somatic form for Counterspell before he goes smooth and blank and perfect again.

“Sorry,” Essek says, and means it. “It’s none of my business. I can’t ask him for any of them, anyway, so it doesn’t matter. For me.”

It takes him a while, to realize that Eadwulf is still frozen in place. Like he’s forgotten that he’s actually an amalgamation of gasses and not a statue. Or maybe he’s just forgotten how to breathe.

“Sorry,” Essek says again. “Astrid says to move your toes.”

That gets him a laugh, though it sounds wrong. Too human. But over the next several minutes Eadwulf becomes himself again, the same callous and bright-eyed predator that Essek is used to.

After enough time has passed that Essek’s already assumed the conversation is over, Eadwulf says, “We can’t ask, either. If that’s any consolation. Are there any stars you still like?”

Astrid finds them when there isn’t any hint of sun left staining the horizon. “I was wondering what was taking you so long. What are you doing?”

“Learning Xhorhasian constellations.”

“I’m almost out of stars. And he still won’t give me my wine back.”

“You’re shivering,” she notes, which is true. “And you’re supposed to be in a different country.”

“No one will notice if I don’t show up until tomorrow. I’ve done it before.”

“Then come inside.”

Essek stands and gets rewarded with a wave of dizziness. Astrid grabs his arm to steady him. He hadn’t thought he was that cold, but her hand feels hot by comparison. He lets himself get herded back down to Beau’s closet and into the tower.

Caleb starts upright when he sees them. Says something, incomprehensible and slightly accusatory. Eadwulf answers in the same language, and Caleb relaxes.

“I need to learn Zemnian,” Essek mumbles to himself.

Everyone else laughs, but none of them sound happy.

The thing about visiting Zadash at regular intervals is that Eadwulf and Astrid know his schedule. If they happen to be around more often than not when he shows up, they can’t blame coincidence, especially now that he’s aware that they tend to disappear for days or even weeks before dropping by again.

Either they trust him very little, Caleb is right and they’re trying to manipulate him into something, or they’ve just started to like him. He hopes that it’s the latter, because that would mean that he’s slightly less fucked.

“I didn’t stand a chance in a fight against you, did I? Even if it was only one of you,” he comments to Astrid when she just so happens to be in the library at the same time that he is.

“You’re powerful. It could’ve gone either way.” She closes her book and adds, “With only one of us, at least.”

He studies her face, her posture, for a long moment. He’d like to think he’s gotten better at reading her, but she’s also a very good liar. “You’re humoring me, aren’t you? You two have been hunting other scourgers. You’re a step above the rest.”

“If we get overconfident, we will quickly become the ones hunted. It’s a sport that requires perfection. The same goes for killing a wizard of your caliber. I am being genuine when I say that you’re powerful—one mistake, any little hesitation or miscalculation, and the tide could turn.”

He hums, leans back in his chair. “May I be so bold as to ask you a favor, then? Since you seem so very fond of me,” he adds with a wry smile.

She doesn’t mirror the expression. “I make no promises.”

“Well, this one seems very unlikely, the way things are going. But if it ever came down to you killing me, could you do it directly? I’d rather not get stabbed in my sleep or poisoned, if that’s not too much to ask.” He’s trying to keep the tone lighthearted and flippant, but he doesn’t quite have her acting skills.

“If it comes down to that, I don’t plan on being the one to kill you.”

“Oh?”

“Like I said, killing a wizard of your caliber requires perfection. You would inspire mistakes.”

He sits absorbing that statement while she stands up to leave.

“That is a strange way of saying that you like me too much to murder me,” he says at last, but the room is already empty.

—

Of course if he's being technical, Essek suspects they've already killed him indirectly, given him just enough rope to hang himself with, let him lead the Dynasty to Levran Hythenos and no doubt to himself after that. But it's such an interesting little thought experiment, the idea that maybe they're too squeamish to do it themselves.

“Astrid doesn’t want to kill me. Would you do it so she wouldn’t have to? If you were ordered to kill me, hypothetically.”

Eadwulf looks up from another wooden figurine, this one a fox. “Depends on why we had to do it. There are alternatives to just killing someone.”

Essek gives him a dubious look. “Ah, yes. I suppose you could Feeblemind me and stick me in an asylum somewhere. That worked out wonderfully, last time.”

He can see the exact moment where Eadwulf catches himself, represses the urge to defend himself. Essek has had his suspicions—the necklace of prayer beads, the symbol of the Archheart—but it’s nice to have it confirmed.

“What I want to know,” he says conversationally, “is why you still haven’t told Caleb that you were the ones who helped him escape.”

Eadwulf grimaces and goes back to carving details on the fox. “He doesn’t want that answer.”

“Are you aware that he asked me to Feeblemind him? Just to see what it’s like, if it’s the same as what happened to him before. He is absolutely interested in answers.”

“He doesn’t want the answer from us." Eadwulf shifts his grip on the knife, spinning it to carve a delicate dot of an eye. “Trent taunted him about it. Implied that he was the one responsible for Caleb being able to leave, which is true if you look at it from the right angle.” He looks up for a moment. “He was responsible for us, for not keeping a close enough eye.”

“So let Caleb know which parts were true, and which ones weren’t.”

“You know it isn’t that simple. What would he think, if we told him? What would you think, if we told you something like that?”

Essek would assume that they were helping him just to garner favor. He would think they had some ulterior motive for telling him. He wouldn’t believe it was that simple.

Eadwulf nods as he watches Essek put it together. “Besides. If he did believe us, he would figure out what happened to us afterwards. We don’t need him to blame himself for anything more than he already does.”

“Oh.”

“Ja.” Eadwulf inspects the little fox figurine for a moment, nods, and sets it ablaze.

—

The amount of time he spends petting unusually corporeal cats in the tower has increased exponentially, only a week and a half into the Nein’s vacation, and Essek isn’t sure how concerned he should be.

He doesn’t even know how to broach the topic. I’ve noticed you’ve spent a lot of time as an animal recently. Are you so insistent on getting your ears scratched because you miss the Nein, or is it due to some other impending mental breakdown?

The scourgers don’t seem too worried yet, so he tries not to be.

—

“Hey Essek, do you know if that thing about peeing on jellyfish stings is real? Caduceus says it isn’t, but he doesn’t live...by...ocean.”

“Neither do I, Jester. How would I know?”

“Because you read a lot? Hey, can you ask Caleb? I bet he would know that. Also—crabs? You like? ...Wait, was that twenty-five or—?”

“Absolutely not, and I don’t know. I imagine they taste like giant spider, which I’m indifferent to.” A pause. “I assume you meant as food?”

No answer. Essek sighs and casts Sending.

“Please do not bring me a pet crab.”

—

“Are you a fan of oranges?” Astrid asks him, feet up on one of the tables in the library.

“I suppose so. Though it depends on the quality.”

She reaches into a pocket, tosses him an orange. He examines it briefly. The food created in the tower tends to be immaculate, whereas there are a few scars and pockmarks on this. Either she found somewhere nearby that imports fruit, or she’s been out of the Empire recently.

“Are you meddling in foreign affairs, or are you just tracking someone who is?” he asks, and begins to peel it.

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Astrid asks, which could mean both or neither or that she’s just fucking with him.

“Perhaps not. I’ll admit, I don’t even know where these would be growing,” he says. The fruit isn’t mostly comprised of pith like the other citrus he’s encountered. A different variety, perhaps, or just better quality. It’s not like the Dynasty is known for oranges, either.

“Very few places, this point in the season. Or, if you have a greenhouse and a bit of magic, more than a few.”

He can’t help but notice that, even as they talk in circles around each other, Astrid isn’t really paying attention to his face. She’s watching his hands. He finishes peeling the fruit, breaks apart the segments. Only once he’s eaten it does her gaze finally flick away.

He doesn’t think much of it in the moment, more concerned with determining where her most recent business took her. But he remembers it later, when he’s alone in his lab in Rosohna—the casual intensity of her attention, how juicy the orange was—and finds himself flushed and distracted by the thought.

—

The way Caleb casts is—beautiful, really. There’s the precision that he was taught, the rote mechanics of the arcane, but layered over that is a certain deliberate sentimentality, a care and charm and grace that leaves Essek breathless.

His own casting style is so hollow, flashy, soulless by comparison. The motions of someone who casts like he is always being watched, being judged, perfect to the point of imperfection. Beautiful, perhaps, but only in the way that technical drawings are.

Nothing about how the scourgers cast is beautiful.

They throw out spells with ruthless utility, all of Caleb’s precision with none of the art. The whimsical little hand flick after abjuration spells becomes something purely functional, somehow colder when their hands do it despite being the same gesture. Eadwulf moves through each somatic form so rapidly that Essek cannot track the transitions, more like lightning than flesh. Astrid casts like she is cutting something. There should be nothing alluring about that kind of brutal efficiency.

There shouldn’t be.

—

He starts to bring books that he thinks Caleb will particularly enjoy. He’s been much more busy recently, but anything Essek leaves behind in his room finds a place on the shelves.

It turns out that Caleb isn’t the only one reading them. Essek finds Eadwulf with a stack of tattered books on the table next to the couch. It feels a little staged, as does the deliberately casual way Eadwulf flips through the pages of the book in front of him. It takes Essek a moment to realize that it’s the one he left in his room half an hour ago.

Eadwulf doesn’t look away from the book. “He’s been reading more, recently.”

“He has been...stressed, as of late. It’s good for him to take some time away from his work. You as well.”

Now Eadwulf looks up, eyes flicking to Essek’s face, cataloging his expression, his posture. Raises his brows, perhaps expecting some other reaction.

Essek should probably be concerned by the fact that Eadwulf has gone looking through his room, but instead he’s rather—pleased? Amused? Something along those lines. He likes that he figured out how he was leaving the books, that Essek isn’t imagining things, that he's been paying attention.

—

“Do you talk about me, when I’m not here?” he wonders out loud. “Caleb has implied as much.” He says it idly, like he doesn’t already know the answer.

Astrid raises a brow. “Yes. I imagine you talk about us as well.”

“Only good things, of course.”

Eadwulf laughs, looks up from the shirt he’s been embroidering.

Essek tilts his head. “Have you learned anything useful from that? I imagine that Caleb would have more useful insight than other sources.”

Astrid gives him his least favorite of her smiles, equal parts belittling and amused. “Caleb worries that you spend too much energy waiting for someone to execute you.”

“Oh?”

“I agree, obviously. And I’m starting to think you’re too much of an idealist to realize that you’re the one in control of the sentence.”

Essek scowls. “We’ve had this conversation before. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can cover everything back up now that it’s been unearthed. I already tried, and it made very little difference.”

“Uncreative, then. Or just self-defeating.”

“Would you prefer me to turn myself in, or make a fool of myself trying to prevent the inevitable? I’d rather take whatever time I have left and be helpful.” He spits the last word with more vehemence than he’d intended.

She’s still, for a moment. Then, coldly, “Caleb thinks you’d be more helpful if you weren’t imagining your life as a countdown. I agree with that, too.”

Essek sighs. “Astrid. My actions will have consequences. I don’t get to choose what they will be. That’s not how the world works.”

Her eyes narrow dangerously. “If the world worked like that, then there wouldn’t be people like us. Your measure as a person will not be how gracefully you accept the punishment imposed by others, but how you act once you finally realize that you don’t have to,” she snarls, before rising and stalking out of the room.

He’s caught off guard by the intensity of her reaction, left wondering how much was genuine and how much was an act. Eadwulf just gives him a look.

“What do you think, then?” Essek asks him, trying not to sound too flustered.

He shrugs. “All of you are right. You’re just working from different points of view.”

Essek purses his lips. “I didn’t ask you what your opinion on our various opinions was. What do you think?”

Eadwulf returns to the shirt he’s been embroidering, shrugs. “I think you’re a coward. You like the idea of outside forces choosing your fate because that would mean you can’t fuck up again.” He takes out his folding knife, cuts a thread. “Don’t get me wrong. I understand. Sometimes it’s easier to have someone telling you what to do. But even when that happens, you’re still the one choosing whether or not to obey.”

It’s true, of course. But it still stings.

—

What would he do, if he did have time? Would he make the mistake of falling for something that has too many teeth? Would it be a mistake? How could it not be a mistake? How do you trick an empire into having a heart? How do you alter the structure of the world so that no single act will bring the whole thing tumbling down?

—

Essek goes to the library, and the scourgers are having a fight.

Not physically. They’re just sitting across the room from each other, Eadwulf in the comfortable chair in the corner and Astrid in the chair Essek usually sits in, and the couch lies between them, untouched. Essek briefly considers sitting there, realizes that it might be a terrible idea, and then does so anyway. Pulls out a book, ignores whatever silent war is waging.

There’s an hour or so of tense silence to tune out before Astrid stands with a cut-off snarl, leaves. Eadwulf doesn’t react, doesn’t change his position. Essek has nearly finished his book by the time she returns.

Eadwulf says something, in Zemnian. Astrid hums, nods once, responds in kind. Goes to sit at her regular perch on the arm of the couch. Eadwulf gets up a minute later, stretches, walks over to the couch as well. Essek is suddenly very aware that he’s encroaching on their territory. But he just sits on the other end of the couch, pulls out a bit of wood and a knife.

Essek flips through the next few pages of his book without absorbing a word, anxiously waiting for a cue that he’s intruding, for the point where one of them will subtly hint that his usual chair is now available. But it never happens. They don’t display irritation or pointedly ignore him. They act like he’s always sat there, like he belongs just as much as they do.

Essek doesn’t know what to do with this. Eventually he stands and moves over to the chair, because the alternative is something foolish.

—

In the middle of a meeting with representatives from Asarius, Essek fidgets under his mantle, restless hands hidden safely away. He thinks of Eadwulf, stabbing a piece of fabric without looking, with the reckless confidence of someone intimately familiar with sharp objects. Almost absentmindedly, he brushes a hand against the seam of his cloak, lightly so as to not disturb the heavy fabric. But the reassuring texture of soft velvet is disturbed by a lattice of rougher threads.

He starts at the discovery, for one ridiculous moment believing that Eadwulf has sensed his thoughts and manifested embroidery for him. A couple curious glances turn his way, and he smooths out his expression.

Later, in his towers, he takes off the mantle, examines it. Nothing is visible on the outside, but along the inside edges, cleverly hidden by the fold of the hem, is a series of stars in silver thread.

He doesn’t know when they were put there. He doesn’t remove them.

—

Essek knows plenty about bodies moving through space. Celestial mechanics, gravity. The scourgers remind him of a binary planet, two objects circling an invisible center of mass suspended between them, chasing each other without colliding. It’s the kind of phenomenon that confuses laymen, due to a common misunderstanding about gravity. People tend to assume that orbit involves a small object captured by a larger one.

But perhaps it’s better thought of as a dance. Each object, no matter the difference in mass, exerts the same force on its partner as does its partner upon it.

Their behavior shifts, when Caleb is in the room. They pay attention to him in a different way than other people. Even their accents change when speaking to him, the ghost of their native tongue making itself better known. They seem to have a different awareness of themselves as well, gangly and awkward in their humanity when they are usually so good at covering up the embarrassing reality of their mortality.

Caleb is different when they are there, too, though the difference is more subtle. There’s a change in how he holds his shoulders, a careful casual inattention that happens when someone is putting effort into not staring. 

Essek wonders if they’re any different when he isn’t in the room. If the pull he feels is gravity, or something else. For all of his expertise regarding the laws of the universe, of gravity and celestial mechanics, he has overlooked one obvious fact about objects in orbit—all of the spinning makes you dizzy.

“How have you been doing?” Caleb asks him over dinner. “I haven’t been around as much, but you have seemed a little, ah—calmer, as of late.”

“Mm. Resigned may be closer to the truth. Things have...not actually improved, as far as my situation goes. I’ve simply given up any control over the situation. Not intentionally, but—” Essek sighs. “My position allowed for an egregious level of access to classified information, which was why I was able to steal the beacons. I finally corrected that oversight, but the side effect is that I’ve lost access to any information on how the investigation is going. Last I heard, they were looking into the string of deaths I’d told them about,” he adds. “The ones Astrid and Eadwulf baited me with.”

“Oh?”

Essek shrugs, moves some food around on his plate without really looking at it. “They told me that I was just a name on a list. That the Assembly had killed other candidates that didn’t pan out, that I was simply the first to accept.”

Caleb looks at him for a long and intent moment. “Do you believe them?”

Essek takes his time to think about the answer. “No,” he finally admits. “It’s a nice story. A good way to ensnare me, giving me something that I wanted to be true. But the pattern the Dynasty found doesn’t fit the type the Assembly would’ve targeted first. Priests, not wizards. I think they’re going to track the last link down and find out that they were assassinated for some unrelated reason, and then they will turn their investigation towards the person who sent them on a wild goose chase.”

Caleb takes another bite of food. Chews contemplatively, swallows. “A while ago, you said that the war would have happened anyway.”

“Yes. Eventually. But it didn’t have to be as soon as it did, and maybe if there had been more time, someone would’ve cared enough to defuse things before they escalated beyond the point of no return. I knew exactly what could happen. I didn’t care.” He shrugs, gives a bitter approximation of a smile. “Perhaps it could have been someone else. But it wasn’t someone else. It was me.”

“But it’s a nice story.”

“A very nice story. A much nicer one than I deserve.”

Caleb falls silent and still for a very long time, and Essek would think that the conversation is over except that he hasn’t started eating again.

“I want you to know,” Caleb says at last, looking up from his plate, “that I am only asking this because I have been there, and I won’t judge you for it. Do you want to die?”

“I—that’s a complicated question.” He’s not sure how to answer. I don’t want to die but when we went to Aeor I started preparing Life Transference just in case someone else needed my blood more than I did. I don’t want to die but I can’t imagine a future where my survival is a good thing. I don’t want to die but there aren’t any options where I live and get to be happy. I don’t want to die but unfortunately my opinion on the matter doesn’t make a difference. I don’t want to die and I’m so sorry that I’m going to anyway.

“Ja,” Caleb says, sadly. 

Essek wants to—not reassure him, exactly, but he wishes that Caleb wouldn’t know to ask in the first place. He wants to live in a timeline where Caleb doesn’t understand this. He sighs. “I’d like to avoid it, if I could do so without cutting myself off from everything I care about. But I don’t think that I can, not without dragging you all with me, and that’s the last thing I want.” An uneven shrug. “I also don’t want to die slowly, but I’m not sure I can avoid that, either. I don’t think I’ll be able to kill myself when they come for me. I actually—” He laughs for some reason, even though none of this is amusing. “I actually asked our scourgers to do it, very early on, before any of us could stand each other. They refused, even back then.”

“Oh.” Caleb swallows. “I don’t. I do not think that I could do that for you, either. Even knowing that you would prefer it.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. Nor would I ask them again, now that I care about them a little more.”

“Ah.” He stares off into the distance for several seconds. Then his eyes focus on Essek once more, his gaze far more intense. “Essek. I want to apologize for asking you to Feeblemind me. I didn’t think about what it would be like, for you to do that, and—”

“Caleb. It’s fine. I didn’t even know the spell.”

Caleb deflates slightly. Goes back to staring at his plate. He looks so tired.

“You haven’t been getting enough sleep,” Essek says.

Caleb looks up, brow furrowed. “What?”

“You change the stars in my room, presumably based off of whenever you’ve last seen the night sky. And every time I visit, it’s from a little later in the evening. Are you...doing okay?” he asks delicately. “Even ignoring the previous topic of conversation, you’ve seemed...stressed.”

Caleb sighs, shoulders slumping slightly. “Some days are, ah. Difficult, recently. Some of my work has...strayed close to old memories. Not good ones.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” He’s not sure if he’s overstepping, but at the same time he has the mental image of Beau coming back to find Caleb collapsed from exhaustion and proceeding to throw Essek out the window for not being emotionally supportive enough.

Caleb just shrugs. “Not much that you haven’t already been doing. This is nice,” he says, gesturing to the table between them. “Maybe not the previous topic of conversation, but. Talking to you, in the evening, or just knowing you’ll be here. I do look forward to it, even when I don’t end up being good company.”

“You’ve never been bad company.”

His lips twitch into a faint smile. “Sometimes I march past you to sit in a dim corner of the library, and if Wulf or Astrid aren’t there you end up sitting around flipping through random books.”

“It’s still good company if no one speaks. It can be nice, just to have someone else in the room.”

Caleb blinks a couple times. “Ja. I suppose that’s true,” he says. And then, “Thank you, Essek.”

—

The scourgers don’t show up for the next two weeks. It’s not the only time that they’ve been gone when he’s around, nor the longest. But Essek has gotten used to them being there, more often than not.

He hadn’t been lonely in Zadash, even though most of the Nein are gone and Caleb spends half his time in Rexxentrum juggling whatever duties Beau has left him in addition to his own. And now he is.

He makes excuses for himself, as to why he’s still keeping up the same schedule even though there’s no one to see except for Caleb in the evening. He does enjoy his time with Caleb, immensely. If he happens to show up several hours earlier, just in case anyone else is home, well. Maybe he’s just hoping Caleb will get back early. If he stays after Caleb has gone to bed...he has no excuses for that, but he does it anyway, and doesn’t cast Sending to anyone except Jester.

He does take the chance to wander around Zadash in disguise, just to see what the places the Nein has shown him are like, without their color and noise. Mostly less interesting, though the Evening Nip turns out to be a hive of activity when Jester isn’t around. He sends bits and pieces in his reports, snippets from the Halls of Erudition or Cobalt Soul or word on the street or under it, expecting that most of his insights will be useless or redundant. He doesn’t get any response. He has explicitly asked not to receive any response, but the lack of one still turns him morbid and listless.

At home he buries himself in his work, in petty personal projects, anything to keep him busy, and ignores the imagined judgements of Astrid and Eadwulf while he waits for...whatever it is that will befall him.

—

“Do you have a minute?” Caleb asks when he gets home, as if Essek hasn’t been waiting around to see him for over an hour. “I have a spell I’m working on. Nothing unique, just—advanced.”

“Of course.”

Caleb spreads his notes out at the largest table in the library, considers it for a moment, and then asks some of the servants to drag over another table. Essek has heard the Nein tease him over how much he spends on paper, which just tells Essek that they’ve never attempted to write out a spell in longform or do any arcane calculations. There’s a reason wizards have to develop a shorthand for their spellbooks, and not just because arcane glyphs eat through even the most expensive paper eventually.

The spell he’s working on is True Polymorph. Caleb begins with problem areas in his work in progress, brings out his spellbook so he can point out bits that are related to Polymorph or the spell they’d developed for Veth.

“And here, I can’t tell if I’m overthinking this or if it is actually that complicated, but Veth thinks it should be far more streamlined—” Caleb points to a tangled section, the glyphs looping back in on themselves.

“I believe she’s correct,” Essek says. Veth has written notes next to Caleb’s work, her handwriting a scribbly mess that takes him several seconds to decode. “If you alter the recursive glyph in the third quadrant of the previous section, you could forgo this entire section. Though her reasoning for why it’s unnecessary is almost as convoluted as just leaving it be.”

Caleb shrugs. “I’ll admit, I rarely understand her explanations. It usually works out in the end, though.”

“Mm. I wish she’d keep a spellbook. What few calculations I’ve seen her do have been fascinating. You can tell a lot about a caster from their style of spell transcription.”

“Oh? What can you tell from mine?” Caleb’s tone is light, almost teasing, but there’s a current of genuine curiosity running underneath it.

Essek tilts his head slightly. He’s seen more of Caleb’s spellbook than most, has watched him transcribe the most basic of dunamatic spells and a spell of Essek’s own creation, has seen him adapt ancient spellwork to further personal goals. “Well. The first spell I taught you, you transcribed like—you’re a transmuter, obviously, but much of your shorthand reminds me of the classical style for evocation. Transmutation is a...fickle school, at times, and the transmuters I’ve worked with usually get around that via plodding and inelegant specificity. Your workarounds tended to be bolder. More evocative in both senses of the word.” He shrugs, points to a section that Caleb has started converting to shorthand. “Now, though? You have picked up a few tricks from the school of dunamancy, more pinpoint accuracy and fewer audacious shortcuts. Not that you’ve abandoned that style entirely. But you know exactly where to exert force to counteract the volatile areas and create an elegant solution. It’s—” breathtaking, he doesn’t say, nor incredibly attractive . “—quite unorthodox, but terribly impressive.”

“Ah,” Caleb says. He’s looking at Essek with a strange look, one that he tries very hard not to read anything into.

“If you’re curious, Veth approaches spellwork like alchemy,” Essek says instead. “That goes past unorthodoxy into near absurdity, but despite how convoluted it ends up being, it does let her make some very impressive logical leaps. I don’t think we could have finished the Transmogrification without that insight. Especially regarding the dispelling issue.”

“Ja.” Caleb hesitates, then adds, “I still do not understand why that part works, only that it does.”

“If I recall correctly, you were approaching it from a transmutative perspective, much like the end state of True Polymorph—something transformed and, ah, held in place, metaphorically speaking. But that leaves the dispelling problem. Veth approached it like an endothermic chemical reaction.”

“I don’t, ah—I’m not an alchemist. I do not know what that means.”

“Well. There’s—” Essek finds a spare piece of paper and starts drawing. “—there’s a variety of chemical reactions, but to simplify things we can think of this equation as the combination of reagents—in this case the subject to be transformed and all of the spell components—and breaking them into their base parts in order to rearrange them into the end products. One stable state to another. In an endothermic reaction, energy is absorbed from the environment, hence why so much heat needed to be added. I imagine it got rather uncomfortable in there, right before the end,” he adds.

“Oh,” Caleb says. “That—that puts things in perspective, somewhat.” A slight hesitation. “She thought I might have to burn her to death, at one point, and her reasoning never made much sense.”

“She...chose the most terrifying way possible to communicate that point, didn’t she?”

“She tends to, ja.”

“Well, in theory we won’t need to do anything nearly as complicated for True Polymorph. In practice, it’s one of the most advanced spells in existence, and I’m not sure how much help I will be.” He’s not being modest. Caleb has reached the same level as Essek, and if he actually manages to figure this one out, he will have surpassed him.

“Well, you’ve already helped with one part. And then there is this bit, here...”

Caleb talks him through various problems he’s run into, the solutions he’s considered, and Essek is—he can keep up, more or less, but this is Caleb’s area of expertise, and most of his issues are solved just by talking through them with someone else. There are bits and pieces that were obviously inspired by dunamancy, which Essek is more help with, but even those are so well-integrated, so clever—

Fuck. Essek wants more time. He wants to continue his research, wants to keep up with Caleb, doesn’t want to be left behind. Not because he’s ambitious and competitive and arrogant, the things that have always motivated him in the past. But he knows how lonely it is, to always be the smartest person in the room, and he doesn’t want that for Caleb.

“You know that I’m proud of you, right?” he asks, interrupting an explanation of transmutative differentials.

Caleb looks up, blinks a few times. “I’ve had a good teacher,” he says at last.

“And you’re the best student I’ve ever had, by an incredible margin.”

A pause. “Thank you.”

Essek clears his throat, points to some of the notes scrawled in the margins, asks, “Would you mind if I went back to read these?” because the alternative is to get maudlin about it.

“Ja, go ahead.”

Essek casts Comprehend Languages, and goes back through various pages to read all of the comments in Zemnian. He already knows who must have written them—one set of handwriting is precise, sharp, immaculate, and the other is an elegant flowing cursive.

Astrid mostly points out minor mistakes in Caleb’s notation, inaccuracies in his shorthand. Small details, easily overlooked but with the potential to drastically alter the outcome of each equation. Eadwulf leaves only the barest notes by Caleb’s equations, but on the pages for the longform spell he’s written out entire paragraphs, pointing out patterns in the spellwork, inconsistencies in the patterns that may point to mistakes, or places where the pattern should break but doesn’t. It takes Essek a while to wrap his head around his reasoning, but when he goes back to the calculations he can see errors that Caleb has found and corrected in the places that Eadwulf had predicted they’d be.

He wishes that they were in the room, now. Just—just to hear their explanations in person, just to have the chance to pick their brains, to listen to them talking to Caleb in Zemnian, to see whether they recognize the bits of dunamancy woven through the spell, to see how they react to his own contributions, to see what they could build together. Just to—

Just to see them, if he’s being honest with himself.

—

Finally, after two weeks of paperwork and wandering foreign cities alone and Sendings from Jester and frayed nerves and stolen moments with Caleb, his trance is interrupted in the middle of the night in Rosohna.

“Twenty minutes to an hour. Two rogue Volstrucker targeting Marble Tomes as diversion. They’ll escape. Actual target Leylas Kryn, one agent, not expecting to survive,” Astrid’s voice, unusually strained, hisses in his head.

“What do you want me to do, exactly? Who else is involved?” he asks, rolling haphazardly out of bed and rummaging around for his component pouch. “Any inside agents?”

“Stop assassination. There are no insiders that we know of, but this isn’t our job. Not Empire’s fault.”

“I’m sure that line will go over well if we lose something valuable,” he mutters, pulling on shoes. “You’d better not be lying about this. I don’t trust you.”

Essek burns through several Sendings, alerting the Bright Queen, the Dusk Captain, various guards. All of them want explanations he can’t offer.

Something explodes in the direction of the Marble Tomes Conservatory. Essek stares at the growing plume of smoke, hesitates, teleports instead to the Lucid Bastion. He has to throw up a Shield to deflect a crossbow bolt from a particularly over-zealous guard before they recognize him.

“That was by the Conservatory,” he says as the queen peers past the guards to a window.

“What’s your source, Shadowhand? You were our earliest warning.”

“A Sending from one of the Mighty Nein’s scourger friends. She claims these are rogue agents and that the attack near the Conservatory is a diversion, but I don’t trust that there isn’t something more going on here.”

Another figure barges into the room, and the guards swivel towards them. Essek is halfway through a Gravity Sinkhole before he recognizes the face of another Dynasty wizard, some aspiring chronurgist with only half a brain to back up his ambitions. Cyanis or Cylanos or something like that? Den Icozrin.

“I think this is a diversion,” he gasps.

“We’d gathered as much,” the queen says coolly. “There will be more guards here shortly.”

“Not here. The beacon.”

She goes still, turns to Essek. For a moment he thinks she knows, that she knows what he did and assumes that he’s involved again. But all she says is, “Take as many guards as you can and secure it. I’ll send reinforcements after you.”

Essek hesitates for a moment, pretending to be mentally selecting guards while running over Astrid’s words in his head, looking for the lie. Cyanis-or-Cylanos takes a position near the Bright Queen, nods at Essek as he turns to face the door. Casts Mage Armor. Flicks his hands back open.

Oh.

Essek casts Hold Person and counters the other mage’s Counterspell. The spell takes, and he maintains concentration through two crossbow bolts before managing to gasp, “Check if he’s disguised!”

One of the guards reaches a hand for the paralyzed mage’s robes, lets out a surprised noise when it passes through. The scourger breaks free of the hold only moments after he’s surrounded by four guards, who struggle to contain the snarling angry creature he becomes. He bites the hand held over his mouth, reaches for something around his neck. Essek panics and throws up an Antimagic Field, dropping several inches to the ground as it cancels out his levitation. It turns out to be a good instinct—the disguise drops away, and the orange beads that the human tosses down clatter harmlessly across the ground.

“Those are magical,” Essek says, already crouching down to keep any from rolling outside the radius of the field. Even as he speaks, the door is flung open yet again, this time by Quana Kryn, a dozen more guards, and several powerful clerics.

There’s a flurry of activity, over the next several minutes. The scourger is finally restrained, gagged, and dragged away. Reports come back from the Conservatory, confirming that its defenses weren’t breached and that the attackers teleported away. Someone gets sent to check in on the real Cylanos Icozrin, who Essek sincerely doubts is alive. Other reports come in from other strategic locations, the beacon, confirming that no other attacks took place.

Essek excuses himself for a moment, strolls out to a courtyard and deposits the beads on the ground there. They explode in a dazzling show of fire once he steps far enough away. He goes back inside, gets one of the clerics to deal with the crossbow bolt still lodged in his shoulder now that he’s able to drop the Antimagic Field, waits for the clamor to dissipate.

“I would like to offer my sincerest apologies,” he says once there’s a quiet moment to address the queen, “for my hesitation in following your directive, earlier. Obviously the beacons are of utmost priority, but...” He sighs. “I spend too much time with scourgers. It felt like something was afoot.”

“I can hardly fault you, considering the outcome. How did you recognize the disguise?”

“I didn’t,” he admits. “He cast an abjuration spell. They have certain...stylistic quirks, to their casting. A tell.”

“Your two were the ones who warned you about this.” It isn’t phrased as a question, but there’s one in her eyes.

“Yes. I’ve already detailed what I know about the infighting among the scourgers. It seems probable that this was indeed orchestrated by a rival faction, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have had some hand in it, perhaps using us to take out some of their enemies for them.”

She tilts her head back slightly, looking him over intently. “You’ve gotten to know them as much as they supposedly know you. You still don’t trust them?”

“Of course not.” He’s taken aback by the question. “I respect them enough to listen very carefully to what they say,” he admits, “but not enough to assume they will tell the complete story. I suspect you’ll learn more, one way or another, from the captive.”

She blinks, inscrutable. Nods infinitesimally. “You’ve done good work. Get some rest.”

He walks home, out of the energy necessary to cast anything major. When he arrives, there is no one waiting at his doorstep, nobody at the dining room table. His towers are empty as they’ve always been.

He goes back to bed, stares up at the ceiling for half an hour. Gives into one of the gnawing worries that has plagued him this past week or so.

“Are you two...okay?” he asks after weaving together the components for Sending. “All is well here, war averted, etcetera.” He almost adds I’ve missed you, thinks better of it, waits.

A pause, long enough that he worries that Astrid is dead or choosing not to answer. Then, “We’re fine. We’ll see you in a couple days, perhaps.”

He falls into a trance easier after that.

—

He arrives early, next visit, and waits until Caleb shows up for dinner, where he explains what happened and they talk about what it might mean, and then he bullies Caleb into going to bed at a reasonable hour, and then he waits, still, and doesn’t make any excuses to himself about why he’s waiting.

In the meantime, he finds a comfortable spot in the library and struggles through this week’s report. Sometime past midnight, the door opens downstairs. They drift up past him, only sparing him a glance before heading to their rooms. Essek waits a little more.

After about five minutes, Eadwulf comes back to the library. Essek moves to put his report away, to perhaps ready himself for a conversation, but the scourger just continues past him, sits at the same couch they always sit at. Pulls a piece of wood from his pocket, a knife. Starts to whittle.

Essek watches for a moment, the deft movement of his hands, the light throwing the planes of his face into stark relief. Goes back to his report, impossible thing that it is. He’s trying to explain the entire incident in a way that relieves tension instead of increasing it, to frame the prevention of more damage as an act of peace instead of a barely-averted declaration of war.

Can you call the unsteady absence of violence peace? Or is peace more like two people sitting in a room together, when they could just as easily be doing their work alone?

They talk about traditional festivals in Nogvurot, and street food in Rosohna, and the history of the Cobalt Soul, and of course they are talking about none of these things. Caleb has been making a valiant effort to keep his eyes open through the conversation, but the next time Essek glances over he’s fallen asleep.

After a few minutes, Eadwulf stands, murmurs, “Don’t mind me.” He walks over to Caleb. Essek expects him to pull a blanket over him, maybe, or shake him awake and send him off to bed. But instead he casts Mage Hand, pulls out a skein of thread, and starts embroidering Caleb’s scarf. It goes very quickly, with the extra hand.

“Essek?” Astrid asks again, and he finally pulls his eyes away.

“Sorry, what was that?”

She raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve said for the last fifteen minutes, have you?”

“I’ll admit I’ve been...rather distracted.”

Eadwulf cuts a thread and sews in the loose end, pads back over to their couch with an air of smug amusement. “She’s been talking about the Cobalt Vault in Vasselheim. Have you been there? I assume not, as an arcanist.”

Caleb stirs after another half an hour, sits up, stretches. The dots on his scarf are paw prints, Essek realizes.

“What’s so funny?” Caleb asks.

“You have lines across your face,” Essek says, not wanting to ruin the surprise. “Consider a pillow instead of a book next time.”

“Ah.” He rubs his eyes, not quite picking up on the look the three of them exchange.

—

Essek has gotten increasingly opinionated, in his reports. It’s not like seeming overly familiar with the Empire is going to damage his reputation at this point.

One week he points out ways to portray the Luxon that might better mesh with the Empire’s sentiments on religion. The next, potential ways for the Kryn to ingratiate themselves with the general population in a way that wouldn’t offend the king, that they might have a better chance of retrieving errant souls who may have ended up scattered throughout the Empire as a result of the war. Certain magical components that are scarce in the Empire, the trade of which might sway imperial magic users in the Dynasty’s favor. The political advantages of collaborating with the Cobalt Soul, perhaps through the Vasselheim branch, and the possibility of using them as an intermediary between Dynasty and Empire. Ways to gain influence among the less legal powers in the Empire, even, carefully and subtly so as to not cause further strain with the legitimate ones.

Little things, here and there, that might not make a difference on their own. But he’d like to think the implication shines through. If we can make some of them like us, if they grow used to us, if some of them respect us instead of fearing us, they will be less enthusiastic about the prospect of conquering and more inclined to collaborate.

—

He and Caleb are in the middle of dinner when their scourgers come in. They look about as put together as they usually do, sleek and beautiful and deadly, but Essek suspects they’ve just come back from some mission, because—

“You missed a spot.”

“What?”

“There’s blood,” Essek says, “on your face.”

Eadwulf rubs at the wrong cheek.

“No, not—” Essek sighs, grabs a napkin and dips it in one of the unused glasses of water. “May I?”

Eadwulf gives a gesture that is just as much shrug as nod, and Essek stands, removes the mark with a few decisive strokes.

“Consider buying a mirror,” he says.

Eadwulf is looking at him with a strange expression. After a moment, he says, “I have Astrid.”

“And apparently she doesn’t care if you look like you just murdered someone.” Essek attempts to prestidigitate the stained napkin, then counters Astrid’s Counterspell with an exasperated snarl. Eadwulf counters him, breaking into a wide grin.

“You are all very strange,” Caleb says, and takes another bite of his food. He's looking between them, brow quirked, staring at Essek the way he would at a particularly complicated scroll.

“Did you just murder someone, by the way?”

“That’s between us and our supervisor,” Astrid says primly.

“And that is...?” Essek asks, though at this point he knows not to expect an answer.

Caleb cocks his head. “Do you not know?” Looks to Astrid.

“We haven’t explicitly been ordered not to tell him,” she explains, “but it’s fun to watch him guess.”

“Ah,” Caleb says, watching Essek sputter with indignation. “Good luck with that, then.”

—

Jester has reached “the boring part” of their sea voyage, which apparently means there aren’t any pirates or dragon turtles or undead sailors. Essek knows this because she’s been sending him updates multiple times a day, asking him inane and invasive questions or giving him a running commentary about someone named Marius or insisting he try more Nicodranian pastries or inquiring about his current reading material and then critiquing it mercilessly.

Essek stopped pretending to be irritated by this about three days ago, which is why he’s spent twenty minutes of his day looking through Caleb’s library for the book she recommended. Jester had been convinced that Caleb has a translated copy of Der Katzenprinz, but after finding a fifth copy in Zemnian, Essek gives up on the search. Soot and salt make it perfectly comprehensible, anyway.

It’s charming, but it’s not a long story. Essek finishes it, moves on to a transmutation textbook that Caleb has replicated perfectly from memory. Comprehend Languages doesn’t take any of his concentration, though, which means that when Caleb and the scourgers wander in mid-discussion, Essek understands exactly what they’re saying.

“—could at least ask, instead of assuming that it won’t happen,” Astrid’s voice says, coming into hearing range as they drift up to the library. Essek has one panicked second to prepare before they arrive.

They notice him as soon as they enter, of course. He raises one eyebrow at them, feigning confused curiosity.

Caleb nods to him, continues speaking in Zemnian. “There are many things I could do. That doesn’t mean I should do them.”

“Torturing yourself isn’t doing anyone a favor,” Astrid says, equal parts concern and reproach in her voice. Essek does exactly what he’s always done when they have conversations in Zemnian in front of him: he shrugs and goes back to his book.

“I’m not, though. I’m trying not to, anymore.”

A long pause. Essek is dying to know what expressions they’re wearing, Astrid especially, but looking up would be suspicious.

“You’re being a hypocrite,” Eadwulf says, not unkindly. “You’ve mentioned that you think the drow’s self-sabotage is affecting his performance. How is it different for you?”

“Essek has nothing to do with this.”

“Mm. Doesn’t he?” Astrid asks. “I have eyes. I see how you look at him, but you haven’t done anything about that, either. You’re making it more complicated than it needs to be. He adores you.”  

Caleb laughs, a strain of desperation in the noise. “Only you would look at the situation with him and call it uncomplicated.”

“You can’t claim he deserves better than you, at the very least. If anything, he deserves worse. And neurotic obsession with his own mortality aside, he can be very charming.” Astrid hums. “Surely you’ve considered it.”

“I expect this sort of matchmaking from Veth, not you. What happened to ‘Essek is too unpredictable to be left to his own devices’ or ‘even a snared rabbit can cause damage in its death throes?’” A pause. Then, “Oh. No, that makes sense. You like him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Astrid says, which isn’t a no. Essek should want her to say no, but—

“I do,” Eadwulf says easily, and Essek stops breathing. “He’s attractive, he’s clever, and he could probably eviscerate me in a fight. What’s not to like? If he wasn’t so fucking untouchable, I’d go for it.”

Essek wants to be touchable, suddenly. It’s the stupidest thing he’s ever wanted, and he has wanted some tremendously stupid things.

“The part where Essek—”

“Committed a war crime or two?” Astrid cuts in, amused. “Who hasn’t, around here?” Then her voice sobers. “He is trying to do better. It was a piss-poor attempt at first, true. But he’s been improving. He might actually make a difference, given time.”

Her words bring reality crashing back around his ears. Given time. The one thing he doesn’t have. A pointless fantasy, all of it.

“I’m not going to do anything, Astrid. Not now. Maybe I don’t want to.”

Astrid gives that perfect little huff of disbelief, the one that sounds scripted.

“Enjoying the book, Essek?” Caleb says in Common, a little louder than strictly necessary.

Essek looks up. “Oh, are we talking to me, now?” He shrugs, doing his best to convey nonchalance hiding irritation, trying to ignore the uneven patter of his own heartbeat. “It’s an easy read, though I will admit I’ve been a little distracted over the last few pages. Next time you’re having a conversation in Zemnian, do consider that my name is the same in any language.”

“Oh.” Caleb flushes red. “Sorry.”

Essek waves a hand dismissively. “All good things, I’m sure.”

“Ja. Of course.”

There’s an awkward moment where Caleb just stands there, staring back at him. Essek tries to ignore the growing sense of uneasy guilt, the impulse to confess that he understood everything, that he’d been spying on them. They all disperse in the silence that follows. Essek doesn’t disguise the fact that he’s watching them as they leave.

—

He spends a lot of time watching them. He’s not sure if that makes him a stargazer or a prey animal, and he’s not sure which one is worse.

Which cuts deeper? To love something that doesn’t love you back, or to love something that will consume you?

—

“You know, in the beginning I assumed that you were much like us,” Astrid tells him when she finds him alone in the library, surrounded by three open books, a fourth in his hands. “But I’m beginning to think you’re closer to Caleb.”

Essek sets the book down. He used to think the same thing, but he’s seen Caleb cold and calculating, seen him vicious and deadly in a fight. And he’s also seen glimpses of the scourgers at their softest and most human. They may not follow the same pattern, but they are cut from the same cloth. “Mm. Perhaps the similarity is like a mirror. Everything looks familiar at first, but it’s all in reverse. Once you go beyond the surface, though, you’d find that you are all much closer to each other than you are to me. You may not be paragons of virtue, but I started a war.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t get to take credit for centuries of political tension. You were just the last straw. Even if we were to simplify the entire ordeal to burden your conscience and stoke your ego, how are you measuring the weight of each sin? By the number of lives lost, or the volume of blood spilled by our hands?”

“Astrid,” he says quietly. “I have thought, for months now, about the impossibility of waging peace. And no matter which direction I turn, I keep running into the undeniable fact that so much more would be possible had we not already waged war. So maybe more atrocities have been committed by your hand, but how can you measure war crimes versus a crime against peace? No matter how close to the brink we’d come, no matter how little it took to ignite—until the war, there was still a chance to back down, to fix things, and now I don’t know how we can.”

She stares at him, searching his face for what he doesn’t know. Essek looks away. Astrid says, “I was not lying, when I said the war was inevitable even if you hadn’t acted as you had. There were too many other moving parts. Many people share that burden.”

He sighs, begins closing the books on the table. “I don’t think that it works that way. A gun has many moving parts, but you don’t blame the person who forged the steel when someone else aims and pulls the trigger.” He finishes stacking the books next to him, leans back in his seat. “And going back to the original point, I have just gotten more people killed than any of you.”

“Did you do it intending to kill them?”

“No. But I didn’t care.”

“Have you ever intentionally murdered someone? Not in the heat of battle, not in self-defense, not as the side effect of your own careless planning. Premeditated, by your own hand.”

He can think of some, if he stretches the definitions she’s set. But she would read it on his face, if he lied. “Not exactly, but some came close.”

“Each of us have. Wulf and I as part of our work, more times than I can count. Caleb as well, many people, during our training. We were told they were traitors. We didn’t question that. We didn’t question any of it, back then.”

“You were working under orders.”

“Mm. At first. Then we went home and discovered people whose only crime was talk, people we loved, people who loved us. He didn’t have to order us to kill any of them, Essek.” Her voice is so gentle, so cruel. “We volunteered. We decided we could not suffer our own blood to live, thinking thoughts of treason. It was unacceptable to us, that they not be loyal to the Empire the same way we were. Later it turned out we’d been misled about that, our memories modified. But everything that resulted was real.”

“Your parents?”

“Ja.” She tilts her head. “I invited mine to dine with us. The poison I chose targets the nerves, and it takes a while to take effect. They were very confused about what was happening, about why their limbs were disobeying them all of a sudden. They thought they were drunk, at first, but eventually the paralysis suffocated them. It took a long time, but it was very quiet by the end.”

“I don’t—”

She holds up a hand. “At the time I thought Wulf was being a coward, being too kind, by making it quick.” She gives a little smile, self-deprecating, bitter. “It turns out that he was the wisest among us. But even he had to choose which one was first, which parent had to watch their son kill the other. I think it was his mother. I recognized her voice from outside, begging.”

“Astrid.”

“I’m not done yet.” Her voice is so soft. “Caleb was the best among us. He was also the most adept at torture, did you know that? So when he chose fire, he knew what he was doing. He knew he was being the cruelest, even if it meant he didn’t get to watch them die. We had to help him move the cart in front of the door. He lit it. The wind was in his favor, so we didn’t have to wait long.” She shrugs slightly, drops the smile. “The worst of the fire was by the door, so they noticed the smoke first. They only started screaming once they realized they couldn’t get out. I still remember what that sounded like, so I imagine he must as well.”

“I’m sorry.” It is the most inadequate two words he has ever uttered.

“Not as much as I am. I’d say that he was also the worst of us, but that wouldn’t be fair.” Her hand ghosts over the scarring on her neck, almost absentmindedly. “You know where he ended up afterwards, don’t you? So. Do me a favor, and don’t try to convince me that we’re better than you. Even if you’re right, it doesn’t feel that way to me.”

Essek manages a single nod, and then they sit in silence for several minutes.

“He was there for a decade,” Essek says at last, his traitorous curiosity overpowering his hesitance to violate the quiet.

“He was.”

“Why help him escape ten years later? I know it was you.”

She’s still for a moment. Then, “We still visited him, in the meantime. And it wasn’t an easy task. The resources took time to obtain.”

“No, that wasn’t how I meant it, my apologies. I am quite certain that it was difficult. But after so long, it would have been much less complicated to abandon him, to attempt to move on. You didn’t. Why?”

She gives him a long, unimpressed look. “Why do you think? He may not have been the boy we’d cared about, not after so long, but he still wore his face. Trent used that to get to us. Removing his ability to harm us through Bren was a selfish act, not charity.”

“Is there some secret Zemnian definition of selfish that means exactly the opposite?” Essek asks, exasperated. “Putting yourself at risk to free someone you love because you don’t want them to get hurt is anything but selfish.”

She smiles a particularly dismissive smile. “We didn’t love him. Just the thing he symbolized.”

“Astrid,” he says, sighing and rubbing his face. “You’re an excellent liar. But you aren't a good enough liar to convince me that you don’t love him.”

She goes still, wary and tense, smile on the verge of becoming a snarl. Like a cornered wolf.

“If it makes you feel any better, I love him as well,” Essek says, gentler. “I can’t hurt him to get to you any more than I could slit my own throat. We remain at an impasse, just a slightly different one than we started at.”

She relaxes slightly. Blinks a few times, looks at Essek. Doesn’t don any of her usual smiles, doesn’t try to deflect or dissuade. “I don’t trust you,” she says. Not in an accusatory tone, nor with a tinge of melancholy like how she’s been saying it as of late.

“You know I would never expect you to,” says Essek.

Essek may not be the most emotionally aware person, but he isn’t a complete idiot. He recognizes this, in himself. He knows how it went with Caleb, gradual enough that he could ignore it while it happened, but nothing subtle in hindsight.

Perhaps it is his unique curse to be unmade by Zemnian wizards.

The catch, of course, is whether Eadwulf and Astrid are more like Caleb or like their teacher. He wants to believe it’s the former, but Essek has played at religion for long enough to know that wanting to believe and believing are not the same creature.

Regardless, it’s something that he ignores, or at least tries very hard to ignore, because nothing good will come from pursuing it. Either they are playing with him and it would be a terrible idea, or they have no ulterior motive and it would still be a terrible idea, because Essek will die soon and he doesn’t want them to mourn him as well.

Of course, telling himself that it’s a bad idea doesn’t stop him from wanting, because his rational mind has no control over how his heart rate increases thinking of the subtle flex of the tattoos on Eadwulf’s forearms when he draws a knife across a block of wood, the way Astrid can imply that she’s laughing at you or with you with the slightest shift in a smile, the terrifying efficiency with which they cast, the way their eyes track him when he enters the room—

It is easier to resist the pull of gravity than this. He’s not sure if he’s falling in love with them or if he’s just falling for a trap they’ve laid, but either way it’s a long way down.

—

The crow is back, next time Essek visits.

He stares at it, perched innocuously on the building across the way. Shakes his head, closes the curtains before going to the closet where Caleb keeps his tower.

“Do you have any wizards who would be keeping an eye on you? Any enemies? Rivals?” he asks once he’s found Caleb in the library.

“Not that I know of, but that’s why I have this.” Caleb tugs on the chain of the amulet. “Why?”

“There’s a crow, watching through Beau’s window. I’ve seen it once before.”

“It could just be a bird,” Caleb says, though he doesn’t sound like he believes his own words.

“Or it could be here for me. I don’t have any idea how the investigation is going anymore. They may be closing in.”

Caleb frowns. “It could just be a bird,” he says again, softer, all hope and no conviction.

—

Two days later, Essek is summoned to the Court.

It’s sudden, unscheduled. It could be nothing. It could be exactly what he’s been expecting for months now. He briefly entertains all manner of impulses, like teleporting to another continent or casting Sending to Caleb to apologize for everything, his death included, or casting Sending to his scourgers to—he’s not even sure. To make a last request? To tell them to get their shit together and ask Caleb on a date already?

He could ask Jester to cast Sending to the Bright Queen ten minutes from now. It would make for a memorable last meeting, at least.

In the end Essek goes quietly and without protest. It won’t make a difference, but he intends to take this with some manner of grace, if only for his own dignity.

It’s a small audience, but that doesn’t mean much. There could be dozens of guards here in an instant.

“Your scourger contacts gave you a lead regarding the theft of the beacons,” Leylas Kryn begins. “Months ago.”

“They did, though I still suspect it was a false lead,” Essek says carefully, rapidly losing whatever hope he had remaining.

“It was not.” He should’ve sent them a message. He should’ve sent Caleb a message. He should’ve—

He should’ve not started a fucking war. This is what happens when you do something like that.

“You’ve found Levran Hythenos?” he asks.

“Yes. We’ve concluded the investigation entirely.”

“Oh,” he says, trying to feign the right amount of surprise instead of abject terror. “And you’ve deemed it fit to inform me in person before the official notice?”

She waves away the concern with a graceful hand. “It only makes sense that you’d know before this becomes general knowledge. It has not escaped notice that you have been...anxious, about the investigation. There was discussion of your behavior as early as your journey to Eiselcross, and more than one eye was keeping a close watch.”

“I would expect as much,” he says evenly. “Especially considering my recent company.”

She tilts her head in acknowledgement. “Even so. I think many of us forget what it’s like, to be so young and to have such great expectations placed upon us,” she says. “The Court owes you an apology.”

Essek does an absolutely mediocre job of hiding his surprise. “An...apology?”

The queen waves a hand. “You’ve been under an enormous amount of pressure, for someone barely past their first century, and many took signs of stress and ambition for ill intent. It took you stepping away from frivolous reports to recognize it for what it was. You’ve been more productive once you weren’t inundated by constant speculation regarding your loyalty. So. I am sorry that we have placed upon you an unnecessary burden of mistrust.”

For a moment, Essek can imagine two parallel timelines. In one, he is a good person and he deserves this apology, because he did not steal the beacons. In the other, he is not good but he is honest, and he breaks down and admits to his crimes.

But Essek is not good, and he is not honest. And Essek wants to live.

“I’m afraid I cannot accept such an apology,” he says, like a decent person might. “I’ve come to realize that the suspicions leveled at me are the result of my own erratic behavior. It would be unreasonable not to investigate someone who’s done nothing to allay concern, and you cannot eliminate me as a threat until absolutely certain.”

“It helps that we’ve already confirmed Levran Hythenos helped the Empire steal them,” the Skysybil says dryly. “Just accept the apology, boy.”

“Oh.” That doesn’t make any sense at all. “I was...entirely convinced it would end up being more complicated than that, to be frank.”

The Dusk Captain says, “We found part of his body, including his head, dumped outside the radius of any beacon. Interrogation of his corpse confirmed his role in the theft. As a consolation about the loyalty of our citizens, if not their mental fortitude, it seems he was charmed into compliance.”

“That would...explain the lack of a clear motive. Is it worth resurrecting him to confirm?”

“It would be a high cost for something so inhumane, wouldn’t it?” Quana asks. “To force someone to live with the weight of an entire war on their conscience.”

“It seems presumptuous to decide he wouldn’t want to make up for the mistake.”

“It would be cruel to let him attempt something so impossible,” says the Bright Queen. “I understand your curiosity, Shadowhand. But we have enough evidence to settle the matter without disturbing the dead. Anything beyond this point is unnecessary.”

None of this makes sense. He goes back to his towers in a daze, to the hole in his dining room wall, to the dead plants and dusty books. There’s still tools set out in his lab, for the experiment he’d abandoned after realizing how long it would take.

“Astrid was right,” he realizes out loud. Of course. And so was Eadwulf, and Caleb.

He begins to set out the rest of the components. Dares to think of other things that could happen, in a future where he gets to live.

—

Essek is still drifting through the world in a state of vague bewilderment when he visits Caleb’s tower late the next day. He doesn’t even know how to bring up the topic. So it turns out that the Dynasty found some poor priest who’d been charmed into helping the Assembly with something, mistook him for me, and maybe I just won’t get arrested? Despite starting a fucking war?

But perhaps his warring relief and disbelief and self-loathing is more obvious than he thought, because after several hours of giving him strange looks, Caleb asks, “Are you in a good mood, or are you just trying to be in a good mood?”

“I...have no idea, honestly,” he admits. “I was informed, yesterday morning, that the Dynasty has completed their investigation into the theft of the beacons. They found evidence that someone else did it, which doesn’t make any sense. But I just...let them believe it.”

“Ah.”

“Part of me wonders if it’s some kind of trap. If it isn’t, I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself. I used to have long-term goals, and then I stopped planning that far in advance, and now the old aspirations seem so...shallow.” He glances up at Caleb. Frowns. “You aren’t surprised. You knew something about this.”

Caleb winces. “I, ah. I had some suspicions.”

“They did this.” Essek isn’t sure if he’s angry at them for not telling him, or angry at himself for not realizing sooner. Of course. Baiting him with information he’d need to bring to the Dynasty to verify, the confidence that he wouldn’t face any consequences coupled with the lack of any reasonable evidence or actionable advice, the smug triumph once he’d confirmed that the Dynasty knew about Levran Hythenos—of course. Now everything begins to make sense. 

“Probably, ja.” Caleb fidgets with the end of his scarf. “All of us have gotten into the bad habit of, ah, talking about each other, learning things second-hand. They mentioned something you said, a while back, that the Dynasty was only looking for a mole because we’d suggested it. They said that you were worried that we would blame ourselves, if you got caught. If, not when. And they were very flustered when I pointed out that phrasing. So. I wasn’t sure, but...I am also not surprised.”

Essek spends several seconds trying and failing to form a response. Finally he asks, “Will they be here soon?”

“No. The earliest they will be back is well after midnight, as I understood it. Are you...?”

“I was planning on apologizing for doubting them, but they cheated.”

“In their defense,” Caleb starts, and then doesn’t seem to have anything he can actually use to defend them. He flounders for a moment. “Maybe they were planning on telling you?” he says finally. “I don’t know, Essek. I do not know if they had ulterior motives or if they decided to meddle with international politics just because they like you. But you are alive, and that is something.”

Essek sits with that for a moment. “I guess I will have to ask, the next time that we meet. But it’s getting late now.”

Caleb sighs. “Ja. I should be going to bed, myself.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course.” He hesitates. “Essek. Regardless of why they did it, I’m glad that they did. You can do some good, given time. And I hated to see you so—worried.”

“Yes. Good night, Caleb.”

—

Essek exits the tower, casts Invisibility, and steps back inside.

They don’t have a doorstep, not really, so he waits leaning on the wall between their bedrooms. There’s a bell in the hallway, and occasionally he sees one of the cats peek out of the tiny doorway above it.

He recasts Invisibility several times, waits. Stews in his own thoughts. He’s not sure that anger is the right name for the emotion he’s wrestling with, but it’s something close, something irrational that makes his bones vibrate with impatience.

They come quietly, up the central column, speaking in low tones. There’s a moment where they haven’t detected his presence, muttering to each other in Zemnian. Astrid laughs, elbows Eadwulf as they land on the floor. He doesn’t have the chance to respond, though, because that’s when Essek drops his concentration.

They don’t freeze, like most people would. Their instinct is to scatter so they don’t present a single target, dropping into a ready position, hands out to cast. Then they recognize him, and the moment passes. They straighten out, still wary but putting some effort into appearing human.

It must be terrifying, to be hunted by them.

“Essek. Do you need something?” Eadwulf asks, approaching slowly. Astrid hangs back, tense and bright-eyed.

“You don’t like it when it happens to you, do you? Someone showing up at your door unannounced,” Essek says. Then he steps forward to close the distance between him and Eadwulf, grabbing him by the collar to pull him down to the same level.

In half a second, Astrid has moved to get a clear line of sight on Essek, hands raised once more. Eadwulf is wide-eyed, scarcely breathing. Essek can’t pull him any closer on account of the blade Eadwulf is holding steady against his throat.

“That works, too,” he says breathlessly. “You knew exactly what they’d find about Levran Hythenos. You went through the pretense of setting me up to sabotage myself, but you knew exactly where it would lead them. You planned this months ago. You lied to me. You can do that about everything else, but not—” His voice breaks. He swallows against the edge of the knife, says, “You let me believe you were getting me killed.”

Silence. Then Astrid says, “We thought about telling you earlier. But we were worried that you would panic and ruin the whole thing, if you knew.”

“Would you have believed us?” Eadwulf asks, barely louder than a whisper, meeting his gaze without blinking. “What would you think, if we told you something like that?”

Essek would have assumed that they were helping him just to garner favor. He would think they had some ulterior motive for telling him. He wouldn’t believe it was that simple. 

“You didn’t even know me back when you began this. Why help me?”

Astrid shrugs, though her stance doesn’t waver. “You’d given up, and it was upsetting the Nein,” she says, her tone casual. “And your arrest would have put them in danger, either by implicating them directly or via their harebrained rescue plan. At the very least we figured it was worth gaining a favor from Bren. It was nothing pers—”

“You don’t get to invoke the name of a dead boy to hide the fact that you did something kind,” Essek hisses.

Astrid lowers her hands.

“Maybe,” Eadwulf says, “we just thought it was a waste.” And then he says something in Zemnian, finally breaking eye contact to look over at Astrid. 

It takes several seconds for her to respond in kind. Essek can’t turn to look at her directly, not without cutting his neck, but he thinks that maybe she gives the smallest of nods as well.

“Look me in the eye,” Essek says, “and tell me that it’s nothing personal. Tell me that you were just trying to gain a favor, from me or Caleb, I don’t care which. Tell me that you don’t care. Do it.”

“No,” Eadwulf says, and lets the knife clatter to the ground.

Essek kisses him.

For some reason he expects him to taste like ozone. Something sharp and acrid and ethereal. But he tastes like—well, mouth, mostly, and a hint of that tea that Essek doesn’t care for, and there’s nothing immaterial about him. Essek is probably out of his depth and he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing with his mouth let alone his life choices and he doesn’t care. Eadwulf is the one who finally breaks away, breathing heavily. He glances over to Astrid, who has gotten very close while Essek was otherwise preoccupied.

She reaches between them, plucks Essek’s hand away from Eadwulf’s collar. Shifts to take his place, places her hand against Essek’s sternum. She doesn’t exert any force, but he finds himself moving backward, balanced on the knife’s edge of fear and arousal. He doesn’t hit the wall with any force but it still knocks the breath out of him. Her other hand finds his hair, breaking apart the carefully styled strands to tug, to expose his neck. She presses a kiss to the base of his throat, works her way up, breath ghosting across his jugular. He wonders if she can feel how erratic his heartbeat has become. She doesn’t nip, doesn’t leave a mark, just reminds him that she has teeth.

“Do you want to go to a bedroom and continue this,” she murmurs into his ear, “or do you need some time to think about what you’re doing?”

He swallows. Every rational part of his brain says that this is a terrible idea. Every irrational one says more, more. “Time,” he finally manages to croak, and the hand disappears from his hair, as does the touch at his sternum. She kisses him, just a soft peck on the lips, and steps back with a smile, one that lets him know that she’s laughing at him but not too unkindly.

“You probably should have been home hours ago,” she says. “Go, then.”

Essek steps unsteadily past them. Hesitates, looks back. They’re both staring at him, unblinking, hungry.

“We’ll still be around,” says Eadwulf. “If you’re interested.”

Essek doesn’t say that he is interested, in a terrible way, the sort of greedy curiosity that makes him reckless and stupid, the sort of interest that doesn’t care about consequences, that starts wars.

He flees the tower, teleports to his own. Makes it to his bedroom but doesn’t get as far as removing any clothing, just shoves a hand beneath his waistband and thinks about the sharp intake of breath when he’d pulled Eadwulf close, the scrape of teeth against his pulse, the way they’d looked at him—

Afterwards, he fumbles through the somatic component for Prestidigitation twice before getting it right. Flops back against his bed. Stares up at his ceiling, which does not have any stars.

“Fuck,” he says, just to hear himself say it.

Essek throws himself into work with wild abandon, because the other option is to think.

It becomes more difficult to avoid, the closer he comes to his next visit to Zadash. He doesn’t have to go, technically. The scourgers might not even be there. But he—

He wants, and that terrifies him just a little.

Finally, late into the evening, Essek teleports to the Nein’s rooftop garden. Digs around in a bush until he finds what he’s looking for. Pulls out his spellbook, flips to a rarely-used page, crushes the cocoon as he casts.

It is very hard to think when you’re a cat.

He doesn’t really forget who he is, but everything seems very—big, and vague, and there’s a tree. He scratches the tree. That feels good, the long stretch, the texture of bark catching his claws.

So. There’s a lot of people he likes, and some of them like him back, but that’s some kind of problem or something. Because those ones are dangerous. Not dangerous-to-him but dangerous-to-other-stuff. He’s dangerous, though. And he has claws now, which makes climbing the tree really easy. And there’s a really good view from the tree.

Right. So. The danger. There’s that whole complicated bad thing that he did and he doesn’t want that to happen again. And he did it because he wanted a fancy magic thing, and the scary magic people convinced him to get the fancy thing and give it to them. He’s not sure why he didn’t keep it for himself, if he wanted it. Just moving it from somewhere he couldn’t have it to somewhere else he couldn’t have it seems really stupid, now that he thinks about—

Bird.

He goes still. The bird lands on a branch above him, hops to another twig. Makes a little chree-eep-eep sound. Maybe if he stays very still and moves very slowly, he can—

The bird flies away.

Fuck.

Anyhow. The scary magic people took the thing and everything got complicated in a very large way. And this whole other thing with the dangerous people he likes is a small complicated thing. But. It could get bigger if they’re actually bad people, or if they’re working for any of the scary magic people who aren’t dead yet.

Also, even if they aren’t bad, a small complicated thing is still complicated. Or something like that. He isn’t sure how he’s going to get out of the tree, which seems like a bigger problem right now. The only reason this other thing is even a problem is because he doesn’t know things, and he can do stuff to learn them. Like talk to people, when he has a mouth that can do that.

He can also do magic, when he has fingers. That would probably help with getting out of the tree. All he needs to do is let go of the spell and—

The fundamental issue with being a cat is that cats do not have a very good understanding of gravity, or relative body mass, or the tensile strength of tree branches, and how all of this might become a problem when you stop being a cat very suddenly. Thankfully Essek falls onto the roof instead of all the way to the ground, but it’s still terribly embarrassing.

He takes a few minutes to brush himself off, pick leaves out of his hair, prestidigitate his clothes, settle himself, take a few deep breaths. And then he casts Sending. 

“I am interested, but I’d like to talk before we go any further, to discuss expectations and boundaries. Will you be around tomorrow?”

The resulting silence is long enough to make him regret asking, and he’s contemplating casting again when Astrid finally responds. “That’s probably wise. We’ll be around.”

—

The thing is, he’s not used to knowing that they’ll be there. He never asks whether they plan to show up on any given day, partially because the few times that the Nein have attempted to make plans with them they’ve been vague and uncooperative, and partially because—

Well. All evidence suggests that they’re vehemently opposed to anyone keeping tabs on them, and he’d like to give them whatever privacy he can afford them.

There’s usually lower personal stakes involved, of course. Essek spends far too much of the morning standing in front of a mirror, adjusting his hair, his clothes. He lines his eyes with the makeup Jester gave him, then scrubs it off, washes his entire face and starts over. It’s too obvious, makes the rest of his efforts visible. He’s not even sure how the day is going to go, and he doesn’t want to seem too—eager, vulnerable.

He takes one last look in the mirror, when he’s done. He looks pristine, effortlessly beautiful. Clean. Distant. Untouchable.

Essek sighs, and goes to line his eyes in silver again before teleporting to Zadash.

—

Caleb is waiting outside the tower door, which is a new one.

He stares at Essek for several moments, blinking, before collecting himself. “Ah. Hello, Essek.”

“Have you been kicked out of your own tower?”

“No, I was—Wulf and Astrid are inside, and they believe that I left for the day, but I am, ah. Rather concerned about something they said. Something they implied?” He shakes his head. “Just. Are you okay?”

“Yes. Though now I’m terribly interested in knowing what they said that implied that I am not.”

Caleb tilts his head, gives half a shrug. “Nothing directly. But I gathered that maybe your most recent interaction was...unexpected? Emotionally charged? Something along those lines.”

“It...was.”

Caleb squares his shoulders. “I don’t mean to—to impose, or suggest that you are incapable, but. If you would like me to intercede on your behalf, I am more than willing. You are my guest as much as they are.”

It takes Essek a solid ten seconds just to process what is happening. Then, “While I am utterly charmed by your eagerness to jump to my defense, I think that you have misinterpreted what happened. If anything, I was the instigator, and it—this isn’t exactly—it wasn’t bad, just perhaps a little—I’m not sure how to explain.”

Caleb raises his hands, takes half a step back. “You don’t need to explain anything. I’ve overstepped, and you have a better understanding of the situation.”

“I’m not certain that you have, and I’m not certain that I do. May I—if I asked you for some advice, can you promise not to laugh at me?”

Now he looks puzzled. “Ja. Of course.”

Essek takes a second to collect his thoughts. “So. In your professional—or perhaps this is personal—in your opinion, how, ah—how fucked am I if I’ve kissed both of them?”

“Oh.” Caleb, to his credit, does not laugh. Less to his credit, he says, “I think how fucked you are depends on how interested you are in being fucked, in this instance.”

“Caleb. I’m being serious. You know them better than I do.”

His smile falters. “What are you worried will happen?”

“I don’t—” Essek sighs, almost scrubs a hand across his face before remembering that he’s wearing makeup. “I am fully aware that this is a terrible idea. If I get hurt, then that’s my own fault. But I am also someone whose terrible ideas have had terrible consequences. So, I am—I’m worried about whether this might have any fallout on a greater scale. You were the one warning me that they’re charming on purpose, that they might have ulterior motives. I don’t need you to tell me that this is stupid. I just want to know if it’s dangerous.”

Caleb considers him for a moment. “Nein. No. I don’t think that’s what they are doing.”

“Okay. Thank you. And I’m sorry for needing to ask.”

“I think it’s good that you are.” A pause. “Essek? Please be careful with them.”

“As I said, I’m already aware this is a bad idea.”

“No, not—I don’t have the right to ask, not anymore. This is none of my business. But I am not saying be careful because I’m worried for you. Well. I am worried for you, just a little,” he admits. “But. I still care about both of them, after everything. They’ve lost so much. Just...be careful, with them.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And you know, I don’t think that this is stupid, or that it will necessarily end poorly for you. I think you could be happy together, all of you. I’m glad that you can have that.”

Essek hesitates. “You say that like you can’t.”

Caleb grimaces.

“Caleb Widogast. You must know by now. It’s one thing if you don’t want any of us. We’re terrible, and I don’t know if any of us can learn how to be not terrible. But if you do—none of us can ask you. But if you asked, for me at least the answer would be yes.”

Caleb looks at him without really looking at him, distant and blinking. Finally, very quiet, “I’m not asking, Essek.”

“Ah. Right. Well. I am glad we cleared that up, then,” Essek says, half an octave too high. “I will just be, ah—goodbye.” He flees into the tower, and Caleb does not follow.

—

Essek only catches a glimpse of the scourgers’ faces peering at him from the couch before he continues past them and finds a nook with enough cushions to drown himself in.

They must have followed him, because there’s a presence hovering in the doorway. “You should have killed me when we first met,” he says into a pillow. “It would have spared me some dignity.”

“What happened?” Eadwulf asks, equal parts bemused and amused.

“Oh, you’d said something vague to Caleb and he jumped to the wrong conclusions. So I explained a little and asked him for advice about you two.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” he says.

“It was mostly fine, if a little awkward. The bad part is immediately afterwards, when I all but propositioned him and he declined and then I ran away.”

They laugh. A lot. After ten seconds Essek looks up to glare at them. Astrid is leaning back against a bookshelf, cackling in a way that’s both slightly unhinged and utterly charming. Her laughter is usually very—scripted. 

“I didn’t think you’d get so frisky,” she says. “Fuck, Essek.”

“It’s not that funny,” he mutters, trying his best to be cross. It’s not easy. There’s no cruel edge to their laughter, just a hint of strangely reassuring nervous hysteria.

“It’s very funny,” Eadwulf says. “We were going to talk?”

“Can you stop giggling, first?”

Eadwulf clears his throat, dons a stoic expression. Elbows Astrid. She mostly manages to contain herself, says, “I didn’t expect this to begin with—with you launching yourself into a pile of pillows. Maybe we should just—sit, and start over.”

Eadwulf offers him a hand, which Essek accepts, and pulls him up so easily that it makes him self-conscious about his slight frame.

(Also a little aroused, but—not yet, not quite yet.)

Astrid wanders over to the couch, sits at her usual perch on the arm. Eadwulf sits as well, just a little more space between them than usual. It could just be coincidence, or he could be making it look coincidental to give Essek an easy out. He hesitates for a moment. Sits between them. His chair isn’t nearly as comfortable as the couch.

“Before we talk about anything else,” Essek says, “I really must ask how you did it. The Dynasty seemed thoroughly convinced.”

Eadwulf hums. “We didn’t do much.”

“You’d run out of contingency plans,” Astrid says. “So we borrowed someone else’s.”

He hesitates for a moment. “Trent?”

The slightest nod, from Eadwulf. Astrid says, “He was just as worried about the other Assembly mages betraying him as he was about you. This one was originally intended to implicate Ludinus, but it did very conveniently happen to exonerate you.”

“How many did he have killed for a contingency plan?”

“Eight just for this. Twelve if you add the ones killed to guarantee access to the beacons,” Eadwulf says, very nonchalant. It’s the same sort of unaffected ease that he uses to downplay the importance of something, to disguise intimate personal details or—oh.

They’ve always been very familiar with Rosohna. Very insistent that Essek was not the only one responsible.

“How many times did you modify their memories?” he asks, because that’s the only reasonable way it could have worked.

“Once, for the decoys,” Astrid says. “Levran had half a dozen, not including the attempts that he resisted. Elves are difficult to charm.”

“It seems that I am evidence to the contrary.”

The humor doesn’t quite land. A hint of concern flickers across Eadwulf’s face.

“That was a joke about you being charming, not about my memories being modified,” Essek says, and the concern clears. “You know, I actually had them check,” he adds. “The first time that you visited me. The entire thing was extremely brief and strange, and it was my only hypothesis.”

“We wouldn’t do that to you,” Eadwulf says, very softly.

“I know that,” he says, and discovers that he isn’t lying. “But I didn’t know it at the time. I would never do that to you, either, if you had any doubt.”

“Oh, we know. If there was any doubt then this conversation wouldn’t be happening,” Astrid says breezily.

“If you did that to me,” Eadwulf says, still very softly, “if you even tried it, I would kill you.”

Essek holds his gaze. “You would have every right to.”

Silence. Then Astrid says, “I’m glad this is the first thing we discussed on the list of personal boundaries,” and Eadwulf snorts, the tension broken.

“It isn’t a terrible rule, all things considered,” Essek says. “One, our minds remain our own. And for another I would propose—I need—” He breaks off, frowns. “I don’t care if you lie. But I need you to be honest.”

A pause. Astrid says, “I think I understand what you mean, but for the sake of not misinterpreting an oxymoron, you should probably explain that one anyhow.”

“Well.” Essek makes a vague gesture. “Not lying to people is, frankly, exhausting. I have tried it with the Nein, but—there is some trite little adage in Common, about changing habits—”

“Old habits die hard?” Astrid suggests.

“Yes. That. But the least I can do is be clear in my intentions, if not always my words. So. No pretending you haven’t been stabbed because I might panic, no elaborate plots to save me that you never explain because you’re worried about my reaction, no—” He cuts himself short, resists the urge to rub at his eyes. It took him too long to get the eyeliner symmetrical.

“...you think we should tell Caleb about helping him escape,” Eadwulf says.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking—well. You probably should at some point, yes. But I don’t want to make some sort of ultimatum about that. It isn’t part of this.”

“It may not be part of this, but let’s not pretend that we don’t need to discuss Caleb,” Astrid says. “Considering that we’re all hopelessly in love with him.”

No one denies it.

“Perhaps before we examine that, we should establish what this is?” Essek asks.

Eadwulf shrugs. Astrid says, “That depends. What do you want, Essek Thelyss?”

“I am...not entirely certain. I am rather inexperienced in this regard,” he admits.

“I assume you’re not opposed to more kissing,” she says dryly.

“Ah. No, that would be a good place to start.”

“Sex?” Eadwulf asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Also very interested. But, as I mentioned, more inexperienced than one might assume. I may need, ah, time to work up to certain things.”

“We can work with that.” Astrid shrugs, tilts her head. “I’m guessing you don’t want to fuck and be done with it, then.”

“No.”

“Hm. How casual do you intend this to be?”

“I don’t do anything casually,” he says. It’s not necessarily a lie, but perhaps he can afford a little more vulnerability than that, so he adds, “Against my better judgement, I have become...invested. Intensely so.”

He hadn’t thought Eadwulf was tense, before, but he visibly relaxes.

“Good,” Astrid says. Then, with an unusually awkward hesitance, “Things can get...complicated, even with two people. More so with three. If you would rather...”

“Nothing I do is simple, either.”

She smiles at that.

“Though speaking of making things complicated, I have absolutely no desire to mix sex and politics, here.”

“That’s fair,” says Eadwulf. “Do we stop with the politics completely? Or do we just—” He makes a gesture, which takes Essek a second to recognize as the somatic component for a Resilient Sphere.

“That works. I enjoy the game more that I should,” Essek admits. “But I don’t want this to end up as a series of political favors. Better to keep that out of my personal life.”

“Of course,” Astrid says. “I assume it would be bad for you if word of this reached the Dynasty.”

“Very.”

“Then it won’t.”

This is all very—he’s been so anxious, about this, just conceptually—the possibility of them having anything approaching a stable relationship had seemed so incredibly optimistic. But here they are, sitting on a couch and having a conversation like reasonable, emotionally mature adults and not three disasters in a trenchcoat. This is helping.

“As far as word of this reaching other people—” Essek sighs, leans further back into the couch. “I can only assume that the Mighty Nein will guess what’s going on eventually, but we don’t have to confirm if you would prefer. Some of them are still uncertain whether or not the two of you are together, on account of how you, ah—avoid any displays of affection, publicly.”

A pause. Eadwulf says, “It’s not secret. There’s a difference, between hiding something and—” He frowns, doesn’t finish the thought.

“When you’ve lived a certain kind of life,” Astrid says carefully, “there are certain things that you learn to avoid.”

“It’s not dangerous anymore. Just—”

“Old habits die hard,” Essek guesses, and he nods.

“I’m not opposed to...unlearning some of that,” Astrid says, picking at a loose thread on the couch. “But. Perhaps not all at once. Not immediately.”

“That’s entirely reasonable. How about I leave you to initiate any, ah, contact of that nature, when there are people around?”

“Ja. That works,” Eadwulf says.

Astrid’s smile turns impish. “Hm. Like this?” She reaches over, traces a fingertip down the length of his ear, under his jawline. Essek swallows and lets her tip his chin up, not daring to blink. She looks back at him for a moment before closing the distance between them. She has to lean down—she’s still on the arm of the couch, and Essek is average height for a drow, which is still almost two inches shorter than her—but she manages to get the right angle to kiss him. It’s unfortunately brief, and Essek is left chasing her when she leans away, a little dazed.

“Yes. That works,” he says faintly.

“Good,” she says, and slides off the arm of the couch to straddle his lap, capturing his noise of surprise in her mouth. The angle is better now. Everything is better now—the heat of her body pressed up against his, the way she nips at his lower lip, the hand mussing his hair into an unsalvageable state, and another hand that must be Eadwulf’s, on his knee, sliding to the inside of his thigh, fuck—

“How about that?” Astrid asks when she finally pulls away.

“I think I have to revise my assessment yet again,” Essek says once he catches his breath. “Perhaps you will be the death of me, just not in the manner I initially assumed.”

She laughs, slides off Essek’s lap to sit between the two of them. Tilts her head towards Eadwulf. “When we get in a fight—when, not if—don’t choose a side, don’t intervene. That doesn’t make things better.”

“Of course.”

Eadwulf clears his throat. “Can we extend that to all of us? No playing messenger.”

“I’d be fine with that,” Astrid says.

Essek nods. “Does that apply to disputes with outside parties? The Nein, others?”

“If Beauregard is mad at me just get the hell out of range,” Eadwulf says immediately.

Astrid laughs. “Ja. Just use our best judgement for the rest? There’s a difference between maintaining friendships and this.”

“Yes, that’s true. Also,” Essek says. Pauses as he realizes he doesn’t really know how to phrase the rest. They wait patiently. Finally he says, “I, ah. I have no plans on becoming romantically involved with anyone else?”

Eadwulf shrugs. “Same here.”

“Ja. Except...”

“Well, Caleb, yes, obviously. It seems I have very thoroughly burned that bridge myself, but if he ever expresses interest in either of you I’d be rather disappointed if you didn’t take the chance.”

“It’s more likely he’ll change his mind on you than us,” Eadwulf says. “Less...history, I think.”

“Also, you’re the hottest wizard,” Astrid adds. “Objectively. The Mighty Nein voted on it.”

Essek snorts. “So they have told me, though I’m not sure that I agree.”

“Knowing how vain you are, I assume that was meant as a compliment and not self-deprecation.”

“It’s not vanity if I’m correct. But yes, you are both terribly attractive. Congratulations.”

She laughs. “Well, regardless, if it ever does happen I will also be disappointed if you turn Caleb down.”

“Most eligible bachelor in this city,” Eadwulf mutters.

Astrid hums. “Another thing. If we ever get captured together and tortured for information—”

“Extremely normal things.” Essek has been feeling less nervous the longer the conversation goes on, but maybe that was a false sense of security.

“For us? Ja. If I ever get tortured in front of you, you aren’t allowed to break. You might think that you’re stopping them from hurting me, but all it really does is teach our captors that all they have to do is parade me out and start stabbing me whenever they want information. If you’re going to tell them anything, do it on your own time.”

“That seems...oddly specific.”

Eadwulf has been slowly sliding down the couch, shoulders hunched. “It’s been over a decade,” he mumbles.

“I’ll stop complaining when the scars have faded. You’re lucky it was only a training exercise.”

Essek clears his throat. “Ah. Regarding...that particular history. Do you mind if I ask questions, or would you rather not go into detail about that period of your life? Or—I was under the impression that all three of you knew each other before then?”

The scourgers glance at each other. Eadwulf shrugs, and Astrid sighs, turns back to Essek. “You can ask, but I can’t guarantee an answer. And ja. We all grew up together, went to school together. We were still children, really, when it ended.”

Her phrasing is vague, but— “Jester was under the impression that you were dating Caleb?”

She hums. “Him and I started dating in school, and then Wulf got involved. We didn’t have any idea what we were doing. It would’ve ended in flames even if things hadn’t turned out how they did.”

“Wasn’t really the same without him,” Eadwulf mutters.

“Evidently you managed to make it work,” Essek says, and Eadwulf laughs, once, too loudly.

“We broke up a year after graduation,” Astrid says blandly. Waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. “We decided we’d be better as friends, saw other people, etcetera.”

“We failed at being friends,” Eadwulf adds.

“Oh, absolutely. There were a few years where I hated you more than I hated Trent. He was very good at turning us against each other. It took a while to reach an understanding in spite of that.” She leans her head against Eadwulf’s shoulder, looks up at him. “It’s been what, six years since we became something approximating friends again?”

“Something like that. It was a little after he left.”

“I’ll admit that it is difficult to imagine you as enemies. You two are...very in tune with each other.”

They both shrug, perfectly synchronized.

“We’ve known each other too long.”

“We understand each other,” Astrid says. “You see different facets of someone, when you’re enemies, things you wouldn’t learn otherwise.”

“How long have you been romantically involved, then?”

There’s a pause while they both think about it. “Six months, maybe?” Astrid says at last, a little subdued.

“Oh.”

“We did fuck a few times in between,” Eadwulf adds. “But. Ja.”

“It could have happened sooner, but we had more important things to do. He would’ve twisted it again, anyhow.”

“Six months is—” Essek tries to do the math. Not only is it after the fall of the Assembly, it’s—

“I think our first date was going to bully you, technically,” Astrid says.

“We got coffee beforehand.”

“Mm, ja. But it was horrible coffee. I think Essek was the highlight.”

“I cannot believe you know Rosohna as well as you do and you still made the mistake of going to the cafe near my home,” Essek says, still processing.

“We didn’t exactly have permission to go exploring there, until recently.”

“Fair enough. And now, do you think—I promise that I’m not fishing for information, here. But your current employer isn’t going to have issues with any of this?”

“I highly doubt it,” Astrid says, with a dangerous little smirk.

Eadwulf matches her expression. “If they do, maybe it’s time to learn some disobedience.”

Essek considers them for a moment, self-satisfied and predatory and so terribly beautiful for it. “You know, I always imagined you as a pair of wolves,” he says fondly, “temporarily fooled into thinking that you were dogs.”

“Hm.” Eadwulf’s lips quirk into a wry smile. “A little bobcat sitting in a henhouse, waiting for a dead rooster to summon the farmer.”

“I think more like a fox in a trap, gnawing off the wrong leg.”

“That, too.”

Comfortable silence. Then, “I think Caleb is worried that I’ll break your hearts.”

“Not much left to break,” Eadwulf mutters.

“I think,” Essek says, “that’s why he’s worried.”

He has a...strange and tense week, in Rosohna, part of him still waiting for the rug to be pulled from beneath him. And then he receives a formal dinner invite from his mother.

He reads it over twice, just to be sure. A public affair, with other dens attending. His mother is a complicated person, always thinking of Den Thelyss first, which means Essek is no longer considered a potential liability, which means—

He’s safe. Or— nothing I do is safe —at least as safe as he’s ever been. 

Essek sits down heavily and thinks about whether or not to accept the invite. Declining it would send a message, implying a grudge over the distance his den has held him at all these months. And perhaps that would be a good thing. The stronger ties he has to his own den, the more likely people from other dens are to assume that he’s acting to further its status.

The internal politics of Rosohna never interfered with his official duties before, and reestablishing ties with his den wouldn’t significantly affect that again. But his personal goals have changed. The strife and squabble of feuding dens may not have much of an impact on private arcane research, but it’s detrimental if he’s trying to build bridges. Better to appear as a neutral party.

He needed Den Thelyss, when he was younger, their resources and political sway. But he’s much more established now, and he has other allies both within the Dynasty and outside it. He can afford to keep them at arm’s length, and they cannot afford to disown him entirely.

—

In Zadash, he has a strange and tense week for much better reasons. Essek has never had anything that really qualified as a sex life before now, so he doesn’t have a proper frame of reference, but as far as he’s concerned things are going quite well in that regard.

There has been a lot of what can really only be classified as making out. Both scourgers are significantly better at it than he is, though after a week Astrid makes some comment about Essek being a quick learner with enough speculative innuendo to make him blush.

Eadwulf is inconveniently tall. Essek finally solves this by pinning him against a wall and levitating nearly a foot to get a better angle. It’s the most dunamancy Essek’s ever shown him, but he’s not particularly concerned about the scourgers figuring out that trick considering that no one in the Dynasty has managed to replicate it, even after years of observation. Eadwulf ends up a panting mess, Essek not much better off. There’s a breathless exchange of can I—do you want me to—? before Essek realizes that he needs a new wardrobe, or at least pants with simpler closures, because it takes much longer for Eadwulf to get a hand on him than the other way around. 

Kissing is probably— fuck —Essek may suddenly be lacking the coordination necessary to make kissing Eadwulf on the mouth enjoyable instead of some kind of teeth-clacking nightmare. He settles for ravaging his neck instead, which turns out to be a very good idea because Eadwulf finally makes noise when Essek nips a little harder than he’d intended, a just single cut-off moan. Essek’s probably left a mark and maybe he should feel guilty about that but his thoughts have dissolved into inarticulate pleasure and asinine things like oh fuck fuck fuck his clever fucking hands, oh, oh fuck—

There’s a knock at the door— tap, taptap, taptaptap, tap —to which Eadwulf responds in Zemnian in an extraordinarily even tone considering the way Essek tenses. The door clicks open. Essek makes an incredibly inelegant sound and tips over the edge, pressing his face into Eadwulf’s shoulder in a futile attempt to muffle the mortifying whine emanating from his throat.

“I hate to interrupt,” Astrid says dryly.

“I don’t think he minded,” Eadwulf says, strained. “Did you?”

Essek tries to protest, but it comes out as something inarticulate and terribly embarrassed.

“I’m—you stopped,” Eadwulf mumbles after another moment, and Essek at least has the grace to continue, with more finesse now that he’s no longer splitting his attention. Only after Eadwulf finishes with a silent gasp does Essek stop hiding his face.

Astrid is still there, watching with open amusement. “Caleb was thinking of going out for dinner, if you aren’t too busy.”

“I’m sure I could clear time in my schedule,” Essek says, fumbling with the damnably complicated clasps on his pants. He almost wipes his hand off on them, pauses as he realizes that he doesn’t have any chance of casting Prestidigitation in front of the scourgers. Opts for one of the embroidered cushions instead, and Astrid gives a knowing smirk.

—

He is asked, very quietly and unofficially, to serve as a liaison of sorts between various non-governmental powers with influence in the Empire, in addition to continuing his interaction with the scourgers.

The Dynasty has ambassadors, of course, and spies, but those all have limited use. And Essek already has a rapport with the Nein, with all their ties to various actors working behind the curtain. The Cobalt Soul, via Beau. A bit of the criminal underworld, via Jester. And the Academy, no longer tied to the Crown but still influential, via Caleb.

Essek agrees, but asks to wait to work out details until the Nein return from their trip.

His hesitation has nothing to do with the absent members of the Nein, but he—he needs time to think about it. It’s a good idea, in theory. It’s a great idea. It’s his idea, technically, things he’s been subtly suggesting for months, to work with the Soul, to create alliances with prominent actors in the Empire. And Essek may not be the ideal diplomat, but he’s close to the Nein—

That’s what would make it work, and therein lies the problem. He’s interacted with them in a professional context before, when they were guests to be closely watched. He wants this to work, but he doesn’t want to go back to the way things used to be.

Specifically with Caleb, if he’s being honest with himself. Things are so...delicate, right now. Awkward, while they try to navigate the subtle shift in their dynamic brought about by Essek’s graceless confession and the consequent rejection. And Essek doesn’t want their relationship to end up being primarily political, professional. 

Which may be selfish of him. But he wants both. Caleb as the political reformer, peacewinner, the hero and the beacon and the instigator. But also Caleb in his quiet moments, Caleb with expensive ink smudged on his face, Caleb humming a song off-tune, Caleb arguing about something ridiculous with the Nein in a very serious tone, Caleb with a helplessly fond smile when he notices Astrid stealing food from Eadwulf’s plate, Caleb half-asleep mumbling terribly soft things in Zemnian—

He wants both. Of course it’s selfish of him.

—

Essek quickly discovers that Eadwulf is a cuddler. Better yet, despite their difference in stature, he still likes to be the one held. Logistically it’s a little ridiculous, but mostly Essek finds it delightfully endearing.

Eadwulf’s bedroom is also the most comfortable. Whereas Astrid’s room is clean, minimalistically decorated, a collection of maps along the walls and books along the shelves, Eadwulf’s room is filled with pillows and blankets and detail. All of the stained glass in Caleb’s tower is gorgeous, but he’s outdone himself here, impossibly delicate swirls of color hiding behind black feathers. The woodwork is intricately carved, the cushions have patterns embroidered along the edges.

The first time he ends up in Eadwulf’s bed, Essek finds a knife under the pillow. He’s still a scourger, after all. Eadwulf makes a point of tossing that to the other side of the room, along with a knife that he draws from the headboard, the handle hidden amongst the carvings.

The reason for this becomes clear later, hours after he’s fallen into a sated slumber, Essek’s arms wrapped around him. His breathing changes first, picking up slightly. Essek drops out of his trance, not sure if Eadwulf has woken up or if he’s having some kind of nightmare. That’s answered a moment later when he starts awake and reaches under the pillow. Freezes when there’s nothing there.

“I’m here,” Essek says, partially as reassurance and partially because he doesn’t want to get stabbed. Eadwulf doesn’t react. He isn’t breathing. Essek can feel his heart racing beneath his hand, but he doesn’t breathe.

After a minute or so, Essek says, “It is very impressive that you can hold your breath for this long, but I’m starting to become concerned.”

Eadwulf lets out a long shuddering sigh, followed by a sharp inhale. It’s still half a minute before he takes another breath, and another. Essek traces geometric patterns over his collarbone as he gradually melts back against him. Sleep comes less easily, the second time around, but the rest of the night goes untroubled.

—

The next time he visits, Eadwulf is absent, as is Caleb. Essek and Astrid begin talking about politics and end up naked on her bed, his head between her legs. Once he gets past the embarrassing stage of not knowing what the hell he’s doing and needing to be coached through the process, he ends up enjoying himself considerably more than he’d anticipated.

Even so, Essek finds himself strangely anxious about the idea of Astrid reciprocating. She doesn’t push the matter, and he ends up curled against her while her thumb strokes absentmindedly along the length of one of his ears, so lightly that it doesn’t disturb the chain strung through the lobe.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and doesn’t elaborate because the explanation is part you have teeth and part I would only last ten seconds and he’s not sure which is worse.

“I don’t see anything to apologize for,” Astrid says. “I was right. You do learn quickly.” And then, less smug, “You did tell us that you wanted to take it slow. Was that—too much?”

He glances at her. Sighs, closes his eyes for a moment. “Maybe. In a good way?”

“Mm. As long as I haven’t scared you away.”

“You’re allowed to be a little frightening. It’s part of the appeal.”

She laughs. Feeling emboldened, he reaches to take her hand, the one still stroking faint lines across the tip of his ear. Presses a kiss to her palm, the inside of her wrist. Astrid grins, wraps her hand around the back of his neck and pulls him over for a proper kiss.

A few minutes back in familiar territory has Essek feeling less nervous and more desperate. He can’t help the way his hips jerk, the stuttered gasp, when Astrid nibbles at his earlobe.

“I’m—can you—?”

“Hm?” She pulls back a bit, her smile downright lascivious, and Essek closes his eyes because he can’t think straight when she’s looking at him like that.

“Fuck. Just—may I have your hand?”

Astrid laughs. “That can be arranged.”

She takes her time, trailing fingers down his chest, the soft planes of his abdomen, blunt nails tracing unfamiliar patterns across his skin, making him think yet again about what her spellbook must look like. Then her hand reaches lower, and Essek stops thinking about anything at all.

—

A year ago, if you’d asked Essek about happiness, he wouldn’t have had any good answers.

Six months ago, he would’ve said happiness is something like feet dipped in a hot tub, ball bearings rolling across the floor, slightly crushed pastries, the rumbling purr of a cat that is not actually a cat on his lap, many voices speaking over each other, words popping into his head at unexpected times, holding hands for a Teleport just because he can, stained glass and hot cocoa.

Now, he would add that happiness is also reading on a couch in the tower library, two warm bodies pressed up against him, the subtle sound of thread pulled through fabric, a lazy kiss pressed against his wrist when Astrid captures his hand after he sets down his tea. The cat curled up watching them from the chair isn’t one of the tower cats, but neither scourger seems to mind. Perhaps that will change when the Nein return, fairly soon now, but their hesitancy about public displays of affection doesn’t seem to apply to Caleb.

It might have something to do with the fact that they’re all still madly in love with him.

Essek had been a little worried that all of this would fall apart immediately, that in a week or two they’d realize that he’s just a distraction. That maybe they’re all distractions for each other, that maybe this is a horrible idea and they’re all just trying to find a substitute for Caleb. That would make sense, at least.

It doesn’t happen, though. And he’s so terribly glad that it doesn’t.

Maybe things would be different if Caleb wasn’t out of reach. Maybe they wouldn’t be. He’s not sure where the scourgers stand on the matter, but if Essek were forced to choose between him and them—

Three weeks ago the answer would have been obvious. Now the mere question hurts. He doesn’t want to choose. He wants both. He’s selfish like that. He’s beginning to think that they are, too.

Of course there’s no point in that hypothetical, because Caleb hasn’t shown any interest in joining them and none of them can ask. And Essek can think of a million reasons why Caleb shouldn’t be involved. They’ve all hurt him. They’re all such imperfect people, and they will probably hurt him again even though they don’t mean to. Maybe they’re too complicated. Maybe they don’t love him the right way. Maybe it is terrible, to be loved by people like them. Maybe they only love an idea of him, maybe they’ve been beguiled by his brilliant mind and his unexpected humor and the subtle intensity of his attention, and they don’t really understand who he is, just who they want him to be, maybe they don’t see him—

These are all petty distractions from the simplest and most terrible reason: maybe Caleb doesn’t love them back.

—

“What was he like, before?” he asks Eadwulf.

He hums. “Different. People change after that much time, even when they don’t live lives like ours. You probably know him better than we do, now.”

“What was he like?” Essek asks again.

Eadwulf takes longer to answer, this time. “A lot like you. Eager to prove himself. Dangerous. Clever. Fell in love too easily.” He tilts his head to look at Essek, the corners of his mouth curling into a smile. “Also, nothing like you at all.”

—

“What were they like, before?” he asks Caleb.

“Hm. Almost exactly the same. People grow older, learn from their mistakes. But some things never change.”

Essek thinks that that’s all he’s going to say. But after a moment, in a quieter voice, “They were softer, back then.” And, quieter still, “Safe.”

He can imagine the three of them in the beginning, so much younger, people who had never really hurt each other. He wants to ask if Caleb still loves them but he thinks it will break his heart if the answer is no.

“What were your parents like?” Essek asks instead.

For a moment he thinks it was a bad question, a flash of pain crossing Caleb’s face. “They were very proud of me,” he says. “Especially when I was chosen to study at Soltryce. We lived in a farming village, and we never had much. My father was a soldier, but he never wanted that for me. Wulf, ah—Wulf had been thinking about it at one point, when we were younger, and he pulled him aside to have a very stern talk with him about the importance of a good education.” He smiles at that, just slightly. “My mother said that maybe they should encourage him to join the military, so he’d learn some discipline and stop stealing her pies off the windowsill. I never told her that I was the one who told him to do it, or that we’d always split the prize. I think, ah. I think maybe she knew, though, because—”

Once Caleb has started talking, he doesn’t seem to know how to stop. It may have been a very long time ago, but he remembers it very clearly. Essek’s own childhood is even further away, and hazy, and what he remembers is not nearly as warm.

Eventually Caleb runs out of things to say, though his eyes haven’t focused, still staring somewhere over Essek’s shoulder. Then, in a particularly small and pained voice, “Part of me is glad they never saw who lit the fire. They would have hated to know what I’d become.”

“Did they love you?”

Now Caleb’s eyes focus on him. “Ja. Of course.”

“Then I believe,” Essek says carefully, “that they would have wanted to know. Because you were their child, and they loved you, and if they had known they would have tried to save you.”

Caleb doesn’t say anything, just swallows, looks away, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t make any move to seek comfort, but Essek pulls him into a tentative hug anyway. Caleb leans into it, so maybe he isn’t overstepping.

Caleb doesn’t cry, but Essek holds him until his breathing evens out, and that takes a very long time.

—

Essek generally trances in Caleb’s tower and teleports to Rosohna in the middle of the night. So when he finds Astrid lurking outside his door when he goes to leave, it is very late, or perhaps very early.

“Wulf is out somewhere near Deastok,” she says, with a smile that’s slightly too brittle.

“And Caleb?”

She just blinks a couple times, expression frozen in place. He lets her into his room.

This is the first time she’s been there, and she looks over the space with focused intent. He feels strangely self-conscious as her eyes linger on the details—the dark woodwork, images of the Nein in stained glass, the roots trailing from the ceiling over the tub. It says more about him, more about what Caleb knows of him, than he’d realized.

Finally, she throws herself onto the bed. “You have stars on your ceiling.”

“Are you...?” He can’t finish the question, not because he isn’t concerned but because she doesn’t want to answer it anyway.

Silence. Then, “I shouldn’t be jealous.”

“Of?”

“Caleb.”

He sits at the foot of the bed, so the only thing he can see of her is a hand dangling off the edge. Remembers, ages ago, trembling under a desk while she asked, Is it worse for you if there’s someone watching?

“The Academy. He mentioned wanting to teach, someday.” She scoffs. “It’s ridiculous. To want to be able to want something.”

“Is it teaching specifically, or just being able to envision a different future for yourself?”

“A bit of both,” Astrid says to the ceiling. Then, “The worst thing I’ve ever done was teach.”

“Ah.”

“Not for any of the reasons you might think,” she says airily. “I didn’t care about hurting children, or ruining their lives, or destroying their minds. And I don’t care now about having to kill some of my students. The worst part of it is what it says about me, the not caring. He made me exactly like him.”

They sit for a while, just existing in the same space. He thinks that she’s willing to let the conversation end there, if he doesn’t want to continue, but that she would also be grateful if he did.

“Sometimes,” Essek says at last, “it seems like the thing I regret is not starting the war, but being a person who started a war. Even if it were possible to make up for what I did, if there were a way to reverse the damage, I wouldn’t—”

“Ja. The impossibility of undoing is nothing next to the impossibility of unbecoming.”

“Exactly.” Essek sighs. Laces his hands together, fidgets while he tries to gather words. “I’ve been anticipating my own death for so many months now, but even though that fear is gone, the grief is still there.”

“What are you mourning?”

“Mm. There were many...expectations, when it turned out that I was no one except myself. I wanted to prove people wrong. I wanted to prove them right. But beyond all that, I wanted to—to unravel the mysteries of the world. There were so many unknowns, so much potential, so many unanswered questions. So many possibilities. Chances to change things for the better.” He closes his eyes, so he can’t see the stars. “Who are you grieving?”

“Hm. There was a boy I loved, who got the short end of the stick. And another boy who survived but shouldn’t have had to. And I wanted to travel, once upon a time.” He can hear her shift, slightly. “We grew up in such a small town. Caleb was utterly enchanted with Rexxentrum, but I wanted to go further. To every corner of the Empire, and then beyond that. I always wondered if people did magic differently, in other places. Maybe I imagined some kind of exchange happening.” She lets out a little huff.

Left unsaid is the fact that there is nothing preventing them from doing these things. There are still mysteries left to unravel and places left to visit. The problem, now, is that Essek knows that his kind of curiosity is a dangerous thing, and Astrid knows that almost everywhere she’s traveled is worse for having known her.

Something brushes against Essek’s hair and he starts, eyes flying open, before realizing that it’s Astrid’s hand. He leans back into the touch. She runs her fingers through his hair, breaking apart all the carefully styled strands, but he doesn’t mind.

“Once, just once, he asked me—Wulf had almost died, earlier in the day. Bren asked me to leave, all of us together.” A slight pause. “I said no, and he never asked again. I figured it was an impulsive bout of cowardice, nothing more. I didn’t think he actually wanted to leave—he loved that place, so much. It took years for me to realize that maybe that was his way of saying he loved us more. It isn’t fair that he ended up losing all of it.”

Silence. Then a long sigh, unsteady. “I would be happy for him, if he does end up teaching there. It’s just difficult, when I know everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve taught was reprehensible.”

“You taught me that little hand flick, after abjuration spells.”

“That’s nothing.”

“Well, it isn’t something that we do, in the Dynasty. So that’s some sort of exchange.” He shrugs. “Also, it may have prevented another war.”

Her hand stills. “Don’t play with me,” she says, after a full ten seconds of silence. “Not right now.”

“I’m being terribly honest at the moment,” he says, and then he tells her what happened, the night she messaged him in Rosohna. The disguised scourger, the order to leave, the realization. Her hand disappears at some point, but he keeps talking until he runs out of things that are safe to tell her.

The room falls quiet, for a while. Then, in a soft voice, “Get up here.”

He crawls onto the bed next to her. Ignores the fact that the arm she throws around him has a concealed dagger that digs into his side, that the cheek she presses against his collarbone is wet, that he’s supposed to be in Rosohna already. He listens to her breathing, tries to pinpoint the exact moment when she falls asleep. He’s already well-rested. He’ll have to wake her up when he leaves early in the morning. But none of that really seems to matter in the moment, because this is something he never imagined for himself.

Maybe Essek doesn’t really know what to do with himself, maybe all of his old dreams are dead, maybe he’ll never be anything worth saving. But he is alive, and he has some time to figure things out, and for all his grand ambitious plans he’d never imagined something strange and lovely as this.

“You know, I was under the impression that the rest of the Nein was supposed to be back two days ago,” Essek says. It’s late into the evening at this point, and Essek should leave, let Caleb sleep. But he’s enjoying the conversation, and he’s been hoping his scourgers would make an appearance, so the hour grows later and later.

“Ja. Jester promises they will be back by the end of the week, but they had some kind of encounter with—” Caleb cuts the sentence short, straightening up. He says something in Zemnian.

Essek recognizes the signs of someone receiving a Sending, can guess who it came from. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure yet. Probably.” He waits several seconds, hands tapping an anxious rhythm along the table, then asks, “Do you have Sending prepared?”

“Yes. Astrid or Eadwulf?” Essek asks, hands readied to cast.

“Astrid. Ask where they teleported to and if they’re safe at their current location.”

Essek completes the spell, says, “Caleb wants to know where you ended up and if you’re safe there.”

There’s a long pause where he begins to wonder if Astrid is unable to respond before he gets back, “They didn’t throw us off too much. Currently in Trispires, heading towards south gate. Unsure about safety. If they’ve been watching us, this could be—” The spell cuts her off, words spent. Essek relays the response to Caleb, who’s already begun to head towards the exit. Essek takes a moment to disguise himself before following him out the door.

“Ask her for an update,” Caleb orders as soon as they’re both in Beau’s room.

Essek casts again. “You ran out of words before. This could be what? Caleb wants an update.”

This time the response is immediate and strained. “A trap, it’s a fucking trap. Do not intervene, do not engage. Do not—” The word turns into a snarl. “—come after us. I don’t trust you not to die.”

“It’s—I think they’ve been ambushed,” Essek says, hands fluttering uncertainly at his sides. “She says not to intercede, but—”

“Too bad,” Caleb growls, and casts Teleport.

They end up in a large street in the southern section of the Trispires District. There’s no immediate sign of battle, but as they arrive Essek hears the end of a distant scream. There’s a spot in that direction where there is no glow of streetlamps. Essek pulls them both through a Dimension Door.

There are miscellaneous civilians yelling and stumbling around in the dark, where they arrive, others peeking warily out of windows. A courtyard lies in disarray, carts overturned and rubble scattered where there used to be a statue. The entire area has been plunged into darkness, streetlamps extinguished, the only source of light remaining the dim sliver of moon overhead.

Caleb casts Expeditious Retreat and scuttles off to one side of the square. Essek scans the area, breath held, heartbeat pounding in his ears, searching for any sign of an enemy among the civilian stragglers still clearing the area.

Someone stands up from behind an overturned cart, throws something small that shines with the telltale glow of a Light cantrip. It lands near a figure Essek had overlooked, a half-elf crouching still and mostly hidden by the remnants of the statue. A second figure peeks over the cart, throws a spell at the newly-revealed scourger. There’s a quick exchange of Counterspells—Essek is too far away to contribute—before the writhing tendrils of Astrid’s Enervation take hold of the half-elf.

A few buildings away, another scourger—gnomish, heavily scarred—steps out from an alley to cast at the exposed pair. Caleb counters, and the gnome counters that, and Essek counters that, and then someone on a roof finishes off with a final Counterspell, all in the span of half a second. The initial spell completes, a small bead of flame spinning off to erupt at Eadwulf’s feet.

Four spells spent just to complete one. That’s how it goes when everyone’s a fucking wizard.

Essek hisses a curse under his breath and casts Slow, only able to target the gnome with everyone spread out like they are, but it catches and her movement turns sluggish. If he can keep even one scourger from countering everything—

The other scourger jumps onto the roof immediately above him and dumps an entire flask of acid on his head, which feels like cheating. He shields his face and loses concentration on the Slow.

A couple volleys of spells are exchanged before Essek and Caleb can get to Astrid and Eadwulf. They haven’t noticed them approaching, with the darkness and everything else going on all at once, and they don’t recognize Essek’s disguise when he steps into the radius of the Light. Eadwulf barely reacts, just a flicker of his eyes as he catalogs the new arrival, his face a mask of grim resignation. Astrid whirls on him without hesitation or artifice, a terrible glint in her eye. She is angry, and she is frightened, and she is angry.  

“Sorry for ignoring your order,” Essek says before she has the chance to—murder him, probably, if her expression is any indication of intent. Astrid’s eyes go wide, the feral snarl dropping away. For a moment Essek actually thinks she’s going to burst into tears, but all she does is throw a Lightning Bolt over his shoulder, her motions sharper. Eadwulf’s shoulders drop, his posture straightening out, relief and renewed determination evident even before Caleb joins them.

Essek tries to cast Teleport, but it fails after another round of Counterspells. And by that point they’ve clustered enough that two of the four enemy scourgers attempt to Fireball them, only one of which he can counter in return, and of course someone counters him, so they still burn twice.

“Why are all of your enemies wizards?” Essek yells, exasperated.

“It’s a fitting punishment,” Eadwulf calls back grimly, drawing a sword. “Have you considered that they can’t counter a blade?” He runs the half-elf through as evidence. Astrid, bleeding and singed, stabs him again in the back as he falls.

Essek is too busy countering a Banishment to tell them that he doesn’t even carry a dagger.

After their second attempt at Teleport fails as well, it becomes a simple war of attrition. He’s running low on spells by the time they down a second scourger, and he’s used his only potion getting Astrid back up after she was downed by an Acid Arrow. Things might go easier if he could use dunamancy, but Essek doesn’t particularly feel like getting this particular disaster blamed on the Dynasty.

Everyone begins to ration spells, too little energy left to risk a Counterspell, and then things get vicious. Half of the square gets pelted with an Ice Storm, soaking them all to the bone. Caleb turns himself into a giant eagle and then plummets a good thirty feet when the Polymorph is dispelled. Astrid goes down and Eadwulf heals her. The earth and cobblestones beneath Essek and Caleb erupt upwards, bludgeoning them with debris and creating a perfect square of treacherous ground. Eadwulf is knocked unconscious and Astrid uncorks a potion with her teeth before dumping it into his mouth. Both of them get downed by a second Erupting Earth. 

Caleb scrabbles through pockets and throws down another Fireball when he finds only empty bottles. “Essek?”

Essek doesn’t have the time to search his bag and knows that he wouldn’t find another potion, anyway. His fingers are numb. His throat feels like it’s closing up. But his hands do not waver and his voice does not tremble when they weave together a set of components he’s only practiced in the hypothetical. There’s a lancing pain in his skull, a moment where Essek is blinded and choked by his own blood as the Life Transference takes its tithe. And then Eadwulf staggers back to his feet.

One of the two remaining scourgers attempts to Dimension Door away, and her own ally counters it with a snarl before rounding on Astrid, still unconscious among rubble. He draws a very long knife, stabs down once, twice, before getting bodily tackled by Eadwulf. Essek doesn’t let himself linger on the spreading pool of blood, just screams and casts Hold Person with as much arcane force as he can still muster. By some miracle neither scourger resists the effect, held frozen in place. Eadwulf draws his sword across the throat of the one that had—the one with the long knife. Caleb strides up to the other and casts a Firebolt point-blank, incinerating the gnome while she’s held unmoving and unable to scream.

Then, finally, it is quiet.

Eadwulf rushes back to Astrid, stowing his sword and digging through a bag to pull out a scroll. He falls to his knees next to her, reading under his breath. The scrolls flares with divine energy, crumbles to ash. Everyone holds their breath. Waiting.

—

Astrid does not stir.

—

Someone makes a small, wounded-animal noise. It takes a second for Essek to realize that it’s him.

“We have to go,” Eadwulf says after a few more seconds. “If the first set that attacked us follows us here, we have nothing. Can either of you cast Invisibility?”

“Ja. I can get two of us,” Caleb says, a grim slant to his mouth.

Eadwulf hoists Astrid’s body over one shoulder, casts Invisibility on himself. “We can talk more once we’re out of the area,” his voice says on the breeze.

Caleb takes Essek’s hand—one of them is trembling but he’s not sure who—and turns them both invisible. “Let’s go.”

Caleb leads them in the opposite direction of the gate, past harried guards rushing towards the scene, into an alley and down a grate, nothing but the sound of their breathing and faint footfalls echoing off sewer tunnels as they go. Finally they come to a stop, moonlight from another grate shining overhead.

“I still have the tower up,” Caleb says.

“We can’t get up to Beauregard’s room without someone noticing.”

“Do we have to do it without someone noticing? The Cobalt Soul is perhaps our only ally in this situation, and we need allies badly. They of all people are equipped to deal with the Volstrucker.”

“Bren. We are Volstrucker. Can you guarantee they’ll see a difference between me and the rest?”

In the silence where Caleb considers his answer, Essek speaks up. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t go there.”

“Why not?” Caleb’s grip on his hand tightens.

“Because that’s where they’ll be waiting for us,” he explains, morose. “The crow, Caleb. They’ve been watching. That’s how they knew you two would retreat to Zadash.”

Caleb curses in Zemnian.

“Is there anywhere in this city that none of them know about? Not somewhere that you’d be unlikely to hide,” Eadwulf says. “Somewhere none of us knows exists.”

A long silence. Then, “Ja. I know a place.”

He leads them out of the sewers, into winding streets that grow progressively narrower and grubbier. They’ve almost reached the end of their Invisibility by the time Caleb stops in an alley and opens up a cellar door at the side of a tavern.

“The last time I was here,” Caleb says, “was when I was hiding with the beacon. Considering that I survived that night, I doubt they know of it. Mind the skeleton.”

Eadwulf stuffs the cracks of the door with strips of fabric, which, as the Invisibility flickers out, turns out to be from a spare shirt, no attempt to spare the embroidery. He casts Light on another coin as Caleb starts to cast the dome, which has the unfortunate effect of making it very obvious that Astrid is there, dead. Essek can't bring himself to look away.

“There’s blood on your face,” Eadwulf says quietly. Sits down in front of Essek. Takes what’s left of the shirt he’s torn up, water from a flask. “May I?”

Essek nods, closes his eyes against the glare of the coin. Eadwulf runs the cloth over the worst parts, places where Essek can feel it dried and flaking on his skin, tracks running from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. There’s a couple splatters on his cheek, too, that aren’t actually his own blood.

“That’s a nasty spell,” Eadwulf says when he opens his eyes. “But. Thank you. I’d give you something back, but—” The rest goes unsaid. I need to save it. If they’re to have any chance whatsoever of surviving another attack tonight.

“I don’t have much left myself. I could manage one Counterspell, probably. A few smaller incantations.”

Eadwulf’s eyes flick to meet his. “What about Sending?”

“If there was anyone we could contact who could make a difference, certainly. But I’d prefer to save it, as is.” Essek begins prestidigitating the miscellaneous sleet, acid, soot, and dirt from his clothes, going section by section.

“We need your clerics to cast Raise Dead.”

“They can’t get here tonight, nor can we teleport to them. Tomorrow morning, if we’re still alive by then.”

“They can recall to Nicodranas. You have an ally there, the wizard in the tower. If Beauregard has the circle to the Cobalt Soul—”

“Then they would be ambushed instead of us.”

“They’re strong enough to survive it.”

Essek bristles. “Are they? Not all of us did. Are you willing to risk that instead of waiting in a cellar overnight?”

“Ja.”

He straightens up, pulling away from Eadwulf. “Well. I’m not. Perhaps we have different priorities, but wantonly endangering my—”

“Essek,” Eadwulf says, grief and fear bleeding into his voice. Essek stops speaking. “This isn’t the first time she’s died. Revivify failed. The odds aren’t in her favor, and the longer we wait, the worse it gets. The difference between five hours and twelve might not be much normally—”

“Give me one,” Caleb says, finishing the dome and digging through his pockets. Then, quieter, “Una.”

Eadwulf flinches slightly. Caleb begins picking through his collection, various rocks and other objects carefully labeled as Teleport focuses, extra paper, spare spellcasting components, a variety of charred figurines, fireworks, a stack of tattered books.

“It would take everything going right,” Essek says, “for them to get here the way you’re describing. I’m sorry.”

“It’s already going to take too much going right.”

“Like I said,” Caleb says, picking out a large piece of residuum and dismissing the rest, “I need one hour.” Then he sets the shard on the ground above Astrid’s head, takes a rock from his pocket, and smashes it down, shattering the residuum. The rock cleaves cleanly in two, along the ring, and suddenly the room seems quieter, the Light clearer, the air thicker. There is no flash or noise or cloud of smoke, but Essek is quite certain that if he cast Detect Magic, the area around Caleb would blind him.

“Oh,” he says.

It’s the longest and shortest hour of his life. Watching Caleb cast this way is stunning. No books, no set procedure, just raw transmutative power kept in line by will alone. It’s not that Essek is dismissive of schools of magic other than dunamancy—they all have their uses, of course—but he’s never understood this.

Dunamancy is so elegant in its power. Space, time, probability, gravity. The fundamental building blocks of reality, at your control. He’d thought transmutation to be a close relative, albeit with less finesse, and that was why Caleb took so well to dunamancy. But no. If dunamancy is playing puppet with the universe, this is remolding it by force.

This is dead flesh. Make it something living, says Caleb, and reality reassembles itself to better suit his will. The casting draws to a crescendo, until the very fabric of the world is vibrating with anticipation.

“If you have anything you can offer,” he says, “now would be the time.”

Eadwulf shifts closer, a carefully-contained intensity in the way he moves. Essek isn’t sure what he expects him to do—cajole, beg, order her back to life?—but it certainly isn’t to start humming. The tune starts slow and soft, and then there are words, in Zemnian, and Essek doesn’t need to understand the language to recognize a lullaby.

A pause, after the last note fades. Then the vibration increases in frequency, becomes more controlled. Caleb looks to Essek and he panics for several seconds, lost, before shoving a hand into his component pouch.

“Right. Well. You know that I’ve been extremely careful not to show you any dunamancy, because I don’t trust you,” he says, voice catching as he remembers her last words. “But it’s not really an exchange, for you to have given me something of yours without learning anything of ours. So I’d be willing to make an exception, just this once. If you want to learn this one, I will teach you.” And he casts Fortune’s Favor, pressing a pearl to her forehead.

There’s a moment where nothing happens, where he thinks he’s failed, and then Caleb’s magic smooths out, speeds up, the pitch of it barely perceptible.

Caleb takes a deep breath. “I, ah. I don’t—I do not want. You, to, ah—” He exhales. Shakes his head. Speaks again, this time in Zemnian, the words flowing unimpeded. Essek doesn’t know the content of what he’s saying, but the tone is pleading, growing softer and sadder as he continues. He pauses, for one long breath, and says one last sentence. Eadwulf looks up at the words, eyes wide.

The hum in the air ceases, or it reaches a pitch that’s no longer perceptible. None of them breathe, waiting, waiting.

“I hate dying,” Astrid croaks, and opens her eyes.

They laugh, a fragile thing, the sort of sound that exists because the alternative is to sob with relief. Eadwulf offers an arm so she can prop herself up, take stock of their surroundings.

“Whose skeleton is that?” she asks. “And how much danger are we in?”

“You know, I never asked. We’re still in Zadash, in someone’s cellar in the Outersteads. We think they know where I’ve been keeping the tower,” Caleb says. “So, not too safe.”

“We downed the four in the square. The rest are still unknowns. If they find us, we’re fucked,” Eadwulf says. “But it might take a while. Essek needs what, four hours to trance?”

“Approximately, yes. Then we can teleport anywhere but here.”

Astrid sighs. “They found us too quickly in the Trispires. They might not be able to track us directly, but—”

“Objects that you’re carrying can still be located,” says Caleb. “If they’re clever, which I suspect they may be, they’d target the same objects keeping us hidden. They’re the most distinctive thing on us, and we cannot get rid of them.”

Astrid scrubs a hand across her face. Scowls, as she smears a layer of dirt and dried blood. “How is it that you two look like shit,” she asks, “and he’s perfect?”

“He looked like shit a while ago,” Eadwulf says. “Just cleans up quicker.” He tosses her the blood-stained rag, which she examines disdainfully.

“I did have an entire hour,” Essek says, exasperated. “Do none of you know Prestidigitation?”

They all look at him with varying levels of embarrassment.

“Oh. May I please clean your clothes, then? All of you are damp and filthy.”

“Ja, go ahead.”

“Sure.”

Astrid hesitates. Nods. Mumbles, “It’s a frivolous cantrip.”

“I am going to find a way to revive Ikithon so I can kill him again with pneumonia,” Essek mutters, and begins to cast.

She rolls her eyes, turns. “Wulf. You still have a lead-lined chest?”

Eadwulf nods, pulls a long wooden box from his bag of holding. She takes a dagger and begins to peel away the velvet lining the inside, then scrapes off pieces of the lead foil underneath. “It’s messy, but we can coat the amulets with this to prevent location.”

It takes some effort, but they manage to get enough foil to cover all four items. Eadwulf sets up an Alarm in the room, pulls out two bedrolls. There’s enough space in the dome for them to spread out, but instead they end up practically on top of each other, Eadwulf’s arm draped over Caleb so that his hand rests on Astrid’s shoulder, curled up with her head on Caleb’s stomach. Essek sits upright between them and the door, but he doesn’t actually fall into a trance until she reaches out, takes his hand. Only with that contact, the warmth and the subtle rhythm of her pulse, can he relax enough to find rest.

He wakes them in the middle of the night and they mumble their way through a drowsy conversation about where to go next before Essek teleports them to the coast outside Feolinn. They find a spot on the beach with a bit of cover and Caleb sets up the dome again. The humans go back to sleep. They seem to have unanimously decided that Essek is the optimal pillow amongst the objects available here, which he’s not going to complain about.

Essek pulls out a few pieces of paper, a quill, a bottle of ink. Casts Mage Hand, and begins writing his report at a distance. He’ll need to redo the entire thing, the handwriting too large and imprecise, but this way he doesn’t disturb anyone. At a more reasonable hour, he casts Sending to the head secretary at the Lucid Bastion. “Please inform the Bright Queen that I will not be attending the Court today due to unforeseen circumstances. I will explain further upon my return.” He considers a Sending to Beau or Fjord, but he’s not sure when they normally wake and he doesn’t want to disturb them, either.

Caleb and Eadwulf wake a couple hours later. Eadwulf immediately gets up to climb the small cliff they’ve hidden behind, scanning their surroundings with sharp eyes. Caleb pulls out his spellbook and begins flipping through pages, selecting spells to review for the day. Eadwulf does the same when he climbs down, and Essek resists the urge to peer over his shoulder.

Astrid finally stirs. Mumbles something in Zemnian, and both Caleb and Eadwulf begin digging through their things, producing a bead of nourishment and a piece of jerky, respectively.

Astrid’s nose crinkles in distaste. “Nevermind.”

“If you were asking for food...I think the only thing I have on me are a few mints,” Essek says, digging through pockets.

“Gods, please. My mouth tastes like I’m still a corpse.”

He hands over three candies wrapped in waxed paper, and she takes them, pulls out her own spellbook. She doesn’t bother sucking on them like a civilized person, just bites through them with a horrifying cracking noise that has Essek worried for her teeth.

After a quick consultation with the others, Essek ends up sending a message to Beau. “Caleb, scourgers, and I currently near Feolinn after attack last night. We killed four scourgers. Safety of room at Cobalt Soul is suspect. Please advise.”

“Man, you couldn’t have waited three more days? We’re almost back. Stay put, we’ll pick you up. If you think you’re safe there?”

He casts again. “I believe we’re safe for the time being, but we’re very low on resources.” He hesitates for just a moment, then adds, “Astrid died. She’s back now. But she died.”

“Shit. Uh. Tell her I’m glad she’s not perma-dead, I guess. And I think we can get there by sunset, but I need to ask—”

“Beau says she’s glad you aren’t dead,” Essek says. “And they may be able to get here by nightfall. Do you think it’s safe to stay put until then?”

Astrid shrugs. Eadwulf looks to Caleb, says, “Feolinn is a tourist trap. Might be better to get lost in a crowd. Maybe set up the tower somewhere less...open?”

“Ja, I think that would be wise.”

Essek nods and casts a final Sending. “We’ll be heading into the city to find a safe place for the tower. Can you have Jester send us an update when you’ve docked?”

“Sure, yeah. Fjord thinks we might be able to get there earlier if the wind’s good. Don’t die. Jester says to buy pastries.”

Essek relays the message with a smile.

“Real food sounds excellent right about now,” Astrid says. “Shall we be off, then, or do you still need to inform someone in the Dynasty?”

“I already have. Do you need to update any, ah, supervisor of yours?”

Astrid and Eadwulf exchange an amused look.

“Maybe we should just tell him,” Eadwulf says.

“I was hoping he’d figure it out on his own, but it is getting a little cruel at this point.”

Caleb clears his throat. “Their, ah. Their supervisor already knows, Essek.”

The realization comes slowly. “You’ve...been working for Caleb?”

Caleb winces, waggles his hand back and forth. “Temporarily.”

“Wait. You’ve been working for Beau? For the Cobalt Soul?”

Astrid rolls her eyes. “Mostly just for Beauregard. It was her idea. The rest of the Soul was not...enthusiastic, understandably, but she can be persuasive when she needs to be, so they let her take lead in dismantling the Volstrucker program.”

He sits absorbing for a moment. They’ve always had an easy relationship with Beau, and that’s always confused the hell out of him. “I cannot imagine how that ended up working out.”

Eadwulf shrugs. “I’m not picky. She’s easy to work with, once you get to know her.”

Astrid leans back against the rock. “Beauregard and I have an excellent relationship. I wanted to take over the Assembly. She promised to put me down like a dog if I tried. If I worked with her instead, she agreed to keep the Soul off my back and let me do whatever I want in my free time.” She shrugs. “Like I said, she can be persuasive when she needs to be.”

“Ah. And what do you do in your free time, might I ask?”

She gives Essek a new smile, one that he immediately decides is his favorite, a wide and unrepentantly wolfish grin. “I’ve always been ambitious.”

He should be concerned by this statement, but instead he finds himself immeasurably fond. “I don’t trust you.”

She laughs at that, because it is honest and because he is lying.

—

They disguise themselves—Essek with magic, the others with a change of clothing and a bit of makeup—and wander into Feolinn like aimless travelers. Essek’s instinct is to remain close, but apparently that’s too conspicuous, makes them look suspicious. The scourgers have them fan out instead, flitting between shops along the main street, keeping in line of sight of each other but making it harder for observers to keep track of whom they’re traveling with.

Essek finds a produce cart and pretends to be examining a strange array of tropical fruit, though in truth he’s looking through the window of the used bookstore that Astrid has wandered into. He watches her pick through a shelf of old books, wrinkling her nose at the dust. She doesn’t glance up, but she knows that he’s watching. He isn’t really trying to hide it. Perhaps she would wear a different expression if she didn’t know, but that’s not the point.

Eadwulf reappears with a kebab in each hand. Astrid takes one, hands him the book she’s been holding, and then uses that distraction to steal the other as well. He rolls his eyes, pulls a piece of jerky from his pocket, then a few coins to pay for the book.

“You love them,” Caleb says in a low voice, walking up behind Essek. He’s so grateful that Caleb phrases it as a statement of fact, because if he’d asked, Essek wouldn’t know how to answer.

“So do you,” he responds, just as quietly.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“You know that it could be.”

Caleb doesn’t deny it.

—

They find a suitable inn eventually, pay for a couple of rooms. The only room that they’ll actually be using is the one with the best view of the docks, but appearances still matter if anyone is trying to find them.

Astrid and Caleb have a quick conversation via Message before determining that her and Essek’s room is better, and then they wait for Caleb and Eadwulf to join them.

“Have you eaten enough?” Essek asks her.

“Mm. Maybe. Did you find anything interesting for me?”

Essek pulls an orange from his pocket, tosses it to her. She catches it with one hand, examines it with a little smirk before taking out a knife. She bisects the fruit, inverts the halves, makes a show of tearing the flesh off with her teeth. It’s terribly messy. She licks her hands off afterwards, making a truly unnecessary amount of eye contact as she does so.

“Is everything okay?” Caleb asks when Essek answers his knock at the door.

“Very,” Essek says, trying not to sound flustered and failing entirely.

Eadwulf glances past him, at Astrid perched on the shitty bed with two pieces of orange peel and a smug smile. “You’re a terror.”

“I’m told that it’s part of the appeal.”

Caleb has already moved over to the corner of the room and begun casting the tower, but Essek thinks he sees him smile at that.

“Should we take bets on how long it takes for the Nein to arrive?” Essek asks, sitting next to her on the bed.

“Oh, but that’s too easy. We should take bets on how long it takes for them to realize that the three of us—” Astrid freezes, eyes going wide, then starts frantically digging through her bag. She pulls out a scrap of parchment and a stub of graphite, begins to write. Owelia: “You can’t run for long. We’ll find you soon enough. And then what will you do?”

“Responding will let them know you’re alive,” Eadwulf says, having walked over to read the note.

Astrid shrugs, already drawing hasty tally marks. Takes a deep breath when she reaches twenty-five, her face smoothing into a cruel mask as she composes herself.

“I’ll turn you,” she says, each word a dagger, “into a goldfish. Dumb, helpless. Add syrup to your water until you suffocate. Repeat.” She pauses. Then, in a lighter tone, “Or you could join us, still. Your choice.”

Silence. No response, apparently. Caleb has given up any semblance of casting.

Eadwulf says, “What the fuck, Astrid.”

She looks at Essek and they both burst into laughter, any coherent explanation lost in a fit of mildly hysterical giggling.

—

Caleb completes the tower and all of them file inside. They loiter in the library, too tense after everything that’s happened to retreat to the privacy of their separate rooms. The cats seem to notice the mood, at least a dozen of them crowding around Caleb.

“Well. We have approximately ten hours to kill, assuming that we are not found and killed ourselves,” Essek says. “Any suggestions?”

“You still owe me a spell,” Astrid says.

“I do, don’t I?”

“You promised.”

“Perhaps I was hoping that you wouldn’t remember what I said,” he says, but he’s already taking out his spellbook. “I still have no idea what the other two did. The song was obvious enough, but I don’t speak a word of Zemnian.”

“Does that bother you?” Eawulf asks. “When we speak it in front of you.”

Essek tilts his head, considering. “Not really. I rather enjoy the sound of it, to be perfectly honest.”

Eadwulf grins and says something in Zemnian, something that has Caleb flushing pink and averting his gaze.

Astrid smirks, sits on the arm of the couch. “Between all the languages we speak, I’m sure that we could find a way to exclude everyone equally.” Then, muted, dropping the smile, “He said that he forgave me for deciding to stay. And that he would forgive me if I decided to go.”

“Oh.”

“Ja.” She glances over at Caleb, still standing awkwardly in a crowd of cats, and he shrugs.

“I meant every word. I think it would be hypocritical of me not to. I should be begging for forgiveness myself, for leaving when you two could not.”

He looks so small, when he says it, eyes downcast, and both of them stare at him, stricken, desolate and mute.

“Please just tell him,” Essek says in Undercommon. Both scourgers turn their gaze to him, eyes wide. “Or let me tell him, at least. You aren’t protecting him. You’re just letting him bleed because you’re worried that it’ll hurt worse if he doesn’t believe you.”

Astrid just blinks a few times, frozen. Eadwulf tries to speak, clears his throat. “Go ahead, then,” he says, in an unusually small voice.

“Caleb,” Essek says. “I presume you know how to cast Identify?”

Caleb’s eyes have been darting between the three of them, a hint of concern creased between his brows, but now he focuses on Essek. “Ja. Why?”

“Wulf. You know which bead.” Essek holds out a hand. Eadwulf hesitates before reaching beneath his shirt to remove one of the prayer beads, hands it over. Essek gives it to Caleb. “Identify it.”

Caleb stares at the bead for a moment, then back up at the rest of them, before pulling out his spellbook. He clears a space among the cats, sits, sets the bead down. Begins to cast. Ten minutes later he looks up, brow furrowed. “It allows a daily use of Greater Restoration.”

“Yes. Now the rest of the necklace,” Essek says. It takes longer, this time, for Eadwulf to pull out the holy symbol.

“That’s...”

“It was Feeblemind,” Essek says. “It took them a while to find a way to cure it. Ikithon didn’t know what they were planning. They wanted you to leave. There is nothing to forgive.”

Caleb’s face goes blank, eyes unfocused. For a moment Essek thinks their worries were correct, that even with the evidence in front of him Caleb has come to a different conclusion. Then Caleb lurches to his feet, almost stumbling—Essek catches his arm to steady him and he’s trembling—

“He would not like that,” Caleb says hoarsely.

“He did not.” Astrid’s voice is very quiet.

“It was worth it.” Eadwulf is even quieter.

Caleb lets out a long, shuddering breath. “You could not have known that I would—I came back, but there was. No way, to know that I—”

“We didn’t do it expecting that you’d come back for us, Caleb,” says Astrid sharply. “I’m glad that you did, but that wasn’t the point.”

Caleb pulls away from Essek’s grasp and throws his arms around her. Astrid hugs back, after a moment. Caleb buries his face into her shoulder, mumbles something in Zemnian, reaches one arm out towards Eadwulf, who steps forward and lets himself be pulled into the hug as well. Eadwulf says something in Zemnian, echoed by Astrid, and Caleb lets out a muffled sob.

Essek has never actually seen Caleb cry. He stands there for a moment, gawking, before Astrid glances up and gives him a meaningful look.

Essek joins the hug. Caleb cries harder. What a mess, the lot of them.

—

They break away to their respective rooms eventually. Essek sits at his desk for a while, considers copying his mess of a report from this morning. Sighs. Sets it aside, and wanders back to the library to sit on the couch.

Astrid is already there, curled up into the most compact form possible. As soon as Essek sits she shifts to sit next to him, drops her head against his shoulder. They don’t speak. Half an hour later Eadwulf finds them, curls up on the other side of Essek. Eadwulf plays with the pendant at his neck, with a loose thread on the seam of Essek’s shirt. Doesn’t speak, either.

It’s ridiculous, for them to seem so small when they’re both physically larger than him. Also a little heartbreaking, a little terrifying, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on that thought right now.

Eventually Caleb comes down, finds them all like that and stops in the middle of the room just to stare. All of them look back at him, hopeful idiots, unable to ask him to join them but praying that he will anyway, remembering how comfortably he’d fit against them sleeping in the dome.

Caleb just stands there, a kind of despairing frustration in the slant of his shoulders, the hapless set of his mouth. Finally he lets out a small sigh. Says, “I am going to go find a rock.”

There’s a moment where Essek assumes this is some kind of metaphor, or an inside joke that he isn’t privy to, but then he realizes that Caleb has his coat on and is being entirely literal.

“Please don’t leave,” Astrid says. Perhaps she didn’t intend for it to sound as soft and pleading as it did, because she clears her throat, continues in a more even tone. “If you need time alone, that’s understandable. But it’s been a long day. Wait until the Nein get here before you go wandering off somewhere.”

Caleb blinks several times. “I do, ah. I do actually need a rock. To replace my transmuter’s stone.”

“Ah. Just a moment.” Essek stands, digs through his pockets. Finds the stone he’s had for months now, hands it to Caleb. “Would this do?”

Caleb looks at it. Turns it over, passes it between his hands as if to test the heft of it. “It has a ring around it.”

“It’s a lucky rock.”

Caleb looks up, then, and Essek is momentarily pinned in place by the naked adoration in his gaze. “Okay. I will see you in eight hours,” Caleb says, strangled, and flees upstairs.

Essek watches him go. Sighs, turns back to the couch.

“I think he’s in love,” he says, “and I don’t know if it makes a difference.”

Eadwulf hums. “Too much history, between us.”

“Mm. Ja. Even if he decided that disaster is worth delving back into, I’d be amazed if he had any clue what the hell he was doing. He’s a bit of a mess.”

Essek settles back down between them. “I don’t know if I’d go quite that far. He is a very competent individual.”

“Magically? Sure. Interpersonally? He spent over a decade Feebleminded in Vergesson, and I suspect he was alone until he met the Nein—what, a couple years ago? The rest of us might be dysfunctional, but at least we’ve been interacting with people our entire lives. He has whatever he learned in his teenage years, all the social manipulation we were trained for, and—” She sighs. Shakes her head. “Imagine that you spent the last couple centuries in a coma, and consider how much harder it would be to connect with people.”

“I suppose that is—” Essek breaks off, frowns. “How old do you think I am, exactly?”

Eadwulf gives half a shrug. “A few centuries?”

“I’d be surprised if you were over two hundred and fifty, the way people talk about you.”

“You’ve talked to people about me?”

Astrid gives him a smile that’s probably meant to be disarming, except that it’s a little too frayed at the edges. “We skulked around and listened to gossip. The general consensus was that you’re qualified but scandalously young for your position.” She pauses, tilts her head. “I suppose once you take consecution into account, the definition of young might be more flexible than in typical elven society, but—”

“No, scandalously young is rather accurate.” Essek sighs. He never likes this particular conversation, and unlike the Nein, the scourgers have enough sense to know about the relative ages of elves. “One hundred and twenty-one.”

Astrid leans away from him so she can look him in the eye. “You’re joking.”

“I am not.”

Eadwulf says something in Zemnian, which Essek is fairly certain includes some kind of expletive. Astrid mutters something back, still staring at Essek with open incredulity.

“If we could skip the part where you infantilize me, that would be lovely,” Essek says, scowling.

Astrid scowls back. “Can I have one minute to be upset about my profiling skills before you jump to conclusions? We were off by a century. Trent would have had our heads, if he’d known that.”

“Oh.” Then, “Were you two the ones in charge of spying on me? I’m flattered.”

“We were spying on a lot of people at the time. You weren’t special. Just a name on a list.”

“At the top of the list,” Eadwulf points out.

Astrid tilts her head. “Maybe you were a little special. But we did look into other potential targets, in case you weren’t as promising in person as you seemed on paper.”

“Why was I targeted, if not for my age?” 

Astrid sighs. “You had the best position and resources for a long-term arrangement, for one. It was a better investment than finding someone they’d have to make disappear immediately afterwards.”

“You were unsupervised. Alienated. Egotistical,” Eadwulf says, ticking items off on his fingers. “Not consecuted, not religious, no personal investment in keeping the beacons. No strong loyalties, frustrated with bureaucratic limits on your research. No one to confide in, no personal network, no one to convince you to tattle.”

Essek winces. It’s accurate, and not in a flattering way.

“I’m guessing Ludinus began with just talk?” Astrid asks. “Nothing too friendly, that approach wouldn’t work with you—”

“The ease with which the Nein disarmed me says otherwise.”

“It wouldn’t have worked if they weren’t actually trying to befriend you. You’re too clever for that.”

Eadwulf hums. “I bet Ludinus started with a question only you could answer. Begrudgingly, made it seem like he had no other choice but to ask you. Something that wasn’t classified, so you didn’t feel guilty about answering it. Let you gloat a bit. Let you feel like he owed you a favor.”

This is so close to the truth that Essek finds himself sliding down the couch in shame.

“You shouldn’t feel too bad about it,” Astrid says. “People are predictable. You were vulnerable.”

“Is that what you told yourselves when you showed up at my towers?” He’s aware that he’s being uncharitable, but Astrid only laughs.

“The opposite,” Eadwulf says. “We were scared of you.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“Oh, we were fairly certain we could handle you in a fight, together, as long as we caught you off guard,” Astrid says. “But you were the only surviving member of the conspiracy, with a vast array of resources at your disposal, in a precarious position, and we couldn’t guess what you would do next. You were dangerous. We were trying to force you to show your hand.”

“Well. I suppose you did.”

“Ja, but not in the way that we intended. I was so sure that you had an exit strategy that you were hiding from the Nein, that you were going to betray them. The person that Ludinus had worked with was so canny, so calculating. I couldn’t believe your relationship with them was as straightforward as friendship.”

“I do do my best to give off a certain air of ominous mystique.”

Eadwulf snorts. “None of it would work anymore. In case you were worried.”

Essek sighs. “Convincing me to commit treason, or terrifying the hell out of me?”

“The treason.”

“You’re easy to scare, actually. I was surprised by how high-strung you are, beneath the intimidating exterior.”

“Thank you,” Essek says flatly.

Astrid presses a kiss just below his jaw. “You were also surprisingly loyal. Considerate. Affectionate. Honorable. Playful, when you let yourself relax.”

None of these are words he would ever describe himself as, not even close. Essek swallows, says, “You forgot the scintillating wit and intellect.”

“Oh, but I already knew to expect those.”

He smiles, rests his head against hers. “I, for one, never predicted that you would be kind.”

Astrid scoffs. “I’m not kind.”

“Ah, but I already knew that you were a liar.”

She laughs softly against his neck.

“Mm. I was also delighted to discover that Wulf is—what’s the term—the small fork? The little fork?”

A beat of silence. “I think that you mean little spoon.”

“That. It’s a bit of a ridiculous idiom. Cutlery does not insinuate much in the way of, ah—physical affection. But I was wildly unprepared for the amount of snuggling involved with you two.”

Eadwulf snorts, scoots over so he can lean against Essek as well. Lets out a long sigh when Essek wraps an arm around him. Then, “You have a nice ass.”

“What?”

“While we’re talking about hidden depths. You always have the cloak on. But. Nice ass.”

If Essek weren’t exhausted, he would respond to that with some clever innuendo, but the only thing that comes to mind is maybe you could fuck it one of these days and that’s decidedly less subtle than he prefers. Instead he hums, closes his eyes and savors this moment, just his head resting against Astrid’s, Eadwulf curled up against him. He has tried his hand at worship many times, and none of that can compare.

If they lived in one of Jester’s romance novels, the three of them would probably spend the afternoon engaging in some very frantic thank gods we’re alive sex, but what actually happens is that they take a nap together.

Eventually Eadwulf gets up, stretches, paces around for a while before sitting down again and pulling out his whittling knife. Essek casts Comprehend Languages and hunts for any interesting tomes in Zemnian on Caleb’s shelves. Eadwulf finishes carving a little cat figurine, and places it on one of the tables before convincing one of the tower cats to bring dinner to the library. Essek nudges Astrid awake, and she grumbles half-hearted protests before wandering over the table for food, pulling out one of the grubby books she’d bought in Feolinn to read as she eats.

Eadwulf peers over her shoulder, mutters something in Zemnian. Astrid scowls.

“What are you reading?” Essek asks.

“Mediocre poetry,” says Eadwulf.

“One of the most historically significant poems on the continent,” Astrid corrects. “It’s pre-Divergence.”

“Anything that I would have heard of?”

She slides the book across the table. Half of the page is water-damaged, but it’s still legible. “The God in the Whale?”

Essek scans the page, not really paying attention to whatever Eadwulf says next—something about meter, maybe. “Was this originally in Elvish? It follows the rhyme scheme of a vaetrelle for some reason, which makes me wonder about the accuracy of the translation.”

“Probably, but the original has been lost. It’s...very old.”

“It was just as bad back then,” Eadwulf says. “It’s still a vaetrelle because the translator was being pretentious.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say pretentious,” Essek says. “It follows the structure correctly. It’s just very...traditional.”

“Ja. Pretentious. And he fucked up the trochaic couplets, in the middle.”

“The what in the middle?”

“Whether or not it follows a traditional poetic structure accurately doesn’t negate the historical impact,” Astrid points out. 

“I’m a little confused as to how this became historically significant,” Essek admits. “Is the whale a metaphor for religion?”

“It’s a first-hand historical account.”

“So the whale is a metaphor,” Essek says again.

They’re bickering over the stupid fucking poem when Caleb comes back downstairs.

“Jester messaged me. The rest of the Nein should be back soon,” he says. “What are you up to?”

“Please tell me you’ve read The God in the Whale,” Astrid says. “These two are being obtuse.”

“It’s ugly and the translator was a hack,” Eadwulf says, having given up any pretense of civility about five minutes ago.

Caleb takes a few minutes to read over part of the poem. “Well, this line here is a reference to the Feywild. And it’s written like a Sylvan vaitrela.”

They are still arguing about the stupid poem—Astrid claiming that the sociocultural impact is more important than whether it’s objectively good, Eadwulf that the fact that it has any impact means that historians have objectively bad taste, Essek that the poem isn’t even that terrible structurally but the supposed historical context is nonsense, and Caleb with some conspiracy theory about fairies—when Beau and Yasha barge into the room, looking around with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Yasha asks, hand on her sword, slowing to a halt in the middle of the room, head cocked.

Everyone turns and starts explaining at once. Beau raises her hand in some gesture, and the scourgers—and Caleb, who is not a scourger but perhaps got so close to becoming one that he is also never not a scourger—fall silent immediately.

“—is fine, but to present fiction...” Essek trails off awkwardly, a second behind the rest.

“Is there anything wrong, or are you guys just yelling at each other over nerd shit?”

“I wasn’t yelling,” Astrid says primly.

“You are still a nerd, though,” Caleb says. “The phrasing in the fifth stanza—”

“Holy fuck. Just get a room already,” says Beau. Then, at the sudden increase in awkward tension in the room, “Wait. No fucking way. Really?”

Caleb sighs. “It’s not exactly what you are thinking, Beau.”

“It’s most of what she’s thinking,” Eadwulf mutters.

“Wait. Wait. No. Who’s fucking who? Just point.”

Astrid and Eadwulf both point, and after a moment Essek sighs, points back.

“Oh,” Yasha says.

“Wow, Caleb. Congrats on becoming the ultimate third wheel. Did you—?”

“Beau? Don’t ask me about my sex life.”

“Okay, yeah. But still.”

“If we’re done with the gossip, I did die yesterday. It was all very dramatic,” Astrid says dryly.

Beau shifts her attention, looks Astrid over with a critical eye. Astrid looks back with her usual poised smile, but the seams are visible, an uncharacteristic haggard listlessness lurking beneath the veneer. “Yeah. I believe it. You should probably go sleep that off.”

Essek expects Astrid to protest, to point out that she was asleep an hour ago, but she takes the order without complaint and heads off towards her room.

Beau turns back to the rest of them. Pulls out a chair, sits. “Right, so who wants to explain what happened?”

“Those two weren’t there for all of it.”

“Cool, thanks for volunteering.” She pulls out a notebook, flips it open.

Eadwulf sighs. Tilts his head towards Essek. “Can he leave, at least? He was supposed to go back to Rosohna yesterday.”

Beau shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Fuck off, Essek.”

“Surely you could at least muster a you’re dismissed.”

“Nope,” she says, grinning wide.

Essek fucks off. Or at least he gets to the front door, before remembering that he’s left his unfinished report in his room. He briefly entertains the thought of leaving it there as a fun little treat for the scourgers, but maybe that would be too condescending. He sighs, heads back up the central column and ignores the way Beau raises her eyebrows at him as he passes by.

In his bedroom he finds that Astrid is already sitting on the bed, casually reading a familiar piece of paper. “It’s interesting to see what you leave out of these.”

Essek sighs. “You know, I considered letting you have that before deciding to come back for it. I don’t know what else I was expecting.”

His tone must have been more ambiguous than he’d intended, because the confident smirk drops away, leaving Astrid concerned and uncertain. “Wulf said that—no. I’m sorry, Essek. I shouldn’t have intruded.”

“It’s fine. I am—” thrilled is probably too strong a word. “—perfectly okay with having you look around, Astrid. Though I wouldn’t recommend breaking into my rooms in Rosohna, if only because there are too many traps there.” Then, “What did Wulf say?”

She hesitates for a moment, taking in his words, his posture, eyes scanning his face. The languid confidence returns after a few moments, apparently satisfied that he’s being honest. “Mm. Wulf has a theory about you,” she says, “that I’m beginning to agree with. He thinks that you go undisguised in Zadash, or floating through the streets of Rosohna, because part of you enjoys it when people stare. You’re pleased when you find out that people are spying on you. You like the attention. You like the idea of being watched.”

That’s—preposterous. Essek opens his mouth to refute her, struggles for several moments to think of proof to the contrary. Closes his mouth when supporting evidence is the only thing that comes to mind.

“Oh,” he says, and sits down heavily. Hides his face, as if that will make any difference.

“He’s right. And you didn’t even know, did you?” Astrid’s voice is delighted, and he can imagine the sort of smile she must be wearing.

“No one ever accused me of being overly self-aware,” he mumbles into his hands. Then, “Does that bother you?”

“I don’t appreciate being surveilled. That doesn’t mean I have anything against being the voyeur.”

He peeks between his fingers. She’s always hard to read, but she doesn’t look like she’s hiding a lie. Hiding exhaustion, maybe, a lot more than just physical exhaustion, but nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Essek hesitates. She probably doesn’t want him to ask, but— “You were dead yesterday. Are you doing okay?”

“Ja,” she says smoothly, tilting her head just a little.

“Was that a lie?”

A pause. Then, less smoothly, “Ja.”

Essek considers her for a moment. Pats the spot next to him. The gesture is probably a little awkward, or silly, or both.

Astrid slides over. Leans against him, shoulder to shoulder. “The thing about people paying attention,” she says, “is that it ends up like yesterday. We were always safest as a ghost story, with no one believing that we actually existed. But the others know all of our tricks. I taught some of them myself. So the best we can hope to achieve is unpredictability.”

Essek sits for a while, thinking. Then, “I have—this may be ridiculous, but it’s the closest thing to safety I can realistically offer.” He digs through his component pouch for a cocoon, hands it to her.

She gives him a dubious look. “Polymorph?”

He shakes his head. “Not quite. The Nein have a house in Rosohna, the one with the tree. I’ve been paying the housekeeper in their absence. She only checks in a couple times a week, and she doesn’t touch the garden on the roof, which is terribly overgrown at this point.” He shrugs. “It has a good view, a little shelter from the rain. Last I heard, the Dynasty had stopped spying on it, now that the Nein doesn’t visit. It still isn’t safe. But it feels safe, and sometimes that’s good enough. If you ever need somewhere to teleport...that would get you directly there. You’ll have to replace it with a new object in about five months.”

Astrid looks at the cocoon for a moment. Tucks it into a pocket, kisses him on the check, murmurs a word in Zemnian that sounds like a cousin of thanks.

“You should actually go to sleep, you know.”

“You aren’t Beauregard. You can’t order me to go to bed.”

“Beau already ordered you to go to sleep and you ignored her, so I don’t see what difference it would make.”

She hums, pulls her legs up onto the bed, curls up behind him. “Blatant lies. I’ve been a very obedient scourger. Completely reformed, a model citizen and everything.”

“I am sure Beau would agree with that assessment.”

“I read her reports, too. She’s kept her word.”

He laughs at that. Runs a hand through her hair, pulling loose strands away from her face. Listens to her breathing, waits for it to fall into the even tempo of sleep. Waits a little longer, still, before he stands and leaves.

—

It turns out that there is no fanfare when something terrible does not occur. Perhaps the people closest, those who know of the diverted catastrophe, will breathe a sigh of relief and quietly move on, but there is no public celebration for the absence of disaster. No one throws lavish parties to commemorate another encounter where you and your loved ones could have perished but did not. No one makes small talk about the pleasant lack of cataclysms this week. Town criers do not announce a lack of war declarations.

It turns out that peace is terribly quiet and unassuming, for the amount of effort that goes into attaining it.

—

It doesn’t really hit him until the day after he’s returned to Rosohna. He’s busier than usual, between explaining his absence and catching up on miscellaneous duties from the previous day. He returns home late in the evening and finds that he cannot relax, cannot sit still, cannot feel his fingertips.

He’s not in danger. There’s nothing wrong. But he’d never seen them scared before. They could have died, they almost—she did, and if Essek hadn’t had Life Transference prepared, if—

Usually, when he gets like this, pacing down the hall helps, or curling up in the claustrophobic comfort beneath his bed, or—he thinks about teleporting to the garden but it’s not really him that needs to be safe, it’s—

Eventually, Essek manages to calm himself down for long enough to cast Sending. “I realize that this is a very childish request, but if you could just—I need—I just want to hear your voice, I’m sorry—I didn’t count words, fuck—”

“Hey,” Eadwulf responds, no hesitation, voice low and soft and soothing. “That’s fine. It’s fine, we aren’t busy. Just laying low. Even if we weren’t, that would be fine.” A slight pause. Then, “Astrid says move your toes.”

Essek laughs, still curled up in a fetal position on his dining room chair. It sounds suspiciously close to a sob, but the intent is there.

Astrid’s voice comes into his head half a minute later. “I’m afraid we’re somewhere inaccessible at the moment, but Caleb is alone in his tower, same place as previously. He wouldn’t mind your company.”

“Thank you for the suggestion. I will...I will go visit in a moment.” He wants to add something else, maybe I love you or I miss you or I don’t know why I’m like this, but he doesn’t have enough words to say all three and he hesitates too long, the rest of the spell petering out to nothing.

He arrives at Caleb’s tower in disguise, partially because he doesn’t want to make a scene if the Teleport is off and partially because he’s still a mess. Caleb is waiting there, curiosity masking a fair deal of concern. He lets Essek in, leads him up to the library. Essek sits on the couch and desperately wishes that the tower wasn’t remade every day, because maybe then it would still smell like them.

Fuck.

“Are you...okay?” Caleb asks.

Essek shrugs unevenly. “I am simply...not used to this. Caring about people, having feelings, none of it. Romantic entanglements have never been worth pursuing before. And now look at me.” He laughs breathlessly. “Driving myself to distraction over every dangerous Zemnian wizard I run into.”

“I hope that you are not including Trent in that category,” Caleb says. Essek can’t help but make a face at that, and Caleb laughs.

Essek sighs. Sits for a moment, wringing his hands. “The problem is that we are all so very good at lying. It makes it easy for me to convince myself that they’re invincible. But no matter how competent we are, none of our lives are simple, none of us are safe.”

A pause. “Safer together, though. That is something.”

“It is.” Then, “Please just tell me about something distracting.”

Caleb takes a moment to gather his thoughts. Sits on the couch, not immediately next to Essek, but close enough that he could touch him if only he were brave or foolish enough. And then he tells Essek about the Academy, the work he’s being doing with it, sorting out the unfinished projects of the Cerberus Assembly, trying to navigate the politics of the Empire. Rooting out everyone who knew about the Volstrucker program alongside Beau, safeguards put in place to prevent such a thing from happening again. Other work with the Cobalt Soul, with the king, the royal council. Trying to wrangle the imperial propaganda machine into something less toxic. Gradual steps, nudges in a better direction.

And Essek tells him about his own work, trying to subtly direct the Dynasty into collaboration, to stabilize international relations. About the request that Essek become a liaison between the Dynasty and all the various powers influencing the Empire, with Caleb, with Beau, with anyone he thinks he might listen.

“Only if you would be interested in something of that nature, of course. I fear that I’ve already gone and made things awkward between us, and I don’t want our relationship to become...transactional. Not like how it started.”

“I think we could make it work between us,” Caleb says, and of course he means the diplomatic relationship, not the rest. “Do you think that it will be enough?”

Essek sighs. “I don’t know what would be enough. But I hope so.”

“Well. It sounds as though you are doing good work on your end. Perhaps I will fix my country, and you fix yours, and we can meet in the middle.”

“Entirely reasonable goals for two individuals.”

“Idealistic, maybe, but not entirely unreasonable. We aren’t working alone,” Caleb says, and that’s a fair point. There are so many people on both sides of things, quietly trying to hold back the tides of conflict, with no fanfare or recognition. And there’s the Nein, of course, and their scourgers.

“That is true,” Essek says. “Still. Fixing all that is far easier said than done.”

“Maybe the goal is not to fix it all. We can’t undo what we’ve already done. We cannot beg forgiveness from the dead. But we can build a world with fewer dead, fewer acts that cannot be forgiven.”

Essek considers Caleb for a moment, sitting with his feet pulled up onto the couch. There is a beauty even in his pragmatism. There is so little distance between them. He wants, so very badly, for Caleb to touch him—and maybe he doesn’t deserve that, but maybe it’s never been about what he deserves.

“I think,” Essek says, “that building a favorable relationship between nations will not be straightforward, not after everything that has transpired between the two of them. Neither has a particularly agreeable ruler. It will take time.” He sighs. “And so much effort. But it is worth that.”

“Ja. I agree.” Caleb reaches absentmindedly towards Essek’s hand, resting on the couch between them, then seems to notice what he’s doing.

Stops.

Pulls his hand away.

—

Essek’s room is still in the tower, though Caleb couldn’t have known that he was going to be here today. Perhaps it is a permanent fixture of the tower now, like the scourgers’ rooms, like the Nein’s. Perhaps it has been like that for a while. Perhaps Essek is reading too much into it.

He trances in the bed Caleb made for him, under the stars Caleb made for him, and then he teleports home. Makes himself breakfast. Brews a pot of tea, not his favorite blend of the ones Caduceus gave him, but he mostly wants it for the aroma. Stares at the hole in his dining room wall.

When it’s a more reasonable hour, Essek casts Sending. “Apologies for the garbled message yesterday, and thanks for sending me to Caleb. I hope that you two are doing well. I’ve missed you.”

Astrid’s voice is hushed, a little drowsy. Perhaps he should’ve let her sleep in. “No problem. No need for thanks. Glad you’re doing better now. We’re good. Beauregard ordered us to take it easy for a while. And...ja.”

Jester informs him that they have moved to Port Damali for the next two days, along with some mildly truncated instructions on where to find the tower. Essek wanders the streets of the city in disguise, squinting at signs and wishing he’d brought a hat to block the sun. When he finally finds them, the Nein insist on bringing him to some restaurant they’ve found, except they make him cast Seeming first because they’d already gone the night before and gotten kicked out. Jester asks him about the makeup she’d given him and waggles her eyebrows suggestively when he admits he’s worn it a few times now.

“Oh! I almost forgot, I got you these!” These turn out to be a pair of earrings, two tiny crabs in silver. They’re...surprisingly tasteful. He may actually be able to wear them to Court without getting strange looks.

It’s so good to see them, to listen to their chatter, to hear about what they did over their vacation and get context for the various strange Sendings he’s received, to deftly avoid their questions on what he and the scourgers got up to during their absence.

“But you are together, right?” Jester presses.

“Yes, but what’s the saying? Don’t kiss and tell?”

“Huh. So then you’re dating two people at once, then. Do you think maybe you’d have room for one more?” Essek gathers, from the way that everyone’s eyes flick over to Caleb, that this is the subject of an ongoing debate. He’s not sure whether he’s grateful or horrified that the Nein have decided to meddle in this particular matter.

He knows better than to acknowledge it, regardless. Just gives Jester a coy smile. “Why? Are you interested in joining us?”

She doesn’t have the chance to respond, as it is at this point that Caleb inhales some water and spends several minutes coughing very loudly.

After dinner they wander the streets, more tolerable now that the sun is setting. The crowds are eclectic, as port cities tend to be, and the air smells faintly of the sea. The streets sprawl and wind, but Fjord knows his way around, all the interesting spots, tourist traps and local dives alike. The zoo is closed, which the Nein don’t seem particularly concerned about when they teleport inside the gate. There are indeed lions, surrounded by broken shards of winter squash. And colorful birds, and monkeys, and presumably more animals that they don’t get to see before a security guard finds them and they teleport away, breathless and laughing, into some square with a fountain surrounded by colorful mosaics. It’s a lovely city.

Essek misses Zadash.

It’s ridiculous. The Nein are here, and his scourgers are probably in some safehouse miles away from any civilization, and Essek misses Zadash. He never wanted to like that city, but it seems inevitable in hindsight, that he would love the place where he fell in love.

—

Later in the week, Essek casts Sending. “Do you know the current location of Caleb’s tower, or if it would be appropriate for me to visit?”

Astrid takes a while to respond. Essek smiles at the pause, imagining her drawing tally marks. “Port Zoon. Whalefall Inn, suite 21, second floor. The Nein will be happy to see you.” A slight hesitation. “So will we.”

It takes a Teleport, a decent disguise, several questions asked of locals, and a Dimension Door to get there. Essek enters the tower and discovers that all of the Nein, Veth included, are currently engaged in some sort of target practice involving entire roast chickens. There’s a very enthusiastic few minutes where he gets swept up in the general energy of the dining room and is almost convinced to participate. Then he discovers that an Eldritch Blast has enough energy to turn an entire chicken into a fine mist, and that aerosolized chicken paste is the most horrifying substance he has ever encountered. He excuses himself with an explanation so garbled he doesn’t even know what he’s saying and flees upstairs with several more castings of Prestidigitation than strictly necessary.

Essek’s reaction to the two scourgers outside his door is far more relieved than it would have been six months ago.

He finds himself suppressing a smile, lets them in without a word. They end up draped across each other on his bed. Essek is fairly certain it was smaller at some point, but he doesn’t recall it ever changing, which means Caleb must have done it gradually enough that he didn’t notice. Essek isn’t about to complain, if it means moments like this, lazy and indulgent. It’s the first time he’s really relaxed in days. He laughs.

“What?” Astrid asks, reaching over to play with his hair.

“You know, I did have to explain my absence last week,” he says, “to the Bright Queen and several important members of the Court. I framed it as a strategic necessity, maintaining contacts most closely allied with the Nein and most amenable to consorting with a drow. I told them all sorts of useful information I’d gained, about the Volstrucker program being decommissioned by the Cobalt Soul, and reiterated my advice to ally with them, as a semi-independent entity from the Crown. I was praised for my unique insight and diligence. I cannot imagine what they would have to say about this.”

“Mm. Congratulations, probably,” says Eadwulf, and Astrid laughs.

“The Skysibil differentiated between the two groups of scourgers as the rogues and yours, and part of me wonders if she knows.”

“There’s more than just the rogues and us. There’s also every other unreliable bastard working for Beau, and I hope that you never meet any of them.”

“Are you worried I’ll meet one who has the foresight to remove all of their daggers before lying on the bed with me, so they don’t dig into my ribcage?”

Astrid sighs and stops playing with his hair for long enough to reach down and remove the offending dagger. Flicks it into the wall with a lazy motion that Essek tries not to find terribly attractive, goes back to playing with his hair. “I don’t trust them,” she says.

“You don’t trust me,” he points out.

“Imagine my stress at having everyone I don’t trust in a room together.”

There’s a knock at the door— tap, taptap, taptaptap, tap. His scourgers tense at the first knock, then melt back into the bed upon recognizing the pattern. Even before he gets up to open the door, Essek knows who will be on the other side.

“Can I help you?” he asks Caleb.

“May I come in?” Caleb asks, then blanches. “That is. Ah. I don’t mean to—”

“You aren’t interrupting anything, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” Essek steps aside to let him in. Caleb stops in the middle of the room, stooped and uncertain. Astrid has moved to sit just on the edge of the bed. Essek hovers by the door, fidgeting and wishing that he had his mantle to hide it.

“What is it?” Astrid asks softly.

Caleb clears his throat. “Right. I know that you all have, ah. I do not wish to be—presumptuous. But I have been—I have had some time to think about things, and Beau—the Nein—” He breaks off. Sighs, shakes his head slightly. “This is not going how I imagined it.”

“How did you imagine it?” Essek asks, wanting desperately to know what it is, if this could possibly be going where he hopes it is or if he’s giving in to wishful thinking.

Caleb looks over at him. Opens his mouth, closes it again. Licks his lips, says, “I’ve imagined a lot of things. But...” He shrugs, doesn’t finish the sentence.

“What do you want, Caleb?” asks Eadwulf.

Caleb’s hands flutter at his sides while he searches for words. Then, very faintly, “You?”

The room is very quiet, after that word. Caleb closes his eyes. Astrid slides off the bed, steps closer, reaches out and stops just short of actually touching him.

“Hey,” she says, and waits until he opens his eyes again. “We all want you here. Do you want to stay here? Or do you need more time to think about this?”

Caleb exhales all at once. “If you give me more time I will change my mind and take another year to get my head out of my own ass again.”

“If you need another year, you can have it,” she says. “Or two, or ten. However long you need.”

“Please just kiss me,” says Caleb, only a little desperately.

Astrid closes the last few inches between them and does exactly that. It’s a brief kiss, like she’s stealing something, but as she pulls away Caleb follows, draws her in for another. She doesn’t break away a second time, drawing closer to him instead. He obliges eagerly, hungry, like contact was inevitable, like this is the end of both of them and the beginning of something new.

Essek has never seen galaxies collide, but he understands the theory.

“I cannot overstate how much I do not want to ruin this moment,” he says, “but your clothes still smell like chicken paste.”

Astrid sighs against Caleb’s lips, murmurs, “He has a point.”

“If I could just—prestidigitate them, perhaps, or—”

“Or I could take them off,” Caleb says, hands moving to his scarf.

“Oh,” says Essek, which draws a laugh from the scourgers. 

Caleb turns to look at Essek, grinning. Throws the scarf over the back of a chair without breaking eye contact, which—Essek should not be flustered by this. His shoes, next, then his coat, dropping into a heap on the floor, then the buttons on his shirt, and—

There’s a shift at some point, in Caleb’s demeanor, so subtle at first that Essek thinks he’s imagining things. His smile too sharp, his movement too fluid. There’s something—familiar, something—

Astrid and Eadwulf exchange a look, Wulf’s brow lifting in a silent question.

—something that’s not quite right.

“Caleb. Pause,” Essek says. Caleb freezes, one arm out of his shirt, like a machine grinding to a halt all at once, the facade failing as soon as his momentum is disrupted. Of course. Now he knows what is familiar about this.

“Are you okay?” Astrid asks carefully.

Caleb takes a very long time just to shrug.

Maybe this is a terrible idea. Maybe there is a timeline where this all works out, and this isn’t it. Maybe there’s no turning back time and no healing from the damage that has already been wrought. Maybe some things break in a way that can’t be fixed. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be, no matter how badly you want them. Maybe some things end and do not begin again.

Or maybe Essek is overthinking this, just a little.

Maybe Caleb is, too.

“If you would like to be a cat for a while,” Essek says, “that would be okay.”

Caleb blinks several times in quick succession. Lets out a long breath, gives what could almost be considered a nod and reaches behind him to remove the tie from his hair. There’s a small cocoon strung along the ribbon, cleverly hidden away. He crushes it, casts Polymorph.

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” asks Astrid.

“In my defense, that was not the kind of cat that I was imagining.”

Caleb, now in the form of a fucking mountain lion, pads past Astrid and jumps onto the bed, walks a few circles before settling down next to Eadwulf.

“I’ve seen weirder,” he says after a beat of silence, shrugging and reaching over to scratch under Caleb’s chin.

They all end up lounging on the bed again, with the addition of one more large predator. It’s awkward, at first, what with the mountain lion and the uncertain silence.

“It, ah—occurs to me that we’ve never gone on a proper date,” Essek says after a couple minutes. “I do know of a couple cafes in Rosohna that aren’t completely mediocre. You could get better coffee.”

“We’d likely need better disguises, if we’re walking with you,” Astrid points out. “You like to make a spectacle.”

“Ah, but the advantage of drifting everywhere in ornate clothing is that no one recognizes me if I take off the mantle and walk.” He shifts, slightly, trying not to disturb the mountain lion. “Or we could go somewhere in the city where humans wouldn’t be as...unpopular.”

Astrid laughs. “If you can find some part of Rosohna that’s still living in 548 PD, I would love to go there.”

Essek raises a brow. “Why 548 PD?”

“The assassination crisis?” Eadwulf guesses. “The first one.”

“Mm, ja. Though I suppose if we’re traveling back in time we might as well tip off the Kryn and avert the entire thing.”

“I do not know if that would make a difference, unless we also averted the Western Penumbra Conflict,” Essek points out. “We’d have to convince the Empire not to interfere.”

“Or we could convince the Dynasty to cede the rights to the land. It was a tenuous claim anyhow, and out of their usual reach.” Astrid has stopped scratching behind Caleb’s ear. He lets out an irritated mrrp, which is less adorable and more threatening than he probably realizes. She starts scratching his ear again.

Essek snorts. “That may be feasible. But then there’s the incident further north—”

“The one in 602 PD? I do think the Dynasty is mostly to fault for that one.”

“Perhaps. Though you must admit, from our perspective it didn’t seem like the Empire had any use for the mountain.”

“True. They couldn’t have known the details.”

“Unless someone in the Empire just told them,” Eadwulf adds. “There wasn’t any point to all the secrecy.”

“Ja, fair point.”

Astrid knows a fair deal of history, and the conversation continues in that vein for a while. Old events, skirmishes and spats long before their time, picking through each conflict and trying to determine what went wrong, on each side. There’s not much point to the exercise. They weren’t there to intercede, and they have no plans to rewrite time and undo the mistakes of the past. But perhaps it’s a sort of practice for the future.

And there’s something comforting about this, speaking about politics without trying to trick each other into revealing information. It’s...collaborative, a purely hypothetical examination of past tactics. No blame assigned, no forgiveness offered. Just what happened, and why it happened, and what could have been done differently.

Caleb returns to his original form well before the hour is up, which Essek takes as a good sign. None of them acknowledge the change, just continue picking apart the skirmish outside Nogvurot nearly two decades ago before moving onto Dwendal’s refusal to send aid to a besieged Vasselheim, Astrid petting Caleb’s hair with the same absentminded impulse as she had scratching behind his ears five minutes earlier.

“I suspect that the only real motivation was pettiness,” she says. “Which could have been avoided entirely by sending someone less overbearing. An ambassador who was more cognizant of his...defensiveness.”

“Could’ve asked the Assembly,” Eadwulf says. “They would’ve used it as an opportunity to gain a foothold in the city, which Vasselheim wouldn’t like. But they would have been useful.”

“Something tells me that the Assembly managed to gain a foothold there anyhow, if the specificity of your opinions on the food there is anything to go by,” Essek points out, and he laughs.

“Ja. Well. World didn’t end, so maybe that one didn’t matter as much.”

“It was an opportunity to improve diplomatic relations with Issylra, which in turn could have reduced tension over the trade agreement with Ank’Harel. But yes, I’m willing to concede that that one turned out fairly well, regardless.” Essek sighs. They’re running out of impersonal anecdotes. “Much better than the outcome of other selfish decisions. I shouldn’t have stolen the beacons.”

Astrid hums. “Ja. The potential gain in knowledge wasn’t worth the conflict that followed.” She makes it sound so simple like that. Just another cost-benefit analysis.

“The Assembly shouldn’t have asked for two,” Eadwulf says. “But Vess and Ludinus never learned how to share.”

“They shouldn’t have asked for—well. I suppose the loss of two was worse than one,” Essek concedes. “Still.”

“They could have accomplished similar goals without taking either. The resources it took would have been better spent stealing more ephemeral things. State secrets. Things that no one notices.” Astrid tilts her head towards him. “Not that spying on you wasn’t interesting, but I still think that we could have found a way into the Conservatory, given enough time.”

“You truly could not, not without escaping notice. Trust me on that one. Better not to steal anything from the Dynasty at all. And the root of the problem was that neither I nor the Assembly was particularly concerned with averting international conflict in the first place.”

They fall silent just long enough for Essek to remember that Caleb is there, pressed between them, warm and human and—

“We shouldn’t have spied on you,” Eadwulf says before he can think too much about it. “It might not have worked, if the Assembly hadn’t gotten you involved.”

“Well. Yes. I can’t say that I minded the attention, though,” he adds, and they laugh at that, Caleb included.

“We also shouldn’t have showed up at your home trying to intimidate you into revealing your loyalties,” Astrid says dryly.

“Yes. You could have trusted the Nein. Though your concerns were entirely understandable, and the situation turned out about as optimally as possible for all parties involved.” Then, because they seem to have strayed into the territory of interpersonal errors and he still feels uneasy about the entire thing, “I shouldn’t have eavesdropped on you, the one time.”

The reaction is subtle but immediate. Eadwulf stops breathing for a couple seconds. Astrid’s hand ceases playing with Caleb’s hair, and he looks up at her, brows raised in concern.

“When was that?” she asks lightly.

Essek sighs. Can’t help but curl into himself slightly. “It was in the library, several weeks ago. I’d read a book in Zemnian earlier, so I understood part of your conversation when you entered. I should have told you, rather than pretending I didn’t understand.”

Astrid and Eadwulf are still tense, but Caleb seems to connect the dots, no doubt aided by his excellent memory. “Ah. Well. In your defense, we were talking about you.”

A beat. Then Astrid says, “Then? Really?”

“What?”

“You knew that we liked you. That whole time.”

“I knew that you were attracted to me, but I was also working under the assumption that you were trying to get me killed. So no.”

Silence. “Fair. Just. Don’t do that again,” Eadwulf says.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“We should have told you we weren’t trying to get you killed,” Eadwulf adds after a moment. “So there’s that.”

“It would have been difficult to convince me, in the beginning. But at some point, yes.” He sighs. “Speaking of withholding information, I should have told the Nein about stealing the beacons.”

Caleb frowns at that. “You would not live very long if you made a habit of that.”

“I don’t mean when we first met,” Essek says. “But at dinner, when you asked me what the worst thing I’d ever done was. I could have told you the truth then.”

Caleb blinks a few times. “You could have,” he admits. “That might have, ah. Made the rest easier. But you were not used to trusting people, and the stakes were very high. I can understand why you did not.”

Another silence. Astrid starts playing with Caleb’s hair again. “We should have told you about what happened at Vergesson,” she says.

Caleb sighs, closes his eyes. “I think that if we go over every mistake we have made with each other, we will be here a very long time. And I do want—” A pause. Another sigh. “I have never been particularly good at moderation, only indulgence or abstinence. The lengths I have gone to to obtain—things I wanted, things I decided I could have—I am not proud of myself, for that.” He opens his eyes, looks at Essek. “I shouldn’t have seduced you to get access to dunamancy.”

“I truly cannot emphasize enough how much you did not do that,” Essek retorts. “I realize that this is a somewhat ridiculous assertion considering the number of people currently in my bed, but I am not an easy individual to seduce. I didn’t actually find you attractive until—” He breaks off, sighs. “I don’t know, exactly. Probably when we were working on the Transmogrification.”

“Oh.”

“I know how to play along. I wanted you to believe you had some sway over me. But—it’s nothing personal, really. I’ve never been interested in strangers.”

“I liked you right away,” says Eadwulf.

“And?” Astrid says. “You’ll flirt with anyone who could kill you. That doesn’t mean much.”

He chuckles. “It didn’t. And then the bastard tried to teach me astrology.”

“Astronomy.”

“Ja, astrology.”

Essek reaches over to flick him on the nose, and Eadwulf leans out of the way, smirking. When Essek pulls his arm back, Caleb reaches up and plucks his hand out of the air, laces their fingers together. Whatever Essek was about to say next dies in his throat as Caleb presses his lips against his knuckles. He seems—steadier. Present. Confident, though still with the slightest edge of uncertainty. More than a little hungry. And something else, something that takes Essek too long to recognize because it doesn’t happen particularly often—he looks happy.

“I have no idea how any of this worked out the way it did,” Essek says quietly, like it might disappear if he startles the moment away.

“Considering how we started?” Astrid says. “Neither do I.”

“It was...difficult, in the beginning,” Caleb says. “To have the people I love at odds with each other like that.”

There’s too much of a pause after that, the rest of them struck breathless by the people I love, the sincerity with which he says it, the ease. Eadwulf recovers first. “Easier or harder than when they’re all fucking each other?”

Caleb blinks a couple times. “Well. Something was harder.” Essek is startled into laughter at that. Caleb grins, adds, “It is not every day that your wildest fantasies go ahead and happen without you, you know.”

“You fantasized about this?” Essek asks.

“I have a very, ah. Active imagination. Though I did not imagine it would involve turning into a cat, first,” he admits sheepishly. “I think too much.”

“That’s fine. But. Next time you decide to be a two hundred-pound cat? Perhaps some warning?” Astrid suggests.

Caleb snorts. “Consider yourself lucky that I did not turn into a manticore.”

Essek sits up a bit. “Can you? You figured out the spell?”

“Ja, I think so. I, ah. I spent a lot of time trying to distract myself, these last few weeks.”

Astrid snorts. Eadwulf says, “You’ll have to give a demonstration.”

“You’ll have to show me how you solved the metaphysical mass conversion problem,” Essek adds.

“Nerd,” says Astrid.

“Are you saying that you don’t want to know how he solved the metaphysical mass conversion problem?”

“I didn’t say that I am also not a nerd.”

Caleb laughs, shifting his weight onto one elbow, though he doesn’t let go of Essek’s hand. “I promise I will show you later. But. Tell me if I am—moving too quickly, here—”

“I recognize that patience is a virtue,” Essek says, “but haven’t we all earned a little vice, at this point?”

Caleb blinks. Wets his lips. Blinks a few more times, staring at Essek like a book he hasn’t read yet, before pulling him over to straddle his lap. Essek leans close, lets go of his hand so he can tilt Caleb’s chin up just a bit.

“Yes?” he asks, and Caleb says a breathless word in Zemnian. He still hasn’t figured out if that one means please or you’re welcome, but the sentiment works either way.

“Good,” Essek says, and kisses him.

There are different kinds of infinity, some larger than others. And it seems the same holds true for perfect things, because Caleb’s lips against his is perfect, at least until he feels Astrid’s hand brush against his flank, and that is better, somehow. He’s dizzy with emotion, the feeling of Caleb’s arms thrown around his neck, Astrid’s hand trailing lazily down to his hip, his body pressed against Caleb and the growing evidence of his arousal.

Caleb lets out a surprised moan and breaks away, panting. “Wulf,” he says, a little wrecked.

“What?” Eadwulf says innocently, and lets his hand creep further up the inside of Caleb’s thigh.

Caleb makes another noise, equal parts frustration and desperation, says, “You are all wearing more clothing than I am. That is very unfair.”

“I promise to let you put your clothes on if you let me prestidigitate them first,” Essek says with a smile, not his usual polite facade but something sharper that he’s learned from Astrid.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh? What else could you possibly mean?”

Caleb rolls his eyes and begins fiddling with the clasps on Essek’s shirt.

Astrid snorts. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with that than we have. Neither of us have managed to get him completely naked,” she says, already untying the lacing on her own shirt.

“That is blatantly untrue. I distinctly remember—”

“You were wearing socks,” she says, pulling the shirt over her head. Essek hides his face in the crook of Caleb’s neck, because she’s entirely correct.

“My feet were cold,” he mumbles, and Caleb shakes with quiet laughter beneath him.

They’re terribly inefficient at removing clothing. Part of it is that they’re very good at distracting each other. Part of it is that Essek tries to prestidigitate Caleb’s coat while they’re distracted, setting off an extremely unnecessary chain of Counterspells, and he only manages to clean it the second time because Caleb joins his side. Then things devolve into some sort of contest to steal the socks off Essek’s feet, and an argument over whether Astrid gets partial credit for stealing a sock from Eadwulf’s Mage Hand, and—

“I do not understand why you’re still arguing over a point system when we could be having sex,” Essek says, which does manage to get things back on track.

—

He’s not—Essek has had sex with both of them several times now, but never at the same time, and he’d been a little preoccupied with the logistics of an extra person, let alone two. Which, in hindsight, is a little ridiculous, because he’s fully capable of multitasking and taking turns. He’s not sure if this is too much or not nearly enough, but more people is good, more hands—more, more, more—

Caleb is loud. It does not take long before his speech devolves into incomprehensible Zemnian babbling, and fuck does Essek ever need to learn Zemnian but at least his name is the same in any language. Astrid seems so quiet, in comparison, composed right up until the last few seconds. And Eadwulf is silent, he’s always been silent except for that little cut-off sound when he finishes, but Essek has ideas, suddenly, about what might make him beg just as prettily.

Caleb trails a lazy line of kisses down the column of his throat, lax and sated but nevertheless determined to take Essek apart.

“I have an idea,” Astrid says, and Caleb pauses, pulls away slightly. Essek tries to complain and it comes out as nothing more than a disappointed whine.

“What?” he says after another second’s pause.

“You like to make a spectacle,” she says slowly. “How do you feel about touching yourself while we watch?”

The answer, as it turns out, is very positively.

—

Essek sits on the couch and makes a vague attempt at reading his book, though he’s paying almost as much attention to the Nein’s definitely hypothetical conversation about robbing some lord in Feolinn of all his good wine. Caleb sits next to him, chiming in on occasion. He leans against him, arm thrown around Essek’s shoulders without thought or purpose, touching him just because he can. He’s warm. There are kittens embroidered on the cuff of his sleeve. Essek could die here, perfectly content, but in truth he hasn’t thought about his own death in weeks now.

Their scourgers arrive with little fanfare, skirt past the Nein and head towards the couch. Astrid sits at her usual perch, on the arm of the couch next to Caleb. Eadwulf hesitates a moment before he sits on the other side of Essek, leans against him. Tense, awkward. A couple of the Nein glance over, but none of them comment. Essek’s warning glare might have something to do with it.

The conversation continues for another few minutes. Caleb stands, stretches, leaves the room. Not a minute later, a cat jumps onto the couch, huge and orange and violently fluffy. It accepts Essek’s proffered ear scritches, then curls up onto Eadwulf’s lap and begins a rumbling purr.

This strategy works quite well for a while, Eadwulf slowly relaxing at Essek’s side, one hand carding through fur. But perhaps Caleb does not have the same grasp on the passage of time as a cat, because in one moment he is fuzzy and rumbling and content on Eadwulf’s lap, and in the next he is long-limbed and ungainly and tumbling off the couch in a human heap.

“Are you okay?” Essek asks when Caleb doesn’t immediately get up.

“That was embarrassing,” he says, winded.

Eadwulf snorts and reaches down, scoops Caleb up under the armpits like an errant toddler and sets him on the couch next to him. After a moment, Astrid quietly slides off the arm of the couch to sit next to Essek, rests her head against his shoulder.

Essek had assumed that they always sit here because it’s the most comfortable seat, or because it’s the best position to covertly watch people enter and exit the library, but it turns out that the couch is also exactly the right size for four wizards to sit next to each other without any space between them.

In the grand scheme of things, this small moment, golden and perfect as it is, is entirely inconsequential. This will not be recorded in any history books. This will not prevent a war. It will not turn back time or clean the blood from their hands. The Empire is hungry and canny and its ruler is short-sighted and ill-tempered more often than he is not. The Dynasty is old, so very old, and it will not forget the slights against it, not even in the name of peace. These facts may be mutable, or they may not, but this moment will do nothing to change them regardless.

But therein lies the paradox—if moments like this did not exist, why would any of that be worth changing? The relentless machinations of war, the grim tides of conflict and the clash of nations, none of it is terrible because it belongs in history books. It is terrible for the lives lost, for the moments like this that could have taken place instead.

Astrid reaches up, runs a hand through Essek’s carefully-styled hair, mussing it up beyond recognition. He closes his eyes, leans into the touch. Caleb says something in Zemnian. Eadwulf responds, also in Zemnian, and then Astrid chimes in as well. Essek doesn’t understand the words, but even without looking he can tell that they’re smiling as they speak.

Love is worth almost nothing, in a world like this, so why is it the only thing that matters?