Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At least in the north, his lungs are supposed to hurt. 

It’s something of a relief to be able to simply cough and have it draw no attention. There is no one here who hasn’t found themselves occasionally troubled by the shock of the bitter air, and more than a few who can’t weather the transition from the magically warmed cabins to the freezing decks without a hacking fit. Essek’s aristocratic constitution might be the most delicate of anyone at Vurmas, so if he is drawing a handkerchief to his lips more often than most, it’s hardly remarkable.

If Essek were better at self-delusion, he would tell himself that it was merely the cold troubling him. That before he came to Vurmas, he had contracted one of the innumerable mild illnesses that circulate with the seasons. That the cleric he had petitioned after the cough proved persistent had simply been incompetent in his restoration magic. 

That he had mistaken the effluvia for something else. 

Essek might be a practiced liar, but he cannot deceive himself—at least, not for very long. He was able to dismiss the earliest symptoms as something routine and mundane, but when the cleric he'd sought out failed to banish the cough and the more distinctive troubles began, he was forced to consider the possibility that he was dealing with a more serious problem. He sought answers on his own, and his research brought him to a single, damning conclusion. 

Hanahaki’s disease—so named for the first recorded mage to die of it. (What a bitter triumph, to have one’s name immortalized not for their accomplishments but instead for their undoing. Would it be better to have been forgotten entirely? Ignominy or obscurity, the relative value of each has been heavy on Essek’s mind of late.) It is a magical wasting sickness, one that springs from a deep, particular incongruence between what one wants and what is possible.

So much of magic is will, is the clarity of purpose to seize the malleable parts of the universe and change them to suit one’s vision, even if only for a moment. Mastery of magic leaves few matters of the material out of reach for the determined and clever mage. Longevity, wealth, even fate can be brought to heel with study and practice. In matters of the heart, however, the greatest arcanist is no better equipped than anyone else. A head full of theory cannot shield one from profound emotion.

But of all the fiercest passions, it is only love, love unrequited, that provides soil fertile enough for the disease to grow. 

Oh, there are charms and there are ways to trick the mind, but no mage can force the love, the real love, of another into being. Some gifts can only be given freely. So, when love goes unanswered, when a mage’s terrible, practiced will finds itself confronted with the impossible, there is an opportunity for a sort of inflammation, an infection, of one’s inherent arcanic reserves. It is not unlike a spell held indefinitely in that instant before casting, chafing at the bonds of reality until something sick and septic leaks out.

Still, Hanahaki’s disease is rare, though if untreated, as poor Hanahaki learned, it is fatal.

So Essek knows exactly what this malady is. Knows, maybe down to the minute, when the seed of his terminal devotion germinated. It was on a ship with a nearly unrepeatable name moored in Nicodranas, under the hands of a man who stared down all his sins and told him that even if his actions had damned him, he was still capable of good, and that good was worth doing.

Then he pressed his lips to Essek’s forehead, and Essek was lost.

It is obvious, in hindsight, the moment when Essek’s fondness turned to love, but it took the petals for him to admit what had happened.

He coughed the first one up at court. He was surprised—no, frightened—to find that something small and soft had appeared in his mouth once the spasm passed, but long practice kept his impassive mask in place. He had kept so many dangerous truths behind his teeth by then, hiding the strange little thing under his tongue was nearly reflex. 

He didn’t recognize the splayed, blue petal when he finally found a private place to examine it. It was like nothing he’d ever seen, unlike any of the plants in the gardens of the Lucid Bastion or the Thelyss estate. He still doesn’t know the name of the flower it belongs to. He knows, of course he knows, who he could ask, but he cannot. For so very many reasons he cannot.

Even thinking of him brings a twinge to Essek’s chest. He presses a hand flat against his sternum, an unfortunate tic he’s acquired. He’s sure he looks foolish, and it’s only a matter of time before he does it in the presence of someone else. Still, alone in his chambers, he allows himself the indulgence. He’s not sure if it does him any good at all, but it distracts from the subtle ache that now follows him through his days. He wonders if he could press hard enough, would he be able to feel something growing, twining between his ribs?

No. That’s an absurd thought. He’s still in the earliest phases of the disease, so even if it progressed in such a manner, it’s far too early for something so dramatic. 

That’s perhaps his only stroke of luck—it is progressing slowly.  

The petals, that is what he will have to monitor. The available literature was quite clear on that point—he needs to be cognizant of the volume, the frequency, and the state. Many, often, and bloody signal the latest stages of illness. He will have a lingering tightness of chest, a cough, the occasional petal, for ages yet, but a proper inability to breathe, whole flowers appearing, won’t come until things are more dire. Eventually, he will be weak, nearly unable to speak. Choking, every moment, until the end.

There is a cure. Two, actually. A spell exists to root out the plant, to excise the malignancy. A spell that would flay his affection and affliction from him in one fell swoop, leaving him physically well but utterly indifferent to—to him. The other, well— 

Confession and reciprocity apparently, will also cure the disease. Love, once returned, dispels the pent up energies, lances the wound, burns away the infection. But even if Essek hadn’t already laid himself bare enough for a lifetime, it’s the reciprocity that’s the sticking point. 

Essek cannot obligate anyone to be his cure, Caleb least of all.

After everything Essek’s done, how could he ask for Caleb’s love? Pin his survival on Caleb’s careful heart? Essek threw away any standing he might have had to ask anything of Caleb long before they ever met, and he might be in love but he is clear eyed about what Caleb must think of him, now knowing the truth of who he really is. So if—no, when—Caleb couldn’t reciprocate, how could Essek burden him with the knowledge of Essek’s remaining choices?

Essek feels his lungs flutter, and instinct brings the handkerchief to his mouth. There is something there, lodged deep, that wasn’t a moment before. His chest tightens, his lungs heave, trying to expel it. A few desperate spasms, and it comes free, caught in the silk. A single blue petal. 

It’s as if merely thinking of Caleb is enough to encourage the disease. Essek sighs. Perhaps it is.

Essek examines it closely. It is clean, without even the faintest trace of blood. This is the first one he’s seen in at least a week, and it is much like the last one. The disease is not advancing. Or, at least, advancing as slowly as it ever has. Essek pulls his spellbook from his Wristpocket, notes the state of the petal and the time it appeared on the pages he’s added for just such a purpose. Tracking the course of his illness will be important for his survival.

Essek has a plan, one he thinks is quite tidy. Almost elegant, really.

The disease has a predictable course and a reliable cure. Essek has already transcribed the spell, but as long as the disease continues to grow slowly, then he can wait. (Presupposing he does not run afoul of Assembly assassins, or the Dynasty’s investigation, or the wild magic of Aeor, or—well, the list of things he must avoid to first die of Hanahaki’s disease is long and, frankly, distressing.) He doesn’t yet have enough data to predict more than a vague timeline, but as things stand, he is confident he has decades yet.

His plan, such as anyone in similar circumstances can plan, is to simply live with the disease. Take careful doses of Caleb’s remaining time, if and when Caleb sees fit to dole them out. They will be sips of a decadent poison, but Essek knows they will be worth it. And when the cruel joke that is the human lifespan metes out its punchline, then he will cast the cure. 

Then, but not a minute before.

(Essek cannot deceive himself, but he can still avoid being entirely honest with himself. If he were, he would have to admit that he’s frightened of who he will be, if he is a man who does not love Caleb Widogast. He knows who he was before, what he was willing to do. He carries affection for the rest of the Mighty Nein, affection the cure would not touch, but it was Caleb’s furious, desperate pleading that pulled him off such a destructive course. That made him a man who cares enough about someone else to be sick with it.

So, even if it kills him, he will never again be the man he was while Caleb is still alive to see it.)

Perhaps it would be better if he could keep Caleb far from his mind, but when Jester Sends to him after such a long silence, the thoughts will not stay away. 

They are asking for help, and knowing the kinds of trouble they court, he’s certain it’s serious. It galls him to be able to offer nothing more than a safe place should they get to the outpost, but even if he could leave, finding and getting to them is an ordeal bordering on suicidal. He’s of no use to anyone if he Teleports himself into a mountain or dies trudging through the icefields.

Promise of sanctuary made, all he can do is worry. He thinks of Caleb, of all of them, freezing to death, or succumbing to whatever a Nonagon is, or stumbling into a ruin and never returning. (He also thinks of them making it to Vurmas, and that is its own hell.)

The cough gets worse. When there are petals, he makes his notes. He tries not to think about it, and sometimes he even succeeds.

Seeing Caleb again is an agony. 

Essek deserves his suspicion, he knows that he does, but watching the guarded way Caleb stares at him, watching his every move—

Caleb is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for some new betrayal. Watching Essek like he is a threat, when Essek can’t even bring himself to meet his eyes.

Essek wishes fervently for his lungs to fill then and there. If he fell dead before him, then at least the flowers crowding his mouth would vindicate him as a hopeless fool instead of a perpetual traitor. He wishes that, but he still grits his teeth through every flutter of his lungs, refusing to allow even the beginnings of a spasm. Does everything in his power to hide his sickness, his weakness, from them, from him because the Mighty Nein need an ally they can rely on and he is already willing to die by inches for one of them.

At least the discussion of the danger they are all in makes it easy to keep other things out of his mind. (Things like the beard Caleb has grown again, the darker freckles that paint his cheeks, the thicker spellbook on his hip.) If even half of what they fear is true, then things are very bad indeed. 

When he sends them away, he does it with an only slightly muddled conscience. At least his reasoning is sound, if not the whole truth. If they stayed, if Caleb stayed, he’s sure he would get worse. And if they need him, he cannot afford to get worse.

Still, Caleb—damnable, perceptive, kind Caleb—lingers, takes him by the arm. 

“Breathe,” Caleb tells him. “Breathe that fresh air.”

Oh, the audacity of this man. As if it was not the love of him choking Essek.

He tells Essek of time, but Essek can only focus on the heat of his palm, somehow bleeding through his heavy sleeves. On the tickle in the back of his throat. On the pain building in his chest. He would swear that he feels something growing in his lungs, that he feels roots burrowing into the soft tissues beneath his ribs. 

Finally—and still far too soon—Caleb lets him go, saying, 

“It takes time.”

Essek, with all the strength of will he possesses, manages to respond evenly, if only for a single word,

“Indeed.”

Caleb, seemingly satisfied, leaves him, mercifully shutting the door on his way out.

Essek holds his breath and clenches his jaw and presses both hands to his chest and counts the seconds until he is sure they’ve all walked away (until he can bear it no more) and then he coughs and coughs and coughs, letting anything that will come spill forth. 

This time there are more petals than he can count by sight, and they are all tinged with blood.

By the morning, they are gone. By the morning, Essek is coughing up red stained blooms and black, thick blood clots.

Chapter Text

His plan, like all the others, has unraveled. 

He thought he would have years, decades, with no more than the occasional troublesome cough, a manageable ache, the errant petal. Instead, in the space of a few days, his disease has gone from a problem he can mostly ignore to weak, rattling lungs and to a throat raw from the near constant parade of flora. 

They are beautiful, at least, these flowers. Strange, utterly foreign, but beautiful. The colors are bewitching, sometimes blue, sometimes purple, always lovely. The petals, with which Essek has already become so familiar, in situ are florets that ring a central structure, the entire blossom more complex than Essek would have initially supposed. Entirely appropriate, then, given the man who’s caused them.

Essek placed one, after he cleaned it of blood, in his spellbook, hiding it between the pages describing a cantrip he has long since mastered. He’s curious to see how long it lingers, as many things produced by magic don't last for long on their own.

(What a perfect irony it would be, if it outlasted him.)

The time he can spare from his preparations and his duties, he spends bent over his desk, charting the acceleration of his illness with a complete and morbid fascination. That there is a relationship between his interactions with Caleb and the sudden shift in his prognosis is obvious, but the precise way it has worsened begs further study.

He brought copies of what journals he could source from his dead or bereft predecessors, and he does his best to chart their grim paths as well. He forgets to trance entirely one night as he tries to fit a curve to each of the dozen or so plots, notating each of the critical points with the events that precipitated the change in slope. He is sure that if he can just find the commonalities, then he can derive a system of equations to model the disease. Once that is done, then he can use his findings to predict his own course.

(In one of his more maudlin moments, he thinks of some future mage reading the desperate scrawlings of a dead heretic and finding the last piece of their own puzzle. If he manages to provide some new insight to the disease, will that be a good he can tally in that painfully thin column? Will it count for anything at all?)

Sometime late in the night, three days after the Nein left him, he realizes he is attempting to quantify the act of falling in love. To reduce his affection, his rejection, to coefficients. To flatten the profoundness of his feelings to something he can graph. 

He laughs at the absurdity of his hubris, a wretched giggling fit that leaves him as pained and breathless as the flowers. He gives over to the laughter, because the alternative would be to weep or rage. Perhaps there is a way to distill the workings of the heart to base mathematics, but he is not going to find it between now and when the Mighty Nein return to Eiselcross. Instead, he opens his spellbook to a blank page. His notes have taken something of an editorial bent, but that is both catharsis and hopefully helpful for whoever reads them next. This effort won’t feel like such a waste if he records his findings, so— 

Lost tens of hours attempting to mathematically describe falling in love. Symptoms did not worsen. Charts included. I do not advise repeating the exercise.

He blots the pages, then makes good on the entry by adding the leaves of paper containing his charts and sundry notes. As he does, he can’t help but see the spell that would cure him. A reflexive frown tugs at his lips.

Even with the sudden escalation, the thought of casting it is wholly repulsive.  

He might not be at his best, physically speaking, but he knows that as he is he will give the full measure of himself, whatever that may be, to the Nein. To Caleb.

If he cast it, saved himself? Then he would be as likely to flee to save his skin as not, and that is unacceptable. There is no reason to think he cannot ride this out, no matter how painful it might be, at least until this business with Aeor and the Tombtakers is over. 

He certainly owes them enough to try. 

He had nearly forgotten that the specter of the Assembly is looming over him amidst everything else, but Jester’s Sending brings that particular anxiety crashing back, front and center. 

At least he had already been preparing to leave at a moment’s notice.

Perhaps in this way, it is a mercy to be ill. If the Assembly were to find him now (which would almost certainly entail laying waste to all the innocent people at Vurmas, but what are a few more lives weighing on his so very guilty conscience?) then he wouldn't last long in their care. Oh, he would suffer, and perhaps he would break, but he wouldn’t linger. 

It is a cold comfort. 

“—The sight of you will be welcome. Hurry, and be safe.”

The art of sincerity is one he is still mastering, but he tries his best as he replies to Jester. The connection of the spell fades, carrying his words away, and Essek preemptively presses his hand to his chest. 

Nothing.

The tincture is working, then. 

The cough had become enough of a problem to drive him to requisition a number of cough-suppressing medicines from the outpost’s chemist. He’s sure that hasn’t gone unremarked upon, but, being who he is, no one can deny him. (And hasn’t that been the problem of his life—too much latitude afforded to his faulty discretion. At least now he thinks to account for the needs of the rest of the outpost when he takes for himself.)

He will need all the help he can get, once the Mighty Nein return, if he is to make it through the coming days without his illness being detected.

And he is so very sure it must remain undetected. 

He’s thought it through. Carefully considered the scenarios that are most likely— 

Being deemed too much of a liability, for fear that he would leave them wanting in a crucial moment— 

Finding that he has become expendable, since he is already dying, and the agony that would be—

Enduring their prying questions, until the wretched truth is known, and he is told what he already knows—  

—and any one would be enough for him to keep his condition to himself, but with all of them seeming equally likely. Well.

Best they not know. 

He downs a full bottle of the strongest tincture he has when he is notified of the Mighty Nein’s imminent arrival. Considers a little liquor, for his nerves, but decides against it. The last thing he needs is another handicap on his faculties. His foresight on both counts is rewarded, as it is Caleb who delivers the grim news they bear—news that proves him still a terrible coward.

And worse than a coward, he finds himself comparable to Trent Ikithon. 

That man—Essek is no saint, but that man is evil. And he is coming. Essek’s death might be likely, not welcome, but probable enough that Essek has had to reckon with it. Ikithon is capable of things so much worse than death, and now that Essek has nothing left to offer him—  

Has he anything left to offer anyone, if the Nein are considering parlaying with him instead—

He only just manages to catch himself on the brink of a disastrous spiral. Is this not the callous calculus he himself has weighed, over and over? Is it not just that he would eventually find himself on this side of the equation?

Is it not only the natural consequences of his actions, that he would find himself weighed by his love against the foulest soul they both know and be found wanting?

He cannot leave Caleb at the mercy of that man, he realizes. Neither can he involve himself directly with Ikithon. Love apparently cannot grant him the necessary bravery. If he was braver, if he was better—

His chest begins to tighten, something creeps up his throat. He cannot take a full breath, he realizes. He begs their leave and fairly flees the room. 

He retains enough of his faculties to instruct the nearest guard to tell the captain to increase the patrols. Anything that might give them an edge if either Ikithon or the Tombtakers arrive. His lungs are heaving by the time he makes it to his personal chambers. 

Ikithon.

So that is how low he has fallen? The contempt they held for that man was nearly a physical thing, and still they must weigh Trent’s utility against Essek’s. He knows why they hesitate, but— 

Essek feels as if his ribs are caught in a vice while all the atmosphere has been evacuated from the room.

He tries for slow, cautious sips of air, but it isn’t enough. Then he tries to gasp, but there’s no room left, the flowers have taken it all. His vision narrows, darkness pressing in. He flings a hand out toward his desk, trying to keep himself upright as his magic falters and gravity sinks its tethers back in, but he misses. Essek tumbles to the floor, barely catching himself before his head would collide with the polished wood, and there the coughing starts. 

He barely has enough air to do more than gag at first, and it’s not until he’s able to choke out a half dozen flowers does it start in earnest. Then his whole body shakes with the fury of his deeply mistreated lungs. He doesn’t even try to cover his mouth, doesn’t try to sit up, just lies there and gives over to disease. Distantly, he wonders if the cough suppressant doesn’t put a stop to anything, like he’d thought, but merely dams it up for later. 

His stomach churns with the blood and petals he happens to swallow, then it abruptly sours and bile is added to the mess he is making. His own helplessness, his wretchedness makes his eyes sting, and that’s just one more indignity on the heap. 

The fit eventually passes. Essek doesn’t try to right himself for long minutes afterward. 

Breathe that fresh air he can't help but remember. 

Essek would laugh if he could. Trust Caleb to ply him with a task he himself made impossible.

No, that's unfair. The blame here lies squarely on Essek's own shoulders.

He finally pushes himself up, cleans the mess without looking too closely, and pulls his spell book from the Wristpocket. Adds another point to his own chart with the caption many then begins to write— 

There is a wretched viper of a man, one C. hates above all others. And given the choice between working with myself and that vermin, C. has hesitated. The whole of the circumstances that lead to this hesitation are not relevant, only that I have received confirmation of C.’s contempt, and it has dramatically worsened my symptoms. The demulcent tinctures had been working well previous to the conversation. Will continue with them anyway, lacking a better solution.

If the entry sounds a little bitter, so be it. It would not be the first.

He packed that which he needs for travel after the last time the Nein came to Vurmas (and repacked, and repacked, and repacked—it always seemed as if he was bringing too much or not enough or the wrong equipment all together) so it's little trouble to outfit himself with all he’ll be bringing.

Where he’ll be bringing it, well. That’s up to them. 

Returning to the Nein feels like what he imagines the walk to the gallows will—an eternity that passes in an instant. He pauses outside the door, trying to steel himself to hear their choice. Tells himself it will be Ikithon, so it will not blindside him if it is. 

Jester insists they’re naked when he knocks, which might be true, so he hesitates long enough for someone to corroborate her. When no one does, he opens the door. 

They aren’t naked.

They are all staring at him. Not offering up their choice. With his stomach somewhere near his feet, he asks.

Then the word trust falls from Caleb’s lips, and he’s not sure if it’s relief or the flowers choking him. It hurts, but the hurt is precious. If only it didn’t feel like hope.

Essek resists looking back at Vurmas. For all its hardships, it was good to him. He tried to be a good steward in return, and maybe he even succeeded. Hopefully his successor sees it for the opportunity it is, instead of the punishment many consider it.

He catches himself, grimaces. It’s unhelpful to be thinking this way, but— 

But the math is simple. Even if, somehow, they succeed in Aeor and return alive, then his time in Vurmas would still be limited. His disease or his enemies will drive him from this post. 

It’s better to focus on the task at hand, rather than the future. Better to make himself useful to his—can he still call them friends?—his allies. Camouflage, for example, is something he can easily offer. 

Essek hadn’t given much consideration to what travelling with the Mighty Nein would be like. Their mission leaves him feeling somewhat grim, but they—well, they are as they always are. In turn, he quickly finds himself both exasperated and fond, as he always is. 

It’s more of a relief than it should be.

When they stop to let Jester Scry, he’s honestly grateful. He isn’t trudging through the snow like the rest of them, but the daylight—reflected off the damn snow, so even averting his eyes is no reprieve—has given him a pounding headache. He hunches down a few feet from where they’ve loosely gathered about Jester and pulls his hood further over his face. The relief the dimness brings is immediate, but he closes his eyes anyway and presses the heels of his hands over them to shut out the light entirely. He can’t help but sigh as the soothing darkness blunts the worst of the eye strain.  

The sigh comes easily. He takes a deep breath, and while there’s something of an ache, it’s not as bad as it was back at the outpost. He realizes then he hasn’t really been preoccupied with much beyond growing headaches in hours, and he hasn’t really been coughing either. Perhaps it is worth noting.

But that will entail ending his reprieve from the daylight early. He could simply huddle down further into his cloak, using it as a makeshift tent while he writes, but that would look ridiculous. 

Not as ridiculous as any of the Nein do at any given moment, though. Jester requires phalluses for a Scrying ritual, Light’s sake. He’s not sure he could possibly be the most absurd among them if he tried. 

Secure in that revelation, Essek pulls the collar of his cloak over his head and pulls out his spellbook and pencil.

I hate the sunlight enough to forget what love is.* 

The combination of my light sensitivity and continued ingestion of the tinctures seems to temporarily put a stop to the symptoms. While I do not have the time to properly experiment, nor would I subject anyone else in laboratory conditions, I suspect that there is a threshold for physical stimulus that prevents the emotional feedback that feeds the disease, temporarily easing it. 

*this is a joke

“Hallo?”

Caleb.

Essek coughs once, through his teeth, his hand flying to his chest on instinct. He rubs a small circle, waiting for more, but nothing comes. 

Then, he realizes what he’d done, and in whose company. What if Caleb had seen? Would he realize this tic was new? Would it lead him to thinking more closely about the coughing? What if something had come up? Essek could have drawn so much attention to himself with that little gesture— 

He used to have more control over himself. Surely he can find it again.

He stores away his spellbook, and unfolds himself. He still keeps the hood low, because the sun is still trying to burn his eyes from their sockets, but uses his spell to push himself high enough to meet Caleb’s eyes.

“Are you well?” Caleb asks softly, head tilted. More curious than worried, but still a little worried. 

“Fine. It is just—” Essek gestures vaguely skyward. “I am glad for the break, to be honest.”

“Ah. You know, if the pace, if you need—”

Essek grits his teeth almost preemptively. Short of waiting until nightfall, nothing will make Essek more comfortable. And they cannot afford such a delay.

“Better to get to the ruins than spend more time in the sun.”

“Fair enough,” Caleb says, after a moment’s consideration. “You know, I have found that we casters do well in the middle of the group. If you need to rest your eyes, we could guide you along.” 

Essek doesn’t think of taking Caleb’s hand and letting himself be guided over the snow. Doesn’t let himself wonder if that grip would be firm or light. Doesn’t consider it in the slightest, so why, why does his chest hurt?

Caleb’s lips quirk, and his eyes crinkle, then he says,

“Like a balloon.”

Amusement curls Essek's lips, in spite of himself. The visual was absurd enough with Jester, imagining himself beggars belief such that it doesn’t even ding his pride. 

“I can manage, but thank you,” Essek says, more warmly than is perhaps wise. A pitfall of sincerity. 

He is rewarded with a proper smile from Caleb, but before that can feed anything, Jester’s noises of frustration draw his attention. He bats the snow off his clothes and turns back to the group. 

"Well, I take it, it was not a success?"

It wasn’t, unfortunately. The march continues. 

Essek drifts to the center of the group, and leaves his hood pulled low. Doesn’t take anyone’s hand. Keeps his own firmly at his sides, with his handkerchief ready. 

Tries and fails to push Caleb’s smile from his thoughts.

Chapter Text

They haven’t even made it into Aeor proper, and something has already tried to kill them. Essek knew this trek would be dangerous, that violence was a certainty, but he thought he knew the shape their troubles would take. He thought he was ready.

Objectively, he wasn’t not ready. The sudden appearance of the grotesqueries had startled him, made him slow to react, but he had hardly wilted. His battlefield of familiarity may be the court, the crossing of wits, the subtle art of elicitation, but what kind of Shadowhand would he be if he didn’t have at least a functional understanding of the tactics of dunamancer-echo knight pairs? 

While Yasha might not be an echo knight—frankly, in combat, she appears to be simply, devastatingly, a force of nature—that hadn’t mattered. In fact, none of Essek’s hastily recalled tactics mattered, because before he could even finish his second spell, the undead creatures were dispatched. 

The sudden violence shifting abruptly to relative calm has unsettled Essek, but it appears he is the only one unnerved. Even Jester, who’d been badly hurt, seems to be in her usual high spirits after a little time being fussed over and working the chill out of her bones. They all live like this, Essek remembers. Thrive in it, if his observation is worth anything.

And Caleb, well. The idea to Polymorph an enemy into impotence is inspired. That’s the kind of lateral thinking that must separate a battle tested mage from an academic, and something Essek will need to emulate if he is to avoid being a burden on this expedition.

What else had Caleb studied in preparation for today? What experience led to those decisions? Essek would love to know. He would also love to know what Caleb would think of his own choices. 

He steals a glance at his peer. Caleb is sitting up against the cliff face, near where Caduceus and Yasha are resting. He’s bent over his spellbook, one hand idly scratching his beard. The damnable sun catches in his hair, revealing a depth of color Essek had never noticed in Rosohna. In the dark, red was beautiful for its novelty, but under the light, it comes to life, glimmering like fire.

Maybe the sun isn’t so bad, Essek thinks, in the instant before his lungs spasm. 

He’s quick with the handkerchief, drawing it from his Wristpocket and clamping it over his mouth in one smooth motion. One cough, then two, shudders through him, but only a few stained petals come up. He swallows a few times, trying to rid himself of the taste of blood at the back of his tongue. He only just stops himself from pressing his free hand to his chest, balling it at his side instead.

“You okay, man?”

Essek freezes at the sound of Beauregard’s voice, remembering to Prestidigitate the petals and blood from his handkerchief with only an instant to spare. 

“I am well, Beauregard, thank you,” he says, turning to face her. She is a little flushed—from the cold or the exertion it’s impossible to tell—but otherwise just as relaxed as the others.

“Sounds like a shitty cough, dude—oh fuck, you got a little—” she grimaces and brushes her fingers along the corner of her mouth. Essek reaches up to his own, mirroring her, and fingers come back smeared with red. 

Careless, careless— 

He casts Prestidigitation again, careful to get every speck of imperfection from his face and hands this time.

“Yeah, that got it, show off,” she grumbles without heat. Then, more seriously, she adds, “If you get hit, don’t be shy about asking for healing. It’s easier to keep you alive than bring you back.”

“It was nothing, but I will keep that in mind,” he says carefully. Her eyes narrow at his dismissal, her casual attitude sharpening into appraisal. For a moment, Essek feels as if she is trying to peel back his very skin with nothing but the force of her glare. But this kind of attention is something Essek was born to endure, so he dons his most pleasant mask and smiles politely, waiting for her to take her fill of his visage.

“All right, whatever,” she says, finally, in a way that suggests she was not at all ready to let it go but is doing it anyway. “You did good, though,” she continues. “Haste is fuckin’ clutch.” She smiles then, a real one, crooked and soft. “Looked really good on Yasha, too.”

Envy is a nasty thing, and so Essek quashes it immediately. Beauregard and Yasha deserve their happiness. He deserves his own lot.

“I am not unfamiliar with casting under pressure.” He could have done without the note of defensiveness, but apparently he’s not far enough removed from the years of being dismissed for his age to shake the reflexive reaction. His expression doesn’t slip, though, he’s sure. Beauregard doesn’t seem to take offense, if she even noticed. 

“Yeah, clearly. It’s good to have you on the team. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so.” 

She looks pointedly at the cliff, at the man sitting in its lee. Essek doesn’t follow her gaze. He doesn’t think his lungs could take it.

“Well, I suppose I’m flattered to be preferable to Trent Ikithon and his assassins.”

Beauregard’s head snaps back toward him, and her expression could strip varnish. Essek’s been the subject of far, far worse, though, so he keeps smiling.

“Don’t be shitty, man, we were having a moment.”

Then she punches him in his shoulder. That breaks his composure, and he begins to snap at her, but she turns and stalks off before he can even open his mouth.

Once she’s out of earshot, Essek allows himself a beleaguered sigh. 

Beauregard can be grating, but he ought not have brought Ikithon up. Especially because, in her way, she was trying to be kind. It is Beauregard, though, so his rudeness was likely taken in stride. Essek pinches the bridge of his nose, then draws his spellbook from his Wristpocket. He means to do a little study, like Caleb is, but habit has him opening it to his notes. 

He can’t help but add another addendum to to the last one— 

Being attacked by the undead also alleviates symptoms. This is not a joke.

—then he begins reviewing his spells properly. 

Not long after, the Nein reconvene at the entrance to the ruins. They settle into a marching order after what seems like far too little discussion to Essek, but he reminds himself that they have probably faced similar circumstances enough times to have already worked out the most optimal solution, so he bites back his concerns. 

It’s harder to swallow his trepidation when Caleb, Veth, and Yasha venture down into the frigid dark, but he manages. He is hardly neutral in his assessment of who should go where, and they have the wisdom of experience at their disposal. 

That doesn’t stop Essek from cursing himself for his reticence when the near infrasonic rumble echoes up from below and the Nein begin a mad scramble after their scouts. 

For a hellish moment, Essek cannot find Caleb, but he remembers late that he is looking for a spider, and that a spider might be all sorts of places. Like the ceiling. 

Essek sighs. They are all, miraculously, accounted for and unharmed. 

While they would have descended anyway, Essek would have preferred not to do it in such a rush, without knowing what was waiting below. A shiver shakes him, and he pulls his furs tighter. It’s colder down here, much colder. It almost has a malice, like it is deliberately leaching the warmth from his bones. Essek’s never felt the like. Should it really be so much worse a few dozen feet below ground? 

Essek glances around, but all he sees is rubble and dingy fungus. He feels a cough building, but it might simply be the cold, not the disease. It is so wretchedly frigid. Still, he pulls out his handkerchief, covers his mouth, just in case. The others turn to him with inquisitive looks as he chokes on the very air.

“There is something curious here,” he says, as much to himself as to them. He starts to continue, but the rest of them burst into chatter. Finally, Fjord cuts through them, asking,

“Essek, what were you going to say?”

“This is—” His own lungs interrupt him. “—a very odd sensation.” 

“Are you—” Yasha starts, but Beauregard cuts her off,

“Is there something here we can't see?”

"I—I don't—” He has to stop for a few seconds to catch his breath. “—know."

He means to elaborate, but Caduceus calls him away from where he’s floating. He glances up at Caleb, still inhabiting the form of a spider, very far from the group, but Caduceus is insistent, so he goes where he's called. Once he’s away from the mold, the extreme cold fades. The temperature is almost mild in comparison. 

It’s easier to breathe as well. 

Feeling better, Essek puts the handkerchief away. He notices Caduceus giving him a strange look, but then a massive lizard drops from the ceiling, and Essek has much bigger problems. 

Chapter Text

If the behemoth undead were Essek’s first brush with danger on this expedition, then the reptiles were his first with death. Until the moment when one had opened its jowls and disgorged its frigid, putrid breath, death had been an abstract. A pressing abstract, certainly, but an abstract nonetheless. No amount of fretting, it turns out, was adequate preparation for the very real possibility of a quick and violent death.

That is to say, contemplating unbeing, planning to avoid it, considering the worst, was one thing, but to be left shaking, aching after a wall of malevolent cold hit him with the fury of blizzard, to be contending with the thought he would end his life by being eaten alive by a hungry, baleful, overgrown lizard was another. 

Or, perhaps, put even more plainly, Essek had nearly died, not of his disease, not at the hand of his enemies, but because of a simple beast, and they’ve not even been gone a full day. He has been dying, technically speaking, for weeks, but he hadn’t really understood mortal terror before now, and even though he survived the encounter, he feels like frozen worm shit, and he’s also left with the sour fact no amount of rationalization beforehand did him any good. 

And that’s not even getting to the incident.

Essek is having this petty existential crisis while buried in the fur of a Polymorphed Caleb Widogast, left where he had been placed by the man-cum-ape. 

One moment he had been offering to clear the path before them of the mold, and the next he was bodily grabbed by—by his—by Caleb and presented to the clerics like so much—like he was—

Essek doesn’t know enough of apes to even begin to speculate what hiccup of diminished cognition had caught Caleb that he would fixate on him in such a way. Others were hurt nearly as badly, and he hadn't exactly been the closest at hand. He’d reached past Veth, Light’s sake. 

He doesn’t think very clearly as an animal Jester said, as if that was meant to clarify anything.

But thinking any more about that would be worse than contemplating his own mortality, so Essek allows the latter to consume him so the beast carrying him does not. (He tried to climb down only once. Caleb had stopped and turned his now huge head back to look, his deep set eyes staring with an intensity  Essek couldn’t begin to interpret. That stare was enough to make him feel sheepish, inexplicably chastised, and instead of retreating to the dignity of the ground, he stayed put.

Maybe it was for the best, he truly does feel awful.)

Caduceus was able to alleviate the pain from the fight, but it had worn down Essek’s ability to cope gracefully with the disease. Even lying here, doing practically nothing, he can’t completely catch his breath. It seems like something he should note, but he can’t, not while Caleb is still moving. He closes his eyes, one hand fisted in Caleb’s thick pelt and the other kneading his chest with what he can only hope is enough subtlety to not be noticed.

He isn’t coughing over much, at least, and the path is trying enough that it seems likely no one is paying him particular attention. When he does cough something up, he removes it and keeps the best tally he can.

Caduceus has trouble fighting his way up the icy incline, and when Caleb turns back to help him, Essek takes the opportunity to climb down. It is a chance for sorely needed privacy, with the Nein watching the ape carry the cleric up the treacherous path.   

There is a pile of rubble, taller than he is, nearby. It is both the only point of interest within close proximity, and far enough from the group to afford some semblance of privacy. Essek ducks behind it and hacks himself raw.

Three whole flowers come up, all bloody, along with more individual petals than he has the energy to count. Precision was always going to be a casualty of this expedition, so Essek doesn’t let himself fret over it.

He draws his spellbook and his tincture from his Wristpocket. Quickly makes a note in the former—a tally, annotated as approximate, citing extenuating circumstances (the cold, the lizards, the march, the ape)—and drinks as much as he can choke down of the latter.

He finishes just in time for Caleb to crest the ridge of the incline, Caduceus in tow, and rejoins the Nein with nothing more than a few sidelong glances.

Essek is glad for the chance to rest, and not just for his own sake. Caleb, having dropped his Polymorph looks, being generous, like at least six of the nine hells. (Yet another use, one Essek hadn’t considered, using another body to bolster one’s hardiness in a moment of danger. Seeing him now, it is no wonder he kept it up as long as he had.)

The Nein collapse into the relative safety of a corpse filled, ancient house, and Essek with them. He tries not to pay too much attention to Caleb—surely either Jester or Caduceus will see to him, and seeing him in such a bad way threatens to upset what meager equilibrium he has managed to achieve—and instead busies himself with his spellbook. Jester has—rightly—mentioned the concern of their growing exhaustion. They cannot afford to meet the Tombtakers at half strength.

There must be a way—

A chronal reversal? No, then there’s the question of how to maintain continuity of consciousness, and that’s a complicated enough subject as is. A localized quickening of time, then, carefully applied, that might work—

But the amount of dumanis required, for all eight of them, that’s more than Essek could channel at all, discounting his own safety entirely. He could at best get three of them before promptly dying of exertion—

If there was a power source—

Essek turns to a blank page and begins writing in pencil, attempting to define the edges of this new problem. If he can define it at all, that would be a start. It would make for a fascinating project, eventually. It might even expand the dunamancer’s repertoire of might to include life saving measures, which are now mostly limited to those channeling the Luxon itself via clerical pact magic—

Quickly, Essek is lost in thought.

So it takes him entirely by surprise when Caduceus asks,

“Do you want any tea, Mr. Essek?”

Essek freezes, pencil midstroke, for the entirety of the seconds it takes him to process the words, and only then does he look up.

“Oh,” he replies. How articulate. The distraction isn’t welcome in itself, but since he’s momentarily derailed, a warm beverage would be nice. His fingers are getting cold. “If you are offering.”

Caduceus presses a chipped and faded, but sturdy, cup into his hand and sits down across from Essek. The others are arguing, with varying levels of intensity, about what to do next. Essek doesn’t feel as if he can weigh in until later—he knows what he is capable of, but without knowing the limits of their strength he cannot make any useful suggestions—so he gives them half an ear and sips his tea.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Caduceus says, after a moment.

“It’s good to be of use to a worthy cause,” Essek replies, trying to balance caution and sincerity.

“It’s just, I thought you would have been done with secrets,” Caduceus says mildly. Only long experience keeps an expression from Essek’s face.

Nothing can keep him from feeling chagrined, though. He should have known the tea was a trap.

Lying to Caduceus is a waste of both of their time, so Essek doesn’t try. He sips his tea and breathes as shallowly and slowly as he can and tries to think of a truth he can part with.

“Secrets are still part of my tradecraft, but I can’t imagine that is surprising news to you, Mr. Clay.”

“And are we part of your tradecraft?”

“Of course not.” Essek lowers his cup to his lap so he can sweep one hand in a gesture reserved for oaths. He completes the motion before he remembers it is so much waving to Caduceus. So much waving to himself, honestly. If the Luxon would strike anyone down for untruths, it would be him, and yet here he sits, doomed with no divine intervention whatsoever. Inexplicably self-conscious, he wraps both hands around the cup and stares into it. “I would hope you could extend me the grace to believe I offered my aid out of nothing but solidarity. If I gain anything, it is a plane free of this sudden— sudden interference. No more and no less than what you seek, I’m given to understand.”

Caduceus hums. Sips from his tea. Lets the silence drag.

This is an interrogation technique—let the silence grow long, tense, until guilt forces something from the accused’s mouth. Once they begin talking, even if they lie, it’s easier to keep them going until they slip up.  It is unlikely Caduceus trained in any such thing, but he certainly has the intuition for it. The thought of someone as perceptive as Caduceus Clay bent to such a purpose chills Essek in an unexpected way.

Essek is keeping a secret, but he thinks he knows what worries Caduceus. After all, he’s essentially stated it outright. Essek should simply endure the silence, but that would surely unsettle Caduceus, and, truly, that isn’t what he wants.

“Am I not allowed my privacy?” Essek responds, finally, nearly under his breath. It is a gamble, speaking, but he hopes his better intentions will carry him through.

“I don’t see why not."

"Well, then know anything I now keep to myself is only a matter of privacy, not secrecy."

"How do you figure?"

Oh, but this one is easy.

"For good or ill, those things affect only me."

"And if that changes?"

Essek wants to laugh. As if it could. As if this disease could hurt anyone but him. Though—one day, this will strangle him, take much of his magic, make him a burden, perhaps even a liability. But not today, or tomorrow. Or even the day after, probably. It would take something truly drastic to accelerate the disease in such a way, and there are far more immediate dangers vying to kill him first.

So, Essek can say this with the conviction he thinks Caduceus wants—

"If it comes down to my privacy or anyone's safety, then I will choose safety."

Caduceus regards him for a small eternity, all gentle smile and utterly unwavering stare, then hums softly and takes another sip from his own tea cup.

“Well, that’s fair enough I suppose.”

Then he tells Essek about the grave the tea grew from, which seems to mean the matter is settled.

Once their trap is safely laid (a heart stopping moment when Caleb had tripped while fleeing the bombs, aside) there is little to do but wait while Caleb produces his promised shelter.

It occurs to Essek that they might be successful, as Caleb begins to cast. There is plenty of room for error, for failure in this plan, but it is not impossible. Very soon, the Tombtakers might be dispatched.

(Ikithon still poses a problem, but Essek cannot contain any more anxiety about that than he already does, so he refuses to think on it further.)

And if the Tombtakers are gone, then shortly after, the Mighty Nein, Caleb, will be too. It should be a relief. Without Caleb, the progress of disease will surely slow. It should be a relief, but Essek aches at the thought of the distance.

After all, he might never see him again.

(In three, four, five decades, when Caleb is gone, will anyone think to tell him? Or will he have to guess at the right time to cast his cure? Something in his chest throbs, but he resists the urge to press palm to sternum.)

All his thoughts flee him as an amber light pierces a hole in reality, forming a doorway. The Nein jostle their way through, but Essek lingers, just a moment. A demi-plane, even if it turns out to be an impermanent one, achieved in so little time—

The things Caleb will be able to achieve, if he can just make it through the next day.

Essek would do many things, nearly anything, to make sure he does. Essek’s chest aches in a new, particular way, at the realization. It aches in the way that has fast become his normal too, and, in the quiet of the dead city, he coughs up a few petals. Counts them, disposes of them, and goes inside.

The foyer Caleb built is beautiful. Deserving of praise.

"This is quite impressive. Is this of your own design?" Essek says.

“Ja,” Caleb replies, somewhat self-effacing. A shame, he should be more confident in such a lovely, careful creation. “It's for these chuckleheads. Look though, this is your influence.”

He directs Essek’s attention to a delicate stained glass panel, one meant to evoke dunamancy. It is more delicate than anything mundane could ever be, carefully rendered glowing conjured glass, perfect in every detail.

“Happy to contribute to an otherwise prominent Zemnian influence.” Essek can’t keep the wry bit of teasing out of his voice, because the foundational influence of the architecture is obvious. But not out of place, not considering the mage who made it. It’s only right he should work off of the basis most familiar to him, most comforting to his eyes. So Essek concedes, “But, truth be told, the better elements of Zemnian architecture.”

For a moment, Essek thinks Caleb has taken his comment poorly, and he means to say something else, something to smooth things over, but Caleb says,

“In the best of all choices, there would be less—less walls between us in general.” Essek’s heart jumps to his throat. His chest burns. Does he—no, he could not. Surely not. “Some day, some century, maybe.”

Ah. There it is. Noble Caleb, so concerned with the tides of history, with the safety of his countrymen. A better man than Essek. Essek does not let it sting.

“Maybe,” he says, as lightly as possible.

If Caleb notices anything amiss, he does not comment, saying instead,

“Thank you for coming with us this far. We could all very well die tomorrow.”

It takes all Essek’s self-control not to laugh. To keep his hands from his chest. Die tomorrow—but no, things are not so dire. Still, his chest aches as fiercely as it ever has, and it takes all his willpower to keep his hands still. He swallows down the phantom taste of blood on his tongue, and tries for wry humor as he says,

“Well, isn't that the truth of every day, though?”

Caleb huffs. “All right, well—”

Then Jester butts in, asking after his favorite food, a question Essek has never before answered. That he does actually have an answer surprises him, but upon consideration, there is something he in fact prefers. 

How odd, how wonderful, to have not only a favorite food but a friend asking to share it. It is a novel sort of ache. 

And one, given the times, Essek finds strangely welcome.

Chapter Text

He means to escape, to take some time alone to gather himself, his thoughts, his composure. To wrest his heart and mind away from anything but the coming fight, the reason he came here in the first place, lest he become a liability. To try to clear his lungs, after speaking with Caleb in the foyer. (Does attempting to do so intentionally yield relief? He hasn’t tried to induce a cough yet, it would be instructive—) It would be the prudent thing to do, by every metric. 

But Caleb insists on giving him a personal tour, and Essek cannot deny him anything.

They rise up through the iris in the center of the ceiling, a sensation less reminiscent of Fly and more his own mastery of gravity, and pass through a great room, through the most lovely library Essek has ever seen (oh, how he hopes for a chance to see more of it), a cozy dining space, bed chambers (“Ah, I’ve set aside a private space for you, I hope you find it comfortable.” Caleb says, sounding discomfited. “I’m sure it’s lovely,” Essek replies, hoping to soothe, but instead Caleb turns away sharply), a strangely oppressive space with ominously numbered doors, and then, finally—

It is like stepping into infinity. A cosmos swirls around them, glittering and magnificent. Impossible constellations hang above, below, around, wreathed in burning nebulae that glow like the smoke from the bellows of creation. It seems so close that Essek might be able to reach out and touch a perfect, twinkling star. It seems so distant that Essek might be gazing upon an entire universe from the outside.

As Essek turns to take it all in, he catches glimpses of himself, a reflection multiplied but attenuating. Sees Caleb as well, from all angles. A man of endless potential, repeated endlessly, by a creation all his own.

To Essek's knowledge, there is only one thing in all of creation that feels like this. The thing that’s consumed him, body and soul. The thing that drove him to desperate, callous ends to simply get a few unfettered glimpses. This place could only have come from a mind that had communed with a Beacon.

But for all it evokes the same kind of awe, this place doesn’t leave him hungry in the way the Beacons do. He feels only peace, craves only to bask in the conjured starlight. (Is this what the rest of his people feel, when they gaze into a Beacon? Is the difference knowing the mind that made it? If Essek had ever heard the Luxon’s will for himself, would he have been comfortable in only devotion? Or is it Caleb that is the difference, that Essek could only feel a draw to worship because this splendor is filtered through his heart?)

Caleb is looking not at his handiwork, but at Essek. Openly hungry for his reaction.

I have never before known the meaning of holy, Essek does not say. How could I have ever named anything else beautiful when this could exist?

Your heart and your mind are without peer, to know you is a privilege unlike any other will remain locked behind his teeth.

I love you he does not mean to think, and he hurts with it, not just in flesh but in his soul.

No, Essek dare not bare too much of himself. Perhaps it is arrogance to think he even could, but Essek cannot risk unsettling Caleb if he’s meant to spend the night waiting for an attack with too effusive praise. (Or worse, some maudlin confession.) Still, such spellwork deserves acknowledgement. 

“Ah, indeed, I see the inspiration for this chamber is strongly worn on your sleeve.” He glances sidelong at Caleb. “ Already a quick student of Dunamancy, are you?"

Caleb hums, smiles a strange little smile, and replies,

“I have taken your lessons to heart.”

This place puts him in a dangerous mindset, it seems. Makes him curious. Curious about what drives Caleb. What he means to achieve with his furious study. He nearly cannot help asking,

“You spoke once of intent. A lot of fortunes have changed since—what is your goal? Ultimately?”

“I think my priorities have mostly shifted since we last spoke about things like this.” Caleb looks out on the dreamscape he’d conjured, contemplative. “I think what's going on right now is more important than my petty, earthly grievances. Still,” his lips only just quirk in a smile that vanishes almost as quickly as it appears, “I'm very much fascinated with and attracted to ability and skill. And it's not fashionable to say,” he huffs, somewhat self-effacing, “but to power. Who doesn't feel the tug of such a thing?” he sounds almost, strangely, wistful. Or perhaps sad. It’s hard to say. He shakes his head. “But it doesn't matter. There are bigger things than you and I.”

Essek breathes as deeply as he dares, trying to ground himself. He feels himself a teacher again, not—

Not anything else.

“I think that's the key. The pursuit of magic, in the ways that we know it, in the ways that we've been disparately—but in some ways similarly raised and studied—at a certain point, it becomes about the self. It becomes about what I can do.” Essek pauses. Grits his teeth, holds his breath against the sudden hitch in his chest. Through nothing but force of will holds himself in check, swallows in petty defiance of his body, and says, “And it's impressive that you've deviated at your skill level. I just hope it holds.”

At the back of his throat, Essek tastes blood.

“That's the key, isn't it? Because if you were to put the very thing that I have wondered about for so many years in front of me, I'm really not sure what my reaction would be. “

And what is it he has wondered about? He’d been an eager student, fairly starving for the magic dunamancy afforded. But he’d never said why. Essek may never have the privilege of knowing. Still—

“You’re still very young.”

“You’ve been around a while longer,” Caleb concedes.

"A bit. I know what pursuits of the mysteries of magic can bring. Good and bad. The fact that you can acknowledge this path gives me hope, but—well—”

Well. Essek has ruined his chance to see the path Caleb will take, hasn’t he? Rumor and hearsay might make it to his ears, but with the very real possibility he will spend the next few decades on the run—

He can only hope Caleb doesn’t fall victim to the pitfalls that have claimed so many other mages. That claimed him.

“The one thing that has stayed true though, is that I— well, I carry a lot of sins, like you do.”

“Not anywhere like I do,” Essek says with conviction.

“Don't be so sure.”

Essek turns to him then, sees the way his eyes are cast down, his face slackened by memory. Caleb, for all his self-flagellation, has not started a war. In this, in sin, they are not equal. Light willing, they never will be. Essek’s crimes have denied him health, denied him hope, and in this moment, in some small way, they will both acknowledge it.

“I'm pretty sure, young man.”

Caleb seems a bit taken aback by his vehemence. So be it.

“I will take you at your word,” he murmurs. Essek nods and drifts back out of his space. “Everything that I worked for for so many years was to atone. And I still want that. I'm just questioning if there is only one path to that atonement. I don't fool myself into thinking that I will absolve myself of those things. But I think—I think that if I do enough, I can at least carry it more easily. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think I do.” Essek thinks ahead to decades scarcely able to draw a deep breath and the haunting taste of blood. “Well.”

Essek thinks that will be the end of the conversation, but after only a moment, Caleb says, with a sly glance,

“You know what a bunch of wizards in one place is?” He pauses, but not enough for Essek to answer. “Fucking trouble.”

The laugh startles Essek, but he wouldn’t have stopped had he known what was coming. He looks around again. Crosses his arms behind himself so he cannot press them to his chest.

“Well, if nature and history has taught us anything, eventually, it's just one left,” he says. He’s not sure how bitter he sounds. Caleb’s reply is no help.

“Come on, let's go down.”

“After you. I would like a moment, if I may?”

“Natürlich. Don’t take too long though, or Jester will take offense.”

Essek nods, and watches Caleb sink through the floor. Once he’s sure he’s alone, Essek turns a slow circle. Fixes this view in his memory. Tries not to let his eyes linger on his own reflections.

Coughs up blood and flowers in the silence of Caleb’s little holy firmament.

The stew Jester produces is unexpectedly wonderful, hearty and perfectly spiced. It also fairly hums with a strange, wild magic that Essek can feel seeping into his body, but it is a benevolent intrusion. Even if it weren’t entirely benign, Essek thinks he would have indulged Jester. She runs roughshod over his better sense on his best days, and today is certainly not one of those.

The conversation isn’t the usual Mighty Nein din, but how could it be, with the constant reminder of Beauregard and Fjord’s cycling in and out of the room? 

It’s still loud enough that Essek finds it easy to discreetly cough into his napkin when he must. (He coughs through the entire hour, carefully picking his moments.) His count is surely off, but probably not by much.

Once the food disappears into a pink and green explosion of mist and sparks, Caleb leaves the tower to await the assault. It feels wrong to simply let him go into the freezing ruin while Essek partakes of his hospitality (Caleb still looks profoundly unwell, haggard and beaten, with no promise of rest any time soon) but Veth is going with him. If there was any of the Nein who could be said to take Caleb’s safety seriously, it would be her. Besides, if Essek can rest, then he will be better able to protect Caleb, to protect them all, when the Tombtakers arrive. 

Essek tells himself that all the way to the rooms Caleb set aside for him.

He didn’t have a chance to look before, not when Caleb was fairly shepherding him to the uppermost floor of the tower, and now he hesitates at the door. It’s a deep purple, nearly black, with a fundamental rune of dunamancy carved delicately into the wood, painted in bright silver. For all Essek’s trepidation, the door is welcoming, with a gently curving handle that nearly invites his touch.

It takes a moment, but Essek convinces himself he looks ridiculous floating in the atrium instead of simply going inside. What is he so afraid of seeing? At the very worst, Caleb would have provided him garish decoration. There is nothing to fear. Bolstered by that logic, Essek wraps his fingers around the burnished silver and pushes the door open. 

He’s met with a sitting room, lined in full bookshelves. A pair of plush chairs, a low table, and a wide desk furnish the space. There is a fireplace in the far wall, burning with a cheery orange light, bedecked with a stained glass window depicting Rosohna. Essek drifts closer. Wrought in lead and glass, he can see his own towers, the home with the tree the Mighty Nein called their own, among many other familiar sights.

A single door stands open. Essek drifts toward it, and is rewarded with a small laboratory, modeled after the one in his towers. It is well appointed and thoughtfully laid out, a strange extravagance, given Essek will surely not have time to make use of it. Further in, he finds the bedroom proper. There is a thickly padded lounge, but also a bed lush with pillows. Caleb never saw his own most private chambers, but must be at least passingly acquainted with the preferences of the trancing races, to have given him options. There is also a bathroom, replete with a claw-footed tub, filled nearly to the brim with steaming water.

The rooms are lovely and thoughtful, touched with the colors and textures Essek favors most. He almost Sends to Caleb to thank him, but knowing that he’s sleeping rough, Essek holds himself back. It seems almost cruel, given the circumstances, to remind Caleb of the comforts he’s foregone.

Essek feels a tightening at the back of his throat—

Oh, of course—

He coughs and coughs and coughs—full blooms, bloody petals, thick clots appear in his cupped hands. 

Essek sinks onto the lounge, dully counts, and tries to catch his breath. Makes a note, in pencil, of his collection, and what he remembers from dinner as well, then sets both the utensil and the book aside.

Maybe a bath wouldn’t be amiss. The steam could do him good, and it would only go to waste otherwise. It is an indulgence, but one he was freely granted. Still, Essek can’t shake the feeling of guilt as he undresses and then sinks down into the water. As he breathes deeply of the perfumed steam.

(How did Caleb guess lilac? Or are all the baths scented this way? Dare Essek ask, if he finds the time?)

Essek hasn’t been this dirty since he was a child. Sweat and grit fall from him—how had he gotten so sweaty, when the air was so cold? So dirty, when he’d bundle himself so tightly?—but through some enchantment, the water doesn't turn gray, instead remaining clear and sweet smelling. 

So clever, Caleb is, to have thought of everything.

Even after he’s reasonably clean, Essek doesn’t leave the bath. The heat of the water has, for the moment, chased the lingering cold from Essek’s bones, and he wants to cherish the feeling. 

Wants a little bit more. 

Essek lets himself slip, just for a moment, beneath the surface of the water, until he feels warm and weightless. Until he feels thoughtless, cocooned and far from the world.

It’s a perfect reprieve.

But only for that moment. Only until he has to come up for air.

The deep breath he tries to take agitates something, and he again has to cough. Without his handkerchief, he can’t catch all of the petals, so some fall into the bath. They float on top, the water washing them pristine.

Essek stares at the water. Sees his bloody-lipped reflection. Sees petals from a flower he cannot name, floating in lilac scented water conjured by the man he loves. They drift on the surface, amongst the billowing soap suds, like stars in nebulae.

Essek dips a finger in the water, ruining his reflection, and watches the petals swirl. Counts them.

Twelve. 

Essek sits there, with his trite parody of real magnificence, until the water goes cold.

There is surely a way to refresh the bath, but Essek needs to rest. He dries himself, cleans his clothes with a few flicks of his fingers, and redresses in most of his layers.

The bed looks luxurious, but, even alone, Essek would feel absurd crawling into those sheets in his traveling clothes, so he takes the lounge instead. He doesn’t have Caleb’s immaculate sense of time, but he feels confident that he can make his notes without sacrificing too much of his trance. Emptying his thoughts onto the page has always settled his mind, after all.

And since nothing will settle his lungs, he might as well try to set some part of him to order.

My mind is an unruly tumble of late. I have found a possible new project to occupy myself—it is contained on later pages—but this venture might soon be at an end. C. will be going away again, I expect. If he does, I will have a chance to observe whether my symptoms abate, or continue apace.

I would rather they abate, obviously, but ensuring he and his companions, of whom I’m also quite fond, had support would have been worth it regardless. Today has been especially trying, so all totals are approximate at best, though I’m doing my best to represent my situation with as much precision as possible.

He amends his earlier tallies with better notes, then moves onto documenting the evening. His cough was nearly constant, and the flora is appearing several times the last two hours. (He was in the bath for approximately half an hour, and was only then able to properly count. He writes it down, in case he has a chance later to gather more data to compare. To extrapolate. The numbers from dinner aren't terribly off, and that was an hour exactly.)

He tallies up his counts, plots them, but—

No that can’t be—

He redraws the chart—

He was right the first time—

Today has shown a marked increase. The last few hours especially are on par with a late stage diagnosis. He considers his data more carefully. This morning wasn’t out of the ordinary, it’s was only after—only once he’d gone up—

Only once he’d seen the top of Caleb’s tower, been alone with him there, that things had escalated.

(In a single day, to see such a difference—)

Essek stares at his notes, but there is only one conclusion he can draw. The time he had spent with Caleb had accelerated the disease. His time table is now dire, being frank.

There’s a tickle in his throat. He turns away from his spellbook and coughs. A bloody flower comes up, landing in his hand. It is perfect, the stains aside. Beautiful and blue and symmetric. Essek coughs up a couple of thick blood clots as well, and he removes those without considering them too deeply.

Eventually, it's just one left indeed.

Chapter Text

Their trap failed, but not as badly as it could have. Three of the Tombtakers are now dead, but none of the Mighty Nein. (The Tombtakers inflicted casualties, but elsewhere. Always, always, casualties, somewhere, but right now that is for Essek and Fjord alone to bear.) A qualified success is still a success, but the mood is subdued as they dig their way past the cave-in Lucien left for them. 

Lucien, at some point, was someone else, Essek knows. Someone important to them. He hadn’t fully appreciated how difficult this must be for them until now, until he’d come face to face with the man. 

But they must give chase, so give chase they will. 

Essek should probably be concerned about that—and he is—but this also presents a chance to explore the ruins in the presence of foreigners, and that is something he cannot count on ever having again. He can make observations, posit questions, without fear of reprisal. The metaphorical fever of it briefly overshadows his very real illness as they pick their way through the frozen devastation. 

There are heretical rumors of proto-dunamancy being practiced in this city before the gods struck it down. (Heretical, because, of course, dunamancy is a gift of the Luxon, and the Luxon revealed itself first to Leylas Kryn, thus is history, praise the Light, etcetera, so on, so forth—) An alternate perspective on the discipline would be tantalizing enough on its own, but with the problem Essek is still stewing on—that they are all butting up against a wall of exhaustion, with a dangerous enemy ahead of them—it feels more pressing than it would otherwise to pay attention for any new insight. 

So when Caleb casts Detect Magic, Essek calls on Comprehend Languages and quietly takes in everything he can, just in case he might have cause to ask them to briefly divert.

He reads many interesting things (and if darting aside to get a better look also provides the pretense to cough in peace, so be it, but it isn’t his primary goal) but nothing he can justify stopping for before the spell fades.

When they do stop, it’s to consult their collection of severed heads.

(Essek could have done without the beheadings, personally, but it was done with such casual efficiency he couldn’t even begin to question the logic of it. He can absolutely understand on a rational level the need to gather intelligence, even if it must come by unsavory means, and he’s attended his fair share of interrogations of corpses in the course of his duties. It’s just—they were—well— whole corpses, and until he was presented with an alternative he wasn't aware he had a preference with regard to corpses and the wholeness thereof. At least this grim business offered a chance to see Caleb cast a fascinating piece of ritual magic.)

So as Beauregard and Veth volunteer to scout ahead, Caduceus readies himself to interrogate the dead. This macabre endeavor doesn’t require Essek’s participation, so he retreats a little ways and takes out his spellbook to make a few notes. 

He has coughed up six whole flowers, and a minimum of twenty-seven individual petals since the last time he was able to log his progress. He adds this data to his now sprawling charts. The line he draws isn’t exponential in growth, technically—Essek’s worked out the equation to model it as things stand—but it might very well go that way.  

Coughing something up nearly every quarter hour. If I was walking, would likely have trouble breathing under the exertion. Throat is constantly irritated, could be exposure to the cold but the occasional taste of blood at the back of my tongue makes me think there are superficial scratches. 

If I require clerical intervention for an injury (which is likely), I will attempt to note if that has any effect on the sore throat. Do not take a lack of note as confirmation either way, especially if entries end abruptly.

(Previous clerical intervention did not seem to have an effect on symptoms generally, but said clerical intervention came directly on the heels of nearly being eaten, so I was in a poor frame of mind for data collection.)

He could write more, and he’s sorely tempted to, but there’s no telling when Beauregard and Veth will return, Instead, he puts his spellbook away, trading it for his tincture. He drinks a standard dose, for whatever good it might do, and drifts back towards the Nein. 

He catches Caleb at the tail end of a ritual, which he watches with fairly shameless interest. Caleb is a very functional caster, with an efficiency to his somatics that comes from both a deep understanding of magic and practical necessity. War mages, at least those Essek has watched, might be strictly quicker progressing through their forms than Caleb is, but their fundamentals are often less developed, so they can’t intuit when it’s possible to deviate from what they learned by rote like he can. In a fight, from what little Essek has been able to observe, Caleb is a master of somatic abbreviation, to impressive and deadly effect. 

All that said, getting to see him work without the pressure of combat is a treat.  

(Essek ought look away. Ought ply his attention elsewhere. It could only make things worse, this shameless staring.

But he cannot help himself.)

Caleb moves as if he is the most intricate clockwork, carefully drawing the abundant ambient magic into his control. Not even Jester’s teasing slows his meticulous carding of the unbounded energy suffusing the universe into something useful, something he can press into the little bit of soot and salt in his palm, and as his lips and tongue shape words into power, he tips all the gathered arcane potential into a single transformative moment of might.

It is masterfully done, as always. No waste, not of motion nor power nor component, but that in and of itself is a beautiful demonstration of personality.

Caleb blinks a few times as the magic settles over his eyes and ears, giving them a faint glow. He turns to the broken building nearby, brows furrowed in concentration, and reads quietly for a moment.

“Mausoleum of the Forgotten,” he murmurs. “Everything else, it’s just names.”

The monument is too grand to mark something ignoble, the names too personal for this to be some sort of museum. The hint of necromancy is interesting, but not necessarily untoward. If it is merely a public grave it is a strange one, but there is no accounting for cultural norms. 

Caleb tilts his head, regards the mausoleum for a moment. His lips are pressed together, into just the slightest frown. 

“Thoughts?” Essek prods. 

“It's funny,” he says. “Because the people inside the building are just like all the people outside the building now.”

Funny. Essek can’t help but glance at the handful of frozen, desiccated bodies currently in view. That’s certainly a word for it.

Upon reflection, Essek has decided that the city is awful. 

Fascinating, beguiling, but absolutely awful, filled with intentional traps and unpredictable pitfalls and machines that have eyes that watch him no matter where he moves and the most unsettling monstrosities the egomaniacal minds of old could birth.

(At least the stupid lizards had the good grace to be susceptible to magical violence, and were therefore far less hateful than the thing with an eye-tail. An eye-tail! For what possible reason would one graft an eye onto a tail?)

Not to mention it’s freezing and his head is pounding and his chest hurts, and it took him twenty damned minutes to catch his breath after the fight— 

Essek stops himself, grits his teeth, pinches the bridge of his nose.

He chose to be here. He can—and will—get a grip. He is getting his footing in real combat, and no one yet has died. Together, they are more than equal to the ruins. This is an entirely manageable situation.

And, praise any power listening, they have stopped to make camp, gambling on the hope their enemies will also have to rest. Caleb is too burnt out to conjure his demiplane, so instead he sets about casting a force dome—another ritual, one that will take a little time to complete. 

Essek would watch, but the general milling about of setting up camp affords a kind of privacy he might as well try to take advantage of. He sits down, a little ways away, and takes out his spellbook. 

There were four more flowers, all nearly black with blood, but was it twenty-three or twenty-seven petals? He can’t remember, not with his head still ringing from the eye-tailed sex monster eugh. The coughing had continued apace, that he’s sure of. 

I’m not sure of anything besides the clear and obvious fact the biological engineering mages of Aeor were bastards, and frankly deserved to be thrown from the sky. I hope it hurt the whole time they were dying.

No significant changes from last entry—frequent coughing, usually accompanied by flora, allayed slightly by the tincture. Or by mortal terror. Recommend the former only.

“How can you study in a place like this?”

Essek jerks upright, slapping his book against his chest and raising a hand to cast, before he realizes that it’s only Jester and she was just asking him an entirely harmless question. He’s embarrassed which makes him angry which makes him ashamed. Jester has no right to be as sneaky as she is, but she hasn’t done him any harm.

Essek sighs—carefully, very carefully—and tries to compose himself. Slips his spellbook and his pencil back into his Wristpocket as Jester settles down beside him, arraying her skirts with incongruent neatness. 

“Caleb is always studying too,” she continues. “It seems real boring. I’m glad Artie just shows me how to do cool shit.”

It seems she might be content to carry the whole conversation, but Essek feels compelled to at least be polite despite his foul mood and engage with her.

“I enjoy studying.” He hadn’t been studying, but the omission seems harmless. He suspects Jester isn’t really interested, only bored.

“Nerd,” she huffs.

“Name calling? Really, Miss Lavorre?” Essek responds, with the most exaggerated courtly register he can muster, impulse taking his tongue. Regret, though, is quick on its heels. This is the way he and his little brother tease each other, playing up the pomp and circumstance their elders can demand. For a moment, he thinks he’s misstepped, that she hasn’t seen the teasing for what it was (Why would she assume he was only playing, because when does he do that? Only with Verin, only when no one else can hear. He has no idea why he’s doing it now, except that it’s Jester, and in all the planes she is the closest thing he has to his creche brother) but she gives him a toothy grin and then bats her eyelashes at him.

“Me? Never. In fact, I resent the insinuation.” She adopts a stilted affectation, perhaps an impression of someone.

“Ah, well, I extend my sincerest apologies.” Essek bows as best he’s able while sitting down.

“Oh, an apology, that’s all you offer after such an insult?”

“I’m not sure what else I can offer.” It’s hard to keep bald amusement from his tone, but he’s doing a fairly good impression of a very annoying cousin. (Verin would have dissolved into giggles, were he here, and given Essek the conversational win. Jester, though, will surely prove more formidable.)

“I require restitution!” She tugs a mitten off her hand, bats him once on the nose with it. He would normally have something sharp to say about that, but he’s so surprised he can only gawp at her, having entirely lost the thread of their little verbal spar, but she grants him mercy. “Only a duel will suffice. At dawn, I will send my champion to the field of combat!” She extends her un-mittened hand to the heavens, then closes it into a fist.

Ah. Dueling has fallen out of fashion in the Dynasty in the last few decades, but perhaps it persists in the Menagerie Coast. Or Jester had simply read about it in one of her exceedingly blue novels, and thought it suitably dramatic and romantic.

“And who will represent you, Miss Lavorre?” Essek asks, unable to suppress a smile now.

“Why, Captain Fjord Tusktooth, of course!”

Fjord glances toward them, having heard his name. Jester wiggles her fingers at him, greeting but not beckoning. He flushes and turns away quickly, but not so fast that Essek can’t see the bemused expression on his face. Essek both is and isn’t surprised by this admission. Jester could have named nearly anyone, and Essek would have believed her, but Fjord seems a lovely match. Good for her.

“Ah, a formidable opponent.”

“And who will represent you, O Shadowhand?”

Essek’s humor falters but he covers it by lifting his hand to tap a finger against his chin, pretending to carefully consider the question. Feels, acutely, how raw his throat is.

“Well, I suppose I’ll be representing myself.”

“That’s no fun!” Jester shoves him by the shoulder, dropping the pretense entirely. “There's gotta be someone.”

“Oh, I think I could handle myself in a duel.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts.

“I studied fencing, when I was younger, you know,” Essek says, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m still a fair hand.” He offers her a smug smile, showing most of his teeth. “I’m better at magical duels, of course.”

Jester rolls her eyes with nearly her whole body. 

“That’s not what we’re talking about, but okay. That’s still pretty cool, I guess.” She turns to face him more fully, dropping her chin into her hands. “What are you working on anyway? You’re always writing stuff.”

“It’s a complicated dunamantic problem.” Essek says, in the vain hope she’ll accept the lie-but-not-a-lie. “I haven’t been able to crack it, but then I’ve only just started.” 

“I bet Caleb would help you with your homework,” Jester says, smiling just enough that her fangs are visible against her blue lips. 

Essek smiles politely at her, completely reflexively, like he might at court. Jester’s cheer falls away, replaced by something soft and considering.

“You’re doing it again. That fake smile. What's wrong?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t—erg—don’t do that.” She waves a hand in his face like she’s shooing something away. “Don’t really do the fancypants thing at me. I know it’s fake and it’s just sad.”

“Jester—I—truly, what do you mean?”

She chews on her bottom lip for a moment, one hand falling to her side, fingers curling around the totem on her belt like a child might clutch a doll.

“You just look so—when you’re bent over your book, you look so desperate and I worry, okay? Because we’re friends and friends take care of each other when something’s wrong.”

If Essek’s heart weren’t already full, he thinks he’d be intensely jealous of Fjord. It’s hard to let his facade drop entirely, but maybe he can let it slip a little, to put Jester at ease.

“I have much to worry about, Jester, and much to keep track of. But you don’t need to worry. I’m here to be your ally, and I’m dedicated to the task.”

It doesn't have the intended effect. Jester's expression turns from troubled to nearly mournful. She reaches out, pats him on the cheek, and says,

“That’s not what I meant, but it’s good to know anyway, Essek.”

Her fingers still lingering, she leans forward, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. With a smile that doesn’t entirely reach her eyes, she taps him on the nose, then abruptly bounces to her feet, dusting her skirts and darting away before he can fully comprehend what just happened. 

Fjord and Yasha take the first watch, but they offer hardly any pushback with Essek offers to finish the night. His logic is sound—he is fully recuperated, can see well in the dark, and would be awake to refresh himself on his spells anyway—so why wake anyone else? 

(There is a very obvious reason why—the matter of trust.)

But they don’t even offer a token pushback, simply lying down and nearly immediately succumbing to sleep. The circumstances being what they are, it is hardly a ringing endorsement of Essek’s trustworthiness, but he still treasures it. Means to make good on it. 

He sets himself up to watch as best he can, but he wasn’t entirely without awareness when he was trancing, and knows the night has been quiet so far. Almost nothing can get through Caleb’ dome, in any case. 

So, he does keep the better part of his attention on their surroundings, but he also takes the opportunity to work. 

Time, time, time, too much and never enough—

Can he shift domains out of time, come at it from another angle? Perhaps space—no, no, that’s of no use, look at the paper he’s wasted—

He still doesn't know how he’ll power the spell if he even—

Essek grits his teeth, massages his temple. There has to be a solution. He glances to Caleb, sleeping only a few feet away. If only he could wake him, talk things through, but no—Caleb is visibly battered. Every moment of rest he can take is sorely needed, if he is to survive. And he must survive. 

Essek coughs—again, Luxon’s balls—he clamps a hand over his mouth, gritting his teeth, trying not to wake anyone. The fit passes, he Prestidigitates away the resultant flowers, and then catalogs it all numbly. The line is—is not good. And he feels frail, even after a full trance.

Perhaps it is time to admit that he is no longer well. While he is not yet an invalid— he can still cast, still think, still fight effectively—this will fast become a real problem. 

The spell to cure the disease is there, but he cannot risk losing his mettle. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, this will be over, one way or another. Essek can last that long. He will last that long. He might be found out, perhaps, but Essek finds that is a less pressing concern than it was, with Lucien still out there. So long as he is not dragging the Mighty Nein down, there is no reason to not stay the course. He meant what he said to Jester—he is dedicated to this mission.

Essek flips to a different section of his spellbook, one more martial in nature, and begins reviewing. 

Later, if there is a later, then he will decide what to do with himself.

Chapter Text

The subject of malignant eye tattoos hasn’t particularly occupied Essek, given everything else vying for his attention of late, but perhaps it should have. That lack of prioritization seems like a glaring oversight now that Beauregard and Caleb have woken with one more apiece. 

Essek doesn’t observe the new additions directly, since, well, cataloguing them required Caleb to disrobe. Entirely. Apparently. And while Caleb doesn’t seem to particularly prize modesty, Essek simply cannot.

Instead, he tries to replay the previous night in his mind, every odd noise taking on an even more sinister timbre upon recollection. He isn’t the most singularly perceptive person alive, but he is well attuned to arcana. Surely, he’d have noticed if someone had crept up and cast something under his nose. 

(Of course, they’d have had to contend with Caleb’s dome, which is designed to protect against both mundane and magical threats, meaning the tattoos appeared via some mechanism other than conventional spellwork. That is not a soothing thought, and self-evident enough Essek doesn’t feel the need to share it and add to the already thick milieu of unease that’s fallen over their camp.)

No one seems to consider the new tattoos to mean Essek’s watch was a failure, and he’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse. He certainly doesn’t want to be deemed dead weight now, but he can’t help but feel the sting of having been caught lacking in some way. Regardless, there isn’t time for him to dwell. They pack up their camp and move on. 

Essek’s not sure, but he thinks the crater could swallow Rosohna whole. 

It’s humbling to stare out on true devastation. To see what the best minds of a lauded age could not prevent. Such a city, so large and powerful it threatened divinity, could only fall to an equally staggering blow.

And such a blow the gods were able to land on magnificent, doomed Aeor.

To Essek’s untrained eye, it looks as if the city had been run through. Cut down with the kind of casual, complete brutality reserved for rabid animals. They must have gotten very close, to have been so thoroughly dispatched. For all Essek’s heresy, and he is nothing if not a practiced heretic, it’s not the idea of the divine that rankled him, merely the way his fellow mortals shackled themselves unasked. To war with all the gods seems, at least in hindsight, the pinnacle of hubris. But then is not hubris the cardinal flaw of the mage?

Essek is drawn from his rumination by Fjord calling out that the rope is tied, followed by Veth loudly questioning his work, and then Fjord’s requisite crowing. This reminds Essek that, in short order, everyone but him is going to crawl over the edge of the crater and into the gaping wound of the dead city, dangling by a single, unremarkable rope.

He is supposed to go last, left to untie and bring the rope once everyone else is safely on the level below, since he doesn’t need anything at all to safely descend. It all seemed like a very straightforward plan, an entirely reasonable way to conserve magic, until it came time for them to actually do it. Now he finds himself planted at the ragged edge of the crater, ready to cast if anyone should so much as think of falling.

Fjord is the first over, as a show of faith in his own knotwork, and soon after Essek is watching everyone that he’s ever let past all his guards, save his little brother, hang against the backdrop of a lightless, nearly infinite void. He calculates and recalculates Feather Fall, Fly, Levitate, spells to bend gravity he never named because he’s never shared them, based on who seems most unsteady, most unprepared to fall, on the trajectories of their falls as the rope sways. 

Even then, anxiety threatens to strangle him, as surely as his disease or a noose might. His heart races, and he breathes shallowly through clenched teeth, determined to keep enough air in his lungs for any verbal component he might need. It nearly makes him dizzy, but for once, his body cooperates, and he doesn’t cough at all during the long minutes the Nein need to descend. 

No one falls. Jester waves at him to follow, eager and impatient. Essek returns her wave, then pulls back from the edge. Tries to sigh out his relief, but it comes out a wheeze instead. Reflex has him attempting to take a full breath, but he coughs instead. Alone, unwatched, he presses one hand over his mouth and the other to his chest. Nothing comes up this time, but he can’t quite catch his breath after.

That’s not good.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He’ll worry about it later. Right now, he has to get the rope loose and join them so they can do it again, Light above. He tugs at one edge of the knot, but their collective weight cinched it tight. He coughs again, gasping between the spasms. (Dry again, a small mercy.) He grits his teeth and tries at another likely spot, but he can’t quite get under any single bit of rope with his hands gloved.

He tugs his gloves off and stuffs them in his belt, frustrated, and pries at the rope with his fingernails. It gives, finally, just before his nails do. He works it completely loose, then checks his hands, just to make sure he didn’t tear a nail that would then catch on the lining on his gloves. His nails themselves are fine, but his nail beds are dark.

He checks his other hand, finds those nails dark as well. He couldn’t have bruised them all, not simply trying to untie a rope. One, maybe two, but not every finger.

He coughs again. A single petal comes up this time, and with it enough blood to coat his tongue.

He pulls his gloves back on. Whatever that is, it can’t bode well. The breathlessness is also a worrying developement. After a moment of deliberation, Essek drinks more of his dwindling supply of tincture. It wasn’t doing him much good last night, but it’s all he can think to do. He takes up the rope and floats down, handing it off to Yasha with a wan smile.

What is left of the room where he joins the others is filled with the remains of unfortunates killed by whatever punched through the city. It is a gruesome sight, but no more so than any of the places they’ve been, and now Essek finds himself strangely habituated to the dead. These vessels have already served their purpose conveying the souls that called them home, and while it’s a shame to see so many untended, they are harmless. If those souls linger in outrage over their untended bodies, they aren’t making themselves known, so Essek tries not to give the bodies thought, and instead drifts closer to the Nein.

While they waited for him, they found a pair of doorways—one intact and locked, the other blown open. Veth and Caleb disappear into the darkness of the open one, with hardly any comment from anyone else. Essek fights down a sudden spike of nerves and the urge to demand they come back out immediately, instead quickly weighing the utility of staying outside at the ready versus following them into the unknown. He decides to stay outside, if a little closer to the door than he might be otherwise, and waits while the others begin looting the more intact corpses, every sense turned outward, breathing carefully through gritted teeth.

(It will be fine. That thrice damned machine called the room Caleb and Veth went in Storage. Surely they can survive Storage by themselves.)

After only a moment, Caleb and Veth reemerge, with Caleb glowing faintly again about the eyes and ears. Clearly there was something interesting in there, but Essek finds that he’s more relieved to see him well than curious about what he found. He is curious though, how could he not be? He’s about to call Caleb over to ask what he found, but Caleb is already walking toward him with intent.

“How are you on pearls?” he asks, soft but serious. 

“I mean—” The non sequitur scatters Essek’s thoughts, like so much dust in the wind. He wets his lower lip, to buy himself a moment to herd them back to coherence. Normally, that would be a trivial task, but Caleb’s bright eyes are searching his face and Essek helplessly stares back. Pearls, storage, right— “I brought a number with myself, but I will always accept more. Why?”

Caleb, in lieu of answering, digs into a small, ancient looking pouch and pulls out three pearls. He takes one of Essek’s hands in his own—slow and almost shy, but still so determined Essek doesn’t stop him—and drops three pearls into his palm, counting each under his breath. Once his other hand is free, Caleb uses it to gently curl Essek’s fingers over the components, achingly slow, as if he or the pearls might shatter under rough handling. 

Essek cannot actually feel the warmth of Caleb’s hands, not through both their gloves, but his traitorous imagination provides a convincing fantasy. The imagined heat produces a very real burn in Essek’s cheeks. Thank whoever might be watching that the light is low enough to hide his flush from human eyes.

“Th—thank you.”

“They go fast.

“True enough.”

And then Caleb darts away, as if he'd done something entirely ordinary.

Thank the Light Essek has a fresh dose of the tincture in him to quiet his straining lungs.

Why, why did he say that?

We will return, make a trip of it.

What is wrong with him?

Thank the Light and every other power watching for Yasha, who’d spared him whatever careful demurral Caleb had surely been building to. (That look. The tight, closed mouth smile, the guarded shadow in his eyes. Surely it is seared on the back of Essek’s retinas, he can see it every time he blinks.)

He’d only been worried—about the eyes and what effect they might have, about the distraction of so much knowledge when there was a very real threat at hand, about everything still waiting for him, for them, above.

All very genuine, reasonable worries. He wasn’t out of line to voice them. And yet, somehow, in trying to make sure they were of similar minds, he's gone and—

He’s said, as if Caleb would want to—

Every hell and half the abyss, as if he’d be able to, at the rate he’s deteriorating— 

Essek coughs, as quietly as is possible and through clenched teeth, as they creep down a hallway. Petals work their way up his throat, but his only recourse is to let them gather on his tongue and try to ignore the nauseating taste of copper. He doesn't dare do anything about them, not when he’s catching concerned and questioning looks, especially from Caduceus.

When they stop at an intersection to allow Veth to investigate further, Essek drifts away, pulling out his spellbook and his handkerchief. The former to make a brief note while he can, the latter to have something more discreet than simply spitting on the floor like the patron of some swill shack in the Coronas. There are at least a dozen, thankfully no blooms, but he doesn’t dare take the time for a more careful count, instead Prestidigitating them away.

Approximately a dozen petals since last entry, I couldn’t make a careful count. Nail beds dark? Like bruises, but not painful like a bruise. Cough definitely worse. Tincture running low. Inserted foot firmly between teeth.* That is unrelated to nail beds, might be related to worsening cough.

*Reference to common idiom - misspoke in an embarrassing fashion

That done, he glances over his shoulder. Veth isn’t back yet. He might have a moment to pick up where he left off with his little project this morning. If nothing else, it will be a good distraction to pass the next minutes. He means to flip to some of his more complex chronurgic spells, ones where he made most note of the underpinning logic and theory, but his spellbook falls open to the pages where he’d pressed one of the blooms, days and a lifetime ago. He pulls it free from the parchment, surprised to find it still exists. It’s almost perfectly flat now, but just as vibrant as the day he put it there.

Behind him, footsteps. He replaces the flower, wipes his mouth again as a precaution, and starts to put the spell book away. 

“Do you press flowers too?” Yasha asks, as he turns around. Her head is tilted, something equal part earnest and aching on her face, sincere curiosity in her eyes.

“Ah,” Essek swallows past the ache in his throat, the taste of copper. “Just that one.”

She considers his answer, strangely pensive, for a long moment. 

“May I see it?”

He could probably tell her no, and she wouldn’t press the issue. He could but—Yasha asks for so little, it seems, but she’s asking him this.

Numbly, Essek opens his spellbook again. Turns to the pages holding his damnation. Hands the flower to her.

She takes it with near reverence, pinching the stem between two fingers, and lifts it close to her face. Twists it back and forth, taking it in from every angle, her other hand cupped underneath for any bit that might fall. She is achingly gentle for a woman capable of such singular violence.

“Do you know what it is?” Essek asks. 

“No.” She hands it back. Essek takes more care with it than he might otherwise, for her sake. “Sorry. It’s pretty though. If you find more growing here, would you tell me? I’d like one for myself.”

No, no you really wouldn’t Essek doesn’t say.

“If I see one growing.” It’s not a lie, at least.

Yasha nods, seemingly satisfied, but she doesn’t leave. Instead she comes a little closer, until they’re side by side, and turns back to the group. Her eyes, as they so often do, land on Beauregard.

“I saw how you look at him. You’re worried.” Yasha crosses her arms over her chest, hunches her shoulders forward. “I’m worried too. About her. Him.”

The eyes, she must mean.

“What did they do? ” Essek asks, in an undertone.

“They read some book Mo—Lucien had.” She frowns, curls tighter. “Caleb has read all sorts of books, nothing bad has ever happened.”

“Well,” Essek starts, trying to affect confidence for the both of them. “It’s magic of some kind. If anyone could discern how to deal with it, it would be Caleb.” He pauses, just a heartbeat, before adding, “And if he wants my help, he has it.”

She nods furiously.

“Good. That’s good. Thank you, Essek.”

She reaches out and, while Essek braces himself to be driven towards the floor, when she pats him twice on the shoulder her touch is light, as if he is spun glass. 

“I’ll protect you, you help fix them. Deal?”

Essek smiles, as real a one as he’s capable of.

“Deal.”

Essek amends his assessment of Jester’s pet machine (even repaired and articulate, he’s still thinking of it that way out of spite) slightly, to account for him opening the door to Rejuvenation Experimentation chamber—it goes from entirely loathsome to merely deeply suspicious.

(Also, he gets a few points because he leaves, though to what ends—Light. Well, if the world ends it won’t matter.)

Essek drifts inside. Immediately he’s struck by a familiar thrumming at the edge of his senses. It washes over him, strengthening as he moves further in, prickling his nerves.

“There’s something odd about this room.”

“What is it?” Jester asks.

“It’s hard to explain. It’s like a—like a flavor in the air. Or a scent that’s familiar.”

Caleb pauses in his ritual, looks around. Oh, wait, of course. Essek breathes deep, completely ignoring the way it makes him wheeze, and draws his fingers through the field, feeling the energy part around his fingertips like the surface of a pond. How had he not known immediately?

Caleb turns to him with a wordless question written in the wrinkling of his expression.

“Dunamis," he has to clear his throat before continuing. "This chamber has dunamis.”

He knew it, he knew they were experimenting with dunamis! If the field is so strong, there must be some kind of source nearby. Perhaps even a bea—no, no one should be so lucky, least of all him—

But something, clearly, something powerful, something he could use—

“Well, that’s interesting,” Caleb says, sounding nonplussed.

“Indeed,” Essek replies, distracted. Caleb is not nearly excited enough. Oh, he’ll come around in a moment, once the ritual is no longer occupying his attention.

Essek spins in a slow circle, concentrating on his connection to magic, as if he might divine the direction of the source like he could a noise on the air.

“When you two say dunamis I know what it means, but just so Veth is in the clear, you mean traces of dunamancy?” Fjord says, lying brazenly and earning an indignant squawk from Veth.

“Yes,” Essek answers gamely. 

“Like time magic, gravity magic?” Jester’s puzzled expression catches his eye.

"Possibly. It is specific to the pursuit of—" Again, he clears his throat, so inconvenient. "—dunamancy, the crafting of that sort of arcana, and it is very specific to the Dynasty and their research,” he rattles off.

“Ooh, this could be where it originated from.” If ever there would be a cleric with a taste for heresy, of course it would be Jester. Essek grins at her, a smile between co-conspirators.

“That would be interesting. And a dangerous thought to the Dynasty as well.”

She catches on immediately, now that there’s something juicy and forbidden in play, and grins back at him with all her teeth.

Essek is weighing starting a ritual of his own, Comprehend Languages or perhaps Detect Magic, when he overhears Beauregard say something about rejuvenation. Oh, she and Caduceus are interrogating another (whole, this time) corpse, and he takes a moment to listen to her translation. 

It takes everything in him to keep from interrupting—he doesn't even allow a cough—so Beauregard can listen and repeat the corpse's answers. So they were successful in leveraging dunamacy for restorative ends. Perfect. If he can find their notes, then it should be a simple enough matter to replicate it—

There is so much dunamis in the air, there must be a source, how did they leverage the source— 

Essek is busy looking for paper, books, anything, when Fjord steps into the tube set into one wall, and the door closes him in. There is a gem inlaid at the bottom of the machine—large, dark purple, and clearly powerful—and it begins flashing. The miasma of dumanis thickens, makes all his fine hairs stand on end.

“Right there, there's—” He points to the gem, the power source, of course it was. “I can sense it.”

Well, he certainly wouldn’t have asked anyone to try any of these Aeoran machines, but now that Fjord has it would be a shame not to observe the effects. (Hopefully, it doesn’t harm him. Hopefully, Jester and Caduceus are well prepared to bestow divine repair anyway.)

The gem glows brightly enough Essek has to cover his eyes, washing out the chamber in violet daylight. The dumanis in the air is nearly cloying. Essek has to resist the urge to pluck at it, see if he can wield it or if it’s too wild to tame. The tube trapping Fjord reaches a crescendo of brightness, then abruptly goes dark.

The doors open.

Fjord’s hair is back. And he seems quite alive and vital. All positive signs.

The moment Fjord is clear of the machine, Essek goes to inspect it. The dumanis is thickest there. (That must be why he's slightly dizzy, not the way he's fighting the very air. Oh, of all the times. He coughs through his teeth, not caring to be quiet.) Essek traces a finger around the gem’s housing, and his very bones thrum with it. This is the power source he needs, it must be, if he can just work out the specifics of the spellwork.

If it’s localized acceleration, it should be possible to extrapolate from something like a Temporal Shunt—

How much power is in the gem, and is it some sort of dumanis sink or does it radiate power that the machine then collects—

How efficient is the machine, surely less than pure spellwork, surely they knew this, were they trying to dampen the output from the gem perhaps—

Where in Light’s name did the gem come from, did they make it, did he let those Empire dullards fiddle with the beacons for years only to produce, what, a few vials of unstable precipitate suspended in a neutral medium, when this was possible—

Essek is so caught up he almost, almost, doesn’t notice Caleb kneel next to him.

“It is difficult. There is so much to learn here. Pray there's time, afterward.”

Essek turns to give him a look, a gentle reproval building on his tongue—this could be the last piece of the puzzle!—when he remembers that he hasn’t actually shared his project with him. Does he do it now? It’s clearly possible, so if ever there were a time—

Caleb bumps his shoulder into Essek’s companionably, derailing his thoughts completely, then stands. He stares hard at the machine for a moment before saying,

“I’m going to do it.”

Essek opens his mouth to voice his disapproval, but his chest chooses that moment to constrict. Before he can recover, Jester is objecting with the vehemence he would have. Just because it didn’t hurt Fjord doesn’t mean that there isn’t some catastrophic failure space, Essek almost points out anyway. But Caleb must know that. And yet he still wants to try. Caleb shrugs off the protests of his friends, but he does, for the briefest moment, glance to Essek. Seeing if he too will demand he not. And that pulls Essek's protests up short.

Who is Essek to tell him what to do?

“If you want to try it,” he finally says, uncertain. (The worst part of him rationalizes that, if it does work, Caleb, by dint of training in magic, will be better equipped to describe the effects than Fjord. Essek hates that part. )

It doesn’t work at all, and Essek would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved.

“Worth a try,” Caleb mutters as he hops back out of the machine.

“Does it have a fuel cell? Like a pearl or something? I don't know advanced technology, just thinking out loud,” Fjord asks the room, running his fingers through his newly regrown beard.

“The gems seem to be some sort of—whether it be a focus or as the element of the rejuvenation—” Essek trails off for a moment, before admitting, “I don't know. It may take time for it to recharge. It might require a specific input. I don't know how much is the device or just this gem."

“I mean, it would stand to reason that if it works with time, then the thing that would charge it would be time. So maybe it just collects time.” Caduceus’ point isn’t a poor one. 

“Maybe it's a slow recharge and a fast—” Caleb continues. 

But Essek tunes them out, turns towards the second, broken machine. Its gem is untouched, fully charged, as it were. A sink then, and not a source? That’s still fascinating. And still useful. If the machine is a key component in recharging it, then this one is doomed to merely a single more use at most. Likely, the machine wouldn’t work at all, wasting the stored dunamis. And therefore, if were to take it, it’s not as if it would be of use to them any other way—

Essek kneels, looks into the gem.

It’s been many years since he was able to commune with a proper source of dunamis, but it is a feeling he could never forget. It’s not so potent, this gem, as a real beacon, but there is real power here. Caleb has more recent experience, could confirm for Essek. Make sure he’s not simply gotten excited.

“Ah, Caleb—” Essek calls, gesturing at the gem.

Caleb doesn’t need any more direction than that, crouching down and looking at Essek.

At Essek, not the gem. Essek rolls his eyes, grabs him by the back of the head, and directs his eyes to the proper place. 

Then he realizes what he’d just done, and freezes with panic. What is he doing, trying to manhandle Caleb about? He’s about to stutter out an apology, but he realizes Caleb is just as fascinated with the gem as he had been a second ago. Carefully, he releases his hold and tucks his traitorous hands away. 

“A beacon.” Caleb murmurs. Now he gets it.

“A beacon. ” Essek can’t hide his delight at the confirmation.

“What will you do?”

That depends on how quickly he can figure out how to utilize it. If they will need it at all, when he does. (It would be better, wouldn’t it, if they were able to rest normally before the confrontation with Lucien? Less risky, certainly. Then there would be this, this piece of infinity, known only to the Mighty Nein, himself, and the dead—

Essek cuts that line of thought off with prejudice. Is that not the kind of thinking that had him playing into the Assembly’s hands?)

“I don’t know,” he says, and even he’s not truly sure if it’s a lie or not.

Whatever end the gem will have, it’s coming with them. Essek reaches out, feels for the lingering dunamis in the air. It gathers at his call, and he tests it, finds it pliant to his will. He carves it into gravity, pulling apart the machine, carefully crumbling it until it releases its hold on the gem, falling to pieces against the far wall. He rakes through the debris, until the gem appears, and then he lifts it up.

It glitters, magnificent, entrancing. It is a piece of the mystery central to his life’s work. A temptation beyond nearly all others.

Without touching it, using the gravturgic cradle he’s willed, he floats it into Caleb’s hands. Caleb looks down at it, awestruck. It’s a good look on him. Essek allows himself a small smile, while no one can see. To think, it took him twelve decades to find someone who was as fascinated and curious as he is. Who would dare to hold something like that gem without prostrating himself and then hiding it away for being too holy. If only Essek hadn't—

Best not think more about that, not right now. Better to just memorize the sight of Caleb in this moment.

“Don't you think you should hold on to this?” Caleb whispers, finally looking up at Essek, all wide eyes and charming, excited flush.

“There's two, aren't there? If we have time, later,” Essek tries to sound casual. Like he’s sure they will win, like he has every confidence they’ll be able to take their time coming back this way. Caleb nods in agreement, tucking the gem into his coat, and grins at Essek. He pops back to his feet, like a child, and offers a hand to help Essek upright again. Essek takes it, not thinking, and lets himself be drawn upright. 

"Thank you, thank you," Caleb murmurs into the air between them. He squeezes Essek's hand, once, before letting it go.

There’s a tickle at the back of Essek's throat, a tightness in his chest. He bites the inside of his cheek until it passes.

Chapter Text

Monsters behind them, the yawning mouth of the crater ahead. They have nothing to gain by standing their ground, risked more than enough by fighting as much as they had. The equation is simple to balance.  

Essek throws himself over the edge without a second thought. 

Someone else might have hesitated, might have succumbed to the pitching of the stomach that comes with looking into a great, yawning nothing, might have been held fast by the instinctual fear of falling, but Essek lives for that moment of weightlessness. There is no thrill, no victory, quite like throwing oneself against a force so fundamental as gravity and making it blink first. His magic catches him, easing the pull downward, and triumph sings through his veins, no less intoxicating for being familiar. 

The Nein, with credit to their collective bravery, operate with similar abandon, most of them trusting themselves to Veth’s Feather Fall, while Caleb and Fjord Fly. It’s no shock Caleb has this one in his repertoire, the spell is simple to learn, though hard to master. That Fjord has learned it is a little surprising, but then Fjord is often surprising.

Essek would be content to gently sink to the proper level, but Caleb is making a show of himself. He winks as he twirls neatly past Essek, coming to a stop after a single rotation instead of spinning out of control like a novice would, finishing his graceful arc precisely next to Yasha, compensating carefully as he tugs her away from an outcropping of rock that might have otherwise sent her into an uncontrolled tumble.

Even when running for their very lives, Caleb can find time to be a little smart ass, can’t he?

Of all Essek’s faults, competitiveness is very nearly the mildest, but it rears its head with no little vehemence now. Caleb isn’t bad with that spell, but Essek learned it likely before Caleb’s parents were born.

Show me something impressive? Hadn’t Essek asked him that once? Perhaps it’s time to return the gesture.

So Essek casts Fly, and puts on a class.

The key is keeping the input proportional to the intended reaction and remembering there is no appreciable friction to counteract momentum. It’s more difficult to be precise at slower speeds, because it takes longer for a correction to take effect, and it must be made earlier.

(And so what if he is a bit better friends with gravity than Caleb? If the desired reaction is control, of himself, of their inelegantly tumbling party, then all means of achieving it are fair.)

Essek drifts into the midst of the Feather Falled Nein, at nearly a crawl, brushing shoulders just so, nudging elbows close, far, depends on the angular momentum, skimming past Caleb, leaving less than a handspan, as he goes to stop the spin Fjord put Veth in. (He sent himself tumbling in the process, but that’s his own mess to untangle, and surely instructive besides.)

Caleb drifts down to him, just as close as Essek had been. Nearly as precise. He bobs though, just a bit, as he tries to match Essek’s velocity. Very good, but not perfect. For a moment, they circle each other, caught in each other’s orbits like a binary star. Did someone teach you, or have you taught yourself Essek doesn’t ask. He thinks he knows the answer.

Jester calls out their destination, a waterfall of all things, gesturing furiously enough to upset her balance. Keeping pace with Essek’s descent, Caleb circles around him to nudge Jester upright again, without taking his eyes off of Essek. Those daylight eyes are sparking, nearly brimming with mischief and challenge. Essek can’t help but rise to meet it, to surpass it.

(Essek is a practiced liar, but he cannot deny the pleasant ache their little contest lights in him, though he tries. How novel, to be preoccupied with an ache that is only metaphorical.

Somehow, he still has enough optimism in him for the picture of a future of heated competition, of whetting himself against this man, being the whetstone in turn. It is not—is not many things, but it is something, something he thinks he could contain. Something better, perhaps, than he deserves, but not so wonderful as to be out of reach.)

Essek smiles at Caleb’s unspoken challenge, slightly too sharp to be the serene smile of the courtier, and plucks at the miniscule gravity wells of their compatriots. Fractions, infinitesimal fractions, of force he adds, but it is enough to alter their trajectories, putting them on a lazy arc toward their destination. 

He eases himself backwards as well, in a perfect line, dropping his concentration on Fly and resuming his usual subversion of gravity without so much as a dip, then, in a fit of bravado, tugs at Caleb, spins him slowly, carefully, in a delicate pirouette, before setting him less than a finger width above the water. 

Caleb's cheeks are nearly as red as his hair. Is it the cold or the exertion, Essek wonders. It’s a lovely tint, either way. 

“Very impressive, Herr Thelyss.” 

“Flatterer. It was merely an exercise of the fundamentals.”

Beauregard makes an awful noise, some elongated groan, concerning enough Essek can’t help but look to see if she’s all right. The groan is cut off with an aborted grunt, and Essek just catches Jester snatching her elbow away from Beauregard’s ribs. 

“You two have got to shut up,” Beauregard says, rubbing at her side.

Caleb rolls his eyes, cheeks still bright, and drifts past Essek, still Flying to keep his boots dry. He passes close again to Essek, as if pulled off course by Essek’s gravity, before settling further into the shelter of the overhang.

Essek, for his part, lingers at the edge, wondering how far he could fall. How deep you have to strike to kill a city. What terrors, what mysteries wait there for those who learned to fall without the crash. Who, if anyone, might be reckless enough to fall with him.

So the cough takes him entirely by surprise. 

He’s slow to retrieve his handkerchief from his Wristpocket, and there’s no chance of hiding it. He gives over instead, hoping that will make the fit pass more quickly. He hears splashing behind him as someone—Caduceus, a quick glimpse confirms—comes over. Caduceus doesn’t say anything, just hits the Essek in between his shoulder blades twice with his open hand. That seems to dislodge something, but whether it’s flora or a rib, Essek couldn’t say. With one, final heave, a thick wet something coming up, and the fit finally passes. Whatever was caught by the handkerchief, Essek doesn’t dare look at or dispose of, not with eyes as keen as Caduceus’ so close. 

“That sounded nasty,” Caduceus says. He’s not looking at Essek though, instead watching the slip of blue carried along the surface of the water. It falls over the edge, safe from further examination. 

“The magic here reacts unpredictably to mine,” Essek replies, as if that were at all a pertinent response. Caduceus hums, in that way he does when he’s building a cutting statement. 

So it’s to Essek’s profound relief (and equally profound bewilderment) that the business with the weasel begins. 

The weasel who’s a god, apparently. 

In the words of the sage Vhurindrar Olios, who wrote the first psalms to the Luxon and walks out of every security meeting at the forty-five minute mark seemingly as a matter of principle, this might as well be happening.  

Essek, the few times he’d given the matter thought, had assumed Jester’s deity held domain over, speaking delicately, fertility and vigor. And, well, based on the name, those that found themselves abroad. Weasels hadn’t figured into it at all. 

(They’re sort of longer than they are around, aren’t they? There would be less appropriate animals. It certainly, from a visual perspective at least, makes more sense than death and ravens, given the usual iconography Jester employs.)

The revelation about Jester’s deity is quickly overshadowed by the grimmer one that comes immediately on its heels. Those eye tattoos aren’t simple markings, unwelcome blemishes, but have conferred power to Caleb and Beauregard. Including Telepathy, of a sort. Power always comes at a cost, and the thought of what payment will be demanded settles uneasily in Essek’s heart.

Further discussion grinds to a halt when they hear their monstrous pursuers above. They might be, ought to be, thwarted by the fall, but their frustrated cries could summon more trouble. By mutual agreement they creep further in, taking the unknowns ahead rather than risk the known problems behind. 

Essek falls to the back of the line, just behind Veth, and finally cleans his handkerchief and puts it away. Hopefully Caduceus won’t have time to revisit whatever thought he’d had earlier, Essek can feel a headache coming on. 

They stop almost as soon as they start to check a door labeled T-Dock. Curious name, but utterly uninformative. Was there a hierarchy to which experiments were done where? Would more dangerous ventures be higher or lower? Surely the higher levels would have been more desirable living spaces, at least, that’s how terrestrial cities are organized. Queens and wizards do so love a tower. But lower would have put something dangerous near the arcanca and machinery keeping the city functioning and afloat.

“Essek!” Yasha hisses, drawing Essek from his roaming thoughts. He barely suppresses the urge to shake his head. He’s not usually so prone to drifting. 

Yasha is poking her head out of the doorway, gesturing frantically at him. 

“Yes?”

“Come here!” 

Well, if the lady insists. 

“All right.” Caleb almost certainly found something if it’s him that’s being called. The mere idea is nearly enough to dispel his headache.

“Something interesting,” she murmurs, as if the Telepathy is contagious, as she steps back to let him through the door. He quickly casts Comprehend Languages, just in case, and follows her. 

The room beyond is reminiscent of the one containing the rejuvenation experiment, more utilitarian than elegant. It is of even rougher construction, as if whatever project it houses was earlier in its development. The dominant feature of the room is a slightly raised platform, inscribed with an intricate, immediately fascinating runic circle, flanked by what Essek can only assume is either power conduits or monitoring equipment, though he’s never seen the like. Caleb is standing near the platform, back strangely straight, posture too tight.

As he drifts in, Essek reflexives picks up the first papers in reach, skimming them for details.  

“See anything familiar?” Caleb asks, drawing Essek from the pages. He is gesturing at the circle with his chin. 

Essek remembers that look from their collaboration on Transmogrification. He’s found something and wants confirmation. But there’s also a nervous, nearly manic energy in him, nearly bleeding out of his eyes, that he’s suppressed into a very suspicious stillness.   

Essek sets the papers aside and drifts closer to the circle, taking it in. (Jester darts over and pats him on the shoulder, doing something that briefly clears his headache, stills his rambling thoughts, and he gestures his thanks with a hand motion he’s seen them use.)

His eyes are drawn first to one of the foundational runes of dunamancy, of chronurgy specifically, and nearly all thought beside what is this leaves his head. He kneels closer, trying to get a look at some of the ancillary carvings—their notation is maddening, too verbose by half, honestly—is that transmutation? 

Yes, yes it is, there’s a glyph for modulating energy output during state changing. Fascinating. Could it—

Essek crouches even lower, tracing the intended energy flow with his eyes. It could work, with the proper power source. Dunamantic in nature, likely, the transmutation seems secondary, a tempering force. They’d need something more than that gem he gave Caleb to operate it, that’s for certain. Did they mean to—

They did.

“I’ve had theories—” Essek murmurs, clenching his hands to sublimate the urge to touch. 

But did they succeed, that's the question. There are notebooks still intact, logs, and Essek turns to those, skimming the first thing in reach.

"This device borrows a lot of tenets of dunamis development, which even further confirms that Aeor was dabbling in some familiar territory.” He starts looking in earnest then, adding almost as an afterthought. “Maybe there's something here we can find."

At the edge of his awareness, Essek hears Caleb, Jester, and Yasha also begin to search. He coughs, once, twice, into the crook of his elbow, without taking his eyes off the text, casting Prestidigitation on reflex.  

Primal artifact? Has he heard that phrasing before?

(He coughs, again, damnit, he is trying to read. Caleb nudges him, hovering over his shoulder to read, and holds out his water skin. 

“It helps me sometimes, with a cough. Wetting my throat.”

Essek stares, like some daft fool, and swallows. Tastes, for the first time in minutes, the mix of plant and blood at the back of his tongue. Careful, afraid to even touch the rim of the waterskin lest somehow Caleb know, he takes a swallow of the nearly freezing water within. It’s bracing, if nothing else. And a potent reminder to be more careful.)

Essek flips through the book, Caleb reading over his shoulder, when he finds a diagram of something very familiar. He whips back to stare at Caleb, silently asking for confirmation, but his fellow’s wide eyed stare is all the answer he needs. They had at least one beacon. 

It might still be here.

Essek reads feverishly of the experiments described, of sending people back in their own timelines. Of successes, of failures, of things he could only ever speculate about actually being put to the test.  

Awe and jealousy and fascination war in him, as something else, a nearly preternatural awareness of how Caleb’s breathing has gone shallow, of his body going still, pricks the edges of his attention.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

It is unmistakably Caleb’s voice, clear, tinged with awe and—and a sadness, inexplicable as it is deep.

And not spoken, but merely planted directly in Essek’s mind, like a Message or a Sending.  

He pulls away from Caleb, acting on panicked reflex, as if that might sever the connection. Caleb frowns slightly, shakes his head, before looking over to Essek with an apologetic wince. 

What had he heard, while he skimmed Essek’s mind? 

Essek clears his throat, despite the ache it causes, trying to head off a cough. 

“Like I said,” he starts, voice thinner than he’d like. “It confirms some of my theories, on both sides.” He turns back to the Temporal Dock, as it’s rightly called. “If one could change the past—"

“It’s—it’s interesting,” Caleb replies shakily, too bland a response to be his true feelings on the matter. 

Caleb is still staring at the log book, pale, hands fisted at his sides, as if holding himself back. He pointedly isn’t looking at the Dock.

He’s always had an interest in matters of chronurgy. And he speaks so often of guilt, of regret. Essek flicks his eyes to Jester and Yasha, who are both watching them but without particular concern. 

"A chance to correct mistakes. It's alluring, regardless of how dangerous." Essek hopes that if he puts voice to it, that will dispel the tension building in Caleb. 

“Not enough to go on,” Caleb says, as if he’s trying to convince himself. To talk himself out of something. “Curious.”

There’s not enough to safely activate the Dock, not without some thought, some time. Time that they, of course, don’t have. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t enough to go on, period. But Essek doesn’t contradict Caleb. Can’t bear to, if he’s being honest.

Essek looks back at the Dock. 

He’s thought about what it would be like to undo his mistakes. Who hasn’t? If he never stole the beacons, then, if there were still a war, he couldn’t shoulder any of the burden. But of course, if he’d never stolen the beacons, he’d never have met the Nein. Never met Caleb. What other reason would they have to come to Xhorhas, but to expose him? Damned if did, damned if he didn’t.

Still, this clearly matters to Caleb. Even if Caleb doesn’t want to use it, it fascinates him. There is no other mind equal to the challenge of understanding the mechanism, besides Essek’s.

“Perhaps, if we survive this, we can return—”

There’s that stupid impulse to make a fool over himself, again. Will it ever stop?

“And change the past?” Jester interrupts breathlessly. 

Essek shakes his head through her interrupting. How odd, that she would jump immediately to that.

“Exchange theories,” he finishes.

Jester titters something, all mischief, but if Caleb has any thoughts on that, he keeps them to himself. Instead of replying, to her, to Essek, he instead picks up a piece of rubble and leaves the room without looking back. Essek sighs. The ache is returning to his temples. 

He takes one last look around the room, of what was probably someone's life's work. What could easily be another's. But not his, not given his life so far.

Foolish. So very foolish.

He leaves.

At least Essek didn’t have long to dwell before being chased by, astoundingly, even more beasts, directly into Lucien’s trap. 

The threat of a headache has manifested with a vengeance. His skull seems to vibrate even after the initial flash subsides, and the room spins around him without ceasing. He has to drift into a wall to ground himself, but even that isn’t enough to fully situate himself in space again. Nevermind that he can’t catch his breath at all. 

There’s no time to think about it, they have to keep moving, Essek pushes himself forward, keeping himself oriented by the sight of the Nein. 

He could cry from relief when Caleb finally blocks the doorway, cutting off the monsters and allowing them a few moments of respite. Lucien must be very close, and, for better or worse, the last fight.  

Essek waits for a moment, for when no one is paying him any attention, and drinks the last of his tincture. It does nothing for his headache, or the dregs of vertigo, but it might clear the way for his verbal casting. If he has that, the rest he can ignore. He’ll have to. 

Then Fjord casts Underwater Breathing, and with no little trepidation, and no little determination, Essek slips beneath the water.

Of course, Lucien slips their grasp.

Of course, water itself can be a monster in the ruins.

I will choose safety flashes in Essek’s memory as he casts Fly on Caduceus, sending him aloft. (He has enough of his wits to remember to provide a visual indicator, as one does for beginners, to help them intuit the mechanics of flight.) Getting both clerics through the gate is paramount, if they are to survive.  

He could not lift Caduceus if he’d reversed their positions. He’s not even sure he trusts himself to Fly in a straight line with how his head is spinning. He’ll figure something else out. And if he dies, well, that’s why he prioritized the lives of the clerics. 

It’s something of a shock, then, when Caduceus picks him up, pulling them both into the air. He doesn’t have long to consider either the ridiculousness of it or whether he’s about to be accidentally dropped onto the beast, because it lashes out and grabs him. 

Drowning, it turns out, is worse than choking. The water that makes up the creature burns in an unnatural way, and as it loops a tentacle around him, crushing and pulling him down, one coil briefly covers his nose and mouth, flooding his sinuses and lungs with acrid water. 

He heaves on reflex, trying to get it out, but it must waterlog the flowers, clotting them into a mass, because he can’t get anything out of the subsequent inhale. Something collides with the tentacle holding him, a burst of green, and it shifts, allowing him air. He coughs again, expelling an awful melange of plant and blood and water, and gets the space to wheeze out the component for Misty Step, vanishing from Caduceus’ grip and stumbling through the gate. 

Some part of him registers the majesty of the Astral Sea, and some other, greater part of him remembers that Caduceus is relying on him to concentrate. He curls into himself, choking on wet effluvia, clutching the soaked front of his robes, and pouring every other iota of himself to the connection feeding the spell. 

Where’s Caduceus? He can’t see him, but the spell’s still there. Black spots pepper his vision, so he closes his eyes, pressing his mouth into his elbow, even though the dregs of the creature soaking his sleeve make his skin itch. Oh, Light, fuck, it won’t come up. 

Someone grabs him from behind, two arms, not tentacles, and then there’s a sharp pain in his abdomen, once, twice, three times, then—

Ugh. At least it’s out.

Essek doesn’t uncurl. Doesn’t open his eyes. He knows he won’t get a full breath, so he settles for the hissing sips of air he can draw between his teeth. 

“Fuck, man,” Beauregard says. A hand—hers?—rests lightly on his back, halfway between comfort and the threat of more percussive intervention. Essek waves vaguely at her, hopes she understands. The hand vanishes. 

He cleans his robes, eyes still closed, then dries them. 

He might as well dry everyone else (excepting Caleb who is, perhaps mercifully, a sheep for some reason.) He doesn’t quite look at them as he does, more afraid of what he’ll see than he has been of anything else so far. It’s only after he’s done he realizes he’s still clutching the front of his tunic. He tucks his shaking hands beneath his outer cloak. 

“That sounded bad, Essek,” Jester says. 

“It caught me around the face for a moment,” Essek says. It’s not a lie, so why does his heart race?

“And I’m sure there was wild magic, acting up again,” Caduceus says. 

“Well, we’re here now.” His voice isn’t smooth, but it’s not shaking. 

Here. The Astral Sea, with the portal they used to come here shut tight from the material side. Essek turns and really looks, out at the expanse-like field of stars and rock and—

And city. 

A chill curls down Essek’s spine. The last extant part of Aeor floats before them, real and awful. The Cognouza Ward. 

And their enemy has the head start.

Chapter Text

Floating against the backdrop of an impossible sea and a heinous skyline, Caduceus counts off those he will pray over and begins his invocation. 

Essek demurred the Wildmother’s blessing. Once, he was curious about what, if any, effect divine healing would have on the disease at this stage, but now his fledgling conscience balks at the idea of taking the place of someone who would benefit for certain. 

(He is hardly unscathed, but the bruises and scrapes barely register against the way his chest aches with every shallow inhale, every rattling exhale. At least, if he clears his throat in time, he seems to be able to head off the worst of the coughing. Documentation is a lost cause, but that’s been true for hours now, and besides, it wouldn’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know.)

Caduceus’ eyes had lingered on him a beat too long, as if giving him the chance to reconsider, but he finally allowed Essek to cede his place without comment. Essek, for his part, kept his own thoughts to himself, but—

A prayer, a little divine magic, is nothing but a stopgap. They are all exhausted, in a way the usual brush of holy power won’t soothe. If they can’t rest, rest properly, they likely don’t stand a chance at surviving what’s next, let alone winning. Four hours, give or take, would at least grant Essek a new well of arcana to draw from, but taking that time would be an unconscionable gamble, given the stakes. The others would need eight hours, or thereabouts, which is practically surrender. 

While Caduceus chants, Essek pulls out his spellbook. He skips past his notes on his own condition—he hardly has time to dwell on his personal troubles—and goes to the spell he has been designing. 

Last he worked on it, he did not have a source of dunamantic power besides himself and Caleb, but now there is the gem he pilfered. How much power it puts at his disposal is impossible to tell, but that only matters if he can work out how best to use it. They figured it out, though, so he knows it is possible—

But did they simply accelerate a particular place or creature along its temporal axis, or did they fold a bit of the future back? Or did they try something else entirely, Luxon’s heels, surely he’d have noticed if they were doing something with the spatial axes— 

If only he’d been in the machine—

He can’t help but look at Fjord, who has already benefited from something like what Essek hopes to achieve. In a part of Essek it now pains him to acknowledge, he sees a proof of concept in the half-orc. Had he known what the machine would do, that it would actually work, Essek would have asked Fjord to make specific observations.

But, even though he wasn’t primed with what to look for, he might still remember enough about the experience to rule some things out.

In any case, he is Essek’s only insight into what the Aeorans achieved, or at least the most accessible. Essek drifts over to where he and Jester are floating, curled quietly together as Caduceus works. Essek hesitates, only for a moment, only long enough to make sure he isn’t interrupting them, before asking quietly,

“Fjord? I have a question, if you would indulge me.”

Fjord turns a little too quickly to face Essek, surprised, certainly, though not upset. Jester peeks around him, eyebrows lifted in silent inquiry.

“Of course, what’s on your mind?”  

“When you tried that machine, the one in the Rejuvenation Experimentation—” Essek can’t help but notice the way Jester’s hand tightens around Fjord’s arm—so she hadn’t appreciated his recklessness, Essek should have known. Perhaps he should not have even brought it up around her, obviously it would upset her—and he winces, both in sympathy for Jester’s worry and the bruises her pale-knuckled grip are sure to leave. “Do you remember anything odd about the passage of time? From our perspective, it took only a moment. I was wondering if it might have seemed longer to you.” 

Fjord reaches across himself, presses his hand over Jester’s, his thumb drawing lazy arcs across her skin. 

“I didn’t feel like I was in there for hours, if that’s what you’re getting at. It got a little warmer in there, then I was dizzy, maybe? No, that’s not it. I felt odd for a moment, I’m not sure what to call it, I don’t study magic like you and Caleb do.” Fjord scratches his fingers through his beard, almost like he’s reassuring himself it’s still there. “Did that answer anything for you?”

“It did, actually, thank you.” 

So, less likely to have simply been a local acceleration, or else Fjord would have felt time passing normally from his reference frame within the chamber. It was more elegant than that—

“Why did you want to know?”

“Professional curiosity. I don’t want to—ah, what’s the word?—jinx what I have by discussing it prematurely.” 

“Fair enough.” Fjord leans away a bit, as if he expects there to be a chair or wall to catch him. As the Astral Sea is more flexible in regard to expectation than material space, he doesn’t simply fall back. “Now, I have a question. You all right?”

Fjord isn’t asking like a friend might. He has the same look he did the night they ambushed the Tombtakers, when he asked Essek’s men to die for them. Essek understood it then and he understands it now. He is looking out for the whole, and if there is a weak link he must know of it. 

“Yeah, Essek, that monster looked like it had fucked you up pretty bad when you came through the gate but you didn’t want Caduceus to pray for you.” Jester flexes her fingers. “I could, if you want. Artie’s not a god like she is, if that’s why you didn’t, you know.”

Essek takes as deep a breath as he can—it hurts but he doesn’t cough. It would be more than enough to cast on.

“I am well enough.” Essek meets Fjord’s eyes, not Jester’s. He nods, almost imperceptibly, then his expression softens into relief. “I’m not as hardy as you all are,” he continues, looking now at Jester. “And the elemental just caught me off guard. But I learn with every encounter.”

“Oh, what’d you learn there?” The barest echo of the tone Fjord uses to tease Veth creeps into his voice.

“That I do not much care for things with tentacles,” Essek replies, as dryly as he’s able. That earns him a huff from both Fjord and Jester, which is its own kind of victory.

The city is, of course, horrifying. A chaotic slurry of meat, mortal, and mortar, it unfolds before them like the craft of some god who became bored halfway through the act of creation and cast the work aside to grow unfettered by reason or intent. 

To say nothing of the way it is screaming into the cradle of his skull. 

There is a thing, some particular horror that beckoned Caleb to parley, that grew red and bulbous and ocular from the body of some unfortunate, and it has invaded his thoughts. Essek knows what it is to have the words of another in his mind. Sendings, Messages, even the uncomfortable press of more prying magic, are all familiar to him. 

This is something else. 

Intent reverberates off his cranial cavity, impressing words and images with all the finesse of a branding iron, coming from a will alien in its mental grammar. Essek’s first instinct is panic, to drive it out, but Caleb, standing below on the cobbles carved from flesh, holds firm. Speaks to the thing like an equal. 

Essek’s infatuated awe—how does he stare that thing down without so much as tremor—is a lifeline back to self-control. He can hardly run screaming now, besides where would he go? It’s a lucky thing, too, because the denizens of the city turn on them. 

Dispatching them isn’t difficult, but they are the city and the city is them, so for a long while Essek thinks they might simply be infinite, might keep coming until they are overwhelmed. But they die, or wither, or fail, like living things do, and are not replaced. (When Essek kills one, he feels it press its gratitude into his thoughts. It almost makes him sick, to be thanked by something he’s destroyed.)

As abruptly as the fight started, it ends. (This is the way of fights, or at least fights involving the Mighty Nein, it seems.) While Essek coughs, as quietly as he can manage, his way through catching his breath, they all decide to search their surroundings for either Cree or Lucien. 

Essek volunteers to follow Veth, to keep each team to two, and drifts after her, in deference to her skillset, as she approaches a house. 

“You’d better not cough the whole way behind me,” Veth says, brazen as ever, once they’re out of earshot of the others. 

Essek freezes. Of course, she’d noticed. By now, they all have seen him coughing, despite his best efforts. He wishes, in vain, he’d saved what little medicine he’d had, even if by now it might be little more than a placebo. 

“I’ll endeavor not to,” Essek says, as they enter the house. It, at first glance, seems rather ordinary, but as Essek’s eyes linger the unrealness of the place begins to set in. The furniture grows from the floor, shifting from wood and upholstery to flesh and tooth at a subtle gradient. It makes his own skin crawl. 

He’d leave immediately, surely there’s nothing of value here, but there are stairs, and Veth goes to climb them. 

“Are you going to be able to keep it together?” she continues, even her undertone shrill. 

Essek feels the spasm that heralds a cough, but grits his teeth and holds his breath until it passes. Not here, not in front of her, not right now.

“I haven’t faltered yet.” His voice is reedier than he’d like, but steady enough. 

She glances back over her shoulder, expressionless, but her dark eyes searching. In that moment, she reminds him of his own mother in the worst way. But while Umavi Thelyss, a creature forever in the shadow of the hell of the Calamity, seeks out weakness so she might cauterize it—to survive you must be strong, and you must survive, so I will make you strong, and the work of your survival is my love—Veth is a hunter, keen to find what might hemorrhage. 

Essek has a sudden, hysterical thought—she is loyal to Caleb above the rest of the Mighty Nein, and agreed without hesitation when he suggested he follow her. She is dangerous and determined, and does not seem quick to forgive. 

If she thought him a danger to Caleb, she might try to put him down, and given his history, Essek couldn’t even fault her logic. 

(She matters to Caleb, perhaps more than anyone else ever could. Essek does not think he could bear what came after raising the metaphorical hand against her, even in self-defense. Maybe, if Essek isn’t simply being paranoid, she would be reasonable enough to take his spellbook back to Vurmas, where it could be eventually delivered to the Conservatory. He’s put rather a lot of work into it, it would be a shame to have it lost.)

“He needs you to keep your shit together,” she says, finally, with no little menace.

“I didn’t come here to be a burden, Veth. If that’s your estimation of me, then tell me what to improve now, because I fear one way or another we won’t be here much longer.”

She turns to face him fully now. She was far enough ahead of him that, even floating, her eyes are level with his. 

“You’re not okay,” she says, blunt and flat. “You might still be good to fight, for now, but I know what it looks like when a wizard is burning reserves he doesn’t have. If you’re about to—” She stops to make an explosive gesture. “—do it later and do it where he can’t see. I don't think he can do it again.”

Do what again? But it is not his place to ask.

“The last thing I want is to be a further source of stress for him,” Essek says instead. He can’t bear to speak louder than a whisper.

She frowns then.

“What the fuck is it?” 

“No one’s business but my own, and something I have tried very hard not to make anyone else’s problem.” He doesn’t mean to sound so cold, but it’s reflex. She is only looking after Caleb. Someone should. 

He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. This is unproductive, nearly the worst possible moment to be arguing with Caleb’s dearest friend. He opens his mouth for an apology, but there’s a hand at his elbow. Veth crept down the stairs, eerily silent as she always is.

“Hey—I wasn’t—nobody wants whatever this is for you, okay? Caduceus is a phenomenal healer, and if it’s magic, Caleb’s the smartest person alive, and the rest of us can pretty much shoot and stab and punch anything into a pulp. You don’t seem like you have a problem you can shoot your way out of but—” She hefts her crossbow. “I mean, if someone put a curse on you we have experience with that.”

The whiplash stuns speech from Essek’s tongue. He stares at her for several seconds, jaw working useless. It’s only when he has to cough into his elbow that Common reappears in his lexicon. 

“No one put a curse on me,” he says, in a small voice he would wince at, if he were not suddenly exhausted. “I have every intention of lasting until this is over, for whatever that is worth to you.”

“Last until after it’s done, and then some. No one likes a fucking martyr.”

Veth is the one to get the final blow on the monstrosity Lucien’s disciple had become. Essek’s shoulders slump in relief, and he lets the magic he had drawn up recede back into himself, unspent. He looks around, sees everyone (everyone, but Jester and Caleb, who left to deal with the Threshold Crest) still standing. They are all alive.

Alive, but not well, and Lucien is still out there. 

Adrenaline is still thick in Essek’s veins, his mind working battle-fast—

There had been something, for a moment—

Space, folding over itself recursively, that, that—

Oh, of course.

(Essek follows the Nein, mostly by reflex, only half paying attention to where they lead him.)

It would work, in theory. It must work, in practice, but he can make that happen. Trade parts of himself in exchange for success. 

(The others have acquired red eyes because of the fight. Yasha is asking him to check himself, and he does it absently. There is something on his shoulder, but it is ancillary to the work at hand, so he ignores it. A problem for later.)

He’ll likely be trading himself regardless. Essek won’t know for sure until he’s in the ritual (it will have to be a ritual, there’s no time to refine it further than that) but accelerating the disease could be an unavoidable outcome—even if he wanted to tweak fate into his favor, one way or another, he would still have to draw it from somewhere, somewhen, or risk catastrophic backlash. Essek knows, deep in his bones, that in all the close places he is similarly afflicted.

No matter what happens to him, if he succeeds, when he succeeds, they would be able to continue. Caleb would be able to continue. Essek’s chest burns. One for seven is an easy trade. He’s made worse ones. 

They are arguing, when he thinks again to listen, about the crest and alternate planes and where to rest. With every beat of his heart, he aches, but he feels more alive than ever, on the precipice of discovery.

“We mentioned time being strange in places, yes?” he interrupts. They all turn to look at him. “We've dabbled a bit in strange time.” He’ll need help. A second. Caleb is his first and only choice. “Isn't that right, Caleb?"

“Well. In little dribs and drabs, and we've just found a very interesting lead, but that's not quite as—” Modesty, but then genuine curiosity. “What are you thinking?”

“Can you freeze time?” Jester, wide-eyed.

“Are you suggesting you experiment with some untested dunamancy shit that hasn't seen the light of day for two thousand years? Is that what you're suggesting?” Beauregard, skeptical.

“So we can sleep?” Jester again, painfully hopeful. 

“That is precisely what I went into studying for, to be honest, but there was a device in Aeor that we had come across that you had utilized.” 

Essek gestures to Fjord, whose eyes widen in sudden recognition, and the others catch on almost immediately. Essek turns to Caleb.

“Do we still have the gem?” 

“Yes, yes—”

Caleb retrieves it from where it’s buried in his coat. It glitters, still brimming with power. It is about to be ruined. There is another, Essek reminds himself. They have to survive the next few minutes, and then what comes after. The gem would serve no other purpose in that time. He looks at Caleb, lit from beneath by that unreal glow. No, there is no greater purpose for that power than this. 

There is some back and forth, like there always is with them. Essek is candid about the risks, but he knows he’s convinced them when Caduceus uses the last of his strength to send the crest away. 

“I swear to god, Essek, if you fuck this up.” Beauregard’s final protest is both sincere and proof of her capitulation. 

(“Well, you wouldn't really be around to do anything after that.” Fjord is flippant, but it is a good reminder of the gravity of what Essek is proposing.)

“Nope, but I just—my essence will haunt you,” she continues, jabbing a finger toward his chest.

"And I would deserve it, like I deserve all of the things that haunt me.” Sincerity isn’t his forte, but he tries, looking each of them in the eye. He wants them to know, even if it fails, that he was trying to help. 

“Aw, Essek,” Jester murmurs. 

“Mood killer.” Beauregard is blunter, but oddly chastised.

"Don't offer me any solace," he says, finally looking away and pulling out his spellbook and chalks enchanted to just this sort of purpose,

“Yeah, you're a horrible person.” Essek will go to his grave ignorant of whether Veth really means it, but he doesn’t protest. There is work to be done.

“And now that we have established it, let's help save the world,” Caduceus says as he claps Essek on the shoulder, suffusing him with a similar warmth and clarity to what Jester had provided, not so long ago. 

All objections lodged and accounted for, Essek opens his spellbook to his notes, kneels, and begins drawing. 

The circle is not so elegant as he might wish—he does not have the time to eliminate redundancies—but it’s not bad for something he is very nearly creating as he goes.

Caleb places the stone at the center without having to be asked and crouches at Essek’s elbow, watching him draw with focused, narrowed eyes. Good—Essek is relying on him to call out any errors in his transmutive balances. 

But Caleb says nothing, not even when he kneels across from Essek, on the other side of the stone. He seems to understand intuitively that he will be the second—Essek will need his strength to anchor them while he does the delicate work, to hold the framing of the spell in place. It is a deceptively simple task—Essek need not explain the details of the theory he is attempting to put to practice, but Caleb will have to hold his concentration on keeping the boundaries of a spell he doesn’t understand in place, to let Essek lean on his strength without knowing how much might be required. It is a position that requires trust of the primary. As Caleb settles into place, the weight of what Essek asked of him settles over his shoulders, beautiful and crushing. 

(Oh, how Essek wishes he had time to walk Caleb through every rune, to hear his thoughts. Surely, even now, he must have opinions on what Essek has laid down, but even his silence is communicative—he would not let Essek make an error he could correct, not with his friends, his family, hanging in the balance.)

Essek draws the last stroke and looks across as Caleb.

“Ready?”

Caleb looks once more at the circle, scouring it, before finally meeting Essek’s eyes with the faintest smile. He nods, and holds his hands out, ready to follow Essek’s lead.

Essek had held the greatest portion of his strength back for some desperate moment, but if ever there was such, it would be this one. He pours himself deeply into the casting, letting magic flow out of him like water from a burst dam. 

Usually he reserves this part of himself for a spell of his own design, an offensive version of a particular practice of chronurgy. Rather than plucking at the strings of fate, converging a helpful future on himself, he takes those strings and makes them into a thresher. He named the spell Reality Break, no poetry or art to it, but a simple description of its function. So it must be something of a reflex, when he draws that power out of himself, that he opens a glimpse into a higher order space where he can card through permutations of realities like pages in a book. 

Now though he’s not looking for a thread to convolve with his present for an advantage, but to move ahead in the one he already inhabits. He finds the thread, the future of this timeline, and curls it back around to meet them where they stand, relying not only on himself but on Caleb and the power stored in the gem. 

The spell begins to take, unmooring them all into a liminal space even Essek calls only acquaintance. Paradoxically, he must work quickly, lest it escape his hold, even though this place is timeless, a still point that defies conventional description. It was not enough to simply find the future, to move it, he must cushion them all through it. To keep the lives, the timelines, of eight people carefully intact. It is delicate work, like threading eight moving needles at once, but Essek is a master of his craft and highly motivated besides. 

As he is about to close the loop, he looks at the Mighty Nein, people who he wants to call friends, who are trusting him though they have no reason to. Putting their lives, the lives of everyone in Exandria, in the hands of a confirmed traitor and a known coward.

He looks then across at Caleb, holding the door between reality and possibility open for him. His face painted in dunamantic light—blues, violets, colors Common never thought to name. His hands are steady, his concentration complete. Sweat gathers at his temple, but his breathing is even. He is holding. 

(Who else could do this? Essek cannot name a mage he would trust, cannot name anyone else who would be brave enough, be competent enough. Caleb is singular, in so many ways.)

(Deep, deep, Essek feels something blooming. Time, or whatever equivalent he’s experiencing, runs short.)

Essek feels it, perhaps down in his soul, when the circuit completes, when all that power stored in the crystal, given by him, given by Caleb becomes action, becomes truth, so fundamental that the universe must bend to it. (And this too, is why he sits where he does, at the key, as the primary, because if there is to be recoil, it would strike him first and hardest.)

But while there is reverberation, there is not recoil. The gem shatters, the spell completes, and pain and exhaustion flees Essek’s body.

He exhales letting his hands fall, then inhales, what should be a simple reflex, but—

But he can’t. His lungs, his throat is full. 

He twists away from the circle, away from the Nein. (Distantly, he registers that they are coughing too, all of them, no, he made no mistake, they must be all right—) He pulls the edge of his cloak over his face as he chokes and wheezes. He remembers Caduceus, Beauregard, and instead of just pressing a hand to his chest he beats his fist against the drum of his ribs. 

It might have helped, or maybe he managed to get enough air to move up whatever was loosening anyway. Either way, he can suck a little more of the foul city air down, use it to cough more. He curls forward, forehead nearly touching his knees, as the world begins to spin around him and he coughs up what must be an entire bouquet.

(Essek knew this might happen. The only question is how bad? It feels as if he’ll never catch his breath again.)

Hands appear, one on the curve of his spine, another at his elbow, firm but not harsh.

“Essek? Are you all right? The spell—I thought it worked, it—” Caleb’s voice is nearly frantic, close to Essek’s ear. It makes everything in his chest revolt. He wants to shove him away, wants to draw him closer. Caught in the middle he does neither, can’t even manage to answer him. Caleb’s hand moves up and down his back. It does nothing. It does everything.

With one last heave, his body stills. His mouth tastes of blood, petals caught on his tongue and palate. He swallows, despite how nauseous it makes him. 

He is careful to curl his cloak close, hiding his hands as he casts to clean the mess, for whatever it might save him, as he rises. Caleb’s hands don’t fall away until he’s sitting upright. 

“Was there blowback?” Caleb murmurs, brows knitting. 

“Of a sort.” Essek tries to smile, keeping his mouth closed in case his teeth are smeared red, but he’s not sure he manages it. Shrugs his shoulders. “It’s nothing to worry about, I expected it might happen.”

Caleb is very still. Very close. Impossible to ignore. Somehow, Essek must do it anyway. 

He looks over his shoulder, to the rest of the Nein. They are shaking themselves out, glittering with residual energy, but visibly more vital—bruises have faded, eyes are brighter.

If this is all Essek contributes, then it was worth it, to help them in such a crucial moment. He sways, suddenly dizzy. Caleb’s hand appears again at his shoulders, holding him still. He squeezes his eyes shut—the unreal geometry of the room isn’t helping, that’s for certain.

Caleb rubs his hand along Essek’s shoulders. If it does anything about his spinning head, it is only that the psychosomatic burn of his touch stokes a real burn in his lungs. He ought to shrug the touch off, break the connection, but he can’t. So instead he kneels on the throbbing, living ground and tries to breathe around the ache.

Something is pressed into his hands—a water skin. 

“Try to drink something, please.” Caleb slips his hands under Essek’s, lifting the waterskin a little higher. “You look faint. Are you sure you’re all right?” 

“I’m as well as I’ve ever been,” Essek says through gritted teeth.

Caleb nudges the waterskin again, wordlessly insistent. Essek lets himself be handled, just for a moment. Just to know what it feels like, to be fretted over. He takes a long drink. At least it washes the lingering taste of blood from his mouth. 

“Better. Thank you,” Essek says, as he hands back the water. Caleb stares at him, searching for something, it seems, before nodding and pulling Essek up after him. 

He watches the rest of them for a moment, the excess dunamantic energy burning off them like heat shimmer in the summer.

It worked. 

It worked.

Chapter Text

Identifying their spoils is simple but grounding work, especially after the risk they’d just taken, and so Essek finds himself happy to do it. Muscle memory carries his hands and mouth through the ritual, allowing his mind to think without interruption.

There is yet one problem left for him, after all.

Here, only kneeling, only casting something familiar and straightforward, he can breathe. It aches, feels as if he’s been scraped raw from his teeth down to the lowest pool of his lungs, but it’s not as if he’s gasping on every inhale.

No, it’s only when there’s something trying to come up that he chokes. 

It seems to happen every other minute, maybe every five, if he had to commit to an answer. Mostly petals, he thinks, but everything tastes of blood and can’t very well make an inspection while working.

How much worse is it than before the ritual? He has been trying to take stock of himself, but it’s hard to be objective. The pain in his chest, his lungs, his throat had been present before, notably bad but not as singular as it seems now. Of course, before, he’d been hurting all over and had been for hours. So are the symptoms actually worse, or is it just the only ailment? 

He has no basis against which he can compare. Keeping his head attached to shoulders took precedence over data collection and note taking. Regrettable to have had to make the trade-off, but fractal meat beasts and tendrilous elementals have a way of shifting to the top of one’s priorities. 

He rolls his eyes at himself. As if Lucien or the city would let him pause to scratch tallies into his spellbook. As if the precise depth of his illness is what will matter going forward. 

His Identify completes, and the enchantments and arcana in the weapon liberated from one the Aeoran corpses light under his vision. (He hands the security cannon to Veth without hesitation once he understands it.) Essek flexes his fingers to chase the lingering prickle of magic from them. No, what matters is this, that he can cast. If there is an after once they find Lucien, it will be his privilege to decide how to manage the consequences of having lived that long. 

Caleb is still working, and Beauregard declares quite abruptly that she is going to attempt to find one Yussa, who is apparently here, somehow, via some manner of monk shit.

That gives Essek a few spare moments, which is enough time to detail the results of the ritual for what posterity he might have. He copies down the circle, remarks on the high energy input required, the need for a skilled second (and perhaps a third and fourth, if no like dunamantic source is at hand). There isn’t time enough to elaborate on the relevant theoretical underpinnings to his satisfaction, but either he’ll live to write them later or he won’t. 

When he finishes, Beauregard is still sitting, unmoving and quiet, and Caleb is in the middle of his second ritual, which with his inclination toward care will take the full time. Essek brushes his thumb down the pages of his spellbook. It feels almost silly to bother, but since he has the time—

Well, he’s done worse things for completeness’ sake. What’s a little morbid indulgence at the end of the world?

He turns to his graphs and notes, annotates the graph with the point at which he stopped being able to gather data, simply writing frequent and painful with a pair of dashed lines showing the upper and lower bounds of his estimations.

This might be my final entry. I have perhaps intentionally aggravated the disease (See Experimental Restorative Chronurgy Ritual, detailed elsewhere in this book. I have yet to name it, but so long as no one posthumously attaches a tedious bit of hymn to it, I suppose I do not much care what history calls it.) but at time of writing it seems far more likely I will instead be killed by a relic of the Calamity, a sentient ward of the city Aeor, mutated by as yet unknown means into mostly flesh. (It is as unpleasant as the mechanism would be fascinating, I’m sure, if one had sufficient stomach for the squelching. Alas, a distaste for squelching, leaking, and viscera kept me from exploring dunamancy through the clergy* so I find myself without curiosity for the means by which this horror occurred.)

If my work survives, I hope it is instructive on how quickly the disease can progress, if the conditions are correct. I suppose, if you have need of this research, you already understand how difficult it can be to deny yourself the conditions by which the disease will flourish. I will not offer advice in that matter. Perhaps I will feel differently in a little time, but at present I do not regret following him to this hell. It will be better to die fighting for something, than to die for want of something.

*Joking, but, also, very much not

“Hey, Essek?”

Essek starts at the sound of Fjord’s voice. He looks up—Fjord is holding his hand out with an apologetic wince, like he hadn’t meant to startle. Essek offers him a polite smile, closes his spellbook, and tucks it and his pen into his Wristpocket.

“Yes?”

Fjord crouches down in front of him before Essek can stand, close but not too close. Enough for a private conversation, as much as such a thing can exist in proximity to the Mighty Nein, but not close enough to invite their curiosity.

“That was one hell of a spell.”

“Thank you.” Essek has not often been accused of modesty, but for some reason he feels it now. He looks away, brushes nothing off his cloak. “I should be thanking you, though. Your experience proved critical to illuminate the path forward.”

Fjord chuckles, low and disbelieving.

“And I’m sure you’re not just being kind.”

“I had been working on the problem for some time, but you proved there was something to find. You took the first risk to help them. I merely presented the last.”

“Presented it. You fucking did it.”

Essek doesn’t mean to smile at that, but a real one, proud and sharp, spreads over his face anyway.

“I fucking did.” His smile falters, though, when catches sight of Caleb standing and stretching over Fjord’s shoulder. “No. We did it.”

He coughs, once, twice. He knows he couldn’t hide it from Fjord, so he doesn’t try.

“That still bothering you?”

“An occupational risk, as it were.”

“Better or worse?” That look again, the hard, assessing one. 

“Worse, perhaps, but tenable,” Essek replies, in nearly an undertone. The muscles in Fjord’s jaw jump as he clenches his teeth, then he hisses out a sympathetic sigh.

“Did that make it, you know—”

Essek shrugs.

“If it did, well, the failure space for that spell included outcomes far worse than a few side effects for the primary caster. I consider the venture an unqualified success, given the circumstances.”

Fjord’s lips thin, then he looks over his shoulder. His own eyes seem drawn to Jester, where she’s trying to feed stale pastry to her weasel. Her god? Her weasel-god.

“It’s amazing what you can find yourself doing to protect your own,” Fjord says, tone mellowed. Perhaps even melancholy.

Yes, you’ll send men to their deaths. You’ll challenge ancient horrors and new madmen. You’ll threaten to upset the balance of reality to grant them a reprieve. You’ll taunt death to do it.

Essek looks out on the rest of the Mighty Nein. On Caleb. He would do worse, to others, to himself, even now. He flexes his fingers. The things he could do, right now.

He coughs again, quieter than usual. Feels something in his throat. Swallows it down without a word.

What he could do right now, but maybe not for much longer.

“Well, it's not as if any of you would spare anything for the others. That is the nature of friends, isn’t it? You take care of your own.”

Beauregard chooses that moment to jump to her feat, saying she’s found Yussa. Fjord cracks his neck and stands. Essek sighs out the component to his personal cantrip and rises into that cradle of gravity. As he settles into it, Fjord claps him on the back.

“Yeah, we do, don’t we?” Fjord’s broad hand doesn’t leave. Essek can’t tell if it’s meant to be a threat or comfort until Fjord leans in and says, “Stick near Caleb, if you can, we’re used to covering him.” Then he squeezes Essek’s shoulder and walks over to hear what Beauregard has to say.

Essek has immediate cause to put that advice into practice, because in the searching Beauregard was seen. 

They don’t make it far before they are intercepted by one of the Somnovem, another great red eye, and it is at that moment Essek’s memory chooses to remind him that he is now marked by this place. 

(Is it the same eye as before? Does the eye on his body correspond to the one he’d encountered, or is it unrelated? So many questions, and he’s sure he’ll hate the answers.)

Then there is a voice in his head, similar in kind to the last but distinct in timbre, though no less awful, and then Essek can only contain the alien thoughts and his own panic.

It speaks of love, of bonds, pouring the effigy of something too obsessive, too possessive to be anything he could name affection directly into the fabric of his mind. What this thing promises is subsumption, is ablation, is an attention so complete it becomes the crush of oblivion. 

This Gaudius profanes everything in Essek’s heart, and amidst his terror, Essek feels the spark of fury—

I have love enough to drown in, a noose spun of gold, and I would slip it over my own head a thousand times before choosing this. My love will damn me, but it won’t pull him down too. Won’t ruin him like you ruined the lives you consumed. How dare you use love’s name—

His vehement anger provides, at least, the necessary distance to get hold of himself again, in time for Fjord and Jester to convince the thing to leave. He watches the way they linger in each other’s space, even after there’s nothing left to convince, and holds his breath. 

The only thing that we've done consistently, the only choice that we've ever consistently made is to take care of our friends.

He cannot get Veth’s words out of his head. 

It took them hardly any time at all to decide to help Yussa. Essek can hardly begrudge them the detour, though he finds himself bitterly, quietly jealous.

What they will risk for someone they call friend— 

He has no one but himself to blame, which is the hell of it. They called him friend once, though they never should have. He had already thrown them away, years before he met them. Had already thrown him away. 

If only understanding the futility of it was enough to stop the blooming cough. 

He falls to the back of the group as they search, ignorant of what signs he would even look for, to try to clear his lungs in peace. It’s nearly constant now, and it’s nearly all he can do to keep relatively quiet and Prestidigitate the mess away. 

They stop when Beauregard says to. Essek watches, transfixed, as Caleb breaks away to approach a distinctive figure, dressed in lavish gold. 

So this is Yussa.

Caleb spares him a few quiet words, as if trying to bargain, but Yussa is clearly trapped between places, neither fully here nor there. The moment that becomes obvious to Essek, Caleb uses a little of his precious, hard won magic to Banish him home. 

Essek swallows. What if that spell turns out to be the difference later? It hurts, badly, to know that for Caleb, it would never matter—he would have always made this choice. Essek would always have had to weigh it. This is the difference between them, the gap Essek will never bridge, the reason he cannot breathe. 

And yet still, it is a privilege, to know such a man, even if—

Essek only just catches a whole flower before it could fall—

Even if I’ve lost him.

Caleb’s shoulders hitch up as Yussa’s spirit fades from this plane to return home. He starts to turn back but stops himself before he can face the Nein. Curious. Did something call out to him?

Essek tries to put the whole matter out of his mind as they hide in one of the buildings (just as vile and fleshy as the previous) while Beauregard and Caleb, bearing the most influence of this place, attempt to carve it with nothing but their will.

They succeed, but Caleb comes away with another mark. 

Unsure of the gravity of that trade, Essek can only feel cold. 

The descent is claustrophobic. Essek tries his best not to touch any part of Cognouza, and though its gravity is strange, weak and fitful, he is able to navigate if he takes care. 

After far too long, they come to the heart of the matter, in as literal a sense as possible.

The twisting, impossible mass of flesh and architecture gives way to a chamber, a cavern, that houses the nightmare central to this place, the minds that tried to birth it. It could only be the Somnovem, whatever they’ve dreamed themselves into becoming over the centuries they’ve spent in hiding.

Essek has never in his life experienced the horror of blasphemy. He has committed it, watched others recoil in fear and disgust over it, but never has he felt the wrenching wrongness of it himself.

Never, until now. 

Until these minds speak directly to his.

The soul should not be bound to a short-lived vessel and collected by treacherous idols as a trophy.

This is the central tenet of his culture, the promise that pulled his people from the dark, and while he has never treasured it, never trusted it, he never imagined this could come of it.

For once in Essek’s life, the promise of discovery holds no power, not if it comes at the cost of submitting to this amalgam of madness and undying corruption. Here there is no hope of progress, only the glimmer of those predators that shine lights in the dark to disguise their teeth.

It is almost a relief when Lucien chases them from the cancerous heart of Cognouza. Both Jester and Caduceus cast, the room shudders and groans, and Essek is abruptly dropped back to what passes for earth. He stumbles, startled, but before he can fall, Caleb catches him by the arm, keeping him upright. His helpless heart stutters until instinct, that base drive toward flight in a crisis, takes over, and he runs with the rest of them as they try to retreat before the Intuit Charges turn their brains to mince inside their skulls. 

Essek falls to the ground once they’re out of the blast radius, struggling to catch his breath. He can’t even get enough air to cough properly, which is a mixed blessing. 

He can hardly focus on what the others are saying, what Lucien is saying, the terror that he will never get enough air again driving more complex though from his head. But finally, he manages to cough, is met with blood and whole flowers, but that seems to make enough space for him to finally catch his breath. 

He doesn’t get up. Doesn’t pay the discussion any attention, only able to focus on his breathing. (They are the adventurers, after all, the ones with expertise in fighting nightmares, the smart thing to do would be to defer to them anyway.) It’s only once Jester is beginning to cast, to conjure a meal to bolster them right in the middle of this horrid tunnel, does he compose himself enough to rise.

Jester is taking requests, much like she had the first time. Fjord asks for pineapple fried rice, which are three words in an order Essek doesn’t think he’s considered before. His opportunities for novelty that won’t try to murder him are running thin, so he says,

"I have not tried pineapple fried rice. I will have some as well."

Jester nods to herself, whispers into her jeweled chalice, then asks,

“What's your favorite type of soup, Essek?”

Fear and stress do not suit Jester Lavorre. Essek can’t do anything about the place they’ve found themselves in, or the make the thought of the fight ahead less daunting, but—

“I'm not much of a soup person.” He smiles. It’s a silly joke, almost childishly bad. Jester immediately begins to indignantly describe the soup and accompaniment he will be getting—after positing that his mother might deign to cook, which almost makes him break into a laugh—but once Jester catches on that he’s teasing her again, she softens. She seems to genuinely be sharing something she takes great comfort in, and it warms Essek.

“I trust you, Jester.” And that seems to satisfy her. 

The atmosphere is somber as they eat. Mortality has been heavy on Essek’s mind for some time, but he’s grown accustomed, if not comfortable, with its weight. They don’t seem quite as settled. He wishes he’d learned anything he could tell them that would help. He wishes they’d never have come to such a dire moment. 

(At least, so preoccupied, they ignore his discreet coughing through the hour.)

As their meal comes to a close, he doles out what protective magic he can preemptively, more aware than ever of how his chest hurts. Better to expend his strength now, while he knows he can. 

He chews on the last of his bread and cheese, and swallows it. What a joy, to know them. He glances, sidelong, at Caleb, weaving a precious twist of fate for his family. What a gift. 

They trade jokes, veiled and not-so-veiled goodbyes, bravado, at the last.

Even if he had all the words in the world, he could never make a shape out them to match the feeling in his heart—

It has certainly been a very curious way that our paths have intertwined this past year or so. I'm not going to focus on the burden of shame that I carry for the things I've done in the past, but I'm very thankful for the things I've done since our paths have come together. And if today is to be my final attempt at making good the things I've done, I'd be all right with that. I thank you for your trust.

—but he tries. 

Jester and Caduceus take it on themselves to try to will a path out, one above, one below. 

Jester is the one to succeed, forging a tunnel upwards. Hopefully, it’s the right direction. They all begin to ascend, but Essek lingers for a moment, caught again by the cough. It takes a few painful heaves to clear his throat this time. 

He cleans the mess away with shaking hands. Fighting for his life, for all their lives, he won’t be able to hide. Well, if it matters, it will mean he’s alive. So long as they’re all alive too—

A hand on his elbow makes him jump. He turns, and sees Caleb. He’s willed himself up already, leaning into the shakier physics of the Astral Sea, so he’s looking down at Essek from above. 

Essek clenches his teeth in fear of a renewed cough. 

“Friend, are you okay? You don’t sound well.”

Essek could laugh. Could cry. They are about to fight a city, possessed by a madman. What is a single man’s illness in the face of that?

"I can cast.” Essek should not be proud of himself for sounding firm, for speaking without a hitch, but here he is.

"But are you okay?" Caleb insists. 

"I can cast."

Caleb’s lips thin, his eyes search Essek’s face, but finally he nods. He squeezes Essek’s elbow, once, tight, and then lets him go. Essek watches him rise, and Caleb doesn’t look back. 

Essek brushes his robes flat, rolls his shoulders back. Good presentation is only armor in the metaphorical sense, but it is what he knows going into danger, and who could begrudge him leaning into the familiar? Ready as anyone could be, he follows the Nein up, towards what might be the last fight of his life. 

The lower planes must be like this—watching the people he holds dearest cry out for a lost friend, and the monster wearing that face trying to kill them all for it. 

The very lowest must be like watching the man he loves plead with someone else, someone who isn’t there, until he too aches for a reply.

The thing that was once Lucien throws a tower—the very one Caleb is standing on—at Essek, as if tons of brick and meat weighed nothing at all. It takes everything in him to flee in time—one of the Somnovem took all his regrets and set them alight, and they burn in his mind with such ferocity it seems as if his body has turned into a brittle husk from the heat—but he manages it. 

Caleb, though, is not so lucky. 

The tower came apart around him as it flew, and when it landed it pinned him under rubble. Caleb pushes, desperate, at bone and viscera and stone and brick, but he cannot get the leverage even if he had the strength. 

He is trapped. He is helpless. He is such a target.

Thoughtless, Essek runs for him. Essek’s lungs burn with the strain, every exhale comes out a cough, but blood or flora, both or neither, Essek does not care so long as he still gets air enough to stagger forward. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and leans over Caleb, gasping. Caleb stares up at him from the ground, wide eyed, pleading. Essek reaches down for his hand, and Caleb grips him back with bruising ferocity. 

“Caleb, they need you.”

Strength of the body has never been Essek’s domain, but that is all he has to pry Caleb free. He pulls, digging his heels into ground carved from visceral nightmare, and Caleb tries his best to help, but it’s not going to be enough.

Essek grits his teeth. Feels for that piece of possibility that not so long ago he tucked into his soul. He grasps it, sets it burning along his spirit, and tries again.

This time Essek finds he has the strength to wrest him from the remains of the tower.

Essek collapses to one knee, head spinning, out of breath, struggling for more. He coughs into his hands. Wipes the blood and petals on the ground beside him. Caleb reaches a shaking hand toward him, curls it around the back of Essek’s head, and tugs him close.

“Let's finish this." 

Caleb presses his forehead to Essek’s, and for one instant, all his pain, all his grief, all his regret vanishes. He is lost, swimming, in those impossible noon sky eyes. He could pull down the stars, if Caleb asked him. Finishing the fight seems a small thing in comparison.

But in the next moment, Jester is struck down, and the world dims in her absence. Essek cannot breathe, cannot speak, there is nothing worthy to be said, not from a mouth like his—

Caleb pulls himself upright as he screams the agony that has silenced Essek. Caleb heaves, not with magic but something else, his fingers digging into Essek’s arm to keep himself upright, and Jester’s body vanishes into the mist. 

Before the reality of her loss can even set in, Caleb slumps into him with a choking gurgle, the rank magic of one of the Somnovem withering him. Essek grabs at him with shaking arms, but it seems as if his strength has already been expended, so Essek can only guide his descent to ground, not stop it. 

For a horrifying moment, Essek thinks he too has died, but there is a wash of power over them both, divine, surely, and Caleb’s eyes flutter open. He stares up at Essek, unfocused and aching. 

How dare Lucien. 

How dare this madman strike down his Caleb. 

How dare he coat his unworthy hands in Jester’s blood. 

Essek digs deep in himself, pulling at that well of power he’s cultivated all his life, shaping the greatest measure of it his body can bear. There is no finesse, no cunning to what he does—gravity becomes his cudgel, and he bludgeons the wretch with it. 

It is satisfying to the point of pleasure to watch the world warp to hurt Lucien. To take a measure of pain from him in turn. Essek clenches his fist, collapsing gravity to a point within Lucien, and preens at the sight of his body warping under the blow. 

Take that, you fucking fuck.

It doesn’t kill Lucien, but it does enrage him. Vague memories of lectures on tactics send Essek moving toward a better position, one opposite Lucien and away from Caleb, so Lucien’s newly drawn ire won’t catch them both. He succeeds, for some value of the word, catching a blow to the back as he runs, then the attention of one of the Somnovem, and—

Suddenly, the terror of the battle, his rage at Lucien, all of it fades. Even the throbbing of his chest seems to still. 

What had he been angry about? One death, when the Nonagon, the Somnovem, promises limitlessness? What nonsense, to resist. He is knowledge, he is bliss, he is god, he is everything. Essek runs forward—

“Oh no.”

The haze fades from his mind, as quickly as it had beguiled him, and he finds himself staring up at the mutated body of Lucien. He watches one wing lift, and Essek flinches. But he is not the target, he’s aiming toward where Essek had just been. Toward Caleb.

Lucien’s mass blocks the sight, but the sound is unmistakable. 

Unforgettable. 

The blunt, wet noise of a body being crushed. The soft sigh of breath leaving a chest for the last time. The laugh as Lucien withdraws his claws. 

Caleb—

Caleb is—

He opens his mouth to scream, out of nothing but wounded reflex, but he can make no sound. His mouth, his throat, is completely full. He just catches sight of blood tipped wings as he staggers backward. He chokes, gagging, his head aching, his heart breaking. He stumbles behind rubble that only half remembers what it’s supposed to be and crumbles. 

Essek’s lungs flutter uselessly behind his ribs. He heaves, but it seems to do nothing. For every flower he chokes out, another seems to replace it.

(There is a noise, like something massive falling, and it might be Lucien, but what does that matter, when it came at such a cost?)

He didn’t—he wasn’t even with Caleb when he died. He was useless, drawn in by the corruption of this place. He should—he owes it to Caleb to have looked at his body, to have faced his failure. 

(Will Caduceus be able to save both him and Jester? What if he can’t? What if he too is dead? What if they’re all dead?) 

Essek tries to lever himself upright, but the world spins, his vision darkens, and he falls again to ground. He gasps, tiny, worthless sips of air, coughing on every exhale, and tears, hot and infinite, spill over his cheeks.

How had he ever thought he could endure Caleb’s loss?

His plan, formed months ago, seems imbecilic now. How could he have ever thought to cut his heart out, even with Caleb gone? How could he have thought to live on anyway? For one damned instant, he had gotten a taste of that callousness, a taste of himself without the capacity to love Caleb, and as that man he stood by, worthless, while Caleb died. 

What life would that even be, to be a man who cut away the only love he’d ever felt just to eke out a little more miserable time ahead of an assassin’s knife?

One barely worth living, surely.

What will be left of his soul, if he prunes back all the parts that love and grieve?

Hardly anything at all, certainly. 

He is tired. He is hurting, along every axis pain can find. With every breath comes more flowers, more blood. 

Essek closes his eyes. If Caleb’s gone, if the fight is done, then maybe he can set aside the struggle, the secrecy,  and rest. Maybe a little while. Maybe a long, long while.

As consciousness slips through his grasp, he imagines the footnote on this life, scrawled by a foreign hand in his spellbook—

You outlived him, Thelyss. Good fucking job.

Chapter Text

Shouting tugs him back over the brink into consciousness.

“Essek! Where’s Essek?”

“Fuck! Last I saw him, he was standing, fuck, fuck fuck—”

“Someone hold Molly, we can’t—oh no, how long as it been—”

“No! Essek, no, no, no, nein, neinneinneinEssek, bitte. Bitte.”

Movement. Hands on his body. Fingers pressed into his neck. 

Sobbing—wenn du jetzt verreckst, verzeih ich dir das nie—in a language he doesn’t know.

Then oblivion again.

Essek returns to his senses somewhere dim, quiet, and warm. 

He hears the crackle and pop of a fire, though there’s no accompanying smell of smoke, and the soft rasp of a body breathing. Is that him? No, the timing is wrong for the shallow, rattling wheeze shaking his body. Someone else then. 

Essek opens his eyes. His vision is muddy with sleep (when had he fallen asleep, he’s not a child ) but a few blinks bring the canopy above him into focus. He can’t help but stare, captivated, by the dazzling swirl of silver embroidery, stars and lines and whorls recreating the whole of Rosohna’s summer sky, stitched into a thick, navy velvet. Essek has never seen the like in detail or precision. It’s achingly beautiful, and not just because of how Essek has missed that view. 

Where is he?

He tips his head—which is cradled by an impossibly plush pillow—and looks to his right. He sees colors, architecture that should be familiar, could be nearly any of the thousands of rooms Essek has passed through in his life, but he can’t quite place it. Except—

Except he’s tranced on that lounge, he’s sure of it. 

Oh, of course. He never saw his bedroom in Caleb’s tower from this angle—he had passed on using the bed, the first and only time he’d been in here, opting for that lovely lounge instead—but this room could only be that.

But how could he be here, when—

When Caleb had—

The blow. The last gasp. Blood on clawed wings. Laughing and laughing and laughing and—

There is a shudder in his chest, like something breaking loose, and he coughs. He lifts his hands to his mouth, trying futility to stifle it, to catch the petals he can feel in his throat—

Rustling to his left, like a person moving. There was someone else here—

“Göttern sei Dank,” a voice murmurs. "You're awake."

Essek wipes his hand on the conjured sheets and looks to his left. Toward the voice. Toward Caleb.

Caleb, who is sitting in that wingback chair from the sitting room, now pulled mere inches from the bed. Caleb, who is dressed only in shirt sleeves, whole and unbloodied. Caleb, who even if he looks sallow and haunted, is alive.

“You’re—I saw—” Essek’s lungs rebel, but he tries to fight through it. “Saw you—” Coughing. Gasping. He sucks a meager portion of air through gritted teeth. “You died.”

Caleb’s expression, which was at first a tentative relief, crumples into agony.  

“Only a little, only for a moment.” He reaches out, lays his hand on Essek’s shoulder, as if to reassure him that he is really here, in the flesh. “Jester is all right as well. We all are.” 

But he had died. He had died and Essek had done nothing and—

And something is blooming, heavy in his chest—

Essek is coughing and coughing and coughing, the memory of Caleb’s death rattle ringing in his ears. He twists, trying to find a way to ease whatever is going to come up. Caleb’s hands are suddenly there, warm and firm, stroking his back. Whole flowers pass from his lips, bloodying the bedsheets. Essek tries to Prestidigitate them away, but finds he can’t quite get enough air to manage it this time. 

He lies there, heaving on clotted lungs, his head spinning. He tries to swallow away the blood on his tongue, but the taste lingers, and no matter how deeply he tries to breathe, it’s not quite enough. And, worst of all, Caleb saw.

Essek would have curled into himself, as if he could have disappeared that way, but Caleb tugs gently at his arm, trying to coax him onto his back. Helplessly, Essek rolls toward where that touch leads. Once there, Caleb reaches out, cautious, as if Essek might spook, and brushes something from his lip. Essek watches in horror as Caleb lifts up a stray petal, examining it with an impenetrable expression. 

“Kornblumen,” Caleb murmurs, almost too low to hear. 

So that’s what they are. Or, at least what they’re called in Zemnian Essek thinks through a rising panic, then Caleb knows.

Of course, he knows, how could he not, if he brought Essek here? As if sensing Essek’s thoughts, Caleb brushes the petal from his fingers and says, not unkindly,

“We all saw you with petals in your mouth, friend.” Caleb leans over his knees, hands hanging limply between his legs. His eyes, though, burn. Like a moth, Essek is drawn in. “I know what this is.” Caleb’s voice is carefully calm, far too even, for the stricken look he wears. “I don’t pretend to understand why you let it get this bad, but I know what this is. Tell me where they are, and I will take you there.”

“Can’t.” A single syllable, it seems, he can manage.  Caleb can’t take him anywhere that would make a difference, and Essek can’t tell him.

The change in Caleb’s demeanor is abrupt to the point of jarring. He looks horrified. Looks angry. 

“Yes, you can. At least you can find out their thoughts, and then you know whether you have to do the other thing.”

“Won’t,” Essek says with all the vehemence he can manage. It’s enough that Caleb sits back a little, but his anger doesn’t fade. Fine. Maybe Caleb’s anger is all that he deserves. Essek meets that hard stare with his own and tries to breathe as shallowly as he can without passing out.

“Don’t be a coward, Essek. You cannot die here, like this, not when there is still so much to do. What good does this do? What wrong does this right? If they don’t love you, why is that worth dying over?”

Because it is you. Because I know who I will be. Because I hate that man.

But how can he explain himself in the few syllables he could wheeze out? He almost resolves then and there to go quiet, to wait until his wretched soul slips from the material plane, but is this not everything he wished to spare Caleb? Had his whole wretched plan not been to keep Caleb safely ignorant?

It has been a failure on every count it seems. 

“You won’t, you say?” Caleb laughs, a bitter mirthless sound. “Who could be so worth loving and yet so awful, that you would rather choke to death than tell them?”

Essek’s heart aches with a new and awful fury. All he’d wanted was to shield Caleb from the burden of knowing his part in Essek’s predicament. He coughs again, but this time it’s only blood at the back of his tongue.

Caleb slumps, only just catching his head in his hands, his copper hair spilling over his face and fingers. His shoulders tremble around a shuddering breath, around a sudden, vicious noise. 

“I have invented magic before. You helped teach me,” Caleb says. His voice is low, like a threat. “How hard would it be, really, to tweak that spell so it could be cast on another?”

“Don’t,” Essek manages to wheeze. His eyes are stinging. “Don’t make m—” but a cough cuts him off. Don’t make me unable to love you he wishes he could get out.

Caleb makes a small, choking sound and looks at Essek again, his eyes glittering. 

“Do you expect us all to watch you suffer and die?” Caleb snaps, fingers tightening his hair. His eyes grow wider, more frantic. “Then what? You think Jester, Caduceus won’t try to bring you back? I know and you know the flowers would return, but you won’t have a moment's peace while they kill you all over again. We won’t let them kill you again. This is pointless, Thelyss, suffering for its own sake! Let us help you! Let me help you!” 

Tears spill over Caleb’s freckled cheeks. He hiccups a sob that spears Essek through the ribs. 

“We got everyone out. Everyone. Just tell me how to help you.”

“Sorry,” Essek wheezes. He reaches out, bumps his fingers into Caleb’s knee. “I’m not—”

He’s coughing again before he can finish—I’m not someone you can save.

Caleb moves, comes closer, shifting from the chair to kneeling by the edge of the bed. 

“You haven’t lost me. You haven’t lost any of us. Not yet. Don’t make us lose you.”

How had he heard—

But then Essek is coughing again. 

Caleb bends closer, taking Essek’s hand. His grip is stronger than anyone would think. Furiously hot. Or maybe Essek is just particularly cold. 

This moment will haunt him, Essek can already see it. If Essek dies in front of him, Caleb will not be able to fully let it go. Guilt, unwarranted, certainly, but there, is already digging its tendrils in. 

The least Essek can do is explain why. Maybe if he knew, he’d—

He’d concede that it wasn’t, in fact, pointless. He might even understand.

Essek opens his mouth, tries to gather the air to speak, but he can’t. As soon as he takes a deeper breath, he’s gagging on more blooms, now barely able to clear them. Caleb jumps from the floor to the bed, lifting Essek up and hitting him between the shoulder blades, trying to help.

It shakes something enough for Essek to heave up the obstruction. Essek’s eyes water and the blood coating his mouth makes his stomach turn. Even when the coughing fit passes, he’s still gasping, unable to catch his breath. 

Caleb lowers him back down, achingly careful. His hands linger, as if he thinks Essek would fall apart in their absence. 

“Essek? Can you say something?” 

Essek can only shake his head, not trusting his body to try again.

Caleb's lower lips trembles, but he catches it between his teeth as he visibly comes to some conclusion. 

“That’s it, I’m getting Caduceus. He can buy you a little time.”

Caleb starts to get up, but Essek reaches out, grabs his wrist. Caleb freezes in place, held somehow by Essek’s meager strength. Essek whines out a pathetic, wordless plea, and that seems to steel Caleb. He begins to pull away, so Essek gasps what air he can and starts,

“It’s—I—” He can’t. “Wasn’t—” A few words, he just needs a few damned words. Caleb turns back, sinking to the floor, putting his face just a handbreadth from Essek’s. 

“You,” he finally manages. His eyes sting, so he closes them. He can’t bear to see Caleb’s reaction. “It’s you. I’m sor—” His lungs flutter, his throat closes. He can feel the flowers growing back, breaking off. He can’t even find the energy to cough, only able to conjure a thin whine.

It seems he’s robbed Caleb of breath as well, struck him so still he isn’t even breathing. You pressed the issue, he thinks bitterly. I wouldn’t have burdened you at all, if I could have.

“You stupid, stupid—” Caleb chokes. He gets up, the bed dips, and Essek is suddenly upright, tucked into Caleb’s wiry, warm chest.  Essek can hear the furious, impossible pounding of Caleb’s heart, and Caleb curls over him, burying his face into Essek’s hair. “Ja, ja, yes, I already—” Caleb hiccups, his voice trembles. “I—Ich—Die ganze Zeit, habe ich—” Caleb swallows. Curls even tighter around Essek. 

“I love you. I have loved you,” he whispers into the space between them, with all the gravity of prayer. 

Essek wonders if he’d just died. If he’d slipped not just the shackles of justice in life, but in death as well, to have swiftly found himself in some paradise. 

But then he feels something in his chest wither, and surely he would have left that behind with his body.

Oh, how Essek wants to hear him repeat it. But that’s not quite good enough, is it? He needs to act, to prove this to himself, to have the evidence not just of his ears, but his eyes and hands and—

Essek looks up into Caleb’s face, then lets his gaze fall to his full, if windburnt, lips. 

“Ja.” Caleb sighs, leaving his lips parted around the vowel. 

Essek pulls himself upward, and Caleb doesn’t shy away at all. Essek leans in, slow, careful, giving Caleb all the time in the world to react, to reject, but Caleb is perfectly still.

Still, but only until Essek’s lips meet his, and then he sighs and melts into the touch. Melts into Essek. Essek’s hands shake, so he fists them into Caleb’s shirt, and he doesn’t even try to breathe, not when his mouth can be put to use this way—and what good is air anyway if it hasn’t passed between them first—

One kiss becomes another. Results are only valuable if they can be replicated. Caleb hums, nearly a purr, when Essek ghosts his teeth over his bottom lip. Gasps when Essek twines his fingers into that crown of soft, copper waves, but follows when Essek suggests a new angle with the barest tug. Shudders when Essek drags his nails over his scalp in thanks. Caleb’s hand appears at Essek’s jaw, cradling so gently it might not be there at all, in contrast to the desperate way the other is fisted into Essek’s own shirt. 

Essek files it all away to pore over later, every little reaction, every little twitch, so he can decide himself how best to catalog the interplay of Essek of Den Thelyss and Caleb Widogast. 

Essek’s chest burns, and for once he doesn’t care why. Not when he has been given permission to explore Caleb. Something breaks behind his ribs, and he shudders, Light it hurts. He whines against Caleb’s mouth, undeterred—

Caleb, though, pulls back.

“Essek?” He sounds delectably faint. Essek tries to tug him back, tries for more, but he’s shaking. His lungs flutter, his chest constricts, no, no, not now, there is something in his throat. 

Too late? he wonders uselessly as he twists aside. Oh, wouldn’t that be his luck. He gags on flowers, whole ones, with thick stems, as too late he realizes something is sheering itself away, away from his magic.

“Scheiße!” Caleb shouts. “Essek? Essek!” Caleb shakes him, once, frantic, before hitting Essek between the shoulder blades with the flat of his hand. 

The coughing fit passes—he still hurts, it’s still burning—but he can catch his breath. Can take deeper ones. His chest still feels full, aching, and his throat has never felt worse, but this is better. Not perfect, but better. 

“Please, say something, are you all right?” Caleb asks, sounding as if he’s on the verge of panic.

Light, what a bloody, ugly mess. He never thought he’d confront it in such a way. It looks so much like a mundane plant, at least to Essek’s eye. Caduceus could say better but—but Essek finds he doesn’t want to preserve this chapter of his life. He Prestidigitates it away, hoping in vain Caleb did not look too closely.  

“It’s supposed to happen,” Essek says, wincing at the sound of his own voice. 

“Was that—it is over?”

Essek shakes his head and slumps into the bed. He can still feel something bubbling in that deepest part of him where his magic resides. Those assholes who lived didn’t think to mention how much it hurt, did they?

He can hear Caleb move behind him, hear the rustle of his clothes against the bedsheets, then there is a long line of heat against Essek’s back. 

“What do you need?” Caleb whispers into his ear. 

Essek reaches back, searches carefully for Caleb’s hand, and then draws it forward, pressing it into his own chest. He draws air into his lungs, savoring the way his ribs expand without spasming. 

“I didn’t research this part as thoroughly,” he admits. “But I know it takes a little time for the infection to burn away completely. It depends on the severity, the amount of power it had to feed on, a few other factors. I think—” Essek flinches. Feels something flare over his well of magic again, feverishly hot. 

“I think the initial reaction clears the worst of it, then—” Essek begins coughing again, oh there it is, more flowers and stems and roots work their way up from his lungs, up his throat, past his teeth. Caleb holds him tight, murmuring something, anything, into the skin of his neck. 

When it passes this time, Essek can breathe much more deeply. He feels a faint tickle, the barest threat of a rattle, but this is the best he’s been able to breathe in—days certainly, maybe weeks. 

“Then it lingers a bit, petering out, as it were.” Essek finishes, disposing of that mess too. 

Caleb kisses the nape of Essek’s neck, then rests his forehead there. For a moment, they lie there in blessed silence. Essek finds himself breathing, easily, in time with Caleb, and though small it still manages to be a heady thing. 

Caleb is the first to break the peace. He asks, in a small voice,

“You suffered all of this for me? ”

“You weren’t supposed to know. I thought—I never thought you’d want to know, let alone that you would—” Essek trails off. “I did have a plan, for how to manage.” It feels important Caleb know that, even if the details seem unbearable now. “Had it not been for whatever Cognouza was, I think it would have worked well enough.”

“Why not cure yourself immediately?”

Essek swallows. He is grateful Caleb cannot see his face as it burns. 

“I wasn’t ready to let you go. What was one more secret? I should have had years before it was anything but an occasional inconvenience.”

“It was still such a risk.”

“I have taken greater risks for less. I would take even the greatest for you.”

Caleb’s arms, already wrapped around him, squeeze tighter. 

“Please, never do something like this again. When we realized you were missing—when I saw—” Caleb shudders. Essek squeezes his hand. 

“You had died, Caleb.”

“I will endeavor not to die, if you will as well, then.”

“Fair is fair, I suppose.”

Caleb presses his lips just behind Essek’s ear, then again on his neck, then settles himself with his chin hooked over the top of Essek’s head. Essek relaxes into him and takes stock himself. 

Now that he knows what it feels like, he can feel the disease peeling back from his magic. Likewise, he can feel what little of the physical component remains wilting and dying. It seems as if every second spent tucked against Caleb’s heat burns more of it off. It won’t be long before it’s gone entirely.

Essek would have lain there forever, but Caleb tenses behind him. Essek twists, sees his face set in a look of concentration, lips just parted. 

“He’s awake. I think we will be downstairs soon.”

“Jester?”

“Veth, actually.” He ducks his head down, pressing an ear to Essek’s chest. “I think you really should come down. Let Caduceus check you over.”

“It would probably be for the best,” Essek says, before he realizes that he’s going to have to explain everything to the Nein. “Wait, perhaps instead could Caduceus come here?” He must make a face, or flush, or something, because Caleb laughs at him. It’s such a lovely sound Essek can only be a little bit miffed. 

“Oh, no, you gave me the fright of my life, I won’t let you escape our friends. You are behind on your hazing.”

The prospect of the others makes him aware of his state of dress. He’s still wearing his own base layers, but the rest, Caleb explains, was sent to be cleaned. 

The wardrobe dominating one wall, though, is not just for show. While they won’t last beyond the tower, inside it is a selection of lovely robes and tunics conjured for Essek’s use. In short order, Essek is able to put himself more or less together, and taking the time is immediately proved worth it by the look Caleb gives him, a raking glance down and then back up.

“Shall we?” Caleb asks. 

“If we must.” 

Caleb sweeps his arm out, ushering Essek ahead. 

They descend together, down to the Salon. Yasha and Caduceus are missing, but Caleb warned him they might be outside, along with someone special. Beauregard must have joined her girlfriend, because Essek doesn’t see her either, but Veth, Fjord, and Jester are waiting. 

It’s not that Essek didn’t believe Caleb, but in seeing Jester something unclenches in his heart. She looks as tired as he has ever seen her, curled into Fjord’s side without her usual smile, but she fairly leaps to her feet once she sees them. His feet have barely touched the floor when she sweeps him up into a hug, then, before he can even reach for her back, she’s pressing her ear to his chest. 

“Essek?” she says, her voice trembling. She takes his hands in hers, searching his face. “You’re better. Did you? Oh no, no, did you really?”

She rounds on Caleb, still holding Essek’s hand in a grip that makes his bones grind. 

“You promised! You promised you would make him try!”

“Jester, I don’t—” Essek starts, but she cuts him off.

“You could have at least told them! You were in love, Essek. What if they loved you too?”

He forgets what a romantic she is. He squeezes her hands, or tries to, and attempts to smile, though he’s not sure he manages more than a watery grimace.

“I told him.”

She drops his hands so she can lift her own to her mouth. The shift in demeanor is immediate—she is ravenous for information, he can tell. Her eyes flick from him to Caleb, then back, and then they narrow. 

Oh, but she’s cleverer than anyone would expect. 

Before she can say anything, Caleb gives up the game by taking Essek’s hand and winding their fingers together. 

“Ja, he told me.”

Veth howls from her chair, and even Fjord blurts out a shocked ha! Jester squeals and grabs them both. 

“Oh my gosh, you guys, you guys!” She shakes them, squeals again, then lets them go. “Essek you know what this means, don’t you?” Her grin turns sharp and sly. “Fjord and Caleb have to duel!”

The twin looks of poleaxed befuddlement on Fjord and Caleb’s faces combined with Jester’s gleefully mischievous wink and Veth’s immediate ribbing of Fjord overwhelms all Essek’s good breeding and hard won manners, and he laughs until his eyes begin to water. 

Still grinning, Jester twirls her fingers in the air, a bit of green smoke trailing after them. 

“Beau, get everyone and come upstairs. Essek’s all better now and Caleb and Fjord are gonna duel!” (“Don’t tell her that, I’m not fighting Caleb!” “Yeah, because you’d lose.” “Fuck you, Veth.” “Don’t threaten me with a mediocre time.”) “Bring snacks! It’s gonna be so fun. Doot!”

Caleb leans in, close enough for his body heat to filter through Essek’s clothes, and whispers, amused if he is anything,

“I hope you’ll fill me in on what this is about.”

“Ah, a bit of a joke. But don’t worry, I settle my own duels, and I’ve already told her as much.”

It’s not often Essek’s seen that look on Caleb, that raw, hungry fascination, but he rather likes it. His chest tightens, and he has to clear his throat, as he realizes he’ll have the opportunity to see again. Many opportunities, in fact.

It’s apparently late enough in the day to justify supper, which is a little bit mortifying. 

Essek is introduced to Caduceus’ family, whose home is serving as the anchor for the tower, and someone with a very familiar face but entirely new disposition. 

(“Molly, we hope. He’s not really speaking, at the moment, but Yasha says he was like this before, and it came in time,” Caleb informs him.

Essek would be suspicious, but the tenderness with which the Nein dote on the person now in Lucien’s body melts away any of his objections.)

Caduceus tends to him, and a little bit of divine healing soothes the lingering pain.  

(“I’m glad to see you’ve finally seen sense, Mr. Essek.”

“Ah, well, Caleb is compelling,” Essek answers, abashed.)

Yasha is close behind him, her hands glowing and her expression anxious. Essek nods, not sure what he’s acquiescing to but finding himself unable to deny the Nein’s gentle giant. Her touch tingles over his skin, making him shiver but leaving him feeling very, very awake.

(“I know Caduceus is better at healing, but I just—you scared us all very badly. Are you sure you’re okay now?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Good. Good.”)

As they find their seats, Fjord grabs him by the shoulder. 

“It’s good to see you on your feet again, friend.”

“Even if you’re an idiot,” Veth hisses from somewhere near his elbow. Essek can’t help but jump. “One fucking thing I told you, hot boy, one fucking thing.”

Essek is saved from Veth’s wrath by Caleb looping his arm around Essek’s elbow and seating them together as the cats begin plating their veritable feast. 

The meal is raucous, but Essek finds he likes it, now that he’s seen the alternative. Even if he is finding that he’s the evening’s entertainment.

“So you went into Aeor like this? I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Beauregard says around a mouth full of something fried. 

“It was no worse than a cold at the outpost,” Essek protests. He almost adds None of you even noticed! But he thinks it would be taken as an accusation, when he only means it as statement of fact. 

Look at him, learning to consider the feelings of others before speaking. 

“I still can’t believe wizards get feelings diseases. No wonder so many of you turn out to be dicks.” 

“That’s not what the class of illness is called—”

“That’s what we’re calling it.”

Essek looks to Caleb for help, but he just shrugs. 

“That is what they’re calling it.” A little smile tugs at his lips. “That is not the worst name they came up with.”

“But hey, at least now we know Essek isn’t a dick,” Jester chimes in, to a chorus of agreement. She turns to him with a twinkle in her eye that could only ever mean trouble. So forewarned, Essek braces himself. “And now he gets to touch Caleb’s!” There it is. 

Essek takes a prim sip of wine, but Caleb slumps into his side with a groan. He’s hidden his face in his hands, but the tips of his ears are pink.

“Jester, bitte!”

“Truly, Miss Lavorre?” Essek rejoins, with such a stilted affect he can hardly keep his polite smile in place.

“I’m only inquiring after your health and happiness, Lord Thelyss.”

“Please, Lord Thelyss is my father. My friends call me by my forename.”

“Are you two having some kind of who can sound like the biggest douchebag contest?” Beauregard asks. Jester descends into giggles, but leaves the matter of dicks and the touching thereof aside as the conversation wheels away into impressions of widely varying quality. 

Essek would have been content to watch his friends have their fun but is abruptly distracted by the appearance of a small, warm weight on his knee. 

“How are you feeling?” Caleb asks in an undertone. 

“Much better, thanks to Caduceus.” Essek slips his own hand over Caleb’s, tentative at first, but twining their fingers together with a little more bravery. Amazingly, Caleb squeezes back. It still feels a little unreal that he gets this. “And you, of course.”

Caleb turns his face into Essek’s shoulder, ears still that lovely color. Essek feels him smiling through the silks that Caleb dreamed up for him.

“Gut.” 

The graveyard is a lovely place at dusk. The stillness of the air, the gentle floral scent from the graves, the dancing fireflies, it all makes for a particularly calming atmosphere. He’s made a spot under one of the trees, papers and his spellbook spread out, as he copies from the latter to the former. Essek has never before spent time working outside, but the Blooming Grove makes a compelling argument for the practice. 

Somewhere nearby, there is a sudden commotion. Essek listens for a moment, but all the noises are happy and excited. Caleb must be back with Jester’s mother and Veth’s husband and son. Sensing that the productive peace he's been enjoying is not long for this world, Essek bends further over papers, trying to copy as fast as he can while he still has the chance.

Footsteps—unhurried, long strides—signal the end of his work. Essek looks up and sees Caleb, holding two mugs. 

“No trouble getting back I hope?” Essek asks and he sets aside his work, making space for Caleb.

“No, none.” 

Caleb settles onto the ground beside him, peering at the papers. 

“Still working?” He asks, offering one of the mugs. Essek takes it, brushing his fingers along Caleb’s as he does, just because he may.

“I thought to contribute my experience to the body of knowledge about the disease.”

“How very altruistic.”

“Well, some use might as well come of it. And I wanted your input on the ritual, so I could hardly start on that while you were gone.”

That gets Caleb’s attention, his expression becomes equal parts curiosity and heat. Essek has to turn and clear his throat. He is grateful for the tea, to wash the taste of plant matter from his mouth afterward.

“Still?” He brushes his fingers down Essek’s back, his voice suddenly thick with concern. 

“It’s normal, coughing here and there for a few weeks, no matter how it’s cured. Don’t worry.”

Caleb smiles at him with a fragile expression, equal parts relief and hope. But there’s mischief in those eyes.

“Ah, you know, I’ve given this some thought—can I help things along?”

Caleb drags a finger down Essek’s arm, down, down, down, until he can sneak that hand around Essek’s waist.

Then Essek is breathless for an entirely novel reason. 

“We could test it,” he says. He tried very hard to sound dignified, but it came out too thick to be anything like. 

“An experiment, then. Or perhaps, a series of experiments?”

“We should be thorough.”

“Naturally.” He kisses Essek, eager but promising more. “I can be very thorough.”

“Well, Mister Widogast, I’m going to need you to prove it.”

I was a fool, but he’ll have me anyway. Symptoms abating, despite the advanced stage I reached. 

He posited a novel treatment to help speed recovery. It would impugn my credibility as a researcher to violate certain privacies, so the details will be left as an exercise for the imagination of the reader, but early results are exceptionally promising. We have decided to repeat the experiment as often as is possible, in the interest of a more complete data set^.

^Do not let his tone convince you, dear reader, that my darling Essek is not an incorrigible romantic. But then, I am guilty of much the same. He is well now, and, fate willing, I will make sure he remains so. - CW