Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The assembled Soltryce faculty eddied in chattering clumps around the meeting table. Essek adjusted his float upward, aware of several pairs of eyes fastened on him. Suspicious or merely curious? No matter.

He scanned the room quickly from a greater height. Ah, there was a flash of red, was that – no. That was a human man with a touch of what the locals called ‘ginger’ to his hair, but he was far too old. Essek concluded with a frown that his quarry was not here. Would he be late? Or absent? It was a mandatory pre-term meeting, but then again Essek had the impression that Caleb Widogast did what he pleased.

The problem with temporarily being one of the tallest people in the room was that it made him easier to spot. Uludan beckoned to him as the faculty began to settle, bent on continuing to play tour guide and babysitter. Headmaster Margolin was, appropriately, at the table’s head. The foot remained vacant, and Essek saw more than one person look at it and then move on to somewhere else.

He pretended not to see Uludan, made a bet, and pulled out the chair next to the vacant seat at the foot. The bustle subsided to quiet murmurs and the shuffling of parchments.

“Ahem,” Margolin said, unnecessarily tapping his water glass. “Let’s get started, shall we?” He flickered a look at the door, frowning.

Still no Widogast. Damn. Essek had plenty of time to run him to ground, but he’d expected to make contact today. He’d even prepared several social gambits alongside his spells that morning.

“Yes,” Margolin continued with a sour set to his mouth. “Let’s not waste any more time. We have several new faces this year.” Almost everyone looked at Essek, though he knew for a fact there were at least two other newcomers. “Let’s have a round of introductions. You all know me.” He smiled unctuously. “So, let’s start with you, Elizabette.”

Essek didn’t give a damn about 99% of the faculty, but composed himself to sober attentiveness. He was rewarded during the fifth introduction – newly-minted professor of enchantment, terrible elocution – with the opening of the door.

The faculty meeting room was a long, rectangular space on the fifth floor of the headmaster’s administrative tower. Both long sides were lined with windows. Essek had chosen the lesser of evils and was sitting in shadow but facing the bright afternoon sun. His dark-adapted eyes began to water as he squinted into the dazzle.

A human came in. All Essek could see for a moment was a person who appeared to blaze, haloed by the sun and a prismatic smear from Essek’s suffering eyes. Then he stepped into shadow and yes, this must be him: the Archmage of Domestic Protection, the Dwendalian Firebrand, Caleb Widogast.

His hair wasn’t just red tinted, as that other human’s had been. It was red, to such a degree that Essek felt obscurely offended by it. Widogast was the paler beige variety of human, with striking blue eyes. The enchantment professor had stumbled to a halt during his introduction; Widogast gestured him on with a flick of the hand, making a visible effort to produce a smile. It didn’t seem to be a natural expression for his face.

His beard was also red. How was that at all reasonable?

Essek’s bet paid off, as Widogast came to the foot of the table. He dropped an unseasonably heavy purple coat on the back of his chair. A waft of sharply cold air seemed to have come in with him; he must have teleported from somewhere with an entirely different climate. Essek looked as long as was polite while Widogast settled himself. Most everyone else was staring outright. Widogast had a book tucked under each arm, secured with leather straps. What an odd affectation.

Introductions stuttered back into motion. It was Essek’s turn after another three people.

“Shadowhand Essek Thelyss,” he said, dipping his chin briefly to the assemblage. “Visiting for the academic year from the Kryn Dynasty.” And what a fortuitous chance that was. It had never occurred to him to try to arrange such a thing, but he’d leapt to volunteer when the idea was tentatively mooted about court. Now here he was, far from home, plagued by sunlight, and sitting mere feet from the man who had murdered Ludinus Da’leth, single-handedly wrecking Essek’s chance to advance the great work of his life.

He passed the social baton to Widogast. Widogast acknowledged him with a brief nod, and said only, “Caleb Widogast. I take the introductory survey course and Topics in Advanced Transmutation,” as if he were merely a professor.

Margolin took the floor again once introductions were done. Most of the matters he brought to the table weren’t relevant to Essek as a guest lecturer. Widogast, to whom they were relevant, listened with all appearance of attentiveness but did not take notes.

He stirred only once, eyes narrowing as Margolin casually referenced some sort of excursion he was planning with selected students in their final year. Widogast cleared his throat, and Margolin paused.

“Yes, Master Widogast?”

“There will be no student trip to your cabin this year,” Widogast said. He had an interesting voice. A little raspy, best suited to quiet speech.

Out of the corner of his eye, Essek saw Uludan shrink down in his chair as if to make a smaller target. Margolin, on the other hand, puffed up in outrage.

“I have conducted this trip every year for decades,” he said. “It is tradition. The students consider it quite the honor.”

Widogast let him speak, blank faced, then simply said, “No.”

Margolin opened his mouth, then gave a barely noticeable flinch, and shut it again. “I see,” he said, through audibly gritted teeth. A flush – of fury or humiliation – rose in his cheeks.

Widogast kept those disconcerting blue eyes on him for several long ticks, apparently waiting to see if further challenge would need to be put down. Then he glanced away, attention snagged by something farther down the table. “Yes?” he asked mildly.

“Um,” said one of the younger human professors. “Sorry . . . does that go for all off-campus trips, or . . .?”

“Ah,” Widogast said, visibly recalling something. “You took small groups to observe and practice component harvesting, ja? I heard the students speak of it.”

“Yes?”

“Come see me about it, please. I see no reason why you should not continue, provided there are adequate measures for student safety. It’s a good idea,” he added.

The professor looked gratified. Margolin, on the other hand, appeared furiously constipated. There would be no invitation to further discuss his plans, apparently. Because they didn’t meet Widogast’s standards of a good idea? Or because Widogast enjoyed humiliating him in public?

“Thank you for your input,” Margolin said, like chewing on broken glass. “Moving on.”

As the meeting ended, Essek braced himself for the ordeal of conversing with a stranger. He turned fully to Widogast, trying not to appear rushed but to engage his attention before anyone else could cut in.

“Hallo,” Widogast said agreeably, looking directly back at him out of those striking eyes. Even his lashes were red, for the Luxon’s sake.

“Shadowhand Essek Thelyss,” Essek said again, extending a hand in imperial style. Widogast took it; his hand was strikingly hot as Essek had discovered was common to humans, and notably rough. No exfoliant soaks and overnight creams under gloves for this one.

“Welcome to Soltryce,” Widogast said, shaking briskly and extricating himself to stand. Essek did as well, so as not to be loomed over quite so much. Widogast did a slight double take as Essek floated around the corner of the table. He’d clearly noticed the invocation of the cantrip, even if he couldn’t see Essek’s feet under his robes.

“I was wondering if I might beg a few minutes of your time,” Essek said, folding his hands together under his mantle. “I have some questions about the running of the school.”

“Hmm.” Widogast glanced briefly over his shoulder. Essek didn’t have to look to know that Uludan was hovering somewhere close. Widogast looked back to Essek, one eyebrow faintly arched, and Essek had the impression that the man was giving him full attention for the first time. “Certainly,” Widogast said. “I am hard to pin down these days, but I have a few minutes right now, if you don’t mind walking with me? Ah –” he stopped himself, glancing at the bank of windows. “My apologies, will the daylight trouble you?”

“Not at all,” Essek lied. The Dark Umbrella spell he’d been so proud of developing was already proving not nearly as perfect a solution as he’d thought. But needs must.

He gestured Widogast on ahead, ignoring Uludan calling his name. Surely Widogast would like to be preferred over the other archmages he seemed to so entirely disdain. Also, Uludan was a pompous fool, and Essek’s patience was flagging after less than a day.

Widogast went down the stairs quickly, at the pace of a man with a hundred places to be. Essek collected Verin from a post against the wall at the base of the tower; Widogast held the door for them, then watched in blatant interest as Essek cast his Dark Umbrella and extended it out to his side for Verin with a gesture like pulling taffy.

“Ah,” he said, squinting at the curved cap of absolute darkness over them. “Clever. Though what do you do about the glare?”

Essek gritted his teeth. That was, in fact, the major weakness in the spell. He had honestly not spent enough time in sunlight to understand the ways it seemed to bounce off even unreflective surfaces, if bright enough.

“Suffer,” Verin said, before Essek could open his mouth.

“I’m working on it,” Essek said repressively, resisting the urge to stomp on his foot.

“Ah.” That seemed to cheer Widogast, for some reason. “Ja, it is always good to have something to noodle on. I’m heading this way, across campus to meet a friend. Have you gotten the full tour?”

Essek fell in step with him, prepared to begin the tedious, delicate work of sounding out whether Widogast was amenable to continuing his predecessor’s transnational espionage efforts, all under Verin’s watchful, patriotic eyes. Difficult, but he’d done more difficult things for lesser stakes.

It did not go well.

Widogast was an attentive, thoughtful conversationalist, or at least Essek suspected he might be from the few sentences they managed to exchange in the course of a fifteen-minute walk. It was difficult to conclude much of anything about him, though, other than the fact that he was ridiculously sought after. They were interrupted no less than six times along the way, with regularity that was nearly comedic by the end.

Students came first. Widogast smiled benignly upon the group of chattering adolescents who wanted to tell him of their summer adventures. “From my introductory course last year,” he confided to Essek once they had moved on. “It was my first time teaching it, good to see I did not entirely scare them off.”

There was no smile for the next young human who stepped into their path, his head ducked and shoulders folded in upon themselves.

“Ach, good,” Widogast said, shaking hands formally with him. “Your parents received my letter? I am glad. Come see me in office hours, ja? We will talk.”

He did not offer any context to Essek, but watched the young man’s retreating back for some time as they walked away, a distinctly pensive turn to his frown.

Next came a human woman with a mass of curly blonde hair twisted messily back off her face and a quill stuck behind her ear. Essek’s sense of human ages was tenuous at best, but he thought she was a bit older than the others had been. She got a grin and a hug, both warm, and an invitation not to office hours, but to dinner two days hence, and then an introduction to Essek, which none of the rest had yet rated.

“Anya is doing some fascinating post graduate research,” Widogast said to him. “Ask her about it sometime when you want your mind bent a bit. And on the side, she is my long-suffering teaching assistant.”

She walked with them briefly, quizzing Widogast about his daughter – a “hellion,” apparently – and whether he had seen any seagoing abominations recently – bafflingly, he had.

“Anyway,” Widogast said as she split off from them. “Sorry about that. Though she is a good one to know. You were saying –” and then their fourth interruption arrived, and his face slammed from friendly to all the receptiveness of a winter cliffside.

“Master Widogast,” said the professor who met them at an intersection of paths. She must have taken another route from the administration tower; Essek recalled her face from the meeting, though not her name or specialty. “May I have a moment?”

“Just one,” Widogast said, his voice so neutral, it was eerie.

She glanced quickly at Essek, and stepped closer. “Your protegee has withdrawn from my advanced seminar,” she said quickly. “Miss Felene. She expressed interest to me at the end of last year, but she is not enrolled.”

“Is that so?” Widogast took a step, clearly not intending to entertain this conversation. “It sounds like you should take that up with her, should you be interested in her welfare.” For some reason, that innocuous statement made the professor flinch where she stood.

“I thought I’d take it up with you first,” she said, visibly rallying herself. “In the event that you had directed her withdrawal.”

“I did not,” Widogast said flatly.

There was a beat of silence, and Essek could see her fighting the urge to retreat. “You wouldn’t have to,” she said rapidly as Widogast took another step. “She would do just about anything, if she thought it’s what you wanted.”

Widogast stopped in his tracks. Essek caught only the edges of the look he gave her. It made the air crackle unpleasantly.

“I apologize, Bren,” she said quickly. “That was poorly expressed of me. I did not mean to imply . . .”

“If you have concerns regarding her choices,” Widogast said, and the mildness of his voice held a scathing undertone now, “I, again, suggest you take them up with her. She deserves to hear your reservations directly, nein? Good day.”

Essek kept in step with him as he strode away.

“My apologies, Master Thelyss,” Widogast said, not looking at him. “Academic politics.”

It had looked like a great deal more than that to Essek, but he said only, “I taught some, at the Marble Tomes.” He tried to inject friendly commiseration in his voice, but either he didn’t succeed or it didn’t land, because Widogast was silent for several more paces before reviving their prior conversation with visible effort.

Less than two minutes after that, a gnome approached them, coming the opposite way on the path at a determined pace. He started to step around them, then glanced up, saw Widogast, and stopped in his tracks to stare. Essek had been schooling himself to become accustomed to the gawking and whispers that had followed him across the campus, but this person did not even look at him.

“Widogast?” he said, in an accent Essek was unfamiliar with.

“Ja?” Essek saw Widogast’s hand slide into his coat at the same moment Verin’s hand dropped to his glaive.

“Good.” The gnome squared up to him. “They said I’d know you by your hair.”

“Can I help you?” Widogast asked. He wasn’t casting, but Essek could tell he was prepared to make a strong showing in any quick draw that might arise.

“Yes. I want a dick. I hear you can help me with that.”

Widogast blinked once. “I, uh,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “I’d say buy me dinner first, but I suppose I also ought to get your name?”

The gnome grinned, flashing white teeth in a dark brown face. “Zev,” he said, sticking out a hand. “And I didn’t mean like that. I mean I want one of my very own. Yussa Errenis said you’re the guy to see about that.”

“Ah!” Widogast looked enlightened, and shook his hand. “That I can do. Did Yussa give you a sense of what’s involved?”

“Some.” He bounced on his toes. “I’ll do whatever I need to. And I can pay.”

Widogast waved this away. “It’s more the components that are tricky,” he said. “And time,” he added ruefully. “Look, I’m about to be late. Do you know where Brenatto’s Alchemicals is?” He gave rapid directions to a shop off campus. “Ask for Veth, tell her I sent you and what you want. She can walk you through it, and she knows how to reach me.”

Zev nodded, rapidly noting down the directions. “Thank you,” he said. “I, uh. Your friend. She has relevant experience?”

Widogast nodded. “Ja. Though not in the same way as you intend. She, ah. Ask her about it, but the short version is, she used to be a goblin. Now she’s a halfling.”

Essek finally caught up to the sense of this conversation, and tried very hard not to let his jaw drop. He knew what this was, how the upper reaches of power in an unfamiliar school of magic could provoke startlement and awe at what was possible. It had happened to him a few times in his life. He had just not expected it here and now.

Zev trotted off determinedly at Widogast’s direction, and Essek grabbed onto this new conversational opening with genuine interest. “What spell does that?” he asked. “Remakes an entire body? I presume permanently?”

“It is permanent, yes.” Widogast continued walking, hooking his hands in his coat pockets with a boyish duck of the head. “And it’s just a little something I noodled up for a friend. There is a higher order spell that can function similarly, but I still prefer mine to True Polymorph for these purposes, for esoteric reasons.”

Essek blinked. “May I ask about the mechanics?”

“Oh, certainly,” Widogast said, untroubled. “I can show it to you, if you like, though if you do not have a deep background in transmutation, it may be somewhat difficult to follow.”

“I don’t,” Essek said truthfully. He generally had no time for any school other than dunamancy and, sometimes, necromancy or divination. “But I am interested in the frontier of arcane research.” He looked directly into Widogast’s eyes for that, hoping the hint would land, but couldn’t tell if it did.

“Aren’t we all,” Widogast said. Before he could continue, yet another woman strode up to them at a rapid clip.

“Yo,” she said, and punched Widogast in the shoulder in what Essek belatedly realized was some sort of violently friendly greeting. “’Sup?” Her eye fell upon Essek and Verin, and she seemed to recognize them immediately. “One of you is a Kryn wizard,” she said, wagging her finger between the two of them. “Gosh, do we think it’s the tiny, stringy one or the big, cut one? So mysterious. If only wizards were more subtle.”

“Beauregard,” Widogast said, in long-suffering tones. Then to Essek, “This is Expositor Lionett, who holds a senior position at the Cobalt Soul. Though it may be hard to tell,” he added pointedly.

“Yeah yeah.” She stuck out her hand to Essek. “Call me Beau. Is this guy showing you a good time?” She jerked her free thumb at Widogast.

“It has certainly been interesting,” Essek said truthfully.

“I apologize,” Widogast said to him, once introductions were complete. “Beauregard and I are on a tight schedule today, but you did not get a chance to ask any of your questions.”

“Indeed,” Essek said, glad Widogast was doing the work for him.

Widogast pondered, squinting as if consulting an internal calendar. “Are you free for dinner on Folsen? It will be a full table, but we can fit two more if you don’t mind a bit of a ruckus.”

“I don’t,” Essek lied.

“Excellent.” Widogast rotated on the spot and pointed unerringly at one of the towers of the Candles, visible from all over the city, probably. “That is me. It’s the one with a tree on top, you can’t miss it. Drinks are at six, but we don’t stand on ceremony.”

“We will see you then, thank you,” Essek said, bowing. Widogast returned it, then acceded to the Expositor’s insistent bouncing on her heels with a put-upon sigh and a wave.

“Right,” Essek said quietly to himself, turning around to walk all the way back across campus. They made it only a quarter of the way before he grew tired of the stares and opted to Teleport them directly into their guest quarters instead.

That night, after an interminable dinner with Uludan, Verin knocked on Essek’s door with two glasses of wine and a neutral expression. He’d broken into the case of fine plum wine Essek had brought to gift around to best advantage. Essek considered taking him to task for it, but he was too tired.

Verin sat down on the small sofa next to him, glancing briefly over the Lens files spread out on the table. He said nothing, but gave Essek a silent, penetrating look with a raised eyebrow. Essek sighed, cast See Invisibility, and looked carefully around the room for scrying eyes or other intrusions. He’d gone over the whole guest house carefully when they first arrived, but it was good to check again.

“Speak freely,” he said, blinking to clear a dunamantic haze from his eyes.

“You gonna tell me what we’re doing here?” Verin said.

Essek gave him a flat stare. “I’m sure you were paying attention during at least one of the many briefings we had regarding this endeavor.”

Verin rolled his eyes and slumped down inelegantly. “Not that cross-cultural communication, trade routes, scoping out the new powers that be, blah blah blah.” He dismissed all of the Dusk Captain’s intricate reasoning with a lazy wave. “I mean why you’re here.”

“Again,” Essek said wearily. “The briefings. I refer you to them. I took notes, should you require a refresher.”

“Of course you did.” Verin sipped at his wine, then spun the glass dexterously between two fingers. If Essek tried that, wine would go everywhere. “The way I see it,” Verin said, talking to the opposite wall, “you haven’t voluntarily gone anywhere but your tower or the Bastion in nearly fifteen years. And from what I hear, you weren’t tapped for this, you volunteered. So, either you have some angle here that wasn’t in my briefings, or you’re having a massive personal meltdown that you’re trying to fix with a road trip.”

Essek pressed his lips together, weary and irritated. Showed what Verin knew. Essek had, in fact, voluntarily left his tower and the Bastion on multiple occasions in the past few years. He had left the Dynasty, thank you very much, which was more than Verin could say. Of course, Verin never would have met with Ludinus Da’leth in three brief, carefully orchestrated face-to-face conversations to demonstrate their mutual commitment to a shared goal.

“Neither,” Essek said, before the silence could get too long.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Verin said. He sounded like this conversation was going exactly as he’d thought it would. “Just give me an obvious cue if I’m supposed to be doing something here. I really can’t read your mind these days.”

“I shall be excessively obvious,” Essek said, as insultingly as he could.

Verin, irritatingly, did not take offense. That was one of his best, and worst, qualities. “By the way, am I attending or watching at this dinner of Widogast’s?”

“Attending,” Essek said. Far better to have Verin’s attention divided. He paused, calculating. “And let’s not bring any of the others.”

“You sure? That guy took out four archmages, which I happen to know is like taking out four you’s, since I was paying attention at the briefings.”

“Hmm,” Essek said noncommittally. No harm in letting Verin in on a sliver of the truth. “I am partially here to get a read on him. That is a lot harder to do with somebody hulking over my shoulder.”

“Plus, you really want him to show you his cool trick,” Verin said.

“His – oh.” Essek scowled at him. He actually did want that, was the thing. It wasn’t his area, but the creative application of power was intriguing. “Go away,” Essek said loftily.

“Kay,” Verin said, kicked vaguely at him just to be a nuisance, and wandered off.

Essek returned to his reading. He’d requested and received copies of Lens files on all the sitting Assembly members. It was good information to have, and making the broad request concealed the target of his true interest.

Widogast’s file was frustratingly patchy. It was believed with moderate confidence that he’d been a Soltryce student himself. It seemed like a reasonable assumption to make, though no agent had been able to obtain documentation of the fact. More interestingly, it was believed that he’d been one of Ikithon’s hand-picked protegees, and a highly-placed one. Ikithon had carried on the tradition of deep wizardly paranoia, so surveillance upon him and those around him was generally unsuccessful. Now that Essek had met Widogast, he found it both explicable and amusing that the sturdiest piece of evidence the Lens could provide for Widogast’s association with Ikithon was that damn hair – there were multiple reports of a man kept close in Ikithon’s company with such coloring.

Then the vague information ran out into nothing. Widogast stopped appearing in Ikithon’s company sometime in 829, give or take, when he’d been in his mid-twenties. Likely before the birth of his child, but the Lens was not certain of that. No information was available on his whereabouts or doings until 832, when he popped up in connection with a mercenary group making a name for itself in the Empire and along the Menagerie Coast. Information was readily available on some of the group’s exploits – extricating King Dwendal’s second son from a dangerous entanglement with smugglers, for one – but there were significant gaps.

The Lens had reason to believe that the group maintained ties with senior Augen Trust operatives. Widogast trading on his former position under Ikithon, surely. Had he defected to a rival organization? Either way, the mercenaries and the Trust both had fingerprints all over the wholesale destruction of a crime ring running all the way from Shadycreek Run to Uthodurn.

And then, with no apparent warning, Assembly archmages began dying. DeRogna first – the entire mercenary group was implicated in that, far to the north – and then, in one bloody Rexxentrum night, Ikithon, Iresor, and Da’leth. Widogast was credited with all three kills, but there was no particularly compelling evidence other than gossip about the Dwendalian court.

Widogast was installed in Da’leth’s role within the month. Astrid Becke, the mother of his child, stepped into Ikithon’s place. Iresor’s seat was filled six months later by a half-elf of middling abilities but excellent connections. DeRogna’s position remained vacant.

Some cloud of unsavoriness hung over the whole business but, astoundingly, it did not seem to stick to Widogast, the author of all the violence. He was certainly not universally liked. Indeed, if Essek were any judge, some of his fellow archmages were terrified of him. But he had the king’s ear, for what that was worth, and he appeared to be widely popular amongst imperial common folk.

Essek did not know what all of that added up to yet. Impressive luck or truly impressive deviousness, surely.

Essek hoped, for his own sake, that it was the latter. Widogast had wrecked Essek’s plans, mere weeks before execution of them. Stealing a beacon, let alone two, had not been his first choice, but he had seen the necessity of it. Enjoyed the planning of it, once he’d turned his mind in that direction. If Widogast could slot himself into Da’leth’s place in those plans, well, that was the very least he could do.

There was, indeed, a tree on top of Widogast’s tower. It was large enough to see from streets away, and Essek saw multiple people walking with heads tipped far back to gawk. He did not make such a display himself, but it was curious. He found it hard to believe Da’leth had chosen that, so Widogast must be responsible. A strange choice of redecoration. Essek felt he ought to be able to conclude something from that, but couldn’t put it together.

Their knock at his tower door was answered by a human man dressed all in black with a sword at his hip. He eyed the two of them in silence for a long moment, nodded to himself, and beckoned them in.

“Hi,” Verin said cheerfully. “Shoes off, or . . .?”

“Off,” the man said, looking vaguely annoyed at having to speak to them. He took their cloaks, then tapped the hilt of Verin’s blade. “Nope.”

“Aw, come on,” Verin said, trying for charm.

“Nope.”

Verin flickered a look at Essek, who tipped his head in acquiescence. Verin was good with a blade, certainly, but he was also proficient hand-to-hand. And they both knew Essek was the true threat here. Interesting that Widogast’s guard dog was also not demanding that Essek surrender his focus or his components, which Essek would have refused.

They were led up three flights of stairs to a large open space, already occupied by half a dozen people. A child’s voice could be heard even before they made the last turn on the stairs, but Essek saw at a glance that the small, halfling boy wasn’t Widogast’s. Indeed, their host was nowhere in evidence.

No sooner had Essek realized this than a prickle of arcana tickled his fangs and Widogast Teleported directly into the room, arm-in-arm with his Cobalt Soul colleague, and late to his own party, apparently. They were also accompanied by an older, dark-skinned gnome, whose eyes swept the room at once and landed on Essek.

“—keep wading through shit to get there, is all I’m saying,” the Expositor said, stepping away from Widogast. “Baby! Hi.” She crossed the room to engage in a startlingly intimate reunion with a tall woman of striking coloring. Widogast turned on his heel, counting heads, and spotted them at the top of the stairs.

“Hallo,” he said, striding over. “Thanks for coming. Sorry, we got held up. Has Wulf made introductions?”

He conducted them politely around the room. Essek cataloged the guests for further consideration, and watched Widogast out of the corner of his eye. He found himself very quickly struggling to quantify the relationships at play. The man at the door was Eadwulf Grieve, Widogast’s annex. He stayed within a few steps of Widogast, eyes watchful. There was a warmth in Widogast’s smile of greeting to him that was notable. And then a tall – why were all these Empire people so tall? – pink-haired Firbolg wearing an apron ducked in from the next room, and Widogast introduced what Essek initially assumed to be a servant with equal warmth and clear regard. The Lens file made only passing reference to Widogast’s former mercenary companions, and Essek hadn’t known to dig further. He recognized Clay’s name, and Lionett’s, come to that, and made a mental note to Send for more background.

The gnome was Oliver Schreiber himself, whom Widogast referred to only as an advisor to the king, rather than the role Essek knew he held within the intelligence service. Schreiber was apparently not staying for dinner. He seemed on cordial terms with most people present; he shook hands with Widogast upon departing, and suffered a strange fist knocking ritual from Lionett with a tolerant smile. What an interesting trio they made. Their organizations were historically prone to quietly warring with each other, but Essek read the ease between them as genuine.

“Chin up,” Schreiber said to Widogast as he left. That made the corner of Widogast’s mouth tip up approximately two degrees. This was only the second time Essek was meeting him, and he was already sure Widogast’s face defaulted to a sort of tired sorrow.

The teaching assistant they’d previously encountered was there, along with her young man, who looked a bit wide-eyed in the company. Then there was a halfling family. The husband was an alchemist, the wife, when asked, said her occupation was “blowing shit up,” and the child climbed Widogast like a monkey until Widogast plucked him up and dangled him upside down for a solid minute while the adults chatted. Children of that developmental stage would not have been permitted in mixed company in Den Thelyss; Essek hadn’t had occasion to think on it, but he was beginning to see the wisdom in the policy.

Lionett had retreated behind a bar at the end of the room. This reminded Essek to present Widogast with a bottle of plum wine as a host gift. It was interesting to see him squint in apparent incomprehension at the Undercommon label. Da’leth had been fluent, but then again, he had more time for such pursuits than a human would. How humans got anything at all done in the time they were allotted remained something of a mystery.

“Oh, nice,” Lionett said, taking the bottle once Essek translated. “Best served at room temperature, right? I know you want some,” she added to Widogast.

She poured for the five of them, including her partner, who it turned out was Xhorhasian, though not Kryn.

“You get to keep your sword,” Verin said, admiring her enormous blade.

“Go a few rounds with one or both of us at the next pit fight,” Lionett said. “Then you can keep yours.”

That was an interesting approach to personal security. “Pit . . . fight?” Essek asked.

“Yep. It’s what it sounds like. There’s a pit. You fight in it.” She handed a glass to Widogast, and the two of them clinked rims. “To surviving another day of this shitshow,” she said to him, and he saluted her, then sipped.

“Ah,” he said, pleasure suffusing his face. It softened the line between his eyebrows and the smudges of deep tiredness under his eyes.

Essek surveyed the room while Verin gleefully inquired further about this pit fight ordeal – “What rules are in play? Really, none at all? Excellent!” The furnishings were eclectic and colorful; at a quick glance Essek found it all too loud and not to his taste, but he supposed it had a certain homey charm. There was a low shelf of children’s books and toys at the other end of the room, which was where the halflings had retreated, but there was no sign of Widogast’s child herself.

Essek had taken some pains with his dress and grooming. It was his opinion that it was impossible to be overdressed for a dinner party, and he knew he looked good in an asymmetrical dark teal silk tunic over a white high-necked shirt. Verin had, without being asked, dressed several notches down from him in black. The only other person in the room who appeared to have made a similar effort was the teaching assistant’s date. Who, Essek suspected, was also new. Widogast himself may have been smartly turned out that morning, but whatever he’d done all day had crumpled his white shirt and left chalk dust on his knuckles.

Widogast excused himself briefly, taking his glass and his annex with him. When he returned a few minutes later, he had changed out of his creased clothes and into trousers and a dark blue sweater, with that ridiculous hair clipped up off his face but left loose down the back of his neck. He was in the process of coming across the room to Essek when the Firbolg called the company in to dinner.

There were no seating cards. Essek secured the seat at Widogast’s right after a tense half minute of maneuvering. Lionett ended up on Essek’s right, and Veth Brenatto across from him. Her child stayed in his chair for only the first five minutes of dinner, at which point he slithered out of sight under the table. Essek glanced down with some alarm at the feeling of swift passage by his knees , but Widogast didn’t miss a beat when the child popped triumphantly up into his lap. He just tucked the unpredictable creature in the crook of his arm and proceeded to share his dinner.

The food was unexpectedly excellent. Essek tended to dislike the fussy minimalism of formal dinners, but either the Empire did it differently or Widogast did. The mushroom soup was notably pleasing, and the dark bread had a complex bitter undertone he’d never experienced. Widogast, when complimented, merely shook his head and pointed down the table to his Firbolg companion. Cook? Housekeeper?

“It’s all him,” he said warmly.

“There’s extra of everything,” Clay said, sending the bowl of grain salad down the table.

“We’re missing three,” Widogast explained to Essek. “They ran into some trouble last minute.”

“Jess said they’ll be here next time,” Lionett chimed in. “We do this every two weeks,” she added for Essek’s benefit. “Keeps this guy from becoming too much of a sad sack when his kid isn’t here.”

“Why do you float?” the halfling child said abruptly, staring at Essek.

That topic, somehow, lasted nearly ten minutes, though Essek was not entirely sure how or why. It had been a very long time since he’d needed to explain that to anybody, and Verin’s interjection of, “it’s because he’s short,” was supremely unhelpful.

“Don’t mind them,” Widogast murmured to him. “They haze everybody. It’s harmless.”

Essek sincerely doubted that – pit fights? – but he smiled politely and asked Mrs. Brenatto to pass the wine.

The table was what the Umavi would have called “lively,” in that backhanded way of hers. Conversation flew thick and fast, with little consideration to seating arrangements and absolutely none to social hierarchy. Essek still couldn’t get a handle on that. Widogast sat at the head of the table, but his teaching assistant’s date had ended up at the foot, so did that signify? And no one deferred to him, nor did he seem to expect them to. Indeed, Lionett made it her habit to cheerfully insult him to his face. Widogast bore that with good grace, and occasionally flicked a dry comment back her way with a little spark of mischief in his eyes. Grieve did not speak at all, but Essek thought that was per his own preference, not an interdiction from his master. And he had relaxed his close watch of the newcomers to sit halfway down the table and eat with everyone. Essek was doubly glad he didn’t have Verin looming silently over his shoulder. That would have been a definite misstep, he could see now.

He and Verin were both corrected several times, with varying degrees of courtesy, to use first names. Essek wished he was a little more familiar with Empire customs. Da’leth had extended the offer of his first name years into their correspondence, during their second face-to-face meeting. Did this easy permission mean anything, other than a general lack of regard for formality?

Dessert was a lush coconut cake with a chocolate ganache and, delightfully, a bowl of candied manta bugs. Essek had resigned himself to missing some of his favorite indulgences not to be found this side of the Ashkeepers. He couldn’t do anything about the longing for his personal library, but the crunchy sweet-umami bugs were a delightful surprise.

“I get them for Yasha, I know a guy,” Beauregard confided. “It’s nice she’s not the only one who likes them this time.”

“I don’t mind them,” Widogast -- Caleb said, and took one to crunch. Essek strongly suspected he did it purely to provoke the awed and horrified reaction he got out of the young halfling. So much excitement over a bug.

They retreated to the great room after dinner. It turned out that Caleb was correct, Anya Brexen’s research topic was delightful and mind-bending. Essek spent half an hour asking her increasingly complicated questions about the subtle but strange effects she could measure on the weave as the result of increased electromagnetism. He had no idea what it would be good for, but interesting all the same. Unfortunately, she and her date had to depart early due to planned travel in the morning, which left Essek briefly at loose ends.

When he glanced around, it was to see the halfling child sound asleep on the rug, a three-dimensional wooden puzzle of a horse partly assembled beside him.

“Ah,” Essek said, and drew Caleb’s attention with a gesture. “Is that . . . expected?”

“Entirely.” Caleb made eye contact with the child’s mother, and the two exchanged hand gestures across the room. “He always does this. I’ll tuck him upstairs until they’re all ready to go home.”

He did that, and the party noticeably changed tone upon his return. Beauregard rather aggressively interrogated the newcomers on their preferences in mixed drinks, then retreated behind the bar to make everyone a custom cocktail. Essek ended up with a lovely grapefruit concoction with heavy Campari flavors.

“Good?” she demanded.

Essek was not sure what would have happened to him had he said no. Luckily, he did not have to lie.

He ended up sitting on a bright blue sofa, talking to Veth’s husband about alchemy.

Caleb wandered over and sat on the rug at their feet, interjecting the occasional comment and sipping on something dark that smelled strongly of bourbon.

“Not the same sort of evening you had with Uludan, I’d hazard to say,” he said to Essek, demonstrating that he was keeping an eye on Essek’s doings. Or Uludan’s?

It was an excellent opportunity. Most people liked nothing more than to hear you disliked the people they disliked. “This evening is far more convivial,” he said. It was even true, in its way. “I find him somewhat . . . tiresome, I’m sorry to say.”

“Ah,” Caleb said, and toasted him with his glass. “A man of good sense.”

“He doesn’t hold you in high regard, either,” Essek said, tipping his head and fibbing a bit. Uludan had been deeply cagey upon the topic of his fellow archmage, even when pressed. “I wouldn’t gossip, but I imagine this is no surprise to you.”

“Ha, no.” The expression that crossed Caleb’s face then was startling. Grim, rather wolfish. “He lived because he is generally too interested in hedonism to be useful for any work of substance,” he said conversationally. “Knowing that has rather upset his comfortable little worldview.”

“I see,” Essek said faintly. The calm talk of murder should not surprise him, and yet it did. He cleared his throat, deciding rapidly not to pursue that topic. Not yet. “You and I seem to have similar tastes, then. I wonder, who would you recommend to me as a dining companion?”

“You’re looking at them,” Widogast said frankly. “Though, if you mean on the faculty? Yes, there are some good minds there. Let’s see. There’s an illusionist – Barnier. It’s not at all my field, but she’s a favorite of the students for a reason, she makes it come alive.”

Essek was able, with only gentle promptings, to extract what sounded like frank assessments of several more faculty members. He had no real intentions of pursuing others socially – what would be the point? – but the insight into Caleb’s thinking was helpful. He seemed to admire pedagogical skill quite a bit, which was not something Essek had ever given thought to. If you knew, then surely you could teach? The rest of the party wandered over, chipping in a few opinions here and there.

“And there’s the new one,” Beauregard said. “Divination, you said?”

“Ja, I don’t know much about him,” Caleb said. “Well, aside from the fact that he has beautiful cheekbones.”

“Oh, my gods, stop being a giant skank,” Beauregard said. Essek did not know that word.

“He is not,” Grieve put in, startling the entire party by speaking for the first time in over two hours. “He’s an incorrigible slut.” He knew that one, though.

This made Veth cackle, Beauregard say “Ugh!” and Caleb shrug unconcernedly. “That is one of my better qualities, ja,” he said.

“Hang on.” Beauregard poked at him with her toe. “Did Margolin not consult you on the hiring?”

“He did. I vetted resumes, but I wasn’t available for interviews.” He gave her a significant look. “That was in Unndilar, when we were fucking off to Pearlbow every five minutes.”

“Oh, right. Well, as long as he’s not putting a toe out of line.”

Essek saw an opening and took the risk. “Margolin being another archmage who lives on your sufferance?” he asked lightly.

This got him the interested attention of most of the room. Caleb tilted a hand in the air and said, “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” at the same time Veth said, “Fuckin’ right he is.”

Caleb opened his mouth to say something else, and Essek was quite interested to hear what it was going to be. But then he paused and tapped his temple, holding up the other hand. He listened for the length of a Sending, inhaled to reply, then let his breath out on a quiet laugh and listened again. “Good to hear, my friend,” he said after a moment. His voice was soft, his smile softer. “You were all missed tonight. I assume you would have said if anyone was injured. Be well, see you soon.”

“When are we getting the band back together to deal with that whole thing?” Veth said, as if carrying on a conversation with Caleb’s absent interlocutor. She came over and leaned on Caleb’s back, hooking her arms over his shoulders and planting an absent kiss on his temple.

Looks were exchanged around the circle; it took Essek a moment to realize that it was specifically the present members of this Mighty Nein group who seemed to be silently communicating something.

“You’ve all been waiting for me, I know,” Caleb said, sounding regretful.

“We are not going without you,” Veth said at once. “You don’t go, I don’t go.”

“She’s right,” Beauregard said, briskly cutting off Caleb’s response. “We’re down major firepower without you. We’re gonna need Big Blue for this, probably. And it’s not like you’re sitting on your thumb over here – we’re fucking busy, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Caduceus came back into the room just then. Essek didn’t know what it was, but there was something about him that made him appear to be meandering whenever he went anywhere.

“Hot tub’ll be ready in a minute,” he announced.

“Ooh.” Veth swiped Caleb’s drink and downed the dregs of it. “Good call. There’s room for everyone,” she added, looking to Essek.

“Ah, I didn’t bring any swimwear,” Essek said.

“Nah, just strip down, everyone does it.” Beauregard bounced to her feet.

Absolutely not. “I think this is where I bid you goodnight,” Essek said, to a chorus of groans. He endured the teasing that followed. He was almost getting used to it.

“I do owe you a spell, though,” Caleb said to him, pushing to his feet. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“And I have one to offer in exchange,” Essek said. He’d brought a copy of Fortune’s Favor folded up in his wristpocket, thinking perhaps the two of them could indulge his favored dinner party strategy and sneak off to the nearest library. But it just hadn’t happened.

“Oh?” Caleb looked pleasingly intrigued.

“Something you’ve never seen before,” Essek said confidently. And if he had, well, wouldn’t that be an interesting tidbit. Da’leth had known it, after all.

Caleb looked genuinely torn between new spellwork and naked cavorting with his friends and colleagues. It was baffling, honestly.

“Perhaps we could make some time this coming week?” Caleb said. “I can do after bedtime on Miresen. Around 8 or so,” he added off Essek’s blank expression.

“I look forward to it,” Essek said, and bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality, Archmage.”

“It was my pleasure, Shadowhand.” Caleb’s return bow was precise and angular, in Empire style.

“Have fun in the hot tub,” Verin said, patently wistful. They headed down the stairs together, hearing a rush of footsteps and laughter retreating above.

Grieve saw them out, returning Verin’s glaive in silence. Was he invited for the naked hot tub cavorting, too? It seemed likely.

Essek waited until they were several hundred feet down the road before he quietly said, “Impressions?”

“First impression: you’re a buzzkill,” Verin said promptly.

“I shall take it under advisement,” Essek lied. “Anything else?”

Verin walked in silence for a moment. “He’s dangerous,” he said eventually.

“Let me rephrase,” Essek said. “Do you have anything useful?”

It was this, for some reason, that actually got under Verin’s skin, like most things didn’t. He gave Essek a cool look and said, “He is very loved. I don’t know how useful that is to you, but there you have it.”

Essek swallowed. A feeling he didn’t understand sat heavily in his throat. Verin was correct. Widogast was many things, some of which remained mysterious. But Verin’s description encapsulated everything Essek had found particularly puzzling or unexpected throughout the evening. That had not been a political dinner, that had been a gathering of friends who loved each other fiercely, often rather meanly.

“Don’t come with me on Miresen,” Essek said.

Verin’s look cooled several more degrees. “Speaking of not being useful,” he said. “That is specifically what the Dusk Captain instructed I am not to do.”

Essek looked back levelly. “I’m here. She’s in Rosohna,” he said.

Verin visibly thought about defying him for half a block, then gave in all at once. “Fine,” he said. “But if you end up getting murdered and causing an international incident, I’ll go home and fuck up every single book in your library. I’ll draw in them,” he added, with vicious relish.

After the lesbians and the Brenattos were gone, Caleb puttered around the kitchen and the great room for a while, tidying up with the aid of an unseen servant. He needed staff, this was not a surprise. At least one live-in housekeeper and cook, according to Beauregard, who would know how rich people did such things. He’d put her off so far by claiming that not having help was an excuse for why he didn’t entertain lavishly and often like the de facto head of the Cerberus Assembly was supposed to. In reality, the thought of bringing a stranger into this home, such as it was, made his skin crawl.

When a minimum standard of order had been achieved, he went all the way up the spiral stairs, past the single other floor that had been converted for his use, past eight additional floors of Da’leth’s laboratories and guest quarters and his startlingly ascetic master bedroom, and out onto the roof. It was 1:29 in the morning, and the moons were both waxing. Caduceus stood at the base of the tree, smiling gently to it or to himself, both hands planted on the bark. Wulf sat nearby, a book open in his lap but his eyes on the sky. Caleb had found the two of them in similar circumstances many times. He knew for a fact that they mutually considered each other quite good friends by now, which was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that he had never, not even once, observed them speaking a word to each other.

Wulf let him pace the border of the roof all the way around twice, and then met him on his third circuit. “How was Vergesson?” he asked, speaking Zemnian the way he always did in private.

Caleb shrugged. Vergesson had been quiet, and orderly, and a hellhole from start to finish.

The surviving Volstrucker were, for the most part, accepting of the change in management. Less so of the change in goals and methods, but it continued to be true that if he and Astrid pulled in the same direction, they would follow. The potential failure points in that system were numerous and catastrophic.

The rest of the Volstrucker, those of his former siblings in arms who were not so accepting of change, well. Most of them were accounted for now, one way or another. Not all, yet. For the ones who still lived, there was Vergesson, and an ever-expanding decision tree of the sort of awful ethical questions that Bren had, once upon a time, never needed to consider. Caleb, considering them now for well over a year, regularly made himself nauseous to the point of vomiting over them.

Nine floors below him, Leni’s empty room ached in his consciousness like a missing tooth.

“The Shadowhand is interesting,” he said to Wulf, who nodded. Beautiful, too, in his fine clothes and artfully applied cosmetics. Something about him reminded Caleb of Abeah, a Volstrucker who had vanished on an assassination job in Port Damli six years ago. She was extraordinarily beautiful. And she knew it, of course, and harbored a quiet, profound disdain for anyone who noticed. Which was to say, everyone. Caleb’s instincts sensed something of that disdain in Essek, though he hoped it sprang from different sources. He’d looked so appalled at the prospect of taking his clothes off, it had made Caleb want to lean in and nibble on the lobe of his pretty plum-colored ear until he shivered and sighed and acquiesced.

That was one way of figuring out his angle. Bren’s way, certainly. The problem was, it was sometimes Caleb’s way, too.

There was a chasm inside him, with the wreckage of a person on each side. Caduceus did not like it when Caleb conceived of his inner landscape that way, but no other metaphor had ever wrung as true.

He thought, some days, that he was getting pretty good at being Caleb Widogast, at least most of the time. Caleb Widogast was incomprehensibly rich in friends; Caleb Widogast had a daughter, a fact that could still make him reel like he had the moment Wulf had told him nearly two years ago. Caleb Widogast had voluntarily installed himself atop a black powder keg and had been juggling fire for over a year, because someone had to do it.

Caleb Widogast was clumsy in loving and being loved, in parenting his daughter, in juggling fire atop a powder keg. Caleb Widogast regularly vomited for no reason, or didn’t sleep for days, and occasionally fell back into the blank gray void in his mind. But nothing unsettled him quite like the places where Caleb Widogast and Bren Aldric Ermendrud were the same person.

He glanced over at Wulf. Tempted, for the hundredth time. He could say, come to bed with me, just to sleep. You know I hate sleeping alone. And Wulf would. Wulf had done everything Caleb had asked of him and then some. Wulf, too, hated sleeping alone.

But no.

Quitting Astrid and Eadwulf did not feel like he’d assumed a breakup would feel. It felt more like what Veth did when she stopped drinking.

“Vergesson again tomorrow,” he said to Wulf, and stepped away to wish Caduceus a good night.

Chapter Text

Essek had a thin vermaloc box, enchanted so that papers placed within would appear in its twin box in the Dusk Captain’s possession, and vice versa. Verin had asked him, out of the Dusk Captain’s hearing, whether the boxes could transport other items as well. Like, say, a regular supply of Xhorhasian fire sauce to bring bland Empire food up to standard. Essek had said probably they would, Verin was free to petition the Bright Queen’s wife for such a frivolous favor should he be tired of his career already.

And then Essek had begun feverishly wondering if a beacon could be passed in such a manner, if the box was big enough. Da’leth had not suggested it, having left most of the practical arrangements to Essek as the “subject matter expert.” He’d been generous in supplementing Essek’s methods of avoiding magical, and particularly divinely magical, attention, but otherwise stayed out of Essek’s plans. Essek had a very good plan. He’d been furious when word of Da’leth’s death reached him, not just for the loss of a research collaborator, but also because he’d been desperate to confirm that it would work.

It was in this box that the available Lens intelligence on the Mighty Nein appeared on Da’leysen morning. Such as it was. Essek flipped through the few pages, lips pursed. There was a fair amount of information on Beauregard Lionett, as she came from a prominent family and had publicly accused her father of misdeeds. There were also a few details on a Genevieve Lavorre, largely in connection to her famous mother. For the rest of them, the Lens had little more than names and general descriptions. Clearly, they had not been considered at all important until archmages started dying, at which point some frantic backfilling couldn’t capture much.

Essek tapped the pages back together. He was deeply tempted to scry on Caleb, even though he knew it to be pointless. The Lens had been trying regularly for his entire tenure, and had never succeeded. He employed countermeasures, much as his predecessor had. Essek was frankly jealous of that; he himself could not do so except very briefly, as the Lens’s eye passed over him on occasion, as well. Surely more often now that he was in the Empire.

What of other members of Caleb’s circle, though? It seemed likely that his annex was similarly protected, but Beauregard? Or Veth? Essek circled his bedroom once in indecision, then shook his head to himself. It wasn’t worth it, not yet. Even if he succeeded, it seemed unlikely he’d learn anything of use, and there was always the risk of being caught. Better to go to the source, as it were.

So it was that he arrived at Caleb’s tower once again, promptly at eight, with a pocketful of pearls. Verin would not go so far as to let Essek walk the evening streets of Rexxentrum unescorted, so he sent two of his squad along with the intention of Essek leaving them in a receiving room.

Grieve answered the door again, similarly armed, similarly silent. Essek shed his shoes and his escorts, and followed him up four flights this time, and down a very long hall full of closed doors. Grieve ghosted a knock onto the half-open door at the end, and Essek was bade to enter Caleb’s study.

It was smaller than expected, but otherwise to the usual wizard standard – large desk, multiple seating options for comfort during long thought, a fireplace, many bookshelves. There was also a chalkboard taking up half of one wall. Most of it was occupied by a wildly intricate set of calculations that Essek thought, at a glance, had something to do with extra-planar space, but couldn’t be sure. And in the bottom corner, in a wobbly hand that likely belonged to a child, were a set of misshapen creatures that looked like housecats with wings.

The man himself came forward to shake Essek’s hand and draw him to a seat. At the fireplace, not the desk, which wasn’t really set up for two working together. Grieve vanished while they were getting settled, and returned with wine and glasses and a plate of sliced cheese and fruit.

“Oh, ja, thank you,” Caleb said. This was clearly not on his instruction. While he poured, Grieve prepared a smaller plate with the choicest selections. Essek assumed it would be for him, as guest, but Grieve slid it across the table to his archmage with a pointed flourish. “Ja,” Caleb said again, making a face. “I know. Danke.”

Grieve departed, closing the door, and Caleb obediently nibbled at a slice of cheese. “Would you mind terribly sharing first?” he asked. “I am to eat now, apparently. I promise I am good for it.”

“Of course,” Essek said, glad of the opportunity to appear gracious. “I have a spell to show you, but if you are entirely unfamiliar with Dunamancy, you will require some groundwork. I don’t suppose you have any background?”

“Safe to assume no,” Caleb said. “I know what it is, in broad strokes. I’ve seen some notes from, ah, an interested observer, but he was more concerned with effects than fundamentals.”

“Da’leth?” Essek hazarded, and Caleb nodded silently. Good. “Well then, let’s begin with methods of calculating the energy inherent in probabilistic outcomes.”

It had been a very long time since Essek had walked anyone through these baby steps. The Marble Tomes had other people for that. But he was certain he’d never introduced these ideas to someone who grasped them so quickly. Caleb was either lying about his prior knowledge, or he was ferociously intelligent. Essek was betting on the latter. What a waste, to throw a mind like that away on killing other wizards.

Caleb was, therefore, ready for Fortune’s Favor more quickly than anticipated. He set his half-eaten plate aside and eagerly accepted the folded pages Essek presented him with. He sat back to read, firelight shining on one half of his face and hair. Essek was just sitting back in his chair, glad for a few moments to himself out from under that intense, blue-eyed attention. But then Caleb’s head popped up, eyes looking into the distance.

He sighed after a moment, and said, “Ja, best get it over with, danke.” Then after a beat, he glanced back at Essek. “You have met my compatriot, Master Becke, yes?”

Essek’s Common had improved notably in the past few years; he was pretty sure that was not the word usually applied to the mother of one’s child.

“I have,” he said. “Briefly.”

“Ah, well, you are about to meet her again,” Caleb said, smiling on a slant. “Also briefly, I imagine. Here we are.”

There were steps in the hall, one set quiet, one the distinctive tap of heeled boots, a single rap at the door, and Archmage Becke came in. She was one of the few humans Essek had met in this country who didn’t seem overly large. Tonight, she wore a suit in Dwendalian red with tall boots, all in a masculine style that she was carrying off better than Essek suspected he would. Her hair was clipped short at her jaw, which plainly displayed the burn scar running up the side of her neck, nearly all the way to her ear.

“Shadowhand,” she said to him, clearly having been forewarned of his presence. Grieve lingered behind her in the open doorway, an unreadable expression on his face as he looked from her to Caleb.

“Archmage,” Essek said, bending his head briefly to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Caleb had disappeared the copy of Fortune’s Favor somewhere out of her sight.

“I won’t interrupt long,” she said to him, then turned on Caleb. “As for you.”

“Hallo, Asa,” Caleb said, visibly bringing his charm to bear.

She ploughed directly on through that. “Today was the first day of class,” she said. “And already, do you know what I am hearing?”

“That I was brilliant?” he hazarded, delivering a look through wide blue eyes.

Essek did not expect that to work, but the corner of her mouth tipped up, ever so slightly. “That, too,” she said. “You know why I am here?”

“Ja.”

“Are you even the tiniest bit sorry?”

“Nein.”

She said something in what was probably Zemnian, clearly directed at herself, or an absent god.

“How hard is it,” she asked, “not to foment sedition on the very first day of introductory lecture?”

“Can you foment sedition against yourself?” Caleb asked Essek, who was not touching that one, thanks.
“Bren,” she said sharply, then, her tone moderating, “You know why I am concerned.”

“I do.” He leaned forward with a flare of sudden, quicksilver intensity. “I also know that our primary concern is not the maintenance of our own power. Or has that changed?”

She flushed. Just a little, but she was as fair-skinned as he was, and it showed. “It has not. But I point out, again, that you cannot do the work you want done if you are assassinated.”

He shrugged. “I’m sure someone is taking bets on the odds of either of us making it to forty. It would be interesting to see the numbers,” he said. “Now, if that was all?”

“Tone it down, please,” she said. Caleb made an ambiguous gesture, promising nothing, and she sighed. Essek thought she would depart, but she hesitated a moment, hands clasped before her. Caleb looked steadily at her, unblinking, and then said, “Go peek in. She’s sleeping soundly.”

“Danke,” Becke said, and turned swiftly on her heel. Grieve closed the door after her, and their steps retreated.

Caleb exhaled quietly and reached for his wine glass.

“Academic politics?” Essek hazarded, which made him laugh.

“Yes,” he said. “And several other kinds, too. Now, I was just getting stuck into this intriguing spell.” He bent back over Essek’s copy, reabsorbed quickly.

Essek waited in silence, attempting to parse the implications of what he’d just observed. A difference of opinion between the two archmages holding the reins of the entire operation, clearly. Would that be useful, or a problem? And, more importantly, what was the work Caleb was so keen to do? That he seemed to believe he may give his life for?

Essek had spent some thought, over the past few years, on what he would be willing to give to achieve his highest ambitions. It was possible he would end up paying with his life for the theft of the beacons, though he would not go through with it if he thought that at all likely. What would be the point, after all, if he received answers to some of his most pressing questions, only to die before he could pursue the next questions that would inevitably follow? Unlike several people of his acquaintance back home, Essek had zero interest in being a martyr to anything, even his own lonely cause. Caleb’s fey amusement at the prospect of dying for his ambitions, whatever they were, was discomforting.

Caleb looked up a few minutes later, having read through the spell with prodigious rapidity. “I have questions,” he said, reaching for his quill.

“Excellent,” Essek said. “If you did not, I would be disappointed.”

Caleb’s questions were delightfully probing. Essek already found himself skirting along the edges of what he was permitted to say. He had been prepared for that eventuality, but not so soon. It was the Dusk Captain’s opinion that sharing a small glimpse of dunamancy’s potential would serve as a gentle check, a little bit of caution, the next time tensions rose between their nations. Essek thought this might be true for the soldiers of the world, like her. It would not be true of wizards, who would get a glimpse through the cracked door and promptly want to bust it wide open. That was certainly the case for this wizard, whose hair had come out of its loose braid in his mounting excitement.

“A demonstration?” Essek offered.

“Please.” Caleb stood and glanced over at his desk. “I probably have an appropriate pearl.”

“No need,” Essek said, and produced two, one for each of them.” Caleb accepted one, an eyebrow lifting.

“You are generous,” he said, which was not something Essek had been accused of, well, ever. Then, with a look of genuine concern, “Truly, this is extraordinary. Are you allowed to show me this?”

And here they were. Essek breathed in carefully, met his eye, and cast his line. “This, yes,” he said. “And not much more, as I’m sure you have deduced.” He paused, let his brow furrow in worry, and glanced around.

Caleb was obligingly quick on the uptake. “You can speak freely here,” he said quietly. “No one can scry on this room.” He hesitated. “And my mind is secure, I ensure it daily, if that is a concern.”

Interesting. Was he casting Mind Blank daily? That was a profligate use of power, if there wasn’t a great need. And what could possibly necessitate that?

“Thank you,” Essek said. “I appreciate it. The truth is, what I am authorized to share – and what I will share with others – is extremely limited, for all the reasons you know. However,” he hesitated again. “I would be prepared to share much more with someone who proved himself capable and interested.”

Caleb tipped his head. “Again, generous.”

“Not when I can expect commensurate favors in return,” Essek said.

Caleb nodded, smiling a little to himself. “Ah, it’s like that,” he said, and met Essek’s eyes again. “Well then. I am interested. And I think you will find me capable.”

That was already clear. “Very good,” Essek said. “Shall we begin?”

He provided his demonstration. Caleb was eager to follow suit, but would need to transcribe first.

“Here,” he said, producing a thick sheaf of notes. “I imagine you know a bit of transmutation, ja? Let me know if you get stuck.”

They settled down to work in companionable silence, but for the scratch of Caleb’s quill. His spellbook was, as one of Essek’s professors had liked to say of hers, “fat and happy,” though considerably more battered than Essek’s own.

Essek became quickly absorbed in the notes, which were helpfully not just the completed spell – Widogast’s Transmogrification, apparently – but also several pages of iterative thinking that he would need to step through to understand the completed work. He did so, with imperfect comprehension, and went back to start again.

Caleb’s quill stopped, there was a pause, and he said, “Hallo, Blueberry. Leni wants to repaint her room when you are next here, so prepare yourself. Unicorns are out. Dragons are in. You are missed.”

“You seem to have a wide circle of friends,” Essek said.

Caleb laughed, warmth lingering in his voice. “You are not wrong. But in this particular instance, I have only the one friend who Sends to me every night. You will meet her – or she will happen to you, I should say. In fact, you should come to dinner again, on the eighteenth.”

“Perhaps,” Essek said. The last dinner had been interesting, certainly, but he wasn’t sure how many such gatherings he wanted to attend.

“Come if you like, and don’t if you don’t,” Caleb said, as if he understood the impulse to solitude. Perhaps he did. “We are not formal, as you saw. Now, do you have questions for me?”

“I do,” Essek said. His first three questions were answered swiftly and briefly, but his fourth provoked Caleb to pause and say, “You know, I think Verdagen addressed that in a different context. Have you read her on transmuting organic versus inorganic matter? No, I don’t suppose you would have. Well—” and instead of standing up to retrieve a book from the shelves, he sat back, glanced at the ceiling, and recited a thousand or so word passage from memory, his voice quick and sure as if he were reading.

Essek was so startled, he almost forgot to absorb the sense of it. Something happened low in his belly. A shiver, an electric sort of awareness. “You . . . have reviewed that often?” he asked feebly, when Caleb was done.

“Ah, no,” Caleb looked vaguely abashed. “I don’t have a copy, so it seemed the most expedient. She explains it better than I could.”

“How often do you have to read something before you can do that?” Essek pressed. He already knew what the answer must be, but he wanted to hear Caleb say it.

“Oh, ah. Just the once.” He smiled a little self-deprecatingly. “It has come in handy.”

“I see,” Essek said. He’d heard of such things, but never met a person so gifted.

“It was actually sometimes a hindrance in school, believe it or not,” Caleb added thoughtfully.

“How so?”

“Well, there is a difference between being able to remember the textbook and understanding it, ja? One is not a shortcut to the other, though I often thought so, as a young man.”

“Indeed.” Essek looked studiously down at the notes. “You matriculated here, yes?”

There was a silence that was just a beat too long, and then Caleb said, “Yes,” and went back to his transcription.

He said he was ready to cast just after midnight, and completed the spell flawlessly.

“Wonderful,” he said, smiling. “Now I can peek in on my daughter and be nearly certain I will not wake her. Thank you.”

“Not a use I ever considered,” Essek said truthfully. “And you are welcome. May I ask, before we say good night?” He lifted the notes Caleb had shown him. “Did you have a collaborator on this? It seems in the beginning you were attempting to reconcile your ideas with someone else’s.”

A slow grin blossomed on Caleb’s face. “Oh, you are going to regret asking me that,” he said.

Essek frowned. “I am?”

“Yes. Because I will tell you, and then I really must say good night, I am very tired.” He punctuated this with a yawn. “The first part of the answer is that my friend Veth – you met her – helped with some of the lower-level noodling. A lot of the grinding on the mechanics was hers – all those hours and hours of calculations.” He leaned in. “The other half of the answer is yes, I had my own ideas, and then I acquired the notes of another mage. Halas Lutagran, to be specific, a practitioner from the Calamity. Do you know – I see you do.”

Essek sat up straight in his seat. “Caleb Widogast,” he said. “That is outrageous.”

“Isn’t it?” He grinned in the face of Essek’s expression. “I am sorry, but you did ask.”

“I did,” Essek said, drawing his dignity around him. “And now I have more questions. Which I shall postpone.” Humans needed so much rest, and from the looks of it, Caleb flouted those requirements regularly as it was.

“I have to be up by six,” Caleb said regretfully. “Next time?”

“Indeed,” Essek said, going so far as to mentally revise his interest in attending another dinner party. “Sleep well.” That was something goblins and minotaurs said, surely it would also apply to humans.

Grieve walked him out, and Essek burbled in silent, thwarted delight all the way back to his guest house.

It occurred to Essek approximately fifteen seconds before the start of his first lecture that he was, perhaps, a touch nervous about it. He got a good look at the hall as he was approaching the front, and estimated at a glance that 90% of the faculty was in attendance. The proportion of students was much lower, but that still made for an unexpected crowd, at least to eyes accustomed to such events at the Marble Tomes. Magical tuition there was conducted almost entirely one-on-one and in small groups, not just because it was effective, but because there weren’t ever enough students to necessitate otherwise.

Essek settled his mantle, adjusted the height of his float to ensure he looked appropriately imposing behind the lectern, and began.

It went quite well, he thought. He hit all his intended points, and managed to finish right on time so that he could plausibly decline to take questions. He spotted Caleb when he glanced up from his notes partway through, sitting with Grieve on one side of him and Archmage Becke on the other. The collective attention of the three of them was ferocious. Caleb did not seem any less interested even though Essek spent the entire hour on topics he had mastered two nights before in five minutes flat.

“Nice,” Verin said when Essek was done and had run the gauntlet of hands to shake. “That was almost interesting.”

“Pay attention and you might just learn how that little echo trick of yours actually works,” Essek said. It continued to offend him, seventy years after first being told the fact, that the echo knights could be taught to invoke the effect without ever learning the mechanics of it.

“Wait, really?” Verin said, striding to keep up with the pace of his float. “You’re talking about that?”

“No,” Essek admitted. “Not really. Though the astute will probably be able to piece it together, to some extent.”

“Oh, not me, then,” Verin said cheerfully.

When they got back to the guest house, Essek discovered a note from the Lens informing him that, regretfully, they did not currently have an agent in place to examine Soltryce student records, and thus the confirmation of Caleb’s attendance and the tip about the name ‘Bren’ would have to wait for now.

“Useless,” Essek muttered. He was getting more in a few weeks here than they had in years.

On Yulisen, Essek set out in late afternoon to go to the library, under the assumption that the student body would believe itself to have better things to do on a beautiful fall weekend early in the term. He was correct, to his regret.

“What is this?” he demanded, staring at a veritable river of students flooding through the common, many dressed absurdly and waving various incomprehensible flags.

“Dunno,” Verin said cheerfully. “One way to find out.”

Essek squinted suspiciously at him, then back at the two squad minotaurs Verin had brought for the day. He’d thought that was an awful lot of muscle to bring for a library trip.

“You knew about this,” he accused.

“Well, yeah,” Verin said, giving him a pitying look. “Hard not to, it’s the only thing anyone’s talked about for days.” Subtext: try talking to people sometime. “Oh, hi,” he added over Essek’s shoulder. “Aw, who’s your young lady, Master Widogast?”

Essek turned to find Caleb emerging from the crowd, casually dressed in trousers and a red coat, with a small, dark-haired human child perched on his shoulders.

“Hallo,” Caleb said, eyes crinkling. “This is Magdalena. Leni, these are the people I was telling you about, visiting all the way from Xhorhas.”

Verin solemnly shook the child’s hand in Empire style. He was tall enough to do that with his feet on the ground. Essek had to adjust his float significantly to be able to reach.

“Hello,” he said cautiously. She had her father’s startling eyes.

He saw her lips form the word “hi,” but couldn’t hear it.

“You’re coming to the game?” Caleb asked, glancing over his shoulder. Essek followed his look and clocked Grieve, circling them slowly about fifteen feet out. And beyond him he thought he saw a woman doing the same at a longer radius. That was a lot of security, for a man who regularly walked around campus unaccompanied. Ah, unless it was his daughter he worried for.

“Yep,” Verin said cheerfully. “Heading right over.”

Essek opened his mouth, swiftly comprehended how the next few minutes were going to go regardless of anything at all he might say, and shut it again.

“Come with us,” Caleb offered immediately. “I can probably get you a better view.”

Well, at least the afternoon wouldn’t be a total loss.

In Caleb’s wake, they secured seats right at the edge of the field. Essek had a sneaking suspicion that he and Verin were occupying spots intended for the headmaster and his guest; Essek saw them approach, stop, and reverse course without comment. Caleb mouthed “sorry” at them, supremely unrepentant.

There was something that pleased Essek, deep down, in Caleb’s disrespect for his fellow archmages. In the way he was able to show it, specifically, without apparent social or political consequence. How did he manage it? Surely it was not something Essek would be able to replicate in Rosohna, but still.

The game in question was played in two teams of eight. The purpose was to cause a ball to pass through the opposing team’s goal posts. More interestingly, the rules strictly banned the use of magic on the field, but the entire point of the game seemed to be flouting that rule as often as possible. The skill, Essek was informed, lay in casting in such a way that the referee did not see it to impose a penalty, but that was blatant enough to impress the crowd.

Verin was enraptured. Miss Magdalena was also a great fan of the game, apparently. Verin made immediate fast friends by asking her to explain it to him. She quickly hopped down from her spot between her father and Grieve and inserted herself between Essek and Verin to chatter happily away with him. Essek mentally composed several acidic comments upon their developmental compatibility.

“You would be great at this,” Verin said to him at one point. He’d just regained his seat after leaping to his feet to applaud a particularly vicious use of Ray of Frost.

“Absolutely not,” Essek said.

“Well, at least until that happened,” Verin said, laughing as the offender was tackled to the ground and buried under a mass of bodies.

“This is handy,” Caleb confided quietly to Essek, pointing up at his Dark Umbrella. “Leni is Zemnian stock, she burns like I do.” It had never occurred to Essek that such susceptibility could vary amongst light-adapted people. The sun was only occasionally out today, and the Dark Umbrella was keeping him reasonably comfortable. He silently reached up and extended it another foot.

“May I ask something potentially rude?” he said. It was so hard to judge these things in this culture. They seemed to speak freely of some shocking things, and yet there was a core of stiff formality to them as well.

That got Caleb’s interested attention. “Yes,” he said. “I am hard to offend these days.”

“Your, ah,” Essek gestured at his hair. “Your coloring is unusual among humans, yes?” He could see a handful of other people in the crowd with hair in varying degrees of red, but only a few.

“Not rude,” Caleb informed him helpfully. “And yes. A possible variation, as you can see, but unusual enough to be remarked upon in some parts of Wildemount. It’s more common in folk of the Zemni Fields. I—” then he paused, chin jerking up. “Where?” he said sharply. “…No. I don’t see him.” He was scanning the stands across the field, eyes wide.

“I see him.” Grieve didn’t stand up, but Essek could sense a thrumming readiness in him.

“Leni.” Caleb extended a hand to his daughter, saying something in rapid Zemnian. She balked, he insisted, and she hopped down and came to him with a scowl.

“Problem?” Verin asked, leaning forward to speak around Essek.

Caleb tucked his daughter between himself and Grieve, one hand spread on her small back.

“Third from the top row,” Grieve said quietly. “Close to the far end. He’s wearing black.”

Verin located the individual in a glance; it took Essek a few more beats, but yes, that was probably him. A dark-haired human, sitting apparently alone, which was unusual. It was hard to tell at this distance, but Essek thought he looked notably unkempt compared to the students around him.

Miss Magdalena spotted him too, apparently, because she piped in helpfully to say, “that’s a Volstrucker.”

“Former,” Caleb corrected. Then to Essek and Verin, “Do you know . . .? Of course you do.”

Essek nodded silently, twisting his focus on his finger. The Lens had captured two Scourgers over the past thirty years, to his knowledge, and no one liked to openly speculate on how many had passed through Xhorhas undetected. Very little had ever been conclusively proven about them, aside from their fanatical loyalty, viciousness, and general magical prowess. Essek did not even know which of the assembly members they formally answered to, which was suddenly a rather pressing question, wasn’t it. Particularly since it was not unreasonable to think he was currently sitting beside a Scourger right now, taking in an afternoon of leisure.

“What sort of threat are we talking about here?” Verin pressed, his cheerful smile gone.

“Wizard,” Caleb said briefly. “He could cast at the third quantum, the last we know, though perhaps he is more skilled now.” He hesitated. “He has . . . refused to respond to my requests for his presence.”

Essek frowned. He had never done intelligence work himself, but he’d observed enough of the Lens’s dealings to understand why a disobedient agent of that sort was alarming.

“Vati, he used to bring me chocolate coins,” Miss Magdalena said.

“I know, Hase.” Caleb sat still and silent for a moment.

“No,” Grieve said to him.

“I know. Not here, you’re right. I just – he didn’t want to hear it before, but maybe now he does."

Grieve silently placed his big hand over Caleb’s on Miss Magdalena’s back. The two of them communicated something in silence, and Caleb’s shoulders dropped.

“Okay,” Caleb said quietly. “Yes. Franka is watching him? Okay.”

He turned and smiled in a forced kind of way to Essek and Verin. “Please do not let our domestic difficulties trouble you,” he said. His gift of understatement was ridiculous. “It appears my colleague over there is interested in the game, at least for now. Perhaps we should follow his example.”

They collectively tried, though a distinct damper hung over their little group now. Miss Magdalena did seem to help with that, in the emotionally oblivious way Essek vaguely understood to be common for children. She clambered from lap to lap, even essaying Essek’s once, much to his consternation, and was vocally delighted by the close-fought game.

At the end, when the crowd was just beginning to disperse, Caleb stepped up onto the bench to see across the field. He folded copper wire around his fingers, pointed to the opposite stands, and spoke in low, gentle-sounding Zemnian. Then he waited, sighed, and shook his head at Grieve.

“Not answering me,” he said, and jumped down. “Come on, Leni, you need a bathroom break.”

A few months into their co-parenting arrangement, Caleb and Astrid had mutually stopped pretending to each other that everything was perfectly fine, and had an incredibly freeing conversation about just how hard the transition days were for Leni. It was predictable as the tides; Leni went from Astrid’s care to Caleb and Wulf’s, and for the first twenty-four hours or so, she demanded every grain of patience and confidence Caleb possessed in his entire body. She was randomly and sometimes spectacularly destructive and then wept in disconsolate guilt; she threw fits over inconsequential things that could not be redirected by divine intervention; she slept terribly; she had once slapped him right across the face hard enough to leave a mark, and then wept over that, naturally.

Learning that she gave Astrid exactly the same trouble was an enormous relief. The problem wasn’t him, swooping into her life years after he should have. The problem was change, and uncertainty, and leaving one set of toys for another, and the different ways they cut her sandwiches, for all he knew. Getting her a kitten who travelled back and forth with her had helped a lot, despite Astrid’s vocal grumblings. And time had helped even more.

They had never talked about what transition days were like for them, and Caleb wasn’t sure he wanted to. He didn’t know if it would help at all to know that Astrid or Wulf were as afflicted as he was – with a hollow empty ache, with helpless sadness, with anxious fretting, and with contradictory relief to know that his time was his own again, as much as it ever was. Caleb had yet to get himself a kitten, much to the loud shock of seemingly everyone he knew, but he didn’t think it would help. Time certainly wasn’t helping.

So, after bringing Leni to Astrid’s on Da’leysen afternoon, Caleb walked home alone through the Candles, feeling like he really wouldn’t mind throwing a fit about something inconsequential, thanks.

Instead, he went up to the seventh floor of Da’leth’s – of his tower and resumed the painstaking work of going through Da’leth’s former office. There was so much here, and Caleb had so little time for it. He was becoming convinced it would take him the rest of his life to look at everything. For all the good it would do him.

They’d all thought, in the bloody, smokey aftermath, that Da’leth hadn’t seen it coming. Ikithon certainly hadn’t. Which was fair, since nothing that night had gone to plan for the Nein, either. But Da’leth had been comfortably ensconced at the head of the Assembly for hundreds of years, and he’d exuded smug complacency from every pore. Surely he had not foreseen his ouster that night, certainly not in time to clean house.

And yet, the tower was shockingly free of incriminating, or even interesting, evidence. Caleb had found the one journal, written in Elvish and in code. Deciphering that had been something of a shock, to discover what Da’leth’s longer term plans involved. How truly mad he was. But other than that, the office was absolutely crammed with paper, with centuries of correspondence and agendas and notes, and it was all so dull, Caleb was angry to now be carrying it around in his memory.

Most offensively, Da’leth had not even been interested in spell development. Caleb had assumed all powerful mages must be, but aside from some frankly bizarre ravings in the journal, Da’leth showed no signs of pushing the bounds of magical knowledge.

All of it strongly suggested that he had another base of operations, that he had not been nearly so settled in the Assembly as it appeared. Caleb was determined to go through everything available to him and yet, at the same time, was not sure how much he cared at this point.

At least they were mostly done going through Trent’s offices, safehouses, and assorted boltholes. That alone had taken nearly a year and had, on a regular basis, left Caleb a miserable wreck of a person.

He gave it a few hours, then went down to dinner. Wulf would come and feed him, probably, but Caleb liked to demonstrate a base level of functionality to his household now and then. And Caduceus, who would not come up and feed him, could emanate silent disapproval hard enough to permeate every stone of the tower.

He did the dishes after dinner, glad to have something to occupy his hands. Caduceus puttered behind him, humming quietly as he wrote labels on tea tins and talked in a friendly way to – with? – his sourdough starter.

“I wonder,” Caleb said to him after a while, “if you might indulge me with a Commune?”

Caduceus’s ears swiveled to him in interest. “I could,” he said. “That is not usually your first choice for answering a question.”

“It’s not,” Caleb said honestly. “But Beauregard has taught me the value of gathering information from multiple sources. And I am curious.”

“What are your questions?”

Caleb dried his hands. “The Shadowhand – Essek. He is up to something. Or motivated by something I don’t see. He could have any number of interests here, of course, but there’s something in the way he’s making himself agreeable, I don’t know. It’s not natural to him. I leave it up to you how to frame that best. But I would also like to know, regardless of what he is after here, if I can trust him to some limited extent with Leni’s safety.” The look on Essek’s face yesterday at the game when Leni had casually attempted to sit in his lap had been pretty funny, actually. But if he was going to continue to be around, and to see her even just in passing, then Caleb needed something to go on here.

Caduceus nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll go up,” he said, and plucked a packet of incense from the cabinet on his way out.

Half an hour later, when he’d had time to cast his ritual and maybe do some evening gardening, he found Caleb in his study.

“Three questions,” he said, declining to take a seat. “Three answers. Make of them what you will. What is Shadowhand Essek seeking here in Rexxentrum?” His bony finger shot out and pointed straight at Caleb.

“. . . Me?”

“You.”

“Me as in a wizard, or—”

“You as in ‘the one who hides his mind’, which is probably as close as she can come to referring to you,” Caduceus said, and grinned at Caleb’s expression. Caleb had no particular interest in the gods, aside from a distant respect for their power and a much greater respect for the clerics who wielded it. But it was startling to be named, and it gave him the odd sensation of being a fish in a tank.

“Can Shadowhand Essek be trusted with Miss Leni’s safety? Yes.”

Well, that was something.

“Can Shadowhand Essek help you? Yes.”

“Huh.” Caleb sat back in his chair. He wouldn’t have asked that last question, but he’d left it open for a reason, Caduceus had a good nose for these things. “Help me with anything in particular?”

Caduceus shrugged.

“Huh.” Caleb was reminded, every time they used this spell, just how ambiguous ‘yes’ could be. Essek could be capable of helping him with anything from writing next week’s lecture notes to, somehow, miraculously, freeing him from the chains of the Assembly. Probably something entirely unforeseeable in between. “Thank you, my friend,” he said.

“You forgot your tea,” Caduceus said, and went back out to fetch the tea that was supposed to ease Caleb’s insomnia. Well, at least he had something new and different to perseverate over tonight while he wasn’t sleeping.

Chapter Text

On Miresen, Essek disguised himself to appear as a nondescript young human with mud-colored hair and eyes. His mind was working at a problem, but had not yet seen fit to present either problem or solution for conscious consideration. Essek was familiar with the sensation, as it had proceeded most of the greatest magical breakthroughs of his life. He was perpetually distracted, and yet could never quite put his finger on what the distraction was. Maddening. He allowed his trancing mind more freedom to choose its path than usual for two nights running, but emerged none the wiser. So, on Miresen, he set out to feed it more information.

After an unpleasant interval in the slanted fall sunlight, unwilling to cast his distinctive Dark Umbrella, he inserted himself into a chattering crowd of students entering Soltryce’s largest lecture hall. His gamble paid off; the class was so large that it was a simple matter to find a seat near the back without receiving a second look from anyone. He studiously prepared his paper and quill, keeping his head down and listening.

The weekend’s game was a common topic of conversation, along with recounting some dull-sounding carousing that followed. The group of three in front of Essek seemed a more studious bunch; they were attempting to summarize the assigned reading to each other. Essek was briefly excited when a pair of young humans sat down behind him and began discussing Professor Widogast, but he quickly regretted it as the purpose of their remarks became clear. The young people harbored some, ah, rather inappropriate desires for their professor to do things to their persons – individually or collectively, they did not seem picky – that made Essek’s ears go hot under his disguise.

The man himself arrived precisely on time, and gathered the attention of the noisy hall with a clap of the hands. Unlike other professors Essek had seen about campus, he was wearing shirt, vest, and tie, all in varying shades of blue. No billowing wizard robes here. His books were strapped to his sides, as always, which was somehow becoming less absurd and more appealing each time Essek saw it.

“Good morning, everyone,” Caleb said warmly. He chatted briefly before beginning to lecture. He seemed to know every student by name, or at least he made it appear so, but maybe he only called on those he was sure of. Essek hunched down a little in his seat, just in case.

Caleb slid into his lecture after a few minutes of gentle banter designed, Essek realized, to give young minds and bodies a chance to settle down and draw in their focus. The topic was basic – these students were all very new to magic – but he presented it with all the appearance of being deeply engaged.

It didn’t take Essek long to realize that Caleb was quite good at this. He moved as he spoke, pacing the length of the room, gesturing, and occasionally drawing glowing glyphs in the air or sending a mage hand to draw on the chalkboard. He continued to call on students – those who had their hands raised and, sometimes, those who did not. It was clearly a technique to discipline tricky adolescent attention, but Caleb did it with a conspiratorial sort of friendliness that Essek knew he would never be able to duplicate. Caleb did not refer to notes, but then again, he wouldn’t have to, would he?

Essek compared this dynamic display to his own performance with some dismay. Was this the standard at Soltryce, or was Caleb notably talented?

The nature of Archmage Becke’s complaint came into focus more slowly. Essek wasn’t sure he would call it “sedition,” not quite. Caleb just asked questions, was the thing. Not for discussion, not to illustrate a particular point of casting technique, but apparently just to ask them. Essek listened to him do it several times, and yet could not have said precisely how he managed it. Caleb would be speaking of the competing lines of thought on somatic techniques, demonstrating different approaches with his long, scarred fingers. And then he would smile in a pleasant, unthreatening way, and muse out loud about how foolish powerful mages could be when they fought over esoterica such as that, did the class know that their own headmaster had once attempted to Disintegrate a rival mage over such an argument?

Essek was briefly fooled into thinking this was just another ground on which Caleb enjoyed cutting his fellow archmages down to size. It did seem to be one of his favorite pastimes. But no, there was more to it than that.

He asked if they knew what the most common paths for Soltryce students were post-graduation, and then did not answer the question. Essek would guess that military or political service was most common, but did not actually know.

Why was it, Caleb gently wondered, that the Assembly’s founding charter was not available for public viewing? Surely there could be nothing so sensitive in the founding principles of a body dedicated to the defense and betterment of the realm that it could not be read by any interested person?

Did the class know the last time a sitting Archmage of the Assembly had been deployed in battle in defense of the Empire? Caleb did answer that one – seventy years ago, “against our Kryn neighbors,” but did not voice any of the obvious follow up questions that immediately sprang to Essek’s mind, like what were they all doing in the meantime?

He wanted them to think. He was trying to teach them to do so, though it seemed an uphill battle. But Essek had deep, instinctive sympathy for the impulse. He, too, had wanted to shout look at the world around you, actually see it. How can you live under these rules without understanding them? Essek had never come at the problem by way of impressionable young minds – the thought had never occurred to him – but it was an interesting approach. Likely to be frustrating, surely, and only sometimes rewarded, and painfully slow at achieving whatever it was Caleb ultimately wanted. But still. Essek understood this.

When class was dismissed, Essek flowed out with the crowd and headed back to the guest house, much on his mind. He wanted very badly to know what sorts of things Caleb said in his only other class this term, an advanced transmutation seminar, but it was a class of five, there was no way without risking invisibility.

He had, strangely, nothing to do until Whelsen, which was apparently the first availability in Caleb’s schedule, making it an unconscionable nine days of torment he had subjected Essek to on the topic of Halas and the notes thereof. Essek very much wanted to know what it was Caleb was doing from sunup to sundown. He had only the two classes, and charge of his daughter only some of the time, apparently. True, he was acting as something of a shadow headmaster of Soltryce, and possibly also of the Hall of Erudition? But what was it that he and Beauregard did together? What were his dealings with the Augen Trust? Did he command the Scourgers, and to what end?

Essek presented himself, as asked, on Whelsen evening, determined to make himself a pleasant companion. He was welcomed back to the same study, though this time he was offered, and accepted, heavily doctored hot chocolate. Essek was dubious, but Caleb promised to open a bottle of wine if it turned out not to be to Essek’s taste. “And I’ll just drink yours,” he added.

They went to the kitchen themselves and chatted with Caduceus while he made their drinks. Essek remained confused about Caduceus’s role here – former travelling companion turned what? Not servant, and yet he seemed content to provide service. The better question, on reflection, was what service he provided.

To confuse matters further, Caduceus paused in the middle of his task. Caleb had been sitting still and silent at the counter staring into the distance; Caduceus came to him and held Caleb’s face between his hands in an overly familiar sort of way, their eyes intense upon each other.

“No,” Caleb said, as if they were carrying on a conversation. “It’s not that sort of night. I’ll be good.”

Caduceus frowned thoughtfully at him. “Good is cheap,” he said. “I would prefer kind.”

“Ah, well.” Caleb’s smile turned rueful. “That one’s a work in progress.” His eyes seemed particularly sad tonight, Essek thought suddenly.

The hot chocolate was extraordinary. It was so thick that a spoon would practically stand up in it, and the chocolate was dark, intense, and almost bitter, cut through with a smokey whiskey and notes of cinnamon. Caduceus observed Essek’s reaction to it, smiled widely in a way that made him appear particularly unintelligent, and said, “Ah, that’s nice,” with more gentle pleasure than Essek thought he had ever experienced in his life over anything, great or small.

They took their drinks back to the study and settled in for a pleasant evening. Caleb did, indeed, speak of Halas, though Essek could tell he was redacting the story to some extent. Even so, it was a remarkable, intriguing, terrifying tale of a pocket dimension and the horrors and wonders within.

“You have simultaneously convinced me,” Essek said, “that adventuring is far more interesting than I ever thought, and far more dreadful.”

Caleb toasted him. “Correct. On the whole, I’ve come to think of it as the most excruciatingly wonderful year of my life. And some of the absolutely idiotic decisions we made, I could scare a century off you.”

“But surely you---” Essek began, then stopped. He was suddenly realizing that he’d made an unexamined assumption that did not stand up to scrutiny. He’d thought that Caleb, powerful archmage, had been the leader of a group of mercenaries. Surely, he was the most accomplished of them, the most intelligent. And surely, they were his to command, since he must have hired them to help him deal with his power grab. Except most of that rang hollow in the light of Beauregard’s irreverence for him, and Caduceus’s care, and Veth’s encompassing affection.

“May I ask,” Essek said carefully, “who was the leader in your party? I had thought it was you, but –”

This made Caleb laugh rather a lot. Essek was a little worried he would hurt his face doing that. “Me?” Caleb said. “My gods, what a thought. In charge of the Nein. That would be like being in charge of an avalanche.” He calmed himself and swigged his drink. “It’s actually a more complicated question than you realize. The answer, ostensibly, is Fjord. You haven’t met him yet. He made some hard calls, when push came to shove. But it may be truer to say that we were led by our clerics.” His grin was crooked and fond. “Sometimes in opposite directions simultaneously, and yet, to the good.”

Essek didn’t know what sort of face he made. Something far too revealing, which he would need to get control of quickly. Because Caleb glanced briefly at him and seemed to read his thoughts like a book.

“Ah, you’re one of those,” he said, with a look Essek could not interpret. “Let me guess, it offends you how easily the magic comes to them, yes? How they can cast without understanding it?”

Essek was silent. Caleb was leading him up to the very brink of dangerous words. Treasonous thoughts he’d entertained for so long about his paladin queen and her coterie of clerics, all of them drawing from a well of power whose source not one of them cared to truly know, because praying to it was supposed to be so much better than understanding it.

“To be clear,” Caleb said to his silence, “I used to think the same.”

“And now you don’t?” Essek could not have stopped the challenge in his voice if he’d tried. If Caleb said yes, if he proclaimed reverence for the truer power of divine magic, Essek would walk out of this tower and quite possibly straight back to Xhorhas.

“I don’t,” Caleb said. “That was one of the many things I learned the better of, in that excruciatingly wonderful year.” He considered Essek, head tipped to the side. “I was taught that my mind made me superior,” he said. “I was taught my path to power was righteous because it was so hard, because it hurt.” He made an aborted gesture with one arm, then folded both across his chest, hands clenched on his forearms. “I was taught that divine practitioners gained their power through subordinating themselves. Giving themselves over to a kind of puppetry, almost. Is that about the size of it?”

Essek pressed his lips together and nodded. No one had taught him that, but he had come to think something like it all the same.

Caleb smiled gently at him. “Yes, I believed it, too. And nothing in the brief encounters I had with clerics changed my mind. And then I met Caduceus and Jester, though hers is a . . . somewhat more complicated story. And I lived with them and fought beside them and watched them grow in power as I was growing in power. I did it with my mind. They did it with –” he hesitated, and Essek leaned in, unwillingly snared by this flow of eloquence. “They did it using the stuff of their souls,” Caleb said quietly. “It was different paths for them, but they each had to . . . know themselves, to a radical degree. Look inside, meet what they found there, accept it. Love it when it was ugly and when it was beautiful. Their roads to power looked terribly difficult to me. I know I would not have the courage for it. Would you?”

He sat back, and Essek did too. Apparently, that was one of those questions like he’d delivered in his lecture, intended for the asking only, because he didn’t wait for an answer. He just smiled and said, “In any event, that’s reminded me. Did you want to see the Transmogrification in action? It’s not the easiest spell to demonstrate, but you’re in luck.”

“Oh,” Essek said, thrown. “I – yes, I would, thank you.”

He went home that night with an uneasy mind, full of the unaccustomed sense of having been corrected by someone who he was coming to think of as a peer. It had been a gentle correction, though, unlike any other he’d received in recent memory. Essek was not really convinced by Caleb’s words, and yet Caleb was convinced by them, and Essek liked knowing that, knowing his mind. What else did Caleb believe that could startle and unsettle him?

The plan was to complete the transmogrification on Folsen afternoon, which Essek could already tell would transition seamlessly into another one of those bi-weekly group dinners. There seemed little chance he could attend one and evade the other without giving offense, and truth be told, he only minded a little. The last one had included moments of interest or enjoyment, and how taxing could another one be, really?

Verin came along. Essek suspected this was largely for the purpose of arguing with Grieve over his sword; Verin was visibly disappointed when Caduceus answered the door and welcomed them in, allowing Verin to keep his blade without comment.

Caleb came home while they were still in the entryway, with a great deal more fanfare than Essek was used to seeing from him. He arrived in a red and white coach pulled by a pair of matching gray horses with the Cerberus Assembly coat of arms in gold on the livery and the coach door. Grieve got out, and then Caleb, who stood with his back turned for a minute, speaking to someone who remained within. Archmage Becke, probably. Caleb was as finely dressed as Essek had ever seen him in a beautiful, narrowly-cut violet coat over black trousers and gleaming boots. It was a striking look with the afternoon sun making his bright hair shine in its neat twist.

Caleb stepped back with a dip of the head, and waved the coachman on before turning to come inside.

“Hallo,” he said, smiling bemusedly around at them. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Court today.”

“Ah,” Essek said, sympathetic. It was truly remarkable the amount of otherwise useful time that attendance upon one’s monarch could take up. How an activity could be simultaneously useless and essential, he did not know.

Caleb had his books in their holsters tucked in one arm. He started to unbutton his coat, fumbling a bit, then turned in acquiescence as Grieve did it for him. Grieve’s knuckles grazed Caleb’s bare throat as he worked the last button. Essek could hear, with strange exactitude, the faint sound that was made by touching the shadow of gleaming red hairs coming in at the edge of Caleb’s neat beard.

“Is Zev here yet?” Caleb asked, slinging his book harness over his shoulders, but not buckling it around his black shirt and gold-embroidered silk vest.

“They just got here,” Caduceus affirmed. “Veth, too.”

“Oh, good.” Caleb rubbed his hands together, visibly resetting his mind to the task at hand. “Shall we?”

Essek’s progress was stopped by Grieve, who extended a long arm out in front of Verin.

“Aw, come on!” Verin said.

Essek exercised his patience through the following argument, which Verin lost with his usual good grace.

“You and me,” Verin said, handing his sword over. “At one of these pit fights, what do you say?”

Grieve grunted noncommittally.

“Great!” Verin said, and clapped him on the back. “Now, for the boring part.” He added under his breath to Essek.

It was, in fact, fascinating. The casting time was an hour, but that didn’t account for all the preparations. They trooped up to the ninth floor, to a room the length and width of the entire tower, clearly intended for entertaining. A wash tub stood in lone splendor in the middle of the floor, with a circle chalked about ten feet back from it. For practical purposes, not magical, apparently.

“It’s because of the explosion,” Veth said, gesturing demonstratively. “Hang on, I want a piece of this.”

Caleb and Zev were having an animated conversation, apparently picking up on a prior exchange, on the general topic of desirable qualities in a penis. Essek was dismayed to discover the entire party contributing their views on such matters as proportionality, skin tone, and curvature. He held very still for the duration, wishing that he had worn his mantle today.

“It really depends on what you intend to do with it,” Veth said, making illustrative hand gestures that Essek fervently wished to unsee. “Like, you could really maximize your angle of approach here, you know?”

“Oh, honey,” Zev said. “It would be faster to ask what I don’t plan to do with it.”

Veth cackled. “My boy’s got you,” she said, and smacked Caleb playfully on the thigh.

At last, they were ready to begin. Caleb got Zev settled in the tub, then took a moment to unlace his vest and shake it and his books off his shoulders into Grieve’s hands. He unbuttoned his cuffs, folded back his sleeves, and did a quick thirty second run of caster’s stretches in the fingers and wrists.

And then he was off. Essek let him get a few minutes in before approaching for a better view. Caleb was, as Verin liked to say, in the zone, and his casting did not falter as Essek came to stand a few feet from him to watch his hands. His somatics were quick and accurate, his fingers twisting dexterously even though Essek knew he did not have occasion to cast this very often.

And he was a Scourger. Essek had been brought in to ensure the security of the magically dangerous prisoner when a Scourger was caught infiltrating Rosohna eight years ago. He’d seen the scars. He’d contributed his opinion to the Lens’s analysis – if the process that resulted in marks like that had magical significance, he did not know what it was, but it seemed likely to offer some sort of powerful advantage, or else it would not be worth so prominently and obviously marking one’s agents.

Caleb had the same kind of scars. Essek could not study them closely enough to make an exact comparison, but the complex pattern was impossible to mistake.

Well. He’d thought that was most likely the case. All right. No reason it should upset his plans in any way, was there? No. Indeed, this was helpful confirmation, wasn’t it? Of Caleb’s cleverness, of his strength. Of his worthiness as an ally.

Caleb began shaping the clay, and Essek stepped back to stay clear. Without his coat or books, Caleb’s shoulders stretched and rolled within his fine silk shirt. He worked in large motions first, smoothing and shaping the clay, and then in smaller and smaller motions as finer detail emerged.

Verin sidled up behind Essek and quietly asked, “What happens if he leaves a fingerprint? Like, will it be on their d—”

“It’s symbolic,” Essek hissed out of the corner of his mouth. But now that Verin had pointed it out, it was impossible not to watch Caleb’s strong hands working the clay as an intimate act. Shaping another person’s body with the power of his magic and the sinews in his scarred forearms.

Caleb straightened near the end, gestures going wider as he drew the weave deeper under his sway. His left sleeve had come loose from its tuck at his elbow, and was flapping around his forearm. Essek hesitated, weighing whether it would be more disruptive to leave it or to help. He was just deciding to help, as it was what he would have wanted as a caster, when Caleb paused minutely, practically holding the entirety of this immense spell still in his left hand in a display of beautiful control. Essek darted forward, performing a lightning quick fold and tuck, and got a flashing look of gratitude before Caleb resumed.

And then he finished, and Essek felt the spell take. The weave surged to his bidding in a heady rush. Caleb took several big steps back, there was a breathless pause, and the tub exploded. Zev sat up, Veth cheered, and Caleb swayed on his feet.

“It worked, right?” Veth asked, hurrying to Zev. “Ooh, nice, can I see?”

Essek hastily turned his back on that, in time to see Caduceus approaching Caleb with a diamond flashing between his fingers. Ah, yes. Fair enough. Someone in his position probably couldn’t risk finishing out the day while carrying a degree of magical exhaustion. Even if all he ostensibly had on the agenda was dinner.

Caduceus cast, and a scented autumn breeze flowed through the room. Caleb inhaled and straightened. Some of the perpetual tiredness lining his face seemed to go, too, though not all of it.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said. “That reminds me, I picked up more diamonds for you today. They are in my coat. We should –” then he paused. Essek felt it too, the distinctive nervous pluck of a teleportation circle activating nearby.

Grieve headed for the stairs, gesturing Caleb to stay put. He was back just a minute later, while Zev was still exclaiming over their new anatomy. Three people came after him, and the volume in the room instantly quadrupled.

A blue tiefling flung herself into Caleb’s arms, kissing him soundly on both cheeks in coastal fashion. “Ohmygosh hi,” she said, practically lifting him off his feet. “I missed you. Ooh, this shirt is nice, well done, Caduceus. Caleb, Yussa says hi and he also misses you.”

“He did not say that,” Caleb said, embracing her just as fiercely.

She waved an airy hand. “It’s what he meant, I know these things. Ooh, were you just doing Veth’s spell? Wow, hi, I’m Jester. What did you get changed? . . . Really? Can I see?”

What was wrong with these people?

A half orc came and clasped forearms with Caleb. “Captain,” Caleb said with half a smile.

Another tiefling bounded up, whirled Caleb away, and kissed him squarely on the mouth. “Magic man!” he said. “Looking good. Who are the new people?” His eye passed over Essek, who took a reflexive step backwards.

Introductions were rowdy, and the resulting gathering, once everyone had trooped back down to the great room, was even rowdier. Zev was persuaded to stay for dinner after a quick scrub, and Beauregard and Yasha arrived to great fanfare and immediately set to making cocktails. Caleb scrubbed himself clean to the elbow, but otherwise remained in his disheveled court finery. He seemed happier than Essek was used to seeing him, though whether that was satisfaction in a great magical working well done, or pleasure in the company, it was hard to say.

They ate on the roof. This was not the original plan, but Jester suggested it, and so it must be done, apparently, in a rush of chaotic efficiency. Essek could have lent a bit of graviturgy to assist in moving the giant dining table, but it was frankly more entertaining to watch the ladies of the Mighty Nein brute strength it with Verin’s cheerful assistance.

“Why the fuck are we doing this in this tower,” Essek heard Beauregard complaining to Caleb. “You fuckin’ hate this tower.”

“My other tower can’t do this,” Caleb said confusingly, and pointed at the giant tree and the stars beyond.

A busy interval of shuttling dishes and place settings later, they sat down to dinner. Essek realized, with a swoop of amusement, that the party numbered twelve tonight. That would mean nothing here, but in the Dynasty that was the most common number to be seated at an intimate dinner, due to association with the Luxon. So Essek had suffered through many a twelve-person gathering in his time. None of them were like this one.

He did not manage to secure a seat near Caleb, but ended up between Jester and Caduceus. Jester was a frankly alarming table companion. She had a hundred questions – about Essek, about the Dynasty, about why he floated, about his taste in pornographic literature, about his choice in cosmetics. Caduceus was an island of calm quiet on Essek’s other side. Essek was in danger of developing a true fondness for him, not only for his silence, but for the hospitable way he kept Essek’s glass full throughout the entirety of dinner.

At least Jester was an absolute treasure trove of interesting information, when she could be prompted to reveal it. She blithely told Essek how their group had formed, with particular attention to Caleb. It was not at all what he’d expected. To hear her tell it, Caleb was posing as a homeless vagrant at the time. For what purpose, Essek could not imagine.

Jester then cheerfully regaled him with a hair-raising tale of piratical adventures, interspersed with an apparently relevant retelling of a sea battle from two weeks ago tonight, when they had faced off against the minions of a betrayer god’s creation.

“Oh, Essek, it’s okay,” she said, patting his hand. “You look worried. It’s fine, we’ll take care of it. Hey, Caleb!” she shouted down the table. “Do you think you can help us with Uk’otoa next school vacation?”

Half of the party broke off in mid-sentence and whispered “Uk’otoa,” with creepy simultaneity, then returned to their conversations.

Caleb gave Jester two thumbs up, and she beamed. “See? No problem. Hey, you’re a wizard, right? You wanna come?”

“No,” Essek said involuntarily, and made a hasty mental note to slow down on the wine.

Jester only laughed, unoffended. “Aw, Essek, you’re great,” she said, and leaned in to hug him around the shoulders. This was alarming, but not as alarming as her next statement, which was, “We’re going to be wonderful friends.”

“Here you are,” said Caduceus, tipping a bottle up over Essek’s glass.

“Thank you,” Essek said sincerely.

At least he would have an easy retreat, he thought somewhat dizzily. Essek was not an expert, but in his limited experience, he thought this party was headed inevitably towards whatever nonsense it was that happened in the hot tub. And Essek had already established his disinterest in any of that, thank you very much. So, until then, there was no harm in enjoying dessert – a dense chocolate torte brought from Nicodranas – and a glass of excellent brandy.

“You can thank Da’leth for this one,” Caleb said, leaning over Essek’s shoulder to pour for him. He didn’t offer to Jester, who had been drinking sparkling juice and milk all night.

“Ah man,” Beauregard said from down the table. “The only thing better than drinking Da’leth’s five hundred gold a bottle brandy was drinking Ikithon’s eight hundred gold a bottle wine. That shit was great.” She sighed reminiscently. “Tasted like justice.”

This provoked a chorus and raised glasses, and Essek toasted along. Caleb lingered behind him, not participating. Then, when everyone’s attention had moved on, he leaned down and murmured quietly, for Essek’s sensitive ear alone, “Did you enjoy the spell today?”

“You know I did,” Essek said.

“Excellent. What will that get me, do you think?”

“Mmm,” Essek said, pretending to think about it. In truth, he’d set Caleb loose on the fundamentals of graviturgy on Whelsen, and had been thinking of little else but getting back to it ever since. “There are a few things I can offer,” he said.

“I look forward to it,” Caleb murmured, and slipped away back to his seat.

And then things got out of hand so quickly, Essek was never sure exactly how it happened. Someone brought up last weekend’s game, because apparently people who didn’t even live here cared about that for some reason? And something was said far down the table that he didn’t hear, and suddenly everyone was talking at once, and Jester was bouncing in her seat.

“Ohmygosh yes!” she exclaimed. “Let’s go, you guys!”

And everyone was up and moving, including Essek, towed along like a balloon on a string by Jester’s arm hooked through his.

“What?” he said, as they thundered down the stairs.

“We’re gonna scrimmage, it’ll be so fun,” Jester said.

“I don’t think I know that word in Common?” Essek said.

“Don’t worry, you’ll figure out the rules,” Jester said ominously.

They all piled out onto the street.

“Hey, dude, you got a teleport in you?”

“Nope,” Caleb said somewhere ahead. “Teleport service shut down two glasses ago. Use your legs, Beauregard.”

“Man, we totally should call that fancy fucking carriage.”

“No, come on guys,” Jester chirped. “That’ll take too long. Show some hustle. What happened to the people who walked practically across Eiselcross?”

“Oh gods, don’t fuckin’ remind me.”

They headed towards the heart of campus at a brisk trot. Wasn’t it usually the students’ job to be drunk and disorderly on a Folsen night? Not a senior archmage and a highly-placed Cobalt Soul operative and – and whoever the hell the rest of these people were? And the Shadowhand, apparently, though he was at least still quite orderly, thank you. Come to that, they were attracting a fair amount of student attention, weren’t they?

Their ultimate destination was the field where last weekend’s game had been played. Jester cast a massive sphere of light so bright, it made Essek flinch back and Verin curse.

“Oh, sorry, guys. Here, I’ll turn it down.” She did, managing a light that was bright enough for everyone without dark vision, but didn’t give the dark-born a headache.

It was only then, as Veth attempted unsuccessfully to count heads, that Essek realized they intended to actually play that game.

“Oh no,” he said out loud. “I shall not –”

No one was listening.

“We have an even number,” Fjord was saying. “Don’t we need a referee? Let me rephrase that. We need a referee.”

“No problem,” Jester said brightly. She whipped around and shouted down the hood of her own cloak. “Arty! Com’ere! You’re gonna love this!”

And then someone new was there, someone with a great deal of red hair who made Essek’s fangs itch with the sense of strong magic.

“It’s just her Archfey,” Kingsley the tiefling said, swaggering by. “He’ll referee for us.”

“Her what?”

Fjord was appointed captain of one team and, for some reason Essek did not understand, it was universally agreed that this necessitated Veth captain the other. The two of them commenced selecting players, shouting from just five feet away from each other.

“Jester!” Fjord called.

“Fuck you, Arty better call it fair. Caduceus!”

“I really don’t –” Essek started, and missed several more selections.

“Lebby!”

“Essek,” Fjord said instantly. “You packing counterspell?”

“Um, yes?” Essek said.

“Great. Line up.”

“Zev! You do bard shit, right?”

“Yep. I can fuck you up with my penny whistle.”

“Perfect, you’re in.”

And just like that, Essek found himself lining up opposite Caleb and Verin, with Jester quivering in excitement at his shoulder.

“Hey, you got the ball? Give it to Arty. Ready on three!”

“Did anybody explain the rules to Arty?”

“—two! One!”

The field exploded into instant chaos. Essek froze momentarily, trying to process. Everyone was running; Beauregard had the ball; Beauregard was on the ground and Yasha had the ball; there were suddenly several extra Jesters, all moving in different directions; a cloud of butterflies briefly obscured the view; Kingsley was nicking his own arm with a blade, flicking blood into the air, and snarling in infernal, what the fuck was that?; Jester’s light spell went away then popped back up; Beauregard made an extraordinary leap and nearly snatched the ball out of the air, but at the last second Zev shouted something that sounded deeply sarcastic and Beauregard missed by a hair, swearing; Verin’s echo had the ball, for fuck’s sake, did he think this qualified as one of the Dusk Captain’s ‘emergency situations necessitating echo deployment’?

Play swerved in his general direction, and Essek skittered rapidly sideways.

All right, fine.

It was not the first time he’d thought it, and surely it would not be the last. If he was going to have to play this game that he did not want to be playing, by the Luxon, if he had to play, he was going to win.

Essek knew where his strengths lay, and they weren’t in the seething mass of combative bodies. He circled, squinting, and snapped a hand out at first sight of the bright red ball. It squirted out of Veth’s hands, momentarily ten times its proper weight, and thudded into the ground in a way that garnered several disturbed looks. But then Kingsley dove and came up with it, and Essek was so pleased with himself, he didn’t see Verin coming straight for him until it was almost too late to Misty Step.

He reappeared down the field, reorienting quickly. The crush of bodies had eased some. Veth was chasing a Jester who did not have the ball, though Essek suspected she was the real one. Verin was making rude gestures in Essek’s general direction while simultaneously sprinting at full speed. Beau and Yasha were either grappling or performing a sex act with their clothes on. A veil of thick, wet fog suddenly descended over the field.

“Ow, fucker, I’m on your team!”

“Whoops. Sorry!”

“Man, not the Marine Layer, knock that shit off.”

Someone dispelled it just in time for Verin to dash by Essek, apparently having acquired the ball somehow. Essek snapped a hand out, but his second attempt at graviturgy unraveled at his fingertips. He looked up, outraged, and made eye contact with Caleb clear on the other side of the field. Caleb winked at him. Essek hated being Counterspelled.

Right, then. If that’s how he was going to play it. Essek cast Resonant Echo, aware Caleb’s eyes were still on him and not giving a damn. He gave his echo silent instructions and turned his back on it. Confusingly, Veth had managed to score on her team’s goal. Play ground to a halt while the effect of this was ferociously debated.

The alleged Archfey ruled that it counted against Veth’s team, to vocal outrage. Play resumed, and the game acquired a dizzily vicious edge. Caleb obtained the ball somehow; he was heading down the field, looking for someone to pass it off to when Grieve seemed to appear out of nowhere and hooked an elbow around his throat, other hand smacking the ball free. Someone did something that made thunder crack in the clear sky.

Essek discovered to his dismay that he had to cancel his floating cantrip, which simply could not keep up with the pace required. He was quickly out of breath and, horrifyingly, approaching sweaty.

Fjord had the ball, Fjord was running. Essek saw Caleb preparing to cast something with one hand; he had clear sight of Essek and his other was poised to counter a Counterspell. Essek was honestly tempted to get into a Counterspell battle with him; he was wild to know which of them would win. But he didn’t have to. Essek did not think himself capable of winking, so he smiled blandly in the face of Caleb’s bafflement as Essek’s echo counterspelled from directly behind him.

Yasha scored by dint of getting the ball, manifesting a pair of beautiful wings, and soaring clear across the field and through the goal.

“Oh come on, how is that not a foul?”

“Fuckin’ hot, though.”

“Ruled permissible on account of style,” said the Archfey.

Kingsley did something that made Veth swear loudly and left a disturbing coppery tang in the air. Caduceus did something even more disturbing involving several thousand beetles coming to protect his goal.

Caleb ended the game rather definitively. Essek didn’t see him cast. All he knew was that he could see Caleb’s hair out of the corner of his eye, past where Beauregard was wrestling Fjord to the ground – presumably just because she felt like it, given they were on the same team. And then Caleb turned into a blue dragon. Play limped to a halt. The dragon retrieved the ball from Veth with a sinuous reach of its neck. The pop of the ball was almost quiet under the clack of those teeth. Then the dragon strolled down the field and settled itself behind the opposing goal, where it ostentatiously began grooming its belly.

Essek made a sound. It rose up out of the dark depths of him, and sprang loose from a mouth made careless by wine and exercise and confused exhilaration. It sounded like “Uuuuuunf.”

Distantly, he heard students cheering. His brain chose that moment to present him with the results of its feverish work over the past few days.

Ah.

Goodness.

Well.

And then Verin tackled him so hard, Essek spent the next ten minutes picking grass out of his teeth.

He was still furious about it half an hour later, after Jester’s alleged Archfey had crowned “Team Dragon” the winners; after Headmaster Margolin had appeared to order the students to disperse and notably not order the far more disgracefully behaving Mighty Nein and guests to disperse; after Caleb had definitively declined to turn back but had flapped off into the night with half his friends riding him as if that was at all a reasonable thing to do; after Essek had been forced to admit that he didn’t feel sober enough to Teleport and the two of them had begun walking home.

“Was that necessary?” Essek complained, attempting to stretch an ache out of his shoulder. “The game was over.”

“You had it coming,” said Verin, in the tones of someone remembering something from eighty years past. “And besides,” he added. “I was doing you a favor. If I hadn’t taken you out, you might’ve gone right over and propositioned a dragon.”

Essek did not actually fall out of his cantrip, but it was a near thing. “You are mistaken,” he said.

Verin flicked him a look. “I’m not,” he said certainly. There was a pause, and then he said in a far less playful tone. “I thought you didn’t, you know. Do that.”

“So did I,” Essek admitted. The truth was rather more complicated than that, but it was not worth getting into here. It certainly was true that he was shocked to find this . . . this desire. Flowering inside him.

“Wow,” Verin said quietly. “That’s pretty amazing, you know? You’ve waited nearly a century to find him, and here he is, on the other side of the Ashkeepers.”

Oh no. Verin’s romantic streak was legendary, and Essek would be damned before he allowed it to be applied to himself, in any capacity.

“It doesn’t mean that,” he snapped. “It’s not – he’s not extra special. It just means I’m unusually picky.”

Verin full on laughed at him. “Well sure,” he said. “If your type is men who can turn into dragons, it’s no wonder you concluded you didn’t have a type.”

Hmm. That was accidentally astute, actually. The dragon was not, itself, the deciding factor, though Essek could not for the life of him say what was. Power, of course, but that was too facile an answer. Essek had known plenty of powerful men in his life, a few of them even wizards. Some of them wizards that Caleb Widogast had killed. None of those men had made his blood burn inside him.

“Um,” Verin said diffidently. “I thought I’d mention. Since you don’t always notice these things. Or think they are important.”

“Yes?”

“He and Grieve have history,” Verin said. “Intense, sexy history, I mean.”

“Hmm,” Essek said. Now that Verin pointed it out, he could see it.

“Pretty sure it is history, though,” Verin said.

Essek sniffed. As if that would stop him now. No one had ever had occasion to call him a homewrecker, but he’d done far worse things for far smaller prizes.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Verin shrugged. “He has a lot of intense chemistry with, like, half his friends,” he said. “Hard to say what any of that amounts to. He’s an intense chemistry kind of guy.”

“That, I did get,” Essek said, thinking of Caleb’s narrowed eyes as he’d leaned in and talked of magic and souls and courage.

They walked in silence for several minutes. Verin kept sneaking looks at him, his brow slowly furrowing in deeper thought. It was charming, in a horrifying kind of way, that the implications of their conversation only now seemed to be occurring to him.

“Not to tell you your business,” Verin said eventually.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, no,” Essek said.

“But,” Verin said over him. “He is an assembly archmage.”

As if that would stop Essek either. No one, yet, had occasion to call him a traitor, and if he played this right, no one ever would. But he’d been prepared to do much worse things for a long time.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that,” Essek said, and was dismayed when that did not seem to put Verin off at all.

He was able to end the conversation when they got back to the guest house only when he closed his bedroom door in Verin’s face. He readied for trance – cleansing away his cosmetics, removing his jewelry, hanging up his disgracefully grass stained evening wear. And all the time he thought on it. The conclusion that his subconscious had cooked up and presented to him on a plate, after days of talking to Caleb and watching his mind work.

So what if Caleb wasn’t privy to Da’leth’s plans for the beacons, as seemed increasingly likely. That was no problem. Caleb was brilliant, and had all Da’leth’s resources at his fingertips. This could be so much better than the prior academic arrangement.

Because Essek wanted Caleb, shockingly, ravenously. Essek and Da’leth had worked reasonably well together, for two people who spoke infrequently. Essek had understood him and appreciated feeling understood in return. But what if it could be even more with Caleb? What if other kinds of intimacy could enhance their intellectual collaboration?

The problem with his arrangement with Da’leth had always been that Essek would need to hand the beacons over to him, then wait passively back in Rosohna to receive word of someone else’s work. It was nearly intolerable, but better than the alternative of doing nothing and living out the rest of his life with his questions unanswered.

What if, instead of that, he could bring the beacons to a different kind of partnership? A gift, to show his regard? Lovers did that, didn’t they? Caleb would understand his questions. Caleb would be equally curious.

Da’leth had, as plans firmed up, developed an annoying supercilious concern about the whole endeavor. “I am just worried for you,” he’d said more than once. “You are taking on a great deal. Are you sure you are ready?” Essek had gritted his teeth in the face of his doubts, and become ever more determined to carry off a flawless theft, to hold up his end of the bargain.

But Caleb, veteran of adventure as he was, wouldn’t see it like that. He would admire Essek’s cunning and courage. Essek could only barely allow himself to think around the edges of the things Caleb might do, might permit Essek to do, in gratitude.

It was very hard to compose himself to trance that night.

Caleb stayed on the roof after his Shapechange ran out and returned him to his tiny, ill-fitting human skin. Being a dragon was not like being any of the other creatures he tried. Big Blue was far more intelligent than a house cat or an ape, but it wasn’t just that. A dragon’s heart beat slowly and mightily, with a strength that suggested it could never break.

Various people went up and down as Caleb wandered the garden, slowly sobering up. Caduceus tended to some plants. Fjord came and prayed, then ambled over to talk to Caleb for a while about the latest skirmishes on the sea. Looking for reassurance that he was making the right calls, probably, though why Caleb was his choice for that was somewhat baffling.

Then he was replaced by Jester, who had changed into fuzzy pink pajamas with tiny pornographic cartoon animals embroidered all over, complete with matching robe and slippers.

“You like?” she said, giving a little twirl.

“Perfect,” he said honestly.

“You want a set?”

“Not really my style,” he said.

She hummed and came to rub her cheek on his shoulder, like an affectionate cat. “That’s okay. I wonder if Essek would like some.”

Caleb laughed. “Now that I’d pay to see.” There was something about Essek’s haughtiness that was, to the collective Mighty Nein, like raw meat to a wolf. They wanted to eat him alive, and had made a good start at it.

“I like him,” Jester said decisively.

“Me too.” Caleb sighed and closed his eyes. Of course he did. Essek was brilliant and beautiful and a little bit up his own ass about a lot of things. He reminded Caleb of Astrid, sometimes, though he suspected neither of them would appreciate the comparison. It was the ruthless pragmatism in them. And anyway, it would probably be best to stop comparing people to Astrid and Wulf.

Regardless, Caleb would also like a taste of that.

“I like that you’re making new friends here,” Jester said. “That’s a good thing.”

“Is it? You know what I’m doing here.” Trying to turn the whole massive, creaking edifice of the Cerberus Assembly onto a new, better course. And in so doing, trying to turn his whole, creaking self, too. The first seemed far more attainable a goal, somedays.

“You’re doing what you have to,” Jester said. “And you’re doing good.”

“Ah, but am I doing kind?” he said, then waved it away at her puzzled look. “Don’t mind me. I’m still a little drunk.”

“Okay, weirdo,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m gonna go to bed. I need my spells back so I can ask Essek about the pajamas.”

Chapter Text

The strangest aspect of living in Rexxentrum was not the food, not the daylight, not the proliferation of humans, but instead all the time Essek had at his disposal. He couldn’t conduct the more administrative aspects of his duties which left him, pleasingly, only with the research elements. Ideal, really. He was constrained without his full laboratory and library, but he was still making incremental progress on a dozen projects.

Even so, with only a lecture every other week, he found himself at loose ends for the first time in decades. He certainly could have been more engaged. Uludan bombarded him with invitations and requests, despite Essek rejecting or flatly ignoring them all.

Verin was certainly busy. He had clearly determined that Essek neither needed nor wanted his hovering, and that the risks were low on the limited occasions Essek went out. Verin had no apparent safety qualms for himself, as he had obtained a wide circle of friends and could be counted on to be out of the house for part of nearly every day.

The way he acquired friends like that, with no apparent effort, continued to seem mystical to Essek, just as it had when they were young. Verin gave him a funny look when he said so.

“Essek,” he said slowly. “You realize that you did the exact same thing? And that you also have friends here?”

“Well . . . yes,” Essek said. “But that’s different.” He was conducting necessary social overtures in service of larger goals, not – not whatever it was Verin did.

“Sure,” Verin said. “If you say so.”

Verin didn’t even know about Jester, who had taken it upon herself to be Essek’s friend whether he liked it or not. She started sending to him the day after they’d met, and kept it up with shocking verbosity nearly every day. It took Essek some time to come around to the idea that she was being friendly. Surely this was just more of the ‘hazing’ Caleb had referred to?

But she was just so damn persistent about it. And strange. And seemingly impervious to the fact that he did respond to her, as was polite, but never initiated. One day she would be lamenting the state of her latest artistic endeavor, the next she was waxing rhapsodic about dessert items, the day after that she was mournful that a particular intimate act she’d read about in some tawdry book was not physically possible.

“I’m afraid I do not have the relevant expertise to advise,” Essek said stiffly to that last, though really it could apply to nearly everything she said to him.

The whole thing had him feeling both harassed and charmed, and he did not know what to make of it at all.

Still, he had ample time around his other preoccupations to give serious thought to the question of how to get himself kissed. Essek had considered it carefully – initiating versus receiving – and had concluded that he preferred Caleb to act first. It felt easier. Essek had been the recipient of such advances several times when he was not trying to elicit such behavior. Surely it would come easily, should he extend himself.

And Caleb would be receptive, of that he was nearly certain. Looking back on it, Essek thought he might have failed to pick up a few hints in that direction already. Ah well. He understood now.

Essek’s certainty in this course did not waver under more sober consideration. Verin was right in one thing – this feeling he had, this hunger inside him, it was extraordinary. Essek had given up feeling like this a long time ago as a bad bet. Clearly it was not going to happen to him, and was that such a loss, really? He still wasn’t sure about that, but it seemed the height of foolishness not to follow this thread, wherever it may lead. If it were leading him to someone less intriguing than Caleb – less powerful, less brilliant – then there would be little point. Then again, if Caleb were less powerful or less brilliant, Essek was pretty sure he wouldn’t be feeling this at all.

Caleb, frustratingly, played along only so far. Essek dressed himself with exquisite care for their next exchange of magical ideas. He wore purple silk, gathered at wrist and ankle and waist, with his collar bones showing under the swooping neckline. And, most daring, he swapped out his usual solid silver earcaps for delicate platinum mesh confections that he’d purchased on a whim forty years before and never worn, not even once. They were decent from a distance, but anyone who got close enough to share breath with him would be able to see the outline of his full ear through them. They would have caused a minor scandal, had he worn them back home. Essek doubted that Caleb would even recognize this as the brazen declaration it was, but it made him feel bold to do it.

Essek did have to cast a minor illusion on himself to get past Verin without being the recipient of some truly insufferable commentary, but never mind that.

Caleb rewarded his efforts with a long, slow up-and-down look that felt like the next closest thing to being touched all over. He directed them to the sofa in his study with a fleeting brush to the elbow, and they spent the evening sitting knee-to-knee, having a marvelously stimulating conversation about graviturgy. There was an elicit thrill in teaching him things Essek was not supposed to teach. There was an elicit thrill in all of it.

When the night grew late, Caleb walked him downstairs, instead of summoning Grieve. The tower was dark and quiet, and Essek could pretend that they had it all to themselves, though he knew there were at least two adults and a small child upstairs.

Caleb took Essek’s cloak off the hook and swung it around his shoulders himself. Essek lifted his chin, blood rushing as he permitted Caleb to clasp it at his throat.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“And you,” Caleb said. “For a lovely evening. Can we do it again?”

“Yes, please.” Essek dared a hand to his bicep. “You are busier than I am. Consider me at your disposal.”

Caleb’s mouth quirked. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so bold,” he said.

“What if I’m telling you to be?” The shocking thing wasn’t how easily the wordplay came to him. This game he had never cared to play before, not like this. The shocking thing was how fun it was.

Caleb was standing close. There was only one dim magical light overhead. Essek didn’t think human vision was good enough in this light, but the mere idea of Caleb’s eyes on his ears made the hair of his undercut prickle.

“Then you are the bold one,” Caleb murmured. He brushed one fingertip down the back of the hand Essek had on his arm. “It’s my week with Leni, I’m sorry. Maybe Da’leysen, after she’s gone back to Astrid?”

“Of course,” Essek said, hoping he sounded gracious instead of frustrated.

And then the bastard turned him out onto the street into the care of one of the minotaurs, entirely unkissed. Barely touched. Shivering a little, as the cooling autumn air struck his heated skin.

Archmage Hass arrived for a brief visit, and Essek extended himself to attend an evening reception in his honor. It seemed wise to get the measure of all the archmages while he had the opportunity.

Hass seemed friendly with all his fellows, including Caleb to some extent. Essek found him pleasant enough in brief conversation. He was aware, the entire time, of Caleb in close conversation with Archmage Becke across the room, bright head bent politely to hear her as she murmured.

He was, therefore, somewhat distracted, and did not act quickly enough to squash Margolin when he asked Essek to come for tea the next day.

“I suppose I can make time,” Essek said, once it became clear that he couldn’t refuse short of a degree of rudeness he was not yet willing to offer Margolin and Hass.

He exited halfway through the reception, having gotten what he came for and at least one thing he hadn’t.

“Lucky,” Caleb murmured, brushing by him as he left. “I’ve got to stay another hour.”

“I shall sit and read a book by the fire and think of you,” Essek murmured back.

“Cruel,” Caleb said, with a laugh in his voice.

Tea with Margolin and Hass turned out to be tea with Margolin, Hass, and Uludan, which was the first of several unpleasant discoveries. The second was what the three of them were after.

Hass led the charge after only a few pleasantries. How was Essek finding Soltryce? Did he have everything he needed? Was Master Widogast proving to be an able guide? Very good. What did he think of their dear Master Widogast, by the way? He was very new to the job, you know, quite a strain on a young man, particularly one with such a “history of fragility.” Here Margolin smirked in a way Essek didn’t understand and really didn’t like. Essek’s perspective as an outsider could be valuable – what did he think?

Right. Essek had been handled by far more adept manipulators than these. Hass was making few bones about it, Margolin was petulant and -- Essek suspected -- deeply resentful. And Uludan said nothing at all, but sat hunched and pale in his chair, as if he really didn’t want to be there.

Essek played along, giving them bland observations and redirecting where he could. Master Becke was also quite young to be so elevated, wasn’t she? Interestingly, they seemed only secondarily interested in her. Was it just anger over the transfer of power? Essek didn’t know how involved Becke had been in that, but he found it hard to believe her hands were clean.

Hass made his real pitch after half an hour.

“It’s difficult, being so far away in Zadash,” he said, as if teleportation did not exist. “My colleagues write to me to keep me updated on events here, but of course we all feel we lack a certain perspective.”

“I see,” Essek said.

“I wonder, Shadowhand, if I could write to you?” Hass leaned forward, hands open appealingly. “I’d love to continue our conversation on that interesting little cantrip of yours.” Sure he would.

“I have much correspondence,” Essek said neutrally. “But you are free to write, of course.”

He extracted himself after another fifteen minutes. It took another twenty to get back to the guest house without looking as if he were rushing. Essek didn’t think he was being observed, but there was no point in sloppiness.

He did not think twice about what came next.

The moment he got home, he checked for scrying eyes, found none, and cast Sending.

“Caleb,” he said. “Apologies for the interruption. This is not an emergency, but I’d like to speak at your earliest convenience. It is an Assembly matter.”

Caleb’s response was a near whisper. He must be in company somewhere. “My tower at nine o’clock. You may teleport to the roof if you wish.”

Clever of him to foresee that Essek was trying to figure out how to get there with the least chance of being observed.

“Thank you,” he sent. “I will do that.”

Caleb did not respond.

It seemed inappropriate to dress with the specific intent of enticement. But Essek did take time over his coiffure. His hair did not like something in the climate of Rexxentrum; it was taking a great deal more effort these days to keep it orderly.

He did not have a teleportation anchor for Caleb’s tower, but he’d been on the roof not long ago, and that was apparently enough. He arrived exactly as intended, and was hesitating at the door to the stairs, uncertain whether to knock but very certain he didn’t want to test unknown wizardly defenses, when Grieve scared the life out of him by seeming to evaporate out of the shadows.

Grieve nodded silently, though Essek had the strong impression that he was pleased to provoke a startled jump. He escorted Essek down to Caleb’s study, and closed the door quickly on his own departure.

Caleb was standing at his desk, bent to write. He’d taught today, and was still dressed for it, though he had his sleeves rolled up. The strange network of scars looked redder in the amber glow of his dancing lights.

“Good evening,” he said, straightening. “What can I help you with?”

“Quite the opposite,” Essek said, taking the chair he was offered. “I hope to be of assistance to you, with some information.”

“Oh?” Caleb perched on the edge of his desk. Essek had the suspicion he was repurposing his mannerisms for interacting with troubled students during office hours.

“Some of your fellow archmages have attempted to acquire me as an intelligence source regarding you,” Essek said, and summarized the conversation for him. Caleb listened, a stillness taking over his body. “And so,” Essek said, opening his hands in conclusion. “Here I am.”

There was a long silence. Caleb stared down at the floor between their feet, not seeming even to breathe. Essek was just about to prompt him when Caleb jerked into motion. He twisted a ring on his finger, head cocking as he did something invisibly arcane. There were rapid steps in the hall, and Grieve appeared, not stopping to knock.

“Fetch Beauregard,” Caleb said. “She was working late tonight; she should still be close to the Zadash circle.”

Grieve departed at a near run. Interesting that she was his confidante in such matters, rather than Becke.

Caleb listened to him go, and they both twitched as a teleportation circle activated nearby.

“Excuse me a moment,” Caleb said. He turned to the fireplace and spoke a Zemnian phrase, gesturing in unfamiliar somatics that looked like another personal creation, if Essek had to guess. A tiny bead of light blossomed in the fireplace, and with a whomp became a blaze. It started as a normal fire, but when Caleb stepped closer and narrowed his eyes at it, the color shifted distinctly towards blue, and then white. Essek could feel the heat from all the way across the room. Caleb stood far too close for the duration of the spell. Essek couldn’t tell what he was doing, exactly, but he had the sense of active arcana in the room, as if Caleb was engaged with the fire in some way. At the end of a minute, the blaze suddenly leapt forth, expanding past the bounds of the fireplace onto the brick hearth. Which did look somewhat scorched already, come to think of it. Caleb’s shoulders jerked, as if taking a burden. His elbows locked, his chin jutted forward. And with a surge of power and a fump, the fire compressed down to a tiny bead again, and was gone.

When he turned around, his face was calm. Essek composed himself to polite attention.

“Better?” he asked. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand the impulse. There had been an entire decade of his life when he’d teleported out to the wastes at least once a month just to cast a Dark Star. He’d never told anybody about that.

Caleb looked a little shame-faced, which Essek didn’t like. “I should not have cast that,” he said.

“I don’t mind.”

Caleb shook his head. “No, I mean, it’s not a finished spell. There’s an imbalance in it, a risk that the fire might slip my control. I apologize.”

“I do not mind,” Essek said again, surprised to find it true. It was a messy, frightening business, working at the bleeding edge of magical invention. He liked his risks a little more contained than Caleb did, apparently, but he understood.

“I am trying,” Caleb said, setting each word out carefully, “to move past my first impulse, which is generally not suited to the circumstances these days.” He paused, considering. “Nor is my second, in this case.”

The teleportation circle activated again before Essek could respond. There came footsteps – more than two people – and Beauregard strode in, Grieve and Yasha on her heels.

“’Sup,” she said.

The fire was out, but the fireplace still radiated a startling heat. It was interesting to watch Beauregard’s uneasy reaction to that, and Grieve’s interested one.

“Essek,” Caleb said. “If you wouldn’t mind repeating what you told me?”

Essek did, nearly word-for-word.

“Right,” Beauregard breathed. Her eyes were fastened to Caleb. “Here we fuckin’ go again.”

“Ja.”

“What’s the play?” Essek got the sense she was asking a different question, but he didn’t immediately understand what.

“Plan A.” Caleb extended one finger, professorial. “Make an example of one of them. Uludan is the obvious choice.

Beauregard rolled her eyes in the face of this bloodthirsty declaration. “Let me guess, you want to drop his body on Margolin’s doorstep? You’re such a fucking cat sometimes, you know that?”

“That would be the unsubtle way,” Caleb said. “Or it could be made to appear a suicide. I think the message would be understood.”

“And the part where the king asked you, all nice like a personal favor, to stop killing archmages?”

“Thus, the subtle way.”

“Uh-huh.” Beauregard looked tremendously unimpressed. “What’s plan B?”

“Plan A, but swap in Margolin for Uludan.”

“Uh-huh,” Beauregard said again. “Why not just go to the source? You know it’s Hass pulling the levers here.” She paused, pretending to remember something. “Oh, right, I forgot. He liked your cat, so you kind of almost like him, even though he’s guilty of the exact same crimes as Margolin.”

Essek stirred in his chair. “What crimes are those?” he asked softly, trying to get a handle on what seemed like an intense overreaction.

Beauregard glanced fleetingly at him. “Do you want the short list of actually provable crimes under Dwendalian law, or the longer list of, like, all the bad shit?”

“Longer, please.”

She kept her eyes on Caleb as she spoke. “Well, assume all of these are somewhere in the realm of accessory to. There was the torture, child sex trafficking, murder, nonconsensual magical experimentation on live subjects, sexual exploitation of adults, ‘unethical’” – her voice made the word a sneer – “use of mind-altering magic, extra-judicial imprisonment. I could keep going, but we’d be here all night.”

Essek’s stomach rolled unpleasantly. If the headmasters were accessories, then . . .

Caleb stirred restively. “Is this you talking me out of plan A? It’s a novel approach.”

Beauregard waved dismissively at him. “Dude, no. I’m not your conscience. You’ve got one of your own and it works just fine. And plan A and plan B are bad plans, and you know it. I’m just reminding you of the stakes.”

“I do not forget them,” Caleb said, with a sudden, dangerous edge.

In a way, Essek was relieved to see that the Firebrand did truly exist, somewhere under all of Caleb’s soft-spoken curtesy.

Beauregard rolled her eyes in the face of his temper. “Okay, then. Great. Can I hear a Caleb plan and not a Bren plan?”

“Excuse me,” Essek said. “Has it occurred to either of you that the purpose here might be to provoke a reaction?” That got everyone’s attention. “I’ve been seen in your company a fair amount. They had to assume there was a risk I would come straight to you about it.”

“He has a point,” Beauregard said.

“I am aware.” Caleb jerked into motion and paced once across the room and back. “I believe I misstepped last Folsen, pulling out Big Blue like that. Margolin was watching, and he needs periodic reminders of the new order of things. But that might have been too much.”

“I think it may be the case that they are trying to provoke you,” Essek said, working it through. “Uludan looked very much like he might be expecting plan A, come to that.”

“Oh, relax,” Beauregard said. “He’s not doing plan A. He’s just being a dick about it.”

“I could go to Yussa,” Caleb said slowly. “Call that one plan E, if we skip ahead.”

“How much influence does he have over Hass, though? We were never sure of that.”

“More to the point, I find it unlikely he will want to get involved at all. He and I. It’s increasingly awkward for him.”

“Yeah.” Beauregard sighed. “How fast they forget. You pull a guy’s ass out of the fire twice, and the next year he’s like Mighty Nein who?” She jabbed a finger at Caleb. “It would also be helpful if you stopped fucking every available powerful ally, I’m just saying.”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t, in this case?” Caleb said, spreading his hands with an innocent look. Essek couldn’t tell whether he was lying or not, and he thought Beauregard couldn’t either, to judge by her scowl.

She turned her attention to Essek, and he scrambled to compose his face. “Plan F, you play along with them.”

“Certainly,” Essek said, having anticipated the request. “I am willing, though I am not familiar enough with the dynamics here to do so without a fair amount of additional context.” Not really true, but he refused to act as a lowly agent. He would be an equal, or nothing.

“Plan G,” Caleb said. “I spend a lot more time in Zadash. Or Astrid does.” He sighed in sudden weariness. “I am so tired of this.”

Beauregard’s look was sympathetic, her punch to the shoulder less so. “Chin up,” she said. “Long road ahead.”

Yasha spoke for the first time, her mismatched eyes on Essek. “That was nice of you, to tell us,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Essek shook his head. “It was not a hard decision,” he said honestly. He might not have a full grasp of the dynamics here, but if push came to shove, he knew where he would place his bets. He glanced at Caleb. “Margolin called you ‘fragile,’” he said. “I nearly laughed in his face.”

He’d meant it as a compliment. And it was true – there was something absurd about Margolin with his soft hands calling rugged adventurer Caleb ‘fragile,’ of all things. It did not land that way. There was suddenly an odd discomfort in the air. Beauregard shifted on her feet. Grieve and Yasha looked in opposite directions, and Essek could not even begin to understand what was happening on Grieve’s face. Caleb went blank for a moment, then smiled insincerely.

“So . . . plan F?” Beauregard said into the silence. “With maybe some plan G sprinkled in there? What’re the odds you can get Astrid to go?”

“Eh,” Caleb said, one hand wavering in the air. “She won’t like it. But she is less tied down than I am, at least when Leni is here.”

“Yeah. Good luck with that, buddy.”

Caleb sighed again. Clearly this was another tangle he was very tired of. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said to Essek, “could you slow walk Hass? Ignore his first letter, perhaps? Respond to the second, but be coy?”

“Yes,” Essek said. That did seem the best way to play it. “I imagine he won’t complain to get information about you. But if it is not the primary objective, he may not be insistent.”

“Oh, it’s not,” Caleb said. “You’re right about that, on reflection. It can’t be. He already has all the information he could possibly need to ruin me.” He turned to Yasha and Beauregard. “I’m sorry to interrupt your night. Would you like to be returned to Zadash?”

“Nah, we’re good here.” Beauregard slipped an arm around Yasha’s waist. “You cool?”

“As I ever am.”

Essek remained seated while Caleb walked them out. Grieve stayed in the doorway, clearly unwilling to leave Essek alone in this private sanctum. Caleb dismissed him with a touch to the back when he returned.

“I won’t take much more of your time,” Essek said, once Caleb had shut the door. “I just have an . . . unrelated question. May I use this?” He gestured to the stack of fresh paper and ink on the edge of Caleb’s desk.

“Of course.”

It was time to take another calculated risk. Essek sketched quickly. He was no artist, but any child of the Dynasty knew how to draw this.

“I just wanted to know,” he said, and slid the paper across, watching Caleb’s face. “Do you recognize this?”

Caleb did, that was immediately obvious. Essek’s pulse picked up. “I do,” Caleb said, leaning forward. But he did not say any of the things Essek had expected, like ‘that’s a beacon,’ or ‘so now we are getting to it,’ or even ‘how does one acquire this?’ What he said was, “I saw representations of that in Aeor.”

Essek stammered a moment, stuck between ‘you went to Aeor?’ and ‘you saw what?’

“It’s a long story,” Caleb said, smiling bemusedly at him. “One we do not have time for right now. But yes, I saw images that looked like this. We didn’t know what they represented. I take it you do?”

“I do,” Essek said. “And I would like to tell you about it. But you are correct, it is late.” Caleb all but pouted at him. Turnabout for Halas, Essek hoped he realized.

“Cruel,” Caleb said. He sounded admiring. Essek liked it.

“Indeed,” he said. “In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you could destroy that.”

Caleb silently lifted the paper, folded it in quarters, tossed it into the air, and incinerated it with a snap of arcana so quick and so fierce that practically no ash rained down.

“Ah,” Essek said, dry-mouthed. “That will do, yes. Good night, Caleb Widogast.”

The Soltryce library was, of course, entirely lacking in dunamancy resources. It was otherwise a passable collection, though, so Essek spent a fair amount of time there, following his whims in various intellectual directions. It had been a long time since he’d had the freedom or the interest to develop his skills in other schools. Now he had the time and the freedom, and he found himself surprisingly interested.

Caleb had published two papers in the past year, one on his Transmogrification and one on some speculative ways to stabilize a demiplane. At least, the paper claimed they were speculative. Essek made a mental note to inquire further. He could find no other publications under the name Widogast, Caleb or otherwise. It was as if that excellent mind had sprung forth from nothing, fully formed, a year ago. What was Bren’s surname and, more importantly, what had he published?

Essek was thinking rather intensely about that as he headed home across campus, and he was so preoccupied that he very nearly walked into the center of a student duel. Only a sharp cough from his minotaur guard alerted him in time. At least it wasn’t Verin, who would never let him live that down.

There were three students engaged in an escalating conflict smack in the middle of the path. Two humans and one half elf, all male-presenting in the Empire style. It seemed to be a three-way disagreement, rather than two-on-one. As Essek approached, a bit of posturing and shoving had just escalated, and the first spell – a poorly-aimed frost cantrip – flew.

Essek opened his mouth, then hesitated. If this were the Marble Tomes, he would end this with his mere presence and a few pointed words. Here, though . . . he was quite well known on campus at this point, but he did not exactly have authority in so many words. Someone would have to intervene, though.

He dithered, which was all right because none of these children were particularly quick on the draw. Just as Essek was deciding that he must act as the adult on the spot, there was a sparkle of arcana, and a Dimension Door disgorged two people directly in front of him. Ah, excellent. That hair was unmistakable.

Caleb stood in the path, hands on hips, while Grieve waded into the conflict. None of the miscreants had the presence of mind to see him coming, so he’d cracked two heads together and caught the third by the scruff before they knew what had hit them.

“Well, gentlemen?” Caleb said into a panting silence. “What do you have to say for yourselves?” Essek came up alongside him, elevating his float and bringing to bare every bit of judgmental authority he possessed. Caleb acknowledged him with a flick of the eyes.

All three miscreants began speaking at once, then cut off abruptly as Caleb raised one hand.

“On second thought,” Caleb said. “I do not care to know the particulars. I know that you have broken school rules, that you potentially endangered your fellow students, and that you have made a disgraceful display before our Kryn guest. My annex will escort you to the Headmaster, who will deal with you.”

Essek glanced at him, a little surprised. He had the strong impression that Caleb was deeply engaged in the running of the school, including student discipline, and that he regularly performed Margolin’s functions because he wanted to, not just because he disliked Margolin. On closer inspection, Essek did not like the look of Caleb. Essek was no expert, but there was something off about his color, and the pinch around his mouth wasn’t just displeasure.

One of the young people Grieve was not holding onto moved, hands coming together. Grieve was closest but occupied. Essek reacted, and his and Caleb’s counterspells struck simultaneously, with enough force to rock the miscreant’s head back and make his eyes roll. Served him right; what did he think an Expeditious Retreat was going to do here? Caleb seemed to know every student on sight.

“That,” Caleb said quietly, “Was a very poor decision. It will cost you. Quite possibly your place here. Go quietly with my annex, or I will incapacitate you and he will drag you. Your choice.”

All three went quietly. Grieve and Caleb had a silent conversation as they all trooped sullenly by, which left Grieve scowling fiercely at his archmage. Caleb waved him away, his mouth pinching further. He waited until they turned the corner out of sight and the path was momentarily empty, then his shoulders dropped and he staggered where he stood.

Essek hissed an alarmed exclamation, reverting to Undercommon, and caught him by the elbow.

“You are hurt,” he said, scanning Caleb up and down. Had one of the troublemakers managed to land a spell on him? It seemed incredibly unlikely that they would have dared to try, let alone succeed.

“Nein.” Caleb’s jaw flexed. “Just a small . . . medical inconvenience. I was about to head home when Wulf saw –” he gestured in the vague direction of the nearest tower, his sentences disjointed. “That’s my office at the top there.”

Essek frowned at him. The lines on his face were deepening as they spoke. “May I assist you?” Caleb seemed to have regained his balance, but Essek kept hold of his elbow just in case.

There was a brief pause, and then Caleb quietly said, “No teleporting.”

Why? “All right. May I escort you, then?” It was at least a fifteen-minute walk.

Another pause. “I don’t suppose,” Caleb said slowly, “that you have a means of invisibility at hand? I do, but if I cast again right now, it will be . . . unpleasant.”

“I do,” Essek said. Footsteps and voices were approaching in the distance. “Shall I cast on you?”

“Please. It would be best for me not to be seen in this state.”

Essek did, then drew Caleb’s invisible hand through his arm and nodded aloofly to the pack of students that clattered by.

“Shall we?” he asked when they were gone.

He could not speak much on the walk, unless he wished to be observed talking to empty air. So, they were mostly silent on the way. Caleb seemed only to be able to manage a slow stroll, not his usual vigorous pace, and Essek found himself overtaken with unaccustomed fretting. Halfway there, they turned onto a path facing directly into the late afternoon sun. Essek winced, aware of Caleb hissing in pain beside him. He reached up and extended his Dark Umbrella several feet in every direction.

They both sighed in relief when they reached the dim entryway of Caleb’s tower. Essek dismissed his minotaur shadow with a gesture.

“Thank you,” Caleb said. “If I could impose on you a little more?”

“I told you, I am at your disposal,” Essek said. It felt different in his mouth now.

“Could you Send to Caduceus, please? He is probably at the top of this damn tower.”

Essek dropped the invisibility to do so, and nearly fumbled his Sending. Humans definitely were not supposed to be that gray color.

“Caduceus,” he said hastily. “Caleb is unwell at the base of the tower and requests your presence.”

“Oh dear,” came the slow-voiced reply. “I’m at the market. I am coming. Keep him in dim light, and he may want a cool cloth. Or not, sometimes hot--”

Essek felt bolstered by even these contradictory instructions. At least someone knew what to do.

“He’s coming from the market,” Essek relayed, and winced at the way Caleb slumped. “Would you like a bit of graviturgical assistance up the stairs?”

“Best not,” Caleb said, looking grimly up the first flight. “The Dimension Door was bad enough.” He climbed with dogged grimness to the third floor great room. Essek stayed close, following him across the dim room to the most comfortable looking sofa. Caleb sat, then slowly melted sideways so his cheek was flat on the cushion. He pressed his fingers hard to the inside orbit of each eye, breathing out slowly with a visible effort at control.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “It came out of nowhere.” There was a tremble of something in his voice that Essek couldn’t identify. It made an odd feeling well in his throat.

“Shh,” Essek said. The drapes were already mostly closed, but he went and finished the job. “Is this – I do not know the word in Common. A headache, but more?”

Caleb huffed. “Ja, that is a good way to put it. Migraine,” he added after a pause. “That’s the word. I thought – I thought I was done with this.”

“Would you like a cool cloth or a hot one?”

“Cool. Thank you.”

Essek at least knew where the kitchen was, and could wet a towel for him. Caleb hadn’t moved at all when he came back, still folded awkwardly sideways on the sofa with his feet on the floor. Essek hovered over him for a moment, nearly used Prestidigitation to smooth his flyaway hair, and stopped just in case even that small use of magic would cause more pain. He brushed it back instead with his bare hand and laid the cloth over Caleb’s creased forehead and closed eyes. A shocking thing to touch someone else’s hair, ungloved, even.

“Is there anything else I may do?” He wanted to help Caleb get more comfortable, maybe assist with his boots, but didn’t know how to initiate such a thing.

“Nein.” Then, on a slow exhale. “You do not need to stay. If I am keeping you.”

“Nonsense.” Essek sat delicately on the edge of the sofa a few feet from him. “I will stay until Caduceus comes. I will be quiet now. Tell me if there is anything I may do for you.”

The silence was a relief. Essek’s experience of caring for someone was limited to helping a few students limp from the Marble Tomes casting grounds to the cleric, and some dim recollections of Verin suffering under the usual early childhood illnesses. Caduceus’s instructions and a bit of deductive reasoning were all he had here. They seemed paltry, particularly in light of the terrible lines carved around Caleb’s mouth.

It took Caduceus ten minutes to return. Essek heard his footsteps; Caduceus was not actually running, but this was the fastest Essek had ever known him to move. He paused at the door to set down his bags, then hurried across to them. He was carrying a peculiar staff, which emanated a greenish glow.

“I’m here,” he said, dropping to his knees. “Can you talk?”

“Ja.”

Essek was about to stand and excuse himself, but stopped at what Caduceus said next. “Did you cast Mind Blank this morning?”

“Ja.”

“Good. Recall the exact circumstances, please. I know you can. Think about where you were, what the exact time was. What did you see? What did you hear?”

Caleb exhaled. “Ja. I – Leni was playing on the floor behind me. She was singing – that song about cats, you know the one. It was 7:12. I cast. I am certain.”

“Good.” Caduceus had the mien of an instructor, not a healer. “And do you have any reason to think it was dispelled?”

“Nein.”

“Would you like me to check anyway?” More gentle now, his ears tilting attentively.

“Ja. Bitte.”

Caduceus cast Detect Thoughts, his staff glowing. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “It is still there.”

Caleb breathed quietly for a moment, and then said again, “I thought I was done with this.”

Caduceus shook his head, though Caleb couldn’t see him. “Your body learned to make this pain to tell you of another, far worse injury. It does not know how to stop now that he can’t hurt you anymore. I think we must thank it for trying so hard to keep you safe, but tell it no, that is not necessary. And maybe one day it will listen.”

“Are you,” Caleb said, breathing an incredulous laugh, “trying to talk to my nervous system like you talk to the basil plants?”

“Hmm?” Caduceus said, pushing to his feet. “No, certainly not. The basil talks back. Mr. Essek, would you mind giving me a hand?”

Essek stood quickly, glad to receive a task. “What do you need?”

“If you could bring my bags in? Thank you.”

Essek did, and by the time he made it into the kitchen, Caduceus had a kettle warming and was judiciously measuring from half a dozen tins of powders. He plucked a single spiny leaf from a clay jar far on the highest shelf of the cabinet and added that as well.

“This will take a few minutes,” he said calmly, and pushed a squat glass container across the counter. It was full of an odd candle with seeds embedded in the pale yellow wax. “Can you take this to him? Light it and have him breathe the smoke. Try not to get much yourself.”

Essek obeyed, and was glad to see Caleb already propped up on an elbow waiting for it. It seemed just the conversation had done him some good.

“Here,” Essek said, and set the candle to hover a few inches from his nose. “How’s that?”

Caleb inhaled several times. “Danke.” He worked his way upright again, and Essek moved the candle with him. “You have been very kind.”

Essek twisted his hands together. That was not something he could remember ever being accused of. And it had an edge of dismissal about it. Caleb probably did want him to go.

“I am glad to have been of service,” he said. It was true. There were many reasons for that, not all of them altruistic. Did that still make him ‘kind?’

Caduceus came back with a teacup in hand. It smelled truly awful – acrid like burnt tar. “Here we are,” Caduceus said. “Let’s see if we can get you on your feet before Miss Leni comes home.”

“I’ll leave you to that,” Essek said, and slipped away.

It was not the first time Caleb was overpoweringly glad that Leni had three parents. He genuinely didn’t know how two parents were supposed to manage, particularly when they lived apart. He’d never asked Veth about it. It seemed unkind, given the terrible circumstance that had fractured her family for a time. He’d never asked Astrid and Wulf for the same reason. But he did wonder.

He was more or less upright when Yasha brought Leni home from an exciting afternoon at the zoo in Zadash. In theory, Leni ought to have been worn out. This was rarely a fruitful theory.

He got through dinner all right. The pain was down to a manageable level as long as, say, no one shrieked in his ear in a tiny piping child’s voice. But he could still see jagged lines at the edges of his vision whenever he turned his head, and everything felt just that little bit out of sync with his senses.

It was a bath night which, unfortunately, did involve a great deal of shrieking in a piping little voice. Wulf took over for most of that. Caleb laid down on the carpet runner in the hallway outside the bathroom and listened to them through the door. He didn’t fall asleep, but did zone out a little, vaguely tracking the splashes and Leni’s laughter and Wulf’s quiet Zemnian rumble.

They came out eventually, Leni pink and clean in her nightgown, her hair still dark with damp.

“Vati,” she chided, standing over him. “Why are you on the floor? Papa says your head hurts.”

“Ja, hase. I am on the floor because my head hurts.”

She plonked herself down on his stomach, apparently figuring that part of him was fine. Caleb oofed, and tensed his core. Beauregard could make her jiggle up and down using stomach muscles alone. He was not about to manage that, but he could at least defend his internal organs.

“Papa is going to read your book tonight, okay?”

“Yeah.” She bounced a little, apparently trying to replicate Beauregard’s trick, and he stilled her with a gentle grip. “Will you do talk-a-day?”

“Of course. Go with papa now, please.”

She did, and he dragged himself upright in time for the end of the story. He took Wulf’s place sitting on the edge of her bed and went through her whole day with her. Thoroughly, though perhaps with a bit less flair than usual. Leni had been fascinated by his memory for months now. She loved asking him questions about finicky details of times and places – what day, exactly, did he move into this tower? What time had Yasha come last week to pick her up on Conthsen? What precise minute had Leni been born?

Caleb answered the questions, deferring to Astrid or Wulf where he had to. He thought it made Leni feel safe, for some reason, to have this information at her fingertips, and to go over it again and again. Never mind that speaking of her birth, which he had not attended due to impersonating a vegetable in Vergesson at the time, left him aching. He had never held her as a newborn, never touched her tiny fingers, never seen her first smiles. That was a loss he would carry under his ribs for the rest of his life.

Of course, there was an irony there. Had he not been in Vergesson, had Astrid and Wulf not been grieving him, they likely would have terminated the pregnancy. They’d never said so, but he knew pregnancy had never been of interest to Astrid, and bringing a child into their relationship – into their lives – had never been discussed because it was so obviously a poor idea.

That was assuming they would have been allowed to end the pregnancy. In his more paranoid moments, Caleb wondered. Was it truly an accident? Or did Ikithon have a hand in it, as he did so many things? Had he decided, for example, to institute a sort of Volstrucker breeding program? There was a ghoulish precedent, after all.

No. Stop. Speculations like that didn’t help anything at this point. Except to reenforce his certainty that he would never, as long as he lived, fully extricate himself from Ikithon’s web.

Caleb completed the nightly ritual of kisses, and then Wulf did, and then they waited while Caduceus came and fulfilled his part. Caleb closed her door at last, head aching, cracked heart feeling dangerously overfull like it often did in this strange new life.

Wulf caught him by the arm and steered him inexorably away from his study and towards bed.

“Will everyone line up to kiss me, too?” Caleb asked. He was a little loopy, apparently.

Wulf grunted in amusement at his nonsense. “Depends,” he said. “Does everyone include the Shadowhand?”

Damn.

“That,” Caleb said on a long sigh, “is a really good question.” Was it fair to ask Wulf’s opinion? He really didn’t know.

Time was, navigating a three-person relationship had seemed easy. It was not peaceful, rarely that. But from day to day, it had been simple to be angry, or jealous, or desperate, and to love anyway. It was only now, when they were three people who had a child between them and still loved each other so much, but couldn’t be together anymore, that it seemed so hard. Maybe they had just always solved their problems with sex, and now that was off the table?

There were worse problem-solving tools, honestly.

“He wants you,” Wulf said matter-of-factly. Okay, they were going to talk about this, at least a bit.

“I know.”

“And you want him.”

“I know.” Not like that was a great surprise. Wulf knew how he was. Affection came easy, stayed long. And he had been deliberately celibate for most of a year now. That was not the longest stretch in his adult life – Vergesson could claim that. But it probably didn’t help.

Essek was beautiful, and smart enough to make Caleb’s mouth go dry if he thought about it too hard. Essek was complicated, in ways yet to be revealed but that Caleb could sense just under the surface. How much more complication could Caleb’s life take? Then again, at this point, would it really matter to add more?

He wished, more than anything, that someone would just take this choice out of his hands. Or, if he were imagining impossible things, what if someone took even just one of the many other difficult choices away from him? One of the endless military problems, say. He could think more clearly about Essek, then, and a choice that was potentially far more pleasant than anything else currently under consideration.

Alas, that wasn’t how power worked.

Wulf left him in his bathroom to wash up and change. It was embarrassingly early, but he was probably right. And perhaps Caleb’s insomnia would cry mercy under the lingering grip of the migraine.

He could hear Wulf quietly leaving on some errand or other. Caleb had no idea what, but was certain whatever it was would be important or helpful. Wulf was an extraordinary annex. An extraordinary friend.

Astrid had been furious when Wulf had broken in on their oblivious scheming to inform them that no, he would not be doing any of the things they were planning for him. He would be Caleb’s annex, and that was that. She was still furious, Caleb was pretty sure. For himself, he’d known Wulf would wisely refuse an archmage position if offered, but he hadn’t at all expected to be the beneficiary of Wulf’s talents. He was unspeakably grateful, even when it was hard to have him so close every day. To touch, but only in careful, correct ways. To sleep under the same roof, but in separate beds.

Caleb had been profoundly shocked to discover, years after the fact, that Astrid and Wulf were no longer together. He’d just assumed they were the whole time he was on the run after Vergesson and then on the road with the Nein. He’d been angry with them both, of course. And he’d been profoundly hurt by their collaboration in one of Ikithon’s worst lies. But he’d also been wistful to think of them, and feared for them, and been glad that they still had each other. Finding out that they didn’t – that Astrid had moved out of the house the three of them had shared when Leni was eight months old – shook him to the core.

“Of course,” Wulf had said, the one time they spoke of it. “We were balanced for three. We fell, with only two.”

Wulf returned as Caleb exited the bathroom, hair loose over his nightshirt. The errand had apparently been fetching Caduceus’s next bitter brew. Caleb accepted it silently, pinched his nose, and threw it back. It had a sickly undertone of rotted flowers, which meant Caduceus had taken surprising mercy on him and was willing to medicinally ensure a good sleep.

“Danke.” Caleb sat on the edge of the bed. He didn’t even have it in him to reach for his book on the nightstand, let alone read it. “Can I ask what you think?” he said to the opposite wall. “Of Essek?”

Wulf made little sound as he moved around the room, adjusting the drapes and fetching another blanket. “I’m not sure I like him,” he said at last. “But I’ve never liked anybody who looked at you like that, aside from Asa.” Very true. Bren had other lovers sometimes, a few purely for pleasure, many contentious to one degree or another. Astrid’s jealousy was long and slow and unforgiving. Wulf’s was hotter, more likely to end in the bedroom, and to improve everyone’s mood in the end.

Then again, it wasn’t like he and Wulf and Astrid were purely for pleasure, either. They were for survival.

“Also,” Wulf added, heading for the door and definitively not stopping to kiss him good night, “have fun telling Astrid about him.”

Caleb slumped dramatically onto the pillow. “I take back every nice thing I just thought about you,” he said.

Chapter Text

Essek initiated a Sending conversation with Jester for the first time on Folsen. It was largely self-interested, to pander to his curiosity. Though to some small degree, her persistence had worn him down, and now he found himself almost looking forward to her bright voice in his mind as much as he dreaded it. She was so entirely unlike any other person he’d ever met.

All of Caleb’s friends were like that, to some degree, even those he’d dismissed at first: vivid, peculiar people who somehow seemed more real than others did.

“Jester,” he said, while seated at the vanity in his bathroom. “Caleb had a migraine yesterday. I do not know if he is recovered. Perhaps best not to Send to him right now.”

“Oh no!” Jester’s response was immediate and heartfelt. “It’s been so long, we thought maybe they’d stopped. Give him a big hug for me, okay? And pet his hair, he likes –”

Essek sighed, amused and frustrated. He should have known better than to try to maneuver information out of her in twenty-five words or less.

“—can better than Caduceus.” Jester burst back into his mind mid-flow, apparently just Sending at random as she talked. “Anyway, you should join our club! The Trent Ikithon Is the Worst and Deserves His Spot in the Hells Club."

That actually sounded like the end of a sentence, so Essek jumped on the opportunity. “How intriguing,” he said. “Does this club have meetings?” At which the members murdered archmages, perhaps?

Jester, predictably, did not reply to that. Essek had the impression he was one of her many correspondents, and she was often running low on spells. Essek schooled himself to patience until Da’leysen, when he could return to Caleb’s quiet study and they could spend a stimulating evening of intellectual companionship.

Those plans went up in smoke late Da’leysen afternoon when the man himself Sent.

“Pardon the interruption, and my rudeness. But I am commanded to attend the dance hall tonight, on threat of Beauregard. You could join me there?”

Well, damn. That was not a quiet, private study suitable for intellectual intimacy. How was he supposed to effectuate his pursuit at a dance hall, of all places? What did one even do at a dance hall? Aside from the obvious, which he would not be partaking in.

Essek responded quickly, per the spell’s demands. There was only one answer he could come up with on the spot. “I can do that. May I teleport to you first?”

That turned out to be excellent planning. He had not left academy grounds much and didn’t relish getting lost, but it turned out he could also passively let Verin assume he was heading out for a quiet evening in Caleb’s tower, so he had no conspicuous minotaurs or nosy baby brothers in tow. There was a strange glee in that. Essek had never tried such tricks to evade supervision as an adolescent – he had never needed or wanted to – but if it was this thrilling, that did explain some things.

That left the vexing question of what one wore to a Rexxentrum dance hall. Essek considered a gown, but ultimately decided against it. It was rare for men to wear gowns here, and he thought perhaps it signified some things he would not intend to, so best not. He settled for gray trousers and a deep blue silk wrap tunic over a shimmery silver underlayer. It gave him the opportunity to ask Caleb, who met him on the roof of the tower, “is this appropriate?” with a gesture that invited one of those looks that felt like Caleb putting his hands all over him.

He got it. It was surprisingly hard to stand still beneath it.

“Yes,” Caleb said. He himself was rather smart in black trousers and a gold-embroidered waistcoat, with his books at his sides, of course. “Come. We will walk, if you don’t mind.” Caleb touched his waist, as if to guide him, his hand startlingly big and warm.

It was just the two of them to start. Grieve had other plans for the evening (and apparently no fear for his archmage in such a setting, so there, Verin), Caduceus had declined the invitation, and Beauregard and Yasha were set to meet them there.

“I’m sorry, again,” Caleb said, ducking his head sheepishly. “Leni went back to Astrid today and my friends are under the impression I need feeding and watering and exercising, or some such. Beauregard would not be denied.”

“I understand,” Essek said. It was even true. He may not have any friends in Rosohna who would drag him out of an evening, but Verin was occasionally guilty of the same sort of aggressive care. “And I don’t mind. I’m curious to see this place.” That was a bit more of a stretch, but a forgivable one, under the circumstances.

The dance hall was not what he’d been expecting. Essek had been picturing something like a public ballroom. Perhaps a bit more crowded and inebriated than the parties he was accustomed to, but essentially that. He was not expecting a large, loud, hot room with wooden tables all around a scuffed dance floor – wood, not stone – and a group of musicians playing unfamiliar music in a corner.

“Quiet tonight,” Caleb said inexplicably, and led him to a table in the corner where Yasha awaited them. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Ah—” Essek looked dubiously over at the bar, willing to bet they did not have Xhorhasian plum brandy.

“I’ve got you, Princess,” Beauregard said, plunking down drinks for herself and Yasha and turning right back around to the bar. “Don’t let this guy order for you, unless you’re way more interested in malt beer than I bet you are.”

“Aspersions,” Caleb said, unruffled. He pulled out a chair for Essek and sat close beside him, their knees touching under the small table. “You all right?”

Essek realized he had been staring around with perhaps too much bewilderment. He’d heard of non-Kryn styles of dance, of course, but never seen any himself. It was true they danced in pairs here, rather than in groups of six or twelve or a higher multiple. There was something approaching scandalous about it, the way two people moved face-to-face, touching each other at waists or shoulders or, in a few startling examples, pressed close enough to touch all over.

“Just taking it in,” he said.

“Different than what you’re used to in Rosohna?”

“Yes,” Essek said. In the sense that he genuinely couldn’t picture what the Rosohna equivalent would look like, though that was probably more about the life he lived than societal differences. Come to that, was this the caliber of establishment that could reasonably expect to boast an assembly archmage as a patron? He suspected not.

Beauregard brought him a glass of pale gold wine that he wouldn’t have chosen for himself, but liked quite a bit. Caleb got a tall hammered metal cup full of dark foamy beer. The table got a basket of piping hot twists of bread studded with chunky crystals of salt. Essek liked those, too, particularly when dipped in a grainy mustard sauce strong enough to sting the sinuses.

“There you go,” Beauregard said. “Now you’ve eaten Rexxentrum bar food.”

Essek had not, before then, spoken to Yasha much at all. He extended himself a bit to try, and ended up in the unusual situation of drawing answers out of someone even more reserved than he was. To hear her tell it, Yasha was Beauregard’s partner, a homemaker for them, and a regular caregiver for Caleb’s daughter. To hear Beauregard tell it, Yasha was one of the fiercest and greatest warriors to walk Exandria.

“All true,” Caleb stage whispered.

The ladies got up to dance. Essek braced himself, expecting to have to put Caleb off. But Caleb looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment, then sat back in his chair without asking.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Essek said. “You are, yes?”

“Oh, yes. It would be hard to miss if I weren’t. As you saw.” Caleb ducked his head. “I’ve been meaning to say – you were very kind that day. Thank you.”

“It was no trouble.”

“You seemed to recognize it?” Caleb asked.

“Oh, sort of. I have a –” Essek ground to a halt in a linguistic tangle. “Hmm. If there are words in Common for this, I don’t know them. A . . . former relation of my Umavi, she was afflicted. I saw it once, briefly, when I was a child.”

Caleb tipped his head. “Are your family structures that different, then? To need such different terms?”

“They are,” Essek said. “That is, you have parents, yes? Grandparents? Siblings? With a presumption of biological relation, usually?”

Caleb’s face went still the way it did sometimes. “Other people do, yes,” he said. “I do not.”

Essek very much wanted to inquire about that, but it would clearly not be welcome. “We do as well, but these relationships are subordinated to . . . another method of organizing society. Sometimes to the point of mattering not at all.”

“So when you said Verin is your brother . . .”

“I meant it in the Common sense you are familiar with.”

Caleb opened his mouth, then shut it quickly when Essek gave a small head shake. He should not have followed this topic even as far as that in public.

“I’d like it if you told me more about that sometime,” Caleb said, instead of any of the questions he obviously had.

A pack of young people approached them, hanging back a few feet until Caleb acknowledged them and waved them forward.

“Ah-ha,” he said, grinning at them. “If you lot are quiet in seminar tomorrow, now I’ll know why.”

“What about you, professor?” a dwarf asked. “You’re out on a Da’leysen night, too.”

“Ah.” Caleb wagged a finger. “But I’ve done the reading. Miss Felene.” He addressed a human girl so petite, Essek thought she was even shorter than him. “I will hand back essays tomorrow, but I wanted to congratulate you on a truly excellent paper.”

“Oh.” She flushed under his regard.

“Indeed. I have not stopped thinking about it.” His smile turned crooked. “Your reward is that you should come prepared to discuss it with the class tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said, in an entirely different tone.

“Now that I’ve put a damper on things,” Caleb said cheerfully, “don’t let me ruin your evening.” He waved them all away, shifting his chair so that they would not be in his eyeline. “It’s a great paper,” he added to Essek. “She intuited a fundamental axiom of Shapechange years before she will be able to cast it, if she ever can. Impressive stuff.”

“What will she do after graduation, do you know?” Essek asked, thinking of one of Caleb’s many prodding questions during lecture.

“Ah.” Caleb took a long swallow of beer. “She is steadfast in her desire to serve the Empire. If Astrid gets her way, which she usually does, Miss Felene will spend several years in apprenticeship with her in order to join the ranks of a particular program which does not, officially speaking, exist.”

“You mean the Scourgers.”

“The Volstrucker, yes.” He narrowed his eyes at Essek. “You disapprove.”

“That is hardly my place,” Essek said. He had actually been attempting to square shy, reportedly brilliant Miss Felene with the hardened, nationalist zealot who had died in the Dungeons of Penance eight years ago. Had Caleb known that woman? Better question: had Bren? “And I am not about to cast aspersions upon her career choice,” he added, giving Caleb a significant look.

“Ah.” Caleb looked unsurprised to have it addressed. He nodded to himself with a twisted sort of smile. “But that is part of the point, you see. That she gets a choice in the matter.”

Essek frowned at him. “Are you saying you did not?”

The smile got stranger. “I have been told that I did not,” he said. “By people who were not there. Occasionally, I believe them. Mostly, I think that is not really true. I did make choices, constrained as they were. Had I been smarter, wiser, I would have seen the ways I was led. Would have cared. I was not. I did not.”

Essek’s stomach gave that uneasy flip again, like it had when Beauregard made her recitation of crimes.

“Miss Felene wants to serve her country. But she will not need to think of such things, fifteen years from now,” Caleb said, with a quiet ferocity that took Essek aback. “If Volstrucker must continue to exist, which is a premise I have a number of unpopular opinions on, then that is the least Astrid and I can do for her.” He took another gulp of beer, and emerged from it with his more usual smile. “But here I am, putting a damper on your night as well.”

“Not at all,” Essek said. He very much wanted to ask any one of his many questions, but even if Caleb hadn’t just closed the door on them, some instinctive danger sense was telling him not to.

He startled as Caleb’s arm came suddenly around the back of his chair. “Ah,” he said, not sure whether to lean into it or to bridle at the familiarity.

“I beg your pardon,” Caleb said quietly in his ear. “You are receiving some unpleasant attention.”

Essek glanced around, and immediately spotted two human men staring at him with hard faces from four tables away. Caleb was looking back, one eyebrow arched with a touch of arrogance. Any one of those men had twice his physical strength, surely, but Caleb’s visible conviction that he wasn’t concerned did seem to be making an impression. One of them gave Caleb a second glance, a third, then hissed something to his compatriot with a look of realization, and the two moved off with some haste.

“Has there been much of that?” Caleb asked, removing his arm just as Essek was deciding that he liked it where it was.

“Less than I expected,” Essek said honestly. “Though I imagine that’s in part because I don’t really leave academy grounds.”

“Ja. You are not the only drow in Rexxentrum, but certainly not a common sight.” Nor a welcome one, to a certain stripe of Dwendalian nationalist. “I am pretty well known, locally speaking,” Caleb said, and waved at his hair. “You are likely safe with me. But, ah, perhaps best not to venture far by yourself.”

“You think I can’t handle matters?” Essek asked, one eyebrow raised.

Caleb gave him a frank look. “On the contrary, I am certain you can. But who wants the bother, ja?”

“True enough.” That was one reason Essek had stopped wearing his mantle everywhere. His arcane capabilities were apparent at a glance without it, and that served as an excellent deterrent. Apparently, being in the company of the Firebrand could also do it.

The ladies returned from an energetic dance that Essek had been not watching too closely, given how handsy it got. Caleb went to the bar for the next round, obtaining exacting instructions from Beauregard on Essek’s wine before he did. No money was changing hands between the friends, but Essek had no idea what the protocol was regarding that. There were conflicting imperatives here – he was guest, but also eldest.

He decided to ask outright when Caleb returned, framing the question as one of cultural interest.

“Ah,” Caleb said. “A good question. You could get a variety of answers from a variety of people on what is appropriate. Suffice it to say, Beauregard and Yasha and I have gone beyond concerns of who might owe whom a few gold long ago. If either of them needed the coat off my back, she would have it.” There was a brief diversion as the ladies expressed incredulity that any garment of his could fit their musculature, which Caleb endured with a pleased little smile. “Anyway,” he continued, once he had been adequately mocked for his ‘noodle arms,’ “I invited you, therefore it is appropriate for you to allow me to buy you drinks.” He paused briefly. “To be clear, if you wished to, ah, set me on the back foot, as it were, you could refuse and insist upon paying. There could be nuance in how you did so – you could be gently setting a boundary, or putting me ungently in my place.”

Essek had the sudden conviction, out of nowhere, that Caleb liked being put in his place.

“I see.” That was close enough to what he was used to for easy understanding. He smiled benignly and did not reach for his money pouch.

Caleb seemed to know many people, some to nod and smile at, but many by name. He stuck to Essek’s side throughout the evening, though, politely declining several invitations to dance. Essek couldn’t help feeling warmed in the circle of his attention. Like the sun without the burn.

The dance hall heated further as it filled. Caleb eventually took his waistcoat off, leaving him in black from head to toe, which did striking things to his shoulders and his shining hair.

Essek, who could not remove a layer without feeling unacceptably bare, Prestidigitated a series of cool breezes for them. “I almost wish I’d gone with my first impulse,” he said absently.

“Hmm?” Caleb was leaning back, sipping on his third or fourth beer, and more relaxed than Essek had seen him since that ridiculous scrimmage.

“Oh, I nearly wore a gown tonight, is what I meant. It would not have been fitting, though, not here.”

That got Caleb’s full, focused attention. “Is that a preference of yours?” he asked interestedly.

“Yes, but.” Hm. How to explain the cultural nuance here when he had only the vaguest understanding of what the Empire view might be? “It doesn’t mean what I think you might imagine. It’s an aesthetic choice, not uncommon amongst men in the upper dens. Not intended as a statement of identity, at least for me.”

“Ah. I think I see.” He considered a moment, chin in hand. “One of the few things I know for sure about your people is that you are matriarchal. That is made much of here, in some circles.”

“I am aware,” Essek said. The Empire was all but obsessed with the fact, with an interest that seemed nearly pathological.

“Is it overly simplistic of me to think that young men wearing gowns flows from that?” Caleb asked. “Putting on the vestments of power, that sort of thing?”

“No, that is probably part of it,” Essek said. “I didn’t think about it like that when I was younger. I just liked it.” The swirl of a full skirt, the shape that could be created with the right garment. “A similar thought did occur to me, as I grew. And I don’t indulge as much these days.”

“No?”

“There was . . .” Essek hesitated, then schooled himself to stop biting his lip. “From the umavis – the matriarchs, there was a sense I didn’t like. An isn’t that cute.” An indulgent amusement at children playing Dressup who never had the slightest chance of touching the real vestments of power.

Caleb nodded immediately. “Ja, I can see that really chafing. For you in particular.”

Essek flashed him a look, but no, that wasn’t a jab. That was understanding.

“Also,” Caleb said, his voice low and intimate between them. “If you ever choose to grace us with a gown, I assure you my reaction will not be to pat you on the head.”

“Oh.” Essek swallowed. “I shall take it under advisement.” He looked out to the scandalously dancing pairs until some of the heat on his ears had subsided. “May I ask an impertinent question?”

Caleb gave him an interested look. “We have done enough of that, I think, to presume good intentions by now, ja?”

“Yes, I hoped so.” Essek worried his hands together under cover of the table. He’d backed himself into this corner, now he had to figure out how to ask something he’d been thinking on practically since they met. “You, ah. Many of your countrymen have rather . . . fixed views. Of my people. Of a matriarchy.” He checked Caleb’s expression, which remained open and attentive. “But you do not?”

“Ah.” Caleb nodded to himself, and took his time considering. Essek had learned by now to pay special attention when he paused like that. “You have seen Astrid,” Caleb said eventually. “She has always preferred to dress in a masculine style. It is her preference, but also, I think it is important because---” he sketched Astrid’s small frame in the air with his hands “—it has been hard for her, sometimes, to be taken seriously. I did not see that when I was younger, either. And if she can do that, then why can you not wear what you like?” He paused again, then shook his head. “But no, I am obfuscating. The real answer is, there was a time I thought all those things I’m sure you’ve heard. That you likely expected of me. I believed them entirely. Your people, bestial and threatening, but also simultaneously weak, led by women. My people, strong and righteous, the owners of all land under the sun.”

“But you do not think that now,” Essek pressed. It seemed suddenly urgent that he know. Not just what Caleb thought, but how his mind had changed.

Caleb shook his head. “I do not. I try not to. I believed many things at that time. Some of the most important turned out to be lies, and rotten from the inside out. So now I must question all of it. I am forever discovering things that I didn’t know I thought, and holding them up to the light, and finding them vile.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” Essek said honestly. He’d never undertaken such an exercise, and saw no reason why he ever would.

“Sometimes.” Caleb flashed a startlingly easy smile. “Travelling with the Nein did much of the work for me. I had seen the world before – the Empire from end to end and most of the coast. But I saw it again through new eyes. My friends eyes. That went a long way. And it is not so hard now. I can just ask myself, ‘would it make Jester sad if you said that out loud?’ and that sorts many things out.”

“Ah, yes, I imagine that is quite effective,” Essek said. He didn’t know what his face was doing, but whatever it was made Caleb laugh.

“So she did get to you,” he said. “She said she would Send, but I never asked what came of it.”

“Yes, she and I . . . chat,” Essek said. Just that evening, she had burst into his mind while he was getting dressed for this engagement and asked him a rather concerning question regarding his knowledge of maritime law and what exactly qualified as piracy.

He relayed that to Caleb, who evinced far less concern than Essek thought reasonable. Beauregard was even worse. Essek was pretty sure it was part of her vocation to uphold the laws, but her only response was, “ooh, sounds fun.”

The four of them did not quite close the dance hall down, but it was well after midnight when they left. The place had emptied substantially, including Caleb’s students who, their professor said cheerfully, were more responsible than he was. Essek found himself, with some chagrin, a touch more inebriated than intended. He’d even forgotten to count his glasses of wine, a habit so engrained from endless court functions that he wouldn’t have thought it possible.

The brisk night air sobered them all up a bit. The ladies split off halfway back to campus, calling cheerful good nights. And then it was just the two of them again, walking quietly in the dark.

“May I see you home?” Caleb asked. “Best not Teleport, I think.”

“Indeed.” Feeling bold again, Essek took his arm. It was pleasant to glide along beside him. Essek looked up at the stars as they went, allowing Caleb to guide him. The constellations were just enough different on this side of the Ashkeepers to be interesting. They talked softly about that, comparing names and interpretations.

At least until they had passed through the brighter lit central portion of campus and were approaching the Candles. Caleb stopped abruptly at the transition from one path lit by magical glass globes to another left in darkness. Essek heard the skitter of steps, and saw fast motion out of the corner of his eye. Caleb extracted his arm from Essek’s, freeing up both of their casting hands, and stepped in front of him.

“Henrik?” he said. “Is that you?”

Essek held still for a moment, not liking the tension in Caleb’s back. Then, as the silence spooled out, he stepped up close behind him, set a hand low on Caleb’s spine, and peered around his arm.

“On the left,” he murmured, spotting the shape of a person with his better dark-adapted eyes. “About twenty feet from us, next to the tallest tree.

Caleb directed his next comment in the right direction. “Did you come to speak to me?” he asked, with something of the snake charmer to his voice. “I am glad, if so.”

There was another long silence, then a voice came back to them. Essek thought young when he heard it. “I don’t want to talk.”

“No?” Caleb was keeping his hands open and empty, spread at his sides, nowhere near his components. Essek was still tucked behind him and felt no such compunctions; he spun his focus on his finger. The problem was, what to have ready? “I would very much like to talk to you,” Caleb said. “Perhaps over a meal. You have been living rough, ja? You must be hungry. Less food this time of year, not even much in the garbage. I know how that is.”

There was no pause this time. “Why did you have to kill him?” Essek could not name that emotion.

Essek still had a hand on Caleb; he felt the shake in his inhale. Caleb’s voice was rock steady, though. “Because he had hurt more people than I will ever be able to account for. Including me. And you.”

“But if you hadn’t,” said the young voice, snapping now as if angry. “If you hadn’t, it would have been okay. I could have done all the things he said I would do. I wouldn’t have executed my -- them for nothing.”

“Ah.” Caleb spoke with utmost tenderness. “I am sorry, but you are wrong. It would not have been okay.” He let the silence ride for a few moments, then said, “Let me help you, please.”

The still shadow boiled to life all at once. Essek counterspelled, Caleb counterspelled. It didn’t matter, because there was no magic at play, just someone running into the night with all the speed of terror. Caleb took several running steps, then slowed and stopped. It was clearly pointless.

Essek didn’t speak Zemnian, but he could recognize swearing when he heard it. He let Caleb get that out of his system, then said, “what was that?”

Caleb said a few more choice Zemnian words, then turned on his heel and came back to Essek. He looked exhausted, all the lively energy from their evening gone.

“That,” he said, “was the young man we saw at the game a few weeks ago. He is one of the last . . . loose ends from the old Volstrucker program.” He shook his head. “A survivor of it. He graduated, so to speak, a few weeks before I removed Ikithon, and wrecked his tidy world.”

“I see,” Essek said. “And you are trying to . . .?”

“Rehabilitate sounds insulting,” Caleb said. He began to walk again, and Essek followed along. “And yet, accurate. I almost had him,” he added on a rush. “He keeps popping up. He says he doesn’t want to talk, but then he talks, just a little bit. One of these times, if I can just say the right thing.”

“Hmm,” Essek said, trying not to show his skepticism. He had spent several miserable decades sure that all he had to do was say the right thing, and unhearing ears would miraculously open. It had never happened. But that wasn’t fair, was it? The circumstances were wildly different. And Caleb did have a silver tongue on him, there was no doubt of that.

“Anyway,” Caleb said on a long sigh. “We were having such a lovely time. Sorry.”

“We can have a lovely time again,” Essek said. “In fact, I insist on it.”

“Do you?” Caleb looked down at him, mouth quirking. “I’d like to see that, I must admit.”

“What, me insisting?”

“Exactly. You do it so well.”

“Oh.” Essek didn’t know anybody else on the whole of Exandria who found that part of him appealing. Caleb wasn’t lying though, he was certain. “This is me,” he said, as they arrived at the front path to the guest house.

Caleb walked him all the way to the door. Essek wondered if, absent that rather alarming interruption, this might be the time when he was kissed. It didn’t seem likely now.

Caleb touched his shoulder. “Good night,” he said quietly, and defied expectation, as he so often did, by leaning in and lightly kissing Essek’s cheek, very nearly the corner of his mouth.

“Good night,” Essek said. His hand fluttered up to touch his face without stopping to ask permission.

“Do please insist whenever the mood strikes,” Caleb said. He touched Essek’s shoulder again, maddeningly respectful, and slipped off into the night.

Essek went inside and didn’t turn on any lights. No need to disturb anyone unnecessarily. The house was dark and quiet, and he met no one on his way upstairs to his suite.

“Good evening,” Verin said, scaring a century straight off him.

Essek swore poisonously at him in Undercommon, unclenching the fist he’d made around his focus. “You’re lucky I’m tired,” he said. “I could have lightning bolted you until you danced.”

Verin was seated in an armchair in the small sitting area at the front of Essek’s suite, his legs crossed in a casual pose, his blade on the low table in front of him and the scent of polish in the air. He didn’t smile at Essek’s threat.

“Good night with Widogast?” he said.

“ . . . Yes?” Essek said.

“Exciting magic stuff?”

Essek sighed and crossed to the inner room, where he shrugged off his tunic. “What do you want?”

“Not much,” Verin said. “Just to let you know that a message came through that little box of yours.”

“Oh?” Essek came back to the doorway. “What did it say?”

“I don’t know, it was sealed.”

Essek turned right back around and headed for the box, left out on top of his desk.

“Which made me think it was important,” Verin said to his back. “Maybe time-sensitive. So I thought I’d bring it to you at Widogast’s.”

. . . Ah.

Somewhere in the depths of Essek’s mind, a voice that sounded a great deal like Jester Lavorre sang bus-ted!

He carried on to his desk and extracted the note. It was, indeed, sealed personally by the Dusk Captain. Essek checked for scrying on reflex, then broke it open and read quickly. He was expecting any number of problems, the greatest of which would have been an early summons back to Rosohna. His entire body rebelled at the very idea. But no, this wasn’t nearly so dire. One of the enchantments on the Dungeon of Penance was generating chaotic temporal effects – MORE THAN INTENDED, that was – and his expertise was requested.

Essek hunted around the desktop for his quill, before remembering he’d left it in the sitting area. He swore again when he turned around and came face-to-face with Varin, who had silently come up close behind him.

Verin held out the quill.

“Thank you,” Essek said, reaching for fresh paper appropriate to addressing the Dusk Captain.

“Well, at least you smell like a bar,” Verin said, taking a step back. “That’s a relief.”

“What?” Essek said, thinking on two tracks as he wrote a salutation. “Where did you think I was?”

“I didn’t know,” Verin said. Then, in a mild tone, “are you defecting?”

Essek ruined his letter with a jagged stroke of ink, then spattered the desk in an arc as he whirled around. He was on his feet, so Verin had nearly six inches on him. Which was suddenly very apparent, as close as they were standing.

“What?” Essek said. And then immediately wondered whether he should have said no right away. Was it suspicious that he hadn’t? Could he say it now? How was it possible for it to be so complicated to say no when the answer was, in fact, no? Fuck.

“You have been behaving very strangely,” Verin said, in a clinical tone that Essek had never heard from him before. “Pursuing Widogast. Allowing him and his circle all sorts of things you normally wouldn’t. Coming here in the first place.”

“It’s not that out of character,” Essek said, nettled.

“Yeah,” Verin said quietly. “It really is.”

“So you thought, I don’t know, the only explanation is defection?”

Verin looked away from him, and the pressed thin line of his mouth wavered. “You have been so unhappy,” he said lowly. “For so long.”

“I—” Essek did not know what to do with that. It seemed like a wild exaggeration around a kernel of truth.

As was this entire conversation. Essek’s whole body prickled hot, then cold, as the danger of this finally came home to him.

He collected himself, lifted his chin, and looked Verin in the eye. “I am not defecting,” he said clearly. “I will swear it by whatever you like.”

The breath went out of Verin on a whoosh. “Okay,” he said, shoulders dropping.

“Sometimes people do things that are out of character,” Essek said. “And I seem to recall a time when you did nothing but tell me I needed to get out of the Lucid Bastion more. Now I have, and this is what I get?”

He thought he might have laid it on a bit too thick, but no. Verin’s face fell, and he reached out to grip Essek’s shoulder. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. Damn it. Essek almost felt bad.

“Forget it,” he said firmly. “I know I intend to. And anyway, what were you thinking?” he added, turning back to the desk. “Coming in here to throw that at me? If I was actually some devious double-agent, that was a terrible plan, what were you going to do?”

There was a small silence, and then Verin said, as Essek was pulling over a fresh sheet of paper, “I was going to tell you that I couldn’t help, but that if you needed me to . . . look away, one time, to tell me when.”

Essek stopped, struck to the soul of him. His brother, his uncomplicated, upright, cheerfully devout brother, bending the very core of himself to offer that.

“I,” Essek said, then stopped to clear his throat. “That’s . . . sweet? I think? Entirely unnecessary, but.”

“Yeah, well, forget it,” Verin said. Then, just when Essek thought this terrible interlude was over, “so to be clear, what you were actually doing was sneaking off without any backup to get tipsy and make time with Widogast?”

“Go away,” Essek said icily.

“You gotten anywhere there yet? Oh-ho, getting fresh, is he?” Essek snatched his hand away from his cheek.

“I have important correspondence with the Dusk Captain,” Essek said. “Regarding national security.”

“I bet you like his beard,” Verin said. Essek gritted his teeth. “And that whole rugged professor thing he’s got going, huh?”

“The lightning bolt is still available,” Essek said, and Verin went out laughing.

Caleb had taken to graviturgy like a natural. As would be expected of someone with an imperial education, he had never received any firm grounding in the physical laws of the universe. Which was shoddy, to Essek’s mind; Soltryce did not teach dunamancy, but surely any practitioner – any person interested in how the universe worked – could benefit from knowing these things.

Essek had given him the basics, then set him loose. Immovable Object was immediately comprehensible to him, which was unsurprising. Indeed, Essek suspected that a transmutationist of his caliber could offer differing perspectives on it that would expand Essek’s own understanding. Magnify Gravity had given Caleb more trouble, as it relied on frames of thinking he was unfamiliar with, but he proved himself to have an admirably flexible mind. They had moved on from there, Essek with some caution, Caleb full-tilt into the unknown.

He did not have the same reaction to Chronergy. Certainly it was more esoteric, and not immediately rewarding for the beginner. They had touched on it several times. They must, as achieving an understanding of the relationship between gravity and time was key for both disciplines. And Caleb did master Gift of Alacrity with relative ease. But there was always a hint of hesitation in him on those topics. Essek didn’t understand it. Caleb was certainly smart enough to have extrapolated the great and terrible things that could be done when one meddled with time, but Essek simply couldn’t believe that would put him off.

So he was moderately surprised to come into Caleb’s study on Whelsen night to find the chalkboard taken up, on one side, by an idiosyncratic method of expressing the nature and degree of time distortion as the result of different strengths of gravity, and on the other side, by an attempt at reverse engineering Resonant Echo. It took Essek a moment to figure out how Caleb even knew the spell existed. Oh, right. Essek had cast it in thoughtless peak in the middle of the scrimmage. Well, that was a cautionary tale if he'd ever seen one.

The work was good. Startlingly so. Not enough to get him there, at least not on this try. But looking at it, Essek became aware of something. It was a knowledge that seemed to arrive in his body before his mind. Caleb had the makings of an excellent dunamancer. The kind of dynamic, creative, brilliant practitioner that Essek had been waiting and waiting and waiting, fruitlessly, for the Marble Tomes to produce.

Caleb entered on his heels. “Good evening,” he said. “Wine? Tea? Something else?”

“Mmm,” Essek said.

Caleb came up behind him. “Oh no,” he said. “None of that is done.”

Well, if he didn’t want Essek to look, he should write in a secretive notebook like all the other paranoid wizards.

“And it won’t be,” Essek said, gesturing at the Resonant Echo half. “You’ve made a wrong turn here, though an interesting one.”

“I suspected so. I just got curious.”

It always felt strange, teaching people that spell. He had done it only rarely, of course, and each time it was both thrilling and infuriating to share this thing he had made. Watching Caleb attempt to understand it tipped the balance towards thrilling.

“There’s a speech given to young dunamancers,” Essek said. “Meant to instill caution. It’s rather beforehand, if you ask me. Most of them don’t have access to the sort of power, starting out, that could get them in any real trouble.” He cut a pointed look at Caleb, who most certainly did.

“Is this dangerous?” Caleb asked, sweeping a hand at his work. He sounded mildly curious, no real worry there.

“This? Not that I can see. Nor is the spell, performed correctly. The speech, as given to me, included talk of higher level chronergists who meddled in what they shouldn’t have and did things such as erasing themselves wholesale from the timeline, down to their parents never having conceived them.”

Caleb’s eyebrows rose. “An interesting thought,” he said. “And conveniently impossible to prove.”

“Indeed.” Essek smirked to himself. That had been his reaction, too. So it wasn’t existential caution weighing on Caleb. He’d thought not.

“The point is taken, though,” Caleb said. “I, well. If I had found you three years ago, I would have done just about anything for this magic. It was all I wanted. All I stayed alive for.”

“But you don’t want it now,” Essek said. He kept being taken aback by the way Caleb spoke of himself. He had changed radically, to hear him tell it, and over astonishingly short periods of time. Essek didn’t think this was just an artifact of his short human life. It made Essek a little vertiginously dizzy to think on it too closely, remaking the self like that.

“Oh,” Caleb said with a little laugh. “Don’t mistake me, I do want it. It is fascinating, as you well know. It’s just that my goals have changed. Forcibly, out from under me, when I found out I have a child. But this –” he gestured at the board “—makes me think on that. Possibilities. Change.”

Essek wasn’t sure what to do with that. He had never felt the desire for children. It often came slow and late to his people, or not at all. He’d heard tell that it could change your thinking profoundly, but had no experience, and was baseline skeptical of claims that this or that would change a person. The Luxon clerics said that to commune with a beacon was to be changed. They meant something specific, a bend towards worship, and Essek had felt no such thing.

He took two steps to the left. “This, though,” he said, gesturing at the other calculations. “You are onto something here. We use a different style of notation, but you have more or less reproduced a calculation commonly done by rising beginner dunamancers at the Marble Tomes.

“I didn’t believe you,” Caleb said, in tones of a confession. “You are extraordinarily accomplished, but some of the things you said so casually. I had to work it out myself.”

“Fair enough. May I?” Essek erased one line and supplied his own notation, then made an insignificant correction further down.

“You have been telling me,” Caleb said slowly. “Without using the words. You have been saying to me that time is subjective, yes?”

“Yes. I think relative is the best word in Common.”

Caleb nodded. “That took me a while to grasp, since it’s so far from my experience. He tapped his temple. “I have a pretty good time sense. Eerily good, I’ve been told. And it does not seem to matter what state I am in. Sick, drunk, in motion, at rest, exhausted. I can still just—” he ticked a finger in the air metronomically. “It has always felt to me like an extra sense. Like I was perceiving something immutable, external to me.”

“Wait.” Essek took a step closer to him. “Please define your terms. When you say you have a good sense of time—”

“I mean I know what time it is, always,” Caleb said. “My friends actually use me as their reference, since clocks in taverns and the like can differ so much. Caleb Standard Time, they call it. And I have a very good sense for how long things take.”

“Interesting.” Approximately twenty five questions occurred to Essek simultaneously. “So when you change time zones – no.” He wiped that away with a quick gesture. “Ignore that, that’s not the interesting question.”

“Indeed. You made me realize that, actually. The hour and minute is just the signifier. When I change time zones, the clock in my head carries on, tick tick tick, just the same. My internal numbering resets as soon as I am exposed to a local clock.”

“So when you say you can tell how long something takes, how accurate is that?”

“Well.” Caleb glanced amusedly at him. “I almost argued with you, when you had all those complaints about my lackluster education and gave that demonstration. Dropping the apple, dropping the ball of parchment. It took me a minute to realize that you were saying that it took the same time for them to fall because to you, it did.”

“But not to you?”

“No, they were noticeably different. I realize that’s down to inconsequentials – how you opened your hand, that sort of thing – and not a function of what you were demonstrating about gravity.”

Essek paced in a small circle, entire body quivering with excitement. “So it is quite precise, this sense.”

“I think so. That’s what I was thinking about, actually.” Caleb gestured at his work on the board. “You said it to me last week. That time passes differently at sea level than at the top of the highest mountain on Exandria. I started to wonder if I could tell the difference.”

“You wouldn’t,” Essek said at once, then faltered. “Well. You oughtn’t. It’s a microscopically small time dilation, for one thing. And for another, it ought to effect –” he waved at Caleb’s bright, astonishing head. “It ought to effect whatever it is you are doing in the exact same way it effects the flow of time itself.” He paused, whirled in a circle of frantic thought. “Unless what you are doing is entirely uncoupled from the entropic flow of – but no. That can’t be.” He seized Caleb by the shoulders. “We must run an experiment. See how you fare under actual time distortion.”

“Well, I think I know,” Caleb said. “I told you, remember? About Halas’s sphere. When I was in it, I felt subjectively normal. It was disorienting to come out and realize that my internal clock was unsynced to Exandria. But the dilation is constant, so I adjusted quickly.”

“Yes, but.” Essek made a frustrated noise. “Oh, why can’t you go off and study Chronergy for ten years or so in the next sixty seconds? That would be useful for this conversation.”

Caleb looked highly amused at his agitation. It was no laughing matter, though. Essek’s brain was alight with spiraling ideas.

“You say it doesn’t matter what your mental state is?” he pursued.

“Yes. I wake up in the morning and I know the time, without reference to a clock, or the sky. And.” He hesitated. “I was . . . incapacitated for some time. Just over two years, to be exact. I have only vague memories of that, but I recall the – the sensation of metering the passage of time, though I did not put any numbers on it. And when I was restored to myself, I knew the date, the hour, the minute.” He took a deep breath. “You said you want to conduct an experiment?”

“Yes.” Essek reached for his focus. “I will cast on you. Ah—” he pulled himself up reluctantly. “With your permission?”

“Cast what?” Caleb said, frustratingly sensible.

“Ah.” This was awkward. “I’d rather not say,” Essek admitted. “Because I want you to tell me what you experience, subjectively. It will do you no harm, I promise you that.”

Caleb thought on this for a moment, then slowly nodded. “All right.”

“Here, stand facing the door.” Essek set him with his back to the clock and its sweeping second hand. “Try not to resist, please, I know it’s hard. Now, cast something on me. Some harmless effect, it doesn’t matter what.”

Caleb considered, grinned in a rather cheeky manner, and went to cast Fly. Essek cast Temporal Shunt; Caleb teetered for a moment on the brink of resisting, then he succumbed, and vanished. Essek waited for six seconds, hearing only the steady ticking of the wall clock. Then Caleb popped back into existence. A frown almost immediately formed on his brow.

“Weren’t we going to--?” he started.

Essek took him by the shoulders and turned him around. Caleb glanced reflexively at the clock, and jolted. “I’m missing six seconds,” he said at once.

“Most people never notice,” Essek said. “How interesting. Did you sense anything before you saw the clock?”

“I think I felt . . . something.” Caleb’s brow clouded. “A . . .” he spoke several words in Zemnian, then settled on, “ripple. But perhaps I am only imposing that now that I know you did something. What did you do, please.”

“Ah.” Essek realized, with some chagrin, that he had yet again cast high level dunamancy in front of this Empire wizard without a second thought. He really needed to get a handle on these impulses. At least Caleb would not remember the details. “It is a dunamantic spell that, in effect, shunted you forward six seconds. You quite literally are missing the time; you did not experience it. From my perspective, you physically vanished and reappeared.”

Caleb thought this over for some time. “But I didn’t see you cast.”

“Yes. There is a memory distorting effect.”

“Ah,” Caleb said quietly. “In future, please tell me if such an effect will be present before casting.”

Essek looked at his face, which was clouded with something he did not understand. “I apologize,” he said, feeling very strongly that he had erred.

Caleb rolled his shoulders. “It’s a particular . . . sensitivity of mine. You didn’t know.”

“Now I do,” Essek said. “I will not forget.” How uncomfortable, to have blithely promised no harm, and to have been wrong.

“Why, though?” Caleb said, after another moment of thought. “Is the memory alteration a separate effect? My Mind Blank ought to have negated it.”

“No,” Essek said absently. “It is endogenous to the time effect. I have never thought on it, but I imagine that’s why it worked on you.”

Caleb’s frown deepened. “What? Why?”

“Well,” Essek said, waving a hand and thinking of seven other things. “It makes sense if you consider that memory is nothing more than the organizing principle our minds apply to temporality. The universe travels towards entropy, as we have discussed; our memory is our best way of mapping that directionality. An entropy sense, if you will.”

“. . . Hmm.” Caleb said. “Well. Thank you, if nothing else, for something entirely novel to think about the next time I have insomnia.”

“Yes, it’s a little upsetting,” Essek said. He vaguely recalled having a similar reaction many decades ago. “In the meantime,” he continued, “I hope you know that I am now plotting how I may abduct you, take you away with me to a hidden laboratory somewhere, and put you to work as Exandria’s most overqualified lab assistant.”

That made Caleb laugh with true amusement.

“You think I’m joking – do you know how many ways I’ve thought of integrating this talent of yours into my experimental work in just the past three minutes?”

Caleb laughed again, mouth quirking in that expression that always spelled trouble. “Four minutes and . . . ten seconds,” he said, enormously pleased with himself. “Or, I suppose, four seconds, from my perspective.”

“Caleb Widogast,” Essek said, acting on impulse again. Unable to stop. “I really must insist that you kiss me at once.”

Caleb’s lips parted. “Well,” he said. “That does simplify things, doesn’t it.” He stepped up to Essek and slid one of his big, warm hands around Essek’s waist, the other around the back of his neck. “If you insist?” he said.

“I do,” Essek said, lifting his chin imperiously. “I shall be extremely cross if you do not.”

“Oh,” Caleb said, grinning outright. “Way to threaten me with a good time.” And he finally leaned in and –

Essek felt, in the following rush of seconds, much like a moorbounder that had caught, well. A dragon. Pleased. Astonished. Rather terrified. Wholly at a loss for what to do next. Extremely, ruinously outclassed.

“Easy,” Caleb murmured, his beard rubbing distractingly against Essek’s jaw. “Just let me—”

Essek let him.

Essek was slim and cool in Caleb’s hands; his mouth under Caleb’s was fierce, yet unsure. Those charming little eyeteeth Caleb had glimpsed a few times when Essek forgot himself and smiled properly were intriguingly sharp. Caleb wanted them marking up his thighs, or the meat of his ass.

That wasn’t going to happen tonight.

It was immediately clear to him that Essek was either inexperienced or out of practice. There was no way Caleb could ask, not right now. If he did that, there was a quite good chance that Essek would prickle up like a porcupine, and Caleb liked this soft, wanting creature far too much for that right now, as fun as it could be.

Essek was a damnably quick study. He adjusted his float so they were exactly of a height, his arms hooked around Caleb’s shoulders and his fingers brushing Caleb’s neck as he gestured tiny gravitic changes. The delicacy of his control was maddening, all while Caleb was demonstrating how to part one’s lips for a flick of tongue.

There was nothing passive in his inexperience. Essek tried things with all the fierce curiosity he had shown over Caleb’s time sense. Caleb set out to provide as much feedback as possible, in the interests of furthering scientific endeavors, naturally. Essek lightly scored his teeth over the inside of Caleb’s lip; Caleb murmured wholehearted approval. Essek gripped the back of his neck with small, cool fingers; Caleb returned the favor and rubbed his thumb firmly up and down the tension he felt there.

Essek eased back, but didn’t speak. He slid his fingers slowly up Caleb’s neck, his lips fetchingly parted, his snowy eyelashes dipping with a flicker of something like shyness. For a second he looked for all the world like a young man sneaking his fingers up his partner’s thigh for the first time.

“Yes,” Caleb murmured, unsure exactly what he was consenting to, but wild to find out.

Essek exhaled and eased his fingers into the hair gathered at the nape of Caleb’s neck. Caleb’s whole body yearned for him to grip there, but he just gently stroked, the awful tease. Something passed behind his wide, lovely eyes that Caleb wanted to see more of. All right. Essek wasn’t the only one who could try things.

“You can take it down, if you like,” Caleb murmured. He was just guessing, but it seemed to land in the seductive register he’d intended because all of Essek’s breath went out of him and he looked like Caleb had just unexpectedly undressed for him.

Essek plucked at the ribbon holding Caleb’s hair, then freed it with a decisive pull. Caleb felt the ribbon flutter down his back to the floor. He had a lot of hair; the whole heavy mass of it fell into Essek’s waiting hands. Essek’s eyes closed briefly in a long, pleased shudder.

Well, if that’s what he liked.

Caleb stroked his thumbs deliberately up Essek’s neck. Essek didn’t have enough hair to pull up, but he sighed in catlike pleasure as Caleb gently scritched at his undercut. The prickles there were oddly silky; Essek’s hair was textured far more finely than Caleb’s.

“That’s right,” Caleb said to him. Show me how you want to be touched.

Essek’s eyes, usually narrowed and cool, were wide and expressive now. He seemed entirely unwilling to take his hands out of Caleb’s hair. That left his whole body open to Caleb’s curious touch. He was so finely made, Caleb felt rather like an oversized brute handling him, which was a novel experience.

They kissed again, more fiercely, messily now. Essek had already found some measure of confidence. Somehow, that made Caleb feel ten feet tall.

And then in a flicker of starry arcana, Caleb’s arms were empty. He nearly staggered, seeing Essek appear on the couch across the room out of the corner of his eye. Essek was wild-eyed and disheveled. The intricately-folded collar of his dark blue shirt was a wreck. Caleb vaguely recalled defacing it in order to get his mouth on Essek’s neck. Whoops. He was pretty sure that was going to earn him one of those scouring looks Essek was so good at.

There was a knock at the door. Ah, good. Just a little overzealous propriety on Essek’s part, then.

Caleb opened his mouth to tell Wulf to come in, then got a good look at the expression on Essek’s face, and rapidly recalculated. He crossed to the door, smoothing his hair, and opened it partway, so the angle blocked Wulf’s view of Essek.

“Ja?”

There was no way Wulf didn’t know exactly what they’d been doing. His lips pursed, and his wide shoulders rolled in contained displeasure. “Caduceus says he has a lemon lavender cake coming out of the oven in a few minutes,” he dutifully reported.

“Ah. Thank you. We will finish up here and come enjoy some, perhaps.”

Wulf gave him a look freighted with several acid comments, but only nodded and silently strode away.

Caleb closed the door. His instinct was to go straight to Essek, to push him down onto the couch and gentle that wild, caught look out of his eyes. Note to self: no exhibitionism here. And probably no PDA, but that wasn’t really an option for them anyway, was it.

He went to his desk instead, and made a show of rearranging some items. Essek was far more composed when he turned back.

There was something in his inexperience that had scrambled all Caleb’s ideas on how this would go. He’d been thinking of it as a pleasurable diversion, a way for them to explore each other’s bodies as they continued to explore each other’s minds. A little deliciously risky, because Essek was powerful, and Xhorhasian, and still mostly an unknown quantity. And yet also easy, meant to come and go. A way to dip his toes back into these waters without really committing himself.

But Essek kissed like someone who hadn’t done it for decades. Or ever? And Caleb’s heart had twinged in an acute, painful way. It widened his perspective. He wasn’t the one extending himself here, not really. He wasn’t the stranger in a strange land. Essek was, in more than one sense.

“Cake?” Caleb offered benignly. He held out a hand. “Or we can pick up where we left off?” He left it ambiguous whether he was referring to the chalkboard or the electric tension that still rode the air.

Delightfully, Essek stood and floated over to him, hand fitting neatly into his. “Why not both?” Essek said.

Chapter Text

That fall would always have a feverish quality in Essek’s memory. He was making notable progress on a project that had been simmering for most of a decade, which was gratifying, and he delivered two more lectures as the days shortened and the trees dropped their spectacular display of leaves all over campus. Everyone whose feet touched the ground crunched for a solid week, and then a string of rainstorms blew through, one after another, leaving mud in their wake.

But Essek could not have said where the inspiration for his project came from, or even much about what he’d said at his lectures. The realest part of his life came when Caleb welcomed him into his study, and shut the door, and opened his arms.

The things they did there were delicious. There was very little talking for nearly two weeks. Caleb had yet to invite Essek to bed, and Essek was not entirely sure how to effectuate that. He had only dim recollections of his prior, abortive affairs, all two of them. He thought he’d let others maneuver them over that threshold, which was a frustrating deficit of experience now.

Well, he could always try the trick that had gotten him kissed. Caleb did seem to respond beautifully to high-handed demands. But Essek hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to say, “take me to bed at once, do not dilly dally.” Caleb likely had his reasons for holding back, and Essek could admit that his own feelings on the matter were tempered with a certain amount of trepidation. But that wasn’t about to change just by waiting around. And what Essek most wanted, as always, was to know. Caleb could wring experiences from Essek’s body that he would not have credited. Their interludes – heated kisses and wandering hands – often left him with a sensation of being filled with a sparkling, prickling light from head to toe. Essek flinched from that simile – he thought the Umavi might even have penned such a comparison when speaking of Luxon communion -- but there it was.

What would it be like to go to bed with Caleb? Surely it would be like that, but better. Essek’s prior experiences left him no point of reference that was relevant here. At least, he hoped so. If Caleb disappointed him in this area, Essek might just throw a spectacular fit. He was nearly positive that wasn’t going to be a problem, though.

In short, if Caleb did not come up to scratch in the near future, steps would be taken.

The couch in his study was an excellent place to kiss and be kissed. Essek discovered a series of delightful things, like how nice it felt to sit astride Caleb’s lap, and how he flushed and gasped when Essek ground into the hardness there, and the noises he made when Essek took a handful of that ridiculous hair and put Caleb where he wanted him.

“You can touch my hair whenever you like,” Caleb had said to him the second night they spent getting fresh with each other, to use Verin’s phrase, instead of discussing Aeor and beacons. Caleb had watched his face when he said it, and nodded to himself in apparent satisfaction. “Am I saying something obscene?” he’d asked, all interest and no embarrassment.

“A bit,” Essek said, and Caleb looked pleased. “I would say more . . . forward.”

“Mmm. Are there any other forward things I might say to make you blush like that?”

“No,” Essek lied. Caleb already had a dangerous mouth on him; he didn’t need any help.

The seagoing members of the Mighty Nein came back to town for what Essek heard multiple people refer to as “family dinner.” Essek approached the occasion with a certain amount of confused dread. He had found a reluctant sort of liking for all of them, not just Caleb. They were loud and impetuous and shockingly informal, and yet. It was the way they loved each other, Essek thought. He just wanted to watch it in the wild – and oh, was it wild.

So, he was more or less pleased to see them all. Yet, at the same time, what ridiculous shenanigans would he be dragged into this time? Also, when push came to shove, he would simply prefer to be alone with Caleb, behind a closed door, with a bottle of wine and an arcane problem to kiss about.

Jester delivered her usual effusive greeting to Caleb when she arrived, then pounced on Essek for more of the same, as if he was also her dear friend of years and terrifying adventures.

“Ah—” Essek said, hands hovering uncertainly over her back as he was embraced. He set one tentatively on her shoulder, felt the strap of what must be an undergarment, and snatched it away.

“Come with me,” Jester said, once she had gotten her fill of hugging him and made a full circuit of the room to hug everyone else, including the people she’d arrived with. “Caleb said you do super cool gravity stuff.”

“I do,” Essek said, preening a little. He very much wanted to know what precise words Caleb had used. Powerful, perhaps? Elegant?

“I bet you’re really important back in Xhorhas,” Jester said confidingly.

“Well.”

“And everyone talks about how your magic is so cool, right?”

Wasn’t that a loaded question. “That’s – I have made some rather significant dunamantic contributions, I will admit.” Lauded widely and appropriately, right up to the point when he said what he would need in order to go further.

“Great,” Jester said, pulling him up the stairs to the fourth floor and down the hall the opposite way from Caleb’s study. “So it sounds like you’re definitely qualified to help me.”

Which was how the Shadowhand to the Bright Queen, youngest to achieve that title, found himself exercising his lauded graviturgic powers to act as primary assistant and general hander of things while Jester worked on the mural in Miss Magdalena’s room.

“Oh, Essek, it’s even better than that,” Jester said brightly. “I’m also one of the best detectives on Exandria. Can you hand me the – no, the other purple, silly.”

Essek floated the cup of paint up to where she stood on a ladder, and hovered it carefully while she painted. He had never watched an artist work like this. Jester painted with cheerful abandon, chattering all the while. She seemed confident that whatever she did would turn out well. What was it like to go about life like that? And to be fair, the mural – a series of scenes of a suspiciously familiar blue dragon in an array of ridiculous and undignified situations – was wonderful.

Miss Magdalena’s room was interesting. Much of the furniture was disarranged to keep Jester’s workspace clear, but Essek had a good view of the low bookshelf. He heartily approved of the contents. The books were in Common, Zemnian, and, interestingly, Celestial. There was also a child-sized desk stocked generously with paper, ink, and art supplies. A paper with a few lines in Zemnian in a childish hand was left on top.

“Miss Magdalena is five, correct?” Essek asked.

“Yep. Her last birthday party was epic. Arty jumped out of the cake.”

Essek paused, then decided not to pursue that. “I’m not familiar with human child development,” he said. “Is Miss Magdalena somewhat . . . advanced for her age?”

“Oh, totally,” Jester said. “I mean, she’s Caleb’s, so go figure, right?” Essek nodded; that’s what he had been thinking. “And I suppose Astrid’s, too,” Jester added, with some reluctance. “She’s, you know, a super powerful wizard, too. Wulf says Leni taught herself to read when she was three. That’s pretty unusual for humans, I think. They don’t know for sure whether she can do any of the cool stuff Caleb can do with his brain. Like the time thing, or the compass thing, or the breaking ciphers thing or whatever.” She paused, brushing hair back with an arm and leaving a smear of yellow across her forehead. “Caleb gets all broody about it because he’s kind of messed up about his memory. But family’s hard for him no matter what, you know?”

Essek had been getting the idea, yes.

All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend the time before dinner. Caleb came upstairs briefly to bring them drinks – wine for Essek and milk for Jester – and to compliment the work in progress.

“You probably want to stay up here for a bit longer,” he confided quietly to Essek. “The girls are wrestling.” On cue, there was a crash from downstairs. “Ah, excuse me.”

Eventually, Caduceus summoned them to dinner. “Coming!” Jester called, then inexplicably found a blank patch of wall and pulled a second set of paints from her bag. “Shh,” she said to Essek, rapidly producing a portrait of a stuffed unicorn. She switched brushes, adding texture to the mane with quick, precise strokes. “Gold horn or silver?” Essek handed her the silver. ‘Good choice.” She finished to her satisfaction, waited a moment for it to dry, then in one confident gesture, pulled the picture off the wall and into reality. Essek liked to think he only goggled a little.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Jester said. “It’s the paint, it’s super enchanted. I’m running out, so I’ve got to save it for like, only the really important stuff.” She deposited the unicorn on Miss Magdalena’s bed. “Don’t tell Caleb. He’s all like—” she affected a growly Zemnian accent “—she has enough unicorns, my friend. As if there’s any such thing, am I right?”

The ladies had apparently tired themselves out to some degree, as dinner was very nearly a decorous affair. Essek did manage to sit next to Caleb, who presided over the table with quiet but clear pleasure in the company. Grieve was on his other side, across from Essek. He was quiet, as was his way, but Essek didn’t think he was imagining the long, cool looks he was getting. Hmm. That was a complication he was also woefully inexperienced in navigating. He did know an expert, though consulting him on the matter promised to be excruciating for Essek’s dignity.

As were so many things these days. The party desired to retreat to the hot tub very quickly after dinner, without lingering in the great room. Essek was startled by that. He’d thought he had more time to decide what to do about it, and he felt caught out, surprisingly unwilling to cut his evening shorter than intended.

So, against his better judgment, he consented to go with them. And once there, after surviving the gauntlet of mass clothing removal and a crowd of naked bodies, during which he mostly fixed his eyes on the ceiling, it seemed like a small thing to dip his feet in the hot water.

It was pleasant to the senses, he could admit that. The room – in the roots of the great tree, which was apparently the result of some working of Caduceus’s – was strange to his Xhorhasian eye, yet with a pleasing cave like quality. And he could see how the steaming water was appealing as the nights cooled. He ended up sitting on the edge with his feet dangling between Caleb and Grieve, interjecting in the lively conversation at appropriate points and doing his best not to see anything untoward.

Veth made that rather difficult. She also seemed reluctant to get in the water, but her solution to this was to strip down to her skin – for no reason other than she wanted to, apparently – and to trot around on the surface of the water using some sort of magical token. Essek got an eyeful of small, dark-brown breasts, and hastily looked away. He could admit that their collective nonchalance about nudity did remove some of the . . . weight of it. But still.

He saw other things, too. Grieve’s arms were heavily tattooed in a pattern that must have arcane significance, and that mostly covered the Scourger scars. Why didn’t Caleb have those?

Caleb’s bare shoulders were lovely. Most of his companions were far more muscular, but Essek liked him all the better for the comparison. His skin was shockingly pale to Essek’s eye; perhaps that was related to his claim of an amount of sun sensitivity. He had his hair up in a braid. It was slowly working its way loose as the evening wore on. Essek knew now that Caleb’s hair was thick and soft and generally resistant to any sort of containment. Caleb kept reaching up with damp hands to tuck flyaway strands behind his ears; Essek was fascinated to see the way the dampened strands darkened a few shades. There were many colors in his hair. From a distance, it was only that ridiculous red, but Essek had studied it now, and he knew there were several shades of brown, some gold-toned blond, and even some genuine orange.

He could have reached out and helped, perhaps re-braided it entirely. He was pretty sure he remembered how. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it in company. Caleb would think nothing of it, or very little, anyway. But Essek couldn’t claim the same.

The night wound to a close like that, warm and well-fed and comfortable. Essek didn’t get the opportunity to kiss Caleb good night, which wasn’t something he would have expected to feel any sort of way about, but he found himself rather out of sorts.

“Miresen?” Caleb asked him, when half the party had redressed to leave and the rest donned house robes. Caleb’s robe was a marvelous purple velvet piece that Essek knew at a glance had come from Jester. “We can finally talk about Aeor?” Caleb added, as if Essek needed an inducement. As if they both didn’t know what they would be doing instead.

“Indeed,” Essek said. “Good night, Caleb Widogast.”

He left with Yasha and Beauregard and Veth. Everyone else was staying the night. Essek didn’t think anything of it until Veth barreled under Yasha’s arm and inserted herself at his side.

“So,” she said, in a tone that made Essek instinctively check his posture. “You have designs on my boy.”

“That’s . . . not how I would put it,” Essek said cautiously.

“No? What bullshit politician thing would you say about it?”

The problem was, Essek had a vested interest in not offending her. Whereas she seemed determined to offend him.

“I would say that we have found ourselves to be of compatible mind,” he said, which was apparently the sort of thing she was expecting, at least to judge by her eyeroll.

“Yeah, you’re both nerds,” she agreed. “Doesn’t mean you’re worth his time.” Essek bridled. He was many things, not all of them what others might value. But he felt very strongly that he was worth Caleb’s time, and he would be making himself even more worthwhile in the months to come. “He has a kid, you know,” Veth said.

“I . . . am aware?” Essek said.

“Are you?” She gave him a look of challenge, though what standard he was failing to meet, he couldn’t say. “Anyway,” she said, dropping the hostility as quickly as she’d put it on. “See you chucklefucks later.” She split off down a different road, waving over her shoulder.

“Don’t mind her,” Beauregard said, squinting at Essek under the moonlight. “Things are a bit messy there.”

“Oh?” It seemed like it behooved him to know, if Veth was going to prove to be a problem. Was she attempting to turn Caleb against him for her own reasons?

“Yeah.” Beauregard drew the word out, clearly thinking on what to say. “It was just the two of them together for a while, before we all hooked up. Neither of them was in a particularly good place, and they got . . . kind of weird and intense about each other. In a good way, and also a . . . weird intense way.”

“I see,” Essek lied.

“So she manages that by trying to parent him,” Beauregard said. “It’s not going so hot. For either of them. Don’t worry about it.”

Essek promptly added that to the long list of matters deserving of his concern.

“I mean, she’s still pissed he’s not shacking back up with Astrid or Eadwulf or both,” Beauregard continued thoughtfully. “Even though he’s made it clear that is extremely not happening. So, big mom energy, is what I’m saying.”

“Ah.” That last part did actually resonate. Essek moved the whole matter several spots up on his list of concerns.

When he got back to the guest house, he knocked on Verin’s door. That was part of the arrangement now – he would check in when he came and went, and Verin wouldn’t saddle him with minotaurs unless he thought there was a particular reason to. But on this occasion, Essek came in and shut the door behind him.

“I’m in need of your expertise,” he said.

Verin, who had been sprawled on a couch with one of his endless books of soppy poetry, sat up with interest. “You need me to stab something?”

“Not that expertise.”

Verin frowned. “What else am I good at?”

“People,” Essek said. “Obviously.” He paused. How to phrase this in the least humiliating way possible. “Is there a . . . set of best practices for managing a situation where a person is romantically engaged with someone who maintains ties with multiple former partners?”

There was a pause while Verin ran that back, mouthing words to himself. “Are we talking about Grieve, or Becke?” he asked.

Essek gritted his teeth. “Yes.”

Verin, who had been romantically involved with over a dozen people in just the past few decades, and who maintained friendly relations with every single one, considered this with the air of someone who had never thought on it before. If he had done all that purely by luck and instinct, Essek was going to be furious.

“Yeah,” he said eventually. “There’s a best practice. You’re not going to like it, though.”

“I don’t like a lot of things,” Essek said.

Verin held up a hand and counted on his fingers. “You check in with Widogast and make sure you’re both on the same page about who’s doing what with whom. If you’re not, you figure out your boundaries and his, and maybe it works out and maybe it doesn’t. If you are on the same page, you shut the fuck up about it, don’t start shit, don’t end shit, and let him handle it.” He paused and read Essek’s face. “I did say you wouldn’t like it.”

“I will take it under advisement,” Essek said. That sounded like a great deal of frank communication and even more passivity. Essek generally preferred an active management approach to interpersonal problems. “Thanks,” he added grudgingly.

“Have fun with that,” Verin said cheerfully. “Gotta say, you could have picked a less complicated person.”

“Maybe,” Essek said. Less complicated? Probably. Better in any other way? Hard to imagine.

Ironically, they did end up discussing Aeor on Miresen, thanks to Miss Magdalena. Essek arrived precisely on time, as was his habit, but waited a long three minutes after knocking. Caleb was frequently occupied with academy or assembly or mysterious other business, but Essek had never known the tower to be deserted. He was just considering whether to Send to Caleb when Grieve opened the door, looking thoroughly harassed.

“Good evening,” Essek said, stepping in and fully expecting silence in response.

He was startled when Grieve waited for him to take his shoes off, then said, “It’s going to be a few minutes. You can wait in the family room on the third floor.”

Not in the study. Right. Don’t start shit.

“Anything I can assist with?” Essek said, floating up the stairs. “. . . Ah.” The problem made itself apparent as he turned a corner and the penetrating shrieks of a furious child floated down.

Essek peeled off to sit on the sofa in the family room. He saw Grieve visibly bracing himself as he continued up to the fourth floor.

Miss Magdalena’s voice rose and fell. It was faint from the family room, but he imagined up close it was ear-splitting. Essek was impressed by her stamina and vocal range. He was no expert, but he thought she was alternating between rage and terrible weeping. Verin had not been prone to such fits as a child, but Essek’s tantrums lived on in infamy in Den Thelyss more than a century later. He couldn’t remember them, but listening to her carry on, he found himself hoping he’d delivered a similar performance to the Umavi.

The noise trailed off a few times, but always picked up again after a minute. Essek stood long enough to peruse the bookcase against the far wall. The lowest shelves contained children’s stories, the middle shelves contained some uncontroversial intermediate magic texts, and the top shelves contained . . . pornography? Essek pulled a few down, and discovered that yes, the provocative covers did not lie. Several had notations in the front in a flamboyant hand that was definitely not Caleb’s. One read, wow can you really do that on horseback? A different hand, also not Caleb’s, had added NO DO NOT TRY AT HOME.

Essek could recognize a Mighty Nein oddity by now.

A small black cat was sitting far out of reach on the very top shelf. Essek didn’t even see it until the light caught its eyes just right. One of its ears flattened in displeasure whenever Miss Magdalena shrieked with particular vigor.

“Indeed,” Essek said to it. He selected a divination text and retreated back to the sofa.

It was a full twenty minutes before quiet fell, and another ten before he heard footsteps on the stairs. Caleb and Grieve came down together. Not touching, but managing to give the impression of leaning on each other all the same. They both looked terrible, Caleb more so.

“Oh,” he said, blinking at Essek. “Hallo. I’m so sorry.”

“No need,” Essek said, and showed him the book. “I have kept myself entertained.”

Grieve touched Caleb on the back and padded off silently to the kitchen. Caleb came straight over to the sofa and unself-consciously flopped face first onto it. He swore fluently in Zemnian into the cushion.

“. . . Academic politics?” Essek tried, pleased when that made Caleb bark a laugh.

“Ja, more like than you would think.” Caleb propped up on his elbows and began to work his knuckles into his temples. “Haven’t had one of those in months.”

“She did seem tired today,” Grieve said, coming back in with a shot glass in hand. He lifted it to Caleb, who shook his head, then promptly downed it himself.

“Ja, it could be anything, though. She’s growing. The weather changed.”

Grieve acknowledged this with a slow blink. “Going up,” he said.

“Ja. Danke.”

He retreated up the stairs. Essek heard him carry on beyond the fourth floor, bound for the roof garden, perhaps. Caleb dropped back down flat on his face.

“Let me do that,” Essek said. He scooted down the couch and rubbed gentle circles on Caleb’s temples and forehead, then expanded down the back of his skull to his neck when he sighed.

“Ah,” Caleb said. “Thank you. This is the first nice thing to happen to me since seminar this morning. What a day.” He turned over after a time, tipping his head back to rest in Essek’s cupped hands. “Hallo,” he said, smiling tiredly upside down.

“Hello.”

“Sorry again. Not what you had in mind, I’m sure.”

Essek shook his head, a little nettled by that and unsure why. “Not intentional on your part. Or on Miss Magdalena’s, I imagine.”

“Still. I don’t have much left in me for the evening.”

“I can go,” Essek offered with some reluctance. He liked the weight of Caleb’s bright head in his hands.

“No, please. As long as you don’t mind some poor company.” He yawned charmingly, one hand across his face. “You’d be doing me a favor. I need to stay up another hour or two. If I don’t, I’ll wake up at two in the morning and throw off my whole day.”

“I have never found your company to be poor,” Essek said truthfully. “Shall we stay right here?”

“Please.” Caleb stretched. “I can tell you about Aeor? That will definitely keep me awake.”

He embarked on a remarkable story, with many diversions to explain the how and the why of it. Just the first part affirmed Essek in his conviction that the Mighty Nein were a breed apart. A different kind of person to whom extraordinary things happened as a matter of course.

Caleb touched only briefly on the larger implications of what he euphemistically referred to as a “little adventure.” Essek wasn’t sure if he was concealing sensitive details, or if it was simply hard to speak of. Had Caleb been afraid, going down under the ice? Had stalwart Beauregard and Yasha? Had Jester, his new, strange friend?

“You saved Wildemount,” Essek said, cutting Caleb off as he pieced together the implications. “At the least. It very well could have impacted all of Exandria.”

Caleb shrugged. “Ja. It needed doing.”

“Why didn’t you bring more support?” Essek gestured around them. “I know you have no great respect for your fellows, but surely, given the stakes, Archmage Becke could have accompanied you, at the least? And Hass seems capable.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand. I was merely Caleb Widogast then. Astrid and Wulf were Volstrucker. Tasked with tracking and, ideally, subduing me. For re-education, or a Feeblemind, or a shallow grave, none of us are sure.”

Essek blinked. Of course he knew Caleb’s tenure here was still very new, but it was intensely strange to think of him as just an adventurer. Though, clearly, he had never been ‘just’ anything.

“We did have some help,” Caleb added. “We’d made the acquaintance of a number of powerful people by then. Schreiber, for one – the Trust has many resources. But it was assistance in the form of the loan of objects of power, not more hands.”

So they’d all gone, quite possibly expecting to die. Essek found it baffling, and kind of upsetting. Yes, it showed extraordinary courage. He did not think he would have gone, in their shoes. But he thought it also showed a strange sort of foolishness. To go, to do such great deeds with no expectation of reward or acknowledgement. What if they had failed. Wildemount would be in ruins now, yes, but more importantly, what if Caleb and Jester and Caduceus were cold and dead under the ice, and Essek never even knew to miss them?

“Anyway,” Caleb said. “Here’s the part you actually want to hear about.”

He began to describe in exacting detail what the ruins were like. Essek had read reports from Dynasty teams who had done some initial delving. He had even considered requesting a transfer to the Vurmas Outpost sometime in the next decade to see if he could forcibly accelerate the slow pace of exploration. The outpost had been established as much to counter the Empire’s interests in the ruins as to pursue the Dynasty’s own. The Bright Queen was no fool; she knew there were powerful and wondrous things to be found there. But she was also prone to dismissively saying, “oh yes, the flying mages, I remember them,” when the topic was brought up. Essek didn’t know why it was that having lived through the Calamity had rendered so many of the Dynasty’s elites disinterested in its leavings. Then again, there were many things Essek did not understand about the Dynasty’s elites.

Still, it was clear that a band of adventurers had delved much further in a handful of days than the Dynasty had in years, which was maddening. Would it be acceptable to take notes? What he wouldn’t give for a memory like Caleb’s.

Caleb hadn’t gotten very far, though, when he paused mid-sentence, his head lifting to a sound Essek couldn’t hear.

“Damn,” he said under his breath, rolling off the couch. “Leni’s up. Give me a minute.”

He trotted off upstairs and was gone for considerably longer than a minute. Essek heard Grieve come down from the roof, and footsteps going back and forth, and the occasional murmur of voices.

When Caleb came back, he was wearing a different shirt and he had Miss Magdalena tucked in a miserable-looking ball in his arms. She blinked vaguely at Essek, far from the bright-eyed child he’d met before.

“Leni’s going to join us for the rest of the story, if you don’t mind,” Caleb said. “It turns out she’s not feeling very well.”

“Of course,” Essek said. Alas for the warm weight of Caleb’s head in his lap.

Caleb settled back on the couch, propped up on pillows with Miss Magdalena’s head on his chest. Her position looked incredibly comfortable, and Essek made a mental note to try it out for himself.

“I threw up,” Miss Magdalena said fretfully.

“It’s all right,” Caleb said easily. “Papa will have your bed put to rights in no time. Now, I was just telling Essek about Aeor, do you want to help me?”

Essek expected the tenor of the recitation to change after that, but it didn’t. Caleb lingered in loving detail over each new space and discovery, to a degree that could not possibly be of interest to a child. Essek eventually realized that this was purposeful, and that Caleb was attempting to bore her to sleep. It seemed to work, or she was soothed by hearing the rumble of his voice in his chest, because she was soon breathing evenly, her hands curled under her small chin.

Essek was not bored at all. Essek was utterly riveted.

Grieve came down and he and Caleb conferred in low murmurs, eventually deciding to let Miss Magdalena stay where she was for now. Grieve touched his wrist to her forehead, frowning. “A little warm,” he reported.

“Well, now we know what all the fuss was about,” Caleb said.

“Mmm,” Grieve agreed. “You can fetch Caduceus home if it doesn’t clear up in the next day.” He bent and lightly kissed the top of her head. He straightened, and Essek could see the precise place in the motion where he would have turned and kissed Caleb, too. But he didn’t, and Caleb didn’t lift his face to it, and the absence carved a palpable space in the air.

“Let me finish here,” Caleb said. “Almost done, then I’ll bring her up.” He turned back to Essek. “Where was I?”

“Rejuvenation chambers,” Essek said. “Please, continue.”

Caleb did, wrapping up the end of his tale with a bland comment on the neutralization of the threat that Essek imagined covered a bloody horror show.

“And then we Plane Shifted back,” he concluded. “And tried to have a few days rest, but it was not to be. Though that is a story for another time, I think.”

“Thank you,” Essek said. “This has been most enlightening.” He stood. “Please convey my best wishes to Miss Magdalena for a speedy recovery.”

That made Caleb smile amusedly at him. “She’ll be all right. They bounce back fast at this age.”

Essek hesitated, then did what he wanted to do. The kiss was the inverse of Grieve’s – Essek felt no interest in kissing the child good night, nor would it have been appropriate. Caleb, though, tipped his chin up invitingly. Essek lingered, kissing slowly the way he now knew he liked, running his thumb down Caleb’s cheek from skin to beard. It was odd to do this bent down with Miss Magdalena sleeping between them. But worth it.

“Next time,” Essek said, easing back. “I shall have some things to tell you.”

“I look forward to it,” Caleb said.

Essek teleported home from Caleb’s entryway downstairs. It was getting colder every night, and Caleb’s weariness was catching.

He was very glad of that, later, after he’d said good night to Verin, and retired to his suite. He was just in the act of removing his earcaps when the prickle of an imminent sending rose in his mind.

Essek paused, expecting an urgent matter from Rosohna or, much more pleasantly, perhaps Caleb with one more thought.

It was neither.

“Shadowhand,” said Ludinus Da’leth, “I hope you are enjoying Rexxentrum. I wanted to assure you that recent events need not upset our plans. We must speak again soon.”

Essek stood frozen while the spell held waiting on his reply. And waiting. And gone.

Then he exhaled and sat abruptly down on the vanity bench.

What.

What?

A second Sending presaged itself in his mind, and Essek hammered his spine straight. He knew what to expect now, he was ready, Da’leth would not surprise him again.

“Hey Essek!” Jester caroled, and Essek’s resolve smacked face first into her cheer, leaving him feeling vaguely concussed. “Do you think Caleb would look good in cream? I found some great silk in Port Damali. It’s a warm cream, not like—”

Essek inflated his lungs with a huge breath. “Hello Jester,” he said, and marveled at the steadiness of his voice. “Yes, that sounds lovely with his coloring. Do you intend a shirt?”

Jester had two modes of Sending communication. She would either chatter relentlessly with a reckless expenditure of magic, or she would send one truncated message and leave him flailing. It seemed that this occasion would be the latter, for which he was extremely grateful.

It took Essek several minutes to compose himself. Then again, it wasn’t every day he received a Sending from someone who was supposed to be dead.

He hadn’t responded. That was fine – they’d long ago prearranged to try again at different times of day if a Sending couldn’t be safely answered. So he would be hearing from Da’leth again, sometime soon.

Essek was surprised to find his feelings on the matter were not the suppressed excitement with which he’d used to greet Da’leth’s Sendings. But that made some sense, didn’t it? Da’leth had fallen from power, even if it turned out he had not lost his life. So what good was he now, despite what he’d just said? Surely he couldn’t claim to have equivalent resources to the Cerberus Assembly in whatever exile he’d run to?

And anyway, well. Essek had come to Rexxentrum quite cross with Caleb for upsetting his plans. Now, though. Now, if given the choice between partnership with Da’leth and partnership with Caleb, Essek’s whole being pulled in one direction. Perhaps that wasn’t wise. Da’leth was a known quantity. Caleb, for all his intrigue, was not.

And yet.

And yet, Essek had once thought his relationship with Da’leth was warm and collegial and the closest thing to mutual understanding he could expect out of this life. Now, just a few months later, it felt cheap and hollow. Fool’s gold.

He must talk to Caleb. That was all right – they were already set to speak of beacons soon.

Did Caleb know Da’leth lived? Surely, he must. He was credited with killing him, after all. Unless Da’leth had been resurrected by an ally? One of the other archmages? No, Caleb would have accounted for the possibility. Caleb would have destroyed a body if there was one, at the least.

Was Da’leth a threat to his usurper? Cold skittered down Essek’s spine at the thought. Caleb must have come out the victor before, even if Da’leth survived the experience, but that was when Caleb was presumably prepared, with all his friends and allies at his back. What if – no. No, this was all right. Caleb must know already, Caleb was careful. It was fine.

And as for Da’leth. Well, he could bloody wait, for once.

Astrid’s study had once been Trent’s study. She had renovated and refurnished – new desk, new chairs, new bookshelves. It didn’t look anything like the room in which Bren had spent hundreds of hours as Trent’s annex, or the room where Caleb and Astrid and Eadwulf had screwed each other’s brains out on the floor for the last time a year ago. Still. He thought of both every week when he came in.

“Did you hear from Franka?” Astrid asked, coming in from the other door.

“Ja, she Sent this afternoon.” Caleb usually chose the chair in front of her desk. Tonight he crossed to the couch and sat at the end, tilting his body to invite her to the other end. Astrid’s eyes narrowed, but she played along, and sat.

“It sounds like a suburb of hell,” she said, crossing her trouser-clad legs. Watching her do that used to make Bren’s mouth go dry, because it made him think about her legs wrapped around his waist or his head. It made Caleb’s mouth go dry, too, in reflex. He did what Caduceus had advised for other echoes of Bren – acknowledge, try not to judge, move on.

She wasn’t wrong about Shattengrod. Franka’s description of even just the topmost reaches of the site was hair-raising. All the same, Caleb had immediately developed the desire to call up the Nein and go. An ancient mage city deep underground infested with demons? Nothing to worry about but staying alive and keeping everyone else that way? Sounded great.

And what would he miss here? Not his tower, not his title, not any of his duties, not this endless penance.

Well, maybe his classes. Particularly the seminar. And Leni, of course. And the roof garden, once in a while. And Essek.

It was possible that even his prodigious memory wasn’t immune from acquiring a rosy glow. Their time in Aeor had been terrible, objectively speaking. Yet when he thought of it from this remove, he felt only warm and fond and free.

“I’d like to go out sometime soon,” he said to Astrid. “Take a little look see, if we’re truly going to reopen exploration.”

“Take a team,” Astrid said at once. “Not just Wulf. Franka, Emms, Piter, at the least.”

Not the company he wanted, but the company he had.

“I thought you had Emms doing some deep cover work in Marquet?”

“They’ll be back in the next few weeks,” Astrid said. “They aren’t getting anywhere. What else do you have for me?”

They carried on for another twenty minutes, updating each other on the trajectory of the many balls they mutually had in the air, and revisiting a few ongoing arguments. In public, they were faultlessly united. In private council with their Volstrucker charges, they spoke with one voice. Here, in this room, they fought like cats and dogs.

Ninety-four children had entered the Volstrucker program over the course of its thirty years under Ikithon. Bren had known dozens of them, worked with them, loved many of them as family. Caleb now knew every one of the ninety-four names. Ikithon was, if nothing else, a good recordkeeper.

Four had refused the final test. Caleb felt many things about that tiny, pathetic, brave number. They did it. Why couldn’t you? But also, it was so terribly few. They were summarily executed.

Nine more had died in their first year of service after graduation. Reading between the lines, Caleb thought that wasn’t just the usual sort of attrition you might expect from green agents. It was hard to tell, but he thought there were several suicides in there.

Twenty-five more had died or disappeared in the course of their duties over the three decades. Bren had mourned several of his colleagues. Irina, veteran of one of the very first cohorts, who smoked clove cigarettes and taught Bren knifework and who got her throat cut by, they had all thought, an Augen Trust operative, though Schreiber later disclaimed any knowledge of it. Most of the twenty-five were accounted for, one way or another. Caleb had found three of them in Vergesson with their minds shattered, one of whom Bren had been told was dead. And he did wonder over a few others. Had they run? How had they done it?

Bren had murdered one with his bare hands, on his way out of Vergesson.

Fourteen died in less than ten minutes, the night Ikithon and Iresor fell and Da’leth fled. Eight defending Ikithon, six defending Caleb. Caleb knew he himself had accounted for two. He had not asked, and was not told, which of the Nein had handled the other six. He had known every one of them well. Ikithon had made sure to stack the deck for that, as was his way. They had tried multiple failed resurrections that left Jester on the brink of weeping, and after consultation with the Wildmother, had performed only one more, which brought Franka back.

Nine objected strongly enough to the change in leadership to do something about it, or plan to with enough seriousness to be unignorable. Five of those were in Vergesson. Four were in the ground.

Four more were in the wind, motives and desires unclear. Henrik was the youngest of these, and the one Caleb worried the most for. The others were seasoned operatives that Bren had not known well at all; with them, Caleb feared more for himself and Astrid and Wulf and Leni.

That left twenty-nine. Less than a third come through Ikithon’s threshing machine as intact as anyone ever could. Which was not very, in most cases. Caleb now had considerable responsibilities for the six million some odd souls that comprised the Empire, but it was those twenty-nine he fretted over the most. They needed direction, a purpose. They needed justice. Many of them needed the sort of rehabilitation of the soul that Caleb had been subjected to, but had no idea how to replicate.

“Have you settled on dates to go to Zadash?” Astrid asked.

“Ja. It will have to be quick. Just Whelsen to Conthsen in two weeks.” He paused and said, as if musing out loud. “I was thinking of asking the Shadowhand if he’d like to accompany me.”

“Oh?”

“Ja. He would find the Hall of Erudition impressive.” He allowed himself another beat. Astrid was silent, still like a waiting hawk. She’d known something was coming since the moment he sat down. “He and I,” Caleb said. “We are developing an understanding.”

If he were speaking to anyone else, he would have looked politely away. But this was Astrid, who would have seen that as a kind of coddling. So Caleb looked straight at her, and watched the micro expressions flicker across her face.

“An understanding,” Astrid repeated. “As in, he’s letting you into his spellbook?”

“Ach.” Caleb made a so-so gesture. “A bit. Not to any remarkable degree.” Which wasn’t really true. Essek had been, and continued to be, startlingly generous with his strange, alluring magic. Caleb felt oddly protective over it, and him.

“Ah,” Astrid said, following the dance to its conclusion. “So you are fucking.”

They were not, strictly speaking, though there was probably a yet dangling on the end of that. Essek was an odd mix of eager and wary, in ever-shifting ratios. But much like Caleb could not look away from Astrid when delivering unpalatable news, he could not tell Essek that the reason they hadn’t fallen into bed yet was that Caleb was not sure Essek entirely knew what he was asking for. Then again, who did, before they got it? Best to wait until Essek made himself entirely clear.

None of which he was about to confide to Astrid.

“Ja,” he said simply.

“I see,” she said, with a pleasantness that betrayed her rage.

Caleb waited her out. It was hard to sit still with Bren rising beneath his skin like floodwater. Bren wanted to appease her, to say anything and everything necessary to soften that look in her eyes. Bren also wanted to provoke her, to fight this out because it was going to happen eventually, no matter what he said or did, so why not now?

Caleb waited in silence.

Astrid composed herself in a few brief seconds. She still didn’t really know what to do with Caleb Widogast, who could let a silence be without fawning or fighting. She couldn’t possibly still be waiting for Bren to come back to her, could she? But no, that wasn’t fair. This was unspeakably hard for him, to rewrite all his instincts down to the core parts of himself. Was it any easier for her to look at him and see a stranger?

“Thank you for letting me know,” she said. “Do keep me updated on the matter.”

Oh yes, they were definitely going to be fighting about this at some point.

“Of course,” he said politely. “Good night, Asa.”

Chapter Text

Quen’pillar contained a series of new and startling experiences, one after another.

There was an expression in Common: travel broadens the mind. That was certainly a notion Caleb would subscribe to. It was very un-Kryn, though. The Luxon broadened the mind, or so they were told. That was supposed to include new experiences, but there was also a deep insularity dictated by the hundred mile beacon radius for consecuted souls. You wouldn’t want to broaden your mind right out of existence, after all, so better stay home.

Not that Essek could cast stones. Verin wasn’t wrong that he’d barely set foot outside the Bastion since his hundredth birthday. At least not until now, and a flood of experiences that weren’t so much broadening his mind as packing it to overflowing.

First was one of the infamous pit fights. Verin was so excited about it that Essek didn’t have the heart to leave him at home, so they were a party of five there to watch Yasha fight – the two of them, Caleb, Beauregard, and Grieve. Caleb had been very firm that they would be teleporting there and back, and Essek guessed, looking around, that this was not one of Rexxentrum’s finer neighborhoods. The ‘pit’ in question was a rough earthen affair dug into the floor of what looked like a repurposed warehouse. There was a bar on one side, which appeared to serve only ale, and a crowded set of stations where one could place bets.

“This is why I told you to dress down,” Caleb said in his ear, watching him take it all in.

“I thought I did,” Essek said, plucking self-consciously at his woolen cloak.

Caleb straight out laughed at him, which was the sort of thing that Essek normally couldn’t abide, but Caleb somehow got away with it. Caleb himself cut a startlingly rough figure in patched trousers and a scuffed black leather coat, wearing his component pouch prominently. Essek quietly turned all his rings around to conceal their stones, and wished he’d skipped earrings altogether, as shocking a choice as that would have been in Rosohna.

Essek declined ale, but was intrigued by a paper bag Caleb acquired from a vendor somewhere in the crowd. It contained heavily salted nuts in flakey shells. One cracked them loose with fingers or teeth, and simply dropped the shells to crunch underfoot.

Essek did not expect to enjoy the actual fighting. He didn’t, when Yasha wasn’t involved. The first few bouts struck him as pointlessly bloody and rather dull.

But Yasha was a revelation. She went barehanded and did not use her wings or any other obvious gifts of her ancestry, but she was extraordinary. Her first opponent landed only one good punch on her, bloodying her mouth, before she laid him out. Her second, an orc with an impressively scarred face, gave her only a bit more trouble.

By her fourth, Essek was shouting right along with the rest of their party as Yasha raised her fists in victory. His prior experiences of emotionally overwrought crowds had all been religious in nature, and had left a sour taste in his mouth for the entire prospect. It was the weak-minded, he had thought in younger years, who let themselves be swept away by the fervor of others. But it was so easy to feel his heart rise and fall with Yasha’s fortunes, particularly with Verin hollering on one side of him and Caleb gasping and shouting in Zemnian on the other.

“Fuck, she’s so hot,” Beauregard howled, sounding genuinely pained.

Yasha went four more rounds undefeated, and emerged on the other side bloody and smiling. Essek had never seen such a look of serene happiness on someone bleeding profusely from the forehead. He was startled to find his throat dry and sore; he’d yelled himself hoarse for her. Where did that come from? Verin was practically effervescent with delight.

Essek winced to look at Yasha’s battered face. “We should have brought Caduceus,” he fretted quietly to Caleb, who shook his head.

“Caduceus doesn’t always do well with . . .” he hesitated. “The ways some people hurt themselves to feel good,” he settled on at last. “It’s all right. Beauregard has a potion for her if she wants it.” He stepped forward and held out his fist to her, likely to elicit the laughs he got at how delicately she tapped him. “Magnificent,” he said, bowing with his other arm crossed over his chest.

Caleb teleported them home while the night was still young. Essek suspected he was being careful of the drow in their midst, despite the Seeming Essek had applied to make them appear as the more acceptable kind of elf. Still, it meant that they returned to his tower with spirits high.

Beauregard immediately began mixing drinks. Yasha cleaned herself up a bit, and consented to take a potion. Verin happily recounted several of the more dramatic moments to Grieve, who listened with surprising patience, even if he didn’t contribute. And Essek –

Essek found himself very much of a mood.

He hooked Caleb’s elbow, leaning up to speak in his ear. “Have you made progress on anything we’ve been discussing?” he asked. Then, when Caleb did not immediately pick up the gauntlet, “Is there anything interesting to review on your chalkboard, perhaps?”

“What – ah.” Caleb slowly began to smile. “Shall we go see?”

They slipped away upstairs. Caleb was already getting handsy by the time they were halfway down the hall. Essek let him, the blood fizzing in his veins.

Yasha had looked so intensely present in her body. So rooted, so sure, so satisfied. He wanted that. And he thought he could get it without letting anyone punch him, thank you very much.

Neither of them looked at the chalkboard. Essek backed Caleb into the door until it closed, then kept on going until they were pressed together. He tipped his chin up to be kissed, pleased when Caleb’s big, warm hands closed around his waist.

“Is that so,” Caleb murmured after several heated minutes, as if Essek’s body was telling him things. Essek supposed it was. How fortuitous, if he could be telling Caleb his sizzling, intimate thoughts without having to put actual words to them.

Caleb was still being rather the gentleman, though, which simply would not do. Essek let his opinion on that be known by the expedient of lifting Caleb’s hand off his waist and placing it where he wanted it more.

“Oh,” Caleb said again, a laugh in his voice. He squeezed Essek’s rear with pleasing firmness. “Is that so?”

“Be quiet,” Essek said, slipping into a waspish tone without meaning to.

But Caleb was not offended. Caleb just laughed at him again, and kissed him. “If you want me to do what I’m told,” he said, “then you are going to have to tell me what to do.” He considered Essek’s expression for a moment. “Or put my hands where you want them, that works, too.”

Essek found he could definitely do that. He ended up scaling Caleb like a tree, arms about his shoulders and legs about his waist. Who knew Adjust Density could be so useful for these things? Caleb held him up, too, one hand high under his thigh and the other on his rear.

“Here,” Caleb said, lifting his head after a moment. “Let’s –” he turned and took several steps, then practically dropped Essek onto the couch. Yes, that was even better. Essek drew him down, pleased by the solid weight of him. And he could release concentration on Adjust Density, too. He hadn’t known, until this exact moment, that these activities could be so demanding upon the focussed mind.

“Oh,” he said on a punched-out breath as Caleb’s hips pressed between his thighs, spreading them wide apart. They rocked together, and the practiced skill in Caleb’s kiss slid into something harder and messier. Essek loved it.

He unraveled Caleb’s hair from its knot and let it fall around both their faces. Caleb had taken to wearing it secured with one spiral pin that could be removed with a quick twist and pull. Essek flattered himself that this change was for his pleasure. Caleb likely did not intend it to be quite so brazenly provocative as it was to Essek’s eye. To him, it bore a striking resemblance to a common style deployed in Kryn art to signal a person just coming from, or going to, a shared bed.

“You’re in a mood,” Caleb said against Essek’s lips.

Was he? Essek supposed this was true. He felt tipsy, though he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol. Whatever it was made this – the intimate press of Caleb’s body over his – purely thrilling. “I am,” he agreed. “What are you going to do about it?”

Caleb leaned back and studied Essek’s face. Then, coming to some conclusion, he caught one of Essek’s hands and brought it to his mouth, where he kissed Essek’s fingertips and drew two of them deliberately between his lips, making pointed eye contact. His tongue flicked, and Essek shuddered from the top of his head to the pit of his belly.

“Yes?” Caleb asked, Essek’s fingers resting on his lips, his eyes wide and bright. “Would you like?”

Essek nodded vigorously before his brain even caught up to understand what Caleb was asking. His body knew, though.

Caleb was a flurry of motion, like a moorbounder released to the hunt. He pulled Essek more upright and leaned him against the cushions, then slid down in a sinuous wriggle to lie on his belly between Essek’s thighs. There was a moment of near comedy then, until Essek showed him where the fabric belt of his simple trousers was secured with a hook at the hip. Caleb unhooked and unwound, then undid the placket with a yank and a scowl.

“Your clothes are ridiculous,” he complained, then changed tone abruptly. “Ooh, I like these, though.” He nuzzled his face into Essek’s dark purple silk underthings.

“No need to, ah, to dress down everywhere,” Essek said.

Caleb did not linger. He hoisted Essek with an arm under his back and slid his underthings down to his thighs.

“I like this, too,” he said, making a ring of fingers around Essek’s prick. It was nearly the same color as the silks, as flushed dark as it was. “May I?” Caleb said, leaning in but looking up.

Essek nodded, all words having fled.

That didn’t mean he was quiet, though. A sound built in his belly as Caleb rubbed his prick across his lips, rose up his throat as Caleb made a tight circle of his mouth and pressed down down down, and exited as something near a wail. He’d had his tongue and his fingers in Caleb’s mouth, he knew how Caleb ran hotter than him, but by the Luxon, this was scalding, ruinous.

Caleb rose up off of him luxuriously slowly with a wet slurp and a pop at the end. Essek’s ears were ringing.

“Look at me,” Caleb said, with a crack of command that electrified Essek’s spine. He opened his eyes wide, met Caleb’s gaze, and held, keening between his teeth as Caleb took his prick to the root.

Caleb set about his work with messy fervor. Essek was entirely unprepared for it – the obscenity of the sounds he made, the wet slurping, the smack of his lips, the way he said “mmm” in manifest delight as he rolled his tongue over the head. As he tasted the flavor of spend, Essek realized with a painful lurch in his guts.

Caleb set his hands one each high on Essek’s thighs, gripping him and holding him down while his mouth worked and worked. His loose hair was everywhere – on his shoulders, tickling across Essek’s groin, sticking to Caleb’s wet mouth. Essek brushed it away for him, distantly startled to see his hand shaking.

“Yes,” Caleb said, coming up for air. “Do that.” And then when Essek blinked dumbly at him, “hold my hair. Pull it, if you want. I like that.”

What could Essek do but obey? He buried both hands in Caleb’s hair. It made how hard Caleb was working more apparent, riding the rolling waves up and down.

“Wait, wait,” Essek gasped after a thirty second eternity. His crisis was approaching far too fast.

Caleb rose up at once, warm hands closing around Essek’s arms. “All right?” he asked, with his wet, red mouth.

Essek nodded. “I, ah. I just want to slow down. I don’t want this to be over so soon.”

“Ah.” Caleb looked pleased with himself, the scoundrel. “Here, this works on most humanoids, let’s see if it works on you.” He circled one hand around the base of Essek’s prick and squeezed with slowly increasing pressure, while the other hand slid down and tugged delicately at his stones. Essek grunted in aggrieved Undercommon, and Caleb smirked. “Better?”

“Yes. Just give me a minute.” Essek licked his lips. The reprieve had given him a chance to think of something other than the present moment. “I should ask. In the interests of, ah. Our ongoing cross-cultural exchanges.”

“Yes?” Caleb was grinning now.

“Is there etiquette governing what I ought to do with my, ah . . .?” He ran aground on linguistics again. He would know precisely what word to use in Undercommon, and he had half a dozen Common words to choose from, but very little context to know which was too clinical, which too euphemistic, which too obscene.

Caleb let him dangle there for a moment, but at least had the decency to allow the pretense that this was a question of cultural practice, and not inexperience.

“It comes down to preference,” he said, sliding into professorial tones. “Some do not like the taste, or the texture. Some like the tidiness of swallowing. Some like it on their face or their neck.” He laughed at the expression Essek made. “That’s not for everyone. And you must be careful of the eyes, doing that.”

“And you?” Essek asked.

“I like the taste,” Caleb said, looking him in the eye. “And I also like it on my face. So, suit yourself, and I will be happy. It is generally polite to give a few seconds warning.” He smirked. “In my culture.” He paused, a devil in his eyes. “I love sucking cock,” he said, with terrible deliberation. “I can’t wait until you let me have it again.”

“The things you say,” Essek said, scandalized. Thrilled.

“If you don’t like it, I think you can figure out what to do,” Caleb said.

Essek felt himself rising to that provocation with no chance of stopping. He gripped Caleb’s hair with both hands and drew him down. Caleb laughed, so warmly happy that it knocked the breath out of Essek’s lungs even before Caleb’s mouth closed on him again.

It was, despite Essek’s best efforts, over very quickly. Caleb did move slower, but that mattered not at all. Not when he turned the pace into another kind of pleasure, letting his mouth linger in a slow, sucking departure at the end of every stroke.

Essek’s whole body curled, his spine, his toes. His hair, for all he knew.

“Now,” he chanted, teeth scoring his own lip. “Caleb, now now now.”

Caleb stayed on him through it all, rumbling a sound in his throat that made Essek shout, made a tearing sensation inside him, made it all come tumbling down.

Essek lay panting in the wreckage of himself, after. Caleb stayed close, humming in a pleased manner. He tucked Essek’s prick away and refastened and re-hooked, then gave him an intimate, affectionate pat that made Essek jolt.

“You’ve been waiting a while for that one, hmm?” Caleb said. He started running his hands up and down Essek’s body in firm, slow strokes. It wasn’t sexual, exactly, but it felt shockingly good.

“Oh,” Essek said without thinking. “About seventy years, I’d say.”

Damn. He opened his eyes to check Caleb’s reaction to that, which was thankfully minimal.

Oh. Oh no. He was being rude, wasn’t he? Caleb looked remarkably pleased for someone who had not received satisfaction. He truly did enjoy that, by the Luxon. Essek firmly resolved not to think on that any more right now. His nerves couldn’t take it.

“What can I do for you?” he asked. It came out a lot more plaintive than intended, but he was genuinely unsure of what he was supposed to do to follow a bravura performance like that.

“At this point, pretty much whatever you like,” Caleb said. Then, seeming to realize how unhelpful that was, “I have been thinking a great deal on the subject of your lovely hands. If you want a suggestion.”

Essek took to this direction gladly. He heaved himself upright, and managed to switch places with Caleb without anyone taking an elbow somewhere delicate. There, that was step one.

Step two was Caleb’s belt. The brass buckle, Essek saw, was shaped like a small cat face. And then the buttons of his trousers, trying not to touch the hard bulge underneath overly much. Which was silly, Essek realized, since he was about to touch it a great deal.

Step three was taking Caleb’s prick from his white cotton underclothes, and holding it in both hands and, apparently, saying “Oh, goodness,” in winded tones. It made sense that other races would be proportioned differently but, well. Goodness. A quiver of heated alarm lit inside him at the thought of the sorts of things Caleb might like to do, with a prick like that.

Which was not the question right now. The question right now was what Essek was going to do with a prick like that.

There had been times in Essek’s life when he had touched himself on a regular basis. That was not true in recent years, as those desires had seemed to wither away with neglect. But he at least had some relevant memories to consult, even if the angles here were unfamiliar. Not to mention the proportions.

“Here,” Caleb said. He dug about in the component pouch strapped to his thigh and produced a tiny glass vial of oil.

“What’s that for?” Essek asked, opening it. “Oh. Suggestion?”

“Mmm,” Caleb said. “And a higher level abjuration that I was playing around with a while ago. Shall I discuss the particulars now?”

Essek had to check his face to be sure he was joking. “No thank you,” he said, taking Caleb in hand. Hands. He could grip the shaft with one and roll the other over the head. Yes, Caleb liked that.

It did not take long. Essek was somewhat cross about that. He was just getting used to the feel of Caleb in his hands, the heat of him, how much softer this skin was than the rough skin of his fingers, the fascinating thatch of red hair at the base, the low-voiced instructions Caleb offered – “squeeze right there, yes. And give me your nails just a little bit on my thighs, fuck, like that, you’re perfect.”

And then the wetness at his tip suddenly increased, and Essek looked up from his work.

“Ja,” Caleb said. His head was tossed back, his face eloquent of strain. “Almost there.”

Essek had a frantic moment when he realized, yet again, that he did not know what to do with the mess. He thought for one instant of supplying his mouth to the task, but no, he was not prepared for that at the moment. Instead, he scrambled in his trouser pocket. When Caleb spent himself, it was into Essek’s Thelyss-monogrammed purple spider silk handkerchief.

“Ah,” Caleb sighed when it was over. “Very nice.”

He’d spent so much. Was that standard for humans?

Caleb stretched and yawned, then caught Essek pinching his handkerchief closed with some confusion.

“Just leave it there,” he said, waving at the small side table. “I’ll take care of it.”

Essek did, then supplied a series of prestidigitations to them both. He felt a little sticky and sweaty, and tired in a deeply physical way that was a new sensation.

“Come here,” Caleb said, and pulled him down into a warm embrace. His mouth tasted like – oh. Right.

“Good?” Caleb asked.

“Very,” Essek said.

“We should go back down,” Caleb said, yawning. “We’ve been gone twenty-three minutes.”

That was all? Essek felt, somehow, like a different person than he was half an hour ago.

“Really, it’s a wonder Beauregard hasn’t come up here,” Caleb continued. “She has a truly spectacular talent for cockblocking me.”

Essek mouthed ‘cockblocking’ to himself. So much new Common vocabulary he was learning these days.

“Oh no,” he said out loud, belatedly processing what Caleb had said and remembering that there was a whole room of people downstairs. Who probably missed them by now. Who very well might speculate on what they were doing. Essek’s hand curled instinctively in the first gesture of Teleport.

“I’m warning you now, Thelyss,” Caleb said. “If you vanish on me, I will go downstairs and loudly announce that I blew you so well, you cried.”

Essek sputtered. “I did not. And you wouldn’t.” He eyed Caleb. “You wouldn’t?”

Caleb stared back, stony but for the twitch of his mouth. “Try me. It’s not so bad,” he added, patting Essek’s rear and shuffling them both more upright. “Here, let me show you a trick.”

It turned out you could use the small cooling effect of Prestidigitation to rapidly repair the look of a mouth swollen from kissing. Or . . . other things. Essek still couldn’t manage to look at Caleb’s mouth, even when it was no longer plump and flushed.

“Oh, by the way,” Caleb said, putting his hair back up in a messy twist. “I’m going to Zadash next Whelsen.”

“Ah,” Essek said. Their Whelsen evening conversations were the closest thing they had to a regularly-scheduled time together. “Will you have time for me later that week?”

“Actually, I was wondering if you’d want to come with me?” Caleb said. He eyed Essek up and down, and gestured to his shirt collar, which Essek straightened. “It will mostly be boring. Dinner with Hass, that sort of thing. But I thought you might like to see the Hall of Erudition, and there’s an enchanter in the city whose work you may enjoy.”

“Yes,” Essek said immediately. Once you went to one strange imperial city, what was another, after all?

“Wonderful. It should be just one overnight.” Caleb came close and undid some of Essek’s work by kissing him again. “I’m sorry we’re so rushed,” he said, in a softer tone.

Essek waved that away. “Can’t be helped.” And he could do with some alone time. His body still rang like a struck bell. He had many things to process.

“I’ll go down first,” Caleb said, stepping back. “Give me about five minutes. We were discussing Stegner’s Fourth Abjurative Variation, by the way, if anybody asks.”

He slipped out, leaving Essek glad that at least one of them was practiced in concealing liaisons.

The next afternoon, he was presented to the king. No one said so, but Essek was pretty certain that the long delay in receiving him was a deliberate insult. He didn’t much care. He’d always felt a little disdainful of the geopolitics of nations.

The preparations reminded him how long it had been since he’d attended court. And more importantly, how much he didn’t miss it. He wore full mantle and robes, which felt exceedingly odd after nearly two months without. He’d forgotten how heavy the shoulder pieces and underlying wire armature were.

And, upsettingly, it meant that Caleb did not give him one of those looks when Essek stepped into the Assembly’s carriage. Verin, in full Echo Knight regalia, would follow along behind on horseback in a crowd of Assembly retainers. Essek could hear him exclaiming, “but it’s so small! What do you do when you need your mount to rip out a throat with its teeth?” over the horse he was offered.

“Hallo,” Caleb said, looking up from a parchment he and Grieve were sharing and beckoning Essek to the seat beside him. “We’re just waiting for Asa.”

Essek sat, trying to be less aware of Caleb’s thigh next to his. Caleb’s hair was braided far more intricately than usual. Essek was willing to bet he had not done that himself, and schooled away his feelings on the matter of someone else’s hands in Caleb’s hair.

Becke arrived a minute later and deposited herself across from Essek. She wore a red suit with black piping, clearly coordinated with Caleb’s all black with a red-embroidered cloak.

“Shadowhand,” she said, in that cool way of hers. “Wulf. Bren. Shall we go?”

It became clear to Essek, in the brief carriage ride, that there was some tension at play. He could not point to any one particular thing. And indeed, he had not spent enough time observing them to know what was normal. But there was something in the air, under the polite talk. Something with teeth.

The only time that eased was when the three of them fell into a conversation about Miss Magdalena’s academic needs. Essek sat back, watching Caleb’s bright head bend close with theirs. He hadn’t been certain, until that exact moment, of the geometry of the thing. Lots of history there, of course, and a child. But he hadn’t been sure until that moment that it was the three of them all together, not some combinations in parallel or series.

Though it was combinations in parallel now, wasn’t it?

“I don’t know,” Caleb said, clasping his hands together. “You had formal schooling, but I didn’t until Soltryce. I don’t think we can conclude either is inherently the correct answer.”

Essek blinked. How was it possible for that extraordinary mind to be unschooled until, what, the teen years? Surely that was not the normal course of things?

“But you were bored,” Becke said.

“And a hellion,” Grieve added. He spoke more to them than to anyone else by far.

Caleb shrugged eloquently. “I’m pretty sure I would have been a bored hellion even if we could have afforded to send me to the village school,” he said. “At least based on what you’ve said of the curriculum.”

“Primary education requires gold?” Essek asked, appalled. No wonder the Empire was so backwards in producing great thinkers.

He got two disdainful and one interested looks for his trouble.

“No,” Caleb said neutrally. “There is no upfront cost. But there is an imputed cost of lost labor. I grew up on a very small tenant farm, and my father was frequently away,” he added, off Essek’s continued bafflement. “And I was able to pick up on my own or under the direction of my mother everything our local school could have taught me, anyway.”

Essek, who had spent nearly thirty eight years receiving his formal education, couldn’t fathom that. How was it possible for Caleb to be who he was with, what, three to five years of formal education to his name? He remembered, with something close to shame, thinking about how little humans had time to do in their firefly lives.

“Anyway,” Caleb said, returning to his conversation. “I don’t think we need to decide right now. She could use more time with her peers, but that doesn’t necessarily require school.”

“You just don’t like the school,” Becke said.

“It’s . . . well-resourced,” Caleb said, in a tone that made it clear that wasn’t a compliment.

“Mmm,” Becke said mildly. “And here I thought you were finally developing a taste for expensive things.”

The two of them held sustained eye contact. Essek glanced across at Grieve, who gave him a blank face for his trouble.

“Oh,” Caleb said, with a sudden fey brightness that Essek did not like, “that reminds me.” He took out his spellbook, opened it, and extracted – oh no – Essek’s handkerchief from inside, now cleaned and neatly pressed. “I wanted to return this to you,” he said, holding it out to Essek on his palm.

Essek took it, feeling himself change color and rather furious about it. “Thank you,” he said stiffly.

When they arrived at Castle Ungebroch, Caleb got out first and handed Becke down. He leaned back in and lifted an eyebrow, silently asking if Essek wanted the same treatment. Essek shook his head and exited. He might have allowed that five minutes ago, but not now.

The imperial court had different esthetics than Essek was used to, but its nuances were entirely familiar. They spent forty five minutes waiting in still silence for their time. The matters being handled in the interim weren’t even particularly interesting, mostly soft power exercises of a social nature.

Then, when it was time, Caleb introduced him, said a few empty words about the value of transnational interchange, and stepped aside for Essek to present himself and the gifts from his queen, a jewel-encrusted harp of shockingly high value yet poor sound, and a case of plum wine. The first was quite a backhanded insult, in Kryn terms, but Essek didn’t expect anyone to pick up on that, nor did he care if they did. The king looked Essek over with visible disdain, glanced at Verin with incrementally more interest, said the appropriate things with no pretense at meaning them, and it was all over in under five minutes.

“Master Widogast,” the king said as Essek withdrew. Caleb approached, and he and his monarch shared a few words. Essek saw Becke’s jaw flex. She was not invited to the conversation. Caleb returned to them looking pensive.

“Shattengrod,” he murmured in response to Becke’s raised eyebrow.

“Excellent.” Becke set off quickly enough that they all had to scramble to keep up.

Essek very much wanted to ask, but was doubtful he’d get an answer. Almost certainly not here in the castle, where the walls must have ears. He was wildly curious, though. The Lens had been able to establish that something of great value yet danger had been discovered near Pride’s Call, but the site was closed before they could learn more. Closed because of a change in leadership of the Cerberus Assembly, to be precise.

The ride home was pleasant by virtue of being mostly silent. Becke exited the carriage first, which Caleb politely then directed to Essek’s guest house.

“Can I have a moment?” Essek asked when they arrived.

Caleb gave him a careful look, then gestured to Grieve. “If you would?”

Grieve exited and stood with his back to the carriage door, his broad shoulders blocking the one small window. Caleb eyed Essek again. “You don’t look like you wanted to steal a kiss,” he said.

Essek did, was the rub, even though he was still rather annoyed.

“No,” he said. “I merely wanted to say that.” He licked his lips, finding himself in the unusual situation of needing to take someone to task, and genuinely caring about their reaction to it. “I would prefer not to be played as a . . . game chit, in your dealings with Archmage Becke,” he said. “That is all.”

Caleb crumpled a little, as if Essek had delivered a much sharper reprimand. “I know,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. That was Bren. Doing things the only way he knows how. I will do better, keeping him on the leash.”

Essek blinked. He’d heard other people invoke the name; Beauregard had even spoken as if they were two separate people, but hearing Caleb do so was startling.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Caleb continued, now appearing doleful, “I ruined my own plans. I was looking forward to returning that to you later. Making you blush when I could enjoy it all to myself.”

“Well,” Essek said, allowing himself to be softened by this charm offensive. “It is done, and I consider the matter closed.” He lifted his chin. “I will have that kiss now.”

“Oh, will you?” Caleb leaned in, a sparkle to his eye, and obliged. He kept it brief and light, reading Essek’s intentions correctly. “Will I see you on Folsen for dinner?”

“Yes,” Essek said, only a little wary of what might come of it this time. He took his leave, thanking Grieve for the patience as he passed. He got no reaction to that, but he felt it wise to make an effort to keep things pleasant.

What he considered most of all, though, was Bren. He thought he might be starting to know this shadow person, if only a little bit. Bren was a Scourger, with a Scourger’s brutal instincts. Essek thought he might sense a bit of glee there, too, in the exercise of power, in destructiveness, in provoking Becke. Caleb was slower. Deliberately so, it seemed, to give him time to linger over decisions and analyze his own motives, probably. It looked exhausting.

Then again, it could not really be such a clean break, could it? Essek was not a great believer in self-improvement, in rejection of one of the core tenets of Luxon philosophy. You were who you were, and Essek had never found any value in spending time worrying about the nuances of character, particularly his own.

Caleb did, though. Caleb weighed and measured to some standard Essek didn’t really understand, except to think it brutally exacting. Caleb clearly wanted to think he had made a clean break from a past self. And yet, Caleb also kissed with disarming confidence and charmed as easily, both things Essek had to believe were skills Bren had cultivated. Was it a clean break, or was Bren just the name Caleb assigned to the parts of himself he had inexplicably decided to hate?

He arrived on Folsen to find an uncharacteristically woeful gathering. The seagoing contingent had been diverted in the past week away from Nicodranas, and thus were not in range of a teleportation circle. Apparently, Jester normally had a method to return them, but she was “unexpectedly” out of spells. Essek decided on the spot not to inquire further into that, lest he be told, and develop a headache.

“And I only have one more Teleport in me today,” Caleb finished. “So. We are reduced.”

“Ah,” Essek said, “but I also have Teleport prepared. Perhaps you could take us there, and I could bring us back?”

It was worth it to see the sun rise in Caleb’s eyes.

Which was how Essek unexpectedly found himself on the deck of a ship at sea for the first time in his life. At sunset, no less, which was not an experience he’d care to repeat. Still, it was done quickly enough, and Essek returned them to the roof of Caleb’s tower with three more passengers.

“Take a pebble,” Caleb said, nudging him gently. “You are quite accurate, but you never know when you could use an anchor.”

Essek did, feeling like he had just been offered something quite significant.

Dinner was the usual raucous affair, followed by drinks, followed by more hot tub nonsense. That seemed to be increasingly preferred as the fall drew on and the weather cooled. Essek was not sure how to feel about that. Was it better than alternatives? More chaotic but much less naked alternatives? He really didn’t know.

“We’ll get you in here eventually,” Beauregard said to him.

“I will bet you absolutely anything you might name that you will not,” Essek said.

The party broke up unusually early. Jester was exhausted of more than just magical energy, and as with most things concerning her, the yawning was infectious. Fjord retired with her, Caduceus withdrew to tend his garden with Kingsley on his heels, and Grieve departed without a word of explanation, which Essek honestly respected.

“Well,” Caleb said to Essek. “I know you’d rather be downstairs discussing spellwork. Shall we? Stay as long as you like, of course,” he added to the ladies still in the hot tub.

“Get it, Widogast,” Beauregard hollered, which Essek concluded must be some sort of inuendo based on reactions. Well, that answered the question of whether the other members of the Mighty Nein knew the scope of their entanglement. He shouldn’t be surprised by that. If he had to guess, he’d say there were few secrets among them.

Caleb stood, water streaming down his back. Essek was genuinely tempted to look. Caleb clearly wouldn’t mind. But he could not bring himself to do it with the ladies right there, collectively hooting at them no less.

“We,” Caleb said with magnificent dignity, “will be discussing matters of deep arcane significance.”

“Oh,” Veth said, wide-eyed. “Is that what we’re calling your dick now? Deep arcane significance?”

“I thought we agreed to call it the Real Archmage’s Bane,” Beauregard said.

“I’ll meet you down there,” Caleb said to him, ignoring this and reaching for a towel.

Essek retreated rapidly, which might look a lot like fleeing, but definitely wasn’t.

Caleb joined him a few minutes later dressed down in gray pants of a soft material and a purple sweater so large, the sleeves covered his hands. His damp hair was brushed out over his shoulders, and he looked cozy and altogether lovely, with that particular glow he only seemed to carry when he was hosting the Mighty Nein.

“I was serious, you know,” he said, joining Essek on the couch. “You promised me an explanation of what I saw in Aeor.”

“I did,” Essek said, glad of the prompt. He had just been considering how to redirect their mutual attention to that, and off matters of a more . . . sensual nature. He turned to fully face Caleb, pulling his feet up like Caleb sometimes did. Caleb retrieved a heavy knitted blanket in a rainbow pattern from a compartment in the ottoman, and silently spread it over their legs. It was warm, and Caleb’s legs tangled companionably with his. None of this was remotely how Essek had pictured talking to an Assembly archmage about the beacons.

“You said this room may not be scried on?” he confirmed. “I know you yourself are protected, but I am not, usually.”

“It is. Feel free to look for yourself, if you like.”

Essek cast Detect Magic, more out of curiosity than doubt. The room – the whole tower? – was indeed encased in a glowing blue abjurative shell. He glanced at Caleb, who was a veritable constellation of magical objects – an amulet, several rings, and something in his pants pocket, most prominently. And there was a subtle sheen to him that Essek thought was probably his Mind Blank.

“Very good,” Essek said, and dismissed the spell. “So. The object you saw represented is a source of dunamantic energy. The Dynasty has possession of four of them. They are the central objects around which our religion is constructed, but—” he brushed that aside with a gesture “—never mind that.”

“Oh?” Caleb said, and Essek thought that he might have just revealed more of his personal feelings on the matter to Caleb’s perceptive eye than he’d meant to. But Caleb sensibly focused on the more important thing. “So they . . . emanate a field?”

“Yes. Or, well.” Essek rubbed his face, already frustrated. “That is what must be true, based on everything I know. But I have not been permitted to conduct experiments to quantify it. Let me begin with what is considered common knowledge in the circles I move in.”

He explained the odd psychic experience of gazing into a beacon, and the fragment of possibility that could result.

“Like Fortune’s Favor,” Caleb said, seeing the comparison at once.

“Yes. Functioning under somewhat different constraints, but derived from the same manipulation of probabilistic outcomes. But there is another aspect of the beacons that is altogether different.”

Unlike the first part of the discussion, Caleb listened to his explanation of consecution with a crease growing deeper on his brow. He was troubled by something, but Essek was not sure what.

“So,” Caleb said eventually, when Essek had wound down. “How many lives have you lived?”

“Me? Only this one.” He almost said more – and it will be my only, I object, I refuse – but the instincts of a lifetime froze the words in his chest.

“So you do not know, subjectively, what it is like?” Caleb said slowly. “This process of forgetting the self, remembering the self.”

“I do not, though I have witnessed it several times.”

“It sounds – I’m sorry. I do not want to offend.”

“Please,” Essek said. “Speak freely.”

“It sounds horrible,” Caleb said quickly. “I imagine that is not a typical reaction, and I am sorry. But you could not pay me in immortality to do that. To believe I was someone else, and then remember this life. . . . You are smiling.”

“It’s true, that is not the typical reaction,” Essek said. And not something he had thought, in so many words, but yes, he understood doubts. “But it is no surprise to me that you are extraordinary. Also,” he continued, as Caleb flushed pleasingly. “You are not wrong. The process looks deeply difficult and unpleasant. It is an existential crisis. It is a fire we must pass through, we are taught. To be taken into the hands of the Luxon, scoured in its light, and then returned new. Perfected.”

“Ah, the Luxon being the god of worship. I have heard the name, but little more.”

“Yes.” Essek had been intending to avoid discussion of that. Da’leth had been singularly uninterested, which was a relief. So few people of Essek’s acquaintance could claim the same. But now he found himself not only willing to speak, but wanting to. “There is a . . . presence,” he said. “It does not communicate like other gods of Exandria do, though the clerics and paladins of the Luxon will claim that this or that is a sign, a portent of its will. I have always thought there is likely some fragment of truth in our origin myth, in which case the Luxon predates the gods, and even the primordials. It is a source of power, undoubtedly. But what else it is, I do not know. Am not permitted to seek.”

“Ah,” Caleb said, his eyes on Essek’s face. “So it could be a conscious being of great power, or not?”

“Precisely. It could be that. Or merely a complex set of magical processes that have no will or agency. Or something else, like a being whose consciousness is so alien, it does not even comprehend that we exist.” Saying that out loud, for the first time in many decades since he had learned to curb his tongue, was enormously freeing. “Or something else altogether.”

“And you are curious about it,” Caleb said, in a testing sort of way. “As . . . a part of your religious practice?”

Essek lifted his chin and said, “I do not worship.”

Caleb nodded, a theory confirmed. Then he said something unexpected. “Would you, if you knew for sure? That it was a divine being, or something like it?”

“Why would I?” Essek said, carried away on a tide of honesty. “That is not where my power comes from. I am told there are other benefits but—” he shrugged. “I have never found those compelling. It is not for me.”

Caleb nodded. “Wulf does,” he said, in another unexpected turn. “It’s the Raven Queen for him. There are . . . reasons she in particular called to him, I think. And he does gain something from it. Not peace, but – I shouldn’t put words in his mouth. Something. But it never appealed to me.”

Essek nodded, wondering when he’d last discussed this with someone who understood. Verin didn’t mind, but that was a very different thing.

“Do you have a preferred theory?” Caleb asked, politely interested. “As to the nature of the Luxon?”

Something happened in Essek’s body. It was like an internal shock. Strange, almost painful. When had someone last asked him that? Had anyone? He had certainly told people – anyone who would listen, in younger, more foolish years.

“I slightly favor the theory that it is an entity, but is entirely unconcerned with us. Drow, the Dynasty, perhaps all of Exandria. Unaware of us, even. Though,” he made a face. “I must admit my evidence is scarce. And I try not to let that opinion color the rest of my thinking. I don’t want to risk my objectivity when the time comes to research further.”

“Of course,” Caleb said. “It’s so easy to let our biases cloud our thinking.”

“Yes.” This conversation had wandered significantly, but here was a chance to get back on track. “So, I am curious. About the Luxon, secondarily. But primarily, I want to know about the beacons, there is so much – Caleb?” For Caleb had jerked, a full body shock of surprise.

“Beacons?” Caleb repeated sharply. “That’s what they are called?”

“Yes.” Essek realized that he had been using the Undercommon word until just now. “Why?” It couldn’t be some other fragment from Aeor, surely, as that would not be in Common.

“I,” Caleb said slowly, “just heard a reference somewhere. I am uncertain if it is referring to the same thing at all. Never mind that, please continue.”

“Ah,” Essek said, deciding not to press, for the moment. Gently, gently. “I was just going to say. It is my life’s ambition to study the beacons. To understand how they operate on probability, and time, and gravity. To see what is possible with their power.” He was supposed to say ‘in their light.’ He did not.

“I see,” Caleb said, nodding. “Thank you for sharing all of that. It is fascinating. And I think I understand you better now.”

Essek was somewhat taken aback by that. It wasn’t at all the purpose of what he’d just said, after all. Caleb should not be focusing on him, Caleb should be focusing on these new and exciting objects of power.

“I take it most of this is highly confidential?” Caleb continued. “You can, of course, rely on my discretion. But I was wondering if I could discuss some overarching points with Beauregard? It may be relevant to . . . an ongoing project of ours.”

“Certainly,” Essek said. Now that was more like it. “I hope you will let me know if I can be of assistance?”

“Yes,” Caleb said absently. “We will definitely do that.”

Beauregard came over on Da’leysen right about the same time Leni arrived. The two of them galivanted around the roof garden for half an hour, playing tag and scaring the wildlife and letting their voices echo all the way down to the street. Leni ran Beauregard to a panting standstill, which was gratifying, if also rather frightening.

“All right,” Beauregard said, when she eventually extracted herself and followed him downstairs. “What’s the what?”

Caleb retrieved Da’leth’s journal from his top desk drawer. “Here,” he said, opening to one of their more frequently visited entries, where Da’leth had been carried away enough by his mad schemes to write with some detail. “We’ve been wondering what this thing is he says he needs. A beacon. I think I know.”

He gave her the relevant highlights of the intriguing conversation with Essek. He did not include some of the more personal conclusions he’d drawn, listening to that. Watching the tension in Essek’s face, the flicks of his ears that Caleb was coming to know bespoke strong emotion.

It felt good to know a part of what drove him. Caleb had known it was something. He was pleased to discover it was, in part, burning arcane curiosity. He could understand that very well.

A curiosity that was being thwarted in some way. Essek had not said, but Caleb could make some educated guesses. He’d known many people, after all, who had worshipped not according to the Empire’s edicts. It was dangerous but fulfilling, or so he’d been told. Was it similarly dangerous not to worship in the Dynasty? Was it at all fulfilling?

“Okay,” Beauregard said when he was done. She’d neglected her ever-present notebook in favor of rapid pacing. “And you don’t know anything else about these things? They sound powerful.”

“They do.”

“I don’t suppose Essek, like, brought one with him or something?”

“I would be shocked if he did,” Caleb said. “They are tied into the Dynasty’s religion. And not for handling even by someone like him, I gathered.”

“Damn. So our chances of getting to, say, borrow one?”

Caleb made a dubious face. “I can ask him further questions about them,” he said. “That is probably the best we can do for now.”

“Well, maybe not,” Beauregard said. “We’ve been holding off on tapping Schreiber.”

“Ja, true.” Schreiber was a canny and useful ally. But also an expensive one. They hadn’t taken their questions about Da’leth and his activities to him yet because the cost for the Trust’s information was always high. It might not seem that way in the moment, but these things had a long tail. And before now, it hadn’t seemed important enough. They might have fucked up there, though. The Trust undoubtedly could have given them chapter and verse on what beacons were over a year ago. “It might be time to take this to him, you’re right.” He gritted his teeth. “You know something that makes me angry?”

“I know lots of things that make you angry,” Beauregard said, with a ‘go on’ gesture.

“It makes me very angry that I am supposed to be holding this office,” Caleb said, pointing to his formal robes hung on the back of the door. “I am supposed to be one of the people keeping this nation safe. Safe from them, the Kryn, among others. And yet, to do that, no one thinks it important that I know the first thing about them.”

“Well, sure,” Beauregard said with a cynical twist of the mouth. “It’s easier to hate somebody when you can make up whatever fucked up stories you want about them.”

“Yes. Exactly.” The idea was not a new one, and yet it had taken meeting Essek and Verin and their household for him to think to apply it in this instance. And now here he was, finding vile things in his head again. Digging them out.

Beauregard stopped in front of him. “Essek’s been teaching you his duna-whatsit magic, you won’t shut up about it. So you can infer. Would one of these objects actually work for what Daleth was speculating about?”

Did the possibility change his ravings from mad and luckily implausible to madly plausible, she meant.

Caleb rolled his shoulders. He had been thinking on little else since Folsen. “I don’t have anywhere near enough information to know,” he said. “But speculatively? Yes.” He did not want to say it. He did not want it to be true. He was just starting to feel, in the last few months, that the cloud of Ikithon was clearing from his skies. Every fiber of his being cried out in protest at the idea of dedicating himself to the destruction of yet another archmage. He was so tired.

“Well, fuck,” Beauregard said succinctly.

Chapter Text

One of Essek’s official purposes in coming to Rexxentrum, and an important one for his private endeavors, was to gather intelligence on the new Assembly archmages and whatever other powers he could access. The Bright Queen and the Dusk Captain probably didn’t value this information as highly as he did. Their focus always bent more towards the Augen Trust and its assorted machinations in and out of the Dynasty, and also to the king and his military. They acknowledged the Assembly as a significant power, but Essek suspected they had collectively grown somewhat complacent with the status quo Da’leth represented. Da’leth was not drow, of course, but he operated on their time scales, and so they thought they understood him.

Essek could attest that they absolutely did not, but he wasn’t about to explain that.

So, he owed reports back on the new archmages. It was surprisingly difficult. He had quite a lot of information about them at this point, but was reluctant to share, at least when it came to Caleb. About Becke, he wrote and elaborated. She was composed but she had a temper, she prized her new position, she was continuing the Scourger program in some capacity, she actively resented the treatment she received on account of her gender. They would like that last part; it played directly into their preconceptions.

Caleb was trickier. Essek wrote primarily of his magic – his Transmogrification, his fire spells, his dragon. They would surely know that he had spent the most amount of time in Caleb’s company, but they would believe this of Essek, that he cared only for matters arcane. There was much more he could say. He comes from humble origins and is uncomfortable with the trappings of wealth, and he cares deeply about the academy and its students, and he carries another person in his skin with him that he repudiates and fears. To say nothing of the unprintable truths, like he does things to my body that I never thought to even imagine.

He wrote none of that. They could have this much of Caleb – his magic – and no more.

After extensive argumentation, Verin did finally agree to let him go unaccompanied to Zadash. Essek needed to get quite sharp with him about it, but it was more than worth it. And the truth was, if Verin had really feard for him, nothing Essek said would have swayed him. He suspected Verin was actually coming to trust Caleb, in particular, which was gratifying in ways Essek chose not to examine.

So it was that Essek arrived by himself to Caleb’s tower on Whelsen morning. He was surprised to discover that Caleb was also travelling alone.

“It’s our week with Leni,” Caleb explained, showing Essek to a room he hadn’t seen before, with a slate floor suitable for teleportation circle scribing. “Wulf wanted some time one on one with her, instead of sending her back to Astrid.” He had half of a circle pre-drawn, and knelt to continue working.

“You all do a remarkable job sharing her time,” Essek said. “If you want an inexpert opinion.”

“Do we?” Caleb looked up with more interest than this idle comment warranted. “We’re making it up as we go, honestly.” He bent back to his drawing. “And Wulf defers to me a little more than he should, I’ve been thinking.”

“Because he’s your annex?” Essek asked.

“No. Because I missed the first few years of Leni’s life.” Caleb finished but for the final line and stood, face averted. “Shall we?”

Hass awaited them on the other side. One could believe all was cordial, to judge by their handshake.

“And the Shadowhand,” Hass said, turning with a bow. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Master Widogast thought I would enjoy seeing your fine school,” Essek said. Two arcane academies under the auspices of one nation, what a glut. The Hall of Erudition was considerably smaller than Soltryce, but it alone could boast more wizard students than the Marble Tomes.

“Indeed,” Hass said, visibly pleased. Essek thought he had sensed a tiny hint of inferiority when Hass visited Soltryce. Did he resent having charge of what most thought of as an auxiliary institution? Now that was something worth noting in his next report.

Hass did not himself conduct them on a tour. Perhaps a small slight to Caleb? Essek couldn’t quite tell. Caleb was faultlessly polite to the young annex who conducted them about.

The tour was interesting not so much for the facilities, which were as expected, but for the people. Caleb was not known here the way he was at Soltryce. There, nearly every student must pass through his introductory lecture course in one of their first two terms. When he was recognized here, which was not always as he continued to eschew his robes of office, the reaction was generally subdued fear.

Essek supposed that made sense, if all you knew of Caleb was what he had done. But Essek was accustomed to seeing Caleb at Soltryce, where students vied for his attention and basked in it when they got it.

They lunched with Hass and a substantial portion of the faculty.

“I said we had another engagement for dinner,” Caleb muttered out of the corner of his mouth as they filed into the dining room halfway up Hass’s tower.

“Do we?” Essek asked.

“Yes,” Caleb said. “It involves takeout, and you and me and no one else.”

“Excellent,” Essek said, entirely in favor of this plan.

Lunch was beautifully provisioned and rather dull. Caleb made a point to speak to every person present at least once. He seemed to know some members of the faculty fairly well already, but attended to new introductions with focus. Essek wondered if Caleb had considered cultivating a spy on campus, if he didn’t have one already. Worth bringing up later, at this promised dinner.

Essek couldn’t wait for dinner, frankly. And all that might come after. There was an unexpected thrill to the notion of being alone with him in a strange city. Caleb had said they would stay off campus, so he must have booked an inn. Essek had yet to see his bedroom back in Rexxentrum. Here, he felt unencumbered, freer to act on what he wanted. Might Caleb feel the same, away from his day-to-day responsibilities?

After lunch, they were to sit in on an advanced seminar with the Hall’s resident transmutationist. A rather obvious ploy for Caleb’s interest, but there was no harm in it that Essek could see. The professor in question was known to Caleb; the two of them fell quickly into an exchange of trade gossip about others in their field. Essek listened with half an ear.

Hass accompanied them on the walk across campus. Essek was just wondering why when he stopped his inane prattling about the architecture and dropped his voice, flickering a glance to Caleb ahead of them.

“We have a mutual friend, Shadowhand,” he said.

“Oh?” Essek sincerely doubted it.

“Indeed. He said he Sent to you recently, but you were not at liberty to respond.”

Oh.

“He did,” Essek said neutrally. “My time is often not my own these days.” His eyes flicked involuntarily to Caleb.

“Ah,” Hass said. “No matter, he will Send again. He is quite eager to speak to you.”

“I imagine he is,” Essek said, with a flick of the head meant to say who wouldn’t be.

“Does that one trouble you?” Hass asked solicitously, tipping his chin to Caleb. “He is known to be . . . unstable. I would not like to speak ill but, well. Someone should warn you, I feel it my duty.”

“Oh?” Essek said, blinking interestedly. Was someone finally willing to make good on those vague allusions that kept being thrown around?

“Yes.” Hass lowered his voice further. “Master Becke was his partner. Surely you’ve seen the scars on her.” Then, as Essek was absorbing that, “He was institutionalized for some time. For his own good, you understand.”

“Ah,” Essek said faintly. He supposed he ought to be alarmed by this. He had, in fact, seen the scars. But instead, a spark of something very much like fury was kindling inside him as pieces came together. Caleb had been incapacitated for some time. Caleb had speculated Ikithon planned to Feeblemind him, with the assistance of Grieve and Becke. Feeblemind him again? To try to destroy that mind, how dare he,? “Thank you for the thought,” Essek said. “But I have found him entirely congenial.”

The seminar was wonderful. Essek had not planned to contribute, but found himself drawn into a spirited discussion that ranged from transmutation to conjuration to planar theory and back again.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said half an hour in. “I have led us entirely astray.” He was shouted down by the entire class, including the professor.

They departed mutually invigorated.

“Ach, maybe it won’t be so bad, coming here more often,” Caleb said. He stretched as they exited the hall, tipping his head back and forth until his spine cracked alarmingly. “Now. I have an appointment with the Sterosta tomorrow morning, but until then, we are free. I have some notions, but is there anything you’d like to see?”

“I put myself in your hands,” Essek said, and smiled at the interested look that got him.

“All right.” Caleb stopped on the path. “May I cast an illusion on you? It will make for a more comfortable afternoon, I’m sorry to say.”

“I’ve got it,” Essek said, and, in the absence of other prepared notions, cast himself to appear as the wood elf who had met Da’leth in person.

“That works,” Caleb said, nodding. “But it does mean we need to Teleport.” He stepped close, and put an arm unnecessarily around Essek’s back.

“Why?” Essek asked, mid translocation to a wide and well-cobbled alley.

“Because there are anti-illusion wards coming in and out of the Tri-Spire,” Caleb said. He turned Essek by the shoulder and pointed out where they had come from. “It’s been very annoying in the past. Though at least I can Teleport in and out now. Much better than the other way.”

“What other way?”

“The sewers,” Caleb said, and laughed at the face Essek pulled. “Don’t worry, prinzessin, I wouldn’t take you down there.” It sounded very different when he called Essek that than when Beauregard had.

“Why were you crawling through sewers?” Essek demanded.

“Oh, you know.” Caleb waved vaguely. “We spent a fair amount of time here, split between working for the Lawbearer and working for a, um, particular crime syndicate.”

“At the same time?”

“Ja.”

Essek squinted. “How did that work out for you?” he asked dubiously.

“Mmm, all right. Though there were a few bits in the middle that got a little hairy. It all came out worthwhile in the end, I think, at least once we became involved with the Augen Trust.”

“Did you now?” Essek said. So that’s when that connection had formed.

“Ja. I know you have your own such organization. I imagine they are the same – rather intense people who care almost exclusively about ends and very little about means?” That did sum it up quite well, and Essek nodded. “We found we had parallel goals. On the small scale at first, and then on increasingly large ones. But that’s a story for another time. Come on.”

Caleb linked their arms and directed them out of the alley. They emerged into a bustling market space, thronged with people – mostly humans – flowing in traffic patterns Essek couldn’t immediately understand. The air was redolent of cooking meat, and fresh bread, and the hot metal tang of a forge. “This way.” Caleb set off confidently, ducking around a cobbler’s stall.

He took them to a shop that Essek couldn’t classify from the outside, but which filled him with delight as soon as they entered.

“Your enchanter?” Essek asked, looking around. There wasn’t much on display, which in his experience meant the real business was custom, and thus more impressive.

“Yes. Pumats?” Caleb called into the shop, grinning to himself.

Two identical Firbolgs emerged. It took Essek an embarrassing ninety seconds or so to realize he was looking at simulacra, not twins. By then, a third Firbolg had arrived, this one apparently the genuine article.

“Master Widogast,” he said warmly, coming forward to grip both Caleb’s hands. “Have you come to check on your commission? I’m afraid it isn’t done yet.”

“No matter,” Caleb said, though Essek thought he saw a crease between his brows. “I primarily wanted to show a friend your wonderful shop.

Pumat gave Essek the penetrating look of someone staring right through his illusion. “Certainly,” he said. “Can I interest you in anything in particular?”

They spent over an hour with him. Pumat seemed delighted to walk around the shop with them, discussing the finer points of his work. Essek was no enchanter, but he had great respect for the craft, and once Pumat realized he was not talking to a layman, the conversation turned pleasingly technical. Essek purchased a quill enchanted to grant its wielder a significant boost to their fluency and eloquence, thinking of his reports. And also other things, like the letters he might write Caleb someday, when he was recalled to Rosohna and they were separated by the Ashkeepers again.

He also purchased a substantial amount of paper and ink suitable for scribing. Caleb did too, selecting less high quality options out of “habit,” he said.

Pumat generously invited them back into his workroom. Caleb’s commission was a ring which, Essek gathered from the ensuing conversation, was supposed to grant its wearer some of the boons of a permanent Mind Blank. A sensible notion, if Caleb felt he must cast it daily. Pumat admitted that it was proving difficult, but seemed set on succeeding.

“I will keep at it,” he said, with audible determination. Then, with a serious look directly into Caleb’s eyes. “I will not let you down.”

“Of course you won’t,” Caleb said. It could have been delivered as a warning. Perhaps should have been, as archmage to underperforming annex. But there was palpable warmth there instead.

“Ah,” Caleb sighed when they finally took their leave. “I forget how much I like that place.”

“He seems a very good person to know,” Essek said.

“He is.” Caleb smiled a little wistfully. “And he was, even before I had a title and a near unlimited budget for him. I’ve known him since I was eighteen. But come.” He gave Essek a speculative look. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into a bathhouse? We could get a private room. Or rooms.”

Essek paused. He was almost tempted by that. Alone with Caleb and a great deal of hot water? Very promising. But they would not really be alone, would they? Essek suspected he would find the setting a little bit constraining. And he did not want to be constrained.

“Wow,” Caleb said, grinning. “I thought you’d shoot that down immediately.”

“I think I will decline,” Essek said. “But thank you for asking.”

“Mmm.” Caleb hooked their arms together. “Someday soon, I shall take you to the most private and exclusive bathhouse on any plane, where only you and I can get in. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful,” Essek said honestly. His pulse picked up at the thought of what they might do there, and also at what Caleb’s phrasing implied of this intriguing place.

“Let’s go in here,” Caleb said, and steered him into a confectionery. “Shopping for Jester and shopping for Leni have some similarities. Help me choose?”

They ended up with a bag of assorted sweets for Jester, and a beautiful candy dragon for Miss Magdalena, its wings spun of the most delicate sugar floss. Caleb was about to pass it up, afraid it would not survive the night and the trip home, but Essek insisted and tucked it away safely in his Wristpocket.

This provoked Caleb to squint at him and say, “Wait, you keep your spellbook in there, don’t you? Wulf uses that – isn’t there a one object limit?”

Which gave Essek the opportunity to smile modestly and say, “Not in my version.”

Caleb’s eyebrows rose appreciatively, but all he said was, “You will make fast friends with Leni, bringing her that.”

“Oh.” Essek hesitated. He had not been intending that. “I don’t mean to . . . steal your thunder?”

Caleb waved that away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Did he want Essek to make friends with her? Becoming entangled with someone who had a child was on the long, long list of things with which Essek did not have experience. And he hadn’t thought deeply on the implications until that exact moment. Did Verin know best practices for this, too? This would be so much easier if people wrote instructional manuals about it.

They spent a wonderful late afternoon wandering through the Pentamarket. Rosohna had a few open-air markets, but Essek couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone in person, rather than dispatching a servant. He found himself dwelling on the similarities and differences. Zadash and Rosohna both had numerous pop-up food stalls, but the offerings were notably different. No fried frog legs with hot pepper dipping sauce here, though Caleb did purchase them a bag of thinly cut potatoes piping hot from the vat of oil. They were soft on the inside and crisp on the outside, and thoroughly delightful.

Essek did garner some attention for his Dark Umbrella, but no one looked long enough to connect the dots and become suspicious. He should have chosen a human disguise, though. Zadash was more heavily human even than Rexxentrum, though when asked, Caleb explained that the academy was a small spot of racial diversity in an otherwise overwhelmingly human city.

There were just so many of them. Essek knew as an academic matter about the differing fertility rates. Humans could and generally did produce multiple offspring, considerably more than needed for replacement rate, whereas the drow of the Dynasty could barely manage to keep the population steady. The upper dens still talked about the wild fecundity of the Umavi, bearing Essek and then Verin within twenty years.

There were many theories about the differing fertility rate, most turning on the shorter lifespan. Essek had his own notion, which he had never voiced. What if it was an artifact of consecution? That made a certain kind of sense, didn’t it? No imperative to reproduce if you knew you yourself would go on not only for centuries, but in perpetuity.

“Would you mind Sending to Jester?” Caleb said as the afternoon wore on. “I don’t have it today, but I want to know if her father is in town.”

Essek did, and got back, “Ohmygosh no, he’s not there, I think he’s moving a shipment of, you know, completely legitimate goods over the border, but tell Caleb I said—”

There was no follow up. Essek relayed the message nearly word for word, lifting an eloquent eyebrow.

“Ah, too bad,” Caleb said. “He’s a – what’s the word? Something of a boss for the Myriad.”

“Ah,” Essek said. Completely legitimate cargo, indeed.

“He has a bar here,” Caleb said. “I was going to take you if he was in town. Don’t worry though,” he added cheerfully. “There are plenty of other disreputable things we can do.”

Essek certainly hoped so.

Caleb was visibly pleased to show Essek around. He knew the market well, but was not himself recognized everywhere they turned. Essek thought he was enjoying this anonymity. Caleb also spent a ridiculous fifteen minutes making eyes at, and eventually friends with, a pack of stray cats. They all looked unappealingly dirty to Essek, but Caleb cooed and praised and petted, and eventually won them over with rather a lot of meat bought off a stall. He extracted himself from them with patent reluctance.

“You like it here,” Essek said, as they emerged from a shop of sundries with, puzzlingly, a bag of assorted buttons for Veth.

“I do.” Caleb glanced to the sky. Dark clouds had slowly been accumulating, but Essek thought the rain was still some time off. “I was here a lot as a young man. And then we came here. The Nein, I mean. Early on after we’d joined up. We were just starting to . . . connect. Not to know each other, not really. But to be drawn in.” He smiled wistfully. “We lost Mollymauk – our companion before we met Caduceus -- not long after coming here for the first time. So it is bittersweet.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine you all not . . . being what you are to each other now,” Essek said. “It seems so effortless.”

Caleb laughed at that. “Oh, it was effortful, I assure you. For all of us, though of course I am speaking mostly of how hard it was for me. I . . .” He hesitated. “Well. I intended only to use them, at the beginning. For gold, for some amount of protection. And then.” He sighed. “Have you ever felt yourself changing, and been afraid of it, and so let yourself look away from it, until by the time you looked back, you were most of a different person?”

Essek swallowed. Thinking, inexplicably, of the offer of a bathhouse earlier, which he had not turned down out-of-hand. Had genuinely considered, in fact. “Perhaps,” he said.

“Well, there you go. It was transmutation magic of the most powerful sort. But not something I will ever be able to inscribe into my spellbook.” He smiled. “Shall we get dinner?”

“Yes, please. I believe you mentioned takeout?”

“Yes. May I choose? I think I have a decent sense at this point of what Empire food will suit you.”

This was true, so Essek assented with little concern. Caleb led him to a bustling pub on the edge of the Pentamarket. A band was just setting up in the corner, and the place was packed wall-to-wall. Essek adjusted his float upward, a bit concerned about being trapped in a crush of tall backs. Caleb touched his shoulder, then reeled him in close with an arm around his waist.

“Let me,” he said in Essek’s ear, and piloted them through the crowd to the bar, where he placed an incomprehensible order in shouted Zemnian. They stepped aside to wait, and Caleb put both arms around him, tucking him close with Essek’s back to his chest. Essek tweaked his cantrip again, sinking down. It was strangely appealing to feel small and contained in Caleb’s arms.

The barkeep eventually produced a large paper bag for Caleb, who tipped generously, then ploughed his way back out. The pub was noticeably more crowded than it had been even ten minutes before. Essek really did not see the appeal.

“Do you mind a walk?” Caleb asked, once they were outside and could hear each other. “It’s about fifteen minutes. Mostly uphill, but I suppose that doesn’t trouble you.”

He led Essek out of the Pentamarket and up a main road which passed through giant archways in a series of towering walls. The noise dropped sharply. The road was mostly carts and wagons at first, but as they continued to climb, it transitioned to pedestrians. When Caleb turned off onto a series of side streets, they had reached a decidedly residential district, with small stone houses set back from tree-lined lanes.

“I thought we had an inn?” Essek said.

Caleb shook his head. “This is better.” He turned in at a pretty wrought-iron gate. The house was tall and narrow with a frontage of stone and bright red wooden shutters.

Caleb didn’t knock, but extracted a key from his coat. He handed the dinner bag to Essek and inserted the key with one hand, gesturing with the other. He must be negating some sort of arcane ward.

He pushed the door open and called something in Zemnian. Essek followed him into a pleasantly appointed front room with Empire-style dark wood furniture.

A young human came in from a hallway.

“Sir,” he said, and bowed formally to Caleb, his heels together, back straight, hand across his heart. He deeply meant the gesture, to Essek’s eye.

“Oh, stop it,” Caleb said, and stepped forward to embrace him. “Are you well?”

“I am.” The young man embraced back. Essek caught a glimpse of tattoo’s like Grieve’s climbing up under his sleeves. He couldn’t tell if there were scars beneath.

“This is Matias,” Caleb said, turning him to face Essek with an arm still slung about his shoulders. “He graduated from Soltryce a few years after me. Divination and illusion. Mati, Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, on loan to us from the Kryn.”

Essek dropped his disguise at the prompt, and watched Matias blink in visible interest. Was Essek . . . a source of gossip? Among the Volstrucker? What a thought.

“A pleasure,” Matias said, collecting himself to bow.

“Likewise.”

Matias turned back to Caleb and launched into a rapid summary of the state of the house. “You’re fully stocked, whoever was here last took care of it. Though they also bled all over the living room rug, so—” his hand gesture said win some, lose some.

“It was Franka,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes in apparent unconcern. “She’s fine.”

“I tossed the rug, no salvaging it. Anyway, you should be all set otherwise.”

“Thank you. Please come see me in Rexxentrum once you are back,” Caleb said. The two of them clasped forearms, the way Essek had seen him do with Fjord. “Good travels.”

“And to you. Sir. Shadowhand.” Matias lifted a small bag from an end table and showed himself out.

“It’s a bit of a safehouse,” Caleb said, ushering Essek deeper in with a hand at his back. “Known to few. Very well protected.”

“I see,” Essek said, beginning to smile. He did not think he would feel constrained here at all.

They ate dinner by candlelight on a scuffed wooden table in the kitchen. Caleb had gotten them a sandwich nearly as long as Essek’s arm to share, with thick stacks of meat and cheese, pickles spicy enough to make Caleb flush, and a creamy herb spread Essek couldn’t identify. There was also a side dish of cold potatoes in a tart dressing. Always with the potatoes in this country.

“There should be wine around here somewhere,” Caleb said, rustling through cabinets.

“Allow me.” Essek produced a small bottle of champagne from his Wristpocket. It had been imported from Marquet to Rosohna, and liberated from the Thelyss wine cellar by Essek after nearly fifty years. It was only a half measure, suitable for two, maybe three glasses, which seemed ideal. When he’d taken it, he’d intended it for his own consumption, perhaps a small personal celebration should he be successful in establishing a new partnership for beacon research. This, here, tonight seemed a much better use, and Essek was very pleased he had thought of it before leaving Rexxentrum.

“I don’t suppose you have stemware in there?” Caleb said, and laughed out loud when Essek produced two flutes. “Excellent planning.”

Essek applied a bit of custom graviturgy to remove the cork, feeling rather smug at Caleb’s reaction. “This should breathe, but does not require chilling,” he said, admiring the look of candlelight on Caleb’s hair.

Caleb came back to his dinner. “Sorry to raise unpleasant things,” he said. “But in the interests of getting it over with. Did Hass trouble you? You had a . . . look, after he talked to you.”

“Ah.” Essek occupied himself with his dinner, gathering his scattered thoughts. A small corner of his mind had spent the entire afternoon worrying away at that conversation. Seething about it, on a number of levels. He had quickly worked through any concern for himself. Becke demonstrably did not fear Caleb’s temper, after all, and neither did Beauregard for that matter. But did Caleb know Da’leth was in touch with Hass? Did it matter? And what, in all the nine hells, had Ikithon done to him?

“He was attempting to damage my regard for you,” Essek said. “He was unsuccessful.”

Caleb studied him for a moment. “It is quite likely,” he said at last, “that whatever he told you of me is true. Or close to true. So, if you have questions . . .?” he spread his hands invitingly.

Essek bit his lip. Wasn’t that a tempting offer. He had many questions, in fact. But there was a problem. He was pretty sure if he asked any, the mood of the evening would take a sharp turn. Essek didn’t want that, and he didn’t think Caleb did either.

“Is that a one-time offer, or--?”

Caleb shook his head. “There are things that I prefer not to discuss,” he said. “But I am perfectly capable of saying so. And it has occurred to me that.” He looked away. The candlelight did fine things to the bones of his face. “There are some things about me you have a right to know, should you wish to be a part of my life for some time. Which it seems perhaps you do?”

Essek felt himself flush. “Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “You have understood my intentions correctly.” He stood and poured the champagne. He brought one glass to Caleb and held the other in both nervous hands. “But how about we set all that aside for now? For tonight?”

Caleb’s shoulders eased. “Ja. I’d like that very much. What are we toasting to?”

“To cross-cultural communication,” Essek said, and they touched their glasses with a chime.

They retreated to the living room after dinner. The floor was, indeed, notably bare of a rug, which made Caleb snort and roll his eyes, and relay a startlingly funny story about an operative – a Volstrucker – who, in Caleb’s words, “is so sharp, she often cuts herself.”

He paused at the end of it, clearly listening to a Sending. His response was in Zemnian. Essek understood only ‘Leni’ and ‘gute nacht.’ “All’s well,” he confirmed when he was done, some remaining tension bleeding out of him.

Caleb lit a fire with a few gestures and sat close, his arm stretched out behind Essek’s shoulders. That was nice, but after they had talked for a little while – about the seminar earlier that day, and Jester’s father (which the Lens had completely missed, Essek looked forward to pointing that out to them), and some of the absolutely unhinged nonsense the Nein had gotten up to in Zadash while “playing on both sides of the sheets,” as Caleb colorfully put it – Essek stood to pour the last half glass for Caleb. And when he came back, he deposited the glass on the table and himself in Caleb’s lap.

“Hallo,” Caleb said, and called him something in Zemnian.

“Translate, please?” Essek said, sighing as Caleb set both hands on his thighs and began rhythmically squeezing the tension he found there.

“Hmm? Oh.” Caleb went a little pink across the cheekbones. “’Pretty thing’ is probably the closest I can get in Common.”

Essek sniffed, making a play at offense.

“Oh, come now,” Caleb said, smiling. “You know what you look like. And you know I like looking at you. And the way you dress.”

“I recall some complaints about my wardrobe,” Essek said. Caleb’s hands were working up his back now. They pressed along his spine, all the way up, then squeezed at his shoulders, hard enough to almost hurt in a truly excellent way.

“I was complaining about the difficulty of removing your clothes,” Caleb said. “Not how they look on.” He plucked playfully at Essek’s intricately folded collar. “Will I be removing your clothes this evening, by the way?”

Caleb liked bold. And Essek was finding he very much liked being bold. “You know you will be,” he said.

“Mmm. Best prepare an instructional booklet, then,” Caleb said. But his clever fingers had already found the hidden row of clasps down Essek’s left side, and were flirting with unhooking the top one.

“I think you shall not be undressing me here,” Essek said, flicking his hand away.

“No?” Caleb looked unaccountably pleased by this treatment. “Would I have better luck in a more appropriate setting, then?” He stood, swinging Essek back onto his feet so quickly, Essek barely got his cantrip up in time.

Essek let himself be drawn by the hand out of the room. “Your drink,” he said, looking back over his shoulder.

“I’ll get it later,” Caleb said, turning him to face the narrow stairs with a degree of single-mindedness that was, frankly, thrilling.

He led Essek up two flights and around a corner into a bedroom nearly the size of the whole top floor. Caleb cast his dancing lights, then made a pleased sound and went to light a set of tall candles on each nightstand. He did it with a tiny, perfectly controlled flame that he balanced on a fingertip. There was a fireplace, and he lit that, too, taking the time to stack the wood so it would burn for some time.

Essek sat on the foot of the Empire-style bed, waiting for him.

“Now,” Caleb said, coming back to him. The scent of fire wafted from his hands. “Am I permitted?” He set a hand back at the hooks of Essek’s tunic.

“You are,” Essek said, smiling to himself. He looked forward to Caleb undressing him. He looked forward, with only minimal nerves, to what would follow. But most immediately, he looked forward to, ah, yes, there it was. Caleb had lifted the tunic away, and made a delightful, frustrated growling sound when he discovered that the shirt beneath also covered Essek from throat to wrists.

“You did this on purpose,” Caleb said, starting in on the tightly-spaced row of seed pearl buttons.

“I am dressed as a Kryn gentleman of my station ought,” Essek said with some smugness. “I can’t help it if you find it not to your taste.”

“Oh, it’s to my taste,” Caleb said, developing an alarming skill with the buttons. Essek himself fastened and unfastened them with a set of tiny hooks, but that was probably a bit much to ask of Caleb’s patience. “You take effort, the metaphor is not lost on me,” Caleb said. “And I think you will find I am good at putting in the effort.”

Essek blinked. He hadn’t at all intended it like that, but now that Caleb had said it, the metaphor did seem unavoidable.

“What about you?” he said to cover his confusion, and reached for Caleb’s tie.

Caleb did not have quite so many sartorial complications – just tie, vest, books, and shirt. He had scars everywhere. Not just the dense tangle on his forearms, but other, much larger marks of the life he had lived. At least one of them looked as though it could well have been a mortal wound, to Essek’s inexpert eye. Essek felt, for the first time in his life, a little self-conscious of his soft hands, his pampered, unblemished body.

“Ah, this is nice,” Caleb said, oblivious of these musings. He gently touched the silver silk undershirt Essek wore, fine enough to reveal the shadow of his body through it. Caleb’s rough fingertips snagged on the material, and he snatched them back with a self-conscious look that Essek didn’t like at all.

To distract him, Essek stood and removed his own trousers. Caleb made a sound deep in his chest when he saw that Essek’s underclothes were in matching silver silk.

“Oh, that’s mean,” Caleb said, his hands hovering around Essek’s waist without touching. Essek hadn’t intended it that way. He had failed to account for Caleb’s rough hands, an unforgivable oversight. When he’d dressed that morning, he had imagined Caleb removing these last layers for him, too.

It had made him shiver, to think of that. It was somehow just as titillating to remove them himself, under Caleb’s focused attention.

And anyway, he had the impression Caleb enjoyed it when he thought Essek was ‘mean’ to him.

“I can’t decide,” Caleb said, watching him with wide eyes. “Is it better if you are wearing things like that under your clothes all the time, or if you put them on just for me?”

“You are falling behind, Widogast,” Essek said, because he did not know how to respond to that. The truth was that he’d dressed especially to please, but also that he was rapidly reviewing the wardrobe he’d brought with him, intending to wear such items under his clothes at all times, just in case Caleb was interested in checking.

Caleb shucked his remaining clothes with complete disinterest in his own body, his eyes still fastened to Essek. He had hair everywhere – in a patch on his chest, a vertical line under his belly button, and in a startling red thatch around his prick. He came and put one knee up on the bed, turning Essek with a hand at his waist, gently urging him down, and maneuvering them up the bed together. They ended up pressed close, skin-to-skin everywhere, with one of Caleb’s hands daringly high on Essek’s thigh, thumb resting in the crease below his rear. He was so warm, it negated any chill there might have been in the air.

Caleb kissed him slowly. It was one of the first of the night. Not the last, Essek was certain.

“So,” Caleb murmured. “Do you want to tell me what you’d like to happen? It is very likely that I will oblige you, to be clear.”

“I have done this before, you know,” Essek said, nettled a bit by the solicitude.

“Oh?”

Essek almost snapped at him, but Caleb’s look was so calmly interested, so non-judgmental, that the air went out of his temper.

“I have,” Essek said. “But it has been long enough that it is almost as if I never did, you aren’t wrong about that.”

Caleb made an interested sound. “Those Kryn boys not worth your time?”

Wasn’t that a loaded question.

Essek had completed his studies at the Marble Tomes with two friends to his name, both young drow men, one a new soul, one on his second life. The three of them had enjoyed convivial evenings together over their books and wine. And then, because he felt he should, because it was what one did, because he was curious about all the fuss, Essek had engaged in intimacy with each of them, a few weeks apart. He hadn’t particularly wanted either one of them, though he didn’t know the difference then. He did now.

He thought, in retrospect, that he might not have behaved particularly well regarding the matter. Verin had some rather tart things to say, when Essek discussed it with him years later. But also, his interests and intentions had been wildly misunderstood, and the whole thing had dissolved into a mess of lost tempers and bitter words.

Essek did not know where one of those men was now; the other had turned out to have only middling arcane aptitude, and had retreated to work in the Marble Tomes archives. It was still insult upon injury that the dramatic unpleasantness that had severed their friendship had followed sexual experiences that were, well. Uninspiring. Not worth putting himself to any trouble whatsoever, let alone their rather steep cost. So Essek simply hadn’t put himself to the trouble after that.

Caleb, though. Caleb was trouble, manifestly. And going to be worth it, Essek had little doubt. He recalled Becke’s jibe about expensive things with an internal huff.

“They were not,” he said to Caleb. “I expect you to show me a better time.”

He actually felt the way Caleb’s prick reacted to being summarily instructed like that. Oh. Interesting.

“I will,” Caleb said, with heartening confidence. “Is there anything particular you’d like?” He indicated his body with an inviting, help yourself kind of gesture.

“Yes,” Essek said, because he did in fact have very clear ideas of how he wanted this to go. He reached between them and took Caleb’s prick in hand. It was fascinating to feel it in the process of hardening and growing as he gripped it. “I will have you inside me,” he said. “If you are amenable.” Was that how one said these things?

Regardless, Caleb seemed to like the delivery. “I’m amenable,” he said. His hand on Essek’s thigh slid an inch further up. “You are aware of the, ah, required somatics?”

“Yes,” Essek said, schooling himself not to react the next time Caleb used that word in the more conventional way. He had been, in fact, experimenting with those particular somatics on himself for several weeks now, to interesting results.

“I have oil in my coat,” Caleb said. “Which is downstairs. Poor planning on my part. I didn’t think you would have such firm ideas. Very silly of me, in retrospect.”

“Lucky for you,” Essek said, producing a glass vial from his Wristpocket. A very recent addition, and an excellent notion.

“What else do you have in there?” Caleb said, taking it.

“You have exhausted my supply of interesting items,” Essek admitted.

“Wel, I know that’s a lie,” Caleb said cheerfully. “Your spellbook is in there.” He reached a long arm to set the vial on the nightstand, unopened. “Relax,” he said, as Essek made a sound of protest. “I’ve got you. But what’s the rush?”

The rush was Essek’s nerves, to say nothing of the chasm of hot neediness in his belly. But Caleb did have a point. It was lovely to be close like this, to find the ways their bodies fit together, to kiss slow and deep, then hot and frantic, then slow again. Caleb was very handsy, and rewarded all of Essek’s similar efforts with encouraging sounds. Essek had never touched anyone with body hair like that; he found it pleasing to multiple senses.

“Your skin is like silk, I should probably do something about mine,” Caleb said, looking at his own fingers with some dismay.

“I can advise you, if you wish,” Essek said. “But do not feel compelled. I, ah. I rather like it.”

“Do you?” Caleb ran the fingers in question all the way down Essek’s spine, and then down the cleft of his rear, pausing to press gently where it counted.

Essek narrowed his eyes at him. “Get the oil, Widogast.”

Caleb did. He spent a while warming it on his fingers. To be solicitous or to be a terrible tease, Essek wasn’t sure. Both, probably.

Then he rearranged them, seeming to know precisely what he was about as he hitched Essek’s leg over his hip, and walked his slick fingers up the back of Essek’s thigh.

Essek realized immediately, as the required somatics were performed on him, that Caleb’s fingers were a lot bigger than his. He groaned, and Caleb groaned, and there was a lot of frantic kissing for a hazy time. Essek came back to himself to realize his spine had slid into a curve, and he had hooked his leg much higher on Caleb’s waist, and they were rocking together in an intense clinch.

“Yes,” he said, startled to hear an entirely unfamiliar tone in his voice. A low croon, pleased and . . . full.

He scrabbled around for Caleb’s other hand, which was pinned between them, and lifted it to stare in some consternation.

Rough skin on the fingertips, yes, and also the palm. What was Caleb doing, for the Luxon’s sake, manual labor? He had little whirls of hair at the knuckles. It was a few shades darker than the hair on his head, which Essek found oddly fascinating.

He pressed their hands together, palm to palm. Yes, considerably larger. Essek gripped Caleb’s pointer and middle finger, going a little cross-eyed at the girth.

“That’s right,” Caleb said. “That’s what’s inside you right now. Do you want another?” And he said the long word in Zemnian that meant ‘pretty thing.’

“Yes,” Essek said. Demanded.

Caleb obliged, and Essek lost his breath.

“I thought this would be a lot trickier for you,” Caleb said, pressing in, and in, and withdrawing like the tide, and holding, and holding, and pressing in again.

Essek could not bring himself to say I did this to myself, I thought of you.

“It’s good,” he said instead. “Don’t stop.”

Caleb didn’t stop. Essek gripped three of Caleb’s fingers together, squeezing perhaps too hard, thinking of that, inside him. Caleb was reading his body beautifully. He went slow when Essek felt it was all a bit too much, but built a rising rhythm that was tidal, inevitable. Essek clutched onto his hand and his shoulder, deciding not to hear the sounds coming out of his own mouth. Caleb was moving quickly now. His whole forearm flexing up between Essek’s thighs.

Essek had only vague memories of his two prior encounters. But he was certain that in both cases these preparatory steps had seemed like something of a chore. Not this. This thing that was its own sex act.

“I think you might need one more?” Caleb said, with a somewhat dubious look down between them. Essek looked, too, and felt winded all over again.

“Yes,” he said, staring down Caleb’s prick. “That’s probably best.”

He hadn’t gotten that far in his own explorations. Hadn’t needed to. He said, “Ah, ah, ah,” as Caleb worked four fingers into him, patient but insistent. Perfect. Essek turned his head and bit Caleb’s bicep hard enough to leave a mark.

“Sorry,” he said when he realized what he’d done.

“Oh,” Caleb said. His voice had changed now, too. “If I don’t have your teeth marks all over me by the time this night is over, I will be quite disappointed.”

Was that what it felt like for him when Essek gave him explicit instruction? Permission?

“How’s that?” Caleb said. He turned his whole hand so that his knuckles spread Essek wide.

“Yes,” Essek said vaguely, then realized he was not responding appropriately. “Ah, I mean. That’s good, I’m ready.”

Caleb withdrew and reached for the oil again, clearly intending to carry on exactly as they were. Essek was having none of that. He rolled Caleb onto his back and sat astride his thighs.

“Ooh,” Caleb said, looking up at him with flattering admiration. He was quite handsy now, which Essek liked too much. It was distracting, almost unbalancing, at a time when he needed to focus. Essek flicked his hands away once, twice, then smacked one on pure reflex when it crept back up his thigh.

It only then occurred to him that this must be deliberate, that intuitive, respectful Caleb was doing that on purpose. To rile him up?

Essek narrowed his eyes at him. Caleb lifted both hands, grinning with terribly fake innocence.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I can’t help it, mind of their own.”

“Help it,” Essek said.

“Make me,” Caleb said immediately, and reached for him again.

Essek snatched his hands out of the air and pressed them to the bed. It was a wild rush to watch what happened in Caleb’s eyes when he did that.

“Oh,” Essek said, belatedly beginning to understand where this play was headed. “You’d like me to--?”

“If you want,” Caleb said breathlessly. “If you don’t, forget about it. I’ll behave. Ish.”

Essek wanted. How strange it was, to suddenly burn to do something that had literally never occurred to him as desirable.

He was at something of a loss for a moment, considering methods. He needed use of his hands to wrangle that ridiculous prick Caleb was swinging around, and anyway, he didn’t think he could realistically keep Caleb contained with muscle alone. That left magic, and the Temporal Shunt experience was still livid in his mind.

“May I cast?” Essek said.

Caleb didn’t ask for details. “Ja.”

There were many options open to him. He had gold dust on hand, and there was always a bit of custom graviturgic adjustment. But Essek did none of that. He cast Resonant Echo instead.

“Hold him,” he instructed. “By the wrists, hands together above his head, yes, like that.” Caleb’s pupils visibly expanded as the echo gripped him. It sat on the bed above him, leaning over him a little, its light casting strange patterns on his face. “Very good,” Essek said, mostly to himself.

Now, about this business. He retrieved the oil and applied it with both hands, which made Caleb buck beneath him like an unruly mount. He went very still, though, when Essek began working him inside.

The initial breech was difficult. Essek almost wished for another pair of hands to help stabilize and support him. Caleb would be helpful, he knew that. But there was also something so lovely, so safe feeling about having Caleb pinned beneath him. It let Essek sink down in his own time, feel what he felt.

When he at last sat astride Caleb’s hips, prick fully enveloped inside him, a bubble of something fierce and giddy burst in his chest. I have you now, he thought, looking down.

Caleb opened his eyes and looked back, lips parted. “Okay?” he asked hoarsely.

Essek nodded, unwilling to speak. Unwilling to know what this feeling would provoke him to say. Instead, he shifted to get his knees more squarely under him, and rose up, and sank down.

They both groaned. Essek did it again, and again, finding it a little difficult to hold to a rhythm. It felt good, but not with the flashing sparks of deeper pleasure that Caleb’s fingers had elicited. Essek tried again, chewing his lip.

“Sit back a little,” Caleb said.

Essek wasn’t sure what that would accomplish, but tried it, and oh. Yes. That. That lit up his whole body with a shock of hot pleasure. He put one hand on Caleb’s thigh, leaning back farther, and moved in something that could only be called a bounce.

“Oh fuck,” Caleb said. “Yes. Do that. Hold me down, get yourself off on my cock.”

Essek threw his head back, one hand behind him for balance, one gripping himself, and rode Caleb hard. He felt fierce and wild and strong, with Caleb held safe between his thighs, inside him. No one could hurt Caleb here.

Caleb loved it, to judge by his commentary. The mouth on him. Essek could only listen to half of what he said; the other half would have made him curl up in a ball with his hands over his ears, for fear of spontaneous combustion.

His crisis arrived embarrassingly quickly, but he didn’t care, did nothing to slow down. It dimly occurred to him, though, that they had not discussed this particular nuance of the polite way to manage one’s spend.

“I’m going to—” Essek said.

“Yes,” Caleb said immediately, sounding pained. “That’s it, come all over me.”

Well, that was clear enough. So Essek did, his whole body clenching and releasing and then clenching again.

When he came back to himself, he was slewed sideways, barely holding himself up on one hand, and Caleb was talking to him. Caleb was asking him something. Ah, right. Caleb wanted his hands back. Caleb wanted to touch him. Was pleading to, in fact, even though Essek was certain Caleb could dispel the echo even with his hands restrained.

Essek dismissed his echo with a vague wave, and Caleb surged up immediately, arms going around him. He guided Essek down to the bed and leaned over him, flushed and grinning.

“Ja,” he said in apparent satisfaction, studying Essek’s face. “Those Kryn boys didn’t know how to handle you.”

Essek thought vaguely wasn’t I handling you? But he couldn’t sell that even in his own mind.

Caleb was still hard. Essek arrived fully back into his body with that realization.

“What should I,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Would you like . . .?” he parted his thighs invitingly.

“You sure?” Caleb scooted closer. “That can be pretty intense. You might like it, you might not.”

“One way to find out,” Essek said. Which was true. But he already knew he wanted to have Caleb back inside him. To take this man who had a dragon under his skin, and a Volstrucker, and draw him in, and hold him there.

It was intense, yes. Essek’s body had only recently learned the way of this kind of pleasure. Caleb set off echoes of that rapture every time he moved.

He was very gentle at first, hooking one arm behind Essek’s neck and cradling him close, pressing their cheeks together while he rocked with exquisite care. That was lovely, but insufficient, which Essek let him know in no uncertain terms and then, when Caleb did not come up to scratch quickly enough, with his teeth.

Caleb swore at him in Zemnian, and bit him back, which was rather darling with those ineffectual flat little teeth of his. He wasn’t gentle anymore, though.

“Where,” Caleb panted eventually, after he had made the headboard thump into the wall, after Essek’s voice had bounced off the rafters, after he’d scratched and bitten Caleb rather more than he’d meant to. “Where do you want it? In or out?” he added, as Essek stared blankly.

“In,” Essek said, and Caleb let go. His spend was so hot, it made Essek shudder all over to feel it inside him. But Essek’s favorite part was the way Caleb’s face transformed. Pleasure was beautiful on him.

Caleb withdrew, after, and sprawled out next to him, panting with an arm slung across Essek’s chest. He said something in Zemnian that was clearly pleased and complimentary.

“Yes,” Essek said. “My thoughts exactly.”

Essek retreated a little bit back into that prim shell of his, after, though not nearly as much as Caleb had expected. He allowed Caleb to cuddle him for quite a while, and only pulled a few faces when he discovered how messy they both were. Caleb wiped himself down with a wet cloth and was satisfied, but Essek declined this treatment and opted for a bath instead. He closed the door after himself, and Caleb took the hint and didn’t press to join him. The tub in there was awfully small, anyway.

Caleb was tempted to cast the tower. He had the reserves for it. But there was something appealing about being tucked up snug together in this room at the top of the house as a storm rolled through.

Caleb put on some loose sleep pants, purely for Essek’s sensibilities, and remade the bed that they had thoroughly wrecked. Did Essek even need a bed?

Caleb asked him when he emerged, flushed a few shades darker from the heat of the bath and swathed from neck to ankle in a long quilted robe. Caleb had never seen his hair like this, weighed down smooth with water and falling over his forehead.

“I don’t know,” Essek said, looking at the bed. “I usually trance sitting up. So I don’t see why not?”

“I’d like you to join me, to be clear,” Caleb said. “But I should say, I am a very poor sleeper. I may disturb you. So if you’d rather not, we can make up one of the other rooms.”

This, strangely, seem to settle Essek’s resolve. “I will stay here,” he said in that decisive way of his. Caleb was coming to believe that if Essek stated something about the world in that tone, the world might well remake itself to obey. Caleb’s cock was certainly obedient to it. “And do not concern yourself. I can leave and reenter my trance easily.”

Caleb did not say, yet another way you are perfect for me. Down, boy.

It was strange but pleasant to settle in bed with Essek sitting up on top of the covers beside him, a book in hand. Caleb made a point to kiss him good night, partly as an excuse to further muss his hair on the sly. Essek clung to his shoulders when he withdrew, his snowy lashes concealing soft eyes. Oh yeah. He’d needed that.

Caleb fell asleep unusually quickly, to the sound of pages turning and the rain drumming on the roof.

He woke two hours and fifty-eight minutes later. The rain had passed, and the candles were out. The room was lit only by the low-burning fire. Essek sat beside him, hands in his lap with palms turned upward, his face composed, eyes open but distant. Caleb watched him for a while, letting his body process the remains of his dreams. Nothing particularly bad, he thought. Just the usual trouble staying asleep for more than three hours at a time.

Caleb slipped out of bed to the bathroom, where he relieved himself, wiped down again, and drank some water and brushed his teeth. Essek was looking right at him when he emerged.

“I am not an expert,” Essek said, “but I’m pretty sure humans require more sleep than that.”

“Ja.” Caleb came back to bed, but sprawled on top of the covers. “I’ll get a little more sleep. It’ll just take a while to get there. Don’t let me disturb you.”

“You aren’t,” Essek said. “Is there anything I can do to help you get more rest?” He said that in a stilted, self-conscious way, like somebody not at all used to offering help to anyone.

“Mmm, not really,” Caleb said, stretching and pointing his toes. “Unless you have a sleep potion on you. Caduceus is rather a tyrant about my consumption, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“I don’t,” Essek said, frowning at him. “There is nothing else, truly?”

“Well, you could let me play with your cock for a while,” Caleb said lightly, and got a flush and a narrow-eyed look for his trouble. “It’s fine,” he said, patting Essek’s thigh through his robe. “I’m going to be awake for a while, no matter what you or I do about it.”

There was a brief pause, then Essek said, “What . . . would you want it for?”

It took Caleb a moment to process that. He’d been mostly kidding, but if Essek was offering . . .

“For my mouth,” he said plainly, and watched something ripple across Essek’s face and down his whole body. Lovely. “It relaxes me, having my mouth full.”

Essek’s breath had a faint tremble to it. That was thrilling, in a low-down, slow simmer way. Elves didn’t dream, but Caleb had the impression that they could trance upon a particular subject. What had Essek been trancing upon?

“Well,” Essek said quietly. “I did offer.” And he reached to part his robe.

Caleb rolled over and settled on his belly between Essek’s legs, wondering what he’d done to deserve such a treat. Essek was soft, but he sighed in manifest pleasure when Caleb settled him on his tongue and held him there, licking him gently.

“Your mouth,” Essek said on a long sigh. “It is so warm.”

Caleb supposed that did follow, logically. He’d found Essek to be notably cool, inside and out, a strange and pleasing sensation. It was frankly helpful in keeping Caleb under some semblance of control when Essek had ridden him with such wild abandon.

“Are you thinking about how else you can be inside me?” Caleb asked, resting Essek’s cock against his lip. “I’m warm all over, I’m told.”

Essek jolted in a caught sort of way, but said, “I am not, ah, prepared to attempt that.”

Caleb patted his thigh. “Hey, that’s fine. I’m just talking, you know how I am.”

He warmed Essek’s cock for a dreamy interval, until it slowly filled his mouth and pressed at the back of his throat. Perfect. Then he sucked him off in the most leisurely way he knew how. Essek sighed in pleasure throughout, petting gently at Caleb’s hair and beard. He really needed to ask about the hair thing, sometime.

It was so nice to go slow. To feel the weight on his tongue and the blood beating just under the skin. And he thought it was particularly pleasing to Essek, who had been on a hair trigger that first time and clearly kind of mad about it. Caleb kept his eyes closed and made small, suckling movements with his whole body. He still felt warm and pleased from their earlier round. It was so good to be having this again. It was so good to let himself feel this again, even if it was in the controlled, metered way he was trying this time, rather than desperate, intense love that would end in fire and pain.

Essek lasted a wonderfully long time, but even Caleb’s lazy work had results, eventually. Essek was quiet about it, just an extra depth to his breath. His hands remained tender on Caleb’s hair and face.

“Now,” he whispered in the end, tapping Caleb’s cheek. Caleb drank him down with a hum, then kissed his softening cock a fond good night and tucked it away.

“Thanks,” he said with a rasp, resting his cheek on Essek’s thigh for another minute.

“I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be saying that,” Essek said, touching his puffy lower lip with something like reverence.

Caleb nipped his fingertips, too sleepy to banter and not wanting to ruin it.

“Can I do something for you?” Essek asked.

Caleb shook his head. “M’good. Just gonna sleep.”

“All right.” Essek nudged him gently. “Get under the blankets, though.”

Caleb did with a heave and a sigh. He was prepared to miss the weight of Essek’s hand in his hair, but it came right back as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Caleb fell asleep. Thinking, in his last conscious moments, unalarmed and resigned, that he wasn’t fooling anyone; he had never managed to love anybody in a controlled, metered way in his entire life.

Chapter Text

Rexxentrum in Cuersaar was gray and frequently wet. Essek personally found this to be an improvement in terms of sun exposure, but most of the light-adapted folk were vocally displeased. Caleb didn’t complain, but he was carrying a quiet fretfulness on his shoulders that was new.

“It’s a hard time of year for me,” he said when Essek asked. “Not as bad as late spring, but just . . . sad. I’ll be fine, it passes.”

Essek didn’t inquire further. What was it like to have such moods? He himself didn’t. Verin had called him unhappy, acted as if it was some long-running constant in him. Essek thought this was a wild exaggeration. It was true that he had a permanent simmer of dissatisfaction, but could he really be blamed for that?

And anyway, that seemed to have left him, these past few months. Perhaps the change of scenery was helpful in more ways than he’d anticipated.

Caleb did quietly take him aside during “family dinner” in early Cuersaar to warn him, mouth turned down in a serious frown, to stay in on the Night of Ascension because of unspecified Empire traditions with an overtly anti-Kryn bent.

“And warn your brother,” Caleb said. “I imagine Evalora has told him, but just in case.”

“Who?” Essek said blankly.

“Evalora? Cholde? Assistant Professor of Evocation?” Essek stared uncomprehendingly. “The woman he’s been seeing?”

“That spider,” Essek said, marveling. The sheer amount of nonsense Verin had been sending Essek’s way about Caleb, too. “What’s your opinion of her?”

“Positive, pedagogically speaking,” Caleb said. “She’s a half elf. Didn’t school here. And joined the faculty just last year, which is a plus.”

“It is?” Essek asked, distracted by thoughts of Verin’s duplicity.

Caleb looked away. “Ja. It means she was definitely not complicit.”

Essek almost said ‘in what?’ before he recalled the list of crimes from Beauregard that continued to live in his consciousness.

He spent more time with Caleb now. The nicest thing that could be said of Caleb’s bedroom was that it was functional. Essek spent a pleasant night there, nonetheless, the week after they returned from Zadash. The invitation was extended again the following week, but the liaison had a different tone, at least in the early evening, with Miss Magdalena present.

She had a great deal more interest in Essek now that he’d presented her with a candy dragon out of the ether, regardless of how many times he said it was from her father. He’d been entirely unprepared for the way her hopeful little face had fallen the next time she’d seen him and he had nothing on hand to follow it up with. In retrospect, Caleb’s comment on the matter really should have been read as more of a warning. Essek asked Caleb’s advice, and took to carrying a bag of candied fruits in his Wristpocket at all times.

Such a strange variety of items in there these days.

Dinners with Miss Magdalena also meant dinners with Grieve, apparently. Essek maintained a firm policy of staying quiet unless actively drawn into the conversation. It was surprisingly pleasant, though, to hear Miss Magdalena talk about her doings of the day, and to sometimes be the recipient of one of her many questions. Even her sillier questions took on a gloss of interest when one considered the facility with which she was noticing the world. She and Essek spent five minutes once discussing why an arm pit was called an arm pit when it bore no resemblance to a cherry pit or a peach pit, and why weren’t there elbow pits, or knee pits.

She was fiercely bright yet uneducated, which was not a combination he was used to. Caleb and Grieve – and Becke, presumably – were feeding her a constant stream of books and conversations and experiences to keep her partly occupied. If Caleb was even half so bright, which surely he must have been, what on Exandria had his poorly resourced parents done to manage?

“Turned it to other things,” Caleb said when asked. “I got my memory from my mother, but it worked differently for her. She could remember any song she heard, even just once. She had only informal musical training, and average talent, but it was all there.” A shadow passed across his face. “A living archive of thousands of Zemnian songs, with multiple variations of each, died with her.”

Essek touched his cheek in silence. He wondered whether he ought to tell Caleb about the loss of his father. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do? Find commonality in such shared experiences? It was hard, though. A ball of tight emotion had lodged deep down in Essek’s chest over a decade ago. But it was made up of more than just grief. Other, thorny things were in there too, most that Essek did not care to name. Surely, it would not be any solace to Caleb to hear about that.

The nights at Caleb’s were interesting for more than one reason. Essek didn’t need to bring up the beacons again, as Caleb did it for him. He had interestingly specific questions about power output and dunamantic fields and, oddly, impacts on ley lines, which Essek had many theories about. Caleb seemed to be driving towards something he was not willing to name yet. He listened to Essek’s description of his ley line tracker back home with great interest, but it didn’t seem to satisfy him.

Still, that was promising. Caleb was thinking on the beacons, and their potential.

Essek hovered on the brink of pushing it further. How to do it, though? He waffled about that, and therefore did nothing. And the truth was, he didn’t want to push it forward for the first time in many years. Let Caleb come to whatever it was he was thinking about in his own time. Essek, for his part, could answer his questions, and share intimacy with him in his firelit bedroom, and braid his hair for him in the morning.

In the third week of Cuersaar, Essek arrived for the bi-weekly dinner to find everyone assembled except for Caleb and Beauregard and their peculiar friend Kingsley, who was apparently off doing something nefarious on a pirate-controlled island. The remainder of the Mighty Nein made themselves at home, but uneasy looks started going around the room as twenty minutes passed, then thirty.

“Do you know what they were doing today?” Fjord asked Yasha, who had been hovering around the top of the stairs for ten minutes.

Yasha bit her lip. “They were supposed to go back to Ikithon’s bolt hole in the Mosaic Ward,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure why.”

There was a beat of silence, and even more looks exchanged.

“I’ll Send to him,” Jester said, lifting her hands. “Caleb,” she sang, “you’re late to dinner. Essek’s here, and he looks extra pretty. Are you guys okay? . . . Doot doot doodly doot, duby duby doo.” She paused, waited, frowned. “No answer.”

“Try Beau?” Fjord said, restlessly thumbing some sort of token hung around his neck.

Before she could, though, Yasha startled and scrambled in her sash to pull out a Sending Stone. “Baby,” she said, “Tell me more about where you are? We’ll come to you. Wait, fuck, you can’t, hang on.” She whirled on Jester. “Beau says they’re still in the Mosaic. Something happened, Caleb’s out of it, but I’m not sure exactly where they are.”

“I’ll Send again,” Jester said, coming to her feet. “They’ll be hard to find, though.”

Essek put up a hand, fear clutching at his belly. If Caleb was hurt badly enough to be unresponsive to a Sending, they couldn’t spare the time for a search, surely. “I can Teleport,” he said. “But I need to know where I’m going.”

“You can’t Scry on Caleb,” Fjord said. “Yasha, does Beau still wear her amulet? Okay, fuck, you can’t Scry on Beau, either.”

“It’s an item that prevents it in her case?” Essek checked, and got several nods. “Then, Jester, please ask Beauregard to remove it. I will Scry on her, and then we can go.”

Jester did that. Essek waited a few seconds, then sat himself down right there on the floor to Scry, which was difficult to do while being fixedly stared at by five people. Grieve, at least, had left the room. Essek could hear him moving around downstairs, perhaps gathering weapons.

Essek gave himself one breath, which was insufficient to soothe the quake in his belly. No matter. He bent over the small mirror he kept in his Wristpocket.

Beauregard’s image resolved itself immediately. She was pacing somewhere outside, up and down a grimy brick wall. There was a distortion against that wall which Essek realized must be Caleb, veiled from divination. Was he bleeding? Unconscious? No way to tell. Essek scanned rapidly, committing details to memory: there was a garbage pile to her left, the branches of a tree cast a dim shadow on the wall, he could see the corner of a boarded up window whenever Beauregard reached the end of her circuit and turned. That would have to be enough.

“I have it,” he said, blinking the spell away and standing. Grieve thumped back up the stairs, prepared for war by the looks of him. “Who’s coming?”

Everyone came, though it took an infuriatingly long time to establish that. Half of them were armed and prepared, the other half-dressed comfortably for an evening in with close friends. Veth had acquired a crossbow from somewhere, though she’d never left the room. Yasha clutched her blade, her striking eyes narrowed in focus. Jester was wearing a pair of house slippers in the shape of bunnies, and had to sprint down to get her shoes. Essek was barefoot, but he opted to float and not waste time.

He Teleported, remembering how Caleb had called him ‘quite accurate.’ If there was ever a time for that to be true . . .

He hit his mark.

They arrived in what couldn’t even generously be called an alley. It was just an uncobbled strip of mud between two buildings that seemed to lean towards each other. It smelled dreadful. Beauregard, caught mid-step, nearly punched Essek in the face before she recognized him.

“Fuck,” she snapped, redirecting her momentum. Caduceus brushed between them, and Essek’s eye followed him to where Caleb sat on the ground, back to the wall, his head tipped forward and half his hair obscuring his face. Essek took a step in that direction, but Beauregard clamped onto his arm. “Don’t,” she said sharply. “Give them a minute.”

Essek gritted his teeth. There was no way he could get away from her on strength alone, though he was more than willing to give her a piece of his mind. But he was distracted by Jester saying behind him, “Wait, who’s the dead guy? Oh wow, that’s just a kid.”

Beauregard hissed at her, making a slashing gesture in the air. “Cool it,” she snapped.

Essek looked over. There was indeed a body about ten feet away, and Jester was correct. That was a very young human, his dark hair grown past his ears, his face too thin.

“Oh, fuck no,” Veth said, getting a good look at him. “That’s –” she turned on her heel and bolted to Caleb.

Beauregard still had hold of Essek. “Babe, can you get him?” she asked quietly. Yasha lifted the body, cradling it with care. “Okay, let’s go,” Beauregard said, giving Essek’s arm a shake. “City guards aren’t down here much, but still.”

Essek obliged, depositing them all back into the family room. He was looking straight at the knot of Caduceus and Veth and Caleb when he did it, so he saw Caleb waver as the support of the wall vanished. Veth put her small arm behind his shoulders, saying something to him that Caleb didn’t seem to acknowledge.

Essek broke away from Beauregard, who was distracted by Yasha, and shouldered a place for himself next to Veth. Caduceus was just in the act of lifting Caleb’s face between his two large hands. And Caleb was . . .

Caleb was vacant. He couldn’t even be said to be staring; his eyes didn’t track or focus. And his face was slack, as if abandoned. It was a shock to realize how animated he usually was, even if it was just by concentration or thoughtfulness or his baseline degree of sadness.

“Caleb?” Essek tried, and received nothing, not even the flicker of an eyelash.

“Hmm,” Caduceus said mildly.

Essek whirled on him, fired with sudden rage. “Well?” he said, feeling his lip curl. “Do something!”

“I am,” Caduceus said pacifically, smoothing Caleb’s hair off his cheek.

“I mean fix him,” Essek snapped. “Surely you can manage a restoration?”

“No,” Caduceus said. “I will not.”

Essek opened his mouth, but swallowed his next words when Veth’s hand came down viciously hard on his arm. “Hey,” she snapped in an undertone. “Keep it fuckin’ civil or get the fuck out, Thelyss. In fact, get. You’re in the way.”

Essek became abruptly aware that he was making an unseemly display of teeth. His anger evaporated, leaving only a hollow hurt in its wake. Caduceus and Veth had already turned back to Caleb. Veth was talking quietly to him, telling him how they were going to stand up now, going to walk over to the sofa, he would be comfortable there, didn’t that sound nice. Caleb did not respond.

Essek stumbled to his feet, and turned, and left. He stopped on the stairs with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Had Veth meant to send him from the tower entirely? No, forget that, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t leaving. He just needed a minute to compose himself. He would go back in, and he would ask Caduceus, calmly and politely, what the problem was and how to fix it. What curse even did that to a person? Essek had seen Feeblemind in action a few times, and it didn’t look like that.

He became aware of a strange, sharp thumping sound coming from somewhere below. It was almost rhythmic, and pronounced enough to rattle the railing under his hand.

Essek went down a flight and found Beauregard assaulting a wall. She was whaling away at it with both ends of her staff, one after the other, her face set in a mask of fury. Essek paused on the steps, not wanting to be snapped at again, and really not wanting to insert himself into whatever fit of violence this was. He felt compelled to watch, though. It was strangely beautiful. Was this her version of a Dark Star or a barely contained blaze?

The wall audibly cracked after several more blows, and Beauregard paused, flipping the staff and setting it upright with a bang. “I really fucking hate him, you know?” she said to the wall.

“Who?” Essek said. Surely not Caleb?

Beauregard whipped around, clearly having thought he was someone else. “Oh,” she said. Then visibly decided not to care. “Ikithon. I fucking hate Ikithon.”

Essek blinked. The sentiment wasn’t new, but it was usually said with deliberate lightness. Not like this. A sudden thought chilled his blood. If Da’leth was alive, was it possible that Ikithon was, too?

“Did he do that?” Essek asked, gesturing up the stairs. “To Caleb?”

“Yes, he fucking did.” Beauregard whirled and hit the wall one more mighty blow. “Death was too good for him. He should still be alive, so we could watch him suffer.”

“I’m sorry,” Essek said. “I’m not trying to be difficult, but if he’s dead, then how . . .?”

That finally got him all of Beauregard’s attention. “Caleb keeping those cards close to the chest, huh?” she said. Essek wanted to bristle, but there was nothing mocking in her face. “Look.” Beauregard shifted her staff from hand to hand, visibly weighing her words. “It’s not my story, okay? But yeah. This one’s on Ikithon, start to finish.” Her face twisted in a scowl. “The trick will be getting Caleb to believe that, too. At least once his brain turns back on again.”

Before Essek could figure out what to say to that, there were footsteps on the stairs. Fjord came down, moving quickly, and stopped next to Essek.

“What the fuck happened?” he said. “That’s the Volstrucker kid, right? The one Caleb’s been trying to reel in?”

“Yup.” Beauregard eased back on her heels. There was something in Fjord’s presence that seemed to center her. “That’s Henrik. And what happened was he decided to suicide by archmage.”

Fjord made a pained whistling sound between his lips. “Damn. There isn’t a mark on him.”

“I know.” Beauregard rocked in place. “He got an illusion together. Paper thin, but it was enough. Came at us out of nowhere with Ikithon’s face, screaming all sorts of stuff. And Caleb just—” she made a cutting gesture “—straight up one-shotted him. He didn’t even twiddle his thumbs, he just said a word. I’ve never seen him do that, it was creepy.”

“Oh,” Essek said. He knew what that spell was. If nothing else, it confirmed what Essek had suspected since Caleb’s dragon made an appearance: he could cast at the ninth quantum. Which put him in the rarefied company of only a handful of other wizards alive on Exandria. A company Essek could not claim to keep. Not yet. “But then,” he said, “if Caleb used the power word on him, how did he get off a curse.”

There was a pause, an exchange of looks. “He didn’t,” Beauregard said briefly.

“Kind of weird though, isn’t it?” Fjord said to her. “That Caleb didn’t use fire, but he, you know. Abandoned ship.”

“Yeah,” Beauregard said, drawing the word out. “It’s not as cut-and-dried as he likes to pretend it is. This isn’t the first time. It’s been a while, though.”

“Excuse me,” Essek said, keeping his voice level with a monumental effort. “Will one of you please explain to me what has happened to Caleb?”

Beauregard started to say something, and Essek could tell it was going to be a refusal. But Fjord cut her off with an upraised hand. “We probably should,” he said gently to her. “I know you want to beat back all comers right now, but I don’t think Caleb would thank you for that. And,” he hesitated. “Maybe we’re doing him a favor, handling this for him.”

“Fuck,” Beauregard said expressively, directing it at the ceiling. She chewed her lip for a moment, then abruptly focused the entire avalanche force of her personality on Essek. “It’s a trauma response, okay?” she said aggressively. “Some real bad shit happens, and Caleb kind of . . . goes away for a while.”

Essek processed that, feeling something. Several things. Dismay. Pity. A little bit of revulsion. Something huge and keening and terribly sad that wanted to go upstairs and cradle Caleb’s head to his chest.

“And it was Ikithon,” he said slowly. “Who did this to him?”

“Yeah, well.” She held up one hand. “Ikithon.” Drew a straight line in the air. “Trauma.”

“Oh,” Essek said quietly.

“You gonna keep it together?” Fjord asked her, though he was looking at Essek out of the corner of his eye. “’Cause you know Veth will dropkick you down these stairs if you say a word she doesn’t like.”

“She can try,” Beauregard said without heat. “I’m fine. Just needed to, you know. Walk it off. What a fuckin’ day.”

They turned simultaneously to look at Essek. Beauregard’s look was evaluating, Fjord’s merely interested.

“I . . . have already offended Veth,” Essek said slowly. “Any advice for not doing so again?”

“Woof,” said Beauregard unhelpfully. “Nice knowing you, I guess.”

It was a surprisingly small part of Essek that wanted to leave. The rest, overwhelmingly, had planted itself in this tower. Would not be moved, come hell or high halfling.

Fjord patted him on the bicep. “Chin up, soldier. Just ask her how you can help, and listen to what she says. She has the most relevant experience of all of us, by a mile.” He hesitated. “And maybe apologize to Caduceus.”

“Oh, wow,” Beauregard said, goggling at him. “You took a swipe at Cad?”

“He’s doing something very hard right now,” Fjord said, ignoring her. “He’ll appreciate it.”

Essek frowned. “He is? I thought he said he can’t cast a restoration?”

“Exactly,” Fjord said.

Essek played back the exchange, his frown deepening. “No, wait. He said he wouldn’t. Not that he couldn’t. Why—”

Fjord squeezed his shoulder. “Tell you what, why don’t you start by going up and asking him about that.”

“All right,” Essek said, relieved to have a task list. “I can do that.”

“There’s a lad,” Fjord said bracingly, as if Essek weren’t four times his age at least.

Jester passed him on the stairs, going down as he went up. “Did Fjord go this way?” she asked, unsmiling.

“Right down there,” Essek said, and continued up.

The family room was dim and surprisingly quiet. Yasha and Grieve and the dead young Volstrucker were gone. Caleb was lying on the bright blue couch, the same one where he’d collapsed with his migraine, back when Essek had barely dared touch him. And the same place he’d laid his head in Essek’s lap, not that long ago, when Miss Magdalena had her rough night. The difference between those two occasions felt vast. Thinking on that gave Essek the courage to approach and make eye contact with Veth, who was cradling Caleb’s head in her lap. He had come this far. He could learn to do this, too.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Essek asked, without preamble.

He was fully expecting to be turned down. He could see the brushoff coming. But then Veth glanced down at Caleb’s still face and pressed her lips together.

“Get me my bag, over there,” she said, jerking her chin to the far wall.

Essek silently did, and set it next to her. “Anything else?”

“Ask Caduceus to make this warm again,” she said, sliding a damp towel out from under Caleb’s neck.

Essek took it, cast Prestidigitation, and offered it back. “Like that?”

“Yeah.” She tucked it back where it had been. Caleb did not react.

“Anything else?”

She gave him a long, scouring look. “You freaking out everywhere is the very last thing he needs,” she said. “That shit can easily make it take way longer for him to come back up. Keep your feelings to yourself, or be elsewhere, got it?”

If Essek were fifty years younger, he would have pointed out that she definitely hadn’t been keeping her feelings to herself when she tossed him out.

“Got it,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Caduceus for a minute. Can I fetch you anything else?”

“A bottle,” she said. Then, immediately, “that was a joke. Do not bring me one.”

“Okay.” Essek allowed himself one long look at Caleb. He seemed physically unharmed, at least, which accorded with Beauregard’s account. The hollow blankness of his face was entirely unchanged. “He will, though?” he said. “Come . . . back up?”

“Yeah.” Her nod was certain, even if the slant to her mouth was less so. “It’s going to be a long night, though.”

Walking away from Caleb was difficult. Partly because Essek wanted to stay, but also because he didn’t, part of him wanted to run from this and not look back. Essek had a number of unsurprising, if unpleasant, realizations about his own character as he went to the kitchen.

Well. No sense dwelling on it now.

Caduceus was washing dishes. Essek had the impression, watching him from the doorway, that he might very well start in on the clean dishes once the dirty ones were done. Uneaten dinner was keeping warm on the stove, with the fire banked low. Right. Essek had entirely forgotten that. What time was it? Did Caleb know right now? Probably not.

He steeled himself and knocked gently on the door jam. Caduceus’s ears swiveled to him, but he kept on at his work.

“I owe you an apology,” Essek said. “I was rude.”

Caduceus made a thoughtful sound in his chest. “It’s appreciated,” he said. And then, just as Essek was exhaling in relief at how easy that had been, he added, “I understand that you have very little practice in loving, and that makes you afraid. And being afraid makes you angry.”

Essek thought distantly of how he used to consider Caduceus unintelligent. Perhaps he was, but Essek’s mistake had been dismissing him on that basis. Anyone who could deliver an assessment that was so kind and so vicious was someone to take seriously. In a sense, Essek ought to thank him for distilling his jumbled thoughts of a few moments ago into something much more coherent.

“I am aware,” Essek said, which was maybe a bit of a stretch. “I am thinking on it. Or, well. I will think on it later.” He cleared his throat. “Fjord suggested I ask you something, if I may?”

Caduceus did turn to face him then. “Yes.”

“You said you wouldn’t cast a restoration. Why is that? Would it not help him?”

“It probably would, in the short term,” Caduceus said calmly. He began drying his hands.

“How would it do him harm in the long term?” Essek asked, genuinely baffled.

Caduceus moved his mouth for a moment before beginning to speak, in the way of someone lining up more words than he generally said at once. “Caleb has fallen down a deep dark well,” he said. “Or, I suspect in this case, he has jumped down it. I can pull him out forcibly, yes. But he has been down that well before. He has gotten out. He knows how. And, I hope, each time he does it, it is easier for him to remember the way.”

Essek absorbed this, nodding slowly. It did make intuitive sense. There were no shortcuts to power for a wizard or, if Caleb was to be believed, for a cleric. Essek did not have any experience with the sort of . . . illness? Affliction? That had Caleb in its grip, but perhaps wellness operated under similar principles.

“Okay,” he said. “I see. Will we know, though, if he is having trouble?”

“Oh, yes,” Caduceus said. “If he is not back with us in a few days, we will be having a different conversation.”

“A few—” Essek started, then bit off his ill-tempered sentence, and breathed, and breathed. Caduceus watched him, nonjudgmental but interested.

“I’m going to get dinner together,” Caduceus said into the silence.

“Should I go count heads?” Essek asked, glancing over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure where most of the Mighty Nein even were.

“No.” Caduceus pulled down a stack of plates. “If I put out food, they will come.”

He was correct about that. Essek had been assuming that Caduceus meant to serve dinner at the dining table. The thought of sitting through the meal with Caleb still and silent in the other room was terrible. But instead Caduceus dispatched Essek to spread a tablecloth on the floor of the family room, and laid out all the dishes right there.

The Mighty Nein did, indeed, trickle back in from their various errands. Where was the body? Essek flicked a glance at Caleb, and decided not to ask.

They scattered themselves around the room, chatting quietly. The mood was not exactly upbeat, but there was something in being there with all of them that loosened the terrible clenching knot in Essek’s stomach enough for him to actually manage half a bowl of stew.

They took turns sitting with Caleb, so he was never alone. Essek didn’t actually see who displaced Veth first, but whoever it was clearly deserved an appropriate Dwendalian medal of courage. It was a comfort to Essek to see that some of them seemed to feel as awkward and bereft as he did. Yasha talked quietly to Caleb in Celestial. Beauregard gently shook his head back and forth in her two hands and told him to “not be a dumbshit about this, okay? You reacted. It would have been me, half a second later.” Jester chattered blithely away to him for fifteen minutes straight about erotic novels.

“Can I?” Essek asked, abandoning his dinner to approach her. It was hard to ask. It would have been harder not to.

“Of course,” Jester said. She leaned down to smack a kiss on Caleb’s forehead. “Your hot boi is here, Caleb,” she said, and stood up.

Essek was not touching that one.

He sat down, gently maneuvered Caleb’s head onto his thigh, and discovered he didn’t know what to do next. Someone – Veth, probably – had smoothed his hair, but it was still mostly loose from its pin. So Essek began braiding it, working along Caleb’s crown and temples so as not to disturb him too much. Caleb wasn’t limp, precisely. He turned his head when encouraged by touch, and there was some amount of tension to his muscles. Essek was thankful to realize that there was a notable difference between Caleb and a corpse. Having so recently seen an example to compare with.

He thought maybe there was a tiny bit more . . . something behind Caleb’s eyes. There was nothing specific he could point to, but just a sense of a change. Or perhaps he was fooling himself with hope. Not normally a vice of his, but he was learning all sorts of things about himself tonight, wasn’t he.

Veth was checking compulsively on Caleb every five minutes. Essek asked her opinion, and she hummed thoughtfully.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, and tweaked the tip of Caleb’s nose. Essek thought he saw the merest flicker of an expression at that. “I think this is going to take a while,” Veth said. “Which is okay,” she added, clearly speaking to Caleb.

“Should we . . .” Essek hesitated, unsure how to say this without risking her wrath again. “Would it help to make him a little less comfortable? Not hurt him, of course, but . . .”

Veth glanced distractedly over her shoulder. Grieve was hovering in the doorway, staring across at them with an expression of complex pain that was hard to look at. He hadn’t come to dinner. Then he vanished up the stairs like a ghost.

“Well,” Veth said on a sigh. “I’ll give you this, Thelyss, you aren’t a fuckin’ pussy.”

“Thank you?” Essek said. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn that assessment. Or perhaps the better question was what Grieve hadn’t done. He wasn’t here helping in even the ineffectual ways Essek was trying to, so perhaps it was that.

“And to answer your question,” Veth said. “It might help, but we aren’t going to do it.”

“Okay.”

“I did enough of watching that when I didn’t have a choice about it,” she continued, scowling. “And if being half dead of starvation and cold was what used to get him back up again, well too fuckin’ bad, Widogast.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Essek said. Then, trying clumsily to be gentle about it, “and neither is he.”

“Yeah, well.” She scowled at him on general principle.

Essek held four completed braids between his fingers, reaching into his Wristpocket with the other hand. He was carrying all sorts of nonsense in there these days, did he have any ribbon?

Apparently not, but his inexact magical request produced his spool of platinum cord, and he drew it out, a thought slowly blooming.

“I’m going to cast something,” he said, unspooling the cord and looping Caleb’s wrist, and then his own. “Nothing much, just a way to be more aware of him.”

He cast before Veth or anyone else could object.

The Tether Essence settled immediately, with no resistance from either of them. Essek let out a breath, more relieved than he’d like to say. Caleb’s soul was there, the spell would not have worked otherwise. He’d known that, but still.

“What’s that do?” Veth asked, eying Caleb’s wrist where the cord had dissolved.

“It just ties us together,” Essek said. In the soul and thus, by reflection, in the body. What hurts him hurts me. “That’s all. It lasts an hour.”

It was one of the lesser understood effects of Tether Essence that it conveyed a certain awareness. Essek could have stood up, closed his eyes, spun a dozen times in the middle of the room, and pointed unerringly to Caleb. He glowed in Essek’s awareness, feeling no different than anyone else ever had under this effect. Could Caleb feel him, too?

It made it easier to exceed gracefully when Veth flapped her hands at him, wanting her spot back. The rest of the Nein had finished dinner and were cleaning up, arguing in a desultory way about what card game to start.

Essek was sufficiently distracted by talk of strip poker to nearly miss the signs of trouble. But he was closest to the kitchen door, so he was first to hear as Jester’s voice climbed, distressed and angry. He couldn’t understand what she said, aside from “fix it!”

Caduceus said something back, and Jester said, “well I don’t!” in a strident tone Essek had never heard before.

He turned to the door, unsure what he thought he could possibly do but certain it must be something. And then he saw the second most terrible thing of the night, right behind Caleb’s empty eyes but somewhere above a dead young person. Jester was coming back, and she was dashing tears off her face.

Essek’s whole body rejected the very notion. No. Unacceptable.

“Jester,” he said, taking a step to the left to put himself in her path.

“Oh.” She paused, wiped her face again, and produced a smile. A rather ghastly overbright one. “Hi, Essek.”

“Can I do something to help?” he asked. “I am maintaining a spell right now, but if there is something you need . . .”

“Oh.” The smile softened, became less terrible to look at. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course.” He turned and hooked his arm through hers, the way she seemed to like to do to him. “Where are we going?”

“Just up to Leni’s room.” She headed for the stairs. “Thanks. I thought you wouldn’t want to leave him.”

“It’s all right,” Essek said. The awareness of Caleb didn’t live anywhere specific in his body. It just glowed in his soul, like a lantern through colored glass. “Everyone’s taking very good care of him.”

“Are we?” Jester said. “It’s so hard to tell.”

“At least you know what to do,” Essek said, more plaintively than he’d meant to.

Jester gave him a frank look. “I mean, sort of? But the first time we saw this, Molly straight up slapped him across the face. It worked, but I wouldn’t, like, recommend it, you know?”

They turned into Miss Magdalena’s room and Jester went to the mural. It looked complete to Essek, but what did he know.

“This is almost nice,” Jester said, talking to the wall. “I mean, it’s awful, but we’re all here, we’re safe. This would happen before, but it was usually in the middle of some really bad stuff going down, so there wasn’t time to just do all the obvious things. Tell him we love him, that we’re here, that it’s going to be okay.” Essek resisted the urge to pull out some parchment and write that down. “There was this one day,” she continued, “where Ikithon was Sending to him over and over again. Saying terrible stuff, obviously. He didn’t know how to say anything else. You’re lucky you never met him.” Essek felt his face reflexively go blank, even though she wasn’t looking at him. “And Caleb was like, three-quarters gone, you know? But holding on by his fingernails, because we needed him, and because he was just really mad by then. It was like that, mostly. Anyway.” She sighed and said in the smallest, saddest voice Essek had ever heard, “Caduceus thinks it’s unethical to resurrect Henrik.”

“Uh,” Essek said, unprepared for that hairpin turn. “. . . Why?”

Jester huffed. “Because he made his choice, and the circle of life and blah blah blah. But I could.” She cast an appealing glance over her shoulder. “I have the diamond in my pocket. I could do it, and we’ve got him now, so we could keep him here and make him feel better, right?”

“I . . .” Essek said, out of his depth. “Resurrection is not routinely practiced back home, at least not in my social circles, for reasons I won’t bore you with. So I am no expert. But –” he hesitated, thinking of Caleb, months ago now, smiling and saying that the Mighty Nein were led by their clerics, who sometimes pulled in opposite directions. What was one supposed to do when two people whose wisdom one was beginning to trust disagreed? Panicking seemed reasonable.

“Yeah, I know,” Jester said quietly. “Caduceus is a lot older than me, and he’s better at this stuff, and he’s probably right.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Essek said. “I was going to say that this sounds hard, and maybe it’s not a decision to make tonight.” And also, her vision of, what, keeping the Volstrucker prisoner and forcibly talking him out of suicidal/homicidal impulses was simultaneously sweetly naïve and rather threatening. He didn’t know anyone else who could hit that mark.

“He’s right,” Beauregard said unexpectedly from the doorway. “Also, not for nothing, Jess. We both know you want to do this for Caleb. Do you think Caleb wants another Volstrucker to visit in Vergesson? To be responsible for keeping like that? Because I can tell you right now, he does not.”

Jester looked away. “I know,” she said, sad and furious. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Sure,” Beauregard said. “How about the hot tub? Caleb’s a bit more lively, so we were thinking we’d head up there.”

“He is?” Jester said, looking up with sudden cheer. “That was faster than Veth thought.”

“Yup. He’s not, like, chatty, but he’s in there.”

Essek followed them up. Caleb did look better; he was upright and sort of interacting. Though on any other day, his awkward, fumbling movements would have been alarming. He wasn’t looking anyone in the eye – seemed to be working quite hard not to, in fact – but got his own clothes off and climbed down into the water with the support of Yasha’s strong arm.

Essek rolled up his trousers to sit behind him. The braids he’d been working on had fallen out, and he reached to redo them as the Mighty Nein splashed and bickered and made a general ruckus around them.

He went slowly, adding more braids now that Caleb was sitting up. Caleb didn’t speak, but seemed to lean subtly into his hands. When Essek was done, a yellow ribbon appeared before him, and he looked up to find Veth holding it out.

“Thank you,” he said, taking it and weaving it through the ends of the braids in a complex tie.

Just as he finished, the Tether Essence ended. Essek sighed as the light inside him went out. Caleb turned, moving more quickly than he had been. He didn’t speak, but Essek could see him realizing – that was you.

“I can show it to you,” Essek said quietly. It was more necromancy than dunamancy, which Caleb didn’t seem to mind as much as some of his countrymen were said to. “I hope it was not intrusive.”

Caleb shook his head, opaque thoughts moving behind his eyes.

The evening wound down in fits and starts. Earlier, Essek had been mentally preparing for a long night, based on Veth’s predictions. But Caleb was present now, to some degree, and everyone else seemed to have come to a silent consensus that he did not need such close tending. That was probably right. Caleb accepted touches from Essek and Jester and Caduceus, but shied away from gentle attempts to draw him into conversation. And he visibly didn’t like being looked at much at all.

Essek had never thought about the state of being as a spectrum. He was conscious or he was trancing, which was itself a sort of annex to consciousness. But what had happened to Caleb – what Caleb had done to himself, according to Caduceus – defied that understanding. It seemed that for Caleb, presence in his body was not an absolute. It was something orthogonal to consciousness or unconsciousness, and Essek couldn’t conceive of what it must be like, subjectively, to be partially unpresent like that.

Thinking on that was better than thinking on anything else.

He had the impression Caleb was present enough to make himself clear, should he want Essek to stay. But Caleb didn’t ask. Essek was equal parts disappointed and relieved. He would have liked to stay close all night, to trance upon Caleb’s sleeping breaths as he sometimes did now. It meant he would rise from his trance when Caleb woke in the night, which Caleb often did. But then again, Essek was exhausted and overwrought, and he desperately wanted to be alone.

So he bid everyone a good night with mixed feelings. Jester and Fjord were already off to bed, and Caduceus was taking gentle charge of directing Caleb that way, too.

“I will Send to you tomorrow,” Essek said. It didn’t feel right to kiss him, so he didn’t.

He walked home. He could have teleported, though it would have used a higher quantum than usual, but it was no real hardship to walk through the quiet streets of the Candles, looking at the stars and attempting to empty his mind. He must not have been terribly successful, though, because Verin took one look at him and stood up.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Essek said. He was in no way prepared to discuss the night’s events with Verin. He wasn’t sure he was ready to discuss them with himself.

He didn’t have a choice, though. Ludinus Da’leth’s voice inserted itself into his mind as he was readying for trance. It was the third message. Essek had not responded to the first out of shock, nor the second out of uncertainty.

“Shadowhand,” Ludinus said. Was that frustration in his voice? “I’m disappointed at your silence. Please do get in touch as soon as you are able.”

Essek clicked his teeth together. He had thought, perhaps, to take the same approach with Ludinus that Caleb had suggested for Hass. Respond, but slowly and without much substance. But there was something in Ludinus’s tone or phrasing that grated sharply on Essek’s raw nerves. He did not like being spoken to like that, even though he couldn’t identify what that was.

So he said nothing, removing his jewelry with sharp gestures while the spell ran its course, and ended.

It occurred to him suddenly that he might be observed. Da’leth could be Scrying on him right now in order to pick his moment or watch for reactions. Essek hoped, with sudden, petty fury, that he was. Let him watch Essek ignore him. Let him seethe about it.

Essek was exhausted, but unable to settle to trance. He paced restlessly, almost wishing he had some sort of hobby to fall back on. But he’d never bothered to cultivate one, and now here he was, alone with his thoughts and a ball of something sour in his belly.

Well, then. Time to examine the thoughts, wasn’t it?

A corner of Essek’s mind immediately piped in with what it had been saying to him for hours with varying degrees of urgency: he’s not who he said he was, and this seems too hard, cut your losses, Send to Ludinus, or don’t, just go home, call it a lesson learned.

Essek was, he had been informed, a contrary person. He questioned too much, he objected, he would not be moved. As it turned out, that contrariness extended to his own self, because he heard those thoughts, and he objected, and he would not be moved. Had Caleb purported to be someone he was not? No. In fact, he’d made an offer which, in retrospect, was possibly to talk about this, to some degree. Was it hard? Yes. But what did that matter? Few things in this life had come easily to Essek, not respect, not companionship, not desire. All things he’d found in Caleb. None of which he was willing to give up.

All right then, that was settled. He would Send to Caleb tomorrow, he would ask if Caleb was well and when they could see each other again. They would speak of this. Essek had learned many difficult and complex and nuanced things in his life; he could learn to work around this . . . fracture in Caleb’s mind. It was fine.

There was nothing else worth thinking on, was there?

Essek had, in fact, met Trent Ikithon once. Ludinus had brought him along, with appropriate notice, on their third and final in-person meeting. Ludinus had introduced Ikithon as “my dear friend and colleague,” and told Essek that he and Ikithon would share all aspects of beacon research, and Ikithon would be available to him when Ludinus would not.

Essek had thought nothing of it, except to be distantly jealous that the two of them could share work in that way. Essek had no one he could say the same of.

He thought of it now. If Ikithon shared in Da’leth’s work, then was the reverse true? What was Ikithon’s work? What had he done?

Essek began to hastily finish undressing. No sense in dwelling on that. He was set on his course here. He was certain of it, as certain as he’d been of anything in a long time. He didn’t need to speculate, or to read into things.

It was fine.

Caleb slept poorly enough to have not recovered his arcane reserves. No matter. He wasn’t going to be of use for anything that day regardless. The exhaustion added an extra layer of slow unreality to his senses which were already not functioning as they ought.

Caduceus knocked on his study door in the middle of the morning.

“I have spoken to the Wildmother,” he said without preamble. “At Jester’s request.”

“Oh?” Caleb had not been accomplishing anything more than writing disconnected phrases on scattered pieces of paper.

“The Wildmother says that young Henrik does not wish to be resurrected,” Caduceus said. “And if we try, it will fail.”

“Ah.” Caleb hadn’t even thought about that yet. He was relieved. Then ashamed.

“I’d like to bring him to the Grove,” Caduceus said. “We can take care of him there.”

Caleb nodded slowly. “Yes, thank you.”

“Good.” Caduceus turned to the door. “We’ll be leaving in forty-five minutes.”

Caleb thought we? A good ten seconds after the door closed. Right. Okay. He should get dressed, then.

That took the entire allotted time, somehow. And when Caleb made it up to the roof, where Caduceus liked to depart from, he found an unexpected crowd: Beau, doing some violent form of stretching; Yasha, calm and quiet with Henrik laid across her shoulders; Caduceus, discussing matters with the tree; and Wulf and Astrid and Franka and Piter, all the Volstrucker currently in the city.

There was some back-and-forth about transportation. Caleb let it wash around him. He was tapped, and they probably all knew it.

Wulf and Astrid were barely looking at him. That was such a tangle that his mind skipped smoothly right over it. Maybe they were ashamed of his weakness, maybe they were guilty for whatever part they felt they’d played in breaking his mind. Not up for consideration right now.

In the end, Caduceus gathered Caleb and Beau and Yasha and Henrik close, and invoked his Word of Recall, while Astrid Teleported everyone else.

The grove was strange and lovely, as always. The Clays fed and watered them all, and took Henrik away for a little while to prepare him.

The ceremony was quick and to the point. They had done this many times before. There were seventeen Volstrucker buried in the Grove, thirteen from the fight with Ikithon and Iresor and Da’leth, four from after. And one more, now.

Caleb and Astrid laid him in the grave together, then stepped back to allow Caduceus to begin the work of returning him to the earth. The first shovels of dirt were going back in when Essek’s voice filled Caleb’s mind.

“Good afternoon. I hope you are . . . feeling more yourself. May I see you on Miresen?”

So. He had not managed to entirely repel Essek with his little display. That was something.

Caleb almost waited too long, riding the slow ebb of his thoughts. “Ja,” he said quietly, turning his head and talking into his hand. “On Miresen. Danke.”

They buried Henrik and went home. Astrid tried to corner him on the way down the stairs, but Caleb extended himself to evade her. He did not have it in him to be this slow and diminished before her right now.

He ate the dinner Caduceus brought him because it was easier than not doing it and suffering the consequences. Then he napped for two hours on the couch in his study. Not enough, but it would do for now.

He waited until he was sure Wulf and Caduceus had gone to bed, or at least had retreated to their rooms. Then he changed clothes into a patched old set from early on in his time with the Nein, and he left the tower. No coat, but that was fine. That helped, even, as the cold bit into him.

It took no effort at all to slip back into the skin of a nameless vagrant. Of course, vagrants did not frequent the Candles, so the first thing he did was go elsewhere.

Soltryce had its own midden heap, far on the other side of campus. The smell rendered the dorms in that area far less desirable.

He went, and climbed the nearest pile of refuse, and then rolled in it. There, that was better.

Sometimes, he wondered which way it went: did he put on this skin over the trappings of an Assembly Archmage, or was the nameless vagrant there at the core of him, when you stripped the archmage away?

Caduceus hated it when he did this, with a ferocity that was nearly shocking. But that was a tomorrow problem, for Caleb Widogast to handle, when Caleb Widogast was available again.

For now, he would walk until he was tired, and then he would sleep. Outside somewhere, if he could manage it. Back in the garden at the tower if he couldn’t. That would help.

And tomorrow Caleb Widogast would get up again, and bring his daughter home, and go back to work.

Chapter Text

When Essek arrived on Miresen evening, he found Caleb and Veth sitting together under the tree on the roof, with their children dashing about the garden.

“Hallo,” Caleb said. He made eye contact, which was a relief, but he was visibly worn, which was not.

“Good evening.” Essek dipped his head respectfully to Veth. It seemed wise to go carefully there.

Caleb scooted over so that Essek could step into the deepest part of the shade. The sun wasn’t quite down yet.

“Essek!” Miss Magdalena skidded to a halt in front of him, her hand already out.

“I mean,” Veth said, watching Essek extract a sweet for her. “You gotta respect the hustle. Yeah, one for him, too,” she added, as her child presented himself with pleading eyes.

“Miss Magdalena has me well trained, yes,” Essek said.

“Why do you call me that?” the child in question asked, gulping her sweet instantaneously. “I’m just Leni.”

“It’s polite where I’m from,” he said. “That’s how I would address any lady younger than me, unless she gave me permission to use a more familiar name.” Or forcibly insisted on it, as the ladies of the Nein had done.

“Yeah, I’m Leni,” she said, nodding firmly. “But you’re an elf. Aren’t you , like, super old?”

How did she think old elves started out? “Compared to you, yes,” Essek said. “Compared to most of the people I deal with back home, not at all. My queen is over a thousand years old, did you know that?”

She digested this briefly, unimpressed, then turned to the Brenatto boy. “Did you know that Mr. Essek floats?”

He did know that, but seemed interested in revisiting the topic. Essek was just settling in for a round of the usual questions when Miss Magdalena – Leni – surprised him. “Does it work over water?”

“That’s a good one,” Caleb said. “I have wondered that, too.”

“Ah.” Essek glanced between two identical pairs of bright, interested eyes. “What do you think?” he asked Leni.

“I think it doesn’t,” she said immediately. “’Cause you’re doing it by pushing off the ground, and you can’t push off water.”

“An interesting hypothesis,” Essek said. “How do you suppose we could test it?”

This gave her pause, but only for a moment. “We could cut a hole in the roof over the hot tub and drop you through it,” she said.

Veth cracked up. “You walked into that one. No, wait, let me try again. You floated into that one.”

“Perhaps something a little less dramatic,” Caleb said, standing up. “If you are amenable, Essek?”

Essek was, in fact, very amenable to encouraging the development of sound scientific methods. To that end, he attempted to explain to Leni why his cantrip did not function like Featherfall, and therefore why her proposed experiment would result in nothing but wet drow.

“Sounds fun, though,” she said, as they all trooped down to the hot tub.

“For you,” Essek said. He demonstrated that his cantrip did work by way of walking out and hovering about eight inches over the surface.

“Huh,” Leni said, staring hard at his feet. “If we make waves in the water, do you go up and down like a boat?”

“Another excellent question,” Essek said, with a ‘be my guest’ gesture.

He immediately realized that it may have been a mistake to invite two small children to essentially fling water in his direction. But Caleb stepped in with a neatly placed Shape Water.

“I always have this one ready when Leni is here,” he said, grinning at his daughter. “Makes bathtime way more fun.”

Essek did not, in fact, bob up and down with the waves.

“Hmm,” Leni said, mirroring her father’s thoughtful pose. “So you’re not pushing off the ground?”

“I am not,” Essek said, gliding back off the water.

“You know, you haven’t taught me this one,” Caleb said.

“Oh, haven’t I?” Essek said blithely.

“How high can you go?” Leni broke in.

“About so,” Essek said, lifting to approximately fifteen inches. “If I go any higher—” he demonstrated, and set a hand quickly on Caleb’s shoulder to steady himself as he wobbled.

“What about going low?” young Brenatto asked.

The answer to that was actually quite revealing, though Essek did not intend to tell anybody so. The spell became increasingly difficult as he dropped below about four inches, to the point that he would simply fall at about half an inch.

Caleb watched this happen through narrowed eyes. Essek could tell that his working hypothesis had just been disproven. He was very curious to see if Caleb ever figured this out on his own. No other dunamancer had, though admittedly Essek had never made an effort to assist any of them in the matter. The problem was likely that the insight which had come to him as a new student of graviturgy was so simple as to be almost laughable, and most people overestimated the complexity of the magic involved.

The Brenattos stayed for dinner, which was notably more elaborate than the usual weekday fair. Caduceus was solicitous of Caleb’s needs in a way that became more and more alarming each time he stood up to refill Caleb’s half-empty glass or bring him the butter dish rather than passing it down the table. Essek had thought Caleb looked well enough. But what did Caduceus know that he didn’t? Many things, probably.

The Brenattos departed after dinner, and Essek settled himself in Caleb’s study while Leni’s fathers went about the serious business of bedtime. Caleb came down after twenty minutes, and Caduceus arrived on his heels with a beautifully prepared tea tray, something he’d never done before. He also insisted on pouring and preparing Caleb’s cup himself.

“Are you well?” Essek asked after he left, deciding there was no point in beating about the bush.

“Ja,” Caleb said, clearly having expected the question. “I apologize you were subjected to—” he gestured dismissively. “All of that.”

“Do not,” Essek said. He had not enjoyed himself on Folsen, but Caleb’s apology rankled. “Caduceus seems out of sorts, is why I was asking.” Caduceus had been notably calm on Folsen, so whatever troubled him now was alarming.

“Oh.” Caleb’s shoulders dropped a little. “That. He is absolutely furious with me, that’s all.” He gestured to the beautifully appointed tray. “He has interesting ways of making his feelings known.”

Essek frowned. “Why?”

Caleb made a face Essek could not interpret. “He . . . has strong opinions about some of my coping mechanisms,” he said. “And that reminds me,” he continued, before Essek could inquire further. “I’ll be away for a few days at the end of this week. Conthsen afternoon through Da’leysen, probably. I don’t want to miss class on Miresen, but we’ll see.”

“Oh? Anywhere interesting??” Essek wasn’t quite angling for another invitation to an out-of-town trip, but he wouldn’t be upset to receive one.

Caleb smiled amusedly at him, clearly reading that. “Not this time, I’m sorry to say, schatz,” he said. “You would not enjoy this excursion at all, I suspect.” Nor was he able to say where he was going, apparently.

“All right,” Essek said. “I shall see you on your return, then.”

“I’m sorry I’m always running around so much,” Caleb said, swirling his tea. “It’s no fun waiting around on me, I know.”

“It’s all right,” Essek said honestly. “I do understand it. In Rosohna, I work sixteen hour days a lot of the time. All this leisure is very strange for me.” He still wasn’t sure what he thought of all the downtime he had now. It was by no means an unalloyed good. Yet, strangely, when he thought of returning to his usual schedule back home, he felt a wave of deep malaise.

“Someday,” Caleb said, talking to his tea, “if I survive all this, I will resign, and then all I’ll have to be is Professor Widogast, and Leni’s vati.” There was longing in his voice.

“You can do that?” Essek said, then flushed at how foolish he sounded. Of course it was possible. He had just never heard of anyone voluntarily stepping down from the assembly. Or Shadowhand, for that matter. Until Essek’s predecessor, anyway, but her resignation was not voluntary.

“Not any time soon,” Caleb said. “There’s so much to do. And undo, more to the point. And anyway, there’s literally no one in this country I would be happy to see take my place, so.”

“Ah. What are the criteria there, may I ask?”

“Being able to hold their own with Astrid,” Caleb said promptly. “And all sorts of other predictable things like power and a strong moral compass. Which can be antithetical in some, I know.”

“That does seem quite selective,” Essek said. He wasn’t actually sure what would be harder to find, a powerful wizard with a strong moral compass, or someone willing to go toe-to-toe with Becke.

“I’ll find them, eventually,” Caleb said. “Or make them, if I have to.” Essek thought of the lecture he’d observed. Was that one of Caleb’s purposes in teaching, to find and groom a replacement? He had a long road ahead of him, if so. “That’s assuming no one comes along and does to me what I did to Ludinus,” Caleb added, with a bit too much cheer.

Essek saw an opening and took it. “May I ask about that?”

Caleb gave him a long, thoughtful look. “That is not what I expected you to come with questions about,” he said.

Essek hesitated. He had been curious, yes, for a long time. Still was. But there was a deep reluctance in him now to pry. If he asked, Caleb might very well answer. And he did not feel prepared to know. Not today.

“No,” he said, and touched the back of Caleb’s hand. There, that was how solicitude was performed, wasn’t it? “You look tired.”

“I am always tired,” Caleb said. “But ja. You are not wrong.” He cleared his throat. “And yes, you can ask about Ludinus. It continues to be very funny to me that I have done so many terrible things in my life, and yet what I am most infamous for is not something I did.”

“No?” So he did know Ludinus lived. That was a relief.

“No. They credit me with four archmages. I can claim only one. And not even the one I wanted.”

“Oh?”

Caleb made a face. “Iresor. She cornered me alone, tried to get in my way. I don’t regret it, to be clear, she was a real piece of work. But she was collateral damage, when it comes right down to it.”

“That’s impressive, though,” Essek said honestly. “To best her one-on-one. She had quite the reputation.”

Fascinatingly, Caleb covered his face with one hand. His ears were turning pink. “That’s one way to look at it,” he said. “Another way might be that we went one-on-one, and then Big Blue ate her.”

“Caleb Widogast!” Essek said, appalled and strangely entertained. “That is horrible.”

“I know.”

“And I just read up on that spell yesterday,” Essek added, poking him hard in the arm. “I know you retain your faculties.” That had been a challenging afternoon. Challenging to the intellect, challenging to Essek’s quietly seething jealousy over a spell out of his reach.

“I do.” Caleb dropped his hand, looking adorably sheepish. “But I also have instincts. I reacted. And gulped. And there you go. I thought she would extract herself, but she didn’t manage it. Bad luck, probably.”

“I’m pretty sure eating one should count as at least two,” Essek said.

“Maybe. I wasn’t even there for DeRogna, though. Lucien saw to her. Very inconveniently at the time, let me tell you.”

Essek set his hand on Caleb’s knee. “And Ikithon?”

“Ja.” Caleb inhaled. “This cannot leave this room.”

“It will not,” Essek said.

Caleb scrutinized him for a moment, then nodded to himself. “He wasn’t supposed to die at all,” he said. “Beauregard had mostly talked me around to bringing him to the king alive. We had a case put together with the Cobalt Soul, with the testimony of a dozen or so people.” Volstrucker, Essek thought he meant. “I wasn’t . . .” Caleb chewed his lip. “I wasn’t fully convinced, I will be honest. I wanted to kill him. But she made some compelling arguments. And by then I trusted her judgment more than my own, in some ways.”

“Risky, though,” Essek said, parsing out the implications of trying to unseat such a powerful figure through a legal process.

“Ja.” Caleb exhaled. “It was precarious, to say the least. The king did not want to hear it, so it had to be airtight, undeniable. But also kept quiet. Reputations to protect, you see. So many people looked the other way. The great and the good, you know.” His lip curled. “I thought it reasonably likely that I would be quietly eliminated after, if it worked at all.” He paused fractionally. “Or that I would end up in the cell next to his, of course.”

Those must have been some persuasive arguments on Beauregard’s part. Essek didn’t know if there was anything anybody could have said to convince him to take the risk, in Caleb’s place. Then again, he couldn’t imagine – literally could not, even the idea of trying made him queasy – what Caleb had endured.

“According to the testimony we all gave the Soul after, he wouldn’t go quietly, and there were already over a dozen dead, and about five people hit him at once and took him out,” Caleb said. “A cleric questioned his corpse later, but it was not about that, and not fruitful, anyway.”

“What really happened?” Essek squeezed his knee, and Caleb rested his hand over top. It was strangely icy, and Essek reached to gather up both his hands and chafe them between his own. He was the warm one, for once.

“We had him,” Caleb said. There was a note of wonder to his voice, as if he still could not believe it. “The cost was very high, but we wore him down, and we got a magical artifact on him that prevented casting, and Beauregard had him restrained. And then a Volstrucker whose name I shall not be sharing took matters into their own hands.” He made a stabbing gesture. “Assassins, you know. Very good at what they do.”

“Ah,” Essek said. Yes, whoever that anonymous Volstrucker was would certainly need the protection. It was acceptable, in historical terms, for an Archmage to be killed by their successor. To be killed by an underling, and presumably a far less powerful one, though. Caleb had been right to fear for himself in the aftermath. Essek saw few paths for him other than archmage or dead.

“I was angry,” Caleb said. There was a flatness to his voice. “And so relieved. We took the case before the king anyway. He was not happy, to put it mildly. And somehow – I am honestly still not sure how exactly it happened, aside from the fact that Astrid had a hand in it – here I am.” He gestured around the tower. “Never create a power vacuum lest you be sucked in to fill it, is my advice.”

“Indeed,” Essek said. He had once performed just such a trick, very much on purpose. Caleb would not like to hear about that.

“It’s as good a penance as any,” Caleb said, pointing with visible dislike at his robe of office, hanging on the back of the door. “Anyway. The case did not go public, but there is enough evidence implicating Hass and Margolin and Uludan to keep them in line. Theoretically. But unseating so many at once would be destabilizing, or so I am told. So they remain.”

Essek nodded slowly. “And Ludinus?”

“Oh, him.” Caleb sighed. “He came to see what all the fuss was, but he bolted as soon as Trent died.” He paused consideringly. “It was strange. He’d been here so long, I never thought he’d surrender easily. Or at all. Instincts of a cat, that one. If I had to bet, I’d say he’d have survived all the fallout, no problem. It was a shock to realize he’d run for it.”

“Indeed,” Essek said. That was strange. Ludinus had enormous resources available to him here and, Essek could personally attest, some very important irons in the fire. Why would he cut and run? “So he’s alive, then?”

“As far as I know. Beauregard and Astrid and I have been on his trail a bit, when we can manage. Not as much as we should have, perhaps.” He extracted his hand and went across to rummage in his desk. “On that general note, I’d like to ask you a favor.”

Essek’s heartrate picked up. Did he know something? Had Ludinus written notes, after all? “You can ask.”

Caleb brought back a small stack of parchment. “This is what the Trust shared, now that we’ve spoken to Schreiber. And supplemented with records from the Soul,” he said, and handed it over. “Now that Beauregard and I have some of the right questions to ask, thanks to you. I was hoping you could tell me if this is at all accurate. It is all right to say no, of course.”

Essek read the first few lines, his eyebrows rising. It appeared to be a high-level summary of Luxon religious practice, with a focus on the role of the beacons in Kryn society. He read on, turning pages rapidly. It was impressive. The Trust and the Soul obviously sent agents – or whatever euphemism they used – to the Dynasty, but this was genuinely surprising.

And quite a favor to ask him to verify. That was somewhat beyond the bounds of the largely unspoken agreement they’d been operating under, where their exchanges centered on magic. Not that sharing dunamancy didn’t have inherently political implications. Essek just didn’t think they were very important, as compared to his personal goals.

Caleb was giving something here, though, by letting him get a look at what the Soul and the Trust had. And there was value to that. The Lens would be very interested to know about it, should Essek decide to tell them.

That, and he badly wanted to know what this was all in aid of.

“Yes,” Essek said, coming to a snap decision. “This is quite accurate. And to the extent it isn’t, it’s that it understates the cultural significance of the beacons.” In interestingly clinical terms, too. Essek didn’t think he could have managed such a neutral summation, himself. He’d never thought to wonder what they looked like to an outsider. So few outsiders ever got the chance to look.

“Thank you.” Caleb took the parchment back and tucked it away. He leaned on the edge of his desk for a minute, hands on his knees, staring thoughtfully at Essek. “You continue to be incredibly generous with your time,” he said. “And your knowledge. And I am grateful. But I also feel that I have not . . . kept the ledgers balanced, if you will.”

This was true. Caleb had provided several intriguing magical nuggets, and a steady stream of other kinds of intelligence, some on purpose, some not. But Essek had provided dunamancy, and what could be more valuable than that?

“And I am thinking,” Caleb continued, “that you are doing this for a reason. That you want something from me.”

And here they were, at last. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. And Essek had been waiting for a prompt just like this.

And yet, he found himself saying, “Yes, I do. But I did not come prepared to discuss that tonight. And I wish to assure you, it’s nothing that will bring harm to you or your den. I think you and I can do some extraordinary things, if we work together.”

Caleb’s look was intrigued, but he nodded without pressing. “All right,” he said. His smile tilted. “These extraordinary things, they are outside of the bedroom, ja?”

Essek felt himself flush. How did Caleb keep doing this to him? “Indeed,” he said. “I won’t lie and say that my . . . dual interests in you are unrelated to each other. You would not believe me, in any case.”

Caleb shook his head, still smiling. This conversation felt incredibly light, for all it passed over treacherous ground. “I understand,” Caleb said. “The two can complement each other, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Yes,” Essek said, relieved. “That is what I mean. But for now, can we go on as we have?” He hesitated. Why was this the most difficult part to say? “I have been enjoying myself, very much.”

“Me too,” Caleb said. He put such warmth in his voice that it was like being touched, though he was five feet away. “And yes, of course. There are some things I’d like to bring to you. Some work Beauregard and I have been doing, I think your insights may be invaluable. But do take your time, if that’s what you need.”

Essek almost objected. He didn’t need time, that was silly. He just needed a little more information. A little more assurance that he could pitch his plan to Caleb in just the right way. That was all.

“Thank you,” he said. “And I would be happy to discuss whatever it is with you and Beauregard. If I cannot assist, I will say so.”

“Ja, good.” Caleb tilted his head. “I ought to try a line here about the extraordinary things we can do in the bedroom, but—” a yawn interrupted him. “Damn. I was going to say I have grading.”

“Maybe just an hour?” Essek suggested. “I brought something to work on as well.”

It was not the first time they had sat together on the couch in silence, each attending to his own project. It was unbelievably lovely to work in parallel like that. Essek couldn’t understand it. He was infamous for leaving the Marble Tomes reading room in a huff if someone sat too close to him. Caleb even spoke up every once in a while to read him some particularly interesting or atrocious bit of student work, which ought to have been unforgivable, but was actually charming. And strangest of all, the company and the interruptions only seemed to advance Essek’s work, not hinder it.

Caleb yawned with increasing frequency, though, and did not quite make it the allotted hour.

“Sorry,” he said, tidying his work away. “I’ve had a few rough nights in a row.”

Essek bit his lip. “Would you like me to stay, or would you rather be alone? Speak your mind, you will not offend me.”

“Ja.” Caleb touched his knee. “And likewise, when there are times you want to be alone, you need only say so. But for the moment, bitte, stay?”

“Yes.” Essek slipped his work into his Wristpocket. He could pick it up again for a few hours while Caleb slept. He was still trying out different ways to spend the night with a sleeper – trance early, trance late, trance in pieces in parallel with Caleb’s tricky sleep schedule. It was most commonly the last one.

“I am very tired, though,” Caleb said.

This seemed like a statement of the obvious until Essek belatedly realized Caleb was telling him he was not interested in intimacy tonight. Essek was mildly disappointed, truth be told. The things they did were, well. They were extraordinary. Essek was on his way to being convinced that Caleb was the sort of lover that people wrote songs about. People other than him, obviously. They had been sharing such things for a little over a month, and for that entire time, it felt as if a small part of Essek’s mind was there, in bed with Caleb, both of them bare all over, no matter where else he was, what else he was doing. It was so strange to desire someone like this. Essek was actually annoyed about it, sometimes, when it disrupted his orderly thinking.

“Of course,” he said. “Let’s get you some rest.”

It was odd to get ready for bed rather than simply falling into it for other activities. Caleb had a large closet, which was criminally underutilized with only half a wall of clothes. He stepped into it to undress. Essek could not fathom undressing himself right there in the middle of the bedroom. It seemed more revealing, somehow, than the times Caleb had undressed him in that very spot. So he closed himself in the washroom for his nightly ablutions and a change into his trancing robe.

He took too long, though, because when he came back out Caleb was already half asleep, flopped crookedly across the foot of the bed.

“Sorry,” Essek said, wincing. “All yours.”

“Mmm.” Caleb rolled to his feet and smacked a kiss off-center on Essek’s temple as he passed. “S’alright. Being that beautiful takes work.”

He was back barely five minutes later, hair down but messy, breath fresh. If he’d done more to his skin than splash a handful of water on his face, Essek would be shocked.

“I should tell you,” Caleb said, sliding beneath the covers. “You probably figured this out, but I’m sleeping particularly poorly right now.”

Essek hummed acknowledgement, and pulled out his project for a little bit of work. He’d read up a bit on human sleep needs, just to confirm his impression that yes, Caleb’s patterns were truly that abnormal. Watching him, Essek had begun to believe it was a myth that humans slept straight through for seven or eight hours. How Caleb managed to keep his arcane reserves refreshed was a wonder.

Tonight was particularly bad, it was true. Essek completed his trance by half past three in the morning, but was pretty sure the longest stretch of sleep Caleb had gotten was maybe an hour. And he’d been turning over or opening his eyes every ten minutes for quite some time. He actually was sleeping in between, Essek thought, it was just in little desperate gasps of rest.

Essek set his book aside, out of his depth but sure he ought to do something. His instinct was to fetch Caduceus, as consultation with an expert was generally preferable to trying to muddle through on his own. But he thought perhaps it would not be wise to insert himself into whatever was going on between the two of them right now, at least when he understood it so poorly.

Essek was still considering his options – he could prepare Sleep, but it seemed unlikely to work – when Caleb rolled in a sudden jerk, bumped into Essek’s knee, and blinked himself awake. He fumbled around briefly, orienting himself. Essek rested a hand atop the one Caleb had set on his thigh.

Caleb didn’t speak, but he shifted around, slid down the bed, and insinuated his head into the resting place made by Essek’s crossed legs. He squinted in the general direction of Essek’s face, his look questioning.

Essek didn’t speak, either. He simply rested both of his hands on Caleb’s head, one on his crown, one twined in the hair at the base of his skull. Caleb sighed, and shifted around a little more, and went back to sleep.

Essek sat there, the breath suddenly seeming to rush in his lungs. And he’d just been thinking of sex as so intimate. Caleb’s head was heavier now, and yet Essek’s whole body was taken by a feeling of lightness, as if he might float away if Caleb weren’t holding him down. He stroked Caleb’s hair, and breathed, and for the first time let himself see the true shape of what he had been imagining. What he wanted. Partnership. That’s what it was. No. That’s what it could be, if he played his cards right. Why did the stakes of this game feel suddenly, terrifyingly high.

That night was the last real time they had together for a week. Caleb Sent apologetically canceling their Whelsen evening plans on account of some urgent matter that required consultation with Becke. Essek saw him in passing on Conthsen morning, apparently attempting to make the walk from Margolin’s tower to his office. The short trip was made more difficult by the students that dogged his steps. He was listening with sober attention to a dwarf who Essek thought was one of his prized seminar students when Essek passed on his way up the library stairs. They made brief eye contact and exchanged nods, and that was the last Essek saw him before his mysterious trip.

Essek intended to stay in on Folsen. It was not a “family dinner” night, and so Jester was not in town. And even if she had been, Essek wasn’t sure what the protocol would be for approaching her. Was there one? He imagined she would say there wasn’t, but she was partnered, and surely that must play in somehow? He would ask Caleb’s advice on his return.

In any event, it was no hardship to stay in and do some reading.

But Verin knocked on his door early in the evening, apparently also at loose ends. “Come have dinner with me,” he said, taking the book straight out of Essek’s hands and closing it with no thought to bookmarks or common decency.

Essek sighed, but obeyed. It was easier than arguing, he had learned.

Verin took him to the same dance hall that Caleb and Beauregard and Yasha had. This early in the evening, it was doing a brisk dinner business. The two of them got a table outside, which was far less populated due to the chill. It was perfectly pleasant for drow, though, particularly with a few warming braziers lit between the tables.

And it was worth coming for the satisfaction Essek got by being able to say, “oh, I’ve been here before,” and rattling off his wine order to the server.

“You have?” Verin said, with insulting incredulity. “Wow. Widogast must be incredible in the . . . spellbook.” He waggled his eyebrows in a terrible manner.

“He is,” Essek said primly.

“Did he get you to do that?” Verin asked, tilting back in his chair to gesture at the dance floor visible through the windows.

“Certainly not.”

“Oh, phew. I was getting worried there. So anyway, how’s the sex?”

Essek scowled. “Do you mind?” he hissed. They were speaking Undercommon, but still.

“Nope,” Verin said, dropping briefly back into Common to thank the server who brought their drinks. “Just give me a number from one to twelve, where one is I’d rather be trancing and twelve is—”

“Yes, I understand,” Essek said hastily. He twisted a ring on his left hand which, for an hour once a day, insured that no one more than five feet away could overhear his conversations. It was very useful in the Bastion.

“Well?”

Essek sighed. Little chance of getting out of this conversation, apparently. And truth be told, he felt rather smug and wouldn’t mind conveying that. “. . . “Eleven.” He was marking down with an optimistic eye for the future, room to grow on, but Verin didn’t need to know that.

“Hey, that’s great,” Verin said, and toasted with his metal cup of beer.

“I’d ask about your assistant professor, but I don’t actually want to know – don’t tell me.”

Verin closed his mouth with a click. Then, predictably, opened it right up again. “How’s the rest of it going? All the parts with your clothes on?”

“Fine,” Essek said. He didn’t know what his face could possibly have done to make Verin narrow his eyes like that.

“But?”

“No,” Essek said.

“Let me guess.” Verin leaned in confidentially, as if this were the part of the conversation he didn’t want overheard. “You’re about at the point where you start figuring out where all the baggage is.”

“The what?”

“You know. He’s got a controlling mother. He’s not actually over an ex. He derails any serious conversation with a joke.”

“Ah.” Essek sipped his wine. “No, none of that applies. But I take your meaning.”

“So? A guy like that, it has to be juicy stuff,” Verin said.

Essek furrowed his brow. “What does that mean? A guy like that?”

“Oh, you know. It’s just clear he’s seen some shit,” Verin said, with that gift of profanely summarizing things Essek had taken weeks to ponder.

Their dinners arrived, which gave Essek a few minutes to consider. Who else could he talk to about this, after all? Did he want to talk about it? Yes, he found with some surprise, he really did.

“He has seen some shit,” he said eventually. “That’s the baggage, in fact.”

“Ah.” Verin set down his sandwich. “What sort of shit are we talking?”

Essek was silent for too long, working to figure out what words to put to it. He had been trying not to think too closely about that.

Verin watched his face, a frown slowly clouding his brow. “I dated someone about fifteen years ago,” he said. “You didn’t meet her. It was pretty serious for a little while. She had been beaten, raped, and murdered by her past life partner. We maybe talking something in that general direction here?”

Was it? Essek still didn’t know the details. Did not feel prepared to know them. Was increasingly ashamed of that. But he did know what Verin meant. Verin was talking about the sort of trauma that shattered a life. Or a mind.

Essek nodded. He often thought of Verin as an overgrown child that someone had inexplicably trusted with a sword and important responsibilities. Once in a while, though, he was slapped in the face with how untrue that was.

“I am . . . extremely out of my depth,” he said.

“Yeah, of course,” Verin said, nodding. “Oh, stop it. That wasn’t a swipe at you. Why would you expect to be adept at handling that?”

Essek breathed out. It was shockingly nice to hear confirmation that this was genuinely hard. That it wasn’t just Essek’s inexperience in these relationships and disinterest in people in general.

“What’s the hardest thing?” Verin said. “Don’t give me any details you shouldn’t. Just, what’s the hardest right now, for you?”

An answer sprang immediately to mind – Da’leth brought Ikithon to meet me, I shook his hand, he said –

Ah. So that was his baggage.

Essek cast that aside, obviously.

“It’s that he’s in pain,” he said slowly. “A lot of the time. Sometimes it’s really obvious, but sometimes it’s not, and I’m starting to be able to tell, I think. Or, not pain.” He hesitated. “Distress?”

“His soul is starved of light at high noon,” Verin said, and Essek nodded. It was so nice to talk about this in Undercommon.

“Yes, that. And I can see it now. And I can do nothing. No, I know that’s not true,” he added as Verin opened his mouth. “But the things I can do are so – so paltry.”

“Yup,” Verin said.

Essek blinked at him. He had expected, perhaps, a bit more wisdom from somebody with relevant experience.

Verin shrugged with his hands. “That’s what I’ve got,” he said. “You’re right. It’s fucking terrible. I handled it really badly.”

“You did?” Essek had honestly never considered that Verin made mistakes in relationships.

“Yeah. I got stuck on it at the expense of being present with her. And –” he winced. “It made me so angry, and sometimes I took that out on the last person I should have. I did a lot of growing up in that relationship. A lot more after.”

Essek filed that away for later consideration. He didn’t think he was doing those things. Though he wasn’t sure how thinking less and being more present was supposed to be such a virtue.

“Is that why you split up?” he asked.

“Eh.” Verin made a circling gesture. “These things are always complicated. It was me, and also her. She didn’t feel truly safe with me, which was exhausting for her.” His expression was, just for a moment, bleak. “Maybe we both could have worked on that more, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. And there was other, more usual stuff, like how our life plans didn’t really line up.”

Essek nodded along, as if he had any experience of the ‘usual stuff.’

Did Caleb feel safe with him? The question was unexpectedly painful to consider. Essek didn’t have an answer. Caleb had made himself vulnerable in several ways. They had gone to bed together. But Essek’s instincts said that was something Caleb was prepared to do even if he felt unsafe. Even if he was unsafe.

“So anyway,” Verin said, sighing and shaking out his shoulders. “It sounds like this is getting serious.”

Essek hesitated, then said what he was thinking. Why not? They had almost never talked about these things. That was because of him, Essek knew, but might as well take the opportunity. “I’ve never really understood what that means,” he said.

“Seriousness? Ha, you’re one of the most serious people I know.” Verin gulped his beer. “Okay, how about this. Evalora and I aren’t serious. The sex is good, and so is the company. But we don’t intend to continue seeing each other once you and I go home. She has her research. I have my posting. We talk about things, but only lightly, and we both know it’s because –” he gestured, reaching for words. “Sometimes it’s nice to say things. Not because we’re forming a deeper connection. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Essek said slowly. He and Caleb talked about a lot of things, not always lightly. And there was a connection there, that was palpably deepening. And he did intend to keep seeing Caleb once he was back in Rosohna. Essek had been entertaining increasingly rosy dreams of Teleporting to Rexxentrum, spending evenings of discovery together in a laboratory, a beacon between them, and then retiring to bed where there would be nothing at all between them.

“So it’s serious, then?”

“I think so,” Essek said. He paused, then just went for it. “Any advice? You know I haven’t, well.”

“Sure,” Verin said helpfully. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“Oh,” Essek said dryly. “Thanks.”

Caleb Sent on Miresen morning before his seminar. He sounded rushed but pleased, and invited Essek over that evening. Essek was glad to hear his voice, but he was entirely unprepared for the way his heart leapt in his chest when he came into Caleb’s study and saw him there, bright-eyed and smiling, and visibly much improved.

“Hallo,” Caleb said as Essek closed the door. He strode across the room and swept Essek straight out of his cantrip and into his arms. Essek surrendered himself to being kissed with dizzying intensity. “Mmm,” Caleb murmured, sneaking one hand up under his tunic. “What’s under here today, I wonder? Ooh,” he added, leaning back a few inches. “Yes, give me that look again. Like I’m a naughty boy putting his hands where he shouldn’t.”

Essek wouldn’t have put those words to it, thank you very much. That’s just what his face did.

“Ja, that’s the one,” Caleb said. He leaned in and nibbled at Essek’s earlobe, which he knew damn well made Essek go weak in the knees. “You know why I like that look so much?”

“No?” Essek said, and cleared his throat.

“It’s because you give it to me while not even pretending to stop me from putting my hands wherever I want,” Caleb said.

There followed a heated interval in which Caleb put his hands in a number of places and said several unrepeatable things. Essek encouraged him shamelessly. Caleb backed him against the wall and worked one thigh between his. Essek rocked against him, and bit his neck, and remembered with a flip in his belly the way Grieve had said ‘incorrigible slut.’ Which one of them did that apply to right now? Both, probably. The thought was thrilling.

“Schatzi,” Caleb said, kissing down his jaw. “If you are of a mood to, I would be ever so grateful if you would put me on my belly, or on my hands and knees, that would work too. And give me your cock until I cry.”

“Oh,” Essek said. His whole body flashed hot, and his pulse tripped. In excitement or panic it was impossible to tell.

Caleb eased back, hands going still on Essek’s waist. “Ah,” he said, studying Essek’s face. “My mouth has run away with me again. Ignore me.”

“No,” Essek said. As if he could. “I just, ah. Did not expect that.”

Caleb tilted his head. “Does it not interest you?”

“It does,” Essek said. Unable to lie; wishing, a little bit, that he could.

“Okay. Have you not done that before?”

Essek shook his head silently.

“Ah.” Caleb leaned in and kissed his cheek, then his lips. “Well, I am happy to provide instruction, if you wish. Or to shut up about it, if now is not a good time.”

“It’s just,” Essek said, the words coming out of him with effort. “That’s very . . . intimate.”

Caleb pulled back more, and Essek realized with dismay that this was turning into an actual conversation. “It is,” Caleb said. “Or, well. It can be. Would be, for you and me. But do you mean it is more intimate than what we have already done? Me inside you?”

“Yes,” Essek said. Of course it was.

“Hmm. Can you tell me more about that?” Then, as Essek gave him an incredulous look, “I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just wondering if we are talking past each other for cultural reasons.”

Framing it that way made it possible for Essek to speak. He wasn’t talking about himself, he was merely speaking of Kryn drow. “To be inside someone,” he said. “It’s a kind of surrender. To be taken in, enveloped by them. To serve their pleasure. To be responsible for it. To be smaller. I don’t mean literally smaller, I just mean --”

Caleb was nodding. “Okay, I think I see.” He paused thoughtfully. “Is it about power? Or something else?”

Essek made an equivocal gesture. “Some? But not all. There is more to it, but I haven’t thought deeply about this.” It had never even occurred to him that his thinking on this was culturally determined. Was there religious doctrine buried in these ideas somewhere? Now there was a thought that would bother him for some time. “Do you view it differently?”

“Yes and no.” Caleb took his hand and drew him to a seat on the sofa. “There is a traditional view. I will exaggerate it some, for clarity. To penetrate someone is an act of power, and to be penetrated is a surrender. A shameful one, sometimes. Penetrating is masculine, dominant. There are a number of correlates which follow from this view, some rather unpleasant, that I won’t muddy the water with at the moment.”

“Ah,” Essek said, digesting. Yes, now that Caleb said it, he’d gotten a vague sense of something to that effect. “I was exaggerating a bit, too,” he said. “To be clear. It’s more complicated than I made it sound.”

“Of course. It always is, isn’t it?”

“But,” Essek said slowly. He was thinking of that night in Zadash, of taking Caleb inside him for the first time. Of the way Caleb had said ‘hold me down, use my cock.’ The memory was like a live coal. “You don’t think that way,” Essek said, with growing certainty.

Caleb shook his head and shrugged simultaneously. “I did, but I learned to think more critically on it, even before I, well. Remade myself.” He flashed a quicksilver grin. “I would have been a fool not to, given a lot of the things I was getting up to. And even I was not that much of a fool. But, the thing is.” He turned to more fully face Essek. “I have found a great deal of pleasure in acting counter to those ideas, if you know what I mean.” Essek flushed and nodded. He knew. “But I think perhaps, to get the pleasure that I do out of that, I had to have believed in those ideas first. Maybe believe in them still, a little bit.”

Essek thought about that, nodding slowly. For many decades he had derived a deep pleasure from lifting his hands and his face to the sun on holy occasions of daylight worship, and instead of mentally reciting the prescribed prayers, doing lengthy exercises for arcane focus and strength. No one could tell his disobedience, but he knew. He liked it.

“So, anyway,” Caleb said. “I think what happened here is that I intended to make you an offer of myself, but what you heard was me asking you for a service, ja?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “Thank you, this has been very interesting. I would like to think on it some more.”

“Of course.” Caleb leaned in and pecked the corner of his mouth. “Do let me know if there are any conclusions you’d like to share. In the meantime.” He stood, and crossed to a pile of items against the far wall that Essek had previously been too overcome to notice. There was a stuffed and battered travelling pack, a heavy winter parka, a coil of rope, and several other sundry items, all filthy. “I came across something while I was away,” Caleb said, retrieving an item from his pack. “I was going to give it to Leni, but I want to be very sure of its safety first. Would you mind giving me a second set of eyes?”

“Yes.” Essek accepted it, intrigued. The item consisted of seven stacked rings of a dull metal he couldn’t immediately identify, inscribed with characters he couldn’t read, though they were familiar. The rings each rotated around a central cylinder, and there was a small clear crystal in the top that Essek thought was likely some sort of magical focus. “Do you want to tell me what this is, or--?”

“No, go on,” Caleb said, smiling. “I think you will enjoy this.”

Essek cast Identify, let the knowledge of the item settle into his mind, then began turning its rings with mounting excitement. Once activated, the crystal on top produced a slowly revolving image of the night sky, stars and moons aglow. The rings acted to specify multiple geographic and temporal variables.

“Wonderful,” Essek said, producing with some fiddling a projection of the night sky over Rosohna exactly one hundred years ago. He recalled himself to his task, and cast a half dozen more spells, most by ritual. “I see nothing amiss,” he said, looking up at last to find Caleb bent over a book at his desk.

“Hmm? Oh.” Caleb looked up. “Ja, thank you. I didn’t either, but you can’t be too careful.” He crossed the room to retrieve it. “I shall let Veth have a go at it. If she can’t provoke it to try and murder her, then I think we are in the clear.”

Essek glanced from the delightful item to Caleb’s travelling gear and back. He had not picked that up at Pumats, that was for sure. Essek almost, for a very brief moment, wanted to go along on the next adventure. Almost. Good grief, Caleb’s pack was dirty.

“Anyway,” said Caleb, his face falling into more serious lines. “If you don’t mind, I was hoping I could share with you something Beauregard and I have been pursuing for some time.”

“Oh?” Essek was rather curious about this. Beauregard was no practitioner, so it wouldn’t be magic. What, then?

Caleb came to sit beside him, a leather bound book in hand. “You were asking me about Da’leth, the other day. This is his journal, left behind when he fled. I wanted to tell you what he was up to. Is up to, we think.”

“. . . Oh?”

Essek was uncharacteristically quiet as Caleb talked. He was always a focused listener, but there was something strange in the stillness of his face as Caleb briefly summarized how they had cracked Da’leth’s cipher, and what they’d found.

“But that’s madness,” Essek said, once Caleb had read him the pertinent entries. “He thinks there’s a . . . god eater? Trapped in the moon?”

“Ja, I know.” Caleb dropped the journal open over his knee. “It’s partly why we’ve been so slow about it. We thought – we wanted to think – that he was simply mad. That he had been concealing it all this time.” He sighed. “We were so busy cleaning up after Ikithon, we knew we’d have to deal with Da’leth too, but it was nice to think it wasn’t a priority.”

“But now you think it is?” Essek asked. He was watching Caleb very closely.

“Yes. Because of you, in part.” He picked up the journal again. “Da’leth gets into how he intends to go about releasing the god eater. He describes a theoretical arcane device intended to do several things – tidally lock Ruidus, create a transit from Exandria, freeze or move all of the ley lines. And for that, he thinks he needs one of these beacons of yours.”

Essek startled badly.

“Yes, I know,” Caleb said. “It’s quite terrifying if you take it even a little bit seriously.”

“Yes,” Essek said faintly. He cleared his throat. “Can you show me his work?”

Caleb did. In the journal first, and then standing at the chalkboard, replicating what he had reasoned out since. Essek watched in silence, floating nearly a foot off the floor by Caleb’s desk, his eyes wide and troubled.

“But,” he said suddenly, interrupting Caleb mid-sentence. “If he froze the ley lines, that could well disrupt the flow of arcana over all of Exandria.”

“Ja.”

“Or do permanent damage to it, I’ve never seen record of such a thing, at least outside of—”

“The Calamity. Ja.”

Essek had gone a funny washed out lavender color. Caleb thought absently that this was maybe the first shade he’d seen that didn’t look good on him.

“So, there you have it,” Caleb said, finishing up a truncated version of his speculative calculations and stepping back.”

“So,” Essek said. “He wanted a beacon. For that. To release a god eater, and—” he discarded that first part as of lesser importance with a gesture “—quite possibly plunge Exandria into a second Calamity, and risk the destruction of all arcane power.”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” Essek said quietly. He paused for a long, silent moment, and Caleb could see him swallow.

“The choice is to either dismiss it, or take it extremely seriously. We did the first, until you told us what a beacon actually is.” Caleb patted the journal. “There are some complaints in here about the difficulty of sourcing one, but he never mentions the Dynasty.” Caleb smiled, perhaps a little meanly. “He must have known, though. I hope it drove him to distraction, knowing where they were and that he would have no luck there.”

Essek’s luminous eyes were fixed on the far wall. “Do you, ah. Do you know where he is? What he’s up to now?”

“Not really. We’ve had enough reports of sightings in Marquet to make me believe he probably is there, or was. But no luck tracking him, by magical or mundane means. I think.” He hesitated, then moved forward. “It worries me, that he abandoned his place here. To do that, when he had such plans. It implies that he has another position of power to fall back on. That this one was unimportant enough to be not worth the trouble of fighting for, with enough of his allies lost.” And if the leadership of the Cerberus Assembly was the position to be sacrificed, then what base of power had he built in the shadows?

“Indeed,” Essek said.

“So anyway. I’ve told you because – Essek? Are you quite all right?” Caleb approached, and Essek allowed him to take him by the elbows. There was something wrong in his body, a thrumming tension Caleb had never felt before. This had spooked him badly. Fair enough. Caleb was pretty sure his time with the Nein had permanently altered his tolerance for weird and terrifying things beyond the normal range.

“Oh,” Essek said, focusing on Caleb’s face as if from a long distance. “My apologies. I’m distracted.”

“You don’t look well,” Caleb said, frowning at him. Esseks face, always youthful, had acquired several noticeable creases in just the past five minutes.

“Hmm?” Essek said vaguely. “Yes, I. It’s a headache. Actually. Would you mind terribly if we finished this conversation later?”

“Of course,” Caleb said. He really did look awful. “Do you need anything? Tea? Rest?”

“Yes,” Essek said, visibly collecting himself. “I think I shall go home for the night.”

“Oh. Of course.” So much for Caleb’s hopes of rekindling their conversation about . . . cultural differences. “May I walk you?”

“No,” Essek said quickly, then, “I shall Teleport, do not trouble yourself.”

“All right.” Caleb drew him in carefully, waiting to be rebuffed. But Essek didn’t evade him. In fact, his hands closed with surprising force on Caleb’s shoulders as he was kissed, and he clung there for a long moment when Caleb was done. There was a look on his face that Caleb did not understand at all. “Good night,” he said quietly. “Please Send when you are feeling better.”

“Yes,” Essek said, slowly removing his hands. “I will do that.” And he took a deep breath and Teleported directly out of Caleb’s arms.

Chapter Text

Essek Teleported home, calmly, and removed his jewelry, calmly, and washed his face and changed into his trancing robe, calmly. The trouble came when he ran out of things to do.

He ground to a halt in the middle of his bedroom. There was a large mirror on the far wall. Essek could see himself, his excellent posture, the serene look on his face. Good. It wasn’t showing, the way his body kept flashing hot then icy cold, then back again. Essek connected those flashes to feeling, and named the feelings before he could stop himself. Anger for the cold. And for the heat, humiliation so profound, he thought he might vomit.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Essek cleared his throat. Why was he hoarse? He hadn’t been screaming, or crying.

Verin stuck his head in. “Oh, good. I thought I heard you.”

“Oh,” Essek said vaguely. Verin. Right. “I forgot to check in. Sorry.”

Verin frowned at him. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” Essek said at once. He apparently should have followed that up with something more convincing, because Verin stepped all the way in and closed the door.

“You want to try that again?”

“No,” Essek said. Verin needed to leave, Essek was in no way capable of tolerating the presence of another person right now. He might have to get quite forceful to eject Verin, though. So be it. Essek was just opening his mouth when he was interrupted by a quiet, papery rustle. He frowned, turning to his desk and the communication box which sat there.

It was a sealed letter from the Dusk Captain. Essek broke it open, fully expecting another pleasant arcane problem. Excellent timing on her part, truly.

It was not pleasant. But definitely a problem.

Essek read it once, twice. He could hear a rushing sound in his ears.

“Essek?” Verin said. He came up alongside, decorously not looking anywhere near the letter.

“I,” Essek said slowly, “am returning to Rosohna.”

“You’ve been recalled? Oh, damn.”

“No.” Essek folded the letter with a snap. “There is just an . . . issue I’d like to see to personally.” He reached for his chalk and bent to scribe the Bastion circle.

“Wait, right now? Fuck, slow down. Hey.” Verin shook him by the shoulder. Not of his drawing arm, at least. “Don’t leave without me,” Verin said, when Essek looked up.

“Fine,” Essek said, too preoccupied to want to fight about that. “But I won’t wait long.”

Verin ran, and Essek drew. He needn’t have bothered with the threats, as Verin returned mere moments after the circle was done but for the last line, while Essek was still re-dressing. He didn’t have time for his usual cosmetics – largely invisible but important, as the Umavi had taught him – but he could not go without two underlayers, then trousers and tunic of embroidered black silk, then his mantle. Jewelry, too, of a more stuffy and formal bent than he had been wearing in Rexxentrum.

Verin was waiting. It was still strange to see him patient and composed in formal Aurora Watch gray and purple, glaive on his back. Essek summoned him with a gesture, remembering only at the last minute to Send ahead to warn of their arrival.

“Shadowhand,” the Dusk Captain said ten minutes later when Essek knocked on the door of her second office in the Bastion, the smaller one she used for matters of security rather than matters of state. “That was quick.”

“I was alarmed,” Essek said honestly. “I thought it best to come in person.”

“Walk with me,” she said, collecting him and sweeping out of her office on long strides. She paused only to acknowledge Verin’s salute. “We did not take her to the Dungeon of Penance,” she said, turning left. “Given the circumstances, it seemed unnecessary, and likely only to delay matters.”

“Indeed,” Essek said. “Presumably she has been put to the question under compulsion to speak truth?”

“Yes. Her Majesty handled the matter personally. Nothing new was revealed.”

She turned right and pushed open the door to a smaller audience room used for more private discussions. Essek signaled Verin with his eyes to wait outside, sliding into his obeisance as he did.

“Ah,” the Bright Queen said. “Shadowhand. Good. What do you make of this?”

“I am quite alarmed,” Essek said, with deep sincerity. The Bright Queen was on her feet and, therefore, so was everyone else in the room – the Skysybil, two of the Bright Queen’s favored clerics, and Driera Sarsseris, arcanist at the Marble Tomes and Essek’s only real competitor for the role of Shadowhand. She had taken defeat with relative grace. She looked less graceful now, though she was doing her best to appear composed.

“Have you any intelligence suggesting this incursion is imperial?” the Dusk Captain asked. “You have gotten much more on some of the relevant parties than our agents can usually manage.

Well, at least someone had noticed.

“I have not gathered any intelligence directly related to this matter,” Essek lied. He felt a smooth, impenetrable skin sliding over him. Strange, he’d forgotten this was how he’d used to feel every day: a reflective surface angled just right to show what the viewer wanted to see. “My personal opinion is that I would be quite surprised should the new archmages be involved. It would be a departure from goals and character, as I understand them. The king and the Trust, though, I cannot speak to their activities with sufficient knowledge.”

The Bright Queen nodded, confirmed in the direction she was already leaning. It wasn’t that she trusted or distrusted mages as a matter of course. She simply didn’t credit them with quite as much substance as she did fighters or clerics, even worshippers of gods other than the Luxon. Essek had found this provoking when younger, once he had understood it, then later on, very handy. Now, standing in this room with people who had been collectively alive for multiple millennia, he found himself strangely sad about it. Caleb Widogast – Bren – was barely three decades old, and the most real person Essek had ever met in his life.

Best not think on that now.

“We must increase our protections,” the Bright Queen said. “Wherever the threat originates, it must not come to fruition. Shadowhand, I would like your proposal for arcane protections by dawn.”

“As you command,” Essek said, bowing again. “If I may?” he cut his eyes to Driera.

“Yes, yes,” the Bright Queen said, already turning away. “Sarsseris, give your report to the Shadowhand.”

She came to his side with alacrity, clearly relieved to be dismissed. Essek made his departure, collecting Verin and heading for his office at a fast clip, Driera at his heels.

It was very strange to be in his Bastion office again. Essek couldn’t help comparing it unfavorably to Caleb’s study. There was no couch here. Not a deliberate choice, he had just never thought of it.

Verin would have waited outside again, but Essek beckoned him in. It would be easier than relaying all of this later.

“Well?” Essek said, once the door was closed and the wards set. “Let’s have it from the beginning, please.”

Driera took a deep breath, her hands clasped in front of her. She was Essek’s senior by one life and, in this one, over fifty years, but that did not matter here and now.

“It started about three months ago,” she said, and recited the events with a lot more color than the Dusk Captain had put in the letter. She had met, purely by chance it had seemed, a stranger when she went out for lunch alone one day in the late summer. A drow, or so he appeared, who claimed membership in one of the largest non-noble dens. She had approached him, not the other way around, in order to return a book he had dropped. Which, in the act of returning, she had realized was her book (on divinatory magics, interesting enough for what it was, but nothing special).

They had talked over lunch. He claimed to be a mid-rank acolyte of the Luxon clerisy, and an admirer of her work. Reading between the lines, Essek thought she had been flattered by the attention, by some validation of her intellect.

Easy prey, Essek thought, and clenched his hands under his mantle so hard, his nails cut into his palms.

They had met once more, by chance again, at the same café the following week. Then it had become a deliberately regular occurrence, and had expanded to walks in the midnight gardens and a trip to the Rosohna Museum of Art.

“It wasn’t romantic,” Driera said. “I mean, I thought about it, a little bit. But I wasn’t getting the right signals. I thought he might be asexual or aromantic, actually, not just uninterested in me in particular. So,” she bit her lip, “I thought I had made a friend.”

“Go on,” Essek said.

Her ‘new friend’ evinced some views which Essek knew to be strikingly similar to Driera’s own, about how the beacons ought to be more public objects. Paraded about Rosohna, installed in local shrines on occasion, that sort of thing. It all had to do with the concretizing of worship amongst the lower classes who did not receive a beacon communion upon their hundredth birthday as part of the consecution ritual. Essek had never given the matter any thought in either direction. He did not care what the members of the noble dens thought of the beacons; why would he care what even more distant people thought?

And then the talk became more troubling. What would it be like, purely as a fantasy, if someone liberated one of the beacons and held a small worship service in a local park, and then returned it? No harm in thinking about it, was there? It wasn’t like either of them had access to a beacon, was it?

Except, as Essek well knew, Driera had been acting as Shadowhand in his absence, and therefore, temporarily, did have a limited amount of access.

“I started to get uncomfortable,” she said, looking away. “Maybe – maybe much later than I should have. So I started changing the subject whenever he brought it up.”

And her interlocutor, her ‘new friend,’ sensing that he was not making ground here, had cut his losses and gone for another tactic entirely. He had visited her home late in the evening last night. She had never invited him before and had not shared the address. And he had told her in his mild-mannered way that someone had hidden a cache of fifty thousand gold somewhere in her home, along with extensive evidence of collaboration with the Empire, and that if she did not help him gain access to a beacon within the next twenty-four hours, he would alert the authorities that she was an imperial spy, and she would spend the rest of her brief life in the Dungeon of Penance. Her innocence might in the end be proven. But would she survive that long, with her interrogators determined to break her?

So, like the good Luxon-fearing girl that she was, she pretended acquiescence and alerted her superiors at the Marble Tomes as soon as he was gone. It had taken nearly a full day for the news to reach the Dusk Captain, which was the largest security lapse of them all, in Essek’s view. There was no cache of gold and evidence hidden in her home.

“Thank you,” Essek said when she had wound down. “Thinking back on it, do you see any hints of his true identity? A slip in the accent, a reference to things or places outside the Dynasty?”

She shook her head. “No. And I’ve been thinking on it. He was . . .” she hesitated. “A contained person. Soft-spoken. The only thing that sticks out, looking back, is that he was a bit too polished, too . . . I don’t know, urbane. To be as young and junior as he said he was.”

“I see,” Essek said. Well, that answered that question. Not that he’d had any doubt of the man’s identity.

“I know I was very stupid,” Driera said quietly. “I have apologized to the Bright Queen. And I wish to do so to you. You trusted me with your office in your absence, and I know you cannot do so anymore.”

“Consider it a lesson,” Essek said. He was having the strange sensation of listening to himself speak from far away. “The world is more treacherous than we like to assume. Thank you for this information. I shall summon you again if more is needed.”

Driera bowed and departed, and Verin whistled quietly.

“Wow,” he said. “Poor woman.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Essek said absently. Damned inconvenient was what it was, to lose her work. But she was quite right, she would not be allowed anywhere near the Bastion again, perhaps for the rest of her current life. And that was the luckiest outcome for her.

He sat still thinking for too long, because Verin cleared his throat.

“Oh,” Essek said, attention returning to him. “I’ll be here all night. Why don’t you go take your rest in my tower.”

“You mind if I stay here?” Verin asked, gesturing at the guest chair, which Essek could have told him was singularly uncomfortable. “Will it bother you if I trance in the corner?”

“I suppose not,” Essek said. He wondered what Verin was thinking, but set the matter aside. Too much else to prioritize.

He settled down to work through the night on crafting plans for increased arcane security around the beacons. The irony was not lost on him in the slightest.

It was necessary to spend an extended period of time mentally reviewing anything and everything he had ever told Da’leth about beacon security. It wasn’t terribly much, Essek found to his relief. He had made some offhand comments disparaging arrangements, which he stood by to this day. The beacons were sequestered within the court in Rosohna, but security there was more a function of proximity to very powerful people than any particular caution. The beacons sent afield to Dynasty outposts were more closely guarded.

Then again, he could not discount what Da’leth might know independent of him. Essek had, for example, never mentioned Driera, let alone described her in the detail necessary to orchestrate the campaign Da’leth had targeted her with.

He had known exactly what to say to her, and executed on it beautifully. It might have worked, if he’d had a little more patience.

Essek felt his breath beginning to come faster. Verin stirred in his trance, head slowly turning, and Essek schooled himself to calm. Best not think on that.

Why had Da’leth fumbled in the end? Was he in that much of a hurry? The timing was clear in some respects – the last Sending to Essek must have been the final one he’d intended before resorting to his backup plan. But what was the rush? Or had he misread Driera, and thought her more controllable than she was? As controllable as you?

Essek produced an appropriate plan by dawn, and presented it to the Bright Queen. The Dusk Captain followed with proposed military changes, and Starguide Fothinis of the Luminous Way offered up plans for divine protections. Essek took copious mental notes. Acquiring a beacon for himself and Caleb had just become significantly more difficult. Not impossible. But certainly foolish, in the foreseeable future.

He was released at last in mid-morning. He and Verin returned to Essek’s towers, which had been closed up for the year, dust cloths on the furniture and his regular meal deliveries paused. Essek was so tired, he was hearing a constant buzzing in his ears.

“Go trance,” Verin said, gently shoving at him. “I’ll sort this place out.”

Essek went up to his room at the top of the second tower. It was a space he genuinely loved – private and quiet and furnished exactly to his tastes. Essek stood in the doorway for some time, feeling like a stranger in his own sanctum. He tried to picture Caleb here. It didn’t work, and not just because there was no bed.

He tranced, taking as his focus a set of arcane syllogisms that were, he was almost certain, the solution to a long-running problem he’d been thinking on. He arose refreshed but with no new insights on the matter.

He attempted to bathe and dress, and found it bizarrely difficult. The bath was accomplished in reasonable order, but he then found himself standing blankly in his closet for ten minutes, unable to select clothing. Unable to understand why not.

He wanted, more than anything in the world, to go out to the wastes and cast a Dark Star, just like he was newly one hundred again. But he could not. The day would require much of his arcane energy, and he couldn’t spend all that now on – on whatever this was.

He selected underlayers nearly at random, then trousers. Actually dressing took a long time. Essek would do up one clasp, then realize several minutes had past and he’d done nothing but stand in silence, his arms aching from where he’d left them in midair.

Was this how it felt for Caleb when he lost touch with himself? Surely not. Essek was just distracted. Tired. Somewhat overwrought. And anyway, it was not a useful comparison. Essek did not have anyone here to cradle his head in their lap and tell him – what had it been? – that they loved him, and that it was all going to be okay.

He’d lost another few minutes in there, somehow.

Essek sat down on the floor of the closet.

Verin found him there sometime later.

“Okay, so,” he said, coming in. “You have a bunch of messages, but I figured – oh.” He stopped, stared. Then shut the bedroom door even though the tower was empty. He came across and crouched down at the closet door, looking in at Essek.

“I just . . . needed a minute,” Essek said. “I’ll be right down.”

“Sure,” Verin said. Then, with a deliberately open-handed gesture that Essek could see him using on new recruits spooked by abyssal incursions, “So. Is this the personal meltdown, finally?”

No, of course not. But that was as good an explanation as any. Essek licked his lips. Nodded.

“Okay.” Verin sat all the way down with a bump. “Want to tell me about it?”

Could he lay his head in Verin’s lap?

No. Unthinkable. Verin needed to go away. Essek would be fine if he could just --

“Do you know,” Essek said, “how I became Shadowhand?”

Verin tilted his head. “You were stupid qualified for it and the Umavi supported you?” he said.

Essek laughed. “Oh, that, yes, certainly. But I meant, do you know what I did to my predecessor, to create the opening? I—”

“Stop,” Verin said, so firmly that Essek did, startled. Verin gave him a long, hard look, then flicked his eyes upward.

Essek sighed and cast and looked around. “It’s fine,” he said, waving the spell away. “No one is listening.” He took a breath to begin again, but just then a presence eased gently into his mind.

“Good afternoon, my friend,” Caleb said. “I hope you are feeling better. Please say if I can fetch you anything. Or that you are well and available?”

Essek sucked in a breath. It felt so good to hear his voice. It also hurt acutely.

“Thank you,” he said. “I am well, but in Rosohna for a few days. I shall Send upon my return.” His voice was smooth and steady, and it wasn’t until he heard it that he realized how wild he’d been sounding, talking to Verin.

“That him?” Verin asked, watching him interestedly.

Essek did not get a chance to respond before Caleb was back, a playful pout in his voice. “Aw, you will be missed. But tell me, pretty thing, how many layers are you wearing right now?”

Essek blushed, and Verin laughed in his face.

“Enough to infuriate you,” Essek said, completely incapable of letting that go without a response.

Caleb did not Send again. Essek could picture him. It would be early afternoon by now. Grisson, so Caleb would be preparing for lecture, perhaps in his office, perhaps walking across campus with the sunlight on his hair. Thinking of him made Essek feel calm for the first time in about sixteen hours or so. Thinking of him also made Essek panic, because what was he going to say?

“Better now?” Verin asked.

“Oh.” Essek straightened. What had he been thinking, talking to Verin half out of his mind like that? Who knew what he might have said. Verin just had one of those faces; people told him things. Essek had thought himself immune, but apparently not. “Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “There are messages?”

Verin considered him in silence. There was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there a minute ago. “Yes, at least a half dozen messengers in just the past hour,” he said. Then, with a complex expression Essek couldn’t parse, “You know I am a very simple person.”

“I suppose,” Essek said dubiously. It had occurred to him to wonder, sometime in the past month or two, if anyone was a simple person, once you started looking closely enough.

“I mean I don’t have a head for some of the . . . complicated things you get up to,” Verin said, looking away.

Oh. Don’t tell me, he meant. Not if it was something complicated, to use that handy euphemism. Not if it would trouble the calm waters of Verin’s steadfast respect for him.

Of course. Yes. That was wise. As Verin sometimes was.

Why did it leave Essek feeling bereft, then? He didn’t want to tell, not what he had done thirty years ago, and certainly not what he had walked up to the very brink of doing a year ago.

“Understood,” he said.

Verin let him go about his day after that. He stuck close, though, dogging Essek’s heels to the Bastion and back home, and out again.

“Got nothing else to do,” he said when asked.

Essek gritted his teeth and hammered his composure into place so firmly, it might take a Disintegrate to dislodge it.

The following days were a blur. Essek worked practically every moment he wasn’t trancing, and ran down his arcane reserves to the dregs every day. The beacons were moved and new measures installed, and then plans changed and they moved again and Essek had to start all over. The Dusk Captain was apologetic, but resolved.

Essek found it difficult to keep track of time. He seemed to have slipped back into his life in Rosohna without a ripple. Eventually, it occurred to him that he had become accustomed to the rhythms of Caleb’s life: Leni’s weekly move from one household to the other, the bi-weekly family dinners, their semi-regular Miresen and Whelsen evenings. All of that lent a texture to his life in Rexxentrum that was completely lacking in Rosohna. What had he done to pass the days? Work, yes, but surely that couldn’t be it?

It was good that he was so busy. It stopped him from doing what he might otherwise have done: Send to Da’leth and say – and say –

And scream into the spell from the very depths of him, possibly.

“Excellent,” the Dusk Captain said, when Essek walked her through his measures. She didn’t understand half of them, but they were both too polite to say so. “Her Majesty appreciates your efforts. Will you return to the Empire today, or can we keep you for a few days?”

“Oh,” Essek said, flustered. He longed for Rexxentrum, but somehow hadn’t anticipated this moment. “I’ll be returning as soon as possible. I left a number of things in progress there.”

“I bet you did,” the Dusk Captain said, with a quirk of the mouth. Well, that answered that question. Essek had been assuming that the Lens must know of his involvement with Caleb by now. If they didn’t, the lot of them deserved to be fired. But the confirmation still made his stomach swoop.

He had a plan for this. Several plans, in fact. Which he should begin implementing now. And if this conversation had happened a week ago, before Caleb had told him – no. It didn’t matter. Caleb didn’t know. Would never need to know. Nothing was changed.

Nothing outside of Essek’s mind, anyway.

“May I speak frankly?” Essek said.

“Please do.” She eased into a resting pose, back on her heels like Beauregard did sometimes. A beacon was on a plinth behind her, pulsing gently and haloing her in its dunamantic light.

“I have begun an . . . entanglement,” he said. Why did speaking frankly always seem to entail such excruciating care with words? “With Archmage Widogast. I assume you are aware.”

“We are,” she said. “Surprised the hells out of the lot of us, Thelyss.”

“Me too,” Essek said honestly. “I did not see him coming. But in any event, what I mean to say is. My hope is that our involvement can serve as a check upon any . . . bellicose impulses. It’s not foolproof, of course – he cannot overrule the king -- but it’s something.”

The Dusk Captain hummed. She was a warrior through and through, had been in every one of her lives. But she was also deeply committed to maintaining the peace if at all possible. Essek had heard her say once that her fear was not that the Empire would overrun them quickly, but that neither side would decisively win, and they would “grind it out over fields of bones. I am very tired of fields of bones, Leylas.” Essek had never concerned himself enough with military matters to know if she had the right idea. She probably did.

She did not ask him about the preservation of his many secrecy oaths, though he had some fulsome lies ready on that score. What she said was, “what sort of man is he?”

“Ah,” Essek said, put on the back foot. He had spent so much time in the past few months thinking about Caleb, and yet his mind went suddenly empty. He reached for things to say, and came up with observations he had excluded from his reports. “He loves teaching, and his students,” he said. “He was taught to solve all problems with violence, but does not love that in himself and works to change his own mind. He likes cats, and books, and inventing new magic, and horrible dark beers.” And me, somehow. “He very likely saved all of Wildemount from a magical catastrophe.” He stopped, and frantically ran back what he’d said. No, nothing terribly untoward. Just strange, perhaps.

“Well,” the Dusk Captain said quietly. Essek could not interpret the softness around her mouth. “May the Light illuminate the path you walk together.”

“Thank you,” Essek said, and bowed to hide his expression. “I will report on any developments.”

“You do that,” she said. She was definitely laughing at him, but he couldn’t for the life of him tell why.

He escaped that conversation, then the Bastion after another hour, and finally Rosohna, with Verin in tow. There was no teleportation circle at the guest house, but Essek hit his mark, guided by an anchor he’d taken from the crushed stone front walk.

It was evening in Rexxentrum. The time difference coming across the Ashkeepers was only ninety minutes, but Essek was wildly disoriented by days – how many days? – all spent indoors.

“Fuck yes,” Verin said when they arrived. “Spicy pickles, here I come. I assume you’re heading to Widogast’s?”

“Yes.” Essek turned to glance up at Caleb’s tower.

“Kay. Send if you’ll be all night,” Verin said, and clapped him on the shoulder before heading off about his pickle business.

Essek elected to walk. It wasn’t very far, and he was hoping the fresh air would help him get his thoughts in order. He was desperate to see Caleb. He was terrified to see Caleb. He needed to tell Caleb what Da’leth had nearly just done in the Dynasty, and he needed to do it without implicating himself in any way. Difficult, under Caleb’s sharp blue eyes, but essential.

He had his words more or less in order by the time he arrived. He perhaps should have Sent ahead, he thought, ringing the bell. Was Caleb even home?

Grieve answered quickly, his eyebrows going up.

“They’re in the dining room,” he said, gesturing Essek in.

“They?” Essek said.

Grieve gave him an odd look. “It’s Folsen.”

“It is? Oh. It is. Right. Dinner.” Indeed, the voices of the Mighty Nein became audible as he climbed the stairs. Jester was saying something about applying sovereign glue to someone’s ‘jerk off hand.’ Oh dear.

He rounded the doorway into chaos. It looked like they had all just sat down. Caduceus was serving up vegetable stew, looking entirely content. Jester was illustrating her point with crude hand gestures, much to the amusement of Veth and Beauregard. Yasha and Fjord had their heads together over what looked like a map. And Caleb –

Caleb had spotted him and was coming over, and Essek was entirely unprepared to handle the way Caleb’s whole face lit up, and how Essek’s body yearned towards him.

“Hallo,” Caleb said, reaching him. Essek thought he would be swept up and kissed, and was equal parts thrilled about it and appalled by participating in any such thing in front of all these witnesses. But Caleb merely gathered up both his hands, and squeezed them, and dropped a lingering kiss on the knuckles of his casting hand. “Schatz,” he said warmly.

And all of Essek’s relief transformed, just like that, into jittery terror. “I need to talk to you,” he blurted. He just needed to get this over with.

Caleb started to smile, clearly thinking this a ploy. Then he looked more closely and the smile dropped. “Of course,” he said. “My study?”

“Yes. And Beauregard,” Essek said. “Can she come too?” Caleb would just end up telling her, and Essek badly needed a third person present. A buffer.

“Sure,” Beauregard said, standing from the table. They were all staring at him, Essek dimly realized.

“Oh,” he said. “Your dinner.”

“We’ll keep it warm,” Caduceus said calmly. “And I’ll set a place for you, Essek.”

Essek blinked. This kindness struck him to the quick for reasons he didn’t understand.

“Hey Essek,” Jester said. She stood up from the table, came over, and grabbed hold of his hand. “Can I come? You look like you need someone to hold your hand.”

Did he? What expression was that? How was it possible for his face to communicate it when he had not known it to be true?

He found himself sitting on the couch in Caleb’s study, Jester next to him. Caleb started a fire, then lingered by the hearth.

“So . . .?” Beauregard said, lounging against the edge of Caleb’s desk.

Essek took a deep breath and marshalled his words. “I have been in Rosohna, responding to an urgent message,” he said. “I believe Da’leth has – well. Let me tell you.” He detailed what he knew of Driera’s encounters, filling in a few nuances of her views and personality where it seemed necessary for them to reach the proper conclusions. “So I was working to secure the beacons against possible incursion,” he concluded.

There, that was done. Why had he been so worried about this?

“Hmm,” Caleb said slowly. “Ja, I can see why you concluded that was him. I suppose the first question is, will this create more tension with the Dynasty? Your queen knows he has been unseated here, but does she believe he is truly his own agent now?”

“I—” Essek said, and stopped. A corner of his mind had been threshing frantically through thoughts at high speed for every moment since he’d received the Dusk Captain’s letter. He had planned and counter planned and panicked and regrouped. And nowhere, in all of that copious thinking, had it occurred to him that he ought to identify Da’leth to the Dynasty. Which was ridiculous. Of course he should have. And could have, too, without implicating himself. He could have found a way.

But it had never crossed his mind, because he was so accustomed to concealing his dealings with Da’leth. And if he could make such an obvious mistake, then what other mistakes had he made? What other ways was his thinking unreliable? And if he couldn’t rely on himself, then –

Essek heard, very clearly in his memory, the way Driera had said, “I know I have been very stupid.”

“Essek?” Beauregard said. Something had changed in the way she was looking at him. Less attentive, more evaluating. “You okay there, dude?”

“Yes,” Essek said. Damage control, quickly. “I, ah. I did not identify Da’leth before Her Majesty. Not yet.” Caleb was looking at him oddly now too, his head tilted. “I was a bit worried about how it would be received,” Essek finished hastily.

“So you . . . plan to tell her later?” Caleb said, puzzled.

“Yes, of course,” Essek said, and felt the lie absolutely thud out of his mouth and onto the floor. What was wrong with him? Caleb and Beauregard were looking at each other now, Beauregard frowning, Caleb with a line between his brows.

“Hey Essek,” Jester said suddenly. He had forgotten she was there, still gripping his hand. “How about we play a game the Nein used to play a bunch? It makes stuff easier.” And before he could take that in, she had cast.

A Zone of Truth pressed at his mind; he scrambled to resist – failed – he had no fragment of possibility, he was a fool, he had not prepared – it was done.

“Blueberry, I’m not sure—” Caleb was saying.

Essek sucked in a huge breath and bent double to press his face to his knees. His hands and feet were tingling, and there were dark spots crowding the edge of his vision. And yet, through the storm of terror, what he felt most, in an overwhelming wave, was relief.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jester leaned down to try and see his face.

“No,” Essek said into his knees. He didn’t have to answer, the spell didn’t compel speech. But he wanted to.

“Okay, sorry. Do you want me to drop the spell?”

Essek opened his mouth to say yes, and was unable to. Ah. So that was a lie, apparently. Great.

“No,” he said, his voice cracking.

Warm hands – hands he knew intimately – closed on his shoulders. Essek raised his head just enough to see Caleb crouching in front of him, his face a picture of concern.

“Here now,” Caleb said, and called him one of the endless Zemnian pet names that Essek had yet to get a translation for. “What’s all this?”

“I—” Essek said, and laughed jaggedly. He had been holding it together so well since receiving word from the Dusk Captain. Or at least he’d thought so. Why was it all boiling out now? Did he actually want to tell them? Apparently, he did. Which made no sense. If Caleb knew what a fool Essek was, how he had been used, and how he’d swallowed the hook without a qualm. If Caleb knew all that, how could he possibly continue to offer all those things Essek had become reliant on? The respect, the companionship, the desire?

And yet. He wanted to say it. With a reckless, destructive desperation in every part of his body. It would feel so good to tell them. It would be horrible to tell them.

Caleb watched his face. “We used to cast this spell to air things out,” he said. “It was shockingly effective, I will admit, even if difficult in the moment.”

“And sometimes fun,” Jester put in. She squeezed his hand, and Essek laughed again.

“This will not be fun,” he said. He sat up, and Caleb’s hands landed on his knees. “But yes, I need to tell you something.”

Caleb nodded. “And it will help if it’s kind of like we’re making you,” he said. “Ja, that’s fine.”

Essek did not know what to do with this easy understanding of his bizarre behavior. “I lied earlier,” he said.

“No shit,” Beauregard said under her breath.

“Okay,” Caleb said. “Why lie about that?” He wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t spotted it, then.

Essek took a deep breath. It was possible to evade a Zone of Truth, if you wordsmithed carefully and kept a guard on your thoughts. “I have been . . . very upset,” he said. “And not thinking clearly. I should have told my queen, you’re right.”

“Upset about what?” Jester asked.

Essek made the mistake of looking at her face, the sweet concern there.

Okay, try it again. How many times would he have to make a run at it in order to say the whole truth? Was he really doing this? He felt like he was falling from a great height, with no magic to catch him.

“About Da’leth and his plans,” he said. “Because I have been. Such a fool. And worse. A patsy. I –” he looked directly at Caleb. “Da’leth did make a prior try for the Dynasty’s beacons. I know he did. I was his contact.”

“Well, fuck a duck,” he heard Beauregard say. He didn’t look away from Caleb. Not that it did him any good. He had no idea what to make of the way Caleb’s eyes widened, then the frown that slowly clouded his face into a more complex expression.

“Wow,” Jester said. “So like, spy stuff?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “Espionage is the technical term, I believe.”

“Okay,” Caleb said again. “So Da’leth approached you. When was this?”

“Oh, uh. We met around fifteen years ago.” A very bad time for him, looking back. “We corresponded occasionally, and then.” He paused. It was excruciating to look back on it, in light of Driera’s story. She had been miserable about it. Humiliated to have been played for a fool. And yet she had resisted, this person Essek had always known himself to be smarter than, more accomplished than. And in the end, she had foiled Da’leth. Essek, on the other hand . . .

“Let me guess,” Caleb said. “Either he did you a favor, or he arranged to have you do one for him.”

Essek blinked. “I – yes. He acquired some components for me that are near impossible to source in the Dynasty. He said it was no trouble for him, and he didn’t think that the borders of nations should hinder arcane exploration.”

Beauregard snorted audibly, and Essek felt himself flush.

“Yes, I know,” he said between his teeth.

“Right,” Caleb said. “And then you did him a favor, ja? Something small?”

“Yes. He said it was fine, but I didn’t like owing him. So I –” he looked to the far wall “I gave him a few hours warning when a Lens operation was about to accidentally interfere with some project of his on the Menagerie Coast.” It had seemed such a small thing at the time. Essek had actually felt rather cosmopolitan and pleased about it. Nations could do as nations did, but this was real power, he’d thought, just two wizards moving pieces on the board.

“Ah,” Caleb said. “And then he had you, ja.”

“Did he?” Essek said. Then, the small flare of temper immediately deflating. “Yes, you’re right, he did.” It had never occurred to Essek at the time to think about the escalation. It would have raised questions should he have been discovered taking gifts from an Assembly archmage, but he could have handled that. Giving the warning and compromising the Lens’s work, though, that was across a line, and Essek hadn’t even felt himself step over it.

“And then it was more of the same, right?” Caleb said. Essek met his eyes, fleetingly, and found them unsmiling, knowing. “More favors, back and forth?”

“Yes. For, oh, I don’t know. A few years.” And an escalation of actions, on his side anyway. Had Da’leth ever done anything that risked his own position?

“And then he blackmailed you,” Caleb said, and Essek inhaled, struck with the horrible realization that Caleb didn’t understand. Not yet.

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“He means,” Beauregard said, when Essek took too long to speak, “that he didn’t need to be blackmailed. Right?”

Essek nodded.

“Ah,” Caleb said quietly. Essek could not look at him, even if he tried. He did not try. An unfamiliar feeling had swollen, enormous and terrible, in his chest. Was this shame? If so, no wonder it was the glue that held so many rules in force. It was horrible.

“Wait, sorry,” Jester said. “He wanted you to get some of these thingies for him? Some beacons?” She said it like she might say ‘get a dozen donuts.’

“Yes. Two of them. And in exchange, he said he would share the results of his arcane experimentation with me.” He heard Caleb make a small ‘ah’ sound, as if much had just come clear to him. “I thought.” Essek bit his lip. Was it more pathetic to leave it at that, or to try and explain? “I thought I’d found someone of a similar mind,” he said. “Someone who shared my interests.” No one said anything. They didn’t need to. “I wasn’t aware what he truly intended.”

“But you didn’t do it, right?” Jester said, with painful brightness.

“Well, no,” Essek said. “Because some upstart mage killed Da’leth and took his place before I could.”

“He means you,” Jester stage whispered to Caleb.

“Okay,” Beauregard said. “I have questions. First –”

“Beauregard.” Caleb spoke quietly, but it cut straight across her. “Not right now, I think.”

“I mean, sure, but—” She had a notebook out, Essek saw, and was wielding a pen like she might stab someone in the eye with it.

“Essek.” Caleb squeezed his knees until Essek looked in the general vicinity of his face. “Are you willing to sit down with Beauregard and me sometime soon and answer some questions? It may be helpful to know more about what Da’leth said to you.”

“Even if what he said was a pack of lies? No, I know, it still matters.” Essek had been wringing his hands for some time under cover of his mantle. “Yes. I can do that.”

“Okay,” Beauregard said, snapping her notebook shut. “Cool cool. You gonna be straight with us without a Zone of Truth?”

He supposed he had that coming. “Yes,” Essek said.

“Good.” Caleb applied more pressure to his knees, and it was only then that Essek realized he was shaking, fine tremors that ran through his whole body. And that wouldn’t stop, even when he commanded them to. “Hey now,” Caleb said, in a low croon Essek had heard him use with Leni when she fell and scraped her elbow. “We’ve got you, it’s going to be all right.”

“Please,” Essek said convulsively. “Do not be kind to me right now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Beauregard said. “I’ll play. Thelyss, you’re the smartest dipshit I’ve ever met. And that includes this guy,” she added, gesturing to Caleb. “That better?”

“Yes, actually,” Essek said. He had felt on the brink of a catastrophic unspooling when Caleb was tender with him. What that would have looked like, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to find out.

“Want some more?” Beauregard offered cordially.

“Sure,” Essek said. “Give it your best shot.”

He thought she would linger on his stupidity, on what an easy mark he’d been, on how he’d followed direction like a well-trained pet. But what she said was, “I can’t believe you were actually going to go through with that shit. Forget Da’leth and his apocalypse wet dreams, I can’t believe you were cool with potentially setting off another continental war. They would totally think we’d done it, and they’d have wanted blood, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh,” Essek said, blinking. He had thought about that, in fact. Passingly. “Would you believe me if I said that didn’t seem . . . important?” It was one of those moments where he understood what he’d just said by way of watching everyone else react to it. Beauregard scowled. Jester winced. He didn’t look at Caleb.

“Oh,” Beauregard said grimly. “I believe it.”

“Okay!” Jester said. “Essek and I are gonna go. We’ll meet you down for dinner in a few minutes.”

“Ja, sure,” Caleb said. He knelt up, leaned in, and took Essek’s face in both his big, warm hands. He said something in Zemnian; it sounded complicated, and Essek was glad he didn’t know what it was. Then Caleb kissed his forehead once, gently. “I’ll see you downstairs,” he said.

“Come on.” Jester’s grip on his hand could not be denied. She pulled him out of the study and to the stairs, but started heading up, not down.

“Where are we going?” Essek asked. He should probably have been more alarmed about this than he was.

“Hot tub,” Jester said. “You’re freezing right now, aren’t you?”

“Well . . . yes,” Essek said, surprised to find it true. Drow ran cold compared to tieflings and humans, but there was an icy grip on his limbs that he’d rarely felt before.

“That’s the shock,” Jester said briskly. “Just stick your feet in the hot water until you feel a little more yourself.”

And what was that supposed to feel like, he wondered. He had the sense of towers, whole cities, crumbling to dust inside him.

“I promise not to take my clothes off, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jester said. “Here, you still have your shoes on. What even are you wearing?”

“I came straight from the Lucid Bastion in Rosohna,” Essek said, plucking fretfully at his mantle. It was heavy on his shoulders, but he felt like if he took it off, he might float away. Jester resolved this by whisking it off for him.

“There,” she said with a pat. “Go dabble your feet, I’ll be right there.”

He did. The water was so comparatively hot that it made him hiss. But she was right, the persistent tremble that seemed to be coming from the core of him began to ease.

He sat alone on the edge of the hot tub for a few minutes, head down, working on his breathing. Jester trotted back in eventually and plopped down beside him.

“Here,” she said, and offered up an absurdly large metal flask that was warm to the touch. “Hot chocolate. Get a little sugar in you. Unless that’s being too nice?” she added, suddenly looking worried.

“Oh,” Essek said, embarrassed. “No. It’s fine. I don’t know what that was.”

“Caleb does that too, sometimes,” Jester said. “Gets upset if we’re too nice to him at the wrong time. Except he’s way less polite about it than you were.”

Essek sipped the hot chocolate. It wasn’t the extraordinarily alcoholic version Caduceus had made that one time, but it was warm. Jester took it from him and sipped too. Sharing a drinking vessel, okay, that was a new one. He could roll with that.

“How you doing?” Jester asked, gently nudging him. “I can totally be mean like Beau, by the way, don’t think I can’t.”

“Can you?” Essek asked, fairly dubious.

“Oh sure.” She put on an absurd growly voice. “Essek, you worm, you think you’re so smart, but that shade of purple doesn’t look nearly as good on you as you think.” She was laughing by the end of the sentence, and Essek cracked a smile.

“Keep working on it,” he said. “And I am –” he almost said ‘all right,’ but the word wouldn’t come out.

“Yeah,” she said, as if he had finished his sentence. She leaned her head on his shoulder, tipping it so her horn didn’t jab him. That actually was too nice, suddenly. Essek felt a slow motion version of the reckless feeling that had nearly driven him to blurt out all sorts of things to Verin.

“Da’leth wants to set off another Calamity,” he said quietly to Jester. “Did you know that?”

“Uh-huh. Beau told us about that a while ago.” She gestured lazily. “It’s, like, on the list.”

“And what he plans could easily destroy all arcane power on Exandria. Which is what I have dedicated my life too.” And what he would have said Da’leth had dedicated his life to as well. Except, clearly not.

“Uh-huh.”

“I very nearly helped him,” Essek said.

“Uh-huh.”

“I would have been an accessory to that. Destroying what I love most.”

“Yep. And killing, like, millions of people, probably.” She picked up her head. “You know what I really wanna know, though?”

“What?”

“What I wanna know is, are you a teeny weeny bit in love with Caleb? Or a medium amount? Or crazy in love?”

“Oh,” Essek said, and let the tide of truth take him. He felt a little drunk, in the aftermath of panic. “Quite a bit, I think. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but . . . well.” The kiss lingered on his forehead, an ambiguous blessing. Essek couldn’t help reading it as a kind full stop. After all, if he were Caleb, he’d be looking for the nearest exit right about now.

“Hoooooly shitballs,” Beauregard said as soon as the door closed behind Jester and Essek.

“Ja,” Caleb said to the couch, where he was still on his knees.

“Like, wow, okay. That does explain a lot.” He could hear her beginning to pace. “But what the fuck.”

“Ja.”

“I mean, I knew he was kind of cold sometimes, but.”

“. . . Ja.”

“Hey.” She came up behind him and leaned around to stare him in the face. “You okay there?”

He sighed. “Ja.”

She chewed her lip, and he could see her thinking I should get Jester to handle this, oh shitfuck, she’s busy, woman up, Lionett. Gods, he loved her.

She dropped to her knees next to him and flung a strong arm around his neck, nearly pulling him off balance. “Look,” she said. “I know it sucks. Finding out he’s maybe not who you thought he was.”

“Hmm?” Caleb said, startled to find she had misread his thoughts so completely. “No, it’s not that.” He shook himself a little, refocused. “This could be good, ja? He might have useful information on Da’leth’s habits.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She squinted dubiously at him. “He’s going to be a fucking problem, though.”

“You think so?”

“Come on, don’t you? Hard relying on someone when you don’t know their real angle.”

“Oh,” Caleb said, surprised. “Nein, it’s the opposite. This is the first time I think I’ve truly understood him.”

Beauregard leaned back to deliver a skeptical look full force. “That so?”

Caleb nodded. The certainty continued to grow, slow and steady, from a seed of recognition he’d felt listening to Essek talk, watching his bent head, feeling him shake all over. There you are. I know you.

“Okay, if you say so.” Beauregard stood up and held a hand down to him. “I tell you what though, you sure can pick ‘em, can’t you.”

“Ja.” That was unarguable. “I have a type, what can I say.”

Beauregard groaned theatrically. “For fuck’s sake. If it turns out he’s playing us, or he stabs you in your sleep or whatever, don’t come crying to me.”

“Beauregard,” Caleb said. “Something far more serious than a stabbing would have to occur before I would come crying to you.”

“Fuckin’ right,” she said. “You cool? Can I finally go eat my dinner without morally complicated wizard bullshit?”

“Ja, I’ll be right there.” He waved her out, turning back as if to do something at his desk. In reality, he just wanted a moment to breathe and collect his thoughts.

Morally complicated wizard bullshit, was it? Fair enough. That was also not a half-bad summary of his type, come to think of it. Which apparently he could select for without even knowing it.

Oh, Essek.

Beauregard had it backwards. He didn’t trust less now, he trusted more. Understood, with the flawed and terrible marrow of him. Felt a shock of deep recognition, like looking in a mirror.

Perhaps it was not wise, or even intelligent. Perhaps it was not safe, or healthy.

But the truth was, listening to Essek talk, the last shreds of resistance had melted away in him. The last grip of restraint he’d been exercising. An hour ago he’d been infatuated, teetering on the brink of something deeper. Now, he’d fallen.

And he knew what he had to do next.

Chapter Text

Essek felt marginally more in control of himself on Yulisen. He had taken his leave after a rather strange dinner with the Nein last night, during which he’d kept his mouth shut because he had nothing left to say and even less energy to speak with. A lot of looks had gone around the table, and it had been distantly amusing to watch Jester attempting to communicate Essek was working with our enemy and could have set off another Calamity but it’s cool now to Fjord via hand gestures. But he had no reserves left to endure whatever would have come after dinner. Frivolity or seriousness, either would have been impossible.

That, and he figured it was best that he leave rather than having to endure Caleb turning him away.

So, he went back to the guest house, and tranced for a startling five and a half hours. He was very tired, apparently.

And then he was at loose ends, wandering around the house and waiting for the axe to fall. It would either be Beauregard knocking at the door to take him away to this threatened debriefing. Or it would be Caleb Sending to tell him that on reflection, he was no longer interested in sharing his mind and his bed and his life, thanks but no thanks.

The waiting was intolerable, so Essek followed Verin upstairs after breakfast.

“Yeah?” Verin said, heading for his closet. Good. Essek would rather not be looked at during this conversation.

“Are there . . . approved methods to stop someone from severing your relationship?” he asked.

Verin immediately popped right back out of the closet, damn it.

“Whoa,” Verin said. “You think Widogast is going to call things off?”

“Yes.”

“Damn. That’s not the impression I got.” He stared hard at Essek. “Are you sure you’re not misreading things? That can happen.” Particularly to neophytes, his expression said.

“Answer the question.”

Verin huffed, and thought about it. “Not . . . really,” he said. “But also, sort of. There are plenty of tactics, it’s just that most of them are shitty and only prolong the inevitable.”

Essek considered the idea that he had a choice about how he could behave here. He wanted to kick and scream and rage. Tantrum hard enough to put Leni to shame. Because, yes, fine. It was true. He had waited decade upon decade and come all the way across the Ashkeepers to find Caleb. This person – perhaps the only such person alive on Exandria – who kindled light and desire in him. And Caleb fed him at that rich table for a brief time, and now was about to take it all away. And, of course, it was Essek’s own folly that caused it. He was practically living in a morality tale.

Essek hated morality tales.

If Verin told him he was supposed to accept this loss gracefully, well. Verin might be right. And Essek could try. He just had sincere doubts that he would succeed.

“I don’t want to make it harder for him to do what he needs to do,” he said, finding his way through his feelings to the truth. “But I’m pretty sure I’m going to.”

“Wow,” Verin said quietly. Then, at Essek’s lifted eyebrow, “Nothing, never mind.” He cleared his throat. “You’re going to have to talk to him,” he said. “That’s the ‘sort of.’ Sometimes, if you are both very honest, painfully so. And both sincerely willing to try, then it can work out.”

Hmm. On the one hand, Essek was not sure how yet more excruciating honesty would help, when that’s what had gotten him in this position in the first place. Then again, what else did he have? What lies, what artifice, could possibly help him now?

“Though really, I don’t know why you’re asking me,” Verin said, returning to the closet. “I’ve been broken up with more than almost anyone I know.”

Essek blinked, pulled out of his own thoughts by the surprise of realizing his perspective was wildly off from someone else’s. That was happening a lot lately. It was getting exhausting.

“But you’re so good at these matters,” Essek said.

“I mean, I guess,” Verin said. He re-emerged in his blacks, ready for training exercises. “I’ve just made pretty much every mistake there is. At least, I keep thinking so, then I find a new one.”

“Oh,” Essek said, standing in the wreckage of his mistakes.

“But that’s how you learn, I guess,” Verin said cheerfully. “You good?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “Go hit things.”

He was not, in fact, good. But there was nothing to do about that but wait. And wonder a little bit about Verin, who claimed to have learned by doing it all wrong. A dubious proposition, in Essek’s mind. Surely Verin learned the way everyone did, by unrelenting dedication and perseverance? Then again, according to Caleb, that wasn’t true of everyone, was it?

The Sending finally came in the early afternoon, but it was not at all as expected.

“Essek,” Caleb said, with a burr of warmth in his voice. “I wonder if you might help me with my hands today, if you have the time?”

Essek was so startled it took him several seconds to understand what Caleb was referring to. “Oh, of course,” he said, just before the spell released. “Should I bring my supplies to you?”

“Yes, please,” Caleb said promptly. “At your convenience. And stay for dinner if you wish, of course.”

That . . . did not sound like the prelude to a breakup?

Essek had brought a Bag of Holding to Rexxentrum specifically for assorted cosmetics and hair and skin and nail care items. He’d brought more books by weight, but it was close. So it was easy enough to gather the bag and repack the handful of items kept out, and fuss briefly with his appearance, and depart. Wondering, the whole time, off-balance and terrified, what Caleb was up to.

He started to walk, then realized that he was only doing it to counter any appearance of overeagerness. Right. Artifices. So he Teleported instead, even though it only cut a few minutes off the trip.

Caleb opened the door himself, with an expression Essek couldn’t parse.

“Hallo,” Caleb said, ushering him in and brushing a kiss at the corner of his mouth. That was not the effusive sort of greeting they’d begun sharing recently, but then again, maybe Caleb was just being kind, maybe he could tell that Essek might start clinging and babbling if he were embraced with any real passion. “It’s just us today,” Caleb said, heading up the stairs.

Was that code for something?

“Ah, this way, please.” Caleb touched his elbow and turned him away from the study and towards his bedroom. There was an odd, nervous smile on his face.

“Okay,” Essek said. “We don’t have to do this in a bathroom, but it might – oh. What’s that?” There was a tall, glowing door against the wall at the foot of Caleb’s bed.

“That,” Caleb said, “is my real tower. Or,” he waved a hand, “my unreal tower that I care about a lot more than this one.” He stamped dismissively on the oak floorboards.

“Oh,” Essek said, eyes widening. “Your demiplane?”

Caleb winced. “Alas, no, Not yet. I’m getting there, though. This is just a bit of conjuration, come, let me show you.”

Essek concluded, in the following few minutes, that someone really ought to start smacking Caleb whenever he said anything dismissive about his magic. A bit of conjuration, indeed. Essek did not have the spell himself, as it had never seemed necessary for the life he lived. But it was commonly used among elite practitioners, and he knew enough of it to know that the magic was complex, that Caleb had modified it heavily to allow for greater space, and that the true display of power here was one of creativity. He was aware, with every inch of his skin as Caleb conducted him through salon and library – the library! – and dining room, and so on, that he was essentially walking through a direct manifestation of Caleb’s mind. It was beautiful, and whimsical, and vast, and very Zemnian.

“The rest is bedrooms,” Caleb concluded, gesturing further up the tower. One went from floor to floor on clever lifts that travelled silently up and down on fine silver chains. A spectral cat was stationed on the lift to direct it to the desired floor. “And the greatest playroom on Exandria, according to Leni. It’s a bit silly to put up the whole thing when the rest of the Nein aren’t here, but it’s just habit by now.”

He looked at Essek with such palpable nervous hope that Essek couldn’t help but realize that his opinion mattered, for some reason. “Wonderful,” he said sincerely. “Thank you for.” He swallowed. “For inviting me into your home.” And why, by the Luxon, was he doing so now?

“Ja,” Caleb said, with another one of those complicated smiles. “I should mention, no one can scry anywhere in here. Now, what do you need for this?”

“Oh, ah.” Essek crossed to a sofa and table in the salon and swung his bag off his shoulder. “A basin, to start with. And warm water and towels.”

Caleb gave instructions to an eager parade of cat servants. The unobservant might think that whimsical touch was for Leni’s entertainment, but Essek knew better.

“May I?” Essek asked, as Caleb came to sit beside him. Caleb offered up his hands, and Essek took one and then the other, studying more closely than he had before. It was hard to look at them and not think of that night in Zadash. And several nights after, in Caleb’s Rexxentrum bedroom. Essek schooled his face and, with more effort, his thoughts. “What on Exandria are you doing with these?” he said in some bewilderment. The quill callouses on Caleb’s writing hand he could understand, but the roughened skin on his palms was baffling.

“I don’t know?” Caleb said. “They’ve just done this for the past few years.” He paused briefly. “Ever since I spent a winter homeless. My hair came back, after, but my hands never recovered.”

“Your hair?” Essek said, looking up.

“Ja, it got brittle and broke or fell out. Malnutrition,” he explained, at Essek’s continued bafflement.

“. . . Oh,” Essek said quietly. Caleb was not saying this idly. He was making a point. To say that Essek had lived a life of ease and luxury compared to him? Essek was keenly aware already. He had thought it only vaguely interesting when he first realized it. Indeed, it had seemed part of Caleb’s exoticism – his coloring, his cute little teeth, his history of poverty and deprivation. Essek had begun to see it as more and more important, though, as time went on. Partly because Caleb clearly thought it important.

“Leni’s been complaining about them,” Caleb said, nodding to his hands. “My skin catches on her hair, that sort of thing. And I know you said you don’t mind, but, well.”

Essek ducked his head. Saying that he didn’t mind was an understatement. Being touched by Caleb’s rough hands was pleasing in the visceral way of satisfying a fantasy he’d never known he harbored. But more to the point, Caleb was talking like he expected to be touching Essek in those ways again. Essek was more confused than he’d ever been in his adult life.

“I can’t give you a prince’s hands in one afternoon,” he said. “But I can do a lot. And a regular care regime will do the rest.”

“Please,” Caleb said with an open-handed gesture. “I await your instruction.” His eyes got wider and wider as Essek took two dozen or so items out of the Bag of Holding.

“A reasonable start,” Essek said, formulating a plan of attack.

“You use all of that?” Caleb said, agog.

“Not every day. But each serves a purpose, yes.” Essek allowed him to pick up and inspect one of his hands in turn.

“I mean, I can’t argue with the results,” Caleb said, in a tone that suggested he might have wanted to. “And I do like that,” he added, touching Essek’s fingernails, which were glossed in a dark purple base with silver constellations, the pattern on each finger unique. “Do you do that yourself?”

“Yes. Would you like some of your own? I can do just the base color, if you don’t want the sort of designs that are currently very popular in Rosohna.”

“Ja,” Caleb said. “Though you realize Leni will immediately demand some of her own. And she doesn’t sit still nearly as well as I do.”

Essek began with a soak in warm water doctored with three different oils, one for suppleness, one for moisture, one for cuticle health. “Let that soak for a few minutes,” he said. “Then we’ll scrub, and soak again, and then we can exfoliate.”

“Sure,” Caleb said easily. “Whatever you say.” He soaked obediently for a time, then took a breath and said to his hands, “I thought this might help. To have something to focus on.”

Essek tried not to freeze like a frightened rabbit. “Help?”

“Ja. With what I need to tell you.”

“Oh,” Essek said, wrongfooted. Surely he was the one with difficult things to say?

“Ja. I think it is time that you know. About me.”

“Oh.” Essek swallowed. He’d wanted to know from the beginning, of course. Assiduously collected pieces, put them together. And then Caleb had made the offer back in Zadash, and Essek had shied off, and ever since then the thought of this conversation had filled him with increasing dread. This is going to hurt. “You don’t have to,” he said feebly.

“Yes, I do,” Caleb said, with all the quiet, grave conviction he had, which was quite a lot. “I’m told it’s good for me to say it. And you definitely need to hear it.”

Why? Did Caleb know how afraid Essek was of this now? Was this a kind of penance, being made to hear things he knew, down to his bones, he was not prepared for?

No, stop it. Caleb had said, in the dubious way he spoke of Caduceus’s advice, that it was good for him to talk of it. Not everything is about you. The least he could do was listen.

“All right,” Essek said. He reached for Caleb’s right hand, patted it dry with a towel, and picked up the pumice stone. “Tell me if anything feels tender.”

Caleb let him apply the stone in silence for a minute, then said, sounding smaller than Essek liked, “Can you tell me what you’ve gathered?”

“Of course.” Essek turned his hand, gently abrading the skin on the undersides of his fingers. He took a breath, ordered his thoughts. “You were a Volstrucker. I imagine the training starts young.”

“Ja. Fifteen.”

Essek schooled himself not to react to that. It was hard sometimes to properly understand compressed human development timelines, but that seemed shockingly young.

“Ja,” Caleb said again, looking at his face. “At the time, I thought myself an adult, basically. Now I look at the students in my survey course, and, well.” He shook his head and puffed out a breath.

“Your training – your indoctrination?” A nod from Caleb. “It was . . .” Essek hesitated. It seemed rude to apply a word to it that Caleb hadn’t.

“Brutal,” Caleb supplied. “Beauregard has many other words, but that one will do.”

Essek nodded. “I am unaware of the details. Though, I should tell you.” He switched hands and began working on the second. “We caught a Scourger about eight years ago, on some business or other in the Dynasty. I saw her briefly. She had scars like yours on her arms. So I assume that is . . . related.”

“What was her name?” Caleb asked unexpectedly.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.” He tapped his temple with his free hand. “I know all their names. Some are unaccounted for.”

“I can try and find out,” Essek offered. “If she ever said. Which she may not have.”

“She likely did not,” Caleb said. “We were instructed not to, under such circumstances.”

Cold trickled down Essek’s spine. What if it had been Caleb – no, Bren. What if it had been Bren in that cell? Essek would have improved the security measures, and glanced in vague curiosity at him, and left him there.

He cleared his throat hastily. “Your name was Bren. Still is, to some people.”

Another nod. “I still answer to both. I kept Caleb because it’s the name of the person the Mighty Nein came to love. Using it reminds me to be that person.”

Essek turned to make eye contact with one of the spectral cats. “Fresh water, please?” he requested. He set Caleb’s hands to soak again, this time with a capful of potion intended to open the pores. “Ikithon favored you,” he said. How could he not? “He kept you close to him. You did some things that you now regret. You lost your parents, and I am guessing that grief is tied up in this time.”

Caleb sucked in a breath, but did not speak.

“You were involved with Becke and Grieve. Some of the things done to you – and some of the things you did, I imagine it’s both -- left . . . scars, on your mind.”

“Ja,” Caleb said, with a rasp to his voice.

Essek cleared his throat. “You matured, you gained power. Ikithon became increasingly concerned that you would rival him.” Again, how could he not? “Perhaps you were building your own base of loyalty amongst the Volstrucker, I don’t know. Eventually, he decided to act, or perhaps you challenged him prematurely. Becke was either caught in the crossfire or she assisted him. You injured her. He incapacitated you. I had thought it was Feeblemind.” He checked Caleb’s expression, which was odd and strained. “He kept you neutralized for some time – nearly two years, I think you said? But you managed to escape his control somehow. I had thought with help, but you’ve made it clear you had no resources, after. No spellbook. No funds.” No food, apparently. “You met the Nein, by chance, I assume. You became Caleb Widogast. And much of the rest I think you have told me.”

Caleb’s hands were occupied in the basin, but he bent his head, obscuring his expression. “By the gods,” he said after a tense silence. “That’s what I get for asking, I guess.”

Essek shifted uneasily. “If I have given offense—”

Caleb looked up. “No,” he said, and took a pause to visibly coach himself through breathing. “You did not. I’m just having one of those moments where it is wildly disorienting to learn how someone else sees you. May I take my hands out now?”

“Of course,” Essek said, and supplied a dry towel. “Blot, don’t rub.”

Caleb obeyed, eyes down, then offered up his hands again. Essek opened one of his favorite sugar scrubs, and began working it into the skin with a soft-bristled brush.

“That feels nice,” Caleb said, and Essek silently resolved to do this for him again. Daily, if he could. “Anyway. I am going to tell you two stories. I don’t want to be coy about this, so I will say now, they are both true.” He cleared his throat. “Ikithon selected me and Astrid and Wulf when we were fifteen. We were proud to be chosen. I won’t repeat most of the things we were told, I’m sure you can imagine. Do for the Empire what others did not have the courage to do, kill or be killed so others would flourish, etc.”

Essek nodded, attention divided between his work and Caleb’s face.

“The three of us became involved. The details don’t matter, except to say that it was hard, and we found first that sex felt good, and then that there was a strength to be found between us that could prop up whoever was having the roughest time on any given day.” He paused, gathered himself. “The scars are the result of repeated experiments in which he cut into our arms, inserted residuum crystals, stitched up the wounds, waited for them to heal over naturally, then had us cast repeatedly with that arm as the dominant caster.”

Essek realized he had stopped scrubbing and was sitting with his mouth hanging open. “Why?” he said. It was not the most horrific thing he’d ever heard. But it had been done to Bren.

“Ah, that’s where it gets interesting,” Caleb said. He retreated into professorial tones. “I did not put a lot of this together until later, and not all of it until he was dead and I had access to his notes. The theory was that he could shortcut our magical maturation by having us cast while the power of the residuum crystals was available in our bodies. It was supposed to open up the channels to cast at a greater quantum without all that pesky waiting around for something that might or might not actually happen. You know how it is.”

Yes, Essek knew. Early magical development was relatively predictable, with some differences across races. But things started diverging very quickly around the third quantum, at which point paths to power became wildly individualized. Some blazed on ahead. Many never progressed past the third, or the fourth, or the fifth, no matter how much they studied or practiced. Some, as a not at all random example, achieved the eighth quantum with prodigious rapidity, then remained stuck there for thirty light-forsaken, infuriating years, with no change in sight.

“But that’s madness,” Essek said. “There are no shortcuts, you’ve said so yourself.”

Caleb nodded. “Yes, well, I lied, a little bit. He did this particular experiment on forty Volstrucker, over many years. It did not work. He was on the brink of giving it up as a bad bet, but then you’ll never guess what happened.”

Essek looked at the feverish light of amusement in his eyes, and his stomach sank. “It worked. . . . On you?”

“Ja. I cast at the third quantum for the first time.” He glanced down at his right arm. Essek imagined Caleb could identify the precise scar in question. “And I maintained that power after.”

“But that’s,” Essek began. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be – but that’s terrifically bad experimental design.”

Caleb laughed out loud, leaned in, and kissed the tip of Essek’s nose. “Indeed. He was very excited. But, as you just pointed out, he had conducted the whole thing so poorly. That’s what happens when a sadist pretends to do science. It gave him nothing, not really.”

“Except you,” Essek said.

“Ja. Just so.”

“Was it a fluke, or . . .?”

“Probably?” Caleb made a face, shrugged. “That makes the most sense. Though Wulf has a theory. I was always more . . . sensitive than he and Astrid were. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt them. But it—” Essek felt a shudder go through him. “To me, it felt like being set on fire from the inside. They said it didn’t feel like that to them. Wulf thinks I am uniquely sensitive to residuum, purely by chance. Perhaps. I have not had the interest to pursue it.”

“No, of course not,” Essek said. He began scrubbing the other hand.

“I am not responsible for it,” Caleb said, in the tones of someone repeating something he had been told. “But my success meant he redoubled his efforts. On us. On those that came after. There were other experiments. At least one Volstrucker died of them. She – no, never mind that.” Caleb cleared his throat. “He learned to infuse powdered residuum into ink for tattoos. Which did convey some benefits on others, by the way. Easier channeling of certain elemental forces, that sort of thing. He was dissatisfied with that, though, as it was just a variation on a long known process. He wanted something new, you see. Wulf might have the right idea, because he and Astrid got their tattoos, but when they tried on me, I had a skin reaction and they told him the tattoos wouldn’t work, they would just erupt and scar over. Anyway. I am getting far ahead of myself.”

Essek dunked his hands for him, gently swishing them clean, then patted them dry. He reached for a toner, which he misted out of a glass bottle, holding each of Caleb’s hands up in turn. “Let that soak in,” he said.

“Okay.” Caleb set his wrists on his knees, hands dangling. “He taught us how to hurt people,” he said. “How to terrorize with pain, or the threat of it. It—” his throat clicked as he swallowed. “The thing that lingers in my mind the most is how quickly and easily that happened. The first time we killed for him, we’d been with him less than six months. That was all it took. Later, thinking on that, I wondered what was wrong with us, that it was so easy? And how did he know we were flawed in that way? But then Caduceus suggested to me that most people, put in that situation, would have acted exactly as we did. And many would even have found pleasure in it, or felt nothing at all, because that’s what we needed to do. I don’t know. He might be right. But if he is, isn’t that worse? What’s wrong with all of us isn’t actually better than what’s wrong with me.”

Essek swallowed. He thought back, for the first time in decades, to his initial visits to the Dungeon of Penance in the company of the former Shadowhand. How he had seen people starving, near death, bodies broken, and it had made his extremities feel icy and his throat clogged with nausea. But then he’d come back, and back again, and those symptoms had faded to nothing. How he’d never thought on it, except to be relieved.

“I don’t know,” Essek said honestly. “I have not thought about it. Perhaps I should.” He hesitated. “You have a . . . moral clarity. It didn’t used to make sense to me. It still doesn’t, but now I’m coming to envy it.”

Caleb looked profoundly surprised. “It looks like clarity?” he said. “It doesn’t feel like it. I had clarity at sixteen. Things were simple then, if ugly. Now everything is complex, often horribly so. Though at least I have friends who can sometimes cut through that for me.”

Which Essek did not. Unless he counted Caleb himself, and Jester, and maybe Beauregard and the others.

Caleb paused again, visibly gathering himself. “When I was seventeen, we were given leave to visit home. While I was there, I overheard my parents speaking late at night. Disloyal talk about rebelling against the king, overthrowing the Assembly that was taking me from them. That sort of thing.”

Essek frowned. That did not at all accord with how Caleb spoke of his parents now.

“And wouldn’t you know,” Caleb continued. “By sheer chance, Astrid and Wulf heard their parents saying similar things. And it turned out they were all conspiring together.”

“Oh,” Essek said. “But -- no. Ignore me.” Was this how they’d felt yesterday, pointing out to him how obvious his flawed thinking was? It was so clear from the outside, wasn’t it?

“Ja, quite a coincidence,” Caleb said. “We did not think of that. Not then. We went back to Rexxentrum. We reported them. He did not tell us what to do, because he said, correctly, that we already knew. He was kind, sympathetic. He came with us. To help, you see.” His hands were twitching, as if frantic to grasp each other. Essek put his hands over them, toner be damned. “Astrid poisoned her parents and her grandfather,” Caleb said. “Wulf strangled his. I meant to set my family home ablaze with my parents inside. But, at the last, I hesitated. Faltered.” His face spasmed, then stilled. “Ikithon stepped in. He set the fire for me. Said he was disappointed in what had been revealed of my character, but assured me I could be made worthy in time. They burned alive. Please do not react to that,” he added.

Essek snapped his mouth shut. He was quite relieved to be asked not to speak. He reached for the first of three moisturizers, this one a light milk, and began applying it with a flat glass paddle.

Caleb let him, and regulated his breathing, and continued. “We graduated from Soltryce. We were Volstrucker. He had kept us entirely separate from the rest of the program while we were in school. There was actually another cohort of four that he started working on two years behind us, while we were all at Soltryce, but we had no idea. Matias was in that group. He integrated us with the older ones quickly after graduation, though. Said they were all our family now. And he did not say, but of course he was our vater.”

Essek nodded. Yes, he could see the shape of the thing – eliminate the birth family, and the whole home community by extension, then supply another one in the aftermath. Ikithon demonstrably liked shortcuts; he would have appreciated how bonds could form quickly under such circumstances.

And more than that. Essek thought back suddenly to the way Caleb had said ‘and then he had you.” How grimly knowing he’d sounded. Da’leth’s trick of luring Essek into deeper and deeper transgressions so that he couldn’t have extricated himself if he’d wanted to seemed suddenly tame in comparison to Ikithon’s method of doing a similar thing.

“It was tricky, though,” Caleb said. “He wanted us loyal to each other. But not too much. He had to come first. And the king and the Empire, or so he said. But mostly, just him.” He smiled a little grimly. “He miscalculated there, in the end. Thinking he could control what we felt for each other. But I am getting ahead of myself again.”

“Let that soak in,” Essek said quietly.

“Okay.” Caleb cleared his throat. “That first year after graduation was strange. I was – I was told to be, and I was – ashamed of my weakness. But there was something odd in how Wulf and Astrid behaved. They were ashamed of me, too, but also other things. Worried. Solicitous. And Ikithon did keep me close, ja, you are right about that. He had many uses for my memory. He would bring me to places with him so I could hear and precisely remember conversations, or look briefly at a parchment and recall its contents, that sort of thing.” He paused. “I am being untruthful right now,” he said clinically. “Making it sound more . . . administrative than it was.” Then, “I did many things for him. Killed who he told me to kill. Hurt or terrorized at his command. Went to bed with this one and that one because he wanted something done and he said to do whatever it took. You understand?”

Essek nodded silently. Caleb’s hands were twitching again. Essek picked them up under a pretense of inspecting them.

“I was very good at making people do what he wanted them to,” Caleb said. “With fire, yes, I was very good with fire. Or just talking. Or other ways.”

Essek nodded again. He could definitely believe that. He’d seen glimpses of that person here and there, who smiled or threatened, and got his way. Essek rather liked that person, which was something to think on later, perhaps.

“I – I did not like all of it,” Caleb said. “But also, I loved it. I have thought a lot about that. About how easy it was to do what I was told. How it felt good. Sometimes, it would feel better if the thing I did was more terrible, because that meant I was strong, that meant I was doing things others couldn’t, that meant I was doing the hard work of protecting my nation. And if what I had to do gave me pause, if I flinched in my mind, well. That was just proof, right?”

“Mmm,” Essek said.

“It wasn’t all . . .” Caleb paused, searching for a word, “corrupt,” he settled on. “Though there was plenty of that. Sending a murder squad over a petty grudge, that sort of thing. There was also real work. Things that protected citizens of the Empire. Or things on direct order from the king.” His hand gesture consigned this last to a category entirely separate from corruption or good works. “I mostly didn’t know what was what, at the time. Except for an occasional gut feeling, which I ignored, of course. I have spent a great deal of time trying to untangle it all since then, to limited success.”

Essek reached for a clean glass paddle and began applying a thicker gel moisturizer.

“There are words for the things he did to us,” Caleb said. He was speaking slowly now, cautiously. “And for the things he caused us to do to others. Beauregard listed some of them out for you, do you recall?” Essek emphatically did. “Ja, well.” He sighed. “The fights we’ve had over that. I had to tell her many parts of it, later on. We’ll get to that. And I would tell her about something and she would nod and she would name it. She would say this or that was torture or sexual exploitation or—” he flicked his chin dismissively “—what have you, and I would get so angry. And she would snap at me and recite definitions. Legal definitions, philosophical ones.”

“It’s hard to have it named,” Essek said. The words ‘collaborator’ and ‘patsy’ had been taking up a great deal of space in his mind the past few days.

“Ja. And I thought so what if I seduced a Nicodranian merchant and he did things to me that still make my skin crawl to think of them, and I couldn’t protest? So what? For every one of him there were a half dozen others who I entirely enjoyed myself with, or who I used and manipulated and left without explanation. What’s the name for that? What does that make me?”

Essek had several answers to that, but instinct told him Caleb didn’t want to hear them. Might react quite badly, in fact.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said abruptly, looking at Essek’s face. “I didn’t mean to be so . . . specific.”

Essek shook his head, heart in his throat. “No,” he said hoarsely. “Say what you need to say. I am listening.” He’d been right to fear this. It did hurt, in ways he hadn’t even known to anticipate.

Caleb flicked his chin to try to get loose hair out of his eyes, and Essek pushed it back for him. “Danke. Okay. That first year. I do not know if this is a correct recollection, or if I am imposing this after the fact. But I felt very strange, all of the time. Sort of distant, unmoored. Unreal. That made sense though, ja? I had learned my parents were disloyal, which mattered more than how much we loved each other. I had heard them die horribly. And eventually, I began to feel normal. Except – I am skipping ahead again, I’m sorry. It is hard to tell this in order.”

“It’s all right,” Essek said. He felt unreal, too.

“I started getting headaches,” Caleb said. “Just pain at first, beginning when I was twenty. Then they got stranger. I’d see shapes in the corners of my eyes, hear a ringing sound, that sort of thing. I should explain, there were clerics that saw to us Volstrucker, and sometimes also patients in Vergesson. You know about Vergesson?”

“In general terms,” Essek said.

“Ja, well. These clerics. They were . . . how do I explain this? Perhaps they had started out with an interest in the well-being of others. But by the time I encountered them, that was twisted out of true, or gone altogether. And I did not know the difference.” He paused, frowning at Essek. “You have a question?”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Essek said.

“No, please do,” Caleb said, with a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh.

“All right.” Essek finished applying the gel. He had not wanted to hear this. He had not wanted to know. But he was here now, listening. He must. And if he must do that, then he might as well also know some of the things he feared the most. “How involved was Ludinus?” he asked Caleb’s hands.

“Oh, schatz,” Caleb said, with immediate, terrible understanding of where Essek’s thoughts were.

Essek lifted a hand. “Please,” he said. “Don’t. Just tell me.”

“All right,” Caleb said. “He was involved, ja. Not in the day-to-day running of the training and the operations, though I find it hard to believe he was unaware of the details. But if Ikithon was unavailable, he was the next authority we were to look to, and Iresor after them both. He wanted various things done by us. I have been thinking quite a bit on that lately, trying to see if there’s anything useful in there. But he would generally accomplish it by speaking to Ikithon and having Ikithon deliver instructions to us. I was aware of some of those occasions because I was often with Ikithon, more so than my fellows were.”

So, Ludinus was, as Caleb had put it several times, complicit. Of course. Essek had known that must be true. Had been carrying the weight of it for some time. Longer than he’d realized, looking back. It was a boulder in his chest now.

“He was not . . . interested in us, I suppose you could say,” Caleb said. “We were actually a little disdainful of him. We did the real work, you see, while he smiled and stayed close to the king. He was pleasant, but in that way of someone who hardly acknowledged we existed, let alone that we were people. Not like Ikithon, who was omnipresent. Not like Iresor, who occasionally took a fancy to a young Volstrucker and bedded him. His interest in the matter being irrelevant, you understand. No,” he added off Essek’s expression. “I was not one of them. But I was warned by my elders. I’m sorry, I got distracted. Does that answer your question?”

Essek nodded. Cleared his throat. “You were speaking of clerics.”

“Ja, danke. There was this rule, you see. No one told it to us. We intuited it through experience and watching what happened to others. The rule was that we were not permitted a Greater Restoration without permission from Ikithon personally. And that permission seemed fickle, if you will. Easily given in some cases, withheld in others resulting in great suffering. And the rule did not seem to apply at all in the case of many of the older Volstrucker.”

Essek reached for the final moisturizer, a cream so thick, the paddle stood up on its own in it.

“Astrid got a restoration quite early,” Caleb continued. “She had touched a cursed object and contracted a wasting disease. It would have killed her, almost certainly. I think he had great hopes for Astrid, at that point, and he was unwilling to waste the investment in her. So she got her restoration when she was nineteen. I wasn’t there, I was on an errand in Zadash. She was . . . very quiet, when I came home.”

He checked Essek’s face to see if Essek understood what was being said. Essek nodded to show he did. “She didn’t tell you?” he asked. He tried not to make his tone accusatory. He was not at all sure, after all, what he would have done in her place.

“No. Well, to clarify. She may have told Wulf, I do not know and haven’t asked. But she most certainly did not tell me. They both thought of me as rather fragile, you see. It infuriated me. I was forever wondering what I needed to do to prove to them, and to Ikithon, that my hesitation with my parents meant nothing. That I was stronger than that.”

Essek gave up on the paddle and began massaging the cream in with his own fingers. Caleb sighed in clear enjoyment, stretching one hand and then the other. It boggled the mind that he was so unused to the pleasures of such tending.

“I think that Astrid was the most clear-eyed of all of us,” Caleb said slowly. “At the time, I didn’t see it, except to sometimes be put off by a fit of what looked like cynicism from her. Or nihilism. She didn’t value the importance of our work, I thought. Now I know she understood what we were far more than I did.”

“It sounds like you weren’t given the opportunity to understand,” Essek said. Was it poor luck or good luck, that Becke had touched that cursed object?

“Mmm,” Caleb said, making a face. “Regardless. I got headaches. Migraines, eventually. I would see a cleric and get a pain potion, or some healing if I’d become dehydrated or the like. And that one migraine would stop. But there would always be another a few months later. It was very frustrating. I was otherwise in excellent health. I was told that it is just like that sometimes. Which is true enough.” He paused and summoned a cat with a click of the tongue. “Some ice water, please,” he said. “With a straw.”

“Here,” Essek said, when the cat rapidly returned. He scrubbed his hands and held the frosty glass for Caleb while he sipped. “Better?”

“Ja.”

Essek set the glass aside and resumed the massage.

“Ikithon was also concerned,” Caleb said. “I have not spoken about him much, I know. I have talked around him. The shadow he cast over us. We learned to do that amongst ourselves. He was terrible. We hated him. We loved him. Now he is dead.” He shrugged in a very Zemnian sort of way. “It is difficult to talk about how he was with me. At least in this version of the story. He held me very close. Except when he didn’t, when he seemed to fling me away as worthless. He had great expectations of me. And yet he acted as if I had already failed to meet them. Which I thought I had.”

“But that is how it is done, no?” Essek said. “Giving someone attention, and then withdrawing it, that sort of thing. To keep them in line?”

“Ja. It was that. And other things. I am getting to that.” Caleb cleared his throat again. “He acquired a ring for me. At great expense, he said. It was supposed to help my headaches. Pumat enchanted it. He didn’t know who it was for when it was commissioned. I knew him by then, and when he saw it on my hand—” Caleb sucked air between his teeth. “Pumat and I understand each other quite well. We have discussed it since. He knows that I do not hold any ill will for what he was commanded to do.”

“What was the enchantment?” Essek asked with a sinking sensation.

“That is the second story,” Caleb said. “We are almost there. I am trying not to mix things up too much. But – are your hands clean?”

“Clean enough.” The cream was almost entirely absorbed. “What do you need?”

“In my component pouch,” Caleb said, nodding down to his thigh. “The deepest pocket on your far right.”

Essek unsnapped it and reached in. There were multiple columns of tiny pockets within, each filled. “You know they make pouches of holding for this,” he said, delving deeply.

“I know. I have my habits, though. Ja, there.”

Essek slipped a finger into a tiny pocket and retrieved a ring. It was silver, he found when he pulled it out. Plain but for a band of tiny runes on the inside, and a number of dings and scratches on the outside.

“May I?” he said, reaching for his focus.

Caleb smiled grimly. “Go ahead.”

The ring Identified itself as possessing a minor enchantment for the relief of recurrent headaches. Essek frowned, untrusting.

“Ja,” Caleb said. “He had us all well under his thumb, but he had also taught us to be clever, suspicious. So he had to be careful. Anyway. We will come back to that.”

“Okay.” The cream was well absorbed, but Essek applied another coating just so he could continue the massage.

“I was twenty-five,” Caleb said. “It was Cuersaar. Astrid was pregnant, but we did not know that yet. I got one of my migraines. I didn’t always go to the cleric for them, since I had some potions and the like as well. Nothing near as good as Caduceus makes for me, but at that point I had no experience of the kind of care he provides. Anyway, that particular migraine got very bad very quickly. We were all three of us home for once. Wulf had been away for two months straight, which I suppose is how they knew I was responsible for the pregnancy, which. Well. Never mind that. Anyway, Astrid and Wulf grew concerned and summoned a cleric. And – I do not remember hardly any of this, so I am telling you what I was told, and what I have guessed. The cleric who came was new, and something had been miscommunicated, or she didn’t know the rule, or something.”

“Oh,” Essek said, seeing where this was going.

“Ja. So she asked some questions about my history, and gave me a Greater Restoration.” He made a terrible face, like someone gazing into an abyss. “And now, the second story.” He cleared his throat. “How are those looking?”

“What? Oh. Much improved.” Essek turned Caleb’s hands over, touching the places where his fingers creased. “Normally, one would apply moisturizer and then wear cotton gloves to bed,” he said. “Which you can try. But—” he reached to his supplies and lifted one of his gloves in illustration. “Mine will not fit you.”

“Indeed,” Caleb said, mouth quirking at the comparatively tiny glove. “I like that one,” he added, pointing to the milk Essek had used.

“Oh?”

Essek thought he would claim it to be more utilitarian, quickly absorbed with no residue. Instead, Caleb smiled and said, “Ja, smells like flowers. Now I know why that scent lingers on you sometimes. And on my hair.”

That made Essek blush. Apparently, he remained vulnerable to such things. Terrible.

“I can work on your nails now, if you like,” he said. He hesitated. “You are going to have to hold still for some time during and after, though.”

Caleb nodded, hearing the warning. “Ja. I can do that. It is actually helping, believe it or not.”

“I’m glad.” Essek thought back to that talk with Verin, how he’d said the things he could do were so paltry. “Would you like to pick a color?”

He retrieved a case of polishes in glass vials. Caleb glanced over them, smiling to himself. “Your taste is apparent,” he said, sweeping a hand over the entire row of silvers and golds.

“I know,” Essek said. “You are much warmer hued than I am, so some of these would not suit. Same for my cosmetics.” He briefly schemed on changing that. He could Teleport to Rosohna for a quick shopping trip, no problem. “I was thinking something in here,” he said, directing Caleb to the blues and purples. “Or a warmer toned gold.”

“What do you think?” Caleb asked. “You will find I have little skill in these things.”

“This,” Essek said at once, selecting a rich blue. It was exactly the shade of Caleb’s dragon, which was not lost on him to judge by the look on his face.

“Sure,” Caleb said, and pecked a kiss to the tip of his nose again.

“Stop that,” Essek said, wrinkling it at him.

“No,” Caleb said. He settled back into the couch, one hand resting on the cloth Essek spread between them. “So.” He said. “Here is the second story. Also true, you will recall.”

Essek nodded, and reached for the cuticle oil.

“This one has the same beginning,” Caleb said. “It is entirely the same until I was seventeen. I did not hear my parents conspiring, as you realized.”

Essek nodded again.

“He modified our memories, of course,” Caleb said. “And then, when we went to murder our families, I did not hesitate.”

Essek looked up without meaning to. That, he had not guessed.

“Oh, yes,” Caleb said. “I did do it. We rolled a cart before the door. I set a fire. They began to scream.” He paused, audibly swallowed. “I . . . fractured. That was the beginning of—” he gestured to his temple with his free hand.

“I see,” Essek said, and bent his head back to his work.

“He was with us,” Caleb continued. “When I began to carry on – screaming, lashing out, that sort of thing – he subdued me quickly. Then modified my memory to reflect what I told you before. And it worked. I calmed. It was survivable, when I had not done it with my own hands, my own magic.”

“I have never heard of that spell being used in such a way,” Essek said. He did his best to make his voice calm and analytical, like Caleb’s was.

“No?”

“No. What I mean to say is, if that were at all a useful method for addressing the . . . kind of distress you were in, surely it would be practiced more widely, under the right circumstances.” He bit his lip, struck with the pointlessness of this observation. Of course Ikithon had not been acting to help Bren. He had merely been preserving an asset he was interested in developing.

“Ja,” Caleb said. “Caduceus called it ‘slapping wallpaper over the hole in your house.’ He was correct. And, in their way, so were Astrid and Wulf. And Ikithon. I was fragile. But I did not know it.”

Essek checked carefully, and found Caleb showed no signs of the terrible sort of shaking that had convulsed Essek yesterday. Good. He reached for his tiniest scissors and began neatening Caleb’s cuticles.

“He did it again, thirty-six times,” Caleb said, and Essek very nearly stabbed him in the thumb.

“Thirty-six,” he repeated. “How? Why?”

“The how is simple,” Caleb said, and tapped the ring. “An Identify will not reveal it, but this ring is enchanted to make the wearer uniquely vulnerable to a whole class of mind-altering enchantments, but only when cast by him. You were sort of right,” he added thoughtfully. “He was worried I was gaining power. But only in that he knew eventually I would succeed in resisting him. Because I was growing that skill with time, as one naturally does, and because I had so many opportunities to try.” He was silent a moment. “Do you have the spell?”

“. . . Yes,” Essek said. The temptation to lie was enormous, but like yesterday, his body decided for him, and if he’d tried, it would have been laughably apparent.

“Have you ever cast it?”

“Yes. When learning it, and once, after.” In order to make his predecessor believe that she had made an amateurish mistake that caused a lab accident and injuries and damage. Her confidence had cracked, and she had resigned. He had done it on pure impulse just after the accident – for which she had no culpability – and had been terrified and elated as soon as it was done. “I did . . . something with it,” Essek said slowly. “I will tell you, if you like.”

Caleb shook his head gently. “Perhaps not now,” he said. “If I stop here, I will not start again for a long time. But yes, later. I will listen, as you are listening so kindly to me.”

Essek ducked his head. Was it kind, what he was doing? It didn’t feel like it. It felt like terribly hard work, and the least he could do.

“I also intended to use it before and after the theft of the beacons,” he said quickly. “It was part of how I planned to set up a cohort of people who could plausibly have done it, to direct suspicion elsewhere if necessary.” Which he didn’t think it would have been. Suspicions would have turned immediately on the Empire, and stayed there. The Bright Queen would not have liked to believe she could have been deceived by someone close to her, and so she would not have believed it.

“I have spent some time thinking on that spell,” Caleb said, in the dry tones of an understatement. “We are taught here that there is some magic which is inherently evil. Some kinds of necromancy, that sort of thing.”

“We aren’t,” Essek said. “It is what you do with it.”

“Ja, that is what I have come to think. But there are some spells, and that is one of them, where I have a very hard time coming up with a use that I am comfortable with, let alone one that is an inherent good in the world. Jester did do something brilliant with it once, you should ask her about it. And you were speculating about a medical use. I have wondered that, too. Would there be goodness in that, if you could obtain consent, and remove the most awful ten minutes from someone’s life? I don’t know. It was done to me, and I don’t know.”

“But you remember now,” Essek said. “And you did not consent. My opinions should carry little weight, but that seems rather important.”

“Ja, that is the thing. I remember all of it now. Everything I did. Everything he did to me. And if someone offered to take some of that from me again, I would say no. It is mine to carry. I drop it sometimes. But it is mine.”

Essek set down his scissors and reached for a file. Caleb’s nails were in a disgraceful state. They had been neatly cut at some point, but that was a while ago. And sometime in the recent past he had torn his thumbnail to the quick.

“I made that sound very brave,” Caleb said, with a wry tilt to the mouth.

“It is brave,” Essek said before he could stop himself. Predictably, Caleb scoffed.

“Caduceus says that my body remembered,” Caleb said. “Even when my mind did not. He’s probably right about that. That’s the real problem. The idea of my body remembering how to be that afraid, that horrified, but to have the reason be blank. Thinking about that makes my skin crawl. It’s not bravery. It’s just that remembering is actually the more tolerable option.”

“Hmm,” Essek said. “You have your opinion. I’ll have mine.”

“Anyway,” Caleb said with a sigh. “I am distracting myself. So. He did it again. I won’t recount for you each of the thirty-six occasions. I have thought on them a great deal, trying to come up with a throughline. A theory of the case, if you will. Beauregard’s theory of the case is that he was quote a bag of used dicks end quote.”

“I have sympathy for her position,” Essek said. He washed each of Caleb’s hands one more time to clear away nail debris, then patted them dry.

“I thought we were doing the blue?” Caleb asked, watching him prep his brush.

“This is a base coat. It helps the color go on smoothly.”

“Okay,” Caleb said, in the patient tone of someone listening to an explanation about which they cared not at all. Then, “damn it, I have done it again.”

“We can move on,” Essek said.

“No, I should tell you. I have not told many, in absolute terms. Just the Nein, a few people at the Soul, a handful of other Volstrucker, someone at the Augen Trust. Reactions have been illuminating sometimes. You know how it is, you think on something so much, you completely lose sight of the forest for the trees.”

“Oh, I know,” Essek said truthfully.

“So, let’s see. At least twice he did it to reenforce his original purpose, because he thought he saw signs that I was returning to that mental state. I think he was wrong on both occasions, but I don’t know. Once – this was much later, when I was twenty-four – he told me what he had been doing to me, then removed the memory of it. Why?” He could not gesture, but the roll of his shoulders said helpless confusion. “At least three times he removed or altered some piece of work I had done on his orders, to conceal something of importance, probably, though I’m only half sure I understand what or why. I did succeed in resisting him, once, and he altered the memory of that. He altered the memory of a conversation I overheard, in which he and Iresor discussed me in unflattering terms. Again, why? When I heard it, I only wanted to try harder to please him.” He paused, took a deep breath. “He used it once to make me believe I had accidentally burned one of my fellow Volstrucker alive, and watched me react, and then used it again to overwrite the false memory. This was later on. I think he was stress testing my mind, by then.”

There was a silence. “I’m sorry,” Essek said eventually. “I really don’t have any insights to offer you.” Except that Caleb was not saying ‘why’ like a wizard thinking on something; he was saying it like a child whose parent had hurt him.

“That’s all right,” Caleb said, smiling wearily. “I think the answer, to the extent there is one, is that he did it for many reasons, and one of them was that he could.”

Essek winced a little over Caleb’s nails. He had done a number of things in his life just because he could. Nothing on this scale, he thought, but it was the sort of observation to make a person question himself. Which he was already doing quite a lot. “Did he do that to others, do you know?” Essek asked. “Or . . .?”

“No,” Caleb said. His shoulders hunched, as if he were cold. “We checked the other Volstrucker very carefully. Most had received at least one Modify Memory, of course. A few had received a second, generally for operational security purposes. So no. It was just me, as far as we can tell.” He paused, and Essek waited him out. “He kept records,” Caleb said eventually. “Of almost everything he did to us. But he recorded little about this, except to track the frequency of my headaches.” He shuddered in a suppressed way. “His records implied an interest in testing the boundaries of the spell. What it could be used for. What it couldn’t. What such extensive use would do to a mind. Mine being already damaged, you see, and thus disposable.”

Essek wasn’t so sure about that. Ikithon had gone to great lengths to keep Bren with him. Out of interest in the one experimental subject that had born fruit? Or perhaps envious curiosity over Bren’s many gifts? Not that saying so would be any comfort to Caleb.

“Anyway.” Caleb shook his head with sudden briskness. “We will be here until tomorrow if I really get going on this. Suffice it to say, I received a Greater Restoration and it was . . . upsetting. Confusing. I had two sets of memories, many of which conflicted violently. And I broke.”

“Oh,” Essek said involuntarily. He had, until that very moment, still been harboring the idea that Caleb had challenged Ikithon. Received his memories back, and become enraged, and attempted revenge on his tormenter in a wild rush, without time to plan, and so lost a wizard’s duel on a wizard’s playing field. But no. Of course that was not what had happened. Caleb had all but told him so already, Essek just hadn’t understood it.

“It wasn’t a Feeblemind, to be clear,” Caleb said. He was staring pointedly elsewhere when Essek peeked. “It was just me. My mind shattering. Astrid tried to restrain me, and I hurt her. Wulf had to break my wrist. I do not remember any of this at all, which is very strange for me.” There was a pause while Essek switched bottles and began painting blue strokes onto Caleb’s smallest nail. “Your belief in me as someone with strength and agency is misplaced, is what I’m saying,” Caleb said, when Essek suspected he did not get the reaction he was waiting for.

Essek swallowed. That was one of the kinder, if more piercing, rebukes of his thinking he’d ever received. And Caleb hadn’t even intended it as a rebuke at all.

“I think it would be very foolish of me,” he said slowly. “To blame you for not having something which had been taken from you.”

“Ja, maybe,” Caleb said, palpably dubious. What had he expected of himself, of Bren? Probably something like what Essek had been imagining, come to think of it.

“They put me in Vergesson. I had come and gone there for years. I knew all the staff, and they knew me. But that time the lock was on the outside of my door, and someone else had the key.” He breathed in, finally evincing the faintest tremor. Far past the point when he reasonably should have, in Essek’s view. “I was there for two years. Astrid birthed Leni, and I did not know. I was staring at the wall and drooling that day, probably. It’s what I did.”

Essek finished the first coat of blue with a sigh of relief and sat back to let it dry.

“I do not remember most of that,” Caleb said. “And what I do remember is strange.” He licked his lips. “I haven’t told anyone else this, but I think I could remember, if I tried hard enough. But I haven’t. Probably won’t. All that big talk about my memories being mine, and these, no.” He shook his head. “I will not have them.”

Essek touched his wrist with one finger, then carefully closed his whole hand around it when Caleb didn’t flinch from him. Caleb’s pulse was fluttering with frightening rapidity. “How did you escape?” he asked, and left it up to Caleb whether to hear that as escape Vergesson or escape your mind.

“Oh, that. They put a woman in the cell with me. I didn’t realize this until thinking on it much later, but it was actually the same cleric who I’d seen for my migraine. But she was a patient then. And she remains a patient still,” he added. “She is there, and she raves, no matter what anyone tries to do. We don’t know if it is an organic madness, or if Ikithon did something to her. In anger at devaluing his investment in me? I don’t know. Anyway. She recognized me, and in a moment of lucidity, or madness, maybe, she cast another Greater Restoration. And there I was, returned to myself.”

“That’s extraordinary,” Essek said honestly.

“Is it? Perhaps. Ikithon claimed credit for it later, that he had orchestrated it. Most of the Nein think he was full of shit, and just covering for a fuckup. But I don’t know. Maybe he did arrange it. Then again, I know my thinking concerning him is still not clear, I know I see him as more powerful than he was. There is still a part of me that believes everything I do is at his will.”

“But you are here, and he is not.” This felt paltry, but it was what Essek had.

“Ja.” Caleb smiled in an absent sort of way, and patted Essek’s hand. “Almost done,” he said, as if Essek was the one who needed soothing. Then, with a comical look of horror, “Did I just mess up your work?”

“No,” Essek said, capturing one hand and pinning it flat. “But it’s time for the second coat. Okay?”

“Ja.” He waited for Essek to begin applying the color again, and then continued. “If I’d been thinking at all clearly, I would have stayed in Vergesson. No, really. I could have had food and shelter for the winter. I could have continued to play the vegetable. Perhaps learned things. I had visitors sometimes, apparently. But I was not thinking clearly, and I panicked, and I killed the Volstrucker on guard with my bare hands and escaped with his amulet of Proof Against Detection.” The downturn of his mouth betrayed a pained grief at this. “I knew him,” he added. “That did not stop me.”

Essek had no response, so he settled for a hum of acknowledgement.

“That winter was bad,” Caleb said. “I shall not bore you with the details.” Boredom would not have been Essek’s reaction. How deep into starvation did one need to go before one’s hair began falling out? He had no idea. “The relevant facts are these,” Caleb continued. “I was bent on multiple plans at once. Again, little clarity of thought. I wanted revenge on Ikithon; I was terrified of him and wished to avoid his attention at all costs. I feared for Astrid and Wulf and missed them terribly; I was furious with them, because they had known, all along, what happened with my parents. I wondered if they knew about the rest of it; I know now they did not. My faith in our work was shattered, and I didn’t know how to feel about the Empire, whether I owed it anything, whether it was worth anything.” A pause, a breath. “I was determined, through any means necessary, to find the power and the skill in order to travel back in time and undo the deaths of my parents.”

“That is not possible,” Essek said certainly.

Caleb hummed in a noncommittal sort of way, and said, “if I told you that perhaps it was, what would you say? What would you do?”

Essek stared at him, brush poised over the bottle. “Is it?”

Caleb chose his words with visible care. “I found a potential method, yes. But we were in a terrible hurry and I didn’t have time to investigate.”

In Aeor, then, it must be. Essek bit back several hundred questions.

“And also,” Caleb continued, “by the time I found that, things had changed a great deal.”

“Oh?” Essek did not have a specific goal in mind when he thought of time travel, but he found it hard to imagine finding such an opportunity and leaving it unexplored.

“Ja. Let me go back. I spent that first winter, then I met Veth, who was not Veth at the time. That was okay, I wasn’t Caleb yet, either. We were very good for each other, and also we sort of . . . both ran feral. My plans were . . . I don’t know the right word. I planned to go back and save my parents, and to hell with the timeline. I thought that was to the good, you see. I had killed so many people, after them. A few before, too, but I didn’t think about those. My parents were the hinge upon which I would turn the world. I would save them, and by doing so, save myself from becoming that person, doing those things. It was egomaniacal, you see? It was about removing the weight I was carrying. Not really about saving anyone else. My world was destroyed, therefore to hells with the whole thing, I thought.”

Essek nodded. That made a great deal of sense.

“But we met the rest of the Nein. I have told you much of this. They changed me. Or peeled back layers to uncover someone I had lost, I’ve never been sure which it was. I did not want it. I fought it at every step, until I didn’t. I still held my plans close, but I began to . . . not doubt. But they loved me, I became certain of that. And it did not make sense that they would love the garbage person that I was. So there was a conflict, you see?”

Essek nodded, resuming his painting. He’d caught glimpses of that, too, the part of Caleb that hated himself. Essek had been puzzled and a bit put off by it before. Now, with his relationship to himself changing like quicksand beneath him, well. He didn’t understand it, still, but he had more sympathy for it.

“And then various things happened. I told you the general outline – we proved ourselves useful to the Trust. I had met Schreiber before. You must know who he is? What he does? Ja, good. Well, he recognized me. Thought I might be useful. And I came back in contact with Astrid, then Wulf, then Ikithon. I wanted him dead, but in a useless sort of way, because of course that was impossible, I thought. I had been taught to think, ja?”

Essek nodded again.

“The Nein tried to convince me otherwise. Schreiber tried to convince me, too. To root out corruption, and for some narrower political reasons of his own. He’s efficient that way. And then Wulf told me about Leni, and.” He let out a breath in a woosh. “Many things changed, very quickly. I begged to see her. They arranged it. And, well. My goals changed. I was kind of coming around to the idea that I didn’t want to destroy a timeline with the Nein in it. And then Wulf dropped the bomb and . . . fully anchored me to the present. To the future. Pinned me to it, like a bug.” He hesitated. “Don’t repeat this, obviously. But it wasn’t . . . joyous, to find out about her. I felt like I’d been punched in the throat, actually.”

“Yes, of course,” Essek said. “Ikithon had access to her?” His skin prickled with cold panic though he knew she was fine, safe with Becke as they spoke. That must be just a tiny fraction of what Caleb had felt, learning of her. And of course it had been a blow. It had destroyed Caleb’s schemes in a single stroke.

“Ja. He was . . . interested in her, apparently. Waiting to see what talents might emerge. And that was the thing. I knew we would never be safe if he lived. So I became convinced, finally, that it must be done. And I convinced Astrid, though, to be honest, she was an easier sell than I was. You were talking before about creating a base of power in the Volstrucker? That was not one of my conscious goals. But I do think it was one of hers. And when she and Wulf and I began reaching out, some reached back. But we were all half-mad the whole time, knowing Leni might become a hostage to our good behavior.”

“But you thought you would initiate a legal process.”

“Ja. Well, I was going along with Beauregard, but I was not all in. Schreiber wasn’t either, though he didn’t come out and say it. Just made little allusions to how assassins ought to lean on their core skill sets. And Astrid wasn’t convinced. She and I thought, you know, sure, try this, but when it doesn’t pan out, which it probably won’t, then the real work can start.” He paused consideringly. “The funny thing is, I think now it might actually have worked. We did subdue him. And we had a lot of evidence. Of the ways he had acted far beyond his authority, among other things. I know the king and his advisors much better now, and I think ja, there was actually a chance.”

“Are you sorry it ended like it did, though?” Essek asked. He certainly wasn’t, though he did also harbor some sympathy for Beauregard’s view that death was too good for Ikithon.

“Oh, no, not at all. It wasn’t me, to be clear,” Caleb added. “Or Astrid or Wulf. Or any of the Volstrucker who fought alongside us, in fact. It was one of his. But I am not sorry.”

Essek finished the second coat and reached immediately for the topcoat. The blue was dry enough, and Caleb had the tones of a winding down. He sounded utterly exhausted, in fact.

“We actually came to Rexxentrum to initiate the process,” Caleb said. “And also to get Leni out of the city. But it all went to shit very fast. Ikithon was warned by one of the Volstrucker Astrid and Wulf and I had so carefully picked. And he sent Iresor to catch me alone and distract me and, well. I’m sure you’re curious about all of that, but—”

“No,” Essek said quickly. “I mean, I am curious. But there’s no need to dwell on it now.” The fact that it was done was the important thing, not how.

“Danke.” Caleb watched him apply the topcoat in silence for some time. “I did not just tell you all of that for fun,” he said.

Ah, here it was. “No, of course not,” Essek said. “You wanted me to understand the difference between us. Between what was done to you, and taken from you. And the choices I made of my own free will, with every chance to choose otherwise.”

Caleb’s hand twitched under the brush. “What? Essek, nein, no. That is not what I am trying to tell you.” He swore in Zemnian. “I would not say such a thing to you. It is not true, after all. I was no innocent victim for much of that, I was complicit in my own destruction. I watched others ushered down that path, and I said nothing. And you are no villain.”

“No?” Essek finished the last nail and tucked the brush back into the vial.

“No,” Caleb said, with a firmness in his voice that had been absent for the last half of his telling. “I said all of that because I wanted you to know that I know what it is like to discover in a matter of moments that you cannot trust your own perceptions, or ideas, or thoughts.”

Essek sucked in a breath. That was painfully, precisely it. “It’s not just that he fooled me,” he said quietly. “Though that, I will not be forgetting that anytime soon. It’s that I let him do it with such confidence that I understood what was going on.” And other things, too. Essek had been preoccupied with the humiliation of being so completely fooled since he learned of Da’leth’s plans. But now, creeping in around the edges, it was occurring to him to wonder about the basic proposition. He’d felt so justified in planning to steal beacons. The Umavis were all but forcing him to do it with their shortsightedness, he’d thought. But was that really true? Beauregard’s questions lingered. Were there costs he should have weighed differently? He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know so many things, suddenly.

“Ja. And you didn’t see it, so now you wonder, what else do you not have a clue about?”

“Exactly.” Essek thumped a fist into his own thigh. “I am a wizard. If I cannot trust my own mind, then what do I have?” He stopped himself abruptly. Surely that was an unkind thing to say to Caleb, of all people.

But Caleb was nodding along, grimly sympathetic. “Ja, I know. That one is particularly sticky.”

Essek stared away, across this beautiful library born from Caleb’s mind. Caleb had survived a shattering more profound and terrible than anything Essek was currently enduring, and Caleb had thrived. “What do I do?” Essek asked, sounding far more plaintive than he’d meant to.

“You are asking me?”

“Of course. Who else should I ask?”

“What are you worried about?” Caleb said. “You did not go through with what Da’leth wanted in the end.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Essek said. Then, convulsively, “I came here at first to see if you would pick up where he’d left off.”

“Ja,” Caleb said. “I thought that might be it.”

“And I also did do things,” Essek continued quickly. “Ultimately not that, no. But other favors for him. And things before that, for myself. They didn’t trouble me at the time, even for a second. My only concern was for not being caught.”

“But now you are thinking back,” Caleb said, nodding. “Putting things in a different context.”

“Yes.” In fits and starts. Most of the time, he wanted only to put such things from his mind. But that wasn’t working very well sometimes. Right at the moment, for example. “And I keep thinking, he had me exactly where he wanted me. Did Vespin Chloras have any accomplices, I wonder? People who helped him? What’s to stop me from being the fool again? I know now that I am . . . flawed in this way. But how is that to stop it from happening?”

“Ja, well. I can tell you that I was destroyed, and I still got another chance. To look upon myself, and change. I am still doing it. I will continue doing it, probably for the rest of my life. You have the same chance. And you don’t have a surprise child forcing your hand, but I am hoping, more than anything, that you take it.” Essek was still working on a response to that when Caleb added, “Also, I told you all that because I wanted you to know me, the way I think I now know you. Because I meant what I said in Zadash.”

Essek understood the reference immediately, and his exhausted heart leapt. “Do you still?” he said quickly. “Want to share these things with me? Your life?”

Caleb looked surprised, as if that was a given. “Ja. Unless you have changed your mind about that? I would certainly understand if you had.” Which was part of the point of this whole exercise, Essek suddenly realized.

“No, I have not changed my mind,” Essek said. And why Caleb hadn’t was a mystery, but he was not going to question a gift like that. “It’s quite the opposite. I, well.” He paused, catching himself on the brink of making some rather startling declarations. Was it premature? No, after the last twenty-four hours, that was laughable. But they were both drained to the dregs. Caleb in particular. And perhaps it was not kind to subject him to Essek’s clumsy sentiments right now.

“Ja,” Caleb said quietly. Their eyes met, and a knowingness bloomed between them.

“Oh,” Essek breathed, feeling his ears flush all the way to the tips under their caps. Caleb had turned pink, which was unfairly charming.

“Can I move my hands now?” Caleb asked, a little plaintively.

“Just another minute,” Essek said, mostly to buy a moment to compose himself. If that’s what Caleb could do to him with a look and words unspoken, then . . .

The thought of what might come, the kinds of things they might want to say to each other, was too much. Essek’s body didn’t know whether it was thrilled or overclocked.

“You can move now,” he said.

Caleb stretched his arms over his head, sucked in a huge breath, bent double, and began shaking all over.

“Oh,” Essek said, terrified. “Are you – what can I do?”

“It’s all right,” Caleb said. His face was concealed, but Essek could hear his teeth chattering. “I – I just –”

“Okay,” Essek said, though it demonstrably was not. He scooted closer, flinging nail care supplies out of the way, and set a hand in the middle of Caleb’s back. He could see those strange little bumps humans got on their skin when they were very cold crawling up the back of Caleb’s neck. Okay, that was something he could address. Unlike, say, emotional exhaustion. “A blanket, please?” Essek said, making eye contact with a cat loafed across the room on top of a high shelf. “Pre-warmed, if you can manage that. And tea, whatever he usually likes.”

The cats provided with alacrity. Essek spread a heated blanket across Caleb’s back and shoulders. Two pale hands emerged and clutched the edges, and the shiver to Caleb’s breaths eventually eased. Caleb sat up after another minute, his head still ducked.

“Sorry,” he said to his lap.

“Stop it,” Essek said, probably too sharply. He deliberately moderated his tone. “Tea?”

“Ja.” Caleb looked up to accept the cup. He hadn’t been weeping, but he was visibly haggard. Essek hovered his hands close for a minute to be sure Caleb was steady enough to be managing hot liquids. “Interesting experimental results,” Caleb said after a silence.

“Mmm?”

“All the hand stuff. I thought it might keep my body occupied, stop me from—” he gestured with his cup. “What I’m doing right now. Turns out, it just kind of delayed it.”

“Hmm. Is this preferable?”

“Ach, maybe? That was certainly the most coherent I’ve ever been, telling someone that. Though perhaps Caduceus is actually right about repetition being useful,” he added darkly.

Essek was frantically thumbing through his memories of caretaking he had seen performed, for Caleb and for others. He could not provide a hot meal and wisdom, like Caduceus. He did not feel equipped for affectionate bodily harm, like Beauregard favored. What had Jester done yesterday that was so effective, when Essek was having his little episode?

“Does your tower have a hot tub?” he asked.

Caleb peered at him over his teacup. “The Mighty Nein are sometimes in residence, so yes,” he said. “Why?”

“I was wondering if you would like to partake,” Essek said. “I am told the hot water is soothing.”

“Ja, it is. I suppose I – wait.” His eyes narrowed. “Would you be joining me?”

“Oh, um. Yes? If you want?”

Caleb put his cup down decisively. “You’re telling me this—” he gestured at the conversation which still lay between them “—is what it takes to get you in there with me?”

“Well,” Essek said demurely. “The absence of others is also part of the appeal.”

“Let’s go,” Caleb said.

The hot tub was in a room a level down from the library. It was sized to contain the Mighty Nein, plus various hangers on and dependents, plus accompanying shenanigans. Caleb stripped at its edge, his hands a little unsure on his buttons. Essek was mentally workshopping various ways to offer to help, which took long enough that Caleb managed the job himself. He slipped into the water with a sigh, and immediately slid down so only his nose and eyes were above the waterline.

Essek took the opportunity to remove his own clothes and join him without being observed. Should he sit close? How close was too close? Stop overthinking. He settled on the rocky bench right next to Caleb, their thighs nearly touching.

That was the right choice, because Caleb drifted further into his space, and draped an arm around his shoulders. The feel of another person’s bare skin in the water was a strange and new sensation.

There was a silence but for gentle movements of the water. Caleb’s overstressed nerves seemed to be settling, to judge by his breathing and the steadiness of the shoulder Essek leaned on. Caleb’s hand started out clenched, but gradually opened like a flower, until it was floating, relaxed, on the water’s surface. Essek felt small, tucked underneath his arm. It was pleasant, which made for a nice change. He’d felt small in other ways for the past day. Small in the soul.

Essek rested with his eyes closed for some time. Caleb’s nerves weren’t the only ones struggling.

When he opened his eyes again, he was looking straight down at Caleb’s forearm, which drifted in the water in front of him. The scars cut across freckles and a scatter of red hairs. Essek had seen them before, of course. Touched them in passing, in moments of intimacy. Wondered about them. Now he knew. They were not all the same, he saw, looking closely. Some were small and neat, but others were larger, and a few were uneven or dark, perhaps as the result of infection or reinjury.

He bent his head and kissed one, without pausing to think about it. Caleb startled, splashing a bit.

“Sorry,” Essek said, looking up to meet his eyes. “Should I not?”

“No,” Caleb said slowly. “It’s all right. You just surprised me.” He bit his lip. “They used to trouble me more than they do now.”

“Oh?”

“Ja. They used to burn, itch, that sort of thing. I don’t think it was real,” he added, off Essek’s alarmed expression. “It was just in my mind.”

“Ah,” Essek said dryly. “’Just’.” As if Caleb’s mind wasn’t a prodigious force all its own.

“I used to cast illusions over them sometimes,” Caleb said thoughtfully. “When it seemed prudent, to avoid questions from someone who might see them up close.”

“Who – oh.” He was talking about intimate partners. Not Grieve and Becke, of course, but well, he’d already spelled this out, hadn’t he?

“Did you consider doing that with me?” Essek asked.

“No,” Caleb said at once. “That’s not a game worth playing with a mage of your caliber. And anyway,” he reached up and tweaked Essek’s coif where it was drooping a bit in the humidity. “That sort of thing is for people who come and go quickly.”

How had he known, though? It had taken Essek time to understand what was between them, and then how to pursue it. But he was beginning to think Caleb had understood that much more quickly. Was that just experience, or something else?

“You look like you’re chewing on something,” Caleb said, watching him.

Essek weighed his options. He felt entirely unequal to discerning what questions would be intrusive or, worse, hurtful. But Caleb was opening this door deliberately. “I do have a question.”

“Just one?”

“For the moment, yes. Would you like me to call you Bren sometimes? Or would that be unwelcome?”

“Oh.” Caleb clearly had not anticipated that. He opened his mouth, closed it, sat back. “No one does,” he said slowly. “I mean, people call me one or the other. No one does both.”

“Yes. I noticed. Does it cause you pain to be called that?” Or was it something permitted to a very few, like Becke and Grieve, but otherwise insupportable?

He shook his head at once. “No. It’s . . . “ he said a few words in Zemnian, then settled on, “bittersweet. Bren was a cocky fool. But he made Leni. And his name is the one my parents gave me, and it seems an insult to them to repudiate it.” He chewed his lip. “Ja, could you try it sometime?”

“Gladly.” Which was an unsatisfying way of saying what he meant. He meant that he was wild for Caleb, in every part of his body. And that he also felt a gravitic attraction to Bren, his confidence, even his viciousness. And also, after the last hour, he felt a deep tenderness for him. Something that Bren probably would not understand or appreciate, but that didn’t matter.

“Schatz,” Caleb said quietly. “Something I meant to say earlier. I hope very much that you do not . . . take on too much, from what I told you. That was not at all my intention. And there is no need.”

Essek straightened, lifting his chin. “I shall carry what I choose to, Caleb Widogast,” he said. And some things not by choice, like the way he’d shaken Ikithon’s hand. But perhaps he ought to carry that.

“Oh, I know,” Caleb said, with a rueful smile. “I’m just saying, I do not intend to add to your burdens.”

Essek scowled, but refrained from further comment. Caleb could say what he liked. Essek had learned many things in the past day, including several about himself. He could experience empathy to a painful degree, with the right person. That was something of a new discovery. He could become so fixated on his goals and his grievances that he became utterly blinkered not only to the implications of the choices he made, but also to the fact he was making them at all. A painful lesson.

But perhaps most surprising, he had found a hunger in himself to care for the damage wrought upon Caleb. He had only the dimmest idea what that might consist of, and poor instincts for any such endeavor, and even less experience. And Caleb was, of course, by far the greatest expert in navigating the troubled waters of his own mind. He did not need Essek’s aid. But Essek could ask, and he could pay attention, and if there was one thing he knew he could do, it was learn.

That would do, as a new goal to organize his thinking around, now that his last ones had turned to dust in his hands.

Caleb was, as he should have predicted, poor company that evening. Essek got charmingly waspish with him when he attempted to apologize for that, so Caleb shrugged and let it go. He was not up for much conversation, having used up all such resources for the next week at least. Unfortunately for him, Leni would be home tomorrow, full of chatter, and Miresen would follow with all of its demands. It was newly Duscar, and the students were beginning to get a bit wild around the eyes regarding exams.

Much to do. No time to wallow in the exhausted, faintly trembling, fractionally un-present state he found himself in.

He had the night, though. Wulf was in Zadash, Caduceus was home at the Grove, Leni was with Astrid. And Essek was here with him, and seemed determined to stay. That was nice. He’d practically bolted last night after dinner.

They ate in the library in front of the fire. It had been an extremely good idea to cast the Tower. Caleb had only been thinking that it was past time he showed it to Essek, and that he felt safer in the tower library than anywhere. But it was also extremely helpful to shirk many hosting duties off onto the cats.

“Ask for whatever you like,” Caleb told Essek. “Though to warn you, if I have not eaten it, results may not be as desired. And I haven’t had much Xhorhasian food.”

He himself pulled out all the tricks he knew for managing his current state of mind: a spicy seafood dish from Nicodranas that lit up nearly all his senses at once, ice cold water to wash it down, a warm fire entirely under his control, a spectral cat in his lap.

Essek was paying a lot of attention to him. Which was saying something, as his regard was generally comprehensive. He was subtle about it, at least, but Caleb was acutely aware of the weight of his gaze, the tumult behind his eyes. It was uncomfortable, but also fair, because Caleb was marshalling every bit of his fractured attention for Essek, too.

He could make some guesses about Essek’s state of mind, but that was tricky. If nothing else, Essek’s customary reserve concealed a changeable sea. He himself probably didn’t know what he was thinking one moment to the next. How disorienting that must be for him.

Essek asked if he could stay the night with a deferential tilt to his ears that Caleb did not like.

“Of course, schatz,” Caleb said. “I assume you are aware that I will likely not be a restful companion.”

“I assume you are aware that will not trouble me,” Essek said back, eyes narrowed.

They retired early. Caleb dressed in pajama pants and a long sleeved shirt. The feeling of the fabric all over his skin was helpful, sometimes. And he was pretty sure Essek knew he was not in the mood for sex, but no harm in signaling.

Essek spent his usual long time in the bathroom. They had learned that Caleb should go first, for efficiency’s sake. One of these nights, Caleb was going to ask if he could stay and watch Essek primp. What he’d done to Caleb’s hands and nails had definitely helped keep him centered today. And Caleb wanted more, not because he wanted to learn it himself, but because he liked watching Essek be an expert at things.

Essek came to bed with his hair soft but tidy, skin luminous, and that flower scent lingering around his hands. He hesitated briefly at the edge of the bed, then shucked his robe, revealing lovely pearl gray silk pajamas that Caleb had never seen before.

“May I?” Essek asked, plucking at the covers.

“Of course,” Caleb said, surprised. He lifted the blankets for Essek, pleased when he climbed in and scooted so close that they were sharing a pillow.

“Hallo,” Caleb said. They were on their sides, a few inches apart. He tucked his hands up between them, folding them around Essek’s. “Are you sleeping with me? . . . Can you sleep with me?”

“In theory, I can,” Essek said. “But I’ve probably lost the knack. I just wanted to . . . until you’re asleep. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Caleb said, touched. “Though I will remind you, there is an entire library downstairs. You are welcome to it, should you tire of watching me flop about.” He didn’t know how he would feel, were he capable of refreshing himself in four hours but sharing a bed with someone who needed nearly twice that. He suspected Essek was glad of the time alone, usually.

“About that,” Essek said. “I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier. The books in the library, they must reflect your memory of reading them?”

“Ja. My memory for the written word is generally exact, as opposed to other kinds of memory, which can be trickier. Some of the books are incomplete. Or garbled, if it’s something I just skimmed in a hurry. But many are accurate to the word.”

“Mmm,” Essek said, giving him such a look that it almost made Caleb rethink his stance on sex.

“You like that?” Caleb asked, amused. “Remind me to see if you will let me get fresh with you in the back shelves.”

“You can try,” Essek said in a reproving tone that meant Caleb was absolutely going to succeed.

They were quiet for some time. Caleb was physically and emotionally exhausted, but sleep was slow to come. And Essek was a little restless as well. He kept shifting his head and his shoulder, his brow creased in visible irritation. It took Caleb a while to figure out what the problem was.

“You don’t usually lie down, do you?” he asked, and flicked a finger at the pretty caps Essek wore on the top quarter of his ear. He’d taken out the dangling pendant earrings below, but left the caps and a set of three small gemstone studs.

Essek twitched as if goosed. “No,” he said, and made a face that Caleb could not even begin to interpret.

“Does it hurt?” Caleb asked, envisioning some sort of conjured pillow arrangement with a concave to cradle Essek’s ear. This was too nice to be ruined by jewelry.

“A bit,” Essek said. There was something stilted to his voice. He rolled on his back, stared at the ceiling in visible irritation, then huffed and sat up.

“No good?” Caleb asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

Essek didn’t speak. Instead, he reached up and began fiddling with his left ear cap. There was a click, and it came away in his hands. He peeked at Caleb, found him watching, and quickly turned to show his back while he reached for the second cap.

The ears thus revealed were longer and more pointed than Caleb had realized. They struck his eye as simultaneously sweet, with a certain catlike twitchiness, and also elegant.

Which made Caleb realize that he had literally never seen Essek’s ears before. They were always capped and heavily jeweled. And so were Verin’s, come to think of it, though he often wore caps of hammered black metal, not Essek’s expensive-looking ornaments.

That was a small sample size, but Caleb’s sluggish instincts were telling him that something interesting was happening here. And also that the deep plum color at the tips of Essek’s ears was a flush, and not the normal hue.

Essek set his caps down on the nightstand, then resettled in bed with an expression that dared Caleb to make something of it.

Far be it from Caleb to pass up an opportunity to do just that. “So,” he said, and watched in fascination as the nearest ear quivered in response to his voice. “Did you just do the equivalent of stripping naked for me?”

“Certainly not,” Essek said. Then, after a pause, “Given the way you lot parade around naked at the slightest provocation, it is not a good analogy.”

That was a deeply unfair way of characterizing necessary hot tub undressing, but Caleb generously let it go. “I see. So if I mentioned to your brother that you had—”

“Do not do that,” Essek said, rearing up like a cobra.

Caleb cracked up. “I won’t, I won’t,” he said, holding up a placating hand.

Essek gave him a mistrusting, narrow-eyed glare, but allowed Caleb to gentle him back down under the covers.

“Are you going to tell me?” Caleb asked after a minute.

“Not now I shan’t,” Essek said huffily.

“Oh, all right. I can guess, this will be fun. Let’s see, does this mean that you’re proposing a kinky diversion? I’m not getting the cultural nuances, I’m sorry, I’ll need more clues for the specifics.”

“Widogast, what – no, stop it.” He clapped a hand over Caleb’s mouth with some force. “It is merely an . . . intimate thing,” he said, primly appalled. “You absolute cretin.”

Caleb licked his hand, which Essek retracted as if it had been bitten by a snake. “Okay,” Caleb said, signaling surrender with a hasty gesture. Essek looked like he was seconds from casting on him. A good old Power Word Stun, maybe. “I’ll stop.” Which was unfortunate, because what he wanted, second most in the whole world, was to ask several probing questions about just what flavor of intimacy they were talking about. One worth blushing over, but what else?

And what he wanted most in all the world was to fondle those ears. Did Essek like them to be touched? Nibbled? Did he even know? He’d been cagey about his prior sexual experience, but Caleb had the idea it was minimal and ancient, as well as uninspiring. Had his prior lovers seen his bare ears? Was there such a thing as an ear virgin?

And by all the gods, was there anything more alluring than the transition from don’t look to look but don’t touch?

Well now. This was certainly a far more pleasant line of thinking to go to sleep to than anything he’d been working on before.

Chapter Text

Caleb slept better than Essek expected. He was very tired, obviously, but Essek had the impression that usually didn’t make much difference in the face of insomnia.

He tried to trance lying down with Caleb, but found it too difficult to achieve the appropriate mental state without the right physical cues. He had been trancing in the same seated position for a century. It might be worth trying to expand his options, but not that night. So he sat up, tranced upon the rhythm of Caleb’s breathing, and resurfaced only three times when Caleb briefly woke.

Once he was refreshed, he tucked himself back down under the blankets. Caleb stirred at that, but Essek rested a hesitant hand on his chest, and he resettled. Which left Essek alone in the colorless world of darkvision. There were no sounds in this conjured tower except for their breathing and the occasional distant rustle of a cat going on about its cat business.

Essek stayed there for over an hour. It was unusual for him to fill a block of waking time with only thoughts. Even when he was working on a difficult arcane problem, he would attempt to facilitate his thinking by turning to another project, or mapping out the problem on parchment, or similar. Now, though. How did you map out a problem on parchment when the problem was yourself?

Eventually, he did slip out of bed and go down to the library. Which, yes, he did like a great deal, thank you. He didn’t want to be away for long, so he walked the aisles for a few minutes, scanning titles and collecting a small stack to bring back to bed.

In the morning, they wandered in and out of the bathroom as they both readied for the day. They’d never done that before. It had never even occurred to Essek that this was a kind of intimacy that one might want.

Things felt different between them. It was a laughable understatement to say that much had fallen away. Several pretenses, at least on his part. He didn’t know exactly what it was for Caleb. A holding back, maybe. Because – yes, of course – Caleb felt bound to tell him some of those things, but also thought that Essek would repudiate him after. Well, he was just going to have to learn to live with Essek’s grief and righteous fury and care instead. At least as soon as Essek figured out how the hells to express any of that.

He was thinking about that as he stood at the bathroom counter, selecting jewelry for the day from a case he kept in his Secret Chest. Caleb came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.

“Does all of it mean something?” he asked, eyes flicking from ear caps to rings to pendants.

“Some, not all.” Essek selected a pair of delicate platinum earrings with a dangling pendant in a fractal pattern. “These are just because I like them.” He threaded the first through the appropriate piercing. “We are expected to wear some representation of the dodecahedron on our person every day.”

“Mmm.” He could see Caleb squinting to himself in the mirror, consulting that memory of his. “You don’t, though,” he said eventually. “Unless it’s subtle and I am missing it.”

“I don’t,” Essek said. “Not here. I often do in Rosohna, though one can get away without anything visible. In the right circumstances, it is assumed one keeps one’s talisman private.”

“Mm-hmm,” Caleb said, clearly understanding that Essek did not keep any such thing.

“I have the right pieces, obviously,” Essek said, and unfolded an entire layer of the case containing appropriately devout jewelry.

“Of course you do,” Caleb said. Then, before Essek could begin to interpret an odd undertone to that, Caleb turned and licked the tip of his ear.

Essek jumped and made a horrible strangled squawk. His breathing ran wild as his belly crackled with a sudden shock of sensation.

“Bren!” he snapped, because he knew damn well who he was dealing with here.

“Oh,” Bren said, eyes wide in faux apology. “I’m sorry, schatz, you’re right. You’re about to put some of those pretty caps on, and here I am getting your poor ear wet. Here, let me—” and the bastard blew on the trail of dampness.

Essek clamped his teeth on a shriek and elbowed him hard in the gut. Served him right.

“Okay, okay,” the unbelievable wretch wheezed. “Sorry, I’ll stop.” Essek reached for a pair of platinum ear caps, and pointedly did not allow him close again until they were on. “Sorry,” Caleb said again, sidling up behind him and tucking his chin over Essek’s shoulder. “I’m terrible, I know.”

“Indeed,” Essek said repressively.

“I mean,” Caleb said, all wide eyes and entirely unrepressed, “can you blame me? I just really needed to know if I should do that the next time I’m fucking you.” He smiled into the mirror. “And now I know. Isn’t that right?”

Essek did not dignify that with a response, though judging by Caleb’s face, his flushing silence was enough.

The cats laid an impressive breakfast spread in what Caleb said was mixed Empire and coastal style. There was a fruit platter and flat breads and a gleaming pile of cold smoked fish, and also two different preparations of potatoes – of course – and eggs and toast. They lingered at the table, chatting and being quiet by turns. It was the first time they’d been truly alone for this long since Zadash. There was almost always someone else around in Caleb’s home, which Essek was aware of in the back of his mind, even through a closed door. For himself, he disliked having most people in his home even briefly, but he knew Caleb took comfort from the presence of his friends and family.

Caleb was restful to be around. Essek would say that of very few people. He was acutely aware of it, though, as he watched the hands on the clock move. Caleb doubtless had things he must do today, and Essek would need to go. And the prospect of that opened a dark pit in his belly. Where would his thoughts run, outside of Caleb’s centering influence?

They both prepared spells, and Caleb immediately cast Mind Blank. Essek had seen him do this before of a morning. He had thought it quirky, once upon a time. A dramatic and profligate expenditure of power. Then he had begun to sense that dark waters lay beneath this habit. And now he knew.

Caleb twitched as soon as he was done and reached into one of his pockets.

“Ja,” he said, pulling out a Sending Stone. “He’s with me. I’ll ask.”

Essek knew before Caleb even looked up. “Beauregard?” he confirmed.

“Yes. We do not have to do this now. She will wait, if you prefer.”

Essek sighed and shook his head. “What’s the point? Let’s get it over with. Unless—do you have time today? You were planning on joining us?” The prospect of Caleb not being there was only marginally worse than the prospect of Caleb being there. A real lose-lose proposition, that one.

“Ja, of course,” Caleb said. “I have the time. And if I didn’t, I would make it.”

“Okay,” Essek said, and nodded to himself. “Yes. Now.”

Caleb cast Sending. “Yes, we are available. The tower door is in my bedroom, come to the salon.” He listened to a response, then said to Essek. “She is on her way. I must tell you . . .”

“Yes?”

“Beauregard conducted more than half of the interviews I gave before the Soul. To give evidence. It was difficult. I was glad it was her. It was excruciating that it was her.”

Essek nodded. “I imagine she is very good at what she does,” he said.

“She is. Which also means that if you ask to pause, or you want to go back to talk about something again, or you want to skip over something, she will listen to you. And she will help keep everything organized. Okay?”

Essek looked away. “That’s not . . . I appreciate what you’re saying. But this is not . . . this is merely humiliating.” Brutally humbling. “Not painful in the way I think you experienced.”

“All right,” Caleb said, in the way of someone thinking his own thoughts. “Shall we bring some tea?”

They set up on a sofa in the library with an armchair facing them. Essek appreciated the presentation – Caleb at his side, Beauregard facing them both. It certainly wasn’t lost on her when she arrived.

“Yo,” she said, swinging over the arm of the chair and leaving one leg dangling. “Sup, wizards.”

“Guten morgen,” Caleb said, smiling with his eyes the way he did at the rest of the Nein.

Beauregard’s attention zeroed in on Essek. “You up for this, man?” she said, brusque but not unkind.

“Yes, of course. I really don’t know what came over me the other day.”

She snorted. “Okay, sure, let’s go with that.” She pulled out a notebook and quill. “You know why we’re here? Look, I’ve gotta ask,” she said off his expression. “They, like, make me do extra empathy-is-the-path-of-justice meditations if I don’t.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” he said dryly. “Yes, I understand the purpose. You want to know about my dealings with Da’leth in the hope it will illuminate his current whereabouts or plans.”

“Yup. You have any questions before we start?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your notes, what happens to them? Are they just for you, or do they get filed at the Soul? Read by others?”

“Mmm, yes to both, actually. This guy and me—” she gestured to Caleb “—we have a lot of original documents in connection with this whole thing.” She encompassed the proposed apocalyptic scrambling of arcane power and the release of a god eater with a loose roll of the wrist. “We’ve been holding it close to the vest. But I do keep some very senior people at the Soul in the loop, with summaries and copies and shit.”

“Okay.” He locked his hands together in his lap. “Does my name need to be involved, then? It’s just that, if what I planned to do became known in the Dynasty . . . even if it didn’t happen, I’m not sure how much my life would be worth.”

“Oh, huh.” She sat back in thought. “Yeah, I hear you. Okay, yes. We do have protocols for this sort of thing. Unnamed informants and shit. I’ll be straight with you though, dude, I’m pretty sure if someone who knew what’s what in the Dynasty got hold of my personal notes, they’d be able to figure out who you were by context. By the fact you were in a position to talk to me at all, if nothing else. I can obscure that in the readout I give to my superiors, but . . .”

He nodded, feeling a faint prickle of fear sweat on the back of his neck. Ridiculous. He hadn’t been this afraid mere weeks away from executing the heist, and now he was finding his cowardice? Where was that when he’d needed it? Then again, his plans had involved the wholesale destruction of evidence, not deliberately creating a paper trail.

“How likely is that?” he asked. “That your personal notes would fall into the wrong hands?”

“Extremely unlikely,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “You’re not the first person whose put it on the line to tell me something, okay? I take that very seriously. And Caleb helps with the magical end of security.”

He glanced at Caleb, who was listening soberly, a teacup cradled in his hands. Caleb had talked to her. Caleb had testified, and asked his fellow Volstrucker to testify. He’d trusted her, even half-convinced as he was that it would do no good. How could Essek do any less?

“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

She wanted to know everything. The following four and a half hours were exhaustive and exhausting. She took him through a summary of events first, writing frantically, then paused in thought, nodded to herself, and went back to the beginning.

She took the lead when it came to his interactions with Da’leth, asking so many detailed questions about times and dates and exact words that it left Essek deeply humbled about the capacity of his memory.

“It’s fine,” Beauregard said, once she realized how frustrated he was getting. “It happens to everyone. Well, to normal people,” she added, with a pointed look at Caleb.

Normal, was he? How droll.

Caleb did not say much, except when it came to details of the theft itself. He was very interested in what assistance Da’leth had offered. Which made sense, as perhaps the tools he had offered to Essek reflected some of his own concealment measures now.

“He was going to lend me a circlet,” Essek explained. “It was going to change hands right before, so I never actually saw it. I have the impression it was extremely rare. It was supposed to be able to almost completely obscure divine-based perception. To render the wearer nearly undetectable to beings of divine origin, I mean, not just make the wearer impenetrable to divination, as you are.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said. “I don’t recall ever seeing him wear such a thing, but it does seem useful in his particular endeavors. And we certainly haven’t found it in his tower.”

“Could Pumat have enchanted that?” Beauregard asked.

“I don’t think so?” Caleb said, sounding dubious. “He is extremely accomplished, but I am not sure that is within his capabilities. Also, he has been forthcoming with me in the past year, and I think he would have mentioned it. That sounds like something on the order of a Vestige, honestly.” Then, to Essek, “It’s interesting to me that Da’leth made the offer. Did he have an opinion as to the nature of the Luxon?”

“No,” Essek said. “We only discussed that in passing, as it was not of primary interest to either of us. He just said it was worth hedging our bets, and I agreed. And it would serve to obscure me from divine-based detections by the clerics and paladins, anyway, including some higher order methods they have to view events in the past.”

Caleb also had several questions on the beacons themselves, in line with some conversations they’d had before. Essek couldn’t satisfy him very much, though, as they were on entirely theoretical ground. If only he’d been allowed to pursue his beacon research, he could have been much more helpful.

Then again, if he’d been allowed to pursue his beacon research, he would probably not be sitting here discussing this at all.

Talking of the beacons was almost enjoyable, at least. Piecing together the ladder of favors and entanglements between himself and Da’leth was not. How was it possible that he had not seen it? Caleb had understood the shape of it immediately, back in his study under the Zone of Truth. Did he have experience in watching Da’leth work in that way, to bring a person under his influence? Or was the method itself so basic as to be obvious?

Caleb and Beauregard exchanged a number of odd looks as Essek spoke. Beauregard was pulling increasingly strange faces, and Caleb was giving back a sort of ‘don’t look at me’ bafflement.

“What?” Essek finally asked, thoroughly rattled.

“Ah, sorry,” Caleb said. “We are just a little surprised that Ludinus was able to . . . restrain himself to the degree necessary for what you are describing.”

“What?” Essek said again, puzzled. He had found Da’leth to be a calm, rather centered person. Essek had never considered him a friend – would not have, even if he had been interested in any such thing from anybody. But a colleague, yes, certainly.

“Hmm,” Caleb said, and made a face. “You recall our discussion of some of the unsavory views held by our peoples toward each other?”

“He means Da’leth was a massive fucking racist,” Beauregard said. “Regarding drow, in particular. I barely met him and even I knew that.”

“. . . Oh,” Essek said. “I did know that, actually. He, ah. He acted as if I were the exception.” It was one of those disorienting moments when something radically recontextualized itself as it came out of his mouth. Da’leth had never been so crass as to say that Essek was smarter, more worthwhile than the rest of his people, but he’d made it clear. At the time, Essek had thought little on it, except to be passingly glad that Da’leth was at least not human. It all had a very different complexion now. How Da’leth’s opinions had subliminally pleased him. How sour the aftertaste of that was.

“Riiiight,” Beauregard drawled.

What was it Caleb had said? Finding vile things in his head? Digging them out. If that’s what this was, the process reminded Essek horribly of descriptions he had once read of an ancient drow funeral practice involving the removal of the brain via a hook inserted up the nose. At least the corpses were dead for the procedure, unlike himself.

“He actually had a reputation for being a bit of a fossil about it,” Caleb said. “The thought being that his views were better suited to two centuries ago.” When their nations were bent on outdoing each other in atrocities. “Not today, when mutual suspicion would do.”

“Well, yeah,” Beauregard said. “That’s what you get from people who were there two centuries ago. No offense,” she added to Essek.

“None taken,” Essek said distractedly. “I was not there, either.” How strange it was, to hear the views of the shorter lived races. And refreshing to hear anyone speak of longevity with something other than desire or reverence. Followers of the Luxon believed in change, of course. That was inherent to the push towards perfecting the soul. But in Essek’s experience, many parts of the self seemed to harden over centuries, become more fixed, certain in their righteousness.

The telling inevitably led to that final in-person meeting, when Ikithon had attended. Essek supplied the facts, eyes on his hands.

“Huh,” he heard Beauregard say, clearly not directed at him. “Interesting. That fucker wrote down everything, but we didn’t find anything about Ludinus’s whole scheme in his papers, did we?”

“No,” Caleb said, sounding far more composed than Essek felt. “Perhaps he didn’t know the true goal? Wheels within wheels, that sort of thing.”

Caleb did not hold his hand, as Jester had, or offer any other physical touch. He sat by Essek’s side throughout, refreshed everyone’s tea at need, and listened soberly. Essek was miserable and humiliated under his attention, and he was also unspeakably grateful for it.

Beauregard’s questions did not stop when they chronologically reached the point where Da’leth had fled Rexxentrum and begun playing dead.

“I did Send to him,” Essek said. “He missed a scheduled conversation we were to have. This was after he’d fled but before the Lens got word of it all. He didn’t reply.”

“Interesting that he waited until you were here,” Caleb said. “Was he occupied with something for the past year?”

Essek bit his lip, then said what he was thinking. “Or did he not care? Did he think he had me where he wanted me, and I would go along even if he left me dangling for over a year?”

“Would you have gone through with it?” Beauregard asked. “If he had reached out, say a week after he fled. Said it was all fine, he was setting up a new base of power?”

“I . . . don’t know,” Essek said slowly. “I would have had reservations, certainly. That he no longer had the resources to do the things we had discussed.”

Beauregard lingered around Essek’s arrival in Rexxentrum for some time. Essek eventually realized that she was working very hard to make sure Caleb had connected the dots regarding Essek’s motives for seeking him out. It was a kind way to go about it, in a sense. He was very tired by then, though, so he eventually just said, “Caleb is aware of my intentions, if that is what you are circling around.”

“Ja,” Caleb said quietly. “Though I must say, you were taking your sweet time about it.”

“I got distracted,” Essek said, nettled, and Beauregard snorted loudly.

“I bet,” she muttered. “Okay, let’s talk about these Sendings.”

They went over the three Sendings he’d received, and then Essek realized they didn’t know to ask about Hass.

“Oh, shit, really?” Beauregard said, once Essek had recounted the conversation. “Lead with that next time, dude.”

“Sorry,” Essek said. “I should have said something on Folsen. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.” Was he thinking clearly now? He continued to ask that. He continued not to know.

“Can we use this?” Beauregard asked Caleb. “Get Hass to start talking? He might know a lot more.” More than Essek did, she meant. Because it was becoming clear to all of them that he knew shockingly little. Had not been told. Had not asked.

“Ja, maybe,” Caleb said. “Let me think on the best way.”

“Okay.” Beauregard turned back to Essek. “Let’s put these Sendings on a timeline and compare that to what we know Da’leth was doing with this woman in the Dynasty. And what you and Caleb were doing here.”

They did that, and Beauregard was, indeed, very good at this, because the timeline did clarify some things.

“Okay,” Beauregard said, tapping a rapid beat on her knee. “So he started cultivating this woman right before you left the Dynasty. Presumably he knew where you were going. How much visibility does he have in the Dynasty anyway?” she added in frustrated tones.

“A great deal more than I ever knew,” Essek said bitterly.

“Yeah, well, it’s fucking hard to get anything out of you guys,” Beauregard said.

“I shall pass your compliments to the Aurora Watch,” Essek said.

She returned to her timeline. “Let’s assume he still thought he was in with the main chance on you, but he wanted a backup plan. But he didn’t try all that hard with you, is the thing. Three Sendings. And no strong arm tactics.”

“I would not have responded well to those,” Essek said. “I’m sure he knew that.”

Beauregard and Caleb exchanged a look. “She’s talking about blackmail,” Caleb said gently. “Not other kinds of coercion.”

Essek felt his ears flatten. “I would not have responded well to that, either,” he said stiffly.

“Who does?” Beauregard said. “But let’s be clear about this, okay? He does have enough on you to cause you real problems back home, right?”

“. . . Yes,” Essek said, a slow sinking sensation creeping through him. “I could talk my way through a few of the favors I did him, on their own. But it’s the – the pattern of them. The weight. And also the favors he did me. And the secrecy. All of it together,” he shook his head. “I would have a very uncomfortable time. Lose my position, at the least. Much more, at most.”

“Okay,” Beauregard said, and he belatedly realized that was one of those questions she asked not to find out the answer, but to make sure he couldn’t avoid knowing it.

“Am I a similar threat to you?” Caleb asked abruptly, a new tension to his shoulders.

Essek attempted to wave that away. “No, no. That is, no more than I am to you, I think. I was deliberately transparent about our involvement. I imagine no one is thrilled—” his thoughts went briefly to the Umavi, then skittered away “—but I have played up the geopolitical upsides.” And the Dusk Captain and Bright Queen both harbored a certain romanticism about, well, romance. Essek had found that annoying in the past. Very handy now.

“Ja,” Caleb said, making a face suggesting he’d had some conversations of a similar geopolitical bent.

“Okay,” Beauregard said, herding them back to the point with impatient gestures. “So maybe you weren’t worth the risk, if Da’leth thought you might be a loose cannon if threatened? I mean, you’re more powerful than this woman he was working on in the Dynasty, right?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “Politically, magically. Both.”

“But you and Ludinus, you’re on the same level, right?”

Essek looked away. Sighed. Shifted in his seat. Now this was a moment when he dearly wished Caleb wasn’t here.

“Essek?” Beauregard prompted, though his reaction had already told her what she needed to know.

“No,” he said quickly. “He had the advantage of me. I attempted to conceal that, but I suspect he knew.”

“Can you be more specific about that?”

Of course she wanted the details. Essek bit the inside of his lip.

“Ludinus can cast at the ninth quantum,” Caleb said gently. “And if I am not mistaken, I believe Essek casts at the seventh or eighth.”

“Eighth,” Essek confirmed to the far wall.

“Okay,” Beauregard said. “That’s pretty close, though?”

He and Caleb both made dubious noises at the same time, which caused Essek to look involuntarily at him. Caleb was looking back, and there was no pity there, at least.

“There is a significant difference,” Caleb said, in a masterful understatement. The quanta ascended geometrically, not uniformly. The difference between the first and the second was a small puddle, easily hopped over. The difference between the eighth and the ninth was a vast ocean. One Essek had yet to navigate.

“But you’re in his weight class, right?” Beauregard asked Caleb. “You could throw down?”

“Ja, I suppose,” Caleb said with audible reluctance. “I would really prefer not to one-on-one. He has the advantage in age and experience.”

What a thought. Essek couldn’t tell whether the idea of them dueling was more thrilling or horrifying.

“Okay, but my point is,” Beauregard said, turning back to Essek. “The difference between you and him is a lot smaller than the difference between this Driera and him, right? So maybe he thought he had a cleaner shot with her, if it came down to the hard sell?”

“Yes,” Essek said. That was an explanation, but he was unconvinced.

“He could also have been concerned with Essek’s proximity to me,” Caleb said.

“Yeah, that’s true. We know he had Hass, at the least, feeding him intel about how buddy-buddy you were getting. That does make some sense of the timing, with these three Sendings sort of clustered together a while after you got here.”

“And he gave up on me after the third,” Essek said. “And possibly based on how I didn’t respond as desired to Hass’s . . . gossip.” He sighed in frustration. “I should have played along. We could have a line on him now.”

“No,” Caleb said quietly, definitively. “You should not have.”

“I do want to know, though,” Beauregard said. “Why didn’t you? I get you thought you could just do the whole scheme with Caleb, but you couldn’t have been sure he’d be interested, or go along. And Da’leth was a sure thing. I don’t get it.”

“Oh, well,” Essek pressed his lips together.

“Come on,” Beauregard said after the silence stretched. “This is what you’re gonna get squirrely about?”

“I was cultivating him,” Essek said, horrified to hear the sulkiness in his voice.

He regretted that immediately when Beauregard said, “Uh-huh, cultivating.”

“I liked you better,” Essek said to Caleb, perhaps somewhat confrontationally. “I wanted to steal the beacons when I came. Then I wanted to steal them with you.”

“He means he wanted the D,” Beauregard whispered loudly.

“I also like you much better than I like Da’leth,” Caleb said, mouth quirking. He looked pleased, though.

Beauregard declared herself done “for now” shortly after that. “Let one of us know if you remember anything else, okay?” she said, snapping her notebook shut. She’d filled nearly half of it in the course of the conversation, by Essek’s reckoning. A lot of pages to say Essek Thelyss got played for a fool and doesn’t know anything of value about it.

“I will,” Essek said. He felt wrung out like a used sponge.

Beauregard swung her feet to the floor. “Oh, by the way,” she said casually. “What will you do when Da’leth circles back and does try to blackmail you? Just curious.”

Essek paused in the act of preparing to stand. He looked slowly from her to Caleb, who had not yet moved. Caleb had known this was coming. Or perhaps he just knew her methods.

“Do you think that likely?” Essek said. Then answered his own question. “Yes, I suppose it might be. If he wants something from me. I’m not sure what, though. I can very plausibly tell him that the heist is now too risky, with new security measures.”

“How about your silence?” Beauregard said. “Presumably you’re a loose end now.”

“I suppose,” Essek said dubiously. “But I thought we had just established that I, to speak in your terms, do not know shit.”

This actually made her smile at him. “Yeah, fair,” she said easily. “But you still haven’t answered the question.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose it would depend on the circumstances. What the approach was, what he threatened, what he demanded. I do have ways to protect myself.”

Beauregard sighed like he was a deeply disappointing student. “My gods,” she muttered. “Essek, my man. My dude. Smartest dipshit. The answer is ‘I will tell Caleb immediately.’”

“Oh,” Essek said, blinking. “Well, yes. I suppose that’s – yes.”

“What Beauregard is trying to say,” Caleb said, and he did put his hand over Essek’s now, “is that you should tell one of us right away. And we will do everything we can to help you.”

“Oh,” Essek said again, looking between them. Beauregard had framed it as a kind of threat; Caleb had made an offer of aid. If you averaged it out, you probably got close to how they operated. Also, they weren’t wrong. He really wasn’t used to having somebody he could tell about a thing like that. “Yes,” he said. “I will do that.”

Beauregard left at last. They went into the material tower to walk her out, and met Grieve coming in.

“Good timing,” Caleb said.

Grieve rarely acknowledged Essek with more than a glance. He stared lingeringly now, though. Essek wondered a bit worriedly just how bad he looked.

He hovered uneasily as Grieve reported to Caleb in Zemnian. The part of his mind that was always looking for the advantage wondered if he could get away with a covert casting of Comprehend Languages. No, stop it. Caleb seemed to hold some trust in him still, as unbelievable as that was. Essek might be all sorts of a fool, but he was not fool enough to sabotage that.

“Danke,” Caleb said, turning from Grieve. “I’ve got a little errand to run, schatz,” he said, brushing his hand down Essek’s back.

Ah, so this was goodbye. Essek felt an upwelling of unreasonable panic. He’d been in Caleb’s company for a full day at this point, and he didn’t want to think what it would be like to be out of it. Plunged into the dark and cold, perhaps. Was this how daylighters felt about the sun? They did speak of it as such, sometimes.

What an uncomfortably luxonic analogy to make.

“Ah,” Essek said, resolving to behave in a reasonable fashion. “I suppose I ought to leave you to it, then.”

“Or you could come with me,” Caleb said, keen eyes on his face. “If you would like a little outing?”

“Yes,” Essek said. Then, flushing, “that is, where are we going?”

Caleb smiled a little. “To Caduceus’s family home in the Savalirwood,” he said. “I think you will find this interesting.”

Essek assumed that was a polite fig leaf over the fact that he was clinging to Caleb like a child. But it turned out Caleb was being entirely truthful. Essek had anticipated a frozen northern landscape, and was puzzled when Caleb said they would not need winter outerwear. The reason for this became clear when Caleb teleported them into a shockingly balmy afternoon. Essek could see clouds scudding rapidly overhead, and the sky was heavy and gray. But it was as if they stood in a bubble of spring, surrounded by greenery and warm, damp air.

“Caduceus says that the Wildmother loves this place,” Caleb explained, smiling at Essek’s reaction. “It’s hard to argue with that.”

“Indeed,” Essek said. Good grief, was this what it was like to worship an actual present and interventionist god? Boons and patent blessings unmistakable? Back home, he’d heard the Umavi tut and sniff over the followers of other gods. What cheap worship it must be, they would say, when all was handed to you on a silver platter for the asking. Not like the Luxon, where devotion took work of the soul, and dedication, and profound attention to catch the subtle ways the Luxon acted on the world. So subtle, Essek privately thought, that they could easily be the result of wishful thinking or confirmation bias.

They walked a well-trod path through what turned out to be a graveyard. Essek had heard of the corruption of the Savalirwood, but seeing the evidence through the fences was shocking. Caleb pointed out the crystal shapes planted throughout the grounds for protection, then sighed.

“Caduceus has a ritual he’d like to perform,” he said. “To protect the whole area. Rededicate it to the Wildmother. But he must cast every day for a year, and he refuses to leave me for that long.” His expression said he felt significant guilt about that.

“Of course not,” Caduceus said, coming around the next corner in time to hear the end of this. “I’ve told you how grateful I am. Other people’s problems are always so much more amenable than your own. Hello,” he added to Essek, smiling widely. “Would you like to come in? We were just about to set out lunch.”

They ended up staying for nearly two hours. Caduceus’s den were all extremely peculiar people who somehow managed to set Essek at ease in a way he rarely experienced. Lunch was excellent – stuffed mushrooms, a grain salad bursting with unseasonably perfect vegetables, and sourdough bread. Caleb was apparently a favorite of the youngest Clay sibling. Perhaps it was all adolescents, not just those at Soltryce, who were charmed by his sober attentiveness and gentle whimsy.

“I do like this place,” Caleb said to him quietly after lunch, as Caduceus conducted them around on a tour. The hot springs struck Essek as geologically unlikely, if beautiful. Another blessing, perhaps.

“Yes, me too,” Essek said. He leaned into Caleb’s side, and Caleb’s arm slipped around his waist. He felt entirely calm and centered now, as if the panic and turmoil of the morning hadn’t happened. It would come back; the past few days had demonstrated that. But for now, he was steady.

Caleb teleported the three of them home eventually, saying that it was nearly time for Leni to arrive. It turned out he had slightly misjudged, because the first thing Essek saw when they appeared in the family room was the look on Archmage Becke’s face. Caleb’s arm was still around him; Essek had adjusted his float such that Caleb’s hand rested, intimate and warm, just below his hip.

“Ah, hallo, hase,” Caleb said, and only removed his arm in order to sweep up Leni.

“Hi vati, hi Caduceus, hi Essek!” She permitted her father to kiss the top of her head, then wriggled down and presented herself before Essek.

“Hello,” Essek said, and retrieved the required tribute. He caught Becke’s reaction to that out of the corner of his eye, and then a bit of what followed as Caleb communicated something over his head to her. Essek disciplined himself not to look further. It was hard to ignore the low-voiced exchange in Zemnian, though, brief as it was.

Becke attempted to depart quickly after that. She was detained by Leni, who switched from happy attendance upon Caleb’s discussion of what they would do together that week to near instantaneous clinging to her mother.

Grieve stepped in, and the three of them facilitated a transfer to Caleb’s arms and Becke’s departure with the briskness of extensive practice.

“Ja, it is hard,” Caleb said, hitching Leni up in his arms and pacing across the room. “Do you want to be sad for a while, or would you like me to show you something interesting?”

“Something interesting,” Leni said in a wobbly voice.

“Ah, well, look down at my fingers. What do you see?”

This ploy worked miracles, and five minutes later, Essek found himself sitting down to paint her nails. Leni sniffed judgmentally over the colors he had on offer, and eventually chose “the sparkliest” silver. Essek cut his usual manicure routine down to just a quick hand wash, and then two coats of color. Caleb sat with them, keeping Leni occupied with a book of Zemnian children’s stories, which he translated on the fly for Essek’s benefit.

Grieve disappeared down the stairs a few minutes later in response to a ring at the bell, and when he came back, Verin was on his heels.

“Oh,” Essek said, looking up. “I meant to Send to you, I’m sorry.”

“Uh-huh,” Verin said, taking in the scene. “Gotta say, this is not the compromising position I thought I’d find you in.”

“I picked the sparkly one,” Leni informed him.

“That’s because sparkles are the best,” Verin said, confirming Essek’s personal theory that he had the soul of a five year old. “Did you know there are people who work in the Lucid Bastion who literally dive out of hallways when they see him coming?” he added to Caleb. “They think he’s intimidating or something, I don’t get it.”

“Really?” Caleb said with undue interest.

“There are not,” Essek said repressively.

“There absolutely are,” Verin stage whispered to Caleb.

“How fascinating,” Caleb said. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“He would not,” Essek said.

“Essek, that’s rude,” Leni said severely, and even Grieve laughed.

“No thanks,” Verin said. “I’m meeting Evalora. I just wanted to check you hadn’t decided to abduct him or something.” He sounded entirely unconcerned about the prospect. “Are you staying the night?” he added to Essek.

“Oh, um,” Essek said, taken aback.

“Ja,” Caleb cut in firmly. “He is. He will be returned to you in the morning, in good working order.”

“Oh-ho,” Verin said, grinning. “Well, don’t stay up too late – what’s the appropriate wizard metaphor?” he threw at Grieve.

“Reading each other’s spellbooks,” Grieve said unexpectedly. Truly, it was unreal how Verin got people to like him.

“Ha, that,” Verin said. He took one more look at Essek, bent back over Leni’s nails. “Man,” he said with a sigh. “I could make so much money off this story back home, except I can’t since literally no one would believe me.”

“Go away,” Essek said. Then, preemptively to Leni, “You’re allowed to be rude to your brother, it’s in the rules.”

“I don’t have a brother,” Leni said thoughtfully. She was clearly calculating who to propose take one’s place as the object of permissible rudeness.

“Count yourself fortunate,” Essek said, and heard Verin laugh on his way out.

Leni’s nails were eventually declared sufficiently sparkly. Caleb gently prompted her to recall her manners, but instead of merely thanking Essek, she opted to fling her arms around him and squeeze.

“Oh,” Essek said, deeply startled. She bounced away before he could collect himself to do so much as pat her.

It was an interesting afternoon. Essek observed Caleb and Grieve sharing a fair amount of silent communication as Leni flitted from activity to activity. He had the sense they were attempting to manage something, but he didn’t immediately understand what. Leni’s energy seemed fragmented and rather intense, but Essek had little scale on which to judge that.

Eventually, Caleb re-cast his tower on the family room wall, and they all trooped up to the eighth floor, which was indeed a wondrously appointed playroom. That wasn’t the top of the tower, either – there was another closed iris above.

“That one’s locked,” Leni informed him. Essek assumed it would be something like an arcane laboratory, perhaps, a wizard’s playroom where a child should not go. But then she added, “no one’s allowed up there except vati.”

“It’s just some . . . complicated memory aids up there,” Caleb said quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

What on Exandria did he need memory aids for?

Leni lost interest in them and ran off to a complex set of ropes and platforms that ran from floor to ceiling in one corner, where she began swinging and climbing like a monkey. This lasted only five minutes, though, until she realized that Grieve had slipped away, whereupon she abruptly burst into tears.

Essek kept himself out of the way while Caleb handled that, and got her re-engaged with a set of carved wooden animals.

“Is she all right?” he asked quietly when Caleb returned.

“Oh, ja,” Caleb said, dropping down on the couch next to him. “These days are hard for her, going from one of us to the other. It’s much better than it used to be. She’ll settle down in a few hours.”

They talked idly for a time, Caleb’s arm stretched along the back of the couch behind Essek’s shoulders. Essek would have expected it to be boring, to watch a child play and have Caleb get up and down to field her questions and problems and bids for attention every five minutes. And it was, in a sense. But it was also unexpectedly soothing to the nerves. In a different way than the trip to the Blooming Grove had been. There was a lot less shrieking there, for one. But calming nonetheless.

Or maybe that was just being near Caleb. Essek distantly knew it was probably not healthy, the way he had latched on so tightly. But something in him cried out for Caleb’s presence, his steadiness, the manifest evidence that he was here and whole and well. And anyway, if Essek was leaning in, Caleb was definitely leaning in, too. Maybe Essek had managed to do something right in the past few days after all. Incredible.

Eventually, Grieve returned and whisked Leni away to the roof of the material tower, bent on some activity that was apparently traditional for the two of them. Caleb sighed and stretched upon their departure.

“Ach, where does she get the energy,” he said ruefully.

“You seemed to get reasonably good rest last night,” Essek said. “Or was I mistaken?”

“No, you’re right.” He yawned again, and rolled his eyes at himself. “But I would need many decent nights to catch up at this point. Thank you, though,” he added.

“For what?” Essek said, startled.

“Your presence,” Caleb said, smiling. “It helps to sleep next to someone. I haven’t done so for over a year, for good reason. I’d nearly forgotten what a difference it makes.” He sighed wistfully. “The Nein used to all pile up to sleep sometimes. It was terribly uncomfortable, but also lovely.”

“What was the reason?” Essek said, frowning.

“I’m sorry?”

“For sleeping alone,” Essek said. “If it doesn’t suit you, I find it hard to believe you couldn’t find someone to oblige you. I meant among your friends,” he added hastily, realizing how that might sound.

“Ah.” Caleb made a face. “That was the reason. I wanted to . . . clear my head, if you will.” He hesitated. “And specifically, not to further complicate certain relationships by having sex with my friends. Or my exes. Which I would have, I know myself.”

Essek hummed, struck by the notion of needing to take measures in order not to have sex. He’d needed rather extraordinary measures in order to even consider doing so.

“And anyway,” Caleb said. “I’d gone my entire life since fifteen sharing a bed with somebody, minus Vergesson. Somebodies, usually. I felt it time for a change.”

“And now?” Essek said.

“Oh,” Caleb said with a husky laugh. “Don’t fish. You know I couldn’t keep my hands off you, once you started giving me those eyes.”

Essek decided to rise above that provocation. “Perhaps I could . . . be available to you more frequently? For sleep,” he added, off Caleb’s expression.

“Oh,” Caleb purred. “Whenever you feel moved to make yourself available to me, do let me know.” The playful smirk fell off his face. “And thank you. That sounds lovely. Though . . .”

“Yes?” Essek said, his heart sinking extravagantly.

“No, no,” Caleb said, and brushed his knuckles down Essek’s cheek. “That’s not a rejection. That’s just me realizing that you and I are going to have to discuss a number of important things sometime soon.”

“Like what?” Essek asked. What could possibly be left after the past few days? He was exhausted just thinking about it.

“Like about you and me, and where this is all going,” Caleb said.

“Oh.”

“Don’t look like that.” Caleb touched his cheek again. “I just. I want to do this well. Not. . .” he rolled his shoulders uneasily. “Start thinking sex with you will save me from myself. Fall into you so deeply, I forget how to survive on my own. For some random examples.”

“Ah.” Half of Essek was fascinated by this insight into how it had been amongst the three of them. The other half of him felt rather caught out, on the brink of making such mistakes, perhaps. Caleb did feel like his salvation, though; he could do nothing about that. “You know I value doing things well,” he said.

“Indeed.” Caleb pecked a kiss to the tip of his nose. “No need to hash all that out right now, though, ja?”

“Please no,” Essek said, from the bottom of a soul stretched to its limits by honesty.

Leni passed back to Caleb’s care again, and then there was a flurry of Sendings and the Brenattos arrived to have dinner with them. Essek immediately began wondering what Caleb and Beauregard and Jester had said to the rest of the Mighty Nein about him. This question was not really answered by Veth giving him a long, beady-eyed stare over appetizers and saying, “I fuckin’ knew you were shifty,” but in a weirdly approving way. Essek had no idea where he stood there.

He did his best to assist in the general running of things throughout the evening. It was the least he could do after being a spontaneous house guest for two nights in a row. They ate in the extraplanar tower, to spare Caduceus the labor of feeding them on the day of his return from a trip home, Caleb said.

“That’s not labor,” Caduceus said, but made no real protest and settled down happily to conjured dinner with the rest of them.

They had one round of cocktails in the material plane tower family room after dinner, while the children rampaged around.

The Brenattos were considering a partial move to Nicodranas to expand their business there and, Essek had the impression, to get out of the Empire. Veth was visibly torn on the idea. She loudly insisted that Caleb was very upset at the notion of their departure, though to Essek’s eye he looked only wistful. Caleb permitted the slander, though, with only a gentle correction, and then pointed out that teleportation circles did exist, and his great distress could certainly be alleviated with frequent visits.

“I must be a plausibly semi-functioning person, if she’s even considering it,” he said quietly to Essek when the others were distracted. “My goodness. Can it be that someday they won’t all be hovering about, waiting for me to go to pieces again?”

“That was unkind,” Essek said.

Caleb startled, blinked, and bit back his first several responses. “Ah,” he said at last. “You are correct.” He cast a woebegone look across at Veth and Caduceus, though they were both occupied with some shenanigan of the children involving a miniature crossbow (why?) and a stuffed wyvern.

“I meant it was unkind to you,” Essek said.

“Oh.” Caleb waved that away. “Is it unkind if it’s true?” And he took himself off to intervene before someone got shot.

The adults expended a truly heroic effort in order to get the children to clean up after themselves. The room could have been clean in a quarter the time if the children were not involved, though Essek supposed that he saw the purpose. He didn’t recall ever being the object of such an exercise at their age. There was staff for those things, and he’d been keenly aware, even as young as they were, of the standard to which things must be kept in the Umavi’s home.

The Brenattos departed early, by Mighty Nein standards, and Caleb and Grieve began herding Leni towards her evening ablutions. Caduceus puttered around the room in their absence, humming thoughtfully over the mushrooms growing on a small log on the mantle. He turned to Essek then, likely bent on a bit of watering and encouragement there, too.

“May I ask you something?” Essek said. It was only partly to preempt whatever Caduceus meant to say. It would have been kind, or viciously penetrating, or likely both.

“Yes,” Caduceus said, settling into his pose like a tree rooting.

“I’ve read that humans need eight hours of sleep per night,” Essek said. “But the sources I’ve consulted were vague about the amount of variation in that. And the potential consequences of shortchanging it.”

“Ah.” Caduceus nodded to himself. “There is quite a bit of variability,” he said. “My aunt is not human, but we do have similar needs on paper. She sleeps perhaps six hours at night, at most, and does not overly suffer for it. I suspect Caleb’s needs, if in an entirely natural state if you will, do run close to eight hours.”

But he didn’t know for sure, because he’d never known Caleb in a ‘natural state.’

“And the consequences?”

“What happens to you if you are deprived of trance?” Caduceus asked.

“I don’t recover my arcane capabilities,” Essek said.

Caduceus waited, as if expecting more, but Essek didn’t have anything to offer him. He had only cut his trance short twice in his life, once out of youthful carelessness and once, not all that long ago, upon receiving news of his father. After the first experience, he had made a point of ensuring adequate rest as part of the discipline of his work, like the hand exercises he sometimes did.

“Caleb’s body is sufficiently accustomed to inadequate rest that it prioritizes arcane recovery,” Caduceus said at last. “At the expense of other kinds of recovery. Or at least, that’s my theory.”

“What does that mean?”

Caduceus hummed. “The traditional answer to your question is that inadequate rest can cause a range of subtle and unsubtle deficits. In the ability of the body to fight off disease, or recover from injury, or withstand the passage of time. In the ability of the mind to recall events, or regulate itself, or think complex thoughts.”

Essek considered this. Not all of those applied to Caleb – his memory was demonstrably unaffected, and if his ability to think complexly was impaired, Essek frankly did not want to know about it. Other things, though . . .

“But you could help him,” he said slowly, working hard to make his tone curious, not accusatory.

“In the sense that I could drug him to sleep every night,” Caduceus said, “sure, I could do that.”

“But you don’t. Is it like the Greater Restoration? You want him to . . . walk through this himself?”

Caduceus made a negative ‘mmm’ sound. “If I drugged him nightly, he would become accustomed to my preparations, and his body would require more, or different. And then more of the different. And rather quickly I would be out of good options to offer, and down to the ones with undue risks, or that I know would be actively harming him. He has already burned through two of the best options. And then he would likely be worse off than he is today.”

“Ah,” Essek said. That did make a certain amount of sense, though with a maddening circularity at its heart. It still left a low simmer of fury in his belly, though. He almost said ‘why are you here, then? If you’ll just sit and watch?’ But managed to stop himself. Caduceus was probably here for the same reason Essek raised himself from trance whenever Caleb woke in the night. “Thank you,” he said, and he was pretty sure he even managed to sound calm.

“Also,” Caduceus added, “there aren’t actually that many suitable sleep aids to start with. It has to be strong enough to get him under, but light enough to let him come back up quickly.”

“. . . Ah,” Essek said. “Right. Yes.” He had seen the way Caleb gasped awake sometimes, or woke in silent rigidity, his jaw locked. It had never occurred to Essek that this was a danger of sleep, that a person could be trapped in it with whatever horrors might await there. Essek only very dimly recalled what it was like to dream, but he definitely remembered his pleasure upon mastering trance and, therefore, gaining control over the paths of his semi-conscious thoughts.

Caduceus waited a moment to see if there would be more, then nodded and headed off towards the kitchen. He patted Essek on the shoulder as he passed. “Keep practicing,” he said, “You’re getting the hang of it.”

Essek almost asked what that meant, but then he remembered. ‘You have very little practice in loving,’ Caduceus had said. Something Essek both knew to be true and also protested. He had Verin, after all. Then again, caring for Verin had always been easy, straightforward. That was, Essek had believed for a long time, the only reason he had managed it so successfully. It had very little relation to what he felt for Caleb, which seemed to get more complicated the closer Essek looked at it.

Then again, there was something uncomfortable and complicated lurking between him and Verin now, wasn’t there?

Essek sighed and went upstairs. He could hear voices echoing down the hall. Grieve, saying something in Zemnian with more lightness and feeling than Essek had ever heard from him before. Leni answering him. Caleb laughing, offering something that sounded warmly chiding, to one or both of them.

Essek’s heart lightened, listening to that. Enough so that he decided to go through with a plan he’d been debating all evening.

He turned right to Caleb’s suite, not left to the study. He occupied himself in the bathroom, digging through his Secret Chest and attending to his appearance with scrupulous care. And he gave thought to all of Caleb’s senses. What contrast of textures pleased his hands between garments and skin? What scents did he like to discover lingering in the private places of Essek’s body? What chime of jewelry rang pleasantly in his ears? Essek’s mind touched upon taste, and lingered. Were there oils that one could apply to the skin, to leave a trail of taste to please a lover? Surely there must be.

There was a deep pleasure to be found in making himself ready like this. An offering. Essek had spent his adult life cultivating his appearance to please himself, at least once he’d stopped trying to please the Umavi. He kept himself mostly within the bounds of fashion at court, which was not a hardship as those were largely his tastes as well. He had never attended himself in order to please a lover, not until now.

Eventually there was a rustle of steps in the bedroom. “Essek?” Caleb called, sounding uncertain.

“Just a moment,” Essek said. He scowled at his hair in the mirror. He had never attempted a deliberately tousled look, but he had a feeling it would suit these purposes quite well.

“Oh, good,” he heard Caleb say, and a sound that was probably him sitting down. “You weren’t in the study, so I wasn’t sure . . . oh.” That last was a breathless exhale as Essek strolled out of the bathroom and into his eyeline.

“You were saying?” Essek paused, deliberately framed by Dancing Lights.

Caleb’s only response was to lift a hand and close the bedroom door with a push of Telekinesis. He did it without looking, his eyes fastened on Essek. Very promising.

“We’re going to bed now,” Essek said, and heard Caleb swallow.

“Ja,” Caleb said huskily, then cleared his throat. “We certainly are. But may I look at you first?”

Essek allowed that he could with a magnanimous gesture. That was what he’d gone to all the effort for, after all. Though it was occurring to him only in that exact moment how much he needed this. To be beautiful in Caleb’s eyes, and thus in some way to be made beautiful in his own.

Caleb came up off the edge of the bed and into Essek’s personal space in one quick movement. “Turn, please,” he said, with a gentle touch to Essek’s shoulders.

Essek did, skirt wafting around his ankles. He had no garments made specifically for this purpose, something he was already scheming on correcting. Even if he’d owned such a thing, it never would have occurred to him to bring it to Rexxentrum. But what he did have was a selection of gowns, including a highly fussy many-layered affair meant to suffice should he have the extremely bad luck of being required to attend a formal ball. The outermost layer of that gown was composed of pale gold lace. It covered him to the elbows and the ankles, but on its own without the other seven intended layers, it was entirely indecent, and plainly showed the burgundy undergarments beneath.

Caleb stopped his turn with another touch to his shoulders. Essek felt him lean in, the warm gust of his breath on his back in the deep V cut in the gown. Caleb said something in Zemnian. It started with ‘pretty thing’ and then carried on for several more words. The tone made Essek’s toes curl.

Caleb kissed the topmost knob of his spine, lips parted, then the side of his neck. “I like this,” he said, with a gentle flick to the diamond pendant earring swinging from his lowest piercing. “And this.” He traced the dip of the gown in back. “And—” he turned Essek and touched a thumb below his mouth. Essek had reapplied all of his makeup to emphasize his mouth rather than his eyes. It was painted boldly in dark gold. Essek hoped the effect was to beg to be smudged. “This,” Caleb said lowly. Then, “You should have warned me, I would have dressed appropriately.”

Essek looked him up and down in the dark gray trousers and smart embroidered burgundy vest he was wearing. He had no complaints. “Let’s not pretend we don’t both like it this way,” he said, and lifted his chin, seeking the sort of haughtiness that Caleb enjoyed sometimes. “Also, the appropriate thing for you to be wearing at this juncture is nothing.”

Caleb took this instruction with alacrity. He stripped himself bare and tossed everything carelessly on top of the trunk at the foot of the bed, including his books. Then he padded back and gathered Essek close, making a groan low down in his chest as the lace brushed him all over. His mouth came down on Essek’s with more insistence than usual. Essek pushed up onto his tiptoes, thrilled by this handling.

“Keep this on,” Caleb said several minutes later, running a hand up and down Essek’s side. “Do you want to ride me? That would be incredible.”

“No,” Essek said, though the idea was tempting – his skirt rumpled around him, Caleb hot and frantic beneath him.

Caleb looked intrigued, not disappointed. “What, then?”

Essek had embarked upon every intimate encounter with a considered agenda. A set idea of what acts he wished to try. Or repeat. Repeatedly. It didn’t always go precisely to plan. Last time, Caleb had been feeling particularly rowdy, and after several provocations Essek had straddled him, set Caleb’s hands on his thighs and instructed him to keep them there while Essek opened himself up. That was not in the plan, but the fingerprint bruises Caleb had left on him were their own reward.

So far, Caleb had been wonderfully accommodating. In fact, Essek had the impression Caleb specifically enjoyed accommodating him. That couldn’t always be the case, but for now it seemed to be working for them both.

Today, Essek had less of a plan and more of a feeling. An instinctual need for skin and closeness and the things Caleb’s eyes and hands said to him in bed.

“My turn,” Essek said, and took a half step back to circle him. “No, stay there.” He stilled Caleb, who had been turning with him, ever responsive.

Caleb made compliments sound easy. Essek had marveled at that for a time, before he finally began to suspect that the art of it was that Caleb said what he was thinking, in very plain terms. Why the effect upon Essek was so extraordinary remained something of a mystery, but at least it gave him an idea of how to reciprocate.

He cleared his throat, and ran his hand down Caleb’s spine. “Your shoulders,” he said, then swore internally. There was supposed to be a little more to that sentence.

Caleb seemed to understand him, though. “It’s a really novel experience, the way you make me feel big,” he said on a laughing exhale. “And strong, which I assure you is entirely relative.”

Essek almost pointed out that he and Becke were of similar stature. Surely Caleb had felt relatively large, compared to her? But no, of course not. Grieve had been there too, and he could quite possibly lift Caleb straight over his head, at least to judge by appearances. Interesting to consider that, in light of Caleb’s penchant for being held down.

“Do you like it?” he said instead.

“Yes,” Caleb said. “Very much. And relatedly, I like that you think my cock is so big. Goes straight to my head. I didn’t even know I had that button.”

Essek paused, distracted. “Are you saying it isn’t big?” he asked, with forgivable incredulity.

“Eh,” Caleb made an equivocal gesture. “Above average for humans. I’ve definitely seen bigger.”

Essek wanted to ask about that. And he also suddenly knew what they would be doing tonight.

“When you say you’ve seen bigger,” he said. “Do you mean you’ve had bigger? Inside you?”

A slightly startled pause. Essek belatedly recalled the unreasonable breadth of Grieve’s shoulders again. “Ja,” Caleb said.

“Hmm. Interesting. Well, tonight, if you are amenable, you shall have my fingers.”

Caleb made a happy little ‘ooh’ sound. “Yes please,” he said.

“They are, as you have pointed out, quite small fingers,” Essek said.

Caleb gave him an incredulous look over his shoulder. “If you think that’s a problem for me, you’re not as smart as you seem,” he said frankly. “Also,” he added, “you’re keeping that on, right?”

“If you like,” Essek said, trying for demure and probably not quite making it.

“I like,” Caleb assured.

Essek was very glad he’d had Caleb’s fingers inside him on a number of occasions now. It gave him a small menu of position ideas to choose from. And Caleb made it all incredibly easy, with how eager he was. He was already flushed and breathing quickly before Essek so much as touched him, and it was easy to focus on that and not, say, any nerves Essek might quietly have been suffering.

They ended up on their sides. Caleb fastidiously lifted and spread most of Essek’s skirt behind his legs for him like a fishtail, “so I don’t roll around on it like I want to,” he said.

But then Essek had him, warm and naked and so close, and it was the easiest thing in the world to cup his rear in both hands, and squeeze the way he’d wanted to for some time now, and spread him open.

Caleb was very warm inside. No surprise, but it immediately made Essek think of what he had been carefully keeping at arms distance all night. For much longer than that. What would that heat feel like on his prick? What would it be like to slip inside him under the covers, in a pocket of warmth in the middle of the winter?

Focus.

Caleb sighed a little in appreciation at one finger, but didn’t look particularly engaged until two.

“Hmm,” Essek said, holding him barely open with his fingertips. “You are making this quite easy for me, I do appreciate that.”

“I do this to myself,” Caleb said at once. Essek was reminded of when they’d had this conversation in reverse, and he had not said what Caleb just had so brazenly. “Do you want to know what I think about?” Caleb offered.

“. . . No,” Essek lied. “Or, well, hold that thought, please.” He pushed his two fingers in with more force than he’d been using, and Caleb’s hips rolled.

“Ja, like that,” he said. “That’s good.”

Essek found quickly that, the more fingers he got into Caleb, the tougher the angle was on his wrist. It would have been all right had his goal been to stretch him. But it wasn’t. His goal was Caleb’s pleasure, and he couldn’t be as forceful as Caleb was vocally encouraging him to be.

“On your stomach?” Essek asked, slipping his fingers out.

Caleb scrambled to comply, and Essek was faced with the freckled expanse of his back, his rear, and a coquettish look over the shoulder.

“Just so,” Essek said, mouth dry. On impulse, he bent down and bit the back of Caleb’s thigh. Caleb made an extremely satisfying noise, so Essek did it again to the other one. Then he found himself simply overcome by impulses, and in a rush he pushed Caleb’s thighs apart, laid down between them, and nipped a line of bruises up the tender skin inside each one.

“Oh fuck,” Caleb said in a muffled voice. Then, as if Essek had any doubts that this was welcome, “yes yes yes.”

Caleb had lecture tomorrow, which Essek knew he would do on his feet. Would his thighs rub together as he paced? Would he think of this?

Essek had never had his face so close to another person’s intimate parts. Caleb smelled very human – sweaty and musky in a way that Essek could feel hooking into his libido and making a possibly permanent connection. He stared at Caleb’s rear, and briefly contemplated a sex act which had never seemed appealing until this precise moment.

“I love your teeth,” Caleb said, his thighs flexing. “Is it exoticizing to say so? If it is, I’m sorry. And not sorry.”

Essek smiled to himself. “I also quite like yours,” he admitted. “When you try and bite me, I just want to pat you on the head.”

“Try,” Caleb huffed in mock outrage.

“This is how it’s done,” Essek said in his best instructional tones, and bit Caleb’s rear like he meant it. Not enough to break the skin, but far more than the prior nips. He instantly had a minor panic – should he have asked before doing that? Caleb was so good at asking without subjecting Essek to an entire conversation about each new act; how did he accomplish that? But the groan that ripped out of Caleb assured him that it was welcome.

“There we are,” Essek said, and rubbed a thumb over the marks he’d left.

“If you don’t put your fingers back in me in the next ten seconds, I’m doing it for you,” Caleb said.

Essek snorted, but obliged him, going straight for three. Caleb groaned, and his hips rolled, and just like that the pace changed, and Essek pounded his fingers in, three then four, and Caleb was wild beneath him.

“Yes, like that,” Caleb said. He pushed back hard onto Essek’s hand, then ground down into the bed. “Fuck me, fuck me, bitte.”

Essek did, flinging his weight haphazardly across Caleb’s thighs to pin him down. His skirt rumpled between them. The lace was too fine to scratch at the skin, but the sensation was lovely nonetheless.

“Am I . . .?” Essek said. He was trying to figure out how to ask for instructions on fingering. He knew there was more art to it than just pushing and pulling. Did humans and drow even have the same anatomy here? And if they did, what did Caleb like? “How do I please you?” he asked.

“You are,” Caleb said, and Essek read it as perfectly sincere. “You can spread your fingers, I like – oh. Yes. Like that.” Caleb wriggled and got a hand under himself. “Just don’t stop.” He freed one leg and hitched his knee up and out to the side. Essek’s fingers sank deeper, and they both groaned.

Essek could see Caleb’s arm flexing, even in the limited space. He almost demanded that Caleb get up on his knees. Mostly because he thought it might make this last longer if he stopped Caleb from rubbing himself to completion on the bed in such a wanton display. But the wanton display was so amazing, he couldn’t resist it any more than Caleb could. Caleb liked this. Caleb liked it a lot. Caleb would probably like it very much if Essek took his fingers out and pushed his prick in. How loud would he get for that? How wanton?

The desire had a subversive thrill to it, as he grasped at the edges of what Caleb had described, a power to being inside someone else. A strength in being the one to bring pleasure, rather than a subsumption to another’s needs.

That was definitely something he ought to ask about before doing. Caleb always did, without fail, even if he often used eye contact rather than words. How to go about it, though? Did he want to go about it? Well, yes. But should he, right now?

Essek was dithering a bit on these thoughts, and his fingers slowed. Caleb made a mournful, questioning sound. His hips rolled harder, trying to pleasure himself. He must think this was purposeful, a little playful torment.

“It’s all right,” Essek said. It was strange to use those soothing words when he actually wanted Caleb deeply riled. “I have you.” And he twisted his wrist and pounded his fingers in and in and in until Caleb shouted beneath him, and shuddered, and went still.

Essek slipped his fingers out once the tight clutch on them eased. He cast several Prestidigitations; Caleb groaned and twitched when Essek cleaned his most intimate places, just to be thorough.

Caleb said something in Zemnian into the pillow. He often reverted to his mother tongue just after orgasm. Essek had previously decided to take every comment as a glowing review unless indicated otherwise.

“Fuck, that’s good,” Caleb said helpfully. He wiggled, then stretched and rolled over when Essek let him up. He was flushed and dewy, and his eyes were saying things that made Essek’s heart pick up speed. “Give me a second,” Caleb said. “Then I’m going to crawl under your skirt, if that is agreeable?”

“It is,” Essek said. “But take your time.” He was thoroughly enjoying the sight of Caleb right now. Evidence of a job well done.

Caleb put actions to words soon enough, and Essek found himself leaning against the headboard, watching Caleb through the film of his skirt, and biting a groan down to a sigh at the first touch of his mouth.

It was easier to talk when he couldn’t clearly see Caleb’s eyes. “You,” he said breathlessly, “are so good at this.”

Caleb apparently liked being told that, because he got down to business with sudden urgency, his mouth hot and wet. It was true, though. He had done this several times since that first shattering occasion in his study. And it was the memory that arose first and most when thoughts of that nature impinged on Essek’s mind. That wasn’t just because of the sheer physical intensity of it, either. It was also because Caleb’s clear pleasure in the act did things to Essek he had not even begun to unpack.

Essek reached his crisis quickly, with Caleb slurping eagerly up and down his prick. Caleb stayed where he was for a long time, after, one warm hand curled around Essek’s softening prick, his cheek resting on Essek’s thigh, folds of lace half-concealing him. Essek stroked his hair through it as they both calmed.

“Can I ask you something inappropriate?” Essek said into a comfortable silence.

“Please do,” Caleb said, sounding intrigued.

“What, ah. What is it like with more than two people?”

“Do you mean sex? Or a relationship?”

“Sex.”

Caleb hummed thoughtfully. “Are you asking because you are curious on a personal level what that’s like? Or because you want to know what it was like for me and Astrid and Wulf?”

Essek supposed, grudgingly, that it was a fair question. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a clear answer. “Can we speak about it somewhat in the abstract?” he asked. “I just . . . have found what we do to be very intense. Is it more so with more people?”

“Okay. No, not necessarily.” Caleb nuzzled his thigh in a distracted way, clearly organizing his thoughts. “Group sex can be as varied as two-partner sex. In mood, in acts. There can be intensity if, say, two partners gang up on seeking the third’s pleasure. But sometimes, it’s really just like two-partner sex with extra knees and elbows.”

Essek digested this. “Can I ask what you liked doing?”

“That is not an abstract question, schatz.”

“I know,” Essek said mulishly. “If you’d rather not say –”

“Ha, no.” Caleb started to sit up, but correctly read Essek’s reaction and settled back down into his lap. “I don’t mind at all. I just want to point out that talking about what I like implicates what they like as well.”

“Yes,” Essek said. “But I have no interest in their preferences.”

There might have been a little more acid on that than he’d intended, because Caleb paused momentarily, and said “Mmm” before continuing. “Well, I liked being useful. This has not changed about me. So I liked it when she rode my cock while he had my mouth. Or she sat on my face while they talked about their day. Or she wore a toy and they took turns fucking me.”

Essek licked his lips. This was . . . clarifying certain aspects of his thinking, yes.

“I also liked having each of them in turn,” Caleb continued inexorably. “The pleasure was in the differences between them, and how having them both made me feel young and virile and on top of the world. Is this what you wanted to know?”

“Yes,” Essek said, and cleared his throat.

“May I ask my question again?” Caleb said after a pause. “About why you are bringing it up?”

Essek hesitated. “I want to know you,” he said. Which was true, if inadequate. “I am not interested in having such experiences myself. But I am interested in . . . the fact that you have had them. Does that make sense?”

“Ja, I think so,” Caleb said. “Your questions are not unwelcome, to be clear. And I want to say, if you ever find you do want such experiences, then let me know, and it is likely that I can find a way to accommodate you that is comfortable for us both.”

“I’m not sure I ever will,” Essek said. There was something there that intrigued him, and he hadn’t expressed it fully to Caleb, or himself for that matter. “But what . . . did you have in mind?” It was clearly something specific.

“This from the man who cast an echo the first time we went to bed together properly,” Caleb said at once.

“Oh. Hmm. Interesting.” He considered that. A few jokes of that sort had been made in his general direction after he’d completed his work on the spell. Essek had been extremely unappreciative of that. Caleb, though, had generally proved himself to be a font of worthwhile ideas in bed. “I will think on it.”

“Ja, okay,” Caleb said easily. Then, in a different tone, “Should we discuss fidelity?”

“. . . Oh,” Essek said. That had literally never occurred to him. Wanting Caleb was so rare and extraordinary, he couldn’t imagine wanting another alongside. Bren, though. Bren was used to multiple partners at all times, supplemented by other encounters. Some of those had certainly not been of his choosing, though Essek didn’t know what other circumstances might have applied. Were dalliances for fun permitted among the three of them? Essek knew that those encounters not of his choosing were sometimes a trial, and sometimes not. There was an admirable strength in that, in finding what pleasure Bren could under terrible circumstances.

“You okay up there?” Caleb asked.

“Yes. I, ah. What is it that you want to say?”

“Not much,” Caleb said, with a poke that made it clear he could tell how Essek was holding his thoughts in reserve, waiting to react to Caleb rather than speaking plainly. “Just that I have never attempted monogamy in my life. But I don’t object to it, I think. If that is what you want.”

“I think it is,” Essek said quickly. “For myself, it is incredibly unlikely I would be moved to stray. But.” He hesitated. “A new experience doesn’t guarantee a pleasant one.” And he was not the best judge, but he’d formed the idea that Caleb might be the sort of person for whom polyamory was a part of his sexuality, not just an accident of circumstance.

“No,” Caleb said calmly. “But I am capable of speaking up if I find it not to my taste. Will that do for now?”

“Yes,” Essek said. What would he feel, should Caleb evince a desire to go to bed with someone else? Essek’s immediate reaction was a shocking jumble –territorial fury, a kind of warm fondness for the incorrigible slut that Caleb was, and something complicated and sexually charged that threaded a needle between the two. Interesting. Well. He could concern himself with that later. “Are you ever coming out of there?”

“I’m quite comfortable, thanks,” Caleb said, and nuzzled him intimately. “Also, it’s my turn to ask a potentially inappropriate question.”

The little cave under Essek’s skirt and between his thighs was fast becoming Caleb’s favorite place. The light was dim but gold toned, and Essek’s silky skin was scented with something herbal and complex. Essek didn’t sweat much, but there was a little bit of that, too. Caleb was quite terribly in love, and not sure if it was wise to say so.

“What question?” Essek asked, already on guard.

Caleb rubbed a hand up and down his thigh. He was tempted to say ‘you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,’ but Essek didn’t need his permission for that. “A question about why you went so long without any lovers,” he said. “Seventy years, right?” That was an awfully long time for someone who was as interested in sex as Essek sometimes was.

“Ah,” Essek said, then lapsed into a complicated silence. Caleb waited him out, petting the skin on the inside of his thigh. “It’s not that I didn’t want to,” Essek said at last. “I think that would have been easier. I could have just written the whole thing off.”

“But you did want?”

“Yes. Sort of?” Essek sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “Verin thought I didn’t. We’ve almost never discussed this, but something I said once made him think that and he said ‘Oh, you’re just asexual, that’s all.’ And it was easier to let him think so. Other people, too.”

“Okay. I should clarify that you have not really given me that impression.” Not in bed, anyway. Out of it, in the glimpses he’d allowed of his history, there was something a little more complicated at play. But Caleb didn’t know enough to understand the cultural context of Essek’s degree of inexperience, and his mix of interest and wariness.

“I am aware,” Essek said dryly. “You are something of a special case. Stop preening.”

Caleb nipped him with his allegedly ‘cute’ teeth. “So you did want lovers?” he prompted. “Sort of?”

“Yes. But very nonspecifically. Someone turned my head once in a while, every few decades or so, but there was always a reason not to pursue it. I was busy, or not interested enough to make it worth the effort, or there were too many social or political impediments.” Goodness, if Essek wasn’t careful, he was going to inflate Caleb’s ego past all recognition. There were a number of social and political impediments in their way, after all, and yet here he was, between Essek’s thighs. “But I did want, sometimes. To be touched. To experience pleasure. The logical thing would have been to seek short-term companionship. A professional, perhaps. But that never appealed to me. The encounters I did have were . . . acceptable, I suppose. Not terribly interesting.”

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said sincerely. “I wish your first experiences had been more fulfilling.” His certainly had been, in their complicated way.

“It’s all right. I think I handled that poorly. And the fallout was unpleasant and I think I . . . overindexed on that, a bit.” He hesitated, and Caleb thought this was where the ‘sort of’ came in. “I did want,” Essek said again slowly. “Maybe not in the same way other people do, like Verin, or you. I don’t know. I have the impression it’s different for me, but couldn’t tell you how. But wanting wasn’t getting me anywhere, and it sort of . . . turned sour. With lots of other things. So eventually I . . . stopped wanting.”

“Ah,” Caleb said, nodding. He was very familiar with that, how circumstance could make something seem so impossible that the best thing you could do for yourself was excise the yearning for it. It was hard to get a clear picture of who Essek was back home, seeing him now out of his usual context. But Caleb had been paying attention, and he was starting to form an idea. A driven, brilliant person with few connections. He’d never even mentioned writing letters or making Sendings to people back home, after all. An outsider to the religious community, even if Caleb thought he worked to conceal the scope of his non-doctrinal thinking, and someone who felt that outsiderness keenly, but who would not let it go as it was a core part of himself. And no partners to speak of, which was either a consequence of or a manifestation of what made him different. “Well, I do also want to say that I hope if you ever find sex with me to be merely ‘acceptable,’ or less than that, you will say so. Please do not concern yourself with my ego. I will cope, and I’d much rather know. Sometimes these things do take work.” They had been doing that work beautifully; Caleb wasn’t even sure Essek was aware of some of the ways they were learning to please each other. It was easier than it had been with Wulf and Astrid, though it probably helped a lot that neither of them was fifteen and horny beyond reason with it, or coming to bed directly from torturing or being tortured.

“Oh, that is currently not a concern,” Essek said, sounding surprised. Caleb was pretty sure he’d been having a good time, but it was nice to hear. “And, ah, you?” Essek added.

“Also very good,” Caleb said, and smacked a kiss up near his hip. The menu Essek had permitted thus far was somewhat limited, but wonderful nonetheless. Caleb was not about to complain. Because he was genuinely having a great time, and Essek would come around to exploring new things when he was good and ready. The curiosity was there, certainly. Someday, he was going to nail Caleb to the bed and Caleb just might cry in gratitude. But also, Caleb suspected Essek’s ego in this area might be a tad more fragile than his, and there was no need to ding it unnecessarily.

“Good,” Essek said, in the tones of someone who expected to be exceptional at whatever he did. Then, after a thoughtful pause, “It wasn’t very hard to stop wanting,” he said. “I just – I did whatever the opposite of setting my mind to it is. Perhaps that means there is something asexual to me, I don’t know.” A pause. “Was it difficult for you? You said you deliberately cultivated abstinence this past year.”

What a kind way to characterize being a wreck of a person. “It was,” Caleb said honestly. “The physical needs, I could get some satisfaction there by myself. But it was very hard. Though I really do not think you should take me as an exemplar of the average person on this score. I was also spending that time disentangling myself from Astrid and Wulf in many ways, not just sexually. So it was complicated.” He kissed Essek’s thigh again. “And then there was you.”

“Yes,” Essek said, with something in his voice that approached wonder. “Then there was you.”

Chapter Text

He kissed Caleb goodbye on Miresen morning and saw him off about his day. Essek had regained some amount of equanimity overnight. It did occur to him as he was walking home that he and Caleb had gone some way towards discussing the nature of their relationship after all. And for some inexplicable reason that had settled his nerves rather than igniting them.

“Morning,” Verin said when he came in. “In good working order, as promised?”

“Yes,” Essek said, with something close to honesty. He still felt fragile, which he was not enjoying. And uncertain of himself in fundamental ways that were continuously presenting him with uncomfortable questions. But perhaps that was manageable, at least today. “I think I will be teleporting to Rosohna,” he said. “I have a few errands.”

“You want company?” Verin said, brightening.

Essek hesitated. “If you have business of your own then yes, I will take you.”

Verin squinted at him. “Wait, are you doing Shadowhand shit or, like, buying sexy lingerie to wear for Widogast?” He watched Essek’s face, then laughed and sat back down. “Nope, no thank you. I’ll stay here.”

Essek went to his towers first, and collected a few books he thought Caleb might find interesting. Then, because his presence in the city would be noted, he briefly showed his face in the Bastion. He escaped quickly, though, and went about the much more pleasurable errands – the modiste, the tailor, and the jeweler.

He returned to Rexxentrum having spent a generous handful of platinum, and quite pleased with himself. He would have a number of interesting packages to retrieve in a few days time.

He lectured on Grissen afternoon. He had disguised himself and observed several Soltryce professors at this point. He’d been a little worried that Caleb’s dynamic performance was the standard, and was relieved to find that it was not. The styles and degrees of effectiveness varied widely. He had attended a positively stultifying divination lecture, a wonderful session on beginner illusion that held him interested for the entire time though he knew the material well, and an evocation lecture by the professor he’d seen Caleb be so cold to the day they’d met.

That last was most interesting, as Essek could see a clear stylistic line from her to Caleb, though she had a sternness about her that he did not cultivate. She had been a fixture at Soltryce for over thirty years, and was widely regarded as exacting but fair. Learning that provided Essek with a ready explanation for Caleb’s opinion. Someone who had been here so long, someone who might very well have taught Bren, someone he may have respected or liked. Someone he now saw as complicit in his exploitation and torture. Was she an active participant, or did she silently acquiesce, knowing what she was feeding her young students to?

The latter, Essek guessed. They must have known, all of the professors with any discernment. Known and looked the other way to keep their positions. Or bent their minds into new shapes to justify it. Or helped. Or hindered, perhaps, in tiny, fruitless ways. Or simply not cared. Or other possibilities Essek hadn’t yet imagined. All of which left him with the uncomfortable question of how much difference it really made, all these many flavors of being the accessory to evil.

Caleb’s hawklike attention to Soltryce and its students, even as his other duties pressed at his time, made a lot more sense now.

In any event, Essek found Caleb the superior lecturer out of all of them, but he found Caleb superior in many aspects, so that was unsurprising. And his investigations did assure him that he himself was not notably deficient. Perhaps not as engaging and conversational as some, but certainly adequate.

Caleb attended Essek’s lecture, as he usually did, though this time in the company of a human Essek didn’t know. Caleb was relaxed and friendly with her in a way Essek rarely saw from him outside the Nein.

Caleb Sent to him that night, sounding apologetic. “I’m sorry, schatz, I will be unavailable tomorrow evening. I will be in Zadash, speaking to Hass.”

Essek paused fractionally, then let his first thought lead. “May I go with you?”

There was a gap that Essek interpreted as startled or thoughtful. “I would welcome the company,” Caleb Sent at last. “But are you sure you want to involve yourself?”

Essek frowned. “Yes,” he said briskly. “You are acting on my information, after all. Perhaps I can be helpful.” That, and he felt obscurely responsible to see this through, wherever it led. For himself, certainly – neutralizing Da’leth would go a long way towards securing Essek from his own foolishness. But also, that foolishness nearly had a terribly high price. He could extend himself in a small way to assist in ensuring Exandria did not pay it in the end.

“All right,” Caleb Sent. “Please be aware that Astrid is coming. And several of our compatriots. She doesn’t know of your involvement,” he added. “Though she may wonder.”

Well, that’s what he got for extending himself, wasn’t it? Essek gritted his teeth. Becke gave the strong impression of a person who was capable of keeping secrets like a vault. Whether she was motivated to keep his secrets, though, was another question. “I see,” he responded to Caleb, and left it there.

It turned out that by ‘compatriots’ Caleb meant nearly a dozen additional people, including the woman Essek had seen yesterday, and the Volstrucker they’d briefly met in Zadash.

“Coming in force, I see,” he said quietly aside to Caleb after introductions – first names only – were complete.

“Ja. We debated going in more lightly. But the risk he might run straight to Da’leth seemed too high. We have a good chance of subduing him with this lot, should worse come to worse.” He gestured around the family room of his tower, smiling a little grimly. The Volstrucker were preparing in their own ways, some stretching their hands and wrists, some checking weapons, some talking quietly. They made an interesting, eclectic bunch. Becke and Caleb were not the oldest of them – there was one dark-skinned, whipcord human who looked to be in her forties at least. But the majority looked as if they were a decade or less out of school. Attrition under Ikithon’s hand must have been brutally high.

“And if we kill him?” Essek asked. “That would create problems for you, I imagine.”

Caleb shrugged. “An acceptable risk,” he said. “And on that note, I mean this in the nicest way, but we have a plan and we know what we are doing and can read each other very well. That is not true of you. So please stay out of the firing line.”

And keep his spells to himself, Caleb also meant. Fair enough. A cohort of Volstrucker killing an archmage was complicated; a visiting Kryn official doing so was a nightmare.

“Understood,” Essek said. “May I hear the plan, though?”

It was simple. Becke had two Teleportation foci for a seldom-used room in Hass’s tower, along with an enchanted stone that should grant them passage through Hass’s warding measures. The stone was apparently taken from Ikithon’s possessions; the foci had been acquired by Becke personally some time since. Did she have such for every archmage? They had some method of preventing Teleportation more foolproof than a Counterspell. Essek had many questions about that, which he held back with some effort. They had a great deal of knowledge about Hass’s habits and usual schedule, and were reasonably certain they could corner him alone around nine thirty in the evening.

“And then we shall talk,” Caleb said.

“Does he know you have that?” Essek asked, gesturing to the stone. “Could he guard against it?”

“He hasn’t,” Becke said, giving the impression of a toothy smile without actually making one. “Bren and Franka and I tested it last night.”

Good grief. They really did believe in calculated risks, didn’t they?

Becke turned from him, surveyed the room, and gathered attention with a subtle gesture. “Thirty seconds,” she said laconically.

The Volstrucker formed up, half on her, half on Caleb. Essek hastily joined that group. Then everyone but Caleb and Becke applied some form of invisibility. Essek followed suit, glad he generally had the spell available. Becke and Caleb met eyes, nodded to each other, and Teleported.

They landed in near silence in a music room lit only by the mixed pinkish light of the two moons through the windows. Caleb and Becke held still for a moment, listening or waiting for a signal. Then nodded at each other and moved.

Essek became quickly aware that it had been foolish to insert himself into this operation. There were a dozen invisible people in close proximity. The rest of them, as Caleb had said, seemed to know exactly what their place was in relation to each other. Essek didn’t, and he felt a close brush with a collision more than once. He secured a spot for himself a few feet directly behind Caleb and resolved to stay there.

They went out the door and down a short hallway to a flight of stairs. Caleb and Becke conferred silently there as Becke made multiple passes through the air with her enchanted stone, then they all went up. Everyone’s collective footsteps and the rustlings of bodies and clothing were preternaturally muted. Essek suspected somebody had an artifact that assisted in the effort to pass undetected.

They went up three floors, turned right, then right again down beautifully carpeted corridors that further muffled their steps. Essek was just thinking that the tower was remarkably deserted when a half elf scared a decade off him by casually strolling around a corner ahead. The woman stopped, eyes going wide in clear recognition. She didn’t even get a chance to open her mouth, though, before two spells struck, one from Caleb, one from Becke. She shook off Becke’s Hold Person, but Caleb’s Suggestion took, and her eyes glazed as he instructed her in a whisper so quiet, Essek could not make it out. She strode away, bent on fulfilling his orders.

They continued for another few hundred feet, then paused. There was another exchange of silent looks, and Caleb counted down three-two-one with his fingers in the air as Becke approached a door.

“Good evening, Oramid,” she said, opening the door and striding in like she owned the place. Her normal tones were shocking after all that effortful quiet.

Caleb entered at her shoulder. Essek hung back, aware of the Volstrucker moving rapidly around him. He waited until he thought everyone should be through the chokepoint of the door, then approached and lingered there with a view of the room.

Hass had leapt to his feet at his desk, one hand on his focus. His eyes flicked between his two visitors, wide with shock, then narrowing with outrage.

“I see knocking is beyond either of you,” he said. “Let alone Sending ahead.”

“Sit down,” Becke said, ignoring that. “We want to have a conversation.”

Hass read her with a comprehensive look, and the encounter teetered on a knifepoint. Then Hass looked around the room, brow furrowing. He had clearly sensed some movement or sound from one of the Volstrucker.

“Yes,” Caleb said mildly. “It is just a conversation. Or so we very much hope. The lady did ask you to sit.” He slipped past Becke and pulled out one of the visitor chairs in front of Hass’s desk, holding it with a deferential tilt of the head until she came and sat. Then he leaned on the back of it, pose casual. Somehow, the pair of them looked more like predators in that moment than they had the entire time creeping through the halls.

Hass breathed, and glared, and sat. “Fine,” he said shortly. “What’s the purpose of this little intimidation game.”

“Information,” Becke said. “Where is Da’leth?”

“I don’t know,” Hass said. Essek read that as sincere, but didn’t know him as well as they did.

“Hmm,” Becke said. “How do you communicate, then?”

There was a brief pause.

“Don’t bother lying,” Caleb said, in the tones of someone being ever so helpful. “We know you are in contact. But what I most want to know is if you are participating in his plan to damage the ley lines?”

Hass jolted visibly at that. “His what?”

“Hmm,” Caleb said judiciously. “Guess you’re not worth letting in on it. He does like his patsies, doesn’t he?”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Hass said, frowning deeply. “That could permanently alter or even damage the flow of arcana.”

“Indeed,” Caleb said. “He has his reasons. They are the closest thing to madness I’ve heard in a long time.”

“But we’re not here to talk about that,” Becke took up smoothly. “So, he hasn’t told you.”

“I wonder why,” Caleb said in turn. “Perhaps he knows that your loyalty lies more with the arcane arts themselves than with him. Or was he wrong about that?”

“. . . No,” Hass ground out. Then, with visible reluctance, “is he truly planning such a thing?”

“Yes,” Caleb said simply. Essek couldn’t see his face from the door, but whatever Hass saw there made an impact. “You may not like us,” Caleb said. “And I assure you that is entirely mutual.” The mildness in his tone was replaced by cutting disdain. “Here you were, safe in your tower. While we screamed and bled and died for this nation you claim to love.”

“Easy, Bren,” Becke said, lifting a hand to touch his wrist. “Just a conversation, we said.”

“I am just talking,” Caleb said, in a tone that made it clear that could change at any moment.

Invisible in the doorway, Essek tried to breathe silently. To the extent he’d thought on it at all, he’d imagined Becke as the issuer of threats, Caleb as the voice of reason. Did they take turns?

They waited, both staring at Hass. He withstood that well, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t easily comprehend the nature of the pressure points they were going for. But understanding it didn’t preclude it from working.

“I knew he had something on the go,” Hass said at last. “But no. He never did say what. Which was . . . odd.” An omission he was now considering in a new light.

More silence.

A sigh. A shift in the chair. “I don’t know where he is,” Hass said. “I have not seen him in person at all since he left.”

“But you communicate,” Becke prompted.

“He Sends occasionally,” Hass said. “He doesn’t say much, just checks in on his interests here. He did imply that he was in Marquet at one point, but that was nearly a year ago.”

A quick exchange of looks between Caleb and Becke. The Marquet angle was not news to them.

“What interests?” Caleb asked.

Hass shrugged with his big, weathered hands. “You two, mostly,” he said, apparently deciding to be frank.

“And the Shadowhand?” Caleb prompted.

“Oh, yes.” Hass either genuinely hadn’t thought of that, or he was faking it quite well. “He is interested in the crick. He never said why.”

“Watch your mouth,” Caleb said at once, tone a lash. Becke touched his wrist again, though Essek thought this one was not for show.

“Hmm, I thought you were looking awfully cozy,” Hass said, lip curling. Essek frowned. He was trying to distract them. But how to alert Caleb without revealing himself? He could step out of eyeline and cast Message, perhaps.

Before he could do that, Becke said to Caleb, “Do you think he’s afraid of Da’leth? How interesting.”

“It is starting to seem that way, isn’t it,” Caleb responded. “Seems like that might be more important to him than being an accessory to uncountable deaths and the potential destruction of arcana as we know it.” He paused thoughtfully. “That tracks, though. Complicity in the horrific acts of others is what he does.”

“I have done what--” Hass started, low and furious, then reined himself in. Essek was forming the impression of a person very comfortable in his view of himself, and who could not easily handle having that view challenged. He supposed he ought to have a certain amount of sympathy, but couldn’t really muster it.

There was another silence, and Essek began to suspect Caleb may have misjudged and overplayed his hand. But Hass was no fool. He believed what they said of Da’leth’s plans, and he knew what the cost might be to him.

“He’s very interested in the Pride’s Call site,” Hass said at last. “He has not exactly said why, but he always asks about it when he Sends. What are the plans, when will you open it, who will be crewing the explorations.”

Now that was new information, to judge by the alert tilt of Caleb’s head. “You have a theory,” he said. “What is it?”

Hass shook his head. “Less than that. I have a vague impression. That he is seeking a rare object he expects to find there.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said. Was his mind going where Essek’s was?

“Good,” Becke said, as if to an obedient dog. “Anything else?”

Hass shook his head silently, jaw clenched as if he regretted saying what little he had.

“Well,” Caleb said, back to gentle politeness. “You shall have the satisfaction of being on the right side of history for perhaps the first time in your life.” He pulled out Becke’s chair for her, and she stood.

“One more thing,” she said, and made a subtle signal with one hand. All of the Volstrucker appeared at once, ranged around the room, holding spells or, in two cases, daggers. Three stood in a carefully spaced triangle around Hass’s desk, each holding up an inscribed metal plate. This must be the Teleportation prevention measure. And the woman Caleb had brought to lecture yesterday – Franka, Essek recalled – was inches from Hass’s chair with a bare blade in hand. “Do not alert Da’leth of our interest,” Becke said, and did not elaborate on the threat.

Hass twitched, eyes rolling around the room. He’d known someone was there, but clearly had not guessed the strength of the presence.

“Understood,” he said, sour-faced.

“Good night, professor,” Franka said cheerfully, and sheathed her blade.

“Well,” Caleb said, once they had Teleported back to Rexxentrum. “That does explain some things.”

“Does it?” Becke was frowning.

“Hmm? Oh.” Caleb gathered himself from faraway thoughts. “Ja, it explains why he fumbled an attempt to suborn one of Essek’s colleagues back in the Dynasty. Perhaps he figured he had an easier prospect.”

Essek exhaled silently at this partial truth.

“Easier in Shattengrod?” Becke said, with some incredulity. “You were just there, did you have an easy time?”

So that’s where he’d taken himself off to.

“Eh,” Caleb said, waggling a hand in the air. “Franka,” he called, turning from Becke. “How was Shattengrod?”

“Awesome!” Franka said. “I almost got eaten by a rage demon.”

“See?” Caleb said, turning back to Becke as if this proved anything other than that Volstrucker were truly alarming people.

“Are we going back?” Franka asked, with inexplicable eagerness.

“Ja,” Caleb said slowly. “I do think we might need to, yes.” He glanced around the room, beginning to frown. Essek realized he was the reason and belatedly dropped his invisibility.

“May I ask what exactly is at Pride’s Call?” he said. “I have been assuming some sort of ancient ruins.”

“Ja,” Caleb said, and Becke visibly twitched in outrage at this easy sharing of secrets. “Very big. Very ruined.”

“Very fun,” Franka put in helpfully.

“Yes,” Becke said pointedly, “very big. That does present some difficulties.”

“Ja,” Caleb agreed. He was scheming as fast as he was talking, Essek could tell. “But one assumes Da’leth has a solid line on it, and plans to infiltrate the search parties.”

“True,” Becke said, seeming to have no trouble following where he was going with this.

“Ooh,” Franka said. “Do we get to chase enemy agents through the ruins?”

“Hmm, we shall see,” Caleb said in the same tones he used when Leni was asking about dessert before the meal even started.

“We will need to discuss things,” Becke said pointedly to him.

“Ja, of course.” Caleb glanced around the room. Franka had made herself at home behind the bar, and a cluster of Volstrucker were waiting for drinks. “But for now, I think we have a nightcap in thanks for a job cleanly done.”

That was definitely Essek’s cue to leave. Becke clearly did not want him present for the forthcoming discussions, and he was very much out of place in this company. And besides, Caleb didn’t often get a chance to see these people, whom Essek knew he loved in his fierce, complicated way.

“I shall say goodnight, then,” he said quietly to Caleb. “Do please keep me apprised.”

“Of course. Good night, Essek.” Caleb didn’t touch him. Unless you counted the weight of his gaze, which somehow transmitted the sensation of an embrace, a goodnight kiss.

Essek went upstairs first and slipped into Caleb’s bedroom. In Rosohna, he had acquired several pairs of cotton gloves, sized for Caleb’s hands, along with the heavy moisturizing cream, and also the milk Caleb had said he liked. He extracted all of this from his Wristpocket and arranged it on Caleb’s nightstand.

Was this how one accomplished gift giving? He was so unused to it outside of ritualized political settings that he genuinely didn’t know.

He took a moment to poke nosily at the stack of books also on the nightstand. There was a thick volume from one of the great transmutation masters of two centuries ago. Essek flicked through it and found it turgid at best. Under that was a history of Xhorhas. Interesting. Essek made a mental note to acquire Caleb a volume written by an actual Xhorhasian. Probably difficult to obtain here, but not subject to outsider biases. Just all the insider ones. Under that was a . . . romance novel? About two rival lady pirates, apparently. Essek did not know what to make of that.

He stepped out of Caleb’s suite and immediately came face-to-face with Becke, emerging from Leni’s room down the hall. The two of them paused, mutually startled.

“Ah – good evening,” Essek said, bowing fractionally. “After you.”

Becke gave him an absolutely freezing look, and swept on ahead of him down the stairs. Essek followed behind in awkward silence, and breathed a sigh of relief when she re-entered the family room and he could continue on down alone. He could manage don’t start shit pretty well, but don’t end shit might turn out to be more of a trial.

It occurred to him later that night that perhaps he ought to volunteer to go to Shattengrod as well. Caleb likely intended on going. And it seemed the logical extension of the impulse that had sent Essek to Zadash with the Volstrucker. This mess was, in some small part, his responsibility to help clean up. And if anything happened to Caleb in those ruins, if Da’leth or his agents hurt him—

Then again, could he go? Becke would certainly not like it, and Essek had no interest in being a bone of contention between them. Any more than he already was. And there was sense to her position – it was a national asset with potentially significant historical and magical treasures to be unearthed, and he was an official of a rival nation.

Which was a relieving thought. Because when push came to shove, Essek did not want to go. He had never wanted to be an adventurer, and found the entire prospect unpleasant at best. Adventuring consisted of extended periods of boredom and physical extremity punctuated by terror for your life, at least according to Caleb. It sounded dreadful.

But if anything happened to Caleb . . .

And ancient ruins, which had produced the extremely interesting star projector Caleb had shown him. Essek had little hope of ever actually seeing Aeor, whether he eventually got himself posted to Eiselcross or not. So maybe this was his one chance to see such wonders himself. Would he always regret it if he passed the chance up?

And if there was a beacon in Shattengrod . . .

Essek mused dreamily upon this prospect for some time. What if he was the one to find it? What if – imagination strained here, but why not fantasize? – what if no one else knew he had it? Well, all right, maybe he would tell Caleb. Eventually. Just to keep him from worrying. And because he knew Caleb was curious, too, even if not as desperately as Essek was. What if he had a beacon all his own, beholden to no one. That would be all right, wouldn’t it? He wouldn’t be hurting anybody, surely? Essek was so uncertain of his judgment at that point that he honestly didn’t know. It ought to be that he couldn’t be led astray when there was no one else to do the leading, right?

Except for the small inconvenience that his capacity to lead himself astray was also in question here, and the more Essek thought on that, the more doubt he carried.

Caleb sent in the morning. “Thank you for the gifts, schatz,” he said with palpable warmth. “I shall make my hands fit to touch you.”

Essek flushed and swallowed. “They always have been,” he said, and stopped talking. He did not ask ‘so what’s the plan?’ or ‘can I come?’ and the moment fizzled with the spell.

Caleb had extended an invitation for Essek to observe his advanced seminar on Conthsen morning. Essek was genuinely touched by this. It was a small group, by Soltryce standards, and Caleb positively doted over their papers and glowed when he spoke of them.

The session was wonderful. Essek got the chance to put faces to the names he knew quite well at this point. Miss Felene did prove herself to be something of a star amongst her accomplished peers. She didn’t say much, but what she contributed was unfailingly the sort of incisive brilliance that made Caleb grin in delight. The students were collectively a little on their guard at first, with Essek in their midst. But Caleb had them laughing and relaxed quickly, and Essek hoped he was seeing them all in something close to their natural mode.

One of the students had some sort of injury or congenital defect to her hand that could not be addressed by healing magic, presumably. She had limited use of most of her fingers on that hand, and completed her two-handed somatics through the deployment of a complex construction of wires and yarn that she could control with minimal finger motions. Essek had to exercise great restraint not to ask for endless demonstrations, as her casting was fascinating to watch.

Caleb was warmer here than he was in lecture. He used first names sometimes, and let his eyes and his body language speak his praise and gentle corrections. It was a pleasure to see him like this, and Essek caught himself staring several times, rather than paying attention to the flow of the conversation.

“Thank you, all of you,” Essek said at the end of the session, bowing shallowly to the students and more deeply to Caleb. “It has been a pleasure.” And a demanding one, too. These were all dedicated transmutationists, and the more esoteric parts of their conversation had been challenging and occasionally baffling to someone of Essek’s expertise. “I look forward to hearing Professor Widogast brag about how well you do on your exams.”

“I have been known to do such a thing, ja,” Caleb said cheerfully. “Essek, where are you headed? I’ll walk with you if it’s towards home.”

Essek took him up on that, and waited the five extra minutes it took for Caleb to extricate himself from the students.

“You look tired,” Essek said as they stepped outside. He’d thought so during seminar, but it was more apparent now in the daylight, and with the energy of the session draining out of Caleb’s face.

“Oh, ja,” Caleb said on a laugh. “I stayed up far too late like an irresponsible undergraduate.” Perhaps the one drink had turned into several. “And my bed was sadly empty once I finally got to it,” he added in an undertone.

“Oh,” Essek said, smiling to himself. “I did offer to be available to you, didn’t I?”

“Don’t tease,” Caleb said reprovingly. “At least,” he added off Essek’s incredulous look, “not in the middle of campus.”

“I can be available to you tonight?” Essek suggested quietly.

Caleb sighed. “That does sound wonderful, but I have a dinner engagement with certain senior military advisors to the king, and it will likely run very late.”

Essek hesitated. Was this clingy? He had no idea. “You know that I need much less rest than you do.”

“Ja. And I am wildly jealous, I hope you know.”

“Yes, well. What I mean to say is, it’s no trouble for me to come to you even if it’s late. I could wait up. You could Send to me.” He felt his ears flushing under their caps. They were just talking about sleep, but it felt . . . charged. Like an assignation, perhaps a forbidden one. Could Essek Teleport directly into his bedroom? What a thought.

Caleb’s face softened. “Would you?” he said.

“Yes. I would.” They walked in silence; Caleb had a way of knowing when Essek had more to say. “It’s not just for your benefit,” Essek tried eventually. “I, well.” He had no idea how to explain it. The way the long, dark passages of a night, which he used to relish for the lack of interruptions, had taken a sudden turn. He still tranced and studied and worked as always, but now his mind was prone to wandering off about its own concerns whether he liked it or not. He absolutely did not.

It would be different if it were more predictable, if he felt that he was accomplishing something with all the pacing and perseverating. But it wasn’t predictable at all. Two nights ago, he’d somehow gotten himself convinced at four in the morning that all of this – his current state, his inability to focus, his poor decisions of the past years – were all Caleb’s fault. Including decisions made before they’d ever met. He’d spent a solid hour working up a rising fury before dawn had come and pierced that strange bubble and left him tired and confused and alarmed by his own irrationality.

He had only limited observational evidence to go on, but he thought that sort of thing was less likely to happen when Caleb was sleeping beside him.

“Ah,” Caleb said, intuiting something. Essek didn’t care at this point if it was an accurate something or not, as long as he didn’t have to try and explain himself. “Tell me when it’s too late to Send,” Caleb said. “But otherwise, yes please, that sounds wonderful.”

So it was that Essek stayed up long after dinner that night reading in his suite. It was no hardship; he was only a little tired as the clock approached midnight. The house was quiet, with most of the minotaurs asleep and Verin a habitual early trancer. The madman got up at three in the morning to do pushups, which just went to show that it really did take all kinds to make the world go round.

The sensation, when it came, was so unexpected that it took Essek several vital seconds to react. There was a pluck pluck pluck at his nerves first, then a feeling of pressure in the ears, then a resonant ping as – by the Luxon – the house abjurations he habitually cast were dispelled.

Essek leapt to his feet, took two steps towards the door, then skidded to a halt as his thoughts caught up to him. He pointed to his right and Messaged Verin. “Wards are down,” he snapped. “I’m taking a look.”

“Fuck,” he got back. “Wait for me.”

Essek hesitated with his door open. That was probably good advice, but clearly there was an arcanist involved in whatever this was. He heard the tinkle of glass from somewhere downstairs, and a cut-off shout in a rumbling minotaur register, and a thud.

He checked his focus and ran. His suite was all the way at the far end of the hall. Essek invoked his cantrip halfway down to eliminate his footsteps. His floating momentum nearly fired him straight out over the stairs. Essek grabbed the railing in a hard stop, staring down. That was a body. A dead minotaur, to be exact, sprawled in the entrance hall. And in the act of leaping over him were two figures, both with blades up. Moonlight streamed in through the front windows and illuminated their bright red cloaks.

They both saw him there, and he caught the flash of teeth in a hungry grin.

Essek cast Pulse Wave, swearing internally as they seemed to shake off most of the effect. The windows rattled, and somewhere nearby more glass fell. One of the attackers completed their leap and immediately leapt again in an impossible arc that would take them straight up the stairs and far too close.

Then abruptly Verin’s echo was there on the top step, blade up for a ringing parry. And Verin himself charged past Essek, nearly knocking him down in his rush. There were more footsteps downstairs – two more minotaurs burst onto the scene, another two red cloaked fighters came in from the direction of the kitchen, and all devolved into chaos.

Essek hissed in frustration, each hand halfway through a different spell, neither of which would suit in this dangerously confined space. He cast Magic Missile with a great deal of muscle behind it, curving his shots around Verin’s broad shoulders to thump-thump-thump into the fighter he was trading blows with. Verin wasn’t bloodied yet, but his opponent was moving with terrifying speed.

Verin’s echo stayed where it was, not going down to join the fray. It was guarding him, Essek realized with frustration. If that dolt got himself stabbed because he didn’t have his echo at his back, Essek was going to be extremely cross.

He hesitated, then Hasted Verin. It felt terribly risky – what if Essek got hit and lost concentration, and left Verin vulnerable and alone in the lethargy after the spell? But Verin would say to do it, no question, so he did.

Where was the arcanist? That was the threat he was suited for, but all of these attackers – there were five now, where had that new one come from – had blades up, and no one was casting.

Essek scanned frantically. Two minotaurs were down now. Verin was wearing his dressing gown, for the Luxon’s sake, and grinning manically as he forced his opponent to step backwards down the stairs. Where—

A bolt of necrotic energy struck Essek out of nowhere. He staggered, crying out between clenched teeth as it felt like his muscles were withering off the bone. He held the Haste with a frantic effort.

Right. There was the arcanist. They had slipped right past Verin and him both, probably under Invisibility, and gotten behind him. They were red cloaked as well, with the hood pulled up. Essek caught a glimpse of daylight elf features, pale skin, dark eyes, gritted teeth of concentration.

Essek turned, eyes narrowing to focus on this greatest threat. The exchange of spells was fast and furious. He tried Blight, which took full effect, then failed to Counterspell something he didn’t recognize that left his ears ringing and pain ricocheting around his skull. He held the haste by his fingernails. Gravity Sinkhole – counterspelled, damn it – then a Counterspell of his own that worked this time. The noise downstairs was growing ever louder and more violent; he needed to finish this. They cast again, something else he didn’t know; Verin’s echo interposed itself and took the blow, dispersing in a shower of Dunamis. Essek cast Reality Break with a gasp and an internal heave of arcane strength. The caster screamed, head thrown back, ice crystals crackling briefly over their whole body. They were still up, barely. Then they shook themselves hard all over, shouted “retreat!” and Teleported, gathering their companions with a sweep of the hand. Essek Counterspelled, failed, swore.

The noise downstairs abruptly ceased. Essek spun to see Verin nearly fall face first down the stairs in the effort to redirect his momentum now that his opponent had vanished from in front of him. They were all gone, Essek saw at a quick scan. In their wake they’d left Verin and one minotaur on their feet, three minotaurs down, though one moved sluggishly, and Eadwulf Grieve in the act of withdrawing his bloody sword from the torso of someone no longer there.

“Where did you come from?” Essek demanded. Which was possibly not the most relevant question, but it was the first to his lips.

Grieve held up a hand to him and cast Sending with the other. “Clear,” he said, panting a bit. “I’ve got eyes on him, he took a few hits but is fine.”

“Is Caleb--?” Essek began, a terrible intuition striking him. He was cut off by a distant crackle-crackle-boom.

Grieve smiled grimly. “He’s handling something,” he said. Then he paused, head cocked to listen. “He says stay put, please. He’ll be here momentarily.”

“Why did you leave him?” Essek demanded. He was no expert, but he was pretty sure that was exactly what an annex ought not do. And if Caleb had been targeted by more of the same forces . . .

Grieve gave him a withering look. “Because he sent me to you,” he said. “Relax. Half the crew from your little jaunt last night were still in the tower, he’s got plenty of backup.”

“What jaunt?” Verin asked, looking up from the bottom of the stairs where he was administering a healing potion to the wounded minotaur. Neither of the other two were moving at all.

Grieve, at whom this had been directed, pointed unhelpfully at Essek. He might have used up his allocation of words for the month in the past minute.

“Oh,” Essek said. “Um.” He was trying to figure out how to word his way around I went to Zadash in the company of a dozen Volstrucker to intimidate information out of an archmage when there was the crackle pop of a Teleport out on the walk. Caleb strode in, smoke wreathing his hands.

He surveyed the situation quickly and swore in Zemnian. “How many dead?” he asked Verin. Then to Essek, “are you all right?”

“Well enough,” Essek said. His temples were booming, but it was nothing a trance wouldn’t fix. Caleb looked disheveled but unscathed.

“They were aiming for Essek,” Verin said.

“Are you sure?” There was a giant smear of blood all the way down the stairs; Essek floated over it in his bare feet. “The caster did go to some effort to corner me, but that’s just good strategy.”

“I’m certain,” Verin said lowly. “The only thing they wanted was to get up the stairs to you.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said quietly to himself. Then to Essek, “My tower is much more defensible than this place. Caduceus will be here in a few minutes, then we should move.”

“No,” Verin said flatly.

Caleb hesitated mid-step. “Of course, if you’d rather return to the Dynasty while the dust settles,” he began, visibly disliking this option.

“No,” Verin said again. “I haven’t decided yet.” Essek opened his mouth to rein in this high-handedness, but Verin rose in one motion and interposed himself between them. “It’s security, it’s my call,” he flashed over his shoulder at Essek, face set. Then, back to Caleb, “What I want to know right now is, how did you know to send your man here?”

That was actually a pretty good question.

“Ah.” Caleb looked vaguely abashed. “I’ve had one of mine watching the house,” he said, tipping a little to the right to be able to see around Verin.

Verin hissed in displeasure. “Since when?”

“Since Folsen,” Caleb said, eyes still on Essek.

“Oh.” Essek swallowed, steadied his float. Part of his mind had been working away this whole time, calculating the odds on what party might come for him and Caleb both. There was an obvious answer, and it seemed Caleb had already formed his own conclusions.

“I didn’t think it likely something would happen,” Caleb said gently. “If I had thought so, I would have said so. But I did think it worth being a little bit careful. And now I am very glad I was.”

“Why me, though?” Essek demanded. The falling adrenaline from the fight was transmuting into a simmering, terrified fury. “Why try to silence me? You, yes, certainly. You are a threat to him, on a number of levels. But have we not just established that I know nothing worth silencing me for?”

“Schatz.” Caleb started to reach out, glanced at Verin, and retracted his hand. “We don’t know what his motives might be,” he said. “Although he is an incredibly vengeful person, I can tell you that for sure. He may simply be angry that you defied him.”

That was a very kind gloss put on what Essek had actually done, or failed to do, more like. Caleb had defied. So had the Nein, and many of the Volstrucker. Essek had merely been thwarted in his ambitions through what he was beginning to see as an extraordinary stroke of unearned luck.

“Oh, for the Luxon’s sake,” Essek said, and shoved at Verin’s shoulder. “Don’t stand between two mages, what are you even doing?”

Verin’s response was overtaken by Caleb, whose spine snapped abruptly straight, his eyes going wide. He plunged a hand into his coat pocket and came out with a Sending Stone. The look of stark fear on his face froze Essek to the spot. Then Caleb listened, and his expression eased down to merely alarmed.

“Ja,” he said rapidly. “They tried for me, and Essek. I will send Caduceus shortly.”

He exhaled and looked up. “They tried for Beauregard and Yasha,” he said, with a quake to his voice.

Essek pushed straight past Verin and clasped Caleb’s hands between his. “They live?” he asked urgently.

“Ja.” Caleb nodded, his eyes blown wide. “I didn’t even think – but of course if he wants me off the board, he would want her, too. Stupid.” He swallowed audibly. “Yasha is injured, but stable.”

“Okay.” Essek chafed Caleb’s cold hands. “If you need Caduceus to go to them first—”

“No, no.” Caleb shook his head quickly. “You look like you’re hurting. And you’re bleeding quite a lot,” he added to Verin.

Essek whipped around and saw that it was true. One side of Verin’s face was swelling with a spectacular bruise, and the skin at his temple had split. He was dripping blood steadily onto his dressing gown and the floor.

“The second one clocked me with her hilt,” Verin said, gingerly touching his face. “What happened to you? I heard you get hit but didn’t see it.”

“The caster got me in the back,” Essek admitted with a grimace.

“Was it something psychic?” Caleb asked keenly.

“No, but there was some of that, too.” Essek rubbed his temples. “I didn’t recognize it.”

“Ja. We had two casters, and both were throwing around a lot of it.” He smiled a little grimly. “This is one of the times my paranoia comes in handy.”

“Oh,” Essek said enviously. Caleb’s Mind Blank would have negated the effects of such spells.

“So.” Caleb looked between the two of them. “Before Caduceus gets here, please tell me what is appropriate.” He gestured to the two dead minotaurs. “He’s going to offer resurrection rituals. Are there religious strictures on that?”

It abruptly occurred to Essek that he didn’t know the minotaurs’ names, let alone whether either of them was consecuted. Not that it mattered, way out here in Rexxentrum far from any beacon.

“A resurrection would be appreciated,” he said. “And the offer is not offensive.”

Caduceus came in on that cue, moving more quickly than Essek had ever seen. “Well,” Caduceus said, “I do offer, but we have a problem.” He came right up to Caleb and put a big hand on his shoulder. “I can’t get Piter back,” he said.

This rocked Caleb where he stood. “He won’t come?” he asked, visibly shocked.

“No. I mean the magic failed.”

Essek was no expert, but that seemed extremely unusual. Caleb’s expression confirmed that.

“Also,” Caduceus continued, “healing magic isn’t working on any wounds struck with blades. Which makes me think this is the result of a poison.”

Post facto fear chilled Essek’s blood. Verin could very easily have taken a wound from a blade. A fatal one, even.

“Here,” Caduceus said. He made a gesture between Essek and Verin, and pointed at the wounded minotaur. Essek sighed in relief as the throbbing numbness in his back and the headache both eased. Verin’s gash closed up, and his bruising cycled quickly through colors before settling on a fading yellow. The minotaur shook his head, though, breaths still labored. The potion should have gotten him upright, come to think of it.

Caduceus attempted his ritual on one of the minotaurs just to be sure, but shook his head mournfully less than a minute in. “I’m afraid not,” he said, and leaned over to gently close the minotaur’s eyes. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

“The waste of a soul is a loss to us all,” Verin said in Undercommon. Essek winced. That bit of scripture was the last thing their father had ever said to him, though Verin had no way to know it.

“Will you be availing yourselves of my tower?” Caleb asked, looking to Verin.

“. . . Yes,” Verin said slowly. His eyes remained narrow, but he was looking at Essek, now. “Come and get anything you need upstairs,” he said, and followed on Essek’s heels when he complied.

Essek looked blankly around his suite for a moment before collecting the communication box and a few scattered papers. Everything else was either already in his Secret Chest or simply not important.

Verin watched him the whole time, standing tall and square in the doorway. “Two of my people are dead, and their souls lost,” he said into the silence.

Essek almost said ‘Yes, I was there,’ but stopped himself in time. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Verin brushed away his sympathy. “My point,” he said, with a degree of controlled fury that was entirely unfamiliar on his face, “is that it is time you told me what is going on here.”

“Ah,” Essek said. So Verin had decided that he needed to know, now that there were bodies cooling downstairs. A pit of terrible dread opened up in Essek’s stomach.

And then because the communication box had reminded him and he badly needed a minute to think, he held up a staying hand. “One moment.” He cast Sending and spoke directly to the Dusk Captain. Normally he would not disturb her thus, particularly in the middle of the night, but these circumstances seemed to warrant it. “Shadowhand Thelyss speaking. We were attacked. Suffered squad losses. Attackers believed to be under the control of a former archmage. Sheltering here in the Empire.”

The response did not include any external noise, but something in the Dusk Captain’s voice gave the impression of strenuous movement. “Fuckers in red cloaks?” she asked brusquely. “Force of two dozen tried to snatch the Bazzoxan beacon during transfer. They were unsuccessful. Heavy casualties.”

Essek sucked in a breath, and cast again. “Yes, that sounds like the same people.” He was thinking so fast, his eyes nearly crossed. She needed an explanation. Verin needed an explanation. “I will investigate further here and report back.”

He looked to Verin. “The same forces made a try for the Bazzoxan beacon,” he said bluntly. “There were casualties, though the attempt failed.”

Verin took a step forward, hands flexing. “Did she say who didn’t make it?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Essek bit his lip. “I think I have one more Teleport in me, if you want,” he offered.

Verin’s jaw clenched. “No,” he said. “I’m not leaving you.”

There was no point even trying to argue with that expression. “Okay,” Essek said. Then, carefully, “Caleb is not a threat to me. Or the Dynasty.”

“Hmm,” Verin said. “I’ll buy that, yeah. But whatever the two of you are involved in clearly is.” There was a brief silence, which Essek failed to fill. “Come on,” Verin said at last. “We need to move.”

It was dawn before Caleb made it to bed, what with one thing and another. They established an infirmary first, where the wounded and unhealing could rest. The last time Caleb stuck his head in, it was to see Essek’s wounded minotaur playing a cutthroat game of cards with two Volstrucker under Yasha’s drugged-out supervision. Thus was international cooperation fostered.

Caduceus was quite distressed by his inability to heal. He cooked everyone a second dinner, unasked, which he served at two in the morning. He did have some ideas of potential ways to counter the poison. Caleb offered him whatever resources he might need – gold, transport, extra hands – and left him to it.

Caleb badly wanted to put his head together with Beauregard’s and ideally Essek’s and figure out where to go from here. But the three of them couldn’t snatch more than a few minutes of conversation at a time. First it was Essek’s news about the attack in the Dynasty, then Beau was understandably distracted by Yasha’s continued pain, and then all the fuss woke Leni, who flatly refused to go back to bed but did at least fall asleep on the family room sofa as various people came and went.

One of those people was Astrid, with yet more bad news.

“You are fucking joking,” Caleb said. He had literally just taken his coat off, and reached to put it back on with great reluctance. “I’m tapped, you’ll need to cast.”

The two of them teleported to the circle in Hass’s tower and went down to the courtyard below to confirm that yes, indeed, Hass was dead. They’d caught him coming home alone. There were no direct witnesses, but Hass had put up a hell of a fight, and the light show and sound of shattering stone had attracted attention.

Caleb was punchy enough by that point that all he could think to say as he looked down at Hass with his throat cut was, “The king will be annoyed.”

“Forget him,” Astrid said. “I’m annoyed.” She paused. “You were lucky.”

“Ja, I know.” They’d tried the same tactic with him, catching him on the street outside of the defensive fortress of his tower. Their bad luck that he had Wulf at his back and seven Volstrucker piled out his door or jumped out a window to help.

Caleb’s throat tried to close up, thinking of Piter. He was such a strange person – his school records said he was a divinationist, but they all knew his true mastery lay in necromancy. He went into battle with a reanimated raptor to back him up, and he never looked less than half feral at any given moment. Caleb would miss him terribly.

“Four simultaneous attacks,” Astrid said.

“Ja, if not more that we don’t know about yet.” Caleb glanced around the destroyed courtyard. “They take their dead with them. That’s what my lot did. I’m pretty sure Verin killed one, and I bet Hass did, too. But no bodies to extract information from. Very professional.”

“Makes you wonder how big this organization is,” Astrid said grimly.

Yes, that was the question, wasn’t it?

He went home and made the rounds. The patients were sleeping, and Caduceus had passed out on the floor in the same room. Leni was asleep on the family room sofa under Wulf’s coat. Verin was trancing on the other sofa. Wulf would be around somewhere – he would not have left Leni alone in the presence of someone he didn’t trust implicitly, and that list was extremely short. Caleb had no idea where he was, though, and wouldn’t unless Wulf damn well wanted him to.

Caleb hesitated, then lightly touched Verin’s shoulder. Very handy, having people around whose whole rest wasn’t ruined by an interruption. Not that he was terribly jealous or anything.

Verin’s eyes focused on him.

“I hope someone offered you a room?” Caleb whispered.

Verin nodded. “I’m fine here.”

“Okay.” Caleb yawned and straightened, but Verin forestalled him with a raised hand. “Yes?”

Verin chewed over his words for some time. What he finally came out with was not anything Caleb had expected. “Is it real?” Verin asked. “Your relationship. Or is it some elaborate cover for whatever bullshit the two of you are doing?”

What an interesting way to frame the question. Not whether Caleb was using Essek, but whether the two of them were in on something together. Caleb’s instinct to be offended eased. This seemed like it might possibly be more about Essek than about him. And very definitely Essek’s problem to handle.

“It is absolutely real,” he said, exerting himself to look Verin in the eyes. “And speaking for myself, my affections are very much engaged.”

“Okay,” Verin whispered, looking noticeably relieved. “I thought so. But.” But he’d been spinning up all sorts of ideas in the aftermath of tonight’s violence, his expression said.

“Do you know where he is?”

Verin shook his head and pointed upward. “Somewhere up there.”

“Thanks.” He looked to the grayish winter morning light beginning to peek through the windows, and sighed. “Goodnight.”

Caleb readied himself all the way upstairs to find his bedroom empty. There were plenty of guest rooms, or Essek could easily trance on the study couch if he wanted a bit of solitude. Which he very well might. Caleb still didn’t think he had a particularly good handle on Essek’s state of mind, except to think he’d been working on a generalized upset that simmered up and down. Surely it would be bubbling high after a night like this.

So it was a relief and a pleasure to go into his bedroom to find Essek trancing on the bed. Caleb stopped for a moment to watch him. He rarely got the opportunity to see Essek trancing, as Essek generally came to full consciousness quickly when Caleb woke in the night. It was lovely to have the company, if occasionally a little uncomfortable to be observed by those sharp violet eyes in such moments.

Essek had beautiful posture – back straight, shoulders aligned, legs folded, hands open in his lap. He looked serene. A little rumpled, though. When he was coming to bed with Caleb, he did a certain amount of primping. Normally, it turned Caleb on the way Essek made himself beautiful to look at and wonderful to touch just to spend the night next to a wretch like him. But right then, it made his heart ache, because now Essek’s hair was mussed, his lip color imperfectly removed, his trancing robe askew on his shoulders. Caleb had to blink his eyes clear at the enormity of that, the intimacy of seeing Essek at something less than perfect.

Caleb went into the bathroom for a quick change and teeth brushing. Essek was conscious when he came back in, though he’d tried to be quiet.

“Okay?” Essek asked softly.

Caleb sighed and got into bed. “Hass is dead,” he said bluntly. “But I need to sleep before we can talk about that.”

“Yes,” Essek said, a little wide eyed. “Sleep. I am almost rested, I can get up soon.” He hesitated, the way he did before making an offer of aid. “Is there anything I can do to make tomorrow easier for you?”

“You can come here,” Caleb said honestly. “Just let me hold you for a minute?”

Essek looked surprised, then touched. He removed his earcaps, hands only a little jerky with self-consciousness, and slipped off his robe to get under the covers. Caleb gathered him close, amazed by the slightness of him. Essek’s clothes often concealed the exact shape of his body, and Caleb was still a little shocked sometimes when he put his hands on Essek’s waist or shoulders and found his bones so delicate.

“You’re so beautiful,” Caleb sighed, looking at his eyes, his ears, the darling little poof of unruly hair over his forehead. It seemed the quickest way to say the more complicated things he meant.

Essek colored up a tiny bit, visibly surprised. “Thank you,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I, ah. I am perhaps not good at expressing it, but I hope you know that I find you very pleasing to look at, too.” His free hand fluttered to touch Caleb’s beard, his hair, his shoulder.

“You express it just fine,” Caleb said. He honestly didn’t know how he’d ever seen Essek as cold or closed off. His eyes said so much. Though truthfully, if he was any more forthright with his compliments, Caleb would probably have a hard time handling it.

This relationship did get harder, in its way, the more entwined they became. Caleb was very glad he’d had practice with the Nein, and then with Leni, in enduring the way a person could make him happy. Happiness felt like a heavier weight than sadness. And a weight he didn’t think he was fit to carry. But the Nein hadn’t been interested in that opinion, and Leni was a force of nature upon his soul, and so was Essek.

“Did they come close to really hurting you?” Essek asked quietly.

Caleb hummed, thought about lying, decided not to. “There was a close call with a Disintegrate,” he said, and felt Essek stiffen. “Ja, they did not come to play. I had to use a magical ring in order to evade it. You?”

“Not really,” Essek said. “The caster got me from behind, but I was more worried about Verin. I knew I had a lot of options to get out of there.”

“Ja,” Caleb said tiredly. “It’s fighting beside the people you love that will get you, every time.” He kissed the top of Essek’s head. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Essek pressed in closer. “You, too,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what I would do. If something happened to you.” He sounded like he was looking into the Abyss, just thinking about it.

Caleb chewed his lip. Something was going to happen to him in the course of time, after all. In five or six decades, if he was lucky. Much sooner, if he fell off this precarious perch atop the assembly. And he was beginning to think of this relationship as something that might stand up to decades. But could it stand up to the physiological differences between them? It was a reasonably common arrangement, a pairing of the long and short lived. There wouldn’t be so many half-elves running about if it wasn’t. But Caleb didn’t know anybody with relevant experience to ask.

Not a problem for this moment. For this moment, he needed to hold Essek tighter, and kiss his rumpled hair again. “I’m here,” he said.

“Is this tower safe?” Essek asked, some tension still in him. “Surely you must have seen to it, or Leni wouldn’t be here. But this was Da’leth’s tower for centuries.”

“Ja, that’s true. I spent over a month working on that, and tapped the greatest abjurationist on the face of Exandria. Do you know Allura Vysoren?”

“By reputation. She is confident in it? That Da’leth doesn’t have some way of getting back in?”

“As confident as she can be,” Caleb said. “Which is not a hundred percent, but what is.”

“Would you,” Essek said, then hesitated. Caleb waited, and prompted him with a quiet humming sound. “Would you be willing to introduce me sometime?” Essek said, with a degree of diffident embarrassment that didn’t suit the request.

“Of course,” Caleb said. He thought quickly and made a guess. “And there are other great mages I’ve met, if you’d like other introductions?”

Essek nodded quickly. “Please. I . . .” He looked away. “I was a fool, before. But right to think I needed to look outside my nation for . . .” he gestured, minimizing his words even as he said them. “Colleagues. Compatible minds. Obviously my judgment in selecting them was unspeakably bad. So perhaps I should rely on yours for a time, if that is all right?”

“Of course,” Caleb said again, instead of the many uncomfortable protests he’d like to make. “Also. On a separate note. I spoke to your brother downstairs. I assume you are aware that he, ah . . .”

Essek’s shoulders crawled up toward his ears. “I know,” he said. “I’ll handle it.”

They were quiet for a while. Caleb was exhausted but unsleeping. Not a surprise, but frustrating. It gave his mind a chance to churn some thoughts to completion that had been mulling in the background for several hours.

“I think,” Caleb said slowly into the quiet, “unless you strenuously disagree, I think it is time I speak to your Bright Queen.”

Chapter Text

It took over a day to arrange what was, essentially, an impromptu state visit. Caleb’s reasoning was hard to argue with, once he’d slept for five hours and could offer it. He was deeply concerned that hot heads in the Empire would conclude the attacks should be blamed, or maybe just plausibly could be blamed, on the Dynasty. Apparently the military officials he’d been dining with were just the sort to snatch an excuse like that. And he was equally concerned that the reverse conclusion would be drawn in the Dynasty.

“Less likely,” Essek said, frowning. “But not impossible.”

“Ja, well. It seems important to get in front of this, make sure all parties are thinking of this as a mutual threat that we ought to mutually address.”

“I suppose so,” Essek said slowly. He could see the point, but he still wanted to object. The idea of taking Caleb home made his belly quiver in something close to frightened embarrassment.

“Or should we switch?” Caleb said, pausing in the act of putting on his coat. “Should Astrid go with you and I stay to handle things at court?” Should a woman go, he meant.

“No,” Essek said immediately. If there was one thing he wanted to do less than escort Caleb through the dynasty, it was escort Becke. “You are going to have to be extremely careful,” he said in an anxious rush. “If you plan to tell the Bright Queen you suspect there is a beacon in Pride’s Call . . . I don’t think you understand how intensely her circle feels about beacons.”

“I know I don’t,” Caleb said. “This is a gamble, ja. But it’s one that must be made, I think.” He smiled, strained. “I’d ask you to trust me, but that is rather unfair since I generally do not trust myself, particularly with such important things.”

That actually did settle Essek’s nerves to some extent. “I do trust you,” he said, finding the words firming his spine as he said them.

So he made and received a series of Sendings, and told Verin to get ready for a trip home.

News continued to trickle in all that day and night. There were even more attacks than they’d thought, all executed with near simultaneity. There had been another in Rexxentrum which killed an ostensibly inoffensive lady of a minor noble house, though Beauregard immediately identified her as an Augen Trust official. There was at least one attack in Tal’dorei upon a powerful ashari leader; it apparently missed its target but did have casualties. And also several successful attacks in Marquet upon an arcane professor and several connected persons.

Beauregard kept a running list of the targets on the chalkboard in Caleb’s study. She stood there for some time late on Folsen, staring at the growing list and tapping her foot.

“Yeah, no,” she said eventually. “I don’t see, like, a unifying theory here. Do either of you?”

“No,” Caleb said from his desk, and Essek shook his head.

“Okay. So let’s assume he’s killing a bunch of different birds with a few stones. He wanted Essek out of the way because he worried Essek knows too much, or maybe just because he’s a petty bitch who doesn’t like being told no. And he wanted you and me gone because we’ve been poking around too much.” She paused thoughtfully. “Though maybe not, maybe we’re also on the petty revenge docket. It’s not like we’ve been super successful looking for him or anything.”

“And Hass, because he was a loose end,” Caleb said. “Or maybe because he ran straight to Da’leth about us and Da’leth cut his losses. Either way, I’m very glad we got to him when we did.”

“The Dynasty, that one’s obvious,” Beauregard said, tapping that entry. “How many bodies does he have to spend if he can throw them away on trying to steal a beacon when security is already beefed up?” she added in frustration. Then to Essek, “If he’d tried that shit, coming in force, before getting caught at the subtle way, do you think it would have worked?”

“Maybe,” Essek said doubtfully. “The beacons are moved around the Dynasty about twice a year, depending on various factors having to do with who dies where and when. Very few people are born in Bazzoxan, you see.”

“Huh.” Beauregard worked this through. “So they fill up the ole’ soul reservoir then ship it back to the capitol to install them in the next generation.” She paused, frowning. “The new old generation? The same generation, new flavor? New body who dis?”

“. . . More or less,” Essek said, trying to decide if he was more tickled or horrified. A common question around the Mighty Nein. “The movement of the beacons was always done quite carefully, I’ll say that. Security used to be much laxer once the beacons were in place. Perhaps the transfers will stop altogether after this incident, though.”

“Wait, what?” Beauregard said. “Wouldn’t that jam up the soul traffic or something?”

“I theorize it would not,” Essek said. “I believe that the beacons are networked in some way, as long as they are in range of each other. So a soul is not contained in a particular beacon. I haven’t been able to demonstrate this in the lab, but there’s enough evidence in some fundamental calculations and in the historical record to convince me.”

“Not something the court is interested in?” Caleb asked.

Essek shook his head. “Perhaps of more interest now,” he said. Though I told you so seemed particularly ill-advised, under the circumstances.

“Interesting. Anyway. I think Da’leth defaults to suborning a person first,” Caleb said. “It’s his preferred method. And he turns elsewhere only when that doesn’t avail.”

“Yeah,” Beauregard said unhappily. “So what does it mean about what phase his plans are in that he’s pulling this shit now?” She swept a hand over the chalkboard, and Caleb made a face of displeased agreement. “Okay, and my working assumption for our Augen Trust person is that she was actually one of his and was feeding him info and he was worried we’d get to her. Or maybe she also refused him. Did Ollie tell you anything?”

“Decidedly no,” Caleb said. “Which makes me suspect she was leaking. We may get more out of the Trust in a few days, once the dust settles and they have a handle on the damage.”

“Right. Speaking of petty bitches. The rest of these, though, I just don’t know. Why does he care about an ashari person?”

No one knew the answer to that, and talked turned quickly to Caleb’s visit to the Dynasty. He had a number of sensible questions – proper address for the Bright Queen, some broad points of social etiquette and the like. It was strange to try and explain the dynamics of court to an outsider. Essek had literally never done so in his life. Newcomers did enter the queen’s orbit sometimes – new souls having proved themselves extraordinary – but that had never been of interest to him, once he was no longer such a person himself. He found he was painfully invested in making sure Caleb came across well.

It was for this reason that he volunteered to sort Caleb’s clothing for him. He did so hesitantly, as he himself would find such an offer to be a trespass, but Caleb looked deeply relieved.

“Would you?” he said. “Thank you, that’s perfect. Everything is upstairs. We can try to get something made by tomorrow, too, just let me know and enough gold should do it.”

“Probably not,” Essek said. “We want you to look like what you are, an Empire mage. And you dress well for that.”

“That’s because Ducey and Jes handle his wardrobe for him,” Beauregard said. “Otherwise, he’d be the archmage in rags.”

So Essek retreated to Caleb’s closet to consider options. He ended up wildly overpacking, but that’s what transdimensional space was good for. He set aside a beautiful black coat with intricate violet embroidery for Caleb to wear on arrival. He’d never seen it on, which was close to a crime.

Verin found him there, sorting through near-identical white shirts.

“So,” he said, boxing Essek into the walk-in closet by leaning in the doorway. “I’ve been trying to think like you. All twisty and five steps ahead of everybody.”

Essek wasn’t sure how to respond to that without giving offense. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Fucking terrible,” Verin said. “I feel half crazy, and I’m second and third guessing everything until nothing makes sense.”

“It hasn’t worked out all that well for me, either,” Essek said. There was a startled pause. Whoops.

“So, do us both a favor and lay it out for me like I’m dumb.” Verin said.

Essek discarded one shirt for having a faint shadow of wear on the collar. “I think you picked up the basics over the past day,” he said to his busy hands. “Former archmage, potentially apocalyptic plans, needs a beacon?”

“Yeah, no,” Verin said. “I got that. That part makes sense.”

“Well, I’m glad it does to somebody,” Essek muttered.

“No, I mean, that’s just arcane bullshit and politics bullshit,” Verin said, consigning both to the hells with an eloquent gesture. “What I don’t get is why you’re in the mix.”

“Oh, that’s not interesting,” Essek said. He’d had some time to think about how to handle this over the past day, thank goodness. And more importantly, he felt relatively steady in his purpose. He would never forget the terrible fumbling that had led to Jester casting Zone of Truth. Essek had decided to label those circumstances extraordinary and never to be repeated. “Caleb didn’t know what a beacon was. I told him, in connection with what he knew of Da’leth’s plans and his recent attempts to secure an agent in the Dynasty. I am concerned with all of this, of course, as any right-thinking arcanist ought to be. Any right-thinking person, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh,” Verin said slowly. “That doesn’t explain why you’ve barely looked me in the eye in nearly two weeks.”

Essek jerked his eyes up, startled. He hadn’t prepared for that. Had not known to. Surely Verin exaggerated. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The silence was long and painful. Essek was reminded of just how much Verin looked like their father: tall and strong and resolute. They both had that ease about them that made people like them. They didn’t bend the world to their will, as Essek so often strove to. They simply had the trick of finding contentment in whatever shape life took. They could also both muster a truly lowering amount of concerned disapproval when moved to.

“I keep thinking,” Verin said. Then he paused for a drawn out moment, and scowled at Essek. “You’re supposed to say that’s not my strong suit.”

“Oh.” Yes, that was his line, wasn’t it? He kept missing cues. “Sorry. That is—” he cleared his throat “—don’t hurt yourself.”

Verin didn’t smile. “I keep thinking I’ve never seen you like this. Not after your hundredth. Not after father.”

Essek caught himself in the act of looking away, and jerked his eyes back up. Of course Verin would bring up two of the worst times of his life. Of course he would connect them to now, with that unerring instinct he had for knowing things without understanding them.

Was this one of the worst times of Essek’s life? Yes. Undoubtedly. He was humiliated. Deeply shaken. And also no. How could it be, with what he had found in Caleb?

“It’s not like that,” Essek said, whisking a shirt into his Secret Chest. “I’m fine. I just—” inspiration struck, and he grabbed hold with both hands. “Caleb recently told me a number of upsetting things. Relevant to, ah, relevant to the conversation you and I had over dinner?”

“Ah,” Verin said quietly.

“It’s . . . hard,” Essek said to Caleb’s row of boots. If three pairs could be called a row. “A lot of things are changing very fast. My priorities. My plans.” This was meant as a distraction, but he discovered as he talked that it had the benefit – the danger – of also being true. He was on entirely new ground, and deeply uncertain of his footing. How did one accomplish being a good partner? That was complex enough, even before accounting for the particular complications of being a good partner to Caleb. An Empire mage. A former . . . child soldier, Essek had decided to call it in his own mind. “I’m just thinking about a lot.”

“About things that are fucking terrible?” Verin asked.

“Yes. And I know it’s not about me, but—”

“it kind of is, though,” Verin said unexpectedly. “I mean, what you do with it.” He tapped himself over the heart, then rolled his eyes and tapped his temple instead. “What you do with it in here. That part is about you.”

“I suppose,” Essek said.

“Anything you can talk about?” Verin said, because he was nothing if not generous. And it was a fair offer. He was Essek’s only – confidante in such matters.

“No,” Essek said, moving on to vests. “Thanks. I just need to figure myself out.”

“Okay.” Verin thumped him between the shoulder blades in an affectionate way and let him be. Essek slumped a little over the vests, breathing out a silent breath of relief. How had he ever planned to steal the beacons? It seemed inconceivable now, when the mere thought of Verin knowing he had ever considered the idea felt like a knife between the ribs.

He entertained a brief fantasy of innocence. What if he hadn’t really meant to do it, what if Da’leth had manipulated his mind. It wasn’t true, of course. He’d taken multiple measures against just such interference. The one thing he’d approached with the proper amount of cunning and common fucking sense in the whole sorry tale. He’d decided to do it of his own free will, and what that now told him about himself was the price he had to pay.

Besides, even entertaining those thoughts felt like disrespecting Caleb, whose mind had been bent and eventually broken to suit another’s purposes, and who now suffered for it, years later. There was no such thing as the comfort of being another’s puppet.

They accomplished the trip via teleportation to the Lucid Bastion circle, accompanied by Verin, Grieve, and Franka. Caleb hadn’t initially intended to bring any annexes with him; the resulting argument was conducted largely in Zemnian, though Essek picked up enough to understand that Grieve flat out refused to let Caleb set foot on Xhorhasian soil without him. Becke had arrived mid-argument and said, among other things, that it was expected for someone of Caleb’s station to bring at least a small entourage, and it would be strange if he didn’t. This was actually what Essek had been thinking, but he was glad he wasn’t the one to say it as it made Caleb groan and grind his fists into his eyes. At the thought of his station and expectations and entourages, clearly.

Caleb was beautifully dressed in the black and violet coat, with flowers from the Blooming Grove braided into his hair by one of the Volstrucker who had an interest in such arts. Essek had badly wanted to handle that himself, but it was probably unwise for Caleb to arrive wearing an obviously Kryn style, so Essek merely oversaw her work and quietly seethed.

Caleb looked tired as they readied to depart. Essek knew he’d slept decently, by his standards, but it clearly wasn’t enough after the past few weeks. But somehow, between one blink and the next, Caleb transformed. He was slumped and weary when Essek began the teleportation, but when he looked again after arriving and greeting the Dusk Captain, Caleb was straight-backed and smiling, the lines on his face eased. There was magic to that, though of the inner strength variety rather than the arcane.

“Ma’am,” Caleb said upon Essek’s introduction. “It’s a pleasure.” He looked like he meant it, too.

“Likewise,” the Dusk Captain said, one eyebrow faintly arched.

The Bright Queen had opted against receiving Caleb formally in her throne room, which was possibly a good sign as to her state of mind. That, or she was taking some precautions to try and keep the visit from being too much a matter of public comment. For fear of Da’leth’s spies? To avoid having the visit of an Empire archmage becoming a political liability outside of the ruling dens?

Essek had spent decades upon these exercises, reading and rereading the undercurrents of the court. He’d gotten quite good at it, and the reflex kicked back in seamlessly. Though he did wonder now for the first time how much else in life he could have accomplished, was not so much of his brain taken up by such things.

It was early evening, Rosohna time, so the plan was apparently to go straight to dinner. Which meant the real conversations would not begin until after. Essek silently gritted his teeth, chafing at these diplomatic niceties. Dinner would be at least eight courses, and take hours.

Caleb was bright-eyed and politely curious about everything as the Dusk Captain escorted them through the Bastion.

“You have an office here, right?” he asked Essek, after inducing the Dusk Captain to explain the nature of the Bastion’s construction to him. “I don’t suppose I could be permitted to see it?”

“It’s just a room,” Essek said, oddly embarrassed. “But yes, I suppose you can, if we have time later.” Though what Essek really wanted to do was pick up the results of his recent shopping spree, which Caleb would also find much more interesting, if only he knew. Not like Essek could explain the particulars of what he’d acquired with the Dusk Captain glancing between them with such keen curiosity.

The Bright Queen met them in a formal atrium space where a cluster of white illumination globes dazzled off the quartz walls. The lights also glittered off the fall of a fountain that ran twenty feet from an opening in the wall down to a pool below. The meeting was staged as if it occurred by chance, with the queen and her retinue arriving just as they did, but Essek had seen this move before. The queen was magnificent in white and gold, and she shone as she paused before the fountain. The Dusk Captain and Essek both slid into a deep obeisance. Caleb did not, but his Empire-style bow was of the utmost courtesy. He was striking in his dark coat with his flame hair against all the pale dazzle.

Essek tracked the exchange of greetings with his pulse beating rapidly in his wrists. The Bright Queen was aloof and, he thought, quite angry after the recent incursion. Caleb was calm and curious. He had brought her a basket brimming with fruits not to be found in the Dynasty: winter citrus from the coast; a wide variety of Empire apples and pears and a bouquet of rhubarb stalks; and an incredible pile of strawberries and blackberries and raspberries from Caduceus’s home, where seasons were for other people.

“It’s not much,” Caleb said, smiling bashfully. “But I thought you might enjoy these. I think our fruits are the only thing your Shadowhand has truly come to enjoy at our Empire tables.”

This was not true, but Essek wasn’t about to step on what Caleb clearly intended as a charm offensive. It was working a little bit, too, if only in the slight appreciative widening of the Dusk Captain’s eyes.

They ate dinner at a long table for thirty in a vermaloc-paneled dining room near the top of the Bastion. Essek had warned Caleb against attempting to escort the Bright Queen into the meal, as that would have landed poorly with her. He was not prepared for Caleb to excuse himself from his conversation with the Skysybil, cross against the flow of the crowd, and offer his arm with a half-bow. “Do you mind terribly, schatz?” Caleb said, sounding particularly Zemnian.

“Oh,” Essek said, quickly taking his elbow. He was in full mantle and robes, which of course meant he must float, as these garments were hemmed for a precise graviturgic effect. It was strange to be dressed like this again, and to have the use of his cantrip constrained. He had gotten used to being able to adjust his height at will in Rexxentrum, to look Caleb in the eye, or kiss his mouth, or tuck comfortably into his shoulder.

Caleb escorted him in, his free hand laid warmly over Essek’s. This performance was gaining several approving looks, which was a bit baffling, and also an expression from Umavi Thelyss that Essek decided not to interpret at all.

“Okay?” Caleb asked him in a whisper, lips barely moving.

“Yes,” Essek said, and squeezed his arm.

Caleb escorted him to his place and left him there with a chaste touch to the back of his hand. Essek was seated six people down from the Bright Queen, in between one of the Aurora Watch’s Meteor Commanders he didn’t know well and a senior Starguide of the Illuminated Way he couldn’t stand. Caleb was at least in sight on the opposite end of the table, but he was seated between the Bright Queen and the Skysybil, far enough away for Essek to be left with only body language to go off of.

Dinner was interminable. The Meteor Commander was at least mildly entertaining; she had several tales of training camp shenanigans that Essek tucked away to regale Verin with later. Starguide Essri spoke entirely in scripture, even to ask for the salt. Essek could have happily removed their tongue with his butter knife.

Things did at least appear to be going well at the head of the table. The Bright Queen spoke as well as listened. Caleb was equally attentive to both of his neighbors, and to the Dusk Captain across from him. Umavi Thelyss was next to the Dusk Captain; Caleb looked carefully at her, then said something which caused that entire end of the table to look at Essek. He tried not to frown at the lot of them. He had been told that he favored his mother, but didn’t really see it himself.

Caleb made the Dusk Captain smile several times and, once, caused the Skysybil to cackle loudly enough for it to bounce off the arched ceiling. Essek couldn’t hear a word he was saying, but he could practically see the adjustments Caleb was making to his charm, like a wizard perfecting somatics. Bren, rather – that’s who this was. It was impressive, and likely looked effortless to everyone else at the table. Essek knew that Bren was working as relentlessly as Verin did on the training field, and that he would be equally exhausted later.

After three appetizer courses, the soup, the salad, the main, the sweet, and the coffee, the only positive thing Essek had to say about the whole experience was that it was almost over. Though it was good to have some familiar foods again, too. He had missed some of the bitter, peppery greens grown entirely underground. And he thought Caleb had genuinely enjoyed the main, which was thick steaks from a baby aurochs in a mushroom reduction.

Finally, the Bright Queen stood, and there was a general shuffling of chairs. The Bright Queen’s headdress was already retreating through the far door by the time Essek extracted himself. He was just wondering in increasing panic whether he would be excluded from the forthcoming discussions when Caleb appeared at his elbow, quite possibly by virtue of magic, and linked their arms with a cheerful “there you are.” Caleb was taller than most here, save the single bugbear and two minotaurs, and he swept Essek through the crowd and into the cluster of umavis with ease. Truly, the things tall people got away with were ridiculous.

The Bright Queen ascended one floor to a sitting room she favored for diplomatic purposes. It was fussy and brocaded and rich in gold and quartz and imported marquetian hardwood. Not really to her personal tastes, but she knew the value of subverting the expectations of guests from abroad who had heard tales of beasts and monsters and pictured who knew what.

Caleb waved Grieve and Franka away with an unconcerned gesture. He watched the seating arrangements take shape, then without missing a beat seated Essek in the chair meant for Caleb and placed himself on the hassock at Essek’s feet. This permitted the assembled umavis – Kryn, Kryn, Mirimm, Thelyss – a few inches of height advantage in their seats, though that really just meant they were all eye-to-eye.

The Dusk Captain went to the drinks cabinet and offered up a few different bottles for consideration. Caleb turned at once to Essek with warmth in his eyes and a request for guidance.

“I think you will like the whiskey,” Essek said. “It’s aged in vermaloc barrels in the underdark for a century.”

Caleb accepted his glass, and Essek wasn’t the only one who smiled to see his face suffuse with pleasure at the first sip. “Oh, that is nice,” Caleb said on a sigh. “Thank you,” to the Dusk Captain and Bright Queen, and, “Thank you,” with a touch to Essek’s knee. “This is quite the indulgent repayment for me buying you drinks at a Rexxentrum dance hall.”

“Did you dance?” the Skysybil asked, with alarming interest.

“I didn’t dare ask,” Caleb said confidingly to her.

“I would have said no,” Essek said repressively.

“Thus, why I didn’t ask,” Caleb said, somehow making it clear with his face and his hands that he didn’t mind in the slightest.

“So,” the Bright Queen said. “You have caught our Shadowhand.”

This was not at all how Essek had imagined this conversation proceeding. He tried not to bridle at her word choice.

“Me?” Caleb said with a gentle laugh and one of those ‘just a simple Zemnian farm boy’ smiles. “Hardly. He all but swept me off my feet, if you want to be accurate about it.”

Essek blinked. That wasn’t how he remembered events, but Caleb sounded entirely sincere.

“Still,” the Bright Queen said. “Many have tried. Why did you succeed, I wonder.”

“Many?” Caleb asked Essek, bright-eyed. Then, to the Queen, “Could any of your eligible young Dynasty gentlemen turn into dragons? I’m pretty sure that’s what did it.”

Essek twitched and glared. How did he know that, damn him? Essek had schemed for months now on ways to get him to do it again.

“Understandable,” the Skysybil said horrifyingly, and toasted Essek with her plum brandy. Essek found himself wishing that he had been excluded from this conversation after all.

“What kind?” the Dusk Captain asked. She had fought several dragons in her time.

“Blue,” Caleb said. “Though I can also do white. I have an ambition to collect all the extant colors, but it’s a bit logistically tricky. I have to see each one in person, you see.” He smiled benignly, like someone who had not just told one of the dynasty’s legendary warriors that he had met two dragons and survived it. That was, as Beauregard would have said, ‘some fucking flex.’

Also, a white dragon? Essek tried very hard not to look too interested in this new information. Then, there was a prickle at the base of his skull, and Jester’s bright voice entered his mind.

“Heeeeeey Essek! So we decided to go to the Savalirwood with Ducey. Did you know that there are corrupted beasts that are as big as—” A pause, then her voice returned, skipping on ahead merrily to a new sentence. “—tell him not to worry, we’ve totally got this. Find the Path took us through a swamp! Caduceus is stinky. Kay love you bye!”

“Hello, my friend,” Essek said quietly, aware that the attention of the entire room was on him. “Please be careful, and send to me or Caleb when you are done.” He waited for the spell to fade, then said to Caleb, “She and Fjord went to the Savalirwood. I am instructed to tell you not to worry.” He heroically ignored the looks going around the room, which he could only interpret as Essek Thelyss has a friend now?

“Ah,” Caleb said. “Yes, I thought it would shake out like that. If they must fight their way through, I’d much rather it be in a group, of course, but.” But he’d much rather be there, his frown said. He turned to the Bright Queen. “A member of my household thinks he may be able to reverse whatever curse or poison is affecting those injured by our attackers. A group is seeking a necessary botanical component in the Savalirwood. If they are successful, and you have wounded, I would be happy to share the treatment.”

The Bright Queen inclined her head. “We do have wounded who will not heal,” she said. “We are also seeking a solution. Perhaps whoever reaches it first can share.”

Caleb nodded in silence, correctly reading that she had more to say.

“We also have seven dead,” she said. Would the poison preclude rebirth? Essek had no idea, and wasn’t sure anyone else would either.

“My condolences,” Caleb said. “We also had losses, including someone dear to me.”

“Ah, one of your fellow archmages,” she said.

Caleb smiled with palpable coolness. “No, I was not referring to him. I do know one person who might mourn him, at least a little bit.” His tone made it clear he found it unlikely anyone else would.

“But not you.”

“No,” he said simply. “It looks as if he did strike several blows upon our enemy, at least.”

“Our enemy,” the Bright Queen said, laying a touch of ironic emphasis. “Also an assembly archmage, I understand?”

“Former,” Caleb corrected gently. “But yes. You have been briefed on what we know of his intentions?”

“Some,” she said. “But I would like to hear it from you.”

“Certainly.” He began reaching for his harness, reconsidered, and looked deliberately at the Dusk Captain. “I am reaching for some relevant records, not my spellbook.” He retrieved a thick sheaf of parchment from beside his lefthand book. “This is a copy of portions of a journal Da’leth left behind when he fled Rexxentrum. There is one copy using his cipher, as written, another uncyphered, and a copy of the key we worked out, all made and sealed by the Cobalt Soul. I have also included some notes I made recently, speculating on certain arcane aspects of his plans. You may wish to have your own experts take a look.” He handed all of this to the Dusk Captain and folded his hands in his lap. “As for what he plans.” He summarized all of it gravely, his eyes on the Bright Queen’s.

“Hmm,” the Bright Queen said when he was done. “You have had access to this information since you assumed his role, then. And you bring it to us only now.”

Caleb grimaced. “Yes, and no. Da’leth was only ever of secondary interest to me. He was not the author of the cancer at the heart of my nation that I sought to excise. So I deciphered his writing a year ago and concluded, frankly, that he was mad. It was Essek here that made us aware of the true nature of his threat. I did not know what a beacon was, you see, and it wasn’t until Essek explained that we understood Da’leth’s schemes were more than raving.”

Essek had never held his face more still in his entire life. He thought he would probably appreciate this performance later, in a less fraught moment. It was interesting to know that Caleb, like other skilled liars, was adept at stating something that was true, but fatally incomplete.

“We?” the Dusk Captain asked.

“Ja, that’s mainly me and one of my dearest friends, who is an expositor with the Cobalt Soul.”

“You have interesting friends,” the Bright Queen said.

“Yes. I am incomprehensibly blessed in them,” Caleb said, with the gravity with which some people – some people in this room – prayed.

“It is not the usual sort of alliance,” the Bright Queen said. “Indeed, I understand your organizations are traditionally at odds.”

“Correct,” Caleb said. “And if I ever lose my way and descend into the corruption and criminality of my predecessors, I hope that my expositor friend pursues me with all the vigor that we used to pursue them.”

“Do you think that likely?” the Skysybil asked, interested. “Bit of corruption? Touch of criminality?”

“No,” Caleb said, dipping his chin to her. “Not anymore. I have those friends we spoke of; they keep my head on straight. But I know better than to think I entirely understand myself and what I am capable of.”

“Indeed,” the Skysybil said, smiling with teeth. “There are those ten times your age, boy, who have not yet learned that lesson.”

“I am a transmutationist,” Caleb said simply. “I have been remade before. I could be remade again.”

That was a very Luxonic thing to say, as reflected in the approving flick of the Skysybil’s ears. Did Caleb know that? Perhaps he had intuited it, but it would be quite a leap from what little Essek had said on the matter. More likely, this was his genuine view.

“Your king,” the Bright Queen said. “How does he respond to the recent attacks?”

“He is angry, of course,” Caleb said.

“And he sent you here to me.”

“Hmm, in a sense,” Caleb said. He made a show of glancing at the clock over the mantle. “In another sense, he was informed of my whereabouts approximately an hour ago.”

This made the Dusk Captain and the Skysybil both snort.

“He is a fool, your king,” the Bright Queen said, in a testing sort of way.

Caleb made a very politic open-handed gesture, not agreeing or quite disagreeing. “I think you will find that I am not,” he said.

“Indeed.” She shared a long glance with the Dusk Captain. Essek could feel the currents in the room shifting, decisions being made. He thought Caleb was doing well here, but it was impossible to know for sure. The Bright Queen set her glass down. “What,” she said in businesslike tones, “do you seek from me?”

“An understanding that Da’leth poses a mutual threat to us,” Caleb said. “And a larger threat to all of Exandria.”

The Bright Queen acknowledged this with a curt nod. “And you intend to counter this threat?”

“I do.”

“By eliminating him?”

“In the longer term, yes. Though I do have an increasing number of questions about the nature and the scope of this organization of his. This army? We do not know enough yet.”

What about in the short term?” the Dusk Captain asked.

“Ah.” Caleb sipped his drink. “In the short term, my priority, and yours I imagine, is to prevent him from getting access to one of these beacons.”

“We have taken extensive measures,” the Bright Queen said. “And will take even more, after the events of two nights ago.”

“Good,” Caleb said, nodding. “However, I am more concerned with recent intelligence we received which indicates Da’leth believes he can acquire one outside the Dynasty.”

“Where?” the Bright Queen asked sharply.

“On Empire soil,” Caleb said.

The atmosphere in the room palpably changed. Caleb waited, glass poised in his hand, profile still and hawklike.

“Where?” the Bright Queen repeated, with the faintest touch of an Undercommon hiss to it.

Caleb set down his glass with care. “I wish to make it clear,” he said slowly, “what my priorities are.” He held up his two hands very close to the same height. “Preventing Da’leth’s apocalypse,” he said, gesturing with the slightly higher one. “And maintaining the peace between our nations,” spreading the fingers of the other.

There was a crackling silence. Then the Bright Queen said, “Where does acquiring an artifact of near limitless power rank on your priorities?”

“Lower,” Caleb said. Then, as her eyebrow arched disbelievingly, “below several other matters pressing for my attention at the moment, in fact.”

“Such as?”

Caleb counted things off on his fingers. “Getting my students through their exams and ushering them along the path of safety and fulfilment in whatever life they choose. Being present the next time my daughter has a nightmare. Ensuring that a dear friend is not arrested by the Clovis Concord and executed for piracy. Finally figuring out how in all the hells Essek floats. Of course I am interested,” he said, dropping his hands. “I would be a fool not to be curious. But there is much that has come to matter more than that. And I do not pretend to understand your sentiments, but they certainly seem to have more weight than mere curiosity.”

Essek controlled his wince ruthlessly. Caleb could not have said something more pithily cutting if he’d been trying.

“And potential immortality?” the Bright Queen asked. “Where does that rank?”

Caleb looked genuinely surprised. “You mean consecution?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I do not intend to give offense. But you could offer me that in the next breath, and I would say no thank you.”

The Bright Queen’s sharp eyes pierced Essek. “Did you tell him to say that?”

“No,” Essek said. “We have barely discussed the matter.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Perhaps you are quite well matched, indeed.” Her glance returned to Caleb, who was observing this with a faintly puzzled crease to his brow. “It is not offensive,” she said. “Consecution is not intended for all. It does not suit all. I would, however, like to hear your reasons.”

“Ah.” Caleb considered his words carefully. “Essek has told me very little of the process,” he said. “But I understand enough to know that, because of a number of things which occurred in my youth, I would find it extremely difficult, if not unbearable, to recover memories of a past life. I am not certain my mind would survive that in tact.”

Nods went around the room. “It can be a terrible ordeal for some,” the Dusk Captain said, with a certain amount of grimness.

“Also,” Caleb continued, “there are several people waiting for me on the other side. And while I no longer wish to hasten my reunion with them, I also do not wish to unduly delay their chance to say their piece to me.”

Essek had reached out in silence and touched his hand before he knew he intended to move. Caleb turned his hand and squeezed Essek’s fingers. His face was calm, but his hand was ice cold.

Umavi Thelyss’s eyes burned on Essek’s face, though he did not look in her direction. He did not want to know anything of what she might be thinking.

“I see,” the Bright Queen said slowly. Essek could tell that Caleb was making quite the impression, but he couldn’t intuit the full shape of it.

“So,” Caleb said. “That is me. And where, if I may ask, does acquiring another beacon rank for you? In comparison to, say, maintaining the peace?”

The Bright Queen mirrored his gesture, two hands held up very close together. She left it ambiguous which was which.

“Just so,” Caleb said. “I intend to try and beat Da’leth to the prize. It will be difficult. The location is unexplored, infested with demonic forces, and extremely dangerous.” That might be enough for them to guess where he meant, but surely he knew that.

“I would offer up the services of my Aurora Watch finest,” the Bright Queen said. “In the interests of defeating our mutual enemy, as you say.”

Caleb smiled a little and shook his head. “No,” he said gently.

Essek wasn’t sure if he was more terrified or aroused.

She pressed her lips together. There was little she could do to insist, but Essek could tell she very much wanted to. The question was, how much was it worth to her? Worth the consequences of sending Kryn soldiers into Empire territory?

“And if you are successful,” she said. “What do you intend to do with the beacon you will acquire?”

“Ah.” His smile was small but real. “That is what I have been trying to say to you. I do not intend to keep it, and will use every power at the disposal of my office to ensure that outcome. The price would be too high otherwise, no?”

“It would,” she said, her face carved from stone.

“So. We will negotiate, ja? Keeping in mind our mutual interest in maintaining the peace?” He cut his eyes deliberately to Essek. “My interest is personal, as well as abstract, if that helps.”

“It does, in fact,” she said. “But what price will you set, I wonder?”

“We will get to that,” Caleb said. “I hope you will find me reasonable. But I am more concerned with beating Da’leth to the prize first. The clock is ticking.”

The Bright Queen accepted this with a frown and a nod. “I would ask,” she said, with the slow effort of someone not used to having to ask for anything, “to send a representative of my interests with you, short of a full force. He is our mutual enemy, after all, as you keep saying.”

“I am not entirely opposed,” Caleb said cautiously. “Though someone I don’t know well, with unknown skills, I can’t guarantee their safety where we’re going.”

“I can go,” Essek said. Then blinked in astonishment at himself. Everyone else looked nearly as surprised.

“Are you sure?” Caleb asked, turning to face him. “You would be an asset, but I know this is not your, ah, your preferred venue. Franka was not joking about nearly getting eaten.”

Nerves were clanging in Essek’s chest. What was he thinking? Well, all right. He was thinking Caleb was walking into danger, and that had become increasingly unacceptable over the past few days. And there might be a beacon at the other end. And he had come to want to thwart Da’leth, with a near savage intensity.

“I can manage,” he said. “And you have some familiarity with my skills.”

“Can you guarantee his safety?” Umavi Thelyss asked, speaking for the first time. Essek didn’t startle, but only because he was braced for this trick, the long silence, the sudden interjection.

“No,” Caleb said slowly, his eyes flicking from Essek to her and back. “Though he is very capable, of course.”

“Taskhand Thelyss has experience with demonic incursions,” The Dusk Captain said in a leading tone.

“Does he?” Caleb said. “Oh, is that what he fights in Bazzoxan?” Then to Essek. “Would he mind?”

“Are you joking?” Essek said. “He’d beg to come and call it a fun vacation.”

“I am really going to regret introducing him to Franka,” Caleb said. Then with an unexpected turn of the head to Umavi Thelyss, “Does this plan meet with your approval?”

There was a pause, and Essek bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. “Yes,” she said at last. “In the sense that the Luxon lights the steps of my children in ways that I am not required to comprehend.”

“All right,” Caleb said. “Two representatives. Will that do?”

“For now,” the Bright Queen said. She considered him thoughtfully through lowered lids. “You will not have ever seen a beacon before.”

“No. I saw artistic renderings of one, but didn’t know what it was at the time.”

“Really? Where was that?”

Caleb smiled. “Somewhere I imagine you and I will be arguing over in years to come,” he said. “But do not fret. I intend to take Essek and show him someday.”

“You do?” Essek blurted.

“Indeed. I had thought I would need to bribe you, but you have just volunteered to go into a very similar place,” Caleb said cheerfully.

“In that case,” the Bright Queen said, “perhaps you ought to experience a beacon in person, before you go.”

Caleb’s head practically whipped around. “Would that be permitted?” he asked. He had clearly not thought it even worth asking.

“Yes,” the Bright Queen said thoughtfully. “If you do as instructed.”

“I am good at following instructions,” Caleb said helpfully, and Essek willed down a flush with a mighty effort.

“Well then. Let us see what the Luxon makes of you.” The Bright Queen gestured to the Skysybil, but did not stand.

There was a bit of a flurry as the Skysybil played up her arthritis to a nearly comical degree, provoking Caleb to offer his arm. She became suddenly more spry as she took it.

“Come along,” she said cheerfully. “How do you feel about gazing into eternity?”

“Mixed,” Caleb said. He glanced back at Essek, who shook his head. He was held in his chair against his will by a look from the Bright Queen.

“How do you feel about eternity gazing back?” the Skysybil asked as they departed.

“Well,” the Dusk Captain said, as the door closed behind them. “Well well well. Are you going to keep that man, Thelyss?”

“I had not thought on it,” Essek lied.

“Ha, well, don’t dilly-dally,” she said. “Abrianna may beat you to the mark.”

“He is not at all what I expected,” the Bright Queen said.

“Indeed,” Essek said, with perhaps too much feeling. Caleb had overturned his expectations time and again, after all. “He allows his reputation to stand because it serves him in keeping control of some unsavory elements of the assembly. But no. He is not the brute he is said to be.”

The Bright Queen dipped her chin to this. She, after all, was widely believed to be a monstrous queen of a monstrous land, and understood how that could be useful, and not.

“Would it cause him difficulty,” she said, “were I to decline to see that odious ambassador this latest king sends, and instead say I will speak only to Archmage Widogast?”

Goodness. Quite the impression, indeed. “I am not privy to all of the particulars,” Essek said. “But likely that would raise complications more than problems. Complications I suspect he would gladly manage, for the right reasons.”

“Hmm,” she said mildly. “Just think how right the reasons could be, Shadowhand.”

He met Caleb and the Skysybil coming back up, trailed by Grieve and Franka. They were walking slowly, and not just in deference to the Skysybil’s alleged frailty. Caleb had his head bent low, his face bright and interested as she spoke with enough vigor to flap her ears.

“Ah, and here is your young man,” she said, breaking off what sounded like a rather in-depth discussion of Luxonic philosophy. “Do let me know should you want another gander.”

Caleb went down on one knee and kissed her withered green knuckles. “Thank you,” he said soberly. “You have honored me today.”

If Essek had laid it on that thick, she would have sniffed and poked him with her cane. For Caleb, she displayed a quantity of yellowing teeth and her ears rose in manifest pleasure.

Essek cut between them as adroitly as he could, disciplining the reflex to show his teeth right back.

“Good night, Umavi Mirimm,” he said firmly, and swept Caleb away.

“Wow,” Caleb said as they rounded the corner. “Wait, where are we going?”

Essek paused halfway through the first gesture of Teleport. “Oh, I was thinking we could spend the night here? You need sleep, and there are things I want to collect from my tower.”

“Sure,” Caleb said, looking unduly intrigued. “But is it very far?”

“About three-quarters of a mile,” Essek said.

“Can we walk, then? I’ve barely even glanced out a window in this place, I’d love to see a bit of your home.”

“If you like,” Essek said, mildly dubious. He hadn’t taken the walk himself in years. “You know about the dome of darkness, right?”

“One of the things I am curious to see,” Caleb said.

So they walked. Caleb had a thousand questions about every building and monument they passed, and Essek was mildly embarrassed to discover that he did not always have the answers, or if he did, they were decades out of date. Still, it was surprisingly pleasant to walk with him arm-in-arm through the Rosohna night. Though Essek’s favorite part by far was the delight on Caleb’s face upon realizing that the towers they were approaching were Essek’s.

“Ah, you told me about this,” he said, gesturing to the ley line devices. “And you have a laboratory here, right?”

Now this was a man with his priorities in order.

Caleb paused outside the door and beckoned Grieve and Franka closer. “I’m sending you back to Rexxentrum to update Astrid,” he said. Essek didn’t expect this to go over well, but something of Caleb’s matter-of-fact delivery, or perhaps the evening as a whole, seemed to have softened Grieve’s opinion. He said something brief in Zemnian, and permitted Caleb to Teleport them away with only a quick narrow-eyed glance in Essek’s direction.

They both became distracted upon entering. Caleb looked around the entryway with a great deal of interest, but his proudly-held shoulders were starting to slump.

“Ah, gods,” he said, and leaned briefly against the vermaloc wall. “What a day, eh?” He glanced at Essek and held out his arms. “Schatz, would you mind terribly?”

Essek did not mind at all. He floated over and attempted to bury himself in Caleb’s arms. This ambition was thwarted by the barrier of his mantle. Caleb attempted to nuzzle into his neck, then withdrew, rubbing his cheek with a grumble.

“Here, come upstairs,” Essek said, feeling suddenly embarrassed and out of place, like a person in the wrong costume.

He led Caleb up and directly to the sanctum of his bedroom. Which Caleb did not immediately identify, he realized, because there was still no bed. Well, damn. What a poor host he was turning out to be. Probably because he’d invited no one but Verin in here for over twenty years.

He unclasped his mantle, and Caleb lifted it off his shoulders.

“There,” Essek said, pointing him towards the wire armature frame for it. He took his robes off, too, annoyed by their excessive length.

“Ah,” Caleb said on a pleased sigh, “There you are.” He folded Essek close and pressed their cheeks together.

The two of them stood and swayed in silence for a minute. It was unspeakably good to hold and be held. Essek could feel tension unwinding in his spine, his neck, his shoulders. How had he ever managed without this?

“Did I do all right?” Caleb asked quietly into the side of Essek’s neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you were spectacular,” Essek said. “So much so that you may have bought yourself yet another job as de facto ambassador to the Kryn. Sorry in advance.”

“Really? Well, I suppose I would come across as half decent in comparison to what she’s used to from us,” Caleb said. “Hells.” He straightened up and shook his shoulders, rolling his neck. “I do need sleep, but I may not get it,” he said ruefully. “I’m really wound up after all that.”

“Me too,” Essek said. “I should have some wine downstairs, if you think that would help? Or—” he paused, struck with a wildly appealing idea.

“Whatever you just thought, I am into it,” Caleb said, watching his face. “Do tell.”

“Well.” Essek felt his ears tilt, curving in an embarrassingly coquettish manner. “I was just thinking of ways we could burn off energy in a short period of time. To ensure a full night’s rest for you.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Caleb said, beginning to grin. “Essek Thelyss, are you proposing a quickie?”

“A—oh,” Essek said. It was not difficult to guess at the meaning of the unfamiliar word, after all.

“A quick fuck,” Caleb said with deliberate crudity. “Is that what you are asking for?”

Essek lifted his chin. “Yes, I think it is.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said, and leaned in. “I haven’t actually heard any asking, though.”

Like that, was it? “And you shan’t,” Essek said. He felt a rush of that feeling that came only in these moments. It was something he had no name for. A kind of power, certainly, but there was more to it. Whatever it was seemed to ebb and flow between them during sex, first in Caleb’s hands, then his, then back again, then shared deliciously between them. He reached down and gripped Caleb’s prick through his trowsers. It was stirring already. “Are you going to satisfy me?” The crudity of doing that was electric.

Caleb grinned, promisingly wild. “Have I told you how much I like it when you treat my cock like your personal sex toy?”

“Good to know,” Essek said. He’d had an inkling, but wouldn’t have put those words to it.

“Which reminds me,” Caleb said. “Tell me about these ‘many’ suitors of yours.”

Essek scowled. “She exaggerates.”

“Oh?”

Damn it, he was not going to let this go. “There were a few,” Essek admitted. More when he was younger, and had miscalculated the ways an aura of power could attract rather than repel.

“Mmm,” Caleb said. “Did you let them down gently?” The curl of his mouth said he knew the answer. “Or did you – what’s the phrase? Give them the cut direct?”

Essek examined his avid expression. Ah. His reading of this conversation took a sharp left turn. “The latter,” he said. “I’m told I was crushing.”

Caleb groaned as if Essek had said something obscene, and kissed him. Essek bobbed up several inches, gripping Caleb’s shoulders. Caleb backed into the wall, then turned to crowd Essek there.

“Oh,” Essek said a minute later as Caleb made quick work of his tunic. “There are beds downstairs. Guest rooms.” Were there linens, though? He had no idea.

“Forget it,” Caleb said, flicking a quick glance around the room at Essek’s desk and trancing chair and bookshelves and dressing table. “Have you ever fucked on the floor?”

“You know I haven’t,” Essek said.

“New experiences,” Caleb said. There was a thick blanket folded over the back of the trancing chair. He swept it up and spread it with a snap of the wrist, then tumbled Essek down onto it. There was deep carpet in this room rather than vermaloc boards, so it was actually pretty comfortable. Essek decided to go with it. Thrilled, in the not-so-secret parts of him, to be doing something so wanton.

“What got you going?” Caleb panted a few minutes later, once they were stripped down and pressed skin-to-skin. “Wait, let me guess. Was it the part where I looked her in the eye and told her no? Did that make you hot?”

“They approve of you,” Essek said, instead of engaging with that. He didn’t realize how waspish he sounded until Caleb pulled back and laughed.

“Oh no,” Caleb said. “Does that ruin it? Am I less interesting if I’m not the bad boy the Dusk Captain and the Skysybil would warn you against associating with?”

“No,” Essek said sulkily, though there was something cousin to the truth in that. “The Skysybil likes you,” he added.

“I like her too,” Caleb said provokingly. Then his face fell briefly into more serious lines. “You have worried about being surveilled,” he said. “Should we be concerned about that right now?”

That was a very good point. Essek cast and looked carefully around. “We’re good,” he said.

“Too bad,” Caleb said. “I wouldn’t mind some nosy Kryn bureaucrat watching us fuck.”

“I would,” Essek said firmly.

“Ah well,” Caleb said. “Since we’re alone, I can talk about how it doesn’t matter what they think of me.” He slid down, kissing Essek’s belly, his thighs.

“No?” Essek asked breathlessly.

“No. Because we both know who’s the rule breaker here,” Caleb said, grinning. “Who’s told me all kinds of state secrets.” He insinuated both hands between Essek’s thighs on that last word. “Whose taught me dunamancy, when he absolutely should not have. I knew you must be stepping out of line to do that, but now I know just how much.”

“I want to teach you more,” Essek said. Caleb was opening him up with one finger on each hand, which somehow made it seem filthier.

“Oh?” Caleb asked interestedly.

“Yes.” They’d gotten distracted of late, and Essek’s original purpose in coaxing along a beacon research partner no longer applied. But that didn’t change the fact that Caleb was the most extraordinary student he’d ever taught. “I will teach you to bend time to your will,” he panted. “Yes, right there.”

He reached for Caleb’s hair, which was still in its braid, so offensively done by someone else’s hands. Even more offensively, Caleb stopped sucking his prick long enough to push his hands away.

“What?” Essek asked, baffled. Caleb had never objected before.

“Tit for tat, schatz,” Caleb said. “You want to get, you have to give.” And he tapped his own ear meaningfully.

“Oh,” Essek said. He hesitated, hissed, and removed his ear caps in a rush.

“There we go, not so hard,” Caleb said, and yanked the ribbon off the end of his braid.

Caleb was inside him less than a minute later, with the scent of flowers from his hair all around them. They gave each other no quarter. Caleb strove between his thighs, groaning through clenched teeth and holding one of Essek’s legs up and to the side. Essek bit him, and snarled as he unraveled the braid with both hands, then positively screamed when Caleb’s mouth found the tip of his ear. His whole body contracted, his knees drawing nearly to his chest.

He caught Caleb with a firm grip of the hair at the base of his skull, and pulled him off. “None of that,” he said, but the reproving tone he’d been going for sounded more winded.

“No?” Caleb asked, grinning. “Or not yet? You did say you wanted quick.”

“I do,” Essek said. Then, in a rush of petty outrage, “you let someone else braid your hair.”

Caleb’s grin – tilted and cocky and Brennish – softened abruptly. “I did,” he said, with seemingly genuine contrition. “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you?”

“Make it good,” Essek said.

Caleb did, in the sort of loud, raucous, athletic bout of sex that Essek had vaguely known existed, but never experienced. Essek tried to give as good as he got. He was viscerally pleased by the scent of Caleb’s sweat, by the high flush in his face. And of course by his prick, which he put to purpose exactly as instructed, but with far more vigor than Essek had known to demand.

Essek came, howling, just a few minutes later, with Caleb’s hand on his prick and his teeth on his ear, damn him. Caleb followed a beat after, and Essek wasn’t even recovered enough to fully enjoy the sight of it.

They lay in a panting heap, after.

“Better?” Essek asked eventually, rather hoarse.

“Much,” Caleb said. “Thank you.” And he patted Essek intimately between the thighs in a way that ought to have been offensive, but was not. “You?”

“Yes, much.” Essek stretched and sighed.

“Question,” Caleb said after another silence. “Are all drow so sensitive?” He had the decency not to touch, but did flick a finger in the general direction of Essek’s ear.

“I don’t see why you should be concerned with other drow,” Essek said testily, then sighed. “. . . I don’t think so. Most experience some amount of pleasure, or sensitivity. I think my reaction is unusually strong, but have only hearsay to draw on.”

Caleb hummed in a truly alarming way, but all he said was, “lucky me.”

They eventually decided to bed down in Essek’s study, where there was the most comfortable couch in the tower. Essek sat to trance, and Caleb slept with his head on Essek’s thigh. It was an experience Essek would never even have thought to want in this room, but now that he’d had it, he couldn’t understand how he’d gone so long without.

Indeed, it was so decadent a rest that Essek found himself lazing about in the morning, still unkempt in his trancing robe though he’d been conscious for hours. Caleb woke shortly after dawn, and had himself put together and beautifully dressed for the day before Essek was willing to set his book aside and consider doing the same.

“What’s the plan for today?” Caleb asked, brushing his hair in front of the mirror on the study wall.

“I have a few errands to run here,” Essek said. “And I will need your advice on what equipment and the like I will need. But otherwise, we should be able to return to the Empire today. . . . Can I do that?”

Caleb came and sat on the floor at his feet without comment, and passed the brush and ribbon up. Essek allowed himself the indulgence, now, of braiding Caleb’s hair in a distinctively Kryn style – seven sections in the right hand, and five in the left.

He had just finished when a gentle chime sounded throughout the tower. It was so unusual that it took Essek several seconds to realize that someone was at the door. Verin, maybe? He padded over to the mirror and murmured an incantation.

Then he shot six inches straight up into the air. “That’s the Umavi,” he said.

“Which one?” Caleb came up behind him. “Oh. Yours.”

Essek looked down at himself in horror – tranceware, no cosmetics, he hadn’t even properly bathed since they –

“I can entertain her for a few minutes,” Caleb said, watching him.

Essek chewed his lip, torn as to what was the worst choice: appearing before her like this, or leaving Caleb alone with her.

“. . . Or not,” Caleb said. “Is this more of a pretend no one’s home situation?”

“No,” Essek said on a sigh, though that was incredibly tempting. “I’ll be fast. Don’t offer her any refreshments – I don’t have anything on hand, anyway.”

“I’ve got it,” Caleb said, and strode out.

Essek bolted back up to his bedroom. He flung off his robe and Prestidigitated himself so vigorously his skin stung. They’d left the rumpled blanket on the floor like a pair of hedonists. Essek took the time to bundle it away to the laundry basket, then scrambled for clothes, jewelry, cosmetics. He went for full mantle and robes, but shortcutted his usual hair routine down to a bare minute. Earcaps, holy Luxon, he had gone bare the whole night. Earring, earring, pendant, shoes, lip stain.

He gave himself five more seconds to turn before the mirror. It would have to do.

He could hear quiet voices floating up the stairwell. Essek confined himself to a sedate float, though his instinct was to jump and Featherfall.

They were in the small parlor off the entranceway, sitting facing each other on tall-backed vermaloc chairs. And talking about . . . Leni? The Umavi was leaning forward, asking questions in that intense way of hers that could make you feel like the center of the universe. And Caleb was answering in the warm tones he reserved for talk of his daughter.

“Ah, good morning, schatz,” Caleb said smoothly, as if they had not spent the night breathing the same air.

“Good morning,” Essek said, and performed the required courtesies to the Umavi.

“Essek.” She dipped her chin fractionally to him. “Archmage Widogast was telling me you are to depart today?”

“Yes, there is no need to delay,” Essek said.

Her lips tightened. “I see. Well, in that case, I shan’t take up any more of your valuable time.” She retrieved a bag from the back of her chair. “You may find this useful.”

Essek took it, and pulled out a full set of armor in the finest chain mesh he’d ever seen. It was so light, it felt like holding paper.

“Oh, good,” Caleb said, sounding relieved. “That’s much better quality than anything I was worried we could get for you on short notice.”

“Indeed,” the Umavi said. “This has been worn by Thelysses throughout the cycle of life for nearly five hundred years. It will serve you well.”

“Thank you,” Essek said, and did not ask so what’s the cost?

The Umavi rose, as did Caleb. “I hope you will return to us at a better time,” she said to him. “When you can enjoy all that Rosohna has to offer.”

“Thank you, I hope so as well,” Caleb said. He took her hand and bowed over it in the Empire way. “I must say, though, I think I have already seen Rosohna’s best.” He cut his eyes meaningfully to Essek, who wasn’t sure in that tumultuous moment whether to melt or to spit like a furious moorbounder.

“Indeed.” She followed his glance, and the two of them locked eyes across a few feet. Across several decades. Essek thought he himself was maintaining his composure faultlessly, but was shocked to see that she could not say the same.

“Umavi,” he said, bowing again for lack of any other acceptable social script.

“Child.” She reached out and patted the armor in his hands. “Wear it well,” she said. And then in a stifled tone, “I pray to the Luxon that it will keep you safe.”

She hurried out.

Essek stood there once she was gone. Feeling as if he was in the aftermath of something, though nothing of consequence had been said.

He wanted, with the impulsivity of the furious child he had once been, to fling the priceless armor on the floor and stomp on it.

Instead, he whirled on Caleb and snapped, “Do not attempt to charm my mother.”

Caleb froze, mouth half open to say something innocuous. Essek had used many annoyed tones on him. Peevish, playfully severe, even. Caleb had enjoyed them all, to one degree or another. He had even enjoyed the one time Essek had genuinely meant to take him to task, when he’d spoken out of line in front of Astrid and Wulf. It hadn’t been pleasant to be called out, but he’d been glad of Essek’s directness and clarity.

Essek had never spoken to him like this, though.

Caleb swallowed down his first instinct – snap back – and his second – abjectly apologize. He took a careful breath.

“I thought I was helping,” he said. “That you would prefer I be on good terms with her. If that is not true, then I would ask that you explain what you do want.”

Essek was breathing quickly, and looking a little wild around the eyes in a way Caleb had never seen before. “Placate her, yes,” he said. “Get – get friendly with her, no.”

“Okay.” Caleb eased a step closer, but did not try to touch him. That would go extremely poorly, he sensed. “I can probably manage that. But for future reference, I can’t do what you don’t ask me to do.” Which wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that he had endeavored to read Essek’s signals as well as he could, which worked pretty well as long as there was a signal to read. But Essek had been so singularly closed off on the subject of his den – his family? – that Caleb had been left flailing in the dark. So much so that he had nearly put his foot very badly in it last night at dinner, when he’d gotten a close look at Umavi Thelyss and seen familiar eyes and cheekbones and expressions, and then made it clear to that entire end of the table with a clumsy question that Essek had barely spoken of her at all, and had never bothered to say that his Umavi was also his mother.

Something in Essek’s expression crumpled from tension to misery. Not an improvement. “Yes,” he said, still in the tones of someone looking for a fight. “I am aware I am being unreasonable right now.”

“A bit,” Caleb said, trying to lift the mood with a smile, and feeling it not catch. “Is there anything I can do to help? We can talk smack about her outfit or something, if you like.”

This made Essek’s shoulders ease fractionally. “Her outfit was perfect,” he said.

“It really was,” Caleb agreed. She’d worn an intricately folded multi-layer skirt in dark burgundy, and a flowing silver and white geometric top. Caleb was no expert, but he suspected Jester would have mightily approved. He took a slow breath, and a risk. “Am I seeing a little of where you get your beautiful dress sense?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “She taught me everything I know about that.” A pause. Then, convulsively, “We were close, once. Very close.” He stopped again. “I don’t want to be cruel. To complain to you about this.”

It took Caleb a moment to unpack that. Their one oblique conversation on the topic of Dynasty social structures, where Essek had said that other organizational principles applied beyond biological family, had left Caleb unsure. Essek cared deeply for his brother, but Caleb hadn’t wanted to impose his own cultural values and assume that birth family mattered to Essek in the way it did to him. But the last few minutes were leaving him with the strong impression that it did, at least in this case.

“It’s not cruel to talk to me of your parents,” Caleb said firmly. “If it troubles me, I will let you know. But otherwise, I will listen.”

Essek looked away. Perhaps Caleb had been supposed to play along with that excuse. Yeah, well, no thanks. Essek could decide not to talk. Demonstrably, he was very good at it. But he was going to have to own it, after leaving Caleb to flail around last night.

“I want to say it’s a long story,” Essek said. He was piecing his composure back together as Caleb watched. “But I suppose it isn’t. We were very close for a long time. Then we had a falling out, around my hundredth birthday. Things were said. That’s about the size of it.”

It was strange to see these tactics on other people, the way Essek was talking so lightly of something which clearly caused him deep pain. Was it so obvious when Caleb did it? “Hmm,” Caleb said. “Perhaps this is terribly human of me, but that’s a long time to be carrying—” he gestured at Essek, unwilling to try and label whatever it was storming behind his eyes. “But maybe that’s just how it’s done, for you longer-lived folk.”

“It can be,” Essek said. “I have a den . . .” he made the face Caleb knew meant he didn’t have the proper words in Common. “Someone in my den is carrying on a vicious fight about jam that is in its second century.” He lapsed into silence again, then said, “She did apologize. A few years ago.”

“Oh?” It was hard to know how to react to that.

“Yes, well. That is part of the role of an Umavi. A perfect soul. To be the bigger person, if you will.” He scowled. “I, however, am not a Umavi and will never be one. I am unreasonable, as I said.”

Ah. And she had put him on the back foot, making him reject her overtures. Making him be the smaller person, as it were. “Schatz,” Caleb said gently. “If you aren’t ready to hear it, then you aren’t ready and that’s that.”

“I know,” Essek said. His mouth set in familiar, stubborn lines. “But that’s the thing. She’s so—” he gestured a little wildly. “If I let her, she would talk me into ready in under ten minutes. Did you know she personally wrote over half of the Luxonic scriptures?”

“I didn’t,” Caleb said. “But I think I understand what you mean.” She’d had that way about her, a kind of charisma that Bren could only dream of. The kind that could help found a religion that reshaped the destiny of an entire people. Essek wasn’t ready to hear apologies, and that meant he was afraid to hear just about anything from her.

Caleb silently opened his arms, and was hugely relieved when Essek came to him. He was swathed in that mantle of his, but Caleb pressed him close all the same, spiky metal ornamentation bedamned.

“I’ve been thinking about her,” Essek said into his shoulder after a time. “Quite a lot lately. It’s strange.”

“Mmm,” Caleb said, swaying them gently. In his experience, the mind had a way of surfacing such things when it was time. And if he didn’t miss his guess, many parts of Essek had been coming back to life in recent months. His libido was only the most obvious of them.

“I’m sorry,” Essek said. “I am carrying on.”

Caleb snorted. If that’s what he called this painful extraction of some tiny part of what was, yes, clearly a very long story, Essek . . .

Essek pulled away and composed himself with a few breaths and several unnecessary applications of Prestidigitation.

“Beautiful,” Caleb affirmed, lightly touching his cheek.

Essek dropped his eyes. “Thank you,” he said quietly. It was not for the compliment.

“Of course.” Caleb coughed gently. “To be clear. You’d like me to stick to friendly but aloof? Unless you say otherwise?”

A tight nod. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Caleb said. “Though, I should mention. Before you came downstairs, she specifically invited me to bring Leni here to visit. I was noncommittal.” Inclined to agree, though, at least in the moment. Rosohna and its people, in the tiny glimpses he’d gotten, were wonderful and exciting. And certainly an experience to broaden the horizons of an Empire-born child of three Volstrucker.

“Hmm,” Essek said. “I’m not entirely opposed. There are things here it would be enjoyable to show her.” He straightened his shoulders. “But for the moment, we have other priorities, no?”

“We do,” Caleb said. “You have errands?”

Chapter Text

They returned to Rexxentrum in the mid-morning after Essek had taken Caleb on a whirlwind tour of shopping, first to pick up his packages, and then to acquire additional items for their venture. Caleb sniffed disparagingly at every single item of footwear Essek owned, but found a pair of lined lizard-skin boots at the cobbler that he deemed acceptable. Essek also acquired a new pack, a bottomless canteen, and sundry camping supplies.

“Do you expect much of that?” He asked, dismayed.

“Best to plan for some,” Caleb said. “I may not always have the reserves for the tower. And there are . . . magical complications down there.” He didn’t elaborate further on that, but did make some other puzzling comments, like insisting that Essek bring a heavy winter coat that was easy to remove in a hurry. “Temperature fluctuations,” was all he said.

Caleb also bought out the entire stock of healing potions at the apothecary. “It’s always nice when my assembly money actually comes in handy,” he said, shoveling bottles into Essek’s Wristpocket.

He spent another generous stack of platinum at the jewelers, where he acquired a near handful of small diamonds, many flawed or occluded in some way, and three larger, more spectacular stones.

“Cheap at twice the price,” was all he said on the matter. Essek nodded silently. It felt a little shallow picking up his new jewelry after that. His platinum wirework earrings would not save anyone’s life. Caleb was flatteringly interested, though, and had to be firmly shooed away from poking into all the parcels.

Verin, when he finally showed himself, had already been informed of his new assignment and was visibly delighted by it. Indeed, the prospect of fighting for his life in some sort of demon-infested underground hellscape put him in such a good mood, he seemed to have forgotten whatever reservations he might still have regarding Essek. That was something, anyway.

They returned to Caleb’s tower to find it a flurry of activity. A number of Volstrucker were in residence, and the infirmary was busy and relatively cheerful. And a mere half hour after their return, Caleb Teleported away to retrieve the Savalirwood party, who arrived disheveled and worse-for-wear, but triumphant.

“I was thinking we should go back,” Essek heard Beauregard tell Caleb. “That’s where Da’leth is supposed to have spent a lot of time, remember? And there are conflicting stories about how the blight started. Makes you wonder.”

“It does,” Caleb agreed. “Perhaps that’s next, after this.”

Caduceus retreated to Caleb’s laboratory with Veth’s husband and one of the Volstrucker who had relevant expertise, while the rest of the Mighty Nein milled about and attempted to plan. Essek was intrigued and horrified to watch the process as it unfolded. Caleb and Beauregard seemed to understand each other with near supernatural precision, and could arrive at matching conclusions in just a few glances. Except when they couldn’t, and devolved into snapping at each other and stomping away for no reason Essek could grasp.

The rest of the Nein were bent on accompanying Caleb to Shattengrod. Minus Kingsley, who sent his regrets but had apparently declared himself ruler of a pirate island. Why? Everyone else had assembled and acted as if their presence was a matter of course.

“Well, sure,” Jester said, when pressed on the point. “It kinda sounds like fun.”

“It really doesn’t,” Essek said.

“Yeah, about that,” Beauregard said. “No offense, dude, but what’s your combat experience?”

“I went one-on-one with a mage just three days ago,” Essek said testily.

“Uh-huh. And before that?”

He gritted his teeth. “I did a one-year tour paired with an echo knight on patrol around Asarius. That was some time ago.” Nearly sixty-five years, come to think of it. And it had been an unusually peaceful posting, an obligation he’d been glad to complete so he could move on with his actual life plans. “I assure you I have useful spells.”

“I bet you do,” she said irritably. “Just don’t get fucking killed, okay? That would make Caleb more of a sadsack than he already is, and no one likes that.”

Caleb had apparently not counted on the presence of the Nein, and he and Becke spent a half hour reshuffling two-thirds of the Volstrucker corps into strike teams.

“Is that safe?” Essek asked Caleb privately afterword. “If they’re all-wizard teams . . .?”

“They aren’t,” Caleb said. “Not entirely. There are many diverse skill sets. Wulf, for example. He only casts at the sixth, and that recently, but he can kill someone before they know he’s even there.”

The plan was for the various groups to go in disguised as exploration teams. The rub was that Caleb was a very visible person on campus, and it seemed likely Da’leth had eyes on him. Much debate was had over this. Caleb settled it by opting to create a Simulacrum which could take his place and had a decent chance of being able to proctor his exams without being discovered.

Becke wasn’t going with them, and not just because it was useful to have someone with her thumb on matters at court.

“We have an agreement,” Caleb explained. “Only two out of the three of us do life-threatening shit at a time, ideally. It seemed best, given Leni doesn’t have any extended family.”

Caduceus’s poultices did work late that night, much to everyone’s relief. Essek immediately dispatched a sample and instructions to the Dusk Captain through the communication box. Yasha was up reclaiming her sword before he had even finished writing.

They all gathered mid-day on Miresen – Essek, Verin, the Nein, and two dozen Volstrucker. Caleb briefed them on what he knew of the challenges ahead with colorful assistance from Franka, who had accompanied him on his last trip.

“The good news for those of us who recall Aeor,” Caleb said, with a nod to the Nein, “is that there are no wild magic surges, at least so far.”

“Great,” Fjord said. “That was a pain in the ass. What’s the bad news?”

“Mmm,” Caleb said laconically. “The bad news is the demon infestation. We were there for three days and saw two rifts to the Abyss. This suggests to me that there are many more. I will add, though,” he continued, “that there is something . . . odd about the weave down there. I cast at the seventh several times, and the eighth twice, and all felt . . . strange. Perhaps it is just lingering paranoia from Aeor, but I suggest caution casting at the higher quanta.”

He and Franka took turns describing the creatures they had seen and, in several cases, been unable to avoid fighting.

“Some of your big boys,” Caleb said, pointing inexplicably at Fjord. “The red brown ones, horns, teeth, kind of look like gorillas.”

The Mighty Nein nodded along, apparently familiar with such demons. There were also birdlike creatures whose piercing shriek could induce headaches and existential terror, and a spectral creature that could reanimate the dead.

“Oh, I hate those,” Verin put in, sounding pleased.

The ‘rage demon’ Franka had referred to was able to induce a member of Caleb’s prior party to turn on his allies. The effect had not worked on Caleb or Franka, though she showed off the teeth mark scars on her shoulder with visible pride.

“So, that’s what we know thus far,” Caleb concluded. “But we have not delved deeply at all. We are still arguing about what city this even is.”

“Wait, I thought you knew?” Veth said.

Caleb shrugged and shook his head. “We’ve all been saying Shattengrod because the historical record is clear that it was nearby. But the early delving teams raised doubts.” He pointed at Beauregard, who reached for one of her ever-present notebooks.

“Yeah, so this is based off notes taken by a few people from the Soul who accompanied an early exploration team. This was a couple years ago, before—” she gestured expressively “—shit happened and the site was closed for a while. The one trained historian who saw a bit of it was pretty definitive that she thought it was one of the floating cities. So not Shattengrod at all. She’s on assignment at the moment so I haven’t been able to talk to her, but the subtext is very ‘how is it possible for you to be so wrong you assembly goons.’”

“That seemed right to me, for what it’s worth,” Caleb put in. “And just based on the signage and the like, I have a pet theory that it’s Zemniaz itself.” His face was briefly possessed if a sort of hungry delight that was mirrored in Essek’s chest.

“We’ll figure it out,” Beauregard said, snapping her notebook shut. “Maybe not on this trip, but at least now experts from the Soul can come in without it being a whole fucking thing.” She gestured between herself and Caleb and Becke, rolling her eyes at the prior messy state of relations between the Cerberus Assembly and the Cobalt Soul.

“Ja. I should also mention, there was . . .” Caleb hesitated. “Everyone present experienced some amount of unease or distress.”

“What sort?” Caduceus asked, sitting up in interest.

“Hard to describe,” Caleb said. “Like the feeling of being watched in the dark, no matter how bright we made our lights.”

“And it impacted you as well?” Caduceus asked.

“Ja, despite my Mind Blank. Which makes me think it is not a psychic effect at all. I hesitated to bring it up, in case it was nerves that we managed to infect each other with. But it seems better safe to mention it now.”

“Cool,” Fjord said dryly. “Cool cool cool.”

The landscape was also challenging. “The damage is odd,” Caleb said. “If it is Zemniaz, then it must have fallen from the sky. But we saw several strange things. Like places where two buildings had not so much smashed together as fused. As if they attempted to occupy the same physical space. And if it did fall, then the entire landscape of the mountains has changed radically for it to have gotten as deep as it did. Not impossible, of course. But strange.”

“Who else is down there?” Verin asked, frowning.

“Two teams of contractors,” Caleb said, with a nod to Becke. “Selected by Astrid. But that’s not to say some or all of them couldn’t be replaced by someone with the right skills. Or blackmailed or paid off, for that matter.”

“There’s another team scheduled to go in three days,” Becke added. “The intention was to send each for one week stints and see what they could map and uncover. All are known to me, to some degree. Not trusted as these are—” a gesture to the assembled Volstrucker “—but professionals that can generally be expected not to loot excessively under our noses.”

“We could seal the site again,” Caleb said. “It’s a close call, and I can be convinced we’re wrong not to. But the thought is that Da’leth seems to be putting a lot of eggs in this basket. He must know something more concrete than we do. So it’s worth seeing if we can figure out what that is, rather than alerting him by closing shop.”

“What’s the plan, though?” Beauregard asked. “Are we just going to wander around and hope we find this beacon thingy? Or follow other search parties around in hopes one of them has Da’leth’s people embedded and they know more than we do?”

“Eh,” Caleb said. “That’s one plan.”

“I mean, it’s as much as we usually have,” Fjord said.

“I was also hoping you could attempt a Commune,” Caleb said to Caduceus. “It’s tricky, she may not have answers. But worth a try?”

“Yes,” Caduceus said thoughtfully, in the way of someone deciding to stop by a friend’s house for tea.

“Huh,” Beauregard said. “That’s a thought. I bet you Da’leth doesn’t have any clerics working for him who can tap those sources.”

“You don’t have a way to locate the beacon?” Yasha asked Essek. “Your people, I mean?”

“Not really,” Essek said. “If we did, we would have located more of them across Exandria, I assure you. It is the Dynasty’s ambition to find them all and reunite them. There are several theoretical methods, but I have not been able to develop any of them.”

“I can find things,” Jester said. “But only if they’re kinda near me.”

“Ja, I have that, too,” Caleb said. “Plan B is for Essek and me to see if we can modify that spell in order to increase its range, and perhaps to make it better at finding beacons specifically.”

Essek sat up straighter, intrigued. “Yes, we can definitely try that,” he said. Surely the umavis could not object to this innovation when performed in service of finding a beacon?

“We will see what we can do before we leave,” Caleb said. “But likely we may need to innovate on the fly once we are down there.” He shrugged, untroubled by such slapdash research methods.

“Is there a plan C?” Becke asked, staring narrow-eyed at him.

Caleb sucked air between his teeth. “Ja,” he said with visible reluctance. There was a silence, in which it became clear he was not going to say more.

“Oh shit,” Beauregard said, abruptly uncrossing her legs and thumping her foot to the floor. “You’re gonna ask--?”

“Ideally, no,” Caleb said. “But if it comes to it . . .”

“Yeah, okay,” Beauregard said, looking from him to Essek. “You’re, like, some sort of arcane hotshot, right?” she demanded.

“Yes, more or less?” Essek said.

“Cool.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Make the locate spell work, kay? So this dumbass doesn’t do something incredibly stupid.”

“I am weighing the costs and benefits,” Caleb said, glaring at her. “Do you disagree that preventing a potential second Calamity is our highest priority?”

“No, obviously not, but--”

“Good,” Caleb said, and turned his shoulder to her. “Any other questions?”

Two of the cohorts of Volstrucker would leave that night; the Mighty Nein, with Essek and Verin in tow, would follow tomorrow. Caleb quickly caught Becke’s attention and began a brief, low-voiced conversation. Essek tried not to stare too noticeably. He assumed it was about this mysterious plan C, but apparently not, because they broke apart as Caleb said, “Danke, I’ll bring her back after breakfast.”

Dinner was a haphazard affair. Caduceus cooked a beautiful spread of curried vegetables and mushrooms and fresh bread, but everyone came and went in small groups rather than gathering all together. Essek tried to take his cue from the Mighty Nein, who were collectively readying themselves for the ordeal ahead with a fair amount of calm focus, punctuated by bursts of anxious hilarity.

Caleb had apparently begged the favor of keeping Leni for the night. He and Grieve dined with her, one sitting on each side. Essek heard Caleb just beginning to explain to her in general terms that they would be leaving, he didn’t know for how long, yes it might be a little dangerous but vati and papa were smart and careful. Essek took himself off to Caleb’s study with dinner and a history book and gave them their privacy.

He was willing to credit Caleb’s pet theory, at least until proven otherwise. He didn’t know much of Zemniaz off the top of his head, and his brief research availed only so much. That was the way of things, though. It was in the nature of the Calamity that records were unreliable or simply non-existent. Entire civilizations had been wiped out, after all. Quite possibly some beyond any memory or record.

And Da’leth wanted to risk doing it again, provoking the gods to break down the Divine Gate and war over Exandria once more.

Essek swallowed and focused on his reading.

Zemniaz had been one of the great floating cities of the Age of Arcanum. Its exact cause of destruction was not known, nor was the date other than that it was after Aeor’s fall. It was widely suspected now that the gods had smote Aeor from the sky. What had they believed then, in the smoking ruins of Exandria? What kind of courage, or what kind of hubris, would keep a city still afloat after that?

It was believed that survivors of Zemniaz were key in founding the Zemnian civilization which continued today, and which had granted Caleb his language and his coloring. Essek had seen this assertion in histories before, but paused over it now. Survivors implied a number of things. Either a method of destruction far less brutal than Aeor had suffered, or a population able to escape – and survive long enough to raise children. To be fair, Wildemount was a far more hospitable land to escape to than the frozen fields of Eiselcross, even back then when practically no land remained unscoured by divine war.

There must be some fact to it, as bits and pieces of what was presumed to be Zemniaz wreckage were discovered with regularity across the Zemni Fields. Indeed, the current king’s great great grandfather had wielded a blade said to have come from the forge of a Zemniaz master smith.

The one thing the histories did all seem to agree on was that whatever had happened to Zemniaz, the ruins discovered thus far before Pride’s Call could not account for even a tenth of the city. Which was remarkable considering the hundreds of miles across which the wreckage was spread.

Essek frowned deeply. If this were the Dynasty, there would be original survivors and witnesses to consult, and others removed by only one generation. The histories were largely unclear on the makeup of the Zemniaz population – was it possible there were truly no long-lived residents who had survived centuries beyond the Calamity? Surely someone had recorded a more accurate history? Or simply had children, and told tales?

He posed this question to Caleb, who arrived after Leni’s bedtime.

“Funny you should say that,” Caleb said. “Thinking of such is what led me to plan C. And also,” he added before Essek could press on that, “there have been a few whispers of rumors that Da’leth himself is far older than he claims to be. Perhaps even far older than he ought to be.”

“He doesn’t sound Zemnian,” Essek said dubiously. Accents did drift, but still.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. Just that he was born into the latter part of the Calamity, perhaps. Or maybe not – it could easily be a smaller, more personal tragedy that drives him. He wouldn’t be the first to take against the gods in grief. If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have said he was a solitary person, but perhaps that wasn’t always true.” Caleb sat down next to him on the couch. “I’ve been thinking on it, what might be motivating him. Surviving something like the Calamity, well. Trauma has driven people to far stranger things.”

“I suppose,” Essek said, frowning. He’d never been comfortable with the impulse to understand the reasons for the terrible deeds of others. Before, he hadn’t particularly cared. Now, he could not claim to understand what had bent his own mind towards terrible ends, so judging others seemed premature. But more than that, there was a slippery divide between understanding and sympathizing that he didn’t know how to navigate.

“It doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be stopped,” Caleb said, intuiting something of Essek’s thoughts in the way he was becoming alarmingly adept at. “I can have compassion for what he might have suffered, and also kill him where he stands.”

“Can you?” Essek said.

“Ja.” Caleb shrugged, as if this was not a difficult mental task for him. “As I said, trauma is unpredictable. Perhaps it spurred him to centuries of plotting the revenge murder of the pantheon. It turned me into a drooling vegetable. If I am not mistaken, it drove your queen to reshape the entirety of her civilization. What happened to you matters, but it’s what you do with it that is the making of you. Or unmaking.”

“The Bright Queen?” Essek said, startled.

“Ja, of course. Have I misunderstood? She led the drow in escaping slavery to Lolth, and brought them to the surface to attempt to establish a new civilization in the wreckage of the betrayer’s stronghold?”

“. . . Yes,” Essek said. Those facts were so foundational to his understanding of the world that he abruptly began to wonder when he had last truly examined them.

“Well,” Caleb said logically, “I find it hard to believe that such experiences don’t leave their mark. And that aside.” He glanced away. “She has a look, a way about her. I recognized it. They all do. The Dusk Captain, the Skysybil. . . . Your Umavi.”

“Oh,” Essek said. It was one of those things that seemed entirely obvious, once Caleb had said it. Of course they had suffered unspeakably. Of course they still bore those scars. And yet, as obvious as it was, he suspected he might never have arrived at the thought without help.

And here he was, floundering in the messy hinterland between understanding and sympathy. He did not want to be here.

“It’s all speculation,” Caleb said, watching his face. “And maybe pointless, trying to understand what motivates him. It’s a blind spot of mine, I think, defaulting to the assumption that other people were . . . made by fire, as I was. I’m sure I’m wrong about that in some cases. Some people are simply evil.”

“Should I Send to her?” Essek asked abruptly.

Caleb didn’t pretend to misunderstand who he meant. “Do you want to?”

“. . . No,” Essek said slowly. “But should I? You’ve done this before, prepared to go do something dangerous. Should I – is it better to try and find some . . . closure? Just in case?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’d tell you if I did. Maybe it is better to try and settle things. Or maybe it’s better to have that as motivation to help bring you home again. Ah, just in time, we need your advice.”

Caduceus, who had just stuck his head around the door, smiled affably. “Yes?”

“Is it wise to seek closure with those we might be at odds with before going into danger?” Caleb asked.

Caduceus didn’t seem to have to think about it. “No wiser or less wise than it is on any other day, I should think,” he said. Which seemed profound, yet unhelpful. “I have some interesting answers for you.”

“Oh?”

Caduceus extended a bony finger. “I asked where in the Pride’s Call ruins we should seek a Luxon beacon.” He paused, smile widening. “She said, ‘which beacon?’”

They both looked at Essek, who blinked rapidly. “How many are there?”

“That was my next question,” Caduceus affirmed. “She said ‘several.’” He paused to let them digest. “I have the impression she would be more helpful if she could,” he said. “But perhaps there is something about this place, or these beacons, that clouds her sight.”

“Also,” Caleb said, with a note of ruthless pragmatism, “we are asking about the Calamity. She was probably busy at the time.”

“Probably,” Caduceus said. “But things aren’t so linear for those like her, I think.” Then, without elaborating further upon this interesting statement, “My last question was for guidance on where we should go to find what Ludinus is seeking.”

“Nice,” Caleb said, approving of this bit of wordsmithing.

“She said, ‘Go down deep, where the hope of Zemniaz turned to disaster.”

“Huh,” Caleb said, sitting back. “Good to know it is Zemniaz for sure. “Is it worth trying again tomorrow, do you think? When maybe we know a little more?”

“Perhaps,” Caduceus said. “I will prepare it in the morning. As I said, I have the impression she wants to help.”

He bade them good night and ambled off about his business. Essek sat still for a time, thinking. Several beacons. Was that three? Five? More? He entertained a brief fantasy of bargaining with the Bright Queen. She could have three of them, and he would have one. That was not too much to ask, was it?

Except, of course, that they wouldn’t be his to bargain with. They were to be found on Empire soil, and Caleb had made it clear how he viewed that. Essek gritted his teeth. It had been wise of Caleb to do so, to assert ownership in the same breath with which he told her he did not intend to fight over it. That was a precarious path of peace, but a path.

At the same time, Caleb had foreclosed Essek’s ability to act on what they found. Was that on purpose? Did he not trust Essek’s intentions? Fair enough. Essek would have to know his own intentions in order to be able to form an opinion, and might not manage it even then.

“If we are successful,” Essek said slowly. “What do you intend to bargain from the Bright Queen in exchange for a beacon? Or beacons?”

“Mmm,” Caleb said. He smiled gently, in the way that Essek had come to understand was Caleb at his most dangerous. “I have several thoughts. Do your people do dowries?”

It took several seconds for Essek to recall the meaning of the word, and then to apply it to their situation. “Oh,” he said, and felt himself flush horribly. Caleb watched, still smiling, chin in hand. He did not withdraw the statement, or disclaim it as a joke. “Um,” Essek said. He had gone beyond flustered into another state entirely. “We don’t, no.”

“Ah, I thought not,” Caleb said lightly. “Too bad. I guess I shall have to settle for gold or jewels or priceless secrets instead.”

“Um,” Essek said again. His heart was rabbiting away in his chest. He’d had the impression for some time that Caleb was coddling him a bit in this relationship. Deferring to his inexperience in these matters, not just in bed. Until now, anyway, as it seemed Caleb had just taken the gloves off.

Caleb’s smile widened. The bastard was pleased with himself. A small part of Essek’s mind noted this on a list called payback and underlined it several times for emphasis.

Caleb stood and went to his desk without saying anything more. Essek scrambled for composure in the brief time Caleb’s eyes were elsewhere.

Caleb came back with paper and quills and his thumb stuck into his spellbook. “So,” he said calmly. “Shall we see what we can do with this?”

The answer was not much. And that wasn’t just because Essek was terribly distracted, damn it. Locate Object was a deceptively simple spell, and like most such spells, the simplicity afforded few hooks for innovation. Neither of them had previously spent any more time on it than necessary to transcribe it. They found, after an hour of intensive analysis, that there was an inverse relationship between the duration of the spell and its range. But they also discovered, when they began to experiment, that it didn’t function in a predictable manner. Increasing the range by another five hundred feet didn’t consistently decrease the duration, but did so seemingly at random with each casting. Essek’s first attempt lasted barely more than a minute, but the next lasted three, and Caleb’s, maddeningly, seven.

“Why?” Essek demanded, glaring at Caleb’s notes.

“Ja, this is not very useful,” Caleb said. “If we could triple the range or more, than yes, maybe that would be something, even if the effect was brief.”

Essek sniffed in dissatisfaction.

“I have some other ideas,” Caleb said, stretching. “But I’d like to sleep on them.”

“Yes, me too,” Essek said with some reluctance. A trance would do his thinking some good. He supposed it was one benefit of having a partner who required sleep that it could cut short what would otherwise be another four hours of fruitlessly banging his head against a problem.

“Will you join me?” Caleb asked, boyishly hopeful. Essek liked the way he never presumed. Essek generally wanted the company these days, but surely that would not always be true. And the habit of being protective of his solitude was a hard one to break.

“I will,” Essek said.

The tower was much quieter with one group of Volstrucker gone. The second group would depart soon.

The two of them retreated to Caleb’s bedroom, where Essek laid down with him for a few minutes. He was coming to quite like those times, pressed close together in the dark, intimate but not sexual. And more importantly, it did seem to assist Caleb in falling asleep. Essek had been keeping track. He wasn’t quite at the point of drawing graphs yet, but he would probably get there.

It did work that night, but a mere ten minutes after Caleb’s breathing had regulated, he jerked back to wakefulness with a full-body twitch.

“Leni’s up,” he said, struggling to sit. Then, as there was the patter of small feet and the door creaked, “Hase? What’s the matter?”

Leni said something quietly in Zemnian. Caleb responded in kind, extending a hand. She came to him, and he lifted her up onto the bed.

“Sorry, do you mind?” he said aside to Essek.

“No,” Essek said. He scooted back to give them more room, and Caleb gently rolled Leni over his lap to the space between them. Leni glanced once at Essek, disinterested in his presence in her father’s bed.

“Tell me about it?” Caleb said to her.

Leni recounted what had apparently been a bad dream in halting sentences. Essek didn’t think he would have followed even if half of it wasn’t in Zemnian. Caleb listened gravely, not saying anything but making thoughtful “mm-hmm,” sounds periodically. He laid back down and rubbed steady circles on her back until she slid down next to him, tucked in the crook of his arm.

She trailed off into silence. Essek could tell she was still awake, but she didn’t seem to need any more input. Which was probably good, considering Caleb was, miraculously, falling asleep again. Essek let that happen, debating internally. Did Caleb intend for Leni to stay the night here? If so, should Essek withdraw and trance elsewhere?

Leni cut through these dilemmas for him by sighing and wriggling out from Caleb’s arm. She looked at him, and the door, and Essek, seemingly torn.

“Do you need help?” Essek whispered.

“I want my dragon, Vati says he eats bad dreams,” she said. Why were children so bad at whispering?

“Perhaps I can assist?” Essek offered. If Caleb was that tired, he really ought to be left to sleep.

Leni apparently found this acceptable, and wriggled off the bed on Essek’s side once he had cleared the way for her. The two of them padded quietly down the hall to her room, which was lit by a beautiful enchanted glass light in the shape of Catha.

“Now, please instruct me,” Essek said. “What is step one of a good tucking in?”

This admission of ignorance seemed to entertain her, at least. She walked Essek through an elaborate eight step routine, only a small portion of which he thought was improvised on the spot. Essek refilled the water cup, retrieved the errant stuffed dragon, and patted the covers into neatness over her small form. He suspected Caleb’s version ended with a kiss, but Leni didn’t ask for one and Essek didn’t offer.

“There,” Essek said. “Shall I stay for a few minutes?” He had the vague idea that was how this was done.

He had a sudden, vivid sense memory of feeling the weight of his mother’s cool hand on his forehead, as the trailing edges of early childhood sleep clung to his mind.

“Uh-huh,” Leni said.

Essek settled himself in the armchair in the corner of the room, clearly intended for reading to her and for conducting just such nighttime vigils. Should he stay until she slept, or try to slip away quickly? She solved this problem for him by falling back asleep easily. Essek lingered another minute, listening to her slow breaths and processing the edges of the shock Caleb had given him earlier.

Caleb wanted . . . this. Perhaps marriage, in the literal sense, but more importantly, he wanted permanence. Commitment. Essek’s entire being said yes, this is your chance, don’t miss it. Which somehow did not preclude him from also being frightened of the prospect.

Would he come to love Leni, too, in time? Essek had never felt any urge towards parenthood, and perhaps it would never be that. But he suspected yes, given time, given the promise of permanence, he would come to love her. A seed of that already lived in him. He could feel it when he so much as pictured the way her father’s blue eyes could look so huge in her tiny, intent face.

How could it be that his unpracticed heart could be this greedy now, when it had survived for so long on so little? Essek had come to love Caleb relatively quickly, if not easily. And Jester, too, in a much simpler way. And the rest of them, here and there, in an aggregate sort of tenderness for the family they had made together.

And Caleb was offering him a part of that. A part in it.

And perhaps more than that. Had Caleb thought of how it would be after he was gone? After as long a life as a human could live, if Essek had anything to say about it. Had he thought that Essek could be available to see his daughter through the rest of her life, as well, and her children, should she have any? Was that a comfort to him? Would that be a comfort to Essek, someday?

Essek swallowed around a lump in his throat. Premonitory grief was like a strange dunamantic echo reflecting backwards from the future. It was absolutely, indescribably insane that this was worth it. Yet it was, he knew it to be so.

Well. That answered that question. No sense in asking if he was truly prepared for that kind of commitment. He was already beginning to make it, so if he wasn’t prepared yet, he better be soon.

He got up eventually and floated out of the room. He was just easing the door shut when Grieve seemed to coalesce out of the shadows, appearing mere inches away. Essek swallowed a shriek, glaring.

“She just got back to sleep, don’t do that,” he hissed.

Grieve eyed him for a long, silent moment. “Bad dream?” he asked eventually.

“Yes.” He resisted the urge to explain himself, but did add, “Caleb is quite tired.”

He saw Grieve’s lips press together in a complex expression it was probably best not to interpret. “Hmm,” Grieve said. Then, surprisingly, “Good luck down there.”

“To you, as well,” Essek said, scrambling for courtesy. “I don’t want to think how devastated he would be if anything happened to you.”

“Hmm,” Grieve said again. And then, with a vaguely threatening overtone, “same to you.” And he vanished as comprehensively as he had appeared.

They departed in the late afternoon the next day, after Caleb had spent the required time creating his Simulacrum. Essek applied Seeming to make himself and Verin appear as human, and the Mighty Nein disguised themselves with such a wild variety of methods and effects that it was likely to confuse anyone keeping an eye out for them. It certainly succeeded in confusing Essek, and he watched it happen.

Caleb was unwilling to Teleport directly to the site, for fear of an unknown magical effect from the strange weave he had described. So he deposited them on a steep, wintry Empire hillside, patched with snow and frozen mud under a gray sky.

Caleb led them to a mine entrance, and had a brief conversation with a dwarf who was apparently in charge.

“No sign of anyone not authorized,” he reported when he returned to the group. “Let’s go.”

It would be several hours travel, he explained. It was not unpleasant to start with, and occasionally interesting as they worked their way down through the more travelled portions of a semi-precious ore mine. The tunnels were broad enough for carts and lit by regularly-spaced torches.

At least until the third hour, when Caleb led them to a vertical shaft bored straight down into the earth. A rickety wooden platform filled half of it. Fjord volunteered to stay behind to work the chain winch; he would Fly down once they hit bottom.

Essek did not enjoy that process at all. His darkvision availed him only a view of a rough shaft descending seemingly forever into darkness below, and a faint bit of torchlight receding above. The chain groaned and strained, and Essek wasn’t the only one holding Featherfall. They went down a hundred feet, two hundred, three, before finally touching down with a bump.

“Here we go,” Caleb said. “This way, and down again.”

The next descent didn’t have anything so civilized as a lift. It was merely a tunnel slanted a bare few degrees off the vertical, with metal pitons hammered into one rocky wall.

“Me first,” Veth said, brushing her hands together. “I’ve got a decent shot of catching one of you chucklefucks if you fall.”

“Watch yourself at the bottom,” Caleb called from the back of the group. “There’s a very small lip, then another big drop.”

“Joy,” Essek heard Fjord mutter.

The descent was slow and stressful. Essek managed all right, given his cordial relationship with gravity, but Caduceus nearly fell twice, and Yasha actually did lose her grip. Essek didn’t see it happen, but heard a muffled grunt and a shriek from Veth, who apparently caught her with Featherfall until she could grab onto a handhold again.

Caleb was right to warn about the bottom. The lip of rock there was tiny and alarming. They all barely fit, and Essek had sincere worries it would crumble under them.

“This is the cavern,” Caleb said, gesturing out into an expansive dark. “The ruins are below. We’re to the northeast corner. “We need to go down, of course. Ready?”

The casters distributed Fly and Featherfall as needed, and Essek found himself slowly drifting down into the black unknown arm-in-arm with Jester on one side and Verin on the other.

“I love this part,” Jester whispered to him. They were trying to be quiet so as not to alert any agents Da’leth might have put in place already.

“The falling?” Essek asked. He frequently found her baffling, but this might take the cake.

“No, the going into a new place,” she said. “Essek, we could find anything.”

The list of things Essek wanted to find down here was extremely short, but he decided not to share that.

Eventually, they got close enough to the ground for shapes to emerge in the dark. It took Essek’s brain some time to interpret what he was seeing. Some portion of ruins had fallen? Been deposited? At a hazardous incline, so buildings stuck up and out at a nearly forty-five degree angle. How were they even still standing?

Yasha had flown down with her wings, carrying Beauregard. Caleb had gone ahead with them, and he whispered quiet instructions via Message to the flyers. Essek adjusted his angle, towing Jester and Verin with him, until his boots touched down on a gritty slant of stone. Worked stone, he saw, looking closer. This was the remains of a street of Zemniaz.

“Oh,” Essek breathed quietly.

“Ja,” Caleb said, coming up behind them on light feet. “The smallest things will blow your mind if you think about them too hard. Come on.”

They’d arrived at the edge of a staging ground that all the prior Empire teams had used. It was therefore well-explored and mapped, and Caleb had no interest in any of the buildings that Essek kept craning to stare at.

“This was retail space,” Caleb explained when Essek asked. “Food and clothing, we think, based on what little has survived. It’s all residential for at least a mile downslope, which is where we’re going. My maps don’t have much beyond that.”

“Are there weird time bubble thingies like in Aeor?” Jester asked in a carrying whisper.

“None so far,” Caleb said, then explained what she meant quietly to Essek. He’d mentioned them in passing in prior discussions of Aeor, but gave a lot more detail now. What other fascinating tidbits had he been withholding? “Could you do that?” he finished.

“No,” Essek said honestly. “Maybe given several years to work on it. The experiments would be hair-raising.” And the practical application, for someone not choosing to live in a floating city in the midst of a holy apocalypse, was an open question.

The Mighty Nein had firm ideas about how they wished to proceed. Essek found himself shuffled to the center of their loose column, which he didn’t object to. At least until Beauregard said “Squishies in the middle,” patting him on the head in passing in a rather insulting manner. Verin was apparently judged to be of heartier make, as he was permitted a position very near the front.

They proceeded downhill in a snaking line, achieving something like stealth at the cost of very slow progress. Essek kept pace with Caleb, his head on a swivel. The things he saw were simultaneously pedestrian and extraordinary: street signs with incomprehensible words and occasionally almost familiar symbols, a dead tree still somehow standing at the eerie slant of the landscape, a carved stone bench cracked cleanly through the middle, the exposed workings of some sort of water management system where the paved street had broken open.

“Is that old Zemnian?” Essek asked Caleb, pointing to one of the signs.

“Ja. I can read most of it, with some effort. That says caution over . . . something. Some proper noun that I don’t have a reference for.”

Yasha, just in front of them, turned and passed a message. “Bodies,” she said quietly.

“Ja, already examined, if we are where I think we are,” Caleb murmured back.

They passed the bodies without stopping. There were at least three, though it was a bit hard to tell. They had been flung haphazardly against the front of a building – a home? – and their remains left to decay and mingle. Essek saw bones picked clean, and a brief flash of shockingly vivid blue from a cloak. No way to tell how they had died.

“It’s less consistently cold here than in Aeor,” Caleb murmured. “The bodies I’ve seen are more likely to be skeletonized.”

“Really?” They were much farther south, of course, but Essek would have thought that wouldn’t matter this far underground. It certainly felt frigid.

“Ja, there are random – or seemingly random – bursts of warm air down here. We’ll run across one eventually. I theorize there’s either a deep vent to some volcanic activity, or perhaps it’s an effect from the Abyss.” He sounded far less concern than Essek thought either of those theories merited.

They continued down and down, until multiple people were quietly grumbling about strained shins. Essek was very glad of the boots Caleb had found him, but even gladder to invoke his cantrip.

Forward progress stopped suddenly, and Essek craned to see.

“Caduceus says he sees something and feels something,” Yasha passed to them. Essek turned to convey this to Jester behind him, then quietly followed Caleb forward.

“There,” Caduceus said, pointing to the left. “I almost missed it.”

Essek squinted. There was the faintest crack of light in the wall of a building they were passing. Essek never would have seen it without help.

“Damn,” Caleb said quietly. “That’s not on my map. So, either we missed it or the rifts continue to open.”

“Would you have seen that?” Beauregard asked quietly.

“Maybe,” Caleb said. “Franka has very sharp eyes. I really don’t know.”

“Well, we should close it, yes?” Essek said. “And if it is open again when we come back this way, that should tell us something.”

“Ja. Yasha, do you want to do the honors?”

She did, drawing her sword as she padded forward. She was therefore in the best position – or possibly the worst, Essek wasn’t sure – when the crack of light swelled, and blazed, and a flock of tiny red and black needle-nosed somethings came shooting out like cannonballs.

They bloodied Yasha immediately. She hissed in undervoiced pain, then turned and swung her sword not at her attackers but at the crack of light. Essek was baffled until he saw the Dispel take hold, and the rift close itself like a sulky zipper.

This left Yasha’s broad back exposed, though. Multiple spells hit the swarm simultaneously. They were damnably fast, and emitted a high-pitched buzzing noise that made Essek’s ears want to fold shut.

The skirmish that followed was impressively quick. The swarm got one more shot at Yasha, but seemed to do less damage, somehow, as she whirled upon it with sword aloft, face serene in fury. She swung, and Veth further scattered the swarm with two crossbow bolts from . . . wherever she was, Essek had no idea. And Caleb finished them off with a blisteringly fast Firebolt.

“You okay?” Caduceus asked Yasha, once the tiny bodies had stopped pattering to the road. The creatures smelled truly terrible when roasted.

“Not so bad,” Yasha said, flexing her shoulders. Caduceus extended a hand to her, smiling as his spell took hold and the furrow to her brow eased. No one else was so much as out of breath. Essek wasn’t either – he hadn’t even gotten a spell off – but he felt like he ought to be.

“Onward?” Beauregard suggested, after she and Yasha had shared swigs from a canteen.

They finally called a halt at what Caleb said was quarter to eight in the evening. Essek’s belly had been griping for dinner for some time, and he could tell everyone else was relieved, too.

“Can you try the new Locate Object, just for kicks?” Caleb asked.

This was sensible, so Essek did. It lasted a whole ninety seconds, and found nothing.

“Tower?” Jester asked hopefully.

“Ja. But most everyone stand back, just in case.”

“One time, he turned into a potted plant in Aeor,” Jester confided to Essek, retreating a good twenty feet with him. Beauregard and Yasha stayed, talking quietly and standing sentry over Caleb as he knelt to cast. Would Essek be trusted to do that? Or was he too untested or – worse – too ‘squishy’ for such duty?

The tower door appeared, and everyone piled in.

“Still weird,” Caleb reported, shaking himself like an irritated moorbounder. “It feels . . . I don’t know. Slippery.”

Verin was predictably delighted by the tower. He loved the cats, the hot tub, and the food service.

“I don’t suppose you have any interest in enlisting with the Aurora Watch?” he said to Caleb. “We could use you in Bazzoxan. Pay is good and the fight is endless and impossible.”

“Funny, you’ve just described being an archmage,” Caleb said.

They dined extravagantly. Caleb had now eaten at the queen’s own table, so those dishes were available in the tower, apparently.

Everyone lingered in the salon after dinner, some sipping on drinks, some tending to weapons or gear, some just visibly pleased to be able to speak at a normal volume. Caleb apparently appreciated the company, because he pulled out his spellbook at a small table a few feet from where Jester and Veth were playing some sort of card game involving slapping each other’s hands rather viciously.

“I don’t suppose you’ve solved our problem in a flash of brilliance?” Caleb asked as Essek joined him.

“No. You?”

“Nein.” Caleb rolled his fingers in a quick drumbeat over their notes. “I think it’s time to try something new.”

“Oh?”

“Ja, well, you said a beacon will act on the soul of a consecuted person in a hundred mile radius, correct?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “There have been some oddities in the historical record, like someone dying in what should have been the range, but not returning. But there could be any number of explanations for that, so we use a hundred miles as a rule of thumb, and most do not mess about with the edges.”

“Interesting,” Caleb said, visibly forming several hypotheses. “Do you think it could be that those souls choose not to return? That is an option in the resurrection rituals performed by our friends.”

“That is one theory,” Essek said. “Though personally, I suspect we should see more such odd cases if that were it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, well.” It was so strange to talk about these things. Back home, you were either of the ruling dens and you knew, or you weren’t and you didn’t. And either way, you didn’t speak of it. “It’s not talked of,” he said, lowering his voice on instinct. “But it’s widely known that . . . something can go awry around the third or fourth or fifth rebirth. There is a . . . surprising number of occurrences where a person on such a life just so happens to die out of range of a beacon. Though they generally live their lives well within range. If you understand what I’m saying.”

“I think I do,” Caleb said, his brow furrowed. “But not a universal problem, surely?”

“Oh, no. The queen is on her eighth life. My Umavi is on her sixth.” And neither showed any sign of the madness that could strike at anamnesis, nor of what Essek thought was a different phenomenon, the sort of existential exhaustion that would lead a person to quietly go away from a beacon to die.

“Well, it seems likely we are in range while in the ruins,” Caleb said logically.

“Yes. In fact, If I am understanding the topography, I imagine some nearby settlements are in range, too.”

“Oh,” Caleb said, sitting up straight. “I hadn’t thought about that. Do you know if other civilizations practiced consecution?”

“I don’t,” Essek said. “The Bright Queen and Skysybil are said to have discovered it in the process of communing with a beacon. Quite by accident, I think, if you read between the lines.”

“Right, okay. Which suggests it can be discovered relatively easily. Various dwarf communities have lived in these mountains for millennia. So if one of the beacons here was full of souls when the city fell, or whatever happened . . .”

“Ancient Zemniaz mages would have been reborn into the end of the Calamity,” Essek concluded. “Into societies that had no way of assisting them, or understanding them.”

“Poor bastards,” Caleb said. “They would have been thought mad. Perhaps thought themselves mad. What a research project for a historian. Anyway.” He shook himself. “I have many more thoughts about that, but we are getting distracted. My question is, do you know whether there is an ongoing connection between a beacon and a consecuted soul in range?”

“No,” Essek said. “That certainly is possible. But it could also be that the beacon produces a sort of thin dunamantic field, and that field catches a consecuted soul, like flypaper. A more environmental effect than an ongoing connection.”

“Ja, ja,” Caleb said, rubbing absently at his beard. “I am really beginning to understand your frustration at the lack of available research.”

“Thank you,” Essek said.

“But you think it is worth exploring?” Caleb pressed.

“What is?” Essek asked. He suspected he knew. Was hoping, rather guiltily, that he was wrong.

“To see if we can triangulate the location of a beacon off of you,” Caleb said.

Damn.

Caleb liked to think that he was getting pretty good at reading Essek. Though to be honest, it was probably also that Essek was letting him see much more now. Whichever it was, Caleb was immediately aware that this conversation was about to take a turn.

Essek looked away, shifted in his chair, squared his stack of notes, sighed.

Caleb had learned with practice that some of the techniques he had picked up in order to parent Leni also worked incredibly well on Soltryce students, and on Essek. He’d worried a bit that he was being patronizing, but eventually concluded that no, these were just the things that might help a person who was vulnerable in some way before him.

So he made a quietly questioning noise, a little “mmm?” that invited confidences without demanding them.

“It’s worth trying,” Essek said. “But we will need to use Verin, not me.” Then, as Caleb absorbed the implications of that, “I lied to you.”

“ . . . Ah,” Caleb said. He had so many questions, he didn’t know where to start.

“It was offered to me,” Essek said, in something near a whisper. He was managing not to look Caleb in the eye, though they were tipped in close to speak privately. “Before my hundredth birthday. That is the way for drow. I declined.”

Right, okay. Scratch out a dozen questions and add two dozen more. “May I ask why?”

Essek did look him in the eye then. “Did you know that the vast majority of students entering the dunamantic magery program at the Marble Tomes are new souls?”

Caleb shook his head in silence, disciplining himself to listen and not to point out that he would have no way of knowing that.

“There are a handful of—” he said an Undercommon word, then translated “second life souls. But very few, comparatively. And almost none from subsequent lives.”

“Okay,” Caleb said slowly. “Is it common to pursue one vocation throughout multiple lives?”

“It varies,” Essek said. “Some never change their path. The Dusk Captain has been an Echo Knight since the techniques were invented. Others try a new vocation every few lives, perhaps when they feel they’ve done all they could. Others change more frequently. And I’ve heard of several cases of a person being unable to pursue their path from a prior life, though they would have liked to. A dunamantic sorcerer reborn without their gift, for example.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said, beginning to see where he was going with this. “But people don’t choose wizardry? To change to, you mean?”

“After consecution and rebirth, no,” Essek said. “I’ll save you the trouble of asking why. I do not know. I am one of the few who believes the phenomenon is real. But I’ve surveyed the Marble Tomes records myself, I have the data.”

“You have theories,” Caleb said, as sure of that as of the sunrise.

“Yes. Principally, that something in the consecution process changes the nature of the individual relationship to Dunamis,” Essek said. “Such that the pursuit of mage studies becomes unappealing. Dunamis contains elements of arcane and divine power. I think something in the nature of consecution privileges the divine element.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said again. He could think of at least one other possible explanation, but now was not the time to play devil’s advocate. And Essek was by far the expert here. “And you didn’t want to live subsequent lives if it meant abandoning your studies?”

Essek made a face like this wasn’t quite right. “I know the chances are, were I to be reborn as a person who desired a different vocation, it would subjectively feel like the right decision, and maybe I wouldn’t mind. And it is always possible that I would continue pursuing wizardry – some do.”

“Okay,” Caleb said leadingly. He was a little amazed that Essek was sharing as much as he was. He could tell it was effortful.

“No one understands consecution,” Essek said. “The Luxon clerics claim to, but they absolutely do not. Their explanations are not explanations at all, just metaphors of increasing complexity. I’m unwilling to subject myself to a process that I don’t understand, that I am not permitted to investigate, and that might function to turn my mind away from my life’s work.” He paused. “My refusal really should not have come as such a surprise, not to anyone paying attention to the things I said in the decades before my century mark,” he said, with audible bitterness.

“Ah,” Caleb said. But no one had been paying attention, or had wanted to understand who was in front of them. And Essek had refused. And fallen out spectacularly with his mother, if Caleb was guessing correctly. “The Bright Queen told me it is not intended for everyone,” he said. “I thought she was referring to a sort of class exclusivity.”

Essek huffed cynically. “Oh, it’s that, too, of course. She does mean it, though, it’s not meant for everyone. It’s in the scriptures. All this talk of the dark, narrow road of perfecting the soul. The long climb. The cleansing fire of the light. More metaphors. If just anyone could do it, it wouldn’t be special.”

Caleb hesitated, then spoke his mind. Essek deserved that. “It does sound hard, though,” he said. “I am not disagreeing with you. I imagine you are right – if they let just anyone do it, their whole power structure would alter quite a bit. But . . .” he was the one to look away, now. “I was entirely honest in what I said to her. It is not for me.”

Essek’s fingertips gently touched his on the table top.

“Anyway,” Caleb said. “What I mean to say is, it sounds like you, in particular, were not expected to decline.” The child of one of the great umavis, and a prodigy. It was one thing to say it was not for everyone, it was another to have your own child say thanks, no thanks. Was there scandal about it? Secrecy? Perhaps both, in the worst of all possible options. Ah, the contrary strength there must be in Essek, to stand up to that.

“Oh,” Essek said grimly, “that is fair to say, yes.”

Caleb felt a faint pang of sympathy for Essek’s Umavi. It was hard to put himself in her place, as their circumstances were so different. But how would he feel if Leni informed him she intended to ensure she would die before him? He would not manage graceful acceptance, Caleb was sure. But he also knew that the measure of a person was how they acted in the face of such challenges. Umavi Thelyss, if Caleb didn’t miss his guess, was thoroughly accustomed to getting her way. What had she done when it was clear her vast powers of persuasion would not suffice? Had she attempted to force Essek’s compliance? What all was it she had needed to apologize for, years later?

Very briefly, Caleb achieved a twisted sort of wistfulness for the days when neither of his partners had parents left to contend with.

Not that contending with the ghosts was any easier.

Their fingertips were still touching. Caleb eased his hand closer, gently stroked the silky skin of Essek’s fingers.

“So,” he said quietly. “We will need to use Verin. Just checking – he is aware, yes?”

“Yes.” Essek didn’t look relieved at this turn in the conversation. “I, um,” he said. Caleb waited, using every gram of patience he had learned since changing his name, changing his mind. “I’m sorry,” Essek said eventually. “For lying. Deliberately leading you to assume something that wasn’t true.”

“Forgiven,” Caleb said. “No, I mean it.” Essek’s eyes were wide, maybe a little frightened. Caleb thought back to the way he’d shaken there on the sofa in the study under the weight of Zone of Truth. So glad to be speaking the truth, so afraid, so ashamed. Had he ever been able to share his whole self with anybody? And Essek didn’t have the experience to judge what was a true transgression in a relationship, and what was just normal fallibility. Caleb didn’t always have a good bead on that one, either, but this was not a hard call. Not with that look on Essek’s face. “I do have one question, though.”

“Yes?”

“Is there anything else you’ve lied about?” Caleb said, doing his best to make his voice calm and nonjudgmental. “Anything you couldn’t speak freely about, early on, say? That maybe you want to clear up now, just to get it out?”

To his credit, Essek did think carefully about that. “I don’t think so,” he said, and bit his lip. “There are many things I haven’t told you. Including things that I probably should.”

“No, of course,” Caleb said. He knew that feeling all too well. “These things take time. I haven’t told you everything that matters, either.” He thought, very briefly, of the sensation of rolling in the Soltryce midden heap. What was Essek thinking about, to set his mouth in that miserable line?

“What about you?” Essek asked with some diffidence. “We were . . . very careful of each other for a while. And you have always been good about letting me know when you didn’t want to discuss something. But if there’s anything else . . .” He opened a hand in offering.

Fair enough. “Ja,” Caleb said. “There are things, but they can wait, if you don’t mind. I have been trying to be honest with you. It hasn’t always worked, but it’s been on my mind. It just seems easier to obfuscate in the moment, sometimes. Like that requires less thought.”

Essek nodded, looking relieved. “Yes. I’m trying, too, now,” he said. “But it doesn’t always work.’”

“Ja, I know,” Caleb said ruefully. “What a pair of recovering liars we are, eh?” He twined his fingers with Essek’s. “You don’t owe me your every thought,” he said. “I’m no expert, but I do know that’s not how this is supposed to work.”

“I don’t. But the important ones . . .” Essek nibbled his pretty lavender lip. “I want to tell you things, now, even when I don’t want to tell you. Does that make sense?”

Caleb practically melted where he sat. What a declaration, from this closed off man. “It does,” he said, and lifted Essek’s hand to kiss his knuckles.

Jester’s face abruptly appeared, leaning close between them. “Hi!” she said confidentially.

“Hallo,” Caleb said. “Can we help you?”

“It just looked like you guys were telling secrets,” Jester said brightly. “Maybe super dirty secrets?”

“Oh, the dirtiest,” Caleb assured her. He winked at the face Essek made. “Where did Verin run off to?”

Chapter Text

They made interesting progress on Locate Object before bed, and then Essek took another pass in the early morning while Caleb slept. By the time they all gathered for breakfast, Essek could present Caleb with a spell that, while it may or may not work as intended, probably wouldn’t blow up in their faces.

“Ja, this is good,” Caleb said, reading quickly through it. He had his spellbook open on the table, preparing for the day ahead. Essek did the same, trying for a good mix in anticipation of, well, whatever they would encounter today. Beauregard was steadily doing pushups on the floor as cats trundled around her with breakfast trays, which Essek supposed was her version of preparing spells.

Caleb was lingering over a page in his book. This was unlike him – he was generally decisive in the mornings – so it caught Essek’s attention. Caleb made the gesture that would open the somatics for at least a dozen different spells, then stopped, stared at his book, counted silently to himself with only his lips moving. He made the gesture again, stopped again. Was he sweating?

“Dude, what the fuck,” Beauregard said, popping up behind Caleb’s chair.

Caleb slammed his book shut. “What?” he said, with a snap to his voice.

“Nothing, fuck,” Beauregard said. Essek had never seen two people love each other so crankily, it was truly incredible. “You’re just being shifty.”

“You couldn’t even see me,” Caleb protested.

“I could see the back of your neck,” Beauregard said. “Shifty as fuck.” She nailed Essek with a look. “Hot boi thinks so too.”

Essek genuinely considered turning invisible to get out of the middle of this conversation.

“Caleb is fine,” Caduceus said from across the table, in the same tones he’d used on his siblings back home. He smiled with palpable warmth at Caleb. “Well done. That looked hard.”

“I can still change my mind,” Caleb said, with a note of belligerence.

“Of course,” Caduceus said. “And maybe you will. I’m still proud of you, either way.”

This made Caleb’s shoulders hunch and his ears flush.

“Fine, be fucking cryptic,” Beauregard said, and stomped off.

“You don’t have to know everything,” Caleb shouted irritably after her.

“Yes I do, it’s literally my fucking job,” she shouted back.

They gathered around Caleb’s map in the entrance hall of the tower, everyone shouldering in close with coats and packs to follow his pointing finger. “If we continue as directly downhill as possible, we should take this path,” Caleb said, sketching a short distance and straight off the edge of the map. “Obviously, it’s all unknown after this point.”

“I’ll try to keep enough magic back to Commune tonight,” Caduceus said. “I’d like a little more direction.”

“On that note,” Caleb said, looking to Essek. “Shall we go try this?”

They all piled out of the tower and Essek cast their new spell. He thought for one, glorious second that it had worked, until he realized that the ping of awareness he was getting was awfully close. Far too close. And that, in fact, his finger was pointing directly at Verin.

“Hi,” Verin said, waving.

Essek swore poisonously in Undercommon.

“Hey, looks like the nerds wrote some of their math backwards,” Beauregard said.

Essek gathered his dignity about himself. “Spell development is not for the faint of heart,” he said loftily. “Here, before we go.” He was already looking at Verin, so he set a gloved hand on Verin’s shoulder and gave him Gift of Alacrity.

Then he stopped, frowned, and resisted the urge to shake himself all over. “Yasha,” he said. “Come here, please.”

She did, unconcerned as he cast on her. “There,” he said absently. “You’ll be a little faster than usual jumping into a fight.” Then he turned to Caleb. “You’re right, there’s something wrong with the weave here.” It had felt strangely movable, like the unpleasant feel of a blister slipping under the skin.

“You felt it?” Caleb said, eyes widening. “I haven’t except at higher quanta.”

“Well, that’s what’s odd,” Essek said. “It felt normal on Locate Object at the second quantum. And abnormal on Gift of Alacrity at the first.”

“. . . Huh,” Caleb said. “Please hold, everybody.” He pulled out a pearl and cast Fortune’s Favor on himself, frowning deeply as he concluded. “Ja,” he said. “You’re right. I felt it.”

“What schools did you cast before?” Essek asked. “At the higher quanta, I mean.”

“Conjuration,” Caleb said, jerking a thumb back to where the tower door had been. “Abjuration. And evocation, once.”

“So, working theory.” Essek said. “Whatever this is, it comes into play at higher order castings of any school.”

“And any casting of dunamancy,” Caleb concluded. “But what does that mean?”

Essek shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

They headed off downslope in the same order as yesterday. He and Caleb both had to work hard to keep quiet, rather than speculate endlessly. Essek entertained a brief fantasy of a glut of beacons, piles and piles of them, enough to change the texture of reality around them. No one knew what effects would occur if you brought together more than four, after all.

He disciplined himself to pay attention to the landscape. This was likely his one chance to see this, and he shouldn’t waste it. There were a lot more bodies today, in ones and twos and threes. Essek saw what must have been a family, two adult skeletons, human at a glance, and three smaller ones of differing sizes. They were laid out messily at a corner where the paved road turned, as if they’d been caught in the moment of waiting for a chance to cross.

“I would expect more bodies, honestly,” Caleb murmured. “There are likely many more inside. We only stuck our noses into a few houses.”

The street abruptly levelled out. Caleb made a small sound and stumbled, and Essek caught his elbow.

“Danke. Just a little dizzy.”

Essek frowned at him, concerned. If Caleb got one of those migraines down here, was Caduceus prepared to handle it? Were any of them, really?

It was only in that moment that Essek realized what Caleb had been doing that morning. Or not doing, specifically. By the light, what was Caleb thinking? Essek opened his mouth – to chastise, to fret, he wasn’t sure – then shut it again. Caleb demonstrably didn’t want to talk about this.

“Huh,” Caleb said, pointing. “Everything is vertical, and that looks weird now.”

He was right – the trees, signposts, and buildings were all at true vertical now, which did look odd after hours of a world on the slant. Then, a few hundred feet later, the street tipped abruptly down into the steep slant again, and everything tipped with it. Impressively, though, the street had not fractured at the bend. They made things to last, these Zemniaz mages.

They stepped off the edge of Caleb’s map an hour later. The street they were on continued downward, but Caleb paused the whole party and had them go five hundred feet straight to the left across what might have once been a park. There were no trees and grasses now, just desiccated land punctuated by an occasional bench or dry stone fountain.

“This is what I was referring to,” Caleb said, sending Dancing Lights up to illuminate a building standing taller than those around it. No, Essek saw, frowning. It was two buildings. And Caleb was right, they hadn’t fallen together so much as fused. One now seemed to emerge from the side of the other like an architectural cancer. Windows were broken and masonry cracked, but the structures were remarkably intact.

“What the fuck,” Beauregard said, succinctly summarizing everyone’s thoughts.

“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “We looked inside a different occurrence of this about a half mile that way.” He pointed without looking. “The effect continued inside. There were places where the two buildings seemed to co-exist, where the flooring of each blended, and places where one seemed to have explosively displaced the other.”

“Could someone have massively fucked their Teleport?” Verin asked. “If they were trying to move the whole city, say.”

“Ja, that’s a thought,” Caleb said. “I’m not sure how that would be done. Something like threshold crests, I suppose? Anyway. Not our current problem. But I wanted you all to see it.”

They returned to their downhill trek. The slope was surprisingly consistent, more so than would be expected of a natural cavern. Essek was just thinking about this when someone ahead called a pause and they circled up for a brief, whispered discussion.

“I don’t think this fell,” Beauregard said. “At least not like Aeor did.”

“It’s not as damaged, ja,” Caleb said. “But we did see some parts of Aeor that were strangely untouched, remember?”

“Yeah, totally. But this is weird.” She gestured around them. “The way the whole city is plonked down at this angle, but the streets mostly haven’t broken . . . it doesn’t say fall to me. Definitely not fall thousands of feet.”

“I’ll buy it,” Caleb said, frowning. “Though unfortunately, I must repeat that is not our current problem.”

“Unless it is,” Beauregard said. “Look, I’ve been thinking. There are supposed to be multiple beacons down here, right? What do you do with multiple beacons?”

“Found a civilization,” Verin said promptly.

“Okay, but assume you’ve already got one.” She stared at Essek. “What happens when you bring a bunch of those things together?”

“I don’t know,” Essek said, as always deeply irritated by the fact. “They do interact with each other, we know that. There are small but noticeable fluctuations in the way Dunamis behaves when two beacons are in close proximity. But I don’t know if that effect multiplies or changes with more beacons.”

“Sure, okay. But what I’m saying is, these things are powerful. And Caleb just said it an hour ago, we don’t understand what these ancient mage fuckers were capable of. What if they were doing something with these beacons? Some, I don’t know, great magical working? Why else would they have them?”

“To use as arcane batteries, for consecution, as art objects,” Caleb immediately began listing off.

“Yeah, okay smartass. We don’t know, I get it. I’m just wondering, do we need to figure out what happened here in order to find the beacons?”

“Hope not,” Fjord put in pragmatically. “Unraveling ancient mysteries seems a bit more complicated than ‘walk downhill until you see beacons, get there first.’”

“Heads up,” Caduceus said sharply. Essek heard it a moment later, a low growling sound, the thud of heavy footsteps. Their group began to scatter, but the danger was upon them so fast, no one really had a chance to seek cover, not that there was much. Essek saw Verin invoke his echo before he saw the demons. Two of them, horned and tusked and lumbering – no, five – no, seven – he lost count.

This fight was far longer and messier. Yasha waded in immediately, striking several mighty blows in succession and taking as many in turn. Verin’s echo sprinted in to stand back-to-back with her, and Verin himself broke the other direction. The demons were coming at them in a spread curved shape, meant to catch them against the line of low buildings. Beauregard refused to be caught – she ran straight up the wall behind her, leaped off it, and came down in a whirl of kicks that connected thunk thunk thunkthunk.

Essek saw an opportunity and cast. He placed his Gravity Sinkhole downhill, snaring a good half dozen demons in its curve and just missing Yasha. Howls rose as some of the demons were crushed and yanked back from their targets.

“Nice,” Caleb said. He bent, completed a somatic Essek didn’t see, and slapped both hands to the ground. Lines of fire shot away from him and burst in searing pillars on five of the demons. Caleb snagged him by the arm and pulled him ten feet to put their backs against the wall of the nearest building.

Jester was surrounded by a whirling, deadly wheel of tiny unicorns. Essek was almost distracted by their hypnotically smiling violence as they gored demons with their horns. Caduceus was casting something with a gesture that encompassed himself and Beauregard and Verin; Yasha was still trading blows with three demons; Verin’s echo was looking harried; Fjord had his blade out.

Jester screamed. Essek whipped his head around to see a demon in the process of picking her up and throwing her. She struck the wall fifteen feet away and landed badly. Caleb snapped something, not even gesturing, and the demon froze, spasmed, and screamed like it was being shredded from the inside. It was completely unaware as Beauregard piled into it and obliterated it in a rain of blows.

Essek wasn’t sure where to look, so he threw a Haste at Beauregard. “Thanks,” she said, streaking away to cause mayhem elsewhere.

A cluster of crossbow bolts abruptly flowered from the face of the nearest demon, which reared back and died as Fjord ran it through. Jester was struggling to her feet, blood pouring from her temple. Her guardian unicorns were gone, but she conjured a terrifying razor-edged lollypop with a shout and sent it to pummel one of the demons still harrying Yasha. Verin switched places with his echo, completing a swing begun thirty feet away that took the head off of one of Yasha’s attackers.

Essek cast Blight. Caleb repeated his trick with the streaks of fire. Caduceus smiled in the face of a demon in such a way that it seemed truly unnerved, and its swings at him went wide.

Then the tide was turning. One, two, three demons fell, nearly simultaneously, and Yasha dispatched one more with a cry and a wet thump. And all fell into a panting silence.

“Okay,” Caduceus said mildly, as if they were just finishing dinner. “Who needs a little help?”

“Jester does,” Essek said. Verin did, too, from the way he was cradling his right arm, and Yasha was a bloody mess. Still smiling, though.

“Someone should keep watch,” Caleb said, waving Caduceus’s attention away from the two of them. “The noise might have attracted something else.”

“I’ve got it,” Veth’s disembodied voice said from very close by, making Essek jump.

“What was that you cast?” Caleb asked him. “I’ve assumed there are higher order gravitation effects, but I haven’t had a chance to think about the mechanics. It was wonderful.”

“Yes,” Essek said, preening a little. “It’s useful. And that fire spell, what was that? I’ve never even heard of anything like that.”

“Little something I noodled up,” Caleb said, smiling bashfully.

“Are you hearing this shit? The wizards are dirty talking with all of us right here.” Beauregard said to Verin as they converged on Caduceus.

“Sure are,” Verin said.

“Is it making you want to slam your head into the ground until you pass out?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“What I want to know is, where’s the portal,” Caleb said pointedly.

Everyone who wasn’t gathered for healing started craning their heads around. A minute passed, two. The demon corpses dissolved into abyssal goo with quiet blurp blurp sounds.

“I don’t see it,” Essek said, turning another slow circle just to be sure.

“Me either.” Caleb was frowning deeply. “Let’s wait for Caduceus to finish his prayer and see if anyone else has better luck.”

Caduceus finished, but no one else could find signs of a portal.

“It could be down that way,” Fjord said, pointing where the demons had come from.

“Ja, let’s keep a look out for it,” Caleb said. “I’d much rather close it if we can.”

And if they couldn’t find it, that implied there were even more demons on the loose down here than they’d initially thought. How long did the portals last? Could they disgorge dozens of demons? More? Were there actual demon enclaves here? Demon colonies?

They returned to the march downhill, though even slower than before as everyone was trying to keep a better eye out. They did see and close a portal without incident, but it was nearly a quarter mile away from the site of their battle, which did not bode well in Essek’s opinion. There was another one of those odd flat places, too, where it seemed like the street should have broken open at the bends, but was miraculously in tact.

Essek hadn’t gotten the chance to see inside any of the houses they’d been passing. Many had what must have once been small garden plots out front, though now little but dried out husks remained. Essek saw a vine climbing a trellis by the street. He wasn’t familiar with its rounded leaves, but it looked remarkably intact. At least until he brushed it with a Mage Hand and it turned to dust with a papery sigh. Other houses bore the marks of personalization – a splash of colorful paint here, an intricately worked stained glass door there.

The road wound back and forth in the way it might if no one expected horses and carts to be coming this way. Would you even want draft animals in a floating city? Caleb had told him tales of the sentient arcane machines of Aeor – did Zemniaz rely on similar constructs?

The road straightened and widened. There was a brief dead space, which Essek guessed must once have been a band of parks, or maybe agriculture? They must have grown some food – it seemed impractical to import all of it.

“How big was Zemniaz, do you know?” he asked Caleb.

“The descriptions are a little vague,” Caleb said. “But it was a disc at least several miles across. So, very large. And if Aeor is any guide, the smart move was to layer. So it makes sense there are homes up here under the sky. They were supposed to have a transparent bubble to look through.”

“Surely this cavern can’t be that big, though,” Essek protested. “Do caverns that large even form naturally?” He glanced up. The rocky ceiling was well beyond the limit of his vision, but the space certainly felt vast, though sound had a weirdly dead quality to it.

“Ja, I’ve been wondering that, too,” Caleb said. “We know these ruins are not intact, but they are a substantial portion of the city. Now we need a geologist alongside a historian.”

Past the empty space, they entered a new district. Buildings were taller, narrower, and closer together, and the roads appeared to converge into something close to a grid. But what captured all of their attention were the oddities. They saw a pair of fused buildings, and then another just five minutes later. There were more bodies here, too. Essek ached to stop and closely examine the contents of a bag still ghoulishly slung over one skeleton’s bony shoulder.

The slant underfoot eased gradually, and just about as it reached what Essek thought might be level, someone ahead called a halt. They had reached a square of sorts, Essek saw as they all converged.

“What do you make of that?” Caduceus asked the group in general, gesturing out.

Essek stared. Squinted. Tilted his head. Stared some more. It had probably been a public gathering area of some kind. He saw rows of seating, a raised platform, and several signs. And absolutely everything in sight had gone visually wrong. The neat rows of seats were disrupted by a second layer of seating that seemed to have fused into it and onto it, but not squarely. The platform was oddly shaped, as if perhaps the same thing had happened there. It was clearest in the signs, which looked like two signs layered atop each other several inches off true. Essek cast Comprehend Languages to be sure and yes, those weren’t different signs fused together. That was three occurrences, nearly forty feet apart, of a sign seeming to be in the process of birthing a duplicate of itself. The nearest one said Debate Makes a Strong Society, with the last few characters of each line visible on a repeated sign projecting out of the right hand side.

“What the fuck?” Beauregard breathed.

“That’s not a Teleport accident,” Caleb said quietly. “Or at least not like one I’ve ever heard of.”

“Look.” Jester pointed, and Essek leaned forward. There were bodies, too, and it was hard to tell from this distance, but he had a sinking feeling that the same eerie effect applied to them.

“Let’s take a closer look at this,” Fjord said. “Carefully.”

“Ja,” Caleb said quietly, lips pinched in a disturbed frown. The Mighty Nein sorted themselves into smaller groups and split off to investigate various phenomena. Essek stuck with Caleb, and Verin stuck with him, so the two of them ended up following Caleb over to the bodies scattered haphazardly at the foot of the central platform.

Caleb crouched, craned his head to stare from various angles, and gently shifted a well-preserved cloak out of the way.

“Ja,” he said quietly. “Either this individual had three legs and three arms and one-and-a-half heads, or—” he gestured up at the nearest sign. “What happened to that also happened to them.”

“Okay,” Verin said leadingly. “But what was that?”

Caleb looked up at Essek. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like this before?” he said. “A dunamantic effect, say?”

“No,” Essek said slowly. “There are plenty of ways of copying a person, Verin has an echo, I can summon one. But those are ephemeral.”

“Ja, Jester has a version of that,” Caleb said. “I have Mirror Image. And I’m going to crack that echo trick of yours.”

Essek was genuinely looking forward to watching him try. “I’ve seen some strange visual effects at higher order castings,” he said. “A string of images of a person stretching out behind them as they move, for example, where there are intense localized alterations to the probability field. But those are even more illusory. Not—” he gestured helplessly around them.

“Not manifest,” Caleb said. He frowned in deep thought. “What do you think, are we wasting time looking at this? Or is Beauregard right, do we need to understand what happened here?”

“I want to understand what happened here,” Essek said honestly. “Which doesn’t make it a good idea.”

“Ja, exactly.” Caleb sighed and pushed to his feet. “Well, we need a little break from walking, anyway. And I think it’s about time we ask Caduceus to speak to one of these fine individuals.” He turned in a slow circle, then set off at a trot to where Caduceus and Jester were looking at something a few hundred feet away.

It was something very interesting, Essek saw as they approached. There was a flat stone plinth, about chest-high on Essek, with a pale gray top that shimmered even in dim light. It appeared to be free of any strange doubling effects. As they approached, Jester did something that made the plinth light up blue. The two of them jumped back, and Essek heard Caleb hiss between his teeth.

But the only thing that happened was that the glow contracted and resolved itself into a picture. A map. By the time they arrived, Jester and Caduceus were leaning over it, talking animatedly.

“Oh, good,” Caduceus said. “Can you memorize this?”

“I can,” Caleb said. He cast Comprehend Languages on himself first, and leaned in to stare fixedly for thirty seconds.

Essek stared, too. He wouldn’t remember like Caleb could, but this was interesting. The map was clearly of Zemniaz, down to a little glowing pentagonal shape that must indicate ‘you are here’. Essek’s Comprehend Languages was still working, so he read labels feverishly – Concordance Space on the square, Centrex on the larger district they were in, and a whole mess of streets clearly named after long-gone people. There was a compass on the map, but the directions were relative, not cardinal. ‘Spinward’ went one way and ‘anti-spinward’ the other. Had the disc spun as it flew? Without disturbing its occupants?

Jester had continued to poke about, and discovered something that made the map expand its perspective. The district they were looking at shrank, and more and more of Zemniaz came into view.

“Huh,” Verin said, pointing. “That’s weird. I thought that hill we came all the way down was because of damage?”

“It is,” Essek said, thinking of how the trees and houses had been oriented as if the slant were level ground. Then he stopped, frowning. Because Verin was right, the map clearly showed the shape of the whole city. It was more a broad dish than a disc, with a big flat central area surrounded by steep slopes that climbed towards an ovular rim.

“Where did we come in, do you know?” he asked Caleb.

Caleb thought about it, pointing in several directions in succession as he consulted his memory and internal compass. “Here, I think,” he said, tracing a line over the map.

“Okay,” Essek said slowly. “But if it’s supposed to be slanted, then . . .” They looked at each other, baffled.

“Maybe they liked living sideways?” Jester proposed, in that way where Essek couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.

“The houses we went into were slanted,” Caleb said slowly. “But there was also evidence of damage from it. Things falling downslope, rolling, piling up.”

“The map doesn’t have the flat bits,” Caduceus said.

Essek turned back to look. Caduceus was right. The map depicted a smooth, continuous slope downward, with none of the flat portions they had encountered.

“You felt dizzy, right?” he asked Caleb. “In the flat spaces?”

“Ja, just a little, coming and going.”

“I did too,” Jester said, and Caduceus nodded.

“I didn’t,” Essek said. “Which – oh. Because I was floating most of the way.” He hovered upward a few inches then bounced back down, fired with a wild idea. “What if the map is right?” he said to Caleb. “What if the whole outer rim of the city slanted inward? But they didn’t build into the slant? What if they altered the direction of gravity instead? So everyone living on the slant felt themselves to be level?”

Caleb’s eyes were huge with amazement and delight. “And some of that enchantment remains,” he said. “Which is where it seemed flat to us. But was not flat.”

“Ancient mages were so weird,” Jester said. “Why not just build your houses on a terrace like everyone else does?”

“Who knows,” Caleb said, beaming at Essek. “Because they hated stairs. Because they could, perhaps. Schatzi, can you even imagine . . .”

Essek could, and couldn’t. The scope of such an enchantment, the very idea of it . . .

“Could that explain this?” Verin asked, pointing back to the nearest doubled sign.

“No-o,” Essek said slowly. “At least, I don’t see how. Let me think on it.”

“Can we get this to show more than just the top view?” Caleb asked. “We know there are more layers, presumably in the center flat portion.”

All four of them tried, but either the map didn’t have that capability or they couldn’t understand its workings.

“Anyway,” Caleb said, looking to Caduceus. “Do you feel up to speaking to one of the dead? It may be illuminating.”

“Yes,” Caduceus said, nodding slowly. “Lunch first, though.”

The whole lot of them sat on and around the central platform in the square, talking quietly as they ate basic but filling wraps that Caduceus prepared on the fly. A flask also made the rounds; it contained a full-bodied red wine that Essek found he quite liked, and it certainly did warm the bones.

Caleb was quiet. He was probably thinking on everything they had seen and surmised – Essek certainly was. But Essek had not forgotten that morning’s events, so under cover of chatter all around them, he leaned in and asked, “Are you well?”

“Hmm?” Caleb blinked back to the present. “Ja. Just preoccupied. Oh.” He paused, squinting at Essek. “You mean—” he tapped his temple.

“Yes.”

Caleb made a face. “I’m trying not to think about it,” he said. “If I do, it’s like a thousand spiders are climbing up the back of my neck and into my brain.”

Essek winced at this evocative description. “Sorry to bring it up,” he said, abashed.

Caleb made the same face again. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “By ‘trying not to think about it’ I mean I’m thinking about it continuously, so.” He shrugged, a tight little movement. “It’s just an experiment. I can stop whenever I want.”

“You can,” Essek agreed, for whatever good his endorsement of this mantra would do. He wasn’t actually sure what the purpose of the experiment was, but now was probably not the time to pry.

After lunch, a strangely cozy affair given the setting, Caduceus brushed off his hands and looked to Caleb. “What am I asking one of these fine people?”

“Ooh, you’re doing the thing?” Beauregard said, sitting up in interest. “Just ask them, you know, what the fuck? Because genuinely, what the fuck?”

This set off a cascade of suggestions at varying degrees of helpfulness.

“Ask them if the city fell.”

“Ask them where the beacons are.”

“Ask them why everything is trying to poop out another copy of itself.”

“Ask them the quickest way to the furthest point down.”

“Ask them if Zemniaz had donuts and what they were like.”

“Ask them if they liked fucking at a forty-five degree angle.”

“That is more than five questions,” Caduceus said, and began ambling in the direction of the remains.

Everyone else trooped after, and a brief discussion ensued as to which skeleton to choose. They all agreed that they should try to choose a person most likely to be in charge and have relevant information, but a cultural difference of opinion arose as to who that was. Essek and Verin both thought it would be the skeleton which appeared to have fallen in an act of defense. There was no visible weapon, but this was a city of mages, after all. The Dwendalians thought it would be the person that appeared to be the object of defense. Caduceus cut through the entire debate by saying, “you have a lovely cloak, don’t you?” to another skeleton entirely, and kneeling to cast. His selection had the benefit of appearing to have only the normal compliment of heads.

Caleb hastily distributed Tongues to Caduceus. Essek cast Comprehend Languages on himself as well and leaned in to listen.

He had observed this process a few times on deceased prisoners in the Dungeon of Penance. He had done his utmost to appear blase and unconcerned at the time, but that took some effort. Verin, who had probably never seen such a thing, was wide-eyed.

“Hi,” Caduceus said warmly, once the skeletal head had taken a disturbing, whistling breath. “What happened to destroy this city?”

“The Mage Council said we could escape,” a whispery voice responded. “They were wrong.”

“Escape what?” Caduceus said.

“The end of the world.”

Essek was briefly confused until he realized that people of the time hadn’t called it the Calamity. That came later. They must have called it all sorts of things contemporaneously. And thought it the end of the world, or civilization, or life worth living.

Caduceus paused in thought, then said, “How were you going to escape?”

“A great spell. To carry us forward to a time of peace.”

Essek reared back in shock. “Forward in time?” he blurted. Luckily, the skull did not acknowledge him. Was that their plan? To leap impossibly forward, somehow, and take the whole city with them? What madness. What mad hope.

Caduceus paused again.

“Did they need beacons for that?” Beauregard hissed at him.

He repeated the question, briefly describing a beacon for good measure.

“I don’t know,” the skull rasped.

“One more,” Caduceus said quietly.

“Where was this spell cast?” Caleb said.

Caduceus nodded and posed this question.

“I don’t know. In the Magestum Zemnium, perhaps,” the skull said, and the semblance of life left it.

Essek retreated into furious thought as Beauregard and Caleb relayed the answers to the rest of the waiting group. Was such a thing even possible? Well, he realized grimly, looking around himself, perhaps it wasn’t. The hope of Zemniaz, that’s what Caduceus’s god had said. Essek supposed that was right, in its way. It seemed like utter madness, standing in the aftermath of an ancient disaster. But at the time, living through what seemed like the end of civilization, what nearly was the end of civilization, if you thought there was even the smallest chance, wouldn’t you try?

“Right?” Caleb said, turning to him.

“Sorry, what?” Essek blinked back into the moment.

“I was saying if they really were attempting mass time travel, it does seem logical that they would want beacons for that,” Caleb said patiently. “Or am I mistaken?”

“No,” Essek said. “That is, I haven’t the faintest idea how one would go about casting a spell like that, so it’s as good an assumption to make as any.”

The conversation continued, circling from wild speculation to more practical considerations. Caduceus’s god had said to go down, but did she mean more down than this? Aeor had secreted its dangerous magical secrets below its top levels, but that didn’t mean Zemniaz had, too. Fjord and Beauregard went off to see if they could get the map to produce more helpful information, but Essek was not hopeful.

He touched Caleb’s elbow. “Is what you found in Aeor relevant?” he asked. “You implied they were capable of some amount of time travel.”

“Ja,” Caleb said slowly. “That is a good question. I examined the device briefly, and I think my personal biases were at play. I only ever thought of going backwards,” he explained, as Essek frowned. “Forward was of no interest to me, and didn’t even occur as a possibility.”

“I knew it,” Veth said, appearing suddenly at Caleb’s other side. “I fucking knew you were trying to pull some shit.”

Caleb gave a complicated look, sort of abashed and frustrated and many other things. “Ja, well,” he said. “I had a lot of plans that were, in retrospect, not entirely, um.”

“Sane?” Veth suggested helpfully.

“Ja, that will do. Anyway.” He looked back to Essek. “I really don’t know what the Aeorian device is capable of. I did examine it pretty closely, if quickly, and if there were beacons, I think I would have seen them. Though there were records in that room, and that is where I saw a sketch of one.”

“Who’s to say there aren’t multiple ways of going about this,” Essek said. “Or trying to go about this. It appears no one succeeded.”

“Ja, well, that is what can happen when you try to take a shortcut,” Caleb said. “In research. In time, apparently.”

“Halas did,” Veth said unexpectedly. “I mean, sort of,” she added to Caleb. “He didn’t actually mean to, but he effectively took a shortcut forward.”

“Ja,” Caleb said, a pensive frown on his brow. “Which may come in handy now, in fact.”

“Oh, shit, really? You brought that?”

“Ja,” Caleb said. He was watching Beauregard and Fjord return. “I had a feeling it might be necessary. Any luck?”

“Nope,” Beauregard said, audibly disgruntled. “Though to be fair, if we’re reading this right and this is a public space, you wouldn’t necessarily put all your secret magical laboratories on the map.”

“It has a name though,” Jester said. “Stuff with fancy names is important.”

“True,” Fjord said. “And our dead friend over there used the name like it was in the common vernacular.”

“Which at least gives us something specific to ask the Wildmother about,” Beauregard said. “Or Arty.”

“Or both,” Jester put in brightly. “We’ve tried that before.”

“I think we shouldn’t burn spells in the middle of the day unless we need to,” Fjord said.

“I suppose,” Jester said, pouting.

Essek hadn’t been keeping a careful watch on their surroundings. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure anyone was. They were all distracted by reanimated skeletons and the map and talk of time travel. And even if someone had been keeping a lookout, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, considering what happened was a portal to the Abyss opened up right in front of the platform with a sound like tearing silk, and an ash gray demon shouldered its way out not ten feet from them.

“Heads up,” Verin snapped, already moving. Yasha and Fjord were right at his shoulders.

Essek lifted his hands, not sure what to cast. He didn’t want to distract Verin, but thought it worth shouting, “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” Verin shouted back, scoring a direct hit with his blade. The demon made a strange, echoing cry when it was hurt, and the blood it spilled had a glimmering quality to it. The creature was a quadruped, standing a good six feet at the shoulder. There were a lot of small, sharp teeth in a pointed muzzle, and claws of a glasslike substance clicked on the stone. But for all its size, there was something slender about it, almost ethereal in the way the light struck its skin.

It snapped once at Yasha, and missed, then turned to Fjord. But instead of reaching with its claws, it opened its jaw wide, and breathed in with a mighty sucking sound. Something arcane flickered in the suddenly vast space between its teeth.

Essek couldn’t see Fjord’s face, but he saw the way Fjord froze up, wobbled where he stood, then shook himself all over.

The demon made a terrible sound of what could only be pleasure, like a monstrous child given a sweet. And it seemed to glow momentarily with a flush of glimmering gray vitality.

“Uh-oh,” Caleb said, and cast his wonderful fire spell again. This time, all the streaks of fire converged and burst on the demon, which howled, but didn’t seem nearly as scorched as it ought to have.

The next few seconds were a blur. Essek tried Temporal Shunt, but it didn’t take. Beauregard arrived at a sprint and delivered a series of blows; radiant energy crackled over her fists and flared where she hit. The creature tried to move and Yasha stopped it in its tracks with a mighty swing. A crossbow string twanged twice, but only one bolt found its mark. Fjord, still dangerously close, was looking around in visible confusion, as if he didn’t know where he was. Uh-oh, indeed.

Then the creature turned, and its eyes found them. Caleb, specifically, who was taller and who had taken a few steps forward to put himself in front of Essek. Essek had a number of sharp things to say about that, but they died unsaid as the creature leaned towards them, still pinned in the triangle of Yasha and Verin and Beauregard. It couldn’t reach Caleb to bite, surely?

It didn’t have to. Its jaws parted, it breathed in, arcana sparked between it and Caleb. Essek felt the very edges of something vertiginous and powerful that made his ears and his fangs throb.

Caleb stared into that maw, and went stiff as a board.

Oh, fuck.

“Kill it!” Essek shouted over to the knot of fighters. “Kill it now!”

“The fuck do you think we’re doing?” Beauregard shouted back. She hit it again, and Jester lit it up with a spell that outlined it in light.

Essek glanced frantically at Fjord for a clue. Still looking around in confusion, but he seemed to be orienting himself. His eyes narrowed on the demon, and he stepped forward. Okay, good, whatever it was couldn’t be that bad, right?

Caleb was – Caleb was standing stock still with his spellbook in his hands. No, that wasn’t his spellbook. That was whatever he kept in his lefthand holster and never seemed to reach for, at least in Essek’s recollection. Caleb was flipping through it rather frantically; Essek caught a quick glimpse of spell notation.

“Caleb,” he said. No reaction.

Someone in the knot of fighters grunted in pain. Essek skittered forward and put himself between Caleb and the demon, for all the good that might do. They needed to end this right now.

He hissed in frustrated fury and, without stopping to think about it, cast Feeblemind. He generally had it prepared every day, as he did his most powerful spells, though it had been over thirty years since he last cast it.

He thought for a moment it hadn’t worked. The demon shuddered, but didn’t seem to suffer as much pain as it should have. But then it paused, its roving eyes went wide, then blank with confusion.

“Okay, hit it now,” he called. He wasn’t sure if whatever that ability was had survived the destruction of its intelligence, but it was a gamble worth taking.

They did – Verin first, and his echo, and Yasha, and Fjord, and Veth with two shots that time. The demon got in another flailing hit on Yasha, but Beauregard finished it off.

“Close it, close it,” Verin said, watching the portal like a hawk.

“Caleb can,” Beauregard said. Caleb didn’t react. “Um. Okay. Yasha, can you?”

Yasha could, and did.

“Are you okay?” Essek asked, touching Caleb’s arm. This got him Caleb’s attention, finally, but Essek found he didn’t like it. Caleb’s eyes were strange. Too wide, too intense. Caleb closed his book with a clap and put it away.

“I’m fine,” he said, and eased out of Essek’s grip.

“Um, guys?” Jester said, with a quaver of distress in her voice. “Fjord says he doesn’t remember where we are.”

That drew everyone closer. Fjord hunched under the weight of all their attention. There was something different about the way he carried himself. And he kept touching his tusks in apparent bafflement.

“Uh, yeah, hi,” he said, smiling a little uncertainly around the circle. “How did we get here?”

“We walked,” Beauregard deadpanned.

“You’re new,” Fjord said to Verin. “Nice sword. Oh, and you,” to Essek. “And you,” to Caduceus. “And wow, you look really different,” to Caleb.

“Do I?” Caleb said, with a sort of mildness that set all Essek’s nerves to jangling.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Caduceus asked.

“Oh, um.” Fjord paused to think about that, but got distracted looking around again. “Hey, where’s Molly?”

Everyone stopped moving. Half of them might have stopped breathing. “Oh, fuckballs,” Beauregard said quietly. “Cad—”

“Sure,” Caduceus said. He approached Fjord with a relaxed smile and a diamond in hand. “Not to worry, Mr. Fjord, we’ll have you sorted out in just a minute.”

He cast Greater Restoration. Everyone held their breaths for the duration of the casting, and exhaled all at once when Fjord reeled where he stood, rubbed at his face, and said, “Whoa. That was so weird. Thanks, Ducey.”

“We need another one of those over here,” Essek said quickly.

Caduceus turned. “For you?”

“No.” Essek pointed silently at Caleb.

“Oh yeah,” Beauregard said. “It did its sucking thing at you, didn’t it?”

“Fjord and Caleb got sucked by a demon,” Jester put in helpfully.

“No,” Veth said, materializing out of the shadows beside the central platform. “You’ve got that spell you cast. The whole point of it is nothing can mess with your mind.”

Essek met eyes with Caduceus, and they watched each other simultaneously arriving at a terrible realization.

“No,” Essek said quietly. “He didn’t cast it this morning.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Caleb put in. There was a glibness to his tone, though was his accent thicker? “But I assure you I am fine. Whatever happened to you—” a nod to Fjord “didn’t work on me.”

Essek paused. He was so sure he’d seen – no. He had seen it happen. And Caleb had behaved very strangely after. All but taken himself out of the fight, which was wildly uncharacteristic. He looked fine now, but that didn’t signify.

And, come to think of it, did he look fine? He was smiling rather a lot. Too much. And looking intently from face to face Like – oh. Like someone calculating his angle of approach very quickly.

Fjord had lost memories. A couple of years, by the sound of it. What if the scope of the effect could vary? What if--

Essek breathed in.

“Bren,” he said quietly.

That got him the focus of wide blue eyes concealing what he was pretty sure was a great deal of frantic thought. And the attention of everyone else, too.

“Hallo,” Bren said, and essayed a smile. He watched Essek’s reaction, and adjusted seamlessly down to a neutral expression. “Thanks for looking out for me back there. I appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Essek said. He reached out and deliberately touched Bren’s bearded cheek. “I endeavor to care for you in everything I do, now.”

It was not something he would do or say in company under normal circumstances. But these circumstances were not normal, and it got him the reaction he was looking for. Bren’s eyes widened briefly in suppressed shock, and he leaned back a little from the touch.

Essek didn’t look too closely at his face for a moment. If there was going to be horror or revulsion there, he didn’t want to see it. Bren had himself in hand when Essek looked again.

“Of course you do,” Bren said, manufacturing warmth in his voice. The pretense of it scraped at Essek’s nerves. He knew the real thing; this imitation was an offense.

He glanced quickly around. A few of the others looked lost, but Caduceus wasn’t fooled in the slightest, and he thought perhaps Veth wasn’t either.

“I know you’re confused right now,” Essek said. “You want to know where we are? How you got here?”

The briefest of hesitations as Bren decided how to play this. “If it will make you feel better to tell me, go ahead,” he said cordially.

“We are in the Empire, exploring ancient ruins found near Pride’s Call,” Essek said, endeavoring to keep his voice even. “We were fighting a demon from the Abyss, as you saw. It apparently had the ability to remove some amount of your memory. How old would you say you are, by the way?”

Another tiny hesitation. “Twenty four.”

A few breaths hissed around the circle, and Bren’s eyes rolled in visible unease.

“I see. Well, I would like it very much if you would permit one of the clerics here to cast a Greater Restoration on you.”

Bren’s eyes widened minutely. He wasn’t permitted that spell, Essek suddenly remembered. Would he obey that stricture out of Ikithon’s purview?

“I think not,” Bren said coolly. Or perhaps the prospect of being cast upon by a stranger in such disorienting circumstances was enough of a barrier.

Essek inhaled carefully. How to diffuse this? He was the worst person here to try – surely Bren would reflexively distrust a drow.

“Hi,” Jester said, stepping in with perfect timing. Essek nearly sagged in relief. Jester was kind, Jester was disarming. Jester would know what to say.

“Hallo,” Bren said. He calibrated his smile so quickly to her tastes, Essek could barely see it happening.

“This must be really scary for you,” Jester said warmly.

“Mmm,” Bren said. His eyes were moving constantly, trying to keep them all in view. But there were a lot of them, and Beauregard and Yasha had both slipped away, one to either side to work around behind him.

“I know I’d be scared, if I just seemed to appear somewhere in the middle of a fight,” Jester confided.

“Mmm,” Bren said again. Then, committing to a course of action, he tipped towards her, his hands opening in appeal. “Would you mind telling me something?”

“Sure, of course,” Jester said brightly.

“Where are Astrid and Eadwulf?” he asked, watching her face intently.

“Oh.” She was pleased to be able to provide an answer. “Eadwulf is down here with another group. We haven’t seen them. And Astrid is back home in Rexxentrum with—” she edited herself, clearly deciding not to mention Leni. Bren’s eyes narrowed. “You could Send to one of them,” Jester hurried on. “Or I could, if you don’t have it? But one of them could tell you, we just want to help.”

Bren paused in brief thought. Did he have Sending prepared? Did he have anything prepared, come to that? Essek found himself distracted by the proliferation of questions. Bren at twenty four would not have been casting at the ninth, but he now inhabited a body that could. What skill set would apply? Surely Bren’s, not Caleb’s? Essek sincerely hoped so. He didn’t know all of what Caleb had available to him at the higher quanta, but it would by definition be powerful, and much of it destructive.

“Perhaps I will do that,” Bren said smoothly. He glanced over his shoulder and nailed Yasha with a look. Had he seen Beauregard, though?

“Hey,” Jester said, clearly trying to keep his attention. “A lot of stuff has happened. Like, a lot a lot. But do you want to know the best part?”

“Sure,” Bren said, angling his body slightly. One hand was hovering right next to his component pouch, the other was somewhere inside his coat. Did he have time to catalog his components during the fight? Maybe some, but surely not everything? Unless his systems of organization were habitual over the past decade? Fuck fuck fuck, Essek could feel this going sideways, slowly but inexorably.

“The best part is that Ikithon’s dead,” Jester said, with a ta-da sort of gesture.

Bren froze. And his face – Essek would never forget that look. Jester saw it, too, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh no,” Essek heard her whisper.

Bren moved – Essek Counterspelled, but not with enough power, Bren succeeded, and vanished.

“Fuck,” Beauregard snapped. She lunged at empty air, flailing after him. But she missed, and he was gone.

“Hmm,” Caduceus said mildly. “That could have gone better.”

Bren wasn’t able to fully take stock of himself for nearly twenty minutes of stealthy running, hiding, and then running again. The drow and that whole lot of peculiar people were volubly looking for him. That was very stupid, if these ruins were stalked by abyssal nightmares, but they didn’t seem to care. Some of them were calling for a ‘Caleb’ too, on occasion, so perhaps they were missing another member of their party as well. His Greater Invisibility bought him a minute’s lead; two Expeditious Retreats widened the gap.

The whole thing reminded him intensely of a night in Port Damali, running the back alleys with Mati after a clean TagTeam kill near the docks, a pack of Concord soldiers close on their heels. Of course, on that occasion, they’d had a safehouse to fall back on, once they could get to the right district.

He at last felt secure enough to stop, nearly half a mile northeast of the square where he had come to himself. He found a sheltered nook between two curved columns in the front face of a tall, strangely styled building, and took stock.

The first thing he had become aware of, in that sudden jolt of transition between his desk in Master Ikithon’s study and the middle of a battle, was the heft of the two books tucked against his ribs. Bren liked the feel of the harness immediately, the way it held his shoulders and ribs. It reminded him pleasantly of those times when Astrid was particularly interested in rope bondage. It had been a shock – one in a continuing stream of them – to touch the two spines and to know, without looking, that the lefthand book was his.

He drew it again, as he had in the battle. Yes, he confirmed for the second time, definitely his. That was his name on the flyleaf, that was the stain from a drop of his blood in the corner of Burning Hands, that was the groove in the leather cover near the top where his thumb fit perfectly.

Except that there was more in the book than there ought to be. There was Dominate Person in his handwriting, and Immolation – just seeing it written out made Bren’s fingers itch to cast it – and Cone of Cold. Which was a kind of evidence for the claim that he had arrived here not by some sort of magical translocation, but by coming of his own free will and then losing some part of his memory. Not very much memory, though. Spell acquisition was irregular at best, but only three new ones suggested months, maybe a year, depending on how pleased or displeased Master Ikithon had been with him recently.

A year in which he had . . . taken up with a drow? Bren could imagine any number of reasons why he would have been commanded to do such a thing, and by the looks of it, he had the drow entirely on the hook and happy about it. But who were the rest of that lot?

He examined his clothes and his body with terrible, expanding unease. The clothes were unexceptional, but where was the woven leather bracelet from Wulf. Where was his ring from Master Ikithon? It would be foolish beyond belief to come into a place like this risking one of the headaches that could strike from nowhere. He wore several unfamiliar objects whose function he couldn’t guess at, and an Amulet of Proof Against Detection. And there was a smooth, oval stone in his right front coat pocket that seemed to nestle familiarly in his palm and that he knew, without casting to check, was magical. Was that a focus? What an odd choice.

But the most alarming discovery of all was his hair, which hung in an intricate-feeling braid past his shoulders. Bren had worn his hair clipped close to the skull since he was fifteen. How long would it take to grow that much? More than months, he thought with a sinking sensation.

He was fully bearded, too. It was a thick, well-groomed beard of the sort Bren had never cultivated. His fingers seem to fall automatically into a slow rub on his cheek, against the grain and then with it. Handy, to have an easy fidget available on one’s own face.

He had a generous stock of components, at least. He had always preferred casting with them over a focus, to the dismay of many of his professors who found the practice too messy and, Bren suspected, too unfashionable. He had a lot of components, in fact. The pouch was unfamiliar, but the placement on his thigh and many of the arrangements within were known to him. He’d been able to put his fingers on bat guano in a few seconds during the battle, just in case.

He took more time now, unstrapping the pouch and figuring out how to open it flat to view everything. Yes, much of this was familiar – there was the phosphorus, there the guano, here the copper wire. Why did he have so many cocoons? But there were also several components whose use he didn’t know, like a delicate jade circlet he found tucked in a larger pocket behind the rest.

There were other things, too. His fingers found a couple of rings at the bottom, where he would put things least likely to be needed in a hurry. One was – ah, there it was – his ring from Master Ikithon. Bren put it on with a sigh of relief.

There was a second ring. One he also recognized as soon as he pulled it out. That ring had been on Master Ikithon’s hand every day Bren had known him. What did that mean? The blue girl, she had said—

Was he dead? Was that even possible? He was getting old for a human, but was he even capable of dying? The thought made a sensation like freefall take hold in Bren’s gut.

Well, here he was, all alone and unobservable. He ritually cast Identify. He had always wondered what this was, and it seemed worth finding out.

Ah. Telepathy. Yes, that did explain a number of things, didn’t it.

He hesitated again, queasy, then hastily shoved that ring onto his finger. It was too useful to ignore as a resource. If he’d had that attuned when he’d come to himself, he could have managed the charade of playing along with the drow and that whole lot, no problem. Perhaps he still could? Return to them claiming his memory restored, and take his cues from their minds?

Perilous. But he did need to do something. Because as perilous as that sounded, it was probably the safer route than trying to navigate an unknown – underground? It certainly felt like it, and there were no stars up there in the dark – ruin. With no map, and no memory. And no food or water.

Shit.

The other book, what was that? Bigger and heavier than his, that was for sure. And it felt like a spellbook, he thought so just based on the feel of the edges of the pages before he opened it. Indeed it was. He stood it on its spine on his palms and let it fall open naturally, which revealed a spell he wasn’t familiar with labeled Mind Blank.

He squinted at the notation for some time. It was abjuration, clearly, and he could make a guess as to its function based on the name. But most of the intricacies, not to mention the quantum of power required, were well beyond him.

Bren gritted his teeth and flipped to the front of the book. He stared in surprise, not sure whether he was relieved or baffled. That was not his name on the flyleaf. This book belonged to a Caleb Widogast. A powerful and prodigious mage, clearly.

And a mage whose handwriting was very much like his.

He paged slowly through the book. The first entry made him snort – Find Familiar? Really? The beginning entries were all well-thumbed, some smudged or splotched with ink or ground-in grime. This Caleb Widogast was careless with his spellbook. Bren’s entries were not all pristine, certainly, but that was the well-earned cost of serving the Empire, not mere carelessness.

Many of the early spells were familiar. Slow, and Haste, and Suggestion, and Expeditious Retreat, a reliable old friend. And Fireball, of course. Someone had drawn a pair of dicks in purple ink in the corner of Fly. They appeared to be . . . dueling. The same hand – not Caleb Widogast’s, Bren fervently hoped – had drawn a cat face on the next page, in the corner of Counterspell.

There were increasing numbers of unfamiliar spells as he continued. And the climb was meandering and nonlinear, but there was the expected progression to higher quanta of magic. Bren lingered enviously over Chain Lightning for some time. There was a good mix of schools here, of course, as any intelligent wizard would pursue. But Bren knew intuitively that this was not the book of an evocationist. This Caleb Widogast was interested in Evocation, but it was not his passion. Bren thought Transmutation was, as he paged through Investiture of Flame and Move Earth and something called Widogast’s Transmogrification that he puzzled over for some time, but couldn’t make heads or tails of. A personal creation, clearly.

There had been no question about what school Bren would pursue. No one had even bothered to ask, once it became clear where his gifts lay. Fire just made sense to him; the arcane underpinnings of summoning and controlling it had clicked into his mind like a key into a lock. And the experience of it – the heat, the sound of it – filled him with a matching heated fascination.

He paged slowly through spells of increasing power. Teleport, of course, and Reverse Gravity, and something labelled only “The Tower” that would conjure some sort of magical space. That one was modified in layers, with a stack of notes and addenda crammed into the margin.

Then there were spells Bren had only heard of, or seen performed once by an archmage of the assembly, under very unusual circumstances. There was Control Weather, and Power Word Stun, and, at the height of a wizard’s power, Meteor Swarm, and a whole string of extraordinary transmutation spells like True Polymorph. And – he was breathlessly anticipating it – Wish. Actual Wish. And Shapechange, which Bren had heard of once, but never seen performed. A dragon was doodled in the corner of that one.

What sort of powerful mage who could cast at the ninth let someone doodle in his spellbook?

The book took a sudden turn, then, into the entirely unfamiliar. Bren paged past Fortune’s Favor and Gift of Alacrity. He couldn’t even guess at what that first one did, as much of the notation was bafflingly unfamiliar. He could at least logically guess at what Immovable Object and Magnify Gravity did – Bren spent some time attempting to reverse engineer some of their principles, with what was probably mixed success. He had never even heard of such things. Was Caleb Widogast . . . learning? Inventing? a new school of magic?

He closed the book, at last, feeling a terrible mix of envy and fear. This Caleb Widogast person who had his handwriting clearly was not him. This was the work of a wizard with a different kind of mind, not just a different name. And the work of many years.

Bren shivered. Touched the length of his braid. Breathed, and stared out into the unrelenting dark.

It would be convenient if he could conclude that he was merely playing at being this Caleb Widogast. As a cover, say. Part of whatever it was he was doing, carrying on with a drow. Why would he have his own spellbook, though? That seemed unforgivably sloppy.

What was a drow like in bed? At least that particular one had a certain prettiness about him.

You could fake the length of hair, probably. And a love affair, for certain. But you couldn’t fake being a mage of that power. Or the years apparent in the pages of that book.

A book which was now in his possession. If he returned to the group, would they try to take it from him? Bren gritted his teeth. They could try. He would kill to keep that book.

Two Sendings arrived then, one after another, both from the drow. He sounded like his even tone was effortful. What did that mean? The first Sending made Bren press his lips tight together in frustration. The second let loose a sensation in his chest somewhere between elation and a panic attack.

Bren did not respond. He hunched where he hid until the spell let him go, as if the drow could track him by it. Who knew what such a creature could do. He was a caster, obviously, and Bren thought most likely a wizard, based on what little he’d seen during the fight.

Was Bren in his power? Trapped, somehow? Playing nice to wait for an opportunity?

But what the hell was this spellbook of wonders, then? Who could overpower a wizard capable of all that?

He reached for a Sending of his own, unspeakably glad he’d prepared it that morning. It should have been his first move, but he’d been too afraid of receiving no response. Now, he was more afraid of just what he might be told.

“Wulf,” he sent, then hesitated too long and finally just blurted out, “Help?”

Chapter Text

They regrouped back at the square after half an hour of assorted searching and argumentation. Essek was partnered with Beauregard and Verin for the searching. Their efforts probably weren’t helped by Beauregard’s persistent, undervoiced swearing the whole time. She was as frightened as he was, but Essek thought it was also that she was racked with guilt for how she’d snapped at Jester in the immediate aftermath.

“How do you still not get that sometimes people love people who hurt them?” she’d said, which was simultaneously called for and also clearly about unspoken things that Essek did not know. She’d apologized, and they’d hugged before they’d all split up, but it was lingering.

“Should I Send to him?” Jester said when they regrouped, all empty-handed. She was chewing her lip, a little red about the eyes, and visibly hesitant to make any more decisions.

“I think not,” Fjord said gently.

“But maybe try Eadwulf or Astrid?” Beauregard suggested. “See if he has been in touch? And warn them?”

“Yeah, okay, I can do that,” Jester said.

Beauregard made eye contact with Essek while Jester began casting.

“You’re the only other one with Sending, right?” she said quietly, sidling over.

“I think so.” Essek twisted his hands anxiously. “Do you think I should?”

“Okay don’t freak out but—” Jester was saying.

“Maybe?” she looked deeply torn. “How many you got?”

“Several. It depends how much arcana I hold for later.” For whatever later might bring. He shifted unhappily in his float. “What do I say?”

“Tell him to get his ass back here,” she said irritably. “Fuck, man, I don’t know.”

“Hey Astrid, so this funny thing happened—” Jester said.

Essek beckoned Caduceus over. “What do I say to Bren?” he hissed.

“Hmm.” Caduceus thought carefully about this. “First I think you say to yourself that it’s unlikely you are going to be able to reach him in twenty-five words. And then I think you tell him as much of the truth as you can, because that one will smell a lie from however far away he is.”

“Yeah,” Essek breathed, not happy with either point. “Okay.” He paced in a small circle, composing drafts in his head.

“He hasn’t reached out to either of them,” Jester reported.

Tell the truth, but expect to fail. Neither of these was really in Essek’s core skill set.

Fuck it. He committed, and cast.

“We are back in the square where you left us,” he said. “There are many dangers here; travelling alone is not safe. Please be careful, and return.”

Silence.

He breathed, and cast again. Jester had already broken the glass, as it were, so what was the harm in throwing more at him? The trouble was, there were many things Essek could say to reassure him that were not, at their heart, true. Neither Bren nor Caleb lived a life of safety, though their dangers were very different. And was safety even something Bren was permitted to value?

“You are thirty-one. You are powerful. An archmage. You have a daughter. You are the master of your own life. You are loved, very much.”

Would he believe any of that? Would it matter to him even if he did?

Silence.

Essek exhaled. “I have more, but I want to save them,” he said to the watching group.

The following hours were wretched. Among many other things, it was brought home to Essek just how much they relied on Caleb down here. Without him, everyone’s sense of time was scrambled, and it was only because Beauregard happened to have a timepiece in her pack that they knew precisely when in the late afternoon it was. And more importantly, Caleb was their source of shelter for the night. It had been a terrible oversight not to ask to learn some version of his tower spell. The Nein were collectively incredulous when they discovered that Essek also didn’t have what they referred to as ‘the dome.’ It took him a while to even figure out what they meant.

“I’m a researcher and a bureaucrat,” he finally snapped. “I don’t rough it.”

They continued to send search parties out in twos and threes. Essek didn’t love that – it ran the risk of making Bren feel hunted. More than he probably did already. But Fjord had pointed out correctly that the real danger was Bren being cornered by demons alone, and they needed to keep an eye and an ear out for any nearby conflict.

They had a miserably quiet dinner in the square. Essek was really beginning to hate the surreal overlapping shapes of many of the objects there.

“Is all this because they tried time travel?” Beauregard asked, pointing at the jumble of creepy half-doubled skeletons with the toe of her boot.

Essek shrugged. “Maybe. You can have accidents with other kinds of magic, like teleportation, where you land inside a solid object. Normally, you are just ejected out of it into the nearest empty space.”

“Just nothing,” Beauregard said. “That hurts like hell.”

“Yes, well. Perhaps something went horribly wrong here, and two versions of people and objects tried to exist in the same space at the same time. And they . . . fused, instead of rejecting each other.” A corner of his mind had been chewing away at the question of forward time travel ever since the skeleton had said it. It was possible on the small scale, of course – Temporal Shunt was proof of that. But past six seconds, the mechanics became unmanageable. Or so he’d thought. And even if that could be solved, the power involved boggled the mind. They would have to collapse the sphere of near infinite possible futures down to one certain one. The energy released in doing so would be like a metaphysical bomb. Perhaps they had intended to harness that to power the spell? Looping it back on itself so the power arrived to initiate it from the future that had not yet happened?

These thoughts were sobering and fascinating and nauseating by turns. Which made them far preferable to any other thoughts that he might be having.

After dinner, it became clear to Essek what Caleb had meant months ago when he’d claimed that Fjord was the one to make hard calls sometimes.

“We need to talk about what’s next,” Fjord said quietly as they began cleaning up. “We can’t leave him alone down here, but we’re on a tight timeline.”

The discussion that followed was painful and contentious. It was eventually settled that, if they had not made any progress in locating Bren by the morning, then two of them would stay and continue the search, while the rest carried on. Deciding who would stay and who would go took another fifteen minutes. Essek was torn, though he fundamentally wanted to stay. But it ultimately wasn’t up to him, as Veth claimed the spot for herself, and he thought she would defend it at crossbow point.

“And a cleric,” she said, looking between Jester and Caduceus with a frown.

The two of them exchanged a loaded glance, and Jester’s shoulders hunched. “Caduceus should stay,” she said quietly. “I can Commune with Arty, and Send back to Caduceus if we need more help.”

So, that was that. They drew up a watch rotation for the night, and bedded down right there on the stone in the space between the platform and seats, where the balance of shelter and ample sightlines met with general approval.

Caleb had not been wearing his pack when the fight started, so Bren didn’t have any supplies other than what was in Caleb’s coat and pouch. Essek hoped he had the sense to hold up somewhere relatively safe and defensible for the night. It struck Essek as unlike Bren, perhaps, to run off without resources. His first instinct to conceal his confusion and try to blend in had been a good one, in terms of survival down here. But Bren probably hadn’t been thinking clearly when he ran; he’d been shocked, and frightened, and grief-stricken, and he’d reacted.

Verin volunteered Essek and himself for second watch, which was by far least favored by the sleepers. Essek made a hasty mental note to remember this for future adventuring. He tranced for two hours, then tried and failed to occupy himself with the Locate Object work until Verin touched his shoulder.

Essek wasn’t entirely sure how one went about sitting a watch, aside from the obvious. Luckily, Verin knew what he was about; he made periodic circuits of the whole square, directing Essek to stay put watching the sleepers. Essek followed instructions, trying not to be too envious. How good it must be to find true unconsciousness in the face of the fear that was gripping all of them. How excellent it would be not to have to endure hours of terrified waiting. Essek’s trance, on the other hand, had been slippery and rebellious, dominated by the silence where Caleb’s breathing should be.

It was while Essek was sitting alone on the edge of the platform in the dark, listening to the Mighty Nein toss in their sleep, that a Sending eased its way into his mind.

He sat up straight, aware of the presence before Bren’s whispered voice came.

“A daughter, you say?”

“Yes,” Essek whispered back. “Magdalena. Leni. She has your eyes and Astrid’s bone structure.” He hesitated, then took a risk. “I could show you an illusion.”

A pause, and then, “How old?”

“Five. She likes dragons. Her best friend is the child of your halfling companion.” What else might entice him? “Do you need food?”

Another silence, this one longer. Then, just when Essek had decided that the fish had slipped the hook, Bren said, “Come to the south of the square. The shortest building in the southeast corner. Leave food in the open door.”

Bless the fact that Caleb had not been carrying any rations. Bless Bren’s practicality.

“It will be a moment,” Essek said. “I don’t want to leave our friends unguarded.”

He waited for Verin’s return, and whispered an explanation of his departure.

“Hang on,” Verin said, gripping his arm. “Is he a threat to you? The others have been awfully jumpy about him.”

“I don’t know,” Essek said honestly. “He doesn’t know me, of course. And—” he chewed his lip. “This version of him is a Scourger.” Verin’s hand tightened. “It doesn’t matter. I have to try, and if you come with me, he may bolt.” Or worse.

Essek refused to accept any outcome of this disaster other than restoring Caleb. And if he treated that as a fixed future, then organizing his priorities became simple: do whatever it took to lure Bren in, and also ensure Bren didn’t do anything that would shred Caleb apart to remember later.

“Fine,” Verin gritted out. “But I’m waking someone else for an extra pair of eyes.”

So Essek glided off to the south to the sound of Beauregard hissing “he’s doing fucking what?” behind him.

It occurred to him, as he reached the line of buildings about a hundred and twenty feet away, that Bren could be casting Message, not Sending, if he was close by. Did he even have Sending? He’d used some form of invisibility, but Essek didn’t know if Caleb had prepared that this morning or not, or if any of Caleb’s preparations carried over.

He found what was hopefully the right doorway and crouched down to deposit a packet of food – a hastily thrown together sandwich of bacon and cheese, plus a fall apple from Caduceus’s home. Then he cast Major Image, making his gestures as big and obvious as possible so hopefully Bren wouldn’t overreact to the threat of magic. Then again, Bren was all but blind out here.

He placed an image of Leni next to the door, standing on her tiptoes as she often did to stare at things. He put her blue stuffed dragon in her hands and, in a fit of ridiculous sentiment, colored her nails the sparkly silver he had recently painted them. Then he retreated fifty feet back across the square to where he could perch at the edge of a rimmed fountain.

“Done,” he Sent. “I will not attempt to interfere with you. I have cast an illusion for your examination.”

There was silence for what felt like at least fifteen minutes, but had to be less as the Major Image remained. Essek disciplined himself repeatedly to endure the wait, though it was excruciating. Bren was being understandably cautious. It only occurred to Essek after several silent minutes to be concerned for his own safety. His fangs prickled with sudden unease, and he glanced compulsively over his shoulder. He’d been preoccupied with trying to make this not appear as a trap for Bren; was it instead Bren’s trap for him?

Either way, the bait was too good. Bren must have been watching from close by, because Essek saw a flicker of movement and the shifting glow of a hooded light source at last, a mere minute before the image of Leni vanished. It was tricky to be sure at this distance, but Essek thought Bren had crouched there for several seconds, examining her. There was a bit more movement, then the light retreated off to the left and around the corner of the building. Bren was at a real disadvantage down here in the dark. He must know it, too.

“What were we thinking?” Bren whispered into his mind. “Having a child?” Yes, that must be Message. All right. They could theoretically have an actual conversation like this. Assuming Essek could figure out what the hells to say. Diplomacy was not his strong suit, let alone something like this. A sort of hostage negotiation, where the hostage and the hostage taker were nearly the same person.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t there,” he whispered back. “I believe conception was not intentional, but I can’t say what discussions were had.”

Caduceus had said be honest, but that probably didn’t extend to explaining that Bren was unavailable at the time, let alone why.

A long silence. Then, “So you’re, what? My piece on the side?”

The fact that Essek knew he was being deliberately provoked didn’t stop it from working. “No,” he responded, and felt his ears lift in offended pride. “We are involved exclusively. You recently put me on notice you have considered marriage.”

It occurred to him several seconds too late that this might have been a very stupid thing to say. He had just essentially told Bren that his current relationship, one which had endured for a third of his life, was over. That had to be upsetting, disorienting. If someone had told Essek of a year ago that Caleb would come into his life, that they would make love and share secrets late into the night, that they would both want permanence. Well. His reaction would have been complicated, and not all positive, that was for sure.

How things could change so fast. Caleb believed in change. Practiced it with the skill of a world-class expert. But did Bren?

“Mmm,” Bren said with palpable coolness. “What am I using you for, I wonder?”

Well, at least he’d decided to give up the charm offensive.

“You aren’t,” Essek whispered back, putting all the conviction he had into it. “Quite the opposite. I intended to use you. You changed my mind. And several other things about me.”

Another silence. “An archmage? Of . . . Civil Influence?”

“No, that’s Becke. You hold Domestic Protections. You don’t like it, but you are serving your country well.”

Another pause. Then in tones that were striving very hard to be even, “So it is true. Master Ikithon is dead.”

Essek bristled internally at the honorific. “Yes. Over a year and a half ago. One of the other Volstrucker killed him.” He hesitated briefly, then committed. “You intended to bring him to trial for his crimes.”

“I did?”

It was hard to tell in a whisper, but Essek thought the important word there was ‘I’. This was treacherous ground. He felt such tenderness for this Bren of twenty-four, living a life he thought he understood. Having doubts sometimes, yes, but sure of his path, committed to it. Innocent in his way, though Caleb would object to that characterization, and it was a strange thing to think of a killer.

“You did,” Essek said. “It is a story too long for this medium. But you discovered many terrible things he had done.”

“I already know he does terrible things,” Bren said at once. “We do what is necessary.” Defensiveness there, and pride.

“Yes,” Essek said. “I know that’s what you think now.” He left it there, unwilling to try and explain further under the constraints of a cantrip. Not sure he could talk his way through this face-to-face, if he were honest.

Why had Bren chosen him to speak to? Necessity, maybe. He hadn’t spoken directly to most of them, and he might have been unwilling to brave Jester’s ruinous good cheer. In comparison to the news she had delivered, perhaps even a drow was preferable.

He took a risk, and pointed at where he thought Bren was, twisting copper wire around his fingers. Bren might run if he knew Essek could pinpoint his location. “You don’t trust us,” Essek said, seeking for that practicality of his. “But you know you have little chance down here alone. What can I do so you will let us help?”

“Who is this ‘Caleb Widogast?’” Bren responded, quicker than expected.

Essek cast again. “A name you chose for yourself. And kept, because Caleb acquired a family that loves him. The name is a mark of how you have changed yourself.”

“Mmm,” Bren said, palpably unwilling to engage with most of that. “He has interesting spells.”

Damn.

“He does,” Essek said evenly. “I saw him turn into a dragon once. It was wonderful.”

This pause was the longest yet. Essek was just beginning to believe the parley was over when Bren’s voice eased back into his mind. There was an edge of breathlessness there. “You have a cleric?”

“Yes. What do you need?” A trickle of fear went down his spine. Bren wouldn’t agree to the Greater Restoration just like that, would he? Essek found it very hard to believe. He was asking a great deal, after all. It was a kind of time travel. A leap of terrible faith from the ashes of the present into the unknown future. Why would Bren do it when he didn’t understand the truth of his present?

“Bring them here,” Bren said. “Just the two of you. If I see anyone else, I will burn them.”

“Understood,” Essek said, and all but ran.

Verin and Beauregard met him close to the sleepers.

“Okay?” Beauregard asked tensely.

“I’m not sure,” Essek said. “He’s talking, but he wants a cleric. I think he’s hurt.”

She turned at once and went to wake Caduceus. Essek badly wanted to wake Veth as well. Her insights would be invaluable, and perhaps she could offer them while nearby but invisible? No. Tempting, but far too risky. And Essek was still a novice at examining his own motives, but even he could tell that what he truly desired here was some way to offload part of this terrible responsibility onto someone else.

“You look like shit,” Verin said.

“No,” Essek said. Verin gave him a deeply unimpressed look. “I can’t,” Essek said through his teeth. “Not right now.” Not while his lover was essentially erased and, unknowingly, depending on Essek to talk Bren into bringing him home again.

Caduceus arrived, managing to project calm even as he rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.

“Do you have enough for this?” Beauregard asked, frowning at him. “You haven’t gotten your full rest.”

“Let’s go see,” Caduceus said.

“Okay,” Beauregard said, in the way of someone who was extremely bad at letting other people walk into danger. “The range on Fireball is really big, is what I’m saying. So don’t fuck up.”

On that cheerful note, Essek led Caduceus back over to the doorway where he’d left the food.

“Smart,” Caduceus said quietly when they were ten feet out.

“Hmm?”

“He left an Alarm spell.” Caduceus gestured behind them. “He does it with thread, I’ve seen it many times. He knows we’re here.”

Essek tried Message anyway, just in case. “We’re here,” he said. “Only the two of us.”

Bren sidled out a minute later. He was trying for confidence, but not quite making it. There was a hunch to his shoulders and a catlike delicacy to his step.

“Hi,” Caduceus said, smiling unreservedly as soon as they were all in the dim circle of Bren’s hooded light. “I don’t know if you caught names earlier. I’m Caduceus. I am a cleric of the Wildmother, and your friend. It’s nice to meet you properly.”

“Hmm,” Bren said, studying him. “So you clean up my messes.”

It took Essek several seconds to parse that. This was Bren’s conception of a cleric, someone who was tasked with mopping up after violence, like a janitor. True, but only in the grossest sense. And an insult to what someone like Caduceus actually did.

“No,” Caduceus said calmly. “You have never asked me to do such a thing. Would you like to show me where you’re hurt?”

Bren wouldn’t, patently. His face was tense and drawn, and he kept darting glances out into the square, expecting an ambush.

“You don’t have to see it to heal it,” he said shortly.

“Not necessarily, though it lets me know how much help you need. But if you’d rather not . . .” Caduceus extended a hand. “Caleb was carrying a healing potion. Did you drink it?” A tight nod. “All right. Let’s get you feeling better before that migraine has a chance to take hold, hmm?”

Essek looked again, alarmed. He wasn’t sure what had tipped Caduceus off, but Bren didn’t dispute him, and he briefly had the look of someone caught out in a deception.

“You don’t have those much anymore,” Essek said, because the only thing he had here was talking. “You had one a few months ago, and the last one before that was quite a while, I’m told.”

“At least eight months,” Caduceus affirmed absently. He laid his spread palm on Bren’s chest, his staff glowed and seemed to writhe with sudden fungal activity, and Bren exhaled in audible relief. “More?” Caduceus asked. Bren held up two fingers close together – a little bit. “No problem. Here you go.”

Bren shied back from Caduceus’s hand as soon as the healing was done. His shoulders were straight now. He must have taken some injury to the torso.

“I won’t cast a restoration on you without your consent,” Caduceus told him.

Well, there went that plan. Essek had been assuming, this whole time, that if they could manage to subdue him with minimal injury, then all of this would be over. A part of him that was always measuring angles immediately thought of that night in Cuersaar and the dead young Volstrucker. It whispered Jester would do it, you could convince her.

“No?” Bren asked with a touch of mockery. “Having an attack of ethics? That’s inconvenient for you if you want your archmage back.”

“My friend,” Caduceus corrected. “And no, your autonomy is not an inconvenience to me.”

“How did I stop the migraines?” Bren asked, ignoring this. Essek suspected Bren really didn’t know what to do with someone like Caduceus. Essek certainly hadn’t back when they’d met. “Did you do something?”

“Eh, a few things,” Caduceus said, dismissing his own expertise with a lazy gesture. “Mostly, your life changed and you were no longer being hurt in such a way to provoke the pain.” He paused, and made a strange face, his ears pointing in opposite directions. He looked around in apparent alarm, then seemed to draw some conclusion and turned back to Bren. “Yes,” he said, looking Bren deeply in the eyes. “You can peek. That’s fine, if it helps you feel safe.”

Bren frowned, but Essek was distracted from this strange comment by a sudden, terrible thought.

“Caduceus,” he said urgently. “Would a restoration even work on him? Would it give him back his memory, or—” he gestured, unsure of how to articulate his question. This version of Bren had been given a restoration before, to ruinous result. He was in such a jumbled existential state now – memory erased back to a time when his memory had not yet been restored – so what would the magic even do?

“Hmm,” Caduceus said. He thought about this ponderously for some time. “No,” he said at last. “I think it will work. It may not be pleasant for him. But it should restore Caleb to us.”

“What do you mean?” Bren demanded, looking between them. “And who’s hurting me to cause my migraines?”

Of course he was focused on that. It must have been a significant limitation in his line of work, and he must have fretted and chafed at it. Part of the sense he had from others that he was fragile, as Caleb had said.

“Are you sure you’d like to know?” Caduceus asked. “I will tell you. But it will upset and hurt you.”

Essek hissed between his teeth. When Caduceus said ‘honesty,’ he really meant it, apparently.

Bren’s mouth set, stubborn. “Tell me.”

“All right. Your migraines are caused by your body’s attempt to alert you to the fact that your memory is being modified. Dozens of times at this point in your history, I believe.”

Bren opened his mouth, shut it. Essek watched the whole horrible process play out. A sort of dismissal at first. Not disbelief – he seemed to find Caduceus eminently credible, good instincts there. But more a denial that such a thing mattered. He had been taught to do and to endure whatever was necessary, after all. Somewhere in there, he must have concluded that if it was done to him, then therefore it must be necessary.

Then Bren faltered, and his face went still. He was asking himself who could do such a thing to him. Who had such consistent access, who had such power. And he was coming to the logical conclusion.

Essek was profoundly afraid that Bren would run. But more, that Bren would laugh it off. Would believe Caduceus, but reconcile this truth the way he must have many others in his time under Ikithon’s control.

But Bren didn’t run, and he didn’t brush it off. He went very quiet and blank, and Essek had no reference for what was going on behind those opaque blue eyes.

At least until Bren eased back a half-step, balancing lightly on his heels. Caduceus moved in instinctive reaction; it was his alarm that alerted Essek. One of Bren’s hands had vanished into his coat, and he was flicking a quick look from one of them to the other, measuring.

“Don’t,” Essek said.

Bren gave him a cool, interested look. Unafraid to be caught at whatever he was scheming, which was in itself alarming.

The moment teetered, precarious. What was the plan? Perhaps Bren thought to take a hostage, now that his injury was healed. Foolish to wait until Caduceus was present, but then again, perhaps he didn’t have reason to credit the strength of a cleric.

He respected wizards, though.

Essek lifted his chin. Icy condescension came to his call like an old friend. “Do not,” he said again, looking Bren in the eye. “Caleb can rival me. More than, in fact. You cannot.” By the Luxon, how he hoped that was true.

Something intense passed behind Bren’s eyes, so quick Essek had no chance of parsing it.

“Would you like to come get some sleep?” Caduceus asked. “We have a bedroll for you.” His slow delivery punctured the moment, deflated the incipient violence.

Bren’s shoulders eased minutely, and Essek exhaled. Bren still hesitated, though, glancing uneasily at Caduceus. Essek thought it was over the idea of approaching the others, being vulnerable. He was about to suggest that Bren cast his Alarm spell around his bedroll when Bren looked away and said, “Astrid says I should let you restore me.”

Well, miracles were possible after all. Essek had been rather paranoid about this. Logically, Becke would want her archmage counterpart back. But he didn’t think logic always governed the space between the three of them. Was it possible she would be more glad to have her young lover back? A chance to try again?

“She knows what we’re doing is important,” Caduceus said, nodding. “And we need you. Caleb, that is. At full power.”

Bren’s hand crept to Caleb’s spellbook. He’d certainly had time to go through it cover-to-cover, to see proof of the dizzy heights of Caleb’s power. “What are we doing?” he asked.

Now here was an interesting angle. “I think you’ll like this,” Essek said. “We’re stopping Ludinus Da’leth from acquiring an immensely powerful magical artifact that he intends to use to trigger an arcane catastrophe that could amount to a second Calamity.”

Bren blinked once. “Oh,” he said, magnificently dry, “you’re fucking with that twat? Why didn’t you say so already.” He paused again, looking between them. “Do you think I’ll go back to being this archmage of yours with time?”

“There’s no way to know for sure,” Caduceus said. “Maybe you will. My instinct is that you won’t. Or that the chances are very low. Like a Feeblemind. It can take months or years to recover from that affliction, if ever.”

“Yeah,” Bren said with a bitter rasp. “It’s the ones that fuck with your mind that get you, isn’t it?” They waited while he breathed, composed himself. He looked hard at Essek, then. From head to toe, intensely, searchingly. “What the fuck,” he said, more wondering than insulting. “At least you’re a wizard.”

“You rather like the way I look, too,” Essek said dryly.

The corner of Bren’s mouth tipped up. “You are a pretty thing, aren’t you?”

Essek’s stomach lurched, and he was suddenly, intensely aware of Bren on a physical level. How he carried himself differently than Caleb did, how much changeable feeling he could put on his face when it wasn’t partly occupied by sadness at all times.

“Sleep?” Caduceus prompted gently. “Things may be easier in the morning.”

“No,” Bren said certainly. “They won’t be. So just do it now.” He flapped an impatient hand at Caduceus when the two of them just stood there blinking at him. “Come on, get out your diamond or whatever, let’s go.”

“Really?” Essek said, shocked.

Bren’s mouth pinched. “Wulf thinks I should let you, too,” he said, though Essek had the sense there was more to it.

“Okay,” Caduceus said. “Come over here and sit down.” He led them back across the square. Verin and Beauregard approached; he gestured Beauregard forward, but waved Verin away to his watch.

“Hey, man,” Beauregard said awkwardly. “You cool?”

Caleb would have said something dry but real. Bren smiled at her – with his mouth and everything, it was weird – and said “Yes, of course.”

“Bren wants a restoration,” Caduceus said, and gestured him to a seat on the edge of the central platform.

“Wow, really?” That cracked Beauregard’s composure right open. She’d apparently thought that as unlikely as Essek had.

“You’re trying to fuck with Da’leth,” Bren said, shrugging artfully. “And it sounds like you need an archmage to do it. I’m generally in favor of messing up that guy’s day, so.”

He sat, and Essek sat beside him. Bren probably didn’t want him there, but perhaps Caleb would soon. Essek could not stand the hope. There was a brief pause while Caduceus extracted his components and prepared himself. Bren waited stoically, his face composed but his hands twitching a little in a way familiar to Essek.

“You’re very brave,” Essek said quietly to him. Bren cut him a look, visibly unappreciative of this effort. “And.” Essek licked his lips. He felt compelled to speak, but it was so hard to know what to say to him. ‘It will be all right’ was traditional, he supposed, but that wasn’t a promise he could make. The road Bren would walk between twenty-four and thirty-one was dark and lonely and awful, in many parts. Bren had likely guessed something of the sort, if not the specifics. Were they effectively making him walk it all over again by recalling it? “It’s better on the other side,” Essek said to him. “You survive. By your fingernails, sometimes, but you do it. And you have many heavy things to carry. But I know for a fact, you’ve told me. You would rather have to carry them, and know the truth, than live in ignorance.”

That seemed to strike a chord, and Bren nodded. “I would,” he said.

“See?” Essek said, and took his ice cold hand. “Very brave.”

Caduceus cast.

It took much longer than it had for Fjord. More time forgotten, Essek supposed. And maybe also more layers of memory and forgetting. Bren made a small, back-of-the-throat sound when Caduceus concluded his casting, then went quiet for a long twenty seconds. Then he folded up on himself, dropping his head down between his knees.

“Hey,” Beauregard said. She sat down on his other side and patted his shoulder with a look of helpless panic at Essek. He looked back, equally lost.

She rubbed between his shoulder blades, and Essek held his hand, and Caduceus hummed quietly, and they waited.

Eventually, he heaved himself back upright. Essek could tell that Caleb had returned to them just by the way he wore his face.

“You gonna puke?” Beauregard asked, watching him closely.

“Nein,” he rasped. “I don’t think so.”

“Kay. You want a drink?”

“Oh, gods, please. Yes.”

She produced a flask from somewhere, took a healthy swig for herself, and passed it to him. He sipped, coughed, sighed, sipped again. Then offered it to Essek with shyly downturned eyes.

“Thank you,” Essek said. He lifted Caleb’s hand that he still held, and kissed his fingers with all of the tenderness inside him. A resource he hadn’t known existed until recently. Then he took the flask and occupied himself with it for some time, to let Caleb react to that in peace.

Eventually, Caduceus said, “Everything seem back where it should? Confused about anything?”

“I am confused about many things,” Caleb said. “Which I believe means my mind is back in the order you expect, yes.”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Beauregard said, and nudged him hard enough to make him rock where he sat. “You need to talk about anything?”

“Why, are you volunteering?”

“Fuck no,” she said promptly. “But there’s lots of people who would.”

Caleb’s eyes flicked to Essek, and Essek nodded firmly.

“No, thank you,” Caleb said quietly. “I just need to . . . clear my head.”

“How’s your headache?” Essek asked.

Caleb made a so-so gesture. “Interrupted, I think.” He turned a frown on Beauregard. “That cannot possibly have been the plan.”

“What plan?”

He gestured impatiently. “Whatever plan you all have for taking me out, should it come to that. It came to that, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Beauregard smirked. “Nah, it’s flexible. And Essek made great bait.”

Essek genuinely could not tell if any of this, all delivered entirely deadpan, was sarcasm or not.

“Well, at least I still don’t know the details,” Caleb said dryly. He glanced around them, then focused in on the little encampment of sleepers twenty feet away, dimly illuminated by a single lamp. “Oh,” he said, and started to frown. “You were roughing it?”

“I need to learn Tiny Hut,” Essek said, rather shame-faced.

“Yes, of course. That was foolish of us. And the tower, too,” Caleb said, relieving Essek of the awkwardness of asking for such a personal and high-level spell. “In fact,” he reached for his spellbook. “I think I still have it. Should we wake everybody just for that, though?”

“You mean just to sleep in real beds with real bathrooms and hot breakfast?” Beauregard said. “Fuck yeah we should. What time is it?”

“One thirty-six,” Caleb said absently, proving that his time sense really could withstand just about anything. “Give me a minute.”

He crouched to cast, and Essek was there to stand guard over him after all as Caduceus went off to rouse the sleepers.

It was not nearly so simple as waking everyone and shuffling them inside. They were all very glad to see him back, and Veth and Jester in particular wanted to make much of him. Essek would have liked to stay close, but was separated from him in the general ruckus that ensued in the tower salon. From a distance, he watched Caleb and Jester speaking, the miserable pinch of Jester’s mouth, the softness in Caleb’s eyes just for her, how she hugged him hard enough afterword to lift him off his feet.

Verin caught Essek’s eye from the other side of the room. His expression eloquently said ‘what the fuck was all that?” Essek pressed his lips together and waved him off.

Eventually, some form of tired order was restored, and everyone shuffled off to their rooms, most with hot chocolate in hand. Caleb had made sure Essek knew there was a guest room available whenever he cast the tower, but Essek had only seen it the once and never tranced there. He fervently hoped he would not be breaking that streak tonight.

Thankfully, Caleb didn’t object when Essek followed him up to the seventh floor. He cast Sending twice as they rode the lift up. He spoke in Zemnian both times, voice low, and listened to the responses – from Becke and Grieve, presumably – with a look of exhausted sorrow.

Caleb’s suite in the tower seemed to be in constant flux. He was always adding new features, like a fireplace or a cozy reading nook. Essek found it odd he hadn’t settled on exactly how he liked his space by now.

Tonight the bedroom was notably bare, just four blank white walls and some plain wooden furniture. Instinct told Essek this was a smoke signal that could reveal something of Caleb’s mental state, if only he knew how to read it. But he didn’t, so he decided there was a coziness to the scuffed floorboards and the bed covered in a patchwork quilt, and let it be.

Caleb sat on the edge of the bed and began methodically unlacing his boots.

“Did you sleep at all?” Essek asked, beginning his own preparations.

“Nein. I just hid a lot. Did some thinking. Poked through my pockets and my spellbook. Made some Sendings. Got chewed on by a snake demon. Realized I was in pretty big trouble.”

Essek imagined this terse summary covered a great deal of frantic activity. “We were very worried,” he said, slipping into a proper trancing robe with relief. He’d absolutely hated trancing in his clothes and cold weather gear.

Caleb sighed when his boots were off, and reached for his harness. But his hands paused, and he shuddered convulsively with a quick gesture. He threw something small across the room; it plinked against the wall and dropped to the floor.

“Caleb?” Essek said, alarmed.

Caleb was removing an unfamiliar ring from his hand when Essek hurried around the bed to him. “Sorry, I’m fine,” Caleb said. “Just fixing some things.” He tucked the ring away. “Where did I—”

“I got it,” Essek said. He padded across the room and located a second ring by the dull gleam on the floor. It was Ikithon’s enchanted – cursed – ring. Essek brought it back to him. Tempted, as he had been the first time he saw it, to ask why Caleb still carried it with him. To remember, probably, but Caleb didn’t need memory aids. He might want them, though. Was that healthy? Essek had no idea. He did know it wasn’t his place to say.

He dropped it into Caleb’s hand, then gripped both his shoulders. “Is there anything I can do?”

Caleb shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, with a small, quirked smile. “I’m . . . I’m not all right. But also not terrible. It will hit me later, probably.”

“Okay,” Essek said, resolving to accept whatever storm might come with care and patience, not fear and anger. Easy to think. Hard to do. “You’re here,” he said, gently tapping Caleb’s temple. “I’m just glad of that.”

“Ja. Surprising, isn’t it?” He hesitated. “I almost . . . went away. After the Restoration.”

“Mmm?”

Caleb’s shoulders rolled uneasily under his hands. “It was close. But we don’t have time for any more of my bullshit. So I . . . didn’t. It’s weird. Having a choice about it, sort of.”

He sighed, and reached for his harness. But instead of unbuckling, he pulled out the lefthand book and opened it.

“May I?” Essek asked.

Caleb nodded, and Essek sat beside him. Caleb had opened to a page near the middle which contained Fireball in his handwriting.

“It falls open to this page,” Caleb said quietly. “You can tell a lot about a wizard by what their book falls open to.” He flipped back to the front. There, on the flyleaf, was written Bren Aldric Ermendrud with a proud flourish. “Astrid kept it safe for me. Gave it back, after. It was instructive tonight, looking at this. Looking at that.” He touched his – Caleb’s spellbook, still in the holster. “Some of the same spells. Many not.” He thumbed the pages of Bren’s book, not having to look to open to the right spot. “Here.”

It was Tiny Hut. Essek skimmed it quickly, nodding. “May I copy that in the morning?”

“Ja. Or tonight while I sleep.”

Essek sucked in a breath at this display of trust.

“Maybe I will,” he said. “But I’d rather lie down with you for a while.”

“Please,” Caleb said, with something approaching longing. He left Bren’s spellbook open on the nightstand, and padded off to the bathroom. “All your things are there,” he said when he returned in nothing but his smallclothes.

“I don’t want to keep you waiting,” Essek said. It would take anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes to get through his evening routine, depending on how many steps he skipped.

“Go on,” Caleb said. “I’m all right. And.” He hesitated. “I’m becoming attached to the scent of all your—” he gestured “—creams and nonsense.”

Was he just being kind to Essek’s rituals, or was he worried that he wouldn’t know who he was waking up in bed with, absent a sensory prompt?

Essek went off to apply his creams and nonsense. He went as quickly as he could without cutting corners. When he came back, Caleb was sitting up in bed, flipping thoughtfully through his spellbook. Essek hovered at the other side, then cast off his trancing robe to leave him only in his smalls. Caleb had the right idea – the thought of feeling their skin touch all over was marvelous.

He slipped into bed. Caleb laid down at once, turning to gather him close.

“Ah,” he said on a sigh, nuzzling in. There was a silence as they shifted and settled. Then Caleb said, “Thank you. You were very kind to him. Unnecessarily so.”

“It didn’t feel kind,” Essek admitted. “Caduceus said be honest, and I tried. But.”

“Ja, well. I would have gone for a Hold Person under those circumstances. Or a Power Word Stun.”

Essek paused. Was this criticism of how they had handled things? “I thought about it,” he said. “I didn’t have many enchantments prepared, but I was ready to use what I had as a last resort. I was afraid of him resisting, though, and running for good. And.” He chewed his lip. “Caduceus’s disapproval is daunting.”

“Oh, don’t I know it. Well, if we ever find ourselves in that position again, gods forbid, I give you specific permission to do whatever is required to restrain me.”

Essek pressed his lips together. “I know you think that’s helpful,” he said. “And it is, kind of. But it’s also not. You talk about him in the third person most of the time. Except when you’re telling me I can hurt and overpower you.”

Caleb’s breath whooshed against his ear. “Ja, okay, that’s fair,” he said, in the tones of someone who would rather be making arguments.

“I just—” Essek fumbled, uncertain how to express what he meant. “I like Bren,” he said at last, ineffectually.

Caleb leaned back to goggle at him. “What? Why?”

“Why does anybody like anybody?” Essek said, shrugging self-consciously. “I just do. I know you don’t.”

Caleb made a face. “I don’t,” he said. “But it’s a little more complicated than that. And a great deal more complicated now than it was twenty-four hours ago.” Another silence. Then, “He liked you, too. Liked the look of you. Liked the way you talked to him. I don’t appreciate how he was thinking about you – he didn’t really see you as a full person, or maybe drow first is a better way to put it – but. Caduceus scared the absolute hells out of him, and made him kind of angry. You scared him, too, but with a thrill, you know?”

“Oh, I know,” Essek said. They looked at each other, and the air between them shifted.

“You wouldn’t,” Caleb said with a huskiness to his voice. “If you had to spend more time with him, if you saw what he was capable of. You wouldn’t like him so much.”

Essek shifted closer, and their legs entangled. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps not. We will likely never find out, so I can continue to like him as I please.” Caleb wasn’t wrong: Essek knew he liked the idea of Bren, and had only limited exposure to the reality. But that’s what made him such a good fantasy, wasn’t it? Caleb was here and wonderfully real. Couldn’t Bren be the alluring stranger who sometimes insinuated his shadow self between them?

“Also,” Caleb said, with a certain slyness. “He kept his hair cut very short.”

Essek’s gasp was entirely unfeigned. “No. All the time?”

“Ja.” A deliberately dramatic pause. “And he was clean-shaven, too.”

“Really?” Essek had a hard time imagining that.

“Yes. It kept him looking young.” And that was useful to Ikithon, his tone implied. “My point being,” Caleb continued, “that you might think you like him. And he could show you a good time, that’s for sure. But it’s my hair you put your hands in.”

Goodness. Was that . . . jealousy?

Caleb’s breath tickled his ear. He turned his head, Caleb ducked his chin, and their mouths magnetized.

“Do you want?” Caleb said, one hand sliding down Essek’s spine.

“Yes,” Essek said. He wanted, rather frantically, but worried about imposing himself. “Are you too tired?”

Caleb shook his head. “I was actually worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all,” he said. “Too wound up.”

“Ah.” Essek shifted closer so they touched everywhere, and pressed his thigh up tighter between Caleb’s. “Let’s see if we can unwind you a bit, then.”

“Yes, please,” Caleb said. “In fact, I’d be much obliged if you could absolutely wreck me.”

Common had the strangest expressions. “I can do that,” Essek said, then immediately began worrying about overpromising.

The following minutes were increasingly frantic. They clung to each other and kissed and touched, and parted only long enough to strip down to nothing. Essek was desperate for him, in the wake of hours of fear. And Caleb met his every touch with equal desire.

Caleb rolled onto his back eventually, clearly expecting Essek to sit astride him like he often did. But Essek hesitated, caught without a script. This was happening more and more, these spontaneous trysts where desire rose in them without an extended prologue or chance to consider.

“I’m not sure what I want to do,” he confessed.

“Do? Oh. I see. I don’t suppose you are open to going with the flow?” Essek made a face. “Okay, thought not. Would you like some options?”

“Yes.” Essek rolled into Caleb’s side where he could duck into his shoulder.

“Well, let’s see.” Caleb began stroking his back in a soothing manner at odds with the filth doubtless about to pour out of his mouth. “You could ride me. You like that. I really like that. Or if you want to try something new?” Essek indicated he would, perhaps. “Well, you could still ride me, but before you do, I could open you up with my mouth. I’ve been thinking about that for some time.”

Essek shivered. He’d thought about that, too – doing it to Caleb, specifically.

“Or we could teach you to suck cock,” Caleb continued inexorably. “I have the idea you haven’t tried it, other than receiving?” Essek shook his head. “So, there you go. Or we could skip the lesson and just go straight to sucking each other. I love that one.”

That did sound very interesting. But also, Essek was immediately concerned that he wouldn’t be able to focus on performing a new, high-skill sexual act when Caleb had his mouth on him. He could barely manage breathing on such occasions. And right now he wanted to drown Caleb in sensation, to unknot the tangles in his thoughts, to, well. Wreck him.

. . . Hmm.

“Do you have oil?”

Caleb produced a vial from the bedside table and handed it over with eyebrows up.

“Thank you. Would you like – I could be inside you?”

Caleb’s eyes widened. Essek thought perhaps he had not intended to list that on his depraved sexual menu. He knew the thought of it had made Essek anxious before.

“I would like that very much,” Caleb said huskily. “Would you?”

Essek nodded. “Yes. I would.” Why had this worried him? It seemed so easy now, so necessary. To lose himself in Caleb’s body, to serve Caleb’s pleasure. “Will you instruct me?” He wanted feedback as much as specific guidance.

“Of course,” Caleb said warmly. “I think you know how this first part goes. Unless you’d like me to do it?”

“I will be taking care of that,” Essek said firmly. He Prestidigitated carefully, which made Caleb squeak in a delightful manner. Then he opened Caleb up on his fingers, trying to find a comfortable place between haste and tenderness. He thought he mostly achieved it, to judge by Caleb’s quiet, breathy encouragements.

“No, you’re good,” Caleb said when Essek was debating whether to add a fourth finger. “I like it tight. You will, too. How do you want me?”

“What do you enjoy?” Essek asked.

“Like this, if I want to be intimate,” Caleb said, gesturing to where Essek knelt between his thighs. “On my knees or my stomach if I want to come hard and fast.”

Essek’s belly lurched at the thought of Caleb’s lean back beneath him, how Caleb might shout, how he might be relaxed and accepting after, with Essek still inside him.

“Like this, then,” he said, and shifted awkwardly closer. Essek was generally the one to manage taking Caleb inside him when they did this the other way around. Caleb couldn’t really do that in this position, though. Why was it suddenly so difficult from this end of things?

“Here you go,” Caleb said, hooking a leg around his back. “Actually, hang on, let me prop up.” He reached for a pillow and shoved it under his hips.

Essek breathed in, not sure whether he was more elated or panicked. Caleb took his free hand and stared him deep in the eyes and nodded, smiling and quietly saying “ja, just like that,” as Essek pressed and pressed and slid into him.

“Oh,” Essek said, feeling his eyes roll back in his head a little bit. By the Luxon, why hadn’t he done this sooner? He slid all the way in and Caleb moved easily with him, dropping one knee out to the side.

“Good?” Caleb asked, grinning.

“I should be asking you that,” Essek said, instead of any of the pornographic praises rolling around his brain.

“Ja, it’s good,” Caleb said. Essek narrowed his eyes. Caleb was being truthful, but that was the face of someone enjoying himself, not someone having his world rocked. Right. Time to go to work.

Caleb had taught him several important things about the art of lovemaking. That one’s partner mattered an unfathomable amount. That one truly could take pleasure in the pleasure of another. But perhaps most importantly, he had taught Essek that bodies were particular and peculiar. Essek knew what he liked with Caleb inside him. But he had no idea what Caleb favored, what would make him stop smiling and start demanding.

So Essek set out to learn. Caleb accommodated his curious explorations, moving easily at a touch and providing a steady stream of helpful feedback. He enjoyed when Essek stayed deep inside him and ground in small circles, but he loved it when Essek pulled all the way out – accidentally, in fact, he hadn’t meant to go quite that far – and pushed back into him. Essek did that several times, watching the flush climb up Caleb’s neck. The clutch of him was addictive, the way his body resisted, resisted, then opened all at once.

He god a little louder when Essek hitched his leg up and held it for him. Interesting. Essek reached for his other leg, then huffed and adjusted Caleb’s density without thinking first. He blanched when the thoughts belatedly caught up.

“I apologize,” he said. “I should have asked before casting.”

“No,” Caleb said, lips parted. “You’re fine, do what you like with me.”

Well then. With his density adjusted, Essek was able to slide him down the bed and hook both his legs up and back.

“Oh,” Caleb said appreciatively, and reached to help hold one leg. “Ja.” And when Essek stroked carefully into him again, he made a sound Essek had never heard out of him before.

This was very promising. Essek leaned over him, panting with strain. He hadn’t realized how much physical effort went into this.

“Ja,” Caleb said. “Put your weight on me, that’s good.”

And suddenly what had been the more intimate, less depraved choice was flipped on its head. Caleb was under him, practically folded in half, pinned beneath Essek’s weight. Which went a lot further now with the spell in place. He was splayed wide open, and accepted Essek’s prick to the root with a soft cry. The noises were obscene – the clap of Essek’s hips against him, the slick sounds of their coupling. And the look on Caleb’s face . . .

Essek wasn’t quite tall enough to reach to kiss him, unfortunately. But he could let his full weight down on Caleb, holding his legs in place, and free one hand to reach up. Caleb’s hair was loose on the bed beneath his shoulders; Essek worked his fingers into it, gripped at the base of Caleb’s skull, gently pulled.

“Ja, ja,” Caleb said, “fick mich.”

Essek didn’t need a translation on that one. He drew Caleb’s head back to expose his throat, which he could just reach to bite. Essek put his teeth to him, and flexed his fingers in Caleb’s hair, and lost himself in the clutching heat of him and the sounds he was making.

He came back to himself on a wave of anxiety. Was he performing to an acceptable standard? Caleb sounded pleased, but Essek hadn’t so much as touched his prick yet. And really couldn’t in this position. And besides, he didn’t want to be acceptable; he wanted to be spectacular.

“Is this good?” he asked, lifting his head.

“What?” Caleb said. Then with a look like he was questioning Essek’s intelligence. “Ja.”

“Yes, but I mean. Should I let you up so I can—”

“You should not,” Caleb said firmly. “Keep doing this.”

“. . . All right,” Essek said. If Caleb insisted.

Somewhere in the following interlude, Essek learned the exact way he needed to drive in with his whole body to make Caleb shout. He did that, biting at Caleb’s shoulders and, by accident at first but to spectacular result, his nipples, until Caleb was flailing and begging. Caleb’s legs slipped from both their grasp, and they clutched each other, rocking frantically. Caleb wormed a hand down between them – thank the Luxon, Essek was not going to manage that. And Essek let himself run wild until Caleb was bucking and crying out beneath him, wetting both their bellies with a hot splash.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” Caleb said, digging his nails into Essek’s back. His face was vivid with intensity. It looked like it hurt. It looked like he loved that.

Essek didn’t stop. He made Caleb shake, and grip helplessly at his back, and cry out again and again. Essek didn’t stop until the edges of his vision went gray and he felt cored out by a vicious, consuming orgasm.

They stayed glued together for a long time, after. Essek lingered inside him as long as he could. Feeling, in the aftermath of that storm, very small and safe there, tucked away.

Caleb sighed when Essek finally slipped out, and Essek felt an inexplicable prickle in his eyes.

“Let me clean you up,” he said, having Caleb’s excellent example of post coital behavior to draw upon. He was startled to hear the roughness of his voice, and apparently Caleb was, too, because his head popped right up.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” Essek said. “Let me just –”

Caleb stopped him from rising with a gentle touch to the cheek. “Essek,” he said. “Shatz. You’re crying.”

“No, I—” Essek said, and a salty tear rolled into the corner of his mouth. What? Why? “No,” he said, as Caleb looked increasingly alarmed. “I’m not upset, I—” His whole body hitched with something that, Essek realized in horror, could only be a sob.

“I hate to argue,” Caleb said. “But it looks like you might be wrong about that.”

It would have been funny if it weren’t terrifying: the way Essek’s face just crumpled, even as he looked baffled, haughtily annoyed.

“Hey now,” Caleb said, belatedly scrambling to provide comfort. He thumbed a tear away from under Essek’s eye, and frowned as it was immediately replaced by two more.

“No,” Essek said again, very firmly. Clearly attempting to instruct his tear ducts. It didn’t work. His whole body contracted and he hicked ungracefully, unbeautifully.

“Oh, schatz,” Caleb said. He felt on firmer ground now, with a moment to get over his initial alarm. Sex could do this to people sometimes. And that was very intense sex. And they’d both had trying days. Did Essek know that about sex, though? Possibly not. “You might be better off just letting this happen,” Caleb said, and attempted to stroke Essek’s hair.

Essek turned, buried his face in the quilt, and made a series of escalating, terrible noises. Forget the emotional aftermath of sex – did Essek know how to cry? When was the last time he’d done so? Caleb had never thought on it until now, but instinct said it had been a long, long time. Years. Decades? A century?

Caleb had, on more than one occasion since escaping Vergesson, sobbed so hard he made himself vomit. Those were in no way pleasurable things to experience, or to think back on, but they had a certain violently therapeutic value to them, he thought.

“All right,” Caleb said, and settled for curling around Essek and rubbing his back. “Try and relax and let it out. It will be over sooner,” he added as an inducement.

Maybe Essek tried, maybe he didn’t. Caleb wasn’t sure. If he did try, it was clear he didn’t know how to stop fighting it. It was equally clear it didn’t matter. This was going to come out regardless.

Caleb worried that it would tear him to shreds in the process, though. Essek’s whole body shook, then clenched, then shook again with a wrenched breath. He keened a low, drowish sound that Caleb thought was probably the closest Essek could get to screaming. And he gasped, and tried to breathe and couldn’t, and then seemed to implode into another wave of weeping.

Caleb held him, feeling sympathetic tears prickle at his eyes. He bit them back impatiently. Essek needed steadiness in this moment more than he needed empathy.

After several minutes, the terrible storm began to ease. There was another bad minute in there; it wracked Essek so hard Caleb was afraid he would tear a muscle. But then that was the last of it, and he came out of it slowly, little by little.

Essek remained face down in the covers, body limp, breath slowly regulating. He must be miserably hot like that, but didn’t move. Caleb eased back enough to begin massaging his shoulders and down his spine.

Essek shifted eventually, with obvious reluctance. He didn’t permit Caleb to see his face until he had cast half a dozen Prestidigitations on himself. Caleb schooled away his reaction. Essek’s face was scoured clean of tears, but the spell did little for his ravaged eyes.

“I apologize,” Essek said, in a cracked little voice.

“No need,” Caleb said.

“I don’t – I don’t know what that was.”

“Don’t you?” Caleb said. Then internally scolded himself. Essek wasn’t being mannered about this; Essek genuinely might not understand what was happening to him.

“No,” Essek said, sounding more himself with a flavor of indignation.

“Okay.” Caleb chewed his lip. “I’m not saying I know what’s going on in your head. I’m just saying I can think of lots of things it could be.”

Essek looked blank, as if he absolutely couldn’t.

Okay. “Speaking as someone who has done quite a bit of that in my time, may I offer up some advice?”

“All right,” Essek said, dubious.

“You should think about it,” Caleb said. “About why that happened. Maybe it’s not one thing. Maybe it’s many.” It was a hard day. And for Essek in particular, a hard month. On top of several bleak years, Caleb was coming to understand. “The thinking is important because, in my experience, if you don’t do it, this is liable to repeat itself.”

Essek looked extremely chastened at that. Caleb could tell he would bend his considerable force of will on the problem if it meant avoiding such a display again. He leaned in and kissed Essek’s forehead – too hot, with exertion and distress – and then the tip of his nose.

“Come wash up,” he said.

They both needed a quick and dirty scrub. Caleb sighed a little regretfully over his post coital state. His body was sore and wonderfully used, and a few of Essek’s bites had left stinging marks that he would enjoy for days. And Essek had succeeded in fucking him fully back into his body, which was certainly something worth keeping in mind for the future. But it was hard to be entirely present in those sensations when so much of his attention was on Essek across the bathroom, hissing in audible displeasure at his appearance, or himself in general.

Caleb left him alone to go remake the bed. Essek emerged after a few minutes, face in a state of remarkable repair. Caleb suspected he might have even resorted to a touch of illusion. That stung a little, but Caleb schooled himself to acceptance. It was probably more about the face Essek was willing to show himself than what he was willing to show Caleb. And anyway, Essek was learning to show him the things that really mattered. A work in progress for both of them, to be fair.

Caleb straightened from plumping the pillows and opened his arms. Essek came to him without hesitation, so there was that.

“Thank you for tonight,” Caleb said. “I really needed that.”

“Me too.” Then, shyly, “It was good?”

“Extremely.” Caleb gently rocked them back and forth. “You enjoyed yourself?”

“Extremely. I’d like to try that again sometime?”

“Yes, please. Just say the word.” Caleb would spread his legs for him . . . or get on his knees for him . . . or offer up his cock for Essek’s personal use . . . or any number of things at the merest suggestion. He sighed happily.

A pause, then. “Sorry I . . . ruined the mood.”

“We’re fine,” Caleb said, still rocking them. “Are you going to trance?”

“Yes. I only finished half. Will you sleep?”

“Almost definitely. Thanks to you.” Caleb stretched his spine a bit, shook out his shoulders. He was starting to take his own advice, to begin to think about the events of the day, in small pieces. He hesitated to speak for a moment, then pushed through it. Perhaps Essek would appreciate the distraction. “Today could have gone so badly,” he said.

“Yes,” Essek agreed. “But it did not, aside from your injury. It went notably well, under the circumstances.”

“Yes,” Caleb said slowly. The way Essek had said that helped to clarify the kernel of unease that had been sitting in his chest. “It really did. He could have hurt any of you. He came to himself with a number of his own spells prepared. Including Fireball. And he was mostly set on taking a hostage as his best option.”

“I know. But he didn’t.”

“No. And.” Caleb hesitated. “I can’t believe he let Caduceus restore him. I can recall his state of mind and I still can’t believe it.” Bren had been disoriented, angry, afraid. Grief-stricken for Ikithon, though in a manner fraught with a hectic giddiness that he had not wanted to acknowledge. Prepared, in his violent, manipulative way, to wreak all sorts of havoc on this strange future he found himself in.

The rasp of emotion in Wulf’s voice had been terrifying. It would take me hours to get to you. Please take the restoration. I love you, he’d said. Something they’d almost never said to each other. The fact he felt the need to say it then had knocked the breath from Bren’s lungs. Considering it hours later, Caleb thought perhaps Wulf had been taking his last chance to say it directly to the person it was meant for. Astrid had been steadier, more commanding in a way that Bren instinctively wanted to obey, even as he balked at both their instructions. It felt like rejection, what they were saying. Still did, though now he was unspeakably grateful.

And so Bren had changed his mind. Not because of them, though they’d helped. Part of it was certainly the self-annihilating impulse that he’d had since a teenager, and that Caleb still nursed. He’d been glad and relieved to find a way to end himself that didn’t leave Astrid and Eadwulf behind. That they were urging him to take. And it was a relief to escape the confusion and pain of Caduceus’s revelations.

But it wasn’t just that.

“I owe you an apology,” Caleb said. “On his behalf. That other ring – he was using it to read your minds. Surface thoughts, mostly. Caduceus caught him at it.”

Essek’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting. I can’t imagine my panic was helpful.”

“I wouldn’t call it panic,” Caleb said, piecing it together. “You were just thinking very fast. Focussed. Caduceus’s mind is . . . a strange, beautiful place. Yours made much more sense. That helped him commit to doing what he knew he needed to do.” Essek’s icy threat had helped, too. He’d reminded Bren, with an electric jolt, of Astrid.

“Do you remember what I said to him at the end?”

“. . . Yes.” Caleb squirmed internally. “I don’t think brave was the right word.”

“Do you think,” Essek said, extremely dry, “is it possible, perhaps, that your negative view of him is just a tiny bit distorted?”

Caleb sniffed. “Yes, I know it is.” Of course he did. But that had never seemed to matter. He knew the truth of Bren from the inside out, so what if he lost some of the finer details in his grief, in his repudiation?

But now. Now Bren had done something shocking. Something Caleb would never have credited him with. Bren had made the right decision. For his own twisted up reasons but also, a little bit around the edges, because it was the right thing to do. And he actually knew what that was.

That was wildly uncomfortable to think on.

“You told me the Nein saved you,” Essek said. “That you fought them on it. I don’t disbelieve you. But can’t it also be true that you helped to save yourself?”

Caleb looked away.

“You can’t talk me out of liking him,” Essek said, with the finality of stone.

Caleb almost snapped back ‘you can’t talk me out of hating him.’ But that wasn’t fair. And also not entirely true. Not today, anyway.

“Let’s go to bed,” he settled on. “I want to stop thinking.”

“Yes,” Essek said on a long sigh. “Wouldn’t that be something.”