Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

Levi sat at the desk in his office opening the day’s mail. It was late. The sun was setting and he was tired, but it was the pleasant tired that came from a long day’s work done well. All the leylines by the northern gate were settled and he hadn’t had any trouble with the boundary stones. Tomorrow, probably, would be another story; but let that be tomorrow’s worry.

He picked up a small square envelope, out of place among the long cream-colored jackets official SC correspondence came in. He was surprised by the return address on the back, and he slid a silver bird-shaped letter opener across it. As soon as he had broken the seal the letter opener jumped out of his hands--turning into a real blue heron, and flying across the room to perch on a shelf.

He looked at it in annoyance. “Couldn’t you have at least turned into a little blue heron if you had to do that?” The bird hissed at him, stretching to display its full six-and-a-half-foot wingspan. He turned his attention back to the letter.

“Tch,” he said irritably when he had read its contents.

“Levi.” A small boy was tugging at his sleeve, and he glanced down. “Will you read me a story?” He was holding a large gilt-edged book in his hands. There were no children in this house, and Levi had never seen the boy before in his life.

But this was the gatekeeper’s house, where you could get lost walking from the kitchen to the bathroom if you weren't careful. Where you came across things much stranger than human children--often before even getting out of bed in the morning.

Levi noted that the boy cast a shadow--a good sign. He picked up a round crystal prism on his desk and looked at the boy through it; he looked back at Levi, calm and expectant.

Definitely human.

“All right,” Levi said, putting the prism down. The letter on his desk did a little shimmy as he began to get up and he glared at it. “Fine,” he said. He took a page of his own stationery and wrote two words on it, then folded it up and set it aside on the outgoing mail tray. The boy had taken hold of his hand, and he led Levi away.

ONE

The first day of summer always felt like a ripe peach; sweet and luscious and full of promise. It didn’t matter if later it turned mealy and overripe, or if you forgot about it for months until discovering the squishy half-eaten remains under your bed.

For one day everything was perfect.

Eren always spent it outside, basking in the golden glow for as long as he could. He was lying in a hammock on the porch when Mikasa got back from teaching her evening class, and she gave him a little push as she passed by.

“Lazy,” she chided. “Did you do anything today?”

He was watching a vid on his phone, and he didn’t look up as he answered, “Sure I did.”

She came to stand behind him. “What are you watching videos of Levi for?”

“Huh?” he said, glancing up in surprise. There was something offhand about the way she said it--the same way she would have asked why he was watching vids of Armin or something. “It’s Captain Levi,” he told her. “He’s a Captain in the Survey Corp.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know. What are you watching videos of him for?”

“Because he’s amazing?” Eren said reasonably.

She snorted. “I’ll tell him you think so,” she said drily, heading into the house. “Do you know if Armin’s going to be home for dinner?”

“Wait! What?” Eren said, almost falling out of the hammock.

“Eren. He’s my cousin,” she said, as if he were dense.

“What?” Eren said. “You never told me that! Are you serious?”

“Please, Eren, of course I did.”

“But he’s never been here! I’ve never seen him!” Eren stared at the screen in his hand. “He’s really your cousin?”

Armin came in then, dropping his bookbag on a chair by the door. “God, it’s hot out,” he said. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Armin did you know Captain Levi was Mikasa’s cousin?” Eren demanded.

“Who?”

Eren thrust the screen at him.

“Huh? Oh, the Survey Corp guy? Yeah, I think she’s mentioned that,” Armin said, heading upstairs to the bathroom.

“Not to me!” Eren said, outraged.

“You probably just forgot,” Mikasa said. She was taking things out of the fridge, and she wrinkled her nose at a bunch of slimy cilantro, throwing it in the garbage. “I was going to make salmon tonight,” she sighed. “Eren, run to the store and get some cilantro, would you?”

“No, wait a minute,” Eren said, holding up his hands eagerly. “If you know him, can you invite him here?”

“He’s a gatekeeper, he can’t leave his gate.”

“Get me an introduction,” Eren persisted.

She frowned. “Eren, you can’t still want to join the Survey Corp,” she said.

Armin came downstairs fifteen minutes later, buttoning his shirt with a contented sigh. “That feels so much better,” he said going to the fridge and taking out a beer. “Everything all right? I thought I heard yelling upstairs.”

Mikasa was sitting at the kitchen island, moodily picking at the paper label on her own beer. “He’s still talking about joining the damn Survey Corp.”

“Is that why you never told him about Levi?” he asked, grinning at her.

She made a face. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret on purpose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He hasn’t brought it up at all lately. I thought he was finally being reasonable.”

“He just doesn’t talk about it to you,” Armin said, popping the cap off his beer and taking a long swig. “He’s applied the last two selection rounds but hasn’t heard anything back. It’s almost as if his applications are going astray.”

Mikasa colored and brushed her hair over her face so it was covering her eyes.

Armin leaned back against the counter. “Why don’t you write to Levi?”

“What!” she said, whirling on him.

Armin shrugged. “If he’s as touchy as you say he’ll probably just say no--and it might discourage Eren to get a put-down from his idol.”

Mikasa frowned but she looked thoughtful. “His idol!" she scoffed. "And what if he says yes?”

“Well, according to you Eren is too lazy to do any real work--so I’m not sure how long he’ll last as an apprentice anyway.”

But if something did capture Eren’s attention he was single-minded in his determination. That was something they both knew first-hand.

“I just want him to go to college,” Mikasa complained. “And get a nice, normal, safe job!”

“I know,” Armin said gently. “But Mikasa, you do realize you can’t make him if he doesn’t want to. After what happened at the military academy…”

She sighed. “I know, I know.” They had all gotten scholarships to the same prestigious military boarding school, but Eren had flunked out only a year before graduation. Mikasa--who was a year older than Eren--had had to scramble to find him a place at a local school, and she’d had to rearrange her own life so she could stay close enough to keep an eye on him.

Ever since they’ve been in a game of pursuit and avoidance, as predictable as it is exhausting. The harder Mikasa pushed for Eren to go to college the more resistant he was. For the past two years he’s done nothing but work crappy convenience store jobs (to spite her, Armin suspects) and loaf around while Mikasa nags him.

The thing was, Mikasa made it easy for Eren--well, Armin guessed they both did. With the two of them making sure bills are paid and repairs are kept up on the house, Eren was free to daydream and put off worrying about the future. Hell, Mikasa still did his laundry in addition to all the household shopping and cooking.

Armin thought it was unfair to call Eren lazy, but he was unmotivated. He’d like to see anything break this stalemate they’re locked in. Even a rejection might wake Eren up to the fact that he can’t spend his life waiting for something to happen--that he needs to make something happen for himself.

“You really think it’s a good idea?” Mikasa asked grudgingly.

“Try it,” Armin suggested. “Let’s see what happens.”

He was working on his physics homework a few days later, chewing on the end of his pencil and scratching out doodles of dogs and honeycombs as he pondered equations, when he heard an outraged scream from downstairs.

He grabbed one of his shoes and ran downstairs--expecting the worst. Cockroaches, or maybe a hundred-legged millipede. Mikasa was standing in the front hallway, holding a small card in her hand.

She handed it to him in wordless fury.

It was a note with only two words written on it: Send him. It wasn’t even signed. Tucked behind it was a one-way ticket for the ghost train. Armin laughed, looking up at Mikasa, who glared back at him.

“He can’t go!” she yelled, snatching the card back.

Armin sighed. “Mikasa…”

“I’m just not telling him about it. Don’t you, either!”

“Tell me what?” Eren asked, breezing in.

She crumpled up the card in her hand furiously. Eren had an eerie second-sense about these sorts of things sometimes, and as he took in her outrage and the paper she was holding a slow smile spread across his face.

“Is that for me?” he asked. Before she could respond he had snatched it out of her hand--which was impressive considering she was a part-time jujutsu instructor.

Eren read the note and looked at the train ticket behind it in delight. “You really wrote to him? Mikasa, you’re the best!” He threw his arms around her, hugging her tight, and Armin tried not to laugh. He’d never seen Mikasa looking so conflicted.

“This is great, the train leaves in three days! I have to call work and tell them I’ll be gone for the summer...I have to pack…” and he raced away up the stairs.

Armin grinned at her, and she scowled back.

“This might be really good for him,” he told her.

“Yes, and he might get killed!”

“Hasn’t it been years since the boundaries have been attacked? Levi’s good at his job, he’ll keep him safe Mikasa.”

She slumped, sitting on the edge of the sofa. “No, he won’t,” she said. “His idea of teaching is throwing you into the deep end and seeing if you float.”

“You’re a great swimmer though!” Armin said, heading back up to his physics homework.

The door to Eren’s room was open, and Armin stopped in the doorway to watch his friend. Eren was pulling out the drawers of his bureau, flinging shirts and underwear onto the bed. He gave Armin a quick eager smile when he saw him standing there.

“You’ll have to write us,” Armin said, coming in. “Especially when you first get there, so we know you’re all right. So Mikasa doesn’t come tearing after you.”

Eren laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll call and check in,” he said.

“Eren...phones don’t work there…”

Eren rolled his eyes. “I know that,” he said impatiently. “I’m just excited. Be excited for me, Armin.”

Armin smiled. “I am happy for you. But you know it’s not all going to be fighting monsters, Eren. And Levi’s not likely to have much patience for the kind of stuff you used to pull at school…”

“Armin! I was just a kid then. I want to do this,” he said passionately. “More than anything,” he added in a lower tone. “If I do well this summer--if I can impress him I know they’ll take me on--even if they haven’t been interested in me before. They’ll offer me a permanent spot. And Mada Tallisa says--”

“Mada Tallisa,” Armin said in surprise. “You’re still seeing her?”

“Well--I bump into her sometimes. She comes into the store to buy lottery tickets.”

“Heh. Not much of a witch if she can’t pick a winner, I guess…”

“I think she uses them in her spells, actually,” Eren said. “Something about the random numbers...”

“Well, don’t tell Mikasa. She doesn’t like her.”

“She was my mother’s friend,” Eren said defensively, but without heat. He knew better than to tell Mikasa.

Eren left on the ghost train three days later. It was early July and summer was still heavy and fruitful. There was important work ahead. Real work.

Finally.

He had never ridden the ghost train before. He didn't know anyone who had--even Mada Tallisa said she'd never been that deep into the borderlands. Mikasa and Armin came with him all the way to the platform. The ticket--printed on silver paper--seemed to glow as they got closer to Oana Station

The way to the train station was hidden down an alley on a busy street. Only a small gray plaque attached to the brick side of the building indicated the way, and you would miss it unless you were looking for it. Once they started walking down the alley they noticed things--paper lanterns hanging above their heads. A magpie wearing a heavy gold and ruby chain. A lone velvet glove drifting on an invisible breeze--that never seemed to reach the ground.

At the platform things were even stranger. Eren saw a ram carrying a heavy load of books on its back--standing upright on two feet. A glowing amorphous shape with two black eyes next to a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage. Madres. Ghosts. Wizards. Griffins. And some things even stranger.

Mikasa and Armin stood close to Eren--they were by far the most conspicuous people here. Mikasa clasped her elbows in her hands and hid behind a drift of her black hair. “Where do you think they all go when they’re in the city?” she murmured in Armin’s ear.

“They probably have ways of concealing themselves,” he whispered back. Magic wasn’t as common as it had once been, and it wasn’t as effective here in the city as it was in the borderlands, but people still used it. It was easier for Madres and wizards and other humans to travel back and forth between the borderlands and the home countries, but spirits of all kinds did it as well. Especially the powerful ones.

“Look,” Eren said, nudging them. The train was coming. Armin was a little disappointed to see it looked just like a regular train--though it was unnaturally quiet. “Well, guys,” he said, unable to hide his elation. “I’ll see you in September, I guess.”

Mikasa threw herself on him, knocking all the air out of his lungs.

“Mikasa!”

“Write to me. Immediately once you’ve arrived at Levi’s. Promise me!”

“Jeez, MIkasa! I said I would.” He shook her off, and he and Armin shared a more decorous bro-hug. He slung his bag over his shoulder and got on the train, waving to them as it pulled away.

A large rabbit punched his ticket, handing it back to him without comment. He tried not to stare as it hopped away down the aisle, taking silver tickets from the other passengers.

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Happy. Happier than he could remember being in ages. Years. He’d been stuck in this half-life for so long, and now he was on his way to something.

Mada Tallisa had been right. This was where he was supposed to be. He knew he was the most ordinary human on this train, but he already felt like he belonged here.

He’d wanted to join the Survey Corp since he was a kid. It’s not all fighting monsters, Armin had said. It was protecting people too. Protecting the whole world. Not like the other branches of the military, where you could spend your whole life as an insignificant bureaucrat, never seeing real action at all.

If he had stayed in school he could have entered military service easily...you got preferential consideration if you graduated from the military academy.

Armin and Mikasa still didn’t know the truth about what had happened, the real reason he had dropped out. But that was in the past now...his school records were sealed, and if he did well at his apprenticeship none of it would matter.

Captain Levi. He still couldn’t believe he was on his way to meet him...never mind that he was Mikasa’s cousin. Though once he’d had time to think about it--and he’d thought about it a lot in the last week--it hadn’t seemed as strange.

Mikasa hardly spoke about her family. It was almost a taboo subject. It had never occurred to him that she might have other relatives...aunts...uncles...grandparents...cousins. And Captain Levi (he’d been looking at videos of him for years--studying his technique the way some people studied their favorite pitchers or running backs) was a fighter; there was even something about him that reminded him of Mikasa’s graceful movements on the mat.

Captain Levi was a gatekeeper, and he guarded the Northern Gate, the most important gate in the world. Eren fingered the heavy, reassuring weight of his key fob, a milky quartz-like stone with an irregular hole at its center. Thick twine was looped around it, connecting it to his keys. He would do well at this…

He was dreaming; fire and smoke...eyes in the darkness...

A hand tapped him, and he jerked awake. It was the rabbit, the one who had taken his ticket when he’d first got on board. It was pointing at the doors.

“Oh, uh, thank you!” Eren said, grabbing his bag and bolting. He’d almost missed the stop! How had he even fallen asleep amidst all this strangeness…

On the platform he looked around--nervous. Captain Levi knew when he was coming; he’d sent the ticket after all. But would he be here to meet him?

Eren looked up and down the long platform. It was gray and misty and cool, though it had been hot and muggy when he’d left the city. If any other passengers had gotten off with him then they were gone now--he was alone. He took a deep breath. He’d never been in the borderlands before, but he knew better than to wander off. He’d wait here--for now. The air felt different here. It felt like cool light fingers against his skin...gently inquisitive.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time, but his it was a dead blank gray; it wouldn't even turn on. He stared at it in confusion--it had been fully charged when he'd left the house this morning--before he remembered. Electronics didn't work here. Embarrassed he shoved it back in his pocket.

“Oh, uh. Hello.”

A coat rack had just appeared on the platform. It ambled towards him with quick light steps and bowed at the waist--then extended one arm.

“Oh. Um,” Eren said. Hesitantly he held out his bag, and the coatrack took it. It made a show of looking left and right; “No,” he said. “That’s, uh--all I brought.”

It nodded, then began to amble away. “Uh, follow you?” Eren called after it. He had to half-jog to keep up; it was deceptively fast.

He looked around him eagerly. He’d wondered if they’d take a car--or a pumpkin carriage, maybe--but the coatrack headed off onto a dirt road through farmland. There were hedges and cobbled walls that marked the boundaries between the roads and the fields.

Sometimes the mist came up and everything would be lost from view for a moment--and then when it receded he’d swear the landscape had changed completely. There were secret roads out here...even the gatekeepers didn’t know them all.

Eren didn’t see anyone else--it was just him, following an animated coatrack through a deserted landscape.

He laughed.

They crossed a stream, Eren and the coatrack both hopping over large flat stones to reach the other side. The mist came up and receded one final time, and when it had gone it had really gone--it was a sunny, cloudless day, though the air was cooler than it had been in the city.

A large stone farmhouse sat at the end of a white pebbled drive. Eren could see fields behind the house, and woods further back. The coatrack headed for the back of the house--the kitchen entrance--and Eren hurried behind, his heart skipping every second or third beat.

He’d been fourteen the first time he’d seen video of Levi fighting with other members of the Survey Corp. Even then, before he’d even known his name, he’d seen that he was different. Stronger, faster; his movements had been like a dancer’s, though he’d been flying through the air instead of standing on the ground.

There weren’t many vids of the borderlands; you needed special cameras to record anything there, the old-fashioned mechanical kind with gears and chemicals and who knew what else. Then you had to transcribe them when you got back, and upload them, and they didn’t always transcribe cleanly. They were always in grainy black and white--old-timey, as if you were watching a movie from a hundred years ago. As far as fighting monsters went modern technology could make fakes much more convincing than the real thing. There wasn’t much of an audience for them--not compared to cute cat videos, for instance--but Levi was extraordinary enough that videos of him did occasionally make it online.

He had been sixteen before he’d found out Captain Levi’s name.

“Uh, hello?” Eren called as they approached a door. He followed the coatrack through, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior light.

It was a big old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen, with an enormous stone double basin against the outside wall, and a vast wooden table right in the center. The floor was a scuffed but spotless amber colored wood, and the walls were lined with open shelves, covered with neatly stacked pots and pans and dishes and trays of all sizes.

There was a man in the center of the room, by the table, staring at a wedge of cheese as though it had wronged him.

This couldn’t be Levi.

He was short--he was shorter than Armin. His eyes were tired and shadowed, and he hardly looked any older than Eren.

Eren stared at him.

“So. You made it,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the station.” He rubbed his face. “I almost didn’t make it back here to meet you at all. Having trouble with the boundary markers in the western fields...I haven’t been here in three days.” He looked around vaguely, as if he wasn’t sure where 'here' was.

“Uh,” Eren said when it was clear that he wasn’t going to say anything else. “You’re Levi?” It came out more skeptical than he’d intended it, and the other man sharpened his gaze.

“Captain Levi.”

“Right, that’s what I meant to say,” Eren mumbled, cringing at himself. God, what was wrong with him…

“Do you want something to eat?” Levi said.

The table was covered with food; fruit, loaves of bread, about a dozen different kinds of cheese, honey, jam, butter, and looking oddly out of place a jar of peanut butter.

Levi took a knife and spread the peanut butter on a slice of bread, and somehow that was even more disheartening.

Captain Levi? Eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

There weren’t any chairs at the table, but suddenly two walked in from the other room. “Oh, um, all right…” Eren said when one approached him, trying not to be unnerved.

The coatrack reappeared, bustling over with a teatray.

“Thanks,” Levi said, nodding to it when it began pouring out a cup for him. “Ah, ah!” he scolded when it dropped two sugar cubes in, and before he could stop it it added a third. He held a hand over the top of the cup protectively, wrestling it away.

“I don’t need you mothering me,” he snapped. “Behave yourself or I’ll use you for kindling.”

Eren watched this exchange with bemusement. The coatrack inclined its...well, what Eren thought of as its ‘head’ and Eren said, “Uh, yeah...thanks.” It poured a cup for him, then waddled away.

“Uh,” Eren said after a moment. “Do you, uh. Live here alone?”

“Yes,” Levi said. “You might see people here from time to time. Most of them aren’t real, though.”

“Oh…”

“There’s my Squad, but they don’t live here; they have quarters elsewhere. You’ll meet them tomorrow...maybe the next day. Another Squad Leader lives down the road, but she isn’t here right now.”

“I see.”

“I haven’t had an apprentice before,” Levi remarked. He was staring at Eren the way you might if you suddenly got an unexpected parcel in the mail...and you opened it to discover something you'd forgotten you'd ordered. From a late-night infomercial. While drunk. “What do you know about this place?”

“The borderlands? Well, just what they teach us in school. Which isn’t too much.”

“No.” Levi snorted. “Magic is ‘passe’ now, right?” he shook his head. “If you all knew how thin the boundary was that separates it all…the world wouldn’t be so smugly content to ignore us.” Levi had only eaten half his sandwich, but he pushed the rest away. “I have to get back to the western fields,” he said. At the door he looked back at Eren and stopped. “Coming?” he said, with a trace of impatience.

“Oh! Uh, yes, sir!”

Chapter Text

He hurried to keep up. Levi took long strides through the fields, moving swiftly for such a small man. In spite of the hard pace he was able to keep up conversation easily--Eren was panting beside him.

“While you’re here,” Levi said, “Don’t go off on your own. Later, when you know the ways you’ll be all right, but for now stay on the property. It’s dangerous when you don’t know your way around--too easy to get lost.”

“I won’t,” Eren promised.

Levi opened a gate and they passed through. He was careful to shut it behind them. “Your first lesson: always close what you open.”

They went through more than a dozen gates. The last one was just an open archway, the only opening in a long stone wall that disappeared into the hills on either side.

“This is it,” Levi said when they had gone through. “The western fields.”

Endless golden rye stretched out before them. Eren looked around feeling something he couldn’t even begin to name.

The western fields. This was another kind of gateway--leading to Elysium, Valhalla, Paradise, and every other kind of heaven humans had dreamed of. Or so it was said.

“This way,” Levi said, pushing through the rye. Eren kept close behind him. There were two large granite blocks in the middle of the field, two meters high, two meters across.

“We’re moving them over there,” Levi said. Eren looked where he was pointing. On the far side of the field were a line of similar stones, irregularly spaced, an obvious gap at their center.

“How did they get here?” Eren said, touching his fingers to one of the heavy blocks.

Levi shrugged. “Malice. Accident. Shifting leylines. Come on.”

“But they must weigh two tons!”

“Yes. There are two of us now--it should be easy.”

“You mean--you were doing others by yourself this morning? How?”

“Put your back into it,” Levi said.

Eren would have said it was impossible for them to move stones that size. And in the human world it would have been, but here in the borderlands it was--not easy, but possible. Inch by inch they pushed the first block across the field, leaving behind heavy tracks in the mud. Halfway there Eren was exhausted--he had no idea how Levi had managed this on his own, magic or not. Levi wasn’t even sweating.

“What doing?” a harsh voice cried out.

Eren jumped and turned, taking a deep sharp breath. There was a harpy perched on one of the boundary stones. She had the bare chest and head of a woman, but her legs and wings were a golden eagle’s. She was at least eight feet tall.

“Moving the boundary stones,” Levi said.

“Why moving!”

“Something shifted them out of place.” He kicked Eren. “We’re not done. Keep going.”

“Oh. Uh,” he looked uneasily back at the harpy. “She won’t hurt us?”

“No.”

There was the sound of an enormous pair of wings moving through the air, and then she landed on the stone they were pushing. Levi looked up implacably.

“Off.”

“Help.” She began preening herself.

“You’re not helping. You’re making the damn thing heavier. Off, before I push you off.”

“Present,” the harpy said, rolling her shoulders. “Present.”

“Fine,” Levi said after a moment. Then he began to speak:

“In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty city shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.”

Levi had a nice voice, sonorous and warm, and he pronounced all the words with casual, practiced grace. It wasn’t the voice of an educated person--not quite--but cultured and intelligent.

“Ah!” the harpy fluted, fluttering her wings in agitation. “Good, good! Like, like.”

“Wonderful. Now get off.”

The harpy ignored him, prancing back and forth and muttering to herself.

“What--what was that?” Eren asked. The hairs were standing up on his neck.

“A poem from another world.” Levi wiped the side of his face. “They like that sort of thing.”

“Is it--a trade?” he asked. “You give them that so they won’t hurt you?”

“They don’t hurt us. I’m just being neighborly.” He leaned back against the stone, then almost as an afterthought he added, “Nothing here can hurt you when you’re with me.” To the harpy he yelled, “Move!”

“Present,” she said. She held out one foot, slowly opening the claw to drop something down to them. “Help.” Then she flapped her wings, disappearing beyond the boundary line.

Levi picked up the object she had dropped--and sighed.

Eren craned his neck. “It looks like a bone.”

“It is a bone.” He pocketed it. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”

When they finally made it back that evening it was late--the sun was setting over the fields. Eren ached everywhere. Physically he’d believed he was in excellent condition--he ran a few times a week, and trained at Mikasa’s jujutsu studio. But the day’s labor lad left him feeling weak and soft--like he’d never done hard work until today. He was a little jealous of Levi’s long unaffected gait.

When the farmhouse came into view at last (oddly, though they’d left through a gate facing west they’d returned through a northern one) he could have collapsed in relief.

“Oof,” he said, as they climbed up the few steps to the kitchen door, and Levi glanced back at him in what might have been amusement.

“Wait a sec,” Eren said, as they came into the kitchen. “Earlier you said--you said you’d been there for three days?”

“That’s right,” Levi said. He took his shoes off by the back door, rolling his socks up neatly and carrying everything in one hand. Eren glanced down--his feet were clean. Too clean for someone working without rest, in muddy fields for days on end.

Magic, he reminded himself. But what a strangely mundane use of it.

“You don’t seem that tired,” Eren said, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetic as he felt.

“We’ll eat in an hour,” Levi said, ignoring this. “One of the servants will show you up to your room.”

Eren sighed and took his shoes off, hopping around on one foot as he struggled with the laces. They were just sneakers--a muddied ruin now. He wondered if he could get some thick workboots somehow. He should have thought ahead--planned better.

He’d known theoretically that being a gatekeeper involved moving boundary stones and markers--he just hadn’t expected it to be so literal. The coatrack appeared, and though it had no face Eren could have sworn it was pleased to see him. It motioned for him to come along, and Eren followed barefoot.

The house was old, but looked after. All the stones were cleanly mortared, the floors polished and shining, and the walls freshly plastered or painted or papered. It was admittedly a hodgepodge--as if it had been frequently added to and altered over the centuries. But somehow it all fit. Everything was clean and neat--but not spartan. The furniture was well-chosen, and there were paintings and tapestries and decorations. But it was as if one person, someone with a good eye, had selected and organized everything, culling a vast collection down to something manageable and cohesive.

And even though it was tidy it was lived-in. It wasn’t magazine-perfect. It made a stark change from the house he lived in with Armin and Mikasa--still only half-furnished with things they’d scavenged from the curbside and the thrift store even after three years.

There was a grandness to the rooms too--Eren didn’t see a single one that was small or cramped or poorly laid out.

Given all that he wondered what his own room would look like. He wondered what Levi’s looked like.

The coatrack stopped at a room on the second floor, halfway down a long corridor. It nodded at a door and then waddled off. Eren turned the knob. His bag was on the floor and the closet door stood open, with his clothes already hanging up inside. The few books he’d brought were neatly stacked on the nightstand.

Considering the scale of the rest of the house it was a little bare--a little small--and a little disappointing in its blandness. He unbuttoned his shirt, and by the time he’d turned around again the room seemed a little larger.

Also there was a desk that hadn’t been there before, standing in front of the window.

“Uh…” Eren said. He looked back--the bed had gotten larger, and instead of the plain blue floral quilt that had covered it there was a deep midnight blue silk bedspread, embroidered with silver stars. “Uh. Maybe a little showy,” he said. He turned back--and then quickly jerked around, as if he could catch invisible hands in the act. A plain white sheet was on the bed now--like what you’d find in a hospital room.

He laughed. “I get it,” he said. He unzipped his jeans. “Is that the bathroom?” There was another door on the far wall, and it creaked open. “How about this,” he said out loud. “Do whatever you want--the rest of the house is beautiful. But let’s just stick to one thing for now, huh? I’m getting dizzy.”

He felt again--that light cool presence that he’d first felt at the train station. A sense of amused acknowledgement this time, instead of inquisitiveness. He went in the bathroom to shower before dinner.

When he came out a few minutes later the room had been completely redecorated. He laughed. The green jade dragon in particular was a nice touch.

At breakfast the next morning Levi was reading a newspaper. He wore a loose white cotton shirt, rolled up to the elbows, and long knee high boots. He had one leg crossed, ankle resting over the opposite knee.

Fruit and pastries and bread and a basket of hard boiled eggs--still in the shell--were on the table.

“Morning,” Levi said without looking up from his paper.

“Uh--good morning,” Eren said, pouring himself a cup of tea. The coatrack was nowhere to be seen.

“What are we doing today?”

“I haven’t been able to check the leylines all week, so we’ll do that first. We’ll travel around the farms to see if anything’s out of place. Make a note of what we find, and then make plans to return to move individual stones. Or, god forbid, replace them.”

“Do boundary stones go missing?”

“They do. Or become damaged beyond repair.”

“What could make one go missing?” Eren wondered. “Aren’t they heavily warded?”

“Of course. What do you think could make one go missing?”

“Uh..black magic?” Eren said doubtfully. “Monsters breaking through?”

Levi smiled faintly. “Yes. Those are indeed possibilities. But usually it’s neglect, or the leylines shifting.”

“Neglect? But you take care of them all, don’t you?”

“There are millions of boundary stones, Eren. If not more. Even with the time distension there’s no way I could take care of them all. The best we can do is renew the wards on the major ones regularly and hope they’ll hold the others in place. And when there’s a problem we fix it.”

“Oh,” Eren said, digesting this. He’d imagined gatekeeping to be a lot more straightforward than it actually was. (There was a popular video game where you have to hold a gate, and fight the monsters coming through it...uncomfortably he realized that was what he had been picturing.)

“Have you finished eating? Then come on.” Instead of going outside Levi led him further into the house, into his study. It was a large room with wide windows at one end, looking out over a green lawn. The desk faced into the room, and there was a long low coffee table and chairs in the center, and many bookshelves along the walls.

Levi gave the coffee table a kick as he passed it, and it obligingly stretched and elongated itself. He pulled something out from a side drawer--it looked like a handkerchief.

But when he unfolded it it kept going...and going...until it covered the entire table. It was a map. Levi gave it a shake and it began to grow upward, hills and valleys taking on depth and dimension. The farmhouse was at the very bottom, and far to the left Eren thought he recognized the western fields where they'd been yesterday.

“This is what the landscape looks like--more or less,” Levi said. “And these are the leylines.” As he spoke the landscape disappeared, the map showing instead a shifting swirling pattern of faintly glowing lines. “And the boundary stones.” Small luminous stones appeared.

Eren tried to figure out the pattern--how and why the stones connected to the leylines. But to him it looked random. Sometimes the leylines intersected the stones, and other times they circled around them. The whole thing also seemed to be moving all the time. It was making him dizzy.

He started to speak, but when he looked up he saw a shadow over Levi’s face. Something about this was troubling him. He kept quiet and Levi began to fold up the map--until it was once more the size of a handkerchief. He put it back in the drawer.

Today they didn't leave through the gate--instead Levi hopped gracefully over the fence, and Eren scrambled after him. They started going uphill and Eren's knees and joints--still sore from yesterday--complained at him. There was a ridge at the top of the hill, lined with stones, almost like a breakwater though there was no water here. They were low and squarish, and Eren had the sense these were just ordinary stones--though it was hard to say why.

Levi stepped up onto them to gaze down the way they’d come, and Eren stepped up beside him. Then he gaped--the picture ahead of them looked just like the map back in Levi’s office, and the farmhouse was the tiniest dot at the distant edge.

“But--” Eren protested. “We just came from there! How did we get so far?”

“You have to let go of your ideas about space and distance out here,” Levi said mildly.

“I didn't feel anything though…how did we come so far?” Then, answering his own question, “Is it because we went over the fence instead of through the gate?”

Levi nodded. “We’ll travel the boundaries to survey the northern territory.” He turned and began to walk along the stones--almost as an afterthought, he added, “Don't step off the stones.”

They were low and closely spaced--it would be nearly impossible to take a misstep by accident. Even so the warning made Eren gulp, and he stuck close to Levi.

That morning Eren thought they must have walked four or five miles. They never stepped off of the stones. Levi had brought a small brown field notebook, and he handed it to Eren; every so often they'd stop to look at a field or a river or a forest (the stones went everywhere, which was what eventually made Eren realize they weren't real--that this was some kind of manifestation of the idea of ‘boundaries’ themselves) and Levi would look out for a minute--then he'd tell Eren to write something down in the notebook.

“DuShiel field, cracked boundary stone A-14, priority high. Canterbury field, two boundary markers slipped, 14 centimeters to the south, priority medium. River Styx, unknown boundary stone partially submerged...priority low.”

Eren didn’t know what he was talking about most of the time. It was clear Levi could see things that he couldn’t. Half the time the stones weren’t even visible, hidden behind weeds and long grass. He couldn’t begin to guess how Levi could judge a distance of centimeters, or how he could tell the stones had been moved at all. Memory? Judging the leylines? He’d ask later. Right now he didn’t want to distract Levi--he seemed deeply focused, and when he spoke to Eren it was as if he was coming back from a great distance.

For the sake of his achey body Eren was grateful that today’s work was easier than yesterday’s. It wasn’t sweltering here like back in the city, but it was still a warm day, and it was a relief when the stone path wound beneath shade trees or past cool streams. He could hear honeybees, and there was a smell of fragrant wild blossoms in the air.

And underneath it all that undefinable presence that had to be the North itself; amused, light-fingered, faintly feminine.

He thought he’d never been happier.

“Huh,” Levi said, stopping, and Eren looked over. He’d fallen a few steps behind as Levi’s silences had grown longer, and he’d been dawdling to watch some creatures in the woods--he couldn’t tell what they were, but they’d been building something, some kind of hut maybe.

Now he gave Levi his full attention, and he felt all the oxygen leave his body.

“Titans,” Levi murmured to himself. “I haven’t seen so many this close. I wonder where they’re going. Hey, what’s wrong?”

They were monsters the size of buildings, running and grinning, skin a patchwork over their terrifying sexless bodies. There were six or seven of them, and they took down trees as they ran, startling birds and deer out of the woods. They were coming closer, and as Eren watched one of them seemed to look right at him. He moaned, a low wretched noise, and stepped back, trying to get away.

Then he was falling.

He screamed as he fell, against the side of a sheer cliff--it was fathomless, it went on forever. Already he’d lost sight of the top, and all he could see was the wall, infinite in every direction. He screamed until he was hoarse, but it did not matter. He would fall forever.

Hands were on him, and he grabbed them back, violently, clinging to anything that would stop the fall. He felt solid rock underneath him, and he held on, keeping his eyes shut tight, keeping his arms locked in a deathgrip.

His body was turned, and he shuddered, and then he felt the sun on his face and he sobbed. There had been no daylight in that place.

“Eren,” Levi was saying. “Open your eyes.”

He shook his head, too afraid of what he’d see. Part of him could feel the solid rock beneath him, Levi’s arms around him. Another part was still falling. If he opened his eyes he’d know which one was real...

“Why do you want to join the Survey Corp if you have PTSD?” Levi asked.

Eren’s eyes flew open. “I do not!” He glared at Levi, but because he was still shaking--in the middle of the worst attack he’d had in at least five years--it wasn’t as effective as he intended.

Levi was looking back at him curiously--for the first time he noticed that Levi’s eyes were gray. Levi’s arms were still around him--he was lying across Levi’s lap, Levi’s left arm holding up his back and shoulders. He should move. Selfishly, stubbornly he did not.

“I have it too,” Levi said conversationally, as if he were admitting he owned the same kind of wallet.

Eren stared at him for a moment, then he pushed himself up so that he was sitting upright. He was shaking less. “You--what? You do? Do you have...panic attacks?”

“Not really,” Levi said. He hadn’t moved away from Eren; they were still too close for politeness. He rubbed the side of his face. “I don’t sleep much,” he said after a moment.

“Oh. But how did you get in to the Survey Corp then?”

“It’s not a bar to entry. But you know we do have to fight Titans, sometimes…”

“I know that!” Eren said impatiently, blushing. Had Levi thought he was so stupid he’d come out here not knowing that? “I want to fight them, I’ve seen you fight them!”

“Anyway, I was conscripted,” Levi said.

“Conscripted--what?” Eren said, knocked completely off course. Could you be conscripted into the military? Wasn’t that illegal? It was certainly immoral.

“What are you so afraid of them for?” Levi asked, ignoring him.

“I--” Eren looked down. There was no sense denying it anymore. He folded his hands around his knees. “I was at Shinganshina. When they…”

“Oh…” Levi exhaled. “That’s right. I’d forgotten about that. You were both there, weren’t you.”

“Yes,” Eren said in a clipped voice. “Mikasa too. That’s why...that’s why we got scholarships to the military academy...they did things like that for all the orphans.”

“But you flunked out...I remember how wild Mikasa was after that.”

Eren stared hard at the granite underneath him--at his boots. They’d appeared outside his door that morning, shorter than Levi’s, heavy workboots made of rubber and thick leather just like what he’d wished for last night.

No one knew about this, apart from the adults who’d been involved. He’d never told his friends.

“I started having panic attacks at school. It wasn’t so bad at first, but then it started happening all the time. One of the teachers caught me freaking out...they made me get a psych eval. In the end the principal and the counselors sat me down...they told me they didn’t think I was suitable for a military career.” He couldn’t hide the deep bitterness that had crept into his voice. He’d been so ashamed; Mikasa and Armin had been fine. Why was he always the freak, the odd one out? “After that there didn’t seem to be any point in trying. I started failing my classes...they kicked me out.”

Levi sighed. “Didn’t they give you counseling or something?”

“Yeah. Eren, why did you yell at Ms. Petersen in second period? Eren, we think you have anger issues.”

Levi snorted. “Let me guess. You didn’t keep it up.”

“Of course I didn’t! It wasn’t helping. But I’m fine now. I did other stuff--I got better. That was just--I didn’t know that was going to happen! You should have told me what would happen if I fell off the wall…” He shivered involuntarily, remembering the sensation of falling, and though he fought it the feeling was strong; submerging him in its horror. The Titans...the fall...

He was moaning into his knees, and distantly he felt the press of someone’s body near his. Fingers, coming to pry his loose, one at a time from the grip they had…I can’t...I’ll fall again…

You don’t want to be trapped here forever, do you? a voice said reasonably. You won’t fall. I have you. One of his hands had been forced free, and there was a hand holding it. His eyes were shut, but he could see it--it was solid, with square capable fingers, shorter than his own.

Let go Eren.

He did. And he didn’t fall.

The conversation they’d been having paused while Levi talked to him about other things--telling him to breath, telling him how to breathe, telling him to count, telling him to describe what he could feel under his hands.

Slowly and by degrees he came back, a safe distance now from the Titans...the cliff…

And feeling extraordinarily embarrassed. Well, so much for that. He wondered if Levi would send him home today, or if it was too late now...he didn’t know how often the ghost train ran.

“It took you long enough,” Levi remarked. Eren looked up. The coatrack was crossing the field in front of them, holding a red-checked sack in one hand, and a pitcher of some faintly green-ish liquid in the other.

“There’s no sense in heading back to the house now,” Levi remarked, when he saw Eren looking at him. “We’ll have lunch here and then finish the rest of the survey.”

“You--uh,” Eren said. Levi took the sack from the coatrack and laid it gently on the rock between them. When he untied it the checked cloth stretched itself out almost lazily, and it nudged Eren until he moved enough that it could settle underneath him.

There were sandwiches in the center of the blanket, wrapped in wax paper, and a bowl of half-ears of corn, and another of watermelon slices.

The coatrack set the pitcher down by the sandwiches, and Levi poured some of the liquid into a cup and handed it to Eren.

It was green tea with lime and mint, chilled and sweetened. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“Hanji turn up yet?” Levi asked the coatrack. It shook its head. “Good. No other visitors?” Another shake. Levi grunted, and took a sandwich.

Eren put the cup down. But he had to ask. “Are you sending me back?”

“Where?”

“To town.”

“Why would I send you back?”

“Because…” He clenched a fist in his lap.

Levi sipped a glass of his own. “Most people run away from things they’re afraid of,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s stupid or brave to run towards them; I only know it’s something we all do in the Survey Corp. Your teachers were wrong. If you really want to join I haven’t seen any reason why you’d be unfit.”

“Ah--thank you, sir! I won’t let you down!”

“You need to get your emotions under control though,” Levi observed.

“Um. Yes.” Eren sat back, looking conscious. “I’ve been...told that.”

“Step off the side.”

Eren jerked his head up. “What!”

“You’re quite safe.” Levi held out his hand. “But take my hand if you don’t believe me.”

Eren swallowed, and he did take Levi’s hand. Slowly he stepped down the six inches to the ground, first one foot and then the other. Nothing happened--he was just standing in the field.

Levi let go of his hand.

“Ah--” he said, but still nothing happened.

“You can sit down now,” Levi said.

“What--”

“When you stepped off before, you lacked intention,” Levi said. “You can’t do that here. Wandering--being inattentive--that will get you killed faster than any monster. You have some common sense--I’ve seen that from the way you interact with things. Someone taught you something about magic, didn’t they?”

“Yes--a friend of my mother’s…”

“Things are different here, and you know that--you’re wary. Guarded. That’s good. That’s how you should be. That alone will do most of the work of keeping you safe.

“This path--” Levi traced a finger in the air, “the one we’re traveling on, it’s not really part of the world. You know what a Möbius strip is?”

“Yes.”

“The path cuts across like that--it’s why we can traverse the borderlands in a few hours. It’s why I can stand on the perimeter of a field and see all the boundary stones in it, even though if we traveled to the same place physically it might take days to find them all--they might be spread out over hundreds of miles.

“But because it doesn’t really exist--not in a true physical way--when you fell off you fell into nothing. You understand?

“Just now I told you you’d be all right--you could see the field. That’s what your mind expected even if you were still afraid of falling. You were wary--there was no way for you to slip into a gap accidentally.”

“When did--when did you grab me?”

“Less than a second after you stepped off,” Levi replied drily.

“It felt like longer.”

“I’ll bet it did.”

“If you hadn’t grabbed me then...would I have just kept falling forever?”

“No,” Levi said calmly. “I’d have gone through after you and used the maneuver gear to reel you in.” Eren stared at his chest, bare but for the white cotton shirt, and Levi rolled his eyes and plucked at his front--suddenly Eren could see the leather straps criscrossing his body, and the swords at his hips. “It’s too hot to be running around in it,” Levi said, and the straps abruptly disappeared again.

Seeing the expression on Eren’s face--mistaking it for fear--he added, “I told you nothing here could hurt you when you’re with me. I meant it.”

“Okay,” Eren said. “Thanks.”

When they had finished Levi tied the empty dishes up in the blanket and gave it back to the coatrack. He’d told Eren to give their leftovers to the creatures he’d been watching earlier--Eren had approached the hut warily, careful to stay on the stone path, and he’d gulped when the creatures had come out to peer at him.

They were--not exactly alive. They resembled animals, but they were made from dead bits of other animals--discarded horns, bones, feathers, claws. They chittered agreeably at him as they took the leftover food, and disappeared back into their hut.

Eren was still shaken from earlier, and although the creatures had been friendly enough he hurried back to Levi.
“What were those things?” he asked quietly when Levi had finished giving some instructions to the coatrack and it had hopped off.

“Hmm?” Levi said, glancing back in that direction, and Eren realized he hadn’t really looked at them before. “Ah. Scavengers. Poor things.”

“But what are they? I’ve never...heard of things like that.”

“Mostly lost spirits...they find bits of things to stick on them. They miss having physical bodies.”

“What kind of spirits? Human spirits?”

“Sometimes.”

“Shouldn’t you help them?”

“What do you think I told you to give them the leftovers for?”

“No! I mean...put their spirits to rest, or something.”

Levi shrugged. “Why? They’re not bothering anyone. They keep to themselves. The path of the dead is clear. They’ve chosen not to take it--actively avoided it, actually, considering how many goddamn shinigamis there are running around trying to make quota every month…”

“Oh,” Eren said, looking back one last time--but the hut was gone, and the landscape behind them had changed again, showing fields of purple heather they had never passed through.

Levi was talkative after lunch (it would be a long time before Eren realized the significance of that--that he’d known how upset Eren still was, and he’d been trying to distract him and put him at ease) and Eren took advantage of it, asking him questions as they walked and made notes in the notebook.

“Have you walked on the path of the dead before?”

“Many times,” Levi said quietly, and Eren quickly changed the subject.

He asked Levi about his squad, and about some of the creatures they passed. But most importantly, about the boundary stones and leylines.

“You can learn to see them with practice,” Levi said.

“I can’t see anything now. I can hardly even see the boundary stones until we’re on top of them.”

Levi shrugged. “The other squad leaders usually can’t see the leylines without help--although Mike can smell them. Hanji’s got special glasses that let her see them, and she’s always trying to invent some new device to do it better. You seem like you’ve been around magic a decent amount--usually if you have some past experience it’s easier.”

It was late when they finally reached the farmhouse again--approaching from opposite direction they’d left in that morning, as if they’d circled the globe. Eren felt like they had. What had been an easy four or five mile walk this morning had been at least twenty by the end of the day. The sun had set sometime in the last hour and it was fully dark, but lights were on in the house.

Levi stepped down from the wall first, and he took Eren’s hand in the darkness, releasing him when he was safely on the ground. They climbed back down the ridge, and over the fence again, and Eren could feel something click into place when they were back. The house saying, Ah, there you are. Welcome home.

Chapter Text

“What’s that?”

“That’s a tree.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s a fence.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s another tree.”

Eren had been headed downstairs still-yawning; hearing voices he quickened his pace. The front doors--two great double doors, with facing panes of stained glass, a rising sun and moon--stood wide open, and Eren could see Levi silhouetted against the early morning sun.

When he stepped outside he saw the owner of the second voice--a girl, two years old, with strawberry blonde hair and wide hazel eyes. Levi was holding her against his hip.

She pointed at him. “What’s that?”

“That’s Eren,” Levi said. It had only been two days--but Eren thought he knew him well enough already to see the faint amusement behind his usually-cool exterior.

“What’s your name?” Eren asked, smiling at her.

But, suddenly shy, she turned her face away and laid her head on Levi’s shoulder. He did smile then, one hand coming to rest on the girl’s back.

“This is Sirena,” Levi said.

“Whose child is she?” Eren asked curiously.

“My subordinates’. Petra and Oluo’s daughter.”

“Will I meet them today?” Eren asked eagerly.

“So I would think,” Levi said, turning around and walking back into the house.

The table in the kitchen was covered in food--there were a dozen different kinds of pastries...fruit...baskets of bread and sweet rolls, butter, jam.

“Uh,” Eren said. “How big is your squad?”

“Petra. Oluo. Eld. Gunther.” Levi said. Sirena squirmed to get down and he lowered her gently to the floor. She ran to the table and reached up to grab a cream-filled donut. She was still eating it contentedly, swinging her feet on a chair, when her mother arrived a few minutes later.

“You naughty child!” she scolded. “You were meant to wait for us! You should not be bothering the Captain so early!” she glanced sidewise, apologetically, at Levi.

Petra was lovely; petite, with the same strawberry-blonde hair and dazzling hazel eyes as her daughter. Eren felt deeply disappointed that she was married.

The others arrived just after her, and introductions were made. Eren was a little overwhelmed; he recognized some of these people from vids he’d watched (over and over and over again…) though he had never before known their names--or even that they were part of Levi’s Squad. The information that made it back to the outside world about the SC was scanty, and it was only Levi’s exceptional skill that had given him a little notoriety. Levi was pouring tea for the others--they all took it heavily sugared, Eren noticed; only Levi preferred to drink his plain.

Likewise the pastries were rapidly disappearing--he grabbed a few when he realized politeness would do him no favors. Levi ate little; a croissant and a few cups of tea.

Halfway through the meal Sirena came to sit in Levi's lap, and Petra beamed at them.

“The Captain is her godfather,” she explained to Eren, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sometimes I think she prefers him to her parents!”

“How far do you all live?” he asked curiously.

“Oh--not far. Ten minutes walking, perhaps? We’re very glad you’ve come to stay, Eren. The Captain says we’re to start training you in use of the maneuver gear today.”

He inhaled sharply, “Really?” he said. He hadn’t been sure if Levi would want him trained in the maneuver gear at all--or if it was beyond the scope of a summer apprenticeship.

But getting proficiency in the maneuver gear--that meant learning to fight, too...

“We don’t expect you to learn much,” Oluo said primly. “You’re just a greenhorn! It takes years of practice to achieve proficiency--never mind the excellence you see before you!”

“Oluo!” Petra snapped. “Don’t discourage him! That isn’t kind!”

The two of them began to bicker loudly. Eren looked around uncomfortably, but the others seemed unconcerned. Clearly this was not unusual. Gunther was reading a newspaper, and Eld was trying to shoo off the blue heron which had come to peck at him. Levi brought the silverware to life to entertain Sirena, and a fork and knife became locked in gladiatorial combat, chasing each other around the table and jumping over bowls and glasses.

“Can I feed the chickens, Levi?” Sirena asked suddenly, looking up at him.

That got Petra’s attention away from her husband. “Sirena! You must call the Captain by his proper name!”

“They’re not here today,” Levi said.

“Why not?”

“Hanji’s away, so they’re locked up in their henhouse. Where they belong,” Levi added darkly.

“When are they coming back?”

“Let’s hope never.”

“Levi, you should get your own chickens.”

“Sirena!” Petra cried. "You must use proper respect!"

Levi snorted. “There are enough animals here.”

“They’re not real, though.”

“What do you call that?” Levi said, pointing to the blue heron. It was perched on the side of the stone basin. After Eld had finally obliged it by filling the sink with water, it had begun fishing--against all odds catching a large silver mackerel, which it was greedily devouring.

“That!” Sirena said contemptuously. “That’s just a letter opener!”

“Will you be training with us today, sir?” Eren asked hopefully. To see the Captain fight in person…

“No,” Levi said. “Sirena and I have things to do today.”

“Captain is very kindly watching her for us, so that we can focus on your training,” Petra informed him.

“Yes,” Levi said, getting to his feet. “And I think we’d better be going. I’ll see you all at dinner.”

“Goodbye, sir!” they chorused.

"Goodbye, darling," Petra said, kissing her daughter. "Be a good girl."

"I will mummy."

The rest of them finished up, everyone gulping a last hasty swig of tea or crumb of food, and then they left for the training field.

As they walked Petra was happy to answer his questions, to fill in things he hadn’t yet asked Levi (or just hadn’t dared to). Petra was the most approachable member of the Squad--Oluo the most off-putting. Eren wondered what they saw in each other.

"Where does the food come from?" he asked. Levi had cooked their dinners so far--and Eren had a hard time imagining the coatrack rolling out pastry or churning butter.

"There's a farm just down the road--they make most of it," Petra said. "Levi sends one of the servants to go and collect it in the morning, and to place orders for the next day."

"Oh," said Eren, disappointed by this mundane explanation. He had imagined rolling pins and mixing bowls coming to life at night while he was sleeping. In spite of the repeated references to 'servants' the coatrack was the only animated object he'd seen so far.

The training field was more or less what he'd pictured--a large field filled with dummies and constructed wooden obstacles, a barn with more equipment, all of it ringed by large stout grapple-scarred trees. Eren was pleased to see the cadets' uniform waiting for him--the boots were particularly impressive, long and tough, but soft and supple enough to allow for full range of motion. The others helped him with the straps on the gear, arguing over how tight to make them, and when he was properly equipped Oluo hauled him up on a harness and they tested his balance.

Since his early teens Eren had done Parkour casually, and rock-climbing and MMA (the sports most heavily recommended on the Survey Corp website for those interested in pursuing a career), and that was in addition to Mikasa dragging him along to jujutsu lessons. He'd been proud of his skills, but after a few hours training with the squad he felt like a JV who'd wandered into a professional ballgame. He was limply laid out on the ground after being knocked down a half-dozen times by Oluo ("Your block technique is terrible!") when the coatrack jigged in with lunch.

Today there was a chocolate cake, almond cookies, a sweet fig pastry, and some cucumber sandwiches. Eren thought it was a strange lunch, but he supposed yesterday's selection had been influenced by Levi's taste, and today's had been chosen by the squad. They all had terrible sweet tooths--the cake was the first thing to go. He was eating a cucumber sandwich without enthusiasm when the coatrack nudged something towards him. It was a small lidded earthenware container, still warm, covered by a napkin. When he lifted the lid the scent of a fragrant tagine wafted up. "Thank you!" he said to the coatrack. He tried offering some to the others, but they politely declined.

After lunch he felt much better--and Oluo grudgingly allowed that he wasn't completely hopeless; then, brightening, he congratulated himself on his own fine teaching.

That night when they walked back Eren felt exhausted but happy. Everyone had been exceptionally kind to him--even Oluo, in his odd way. Petra had gone over a training schedule in detail with him.

"We can't afford the time to train you every day," she said. "You must find time to train on your own, and twice a week or so--depending on our schedule--we'll come to help you."

"I can't thank you enough," Eren said. "You've been so kind to me."

"It's wonderful that you want to learn," Petra told him. "You have great potential, Eren!"

"Hey!" Oluo said, "Don't pamper him! He has a lot of hard work ahead of him before he proves himself to us!"

"He knows that! Why must you always criticize!"

Eren grinned, and Eld and Gunther both winked at him as they passed through the eastern gate to Levi's house.

The kitchen table had been moved to the green lawn behind the house.

Levi and Sirena had beaten them back, and Eren noticed they had both changed--Levi was wearing a black suit, and Sirena was dressed as a swan for some reason. They were launching paper lanterns into the air. Levi lit the candles and Sirena held the lanterns upright--and when she released them they floated up to bob a few feet above the table. There were pale shades of blue and green, and they reminded Eren of lily pads floating on the surface of a pond.

There was a damask tablecloth covering the table, a diamond pattern in shades of silver and white and pale bronze. He wasn't even surprised to see all the cookies and cakes and pastries covering it, although they were the most extravagant he'd seen so far. He picked up a petit four, decorated with a castle scene in watercolor fondant.

"How can they eat so much sugar?" he said.

"The Survey Corp has an excellent dental plan," Levi replied drily, and Eren laughed.

Oluo was popping the cork off a bottle of champagne and pouring glasses round for the others.

"Is it someone's birthday?" Eren asked suddenly.

"Gunther's at the end of the month!" Petra said, grinning.

"Ugh!" Gunther said. "You shouldn't go to so much trouble!"

"We're celebrating early," Petra said, explaining for Eren's benefit. "We never know when there might be a sudden emergency, so it's best to do things when we have the time."

They all raised a glass to Gunther, Oluo even giving his daughter a tiny sip though she made a face at the taste.

"The rest of us have birthdays in the winter. We usually celebrate them together on New Year's Day, but Gunther is all alone so we must do something special for him," Petra said with a wink.

Eld presented Gunther with a small box, wrapped in silver paper. He opened it and Eren craned his head to see--it was a pocket watch. When he undid the clasp the golden interior showed a tiny mechanical scene in miniature--little gnomes or dwarves moving through mines, each taking a turn to dig or twist a pickaxe, before climbing a ladder to ride a train car down and begin again. Gunther marveled at it and thanked them profusely, bowing, and the watch was handed around and duly admired.

"I helped pick it out!" Sirena kept repeating loudly until Gunther picked her up and kissed her.

It was a good dinner (Eren was relieved to see savory food on the table as well) and they spent the evening laughing and telling stories. The squad had plenty of tales about their exploits and they were happy to have a fresh audience in Eren. Halfway through the meal Sirena abandoned them to chase fireflies around the garden with a stick.

Eren felt deeply--almost abjectly--grateful to be here, welcomed by these people. The evening flew by, and after midnight Sirena had fallen asleep in her father's arms but there was no sign of the party breaking up.

Petra and Eren went inside to make tea for everyone.

He managed to keep a straight face while she instructed him in the correct way to do it ("this is how Captain likes it") and he thought how odd it was Levi had inspired so much devotion in these people.

But then, he'd only known Levi for three days and his own opinion had already changed a great deal. He was small and eccentric and taciturn, a neat-freak, strangely vulgar and rough around the edges. But Eren had seen already that there was something remarkable in him too. He'd rescued Eren yesterday, but you could discount that as duty. It was the other things that stuck out to Eren, his small kindnesses. How he'd said there was no reason why Eren couldn't join the SC if he wanted to. How, when Eren had woken up this morning there had been several books on his nightside table about CBT and mindful meditation. Levi treated the creatures of the borderlands with an odd old-fashioned courtesy. Apart from fighting monsters that broke through the wards Eren hadn't thought much about the Survey Corp interacting with other residents of the borderlands. And considering the contempt he'd encountered for such creatures all his life--from the military and civilians alike--he suspected Levi was unusual in that regard.

"The Captain seems quiet tonight," Eren remarked.

"He often is," Petra said. "I think he's had a difficult life."

"Really?" Eren said in surprise. "Why? What happened to him?"

"None of us really know much about his past," Petra said with a shrug. "But it's a feeling we all get. As you get to know him better you'll understand."

They carried the tea things outside, and Eren naturally looked at Levi first. The others were laughing and arguing about something, but Levi was silent as he'd been for most of the night. He hadn't heard them come out through the kitchen door, and he was watching Eld and Gunther and Oluo with something like sorrow Eren realized uncomfortably. What, in all this joy, could there be to make him sad?

Chapter Text

The reward for doing good work is more work.

He couldn’t remember where he’d first heard that, but it seemed to be particularly true in the Survey Corp. He’d train by himself or with the squad in the mornings or afternoons, and when he wasn’t training he accompanied Levi on his rounds. Levi parcelled out information haphazardly--if they were out and they saw some low level monster he’d teach Eren a binding spell--and then expect him to remember it and be able to do it himself the next time they encountered one.

One day he told Eren to stay off the paths, to get them lost on purpose, and then he showed him how to find the way back. When the stairs started creaking incessantly Levi took a day off from outdoor work to completely dismantle and rebuild them, and Eren spent the day nailing, joining, cutting, and measuring. Another time one of the rabbit tribes complained to Levi that a plague of sleeping sickness was infecting their children, and Levi made Eren search the library for an answer.

“I think they’re being cursed by a rival tribe,” he said tiredly, after twelve hours of combing the library, and he showed Levi a page in an illuminated manuscript.

“Yes,” Levi said, glancing at it--he was cooking stir fry in a wok over the kitchen stove-- “and how do you cure it?”

Eren stayed up all night, but in the morning he had an answer, and Levi let him take half the day off.

He was frustrated much of the time. He was starting to get annoyed with Levi for never explaining anything properly. What good was knowing how to bind zenobs and cure sleeping sickness in rabbits when there were zillions of other problems out there? He wasn’t frustrated enough to complain to Levi--he wasn’t suicidal--but he did complain in a very general way to Petra. But she either willfully or innocently misunderstood him.

“How wonderful the Captain is teaching you so much, Eren!”

For him, things came to a head one afternoon when they were coming back from a field in the west where the flowers were at war--a literal War of the Roses--and Levi told him to negotiate a peace treaty.

"What!" Eren roared. "What are you talking about! How am I supposed to negotiate a peace treaty--" he ducked; the roses had built trellised catapults, and they were launching stones at the orchids-- "they don't talk!" He paused. "Do they?"

"Use flower language," Levi said, and he left Eren there, disappearing through a gate. Eren scowled after him. There was no sign of the coatrack; he was on his own. He managed to find his way back to the house anyway. After a quick search of the library (memory of how it was organized was still fresh in his mind after turning it upside down looking for manuscripts on rabbits) he found a book on flower language and marched back to the field.

He had no idea what he was going to do.

He sat down on the edge of the field to read the book while the flowers choked the life out of each other and threw things, stomping a few aphids and wasps in disgust when they got too close to him.

The book was full of large full-color plates of flowers alongside definitions of their various meanings, and he stared at it in grumpy incomprehension for what felt like hours, occasionally picking up a wounded soldier wandering by to compare it to one of the pictures in his book.

"This is getting me nowhere," he complained loudly. No one answered. He always kept a notebook in his back pocket now, and he pulled it out, writing 'This is stupid,' 'Levi is a sadist,' 'Why did I ever want to come here?' He doodled pictures of the flowers destroying each other, drawing a cartoon marigold holding a machine gun (they didn't have guns yet, fortunately for him) and roses with cannons. The roses seemed to be the aggressors from what he could tell. One of the meanings of roses was 'peace' which didn't seem to hold true in reality.

He made a list of all the flowers he could see (heavily consulting the book for their correct names) and then he sketched out a diagram of the field, the stone walls enclosing it, and the positions of the flowers. He stared at the finished diagram for a moment, and then he was about to rip the page out and throw it away when he suddenly jerked his head up to look at the flowers. Then back to his diagram. Then back to the book.

He got up and unclasped his cape from around his neck, and then he went to the edge of the field and began gathering up stones, dropping them onto the cape. He tied it up and threw it over one shoulder, and then he walked to the edge of the rose patch.

"Stop!" he said, waving a white handkerchief. "Pace, pace!" The roses stopped moving--they regarded him with what felt like skepticism, and he dropped his makeshift bag of rocks to the ground. "Uh," he said, before untying the cape, "Could I have some more stones, please?" Hoping someone was listening. The North, or Levi, or whoever.

He used the stones to make a path through the field--with the roses all on one side. He'd realized looking at the layout of the diagram that the roses (in spite of their more vicious tactics) couldn't have been the aggressors--the other flowers had been making inroads into their territory. The roses had been defending.

Someone had listened--his pile of stones never ran out, although his back was aching by the time he'd finished making the path. Then he addressed the other flowers--the orchids, the orange mocks, the petunias, and the nasturtiums.

"Stay to your side of the path--er, by order of the Northern Gatekeeper!" To his astonishment, the flowers sulkily began to cross the path he had made, settling on the other side. Eren wiped his sweaty brow. "Uh--" he said to the roses. "I thought we could plant some monkshood and violets along the edge of the path--would that be acceptable?"

The roses seemed to nod--or at least they were bobbing in the breeze that blew down from the north. He nodded and turned to go--Levi would probably be able to get the other flowers for him--but to his despair a red wagon had arrived, pulling itself through the gate, and it was filled with the flowers he'd mentioned. Eren drooped.

"God damnit," he muttered. He went over to the wagon and pulled out a spade, and he began to plant the flowers.

Like all spoiled, pampered boys raised by over-indulgent women he didn't think he was spoiled--and he would have been furious at the intimation.  He didn't realize that his anger was a child's anger, and that it came more often from unwillingness to compromise than principled righteousness. He understood on some level that Levi treated him like a child--he could see the difference in the way he interacted with his squad, even if he couldn't have put exactly what bothered him into words. And he was angry, not realizing that it was only Levi meeting him at his own level.

What was the point of staying here if he couldn't please Levi? It would take a positive letter of recommendation to get him into the Survey Corp--without that this whole summer would be pointless. And Levi hardly seemed pleased with him at the moment.

But maybe this would get him some praise or word of encouragement. He thought he'd done well today. He'd left the field calm and serene behind him, everything golden in the last hour before sunset. He was so tired. He dragged himself back on the paths to the house, almost automatically now, hardly even needing to look up to see where he was going. He was filthy, too, he'd need to change before Levi saw him, or Levi would make a face... The wagon trundled along behind him, holding the book and his cape and a handful of gardening tools.

He turned up at the bottom of the driveway (no matter what they always returned from a different direction than the one they'd left from. He didn't know if there was a reason for this, or if it was just one of the house's capricious whims--it had plenty) and he saw Levi standing in front of the house, hands on his hips, looking up at the roof. The blue heron was up there, and when Eren was close enough it hissed at him.

"Get down here," Levi said to it, but it turned its back on him and flew off. Levi watched it go in annoyance. "Well?" he said to Eren.

Eren began to describe the work he'd done, but Levi interrupted before he could finish. "What did you use for the binding?"

"Monkshood and violets," Eren said.

"Hmph. I would have used white heather too, but I suppose that will do." Levi walked up the steps to the front doors and they swung open for him.

"If you knew that already why did you make me waste my time instead of telling me from the start!" Eren yelled.

"I’m going to have a bath," Levi said, ignoring him. He went upstairs.

Eren glared after him. When he went up to his room he found two letters on his bed, one from Mikasa and one from Armin. They couldn't have come at a worse time--Armin's was full of questions about him, and excitement over the lake house they had rented for a week with their other friends. Mikasa's was filled with promises to come and rescue him if he was in any trouble.

He glared at them both, but particularly Mikasa's letter. Spending a week at the lake sounded a lot better than another week being ordered around by Levi. But even if he had been tempted to quit now he couldn't--he wouldn't give Mikasa the satisfaction of having been right.

He had written to both of them the day he'd arrived, and then promptly forgotten all about them.

He picked up Armin’s letter again, and this time he noticed the date. He thought for a minute, then ran downstairs. There was a desk calendar in Levi’s study.

He stared at it in disbelief, then looked back at the letter Armin had sent.

He’d only been here a little more than a week. It felt like months. The rest of the summer like this? Groaning he dropped into a chair. It would take the rest of his life to do all the work Levi had in store for him...

"Sisyphus isn't in it," he sighed aloud to the empty room.

The sun was setting, and the windows in Levi's office faced west (which was odd, because Eren was almost certain that they faced east when you stood outside the house). The long last rays of sun striped the floor, and glinted off of something. The shelves in this room were filled with all sorts of flotsam and jetsam--curious objects that Eren was fairly sure must serve a purpose if Levi bothered to keep them, especially considering how neat he was. What had seemed to be an oblong white shape glinted gold in the dying sun, and Eren went to pick it up absently, half-expecting it to come to life in his hands--maybe a carved scrimshaw picture dancing before his eyes, or a tap-dancing musical revue in miniature. He'd come to expect wonderful things from the borderlands.

Instead when he touched it he was back in Shinganshina on the day his mother had died. The world was on fire, and he was screaming.

When Levi got upstairs to his room he undressed slowly, feeling much older than he was. He draped his clothes on the back of a chair and stared out of the bedroom window, unseeing. He knew he was pushing himself too hard (burning the candle at both ends, wasn't that what they called it?) that damn bird alone evidence of the increasingly frail hold he had over things. He needed to slow down, and he would, he told himself he would, only every day there was more work than there had been the day before...

And one day you'll wake up dead and none of it will matter, he told himself and he sighed, leaning forward.

He fell asleep in the bathtub, with his arms and head draped over the edges of the tub, and the water remained agreeably warm for the next hour. When he was sound asleep one of the towels carefully folded itself up and crawled across the floor, sliding under the back of his neck. In the other room his clothes put themselves into the laundry hamper, and his boots began polishing themselves in front of the mirror.

He was awoken by a loud cry, and he jumped out of the water, heedless of the puddles he left behind.

"Are you all right?"

He heard a voice, distantly, as though it was coming from the other side of a wall. He couldn't move, he couldn't open his eyes; he was burning. His body was on fire, and the whole world was on fire, and his mother turned to a pillar of ash before his eyes, blowing away on the wind. It was red, everything was red...

And he’s in his mother's arms, his head on her chest, her familiar scent all around him.

Shhh, she's saying, shhhh. The room is cool and dark, and he is not burning.

Mama I had a dream

Shhhhh, she says, shhhh. This is mama gentle but implacable; your dream doesn't matter, darling, it's nothing, mama has you and you're safe. Slowly he starts to believe. He is not on fire. He is a child in his mother's arms, and she's rocking him, the room is cool and dark--is it nighttime? He doesn't open his eyes. But he's safe. He's safe. He ought to go back to sleep. Mama is here and she will take care of all that; he's snug and safe and selfish, just a child with stupid childish fears, soon soothed away. Nothing can hurt him. He's safe.

When he opens his eyes to look at her he doesn't recognize her. Mama? he says, puzzled. She smiles at him--familiar. But no, this isn't mama, not his mama...is it?

Shhhhhh, she says again. Shhhhhhh, Levi. Shhhhhh darling.

I'm not-- not Levi, he starts to say, but she puts a finger to his lips to quiet him and he can't help but relax against her. I'm not though, he says to himself, but it's a pointless protest. Safe again; sleep now; shhhhh.

When he wakes up for real Levi is holding him.

He stared up at Levi uncomprehending--because Levi was naked, his hair wet and dripping water on to Eren's face, looking down at him in concern.

"Are you all right?" Levi asked again--it had been him speaking, earlier.

He stared at Levi for a long moment, and then he yelled, "I know what that was!" Outraged. "Why would you do that! Do you know what I could do to you with that!"

"Nothing. You have no talent," Levi said. He pulled Eren up to a sitting position, propping him against the sofa. "Though," he added, as a dark blue bathrobe floated into the room and draped itself around him, "I'm beginning to think you have a bit more magic than you've let on." His voice was very, very ironic.

Eren couldn't look at him. He was--confused--upset--calm--embarrassed--chagrined--protected--cherished-- He really needed to turn his brain off.

Levi's skin had felt warm against his body, as slippery and soft as a soap bubble.

Turn off, he said to his brain.

Levi had taken him into his private heart. Every magician had one--or at least the big, important magicians that had enemies and fought monsters and dealt with alternative planes of reality on a regular basis. Someplace you could go to heal yourself away from the world. It can be dangerous--Eren's heard tales of magicians losing themselves in the walled gardens and memory mansions of their hearts--and never coming back. Or maybe that had just been something Mada had said to frighten him, not wanting him to get involved with magic that was outside her sphere of understanding.

But if Levi's place was a dark, cool room, a child safe in his mother's arms--that was a supremely elegant solution to the problems. Most powerful magicians were narcissistic; certainly egotistic. It was almost impossible to divert and manifest so much magic unless you were; that was the difference between masculine power and feminine power, or at least that was what Mada had said--that was why so many magicians died young or went dark, that was why so many Madas and even Madres lived into their hundreds, never looking a day over fifty. On a small scale there was very little difference, but on a large scale embodying magic took a huge toll; being a conduit for magic was a lot easier.

And being an egotist meant you made your private place a mansion, a castle, a famous building (like the Louvre or Neuschwanstein or Versailles). But if you were Levi it was simple to the point of being overly-literal. Where do you feel safe? A high-walled castle? No--a small child, in my mother's arms. It would be next to impossible to get lost in a place like that; by its very nature you couldn't. Even Eren sharing that memory hadn't believed the lie, but it hadn't mattered. The place had done its work and healed him, putting the memory of his horror firmly back behind his psychic walls where it belonged.

But to share that with someone else--that was either a sign of intense intimacy or intense stupidity. If a rival or an enemy broke in you were extraordinarily vulnerable; to give another person not only a map to yourself but an engraved invitation--you might as well just sign your soul over to them and get it over with. The idea of mucking around in anyone else's mind made Eren's skin crawl, but that wasn't the point; it was dangerous and Levi had been stupid to do it.

He glared up at his teacher. "I wouldn't need much talent to rob you after you've given me the front door key!"

Levi snorted. The bathrobe was midnight blue and cotton, and it draped to the floor, as if it had been made for a larger man. Levi sat down on the couch above him. "Try it, little thug." He leaned forward to run a hand through Eren's hair, ruffling it up, and Eren felt a tug of physical satisfaction so strong he entirely lost the threads of the conversation.

When he could recall them again--feeling wobbly and wondering how long he'd been sitting on the floor with his eyes shut--Levi had taken his hand back, and he muttered, "No, I don't think I will," under his breath. That hadn't just been a physical sensation. At the same time Levi had brushed him with his power--but not just his power--the power of the North. It should have been threatening--an insult, a call to duel in an earlier time--but it hadn't been. Why? Because Levi was his mentor? His friend? Because he was under Levi's protection? Because he was--his?

Oh, Eren, fucking stop it, he told himself, the reasonable part of him deeply alarmed. No wonder Levi's Squad fucking worshipped him, Jesus fracking Zarathustra!

Levi was sitting with his arm draped across the back of the couch. "So?" he said, poking Eren in the side with his foot. "You gonna tell me?"

"No!" Eren said; still upset about the other thing, it came out stronger than he'd intended. To his tremendous surprised Levi laughed. He looked up at him. Had he heard Levi laugh before?

"That's all right," Levi said, amused. "Keep your secrets. This is the second time coming into contact with a Titan has set you off. I thought before it was slipping off the wall, but it wasn't really. You were going to that place in your head..."

Eren was uncomfortably aware that Levi--strong as he was--could have laid all his secrets bare, in spite of what Mada had taught him about cloaking and deception. "Did you see it?" he asked gruffly.

"No, of course not," Levi said gently. "I wouldn't look at anything you didn't choose to show me."

Eren breathed out in relief. Of course Levi wouldn't...but all the same...

"You were in fire, though, I could see that, and I assumed you were back in Shinganshina. If you've just sealed your memories off without working through them then that's liable to keep happening. And that will keep you out of the Corp, Eren." He paused for a moment, as if deciding carefully what to say next. Eren stared at the rug on the floor, worked with animals and a geometric pattern that changed ever so slightly each day. It was all part of a much larger scene, and every day the picture moved by one inch, like a giant aperture slowly moving across a panorama.

"Was it a real fire?" Levi asked. "Or a metaphor?"

"Both, maybe," Eren said softly.

"I tried to bring you back in the usual way," Levi said conversationally. "That didn't work, obviously. I brought you there because it was the first thing I could think of; I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable. I didn't want to leave you writhing on the floor in agony while I looked up spells."

"It didn't make me uncomfortable," Eren said, still staring at the rug and choosing to interpret Levi's statement literally. Though both of them knew that hadn't been what he'd meant. "That was your mother?"

"Yes."

"She loved you." He knew, somehow, that Levi's mother had died long ago.

"She certainly did."

"But you still shouldn't--go around doing that," Eren said stiffly. "It is dangerous, and I could find a way to hurt you if I really wanted to."

"If it makes you feel any better I've never done it before," Levi said drily. "You caught me unprepared."

He stood up and picked up the thing that had started it all--Eren had forgotten all about it. "No, wait!" he said--but nothing happened. Levi put it back on the shelf where Eren had first found it.

Eren stared at it--then at him. "How-- You said Titans triggered this, but they didn't, it was that thing--"

"That was a Titan bone, or a piece of one."

"What? Titans don't leave bones! They evaporate--"

"They can leave parts of themselves behind--preserved pieces."

"Crystal--I know that, but that's not crystal! It was bone!"

"Titan bone," Levi agreed, and Eren sighed in frustration. Levi shrugged. "I don't know, either, but that's what it is. I'll ask Hanji about it when I see her."

"Was it spelled...to do that to me?"

"I doubt it, considering how strong your reaction was last time. Your magic probably just thinks you're allergic to the damn things."

"Where did you get it?"

"The harpy that day, in the western fields--remember? The first day you came."

Eren frowned at him. "No--" he said. "That was tiny--finger bone sized. That's huge."

"It was always that size," Levi answered calmly. "Our perspective was skewed because of where we were."

Eren stared at him. "Does that mean," he asked slowly, "that those stones we moved that day were even bigger than they looked?"

"Yes."

Eren kept staring at him, accusingly, and Levi shrugged unapologetically. "You wouldn't have believed you could move them if you'd seen how big they really were. The first rule of magic is it's all just perception--surely your Mada taught you that?"

"She taught me to be afraid of dark magicians who would exploit me for their own purposes," Eren grumbled, getting to his feet, and Levi gave another brief laugh.

"I wouldn't have left it lying around if I'd thought it was any danger to you," he said.

Eren shrugged, uncomfortably. "What you said before...will it really keep me out of the Corp?"

"If you don't work on it."

"How do I work on it?"

"Meditate. Read. Practice. The same as anything really."

"I've never..." even now the horror of those memories is close, like a room he's bricked off in his own house; what's on the other side decaying although not quite dead.

Levi had reached out to take his hand, strong square fingers in his. "If you want, later, I'll help you," he said. "Right now we're going to go and eat something."

Eren exhaled. "All right. That sounds like a good idea."

Levi let him go and Eren followed him out of the study, looking warily at the bone as they passed.

Levi didn't bother getting dressed. He made them omelettes in his bathrobe, and they ate them with toast and jam and tea. It was very simple compared to what he usually cooked, but Eren ate ravenously, and when he had finished Levi got up and made two more without a word--one for Eren and one for himself, though most of the time he barely ate anything.

But strong magic would do that to you.

It was hard to believe that only that morning he'd been angrily stomping after Levi like a child, angry he wouldn't explain things and tell him exactly what to do.

Now he'd seen a piece of Levi's soul. And not just any piece.

And--a piece no one else had even seen, he realized suddenly. Not even the squad.

Levi pushed his empty plate away with a sigh. "I'm going to bed," he said. "You should too. How do you feel?"

"Okay," Eren replied. He rubbed his face. "It's been a long day."

Levi snorted in agreement. "Do you want tomorrow off?"

Eren's heart skipped a beat. If Mikasa or Mada had asked him that same question he'd have been furious, but he didn't think of that at all. "No," he said. "I want to help you."

"All right then," Levi said, after a moment. "Good night. I'll see you in the morning."

Chapter Text

At first unless it was a night that the squad was visiting he was too tired to do much after dinner. He fell asleep immediately, as soon as he lay down in his bed, and in the morning if he hadn't woken up on his own the coatrack would knock to give him enough time to wash and dress before breakfast.

But as he started to adjust to the hard work and the long days he began staying up later. If the squad were around there might be a game of croquet or badminton in the backyard, but most nights it was just him and Levi. Levi spent almost all his evenings in the study--there was a phonograph in there, and an old-fashioned radio (these were apparently primitive enough to mostly work in spite of the magical prohibition, though the radio only picked up very strange broadcasts [some of them seemed to be in code], and most of the records were bootleg recordings from jazz clubs that had never existed. One of them had a faded label that said Lulu White’s, June 1930 and Eren was almost positive Lulu White’s had closed in the teens. Mikasa had written a paper about her in high school and he’d read her drafts), and books and old-fashioned wooden jigsaw puzzles and board games. After he’d spent a night bored to tears re-reading one of the meditation books in his room he worked up the courage to follow Levi in after dinner. After that it became their established routine, and instead of looking forward to the squad's visits he was jealous of their intrusion.

One morning about two weeks after he’d arrived in the North, he was still lying sleepy in bed paging through a spell book. At least, he thought it was a spell book--it could have also been a book of modernist poetry. The coatrack had knocked ten minutes before but he hadn’t had the strength to move yet. Then there was yelling downstairs, and the unmistakable sound of Levi cursing. He ran out of his room in just his boxer shorts, taking the stairs two at a time.

Levi was yelling into the hall phone.

He’d been surprised when he’d first arrived to see a phone in the house--but like the phonograph and the radio it was very old-fashioned, so maybe that was why. When he’d asked Levi about it Levi had scowled and said it wasn’t a phone at all but two cups on a string--which hadn’t really cleared anything up.

“Hanji!” Levi barked. “If you don’t come get your fucking chickens I’m going to start shooting them. They’re shitting all over my yard again.”

Eren thought he heard a faint tinny answer, but Levi slammed the receiver down, and the coatrack hopped close--holding out a double-barreled shotgun.

Levi picked it up, gave it a once-over and cocked it, and then he walked towards the front door. Eren followed right behind him.

“Shouldn’t you get dressed?” Levi said.

“I want to see what you’re doing.”

Levi snorted. “You sound like Sirena.” He pushed the front doors open, and Eren stared. He’d seen a lot of strange things during his brief time in the borderlands, but this was something new.

There were chickens out front, at least a dozen of them, bucking and clucking as they scratched at the white pebble driveway. They were magnificent; russet red in color, or deep gold, or speckled black and white, and two had an exotic blueish tint to their feathers. But the most extraordinary thing was that each one of them was at least eight feet tall.

Levi fired a warning shot into the air, and the chickens squawked wildly and fluffed their feathers--Eren saw one red feather drift loose and he stared--it was three feet long.

“Hanji’s coming,” Levi said, casually reloading the shotgun. “Go put your clothes on unless you want to be introduced to her entire squad like that.” Eren raced back inside, but the coatrack had anticipated this, and it was holding out an armful of clothes. “Thank you!” Eren said gratefully, and he was able to hurriedly dress in the front hall without missing too much of the fun.

He heard more shots fired--and yelling--and a dog barking crazily--and by the time he scrambled back outside Levi was holding someone’s head down in one of the decorative water troughs that had appeared in front of the house last week.

When he let her go at last--sputtering--she shook her auburn hair and protested, “Levi, that was really unfair, you know I had a bath last month!”

There was a large white dog--a samoyed?--bouncing and romping around Eren, placing its paws on his shoulders as if it wanted to dance. Eren tried to pet it, but it had moved on to Levi--and Levi gave it a deadly look.

“Sit,” he said, and the dog plopped its behind on the ground and gave a friendly bark. Levi returned his attention to the chickens. Hanji’s squad--a half-dozen men and women--were trying to catch them, without success.

“You must be Eren!” the woman said, wringing out her hair. “I’m Squad Leader Hanji. It’s so nice to meet you!”

“That’s Albion,” Hanji said, pointing at the dog, “and that’s Moblit--and Hannah--and Joseraphat--and Clyde--” after a moment he realized she was naming her chickens as well as the squad, and he gave up trying to keep track of who was who.

“Listen, Baba Yaga,” Levi said, interrupting. “I want you to get your damn pests out of here.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Hanji said suddenly. “Moblit, where is Levi’s present?”

Levi narrowed his eyes, but it was too late--Hanji had retrieved a box from Moblit, and she was opening it herself, and then she was shoving two plastic pink lawn flamingos into the driveway.

“Hanji!” Levi roared, but too late--the first bird had turned into a real living, breathing flamingo (with a loud poof!) as soon as Hanji had poked it into the ground, and a moment later its brother joined it. They both flew up to the roof, perching there and watching the giant chickens with interest. Levi glared at her, but Hanji seemed not to notice.

“Wow!” she said, laughing and putting her hands on her hips, still holding the empty box in one hand. “That was amazing! The groundswell magic must be really strong here, I’ve never seen such a quick transmogrification!”

Then she was sputtering as her head was once again pushed into the ornamental water trough.

It took all morning for Hanji’s squad to remove the chickens--they were particularly lively today, and every time the squad seemed to be making some progress Albion would decide to come over and help, barking wildly and bouncing at their feet.

After Levi shut him up in the bathroom they were finally able to remove them all, though as Levi had predicted they’d left piles of white shit everywhere.

Levi made Hanji clean it up, and then he disappeared into the house, as cold and forbidding as Eren had ever seen him. Eren helped Hanji--he felt a little bad for her--but she seemed to be oblivious to Levi’s anger.

In exchange for his help (the coatrack had brought them some shovels and a barrel) Hanji began telling him all about herself--her experiments--and the eastern gate.

She, it became clear, was the Eastern Gatekeeper.

“Oh,” Eren said, surprised. “I didn’t realize that--whenever Captain Levi spoke of you he always said you lived just down the road--I thought the eastern gate was much further away.” But then--hadn’t Hanji and her squad had gotten here only minutes after Levi had called her to complain?

“That’s right,” Hanji said, pushing up her glasses. “I mean, both things are correct. The gate is very far away, but it’s also right down the road. Transcendental geography is so fascinating, don’t you think?”

When they finally finished Hanji washed her hands in the water trough (Eren winced) and wiped them on her pants, then she gave Eren a hearty slap on the back.

“Thank you!” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be friends, you seem like you have excellent sense!”

“Uh--thanks,” he said, rubbing his shoulder.

They walked into the house, and Hanji added in a lower murmur, “I’m glad you’ve come to stay--I worry about him being here all by himself.”

“Well, there’s the squad--” Eren started to say, but Hanji had already moved past him into the hallway, yelling for Albion.

Levi was chasing the blue heron around the kitchen. If anybody else had been doing it it would have been ridiculous. But Levi just looked like he was engaged in some highly obscure but extremely deadly martial art involving waterfowl.

“Come here you damn bird,” he said, and then he whipped a dishtowel around its neck and dragged it close as it struggled. He glared at Eren, who was standing in the open doorway and grinning stupidly.

Very carefully Levi dragged a long cream-colored envelope across the bird’s beak. It fell open, and he let the bird go; it shook itself, hissed, and angrily flew out the back door. Levi sighed and threw the tea towel over his shoulder, opening the letter.

“It really is a letter opener?” Eren laughed. “I thought Sirena was messing around. Why don’t you just open it with a knife--”

“Do you really think I’d be doing that if I could just open it with a knife?” Levi snarled.

“Oh--no, I guess not,” Eren said, chagrined. “Is it--is that a letter from the Survey Corp commander?”

“Orders are spelled so they can’t be opened by anyone unauthorized,” Levi grumbled. “Erwin thought it would be funny to give me a bird-shaped letter opener and the fucking Requisition Office won’t send a replacement.”

“Why don’t you just turn the bird back?” Hanji asked, wandering in with Albion at her heels.

“Why don’t you just turn the bird back?” Levi retorted.

“Hmm,” Hanji said. She turned the tap on at the sink, running it until a silver fish flopped out of the faucet, and then she carried it to the open back door. “Biiiiiiiiird!” she called. “Biiiiiird! Biiiiiiird-o!” Albion barked enthusiastically, liking this game.

The blue heron appeared, cautiously walking back into the kitchen. It fixed an angry eye on Albion and hissed, and Albion took two steps backwards, tongue lolling happily. It looked at Hanji, and opened its mouth for the fish.

“I’ll give it to you,” she said. “But you have to promise to let me turn you back into a letter opener afterward.”

It hissed angrily at her and raised its wings threateningly.

“Oh-oh,” she said, and tossed it the fish. She turned to look at Levi. “He says he doesn’t wish to be turned back into a letter opener.”

“No shit,” Levi said.

To Eren, she said (almost apologetically), “Once you’ve turned an object into a living creature you can’t turn it back without its permission.”

“Yeah, and now I have two fucking flamingos to feed thanks to you.”

“Really, Levi,” Hanji said, pushing her glasses up, “that was an accident. How was I to know it would happen so quickly? I thought you’d enjoy them.”

The coatrack had come in and was setting the table for lunch. Albion nudged a ball towards the blue heron and barked; the bird hissed at him and flew across the room with awful dignity to perch on the highest pantry shelf. Then it knocked a half-dozen cans of tomatoes and artichoke hearts to the floor, and Levi scowled.

“I think there’s some kind of spell regarding birds on the house,” Hanji said. “Though Levi won’t allow me to experiment to determine the parameters!”

Levi ignored her and passed a plate of roast beef to Eren.

“Is that why your chickens are so large?” he asked, passing the plate down when he had taken what he wanted. She chuckled.

“They escaped one day and we found them in a blackberry patch out back. They’ve been that size ever since!”

“I thought you’d have animal servants,” Eren confessed, looking over at Levi. “That’s how it is in all the old stories.”

“Objects are safer,” Levi said meaningfully, and Eren laughed. Hanji looked between them.

“Huh? Did I miss something?”

“The other gates must not be the same,” Eren guessed, glancing at Hanji. After knowing her only a few hours he was sure she would have exploited her gate in every possible way to discover the extent of its magic.

“No,” Levi said. “The northern gate has always been different. It’s the one most closely connected to the human world and the spirit world. In a way the other gates are only reflections of it.”

“And it’s definitely been getting more energetic,” Hanji added. “I could feel my skin crackling when we crossed the border onto your lands!”

Levi sighed. “It’s not a good time for me to leave,” he complained. He held up the letter he’d opened earlier--Eren had forgotten about it. “What the hell is Erwin playing at?”

“Oh, it will only be for the weekend, Levi,” Hanji said. “Just use your banked time, you have plenty.”

He grunted, looking over the letter again before setting it to the side. “Eren, next week we’re going to the city,” he said in distaste. “At Commander Erwin’s request.”

“You’ll get to meet the other Squad Leaders,” Hanji said, smiling at him. “We’re having a conference.”

“Fucking waste of time.”

“So tell me about this bone you found,” Hanji said around a mouthful of food.

Levi watched her chew with distaste. “It was the day Eren first came here. We were in the western fields and one of the harpies brought it to me. I don’t know where she found it.” He got up and left the table, returning a few minutes later with the bone. Eren could barely watch; though nothing else had happened it still made him uneasy to see Levi hold it in his bare hands.

“Hmm,” Hanji said. She pushed her plate away and draped her napkin on the table, motioning for Levi to set it down. “Piece of a fingerbone, do you think?”

“Could be.”

“The Titans have been more active all summer. Have you noticed?”

Levi nodded. “I’ve never seen this many.”

“Moving in much larger groups than I’m used to seeing, too,” Hanji muttered. She’d been poking the bone with her knife, rolling it over, tapping it, smelling it, and now she finally picked it up in her hand. Again Eren squirmed in his seat.

“Levi said something happened to you when you touched it,” Hanji remarked. All her vagueness was suddenly gone.

“I...was at Shinganshina, when it fell,” Eren said. “It’s where I’m from. I had a flashback.”

“Magical in origin?”

Eren shrugged, uncomfortably.

“I think his magic is exacerbating the trauma of the memory,” Levi said.

“I suppose that’s the most reasonable explanation--there are no spells on this that I can see. Still, if it is a Titan bone then that’s extraordinary--we’ve never had a sample that didn’t evaporate immediately upon the Titan’s destruction. Do you mind if I take this with me?”

“Be my guest.”

“Well, gentlemen, it’s been a very interesting afternoon,” Hanji said. She tied up the bone in the napkin and called Albion over. He’d been sitting on the kitchen floor, staring admiringly up at the blue heron, which had studiously ignored him. “I’ll see you in the city, then. Thanks for lunch, Levi.”

He grunted. “I’ll walk you out. Let me know if you find anything else.”

Away from Eren and out of earshot Hanji paused when they were outside; “Trauma?” she asked.

“He has PTSD. From Shinganshina, I understand.”

“Diagnosed?”

Levi shrugged. “It would be in his school records. Whatever they told him he thought it would keep him out of a military career.”

“You said he’s got his own magic? That’s unusual, isn’t it, for someone brought up in the city?”

Again Levi shrugged. “He’s stronger than he looks--a Mada, some relative of his taught him during his teen years.”

“Huh. Well, that’s a boon for us if he does decide to join. Lord knows we have few enough trained magicians…”

“Hanji...don’t mention that to Erwin.”

“Oh?” her eyebrows shot up. “Why not?”

“He hasn’t told me himself. It’s just a feeling but...I think he’s got an unusual type.”

She was still frowning at him. “You don’t mean bond magic?” she said after a moment.

“That’s a vulgar term,” he said mildly. “But yes; I can’t think of any other reason why he’d be afraid to own it.”

She tapped her elbow. “That doesn’t make any sense; children get tested for that, if he was found to have abilities in any significant quantity he’d have been conscripted long before now.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh?”

“Someone was protecting him--this Mada he’s mentioned to me, possibly another family member as well. And if he manifested after puberty that would explain why the tests never caught it.”

“Do you think that’s likely?” Hanji asked, sounding even more skeptical.

“I’ve seen it happen before.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” she said dubiously. “I won’t say anything. I’m not even sure what you would do with an adult with bond--er, that sort of magic anyway. If they hadn’t been trained...are you sure you want him running loose around here?”

“He has been trained,” Levi said patiently. “Better trained than the poor bastards the military turns into dumb mules.”

“Can you trust him though? Especially being in the house alone with him!”

“Hanji,” Levi said, staring at her. “Sometimes I forget how deeply ignorant you are.”

“Ehh, that’s right you magic-borns stick together! Us lowly magicians who’ve only trained into it can’t possibly understand, eh?”

“I’m the Gatekeeper of the North,” Levi said. “If you think some snot-nosed little brat barely out of training pants can possibly be a threat to me--”

“I’m just worried about you, Levi. You’re still not--”

“Hanji,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll see you back in the city.”

He went back into the house, shutting the door behind him and she rolled her eyes. “His Highness!” she complained to Albion. He barked agreeably, pushing a stick into her hand. She threw it for him and they began their walk home.

Chapter Text

They took the ghost train down to the city on a Friday. A lot of the passengers on the train wanted to talk to Levi--cabbage spirits, phantom cats, a tartulla, an Adjule. It was like traveling with a celebrity. Levi was brusque but courteous as he answered their questions or promised to visit them later. He seemed to be able to understand them all, regardless of the languages they spoke in.

At the last minute another letter had come from Commander Erwin (necessitating another pursuit of the blue heron around the kitchen) saying that everyone was to contribute an hour of their banked time, so that the gates would not be left unattended.

Levi read it with annoyance.

“What does it mean?” Eren hovered nearby; he’d helped Levi catch the bird this time, and Levi hadn’t shooed him away when he’d opened the letter.

“It means our comrades are not as conscientious as I am,” Levi said drily, as he began to assemble some objects on the kitchen table--a cracked teacup, a kitchen knife, a pot of herbs from the windowsill.

“What?”

“You’re supposed to bank time--when you have free time, you’re supposed to cut some out so it can be spent later, if you’re sick or something. This weekend if everyone had had enough banked time I’d be spending some of mine so that the gate wouldn’t be left unattended. But Erwin wants us to each contribute an hour instead, to cover the weekend, which means the other Squad Leaders haven’t been banking time as they ought to.”

Eren stared at him blankly.

Levi sighed. “If I have an hour free, I can use it fucking around--reading the newspaper, doing the crossword puzzle, whatever--or I can cut it out, and bank it. So then if I get sick--or injured--or die unexpectedly the gate will be still guarded until someone comes to relieve me.”

Levi put a kitchen timer on the table, and unstrapped his wristwatch, putting it alongside. “What time is it now?”

“Three,” Eren said, looking at the watch.

“I’m going to take an hour of your time too, since you’re coming. Is that all right?”

Bewildered Eren nodded, and Levi turned the dial of the kitchen timer to sixty minutes and set it back down beside the watch.

Nothing happened. Eren glanced at the watch and did a double take--and when he looked at the kitchen timer he saw it was back at zero, without ever having rung.

“It says four now!”

“Yes.”

“So--an hour just passed? While we just sat here?”

“No. I just cut it out,” Levi said patiently. He touched the objects, naming them for Eren’s benefit. “Thyme--get it? Unnecessary, but magic likes that sort of gesture. The knife to cut out the time. The cup--cracked, and that’s important because you’ll have a hell of a time getting it back if it’s in a perfect vessel--the watch to mark the time and set the spell, the timer to set the amount, see? And don’t you dare try this on your own.”

“So the time’s in the teacup now?” Eren said, peering into it. It looked empty.

“Yes. As much as anything is ever anywhere. Perception. We’re all donating an hour of our time--so this weekend, when we’re all together only an hour will pass for the rest of the world, but for us it will feel like several days. Okay?”

“Okay…”

“That’s group time, which is complicated and messy and not something I approve of,” Levi said. “It’s easy to become unsynched, and a fucking pain in the ass to resynchronize someone who’s out of step with time.”

The coatrack hopped in, holding what looked like a travel writing desk, and it set it in front of Levi. Levi took an envelope and carefully poured the contents of the empty teacup into it, then he sealed it and addressed it with blue ink.

“So there’s individual time too, then? Banked time? I still don’t understand...what happens when you want to use it? Are you in two places at once?”

“No. The time just gets stitched back in to the place you cut it out from. It all goes back eventually, unless--well, certain arcane and odd circumstances occur. Forget that for now.”

“So…” Eren said slowly… “If you were sick, and you used an hour from five years ago...would you remember taking care of whatever it was as if it had happened five years ago?”

“More or less.”

“But would you be the you from five years ago when you did it?” Eren said, confused. “Would the old version of you just suddenly be in the forest somewhere or something? And then get spit back out into the past?”

“No.”

“Then you are in two places at once?” Eren said, more confused than ever.

“No. Listen, I’m not a metaphysicist. Talk to Hanji if you want to spend a day chasing your tail around. It works, that’s all you need to understand for now. All right?”

“Wait a minute...what about the group time? If it’s hour for hour that doesn’t make any sense--it should only be one hour for everyone, not a whole weekend.”

Levi looked satisfied, as if he’d just answered a trick question on a quiz correctly. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “Time is stretchy--even without our interference it will change depending on the environment it's in. It’s like water--it can flow faster or slower, you can make waves and it will go up and down. But in the end it always levels out. In small amounts we can mess around with it--an hour here or there makes no difference, especially when you put it back afterwards. But a distortion of time on a grand scale--everyone pooling their time together at once--gives it an extra stretchiness. But it’s weak time--it will be hyperlocalized. No one outside our HQ will be able to come in while we’re at it, and no one inside should go out. And even taking the right precautions it’s almost a guarantee someone will become unsynched.”

“What happens then?”

“The best case scenario you look as if you’re moving a little too fast or a little too slow compared to everyone around you--we can pull you back before you become completely unstuck. Worst case you disappear--you wind up a few minutes ahead or a few minutes behind everyone else, and you’re stuck like that until we can find you.”

“In the past? Or the future?” Eren said, deeply surprised. Time travel was definitely not something Mada had ever talked about.

“No,” Levi said patiently. “Think about it like a race--except all the racers are walking in step together, at the same pace. That’s Time--everything is progressing forward at the same rate. If you’re knocked out of place you end up a few steps in front of everyone else, or behind--but you can’t get back to your spot in the line because you can’t change your pace. It would look like an empty world--no people or animals, just objects. And you couldn’t move them or interact with them. You’d be like a ghost--except your biggest worry would be starving to death before someone could find you.”

Eren stared at Levi, chilled. “Does that happen...a lot?”

“No. Not often. Time isn’t something you want to mess around with.”

Now, back on the train beside Eren Levi had taken out a book out, perhaps to discourage anyone else from coming up to him. Eren crossed his arms and looked out the opposite window. He hoped he wouldn’t be the one to come unstuck from time. Apart from anything else Levi had to be getting tired of rescuing him.

“It it like a Möbius strip?” Eren said suddenly.

“Yes, Eren,” Levi said with awful patience, “Time is like a Möbius strip.” Eren grinned. They seemed to be the only two humans on the train today. The rest of Levi’s Squad weren’t coming; Levi said certain auxiliary squads had been excused.

When they arrived at HQ a few hours later--they had taken a cab from Oana Station--Eren looked around with interest. Like most of the old buildings in the city it was large and grand, done in the beaux-arts style and Eren dawdled in the large inner courtyard. He had never been inside before, though he had walked by it many times. There wasn’t time for him to sightsee, though, as they were all ushered into an empty ballroom so that the spell could begin. There were some Garrison soldiers and MPs there , as well as most of the SC, hundreds of people in all. Commander Erwin warned everyone about leaving the compound for the duration of the ‘weekend’, and told them once the spell began they’d be free to mingle and converse before dinner.

Eren had been hoping he’d say what the conference was about but he didn’t--either everyone already knew, or Erwin would tell them later.

Eren didn’t feel any different after the spell had been set--not even the token kind of static frizz to suggest there was a spell. But they were all inside of it--maybe that made the difference?

Levi had disappeared somewhere, and Commander Erwin was still up on stage, talking to some other high level officials. Eren studied him, moving closer to the front of the room.

He was tall--over six feet, and blond, and there was a boyishness to his good looks that made him seem younger than he was. He was the Western Gatekeeper. Eren still didn’t know very much about the other gates. The Eastern Gate was full of old magic, associated with fertility, birth and rebirth, the rising sun, morning, and also most closely aligned to the Old Continent; the Southern Gate was the least populated, usually appearing as an oasis in a desert; the Western Gate was the gate most closely aligned with death, the sea, night, endings, and the setting sun--but also rest and triumph, and victory over adversity.

When Eren had asked about how he and Hanji had come to be gatekeepers Levi had said the gates chose their keepers, and not the other way around. Even after the Purge, the Government’s disavowal of magic and teardown of the ancient magical universities, the gates had been free to operate almost without interruption. That was why the SC was independent and unfettered compared to the Garrison. The Survey Corp’s strength came from the gates, from the wild magic that could be managed by humans, but never ruled by them.

The same night he had asked Levi how he’d become a gatekeeper Levi had told him a story, almost a ghost story except that it was true. During the Purge the four gatekeepers (this was before the Survey Corp had managed them--back when the SC was still only a border and exploration guard) and their families had been summoned to the capital.

Where they were summarily executed.

Four squadrons of MPs had then been sent out to guard the gates as their replacements.

The guards of the Eastern Gate had returned the next day, too spooked to stay any longer--those posted at the Western gate had stayed only one more day. Of the guards at the Southern and Northern gates nothing was heard...so in due time more soldiers had been sent to look for them.

They had found nothing at all. It was as if they had never arrived, in spite of the two letters that had sent back confirming that they had. Or as if the gates themselves had scrubbed away any trace of them. No one even knew if they had abandoned their posts like the other squads, and then met with some misfortune--or if they had ignored the warnings and then been punished for it.

Eventually--a year and a day after they’d first arrived--the southern squad was found wandering in the desert by the scouts who had been their replacements. They were much changed. They never spoke about what had happened, even under threat of torture. One killed himself the week after they were rescued. The other three quit the MP; one became a monk in a silent order, another became a recluse, and the third--who had been their leader--simply disappeared.

There were rumors that he had returned to the southern desert. When pressed the scouts at the Southern Gate admitted there was a trader who passed through twice a year--on his way from imaginary lands to the human world. They said he slightly resembled the former squad leader.

After they were found there was hope that the squad sent to the Northern Gate--still missing--might still be alive. Their families had even put together a special expedition, made up of skilled (government-approved, naturally) wizards and retired scouts. But nothing was ever found--nothing at all in the thirty-five years that had passed.

“Were they killed?” Eren asked, spooked. “Murdered?”

“Probably,” Levi said. “Even I don’t know. The Gates--or the spirits of the North and the others--were very angry. Each of those families that was murdered represented a line that went back thousands of years. When a gatekeeper died a son or daughter was chosen to succeed them--or an apprentice, or sometimes an adult adopted into the family if there was no one more suitable. But the Gates always chose; you couldn’t defy them. Woe betide you if you tried. When those families were all wiped out...we lost knowledge on a scale you can't even begin to imagine.

“The Government didn’t care about any of that. During the Purge they thought if they executed the heads of the old families and tore down the universities they could remake the world. A world without magic,” Levi said derisively. “All they succeeded in doing was making a seedy black market for magic, and ensuring that an entire generation was raised in ignorance.”

“They call it the Revolution in school. They say the military took control from the king and the nobility...they said they were freeing the people from the aristocracy and the oppression of magic.”

“Yes,” Levi said. “And they found out firsthand why we have so many rules to govern magic. They thought they could master the arts, and when they couldn’t they gave the gates to the Survey Corp and did their best to ignore what they didn’t want to understand.”

“But there are still Wizards...and Madas and Madres. They let people practice openly again.”

“You need a license to practice, which discourages most people, and almost no one takes on students,” Levi said dismissively. “They realized they couldn’t stamp magic out entirely so they tried to regulate it to death instead. Do you know what ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’ means? They don’t want anyone to grow more powerful than themselves, so they cherrypick those who show skill, and then crush them with drudgery. And if you’re wealthy you can pay them to look the other way while you do what you like--the same as it’s always been. So we have a ‘revolution’ and what changes? It’s just a different group of elites in power, while the people at the bottom are worse off than before.”

“How can you be so cynical when you’re in the military?”

“I’m a realist, not a cynic. And being part of the military doesn’t preclude me from having a negative opinion of the government we’re a part of. The Survey Corp has always been different from the other branches, anyway,” Levi added fairly. "Even before we had charge of the gates we patrolled the borders, and we worked with the Gatekeepers."

“I thought things were better for people than they were before...I mean, that’s what they teach us…” Eren realized how ignorant he sounded, and he blushed. He’d been indoctrinated by the very people Levi was complaining about. He’d never questioned what he’d been taught. He’d never been interested in politics.

“They are better for some,” Levi said, brooding. “Not for others.”

“You’re talking about the Underground,” Eren said--only guessing until the words were out.

“That’s enough insurrection for one night, I think,” Levi said abruptly, and he’d risen to go.

“Hey Eren,” Hanji said, suddenly appearing at his side.

“Oh--hello, Squad Leader. It’s good to see you.”

“Yes! You too, how was your journey? Come here--I want you to meet some people. These are cadets, at the military college--you’ll be attending some classes with them this weekend.”

“Oh,” Eren said, disappointed. He’d just assumed he’d be shadowing Levi for the weekend.

She introduced him to a couple of men and women his own age, and then she disappeared. He eyed them, feeling awkward.

“You’re apprenticed?” one of the girls said, like it was a dirty word. She was blonde, with a blunt haircut. Destined for the MP, he would have said, back in high school, like that was a dirty word too.

“To Captain Levi,” he said, staring her down. “Yes.” So what if it was only for the summer? They didn’t need to know that.

“Seriously?” one of the boys said, cutting her off, and then half a dozen of them were interrogating him at once while she scowled. He felt like kind of a celebrity himself then.

He was happy to get to know the kids his own age--apparently it was an honor to be chosen from the cadet ranks for this--Levi hadn't told him that. But then Levi had nothing but contempt for all of it; he was attending his own meetings during the day, and at night he’d quiz Eren about what he’d learned, openly sneering.

“Forget all that shit,” he said. “It’s completely worthless.”

Levi was irritable all weekend. Eren guessed his meetings weren't going well, and that he was eager to be home. So on the last afternoon after the lecture (Levi hadn't really been wrong; it was all basic stuff he'd learned from his mother and Mada when he was a kid, and he was a little alarmed by the way the other cadets ate it up, as if it was all new to them. At least most of it was accurate. He'd tried to correct the instructor once, early on, and her response had ensured that he hadn't repeated the experience) when his friends asked him if he wanted to go out when the spell broke he had to reluctantly tell them no-- “I think the Captain plans to head back right away,” he said, a little wistfully.

He went up to the guest room they were sharing to pack his things, and a half hour later Levi came back, looking more annoyed than ever. His hair was even mussed, as if he’d been running hands through it in aggravation and Eren stared. He’d never seen Levi anything less than perfectly groomed.

“Are you all right Captain?”

“I’m fine you little monster. Why aren’t you out with your idiot friends?”

“Uh. I thought we were headed back right away?”

Levi waved a hand dismissively. “Go. The spell just broke. We’ll take the midnight train.”

“Thank you, sir!”

He didn’t bother changing out of his uniform, just took off running down the stairs. The others were at the top of their classes at the military college...if he did well, if he got a recommendation they’d be his classmates in the fall, maybe his colleagues someday.

“Hey!” he said, catching them up in the courtyard, and they greeted him enthusiastically.

“The Battleaxe gave you the night off, huh?” one of them said, and he grinned.

There was a sidewalk cafe down the street from HQ, with a low red and white fence and flower boxes, and they got a table to themselves in one corner. Everyone ordered the same pale golden sparkling summer ale, and Eren sipped his; it tasted like heaven. He leaned back and listened to the others chatter;

I should have called up Mikasa and Armin, he realized suddenly. But it had all happened so fast...he hadn’t even known he was going to be here, or that he’d have a free evening. The others were talking about a professor at the college, and he listened inattentively, feeling vaguely guilty for neglecting his friends (he realized he'd never written back to them). Wasn’t this the week they had the lake house, anyhow? This street was full of cafes, mostly empty at this hour. There was a particularly late-blooming dogwood about half a block down the street, out of place amongst the leafy green trees, and the air smelled sweet and fragrant. He watched people walk past, all young, probably college students on summer break. It was still early on Friday afternoon after all--only an hour had passed while they were inside HQ. Most people were still at work. Eren watched in admiration as two girls in short, high-waisted lacy bottoms strutted past, and then he jerked his head suddenly back to the dogwood.

That flower encyclopedia had ended up being more useful than he’d first thought, and it had become part of his bedtime reading. Dogwoods bloomed in April and May; it was late July. Even in the North that would have been unusual; here in the city it was impossible.

He got up.

“Eren? Where are you going?”

There were only two possibilities he could think of; one was a particularly bad time distension--not impossible, considering what they’d just been doing to the local chronosphere--and the other--

He was halfway down the street to the dogwood, his friends still calling after him.

The dogwood suddenly lurched out of the ground, taking two massive steps toward him and it ROARED, loud enough to shake the street. People sitting at cafe tables screamed and began to run.

“Welp,” Eren said, dropping to crouch behind another tree, weaving a quick ward in the air. “That was going to be my next guess.”

A malicious spirit, attempting to disguise itself as local color. He felt a little smug at having discovered it so quickly.

“Holy shit,” one of the boys said, collapsing at his side. Devon--he wasn’t the smartest, but he was quicker-witted than the others. He took the ward from Eren and blew it up, sending it off to protect the nearest cafe, and Eren quickly sketched another. “Can you hold it off?” Devon asked nervously. “They’re calling the MP, but they have to come from all the way across town--I don’t know how soon they’ll get here.”

Eren jerked his head in surprise. “The MP? Wh-why? What for? It’s just a grue or something.” He sent off the next warding spell; he was boxing the creature in, although it hadn’t realized that yet.

“Eren,” Devon said, as if he were touched, “it broke through the wards. We don’t have the equipment to contain something like that. Only the Military Police do.”

Eren stared back at him, nonplused. “What do you mean, equipment?” He picked up a y-shaped branch and a rock from the mulch of the base of the tree, and then he plucked a strand of his own hair, and mumbled a few words under his breath; the hair knotted itself to the stick, and he was holding something like a makeshift slingshot.

Devon gaped at him. “What are you--”

He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and sketched a symbol on the rock, and then he stepped out in front of the grue.

It still mostly had the shape of a dogwood tree, although it was massive now--as big as a house, each of its legs as thick around as an elderly maple. Its mouth was a gaping, wet maw, and it roared again, lowering its head.

Good luck with that, bro, Eren thought, and he launched the stone at the spirit. It collapsed, shrinking down to nothing as it was sucked into the stone. The sudden air displacement cracked painfully loud and Eren winced. That didn’t happen when Levi did it; he’d have to work on refining his technique. He snatched up the stone from the ground and quickly tied the hair around it to finish the binding, juggling it from hand to hand because it was hot, that spirit was seriously pissed off. He wondered how long it had been hiding in plain sight like that, probably picking off more than a few unwary souls. They’d have to check missing persons reports, but geez were the MPs stupid not to see something like that right in their midst? He couldn’t fairly blame the SC for this one; they hardly used HQ except for events like this--most of the time everyone was stationed in the field. But--

“Hey!” someone yelled, and Eren turned around, pocketing the stone. “What’s going on here?” The MPs had arrived. They were young--hardly any older than Eren and his friends. The wards were still up, and Eren undid them all with a word. The man who’d spoken turned to glare at him, and Eren loathed him on sight. He tried to give people a chance--he really did--but occasionally you just came across an irredeemable asshole.

This guy was six-three or so and built like a tank--one of those guys that liked to stand over you to make you feel small. Fair and handsome, but ugly on the inside Mikasa would have said.

“There was a grue--a level three or so--so I cordoned off the area and bound it,” Eren said respectfully.

The guy narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you fucking joking,” he snarled. He stepped towards Eren, getting in his space, but Eren didn’t budge. “You piece of shit cadet. You trying to get somebody killed?” He looked around. “What the fuck do you mean, you bound it. With what? Where is it? Are you stupid?”

“Are you?” Eren snapped back. In the background he noticed his friends looking worried, and even the MP’s own squad looked uneasy.

“What did you say to me you piece of shit?”

“This is your district, isn’t it? You got here so fast. Do you not patrol? You didn’t notice a fucking tree eating people in the middle of--”

He struck Eren, open-handed, and Eren staggered back; the MP followed it with a blow that left him gasping on the ground. Man, Mikasa would be so pissed if she saw that, he thought. And Oluo would crucify me. I should have seen it coming. Terrible defense. They were always telling him he let his emotions get the better of him; too fucking true.

As if in slow-motion he saw the MP draw his leg back to kick him, but he was ready now, and when he made impact Eren would knock his foot out and get him on the ground. If he could get him to land on his stomach he could jump on him and choke him from behind. He heard someone protesting in the background trying to call the guy off, and then he waited, bracing himself.

“What the fuck?” Levi said, somewhere behind him.

Everything ground to a halt, then, and Eren rolled to his side to look up at the horrified MP, satisfied beyond measure. Levi walked forward, in between them, getting in the MP’s face and forcing him back. The MP was more than a foot taller than Levi, at least 100 pounds heavier, but that didn't matter at all.

Oh my sweet justice boner, Eren thought giddily. He had never once been pleased when Mikasa had interceded for him in a fight, no matter how badly he was losing. He did not think about that at all.

“So?” Levi said, crossing his arms over his chest. Behind him Eren sat up. “What happened?”

The MP was sweating; “Sir. A call came in saying there was a malicious spirit loose; we came to bind it--that cadet was interfering--he was disrespectful--”

“My apprentice?” Levi said, without turning. “Please tell me how he was disrespectful.”

The MP looked as though he was about to pass out. “I--sir, this has been a misunderstanding,” he said. He had the glazed look of a cornered animal. “Please. I apologize for any insult--I take full responsibility--was not--I--” Helplessly, he looked behind him, but no one in his squad would meet his gaze.

“What was it?” Levi said.

The MP didn’t answer, so Eren said, “A grue. Level three, probably.”

“Did you remember to mark it?"

"Of course I did! I'm not an idiot," Eren said, nettled. "Uh--sir," he added unconvincingly, when the other cadets and MPs stared at him.

Levi only grunted. "Let me see the binding.” Eren got to his feet and took the rock out, offering it to him, but Levi only glanced at it. “Good,” he said briefly. “How long was it there for?”

“I couldn’t get a read before it attacked, but based on the size at least a week. Probably two--if not more.”

Levi tsk’d, loudly. “You had a Level Three running loose in your district and you didn’t fucking notice?” he demanded.

“We’re not trained to deal with that type of--”

“You graduated, didn’t you? Or are you some kind of drop-out?”

The MP swallowed. There was a small red pin on his breast--it indicated he’d been valedictorian of his class. Eren had recognized it, so Levi had to have noticed; he was baiting the asshole on purpose. Eren could hardly contain his glee. The MP took a breath, but before he could speak Levi interrupted again.

“I suppose it’s not your fault you've been so poorly educated. Come on, Eren.”

There were green leather chairs in the hall outside the office, and the floor was marble, a gold-flecked pattern. Eren looked around curiously. "Is this...the Commander's office?" Levi had led him back to HQ without speaking. He'd assumed they'd be going back to pack, but instead Levi had brought them here.

"Yes. He's going to chew me out for teaching you properly."

"Huh? How do you know that? Can he have even heard about what happened yet?"

Levi gave him a long look. "You know we're back in the real world Eren. People have cell phones here."

"Oh," he said, feeling like an idiot. "Is that how you knew where I was?"

"No. Your binding was correct but you lose style points for breaking the sound barrier with the fucking execution. Half the city heard that."

Eren laughed. "I was in a hurry. Sorry. Wait, is that why--" Suddenly he looked stricken. "Did I get you in trouble because I screwed it up--"

Levi looked at him, full force and present. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do," he said.

It was the highest compliment Levi had ever paid him. He stared at the tops of his shoes glowing with happiness. And he'd been ready to quit last week, idiot that he was.

"Won't you both come in?" the Commander said, opening the glass-paned door of his office.

"I am not missing that train Erwin," Levi warned, breezing past him. Erwin gave Eren a strained smile.

When they were seated before him Erwin steepled his fingers and said, "Eren, I understand you took care of a malicious spirit for us and I want to tell you I appreciate your initiative. But Levi, you shouldn’t be letting a cadet do that kind of--"

"He’s my apprentice isn’t he? What is he supposed to be doing, playing foosball and watching cartoons all day? Fucking shit Erwin, you have an MP captain who doesn’t know how to recognize a Level Three eating people in a heavily populated district and you’re lecturing me on my teaching style?"

Erwin frowned. He maintained his cool demeanor, but Eren thought he hadn't liked being interrupted. He sat nervously on the edge of his seat. This man could determine his entire future--he was nervous even if Levi wasn't. "Let me see the binding," Erwin said at last.

Eren handed it over, telling himself furiously not to drop it on the floor.

"This is good work," Erwin said after a moment, rolling the stone in his hand. He sounded surprised. He looked up at Eren. "You could get into the military college based on this alone." He watched Eren with some new emotion--respect, but also maybe--avarice. Eren’s heart had skipped a beat at the mention of military college but now he was uncomfortable again.

"Are you satisfied with the instruction you’re receiving?"

"Yes! The Captain is a wonderful teacher."

Erwin smiled involuntarily, and Eren was embarrassed to realize he’d been gushing. He could almost hear Jean's mocking voice hissing in his ear: Please notice me sensei!

Ugh, just kill me, he thought.

Levi seemed bored. "Can we go now?"

Erwin sighed. He was still holding the stone. "Fine. I’ll smooth things over with the MP."

"Smooth things over? Are you joking? I should press charges against that asshole for beating my apprentice down in the street, and the families of the victims should press charges against the MP for gross negligence."

"We don’t know that there are victims yet--"

"Uh-huh. A malicious spirit, taking up residence in a street filled with bars, drunk coeds walking home alone late at night--"

"And as for the beating, maybe you should be working on your apprentice’s blocking technique," Erwin said a little testily.

Levi scowled, but that he couldn’t argue. They got up to go.

"Levi," Erwin said, and Levi turned. "They might not be satisfied with my answers. You should be prepared to speak to Malcolm in person."

Levi narrowed his eyes. "They know where to find me," he said.

Chapter Text

Eren was brushing his teeth in the bathroom when he heard the commotion, and he spat quickly into the sink and ran for the door.

What now? he thought in exhaustion. They’d only gotten back last night--or, no, early this morning. Levi had told him he could sleep in an extra hour since they’d gotten in so late.

He ran down the stairs and saw that the front doors were wide open. Hanji and the chickens again? he wondered uneasily. But no. There were dozens of soldiers in the driveway. Levi stood on the front porch, facing them, with Hanji and her squad beside him. Eren hesitated only a moment before coming out as well.

It was Commander Malcolm, the leader of the Military Police; most of the soldiers in the yard were MPs, and the few other scouts that were present Eren recognized as the Western Squad, along with Erwin himself.

He was quickly casting every veil of discretion Mada Tallisa had ever taught him, and it seemed to be working because no one so much as glanced in his direction. The MPs and the Scouts just stared at each other--like a stand-off in an old Western--and then Albion decided to start making new friends. He barked madly and launched himself at a startled MP.

Commander Malcolm’s lip turned up in a sneer. “What is that animal’s name?” he demanded.

“Mr. Bitey,” Levi said, before Hanji could answer. So yeah. They were off to a great start.

The Military Police wanted to install a squad at the Northern Gate, to monitor Levi’s activities.

They were blaming him for the recent intrusions of Level Two’s and above that had broken through the wards to attack the city and larger towns.

They were questioning his competence...possibly even his loyalty.

All of this Eren realized slowly during that painfully polite hour-long meeting in the formal sitting room, the one that Levi never used. (Curiously the door to Levi’s study had been shut tight--the first time Eren could ever remember seeing it closed.) He listened inattentively for the first few minutes; it was only Hanji’s tightly pursed mouth and Levi’s stiff grip on his teacup that made him start to pay attention. Commander Malcolm’s compliments disguised barbs and insults. Eren had to translate in his head, and by the end of the Commander’s speech he was ready to jump across the room and punch him out.

What kind of nerve he had to blame Levi for his lazy MPs not doing their jobs!

“I trust that is satisfactory,” Malcolm finished, with a thin-lipped smile.

“No,” Levi said calmly. He motioned for something, and with what seemed to Eren like great reluctance the coatrack came forward.

“No?” Commander Malcolm echoed in disbelief, raising his eyebrows. Levi stood up and crossed the room, making the MPs behind Malcolm reach uneasily towards their weapons.

But Levi only deposited something into Malcolm’s hands, a flash of gold on a braided cord.

The older man looked up and down bewildered. “What is this? What are you doing?”

“The Key to the North. I’m leaving.”

“What?”

Levi had already reached the door and he was walking out into the hall. Eren stared for a moment before racing after him, and the room erupted when they understood what Levi had meant.

“Levi!” Erwin was the first to catch up with them in the driveway outside. He’d been quiet during the meeting, his face barely betraying any frustration, but now he looked annoyed. “What are you playing at?”

“You’ve broken the compact, Erwin. I’m leaving.”

“Compact! Levi, I’ve broken nothing--I’m here to support you, not Malcolm!” he hissed.

Malcolm arrived then: “Captain Levi!” he called; he sounded much unhappier, much more concerned than he had before. “Please, Captain, come and sit down with us. We need to talk about this.”

“The first law of the covenant between the military and the North,” Levi said calmly. “The blood-oath your predecessors signed. The Gatekeepers do their jobs as they see fit, aided as needed, without hindrance. No reasonable request is to be denied, and no claim made to divide a Gatekeeper’s loyalty elsewhere.”

“Captain Levi--”

“You broke the Covenant, Malcolm. Congratulations. The Gate is yours. I wish you luck.”

“Captain Levi!” Everyone but Malcolm was shocked; he was only furious. “Get back here at once!” Levi walked down the white stone driveway. Eren followed, but he looked back anxiously at the tableaux behind him. Most of the other soldiers had come out as well, and a sea of confused, angry, or unhappy faces staring back. The coatrack stood all the way at the back, watching them go like a mournful dog.

“If you are serious in abandoning your duties then you may leave your swords behind!” Malcolm screamed.

This Levi did respond to. “The swords are mine,” he said. “They were personal gifts. Good day.” They had passed the boundary. Eren was sensitive enough to feel it now without prompting, and he couldn't help but regret their going, trailing his magic behind like fingers reluctant to let go. Levi walked towards the train station, swift but unhurried.

They had reached the platform before he spoke again.

“You don’t have to come with me,” he said. “You aren’t at fault here. Erwin will assign you another position if you ask him.”

“No,” Eren said automatically. He was looking at Levi, but Levi stared straight ahead. “Are you serious? You’re quitting?”

“The MP can’t hold that Gate,” Levi said. “I’m calling their bluff. I don’t care about Erwin’s long game right now. I’m not going to be a pawn in their fucking bullshit.”

“You think they’re going to call you back?” Eren said. “Are you sure? What if they just call up another team of scouts to do it? And--what about the others? Petra and Oluo and everyone!”

“They’ll be fine,” Levi said. “And I told you the Gates choose their own keepers. My time isn’t over. As it happens, there isn’t anyone else who can hold the Northern Gate right now.”

“How long are you going to stay away?” Eren asked worriedly.

Levi shrugged indifferently. “That depends on them.”

It was hard to believe they’d just taken the train down to the city. It felt like weeks had passed. In spite of Levi’s somewhat ruthless reassurances Eren was worried about leaving the Gate. He knew work had built up even in the few hours they’d been away, and although the squad would be able to keep up with most of it what would happen if Levi stayed away for days? Or weeks?

“Captain.”

“What.”

“What swords was he talking about?”

“Eilonwy and Mifune,” Levi said.

“Can I see them?” he asked curiously. He’d been issued disposable steel blades as part of his uniform, but he’d gathered that Levi’s swords were different. Wordlessly Levi leaned back; suddenly the straps of his maneuver gear were visible, along with the holstered swords at his hips. He’d only seen Levi’s 3DM once before, and he hadn’t thought to look then. But now he saw that the swords were not standard issue, nor were they identical. The sheathes were similar in size, but that was all.

“Magic swords?” he asked, as eagerly as a child. Slowly Levi smiled.

He drew one, holding it across the flats of his palms for Eren’s inspection. The hilt was straight, with no crosspiece, set with irregular emeralds. They formed the constellation of Artemis, not dull but glowing as if lit from behind.

“A woman’s sword?” Eren guessed. He didn’t know much about swords--particularly magic swords--but he had a sudden intuition.

“Eilonwy,” Levi said again. He was offering the sword, and very carefully Eren took it in his hands, feeling a thrill of excitement. It was featherlight and perfectly balanced.

“Named for the woman who first wielded it.”

A little reluctantly Eren gave it back, and Levi drew the other one.

“Mifune,” he said. It was a curved sword, a katana. The blade was polished to an intense brilliance, but it bore the faint suggestion of rippled water.

With deep irony Levi said, “The military is responsible for the knowledge of sword making being lost. And yet they covet the magical swords that are left. They think with technology they can be recreated.”

A western and an eastern sword, as befit a Northern Gatekeeper. All Eren knew about magical swords was that they were powerful, and incredibly rare. Modern technology had replaced magic, and most of the old swordmaking arts had been lost. Swords were disposable now.

“This is a family sword,” Levi said of Mifune. “In my first month in the North I saved someone’s life...Eilonwy arrived the next day. A token of thanks. It had been lost for something like 900 years. Mifune came to me a week later; they were only waiting to see what my first sword would be so they could match it.”

“A match? From where? From who?”

Levi shrugged. “The family vault, I suppose,” he said. “The Ackermans used to have property...a family manse...Grey House. When a warrior came of age the head of the family would present them with a weapon. But even before the Purge my family had fallen out of favor with the King...all the Ackerman property was seized years ago. I thought all the swords had been lost or sold, but no.” Levi paused, and then he added (as if he were still faintly surprised and puzzled after all these years), “It came to me wrapped in a cloth with the family crest on it. I don’t know where it would be, or who would preserve it. But somewhere I think there’s a cache of family heirlooms; Mikasa may even receive one herself someday.”

“Are there other Ackermans?” Eren asked. He felt a little stupid for asking, for not knowing. Mikasa had been brought up as his sister, but he knew very little about her birth family.

“I don’t know,” Levi said. “I don’t know of any, apart from Mikasa and myself. My uncle died a few years ago.”

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. Levi turned his head and looked out of the window, watching the scenery pass, and Eren closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

“Three of Wands,” Levi said to the cabbie, and then he leaned back in the seat beside Eren.

Eren gave him a startled look. “Three of Wands?” he said. “The hotel?” It was probably the most expensive hotel chain in the world. Like the Tarot card from which it took its name each property overlooked an expansive waterfront, and the Central Three of Wands had its own private beach--right in the heart of the city.

“Yes.”

“Can you afford that?”

The look Levi gave him was slightly contemptuous. “The military is paying,” he said. “Where do you think the Gatekeeper of the North should stay? Motel 6?”

“I thought you resigned,” Eren said, grinning.

Levi made a dismissive gesture and Eren laughed. If Levi wasn’t taking this seriously then it couldn’t be that bad, right? He was even starting to wonder…

The Three of Wands looked like a palace, or like an immense marble swan perched above Kelt Avenue. Three decorative pillars adorned its streetface, and in the marble porch within there was a statue of the hotel’s founder dressed as the Traveler, facing away from the street towards the water.

The lobby itself was decorated in understated tones of white and gray and gold. It was a vast room, like the inside of a cathedral, and a magnificent three-story chandelier hung from the distant ceiling. Eren watched Levi sign the guestbook with his name and occupation. Underneath it he drew a dash and wrote Eren’s name and beside it the word ‘apprentice’.

The front desk clerk didn’t display even a flicker of surprise as he took the guest book back but he was extremely courteous, inquiring about luggage and beckoning the concierge to escort them to their rooms.

“Is there anything we can help you with while you’re visiting us, sir? Theater tickets? The Ludi?” Eren watched the man in admiration. Everything about his manner, his speech, was couched to inspire confidence. He was genuine without being overly familiar, attentive without being intrusive. He could have a solid career as a diplomat if he ever got tired of being a concierge.

“I want to go to the zoo tomorrow,” Levi said.

“Of course, sir,” the concierge said smoothly, as if this were a reasonable request that any grown man might make; as if he should have of course anticipated it and he regretted his oversight. “I can arrange a cab for tomorrow morning, perhaps a guide…?”

Eren was about to check--unobtrusively--to see if the concierge had any sort of magic (he was curious!) when Levi flicked his hand hard. Levi gave him a Look.

Right. Manners. He looked away, trying to feign remorse, but he doubted Levi was fooled.

“Just the cab.”

“Very good, sir. And dinner tonight?”

“We’ll make our own arrangements.”

“Please sir, do let us know if we can do anything at all to make your stay more comfortable.”

They had adjoining rooms, and Eren was watching the traffic move far below his window when he heard Levi unlock his door from the other side. He quickly went and unlocked his own, and when he opened the door he saw Levi looking down at a spread of clothes on the bed.

He laughed. “Where did those come from?”

Levi didn’t answer directly. “I suppose you should go shopping while we’re here,” he said. “Pick up some things.”

“I bet the concierge can just send something up,” Eren said, almost teasing.

“Probably. You don’t like shopping?”

Eren coughed, embarrassed. “Mikasa usually buys stuff for me…”

Levi snorted and he added defensively, “She usually does it before I notice I need anything!” And she knew what he liked. She didn’t try to dress him to please herself, she always noticed what he liked and what he didn’t and bought him things accordingly. Thinking of her he felt another stab of guilt. “Should we visit them?”

“They’re on vacation aren’t they?”

“Oh...right. Wait, how did you know?”

“Mikasa wrote me.”

“Oh,” Eren said. He wanted to interrogate further--be outraged if Mikasa had been checking up on him. But Mikasa and Levi were related, there was no reason they shouldn’t be talking. Or at least no grounds for him to legitimately complain.

Levi seemed to know what he was thinking because he looked faintly amused.

“Let’s go out,” he said, “and get some lunch.”

They spent the next few days doing touristy things. At the zoo Eren lost Levi in the reptile house, and when he finally found him again (outside, by the entrance to the aviary) there was a stream of happy looking children coming out, all holding suspiciously shiny and detailed animal-shaped balloons.

“What are you doing?” he hissed at Levi.

Levi glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re going to get in trouble if you go around casting random enchantments!”

“In trouble with who?”

With the military? The MP enforced serious breaches. Considering the current state of affairs between Levi and the military Eren supposed nothing he could do could make things worse. If he was practicing magic in order to disrupt things it might even hasten his return to the North, just so that the MPs could have order restored in their home city...

“Is this some weird Sun Tzu negotiating thing?” Eren asked bleakly, seeing his own career prospects go up in flames. “Are you trying to piss them off even more?”

“The world needs more magic, Eren,” Levi said, with a primness that Eren found cryptic as well as capricious. With a sigh he followed Levi into the primate house.

They ate out for every meal, and on the third day Levi asked him what he wanted for lunch. They were coming out of a movie theater--Eren had discovered that Levi had a childlike love for the movies. It was oddly endearing. They'd gone every day they'd been here. He especially liked old films, Hitchcock and Orson Welles and that sort of thing, and Eren had been surprised by how many movie theaters still played them during the day. They were the youngest audience members, by four or five decades, but Levi didn't seem to notice or care. That first day he'd suggested they go after lunch, clearly not expecting Eren to broach any opposition. When they'd been sitting back in the plush theater seats and the house lights had come down Levi had been like a different person. His whole face had softened as he looked towards the screen with genuine pleasure. It had made Eren so nervous that he'd tried a quick Speculation, just to see if anyone had enchanted or cursed Levi (that would have been an explanation for all the bizarre behavior, anyway). Levi had caught his wrist, squeezing the bones tightly before he could complete it (Eren had never been so relieved to be in so much pain, this was more like the Levi he was used to).

"I love the movies," he said softly, eyes never leaving the screen. He let Eren go. "I haven't been in years."

"You couldn't bring a projector out to the house?" Eren said, rubbing his injured wrist. Levi shrugged.

"Too much of a hassle," he said. "There was one, from before I came but the fairies just got into it; you know how they are." Eren did know; he'd only had one run-in with them so far but it wasn't something he was eager to repeat.

Then softly, more to himself than to Eren Levi added, "My mother and I used to go when I was little." Eren understood then; for Levi this was church, the movie-palace a stand-in cathedral where he could worship and love and remember being innocent, before the world had complicated things, before the tide had come in to wash childhood away. As the opening credits had come up he'd reached for Levi's hand in the darkness, a sudden impulse he was almost certain would earn him a broken hand. Instead Levi held his hand for ten minutes or so, before giving him a final squeeze and then shifting away.

Eren was worried about the fact that they hadn't heard from anyone in the military yet. What if Levi was wrong about everything? He was worried about the way Levi was acting. Could this be some kind of bizarre nervous breakdown, manifesting as Levi's desire for a vacation? He had been overworked lately, but...

"Huh? Oh, we can do Indian again. It's fine."

Levi scowled, and Eren tried to bring himself back to focus. "What? It's your favorite, isn't it?"

Levi's scowl deepened and Eren grinned and whapped him on the shoulder. "Come on," he said. "I noticed a place when we were walking over."

"It's no good," Levi said, disgruntled. "There's a better place downtown."

"Let's go then," Eren said, laughing at him.

Chapter Text

On Sunday after the zoo they had gone back to the hotel. Eren was hungry but Levi hadn’t said anything about food; he was brooding on something, not angrily but as if he were trying to solve a puzzle.

It made Eren realize, wistfully, that probably the only reason mealtimes were so regular back at the house was because of the coatrack’s diligence in providing them (Levi only prepared dinner, after all). He’d never thought of Levi as one of those people that forgot to eat; he enjoyed food more than Eren did, even if he ate less of it--or at least he considered his food more carefully. For most of his life Eren had always just eaten whatever was put in front of him. He didn’t think about food unless he was hungry.

Right now he was starving.

“Look, they have afternoon tea here,” he said a little desperately, pointing as they passed a plate glass window. Levi had ignored all his subtle hints on the way back.

“Afternoon tea,” Levi echoed, glancing over at the window; it was a display only, the actual tea room was upstairs on the second floor. An empty tea-service sat on a table with white on white linens; two artsy naked mannequins wearing frog and lion masks were seated across from each other.

“Yes, maybe we should go,” Eren said in a forced voice, trying a side pincer move to get Levi’s arm under his.

“I’ve never done that,” Levi said. “Don’t you have to dress up or something?”

“You’ll really like it then,” Eren said emphatically. Success! He had Levi’s arm underneath his and was steering him towards the side entrance on Poplar Street. “They’ll probably have a really fancy one here.”

“You’ve done it before.”

“Sure. With Mikasa and my mom when I was a kid. They’d get pedicures after.”

“What would you do?”

“There was a skate park across the street.”

Levi snorted. They were through the doors now, on their way up the plush carpeted steps and Eren still hadn’t let go of Levi’s arm; this close to victory he had no intention of letting Levi wander off until there was a plate of food in front of him.

Even though they didn’t have a reservation the maître’d seated them right away, at a small side table overlooking the street. Eren could tell Levi liked it. He looked around in mild approval; the tea room wasn’t as modern as the rest of the hotel, it was done up instead in old Pre-War Glamour. When Eren looked down at the china plate in front of him he was surprised to see that it was enchanted. Tiny animals chased each other around the rim.

“You forget,” Levi said. “Magic used to be interwoven with daily life, even here out of the borderlands.”

“They’re vintage plates?”

“At least eighty years old,” Levi said.

“Is that why you wanted to stay here?” Eren guessed. “They’re friendlier to magicians at the Three of Wands?”

“With a name like that,” Levi drawled, and Eren grinned.

“I wasn’t thinking about the name,” he admitted. “Just used to hearing about it as some ritzy place.”

“The original owners were another old family,” Levi said. “A branch of one of the Founding families. They were rich and cunning enough that they survived the Purge mostly intact. Some Chinese conglomerate owns the hotel now, but they respect the old ways.”

Levi hesitated, as if thinking about whether he should say more. He was fingering a napkin on the table, and when he stopped it folded itself up again into a swan.

“This was a meeting place for decades,” he said. “Because of the Marquis family’s connections the military looked the other way.”

The waiter came to guide them through the tea selection; Eren ordered the house black without shame but it was funny to watch Levi interrogate the man. He could see Levi’s esteem of him visibly rise when he answered intelligibly. In the end he brought Levi something not on the menu. Eren politely declined Levi’s offer to share; he was happy with the house blend and whatever Levi was drinking smelled like smoked seaweed, though Levi seemed happy enough with it.

“Why did you like doing this?” Levi asked, after the first course had been brought out. “It doesn’t seem like it would appeal to you. Especially the monster Mikasa says you were as a child.” The sandwiches were tiny and perfectly made, lobster salad, chicken salad, egg and pimento, beef and horseradish, cucumber (of course), tomato and sprout. Eren had ordered a dozen extra.

“She doesn’t call me a monster,” he said indignantly.

Levi regarded him calmly and Eren laughed reluctantly. He ate another sandwich. “I liked the food,” he said. “I got to eat whatever they didn’t want. And I guess my mother didn’t want me home alone, she liked Mikasa to keep an eye on me if she wasn’t.”

“Your father wasn’t there?”

Eren shrugged. “He was busy. He was always on business trips, or at the office.”

The second course came, scones and lemon curd and clotted cream, along with new plates. These ones had a little ship on them, with the owl and the pussycat sailing around the rim.

“When do you think you’ll hear from them?”

Levi shrugged, indifferent. “I want to go to the movies later.”

A few days later Eren had stopped asking that question. Levi seemed to like routines and order, and so here they had one too; some tourist thing, meals, movies. It could have almost been restful except that there wasn’t any time to rest. Levi was always rushing them off to do the next thing. That, and Eren was still worried. If Levi was wrong…

They went to the Central Library. Eren had never been, outside of school field trips. He hadn’t paid much attention then. But Levi was deeply interested in every part of the building. They walked through enormous gilt-trimmed fresco-covered rooms. There were spots the marble floors had been worn down by centuries of pacing scholars, and great marble columns held up the ceiling. Alcoves with fountains and fresh flowers stood at the bottom of each staircase in the main building. Wide picture windows looked out over a courtyard garden.

Levi made them walk the whole perimeter of the building twice before entering.

It was the fourth day they had been away, and that morning Levi had been ill in his hotel room. Eren had come to knock on the adjoining door when Levi hadn’t come for him--he’d been dressed and patiently waiting before he’d started worrying. It had been a shock to find Levi still shirtless and dressed only in a pair of loose cotton pants. He’d let Eren in without a word, and gone into the bathroom to sit on the closed toilet lid.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I think it’s food poisoning,” Levi said, leaning forward. “I puked twice already.”

“Oh,” Eren said. He went to the sink and picked up one of the washcloths there, soaking it in cold water. He wrung it out and folded it up to put on the back of Levi’s neck. Levi put one hand up to hold it there.

“Will you...let me help?”

Levi blinked. “Help,” he repeated, as if it were a word in a foreign language.

Eren put a hand gently near Levi’s back, fingers more hovering than touching. He didn’t pry...but he found the thread of illness and diverted it, thinking as he did of a story his father had told him once. Hundreds of years ago a physician had developed a method of checking the pulse at the wrist, so that the sultan’s wife could remain modestly behind a curtain…

In magic as well as medicine there were ways of looking without looking. Mada Tallisa had taught him to be subtle. She’d told him that his natural empathy helped.

Levi was looking at him. The color had returned to his face. “Since when can you do that?”

Eren shrugged and Levi grabbed his wrist. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, leaning back against the toilet tank, letting Eren go. Just for a moment Eren had felt the full questing strength of Levi’s power, one swift assessing glance. “How the hell were you keeping that hidden? Why didn’t the damn MPs grab you?”

“Mada said…” Eren sat down on the edge of the bath. Levi's psychic touch had been quick, with the delicacy of a scalpel blade, but all that power was overwhelming.

It was the first time he had felt Levi's full strength. Even that other time hadn’t been like this; Levi had to have been holding back then.

“Mada?”

“Mada Tallisa. The woman who trained me. She was a friend of my mother’s. She’s the only one who knows.”

“Isn’t that treason? Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” he muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“She’s friends with Commander Zackly...I don’t think she was too concerned. She wasn’t there at Shinganshina when...years later when she found me again she said I’d changed. I didn’t know about--” Eren waved a vague, embarrassed hand at himself-- “Until she started pulling it out of me. The military tests you when you’re a kid...most people manifest before puberty.”

“So you slipped through the cracks.” Levi looked interested. “Why?”

“Mada said...the kind of power I have, they’d put me in a box and take me out when they needed me to fight some monster that broke through the wards. And then put me back again after. She said they had people like that.”

Levi didn’t say anything.

“She told me if I didn’t want to be discovered then I had to stay hidden. She taught me how to stay hidden. I’m not really that powerful--I think it’s more like a bank account you don’t check often...accruing interest. Most people who have magic use it. I hardly ever do. I...almost forget it’s there sometimes.”

“So why the hell are you telling me then?” Levi demanded.

I trust you. The words hung heavy and unspoken in the air, and Levi gave him a dark look. He stood up.

“Get out,” he said. “I need to take a shower. You’re in my way.”

“Yes, sir. Are we going out today?”

“What do you think? I’m not going to sit around all day.”

So Levi had taken them over to the Central Library. He hadn’t brought up Eren’s flagrant omission as they’d walked over, and Eren wondered if he’d hear more about it later.

He didn’t mind. He did trust the Captain. If he really was going to join the Survey Corp it would be impossible to hide forever...he’d been a little surprised he’d been able to hide it from Levi as long as he had, but then that had been what Mada had taught him all along--that people see what they expect to see.

He knew Levi would be able to advise him...whether to come clean to their superiors or keep quiet as he had been doing. Levi would know the best course to take. He’d been trying to figure out a way to bring it up...he’d hated feeling like he was lying. He’d half-hoped--especially in those first few days when Levi had remarked upon his having been around magic before--that Levi would figure it out for himself, and save Eren from having to confess.

They were alone in the Library’s chapel, and Levi had stopped to linger at one of the shrines. Eren looked up at the stained glass windows. They showed scenes from myth and history--the city’s founding, the great families crossing the ocean, the first Magician-King casting the wards and placing the boundary stones that had started the slow drain of magic from his kingdom.

“This is my family’s shrine,” Levi said, his voice echoing in the sanctuary and startling Eren.

Eren hurried over. “Your--oh. That’s right. The Ackermans...I always forget they were one of the first families…”

Levi was looking at him. “I was never any good at history!” he said defensively.

“There are hardly any of us left,” Levi said. He sighed, resting a hand on the shrine. “I should have come sooner...I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, and Eren thought he might have been praying. He wondered if he ought to move away...give Levi privacy...then Levi said softly, “Eren...could you…”

He understood what Levi meant--and he swallowed, but stepped closer, and put a hand on Levi’s shoulder, pressing his arm hard into his back. The channel he’d opened earlier was there, and he did what he’d done then--tapped into the aquifer of power all around them, let Levi draw from it.

Because they were so close--connected in that moment--he saw what Levi was doing.

There were leylines everywhere, though they were not so prominent here as in the borderlands. There were places where they were stronger, and Eren saw why Levi had wanted to circle the whole building, and walk through every room before coming here.

The Library was filled with boundary stones--it was itself a kind of Great Stone. It was deeply misaligned; the building itself was perfectly maintained, but its magic was in ruins. He saw what Levi wanted to do--it would be like trying to get some great complicated piece of machinery running again, an orrery or generator.

He knew better than to try to dissuade Levi, but he was nervous about whether it was wise to do this. Levi’s power was in the borderlands, in the North, not here in the city. Not only that...he’d given the Gate Key away. Even if it had only been symbolic.

Some power was native and some was earned; Levi’s was mostly earned. So Eren swallowed and hoped that he knew what he was doing. He leaned into him and braced him, letting him draw from the deep well of magic that permeated everything, even here in the city.

It was teeth-grindingly difficult. If he and Levi had stood outside and tried to move the building it would have been easier. But slowly--by barest degrees--Eren felt they were doing something.

“That’s the first stone,” Levi gasped beside him.

Oh god. The first stone? But there was an inarguable satisfaction in it, as if his back had just cracked, the feeling of something slotted into place. He realized a faint out-of-synch vibration he hadn’t even consciously noted had gone--like they’d pushed something back onto its tracks.

“Should we rest for a minute?” he asked, leaning heavily against the shrine.

“No. We’ll never get moving again.”

Eren groaned. Then a moment later he jerked up in surprise. “Uh--there are--I think there are bones? Of your ancestors? In that shrine.” He paused; “All these shrines have bones in them.”

Levi looked at the shrine, then looked around the room. “From--that generation? The founders?”

“Yeah--I think so.”

“We may be able to use that,” Levi said thoughtfully. “Come on, get ready.”

It was hard to wake the bones up--they’d been slumbering for practically half a millennia. No one had ever taught Eren how to do this, and he couldn’t understand what Levi wanted at first. Finally Levi took his hand and magic was all around them; they’d left the physical world. Levi held on to him and they walked the length of the chapel. In the real world there were only a few relics in each shrine, but here there were knights lying in each place, grasping their swords atop their bellies. Fallen asleep during their long night’s watch. But this had always been their intended purpose, the question was only how to wake them.

It reminds me of something, he said to Levi, in his head. It was silent here; their steps had made no sound as they walked.

Yes, Levi said patiently, and Eren sighed. He began flipping through images, thinking of sarcophagi in art museums, but that wasn’t right, cemeteries and mausoleums, no…

You can go deeper, Levi said. I’ve got you. He was still holding Eren’s hand. Strange how that was starting to feel almost normal. Familiar anyway.

You could just tell me, Eren groused.

You know I can’t, Levi said, faintly amused.

In Eren’s head there was another door. They were already one step removed from reality; this was two. Eren closed his eyes and opened them again, alone, but he knew Levi was close. Part of him was walking down a circular stone staircase, and he knew the answer would be at the bottom...it was very old, as if he were in a church or a castle.

Was this the unconscious Jung talked about? There was a smoothness to everything, concepts and ideas close at hand, and he felt like he could go deeper and find out more...deeper still...and somewhere close he could hear the ocean.

He had reached the last step, and he was in another chapel, and here was only one knight resting beneath a stained glass window.

With four swords.

Revelation followed revelation, waves crashing on the shore. He understood, he knew he could get back here, he knew how, he could do it by himself next time--

He opened his eyes. It’s the Four of Swords! he said excitedly. And--

Levi only nodded. Later. He was holding a bell in his right hand, and he raised it up. Eren looked at it for a moment, then looked down at his own left hand. He was holding a silver hammer. He reached out and struck the bell, and one clear pure note rang out, resounding through the chamber.

The Knights opened their eyes.

Back in his body Eren could feel the building creak; they were either going to break the whole damn Library apart or it was going to be the strongest boundary stone in the city when they were done.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Eren muttered, startled, and he flung himself over Levi, one leg between his and one wrapped around the outside; the building really was going to collapse on top of them…

And they were sideways, sort of, and he felt the same misalignment in Levi at the same moment Levi felt him feel it, and tried to draw away--

And Eren yelled at him, You idiot! Are you trying to pull the building down around us? and shoved at him roughly, the same way Oluo might have done to him in practice, and just as if he were the chastened apprentice Levi went limp and let him, and Eren pulled everything straight--

And just for a moment he got to admire the beautiful golden ley-lines laid out all over, a compass rose, four points of a star with the Library at its center.

“Eren.” They were lying on the floor side by side, drenched in sweat, as if they’d just run a marathon.

Or just had sex. Oh no, Eren thought furiously. Get thee behind me Satan! He was not thinking about that, especially when the bleeding edges of their magic had just been pressed together.

“You did really well; you did wonderfully,” Levi said, sweaty and breathless, and Eren cursed to himself and told his brain to shut up, shut up--

“God! You're not dying are you?”

Levi laughed, light and beautiful, beautiful, and with hands that he could still pretend were shaking from exertion he picked up Levi’s wrist to look at the time.

“We’ve been in here for two hours.”

“They probably think there was a minor earthquake.”

“The shaking was real? I wasn’t sure if it was psychic.”

“Both,” Levi said, and he dragged himself up.

They staggered out of the library that evening leaning on each other like two drunks, attracting less notice than Eren would have guessed, especially considering he was too tired to cast even the simplest veil.

Eren thought it was funny something had finally worn Levi out. He didn’t think he’d seen Levi anything less than superhumanly composed in the whole time he'd known him.

He couldn't believe he'd once been tired and sore from moving two boundary stones; try moving an entire fucking library, Jesus. And that made him fear for the future, because fuck surely there were larger stones than this? Cities, continents, planets? Galaxies?

It’ll be all right, he told himself, sweating. I’ll have my own squad before then. I can quit. I can run away and join the circus.

Levi let them both into his room, and Eren collapsed facedown onto the carpeted floor. He heard Levi walk away, then come back and felt his shoe pressing into his side. He rolled over and Levi gave him two ibuprofen and a glass of water.

“Are you joking?” Eren said.

“I’m going to take a shower first,” Levi said. Implying that Eren could take one after him, even though there was a perfectly good shower in his own room. He swallowed the ibuprofen and stayed on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

Levi came out wrapped in just a towel, and Eren didn’t watch him pull his clothes on. Well, not on purpose. But the mirror was right there, in the direction he was laying in anyway, so…

“Get cleaned up,” Levi said, and Eren stood up slowly and went into Levi’s bathroom. Levi didn’t say anything about it.

What is this...what is happening right now? he asked himself, and then weakly, Maybe don’t overthink it? He swallowed.

He realized too late he hadn’t brought any clothes in with him, and so he came out of the bathroom and walked through the doors to his own room and got dressed at random, and then he came back, his heart only beating a thousand times per minute.

“Do you mind if I?” he said, staring at the ceiling. Something weird was definitely happening.

Levi shrugged, but he was facing away from him.

“It’s better if I….” he started to say, and then he realized what Levi’s stiff back meant; do it, but don’t talk about it. Okay. He took off his shirt, and after a moment so did Levi.

Then he slid into the silky covers behind Levi and put his arms around him and it all changed. Their magic settled against each other, two leaves in a book, and it was suddenly almost normal. Not to mention sort of disappointingly non-sexy.

“That's...really weird,” Levi said after a moment.

“What?” Eren said, fighting the semi-hysterical urge to laugh. Us, half-naked spooning? Then he realized Levi was talking about him.

Magical sensation overtook physical; Can I? Levi was asking, and uneasily Eren nodded. But it didn’t feel strange, the way it always had before; didn’t even feel too-intimate the way he’d expected. More like a passing tailor on the road admiring your cloak and asking if they could take a look.

“It's feminine magic,” Levi said out loud, fingering the cloak, puzzled.

“What?” Eren said, but Levi wasn’t done.

“You have a kernel of something like battle magic in you; the rest is empathetic. I don't even know how that's possible unless you've been slowly transmuting it.” His voice conveyed his deep skepticism for that idea. Slowly he felt the magic-sense release him and they were just in the physical world again. Levi wiggled away from him--okay, they were getting sweaty, even with the air conditioning turned up to high.

“Feminine magic. Battle magic. Empathetic magic,” Eren said, trying out the words. “Mada said I had bond magic. She said that was why the MP would take me.”

“Bond magic is a vulgar term,” Levi grumbled at the bed.

“Since when do you have a problem with vulgarity?”

Levi glared at him. “You don’t have a problem with the rest of it?”

“That means...does that mean the MP couldn’t take me away?”

“You’d be about as much use to them as a screen door on a submarine.”

Eren laughed out loud. “Really?” Levi rolled his eyes.

“But why did Mada tell me--”

“I told you--” Levi waved a vague hand. “It’s really weird. Battle magic and empathetic magic are diametrical. It shouldn’t be possible for you to have both. Maybe if the battle magic was stronger, you could have a little empathetic but I don’t even see how that would work. And you’re the strongest empathetic magician I’ve ever seen.” He sounded troubled by that, but most of what he was saying was lost on Eren.

He was too relieved, anyway, to worry; it was like finding out a death sentence had been lifted. He’d been living with this for almost ten years, the fear that he’d be found out and grabbed in the night, just another useless monster trap…

“And the feminine magic?”

“There’s no such thing as feminine or masculine magic.”

“You just said--” Eren laughed, protesting.

“Not really. It’s just ways of looking at the world. Magic is just a way of looking at the world. Of describing the world. That’s all it really is. The only distinctions that exist are the ones we make, nothing about it is innate. You were raised by women, so you perceive magic more like they do, than if you’d been raised by men. It’s not--”

“Mada magic, instead of wizard magic,” Eren said thoughtfully, interrupting. “That makes sense. So wait, you’re saying it all just looked like bond magic, but it never was?”

“Yes,” Levi said, after a moment. “Because what you have is so odd it shouldn’t exist. The closest analog would be bond magic, but it would be like--” he stretched his hands out, searching for an appropriate metaphor. “All right, you’re some marine biologist, you’ve never seen an octopus. And you see a fish--and it looks just like any other fish, so you think ‘that’s a fish’, right?”

“Yeah,” Eren said, laughing at the absurdity of it.

“But it’s really one of those octopuses--”

“Isn’t it octopi?”

“Don’t be such a shithead. Both are correct, I asked Hanji. It would be one of those octopuses that can camouflage themselves, in disguise. But if you’ve never seen an octopus, and you can’t get close to examine it there’s no way for you to know that.”

“So what’s your magic?” Eren asked curiously.

Levi shrugged. “It’s just magic,” he said. “The Ackermans were battle-mages, but battle magic is usually learned. I don’t know where the fuck you got yours from.”

“And the empathetic? Wait, you said I was the strongest one you’d ever met? I thought empathetic magic was just--uh, kindergarten teachers and school nurses and stuff like that.” Mom’s intuition, that sort of thing. “I didn’t think it was actually a real thing. I thought it was--uh.” Levi was looking at him. “Something people said to make themselves feel better…”

“About not having real magic?” Levi asked drily, and Eren gave him a guilty grin. “There is real empathetic magic, but it’s rare. That’s what you were doing. When you tapped into the magic everywhere.”

“Oh. That’s not what bond magic is…?”

“No. You know why they call it that?”

“When slavery was legal...you were bonded to a master magician to enhance their power.”

Levi made a face and nodded. “Now it’s different. The ‘bonding’ is mostly symbolic...on paper the military calls it lock magic. That’s why the MP wants people like that, they’re still the best at trapping certain dangerous spirits. They’re usually very strong but their power comes from within themselves, you see?”

Eren stared at him blankly.

“You were right before. You’re not that strong yourself, because you don’t need to be. You’re tapping into the power that exists everywhere. You’re--”

“A conduit,” Eren said slowly. “That’s what you meant. Oh...that’s why it’s mada magic. If I had the other kind I couldn’t do this...wizards can only store magic, not transmit it.”

“Yes,” Levi said. “You’d probably have been a good poker player though,” he added after a moment, and Eren barked out a laugh.

“The human polygraph machine?” he suggested.

“A good con-man,” Levi said, smiling at him. “One of those fake mediums. Cold readings.”

Eren laughed and shook his head. “Is that what they all have? Empathetic magic?”

“Some of them, probably. They can’t do what you can do. Probably that's for the best. You could level the city with what you’ve got.” He yawned. “Did you ever see one of those pictures, a rock balanced in the desert somewhere? Precariously? Somehow the wind came and eroded it just right, and against all odds it just stands there? For hundreds of years.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That’s what you’ve got. It makes no fucking sense but somehow it works.” He rolled over. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t talk to me anymore.”

Eren laughed, silently, and said, “All right. Good night, Levi.”

“That star,” he said, a moment later.

“What did I just tell you?”

“I saw it. It was made up of the leylines...Were you fixing the boundary stones every place we went? Why didn’t you ask for my help? Wait, is that the real reason you wanted to come here?” Eren’s voice was rising in excitement with every word. Levi sighed, exasperated.

“I didn’t know you could help, before,” he said. “Yes, I was fixing the boundary stones. It’s different here, it’s more complicated.” He rolled over to face Eren. “Teaching you how to do it would have taken years...you know we deal in metaphors, right, allegories? In the borderlands you’re not separated from magic the way you are here. It’s closer, so it’s easier to do. It’s easier for you to learn there. You asked me a million fucking stupid questions the first few weeks you were with me--” Eren laughed “and now you finally seem to get that it’s much easier if you just learn yourself.”

“Ideation,” Eren said suddenly.

“Ideation, yes. Where the fuck are you getting that from?”

“Jung?”

“Jung. Fucking of course. Anyway, yes that’s why as you learned last week the MPs are so fucking useless. They learn magic from textbooks. They think there’s a spell for everything, they have no fucking ideation. You’re learning the old ways, symbols, allegories, and you have your own way of thinking about magic in your head. It’s different from mine--different from everybody's. That’s why if you came across something you’d never seen before you could fight it--or try to, at least. The MPs couldn’t. They’d search the index and when they couldn’t find an answer they’d throw their hands up in despair and humanity would be destroyed.”

Eren was sitting cross-legged and laughing quietly. “The Founding families--they’re like the four points on the compass. Were they the ones sent to guard the Gates originally?”

Levi inclined his head. “The four families and the royal line,” he said. “The first Magician-King. Yes, some members were originally sent to guard the gates, but whether the bloodlines were still intact after so many generations is doubtful. It’s more symbolic.”

“Were the Ackermans originally sent to guard the North?”

Levi shook his head. “We don’t know which families were sent where. There’s no record. And it may just be apocryphal, anyway, though I think there’s probably some truth to it. Remember, being a Gatekeeper trumps all your other loyalties. If you were an important member of a Founder family and you came to one of the Gates you’d almost have to renounce your allegiance to your family.”

“What about--”

“Eren.”

“All right,” Eren said, flopping back. He was tired, but his head was still churning with everything that had happened today. “So did you want to get kicked out on purpose? So you could fix the boundary stones here? Or was it just, uh, serendipity?”

Levi didn’t answer, and Eren peered over at him--he was asleep. Well, I’ll ask him tomorrow, he thought. I should make a list… And then both of them were fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Eren woke up the next morning feeling horrible; he couldn’t figure out why or where he was until he realized the body underneath him was Levi's. Then he groaned and rolled to the side.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you. Jesus.” He held his aching head in his hands for a moment.

There was a tablet computer on the nightstand--standard issue for the room, and more modern than the telephone it rested beside--and while Eren got up to pee Levi silently reached for it. He pressed a few buttons and then he fumbled it back in its place and pulled the covers over his head. Back from the bathroom Eren leaned against the headboard, trying to work up the energy to return to his own room.

More time than he realized had passed, he’d dozed off...someone was knocking...he didn’t move, until Levi pushed him bodily out of the bed.

He managed to stagger to the door and open it, and stared blankly at the waiter. Eventually the man gently pushed Eren to the side so he could wheel the cart into the room.

“That thing moves,” Levi said of the footboard, when the waiter had gone. It took Eren a minute to understand what he meant; then he pushed the footboard up, and it was a long elegant lacquered table that ran the length of the bed.

“I can’t believe you’re making me move right now,” Eren moaned as he transferred plates and pots and cups--with a deliberate lack of order--to the table.

“The benefits of age,” Levi replied, not-moving. At last Eren had finished and he was able to clamber back into the bed.

“Do you want coffee or tea?”

“Coffee,” Eren said groggily. “With cream. And fourteen sugars.” Sugar had some restorative power when you’d been doing heavy magic; it was only a stop gap, like aspirin for a headache when you were hungover. It wasn’t a cure. But it helped.

Levi handed him the cup and he sipped it gratefully. Like everything else at the Three of Wands it was perfectly made. He noticed Levi had added sugar to his own tea, though he normally took it plain. They leaned against each other and sipped in silence; then Eren reached out to start uncovering some of the food.

They spent the day watching dreadful reality shows and eating and sleeping. Later Eren would remember it as one of the best days of his life. At the time he felt sick and hungover and annoyed with Levi every time he made him get up to move something or bring him something.

Levi seemed to take sadistic pleasure in his suffering.

Around two he woke up again and he felt human for the first time all day. Levi was watching something on mute with subtitles, and eating a hot fudge sundae.

"Did you order more room service!" he demanded in outrage; he'd never been angrier at the sight of someone else eating ice cream.

"I got you one," Levi said. "I spelled it so the ice cream wouldn't melt, but if you're going to be an ungrateful asshole--"

"I'm sorry," he said, completely mollified and practically leaping over Levi to get to the new tray of food, "I love you Captain, please don't hold it against me. I'm just hangry..."

Levi actually laughed.

When Eren had finished his, scraping the last of the fudge out and then licking his fingers clean for good measure Levi said, "Are you still hungry?"

"Yeah."

"One of the restaurants is a buffet," Levi said, getting to his feet. Eren sighed theatrically and went to look for his shoes.

It was worth it; the spread the Three of Wands produced put to shame even the most generous meals Eren had seen on Levi's laden table. About three plates in Eren decided he was around 70% recovered from the day before and he looked up at Levi. They had the place almost to themselves; it was three in the afternoon and only a few dawdlers were still eating lunch.

Oddly (considering he still wasn't feeling too far from death warmed over himself) Eren thought Levi looked better than he'd ever seen him. Less tired, more relaxed, maybe even healthier...?

He was sipping a cup of tea, his own empty plate in front of him. “Is there a shrine to the Eastern Gate near here?” he asked.

Eren paused, fork halfway to his mouth to regard Levi in horror. “You can’t want to go out now!”

“I can just call down to the concierge,” Levi said, narrowing his eyes in return.

“Ughhhh,” Eren said. He dropped his fork and rubbed his temples. “Yes, there is one. You’re going to be the death of me.”

“I’m sorry, Eren, did you think your apprenticeship was going to be easy? Join the MP if you want to sit on your ass all day.”

They walked to the shrine, and Eren had to admit it hadn't been a bad idea. It was a warm summer day, not sweltering, and there was a breeze coming from somewhere that felt amazing against his skin. Maybe because of the work they'd done yesterday, maybe just his new appreciation for a moment of leisure, but everything felt clean and fresh today, as if the city had been scrubbed from the sky down to the sidewalk.

The shrine was a garden filled with stone altars and lanterns, and though it was small the path that wound through it hid its size, making it feel almost as if you were lost in some forest oasis only steps away from the city bustle.

Levi stopped in front of the small open-air temple. There was an odd little altar there, made from stone, and Levi laid a hand on top of it.

"Levi, Gatekeeper of the North," he said, and he pulled open a small horizontal door on the altar, something almost like a mailbox. When he opened it there was a stack of letters inside and he pulled them out. He broke the seal on the first one-- "No blue heron necessary?" Eren asked with a straight face. "Thank god," Levi muttered. --and read it, and then he shoved all the letters in his pocket. He took out a piece of paper and a pen from somewhere, dashed a quick note out, and then asked Eren to find him a rock.

He opened the door again and put it inside with the rock on top to hold it in place, waited patiently for a few minutes and then opened it again. He read over the new letter that was there and then nodded.

"They'll meet us at the Three of Wands tomorrow," he said. "Come on. We can still catch a movie tonight."

"Wait," Eren said, "Wait, they were trying to get in touch with you? Why not at one of the shrines to the Northern Gate--"

Levi shrugged. "There might be some from Malcolm. But Hanji's at the Eastern Gate."

"Were they trying to get in touch with you all this time?"

"Probably," Levi said indifferently, and Eren trailed after him, amazed and baffled by his teacher once again. Really, he should just give up on trying to figure Levi out, life would be easier.

"They didn't know where you were staying?" Eren said.

"How could they have? The Three of Wands never gives out information about its guests, and they have the best privacy spells in the world."

"You were making them wait on you!" Eren said, crowing with amusement as well as indignation. "You knew I was worried they hadn't gotten in touch with you! I didn't know they were trying and you were just ignoring them! Why didn't you just tell me!"

"You ask too many questions, Eren," Levi said mildly. They walked out of the garden and as they did the cool northern breeze that Eren had felt earlier unwound itself from the magnolia tree (where it had been patiently waiting) and followed them down the road. Two voices, one frustrated and laughing, one cool and giving nothing away. They stopped before the doors of one of the old movie palaces and there the breeze stopped too, amusing itself by tossing around leaves that had fallen into the street, arranging them by color in little whirlwinds and occasionally exchanging a word or two with another passing breeze.

Far from home, aren't you?

It shrugged. These city breezes always acted superior, but it knew that was a false front, an attempt to hide their insecurity. They were intimidated by its strength.

Planning to stay a while? one asked, a little nervously.

I await the pleasure of my master, it responded indifferently.

Ah--of course--good day to you-- that breeze said, speeding away, and the North wind smiled to itself, amused.

Chapter Text

They had a room in the elegant tea lounge to themselves. They were seated at one of the round tables, and Malcolm scowled at the sight of Eren.

“What have you brought him for? This is a private discussion.”

“He’s my apprentice, isn’t he?” Levi said, twitching a napkin into his lap. “Don’t you find this sort of specious affair educational, Malcolm?”

“Specious!” Malcolm fumed. Erwin reached a hand out and put it heavily on Malcolm’s shoulder.

“Malcolm,” he said with exaggerated calm. “Please, let’s just try to carry on.”

“Not when he can’t keep a civil tongue in his head!”

Hanji, off at the other end of the table sighed and began polishing her spectacles. “Should I go?” Eren asked her in an undertone. She shook her head.

“Would you prefer to return to the North now then?” Levi asked. Malcolm glared at him.

“Sir, perhaps--” his assistant murmured behind him, but Malcolm shook off both Erwin and his unfortunate underling and pulled out a chair.

Eren sat on Levi’s right, Hanji beside him, Mike and then Erwin. Nile Dok, second in command of the MP sat between his commander and Levi. And between Erwin and Malcolm was Malcolm’s assistant, the gentle-faced MP whose name Eren did not know.

“We are prepared to allow you to return to the Northern Gate,” Malcolm began, when they were all seated. “Under--”

“Thank you; but I prefer not to.”

The tea had just arrived, poured in synchronization by a team of waiters. Eren had taken a sip and nearly choked on his when Levi spoke.

Malcolm went pale. “You--what.”

“I resigned,” Levi said patiently, holding the cup in his hands. “I don’t wish to return. Thank you for offering, though,” he added after a moment.

Malcolm just stared at him; the other two MPs looked extremely worried. Erwin looked furious, and Mike snorted. On Eren’s other side Hanji was holding her face in her hands.

“Levi,” Erwin said, with strained patience, “We agreed to meet so that--”

“Hanji said you wished to speak to me, so I made time to see you,” Levi said. “If I misunderstood I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” When no one spoke he added, “Please--don’t stay on my account if you’d rather go.”

Malcolm had finally gotten the composure to speak--he began to argue with Levi, who only stared back at him like a basilisk, and Erwin asked with acid contempt, “So what do you intend to do instead?”

Before Levi could answer Hanji slammed a hand down on the table, loud enough to rattle spoons and spill more than a few drops of tea onto the pristine white tablecloth--though Eren noted the stains faded within seconds.

“Levi,” she said, in a polite and conciliating tone that belied the violence of her gesture, “What would induce you to return?”

It took an hour to hash out the details. Every time someone interrupted Hanji would effectively silence them. Malcolm eventually subsided into frustrated, silent rage, while Erwin sat with his lips pursed, almost pouting.

Levi’s list of demands were:

1. A new letter opener
2. All reasonable requests to be immediately filled by the requisition office
a) With any requests that could not immediately be filled to be submitted to committee for review
3. Three weeks’ yearly vacation, to be covered by the other Gatekeepers, taken at Levi’s discretion with Erwin’s consent
4. Absolute autonomy in fulfilling his role as Gatekeeper
5. For all SC members to increase their banked time by one hour per week, effective immediately

“Why was the banked time so important to you?” Hanji asked.

They were at the rooftop bar on top of the Three of Wands. Malcolm had insisted they all go, though he stood by himself in a corner scowling at his glass of wine.

“He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself,” Levi observed.

“It’s an MP tradition,” Hanji said mildly. “You go to the bar after--well, most things. He doesn’t want to be here any more than you do.” She poked him. “Why, Levi?”

“Something’s coming, Hanji.”

“You sound like an old woman.”

“You can believe me or not,” Levi said. “When the military killed the Gatekeepers and their families there were ancient protections in place that kept the world from falling into immediate disorder. But they haven’t been tended or maintained.” He stared at his own glass. “The barrier between reality is thin now. All it would take is one good hit for something to break through.”

“I thought you were renewing the wards all the time.”

“It’s not that simple,” Levi said. “It never is.”

Elsewhere Eren was talking to Zeke Fritz, Malcolm’s assistant. He’d sought him out, separating him from the others when they’d first come up. He was nice enough, probably in his mid-twenties. Eren felt sorry for him that he’d been attached to someone as sour-faced as Commander Malcolm.

“I hear you know Jean Kirtstein,” Zeke said with a smile. He’d come back with two beers from the bar for them, insisting before Eren could say anything.

“Jean? Sure,” Eren said, taking a sip. It was some special brew the Three of Wands made themselves, and he tasted unfamiliar spices. It was surprisingly light for being such a dark brew. “He and my sister are friends. Well, they used to date.”

“You have a sister?” Zeke said in surprise.

“Uh--adopted. Yeah.”

“I see. That would be Mikasa, then. Jean’s mentioned her.”

“How do you know Jean?” he asked. Jean was an MP too, but he was just a grunt as far as Eren knew--he hadn’t even graduated yet. It seemed odd that Malcolm’s assistant would know him so well.

“Intramural field hockey,” Zeke said solemnly.

“Oh, god,” Eren muttered. “Jean and his field hockey. Sorry, no offense,” he added quickly, as Zeke grinned.

“You don’t look happy,” Mike said. He and Erwin were leaning against the balustrade, looking out over the city.

“We’ve achieved the desired outcome,” Erwin said mildly.

“You don’t like him defying you,” Mike observed. “You know he doesn’t see it that way, though.”

“Please, Mike,” Erwin said in a voice that was only a little sarcastic. “Enlighten me.”

Mike grinned. “He takes his vows seriously. There’s nothing that he puts above his duty to the North, not even you.”

“That’s what the three weeks’ vacation was about, huh?”

Mike laughed. “The rest of us get more than that!”

“Yeah, not contractually enshrined.”

“Oh, come on Erwin. He only did that so he’d have time and an excuse to come down and fix the wards in the places we don’t have jurisdiction over. Can you picture Levi sitting on a beach somewhere?”

“Fix the wards--what are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you notice coming into the city? Everything’s as shiny as a brand new penny.” He put one solid hand on Erwin’s shoulder. “Go on, have a look--you can see great from up here.”

Erwin closed his eyes and Mike sketched a ward in the air, shielding Erwin. When he opened his eyes again he was seeing the energy of the magical world, not the physical. Mike was right--this was probably the best place to view the leylines in the entire city.

“Mother of god,” he said out loud, in disbelief. For as long as he could remember the leylines in the city had been a series of broken, patchy golden threads. Now they were bound together in strong, unbroken lines forming a compass rose. The Three of Wands itself was one of the points. He’d never even discerned a pattern before.

“How the hell?”

“The kid helped him,” Mike said in an undertone, releasing Erwin’s shoulder. “They woke up the founder’s bones in the library to do it.”

“What? You smelled all that?”

Mike shrugged. “More or less. All the magic Levi casts has a juniper and pine and spruce smell, and the kid--”

“All right, never mind,” Erwin said, running a hand through his golden hair. “What does he have? Bond magic?”

“Nah. Doesn’t seem like anything special.”

“Oh well,” Erwin sighed. “How though?”

“I think they’re complementary,” Mike said. “That, and the founders’ bones would give anyone a boost--Levi’s an Ackerman, remember?”

“I didn’t even know there were founders’ bones in the library. You did?”

“I always thought there was an odd smell to it,” Mike shrugged. “Something like ghosts, but not quite. There’s a bit of Levi in it, though, and the other descendants. Didn’t put it together until I saw how they’d fixed the leylines.”

“It is impressive,” Erwin said. He was walking away, towards Levi when he thought of the odd phrase Mike had used--complementary. Was there complementary magic? Erwin had always approached magic more like Hanji than Levi, relying on scientific discoveries and his own intuitive leaps rather than symbols and sigils. He thought all that stuff was frankly a little superstitious, though he’d never have admitted it out loud in Levi’s hearing.

He didn’t have much use for the ancient texts either. He’d done a thorough catalog of all the books in his own library at the Western Gate and he found most of the ancient spells to be convoluted at best. Why include those extra flourishes and curlicues when spells worked perfectly fine without them? There were no style points in magic, something he could never get Levi to understand.

Though he was a little chagrined to discover Levi had pulled a fait accompli once again, resolving a problem whose existence he had barely been aware of.

Once upon a time he had wanted the Northern Gate for himself, and he’d been hurt in an almost personal way when it had rejected him. Still, the Gate had needed a keeper when its old one had retired, and as the new Commander of the Survey Corp he’d had to swallow his disappointment and search for a replacement.

He’d scried for candidates, which was the usual method. What a surprise it had been to see only one potentate appear, no matter how often or under what circumstances he’d plied his art.

It had taken a year to find Levi, to figure out who he was, where he was, and then to track him down and coerce him into joining the military. More than a few people had thought Erwin was crazy for going to such trouble over an unknown; the fact that he was from the Underground had lent a sinister edge to it all.

But Erwin had never doubted, not once from that first time he’d watched Levi--reflected in a bowl of clear water--fly through the air on the stolen maneuver gear, evading capture. Erwin was no slouch when it came to using the 3DM, but Levi made them all look like slatterns. He was a golden hawk, coasting on air drafts the rest of them could only dream of.

Moments like this always brought back that first feeling of pure faith. It was rare that he felt that oneness with magic, but in that instant he’d agreed with the North--this was a man that could hold it. He hadn’t resented Levi (though it would still be months before he’d learn his name) any more than he would have resented a real golden hawk, lazily floating in the air above a canyon while he was awestricken, stuck to the ground.

When he reached them Hanji nodded and excused herself, leaving him alone with Levi.

“You could have trusted me,” Erwin said quietly.

“You could have trusted me,” Levi said.

“Ungh,” Eren said, rolling over. Something had startled him, and he looked around wildly, but the room was empty and he was alone. He fumbled for the little clock on his bedside table and held it up so the moonshine reflected off of it. It was three in the morning. He let the clock fall to his chest.

Why did he feel so upset? They were back at the house now...They’d taken an evening train back. Levi was back in his rightful place, Gatekeeper of the North once more. The coatrack had been overjoyed to see them, dancing around like an excited dog, and they’d had a mishmash dinner of all their favorite things; Levi had complained at the coatrack for making a fuss. Everything was fine…

He got up, rolling his shoulders and trying to shake off his anxiety. He walked to his bedroom window, and looked out to see a figure creeping towards the back hedge at the end of the garden. His heart quickened again, and he thought, Intruder, at the same moment he thought, Levi?

What the hell was Levi doing sneaking out of his own house like a thief in the middle of the night? Eren didn’t bother with shoes or stairs, he opened his window and slid down the drainpipe, darting through the wet grass in the direction Levi had gone. There must have been some emergency…

He was astonished and worried to find the gate open where Levi had passed through; he stared at it for a moment and then closed it behind him.

What the hell was going on?

Somehow, no matter how quick he ran, he couldn’t quite catch up to Levi. He thought of calling out but he didn’t. There was something too strange and otherworldly about all this, even for the borderlands. Levi didn’t seem to know he was being followed, and Eren was starting to get the impression that it was not coincidence that had woken him.

It was a misty night, and as they moved from field to field the fog grew heavier. Eren realized that Levi was closing the gates--or at least trying to. Something was holding them open for him, just long enough for him to pass through and silently shut them behind. The uncanniness of it was making his skin crawl.

I should just say something, he thought, a little desperately. Call out… He didn’t want to know what his teacher could be doing in secret, in the middle of the night. Shit.

The fog and blackness were thicker and he felt his heart hammer nervously; he'd have a hell of a time explaining himself if he got lost out here. Then the mist cleared just enough for him to see Levi’s silhouette. Even with his vision obscured Eren was fairly certain he had never been here before. He hadn’t recognized the path they’d taken. He crouched down beside a hedge when Levi stopped walking.

Levi pulled out one of the knives he always carried and held out his arm. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. He pressed the knife to his skin, and blood began pouring from his wrist to spill on the ground. The atmosphere was suddenly charged, like the air before a thunderstorm; Eren could feel attention on them; ghosts but worse things, darker things, older things. He dug his fingers into the wet black earth, trying to ground himself.

And then someone pounced on him; Levi yanked him by his collar.

“What are you doing with blood magic!” Eren yelled. There was a handkerchief hastily tied around Levi’s wrist. He struggled like mad as Levi dragged him back along the path.

“Be quiet,” Levi said.

“Tell me--”

So fast he had whiplash they were back at the house. Levi was tossing Eren into his bedroom, and the door slammed shut behind him. When Eren tried the knob it was locked.

“Are you kidding me!” he hollered, banging on the door with his fists. When they were raw and aching he turned around and sank to the floor. “You’re the one that wanted me to follow him!” he yelled out, incensed. “Why are you letting him lock me in here!”

There was no answer. Eren pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. Then he leaped up and tried the window--but it was locked tight too. Shit. He supposed he could try to break it with something, but he had a feeling Levi would have anticipated that as well.

What would Levi be doing blood magic! Why! There was nothing good that could come from blood magic--was there? Nothing he’d ever heard of. He sat back down, sticking his feet out in front of him.

But it’s Levi… he told himself desperately. In spite of his outward prickliness Levi was...the kindest person he’d ever met? The most genuine? He wanted to resist that idea, but found that he couldn’t. Levi personified goodness in a way that was unlike anyone else he’d ever known. He’d never met a person less self-involved or more disinterested. He’d barely even known Eren when he’d saved him from the crush of his own magic gone awry, pulling him into his secret heart. And what about all the things he’d seen him do for others--for the residents of the North, yes, but also perfect strangers, for magic itself? The birds he looked after that he claimed to hate, the assistance he always gave even when he complained it was a bother, the gentle consideration when he was casting some spell--‘unnecessary, but magic likes these little touches’. The balloons at the zoo, bringing toys to life for Sirena, stubbornly fixing the leylines in the city when he was supposed to be off duty...

“Did you show me because he’s hurting himself?” Eren said suddenly, out loud to the silence. There was no answer, but he didn’t need one. It was finding the last jigsaw piece and knowing it would fit.

The next morning he threw the sheet off and bolted to the door when he heard the knock. The door finally opened. The coatrack stood there, looking sheepish or sorrowful.

“Do you know what he’s doing?” Eren demanded without preamble.

The coatrack shrugged.

“You can’t tell me?”

It shook its head, and Eren growled in frustration.

“Is he...hurting anybody?”

Emphatically it shook its head: No, and Eren drooped in relief. “Should I just let it go then?” he whispered. He’d been awake most of the night, worried, frustrated, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

Almost imperceptibly the coatrack shook its head again: No. Then it hopped away.

Levi was at the breakfast table already, totally composed and reading a newspaper. Eren glared at him, but since Levi couldn’t see his face it was primarily for his own benefit.

Eren drew a deep breath. “Will you tell me what you were doing last night?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell Hanji!” he threatened.

“Do it then.”

Eren scowled. Accusing someone of using blood magic was no small thing; he would only report Levi as a last resort and Levi knew it.

He was trying to figure out what to say next when Levi put the paper aside and stood up. “You have training with the others this morning,” he said. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Maybe I’ll tell them then!” Eren yelled at Levi’s back, but he had gone already and the back door closing gently after him.

He was still brooding over a bowl of soggy, uneaten cereal when Petra came to get him twenty minutes later.

“Eren! We’re all waiting for you over at the training field, what are you doing?”

“Oh--sorry, Petra,” he said, startled. “I--was distracted. Just trying to figure something out.”

“Well come on, we have things to do you know. We don’t have all day.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled again, hurrying after. “Petra?”

“Hm?”

“If you knew someone you were close to was doing something wrong--what would you do?”

“Is this ‘a friend of mine is having a problem?’” she asked drily, holding the first gate open for him.

“No, I mean--something really bad. Like let’s say you knew--someone in the squad was using blood magic. Or something like that.”

“Eren,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks. “Don’t joke about something like that, all right? Use a different example.”

She walked on, and he scowled at her back. “Like murder?” he asked, a little sarcastically.

“Yes, murder would be better,” she agreed. They had reached the training grounds and Oluo was shouting at him for being late and wasting everyone’s time; he had to apologize and shelve his thoughts for later. His usual beating would be even worse if he was distracted.

For a while the familiar motions of the katas distracted him, and then squaring off against Oluo and Petra and the others took all his attention. Sirena was scampering around the edge of the field, doing cartwheels and weaving daisy chains. She’d grown up a lot over the summer; he thought she had to be a whole head taller already, and she was more articulate every time he saw her.

“She’s going to be beating me up too before much longer,” Eren complained, rubbing his shoulder as he watched Oluo playfully fight his daughter.

Petra smiled. “It wouldn’t astonish me,” she said. “Being brought up by a warrior clan, I suppose I’ll have less to worry about than most mothers. Now, Eren, what was on your mind earlier? I’m sorry I snapped at you, but you really shouldn’t joke about that.”

“I’m sorry--I didn’t mean anything--”

“I know. I probably overreacted. But right now with things being the way they are--politically the MP is unhappy with how much power we have, and they’re really angry with the Captain for humiliating them the way he did.” She sighed, drumming her fingers away on her elbow. “Any rumor that reached them about us--it could have disastrous consequences, no matter how innocent it began.”

“Right,” he said miserably. “Sorry.” Petra wouldn’t be able to assist him, even with hypothetical advice. Belatedly he realized that if he did accuse Levi in front of the squad they probably wouldn’t even believe him. They’d mistrust him--maybe even think he was a spy planted by the MP to betray them. It was a depressing thought.

“So what were you worried about?”

“Oh--nothing. I’m worried about one of my friends...I...guess I’ll write to him later.”

She nodded. “Well, if you want to run off now go ahead--we’re finished for this morning.”

“Eh, Petra? You’re letting him run off already? You spoil that boy!” Oluo cried, overhearing them.

“Oh, be quiet you old goat!” Petra yelled, and then she joined Sirena in tackling him to the ground.

“You’re a criminal!” Eren shouted at Levi after dinner the next day. Levi was sitting on one of the sofas in his study, reading a book.

Eren had gotten a surprisingly rapid response from Armin; less than a day after he’d sent his own letter an answer had been waiting on his bed. Uneasily it made him think that Armin had to have been digging around in Levi’s past already.

“So?” Levi said.

“So it’s a little suspicious that you’re using blood magic!”

“I was never convicted of anything,” Levi said.

“Yes, because you were never caught! Tell me why you were using blood magic!”

“No.”

Several more frustrating and unhelpful conversations occurred over the next few days. Eren was incredibly annoyed--with the North for pitting him against Levi, and with Levi for dabbling in the dark arts and not telling him why, and with the whole world for putting him in this position.

There was no one he could ask for help; if they didn’t believe him it would be career suicide for him. If they did believe him it would be career suicide for Levi. Or worse. There were a lot of backward and outdated ideas about blood magic. Mada had taught him the basics and he knew it didn’t immediately taint the user, in spite of the ignorant misconceptions most people had. But it wasn’t something you messed around with for fun, either--doing heroin while playing Russian roulette would be a healthier and safer long-term hobby.

Irritatingly Levi seemed to have removed any relevant texts from the library; Eren had combed through it enough times to know there were some books about dark magic along with every other conceivable subject (including a really baffling number of aspic cookbooks and guides to gentlemen's fashions from the 1700s). But when he went searching for them specifically they were gone--excised from the library with a precision that made it obvious it had been deliberate.

Apart from anything else the budding intimacy he’d had with Levi after their work rebuilding the wards in the city--so worrisome, but pleasant too--had disappeared. Levi was courteous but cool, and as inscrutable to Eren as an obelisk would have been.

The only reason he didn’t just give up in frustration was because he’d all but promised the coatrack he wouldn’t. If the coatrack was worried about its master it had to be something really serious; that and his own loyalty to Levi (little though he deserved it these days, Eren thought resentfully), and the North’s cheerfully indifferent meddling had left him feeling like he had to do something, though he didn’t know what. He was just a lowly apprentice, after all--what business did he have trying to tell a master magician what to do?

Chapter Text

“Hanji and her squad are coming for dinner,” Levi said one morning, a little sourly.

Eren paused; he’d been measuring grains of sand into a tiny container on an old-fashioned iron scale. He hadn’t stopped fighting with Levi--if you could call it fighting, when he made demands and empty threats that Levi just ignored--but he had retreated a little, mostly because he couldn’t figure out what to do next. It had been nearly two weeks since the night he’d caught Levi, and no demons had come to the door demanding souls or virgin flesh. Things were a little uneasy between them, a little tense, but frustratingly it was mostly on his side; Levi continued on perfectly politely civil.

“Was that her idea?” he asked, “Or yours?”

Levi grimaced, and Eren smiled absently.

“Be careful with what you’re doing.”

“Oh--right!” Eren said, quickly returning to the scale; some of the grains had started to float out of the container and he quickly tapped them back in.

“She wants to tell us something about that bone.”

“What bone--oh. That bone.”

“I don’t see why she can’t do it over the phone,” Levi groused. He took a sheet of paper and scribbled a few things on it before folding it up and giving it to the coatrack. “You’d better take that down to the farm right away. You’ll be busy, so don’t worry about lunch for us; we’ll bring something.”

Eren thought the coatrack seemed a little miffed or disappointed, but it nodded.

“You finished?” Levi asked him.

“Almost. If I tell Hanji what you were doing last week what will she do?”

“Probably make you do a truth spell, if you could convince her you weren’t joking.” Levi was assembling bread and condiments and meat and wax paper on the table.

Eren swallowed and capped off the vial, and then he began putting his tools away. “And if she decided I was telling the truth?”

“You know using blood magic is a criminal offense in the military,” Levi said, spreading mustard over a slice of bread. “She’d have no choice but to report me, I’d be removed from my post and prosecuted. Jailed, most likely, or executed if we got a particularly fiery judge, but Erwin might be able to wrangle it down to a life sentence on a deserted island somewhere--”

“Why are you so calm about this!” Eren shouted.

“What do you want me to do? Get mad? Threaten you? Beg you not to tell? You do what your heart tells you, Eren. Pass me that string, please, and the scissors. Thank you.”

“Will you at least tell me--was that the first time? Was that the only time?”

“When you finish at the river, I thought we could have a picnic on the banks,” Levi said. “It’s a nice day.” He finished packing up the basket, covered it carefully with a cloth. “Come on, let’s go.”

Eren sighed, took his own small bundle, and followed him.

Hanji’s Squad turned up around five, just as Levi and Eren were getting back for the day. Levi yelled at her for coming early and he refused to let them in the house. Eren was slightly mortified. The rest of her squad didn’t seem to mind; the coatrack had brought them a backgammon set to play, and Hanji had conjured shrimp from somewhere and was trying to lure the flamingos down from the roof. They watched her curiously, with no sign they intended to move.

Eren hurried through a shower and into clean clothes, and then he ran downstairs to see if he could help with anything.

“We’re eating in the dining room?” he said in surprise. The coatrack was making some last minute adjustments to the silverware, moving things infinitesimally to the left or the right; it nodded absently and shooed Eren away; “I can’t help with anything? All right, all right, I’m going!”

Levi still wasn’t out of his own shower yet; Eren could hear the faint sound of running water. He went outside to sit with the others until Levi called them in--no one would have dared defy him (well, Hanji, but the squad were keeping her on a tight leash tonight).

It was after six when Levi finally came to invite them in, glowering at Hanji. Dinner was a success--Levi smirked a little when he saw the lengths the coatrack had gone to--Eren guessed that it had been liberal when it came to applying the list Levi had written out that morning. But then, it didn’t get to organize dinner parties very often.

The first course was a chilled pea soup, drizzled with olive oil. Eren had planned to take a bite out of politeness--it sounded horrible. He wound up eating all of his, scraping the bowl with his spoon until Levi kicked him under the table. He wished he were alone so he could lick the bowl clean.

The second course was a tiny salad of raw tuna and greens, and Eren was wondering how to stretch the approximately three bites on his plate into a polite interval when the earthquake happened.

Or maybe it wasn’t an earthquake, maybe it was a thunderbolt sent from heaven to tear the world apart.

It was sunset and the house was shaking, Eren heard Levi gasp as if he’d been struck or stabbed, but he couldn’t move himself to check on him. He lay on the floor, stunned, and he saw the giant walk to the house; it was grinning, and it had to bend to reach in, stretching one enormous hand down to the window, and then pulling it back as if it had been burned. It tried again--and again--and as Eren watched it was slowly engulfed in flames, turning to ash before his very eyes.

Everyone else was yelling, getting to their feet and moving but he could only lie there, staring into its eyes until those too were nothing but flakes of dust, floating away on the summer breeze.

‘Wards.’ He had heard Levi yell something about wards. He was certain of that. He was lying on the floor, and he was sure he was alone in the room. The others had gone, and he still couldn’t move.

He wanted to scream, to curse himself, to cry out, to chase after them. He stayed where he was, paralyzed, until a woman walked across the lawn. She moved with deceptive slowness. He stared at her; she wore a gray gown, but it was gray the color of pearl dust, gray of the mist of the morning you woke up at dawn, on the day that changed your life. She wore a cloak made of the sky and clouds, and a crown of butterflies--they breathed and moved--upon her head. She had red hair, wearing it long and unbound, and a single scabbard upon her hip. Her face was handsome, not pretty. She was tall and broad, and he knew somehow the sword was not merely decorative.

She passed through the French windows--though the wards on the house had killed the Titan, she came through unscathed.

She bent down and took his hand; she smelled like summer. “Master this,” she said, and it was a command. An order. He let her draw him up, and he admired her; her height, her strength, her bearing. He felt like an errant knight in some old fairy tale; he wanted to swear fealty to her and promise her his life.

“You have strength,” she said. “You have courage. You must be master of yourself.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.” He would have done anything for her. “Who are you? Are--are you Titania? Are you the North?” he asked timidly.

She laughed. “No. I’m as human as you are. Go now.”

Eren blinked. He was standing outside the dining room--he turned back but the room was empty, though it bore signs of some catastrophe. Chairs and plates were overturned. There was no sign of the woman.

He had to find the others. He ran through the house, and saw that the front doors were wide open, and the last rays of the setting sun made it look like the world was on fire. When he reached the front porch the others were all standing still, watching the same horror unfold. There were Titans at the end of the driveway--hundreds of Titans. More were coming.

“Where--” Eren said, “What--”

“They broke the wards,” Levi said. “They broke through the wards of the North. The Gate is broken.”

“But they can’t break through the boundary yet--they can’t get to the house!”

“They will,” Levi said, resolute. “There are enough of them to do it.”

“I--I saw one come up to the house,” Eren said. “The house destroyed it.” In spite of how dire their situation was Levi gave him a brief, compassionate look.

“That wasn’t real,” he said gently. “You had another attack when they broke through--I couldn’t stay with you, and it seemed safer to leave you where you were. I’m glad you came out of it on your own this time.” He turned his attention back to the wave of attacking Titans.

“But--” Eren said.

“We can’t fight this many,” Hanji whispered. “Levi, we can’t fight them.”

Chapter Text

Everything that happened then happened fast, all at once.

“Captain,” Eren said, taking Levi by the shoulder. “There’s someone there--”

A tiny shadowy figure glowed, halfway between them and the Titans. More were coming all the time, as if pouring in through a hole in the universe.

“What are we going to do?” Hanji said. “We need to get word to the others--”

“Captain--” Eren said, shock and terror filling him. “Is that--”

“Go. Away.” It was a child’s voice, it was a musical note, it was a valkyrie singing and it was a royal command: “Go away!”

“We don’t want you here! You’re ugly and you’re horrible and I hate you! Go away! Go away! Go away!”

“Sirena,” Eren said, and he tried to run but the air itself seemed to have frozen in place around him. Levi stared at the child in shock.

“Go away!” Sirena yelled. “Go away! GO AWAY!” By the end she wasn’t a girl anymore; her physical form had gone, and Eren saw something disperse in the air. A column of light, blazing back against the darkness. A shape like two wings in the air.

And just like the Titan in his dream the Titans were set ablaze; each and every one suddenly a pillar of fire, of ash, nothing but flakes of dust disappearing in a hot wind. The air released them and Eren fell over.

“Levi,” Hanji said, a low voice of rage and horror. “Who was that? Was that Petra and Oluo’s child?”

Around him Eren heard Hanji’s Squad gasp; they were making signs against evil. At his side Levi slumped, and Eren looked from him, to Hanji, to the others in confusion.

“What--what’s going on?” he demanded, shakily getting to his feet.

“Moblit,” Hanji said, “take Eren back to the Eastern Gate.”

Moblit nodded wretchedly and Eren watched in bewilderment as Hanji marched Levi into the house. He went willingly, his head low. Like a prisoner, Eren thought, shivering.

“What?” Eren protested. “What's going on!” Moblit had him by the elbow and was leading him away; Eren shook him off. “Moblit, you know!” he practically shouted. “What the fuck is happening right now! That was Sirena,” he looked around wildly. “Petra and Oluo should be here--where--”

“You've seen them? You've talked to them?” Moblit said, aghast.

“More than that!” Eren said, nettled. “They've been training me!”

“Jesus,” Moblit said under his breath, “what the hell’s he playing at?” He made the sign against evil himself then, and Eren wanted to punch him. He saw Eren glaring at him and he sighed and took Eren by the shoulders. “I don’t think I can explain it,” Moblit said gently. “I’d better show you.” He turned to the others. “Go on, we’ll catch up.”

Then he led Eren to the back of the house, slipping the catch from the gate and opening it. As they walked Eren realized he was taking him down a familiar path--this was the way he’d gone that night he’d followed Levi. That night he’d caught Levi doing blood magic.

Whatever was going on had something to do with that, he realized with a slow sinking agony. It had something to do with blood magic.

And Petra. And Oluo. And Sirena.

“Moblit, wait,” Eren said, stopping. He felt like he was going to be sick. Whatever this was...whatever Levi had done...he didn’t want to know anymore.

“It’s okay,” Moblit said, gentle but implacable. He took Eren by the arm. “It’s not too much further.”

They were getting close, and Eren wanted to turn and run back to the house...maybe even all the way back to the city. He didn’t want to find out what it was, what had happened, he didn’t want to know…

Moblit had to drag him the last few steps, but Moblit was strong. It was misty tonight, but not like it had been that night. If he opened his eyes he’d see where they were. He kept them closed.

“Open your eyes Eren,” Moblit said gently.

“I can’t.”

“You need to see,” Moblit said.

When he opened them at last he shook his head. But he was more prepared for this than he’d expected. Had some part of him known all along? No, impossible. He kept shaking his head.

Gunther Schultz, the first gravestone said. Eld Gin. Oluo Bozad. Petra Ral.

“How did they die?” Eren said. He’d been sitting in the wet dirt for ten minutes, staring at the stones.

The graves of his friends. They were buried in a small hilly cemetery, it was beautiful here. The graves were well-tended.

That's why, he thought suddenly, keeping his hands pressed to his mouth, ready to burst into hysterical laughter. All those cakes and cookies and sweets the squad had eaten, preferring them to all real food... That was what you fed to ghosts. Sugar, and alcohol. And blood.

Moblit had his arms crossed over his chest. “It was a gambit of the Commander’s,” he said quietly. “Commander Erwin was trying to catch someone he believed to be a spy, and…” he sighed. “We were outmaneuvered. Levi’s Squad was caught unprepared--they were alone. Whoever killed them caught them off guard.”

“Was it Titans?” Eren asked.

“It might have been.”

“You never caught them? The spy?”

“No,” Moblit said. His voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t--I probably shouldn’t have even told you that. No one is supposed to know. Officially, they died in a freak accident...only a handful of us know the truth.”

“Resurrection magic,” Eren said in a low stunned voice. “That’s what he was doing.”

“I can’t believe he’d do it,” Moblit said, clenching his hands into fists. “Make them into thralls--”

“They weren’t thralls!” Eren snapped, so loud Moblit jerked back in surprise. “They were as real as you or me! Believe me!” he got to his feet. “Whatever--whatever reason he had for bringing them back--he must have had a reason, Moblit. It wasn’t whatever you’re thinking!”

“All right, Eren,” Moblit said, holding his hands up. “I’ll take your word for it. But there is no good reason to use blood magic. What he did was wrong, and...you’re going to need to accept that.”

There was more that Moblit wasn’t saying--like the fact that Levi would certainly lose his job, would probably face criminal prosecution. Exile. Imprisonment. Execution. Eren couldn’t bear it just then; he tried to think of anything else. He stared at the stones.

“Where’s Sirena’s?” he asked dully.

“What?”

“Petra and Oluo’s daughter! You saw her--she’s not here!” For a moment only his heart had risen hopefully--had that been why Levi had resurrected them? To care for Sirena? Had Sirena lived through that attack, safely tucked away? But one look at Moblit’s face told him otherwise.

“Petra,” he said slowly. “She wasn’t--we didn’t know she was pregnant until after she had died. The Captain told Hanji afterward...only Levi’s Squad knew. She was only two months along...there was no way to know whether it would have been a boy or a girl...no one...They talked about it. In the end Levi said they should write ‘beloved mother, beloved father’ on their tombstones...that that would be sufficient.”

“I need some time,” Eren said staring straight ahead.

“Of course,” Moblit said. “I’ll wait here...I’ll try to give you some privacy. Take as much time as you need, Eren.” Moblit’s initial wariness had gone. Eren supposed his shock and horror had made it obvious to him that he hadn’t been complicit in...Levi’s crimes.

He swallowed hard as he went to touch Petra’s grave...she was the one he’d been closest to. She was motherly, approachable...he’d seen for himself how much she cared for everyone. Levi, the squad. Her husband. Her daughter.

Levi, what did you do? But he had a guess already. Maybe Levi could have lived with the deaths of his squad, but the idea of Petra and Oluo’s child never even getting a taste of life…

He could see how that might have been hard for Levi to take.

Resurrection magic, he’d said to Moblit, but was it? He’d never heard of magic that could bring the dead back as they had been in life. There was necromancy, but that was...that was thralls like Moblit had said. Slaves with no will of their own. Petra and the others--they had been alive! Levi had brought them back to full life, somehow.

I only saw them once a week, he thought. Whatever Levi was doing...it took too much power to bring them back all the time. Damn it, Levi. Damn it.

He had seen the squad a few days ago, but Sirena had appeared tonight on her own. Outside the confines of the spell. And powerful enough to blaze off hundreds of Titans. What did that mean? Was she different from her parents? Never really having been born, did that mean she hadn’t really died?

There were stories of people like that. Humans, existing outside the normal order of things. He didn’t know much about them; could only recall a few fragments right now, shaken and shocky as he was. He thought they mostly were saints, great spiritual teachers, wisemen, but not wizards--not ordinary wizards, anyhow.

Was that what you were doing, Levi? Trying to give Sirena a chance to become someone?

He turned his head to look at Moblit, but he still had his back to him, half-hidden behind a tree. He probably had at least a few minutes before he turned to check on him. Swiftly and silently he moved to the gate on the far side of the cemetery. Only when he had passed through did he begin to run.

He wasn’t being followed, and that was good; how long had they been gone, at the graves? A half hour? An hour? If they had already taken Levi…

He arrived out of breath at the back of the house; they were still there, but he could tell even before he’d reached the kitchen door the house was locked up tight with Eastern magic, something very like a labyrinth surrounded it.

There was a keyhole though, and it was for the Key of the West.

“Shit!” Eren shouted, banging his hand on his thigh. He didn’t know what he was going to do--only that it would be much harder to deal with Erwin than Hanji.

“Please!” he yelled out loud, “Please, you showed me before. You wanted me to see what he was doing, you want him to--to win to beat this, so help me, please help me help him!” He had to get in before Erwin arrived, and all this got so much worse.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it! Damn it!” Eren yelled, and he kicked a flowerpot, shattering it on the stone patio. The blue heron hissed at him.

“What!” he yelled, ready to fight it--

It was looking at him from an open window, on the second floor.

“Oh, you beautiful bird!” he yelled, crying in relief. He grabbed hold of the drainpipe and had the side of the house scaled in seconds, hauling himself in through the open window. He landed on a tile floor, he was in a bathroom. The blue heron had returned to the full tub, where it floated serenely. He grabbed it around the neck and kissed its beak before it could stop him, and it hissed at him again but without heat.

“I owe you a fish!” Eren called to it, running out of the room.

Eren thought he saw it now. Levi had just wanted to give the child a chance to experience life. He had needed to resurrect Petra for the child to be born...and Petra was too strong to have ignored her missing squadmates. Eren didn't know much about ghosts, but he knew they were supposed to be absent-minded, vague. They didn't remember their own deaths. And Oluo and Eld and Gunther, they had been vague sometimes...but not Petra. She would have seen through the Captain's assurances...the only way he could make it work was to bring them all back

Hanji and Levi were in the study. Eren had never seen Levi looking so ill and worn. He had cast a veil upon himself as soon as he’d come into the house and although Hanji would have been nearly impossible to fool under normal circumstances she wasn’t expecting to see him; she’d locked the house up tight, after all, and sent him away with Moblit. Her eyes slid right over him without stopping, and Eren reached for Levi unthinkingly; Levi, who hadn’t seen him yet either. Levi who was shockingly vulnerable at the moment.

He was stunned to see how depleted his teacher was. He stared for a moment before pulling himself together. He did almost the same thing he’d done once upon a time, what felt like a lifetime ago in the city that day they’d set the library to rights. But he knew Levi better now and this was the North, Levi’s home territory.

Levi breathed out, and Eren watched the color return to his face, watched him go from wretched and defeated to alert and conscious.

He glanced at Eren. You shouldn’t be here.

Eren squeezed his shoulder. You’re not alone.

“Hanji,” Eren said suddenly, letting go of the veil.

She gaped at him for a moment. “Eren!” she said. “You were supposed to go back to the Eastern Gate with Moblit!” She didn’t seem as shocked as he would have expected; either he was getting better at casting veils or she hadn’t really believed he’d go back.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Eren said stubbornly. “He was trying to help.”

“Eren, this is not your concern. And what he did--”

“He had a reason. They weren’t thralls.”

She looked at him; then at Levi. Eren was speaking as persuasively as he knew how, throwing around a fair bit of his own magic. She was Levi’s friend. Her duty to the Gate came first, but she wanted to believe he was innocent. He could see her wanting to be convinced, and he suddenly saw a way out, a way forward.

Then Erwin walked into the room, and it felt to Eren as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees; he shivered, and he grabbed hold of Levi’s arm.

Erwin narrowed his eyes a little seeing Eren, but he said nothing. Levi had gone as still as some beatified monk, frozen in eternal lotus. And Eren, whose emotions were already on a hair-trigger, despaired. From the moment he’d felt Eren’s presence Levi had had hope. With Erwin’s arrival it had gone again.

They were talking; Erwin demanding explanations, Hanji and Levi both speaking; Eren ignored them all. He did a quick read of intentions--he’d never been very good at those, but none of them was expecting it and certainly not from him. His passion and urgency lent him strength, and his months with Levi had given him subtlety.

He saw what they were going to do.

And Eren, who had never run away from a fight in his life yelled, “You are not sending him to an institution!” at two of the most powerful magicians in the world. He was a child yelling at giants, but he’d do whatever he could for Levi, spend whatever he had. Quicker than thought he squared off against them; Erwin noticed right away, his lips narrowed, his nostrils flared--

“You don’t have any problem finding hills to die on, do you?” Levi asked tiredly. He had reached for Eren’s hand, and Hanji and Erwin stood frozen in front of them, their frowns etched in place as though they had been turned to wax statues.

Eren swallowed hard, his heart was squeezing painfully in his chest. “I guess not,” he said in a rough voice.

“It will be all right, Eren.”

“They can’t take you.”

“I brought this on myself,” Levi told him. “I’ll survive.”

“Okay,” Eren said; his other hand had reached into his pocket, had closed around his key fob and keys. He hadn’t needed them since coming here, but he carried them anyway. It was his good luck charm after all. He held the stone, that was quartz-like and yet not quartz. For one moment he was invincible.

Levi blinked at him, slow and suspicious. He let go of Eren’s hand, and time resumed. Erwin said something and Eren closed his eyes, holding the stone tight. Then something happened.

It was an explosion, if an explosion can be without sound and motion and any physical evidence; but Levi and Eren both felt the blow.

It took Eren a while to understand what Levi was saying; his ears were ringing, or some part of him was.

“What did you do?” Levi said again. “What did you do to them?”

Eren opened his eyes. They were alone in the room. Erwin and Hanji had never been here tonight.

Eren swallowed in relief, gripped the twine and keys in a tight fist and he sank to the ground. All at once everything caught up to him. Sirena and the squad and the Titans and it was--

And Levi.

“Eren!”

Eren shook his head, and at last Levi fell to one knee beside him. They put their arms around each other. Eren felt like he’d split his guts open running back here, and only shock had kept him going until now. With Levi out of immediate danger it was too much, all too much. The Titans had broken through the Gate, Sirena had sacrificed herself, the squad were all dead, Levi wasn’t the person he’d thought he was. Eren covered his face.

For ten minutes they huddled together, and then the coatrack came in and Levi moved away; suddenly, as if he had remembered an appointment. Eren kept his face in his hands. Just breathing.

When he looked up the coatrack was setting a tray down on the coffee table. Levi held a letter in his hands, looking troubled.

“This was on the desk. It was opened. It’s Hanji, saying they can’t come for dinner tonight because there’s a plumbing problem and her house is flooded. Eren, what did you do?”

He could tell Levi was afraid, and he wanted to speak but he couldn’t yet. His heart was too full, and if he tried to speak something dreadful would come out.

Levi stared at him. “The Titans never came here,” he said at last. “The air is different, the leylines are different, Sirena…” abruptly he cut himself off and looked away. “She didn’t do it. She didn’t sacrifice herself.” Raw.

“It wasn’t a time spell, or if it was it wasn’t like any I’ve ever seen. Eren, what did you do.”

“What do you think I did? Used blood magic like you?” Eren, fuck, why did you say that, he thought in dismay. Levi flinched.

He hated himself then, but a sharp bitter gladness blazed through him. Levi deserved it. He deserved to be hurt. Eren had never been so afraid. He had discovered a part of his heart was walking around outside his body. He had discovered that Levi was mortal.

You’re not the person I thought you were.

What a night for unwanted epiphanies.

“I...saved a Luck Dragon’s life when I was eleven,” he said after a long time.

”What?” Levi said, as shocked as if Eren had just admitted to being a god.

“He gave me a boon. My key fob...I don’t know if you ever saw it.” Eren held up the keys and twine. They felt strange in his hand without the fob, like a tooth missing, and he instinctively clasped his fingers tight as if that would bring the missing piece back. “I held it in my hand, and I wished for all this to go away...for this night to never have happened. For things to be all right.”

Slowly, slowly Levi covered his eyes. He turned away, shaking his head. Eren got to his feet uneasily.

“Levi?” he spoke without thinking, calling him by name. He didn’t move; he didn’t seem to have heard, and Eren sighed to himself and came closer. He felt like he was about to do something extremely stupid, about to reach out to touch a live wire. He put a hand on Levi’s shoulder, felt his stiffness, came closer still.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Levi said, almost inaudible. He was turned away, towards the windows. He didn’t sound angry, he sounded appalled.

“Levi...what was I supposed to do, let them take you away?” Levi didn’t answer and Eren looked up at the ceiling. God give me strength! “It was just a token, it wasn’t--”

Levi shook him off.

”You saved a Luck Dragon’s life, and you think it was just a token? Do you know what kind of magic that was? And you fucking wasted it! You carried that around with you for ten years, don’t tell me you thought it was nothing!” He was shaking, with outrage or some more complex emotion. Almost to himself he added, “There aren’t any Luck Dragons...I didn’t think there were.”

Carefully, like he was dealing with an overtired child, Eren reached for him again.

“You’re so stupid,” Levi said, watching him with haunted eyes. “How could you do that? How? You won’t ever get a thing like that again, Eren. There’s going to come a day when you wish you hadn’t thrown it away.”

Eren held on to him. He didn’t even know how to answer.

Chapter Text

They were sitting at the coffee table. Eren had poured out the hot chocolate the coatrack had brought in. Levi stared at his.

“Drink.”

“I don’t like chocolate.”

“You’re such a liar. Everyone likes chocolate.”

“It’s too sweet,” Levi said, sounding almost sulky, but he drank it. “How did you even meet a Luck Dragon?”

“It’s a long story,” Eren sighed.

“Mikasa never told me,” Levi said, accusingly. “Why didn’t you just use that to get into the Survey Corp two years ago?”

“She didn’t know. I never told anyone. And I didn’t want to use it like that. It would have been cheating. It wouldn’t have been right to use it for something like that, and anyway I wanted to earn a place.”

“They won’t have any memory of what happened tonight," Levi said. "Hanji and Erwin.”

“No.”

“But I do.”

“Because I know now,” Eren said. “You can’t do it again. I can’t let you.”

Levi stared at the table. “I know.”

“What happened to the Titans that tried to break through?” Eren asked.

“I don’t know…” Levi said. “You...turned everything inside out with that. You changed everybody’s movements tonight. Someone had to have been coordinating the Titans’ attack.”

“What, a human?”

“Yes. They’re mindless on their own. They couldn’t break through the wards like that. They couldn’t organize an attack. Unless someone was leading them.”

“Who? How? And where are they now?” Eren said. God, wasn't what had already happened tonight enough? How could there be more?

“I don’t know. What you wished for was so vague they could be anywhere. But if this was the culmination of months of planning...or longer...I think we have a bigger problem. Where is the person behind it all? Did their plans just get delayed? I have to strengthen all the wards.” But Levi didn’t move, he sat there holding the cup in his hands and looking shell-shocked.

"Moblit said...Moblit said a spy killed them all. Petra and the others. Is that true?"

Levi nodded.

"Could that be the person who organized the Titan attack tonight? And...does it have something to do with what happened in Shinganshina?"

"Probably."

"But you don't know who."

"Someone in the military. Someone who knows how we operate."

"Fuck," Eren said succinctly, and they sat in silence. “Why did you do it?” he asked softly. “You wanted Sirena to have a chance at life, didn’t you? You felt guilty. But what would have happened to her, Levi? Would she have ended up like the scavengers?”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen,” Levi said, flinching. It was obvious though that was what he had been afraid of. Almost unwillingly he added, “There were reasons I wanted Sirena to be born.”

”What reasons?”

Levi sighed.

“Can you just tell me something, in plain English for once!” he shouted. He glared at Levi, then added meanly, "Necromancy! That's what they thought you were doing. That's the charge I defended you against tonight!"

"Necromancy is animating a dead body without a soul," Levi said tiredly. "What I was doing was the opposite. Returning a soul to life without a body."

"But--but they had bodies! I felt them!" Eren said desperately, remembering: all the bruises Oluo had left on him at practice, Petra's hair brushing him as she leaned past to pick something up, the weight of Sirena on his shoulders, Gunther's strong handshake, Eld helping him adjust the maneuver gear...

"Only my blood gave them physical form," Levi said. "That's why they faded so quickly."

"Jesus, Levi."

"Eren," Levi said. "If they find out...if Hanji or Erwin or anyone finds out about what I did, they'll find out you knew. They'll prosecute you for not turning me in."

"Well, I didn't save you just now to turn you in, so I guess that's just too fucking bad," Eren said, pissed at Levi for even suggesting it. Levi met his gaze head-on.

"You need to know what you're risking. Your future. Your career. Maybe even your life."

"Are you gonna turn yourself in?" he asked harshly.

"No," Levi muttered. "I still have work to do. I'll do it for as long as I can."

"Then I guess you should just drop it." Eren couldn't though; furiously he added, "Do you know what they were going to do to you?"

Levi watched him curiously. "Did you see?"

He nodded. "They were going to put you--Ugh!" He covered his face with his hands, the raw horror of it! Levi's hand, reaching for his across the coffee table, and he grasped it. Felt the warmth and the strength of those fingers in his. "In an institution," Levi said. "In isolation. They'd have cut off my magic from me--like a lobotomy, only slightly more barbaric."

"Are--" Eren cleared his throat. "Are you getting that from me? Picking it up from me?"

"Yeah."

"Weird," Eren said perfunctorily, not letting go of Levi's hand. "Even though," Eren said after a moment, getting pissed all over again, "That's the opposite treatment for blood magic use. It would have killed you."

"I'm strong."

"Not that strong," Eren said. He shook his head. "Why--how could they think that was right! They're supposed to be--you're all supposed to be the best magicians in the world! How could they be so backward? They don't know...they think once you've used it you're tainted forever," Eren said angrily. "You've used blood magic before, haven't you?"

"Sometimes," Levi said. "If we didn't have enough to eat."

"Oh my god," Eren said.

"When I was young," Levi said. "We didn't always have enough food. My mother didn't like me doing it, but...the kids I ran with, one of the older girls knew how. She'd buy a little sugar, and we'd mix it with our own blood...and dirt. Roll it into mud balls. It would be enough..."

Eren was shaking his head. He'd thought he'd had it bad after Shinganshina; six months as a refugee in a school gymnasium, waiting for a place with Mikasa and Armin. Living off of MREs and bottled water and canned spaghetti for every meal; he couldn't imagine the kind of childhood that would lead to what Levi was talking about. Blood magic instead of food...you might as well give a child heroin when they told you they were hungry. "How," Eren was saying, "How--" They were still touching, and maybe that was why Levi understood him.

"Manufactured famines," he said softly. "After the Purge, they sent a lot of people to the Underground, instead of killing them. People were tired of the slaughter...and some of the magicians down there were too powerful to go easy. It would have taken more might than the military possessed to kill us all. Easier to bury us until we were forgotten, dispossessed, hopeless. Through malice or incompetence they'd try to starve us, or maybe just when they thought life was getting too easy." Levi shrugged.

"Mud balls," Eren whispered. "That's what you feed to ghosts."

Levi smiled wanly. "We weren't much more than ghosts."

“Sirena…” Eren said. “Did she know what she was? Did she know what you did?”

Levi nodded, his face carefully blank. No wonder she had been so attached to him. The idea of what Levi had done was dreadful, but knowing why he had done it…

Eren had passed so many happy breakfasts and lunches and dinners with the squad, listened to their easy banter, watched Sirena sit in Levi’s lap as content as a queen surveying her kingdom. He’d thought Levi had borne this alone, but no. It was a secret the two of them had shared; no wonder she had loved him. She had known she owed her life to him, these stolen golden hours with her parents...only given back because of his sacrifice.

“Levi,” Eren said, so gently. Another time he’d used the Captain’s first name, another time he didn’t notice. “You know blood magic is like drug abuse. Even if you’re not using it to get high you need more and more to yield the same results. When I came in, when Hanji was talking to you, I saw how depleted you were. I didn’t think about it then. But I saw it. Two more months of this and you’d be dead.”

“I know,” Levi said, quietly, and somehow that was the worst thing.

“You tried to stop,” Eren realized with a sudden sick feeling. “When we were in the city. That was the reason you wanted to stay so long. You were already in withdrawal when they called us back…” Dizzily, he remembered that day they’d gone to the library...Levi had been lying about it being food poisoning.

“It was easier there,” Levi said. “If I was here...it was harder to ignore how long it had been, since the last time. There I thought…”

“Then why did you rush back!”

“I had to check and see where things stood,” Levi sighed. “Hanji made it sound like they were on the brink of disaster. I thought it would be enough time. You're right," he said, "I am a hypocrite." Eren hadn't said that out loud, he'd only thought it. "I can't tell you everything tonight, Eren. I'm too tired, and it would take too long. What I was doing was wrong. You're right. I should never have done it. I should have stopped. I kept telling myself...just one more time. Just one more. Just wait until Sirena's a little bit stronger, a little bit older. And maybe she'll be all right. Maybe she'll be able to make it on her own."

"You would have killed yourself thinking that."

"I know."

“Well, we can go back to the city now.”

“We can’t leave the North unprotected,” Levi said, though he sounded exhausted. “Especially now. We don’t know if we’ll be attacked again. And if you tell them why we need assistance guarding the gate they’ll lock me up. Erwin won’t have a choice.”

“I’ll tell Hanji you have the flu and you need her help for a week,” Eren said suddenly, and Levi blinked. “She’ll believe it, won’t she?”

“I--probably.”

“I’ll call her now,” Eren said, and he got up and went into the hall.

He was shaking and sweating as soon as he was alone; as if he was the one in blood magic withdrawal. He wiped his brow.

You can't wish people back to life.

The Luck Dragon had told him that; because as an eleven year old orphan of course it was the first thing he had thought of. But you couldn't; if someone was dead they were dead, and nothing in magic could bring them back, not the right way. A million stories, from The Odyssey to Orpheus to The Monkey's Paw all told that same sad tale. Even Levi's insane sacrifice hadn't brought his squad back to true life, just a taste that was enough to torture him, and slowly kill him at the same time...

Eren had changed things tonight with his wish, but Sirena had sacrificed herself to slay the Titans. He'd seen it happen. He leaned back against the staircase near the phone and let the tears roll down his face. She was just a baby. But she had had some of Levi's magic in her, Levi's knowledge. She had had plenty of reason to hate the Titans, to want to protect her home. And she hadn't been a normal child, but maybe one of those saints or prophets...Levi had been trying to let her grow strong enough to survive on her own, without any more blood magic...to have some kind of life...

"Fuck!" he yelled, quietly, so Levi wouldn't hear.

If Sirena had died tonight, then she was gone. Even Luck Dragon magic couldn't bring her back.

But if Sirena wasn't really alive in the conventional state…could she really have died?

But if she wasn't already strong enough to exist on her own it was all moot anyway. Blood magic was like drug use. Over time you needed more and more of it to yield the same results. If Levi had kept going like this he'd have been dead in two months at the most. That was why sensible evil wizards used other people's blood for their dark magic.

Levi might think he's an idiot; he might even be right. But he's more educated than Levi thinks he is. Mada had been thorough and exacting. That Levi had been resurrecting five people by himself was insanity. He can't have any proper education or he'd never have attempted such a thing.

Lucky for you, Eren thought darkly, I've gone through blood magic withdrawal before. He sighed. He had to call Hanji now, and then go back. Levi would wonder what was taking so long. And he couldn't leave Levi alone now, not until they were clear of this. They were going to be prisoners together for a while.

With his hand shaking only a little, he picked up the phone.

Chapter Text

When he came back from his phone call with Hanji he found Levi drowsing, lying sideways across the couch. He slid down to the floor beside him, leaning back, and he draped an arm against Levi's leg because some contact was better than none.

"She bought it?" Levi asked sleepily.

"She bought it. Do you want to go upstairs."

"No," Levi sighed. "I'm not going to be able to get up and down the stairs, later. I might as well just start camping here."

"You know how bad this is going to be then."

Levi shrugged. "I've some idea," he said, and the conjunction sounded oddly archaic and pleasing to Eren's ear. "What do you know about it?"

"You've never done anything like this before, have you?" Eren asked curiously. "Not this extreme. Mudballs when you were a kid, that's nothing like this."

Levi rolled to his side, propping his head up on his hand. Eren moved his arm absently so it was resting by Levi's chest instead. It felt like they were complicit in this now.

"No," Levi said. "After my mother died I didn't touch blood magic again. Not until now."

"She made you promise, didn't she?" Eren asked softly.

Levi nodded, not looking at him. "I don't want to--"

"I know. You don't have to tell me everything tonight. Or--at all, if you don't want to. I know I've been angry with you, but you're right, I don't have the right to be--"

"You do," Levi said. "I'd turn myself in, if I was going to do the moral thing here."

"Levi--"

"I'm supposed to be your guide, in all this. And I've been lying to you all this time."

"I know you had reasons," Eren said. "I think I even know what some of them are."

"Still." Levi said. He was quiet for a while, then he said, "It killed me, to break that promise to her." He was lying on his back now, staring up at the ceiling. "I almost didn't do it, in the end. I almost couldn't do it. When I was around your age something happened to me...and after I made a promise to myself, that once I'd decided to do something I wouldn't regret it afterwards. Even if the outcome was not what I had hoped. Deciding whether or not I should bring them back...it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Who did my loyalties lie with? Them? Myself? My mother, my family, the military, the North? Instead of choosing one path, I chose the middle ground. I tried to compromise. You saw how that turned out, tonight."

"What do you mean?" Eren asked.

"There is a way to bring the dead back to full life," Levi said. He was still staring up at the ceiling. Eren felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

"What? How?"

"You need human victims," Levi said, glancing over. "Preferably blood-related. Living bodies...to deposit their souls into."

Eren shivered; "But you didn't! You wouldn't!"

"No," Levi said. "But I couldn't bring them back as thralls, either. I couldn't do necromancy. I couldn't do anything that would hurt anyone--"

"Except yourself."

"Yes."

Eren shivered again. "Are there people who do that?" he asked quietly. "Bring...bring people back from the dead like that? I thought you couldn't, I thought that was one of the basic laws."

"No, that's true," Levi said. "You can't have them back as they were. Even if you resurrected them like that, you'd be unsettling the natural order; you'd be killing someone else, dispossessing them of their body, to make a place for the person who had died."

"People do do it then," Eren said, hugging himself. "I've never even heard of that."

"There are all sorts of terrible things you can do with dark magic," Levi said nonchalantly. "That's not even the worst one."

"Great."

Levi was drifting off again when Eren whispered, "What about Sirena?"

Levi opened his eyes. "I don't know."

"You can't tell if she's...still here?"

Slowly Levi shook his head. "I don't know. It doesn't really work that way. I--I was as surprised to see her as you. I had no idea she'd become that powerful." He closed his eyes, pressed his hands to his face as though he were in pain. "It looks like I was just using her as a tool," he said. "A weapon. But I--"

Eren grabbed him around the neck and held him tightly. "Do you think there's a chance?" he asked. "That she's--that she's still here?"

"I don't know," Levi said, because he didn't want to hope. "I don't know. We'll have to see."

Blood magic was dangerous; not so much in itself--everyone, even the military used blood to scry, or in truth spells. And the mudballs Levi had talked about...that was barely even blood magic at all. Everybody left gifts of cakes and candy and poured out libations for ghosts during the holidays; at shrines or graves or on their doorsteps, and the old people would mix in a little blood with the sugar candy. That wasn't dark magic, it was just old-fashioned.

The problem was blood magic was powerful...it was easy to overdo. Easy to get addicted. And once you were addicted it was hard to stop. Most of the really dark wizards Eren had ever heard about had only been caught because they'd gone on insane murder sprees--normal people, who started by paying for blood to get a little extra power; then they'd enslave or coerce someone into being a living thrall...leaving them nearly dead when they'd used up all their power. After that, it wasn't long until they decided it was easier just to murder people straight out. It was rumored the old king, the one the military had deposed and killed, had secretly murdered something like a hundred people.

Of course, even if that were true the military had gone on to murder thousands, but...

Earlier, when Moblit had told him he'd have to show him...Eren was ashamed now, but he'd thought for an awful moment that Levi had done something like that. That he'd enslaved or killed someone for their blood. In spite of what the coatrack had said, and in spite of the fact that he'd seen Levi cut himself, and use his own blood. But in his shock and confusion it had been the first thing he'd thought of.

I'm sorry, he thought guiltily, looking behind him at Levi asleep on the couch. Of course Levi wouldn't...he'd kill himself before he'd take a drop of anyone else's blood, and Eren wiped his face with a corner of his still-damp sleeve.

He put his head down on his knees. He'd turned the lights off when Levi had fallen asleep, and found them both a couple of blankets. But when he woke up hours later, sometime before dawn he was lying beside Levi on the couch. They were touching; his front to Levi's back, Levi's breathing slow and easy. He was unsure if he'd crawled up or if Levi had dragged him. Either way it was a bad idea. He slid back down to the floor.

I'm strong, Levi had told him. But he wasn't strong enough to have survived Erwin and Hanji's well-intentioned treatment; sterility, isolation, removal. Blood magic was raw power and death and disruption. Using it to excess stripped you of your humanity. You'd stop eating food, you didn't care about friendship or family or love anymore, and earthly desires no longer held any sway over you. Power for its own sake became your only concern; that and immortality. Some of the missing manuscripts had made their way back into the library, and that week Eren read them while Levi slept. They were old, made of fragile paper, mostly medieval in languages he didn't understand. But the pictures were clear enough. Men--women were largely, though not completely immune--who gradually lost their hair, and became thin and skeletal, like demons from a child's nightmare. Gradually, if the blood magic abuse went on long enough their sex organs atrophied and fell off--

They look like Titans, Eren thought, jerking awake one night. He had fallen asleep by Levi's side, and the manuscript he'd been reading slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor.

The grinning, hairless, naked man in the drawing stared back at him. Eren's heart beat hard in his chest. Was that what Titans were? Blood magic practitioners, who'd pursued immortality only to have their desires twisted before being given back? He picked up the book carefully and stared at the drawing. Or was this just one of those dream-logic leaps that would fade in the morning? He put the book away with a sigh.

Physical contact, good food, earthly pleasures. That was the best treatment for blood magic withdrawal; not solitary confinement in a padded room. But Eren was leery of pushing Levi too hard. He didn’t trust his own judgement. He remembered the night they’d spent together after fixing the library wards. It had been easy to snuggle in with Levi, because they'd attained a spiritual intimacy that made it easy for the physical to follow.

The problem was. The problem was.

Blood magic was death, it was a metaphor for death. It resulted in death to no purpose, ignoble sacrifice, allowing the user to pursue immortality at the expense of other people's lives.

And what was the opposite of death? Life. Which meant what, exactly in this context...

Mada had always told him there was no such thing as sex magic, that it was just something silly prudish people who didn't know any better made up to try to impose their backward views on people; but Mada also had a steady stream of male 'friends'--Commander Zackly being one--whose true interest in her Eren had been unaware of until embarrassingly late in life. He suspected that was another reason Mikasa had never liked her, and thinking about Mikasa made him smile. She was a hypocrite too; she had always tried to impose rules on him and Armin that she had no intention of following herself. He glanced behind him. Maybe it was an Ackerman family trait.

But even if there wasn't sex magic per se, even if Mada had been telling the truth and her gentlemen callers just liked to cry on her shoulder and complain about their wives and eat her five-alarm chili, that didn't mean sex had no power. How could it not? Sex was life, and life was the opposite of death; living magic was the opposite of blood magic.

Treatment for blood magic withdrawal was all those things that blood magic took from you; food, family, friends, closeness, physical contact, and...

Sex. Sex wasn't bad either.

Thinking about that day at the library now...how he'd leaned into Levi all those times, how Levi had opened himself up to him after. Knowing Levi had been in the early stages of withdrawal cast it all in a different light. Not that he felt like Levi had taken advantage of him; hell, he'd pushed most of those things onto Levi anyway.

But it was different now. He couldn't offer comfort innocently. Not when the recurrent thought running through his head all day, his new unwanted mantra was, Just one good blowjob...

He had imagined it so many times this week, and though he tried to pry the thoughts out with a crowbar but they weren't budging. He wanted Levi. The last few weeks he'd been irritated enough with him that he'd been able to stomp out his growing attraction, but now--

Now that Levi was vulnerable and hurting and laid bare, now that they were together in this, sharing this secret--it was impossible to hide from. You don't even know how to give a blowjob, he'd thought at himself irritably, a few times. But that was a dangerous thought to have, because the immediate follow up was, I can learn.

And he would learn for Levi, he'd be good, he'd forget all his embarrassment--

Ugh. He covered his face with his hands. He was so fucking pathetically predictable. He'd fallen in love with every teacher under forty he'd ever had, beginning with Miss Jade in kindergarten, all the way up to Ms. Diamond at the military academy. She was the one who had found him having a panic attack and brought him to the school nurse. What a humiliation that had been. At least before now all his unrequited crushes had been female. This was a new wrinkle, and one he didn't want; it was confusing and upsetting and no way would Levi ever consent to be Eren's goddamn experiment! It was....it was just some fucked up hero worship thing. That was all. Levi wasn't going to get involved with him just to satisfy his weird and inappropriate curiosity.

As awful as his infatuation was Eren was sure it would pass. It was a phase. It had to be. Like that embarrassing period when he'd been twelve and he'd first discovered porn. He'd been confused by all the women bouncing on balloons naked in high heels, but it was definitely arousing; he just hadn't realized that that was what porn was. It had taken him months to realize he had accidentally stumbled on a fetish website; that porn was much wider and more all-encompassing than he could have ever imagined. Only it had also taken him months to get over his embarrassment; he spent a long time cringing at what he had said to the other guys at school when he finally realized his mistake...

And here he was, still doing embarrassing and reprehensible things almost ten years later. Levi was sick, almost mortally ill and all Eren could think about was how much he wanted to bang him. He'd never been so disgusted with himself. In his weakened state it was all too easy for Eren to imagine Levi saying yes to something he’d regret later. There was nothing better than physical comfort for blood magic withdrawal; Eren knew that firsthand. And consent was one of those things in magic that there was no way of getting around. If you were going to be good that is--if you weren't going to go around murdering people and exploiting whatever and whoever you wanted--then you needed to take all those little steps. Levi asking permission before looking at Eren's magic. The blue heron, refusing to be turned back into a letter opener when Hanji had asked. That taboo of bond magic--because bonds could be forced.

Right now, even if Levi had been interested in Eren (and fat chance of that, Eren thought sourly, angry at himself) he was too ill for consent to mean anything; Eren could still remember how sick he'd been with his own withdrawal years earlier. He would have done anything to make the pain go away. If Levi said 'yes' it would be because he was looking for relief, not because he wanted Eren; and if he realized later that Eren had gotten off on it...

Taking advantage of Levi...Levi realizing how crude and vile he was...no. He would have happily died first. It made him cautious to the point of neurosis when it came to touching Levi, or helping him with anything. If there was some psychic touch between them it was always circumspect and carefully warded, described in the most formal language magic had.

Levi didn’t remark upon his new punctiliousness, and that was probably because he hadn’t noticed. He was so ill that Eren two or three times wondered despairingly if he shouldn’t just tell Hanji everything, or write to Mada begging for help. It made his own blood magic withdrawal look like a mild hangover.

He didn’t; mainly because Levi forbade it daily. If Eren even started to suggest getting help from anyone else Levi would grab him--hands shockingly strong on Eren's shoulder and collar; as if to say, you see? I’m tougher than you give me credit for.

Then he’d end up awkwardly half-lying across Levi’s chest, sitting on the floor, and Levi would drift off while Eren furiously tried to think unsexy thoughts.

He couldn't even take Levi's pain away, as he once had. He'd tried the morning after, the sun streaming in through the windows. Levi had grabbed his wrist and shaken his head.

"I have to get through it on my own now," he said in a gravelly voice. "You'd just prolong what's coming...make it worse."

Eren exhaled. "Is it that bad?" he asked, rubbing his wrist.

Levi smiled. His eyes were purple-shadowed. "Worse."

Eren had been working on the food; Levi liked Asian and Indian best, but he seemed to be the only one in the North that could cook them. The farmhouse down the road sent back spinach quiche when he asked for saag paneer, and spaghetti and meatballs when he asked for udon noodles. When Levi picked at them and then pushed them away to sleep more Eren sighed and rolled up his sleeves; he found cookbooks in the library and spices in the pantry and that night he made a creditable curry. Levi even ate a little of it.

He had a headache for five days before he realized it wasn't his; it was Levi's. And he couldn't push it away or stop it, it was his stupid sympathetic magic sloshing all over the place and making a mess again. Because he couldn't help Levi he'd hurt himself again; perfect! How useful!

He made himself meditate then; Levi always told him half-heartedly he should go to sleep in his own bed, there was no reason for both of them to sleep in the study. But he knew Levi liked having him there, that his presence was a comfort, and anyway he wanted to keep an eye on Levi. He wasn't worried so much now about Levi relapsing; it was more just that he wanted to be there if Levi needed anything.

The withdrawal was not getting better. Levi was having dizzy spells, and he found it hard to stand for even a few minutes now.

The meditating had helped though; he came downstairs feeling calm and centered and headache-free. Levi was asleep again, and Eren watched the rise and fall of his chest from the open doorway. Absently--with a motion like pulling at a blanket that had fallen off--he touched the corners of Levi's magic, something he hadn't done since the night of the Titan attack.

And then he stared blankly ahead, shaking with adrenaline.

Levi was more depleted now than he had been that night. Impossible. Eren had filled him up, tapping into the groundswell magic to restore the power he had lost.

You made a mistake, Eren told himself calmly. Don't panic. Check again. He took two steps into the room and he checked again; Levi slept on. There was no mistaking it. If Levi had been at twenty percent that night, he was at eighteen percent now; slightly but noticeably diminished.

It's not possible, Eren repeated again calmly. It wasn't; it had taken a year or more for Levi to go from full strength to what Eren had seen that night. It hadn't even been a week since; even the worst withdrawal couldn't have done this.

So look again, Eren told himself. And then--in a voice that sounded like Levi's--Go deeper.

Eren did, and this time he looked in a way he doubted anyone had ever looked at Levi. He was cool and detached, which was the only way he could have done it. He knew Levi now, knew things about him that no one else did. Do you know what I could do to you with that? he'd asked Levi once; it felt like ages ago.

Nothing, Levi had told him in response, but he'd been wrong.

Eren found the wound; it was a hole, a long narrow cut that went straight through Levi's heart. And because that night the Titans had attacked he had done his quick read of intentions; not just to Hanji and Erwin, but to Levi also--because none of them had noticed, because even Levi hadn't realized he had done it--he knew what had caused it.

Very slowly he sat down, and Levi slept on, unknowing.

Levi had lost his entire family. Not once. At least three times--at least three separate occasions. A wound that had never healed, that had only deepened and widened with time.

It was as shocking and horrible as finding out the truth about Petra and the others had been, and he rubbed his cheek, his brow, his hair. It was like finding out that Levi had only been half-alive all this time, like the story of the dead man who returns to rescue his children from the evil woodcutter--he covers the hole in his chest with his cloak, so that no one will see what he is.

Eren kept rubbing his face. What was he going to do about this? What was he going to do?

Chapter Text

"Have you...seen Sirena?" Eren asked. It was after breakfast; they'd started taking their meals in the study. Levi wasn't up to making trips back and forth to the kitchen. The coatrack had brought in a beautiful basket of pastries and jam and butter, and Eren had felt guilty for every bite he'd taken that Levi hadn't. It had been almost a week since that night, and he'd thought he’d heard a child’s voice in the house a few times, including just this morning when he'd come down from brushing his teeth. But Levi had always been alone when he’d peeked in.

“No,” Levi said stiffly. “I guess it was all pointless.”

Eren sighed. He reached for the teapot, but it was light in his hand; empty. "Do you want--" he started to say, and swallowed when he realized Levi's cup was full and cold. "Do you want me to get you some ginger beer?" he said instead.

Levi nodded, eyes closed. Eren got up and went to the kitchen icebox. Like the phonograph and the radio it ran in spite of the prohibition on electronics.

"Because no one fucks with my food," Levi had told him when he'd asked about it.

The fairies were largely responsible for interfering with older devices; newer things, like his cellphone just didn't work at all. But the fairies were fascinated by mechanics; Eren was always startled when he found one jammed into the gears of the grandfather clock when he went to wind it, or blocking the cone on the phonograph so that no sound came out. Levi had banned them from the house--from all the property--but that didn't stop them getting in.

Eren picked up a bottle of ginger beer--the coatrack had started stocking more of it, since it had become the only thing Levi was living on. He brought it back, and then settled on the edge of the coffee table while Levi drank.

“Levi…it wasn’t pointless. I understand why you did everything. And...Sirena wasn’t really dead. She was a spirit, not a ghost…with enough time she might find her own way back.”

“Or end up a scavenger?” Levi said. Of all the things he’d said to Levi that was the one he regretted most, but it didn’t make him shy away. He came closer and put his arms around him. He felt Levi’s tenseness recede, an ebbing tide, and for once Eren didn’t hold back. He pushed Levi down to the couch as if they were lovers, and he held him there.

Levi slept.

If Eren could have taken that pain into himself he would have done it. If he could have tapped into the groundswell magic and pushed the pain out he would have done that too.

But this was not something he could cure. Levi’s blood magic use had been deep and regular. It was in every part of him now, like radiation poisoning. If Eren had tried to do either of those things there was a good chance it would have killed him before it did any good.

The wound Levi carried wasn't getting better. And he still didn't know what to do about it.

In the afternoon he came down to find Levi lying on the couch, a blanket over his legs. After Levi had woken up earlier he'd made Eren go upstairs.

"Sleep in your bed for once," he said. "I know you didn't get any sleep last night."

There was a boy sitting beside Levi, reading from a large gold-edged book.

“The cata-cata-cata--”

“Catachresis,” Levi said. His eyes were closed and he was smiling, natural and relaxed. Eren halted in his tracks.

“What does that mean?” the boy said, sounding a little exasperated.

“Well,” Levi said, “if we were talking, it would be if you said ‘cat’ but you meant ‘car.’ If you were doing magic, it would be if you used an acorn instead of an egg. Something similar but not correct.”

The boy suddenly spotted Eren standing in the doorway. He scowled and snapped the book shut loudly, before tucking it protectively under his arm.

“Hi,” Eren said, stepping into the room. “I’m Eren. What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to say,” the boy said sulkily.

Levi poked him. “Don’t be rude.”

The boy’s frown deepened. “Shaw!” he said angrily, and then he turned and ran to the far end of the room, climbing out of the window and dropping to the lawn below. Eren watched him run through the long grass in bemusement.

“Shaw?” Eren asked curiously. “Who is he?”

Levi shrugged. “Just a neighbor child.”

“I thought you said there were no human children here.” It came out more accusatory than Eren had meant, and Levi struggled to sit up; when Eren tried to help he pushed him back. There was a little color in his face--almost as if he were angry.

“I don’t know where he came from,” Levi said. “I don’t know everything about this place. But he’s a real child, and he was Sirena’s friend. He’s angry that she’s gone, and he blames you for it. I told him it wasn’t your fault, but he has his own ideas about that. If you see him again, be kind to him.”

“Levi--I wouldn’t--”

Levi shrugged stiffly. “He’s lonely, and his playmate is gone.”

“Does he...have parents? A family?”

Levi shrugged again. “He doesn’t talk about it.”

“He’s not a ghost or a spirit?”

“I already said no,” Levi snapped, and to Eren’s surprise Levi forced himself up and he walked away. Eren was too stunned to follow; he stood there unhappily wondering what he’d done wrong.

He'd gotten a Tarot deck from the library, and he'd been shuffling it in his room, laying out the cards on his bed. It didn't mean anything--he wasn't a fortune teller. He'd written to Armin asking for a guide to the Tarot (there wasn't anything like that in the library) and a parcel had dutifully turned up next day but it was horrid stuff; he was used to real magical texts, and this was pure nonsense. He'd set the books aside.

There were ways to find answers within yourself, similar to meditation; Mada used the I Ching, but there were other ways; knucklebones, tea leaves, memory palaces, even dice. But when he'd been at the Central Library with Levi he'd seen images from the Tarot, in spite of his slim exposure to it, and so he'd been drawn to the deck when he'd spotted it.

After he'd found out that Levi really was mortally wounded (and that had to have been the real reason the North had intervened, didn't it?) he'd stumbled over to the library. He'd spent a while thumbing through medical texts, but he'd known instinctively he'd find no answers there. Levi wasn't hurt physically.

And if there was an easy cure for this Levi would have found it already. Whether he knew how bad it was--Eren wasn't sure. But Levi wasn't stupid; he'd admitted to Eren that he had PTSD that first week. He hadn't been ashamed. That wasn't what this was about.

Go deeper.

Whatever this was...with a sinking feeling he realized he was part of it. The North had shown him what Levi was up to because he could do something about it. He sighed. He was on his own though, when it came to figuring out what that was.

He'd spotted the Tarot deck when he'd been piling up metaphysical manuscripts in his arms, and he'd added it to the top of the pile on a whim. Up in his bedroom he couldn't make heads or tails of the books; even the ones in English. Never mind the ones in Sanskrit. He'd put them guiltily on the floor and avoided looking at them, shuffling the cards to keep his hands busy. He'd learned how to bridge shuffle years earlier, and he was better at it than any of his friends.

He tried to keep his breathing slow and even, tried to come at the problem sideways instead of head on. But he was out of his depth with this. This was so far beyond anything he'd ever...

He'd flipped over the top card absently, as if he were about to deal out a hand to an imaginary partner, and he glanced down at it automatically. It was instantly familiar to him. He remembered the woman from that night; he had forgotten her until that moment. So much else had happened.

It was the woman who had helped him come down from his panic attack; it was the Queen of Swords.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh...nothing," he said guiltily. Levi had wandered into his room.

Levi snorted. "Divination, Eren?" he asked, his voice gently mocking.

"What's your card?" Eren asked impulsively.

"This one," Levi said, surprising him. He flipped one out from the pile, face down.

Eren looked at him curiously for a moment, and then he turned the card over. It was the Ten of Wands. Eren smiled. A man carrying many burdens--too many for any normal person to hold. He looked up to say something but Levi had gone. When Eren looked back down the card had changed. It was the Ten of Swords now; a man--it could have even been the same man, they were both blond, both views were from behind--lay dead on the ground, impaled now by ten swords.

And when he looked down Levi lay dead on the floor; impaled by ten swords. His blood was seeping more and more deeply into the carpet.

Eren moaned, grabbing his head; he rolled to his side and fell out of the bed, knocking cards everywhere.

I just fell asleep, he told himself. I just fell asleep. Everything's fine. He got to his feet and he ran downstairs. Levi was sitting in the study, empty bottles of ginger beer lined up in front of him on the coffee table. He was reading a novel.

Eren collapsed on his knees by the couch.

Levi gave him an irritated look. "What now?" he said.

"I keep seeing the Queen of Swords…" Eren mumbled, to cover for himself, irrationally glad to find Levi here, and not bleeding to death on the carpet. He'd started messing around with the Tarot a few days earlier, but this was the first dream he'd had about it. Levi's week had been up yesterday; Eren had called Hanji again and told her Levi still wasn't well enough to return to work, but that he'd start using his banked time.

"Still?" Hanji had said, her voice echoing tinny over the line. "Should I come and see him, do you think?"

"He said he'd bury you in the back 40 if you try it," Eren said, apologetic but truthful.

"Ha! He can't be that ill, then. Lord, what a diva he's turning out to be this summer. Well, never mind. Let me know if you need anything, will you, Eren?"

"I will--yes--thank you."

"He's lucky he has you looking after him," Hanji had said before ringing off.

Levi rolled his eyes. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"No, but--"

"Then why do you think it means anything?" Levi said.

"I can tell," Eren said stubbornly. "I--"

"You shouldn't be messing around with this. You're not going to find anything out, you'll just give yourself nightmares."

"Are swords the Ackerman suit?" Eren said too-loudly, interrupting him. "You said the Ackermans were battle mages, so--”

Levi rolled his eyes. "It isn’t that simple. And I told you not to mess around with divination."

"Why isn't it that simple?"

Levi shook his head. He marked the place in his book and put it aside. "You have a deck?" he asked in a long-suffering voice.

"I found one in the library--"

"Go get it."

He'd left the cards scattered around his room, and it took a few minutes to get them sorted into a neat pile.

When he came back, Levi said, "That's why," flipping out the Magician. "The magician king. It all starts with him. Every card can become another card." He flipped out two cards at random--the World, and the Page of Cups. Then he flipped them over, so that their backs were up. Go on,” he said, nodding to Eren. Slowly Eren reached over and flipped them back; now they were the Chariot and the Two of Wands.

"Let me guess,” Levi said. “You had your friend send you a book on the Tarot.”

“Well…” Eren said, blushing.

“Since it’s all garbage, you won’t find anything like that in the library here. You remember what we talked about before? Your ‘ideation’? There’s nothing magical about a hammer, a sword, a bell. They were tools before they were anything else, before humans gave them other meanings. We have ideas, and our tools become something else. It’s all endless symbology, yes?”

“I guess so.”

“The Tarot was just a deck of playing cards--the original deck of playing cards--before shammy fortune-tellers ever got hold of it.”

“But the symbols do mean something! It’s not all nonsense. I saw--”

“They mean something because this deck,” Levi tapped the cards with his knuckle, “this most famous deck was designed by Smith under the influence of an occultist familiar with Jungian iconography and the collective unconscious. They were made by people; that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. You look at them and you see meaning, because these were people who spoke the same language that you do. Jung and those others weren’t tapping into some ocean of absolute symbology; they were just rehashing the same language we all use, as old as humanity.

“We use this to communicate with each other, and to communicate with magic. But don’t make the mistake of believing that somewhere there’s a golden dictionary where you can find the last word on every sword and every cup; that there are gods watching us we can only perceive through a veil. We make the gods, Eren. Our thoughts give form to magic, and the magic that existed before us was formed by the thoughts of others. Without humans there would be no spirits; it was our consciousness that made them.”

“But I saw her,” Eren protested; it felt like a childish, feeble protest. Levi’s words were compelling, and he felt the rightness of what he was saying. Still: “I didn’t know anything about the Tarot before I met you, but when we went to the library I saw the Four of Swords--”

“And we were staying at the Three of Wands--you already knew that existed, you already had knowledge of the iconography of the Tarot, even if it wasn't on a fully conscious level. You identified the Four of Swords right away; you didn’t describe it in another way--”

“I’m not finished. The night the Titans attacked and I found out about the squad...when I was alone in the dining room, I had a vision. A Titan attacked the house, but the wards kept it from getting through. I was alone, but I couldn’t move; I was trapped. And a woman came--I didn’t know who she was, but when I started going through the deck I saw her again.”

Eren hesitated, and then he flipped over a certain card. It was the Queen of Swords. And Levi looked--not annoyed, or exasperated, but--thoughtful.

“You do know something!” Eren said.

Levi grimaced. “I don’t want you to turn into some damn superstitious--”

“I’m not going to! I just want to know what you know--”

“Eren, why do you think I don’t tell you everything? Because I find it entertaining to listen to your endless questions?”

“Because you want me to figure things out for myself--”

“You are unique,” Levi interrupted. “Your magic is unique. If I tell you how to do everything you’ll never learn what you’re capable of because you’ll believe you’re bound by the limits others impose on you.”

What an odd, backhanded, and extraordinarily Levi way to deliver a compliment.

“But I came this far on my own,” Eren said, after standing in silent consternation for a moment. “You didn’t tell me about the Tarot, I found it--”

“I don’t want you to rely on the Tarot,” Levi said, “I want you to rely on yourself.”

“I think when she came she wanted me to do the same thing,” Eren said. “She told me I had to control my feelings. She told me I was strong enough to do what needed to be done. That was--that was the first time I came out of it without your help.”

Levi drummed his fingers on the coffee table. “Do you know where the architecture section is in the library?” he said finally.

“Yes,” Eren said; it was between the manuscripts on beehives and arcologies.

“There’s a book there, about the central library with full color plate illustrations. Go get it.”

Eren came back a few minutes later. It was at least 500 pages thick, making a satisfying thwock when it hit the coffee table. “I’ve got it.”

“Good. Now read it,” Levi said, and Eren sighed.

"If the Ackermans were the first family to go to the North, and they're the Swords--"

"Not everyone uses Swords as the Northern suit," Levi informed him, a little meanly.

"Huh? They don't?" Eren hadn't made any progress with his book; he was trying to needle more information out of Levi. Levi didn't look up from his novel at all.

"Wands are usually the Southern suit," he said, "But they don't need to be. You can give the suits any directions you choose; that the beauty of it. It's all perfectly meaningless."

Eren sighed. "That's what you meant about the Magician?"

"What I meant is what I said. It would be wonderful if life were simple, if you could lay out a few cards and get an answer to the meaning of life. Wonderful or terrible. But nothing works that way. All those cards can do is help you find answers within yourself--and even that is iffy."

"That's what I was trying to do," Eren mumbled. He let his head drop to the coffee table, then he turned it to the side. He watched Levi in profile; head down, occasionally turning a page in his book. "Is...is your card the Ten of Wands?" he asked suddenly.

Levi stopped reading. He narrowed his eyes and turned his head to look at Eren. Eren swallowed.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Eren whispered, although this felt like worrisome territory. "The Ten of Wands turns into the Ten of Swords, doesn't it?"

"It can," Levi said, low and dangerous. "It can turn into the Ten of Cups too--" that one showed a happy family, and seemed to indicate contentment or emotional fulfillment, "or the Ten of Pentacles." That was an aged patriarch, in a vineyard surrounded by his descendants. "All the cards of the same type relate to each other, even across the suits."

"You are the Ten of Wands--"

"I'm not a fucking playing card, Eren, I'm a human being."

"But there's a card that can define you--"

"No. It's not destiny or fate. At most it's a reflection of you at a moment in time. A snapshot--"

"And there are a lot of pictures of you, looking like the Ten of Wands?"

"Don't get smart with me. I'll beat your ass."

"It was a warning," Eren said. "I saw--"

Levi shook his head. "I'm done talking about this."

Eren looked back at his book, trying not to be hurt by Levi's tone, his dismissal. Then he turned it over and stared again from the beginning.

Chapter Text

"You're not getting better."

Levi sighed. "I know."

It had been ten days.

"There's...something," Eren said. He wasn't looking at Levi; he was looking at the top of a bookshelf in the corner of the room.

"Something," Levi repeated.

"Will you let me?" Eren asked. Everything hinged on this; on whether Levi would agree without interrogating him further.

"...Yes." Levi finally said.

The night before he'd seen Shaw again; he'd been waiting for him on the top step when he'd gone up to his room, holding the book in his lap as if he were guarding it. It was a large book; like one of the old dictionaries or medical texts his father had collected, or like any of the hundreds of antique volumes in Levi's library. Oversized, with an embossed leather cover and gold-edged pages, though Shaw was holding it in such a way that he couldn't see the title or spine.

"Hi," Eren said.

Shaw glared at him.

"Uh," Eren said. "How are you?"

"He's sick," Shaw said.

"I know," Eren said.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Shaw demanded loudly. "That's why they brought you here, isn't it? To make things better, not worse!"

Eren had no idea how to respond; Shaw couldn't have been more than five or six, but it was intimidating to hear his own thoughts shouted back at him by this strange child. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he said honestly, apprehension in his voice.

"You have to fix him," Shaw said sternly. "You did this!"

Eren didn't argue with him. He sank down to a lower step, and Shaw pulled his book in closer, protectively, as if Eren had made a move to steal it from him. "Shaw..." he said slowly. Eren looked at him. Levi had said he wasn't a ghost or a spirit, but did that mean he was a normal child? It seemed unlikely, given everything else.

His dark hair was mussed, and there was something intense and hawklike about his eyes. They were an odd golden color, flecked with green that he'd never seen before.

"If you can do something, you have to do it," Shaw said.

"Do I?" Eren asked tiredly. "What if he isn't happy about it?"

"Everybody has to take medicine sometime," Shaw said. "It's better than dying."

"Even if he hates me afterwards?" Eren said, wondering if Shaw was just a child, or if he was some new avatar of the North, or personification of the Tarot, or something.

Shaw made a disgusted face. "I knew you were a coward," he said. "He said you weren't, but I knew you were." He got up, and began to stomp away.

"Shaw," Eren said. "What's your book called?"

Shaw glared at him, and didn't reply.

"I'm going to do it," Eren whispered.

"Do you promise?"

"Yes. I promise."

Carefully Shaw turned the book over in his hands, and Eren saw the cover. It was called The Book of Days, and the Book of Nights.

All without speaking he'd gotten Levi to take his shirt off, carefully shielding himself as he had been doing these past weeks. He felt Levi relax under the first touch of his hands, and he did nothing but rub Levi's back until he was pliant and half-asleep; it took twenty minutes. He watched the clock.

I'm sorry, he thought. I'm so, so sorry.

Levi didn't even notice at first; he trusted Eren that much, he was that at ease with him. It made Eren loathe himself, even more than all his unrequited lust had done. He had the map to Levi, though; there were some doors Levi had let him through, and some he'd given him the key for; there were some he had to guess at how to open but he always guessed right. Still Levi hadn't noticed.

Eren was close enough now that he could have stabbed Levi, and he'd have been dead before he felt it.

Eren took a moment to prepare himself, but what he did next he did without hesitation. He had always had steady hands; he got that from his father.

And Levi still might not have noticed if it hadn't been for the pain.

"Eren--" not even angry, but surprised and fearful; Levi was suddenly fully awake. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," Eren said. "You can be mad at me later. This is what's killing you. I have to get rid of it."

"Eren, stop!"

"I'm sorry," Eren said, and then he silenced Levi because he couldn't afford any distractions. He had gotten back to that deepest layer of Levi's self; this was what defined him. There was love here, special vaulted memories, ideals and deeply held beliefs. Everything that made him Levi; his magic and his physical body, his soul and his personality; this was the heart of it all.

And there was the wound running through it, like some terrible waterfall leaking away magic and life and everything precious. Levi was struggling but Eren had pinned him down; not just physically, but in every way. He knew Levi's weak spots, and he'd taken full advantage of that, setting traps that Levi--vulnerable as he was physically, vulnerable as he was in trusting Eren--had no defense against.

He had made a blade of his own magic, and with surgical delicacy he put it against the wound, seeking to separate what was healthy from what was corrupt and necrotic. This wasn't like treating a physical wound; the metaphor didn't extend that far. This was like some parasitic thing that had invaded Levi's very soul, and was on the verge of killing its host.

Levi was crying underneath him; when Eren slipped out of his magical sense for a moment he saw the tears on his face. He was sure it was painful. It had to be hurting him in every way possible; these were his most painful, terrible memories after all--never healed. Never allowed to.

Eren slipped his blade deeper; he felt the place he was in shudder and he knew he had to finish quickly. Suddenly his father's voice was saying in his ear, "Aegrescit medendo." So far he had been sure-handed; the blade was separating the wound--which had a black, tarry feel in Eren's hand--from the rest of him, and Eren could feel the awful stuff questing for him for a way in, but he ignored it. He had anticipated this as well.

It had taken a few days of playing with the Tarot and his mindfulness books and his own ideation, his ideas about himself and his magic--ideas that were still new to him and that he hadn't fully explored yet. But he'd made guesses about what would happen and so far they had all come true; whether that was because he had predicted them correctly, or because by thinking about them in a certain way he was manifesting them he didn't know; but it was working.

The healthy tissue--physical, psychic, or magical--was raw and red, but unharmed, and as Eren continued to remove the wound he began pressing the hole back together, using his own magic to seal it; the black stuff was still trying to find a way into him, looking for a new host, he guessed. But when it finally got behind his (purposefully careless) wards it seemed to recoil in horror; that part of him that had touched it had burned it away. Now it was trying to frantically escape from him, and Eren smiled and shook his head.

No.

He was eating it alive; one hand worked the sword, one hand closed the gaping hole the wound left behind, and Eren's magic did the rest. It was fascinating to watch how the black stuff tried to escape and Eren's magic caught it; like a mongoose toying with a cobra. He'd never tried this sort of thing before, given his magic free reign like this; it was the first time he realized that it was a living part of himself and not just a tool.

(Later he'd realize it was just as likely it was more ideation; when he began experimenting he was amused to discover how much of his ideas about what a good magical servant should be had been shaped by his relationship with the coatrack.)

He had finished. The last of the black stuff disappeared in a puff, and his magic began coiling itself around him as he called it back. He used some of it to rub into the new, raw place that covered Levi's heart. You'll be all right now, he thought sadly, but would he?

As soon as he had finished unpinning Levi, the Captain sprang up, roughly pushing Eren out of his way.

He stood there, trembling and furious.

"I'm sorry," Eren said quietly. "I knew you wouldn't let me if I asked."

"So you did it anyway?" Levi said, in anger and shock. "Is that what I've been teaching you all summer?"

"No," Eren said quietly. "It's not. But I couldn't let you die."

Levi didn't say anything else; still shaking he turned and stumbled out of the room.

He knew what he'd done had been wrong. He had touched Levi, in a way that went beyond intimate. He hadn't looked at any of those private thoughts or memories--he'd confined himself only to healing the wound--but he could have. In that time he'd had full access to Levi. He could have erased things or destroyed them or stolen them or broken them; he could have hidden ideas or thoughts in Levi to try to control him or injure him. He could have done even worse things.

There was a reason he had yelled at Levi for taking him into his private heart when he had barely known him.

What he'd done had been a violation, and it didn't matter that his reasons had been sincere and that he'd only been trying to help.

He had done something to Levi, and Levi hadn't consented. Would never have consented. They both knew that--Levi hadn't even tried to deny it. There were ways that Levi didn't like to be touched, Eren had noticed even in the short time he'd been with him. There were touches he could only tolerate for so long.

What must it have felt like for him, to have foreign hands rifling through that most private, sacred part of himself? Eren abhorred what he had done, and he hated to think that Levi might never forgive him. He'd never come to love someone so much, in so short a time. But the alternative had been Levi's death and that was intolerable; better Levi be alive to hate Eren, than for Eren to have just let him slip away.

For twenty-four hours he didn't see Levi at all. Then he trudged up the stairs to Levi's room and knocked on the door.

"I'm sorry," he said, before Levi could speak. "Do you want me to go?"

Levi looked back at him, cold and angry. "You haven't finished out your apprenticeship," he said at last.

"I know," Eren said, staring at the floor.

Levi closed the door. Eren sighed.

Day to day he never saw Levi, although Shaw turned up looking pleased; he even let him hold his book. It could be read in both directions; there were twenty four stories in it. From front to back twelve stories about the day, and from back to front twelve stories about the night. The first one was about an old man and woman (Gatekeepers, Eren realized after reading a few pages) who wished for a child because they had none of their own.

The old man said, "Oh blessed North, please give us a child so that we may raise him to serve you, as we have been your faithful servants. The Gate must have a Keeper, to guard against the monsters and the williwogs, and my wife and I are old.

And the North, who was by far more beautiful than her sister the East, as well as more cunning than her brother the South, and wiser than her brother the West, as well as more merciful, generous, and intelligent than any of her siblings, granted the Gatekeeper's request; in due time a child was brought to them, and the North bid the crane to carry it, and gave it her own scarf for to wear that it might not be cold on the journey.

Eren smiled in spite of his own inner turmoil, flipping through the pages. Many of them were illuminated, in beautiful jewel-bright tones that reminded him of stained glass. That triggered a memory...

"Did the North write this book?" he asked in a teasing voice, and Shaw pointed at the description below the title: it did indeed say North. "Oh," he said.

"It's my favorite book," Shaw said, snatching it back. "But I've got lots."

"That's good."

"You're leaving soon," Shaw said with a child's callousness, "or I'd show you," and Eren felt his heart sink.

"Oh?" Eren said, in a choked voice. "Did...Levi tell you that?"

"No. Everybody knows. It's almost September. Bye!" Shaw raced off, leaving Eren alone.

This morning there was a folder on the table and Eren sat down and opened it. He'd spent the last week and a half fixing things and attending to all the problems the Gatekeeper would normally attend; he'd also begun strengthening the wards. Certain indicators told him that Levi was doing the same--separate from himself, of course. But it was almost like they were communicating; there were signs that told him where Levi had been working, and he'd spend a morning finishing the work; by the next day a new project would have begun, with the supplies nearby that he needed to complete it.

In the folder was a letter of recommendation and a return ticket for the ghost train. The letter was dated August 31st--that was today.

He had read the letter three times before he understood a word of it. It wasn’t warm. It was professional and unambiguous in praise; he was recommended without reservation for military college or any other pursuit; Levi had signed it with his full name and title.

Eren closed the folder and pushed it away. When Levi hadn't sent him away immediately he'd hoped for a reconciliation. But this made more sense. Levi wanted no part of him, but recognized his abilities; he wouldn't have wanted an early dismissal to have marred Eren's record. Eren rested his head on the edge of the table and cried. The blue heron waddled from where it had been rearranging Levi’s canned goods to rest its bony head on Eren’s shoulder. It poked its sharp beak into his neck. He reached up a hand to pet it, and it stayed with him until he had stopped crying.

He was still enough of a child to hope Levi would come to him, take him into his arms and tell him everything would be all right.

But there was no sign of Levi anywhere.

His bag was packed, and as a last desperate gesture he went back to Levi’s room. He’d still never been inside. He stood there for a moment and then knocked on the door. There was no answer.

Eren leaned his head against the door. He isn’t here. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Goodbye.”

He shouldered his bag and went downstairs. The coatrack was waiting for him, and he embraced it; it was surprisingly comforting considering it was just a stick of wooden furniture.

He thought of saying, Look after him, but that would be trite and meaningless. Of course the coatrack would; it had before Eren had ever come, before he’d ever known who Levi was--and it would after he was gone.

Instead he said, “Thank you. For everything. I’ll miss you. No--you don’t need to come. I know the way, now. I’d like the walk. Thanks.”

Then he walked down the white stone driveway and he did not look back.

On the platform he stopped and blinked in surprise. Commander Erwin was there--waiting for him. In spite of what he'd said to the coatrack he didn't remember the walk at all.

“Eren,” the Commander said in his warm pleasant baritone. “It’s good to see you.” He shook his hand. He was smiling with that movie-star grin, and Eren thought in dull fascination that they were the whitest teeth he'd ever seen.

"Levi had only praise for you," Erwin said, amused. "You should know that's unusual." Teasingly he added, "I'm surprised he's willing to let you go!"

Eren stared back dully and did not answer.

"Well," Erwin said. The train was pulling in. "I won't keep you. I just wanted to personally welcome you to the Suvery Corp, Eren; we're holding a place for you at the military academy. With all the practical knowledge you've gained we thought you could skip the introductory classes, but if you still feel your assignments are too easy let us know and we'll work something out. I think you could easily graduate in three years; perhaps less. We'll begin officer training right away of course--and when you graduate we'll see about getting you your own squad." Erwin smiled at him. "Good luck, Eren. I'll be seeing you soon!"

He managed to keep it together until he was on the train, but once it started moving he got up and went to the bathroom and spent the next thirty minutes crying over the sink, washing his face, telling himself he was ready to go back out, and then crying again.

This is it, he thought. This is the last time I’ll be here. He was already more homesick for a place he'd lived less than two months than for any home he'd ever known.

And yet. When he got off the ghost train at Oana Station and walked down the alley to the street, to the subway, to the mundane world he didn’t get on the Green Hills Line. That would have taken him to the house where he lived with Mikasa and Armin. Instead--without thinking about it--he took the train downtown to Mada Tallisa’s place.

He arrived at lunchtime, and he took the stairs up (Mada claimed the elevator had worked for two weeks in a row once, but Eren was skeptical) and knocked on her door.

“We’re closed for lunch!” Mada’s sing-song voice rang out. “Come back at 1:30!” She ran a palmistry and offered other services to the credulous.

“It’s me, Mada,” Eren said, leaning on the door.

There was pause, then the sound of bolts turned and Mada flinging the door open wide.

“Eren!” She was a middle-aged woman, fat and fiftyish (thought Eren knew from hints over the years that she was older) with curling brown-grey hair and a pleasant--though pointed--doughy face. “You’re back! How wonderful. Tell me everything. Look at you!” She pinched his muscular arm. “My god, you’re like a brick wall! What the hell were they feeding you?”

Mikasa had said once she looked like a Jewish PTO mother attempting to dress as a gypsy for Halloween; it was an unfortunately apt description.

“Hi Mada,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek, and doing his best to avoid her dangly jewelry. He pet Cibo--the cat--and went to sit at the kitchen table.

“Are you hungry? We’re having tamales.” Without waiting for an answer she dished some onto a plate for him. “So? How was it?”

He pushed his personnel folder over to her, and she shamelessly opened it and began paging through. “Wow!” she said, almost immediately. “That’s quite a recommendation! Officer school, eh? Fantastic, Eren!”

“I don’t want it,” he said. “I need to go back to the North. You need to talk to Commander Zackly and have him send me back, to finish my training as Captain Levi’s apprentice.”

Mada’s eyebrows had gotten higher and higher while he spoke. Now she leaned back. She stared at him, and then she said in an entirely different voice, “Tell me everything." To most of the world Mada Tallisa was silly, frivolous, excitable--that was the side of her that so irritated Mikasa, and had duped Armin into believing she was a second-rate fortune-teller. But this was the side of her that Eren knew best--the serious teacher who had used all her skill to teach him to hide in plain sight.

The telling took some time. He had finished two plates of tamales and several cokes before the end of it. He left out only the private parts that concerned Levi and himself. He told her everything else--including everything about the blood magic. Mada lit a cigarette, and the purple smoke wafted up. It wasn’t tobacco; he wasn’t sure what it was, only that it smelled like lavender and cloves. She stared at the ceiling, watching the shifting patterns in the smoke.

“Are you sure this is what you want, Eren?” she asked finally. “What you’re talking about is the most dangerous magic there is. It’s not just blood magic, it’s resurrection magic. To bring back five people, one of them an unborn child...He must be a deeply troubled man.”

“Mada, how many people have called me deeply troubled?”

“They weren’t wrong either,” Mada said amicably, stubbing out her cigarette. “All the more reason to keep you away from him, in my opinion.” She held up her hands when he started to protest. “Don’t start getting excited. You want me to listen to you, and I will. But you need to listen to me, my lad. I didn’t keep you safe all those years to see you end up the main course on some dark wizard’s table. Never mind the debt I owe your mother.”

“He’s the furthest thing imaginable from a dark wizard,” Eren said in exasperation.

Mada got up to take a glass bowl from a cabinet, and she filled it with water from the sink. She swirled the water and then set it down on the table in front of him. He held a hand out automatically. She pricked one finger with a pin, and a single drop of his blood fell into the basin.

He watched the blood dapple the water.

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally.

“It says I’m telling the truth, doesn’t it?”

“You believe you do,” she said neutrally. “That’s not quite the same thing. I’ll make some enquiries.”

“Fine, but Mada you need to talk to Zackly soon. This week, please. I need to go back.”

“Eren, why are you in such a blessed hurry?”

“Because I want to be there,” Eren said. “And he needs me.”

“If everything you say is true he might be the strongest man in the world,” Mada said drily. “I’ve certainly never heard of anyone resurrecting five people with their wills intact, certainly not in such a short span of time. And then recovering from that sort of--” She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you sleeping with him?"

Eren rolled his eyes. "Mada, why are you so sex-obsessed. No."

“Hmph. Well that's almost even stranger. What makes you think he needs you?”

“I just know,” Eren said, getting up. “Goodbye, Mada--I have to get home. I’ll come see you the day after tomorrow.

She tsk’d loudly. “Eren, that’s not enough time!”

"Bye, Mada," he said, kissing her cheek, and he swept from the room magnificently.

She shook her head. "Do you believe that cheek?" she asked Cibo, rubbing his face. Then she sighed and walked to her phone, and dialed a familiar number. She glanced over at the file; Eren had left it behind. "Dari?" she said. "I need to see you. When can we talk?"

Mikasa returned home from practice and nudged the door shut behind her. She stretched once she was indoors; the house was surprisingly cool and it took her a moment to realize that it was because all the fans and the AC had been left running. Armin! She shook her head. She went to the fridge and popped the top off a beer, and then she heard something from upstairs. She frowned, because Armin was working late; he'd gotten a new job as an assistant appraiser at an auction house.

"Armin?" she called cautiously, and began walking up the stairs. Then she thought to herself, in annoyance, that it had better not be Jean and she began taking them two at a time.

"Eren!" she screamed.

"Oh--" he said, glancing up. His room was ripped apart--clothing separated into different piles, books and equipment lying everywhere. She flung herself into his arms, and he laughed in surprise. "Hey," he said.

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming back?" she demanded, outraged but dizzyingly happy to see him. "And you never wrote to me!" she struck him. "You asshole! You promised you would!"

"I did!" he protested.

"Like once!" she yelled at him.

"Come on, I think it was at least twice--"

"You wrote to Armin more than you wrote to me!"

"Only when I needed something," he told her. They stared at each other for a moment--and then both of them laughed.

Mikasa plopped down on his bed and he went back to sorting through his things. "You look good," she said after a moment. "You look like--I dunno, you put on some muscle."

He snorted. "Mada said the same thing. It must be all those damn boulders Captain Levi made me push around."

"How was it?"

"It was good. I learned a lot."

She rolled her eyes. "I mean how was it."

"Good," he said again, with a sad smile that she watched closely. "I'm--going to go back."

She frowned. "What about military college?" That was in the city.

"Maybe. Mikasa, I--I don't know yet."

"But what are you--"

"I just don't know what I'm doing," he said. "I'll know in a few weeks. But I don't think I'm going to stay here...I don't think I can anymore."

"How long will you stay then?" she asked after a moment.

"I don't know...my plan is to go back as soon as I can. If I can."

She looked at him with deep, sad eyes, and guiltily he dropped his gaze; he went back to sorting his clothes into piles of what he planned to take and what he planned to leave behind.

As he had expected (he was not the spoiled, pampered, beloved child of several women for no reason) Mada secured a special assignment, direct from Darius Zackly, for him to return to the North. He would continue his apprenticeship for such a time as Captain Levi was satisfied with his work; then he would be eligible for promotion. It was deliberately vague and deliberately open-ended; everything would be up to Levi.

Everything would be up to Levi agreeing to his return.

He agonized over that letter; he wrote for a full twenty-four hours, off and on, and would have written for longer if he hadn't been so desperate for a reply.

Dear Sir,

it began,

I hope this letter finds you well. It is with the greatest respect that I hope you will consider my request; if it is convenient I could return on the 15th...

It went on for two pages, in language that Levi would probably find obsequious but that left no ambiguity as to his own desire to return, his perfect willingness to obey all orders from then on, his love for the North and his deep admiration for Levi; his perfect understanding if Levi was unable to accede to his request, and finally his deep and profound gratitude for everything Levi had done; everything Levi had taught him.

He went through probably a hundred handwritten pages of rewrites until he had a fair copy he was satisfied with. Then he posted it and immediately regretted it and wished for any way to call it back.

Suppose Levi found it disgusting? Suppose it made him even angrier than he was already? Suppose it had ruined his chances of ever going back to the North. Mikasa was annoyed and upset with him; he'd been ignoring her for days--he didn't have the emotional energy to deal with her sulking--and Armin was annoyed with him for being unkind to Mikasa. But he didn't care; when they invited him out to the bar with some of their other friends he stayed home. He couldn't go anywhere. All he could do was pack and repack his things, and read the letter from Zackly, shuffle his Tarot cards (he'd left the pack behind at the house, but bought a replacement for his own use), and pretend he wasn't desperately waiting for a response.

During his packing he knocked over his bag, the one he'd brought back with him from the North. He hadn't really had the stomach to look at it, and it had escaped his endless reorganizing. But when he knocked it over a book fell out, and he realized with a guilty start that it wasn't his book; it was the tome on the Central Library that Levi had told him to read. He never had figured out how it related to the Tarot and the Queen of Swords. He picked it up and let it fall open. He hadn't meant to take it, and he felt bad about that--but at least he could post it back, if Levi said no, or didn't respond.

There was a section on the chapel, and considering everything that had happened afterwards Eren found it painful to read. Maybe for that reason he did anyway; there were full-color plate illustrations of all the stained glass windows, and Eren paged through slowly. Apparently they were spelled to show the weather; sometimes the pictures showed snowy scenes, sometimes rainy; it was winter in the wintertime and the First Families dressed in furs; in the summer they wore light gowns and shirts that exposed their bare arms.

And in the spring one of the Ackerman women--a red-haired beauty--wore a grey gown edged in blue, and a wryly amused expression. She held a sword in one hand--jauntily, as if she would lure you in before playfully beheading you.

He sank to his bed. He hadn't looked well at this section before--he'd been too distracted by his worries about Levi, and his own confusion. He'd spent more time looking at the stained glass pictures as they'd been when he had seen them--and in that one the mysterious woman wore her hair up, and hid her sword in the folds of her gown. It was barely noticeable if you weren't looking for it. But now he saw--or thought he saw--what Levi had meant. Was this woman (she wasn't named, aside from being acknowledged as an Ackerman) the Queen of Swords? Or maybe just the basis for Colman-Smith's drawing? He saw now that there were other similarities--some of them he'd even thought of himself, relating the four suits to the Four Families; and of course Levi had mentioned the Magician being the Magician King. But he'd had it backwards somehow; Levi had tried to tell him. Colman-Smith and her collaborators had taken their inspiration from real life; they used the same symbology that was found in art and paintings everywhere.

Of course. There were all kinds of Tarot now; Tarot based on pop icons, cats, superheros--hell, Eren had even seen a junk food Tarot when he'd gone to the bookstore to buy his new deck. It made sense that Colman-Smith would have based hers on an already-existant iconography--the Four Families, the Magician King. It really wasn't any different from what artists did now. He sighed and put the book down.

He still felt that it meant something; that she--the woman--meant something. But what?

He took the train to the Central Library, and it felt odd to be there without Levi. There really weren't any books on the Ackermans; as Levi had told him the family had fallen out of favor long before the Purge, and though in the time since historians had been trying to write (and probably rewrite) histories of the Families, and preserve what knowledge was left before it disappeared entirely--information on the Ackermans was extremely scanty. So after a cursory walkthrough of the history section he went back to the chapel.

He could still feel the work they'd done--the golden leylines were like a deep pleasant chime he heard in his bones, powerful and unchallenged. It was oddly soothing; it felt a little like Levi's presence, it felt a little like his own magic too.

He stopped in front of the Ackerman shrine, and looked up at the stained glass windows. There were terrible prohibitions and curses on destroying shrines and disturbing the dead; even the military left them alone. That was probably why this little corner had survived intact, when so much else in the last century had fallen. He looked up at the woman, and she looked down at him, and though it was the Queen of Swords he had seen in his vision (this woman was different--she was younger, less serious, her face was more delicately feminine) he felt certain at the same time that it had been her as well. And he felt satisfied by that. Though he hoped he'd be able to ask Levi about her someday, if they weren't quits...

He had bought fresh flowers on the way here, and candy, and a nip of gin, and he arranged everything carefully in the shrine; cleaning the previous remnants, lighting the candle, arranging the candy in the bowl. He poured the gin over it--a few drops of it, anyway--saluted the woman and then drank off the rest--the dead didn't like to drink alone, or so it was said--enjoying the sweet astringent herbal tang of it.

Then he pricked his finger, and let two drops of his own blood fall into the bowl; suddenly the smell of the flowers was lush and intense, filling the room with its summery fragrance. There was a rush of hot air, and he looked up again; "Thank you," he said. He could have sworn she winked at him, and that the wind had ruffled her hair.

When he got back to the house there was a letter waiting for him. It was from Levi, and Eren opened it with shaking hands.

There were only three words written on the page; it wasn't even signed.

It is convenient.

"Mikasa, look," Sasha said, poking her. Mikasa looked up from where she'd been sullenly picking at her beer label.

Eren stood in the doorway, smiling, looking around the bar for them. "Eren!" she called to him, and he saw her and smiled.

"Hi!" he said, and to her pleasure and astonishment he hugged her and kissed her cheek; then he was going around the table, hugging, kissing, and shaking hands with everyone. Connie was last, and they went through a long, almost vaudevillian routine of back-slapping and air-kissing before finally falling into their seats.

Sasha chuckled along with everyone else while she watched them; she threw a crumpled up napkin at Connie and he grinned at her and blew her an extravagant air-kiss, taking a bow.

"I'll buy," Eren said, pulling out his wallet. "What's everybody want?"

It quickly became apparent why Eren was in such a good mood; Sasha hadn't seen him in months, and though she'd stopped by the house once or twice since he'd come back he'd always been too busy to come down and say hello, never mind coming out with them at night. She watched him curiously; Mikasa and Armin were still annoyed with him--and Jean was annoyed on behalf of Mikasa, even though they were broken up again--but no one could resist Eren when he was in a good mood, he was too charming, too good-natured. Soon they were laughing along with everyone else; and to her surprise Eren ignored all Jean's well-timed barbs; the two of them had never really gotten along.

Eren was a novelty--there was that too. He'd been away all summer, in an exotic location, doing strange and fascinating things. He kept the anecdotes light though; funny stories about the things he'd seen, nothing heavy. In spite of that--or maybe just because she'd known Eren so long--she could tell he was different. There was a maturity that hadn't been there before, a kind of sadness too. Her grandmother had been born in the North, and Sasha had heard all the gruesome gory stories along with the good ones. She sipped her sangria and studied Eren, wondering what he'd seen.

Unlike Armin and Mikasa she'd known as soon as they'd announced his leaving that Eren wasn't coming back; in the years she'd known him there had always been something a little otherworldly about him. Something that, truthfully, had reminded her of her grandmother--Nan had been a little wild right up until the end. She'd never really fit into the newly-civilized world either. And Sasha knew--before Armin and Mikasa asked, and before Eren said anything--that he'd gotten the summons to come back--to go home. From now on he would only be visiting them. She glanced at her friends but saw that they didn't know yet; they were captivated by Eren and his brilliant mood, his funny stories. Glancing around the table she saw that no one had realized yet, except her.

And Eren saw her--and he smiled, and nodded too quick for anyone else to see.

He thought he was more nervous now than he had been the first time. He was going back--he knew what to expect now.

But Levi's letter...three words wasn't a lot to read into.

A few nights before he'd left Mikasa had found him rifling through boxes in her room. She'd taken it surprisingly well when he'd told her for certain he was going back--and he'd tried to be kind in return. He didn't want anything to spoil his last week with them.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"There's a phonograph up there," he said. "I'm bringing some records back."

She watched him fill up a suitcase.

"Those are Jean's, you know," she said after a while.

"So? You're broken up now, aren't you? If he's going to leave his shit here all the time he can't complain about what happens to it."

She smiled and sat down on the bed and didn't reply. "I'm worried about you," she said.

"I know," he said easily, "but you've got to let me grow up sometime."

She was uncomfortably aware that it was not the answer he would have given her at the beginning of the summer; that he would have been indignant at her fussing and the implication that he needed to be taken care of. Now it didn't phase him at all.

"Do I?" she asked softly.

He grinned at her sideways, and opened another box.

Armin had been a little more resigned to his going; that had been both better and worse. Better because he was easier to deal with than Mikasa in most ways, but worse because he couldn't protest Armin's perfectly reasonable disappointment with him. He was being a shitty friend, even if he was trying to make up for it now. But he didn't care, not really; this had stopped feeling like his real life. Maybe it would again someday, but for now all he cared about was getting back to the North; and maybe, hopefully reconciling with Levi.

The last few miles on the ghost train passed with agonizing slowness. Would the coatrack be there to meet him this time? Or would he be expected to know the way?

Would he see Levi...at all? Or would it just be like before, two ships passing in the night, as he finished the projects Levi started and vice versa.

He thought he could take that; it would be better than nothing. And there was always the hope that Levi would soften; that Eren would find a way back somehow.

He was not expecting Levi to be waiting on the platform for him, and he swallowed hard. Levi was standing calm and easy, hands in the pockets of a light coat; it was mid-September now, and the North was cooler than the city. Eren stared at him and stared at him.

Levi was beautiful; if he'd had any doubts about his infatuation fading they were gone now--Levi was beautiful, he wanted Levi--those seemed like sound basic principles of the universe.

But he had never seen Levi like this. He'd put on at least ten pounds--probably more--probably at least fifteen. It made him realize how painfully thin Levi had been, even before the withdrawal had started. He had never seen Levi like this. He had never seen him healthy, tanned, relaxed, at fighting weight. His face was fuller, and as the train pulled up the breeze ruffled his hair; his eyes had lost their deepest shadows and they were warm and bright. He hadn't seen Eren yet.

And Eren could feel him, from here--could feel the full strength of his magic, all neatly wound around him, of course, but heavy enough to cause ripples in the groundswell magic all around them. Eren warded himself well--quickly. Because the last thing he wanted to do right now was throw himself at Levi, or let his magic do that for him. The train stopped, and nervously he gathered up his things--he had a lot more luggage this time. He'd packed optimistically. He hoped now, it hadn't been too much optimism, that Levi hadn't invited him all this way just to tell him off. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

He swallowed and got off the train, and made himself walk towards Levi. A few feet short he stopped; the train pulled away. He didn't know what to do. Grovel? Prostrate himself? Offer to commit seppuku?

And then he saw that Levi was laughing at him.

He dropped his luggage and threw his arms around Levi, and Levi held him back, and it was the best moment of Eren's entire life. He was dying of love; it was going to kill him.

"You look--you look really good," he said in a choked voice.

Levi pulled back far enough to look at him. "Then why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying, you're crying," Eren said automatically, and Levi must not have ever heard that tired old joke, because he actually laughed, and Eren thought maybe he'd just shake apart with love instead; like a faulty engine. Levi's arms had settled on his waist. There wasn't anything suggestive about it; they were just there.

Eren cleared his throat. Decorum said he ought to move away now, and so he did. Levi let him go. "I thought the coatrack was going to come," he said. "I have things that need to be carried, you know."

Levi smirked. "Looks like you're planning to stay a while," he observed, shoving his hands back in his pockets. He nodded at the bags, and they floated up in the air, obediently following. Eren grinned and they headed for the road. "You really pissed Erwin off with that gambit of yours, you know. How the fuck did you manage to get those kind of strings pulled? You went right over his head." Unable to disguise his amusement, Levi added, "He's really mad. He wrote me a bitchy letter wanting to know why I said he could have you if I was just gonna change my mind. And Hanji thinks I'm even worse now. You're giving me a reputation. Everyone thinks I'm turning into a prima donna." Levi was looking at him, sideways and sly, and Eren laughed.

"I can explain, if you want..."

"Explain what, exactly? The part about how we're a couple of hardened blood-magic criminals?"

"Not anymore," Eren said. His face was going to break from smiling this hard.

"That's not the military's attitude. So what exactly did you do?"

"I told you Mada knew Zackly."

Levi snorted loudly. "Oh, I don't think so--"

"I did; I remember. I don't think a lot was getting through to you at the time though."

Now they were back on quicksand, but Levi seemed calm and untroubled. "You were right," he said after they'd been walking quietly for a few minutes, and Eren had been trying to think of some new and better way to apologize; "You were right about everything."

"Captain--" Eren said.

"My judgement was gone," he said. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I was dying. I probably only had about a week left, the way things were going. I didn't think the pain would be enough to kill me, but it wasn't the pain, was it?"

"No," Eren said, when he could breathe again. "There was something in you. Something dark--"

"Oh, I know what it was," Levi said, still in that relaxed and casual voice. "Eren...you saved my life. You're right; I wouldn't have let you do it. I would have shut you out because I couldn't bear to let anybody see that part of me. Because I thought it was me. I thought that's who I really was--that all this was just making amends for being--"

Eren fumbled for Levi's hand without looking at him, and Levi went quiet. "You were right about the other thing, too," he said after minute. "I am a hypocrite."

"Did I call you a hypocrite?" he asked weakly. "I'm sorry--"

"Maybe not out loud," Levi said. "But it was implied." He was smiling at Eren--that behind-the-eyes smile again. "I'll try to be better at it. I'll try not to be..." he trailed off, and Eren watched him hopefully. "I have a lot to work on," he said at last. "But I'll try to work on it."

Eren managed to smile. "Maybe we both can," he said in a rough voice.

They had reached the white pebble driveway, and the coatrack hadn't been able to wait for them; it ran down and nearly bowled Eren over; Levi smiled and went ahead of them into the house, Eren's luggage marching along behind him. From an upstairs window, invisible, Shaw watched while chewing on the end of a pencil. He was writing his own story; he'd asked Levi and Levi had agreed it was a good idea.

From the roof the flamingos hissed at the blue heron, who had waddled out to greet Eren (or at least preen itself in front of him before walking just out of reach when he tried to pet it); recently they had begun feuding.

And the North--scribbling away at her own constantly changing and burgeoning epic--Shaw's book being only a modest page--was pleased. As sun set she turned this page, and The Book of Days made way for The Book of Nights.