Chapter Text
The world was brown outside the library. The same books, the same blotted light from the shoji. Scaramouche was different, though—a book of Go tactics open beside him, a wooden board laid out on the floor between two cushions.
Scaramouche didn’t look up from his book, “Have you ever slid a door closed quietly?”
Aether didn’t think he’d been that loud—it was habit, he never really had to walk around on his tiptoes. Not until now.
“Sorry,” He said, sitting down on the cushion on the other side. He looked at the wooden board, the white and black stones. Too polished to be anything truly from nature, even remarkably smooth stones Aether would find still had some wear and tear.
The board was only about a pace long, but it felt like it stretched on longer—the space between them. Aether folded his hands in his lap.
Scaramouche flipped the book closed after carefully reading a page, “Alright—you do know how to play.”
Aether looked at the brazier, lit for the first time this season. He’d noticed the estate shrinking in toward itself for the coming frost, even the trees, barren and spindly like hands trying to cup something but knew it would be too heavy to bear.
Everything contracting inward.
“Yes.” Aether said. And he wanted to add: obviously, but he just squeezed his hands together.
He thought of the way Lumine and him used to play. With jagged river rocks that Aether found as he was measuring streams, on a wooden crate with crudely drawn marks. River pebbles sorted by color: light and dark, not black and white.
“Lumine and I used to play. With rocks, mostly."
Scaramouche scoffed. He laid out the polished stones in front of them, white for Aether, black for Scaramouche.
The piece moved—Scaramouche’s first, and then it settled. Aether’s eyes moving quickly across the board, hand resting against his face, sighing when Scaramouche made a good move. Scaramouche was focused, and Aether could almost see the book in his mind—was the move he should do on page six or page nine? Aether played more so by feel. He felt he couldn’t do it any other way. The old rhythm found again with a new face and hands.
“You play predictably,” Scaramouche said, moving a piece, “I thought you would add some interest—maybe play, I don’t know, with strategy, unlike everything else.”
Aether sighed, looking at the board. He moved a stone—anything, just so he didn’t have to think about making a next move. Of course, Scaramouche hadn’t seen him at the crumbled nook in the wall, or the shallow slip in the lake—he couldn’t know, couldn’t know that Aether did strategize, just about things that would have Scaramouche flip the board in dismay. Weeks ago, Aether may have made a wry comeback. But now, he didn’t feel up to it.
Click. Another stone placed.
Aether placed his hand back in his lap. But the grid was getting fuzzy, dissolving into something else. The hilltop. The sun pinning him flat against the cloth, the looseness in his joints.
Aether could have—should have—opened his eyes. Sat up, said something, pulled back. And the thing was; Lumine and him knew refusal, they knew pushing back from haggling on the road, bribing, at checkpoints and market squares. But Aether’s body wasn’t bribed by much—it was hard to when your body didn’t want to. Instead, he laid there and he thought: stay.
Stay. It came from the place that wanted to climb mountains and swim in creek water and put things in his mouth to know what they tasted like.
And the worst part was in that moment with the sun and the silence and the stillness, he didn’t feel like a captive at all. He felt like he would soon run across the hills, and be free. He’d felt willing. He’d felt glad.
The gladness was betrayal. Aether’s stillness and silence. Because his sister was somewhere he couldn’t name, with people he didn’t know.
Click. Aether placed a stone. He didn’t look at where it landed—some square, it didn’t matter.
Scaramouche’s gaze flicked to the placement. His fingers paused over the rim of his bowl of stones—briefly.
“You play like a child,” Scaramouche said, he placed down a stone into a position that closed off Aether’s developing territory.
“I’ll pay better attention.”
Aether looked at the board. He was losing—that was fine. He didn’t have the energy to be competitive right now. Not like he used to be with Lumine, shoving each other’s shoulders, clink of stones when someone would get mad when they lost the game. Lumine taking forever just to watch him squirm. You play like a child. He had been, once.
He wondered if Scaramouche ever had. If anyone humored him and sat across from him with his bravado and pride and let a game just be a game—a boy who took himself too seriously be just that. Pointless and warm, thats unfair, your turn. Or if it had always been like this: tactics, a book of strategy read beforehand, servants playing with him, too scared to win.
Scaramouche didn’t move for a while. His hand stilled, hovering over the bowl. The stillness, the slight tense in his jaw.
Click. Scaramouche’s stone. Hard and precise, like he was digging it into the board.
The board was developing like a one way conversation. Scaramouche’s stones a stamp, Aether’s a sprawling letter. No method, like he wanted to lose.
He thought of what Lumine would think of him now. Not anger—maybe more so bafflement. The cushion, the polished stones, the warm room, too warm. You’re playing board games with him, Aether. The man who told me to go and you to stay.
Three more moves. Another one placed by him, just filling space. He was playing sloppily—and Scaramouche was studying him in between turns, not the board, him. The expression of someone grasping something and turning up with an empty hand.
“I suppose my expectations were too high,” He said, gesturing to the board, then to the gray outside, “You’re best suited for getting your knees torn up on jagged stones. Not—” He stopped, looked at the pieces. “The polished ones.”
The words sank down. Like a skipped stone on the lake—skidding the surface, then sinking. The riverbed. The scraped knee. Aether telling him like a fumbling captive—which he supposed, he was—at that first night by the koi pond, hands bound but Lumine by his side. He said it—maybe desperately—because someone looked at his work with interest, looked at him with interest.
And it was true. That was the thing. Out there he was doing, in here he was just—a prop.
Aether’s hand stilled on his piece. He could push back, probably should. The banter they built at the creek, at their usual spots in the library—something slightly biting like he usually said. For the stagnancy of the room to catch fire. But pushing back meant being himself, and being himself was the exact thing that got him caught in the first place.
“It comes with the trade,” he said.
The silence after was Scaramouche looking at him, then back to the haphazardly placed pieces, and back again. Why aren’t you how you usually are? His face was blank, the face that gave the cold orders to the servants.
“If you’re going to sit here like the rest of the furniture,” Scaramouche said, “You may as well leave.”
Aether swallowed, and stood. The impression of the tatami making his knees ache—how long had the game been going on? The brazier crackled. It was warm, too warm now. Aether wanted to say something, but it was lodged in his throat. Something light, something about the way Scaramouche played like a military strategist. Or just: I don’t know how to be in this room with you without losing something I swore I would protect. But he saw Scaramouche’s face, eyes looking straight at Aether: I am no one’s, you are dismissed.
And Aether looked down. He saw him--Scaramouche--like a child who spilled a bag of rice while trying to help his mother cook. Collecting the pieces quickly, some spilling out of his palm, and Scaramouche didn't glance at Aether. But Aether could see his eyes: don't look at me. Leave. Stop looking. So Aether stopped looking. A final click of a piece falling onto the board, and he left. He didn’t close the door quietly.
-
He was sitting on the kitchen wall, knees drawn up to his chest. His small bowl of rice beside him, eaten save for a few grains. The clank of after-dinner dishes falling into the basin. Scrubbing of rice off of bowls, some servants doing their duties like a choreographed dancers, some fumbling around, bumping into people lazily.
The servant Aether saw in the hallway earlier—the pipe one, Sato was her name, walked in through the door lugging a tray of dirty dishes. The steam from the hot water like the underbelly of a waterfall, swallowing her up.
After setting down the dishes, she emerged from the steam, to where Aether was sitting. Smooth, casual, the pinnacle of normalcy. She looked over her shoulder, nothing, just crouched slightly down like she was bending over to pick something up, then Aether felt something cold against his skin slip into his robes on his back.
A piece of paper.
She didn’t stop walking, picked up another tray—out the door, no fanfare.
Aether started walking out of the bustling kitchen. He reached behind to his back, and pulled it out. Paper, folded tight and worn at the edges, small enough to fit into a closed fist.
He knew it. The small, hasty way it was folded. On their travels, those small accordions of paper she’d pass to him casually: meeting points, what not to say, reminders—‘eat something more than weeds for once, seriously.’
On the threshold, he heard the kitchen noise continue. The stack of the bowls—clunk, clunk. The hurried argument of the cook telling the servant to get better charcoal next time.
Aether swallowed. He turned to the door, shouted thank you to the cook, and walked down the hall.
Light feet in the hall, he heard it. He knew it, the silk on wood whisper.
He ducked into an alcove, paper damp in his fist, heartbeat loud in his own ears. A vase with dragons and clouds staring back at him.
Scaramouche passed down the hallway, and it was odd—seeing him when he didn’t know Aether was watching. Book tucked under his arm, always. An almost confused expression on his face. Golden hour light catching the contours of his face. He paused, his gaze flickering over to the alcove.
Aether didn’t move.
The footsteps continued to fade, fade, fade, until he heard the door of Scaramouche’s study open and close.
Aether moved fast, quietly to his bedroom.
The room was dark, the setting sun already given up on his quarters. He didn’t light a lamp. He unfolded the letter, the paper trembling in his grip like a snapping mast.
It was her, in his hands. Big handwriting, rushed, pressed together and uneven. Maybe she was in a time crunch—cold, frightened. But it was distinctly, unmistakably her.
Aether—
I am doing fine. Would be much better if you were here. I’ve been moving a lot—you know how I get restless.
Listen, the maps we sold got traced. I don’t know how. Someone in Hida found out I was brokering for the other side—so, my welcome mat is gone. Now I’m on the border of the next province over—Shinshū. There’s a merchant route through a pass that’s still passable before the snow. I have friends, sort of, there. If I pay. Friends are hard to come by on the road.
I’m working on bringing us back together. Don’t do anything stupid—that’s my job. Keep your head down, make your maps, be boring. I know that’s hard for you.
Burn this. I mean it.
Aether lowered the letter. Burn this. I mean it. That would be nearly impossible with the servants and a young lord too perceptive for his own good in the halls.
He read it again and again. Pacing the room. The characters blurred together and flared out. The contacts got traced. The network they’d carefully curated—was compromised. The welcome mat is gone, someone was after her—or close to it.
Near the border. Passable, for how much longer? Not much, with these mountains.
He turned, walked the length of the room. Lips moving. I am doing fine. Would be better if you were here. Four paces to the end of the screen, turn. The maps got traced. Four paces forward. I don’t know how. Palms pressed to his eyes. The border. The pass. Merchant route—nobody liked merchants—the kind you pay. Always the kind you pay.
Around the room again. Walking, mouthing the words to himself. The room darkening even more with the fading day. The cold increasing. Breath visible now. How long had it been? Hours? I’m working on getting you out. Don’t do anything stupid.
Don’t do anything stupid. He thought about earlier with Scaramouche, on the hilltop. He ran his hands through his hair, the same hair that not long ago had been touched so gently it made him soft, forget what was at stake.
He recited it again. Would be better if you were here. Someone found out—
His voice faltered. He steadied it. Went back to the beginning.
By the time the light outside was fully snuffed out, his room a dark tomb, he could recite it three times through without faltering. Every word where it was. In sequence. Correct. Like his maps, laid out where it was supposed to be—how it was.
He had her voice in his hand. Her thoughts, her hand. Speaking to him. The cadence of her impatience, of her love.
He looked down at it again. Burn this, I mean it.
He thought of the brazier in the library. He thought if he were to rip it into tiny shreds, what if he found it, with that watchful gaze of his, with those eyes—
He put a corner of the paper into his mouth.
It was awful. The fibers gritty and caught against his teeth, resistant and stretchy. Paper was not meant for this. Wholes were not meant to be separated either, but here they were—both unusual. Dry, almost powdery, chalk on his tongue. It wouldn’t go down, like his body knew to reject it. The darkness kept increasing, it seemed.
He bit off another piece, chewed. Bitter ink on his tongue, metallic, coating his mouth. He swallowed it, scraped it down. The whole seemed to be a lump that stuck.
Another piece. The words swam through his head, making sure it was still there—still her. Chewing through stupid, through burn this. The starchy texture lined the roof of his mouth, using his tongue to work it free. Stomach turning, but he kept going. Faster, eat it, down.
He was almost done. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, weighty and loud, thump thump thump. Like he swallowed another heart instead of paper. Faster, Aether, quick. A piece caught in his throat, he gaged. Forced it down. A dry swallow, eyes watering.
The last scrap. He put it on his tongue, chewed and swallowed.
Then it was gone. All of it. The room silent, disgusting silence against his hammering heart and thoughts. He sat very still, ink and fiber burning in his mouth.
Her words were inside him now. Both in mind and body. Traveling down, down. Becoming a part of him in a way that they already were—a part of each other.
Then the rest crashed in. Warm hillside, sun languid, the measuring rod, cold beside cold. Calling him Scaramouche like it was a private langauge. The fingers in his hair, soft, the terrible, shameful sweetness of it. What was he doing?
There was no sweetness now. Only the taste of ink in his mouth. Good. Let it stay.
-
The first snow came the next morning. A light dusting, tentative flurries. The kind where you could see the imprints of sparrows’ feet in the powder. The light through the library screens was pale and flat. White on white. Everything stripped of color.
Scaramouche was sitting by his desk when Aether was brought in. Paper spread before him—signing something, or pretending to. Correspondence that changed nothing. The brazier was crackling beside him, burning steadily. The coals pulsing orange. The warmth felt obscene after the morning of his hollowed-out, cold room. Cozy glow while he hoped the taste of ink in his mouth would last forever.
He sat on the cushion provided. Folded his hands in his lap.
Scaramouche set his brush down and started shuffling through papers on the desk. Lifting books, pushing documents aside—casual, looking for something of no importance. He found the paper, smoothed it out. Held it between two fingers like a curiosity, something he was being generous enough to share.
“Your sister wrote,” He said. Tone even, conversational. He was watching Aether’s face, the way he watched his koi—what would it do next. “I thought you might want to know she’s well.”
She said she’s fine. Aether thought. Not well.
Scaramouche cleared his throat, and read: “I hope you’re well. The autumn has been mild. I’m not ready for winter, and would like this to last forever. I’m staying with friends.”
He lowered the paper. Nodded, satisfied.
“Here.”
Aether took it. His hands were shaking—which helped. The real reason was misconstrued: the ink on his tongue, the queasiness that hadn’t left. But it looked like emotion. Scaramouche wanted emotion.
The handwriting was nothing like Lumina’s. Neat, no haphazard slashes. I’m staying with friends. Lumine didn’t have friends. She had contacts, people she paid.
He stared at it. Blinked twice. Long enough to be convincing, he hoped.
“Thank you—” he said. Voice rough, which was helpful.
“May I write her back?”
Scaramouche waved a hand, turning back to his papers, “Like I said, the mountain post is unreliable—especially with the snow. You wouldn’t want it ending up in a snowdrift, would you?”
The brazier crackled. A brief spray of sparks.
“Here—sit closer,” Scaramouche said. He leaned back from his desk and moved to the brazier, “The fire is warm. I can’t have my cartographer’s constitution deteriorating—staying in that musty room of yours is a recipe for death by spring.”
Why would it matter, Aether thought, if I’m to stay here going nowhere.
“Alright.” He moved to the fire.
The heat was suffocating against his face. The orange light played against Scaramouche’s features, nature’s puppet show. The smell of wood smoke and clove. The warmth stung Aether’s eyes.
Scaramouche had a book out, slim and dark-covered. He cleared his throat and began to read. Poetry, something classical. Butterflies, dying crickets, the persistence of snow. Scaramouche’s voice gave it a rhythm, musical, unhurried—like he was weighing how each line would sound best while also reading it.
Then he stopped, after completing a stanza, and got up.
He reached and brought down a thick text from his desk. The sheer mass of it, he opened it up, and Aether saw maps upon maps. The Atlas Mainor—the text he referenced at the creek. Lines of latitude and longitude, sketches of city roads, what one man knew of everything, in a book. As a map of a beach flipped past—Aether could tell by the stippling, the many dots where the water deepened—he was suddenly back on the shore with Lumine. Her laugh carrying across the wind, the air tangy and salty, bare feet on soft sand. Cool and fresh and free.
But no. He was here, with the brazier making his vision squirm and the heat hurting his eyes. Scaramouche slipped the letter in, and clapped it shut, pushing it away.
Aether bit his lip. The vast coast closed with a snap. All that open water, all that distance, closed decisively with a perfumed and oiled hand.
Aether looked into the brazier.
You don’t hold the world in your hands. You hold nothing.
Scaramouche returned to his poetry. Another stanza, then the pop and settle of the fire.
“My sister—in her letter,” he said, “She didn’t say where she is.”
Scaramouche looked up.
“No,” he said, “She didn’t”
“Well—I’d like to write—anything I can do, send a message, or—”
“Why.” Something crossed his gaze—not suspicion. Something sadder. “You’re safe here, That’s more than enough.”
And Aether understood, with a clarity like a burn, fresh and weeping. Scaramouche wasn’t only saying stay. He was saying: this is what safety looks like. Silk cushions, a warm fire, someone reading to you. What more could you need? What could a sister give you that I haven’t already provided.
And Aether knew it was everything. He knew it was everything. Scaramouche couldn’t fathom it. The pull of blood, the ache of absence, phantom limb, He had nothing tethering him to anything. Suspended in this estate like a distended organ. That was the worst part—not cruelty, but incomprehension. The question was honest, innocent even.
“Move closer to the fire,” Scaramouche said. “You’re still shivering.”
Aether did move closer. Scaramouche returned to the poem, his voice steady in the darkening room. The flurries increased outside the screen, like the spray of the sea, purposeful. The brazier flickered.
Aether let the words wash over him, Scaramouche’s brows furrowed at this particular poem: “The dying cricket—how full of life, his song.”
Aether’s snare was warm and literate and smelled of clove. His captor’s brows furrowed at crickets in poetry.