Chapter Text
Olruggio doesn't think he's ever descended a staircase faster in his life, not even dropping down to the Great Hall. How the hell did Coco move so fast? He'd known her sylph shoes are insane, but surely she hadn't used them inside the atelier as well? She would've crashed into a wall no matter how good her control of the lopsided seals is. Hopefully she hadn't: the last thing they need right now is an injured apprentice.
Thankfully, there are no hurt little girls in the stairwell, and Olruggio manages to catch up to her before the windowway closes. Not that he has any doubt as to her destination, it just saves precious seconds to not have to set it again. Though unlike last time, he’s not following to stop her.
“Coco, wait!” He grabs her arm before she has a chance to snap her heels together and zip away again, and pulls her down. His other hand flips a page in his quire and closes the ring, raising a wall made of earth between them and the lake just in time to protect them from the Guardians’ immediate and vicious attack.
Coco struggles in his grasp, trying to pry his fingers from her forearm. “Don’t try to stop me!” She protests, voice still scratchy from crying.
Olruggio tightens his grip just a little, enough to make it clear that he's not going to let go. “Coco, look at me. I’m not here to stop you.”
Her eyes, still red-rimmed but no longer watery, snap to him and grow wide. “You’re– you're not?”
“I’m not.” The wall of earth crumbles and he quickly renews it, crouching down beside her. “I have no reason to. You've earned the right.”
Never mind that passing the third test is only the beginning. There's paperwork to file stating intent to attempt the Trial, for one. But all of that is just formality: if needed, they'll just do it afterwards. Maybe it makes Olruggio a bad Watchful Eye, but he’s never been a fan of all the bureaucratic nonsense witch society insists on. And at this moment he really, really can't bring himself to care about protocol.
“I'm here to help,” he says. I want to help him too, he adds in his mind, mouth unwilling to form the words.
Coco swallows. “I– thank you,” she whispers.
Olruggio has attempted the Librarian’s Trial once before. Just that one time, well over a decade ago now. He probably wouldn't have, if not for Qifrey; the other witch had been just as anxious to get to it as Coco has been, and filed the paperwork immediately upon returning from the third test. Olruggio had tagged along, because like hell was he letting his best friend do something that important alone.
The memories from that day are… weird. They had arrived at the bank overlooking the tower just when the afternoon was turning into evening one day, and Olruggio had woken up on that same bank at dawn the next day. A whole twelve hours in between, and Olruggio has never been able to remember any details, just glimpses.
Well, the beginning isn’t as hazy. Qifrey had flown ahead of him, struggling to even make it to the entrance despite his mastery over water magic. Olruggio made a split second decision then to do what he’s always done best, even before notions of countryside ateliers or watchful eyes had become relevant: he’d hung back, drawn the ire of the water-dwellers so Qifrey could go on. And on he’d gone, flying fast and hard, not even glancing back. Probably never even noticing Olruggio’s quiet sacrifice behind him.
Olruggio remembers that part. Remembers seeing Qifrey disappear into the distance while he headed back himself, content to wait on the shore. Willingly giving up his own chance at the trial before ever even seeing the first gate, because that was never what was important. There was nothing in the Tower for him.
Until now.
It’s the parts after that are spotty. When had Qifrey gotten back? Had Olruggio really just fallen asleep on that bank, waiting? He doesn’t remember building the fire he’d awoken beside, nor the makeshift bed fashioned from his bag and cloak. He'd always assumed maybe Qifrey did both on his return, but then, why hadn't he just woken Olruggio? And there's also the incredibly odd way Qifrey had acted that morning. Not to mention the switched hat ornaments…
But one thing is for certain. Olruggio had given up on the Trial that day without even starting, to buy Qifrey his chance. So why, when he now enters that first gate he’s ostensibly never even seen, does it feel so familiar?
The feeling builds through their journey, something nagging in the back of his mind. His hands have already started casting before his mind even comprehends the next challenge. Each gate feels like a problem he’s already solved, his body producing the answer when, logically, his brain should need at least a second to calculate.
It’s not Coco, either. She solves her fair share, of course, but Olruggio finds himself carrying her a good part of the way just to make sure she can keep up. Small arms wrap around and cling to his neck and his own arm starts aching sooner rather than later, because he isn’t like Qifrey. Olruggio would certainly sometimes hoist a sleeping girl on piggyback and carry her to bed when one of the apprentices nodded off in the living room, or catch them when they fell from errant floating platforms on Silver Eve. But he doesn’t make a habit of lifting and carrying them on a near daily basis the way their actual teacher does. It's a cruel reminder of just how much he's not built for something like this. Maybe Qifrey and Sinocia are right. Maybe Olruggio should pay better attention to his health and fitness.
Maybe after this, he'll finally take all that advice to heart. Or maybe not.
But thanks to the inexplicable not-quite-memories and Coco herself, Olruggio doesn’t have to bear the pain for long. Very soon the final gate gives way to the large double doors of the tower proper. The two of them burst through and into the foyer, both panting, both drenched. The doors slam shut behind them and the silence is defeaning after the roaring of water and Guardians.
The eerie feeling of déjà vu doesn't let up once inside. If anything, it grows. And if not for everything that happened on the way here, maybe Olruggio could pin the sense of familiarity on every witch-built structure looking similar. The main hall they're in is positively austere, dark stony architecture dimly lit by only a few floatglow lamps. The space has a similar feel to the dwellings of the first houses. And much like in them, magic hangs heavy in the air.
“Welcome,” a voice chimes. Olruggio snaps to attention, seeking the source. He doesn't have to look far: in front of them stands a middle-aged witch dressed in a Librarian’s garb. Olruggio wonders if he should be saluting, but it’s not like this is the Head Librarian. Not even House Arklaum, by the look of the robes.
“You have braved the Trial.” The witch doesn't seem to be expecting any formalities, either. He steps to the side, revealing a circular room with an intricately patterned floor behind himself, and gestures for them to enter. “Step on the platform, good witches. The Tower shall show you what you seek.”
Olruggio opens his mouth to say something, he's not even sure what, but before he can, Coco has tugged him forward and into the room. As they step on it, the floor begins to glow. Seeing the pattern closer now, Olruggio realizes it’s a casting seal. If the circumstances were any other than they are, he would like to study it closer, spend some time in the chamber poring over the sigils and signs and learning just what makes it tick. A levitation sigil there, a pathfinding spell nested in there - but how does it know where to go?
The Tower of Tomes is one big enigma. An enchanted space that stores any text ever written, replicated the moment it's first produced. And the only parts of it one would ever see are the ones they wish for in their heart, whatever the hell that means. What sort of magic could read a person's deepest desires like that? The structure itself predates the Day of the Pact, but whatever magic still used in it couldn't possibly be the forbidden kind. For one, surely the seals need regular maintenance. For another, Olruggio is sure the Knights Moralis wouldn't stand for one of the foundational pillars of their current society being based on a taboo. Surely that can't be the case.
But today is not the day to ponder any of that. Olruggio tears his gaze from the glowing glyph and forces himself to focus on the matter at hand.
The journey takes almost no time at all, and yet entirely too long. Olruggio is just about ready to start pacing a new groove in the platform when it finally comes to a stop. As soon as the floor’s glow fades, both Olruggio and Coco rush off into whatever space the contraption has brought them to.
At first glance, it looks like an ordinary corner in an ordinary library. It's not exactly cozy, more archive than a reading nook, with shelves as tall as the room itself lining the walls and stacked floor to ceiling with books. When Olruggio tries to focus on them, however, he finds the sight hazy like looking through water. His eyes keep darting around, unable to concentrate on any one tome. And when he looks away, he couldn’t possibly describe what he was just looking at, unable to hold onto any details.
So this must be how the Tower keeps you from finding and leaving with anything you don't ‘truly desire’ in your heart. Olruggio tastes the heavy flavor of magic on his tongue and wonders again what sort of seals are inscribed on these walls and shelves.
Coco tugs on his sleeve, breaking him out of his distraction. “Master Olruggio, look.”
Olruggio tears his eyes from the shifting shelves and follows Coco’s pointing arm. In the center of the space stand a couple of tables, low and sturdy-looking. One of them is piled with books. The other holds a messy array of loose scraps of paper and scrolls.
The sight of them doesn't shift and shimmy like the shelves. The realization fills Olruggio with a jumble of emotions. Excitement, because this is it, they're really doing this, and the Tower has already provided this much to start with. Trepidation, because this is it, they're really doing this, and he fears what they'll find. What they'll have to do.
Because if removing the silverwood were a simple thing to do, Qifrey would've done it already. He wouldn't have fought so hard to stop their attempts earlier. He wouldn't have hidden his affliction away for who knows how long - wouldn't have hidden it from Olruggio, if he’d had a choice.
He wouldn't have, right?
Olruggio follows as Coco tugs him forward to the tables. Resolve to help his friend - his partner - quickly overtakes any apprehension he feels when the information is at his literal fingertips. The two of them only trade one look before lunging at the mounds, somehow managing not to fight over individual pages.
Olruggio doesn’t know how long they spend just reading in silence. Time seems to stand still, never moving forward. It has very little to do with the lack of windows, or the knowledge that they're underwater. Olruggio has spent enough time in the Great Hall to have trained his internal clock to operate on the barest minimum information to gauge the passage of time. Lack of external indicators shouldn't throw him so badly. It's the very space they're in, the magic permeating the air around them, hanging heavy like the breathable sea-mist.
The words paint a grim picture, and Olruggio learns entirely too much and not enough at all. He learns about a poor blind boy with two unseeing sky blue eyes. He learns of would-be science that was conducted in the darkness of Thristas, how those eyes learned to see again and how one of them was lost. He learns about brimmed caps and silver seeds and magic so horrifying it makes his stomach turn, bile rising in his throat.
When he thinks he can’t take any more, he finds in his hands a strangely familiar book. For a while, he can’t place it. There is no title, no author, no nothing. It's a plain tome, with simple brown covers adorned with a large diamond. As he turns it in his hands, he realizes it’s not a published work at all: it's a personal notebook, something you would buy empty and fill with your own words or drawings.
It's familiar because he's seen its like before, held in and being written into by pale hands half-hidden in long black sleeves. Olruggio’s chest constricts painfully and he opens it to the first page.
Olruggio,
I have no doubt that you will be reading this one day, whether because I gave it to you or because you found it among my things. I’m sorry I can’t look you in the eyes and tell you these things in person.
Or perhaps I have. I do hope that I have, and that what you’re about to read is all a distant nightmare.
But in case I can’t, I want there to be a record. I want you to know everything. I can’t bear the thought of you never learning all of this if my time catches up to me before I get the chance to come clean for good.
Whatever tiredness plagued him evaporates in an instant as his eyes glide over the scrawling script penned in Qifrey’s hand. He can almost hear that gentle voice speak the words, colored with emotions Olruggio can’t begin to fathom.
He reads, page after page after page. Qifrey’s memoir, all the words unsaid between them for so long, all the things Qifrey has been wanting to tell him. Everything Olruggio never knew about and never could know until now, and as he reads, he understands why.
And he remembers.
Bits and pieces at first, a small trickle of water as the dam springs a leak. Then more and more as the nails and mortar or whatever holds the pieces give way to the mounting pressure, until finally, the entire wall breaks and is swept away by the flood.
Olruggio remembers everything. He remembers Qifrey returning from the tower, dragging his feet and openly weeping like he hadn’t since they were many years younger and Olruggio held him through another nightmare-induced panic attack. He remembers the abrupt bloom of silver, a canopy of branches stretching over them and the roots reaching for him.
He remembers the plan. He remembers the pride he’d felt, the exhilaration at his own cleverness. All just a veneer to displace what he was really feeling, the anxiety and fear and nausea building in his gut. He remembers how his cheeks hurt from the carefully crafted smile he’d forced on, the same smile he’d taught Qifrey to perfect. He remembers the hope constricting his chest when he saw the branches recoil and the silver leaves raining down on him. He remembers exchanging the ornaments, the seal against his forehead before nothingness consumed him.
He remembers the other times, too. He remembers countless variations of the silver within Qifrey blooming, countless confessions and countless tears shed. He remembers the same scene in a million ways, from their boyhood all the way to the last few weeks.
The last time had been exactly nine days ago. After the date of the third test had been set, in the dead of night when the girls had long since gone to bed and the two adults engaged in their guilty pleasures. Olruggio hadn't been able to coax Qifrey into even a single drink all winter, no matter what he tried. And the trend continued that night, Qifrey steadfastly refusing even a sip from Olruggio's glass. It was lonely indulging alone, but at least the other still kept him company and fixed them both an appropriate snack. But the water witch had been even more high-strung than usual, worrying himself into knots over the preparations for the test. Long fingers fidgeting until Olruggio had grabbed them and forced them to still.
Olruggio had been tipsy. He'd held those hands and slipped a few words, he can't even remember what he said exactly, but they had fractured something. Qifrey had tried to pull away, then crumpled close because Olruggio wouldn't let him, and what he now knows is an age-old dance had started.
And in the morning Olruggio had just thought he'd drank more than he meant to and passed out, like he often did. Except now he knows that half the time he didn't, not actually. So many times he'd woken up and pinned the odd time or position on his terrible habits, all the while the real reason had hidden in plain sight.
It should feel like a violation. But it's not, is it? It was all Olruggio's idea to begin with. That first time, and every time thereafter. Even when Qifrey didn't let it go to that point, Olruggio knows he would have allowed it without hesitation. Sometimes Qifrey had even tried to plead, to argue his points even though he knew every counter-argument, and Olruggio had overruled him.
He remembers, and he understands. If anything, Olruggio is the one who's violated Qifrey. He's selfishly forced the other to hurt him just to stay alive, time and time and time again. Because he wasn't ready to let go of Qifrey, even if they couldn't be together in a way Olruggio wanted.
That they both want, he realizes with a start. Those are not words that have ever been said between them - or if they have, the specific memories continue to elude him, buried somewhere deep and dark - but the knowledge remains. If not for the seed…
Olruggio feels faint. If not for the seed, what might their lives look like? Would he get to hold Qifrey the way he's always wanted? Would he get to kiss him? What would Qifrey, unhampered by this silver chain, be like? Would he initiate more than the occasional high-five or shoulder rub? Would he still shy away from skin-to-skin contact, or would he seek it out?
But Olruggio will never know, was never going to know. Because of the seed. Because of Brimmed Caps.
When he reaches the end, Olruggio finds his face wet. He hadn’t noticed it, but somewhere along the way, tears started falling. His breaths are shallow, hands shaky. He feels like he's drowning. In a sea of Qifrey, of silver leaves and words written in elegant cursive script and tongue-tied truths. A hysterical thought occurs to him: this must be how Qifrey always felt when forced to spend extended periods of time under the sea. How fitting that this be the moment Olruggio finally understands his friend's apprehension for that place and its heavy sea-mist.
“Master Olly?”
Coco is grasping at his sleeve, worry evident on her face. Olruggio inhales sharply and wipes his face on his flowing sleeves. He needs to get it together. He may not be able to help Qifrey - the thought has him gritting his teeth, the grief an unfathomable shape lodged between his ribs - but he can be there for Coco. For all of the girls, through all of this. He has to.
He owes Qifrey at least that much.
Olruggio gently drops one hand on Coco’s shoulder and squeezes, hoping it conveys the words he can't quite string together. He clears his throat, willing something to come out. “I’m sorry, Coco. I don’t think…”
Coco freezes. She tries to pull back from him, shaking her head. “No!” She turns back to the mounds of literature, lower lip wobbling. “We can’t give up! There has to be something!”
Her voice cracks. It occurs to Olruggio just how long a day she's had. It seems like forever ago since she just shifted her breakfast around on the plate, Qifrey unable to coax her into taking more than a few bites. Olruggio remembers taking the third test and how tiring that had been, flying over the waves of the strait. The physical toll is one thing, but the emotional impact of both that and everything that’s happened since is entirely another. It's Silver Eve all over again, too much happening in too short a time frame, silver leaves and having to play savior shadowing what was supposed to be a celebration.
It breaks Olruggio's heart. He'd thought it then, and he thinks it again now; the girls shouldn't have to go through something like this. It's admirable, the strength and courage they’d all displayed, but it's so wrong.
Especially Coco, this girl who'd come to their care an outsider. That she would have to bear witness to all the ugliest parts of their society like she has is unfair beyond belief. It almost makes Olruggio believe the Knights might have a point in their doctrine. Maybe it would've been kinder, in the long run, to have her memories erased. To spare her all this pain.
Then Olruggio thinks of Qifrey, and shudders. Qifrey, who'd had everything taken from him, left uprooted in a world that refused responsibility for what it had done to him. A world that was ready to just discard him as one does a used up spell, if not for Beldaruit's kindness. Qifrey, whom Olruggio had watched shamble through life unmoored for so long, always angry because of what he'd lost and growing more bitter by the day because he didn't know what it was that was taken from him. Qifrey, whom Olruggio has forced to perpetuate that same cruelty against his own self just to stave off the inevitable. Hundreds of tiny little deaths that Olruggio would never even have known about that Qifrey has had to carry the grief and guilt of, all by himself.
And Olruggio thinks of himself. Would he be happier if he didn't know the things he's just learned? Had he been happier before - hell, as recently as this very morning? Unknowing of Qifrey's pain and his own part in it? Of all the tiny parts he'd lost?
No. Erasing memories could never be a kindness. Not on the person having them erased, nor whoever is doing the erasing.
Olruggio watches Coco frantically leaf through all manner of book and scrap paper, all ones they’ve both already read. The rustling of the pages rings in his ears like scratches on the inside of a coffin’s lid. He recognises the desperation she's driven by, remembers it from his first visit to this very same nook within this Tower. But the grief in him has grown too large. It pushes out of the cage of his ribs, growing out through the gaps until it shrouds him in a comfortable cloak of numbness.
“Coco.” His own voice is alien in his ears. Too calm, too steady. Detached.
Coco hasn't stopped rummaging through the material, like just looking at it again will somehow change the fact that this time, there is no answer. “Please, Master Olly, help me look!”
“Coco.” Harsher, now. An edge to his voice he can't keep from creeping in, and doesn't know if he would want to, either. Swallowing the sharper sounds that try to get out, because she’s not the one deserving his ire.
She finally looks at him, tears streaming freely for the first time since the garden.
Olruggio crouches down, like he has seen Qifrey do so many times. He tries to not let the memory sting, suppressing the shudder it brings on. Slowly, gently, he reaches out to take one of the girl’s hands. Holding it in both of his, warm and trembling, another levee inside him cracks and his eyes burn.
“It’s over,” he says, toneless. The words taste like ink and ash.
Coco balls her free hand into a fist, her whole frame shaking. “No it’s not! It can’t be! I know it’s in here somewhere, it’s got to be– something, just anything that can help– he’s stopped it before–”
“No,” Olruggio says. The tears in his eyes don’t spill, even when he blinks. “The only way to remove his comfort now would be to wipe his memory or–” He swallows. “Or to remove us.” He breathes. A deep inhale, a shaky exhale. “All of us.”
Not just Olruggio. Coco, too, and Agott, and Tetia, and Richeh. This family that Qifrey has painstakingly built, the five brought together only because he'd chosen each of them.
To save Qifrey, they would have to tear apart his life. Either rip away the people he holds most dear, taking from him the future he'd spent so long trying to achieve and had, despite all odds being impossibly stacked against him. Or wipe out his mind, turning him into a husk of himself, reducing him into the hollow and bitter version he'd been when Olruggio first met him. All just so he could start the cycle over again, chasing his memories and being crushed when he discovered the truth.
In either case, dooming him to living in endless despair.
Olruggio meets Coco’s eyes, forcing the words out even though it feels like there is no breath left for them to carry on. “I won’t do that to him.”
He can't. Not anymore.
Coco stares at him, face pale, cheeks glistening. Her wheezing breaths echo in the room, gasps of air circling in and out of her lungs through her teeth. Then they stop, her mouth snapping shut as her lips twist into a defiant glower. She jerks her hand free, eyes scrunching into tiny slivers in fury.
“So you’re just going to give up and let him die?!”
Olruggio says nothing. What could he possibly respond with? There are no words for a situation like this, no language that could create understanding. Not when Coco won't accept anything he has to say, and Olruggio is unwilling to speak the words she does want to hear.
He stays there, kneeling, while she goes back to the desk. To the myriad of information the Tower offers at their behest, to any sliver of information about the silverwood, the experiments, anything, hoping against hope that something new might have materialized in the last few minutes. But they both know the Tower has provided all it can.
Watching Coco slowly lose her mind, Olruggio feels nothing. Even when her tears evolve into sobbing and wailing, when he knows he should reach out and comfort her, there is only apathy. Somewhere beyond the shroud of grief, a Qifrey-shaped hole has formed, and sky-blue eyes scream at him. You have to stay strong. You have to be there for them. You have to. You have to you have to you have to–
“Why?” Coco sniffles. She fists her hands on her sleeves and uses both of them to wipe at her eyes again. Olruggio has no doubt they are so misty and swollen with tears that she can no longer see, let alone read. “Why? Why him? It’s just a stupid tree, why is there nothing to deal with a stupid plant?”
She freezes as soon as the words leave her mouth, breath catching mid-sob. Figuring she might finally be ready to face the reality of their situation, Olruggio struggles out of his stupor and reaches out to gently grasp her shoulder. “Coco…”
“A plant.” She turns around slowly, green-gold eyes shining. Not from the lamplight, or because they’re still full of tears, but with an innate fire that turns the gold of her irises molten. “It’s just a plant, Master Olly.”
Something about that sight makes the heaviness in Olruggio's bones shift. There's something familiar about it. Something terrifying, but also enticing. It's the fire of a long burnt out pyreball, crafted to halt the growth of silver, and followed by the acrid taste of tears mixed with ink.
“Coco,” he starts again, confused.
She grips his hand hard enough to hurt, eyes wide with something bordering on mania. “A plant, Master Olly!” she repeats, voice raising in both volume and pitch. “How do you kill a plant?”
He frowns. “Coco, what are you–”
She pulls him forward, almost making him fall on his face. Somehow he doesn’t, stumbling onward to a third table he hadn't noticed before. Once there Coco grabs a sheet of paper and pulls out her pen, knuckles white. “It’s just like when Master Qifrey,” her voice breaks on his name, “found that patch of giant eldroxbane! When he wouldn’t let us help because he said it was dangerous–”
Because eldroxbane - an invasive plant from somewhere beyond the peninsula - is highly poisonous once grown. It's virtually indistinguishable from harmless native plants until it's had a few years, and by the time it is recognisable, it's much too dangerous to handle carelessly. Too dangerous to let children near.
“So you made a day of it, you cleared it all out to dispose of, plants and leaves for compost, and–”
Olruggio remembers. Even a small patch is a lot of work if you do it properly, so he had tagged along, helping Qifrey pull the giant plants out by their roots. They'd turned the soil over to make sure they got every inch out, because if you left even just torn up bits, eventually they would grow back into full-sized plants. Not much magic could do to help, either, so it was all manual labor. Just that process had taken them the entire morning, both of them sweating in the lingering heat despite the year being well into autumn then, only exacerbated by the thick gloves and long-sleeved shirts they'd worn for protection.
After lunch, they'd gone back, because the work wasn't finished until every part of the plant was properly disposed of. That meant chopping them up: the parts above ground were alright to use for compost (although to be safe, they’d separated them from the regular bin into a sealed one, just in case a hedgehorn wanted to make a home of it before the toxins had fully dissipated), while the roots…
“You burned the roots,” Coco whispers, pen gliding on the paper.
Olruggio feels his breath catch in his throat as she holds the unfinished seal up for him. The bold, straight lines of her fire sigil stare at him like an accusation.
“We burn it out of him,” Coco repeats. Her eyes are still red and swollen, but the tears are gone. Like they’ve been dried by the still incomplete spell in her hands, or perhaps by the determined blaze within.
Burn it out of him.
Burn it.
Kill it with fire.
Olruggio makes a strangled sound. “Coco, that’s–”
“That’s it!” Coco insists, grabbing him by the hand again. Her grip is surprisingly strong, grasping his fingers to the point of pain. Olruggio feels her nails digging tiny crescents into his flesh. “You have to help me, Master Olly! Fire magic is what you do!”
Boy, I don’t know what we woulda done without your help!
Thanks, Mister Witch!
You did it, Mister Witch!
“I can’t,” Olruggio whispers, voice pushing out of his tightened throat as a dying whistle. High-pitched, weak, wavering. His whole body shakes as if the temperature has dropped to freezing. “I couldn’t– Burn him? Coco, do you hear yourself right now?”
Coco is shaking, too, but for an entirely different reason. She raises her voice, drowning out his breathy protestations. “We have to try!”
It’s not right. I’m a witch. I’m supposed to do better.
Olruggio breathes in sharply and wills his body to still. Calm down. You have to. You have to. An exhale, another inhale, and he manages to quell the tremors, like he’s trained himself. Shake off the ash and snow of Noz and focus on the here and now. Hands steady enough to draw if he must.
Carefully, he extracts his hand from Coco’s so he can grab hers in turn, holding them tight but not hurting. The imprints created by her fingernails stare up at him.
“It’s too dangerous,” He hears himself say. His voice is still wheezy, but no longer on the cusp of breaking. It sounds… defeated. “Think about it, Coco. The silverwood isn’t just in him, he is it!”
“What do we have to lose?” Coco argues, the tears welling again. Olruggio doesn’t know how she has any left to shed; he feels drained dry, and he’s barely shed any. “We do nothing, and he’s dead for sure! We try this, and he just might be dead!” She sucks in a breath. “Wouldn’t you rather try and fail than not try and live forever wondering if there’s something you could have done?!”
Of course he would. But what Coco doesn’t know - can’t know, at her age - is that sometimes doing something is worse than not doing anything. Sometimes, your good intentions cause more harm than they do good. Trading frostbite for second degree burns.
And yet, she's also right. Olruggio knows he won't be able to live with himself if he doesn't try absolutely everything. How could he sit in their kitchen, his and Qifrey's kitchen, and look out that window into the garden? How could he see that tree in the corner, silently watching over the home they’d built together, and bear knowing there might've been a way to save him?
How could he look the other three apprentices in the eye and tell them it’s over, when in his heart, he knows it's not? How could he hand them off to a new master - potentially separating the four of them - when he might not need to?
How could he tell Beldaruit, and Alaira, and everyone else, that he'd had the chance to help, and he hadn't taken it?
But the reality remains. The campfire that keeps one warm and alive can just as easily burn everything to a crisp.
“Even if it worked,” he says, voice cracking, “Fire doesn’t discriminate: it will burn anything and everything in its path.” As sure as the silver leaves and branches, so too would pale skin and white hair scorch into ash. Nothing left but charred black remains of tree and man.
Coco snaps her mouth shut, sniffling forcefully. She bites on her lower lip to stop it from wobbling, chin scrunched up into wrinkles. Olruggio watches a string of snot get inhaled back up her nose, then drip down again.
So close, but it’s not enough. Even the best ideas of the best witch can’t defy reality, because magic is no miracle. The momentary hope she’d sparked dulls away into the familiar exhaustion of despair and Olruggio sighs, deep and heavy. “It’s over, Coco. We can’t save him.”
Coco stares at him, face pale, eyes wide, an angry crease between her brows. Olruggio can practically see the gears turning in her head. He feels for her, he does, and he would give anything to be able to join her, but he can’t. He has to be the adult, the voice of reason. The one to address the hard truths and keep them from being swept aside.
The Watchful Eye.
They stay like that for a good while, just staring at each other. Coco in frustration, and Olruggio in defeat. But it’s fine. All sense of urgency dissipated the moment he read that memoir; there is no longer any hurry. And if time is what Coco needs, Olruggio is content to wait her out.
“What if we told the fire what to target?”
Coco’s voice pierces the magic-laden air between them, clear and strong. Olruggio blinks. “What?”
Coco turns and scribbles something on the paper again. When she shows it to him, he recognises it as the decorative sigil of a valance leech - the one decorative sigil all of witchkind is now intimately familiar with, after that last Silver Eve.
“Like the leech. We only turned back time on the valance leech.” She wipes her face on her sleeve again, a new determination burning in her. “Magic is like a blank slate. It doesn’t have a will of its own: it doesn’t fight back. It just listens to you.” She looks at him. “We’ll just tell it to leave Master Qifrey alone, and to focus on the silverwood.”
Just target the silverwood. It could work, assuming the tree only envelops Qifrey, and that they haven’t fused. Though that’s a very big assumption. Olruggio wishes the Thristas records were more complete, but it’s clear a large amount has been destroyed. What remains is barely enough to give an overview, with very few details. And for all their kind owes to the tree, there’s precious little research on it. But from what is known…
Theoretically, any damage healed might count as silverwood tissue. Qifrey has always been quick to recover from injuries: how much of that was the sprout’s doing? What would happen if that scar tissue were to be burned off? And more than that, what of the parts that, without a doubt, are only there because of the seed?
What of his remaining sight?
Olruggio’s chests constricts, breath catching. Sacrificing Qifrey’s sight to save his life. The choice is easy, terrifyingly so. He’d make it a thousand times without so much as a thought, despite knowing he has no right. But in this situation, who does? Would Qifrey not make the choice for him, were their roles reversed?
The more Olruggio thinks about it, the more real the possibility becomes. Just craft a new spell, one specifically to burn just one type of plant. How hard could it be? And like Coco said, what have they got to lose? The worst thing that could have happened already has.
But he shouldn’t hope. He can’t hope. He won’t survive when that hope is taken from him again. He shakes his head, willing the feeling to leave. “Even if we could do that - I doubt there’s a sigil for silverwood.”
To his surprise, Coco smiles. It's the first one she’s shown since that morning, when she'd responded nervously to his pre-test encouragement. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s a sigil for everything.”
She gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before walking over to a nearby shelf. Olruggio follows her with his eyes, watches as her fingers gently trace the spines of the books there. He vaguely recognises the one she's focused on, with deep blue covers and an ornate stitching: Agott owns one. She never reads it out in the open and hides it in her room, but Olruggio has seen it. It’s a rare volume of decorative creature sigils, most in danger of being lost to time. That must be where the leech sigil came from, he realizes.
Coco’s fingers dance on, hopping to a volume next to it. The spine is identical to the other one aside from the color. When she pulls it out, he realizes it’s part of the same series. Decorative sigils. But while the blue one has sigils for creatures, this green one… has them for plants.
The feeling in his chest grows. OIruggio can hardly breathe.
Coco looks at him with eyes shining like two golden stars. “Please, Master Olly. We have to try.”