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Adaine puts the crystal back in its holder, moving the curled cord out of the way with a steady hand. She stares loosely ahead at something that isn’t there, her hands in loose fists on her desk. Her coffee stops steaming. Outside, cars race by. The sun rises. The world turns on, as it always does when by all accounts it really should be ending. Her personal crystal vibrates violently on her desk, Fabian’s face smiling up at her from its screen. She tries to look at it, tries to pick it up, but her body doesn’t listen.
Riz is dead. It came so fast, after Gorgug. Not even two decades.
(It was a god, she was told, who’d killed Riz. Nemeseal, the god of justice. Adaine could almost laugh.)
Adaine wills herself to move after her crystal stops vibrating and Fabian’s face fades to black. She flips open her calendar to add Riz’s funeral before she forgets the date. She drags her finger through knots of overcrowded color-coded reminders until it lands on the correct square. There’s only one thing written in it: Biannual Riz Lunch 1pm.
There have been a lot of times that Adaine has wanted to go into a rage. She thinks that, maybe, in another timeline, this is an instance where her face would cramp up from crying too much, and her throat would be raw from shouting, and her hands would be covered in cuts from tearing apart her shitty office furniture. She’d tried to get Gorgug to show her how to go into a rage after she’d got the Sword of Sight. Could never get the hang of it, though. Waiting for her hands to stop shaking so she can cross out the reminder for her lunch date with Riz, Adaine wonders how many more deaths she’ll have to endure before she’ll be able to get it right.
The reception is weird. There’s not a lot of guests; Riz had legally ceased to exist years ago to facilitate going under cover. Most of the people milling about the hotel conference room are as stiff as their immaculate suits. Secret Service. It’s never been clear if Riz worked for them or if they worked for Riz.
Adaine, Fig, Fabian, Kristen, Tracker, and Ayda escape after about fifteen minutes. It isn’t the adrenaline-filled escape of adventurers, but the sickly-sweet one of bureaucrats. Feeling dirty, they’re spit out on the sidewalk outside a string of nondescript corporate skyscrapers in the gut of Bastion City. Cars stir up their hair as they race by, and pedestrians shoulder past them. It smells like exhaust and trash, and the almost-right six of them are all miserable in slightly distinct ways. They stand there, for a moment, in silence. There’s nothing to say, really. Fabian invites Kristen and Tracker to get a drink with the rest of them out of politeness, knowing they will decline, which they do. And that’s that.
Neither party bothers to put on smiles as Kristen and Tracker say their goodbyes and disappear into the crowd. Fig rips a cigarette from its box, and the thing is lit before it reaches her lips.
“I did not know Adaine had picked up Fig’s habit,” Ayda says. Fabian is keeping close step with her, using her wings as shelter from the chilly autumn breeze. Their shoulders brush together as they walk. Ahead, Adaine and Fig, passing the cigarette between them, march down the gum-stained concrete as if they expect to find the god who’d killed their little angel around the next corner.
“She got it from Riz, actually,” Fabian says, looking at the ground.
“Hm,” Ayda says.
Fabian matches the noise, and carefully takes hold of Ayda’s arm. She unfolds one of her wings and wraps it around him. Fabian tries very hard not to think about how she’s just the tiniest bit shorter than she used to be, or how her fire isn’t quite as hot as he remembers. He’s glad she’s stuck around since she and Fig broke up. It’s nice to hang out with a pirate who both doesn’t work for you and doesn’t want to kill you. They trail behind Adaine and Fig, weaving between other pedestrians and watching the sun set between the buildings. Fabian’s free hand rests on the hilt of his sword. He feels Ayda cast a gentle spell on him, doesn’t resist.
“You need a distraction. I have been researching your inquiry about Leviathan’s governing practices before the Ramble, Row, and Ruction were established. Should I share my findings?” Ayda asks.
“That would be great, Ayda, Thank you.”
Kristen’s heart cracks with every step she and Tracker take away from their friends. Not because she wants to be walking in step with them, but because of how easy it is not to.
“You know how, after Gorgug died, I felt like we were leaving the others behind? I feel like they’re leaving us behind, now,” she says. Her words echo through the deserted parking garage as Tracker leads her back to their car. She thinks of Adaine exhaling cigarette smoke, and of Fig leaving scorch marks on the sidewalk instead of footprints, and of Fabian wearing traditional goblin mourning browns, and of Ayda messaging her I understand as she and Tracker turned to split the party.
“Is that weird? I think this is worse,” Kristen says, “Do you think they hate us, or pity us?”
“No. I don’t think they can,” Tracker says. “I think they feel the same loss we do, just from the other side of the glass.”
Kristen considers this as she climbs into the car. She drives. Her furrowed brow doesn’t smooth until buildings are a quarter mile apart and a distant braying cow lifts her gently out of her own head.
“Don’t let me go to bed tonight without working on my autobiography,” Kristen says.
“Only if you credit me for that cool thing I said,” Tracker smiles. Kristen squeezes her hand.
“He’s not really gone, you know,” Fig says, looking into her pint as if Adaine’s divinatory abilities were contagious, and by sitting next to her she’d be able to see some sort of cosmic truth in the foam.
“What, because he’s an angel now? It’s not as if we’re able to see him, it’s not as if it’ll ever be the same,” Fabian says.
“Fig will most likely see him,” Ayda says, “At the conferences between the Nine Hells and the Seven Heavens, or the Outer Plane Conventions.”
“Yeah, once every, like, 100 years,” Fig says.
“Yes,” Ayda says.
Kristen is almost asleep.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” she asks.
“Hm?” Tracker says.
“Do you think they’ll be okay, without us?”