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Abigail had an idea where she might find him this time of night. She’d already checked Toki’s old room, and while the bed suggested recent use, the man she sought wasn’t there. That just left one place, really, and as she stepped out into the winter chill she found him on the edge of the dry fountain, head tilted towards the moon and the vast speckling of stars. Snow fell and blanketed his dark curls in white like a veil. How long had he been sitting there watching the sky? What did he hope to see?
“Magnus,” she called to him as she crunched across the grounds and hugged her coat tight. He didn’t acknowledge her. His attentions were far away, as they often were now. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak for days at a time, and the klokateers said he wandered the halls of Mordhaus at odd hours like a phantom. She reached him and tried again. “Magnus.”
This time his eyes lowered back to earth, and he looked at her but said nothing. Disgust swelled in Abigail’s chest. He was haggard, unshaven. A husk of himself, hollowed out over the weeks by ceaseless grief, and from the look of it, not eating the food she’d ordered klokateers to bring him regularly. One of Toki’s woolen sweaters hung heavy from his thin shoulders, and he shivered within it.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
Magnus shrugged and remained silent.
“Get inside,” she told him. “It’s too cold to be sitting out here like this.”
He still said nothing, but he lifted a clear bottle to his mouth and took a drink.
The sight lit an anger in her. “You know you’re not supposed to drink with your medications.”
Magnus tilted the bottle from side to side as if considering her words, letting the last few mouthfuls of the stuff slosh in the bottom. “Stopped taking ‘em,” he finally said.
“Toki wouldn’t like that.”
“Toki’s not here.”
Abigail swallowed the sudden choking pain that threatened to seize her by the throat. Toki wasn’t there, that was true. They were all gone. It was still difficult to believe sometimes, to walk into the living room and not see them lounging there, to not hear their shouts and laughter and the music from the arcade games. The only people in her office anymore were klokateers and Charles, but that didn’t stop her heart from aching with expectation at every knock.
She pinched her eyes shut against the warm rise of tears. “He asked me to keep an eye on you, you know.”
“Seems like something he’d do.” With a long pull, Magnus polished off the last of his alcohol and dissolved into a fit of coughing, hacking so hard Abigail feared he might dredge up a piece of lung. He turned his head to spit into the snow and caught his breath in great heaving puffs.
“Look, for reasons I can’t ever hope to fathom, he gave a shit about you,” she said. “The least you could do is give a shit about yourself.”
“Why?” Magnus asked. He was bitter, surly with drink. As much as she wanted to turn around and leave him to sulk in the cold, Toki had made her promise.
He won’ts be okay. Please, Abigail.
“What do you mean why?” She could feel frustration mounting along with her tears. “They saved the world. They saved us. They wanted us to keep living, Magnus.”
“Yeah, well. Some fucking life, isn’t it.”
“How dare you. After all they did—”
“I didn’t ask him to do it!” Magnus barked, his voice sharp in the frozen air. “What good is saving the fucking world if he’s not here? Huh? What the fuck am I supposed to keep living for?”
Abigail quickly wiped a stray tear from her cheek and sniffed. “You’re being selfish.”
“No, fuck you. I’m not selfish. I’m hurt.”
“And you think you’re the only one?”
That seemed to give Magnus pause, and he hung his head as shame deepened the lines of his forehead. If he started to cry, she was going to kick him. She could tolerate a startling amount of his bullshit, but not the crying.
“He—” Magnus shuddered and clutched the sweater closer to his withered frame. “He was all I had. What do I—what am I supposed to do?” His gaze met hers, moonlit snow falling between them. He had snowflakes in his lashes and brows and beard. He looked very old.
Abigail held her jaw firm to keep it from trembling. “You keep going. You pick up what Toki gave you and you move from one day to the next.”
Magnus’ eyes went wide and wet. Too often it amazed her that this was the same man who had fastened a lock around her neck and thrown dog food at her feet. The same man responsible for the faded scar beneath her ribs. And while she hadn’t forgiven him the way Toki had, and never would, she at least was capable of a passing, noncommittal sympathy.
“I—I don’t know how.”
“Well you better figure it out. Are you just planning to wallow here for the rest of your life?” She caught the roll of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “Why are you still here, anyway? This can’t be helpful. You have a house. Go home.”
“Could say the same to you. What band are you managing now exactly?”
Abigail didn’t have an answer for him, couldn’t find a reason quick enough for why she hadn’t left. She’d been clever once, hadn’t she? It was difficult sometimes to remember her life before the last three weeks, and she wondered when she’d allowed herself to get so tangled up in other people that to unravel them from her life left her less than.
“Anyway, I’m not going back home,” Magnus continued, and he wound his arm back and threw his empty bottle out into a bank of snow by the untended topiaries. “Not without him.”
He kept talking like he expected Toki to show up one day as if nothing had happened. It made her sick. It made her resentful. A gust of wind blew flurries into her face and whipped her hair. Her ears and nose were going numb from cold. “Okay, well, can you at least come inside for right now? It’s getting worse out here.”
Magnus glared at her and lurched to his feet, and she thought for sure she’d finally gotten through to him. But instead of following her when she took a step in the direction of Mordhaus, he stayed put, swaying drunkenly. She forgot sometimes the towering height of him, like a scarecrow, especially now with his skeletal frame draped in clothing built for someone healthy and muscular.
“Magnus,” she said, trying to work authority back into her voice, “come on.”
He staggered backwards a little, and she realized he wasn’t wearing his boots, just black socks now caked in snow. “I’m staying out here,” he said. “You’ve fulfilled your fucking obligation, Abigail. Leave me alone.”
Hearing her own name in his mouth still gave her chills, but she pressed on. “So you can freeze to death?”
“Wouldn't be so bad. They say it’s peaceful. You feel warm.” Magnus stumbled further away from her, arms held protectively around his chest. “I just want to feel warm.”
“It’s warm inside.” She made a move to come after him but he retreated, and it suddenly felt like she was talking him off a ledge. “I’ll have the klokateers light a fire, okay? Just come with me. I can’t let you stay out here.”
“Yes you can,” he wailed at her, looking more and more like a stray cat caught in a cage.
“No, I can’t, I promised Toki that I’d—”
“If Toki really gave a shit about me, he wouldn’t have left!”
“Then you’d be dead!” Abigail hadn’t meant to shout back at him, but it was happening. “Along with everyone else! Is that what you want?”
“What I want?” Magnus’ expression twisted into something bestial and injured, dangerous but too weak to make good on the threat. “I want him back. Fuck everyone else, I just want him back.”
A thread snapped inside of her, the last tenuous line holding her decency in place, and she closed the distance between them before Magnus’ impaired senses could react, grabbing him forcefully by the front of the sweater. “Listen to me, asshole. We all want them back. We’re all mourning. You’re not special just because the person you love is dead.”
Magnus took hold of her wrists, and maybe weeks ago he might’ve been able to fight her off, but not now. His hands were too bony, his skin so icy he didn’t feel human. “Don’t—don’t you say that. Don’t call him that!”
“Toki’s dead, Magnus!” Heat spilled down Abigail’s face. She hated him for bringing this out of her. “Nathan’s dead. They’re dead.”
Magnus whimpered and tried to free himself, pulling futility, and Abigail let him go before revulsion could claim her entirely. He reeled back and tripped over his feet and fell into the show, and that’s where he stayed, crumpled and weeping. Abigail could hear him low under the howl of wind.
She should’ve kicked him. She wanted to. But she didn’t.
Please, Abigail, you gots to promise.
“Son of a bitch,” she said softly, unsure if it was directed at him or just at everything. She was tired and frozen and done with this shit. “Get up. Come on.”
His head snapped to attention so fast it startled her. “Toki?”
“No, it’s me. What the hell are you—”
“Shh! ”
Magnus stared out into the growing snowstorm beyond the fountain and held himself still and tense like some sort of hunting dog.
“Magnus, seriously, this is—”
“Shut the fuck up!” He shoved a hand out in her direction, but his face was still turned away. Abigail went quiet, listening. There was nothing to hear. “Toki, what—where are you? Toki?” He clambered up to his feet, rickety, as if his joints might come apart. He looked back at Abigail and the moon showed her the tracks of tears on his cheeks.
Before she could say something to him, he whipped around and bolted into the darkness.
“Magnus!”
She gave chase, but he had the benefit of long legs and drunk desperation. They ran across the yard far as it went, past the gate with the gargoyle security cameras. Abigail wondered if Charles was awake, if he could see them pass by in the video feed. She had the thought to stop, to get her phone out and call for help, but Toki’s voice was in her head, urging her to follow him, to make sure he stayed safe. Magnus didn’t slow down, even when they reached the beginning of the forest and the gnarled branches snagged at their clothes and swiped at their skin like brambles.
“Magnus, stop!”
But still he ran, compelled by forces she neither saw nor heard. The wind bit through the trees and blinded her with snow, and she raised her arm to shield her eyes against it. Her lungs burned. Her lips had gone bloodless and dry from her breath. She could just barely make out the frantic shape of him somewhere out in front of her, charging ahead, possessed.
Just when a cramp in her side threatened to take her down, she realized she was gaining on him, and when she reached him she grabbed his arm at the elbow to anchor her heels in the ground. “Stop,” she heaved.
He stopped.
They had come to the edge of a small clearing. Above them, the moon glowed huge and bright and painted the soft hush of snow as it fell. Magnus said nothing, just gasped for air and kept his eyes trained on the white space before them. What had he heard? Was this the alcohol or the culmination of a mental breakdown?
“Magnus,” she said.
“He’s here.”
Abigail cast her gaze dolefully into the clearing, and as expected, it proved empty. She stared up at him. He was still crying, thin tears catching in the creases below his eyes and dripping into his wiry, overgrown stubble.
“He’s not here, Magnus.”
“I heard him.”
“Magnus, listen to me.” She yanked on his arm. “We’re going to get frostbite out here.”
“I heard him.”
“You’re not making any fucking—”
“There! ”
Magnus pointed, and Abigail looked, and she saw.
In the center of the clearing, the snow was taking form. Flurries spun and danced, coiling into patterns, slowly filling in the shape of something unmistakably human. It spiraled above the ground, seeming as light as the wind that carried it. Long, snowy hair obscured its face, but Abigail knew. Somehow she just knew. And when the figure fleshed out and bloomed in colors to reveal familiar rosy cheeks and chestnut hair, she gripped Magnus’ elbow until her hands shook.
Toki lowered to the ground, sticking the landing with a playful flourish as the last of the snowflakes dropped from his shoulders, and he searched around before discovering Abigail and Magnus huddled there in the trees. “Oh! Wowee! My aims was off big time. Didn’ts means to ends up all the ways out here!”
Abigail couldn’t breathe but she started to laugh, and Magnus slipped free of her to throw himself into Toki’s arms. Toki kissed his face and held him, and for a moment they spoke quietly to each other, Toki smiling joyfully and Magnus sobbing. Eventually they calmed somewhat, and Toki motioned for Abigail to approach.
“Don’ts be scared. Ams just ol’ Toki.”
She let him draw her close with his other arm. “I saw you die,” she said, belief and doubt warring inside her, her eyes and her brain unable to agree on what was happening.
“We thoughts we was deads, too,” Toki said. “But just becomes, um. Don’ts knows the word. Little pieces. Just little pieces of Dethkloks whats was floatins in space. But look—Toki comes back together!”
Abigail stood back to take him all in, staring at him in awe as she dried her tears. Magnus had his head buried against Toki’s shoulder, stricken, lost to the world. His knees buckled suddenly and took the two of them down, and Toki cradled him dearly and met eyes with Abigail.
“How, um. How longs was I gone?”
“Almost three weeks,” Abigail told him, and his pale blue eyes filled with worry.
“Reallies? Felts like maybes a day or two.” His brow furrowed in thought, and he pet Magnus’ curls. “Shh. Ams okay now, Magnus. Toki's here. I gots you.”
Magnus sucked in a shuddering breath and continued to cry.
Abigail sighed. “He’s very drunk.”
“But his medicines!”
“Talk to him about that when he’s sober.”
Toki’s concern bled into a faint smile, and he kissed the top of Magnus’ head. “Well, he ams alive. Thats ams what’s important. Thank yous, Abby.”
“You’re welcome. He’s a stubborn old bastard.”
“I knows,” Toki said fondly. Abigail would never understand them, but she supposed maybe that was all right. Watching the affection between them, though, squeezed painfully at her heart.
“Toki,” she said, her tone wary, unsure if she wanted the answer to the question she had.
He glanced up at her and his smile widened. “Nathans ams comins back, too. They all ams. So don’ts worry.”
Her lips pressed into a line, her chin quivering in defiance of her effort to maintain composure. “Good,” she said, and left it at that. Good. She didn’t ask when. It didn’t seem to matter. Because Nathan was already there, right? Out there? Somewhere? Which was a vast improvement over three minutes ago, when she thought for certain he was dead and Magnus had lost his mind.
Toki gathered Magnus snug against him and stood, carrying the limp man in his arms. “Comes on. Boths of yous needs to warms up.”
Abigail had started to think she’d be spending all night in the cold, and she eagerly followed Toki back through the trees to Mordhaus, peeking up at the pinpricks of light through skeletal branches. Even when they got inside and Toki laid Magnus out on the sofa by the hearth, she stayed by the windows, looking.
It was her turn now to watch the sky as Magnus had done, to know what Magnus had known—the man she loved survived. Her friends lived. And it was only a matter of time before she saw them all again.
She felt warm. She felt at peace.
She could wait.