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Virgil dreamed of snow, landing in his eyes and blanketing the air and seeping through his threadbare shoes, making him shiver so violently he bit his tongue and soaking him down to the bones. Cold clenched a hand at the back of his neck and collared him like the bullies at the orphanage; it pushed him down and beat him blue-purple, brought tears to his eyes, battered him forward through a white featureless haze because he didn’t have the option of going back, not if he didn’t want to freeze to death.
The older kids had told him they’d left some of their stuff in the forest, and he was the lucky asshole who got to go get them; they’d known he wouldn’t get back before curfew, but they hadn’t cared, so. Sucked for Virgil. All he’d wanted was to get whatever they asked for and run back before the snow became a blizzard or he lost a toe to frostbite.
Before he fell asleep, body telling him it was time to rest, and wasn’t the snow soft, couldn't he lie down for a little while-- but this didn’t feel like snow anymore, and the shivering was back. Somewhere in the back of his mind, where the last hints of conscious thought were winking into awareness like emerging stars, Virgil thought that he must have returned to the orphanage after all.
That thought sent a bolt of terror through him, almost enough to give him the strength to stop shivering. Weakness, drowsiness, almost dying of cold-- none of those were excuses. Virgil was taking up resources by staying in bed. He had to get up and do his portion of the work, to mend or sew or find an odd job in town or something, anything to show he wasn’t a burden who deserved to be thrown out on the street--
A weight on his back, too light to be a person. Virgil forced his eyes open, blinking against his bunched-up hands and the scratchy blanket, and tried to twist around to see what it even was. His efforts were less than effective-- he was shivering badly enough that he couldn’t get a grip on the mattress, and his legs wouldn’t obey his commands-- but he managed to turn his head enough to catch a hint of beige wrinkly skin, and the big bat-like ears of a hairless cat.
What the fuck, was what Virgil would have said if his teeth hadn’t been chattering. Hairless cats were a rich people thing, or a Southern thing; they didn’t belong anywhere near here, they’d freeze to death like the messed-up plucked chicken goblins they were. Even if the cat avoided being found by the minders, it’d be dead in a few days, and if the minders did find it they’d probably beat it to death in front of everyone to punish whoever had dared to sneak it scraps in the first place. The cat was more screwed than Virgil was. At least Virgil could turn the orphanage a tidy profit.
“S-shoo,” he forced out, jerking his arms under him to push himself up on his elbows. Twitching his fingers hurt. He really must have been freezing. “G-go-- hide, what’re yo--” He cut off as the cat made its way up his back and leaped onto the floor, circling back to sniff his face on its hind legs. The orphanage didn’t have wood floors, or a burgundy rug. It didn’t have more than one blanket per room, either, and there wasn’t anyone at Virgil’s back.
Fuck. Fuck, he’d heard about this, someone came by with money and the minders could be persuaded to look the other way when an orphan disappeared, and if they were sick or weak there was no way they could even object, no one would ever see them again and who knew what the hell happened to them then. If Virgil had been trying to get up before, now he’d better try three times as hard. Waiting around to see what happened next was not an option.
Virgil spasmed out of bed and hit the floor with a painful thud. “Shit,” he hissed under his breath, wincing when the cat gave him a startled look. The sound could've attracted someone. He could not afford that. “Don’t look at me like that, I wasn’t gonna land on you.”
“You nearly did,” said a smooth, low voice behind him, and all the blood in Virgil’s veins turned to ice. He shrieked and tried to whirl around, except his legs were jelly and his hands were numb and he was still shivering like he’d been dunked in a lake, and the man raised an eyebrow. Half of his face was covered in emerald scales. “Was he supposed to trust in gravity to protect him?”
A witch. Virgil had been sold to a witch-- or, no, he thought, mind running ahead to fill in the gaps, he’d never gotten back at all. He’d been plucked from the snow like a lost jacket, no one to contest the claim. At least the guy sounded amused, not pissed that Virgil had almost landed on his cat, but that didn’t mean anything. Some of the minders sounded amused before they took their moods out of Virgil’s hide, too.
His legs were dumb and bloodless. There was a clammy heat laid over his skin that made his breathing rough and labored, head swimming like it’d been frozen and was starting to thaw. He couldn’t stop shaking. Virgil took those observations and added them together into no way in hell you can run.
Then he threw one of his shoes at the witch and pelted toward the door anyway, forcing his legs to carry his weight, stumbling over the threshold into a different room--
And landing in bed again with just enough force to wind him, jostling something loose in his chest. Virgil tried to scramble upright, took a breath, and doubled over hacking. It felt like sandpaper clawing up his throat; Virgil heaved in another breath anyway, flinching back from the witch’s silhouette beside the bed.
“Generally speaking, it’s a wonderful idea to try to run when you can barely control your limbs,” the witch drawled, cool and relaxed where he stood by the foot of the bed. The cat mrrped and leaped to climb his overcoat, writhing up to his shoulders and staring at Virgil with bright blue eyes.
The witch’s eyes were mismatched, one brown and one a bitter, slit-pupiled yellow. Suddenly Virgil really did have trouble breathing. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, hating how his voice shook. Just the cold. He was still shivering, that was all. “How did I get here?”
“You walked,” the witch said with a hint of a smirk. “Using your feet. Given your performance just now, I’m almost under the impression that you’ve forgotten how, now.”
“You enchanted the door,” Virgil snapped, “that’s not my fault.” God, what was he doing, talking back? “Why am I here? What are you going to do with me?”
“Heal you,” the witch said with a shrug. “Try to take a long time recovering, won’t you? I don’t have other uses for this room.”
Virgil’s mouth felt dry. “Can I leave?”
“I’ll bring you food,” the witch said, and left the room. The cat flowed down from his shoulders before he stepped over the threshold, though, leaping up to settle at Virgil’s side.
“I’m going to die,” Virgil said blankly, panic setting in like the first howl of a snowstorm, and the cat licked his hand once, businesslike, and put a paw over his arm.
Even with the terror, it was hard to stay awake for long; Virgil kept himself up with pinches and vicious reminders of all the things that could happen to a sleeping prisoner for as long as he could, but he couldn’t fight his body’s lack of energy. The cold had sapped it out of him.
*
When he woke up, nothing in the room had changed but the bedside table, which contained a bowl of stew and a mug of what smelled like strong tea. Virgil refused to look at it-- obviously poisoned or drugged, how stupid did the witch think he was-- but the cat went to sniff at the stew and actually lapped some of it up before Virgil could chase it away. He spent the next few minutes staring at it, sick regret making him imagine all the ways it could keel over frothing and die in agony, but the most it did was try to pin down its own tail and eventually fall over to stretch its claws on the ground, wild-eyed. That was normal cat behavior as far as Virgil could tell, so he risked a spoonful and waited.
It tasted like beef broth, something Virgil had only had once or twice in his life, on holidays. Usually the orphanage gave them thin oatmeal, water, maybe some bread; everything else had to be scrambled for while working, plucked from kitchen waste at workplaces or pocketed from a market stall. The stew had what looked like potatoes, carrots, even meat. Virgil avoided the latter in case it was from a human and carefully sipped the tea. The warmth soothed his ravaged throat.
Breathing was like shifting rocks in his lungs. His face felt hot and clammy, muscles aching, and he couldn’t stop sniffling, couldn’t even keep his eyes open for too long without tearing up from the sting. It was pretty obvious that being out in the cold had given him a, well, cold.
The problem was, it was a cold he really couldn’t afford to have. Virgil knew about witches. They never did anything out of the goodness of their hearts, and the only uses they had for run-of-the-mill humans were as ingredients, food, or slaves. Only one of those involved Virgil staying alive.
He didn’t try to get out of bed when the witch returned, but he scrambled upright as best he could, baring his teeth and trying to make himself look like tough slave material if nothing else. Or at least like someone who’d be hard to kill so you could grind up their spleen or whatever the fuck to use in a potion of makes people bald.
The witch wore dark gloves. Virgil’s eyes darted down to them, then back up at his scaled face, and the witch said, “Is this supposed to be intimidating? You’re wearing pajamas.”
“Okay, the fact that you undressed me is really fucking creepy, no lie,” Virgil said, because his self-preservation had apparently gotten frostbite first.
The witch only snorted. “Oh, of course, my mistake. Leaving you in wet clothes totally wouldn’t have made you die faster. Next time I’ll let you become a literal icicle and try to resurrect you, like the necromancers of old.”
Virgil suppressed his instinctive interest at any word as cool as necromancer and said, mouth dry, “Well. Thanks.”
“You’re not welcome.” There was a long moment where they just stared at each other, interrupted only by the cat rushing up to rub its head on the witch’s foot. “Do you have a name, perchance? I understand they’re only a recent trend.”
Fuck you, asshole. “Virgil,” Virgil snapped. “I’m Virgil. And people will-- there’s probably someone looking for me.”
“The certainty with which you say that makes my heart weep with fear.”
“Look,” Virgil hissed, heart going a mile a second, “if you’re planning to eat me, can you at least just knock me out? Don’t, don’t mess with me first, that’s seriously a dick move, I don’t--”
The witch’s expression shifted, and Virgil flinched back against the headboard, drawing his legs up to his chest to get them out from under the covers. There was probably still a spell on the door. He’d run, and then he’d be in bed again, and the witch would know to wait, might not bother showing any mercy at all--
“I’m not about to devour you,” the witch said, aghast, and Virgil stared at him, trembling. “I only-- I wouldn’t prefer that you stop being sick, is all.”
“Right,” Virgil croaked, heart hammering in his ears. “Right, sure, sorry.”
“Right,” the witch echoed, staring. “I’m called Deceit. In private, if you’d prefer, you might as well call me Janus.”
“In private?”
“I get visitors,” Janus said darkly. Virgil sucked in a breath at that-- what the fuck did that mean, was Janus planning to sell him, why else would he want him healthy-- and doubled over coughing, hacking until his chest felt like it was moments from caving in. Janus was gone by the time he looked up again.
He slept on and off, eyes drifting closed between one thought and the next, insidious enough that he convinced himself he was being enchanted for like an hour and freaked out about it to the cat before he had to admit that he was probably that sick. His arms were so frail that he had trouble lifting the plates of food he was given. It was another day before he could get the strength to drag himself away from bed without adrenaline’s helping hand, and then Virgil couldn’t get any farther than the washroom before he had to lean on the sink to catch his breath. His lungs constricted in his chest like shriveled grapes.
The mirror was covered. Virgil’s legs shook under his weight. He hadn’t been eating well even before his accidental suicide attempt, since winter meant less food coming in from outside and more infighting to decide who got what, and Virgil was too much of a soft touch to look at the littler kids and think you know what, this kid should die of a preventable disease-- but he hadn’t realized how much weaker he’d gotten until he stood up. Virgil could feel his ribs through his shirt. It struck him to wonder how long he’d been asleep before the first time he’d awakened— if he’d been delirious, if he’d refused food and water, if he’d had to use a fucking bedpan. That was a lot of work for a witch to put in for unbutchered meat.
For a slave, though. Janus-- Deceit, better not get used to calling the witch by a personal name, that was asking for trouble-- didn’t seem to be living with anyone besides the cat. Maybe he needed an extra pair of hands, preferably attached to a body with a brain. Virgil could be that body with a brain, however much of a cowardly moron he was usually. He could make himself useful, like some kids did when they were adopted out to farms or workhouses to earn their keep until they were eighteen. The witch didn’t even seem too abusive so far, so if Virgil played his cards right, he might end up better off than some of his yearmates.
Assuming Deceit didn’t get tired of him and curse him to feel pain for every step he took. Assuming Virgil didn’t get cursed never to speak again, never to eat without permission, never to think on his own and always subject to someone else’s will, and even if the farm kids got out at eighteen Virgil wouldn’t have that guarantee, would he? He could be the witch’s thrall until he died. Until after he died.
Virgil swallowed past the sickness clogging his throat. He’d have till the end of his convalescence to prove himself useful, at least. Anything past that was pointless to think about.
Whatever. He was used to ignoring the option of a positive future.
He couldn’t resist the urge to look at his reflection, though, if only because he hadn’t actually seen what he looked like in at least six months. His fingers found the edge of the cloth and shifted it aside, sending up a cloud of dust, and the mirror said peevishly, “There is absolutely no need for me to observe this room.”
Virgil shrieked and hit the ground. The man in the mirror-- glasses, brown hair and blue eyes, looked kind of like one of those scholarly busts come to life and given color-- blinked at him. “What-- what , what the fuck-- ”
“Oh, this is Logan,” said the cat in a cheery tone, leaping up onto the porcelain sink to sniff at the frame, and Virgil’s terror chilled into doomed comprehension.
*
Logan had always been a mirror, but Patton hadn’t always been a cat.
“I had blue eyes just like now,” he prattled, waving his tail in Virgil’s face, “and brown hair, and I was kinda short... oh, and I was allergic to cats! That’s why I was so fur-iously happy that Janus turned me into a cat that didn’t have fur, so I wouldn’t have to be allergic to myself.”
“That’s nice,” Virgil managed, past the horror. “I mean, that you don’t mind being a cat.”
“I would’ve died otherwise,” Patton said, softer, and rose up on his hind legs to touch his nose to Virgil’s. Virgil allowed it, because whatever he’d been before, Patton seemed pretty intent on doing cat things now.
Virgil filed Patton’s words away. “And you’re... a magic mirror?”
“If you wish to employ the explanation one would give to a small child, then yes,” Logan sniffed, and Virgil made a face. Big words from a dude made of glass. “But in more accurate, technical terms, I am a pocket-dimensional being meant to connect the several mirrors in Janus’s home as well as a few others through--”
“He likes to reflect on his existence,” Patton whispered to Virgil, and Virgil almost snickered.
“Oh, gods, puns.”
“Hey, that one was a glass-ic,” Virgil tried, heart lightening just the slightest, and Patton skittered off the sink in shock.
“You made a pun, too!”
Logan narrowed his eyes. “If you are going to continue with this infantile wordplay, I will ask that you cover me back up.”
“Doesn’t that feel weird, though? I mean, you’re just--” Virgil fumbled. “You’re in the dark.” Virgil never liked being trapped in small dark spaces.
“I am able to appear in other mirrors around the house,” Logan assured him, expression lightening. Virgil nodded and threw the cloth back over him, ruefully realizing that he’d never gotten to see his own reflection after all.
That was the last time he could get out of bed for at least a week. His fever came back with a vengeance that night, and Virgil woke up in the dark with a heady, uncompromising chill set into his bones, mingled with a clammy flush that made his skin feel like fire to the touch. Touching himself didn’t even out the temperatures, though; Virgil had to kick the blankets off, curling into a ball against the coughs choking his throat, and kept as quiet as possible so he wouldn’t disturb Deceit.
Sickness at the orphanage was a private thing. You didn’t get treatment unless you were someone’s favorite, and that wasn’t always a good position to be in; Virgil had seen kids die in bed, not even given food or water because they couldn’t work, and be left over half a day before someone finally got a minder’s attention. He’d only been seriously sick once, when he was eight, and had only survived because an older girl had been nice enough to get him food and keep him from choking on his own vomit. He’d been beaten pretty bad for missing work once he was better.
Being sick now-- seriously sick, not just hypothermic with a cough-- meant all the instincts from growing up in a cesspit of overworked children surged back to the fore. Virgil couldn’t make too much trouble. He had to muffle his coughing, ignore the blood in his throat, keep still through all the febrile tremors. He didn’t know if he could get up to eat on his own, so he had to focus on conserving energy and resting as much as possible. His life depended on it.
Time blurred, though, mingled with auditory hallucinations-- rushing water, whispering children’s voices, a high ringing screech-- and less familiar sounds like the low murmur of the witch’s voice. Virgil felt warm broth trickle down his throat, a cool hand on his forehead. No one hit him or stole his blankets. A slim feline figure curled by his head a few times, vibrating softly to exhort him to rest, and more often than not he complied.
All that, and Janus never tired of him. That solidified Virgil’s tentative theory into hard certainty: Janus didn’t have any other humans around, sure, but Virgil knew that Patton had been given the choice between death or transformation, and now he functioned as some kind of familiar. Janus was doing the same thing with Virgil-- testing him, checking how useful he’d be once he was healed, trying to see if he should kill him or change him into something more convenient for his plans. Once Virgil was better, he’d have to prove he was smart and obedient enough to be kept around.
Patton seemed happy as a cat, even under Janus’s control.
Virgil squeezed his eyes shut tighter, purr shivering in his ears, and tried to be happy with that best case scenario, too.
*
Janus let Virgil help with housework once he was able to walk without losing his breath, but it took him three more days before he acquiesced to Virgil’s increasingly nervous hovering and let him approach while he was brewing.
“You realize there’s no need for you to bustle,” the witch said, eyeing Virgil like an unfamiliar dog he didn’t know for sure wouldn’t bite.
“Are you gonna show me potions or not?” Virgil bit out.
Janus motioned at the bottles on the shelf. “They’re right there. Enjoy the view.” Virgil stared at him, caught between terror and the desperate, all-consuming need to insult him for the wordplay, and Janus snickered. It was possibly the dorkiest sound Virgil had ever heard from anyone, much less an adult. “Oh, very well. Don’t try to be careful, though, it’s not as if any of these ingredients are dangerous to handle without gloves or anything. That would be ridiculous.”
Virgil narrowed his eyes, then darted over to the workbench and pulled on the first gloves he found. Surprisingly, they were neither coated with acid nor stuck irrevocably to his skin in a manner that would mean flaying himself alive if he wanted to get them off. Yet another story at least partially disproven. “What’re you making?”
“What are we making,” Janus corrected, “and grab that monkshood, won’t you? It’s harmless so long as you wear gloves and don’t get any of it in your mouth.”
“It’s literally poisonous.”
“Try not to make a salad, then,” Janus drawled, and Virgil brought the ingredient up to him carefully, watched him slice the petals apart and flatten them with the blade. The leaves went in whole, but only after being coated in a dark orange substance that Janus told Virgil not to touch.
The water in the cauldron began a rolling boil, throwing up steam. Janus hummed under his breath as he added ingredients and stirred, made minute changes to the color and shape of the fire, frowned and took a pinch of this and that to alter the color of the potion-- and Virgil realized that the humming was timing, some ingredients for the chorus and some stirring just for a verse and a half, words keeping pace with the witch’s work.
The potion started to smell strange around the second hour, like lavender and crisp leaves and clean cold air, like the kind of weather that left ice coating all the bare branches and dripped frozen glimmering daggers off of twigs and jagged leaves. The world contracted, and Virgil felt himself walking along a path even as he stood still and bewitched, crunching the freezing grass beneath his boots, looking up at a deep purple sky like the last bruisy gasp of twilight. He knew it wasn’t real, in the same way he knew the taste of air in his lungs, but the dreamingness was implicit, unreachable; he couldn’t do anything but walk and walk, turning corners into chill silent wastelands, shuddering at how the sky darkened above him.
Darkness had a texture. Virgil dissolved in it, hands in front of his face gone musty and vague like frayed blankets, trees turned to arched grasping shapes that cornered him away from the clouds, black on deeper gray. He kept walking-not-walking as his eyes strained, minute shuffling in the distance turned so much clearer, shushing wind a deafening howl against his senses.
He walked. He walked. He looked up at the sky as he walked and the purple was lighter, reaching, amethyst, and he bared his neck--
Touch.
Virgil jerked back from it, hands going up to shield his face, unable to see for one crucial moment but deadly, horribly aware that he’d zoned out and the witch had been teaching and he would be mad, would be so mad, why did anyone bother with him anyway when he couldn’t do this one simple fucking thing--
“Virgil,” Janus was saying through gritted teeth, skin pale, “I’m not sorry to cut this short, but I need you to hide right now.”
“What?” Virgil gasped, but the sound came again before Janus could snap: a clipped, forceful knocking, one-two-three-four staccato beats, and Virgil saw Janus flinch. His blood ran cold. “Who’s that?”
“Logan will tell you,” Janus said, and Virgil recognized the edge in his voice as fear. “Or Patton, but-- Virgil, you have to hide now.”
He definitely wasn’t gonna argue about that, not when whoever was at the door could make a witch scared. Which, hey, for all he knew it was some kind of authority here to rescue him, but fuck if Virgil was going to trust that. Janus had rescued him, even though he’d obviously had ulterior motives. Virgil didn’t trust the motives of the next guy to be nearly as in line with Virgil’s goal of staying alive and relatively unharmed.
He crept to his room-- the room he was staying in, not his, because familiars and orphans didn’t get whole rooms to themselves-- and locked himself in, crouching by the keyhole to press his ear against it. Logan, in a handheld mirror Janus had scrounged up from under a bed, hissed, “This is risk-taking behavior.”
Virgil glared at him. Patton was nowhere to be found, but Virgil thought he’d seen him napping in a sunspot earlier that day, in Janus’s bedroom; he’d be fine, as long as the witch wasn’t stupid enough to raise his voice. “Who’s at the door?” Virgil hissed back. “What’s got Deceit scared like this?”
It was weirdly offensive seeing the witch scared. Didn’t seem like a thing that should happen, making his suave manner falter, letting Virgil catch a glimpse of terror in those mismatched eyes. Something as old as Deceit should never have cause to be as frightened as he was. Anyone who lived that long should have seen enough to outgrow fear.
“Listen,” Logan spat, scowling at the door, and Virgil quieted. He could hear footsteps, past the hallway, loud like heavy boots. He could hear Janus drop a spoon with a clatter.
If the witch got hurt-- Virgil didn’t know what he’d do if the witch got hurt, but he’d have to do something, wouldn’t he? He’d owe him that much. He’d have to make a distraction, or get Logan and Patton to safety, or offer himself in the witch’s place so he could keep living here with his cat and his snooty nerd of a mirror--
“Deceit,” the stranger purred, low and hot with power. Virgil shuddered at the feel of it, so strong that even a little kid would flinch at the rasp along their skin: like sandpaper or barbed arrows, like hot coals being drawn along too slow to hide the burn. Logan winked out of the mirror like he was fleeing. “I’ve been waiting for ages for another visit, and yet not even an RSVP ever arrived! I’d almost think you’d forgotten about me.”
“I should be so lucky,” Janus said, sharp as broken glass. Virgil froze, waiting with frozen breath for the sound of a smack, of Janus hitting the floor, but it didn’t come. The other witch just laughed, and her boot heels clicked across the floor, going softer as she went into the kitchen.
“You haven’t even sent any offerings,” the other witch sighed. “It’s quite disrespectful. I think I’ll take my pick from what you have now.”
“Feel free,” Janus gritted out. “Though I can’t imagine what you’d want with that one. Have you ever been near a human child and left them alive?”
The witch laughed again. Virgil clutched Logan’s mirror closer to his chest and prayed that Patton would stay hidden, wherever he was, so he wouldn’t have to see the little cat’s entrails splayed out across the ground. He wondered if the witch would look familiar, if he saw her face. If she’d ever lurked around the orphanage for little ones and stragglers, if any of the empty beds at the end of the workday were her doing instead of the townspeople’s.
“I could have raised this last one,” she sighed. “Such a lovely, rosy-cheeked babe! Do you know, she didn’t even cry as I plucked her from the doorstep. She must have thought I was her aunt.”
Oh, god. “Take your tribute and get out, Dragon.” Janus sounded more like a snake than a person, spitting and hissing like his words could act as venom. “My patience isn’t running short.”
“Do you want any of her?” the witch asked with toxic courtesy. “I understand you’re often short of the most powerful ingredients.”
“Leave,” Janus snarled, and then there was a slap, so loud Virgil ducked down on instinct, twitching into himself to hide from view. Hurt. His witch was hurt. That was maybe some familiar magic talking but Virgil couldn’t, Janus was nice, he could’ve kept his work if he’d given Virgil up instead but he hadn’t--
“Watch your tongue,” the other witch said, “before I decide it looks better outside of your body. Do you understand me?” Silence. Virgil quivered, free hand flexing helplessly at his side. Logan’s mirror was still empty.
He didn’t hear any more verbal exchange, but the door slammed shut after another excruciating moment, and then the only footsteps were his witch’s careful ones, slower than they should have been. Virgil placed the handheld mirror on the ground, out of the way, and crept out of hiding.
“I don’t apologize,” Janus started dourly, turning around, then faltered. Virgil couldn’t stop staring at his face.
The other witch hadn’t just slapped him. She’d clawed out a scale, rending three lines across the pale green stretch of keratin and leaving a bloody, weeping gap in Janus’s cheek. She’d fucking mutilated him.
“Why didn’t you tell her about me?” Virgil forced out, transfixed with horror. Janus was supposed to be dignified, untouchable, the kind of adult who always had things right and didn’t even have to be cruel in his arrogance. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt, he was never supposed to-- “She wouldn’t have-- she wanted ingredients, she could’ve just taken me--”
“I was totally about to hand you over like some rare elixir,” Janus snarled, bowstring-tense. “Even if she had come calling for wayward children, you’re none of her damn business .”
Oh. Virgil’s chest constricted with what he wished was relief. Like Logan was none of her business. Like Patton wasn’t, hidden all through the other witch’s visit, only slinking out now to pin his ears back and twine between Janus’s legs in comfort.
Virgil must have proved himself useful after all.
Deep breaths. Four seconds, seven seconds, eight. “So are we finishing that potion or what,” Virgil managed, wanting to offer medical help but with no idea how Janus would take that.
Janus rewarded him with relaxed shoulders, and just the hint of a smile.
*
“I’m an orphan,” Virgil admitted the day after the Dragon Witch’s visit, when his lungs had cleared completely. He couldn’t have pretended he was sick if he wanted to, not with Patton dogging his heels. He felt better than he could remember, actually: unaching and full of energy, not even out of breath if he ran too fast on an empty stomach.
Janus had been waiting half an hour before adding the next ingredient, bandaged face drawn and intent. The potion he had Virgil brewing had turned pale viscous blue once stirred, smelling faintly of mint. When Janus looked up, though, Virgil’s clockwise stirring faltered against his will; some of the potion splashed on the floor. “Fuck,” Virgil blurted, stooping to wipe it up, but Janus waved a hand and disappeared it before he could. “Shit, sorry."
“It’s fine,” Janus said, rolling his eyes, “please do worry about it-- why are you telling me your family history?”
Because there’s no point dragging this out, Virgil didn’t say. “I was lying earlier,” he said instead, wishing he could fidget with something to hide the jittery movements of his hands. “I don’t actually have a place to go, no one’s looking for me. They would’ve assumed I’m dead now. They’re not about to take me back.”
Janus’s eyebrows raised. “They wouldn’t care that you’ve gone missing?”
Virgil huffed a laugh. “Not unless they’re mad I missed a work shift.”
“I’m sorry to hear that."
Patton hopped up on the kitchen table behind them and added, headbutting Virgil’s side, “It’s okay, kiddo, Janus isn’t about to boot you back into the cold. That’s snow way to treat a friend!”
“Thanks, Pat.”
“I’m always so chilled to hear your wordplay, Patton,” Janus sighed, and Patton curled his tail tip over his back. “Is there anywhere you’d want to go, Virgil? Any place you’ve always wished to learn a trade, or someplace you might have relations?”
Anyone who might miss you? Virgil translated, and shook his head. “Don’t really have any skills,” he said, rueful. Janus gave the potion a pointed look, and Virgil added, “That does not count. I didn’t even know about potions until I ended up here.”
“You realize not everyone has the capacity to brew potions on their own,” Janus said slowly, like he was talking to a little kid. Virgil glowered on principle. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the brewer’s quotient?”
“Let’s just assume I’m lucky I can read and go from there.”
“Don’t let Logan hear you say that, you’ll give him an aneurysm.” Janus frowned, looking lost in thought. “I suppose… in essence, the brewer’s quotient is the amount of efficacy added to a potion if it’s brewed by someone with magical potential, rather than just with the magical potential within the ingredients. There’s a nearly exponential-- that means very large, more or less-- increase in effectiveness if the brewer is consciously imbuing the potion with magic, and a doubling in effectiveness even if they’re doing it unconsciously. Usually, working with the magical ingredients themselves draws out any latent magic, which is why witches often become more than human through potioncraft. I started that way, at the very least.”
Virgil wasn’t sure where to start with that. “When you were making that first potion I helped with, before the, uh, visit,” he ended up saying, cautious in case mentioning how Janus had been wounded made him lash out, “I kind of had a weird vision. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“It’s not a test of magical potential,” Janus confirmed.
“And I passed that?” Virgil managed. Magical potential. How much had Patton had, that Janus had changed him instead of letting him die? Had Patton chosen his form before Janus crushed him into it? He was fine now, but if he’d been sick, or scared--
Virgil had been trying not to think about his best case scenario, but now the reality crashed down on him like plunging into a frozen river. A slave. He’d forgotten about the details of it, that it wasn’t just living with Janus and his familiars and getting fed every day and never being hurt except by accident. He’d forgotten all he’d have to trade for it.
His body. His mind, if he was going to have the instincts to go along with the animal form. His free will, if he was meant to be a familiar, and maybe everything except the center of him would go with it, only some thin vestige of personality left behind. It wasn’t like Virgil knew anything about how Patton had been, before he was a cat. For all he knew, Patton had fought it for all he was worth.
Janus treated him well now, though. That had to be enough, didn’t it?
“That’s not at all an odd way to put that,” Janus said, brows furrowing, “but, well, yes. You showed a great deal of potential.”
“Got it,” Virgil said. “And what does that mean?” God, just spit it out. “Does that mean I can-- that I’m staying here?”
“You want to stay?” Patton chirped excitedly. “Janus!”
“I heard,” Janus said defensively, “I just-- Virgil, there’s no need to rush into anything, not if you aren’t sure.”
Virgil forced his terror down. Janus had saved his life, treated him well, hadn’t even tied him up or beaten him so he’d comply. He’d plucked Virgil out of the snow like a windfallen apple, brought him inside where it was safe and warm. Virgil’s life would have ended out there otherwise, and if being saved meant he had a future here, even if that future was as something unrecognizable--
“You’re pretty nice,” he said, and it was even true. “I think I’d like sticking around, if you’d let me. I won’t be a burden.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be,” Janus said a little blankly, then looked at the potion and jolted. Virgil stared down at the suddenly dark blue concoction and rushed to the table for the next ingredient, and the conversation melted away into practical concerns, like making sure they didn’t blow up the cottage.
Virgil almost expected for Janus to cast him down just after they’d bottled up the result, though, to tip a potion down his throat and force him into a binding ritual so he’d have to keep his word, but all the witch did was smile at him a little more than usual, and-- after a few more days of confused waiting-- ask him to watch the cottage for half a week, while Janus went to get actual food so they’d stay supplied through winter. Having Virgil there meant burning through stores faster than usual.
“You’d trust me with that?” Virgil blurted when he heard the news.
Janus snorted, bundled up in the longest, thickest coat Virgil had seen on him yet. Apparently having snake scales specifically came with downsides. “I’m definitely under the impression that you’re a cruel, seasoned liar.”
“I could be,” Virgil said, bristling. “You shouldn’t just trust people you’ve barely met. What am I supposed to do if you get a visitor?”
Janus stilled, face falling serious. “Hide,” he said, “and don’t open the door for anything .”
*
Logan confirmed it when Virgil asked him: Janus leaving was a necessity, not some whim he wanted to chase because he’d found a convenient housesitter. They were low on food, supplies, firewood, anything you could name, and not only because of Virgil-- not that it stopped the sick clench of guilt in his gut, that he’d been sick for long enough that he’d drained the witch’s supplies. The Dragon Witch had taken half of what Janus would usually sell with her as tribute, because he was on the edge of her territory. He had to get more so he could support them in the first place.
Hearing that made Virgil wonder if he wouldn’t be of more use as a human slave. Janus needed an extra pair of hands, didn’t he? His countenance brightened when Virgil mastered a simple potion, or brought him a bowl of soup that Patton had guided him through making while Janus worked on something too intensive for company. He brightened even more if Virgil sat to eat with him, even if Virgil didn’t talk or talked too much; his whole face lit up in increments, a shift in his posture and a crinkle at his eye, like having some vagrant teenager rant at him for an hour was entertainment.
Virgil refused to rest any longer, even though Logan and Patton assured him that Janus wouldn’t mind if he took more time regaining his strength. As soon as Janus disappeared around the curve of the path, footsteps icing over with the freezing rain they’d been getting all day, Virgil closed all the curtains, snuffed unnecessary candles, and took it upon himself to fix up the house.
Janus organized like Virgil did, which was to say he didn’t seem like he knew what to do and mostly kept tables clear while shoving everything else into closets and corners; Logan insisted on a logical approach, and after hearing the mirror out, Virgil had to agree. Janus worked with dangerous ingredients, and had to deal with even more dangerous people. He couldn’t just have things lying around that could hurt him or Patton. And Patton couldn’t resist knocking things over or tearing them up when the mood struck him.
Virgil started with the room he was staying in, tugging the sheets and blankets over the bed and sweeping the corners, putting away all the clothes Janus let him borrow in drawers. Then he moved over the rest of the house-- breaking up dust collections under furniture, shooing out mice from the firewood for Patton to pounce at ineptly, ordering the pantry so salted meats were findable and potato piles stayed away from light and moisture. He’d earned enough that the minders hadn’t beaten him much, at the orphanage, even with the healthier kids cornering him so he’d give over his wages; he knew what he was doing.
The potions ingredients were more daunting, but Logan pushed him to organize them, too, so Virgil fixed up the shelves with a light, nervous touch. Some of the jars were cracked or shoved back into cabinets. Others had insects, which Virgil thought was normal until Logan said, arch as a duchess, “That was meant to contain raw sugar.”
Virgil stared at the line of ants, who were gamely lugging the remnants of their discovery back into the walls. “I wasn’t supposed to watch for that, was I?”
“This is the work of more than a day,” Logan assured him. Patton crept up, batted at the line of ants, and jumped back with a lashing tail.
“I think they’re really upping the ant-e this time,” he said sheepishly, grooming his bitten paw. “Usually Janus has time to check and make sure nothing’s gone sour, or at least uses spells that make it so little guys like them can’t get in. Hey, that was almost a second pun!”
“He did mean to renew the stasis spells on these items,” Logan confirmed, “though it requires that the jars be dipped in a potion, and--”
“That’s one of the ones he lost,” Virgil rasped. “Right.” He ignored the urge to wrap his arms around his middle, the stupid babyish instinct left over from when he was small and desperately wishing someone would touch him kindly. Nice to hear about yet another degradation of Janus’s lifestyle that he’d apparently caused. None of this would’ve happened if the witch had handed him over.
Then he wouldn’t be getting a new servant out of it, Virgil reminded himself viciously. The least Virgil could do now was fix the mess he’d helped create.
They sorted through ingredient stores until Virgil’s breath started straining again, and Patton made him stop. “It’s nightfall,” the cat said softly. “Time for bed, kiddo. I know you must be feline pretty tired now.”
Virgil snorted. “Whatever you say, Patty-cake,” he said, flushing a little at how the dumb nickname had slipped out-- he always sweet-talked cats, it was embarrassing-- and flushing more when Patton trilled delight and headbutted him.
He climbed into bed.
Sometime in the night, in the silence of winter, Virgil snapped his eyes open and stumbled out of it.
His knees hit the wood floor with a thump. It was cold, really cold. Virgil had left the woodstove burning before he slept, hadn’t he? He had to have left something burning. Patton didn’t even have any fur, and he wasn’t cuddled up with Virgil like he did sometimes, fuck what if he froze to death--
Anxiety clogged his chest like packed snow. Virgil’s feet were bare on the freezing floor, eyelashes still sticky with sleep; he rubbed his eyes and felt his fingers struggle to bend, chapped raw like he’d been out shoveling, like he’d been forced to work overnight for someone who wouldn’t even give him gloves. Virgil knew a kid who’d lost three fingers to frostbite from that.
“Patton?” he hissed, heart pounding hard enough that he was loath to raise his voice. The silence pushed down on him, muffled his voice. The world was stiller than a corpse. “Pat, are you there? Are you okay?”
Nothing. Virgil cursed under his breath and threw on his shoes, wrestled himself into a coat; if he found Patton shivering in the living room, he’d tuck him close and wrap around him like a living blanket. “Logan, have you seen Patton, do you know if he’s cold?”
This time the hush was damning. Logan didn’t sleep, and he never got cold. Virgil rushed to the washroom and yanked the cloth off the mirror there, steeling himself for Logan’s bitching about not needing to see whatever humans got up to in there, and felt his heart freeze in his chest.
Logan’s mirror was covered in a thick layer of frost, opaque and spiderwebbed, reaching over the wall like grasping fingers.
The little kitchen mirror was broken. The one in Janus’s room was frosted over along with his witch’s entire bed, even Patton’s little bed-- the one in the main room was covered in ice so thick it may as well have been glass--
The handheld mirror was untouched, and when Virgil lifted it the cold metal burned his fingers numb. He hadn’t found a curled, furless body, either. He was starting to think this wasn’t just because he’d messed up with the woodstove. “Logan?” Virgil snapped, and his own volume made him flinch. “Logan!”
Weak, colorless stirring, like ripples on a darkened pond. Whatever it was, Logan couldn’t get through.
Janus wouldn’t be back for another two days. Virgil had been so careful, so quiet, but if this was retaliation, some kind of attack that Janus could have countered but never had the chance to--
His hands shook. The rest of him shook, too, when he stepped out of the cottage to the sight of a tall woman with a crescent of red scales cradling her cheek and a squirming, bleeding Patton in one hand, surrounded by frost and untouched by it, melting snow as it reached her skin. Her eyes were two shades of amber, one umber-dark and the other a vicious, biting orange.
“There you are,” the Dragon Witch cooed, dropping Patton in the snow with a diffident flick of her wrist. Patton made a pained mewl and stumbled, one of his legs not supporting his weight; his eyes were dilated with bristling fear. Virgil jerked forward to grab him without thinking, and the witch let him gather him up, watching indulgently like they were both pathetic pets.
Patton shivered in Virgil’s hold, way too cold to the touch. He didn’t speak. Virgil wasn’t sure he remembered how, when he was so hurt and cold and the instincts of an actual cat were tugging him down like a barbed net.
He stayed at the doorway where Virgil carefully placed him, though, shaking and making a weird yowling whine, like he wanted to hiss and spit but wasn’t sure how. Virgil nudged him inside with a foot and closed the door, terror burrowing into him like maggots.
His breath clouded out in front of his face. His unfastened jacket left his chest open to the biting cold. He wasn’t even wearing socks.
“What the fuck do you want,” Virgil said anyway, drawing back his lips to show his teeth, and the Dragon Witch grinned like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
“My, you aren’t just some hidden purchase, are you?” she asked. “I really did think Deceit meant to present me with bone and glistening fat to keep the meat for himself, but you’re more like the whole animal. I can almost sympathize with his treachery, seeing something as delectable as you all ripe for the changing .”
“It’s not treachery if he doesn’t work for you,” Virgil spat, because thinking of being delectable and changeable and all the spells that were only okay if it was Deceit casting them on him meant he might not be able to speak at all. “Is there a reason you’re here while he’s gone? Are you that scared of fighting him face to face?”
“I thought I’d feed my curiosity, that’s all,” the Dragon Witch said, almost soothing. “He must have had such plans for you.”
“He still does,” Virgil said. “I’m his. I owe him, I’m useful to him--”
“You aren’t anything yet,” the witch said pityingly, and a burning agony exploded across Virgil’s chest, sent him to his knees with a strangled exhale. “What’s your name, my dear?”
“Fuck you,” Virgil snapped. The witch hummed and stepped forward, threading too-hot fingers through his hair to yank his head back, expose his throat to the bite of the air.
“I may call you something else, if you insist,” she said, and the grip on his hair made Virgil’s neck ache from the angle, a stranger ache trickling down behind his eyes and pooling in his chest, molten magic cooking all his organs inside out. His thoughts flinched back from the heat, loosening their hold on his mind; the magic slipped into the cracks and seemed to solidify, widening them and breaking them apart .
No. No, no-- “Stop,” Virgil choked out, tears pricking his eyes, “stop, stop it, I’m not--”
“I’ve always wanted a spider,” the Dragon Witch said, starting to grin.
The heat reached his bones, and Virgil jerked back and tried to scream, fingers tight as a vise around his skull. He could feel the intent of it, twisting changing shrinking binding, and the flicker of might-be-magic within him didn’t know what to do with it, kept reaching toward it as though it thought like should bond to like, like it wanted it. Like it wanted to be bound to a stranger’s will, torn away from the only adult who’d ever given a damn so Virgil could serve his enemy. Like it wanted a lifetime of hurt, the kind of life Virgil had only barely started thinking might not be the whole of his existence.
The searing touched his magic, just a single brush of minds except it had hooks, thousands of them, numerous enough to snare, small enough that they were nearly unnoticeable.
Virgil noticed, though. He had to. He’d spent his whole life in terror, bristling in wait for the attacks that were bound to come, vigilantly watching every corner for the newest threat, the newest chance of death, and his magic was his. Nothing of him could trust so easily. Nothing of him would, not as long as the witch changing him had to hold him down to do it, not as long as she had to hurt him.
Janus had never hurt him. He’d gotten hurt for him, because he thought Virgil was more important than staying in a stronger witch’s good graces. He’d taken him in from the snow, fed him even though his stores were running thin, told him to hide and taught him and never scowled at him for nightmares.
Virgil remembered that lavender sky, its darkness like a blanket settling over the world, its eerie quiet and how he had melted into it like water on cloth. He remembered how it’d felt, reaching out for a potion and feeling its magical nature respond, that emergent property of mingled ingredients. He remembered, and the Dragon Witch had brought potions with her, had taken it out to press it against Virgil’s lips and hold his nose until he had to breathe, and the joke was on her because Virgil was nothing if he wasn’t stubborn--
He gasped, instinctive fear forcing his eyes open, making him struggle against the inability to breathe, and movement in the distance caught his eye. Then his mouth was opening in a futile desperate inhale. Then the witch was forcing the sour concoction down his throat, most of it still in the bottle, and there was movement behind her, and any second now she’d notice.
Virgil bucked back and yanked the potion from her grasp, and in the moment before the witch could react he shoved all the might-be-magic he had into it and threw .
The potion splashed into her skin like acid. The witch screamed in rage and startled agony, recoiling, and Virgil doubled over retching, cowering back as she lunged.
Except she wasn’t lunging. She was standing there, screams cut off, face twisting out of shape as the acid tore it away, and there was a red patch spreading on her torso. A jagged spar of ice, yanking out so she fell to the ground, and a whisper of magic so toxic and furious that it ate into the wound and made it worse, so the Dragon Witch doubled over and didn’t get up.
And then Janus was in front of him, something glinting at his belt and brighter words spilling from his mouth, stuttery with horror, face so pale he could have been dead. It took a long time for the ringing to fade from Virgil’s ears.
“Virgil,” Janus said once his newest spell was woven, “Virgil, I’m so sorry, I came back as fast as I could--” And that was a mirror at his belt, that was where Logan had gone-- “If you haven’t already thrown up, I need you to do so now .”
“Don’t think that’s the problem,” Virgil croaked, folded over where the witch had left him, in the snow. Retching up the potion hadn’t solved anything. The molten magic was gone, but in its place was nothing, hollowness where color had been, an aquifer too slow to fill. Maybe there’d been another reason Janus had waited so long to take advantage of Virgil’s natural magic after all. “I don’t-- there’s something wrong in me. Kinda feels like caving in.”
“Fuck,” Janus breathed in what sounded like disgusted horror, brushing his hands over Virgil’s shoulders. “Virgil, what was in that potion? What did you do? Not that I’m not thankful that you managed to incapacitate her so I could stab her in the back like a second-rate theater villain, naturally, but if it wasn’t mine, whose was it?”
“She was feeding it to me,” Virgil mumbled, and it felt like all his breathing had to go through one lung, like he’d been rationing and the reserves had finally run out. “I didn’t, I’m not hers. I don’t want to change because of her.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Janus snapped, sounding almost hysterical. “Gods, you didn’t leave anything, did you, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? This isn’t how I wanted to ask you this.”
“You’re nice,” Virgil managed, forcing his eyes open so he could glare better. The snow was so bright, even under moonlight. It felt like being burned away. “I don’t care what you turn me into. I was gonna-- you’re nice to me. I’d be a spider for you for the rest of my life.”
“Liar,” Janus snarled, even paler, “you’re terrified of that. I can hear that you are, why would I ever transfigure you against your will? I only changed Patton because he was dying, and he trained beside me.”
Virgil blinked against the ice at his lashes. Patton hadn’t-- Janus hadn’t been the one who hurt him? That was good, that made sense, but-- “Patton’s hurt.”
“You’re hurt worse,” Janus snapped. “Tell me, Virgil, and don’t bother to lie. Would you stay with me? Would you want to, even given the option to go to the city, find a job or an apprenticeship? Given the option to make your own way? Would you have wanted that?”
Talking like he was already dead. That was a great sign. Virgil shook his head-- he wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere on his own, not once he’d had a taste of what a family was like-- and something in Janus’s face broke.
“It isn’t reversible. If you accept, you’ll be bound to complete it, there won’t be any escape even if you decide you hate me down the line. You could always complete your training and then kill me, I suppose, but that would take years.” A deep breath. Virgil trembled with incomprehension. “Virgil. I don’t intend to turn you into anything but an apprentice, if you’d have been willing. I never intended anything else. But you would be a witch forevermore, and I’m given to understand that some humans consider that a fate worse than death.”
“A-apprentice,” Virgil managed, colder with disbelief. “I never, you’d, I can barely read-- ”
“You’re yourself,” Janus said desperately, “You’re talented, you’re too young to die like this. Virgil, please .”
Virgil stared at him, hollowness eating away at his bones until they felt emptied and honeycombed, too frail to hold his weight. A witch. Not a familiar after all but an equal, an apprentice, training with someone who would miss him if he was gone. A future too frail to hold.
But he was dying. Wasn’t he allowed one last ditch effort? One scrap of warmth, one strike of the match for hollow comfort? “I’ll do it,” he forced out. “If you’re not lying. If you really want me to stay like that. I’ll do it.”
Janus stared back at him, quivering. Then he was up and in the house, leaving Virgil alone on his knees in the snow, and back before him with something glassy and purple in his hands. “Drink it,” he instructed. “All at once, as quickly as you can.”
The potion went down Virgil’s throat like warmed syrup, liquid and sticky-sweet. He felt it hit his stomach and spread, smoothing over the hollow cold, setting the edges of his body tingling. The bags under his eyes itched, feeling different when he blinked. Janus, in front of him, went from dull and pale to lit up like a golden beacon.
Virgil didn’t have the energy to speak, but he figured he didn't really need to. He gave a weak smile and sagged into Janus’s hold, allowing consciousness to leave him and trusting his witch to make up the difference, and for the second time let his mentor pluck him out of the snow to take him inside where it was warm.