Archive of Our Own

1.

Sometimes, Astrid remembers the Shadowhand's hands in the dirt.

The image rises, unbidden, in the hours when she lays awake at night, replaying those odd days in her head again and again, taking them apart with an expert hand. Examining every sentence uttered, every gesture, every choice. Looking for an understanding as complete as possible of the events and conversation that reshaped her life. Trying to see all the possible consequences. searching for… what? Anger, grief, relief, vindication? She doesn’t know how to recognize those things in herself quite as clearly, these days, and that doesn’t matter so much, anyway. She just needs it all to make sense.

She stares at the high ceiling of her room as she considers it all. Astrid has new rooms now, fit for an Archmage. She loves them fiercely, viciously, the tangible fruit of a bled-for victory. The Archmage of Civil Influence’s official residence in the lower city are not a place she is overly familiar with – Trent did not like to use them, preferred his own tower, and did not bring his students there often. She had kept most of the house as it was, but had thrown out everything in the Archmage’s personal rooms, then furnished them again to fit exactly to her taste. It’s a petty thing to waste her time on, maybe, but she had enjoyed it. (she had not decided what she will do with the tower itself, yet. Something to think about).

And so she lays every night on her expansive, comfortable bed, contemplating the shifts in the empire outside her locked window and the events that caused them. Some things blur frustratingly – the exact action taken in the battle, the details of a conversation between Veth Brenatto and Yasha Nydoorin she had overheard while in another room. Others are perfectly clear for no good reason – the exact color Jester Lavorre’s dress, the name on a charred gravestone, the pattern of a tablecloth, the fingers of the Dynasty’s brightest buried in the soil.

She had watched them out of the corner of her eye as the three of them knelt in the Clays’ graveyard in the early hours before dawn, clearing the remains of violence from the ground and replanting the garden.

It… had not been easy.

Astrid’s mother had grown tomatoes, once, and basil and rosemary and small pink flowers whose name she can’t recall. At eight years old, Astrid had knelt in the dirt outside their home and watched, captivated, as her mother measured distances and dug holes with experienced precision. Helen Beck had taken her daughter’s hand and placed a seedling in it, gently demonstrating the right way to place it within the earth.

At thirty-three, Astrid knelt on the dark earth of the Blooming grove, and stared blankly at the dirt, like a teenager facing an exam she hadn’t prepared for. You know this, don’t you? You should separate the roots somehow. You should hold the stalk like…

It was odd, after all these years, to learn that her hands have forgotten how to work through the soil. It felt surprisingly bitter, almost unfair. This isn't something you're supposed to be able to lose.

(Astrid was never bothered by graveyards, but kneeling there right then, she could feel the dead surrounding her, Helen Beck side to side with the wife that brought her new flowers from the market, eight-years-old Astrid side by side with the eighteen-year-old girl who came to Blumenthal for the last time.

Stop. She had told herself. You are tired. You will leave here soon. Just plant the flowers.)

Beside her, Wulf cursed quietly as he struggled to free a stone from the ground. did ever learn to garden? He must have, but she couldn’t be sure. They hadn’t been close, back in Blumenthal, and in the academy they always had far more exciting things to speak of, and after graduation –

There are very few rules between Eadwulf and Astrid these days, and every single one of those had been broken, at some point. But they don’t talk about home, not without a good reason to.

She had looked away from him then, choosing to focus her attention on the other figure kneeling a few graves to their left. The Shadowhand did not notice her gaze, entirely focused on the ground in front of him. He was doing no better than they were. It made sense, of course. Astrid’s hands may have forgotten all they’ve been taught, but the Shadowhand had clearly never learned to garden at all.

She swallowed the unexplained taste of envy in her mouth at the realization.

She remembers the silhouette she caught in the window, right after dawn, when she raised her head just at the right angle, just at the right time.  Flash of red hair, a profile she will recognize in fifteen years or a hundred.

In the faint light she couldn’t tell if he was looking at them, or at the trees, or maybe not looking out the window at all. She didn’t know if Caleb knew how to garden, either. Right then, she had resented him a little, anyway, for being there in the house instead of out here with them, in the dirt.

There's a metaphor in here somewhere, but Astrid was never one for metaphors.

Astrid sighs and lets the memory dissipate. The hour is late, and she has work to do tomorrow, and she is tired of pointless thoughts, of hollowed-out victories. Her elegant room grows cold at this hour of the night, and suddenly she feels exposed, even under the covers. The window is too big here. It was warded and trapped with five different spells when she came to this house, and she added three more, but it is still too big. Maybe she should just block it, or destroy the entire wall and build it again with a window she would like better. She can do it, if she wants to. It’s her house.

She stands up, shrugs on the thin robe that lays on the chair near her bed, and slides out the knife she keeps under her pillow and the one on the side of the mattress. She stars at the window for one long moment, the turns and makes her way silently down the hall.

The path down the stairs to Eadwulf’s is familiar, even in the darkness. She had made almost every night since they came to this house, and will most likely make it again tomorrow. She could spare herself the ordeal and just stay downstairs, of course – but that would feel like a concession, of a sort. It would feel like giving up, and Astrid is not in the habit of giving up.

The way downstairs seems to grow longer every night. She is afraid, sometimes, that one night she will go down and he will not be there. There’s nothing keeping him here, now. Astrid is the Archmage now, and she will not hunt him down.

His dark eyes open when she walks into the room. He watches her, silently, as she takes off her robe, places her knives on the nightstand and crawls into the bed, and then closes his eyes.

She doesn’t speak, not of gardens and graves and not of anything else.

But after fifteen minutes of lying there in silence, she reaches her hand across the bed and place her hand over the place where his hand rests, their fingers entwining, like children in a sleepover, or maybe shy academy students sleeping together for the first time and trying to learn how to move around each other.

He freezes, for a moment when her hand brushes his, then breathes out slowly.

It had been… a while, since she’d done this. A year, or five, or maybe eight. She isn’t sure. Some things become blurry, after so many years. Other things slip into the silence, or burn to fuel the desperate fire of moving forward, of holding on, again and again and again. She remembers how to watch his back, always. But she doesn’t remember how to garden, and she isn’t sure she remembers how to hold his hand. There’s a line to how much you can rely on someone before there is nothing of you left. Astrid doesn’t have enough of herself left to spend. Doesn’t have enough of Wulf, either.

But Astrid is the Archmage now, and she can do whatever she fucking wants.

At some point in the night, Eadwulf moves, and his other hand rests on her back. At some point in the night, Astrid sleeps.

2.

When Bren - when Caleb Widogast is made a professor of the Soltryce Academy, Astrid decides to go and congratulate him personally.

She elects to take the official carriage, rather than walk or teleport there. the pretence of formality is a thin veneer to those who know even a little of their past – and there are far too many of those, now, after the trial. But it is more than nothing, and one must take what armour they can get. Speaking to Caleb always makes her feel too exposed. No one is supposed to know so much of her insides and still feel like a stranger.

She finds her way to his office easily – she knows the academy by heart after all these years, every corner and closet. And Caleb’s office is not much more than a closet, by Soltryce’s standards – small and forgotten and out of the way. It is not the office that belonged to the former transmutation teacher, which has been taken over by some other staff member months ago. it will take a few years, a few proven successes, before he is moved to a better location.

She doesn’t allow herself to hesitate before knocking on the door – hesitation serves nothing, and she already came this far. Her knuckles meet the wood once, twice, thrice, the sound sharp and decisive and grounding. Then she waits.

“just a moment.” Calls a voice from inside. “just let me – here.”

The door opens to reveal Caleb, his long red hair covered in dust and what appears to be a spiderweb. His eyes widen in surprise at the sight of her, and then grow wary and serious.

“Oh,” he says. “Hallo.”

And then he seems unsure of how to continue.

Which is alright, because Astrid had thought it through. “Hello, Bren.” She says, falling easily into their natural Zemnian. “or is it Professor Widogast, now? I heard about your appointment.”

The words don’t sound rehearsed or practiced – she is far too good for that – but this not-stranger knows her more than she would like anyone to know, and she can’t be sure whether or not he recognizes the script for what it is. Either way, a bit of tension eases from his shoulders, and he smiles, a bit crooked.

“I think it will always be Bren to you.” He says. “I would invite you in, but I’m afraid my office is currently not fit for human life. I am not sure to whom it belonged before I came here, but whoever it was clearly made very little use of it, or otherwise, was very fond of mold.”

Astrid gives him half a smile and offers her hand. “need some fresh air?”

They walk together, and they have walked this path before.

The main road through the university is paved with red-brown bricks, stained in mud and smoothed by thousands sets of boots, a hundred generations oof students. In a world long dead, Astrid and Bren have walked this path every morning on their way class, every afternoon on the way to their dorms, and many cold evenings on their way to their special classes. They had walked it laughing and innocent and eager, had walked it tired and determined and afraid. They had flirted near that bend and argued in the shade of that building and clutched each other’s hands tightly as they climbed over that hill. She feels it around them as they cross the sunlit grounds – a hundred pasts and an odd present and no future that she can understand. This path is as familiar to her as the beating of her heart.

The academy has changed since their time there. not in any great way – it is an ancient institution, containing some of the oldest buildings in Rexxentrum, and those do not change easy – but in a thousand small ways that stand out all around them. The tree they used to do their homework under has been cut down years ago, and in its place there is now a flourishing flowerbed. The building where they took their first abjuration classes has been renovated recently, re-coloured and re-shaped until it looks completely different. There is a new library being built on the northern hill. The benches that used to be green are now blue.

Astrid had been here while these changes happened, witnessed the slow process of time as it eats away at the familiar and makes it new. She has grown used to the way the academy is now. She wonders what it looks like to Bren, if it feels like a different place entirely, one he has never been in. she wonders if the changes make living there easier to bear.

There’s a fruit seller’s stand outside the Evocation training grounds, a new addition since the last time Astrid has visited the place. The owner – a half-elf girl who seems barely older that most students, turns at the sound of their steps and lights up with the chance of a sell. “Fresh fruits!” She calls out. “Sir, madam! Good fruits! Fresh – oh, hello, professor Widogast.”

Caleb stops to speak with the girl, who he apparently met the day before (her name is Marian and she comes from Kamordah and she has been in the city for a few months now – Astrid files the details away in her mind for later use). Even as he speaks, Caleb’s eyes keep straying to the apples on the stand. Astrid finds herself looking at them too, her lips quirking in a small smile.

As students, they half-lived on apples alone – easy to buy, easy to prepare, carrying sweet memories of market days at home. One of them would wake up early every Folsen morning – there had been a rotation, she remembers, but Astrid hated to get up early in the cold and always shirked her turn – and go down to the fruit sellers in the market district, just as they received a new delivery of fruit. They would come back to the dorms with a basket full of fresh produce before master Ikithon even noticed they left the building, and would spend the rest of the week leaving half eaten apples and smalls stains of juice everywhere but near the books.

They would have liked a fruit seller on the academy grounds, back then. Would have made life so much easier.

Astrid reaches into her pocket before doubt has time to creep in, pulls out a few coppers and hands them over to the beaming girl. She carefully picks the two best looking apples, and when she turns around she finds Caleb watching her.

She tosses him the apple and he catches it and flashes her a smile, light and easy in a way she hadn’t seen from him yet (not in a very long time). The smile disappears after a moment, as he bites into the apple, but Astrid feels as if it’s been burned into her retinas.

He eats the apple quickly and messily, like a savage, Astrid rolls her eyes and pulls the smallest of her knives out of her sleeve and starts cutting hers carefully into neat, even slices. She used to do it as a teenager too, found comfort in the simple, familiar process. Her hands used to shake in her work so often then, young and unbloodied as she was. The process had steadied them, made the knife light in her hand. Her knives are always light in her hands, these days, but the habit is rooted deep. She notices Caleb watching her in her work, his sharp eyes tracing the familiar movements. He smiles again, smaller, fonder, and Astrid looks away.

She should not have come here. She should not have bought him an apple. She feels wrongfooted, unsteady, and she hates it. Feeling this way at night in her room is bad enough, here, in the bright summer sun, it is worse.

She lets her eyes wander around the campus and notices a few students casting surreptitious glances at them. They bright eyes catch on her Archmage robes, full of awe and curiosity, and they all hurry to avert their gazes as soon as they are caught. Astrid allows herself a smile as she watches them scurrying away. She wanders what they have heard of her, what they are guessing, what they are telling each other. she has spent most of her life in the shadows, but right now, she wants them to look.

She can feel Bren watching her, too, out of the corner of his eye.

They start talking as soon as the apples are done. Slow, careful sentences about mundane things, things without sharp edges. She doesn't bring up the trial. Neither does he. It feels like if they do, one of them will start bleeding. And Astrid is used to bleeding, but today she doesn’t want to. Right here, right now, they both need to be whole.

He tells her of the house he moved into earlier this month, south of the ward. It’s a small place, he explains, paid for with adventurer’s saving and a teacher’s salary, but it has a good study, and it came with sturdy bookshelves already inside.

(“No books, though?”

A snort. “Unfortunately, no. But I’m sure they will find their way there in time.”)

He has adopted a cat, he says. She is grey and her paws are white and her name is Luna and she like to sleep in his closet.

“And you, Astrid? Do you still stay at Woadstone Manor?”

She had not been to that house in months now. Came back to it only once, to collect the few possessions she cared to keep and dismiss the servants. It is a house given to her by her master and she neither cares for it nor needs it – not when the tower that lords over it belongs to her.

She still hadn’t moved to the tower, either. She had wanted this seat, had fought and bled and hungered for it for so many years, but moving into the tower feels, somehow, like a step to far. Astrid had believed herself to have given up all qualms many years ago, and she has no intention of flinching now. But she will not be her master, and the thought of sitting in his study behind that heavy table, on the other side of where she always gave her reports makes something inside of her grow cold. she tries to imagine stepping into his old bedroom and feels bile rise in her throat (she can’t even imagine what the room might look like. She has never seen her master sleep). She could throw all the tower’s content away, if she wished, have it all scrubbed clen, but she isn’t sure she could live among those walls and feel free of his ghost. What is the point of any of this, if she doesn’t get that?

She has fought too hard and for too long to be free to let herself suffocate, trapped in the tower that he built. The office is hers, the robes are hers, the volstrucker are hers, the house downtown is hers. The tower isn’t – she can’t make it – and the knowledge burns.

“I’ve moved to the Archmage residence in the lower city, actually.” She smiles easily. “Are you familiar with the place – “

“Built in 764, by Archmage Korman, after the green unrest.” He finishes easily. “Ja, I remember. It’s a nice place.”

They walk in silence for a moment more.

He breaks it after a moment, his voice very casual. “And Wulf?”

Astrid smile, her most genuine one today. “Eadwulf lives in the house downtown as well.”

“gut. That is… that is good.”

They eventually arrive back at his small, dingy office. Astrid invites herself in. the place is just as unpleasant as she assumed it to be, small and dark and covered in spiderwebs, the air filled with the smell of years of dust and mold. There’s a bag that must belong to Caleb on the small table, and a mop leaning against the wall where he must have been cleaning when she knocked.

And then there is no more walking and no more small talk and no more apples and that’s left is the two of them, looking at each other in the dusty room.

She leans against the wall beside the door and he leans against the edge of the table and the moment stretches into infinity. Neither of speaks, neither of them moves. It feels a like they are both holding their breath, waiting for some dam to break, some fire to come to life, some answer to make itself clear to the hundred thousand questions they are not asking each other.

She likes him, this stranger with the familiar eyes. It is a terrible relief, to know that. She tries to read in his eyes what he thinks of the woman who was once a girl he loved, and finds she doesn’t trust herself not to simply see the things she wants to see. Hope is a dangerous thing, Astrid learned long ago. Nothing kills you faster.

(He had smiled at her, twice, and it was honest. From Bren it would have meant nothing. Bren smiled easy, and often, at her and at everyone else. She doesn’t think Caleb does).

“I really am glad for you, Bren.” She says, the words honest in a way she rarely is. “You will do a good job, I think.”

She knows he will. She still remembers him, sixteen years old and the most brilliant boy in the class, always willing to help his struggling peers, teaching classmate whose she had long forgotten how to cast cantrips properly. They had not been friends yet, back then – just two children from the same town – but she had watched him, even then. It was hard not to. It is still hard not to.

The silence returns for a long moment, her words hanging in the air. He keeps looking at her, as he has been looking since the moment he opened the door.

For all that this man is half-stranger to her, the look in his eyes is familiar, and she is not sure if it is because she can still read him or because she recognizes it from herself. They are both exposed, in this moment in this dark room, their longing and their fear written plainly on their faces

Are we too broken to be worth touching? She doesn’t want to ask him. Am I wasting my time on a nostalgic fantasy, on a long-dead love? Is there nothing left to be saved?

He was always the bravest among them – first to reach forward, first to ask, first to stumble. it was his glory and his undoing, and she needs him now, suddenly and clearly, to be the brave one, one more time. Astrid is the careful one, always had been, and too harshly made to stop being. She will never be the one to open the door.

"I miss you." He says, the words torn out of him suddenly, sharply, as if they had been burning their way through him from the moment he saw her in the doorstep. They take Astrid’s breath away with them, leaving  her shaken with something that may be terror and may be relief.

"You should come visit me, sometimes. If you want to. Wulf too. I'm sure you both already know where I live.”

Astrid has spent fifteen years of her life living on scarps, on bitterness, on memories of being able to breath. she has clawed to herself with bloody hands the freedom to choose, to have, to reach for something more.

Astrid wants.

She says: "I will."

3.

The door to the home of soltryce academy’s newest teacher is magically warded, but it is not locked. The handle turns easily in Astrid’s hand, and she frowns even as she enters the house. He should be more careful.

She is expecting the house to be empty – she knows Caleb will not be done teaching for another half an hour. She freezes as soon as she catches sight of the figure sitting at the kitchen table, then recognizes it, relaxes from her stance, and enters the house in confident steps.

Essek looks up from where he is sitting at the kitchen table, bent over some piece of paper that he folds as soon as he catches sight of her. “Archmage Beck, hello.” He tilts his head. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today. I was under the impression that you a meeting to attend.”

(She had mentioned it to Caleb, a week ago. He wasn’t there – did Caleb tell him that? Why?)

Astrid shrugs and moves forward to take a seat on the chair opposite to him at the small table, leaning her elbows on the smooth wood and looking up at him. “some of my colleagues believe that agreed upon schedules should not affect them.”

She is not surprised to find him here, exactly – in the weeks since Astrid and Eadwulf started visiting the small house in the occasional evening (never twice in the same week but never two weeks without a visit, every time on a different day of the week in order not to establish a pattern) they found Essek in the house more often than not, pouring over research with Caleb or just petting the cats (there are two cats now. Astrid is not sure where the second one came from).

His presence has always made the silences more awkward, and at the same time, somehow less tense. He is older than all of them put together, but his years are light and impersonal, and seem to flow easily through the air. Their years seen to clog the air and pile in the doorways, heavy with all the things that have happened between them and without them, with all the things that could have been. They find themselves tripping on them when they cross from room to room. They make it harder to breath. Essek makes them easier to bear, somehow.

His presence makes her uncomfortable. She is glad he is there. Everything seems less oppressive with him around, more mundane. Eadwulf has taken to playing chess with him in the evening, with an old, beat up set she isn’t where he brought from, Astrid and Caleb leaning over their shoulders and running commentary.

“Are you at least winning?” She had asked him the last time after they left, as they were making their way to their house in the lower city (she has still not done anything about the tower in the Candles. She tries not to think of it too much).

“I don’t know.” He had answered, and laughed.

It’s a relief, in its own way, the small ways in which she still doesn’t understand him.

She had never interacted with Essek without Caleb present, though. They sit together in that odd form of companionable wariness she had grown used to, over the last few weeks. She finds herself examining his appearance, noticing the light clothes he is wearing, much simpler than his usual attire. His hair looks like it’s been cut recently, and his shoes seem new. She wonders where he’s been to acquire all these changes.

“Nicodranas.” He says when she asks. “Met up with some friends, acquired some interesting books and materials. I brought pastries with me.” He adds gesturing to the small basket set beside him on the table. “I have been assured by a very trusted source that they are the best in the city, and possibly the continent.”

“Is that so?”

“You may try one for yourself to check my information.” He says, tone somewhat dry. He pushes the basket toward her and Astrid opens it, giving it’s contents a long and discerning look before making a decision and reaching in. the pastry she pulls out is a small cupcake covered in frosting in an alarming shade of blue that does not seem like it should appear on anything edible. She places it in front of her on the table, and then cuts it precisely in half and slides one of the pieces across the table back towards him. He takes it obligingly, amusement clear on his face. This is a familiar ritual between the two of them, grown so over weeks and weeks of cordially suspicious dinners. They both prefer to be distrusted, when it is appropriate.

He takes a bite out of his half, chews and swallows, and then raises an eyebrow in clear challenge. There are certain poisons that affect humans but not drow, of course, but not many. And at the end of the day, Astrid doesn’t really think that he would poison her at Caleb’s kitchen table. These are… formalities, of a sort.

The pastry is good. She hadn’t had time to eat since the morning. She should have gone back home after Margolin cancelled their meeting, really, to catch up on her paperwork and try and figure out what was occupying the other Archmage so much. but she had known Eadwulf was planning to come by today, and, well. Besides, Caleb works for Margolin, on paper. He might have insight.

The folded piece of paper Essek had been working on had fallen half-open, revealing what appears to be the theory for a spell. Astrid tilts her head to the side to try and read it, not trying to disguise the movement.

Essek notices her looking and considers her for a moment, then sighs and pulls the paper between them, opening it up and allowing to see the unfinished working more clearly. “A little something I’ve been working on lately.” He explains “I had intended to consult Caleb later when he returns. I don’t suppose you would like to share some insight?”

For the first time it occurs to her that Essek might know that Astrid, too, was called brilliant once. That there's a reason that, out of all the children Trent Ikithon broke, she is the one that rose to power. Only Bren was better.

The calculations on the page are complex, a fascinating web of runes and words fitting together in ways she is not familiar with. Essek is just as brilliant as he was always claimed to be, and it is beautiful to see. Astrid’s understanding of dunamancy is limited – mostly the few things learned from the beacons that her then-superiors saw fit to pass forward – but the spell on the paper sprawl beyond a single discipline, familiar patterns reminding Astrid of spells she had learned years ago, some things she had seen in a book she once found in the library of the Hall of Erudition…

Her fingers itch for a pen. She hadn’t had the time to do proper research in… a while. Too many other things to do.

“This seems mainly abjuration based…” She runs her finger over creased paper, thoughtful. “I may have some ideas, but I suggest you ask for Eadwulf’s advice, if you get the chance. He is better at the subject than either Bren or myself.”

Wulf would help him. He likes Essek, and they both know a thorough look on this spell would be worth it. She will have to nag him into teaching it to her, later.

“I suppose I will ask him next time I see him here.” Essek says. “I doubt it will take long.” His voice is very neutral, betraying no opinion on their presence,

“You are here quite often yourself.” She points out calmly. “More than is strictly wise for a man on the run, even, one might say.”

She doesn’t ask ‘what do you want with him’, because it’s pretty clear what Essek wants with Caleb, and it’s not as if Astrid is in a place to throw stones.

He watches her face for a long moment, then nods in acquittance. “I admit I like spending my time here. It is a good home.”

“Ja.” she says quietly, invisible tension leaving her shoulders. “Ja, it is.”

Essek gives her an odd, slightly sad look that is somehow reminiscent of a smile. Astrid doesn’t return it, but she carefully folds the paper and hands it back to him. He takes it silently, lilac fingers barely brushing hers, and slips it back into his pocket.

She thinks they understand each other.

A noise at the door startles them both and heralds the arrival of Caleb, carrying a heavy bag of groceries. Eadwulf is walking by his side, holding a second bag in his right hand and gesturing with his left as he speaks. “I think it’s really a matter of – oh, you’re early.”

“You’re late.” Astrid informs him. “We just had a conversation about the application of abjuration magic in conjunction with dunamancy and you missed it.”

“Well, we had a fascinating conversation about imported vegtables, since some of us have to cook their own dinner.”

Eadwulf’s fingers pluck a piece of her pastry as he walks by on the way to set the bag on the kitchen counter, too quick for her to bat his hand away. then he steals a bit of Essek’s half, as well, and the sudden indignation in the drow’s expression is enough to make Astrid snort in amusement.

They move around each other carefully in the small kitchen, The four of them, never touching each other. all of them striving to maintain the balance that keeps them all here in this sunlit space when the air smells of cat food and fresh pastries and no one is hurting and no one is trying to hurt. Caleb unloads his bag. Astrid and Essek help him put away his groceries and judge all his food choices (Astrid judges. Essek pretends not to, but his face says it all).  Eadwulf protects the pastries from the cats and starts pulling plates from the cabinet. They end up moving to the living room, bringing the plates and the pastries and the cats along with them.

The second cat – Shakaste, was his name – wastes no time and immediately jumps into Astrid’s lap, equipped with the same sixth sense that always allow cats to track down the person in the room least comfortable with being sat on. She gently detaches it’s claws from the cloth of her skirt and carefully scratches behind its ear.

Caleb smiles at her predicament, taking a place on the couch beside her, close enough to touch if either of them was to reach their hand – they don’t, but the couch still feels warm.

Near the table, Essek is already pulling out the unfinished spellwork again, pushing a pile of other paper debris out of the way to make room on Caleb’s crowded table. Astrid reaches out to catch a sheet that is nearly falling off the table and then turns it around look at it, finding a teacher’s syllabus covered in note and corrections.

Caleb notices what she is looking at and raises an eyebrow. “going over next year’s lessons plan to make sure it’s all up to code?” He asks dryly.

“I am the Archmage of civil influence.” She points out.

There’s an impossibly long moment, then, when they look at each other, and in that moment Astrid wonders if the wrong words were finally said, by her or maybe by him, and the entire evening and everything behind it is about to shatter in their hands.

Then he smiles, warmth and sadness and something that might be pride. “That you are.” He says. “How has the position been treating you lately? Aren’t you supposed to be suffering Margolin’s inane tirades right now?”

Astrid explains the situation, leaning against the back of the coach. She is careful in what she says – she is well aware that everything she mentions here might go back to expositor Lionett and the Cobalt Soul, and Astrid has made a habit of being careful with the things she tells Beauregard. Even so, she finds herself explaining most of her current matters. Caleb listens to it unfold, his eyes sharp and interested, occasionally making a comment.

It’s… easy, to talk to him like that. Easier than she had thought it would be.

There isn’t enough of her left to spend, but there are pieces of Astrid buried underneath Bren’s skin whose name she isn't sure she still remembers. There are pieces of Caleb in Astrid’s lungs she doesn't know if he wants back.

She doesn't know what he sees when he looks at her. But she knows he never seems able to stop looking.

It is better than the other option.

On the other side of the table, Essek is now showing Eadwulf a another section of runes on his paper. His voice is too quiet for Astrid to understand the words, but whatever it is makes Wulf laugh, for one surprised moment. The sound stops her in her track for a moment, breath catching in her lungs. it doesn’t happen often, anymore. It doesn’t happen, ever, for anyone but her. She has nearly forgotten that she likes the sound.

She is grateful enough for the reminder that a few minutes later, when she steals a half-eaten pastry out of Wulf’s plate, she splits it again and slides the other half across the table toward him. Caleb’s eyes track the movement and he sends her an amused glance, rolling his eyes fondly, and pulling his own plate carefully close.

They move around each other carefully, the four of them. But Astrid finds that she is enjoying the dance.

4.

The hour is growing late and Astrid’s eyes begin to burn, the words on the paper in front of her blurring until they are almost unreadable. There is a small ink stain on the letter she was in the middle of composing, and she will have to copy the entire thing into a new sheet when she is done. Her goddamned pen is leaking and she meant to buy another one in the morning and then got distracted by reports of the latest mess and didn’t have the time.

Her dancing light wink out, marking the end of another hour, and she recasts them absentmindedly as she tries to focus back on the letter. Maybe she should just buy some candles, but she dislikes having open flame around important stuff.

She should have gone to bed hours ago, but she is waiting for Eadwulf to come back and assure her that the mess near Deastock is handled. Why a group of insurrectionists decided to start robbing and murdering government officials she isn’t sure yet, but now they got their hands on some very classified documents. and so it is her problem, her job to silence them as quickly and efficiently as possible. As if the empire isn’t unsteady enough, with Ikithon’s trial just concluded and the peace with Xorhas still tense and unsure. As if she doesn’t have enough work to do.

To make matters worse, she had struggled to find sufficient forces to send to make sure the matter was well and truly handled. She's had to kill about a third of the volstrucker in the wake of their master’s fall, and many others were retired, willingly or unwillingly. The few that are left to her are capable and trustworthy, but the empire is wide and hard to control, and many of them were still adjusting to the recent changes. In the end, she had to send Wulf to handle things himself.

It was the most reasonable decision, sending him. She didn’t think much of it, at the time.  He hadn’t questioned it, either.

It only now, many hours later, as she is staring at her papers and stewing in her thoughts, that the memory begins to turn bitter.

It was the most reasonable course of action, to send the person she loves most to murder innocents in her name. Eadwulf is the most trustworthy weapon in her hand, and she deployed him as needed. She didn’t question it. He didn’t question it. Of course not. What would they? This is their job. It's what they do, what they had always done. Why would it change just because Astrid is now the one to give the orders, just because he is still a weapon but she is now the hand?

A loud shout is heard through the window, shattering the night’s silence, someone swearing in a mix of common and halfling down the street. Astrid doesn’t startle, but she freezes, for a millisecond, and then bites down a curse of her own. She hates the windows in this house. Her study is in the second floor, near her bedroom, and just like her bedroom it has a window big enough for a thin enough person to fit in. What was archmage Korman thinking?

She tries to bring her mind back to task, focus on the letter she is writing and let the rest go for now, but the hour is late and her thoughts are dark and Astrid has less control of the shadows of her own mind than she wills herself to believe.

The problem is that she doesn’t have enough people. The kingdom is ever growing, ever changing, ever fighting. She needs to know it all, see it all, be ready to react the moment something grows dangerous. She can’t sustainably do it with only Eadwulf and a handful of trusty operatives on her side. She needs more people, if she is to keep doing her job. New operatives, to replace the one she’d lost.

She had helped in the training of new Volstrucker in the past, knows the process from both inside and out. Knows every weakness and every strength, every child that followed the steps and every child that said no and was buried far away from here. The memories flash behind her tired eyes now, crystal clear and unyielding. She had been such a good student. She had been such a good teacher.

She thinks of the trial. Thinks of her testimony, written over pages and pages in the expositor’s inscrutable handwriting. Thinks of caleb’s testimony, spoken out loud to the participants, every word clear and unshakeable, and she had envied and hated him for telling it all so openly, for having so little to tell. Thinks of her master’s face all throughout the proceedings, harsh and unreadable as they have always been .thinks of goddamned Beauregeard Lionett, who told her this had the power to stop the cycle in a way that almost made her believe it. Thinks of being sixteen and swearing to do whatever it takes. And now she needs people to kill for her again.

She wonders if her master ever sat at this table and thought of his need for trained operatives, too. if he sat here and planned the process they will have to go through, the lessons and the experiments and the test. If he ever went over students’ files here, picking who life and soul would become a sacrifice for the empire. If her file ever laid on this well-carved table, the ink in it sealing her fate.

Probably not. The only reason she chose to live in this house with its damned too-big windows is because of how little he used it.

Her hands would shake, if she allowed them to. She doesn’t, but it takes more effort than it should. She can’t afford ink stains on her letter to the governor, and this is already her second copy.

She will finish the letter. She will wait for her report. She will think about the problem of her short-staffed office in the morning.

The hour turns three before Eadwulf is back. Astrid isn’t worried – Eadwulf is more than capable enough to handle a group of overly successful troublemakers even without her there to watch his back – but she is considering putting down her leaking pen and going to bed without the report by the time a soft noise from downstairs lets her know he is in the house.

He shows up at the study’s door a moment later, bringing with him the faint smell of smoke and of mud. he looks well – a quick glance reveals no injuries, the blood staining his left sleeve probably originating in someone else. There is a small tear in the front of his uniform, but that will be easily mended. He stops in front of the desk, two steps away from it, eyes forward and hands to his sides, just as they have been trained to report.

Astrid sits up in her chair and puts down the leaking pen.

“How did it go?”

“The main group has been taken care of, and all eyewitnesses handled. We found about thirty conspirators in their main base, and they have been dealt with. I left Owen and Elena to watch over the aftermath and report if it seems like the situation there might get complicated. There don’t appear to be any collaborators outside of this cell, although we found evidence of – I have it all written down, I will leave it on your desk later for a thorough examination.” His expression grows grim, and after a moment he goes on. “However, they seem to have suspected we were likely to arrive – they sent a small group north three days ago, who were carrying the sensitive information with them. We know the direction in which they fled and the supplies they took with them – I can track them down tomorrow, but I thought you would prefer a report tonight before the situation advances.”

It would be the sensible thing to do. Something inside Astrid is bleeding.

Eadwulf notices the change in her expression. Of course he does. No one knows her like Wulf does. Wulf, who had fought by her side for fifteen years to now be a weapon in her hand. Wulf, who hadn’t left her or their empire when the dust was settled and the chains were gone. Wulf, looking at her now with that calm, patient expression of his, waiting for her to come out with it already, instead of staring at the wall behind his head, just like have both been doing for fifteen fucking years.

She feels so tired, suddenly. She has been tired for hours, for months. Maybe for years.

“Is it any different, in the end?” She asks without looking at him. “Am I any different? Did we win at all?” is the chain even off our throats? Or are we simply continuing the same dance, no longer needing the musician to guide us?

If we are making our own choices now, why are we doing the same things we’ve always done?

She knows he hears the words, even as the questions die in her throat. She reaches up, carefully, to touch the blood that is staining his sleeve, then prestidigitates it away. It goes away easily. It always goes away easily. Why is she even upset?

He reaches up and grasps her wrist, gently.

“It was never about winning or losing.” He says (but it was, to her. It always was.) “I don't need you trying to spare me now, Asa. There's no point.”

He is right, of course. What would be the point? Any part of them that could have been spared bled out years ago. This what they are. Just because they are allowed to want something different, now, doesn't mean that they can have it.

They are what they have been made into, and they cannot unmake themselves and survive the action.

She stares at the dark polished wood of her desk, her eyes following the trail of ink drops left by her writing. She prestidigitate that away, too. It’s a good desk.

“Will we ever be free, you think?”

She doesn’t look up, but she can hear him moving. Carefully, without letting go of her wrist, he circles the table and comes to stand at her side of the table, his back leaning against the stained wood. His other hand comes up, pushing a stray hair out of her face and then lingering, uncertain, near her cheek. Up close, she can the dark circles around his eyes, the way his shoulders droop. he must be tired, too. The hour is so late.

He says: “Do you want to leave?”

Astrid blinks uncomprehending. “What?”

“Do you want to leave here? The city, the empire? Go somewhere else, do something else?”

She pulls away, frowning. “We have duties – “

“The king won’t send anyone after us. Most of the assembly would be glad to be rid of you.” A moment of silence. “I’ll come with you, if you asked.”

Astrid thinks about it, for a moment. Of getting up and walking, and walking, and walking, until she had reached a place in which she had never spilled blood. Of leaving behind this fragile, powerful empire, full of marvels and fangs and shining bits of broken glass, that had been to her a home and a purpose and a merciless god. Of relinquishing the power she had fought for and bled for and won, over these delicate, twisting mechanisms that determine the fate of a continent. of going to the other edge of the world, just to find that she is still Astrid Beck when she gets there. Of never seeing jagged, brilliant skyline of Rexxentrum at night, never hearing her language in the street again.

“Never.” She says.

Eadwulf nods, resolutely, with the expression of someone who has just made an irrefutable point in an argument about rune placement. His right hand is in her hair again, running gently through the short locks, his thumb brushing her scar. His left hand is still holding on to her wrist.

“We do our jobs.” He tells her, quietly. “We do our job and know that the empire is better because it’s us doing it – that we are better for it. We make the choice to do our job, and how to do our job, and go down the path we made for ourselves.”

She tilts her face up, now, meeting his gaze for the first time since he walked into the room. He holds her gaze and they look at each other like to people who understand each other to the marrow of their bones.

“I did what I did today because you and the empire needed me to.” He says then. “That may not matter to you, but it matters to me.”

Astrid puts the leaking pen down. She stands up, the chair’s legs screeching against the floor as it is pushed backwards. The sound is unbearably loud in the quiet room, shaking both of them. He is taller than her even like this, a familiar shadow above her. His hand is still around her wrist and she is grateful for it.

There will be no more Volstrucker, she thinks about telling him. Not real ones, at least. Not like us.

But what’s the point of saying that? He already knows.

Her hands are shaking now. she reaches forward and places her free hand on his shoulder, leaning up and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Then she steps back, and with a wave of her hand, extinguishes the dancing lights.

“Let’s go to bed.” She says. “It’s almost dawn.”

They leave the study together. When he makes a move towards the stairs she reaches out and catches his hand, entwining their fingers, pulling him towards her bedroom. He doesn’t say anything, but he follows her, and his fingers grip hers tightly.

So many things pass wordless between them, these days. Today – most days – it is a relief. They are both liars, anyway. There is honesty in the silence.

She leaves her clothes on the chair and collapses into the bed, feeling drained and hollow and unsteady, like a piece of driftwood washed away to the shore. Wulf crawls into bed beside her and she leans against him, his hand finding hers under the covers and holding tight.

How many nights has she spent shaking against him? Nights when her bitterness and her memories and her hatred of everything that’s ever shaped her were so overwhelming that she could no longer breath, and the sound of his heartbeat was the only thing in the whole world worthy of trust? Nights when her own mind is eating itself alive, and it is only too late that she remembers that she has long forgotten how to scream.

(Eadwulf goes to his goddess on nights like this, more often than he comes to her. Astrid was never jealous of the strangers Wulf occasionally flirts with, but sometimes she hates the matron of ravens).

It’s been a while, since the last time.

“I thought it would feel different.” She whispers into that safe darkness. She feels like a child.

(She should have known better. Some things can never be moved on from. You can ruin your master and burn all that he had been and you will still be yourself in the ashes.)

“We will never be different. But some things can be.”

Eadwulf always had more faith than her. There were days when she hated him for it, But it had always kept him steady when she shook.

She tries to draw strength from it now, to let his certainty feed into hers. Astrid has no faith in fate or in the gods, but she believes in herself and in Eadwulf. It is the only faith she ever had.

“They will be.” She swears, face pressed against his shoulder. “They will.”

5.

She leaves for Deastok in the morning.

She leaves Wulf behind to hold the office and handle visitor in her absence – he has represented her often enough over her time as Archmage thar no one important will wonder at finding themselves speaking to him in her place. She wants to see the situation herself, understand it as you can only when you stand in the scene of the crime yourself – and she misses being on the field. She wants the steadiness that comes with the hunt and the fight

She meets up with her agents in the early morning, and finds all evidence already cleaned, yesterday’s doings erased from existence. The man who revealed his compatriots’ escape route is already dead and his body disposed, but the testimony he gave before his death is effective in directing her to a small safehouse outside the city the group apparently used as an emergency meeting spot.

She spend the day following in the trail, and in the afternoon she finally tracks then down to a small, abandoned hut in the forest that had been serving the group as a safe house for the last year or so. She approaches it carefully, stopping at the edge of the clearing in which it was built and listening. The house is quiet. The woods are quiet. A quick check reveals no traps or wards around the house. Astrid steps closer, her steps making no sound and sneaks to the window. The single room inside appears to be empty. Detect magic reveals no illusions. There are belongings spread around, however – a pack, a map, a hat – all indicating that the place’s temporary tenants had a clear intention of coming back.

Astrid considers the hut for a moment, and then retreats back to the cover of the trees. She breaks a few branches, creating a clear line of sight to the house, and casts an allusion disguising the space, making it appear empty. Then she stands back, watches, and waits.

Essek Thelyss is maybe the last person she is expecting to see.

He floats into the clearing about two hours after she has set her stakeout, just as the sun begins to disappear over the horizon. His surprisingly simple clothes are pristine even in the middle of the woods, the edges of his dark cloak barely touching the grassy ground. He doesn’t look around him before he approaches the house – careless – but does stop in front of the door, bending down to carefully inspect the lock. Astrid watches as he casts something – she is too far away to see what. Whatever it is apparently satisfies him, because he nods, steps back, and snaps the lock with a sharp gesture of his hand. It’s not a delicate work – the door itself cracks through its middle – but it is effective. Unhesitantly, he pushes the door open and disappears inside.

In the trees, Astrid holds position and waits.

The minuets pass and he doesn’t come out. There is no sound from the small house – no sign of what may be happening inside.

Silently, she creeps forward and peeks through the window again. The house appears empty, but the worn pack left on the table seem to have been rifled through. She gives the room a thorough look and notices a slight movement in the left corner – a closet’s door tilting slightly inwards, as if someone was leaning against it, unseen.

Huh. Alright.

Astrid turns and steps through the broken door. "I did not expect to find you here, herr thelyss."

"Archmage beck." Essek drops the invisibility spell and straightens up. “I could say the same, I suppose. You are very far from Rexxentrum.”

Astrid watches his expression intently, trying to decide how to go about this. This encounter is unexpected, and she finds herself unsure, unprepared. It is... Uncertain, seeing him outside of the  truce-space of Caleb's house, where they are both guests and both leave their weapons at the door, metaphorically if not literally. She doesn’t know what they are to each other, here in the real world. Should she reach for a weapon, be it magical or verbal? His eyes reveal wariness, but no hostility. Astrid does not want to be the first one to strike here.

“I am here on official business of the Cerberus assembly.” She states, expression neutral. “And what reason does an exiled member of the dynasty have to meddle in our affairs?”

Essek hesitates, a quick debate making itself known behind his eyes. She can see the moment he comes to a decision, a tension she had barely noticed falling away.

“A favour for Beauregard.” He admits. “She expressed interest in getting her hand on some papers for a certain investigation she is involved in, and since I was already in the area…” He shrugs. “It seemed reasonable.”

Ah, of course. The Cobalt soul, always prepared to make a bad situation worse.

Before she can decide on a next step, the conversation is brought to a halt by the sound of voices from outside. Footsteps. Idle conversation. Then, an exclamation of surprise.

(This why you don't leave a clearly broken lock behind you).

Astrid meets Essek’s eyes and for a clear, silent moment, they understand each other perfectly. Astrid steps back silently, and takes her place in the shadows beside the door, where she want be noticed immediately, one hand raised and ready to cast. Essek recasts the invisibility (a very confident waste of magic. Astrid narrows her eyes thoughtfully), and presumably takes position as well. They both wait.

Most people, Astrid had learned, have the same reaction to finding their house had been broken into. They will pause outside for a moment, digesting the reality of the situation, and then – almost without exception, they will come in anyway. If a person or a particularly valued possession was left inside they might rush in, their wariness overridden by their fear. Otherwise they will come in slowly, watching their steps, looking behind corners as if that will do much to help them against someone who has had the time to prepare. But they always come in.

This group is no different. One by one they step through the door, glancing warily around them. There are four of them – a halfling, a dwarf and two humans, all of them wearing dark, worn travelling clothes. they don’t see her, hidden in the shadows as she is, and don’t seem to notice Essek’s presence, either. He does nothing, not reacting even as one of the humans steps barely an inch from where he had been. Astrid realizes he is waiting for her to make the first move.

She doesn’t need these people alive, doesn’t need anything from them but the papers they are carrying. It is best to get rid of them all now, as efficiently and permanently as possible. Astrid waits until they are all clustered together in the middle of the room, arguing about their next course of action, and then she unleashes a strike of lightning that cuts through all of them before they have the time to even realize she is there.

Essek reveals himself the moment she acts, the air between the two humans tearing apart into a black, gaping hole in a graceful movement that is too quick for Astrid to follow. She tries to keep watching him from the corner of her eye as she dodges a crossbow bolt that flies toward her and readies her next attack, trying to learn him as they move together to destroy the conspirators.

Essek fights like he isn’t used to it – deadly, but unpractised. for a moment Astrid thinks of the garden, and then she doesn't think about Essek at all, because the dwarf is charging at her with a knife and there is work to be done.

The battle is short and brutal, not one sided but not very far. These men were trained – by whom, she is not sure, though the reports on their way to her desk will tell her – to fight against crownsguard and soldiers, not highly skilled spellcasters. in less that a minute, Astrid is alone in a room full of bodies with the former Shadowhand of the Kryn dynasty.

The air between them should feel heavier that before, now with fresh death hanging in the room. somehow, it is lighter, instead.

Essek looks around himself, his hands absentmindedly prestidigitating blood from his robe. “Uh,” he says, expression unsure. “Should we, uh… bury the bodies?”

Astrid exhales. “Ja. Let’s do that.”

They bury the them near the hut, at the edge of the clearing. They make a quick work out of it, expanding a spell to dig the graves more easily and covering them without ceremony, leaving no trace of the day’s events behind them. Essek’s expression is distant, pensive, but he helps her without complaint as she carries the bodies outside and strips them of their belongings before placing them in the ground.

When they are done, they take the bags back inside and place them on the small table, to be inspected. For a long moment both of them just stand there, staring at the bags and the crumbling room and not quite looking at each other, as if they are both waiting for the other to make a step and illuminate the path forward.

Then Essek sighs and shakes his head.

“It’s a late hour to travel.” He declares. “I’ll make some coffee.”

It is nice, seeing so clearly how unsteady he is, too. Neither of them has a map for this. Astrid finds herself nodding.

“Coffee is good.” She turns towards packed table. “I’ll see if there’s something to eat in those packs.”

They sit at the table of the abandoned house together, like a mirror of all the evenings spent in Caleb’s kitchen – this abandoned house is nothing like Caleb’s warm kitchen, full of light and cats, but the air between them is the same sense of warily comfortable. It is odd, to realize that it is not something born out of Caleb the truce he brings with him – that maybe it’s something that belongs to them to carry together.

The hut’s cupboards did not contain much – the place clearly hadn’t been in use for a long time – but they find a pair of mugs and a kettle, an excuse to indulge their shared desire to linger in this odd, liminal space that belong to no one. Essek has some coffee in his pack, something that smells foreign – maybe marquesian? - and together they manage to dig through the dead conspirators’ packs and find a fairly fresh loaf of bread and some still-warm cookies they must have bought in the nearest town just before they arrived back at the safehouse.

They find her missing papers bound together in a small book in the halfling’s bag, as well. It sits at the edge of the table now, placed carefully an equal distance from both of them. They both keep their eyes deliberately away from it.

Astrid says: “You should guard your left better.”

Essek blinks and lowers his mug. “Pardon?”

“You left yourself open back there. When you attacked the man carrying the axe. They were not quick enough to spot it, but the way you raise your arm forward to cast leaves your side vulnerable – not to mention how it makes it easier to strike the arm itself and incapacitate you.”

He narrows his eyes in thought. “That makes sense. I didn’t realize… I’m not how do you fix that, though. Most spells requires that sort of arm movement to properly strike a target.”

“There’s a certain method they teach in combat training in the academy, that allows you to shield your arm with your body in a way that prevents that. It’s a common problem, but surprisingly hard to get rid of.”

The corner of Essek’s mouth curls up. “Are you offering to teach me?”

“Wouldn’t be my first student with an attitude.”

Essek tilts his head. “you know, I have a hard time imagining you as a teacher.”

Her thoughts from yesterday seem very far away, right now. “Caleb is better at it, I think. I like other parts of my work better.”

“Is that a no on the lesson, then?”

She considers it. “Maybe. Would you teach me that gravity spell of yours? I hear you are a very competent teacher.”

“I do believe that would count as treason, you know.”

“Well, that is hardly a problem now.”

“Fair enough.”

The kitchen is quiet for a while, as they both sip their mediocre coffee and try to reassess their position, considering the direction their conversation has gone. This abandoned house is a good place for silences, build to contain them. The sun’s dying light paints the table gold between them.

Astrid puts down her mug, and decides to be direct. “What are you really doing here, Essek?”

“I told you - “

“That Lionett asked to help her shove her nose in my business, ja. Because you were ‘in the area’.” she gives him a moment, here, to interject with a better explanation. When he just keeps looking at her with an inscrutable expression, she goes on. “Why are you here? What are you doing?”

“What do you think I could possibly be up to in the outskirts of Deastock, of all places?”

Astrid swallows her sudden frustration down with another sip of coffee. “I haven’t the slightest idea.” She states. “hence, why I am asking. So?”

He watches her, then, for… a long moment. Bren could have told them exactly how much time had passed, probably, but Astrid only knows that it is long enough that the foam in her mug dissipate almost completely. She wishes she could read his face better. She has been learning him, this last few months, and there are moments when he is as clear as glass to her now, and others, like now, when she can’t decipher anything at all.

It’s alright. Astrid knows patience. She keeps quiet, and keeps drinking, and keeps watching his face.

She can see the moment the change happens. A decision made, or maybe something cracking, and then his face become readable again.

Suddenly, he looks very tired. “I… do not know, exactly, what I am doing. Here. At all. I… don’t have anywhere I am meant to be, this days, anything I am meant to do. I can never go back to the Dynasty, obviously. This favor for Beauregard was – something, at least, something that might help someone, might – matter.” he stops, takes a harsh breath, looking somewhat shaken, like he didn’t plan to say this much, he raises his chin and meets her eyes. “Is that answer enough for you, Astrid Beck?”

His voice doesn’t crack, during his answer, but there’s an odd note to the words telling her it might’ve, were they both different people. He looks… lost. Astrid believes him.

“Ja. Ja, that will do.”

She thinks about Eadwulf’s question, the other day. The world is wide and full of wonderous places, and in every single one of them you will still be yourself.

 But at least Astrid has a place she still belongs to, a double-edged blade that that sometimes is. Essek Thelyss has destroyed every chance he ever had of going back, of being the person he had been once again. Astrid has her work, her empire, her partner, to tell her who she is and where the path she is walking may lead. What does essek have, but a handful of scattered friends and that small house in Rexxentrum?

Essek Thelyss is a deadly creature and an open wound, all at the same time. Astrid knows to recognize the feeling, understands it right down to the core of her. Looking at him now, his internal organs exposed at this dust-covered table, some part of her wants to press her fingers to the open wound, just a little. just to see how he'll react.

They have been dancing carefully, never touching, for a while now, and now the rules are all gone.

She thinks, again, of the graveyard, his hands in the dirt, her hands in the dirt, the taste of ashes in the air. They are no good at this.

Here, too, she doesn't want to bleed.

She reaches her hand, slowly, unwaveringly (Astrid’s hands never shake), and brushes the edge of her fingers against his, a barely-there touch, lighter than when she reaches for Eadwulf, lighter even that when she reaches for Bren. Nonetheless, it seems to ground him, in some way. His shoulders sag, a breath coming out of him. His eyes are transfixed on her hand and he doesn’t say a thing, but it doesn’t feel like a danger. The dying sun’s light dances across the markings on her outstretched hand, a maze with no exit. His skin is warmer than she had expected it to be, and neither of them bleeds.

They say you can never truly go home once you left, and they both burned all their bridges a long time ago. They are both wandering strangers in this desolate corner of the world, and the recognition is bitter but it is oddly comforting, too. in this half-broken house that belongs to no one, they sit together, and they can both breath.

When she pulls her arm back it feels final, somehow, a permanent shift. A contract signed in the blood they didn’t shed here. An anti-standoff. Feeling unmoored again, she searches for something to do with her hands and finds the bag of fresh cookies they had fished out of the conspirators’ pack. She pulls one out and considers it, flat and brown and slightly charred, and then shrugs. Might as well.

She breaks it in half and passes one of the parts to Essek, turning to dip the other half in the remains of her cooling coffee. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't cast any divination before he brings it to his mouth, the expression on his face not quite a question but not quite a statement. He is still looking at her, following her out the corner of his eye. It feels a little like the way Bren watches her, and at the same time it is nothing alike.

He chews and then frown, pulling the half-cookie away from his mouth and glaring at it with a slightly offended expression. “This is terrible.”

Astrid blinks, then bites into her own piece and makes a face. “Ugh. Cheap bakeries. You'd think people who make a stop in the middle of running for lives to buy pastries to at least pick a good place.”

“There are no good bakeries in deastok.” Essek informs her flatly. “I’ve looked.”

The left corner of Astrid’s twitches up. “Your trusted source’s claims hold true.”

“So far. I have not checked every bakery on the continent yet.” he smiles slightly. “I may surprise her yet.”

“I could give you a list of good places in Rexxentrum.” Astrid suggests. ”I would not want the entire Empire to fail to compare to Nicodranas like this.”

“That would be very much appreciated.”

He smiles. She smiles back. She stifles the urge to cast a look around, as if someone had someone managed to sneak up on them and witness this moment of affection, more incriminating than the blood still staining their cloaks.

A thought occurs to her. “How is that spell you’ve been working on progressing, by the way? I have had some thoughts concerning the placement of the runes in the third section.”

A shadow passes across Essek’s face.

“Slowly.” He admits. “I don’t exactly have good working conditions anymore, and while I have been getting used to working on the road, some things require a functioning workshop in order to properly figure out. I will have it figured out eventually, but progress so far has been somewhat fraught.”

Astrid frowns slightly. “I thought you’ve been staying with Caleb when you visit Rexxentrum. He must have the space you need for your work.”

“I try to avoid doing that too often, actually. Most times when I visit him I stay for a short time and then proceed to find somewhere else in the area to stay in.”

Interesting. “And why is that?”

“You must know that there are many who are likely still looking for me, both of my former home and of yours. If it comes to that, I would not want to bring my troubles on his head. He has enough on his own.” He reaches into his robe and pulls out a few sheets of paper covered in scribbles, turning them in her direction. “However, I would appreciate any insight that you have.”

Astrid allows the change in subject, bending down to examine the array of runes on the much-creased paper and the changes done to it since the last time she had seen it, some of which were done in Eadwulf’s neat handwriting.

“Do you have a pen?” She asks.

The coffeepot is long empty by the time Astrid puts down her borrowed pen and narrows her eyes at the writing on second page. the lines seem unintelligible, and it takes her moment to realize that it is because the room has gone almost dark. When she glances at the window, she can see the last rays of the disappearing sun shining from the horizon.

Essek follows her gaze, nods, sighs, and reaches to collects his papers.

“It’s getting late. I suspect we both have places to be.”

Time’s up. Life awaits outside the door.

Astrid stands up, straitening her and wiping the ink stains off her fingers as she does. Essek picks up the cups and carries them to the countertop, cleaning them with a quick spell. Astrid thinks about telling him not to bother – no one will be coming to this house again in a long, long time. Instead she leans back and watches him work, his fingers graceful as he recasts his floating spell and rises to place the now-clean mugs in the high self of the cupboards. He is striking, like this, the day’s last light shining in his pale hair and across the planes of his face, turning the mundane sight into an almost ethereal picture.

It is stupidly sentimental of her, to think that way. A moment of kinship far away from the rest of her life is a guarantee of nothing. Essek Thelyss, former Shadowhand and traitor to the Kryn dynasty, is not Astrid’s problem to worry about. People get lost every day. She can walk away from this.

She doesn’t wants to, though. She wants to see his spell completed, to see what it can do. Wants to take him to her favourite bakery in Rexxentrum, share a fresh cupcake and hear him admit that it is better than anything found in the menagerie coast. wants to see if he can really beat Wulf at chess.

And she is the Archmage, isn’t she? She can reach for what she wants.

“If you ever need somewhere to stay that would not involve Caleb,” she says as she raises her hand to cast, “Wulf and I live at 54^th Birch street.”

She does snatch the book before she teleports away to the city, though. Sentimentality aside, she does not need the Cobalt Soul in her business.

6.

She doesn’t run into Essek for a while after their encounter near Deastock.

It is her fault, in part – the mess with the conspirators takes some time to sort out, and then she gets absorbed in an issue at the Bladegarden that requires careful handling, and both Margolin and Tversky seem to be testing her boundaries, and she doesn’t making a point to them, she really doesn’t, but those things take time and preparation to execute properly. She manages to visit Caleb only rarely during those weeks, stopping by for a brief hour and then hurrying back to work. When she does make, Essek is never there – a careful inquiry reveals that he had decided to stay away from Wildmount for a while, in order to better evade his pursuers. It's a good idea – the Dynasty doesn’t have many connections overseas. Astrid considers sending to him, to ask what he has found – it has been a long time since she had the chance to travel – but discounts the thought as too reckless. She considers sending to Caleb, to explain her long absence and ask his advice with Margolin – and then stops, and retraces her trail of thought. Grits her teeth. Goes to bury herself in reports.

She didn’t expect to miss them. She isn’t sure what to do with the fact that she does.

"We should just invite them here." Says Eadwulf.

"Too forward." Astrid dismisses. She doesn't bother to pretend she doesn't understand what he means. “Besides, I came close enough.”

Wulf is quiet for a moment, then sighs. "Forward might be better, in this." He says. "We are all very good at dancing around and pretending we don’t mean anything by every word we say. has it ever occurred to you that this is a thing that has to be done directly? At some point you have to sit down and just say what you want.”

Astrid bites back poisonous response. “And what do we want?”

He stares at the bookshelf behind her head. “For them to be here.”

Which is true, technically, and also just another way of avoiding saying things clearly, because Eadwulf isn’t really as better at this than Astrid as he wants to think.

“We should be careful.” She says. “We can’t afford to fuck this up because we were hasty.”

Wulf shakes his head. “We can’t afford to lose at this because we were afraid, either.”

He is not wrong. “We need more time.” She insists. “We aren’t seeing things clearly enough, yet. We need more time.”

Essek comes back to Rexxentrum six weeks and four days after his and Astrid’s meeting out of Deastock. Astrid and Eadwulf know about it the day that he does – he keeps an unpredictable schedule and Caleb’s house is warded against scrying, but the street outside of it isn’t and there is no light in the living room’s window when Caleb is in the house alone.

They invite themselves there that night – the hour is late, but this is a dance of small concessions, and even the subtlest moves carry weight.

The door is locked as well as warded, this time, to Astrid’s quiet relief. Wulf considers it for a moment, and then tries to pick it instead of knocking, just to test the lock. After two minutes, it click open soundlessly. He and Astrid exchange glances, and then he shakes his head and knocks.

There’s a moment of complete silence, and the approaching footsteps. A sound of clanking as someone fumbles with the broken lock, and then the door turns and reveals Caleb, whose wary expression warms when he sees them.

He lowers the hand he had prepared with a spell and steps back to ley them in. “It’s good to see you. It’s been a while.”

“You need better locks on your door.” Wulf says without preamble as they enter the house.

Caleb looks from him to the broken lock and back and shakes his head. “Does look like it.”

“I know a man in the eastern part of the Tangles who makes extremely complex and efficient contraption.” Astrid suggests as she follows the two of them to the living room. “I can give you his address.”

“Not many people try to break into my house these days, you know.” He informs them. “Actually, you are the first attempted break-in I had in months, and the last one was one very unlucky student who nearly got crushed to death in an ill-thought attempt to improve their grades.”

“I apologized.” Essek raises his head from the book he is reading by the fire and raises one hand in unhurried greeting. “But I still say it was just further proof they needed to prepare for their test better.”

The picture is odd in its domesticity - two killers and traitors sitting down for a quiet evening in the small, warm, living room. Odd in how ordinary it seems to Astrid, now.

Four killers, now. Caleb makes tea. There is a distinct possibility that it is made of corpses, but the taste is good and Astrid decides not to ask. The damned cat climbs into her lap again, stranding her on the couch across the table from where Eadwulf and Essek start setting up the board for their never-ending game and obscures her view of it with its bushy tale. Caleb takes the seat near her, leaning forward in order to lend his unerring memory to the placing of the pieces. Distractedly, he reaches a hand to scratch the cat’s head, and then seems to realize that his hand is nearly grazing her shirt, freeze, and retract it carefully.

Astrid takes advantage of his diverted attention and leans forward. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Caleb picks up his mug of tea and turn to her. “Ask away.”

Astrid pats the cat with one hand and considers her words. “Does Margolin spend much of his time around the academy? Do you know what he is doing all doing all day?”

Caleb considers her for a moment, and then nods and starts detailing what he has seen of the Academy’s headmaster over the last months. The picture painted is… unsurprising, and confirming most of Astrid’s suspicions. Margolin is busy – his work is an important, taxing one. Margolin is not so busy that he cannot afford to meet a fellow Archmage, not unless he is trying to see how much he can get away with, how much of his time does a new and yet-uncertain member of the Assembly has the power to demand.

Astrid’s thoughts wander, again, to that godsdamned tower. That tangible symbol of the power of the Assembly, of her power, that she has avoided claiming. She needs every scrap of power that she has here, against opponents older and better-connected than her. Not living in the Candles is weakening her position, making her seem temporary. She has been stalling, and she can't afford to, anymore.

Caleb carries on, distracting her from that bitter realization. He has been thinking much of Margolin’s methods and conduct, she realizes, he and Beauregard both. Of the ways they would like to have those methods changed, and the ways they may achieve these changes. He is careful, in his words, no to give out many details, petting the cat and leaning back to listen instead. She likes listening to him talk about his ideas, about his thoughts of how the empire should be changed. They are... Impractical, some of them. Idealistic, all of them. But Caleb is not a fool, and the fact that he can believe in them anyway feels her with an odd mix of fondness and aching longing that she is growing familiar with, the longer she spends time with him.

She wants... Something. A bit of his hope, of that fire in his eyes, so familiar and so different. The fight that burns in him, still. she wants to believe - not exactly in the future he is describing maybe, but that the future can be different. To believe in change, the way he does.

"I think I am going to tear it down." She says, contemplating.

Caleb pauses in the middle of a sentence. "I'm sorry?"

On the other side of the table, Essek and Wulf look up from their game.

"My tower." She explains, tone reasonable. "I told you, I need to figure out what to do with it. I think I will tear it down, and build something new for myself. My tower.”

There is a long silence. Then Wulf shrugs. "sure, we've got the time." He considers it for a moment. "A garden would be nice, I think. We should leave some room."

"I' m not taking care of it "

"We'll figure it out."

Caleb tilts his head. “Can you just decide to do that? Destroy an entire significant building just because you don’t like it?”

Astrid shrugs. “It’s my property.” She considers it for a moment. “I will send a letter to the city council informing them, to be polite.”

"If I am not overstepping." Essek says carefully. "Destroying a wizard's tower is a difficult endeavour, as is building one. I have some experience in the latter, and would be happy to lend it to you, should you need it.”

“It would be welcome.” Astrid says, honestly. “Thank you.”

“It would be my pleasure. When do you plan to start?”

“We could start tomorrow morning.” Wulf suggests. When Astrid shoots him a surprised glance, he shrugs. “I’m sick of our house, honestly. The windows are too big.” He starts putting the chess pieces back in their box and then stops and looks to Caleb, expression surprisingly soft. “Do you want to help?”

Caleb breaths in deeply. Holds. Then breath out slowly, expression steeling. “I think I would like that. Exam season won’t be for a while yet. I can takes some time off starting tomorrow.”

"Tomorrow morning, then.” Astrid agrees, and scratches the cat under its chin. “then we can get to work.”