Archive of Our Own

Jacob had gotten into the habit somewhere around the time that Evie really started laying into him over the Rooks. 

“I hate it when you do that,” she said, glaring at him over her shoulder as she sorted through her latest research into Father’s pet project. Better her than him. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

“Whatever have I done, sister mine?” he asked, with a smile charming enough to win the pants off the Devil himself.

“Mock me, with that nasal tone of yours,” she answered. She rolled her eyes and went back to her books, ever predictable. “If you insist on mocking me, at least do it in an accurate tone of voice. I sound nothing like that.”

He laughed and nearly fell off her chaise when Bertha lurched, pulling into the station. “No, Evie, you are not nasal. I will endeavor to imitate you better going forward.”

“See that you do.” 

London is the first time in his memory that he and Evie have ever reached a… stalemate, like this. Of course, they fought when they were children; what siblings didn’t? When the Assassins started his blade training before hers, even though she was older and more level-headed and well-read and better (who is he kidding? He can admit it. He was a snot-nosed little shite at fourteen), Evie didn’t speak to him for the better part of two weeks, at which point he finally pulled his head out of his ass and offered to show her what he was learning. 

She had him flat on his back in under a minute by the end of the month. 

So yes, Evie and he fight. They make up. They move on. It’s what they do; it’s why they’re the Fryes, Jacob-and-Evie, rather than Jacob, and Evie. The last time they’d had a disagreement worth anything (besides the normal you’re-stealing-my-toast-no-you’re-just-too-slow dance they do every morning over breakfast), Father had just passed away, Jacob was locking everything up, and Evie was lashing out.

George had all but punted them up to Scotland for a month-long mission, with the clear message to get it together before he scrapped them both. 

They came back to Crawley with their tails between their legs, once again Jacob-and-Evie. 

(And as JacobandEvie, the culmination of lifetime of dancing around it, through grief and tears and secrets whispered into scratchy bedsheets and forbidden desires and sins that felt too good to be sins—)

These are the facts of Jacob’s life.

Evie worries. The sun rises in the East. The sky is blue. Evie worries because he is all she has left. Victoria is the Queen of England. The Assassins work in the dark to serve the light. Evie worries because he is all she has left, and she loves him.

He’s been a pretty shit brother. 

He’ll probably always be a pretty shit brother.

So if he can do anything to make Evie’s life a little better, a little easier, to help her worry a little bit less, shouldn’t he?

If it won’t absolve him of his other failings…

Dearest Evie, he scrawls on the back of a postcard.¹

Haymarket is positively boring today. Have not heard from Greenie about you and L. Will not be home for dinner—meeting with the Inspector about a possible lead.

Your Jacob

“Oi, you,” he calls. One of the boys that the Rooks started taking in turns on the corner and scampers up to him. 

“Yessir?” the boy asks. His cap is too big for his head; it hangs limply in front of his eyes. The poor lad has to crank his neck all the way back just to stare up at him.

He should really look into outfitting the gremlins better, if they’re to be running about the city doing his errands.

“You know where Miss Evie is?” he prompts. 

“Yessir!” the boy chirps back. 

“Good,” Jacob says, handing him the postcard and a couple of coins. “See that she gets it before sunset.”

The boy rolls his eyes, taking great offense. “’S like you think I’m slow or somethin’.” He takes off, kicking up dust as he runs toward Lambeth. 

Jacob sighs. He wants to be a better brother, truly. But if it means compromising all that he’s done in London, all the ground he’s won through blood and sweat, all that he’s gained with Evie… 

He knows he’s a horrible person, because he won’t give it up for anything.

My sweet sister, he writes.

Our friend Alexander has asked to meet this afternoon at the South Metropolitan Gas Company Showroom, with something new and exciting. Shall we go for tea afterwards? 

Your Jacob

Evie is livid, and it’s his fault. 

Rationally, he knows that she is right. He nearly decimated the Bank of England’s standing, and the entire imperial economy along with it. 

In his defense, the Bank of England are all pricks, and they’d deserved it. He’s one step closer to taking down Starrick, too, not that Evie congratulated him about that either.

In the end, it all worked out. There’s not much to be upset about, except that it was Evie who had to clean up his mess, because Abberline currently trusts him about as far as he can throw him, and Jacob’s a big fellow.

Jacob was the first to set out on his own when they came to London. Finally out from under the Council’s thumb, the first thing he does is wreak havoc in the very city they’d come to save. He’s always been too impulsive. Evie is much better at the calculating, Machiavellian machinations that the Assassins expect from their soldiers. She always has been.

The night after she’d restored order to Victoria’s empire, Evie slipped through his window just before midnight, when there were no prying eyes to stare or tongues to wag. 

She had him on his back in the blink of an eye, her blade pressed up against his throat. 

“Hide in plain sight,” she hissed, “be one with the crowd. Never—” she pressed up, just enough pressure to nick his skin, “—compromise the Brotherhood. Or did you forget?!” Her eyes were full of rage and loathing. He’d never made her angrier than he had today. For a moment, just one fleeting moment, he truly thought she’d come to kill him. Orders from the Council slipping into London, after months of silence: kill your brother before we do it ourselves. Her chance to be rid of him, and all the trouble he caused her. 

But then she’d retracted her blade, hung her head, and gasped for breath. She sat back and swiped at her eyes, and he knew she was more upset that she was crying in front of him than that she was crying at all. 

“You just never think, Jacob!” she sobbed as he pulled her into a hug, her legs still wrapped around his waist. “I can’t do this without you, and if you keep pulling stunts like this—” 

She tucked her face into his neck, and he ran his hand up and down her back. 

“I’m here, Evie,” he soothed. “I—” I promise I won’t do something like that again.

But the words get caught in his throat. He couldn’t promise that, because they both knew if he’s put into a similar situation in the future, he’d do the same again. 

Just like they both knew that Evie would come rescue him again. 

“I know,” she whispered against the hollow of his throat. “I know, Jacob. I just worry for you.”

“I know, sweet Evie. You’re much too good for me,” he said, cracking a grin as she pulled away from to look at him properly.

Evie frowned. “Don’t say that,” she said. “Not like that. It’s not about earning me, Jacob. It’s never been like that.” She ran her fingers over his cheeks, over the stubble he’d started to grow out—when did he last shave? He couldn’t remember. It was hard to keep track of things like that when Evie wasn’t sitting across from him at the breakfast table each morning to tease him about it.

“Then what is it, Evie?” he asked. “Tell me. Tell me, and I’ll do it.” Let me do it for you. Tell me to stop, and I will. Let me be enough.

“Do you love me?” she said finally. Her eyes were big, and he was close enough that he could see they were the same shade of blue as the creek behind Grandmother’s house, the one they would splash in as children when the summers were hot and the days were long. 

“Of course I love you,” he answered easily. “You’re Evie.”

“No, Jacob,” she stopped him. “Do you love me?”

Her mouth was set downwards, her brow furrowed. He ran his thumb over her forehead, massaging it away. “Of course I love you,” he repeated softly. She pressed her cheek into his palm and let him kiss her sweetly. 

That was the last time he’d seen her. It was going on three weeks now. Greenie hadn’t mentioned anything going wrong in the hunt for the Shroud, so he had to believe that Evie was safe.

Even if she was mad at him, even if they weren’t speaking, Evie would never keep that from him.

He’s been standing outside of the showroom for almost an hour. Alexander is arriving at any moment. There is still no sign of Evie.

The idea comes to him as he’s scarfing down the last of a hunk of bread one of the little Rooks shoved into his pocket around tea time. He’s been forgetting to eat recently, and Evie had set them all the task of making sure Mister Jacob stayed fed. 

The little Rooks—and the Rooks in general, he’s found—take orders from Miss Evie nearly as orders from God himself. Still, he supposes, so does he; Evie’s word is law, as far as he’s concerned, and it’s just as well his gang believes it too.

He pays a vendor for a postcard and searches his pockets for a pen.

Evie, 

Night at the theatre?

Jacob

The Fryes rule London now. With Greenie off to India and the Council wary to put any more apprentices under Jacob, even with Evie’s tempering presence, they are left to their own devices more often than not. Of course, there will always be pockets of resistance, but they are more than capable of running those down and preventing any Templars from establishing a foothold in London. 

It’s been over a hundred years since the Assassins claimed London as theirs. It feels good to be the one to have restored it.

He hails a ride towards the Strand, letting the breeze whip through his hair as the buggy trots through London. Starrick is gone. The Shroud is safe. Evie loves him. Life is good.

The cart lurches, and Evie’s warm presence appears at his side.

“I must say, I was expecting you home for dinner tonight,” she says. 

“You’ve been cooped up for far too long, sister mine,” Jacob replies easily, propping his boots up on the opposite bench. Evie rolls her eyes and whacks his ankles, but there’s no heat in it; it’s rote to her by now.

“You are out far too often, brother dear,” Evie tuts.

“Join me, then, and you wouldn’t miss me as much.”

“Who says I miss you?” 

Evie smiles, mischief in her eyes. And to believe, he’d spent the better part of the year missing that light. He doesn’t know how he thought he could live without it.

She withdraws her hand from her pocket, holding up the postcard he sent her of Trafalgar Square between her first two fingers. “A postcard? I’m not your keeper.”

“No, you’re not,” he says. He takes the postcard and tucks it back in the inner pocket of her coat, so it rests right above her heart. “But you worry anyway, and the postcards help.”

“And the postcards help,” she agrees. The buggy rolls to a stop in front of the Gaiety Theatre.² Jacob alights first, holding his hand out to steady Evie as she steps off. 

“Thank you,” she says to the Rook in the driver’s seat, passing her some coins and a ribbon for her hair. She tips her hat at Evie, a smile on her face. She’ll go back to her lodgings tonight singing Evie’s praises, telling all her mates that Miss Evie really is as pretty and as kind as all the children say. 

Jacob could live a hundred years, and he’d never earn their loyalty in the easy, effortless way that Evie does.

“What’s on tonight?” Evie asks, tucking her arm into his. 

“Not sure,” he shrugs. He leads her through the foyer, where the crowd has begun to amass, waiting for the next act.

Evie drives her elbow into his ribs as they go up the stairs. “Don’t lie, it’s unbecoming.” He squints down at her through the haze of the gas lighting. It’s enough to make his head fuzzy, drunk on the joy of having Evie on his arm, spending a night out in London without the world waiting to crash down on their heads.

“Something from Gilbert,”³ he answers. 

Evie raises one brow, a perfect imitation of Father, may God rest his soul. She spent more time with the old man in the end, so it does follow that she’d be able to mimic him the best. He’s been on the receiving end of that brow so many times, for so many pranks-gone-wrong and other boyhood sins.

“Robert the Devil,”⁴ he tells her. He pulls the curtain back and reveals the box seats he had the Rooks set aside for tonight. Despite what George and the others might believe, Jacob does have time for the arts; more often than Evie does, usually. He was his father’s son, of course he could recite Shakespeare and Aeschylus and the rest of the stuffy bastards as well as any of them. 

Evie smiles. “Meyerbeer! I should’ve known!” 

“Just enjoy yourself, Evie,” he says. He forces her into the chair and drops a pair of opera glasses he swiped from some old biddie in her lap. Evie laughs; she pulls another pair out of her pocket.

“Should’ve known,” he grumbles.

“You always were better at pickpocketing than me,” she grins. “Look, your pair are nicer!”

“Damn right they are!”

Evie takes his hand and squeezes it tight. “Thank you, Jacob.”

“You’ve got two pairs now, you better not miss anything—”

“Jacob,” Evie repeats, softer now. He looks at her. 

Here is everything Jacob has ever loved, sitting next to him and holding his hand. He cannot exist without Evie; he knows that now.

“Thank you for everything. You are too good to me.” 

Jacob kisses her knuckles and holds her hand above his heart. 

“It’s yours, Evie,” he says easily. “It’s all yours. It’s not about being good to you—I know I’m not the best brother, and I don’t think I ever will be.” He meets her eyes and laughs. “I know I never will be. Brothers don’t typically act towards sisters the way I do to you. But I love you, and that is what I can give you.”

“It’s enough, Jacob,” she whispers back, her head tilting in the way she does whenever she is happy with him. She’d once said it was because it felt like her heart was so full, she couldn’t see the world straight on; she couldn’t hold herself upright for queen or country in those moments.

“It’s always been enough.” 

He lets her take her hand back, but it doesn’t escape his notice that she leans on the arm of her chair closest to him—towards him. They are a single entity in one body: they always have been, and they always will be.

They turn toward the stage together, ready for a night where the world does not matter. Just as the audience is beginning to settle, Evie turns to him.

“But you’ll still keep sending the postcards, right? I like them.”

Jacob laughs loudly, cutting clear through the silence of the theater. A few disgruntled patrons stare up into their box, but he pays them no mind.

“Of course, Evie. Anything for you.”