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At the very last second, Caleb finds his feather.
The walls of the pit flash by on all sides, all a blur of jagged rock and ice. Four hundred feet down the five hundred foot drop, he splutters out the words to Featherfall and goes limp.
It does the job: he lives. Too many bones jolt in the wrong directions as he hits the ground with a full-body crunch, a burst of white hot pain clouding his vision as his senses numb all at once. Consciousness swims in and out of reach. Over the ringing in his ears, someone very far away calls his name.
It is forty-eight minutes past ten. No—fifty. eleven o’clock.
“Caleb.”
Not far at all, this time. The voice prods at him inside his own mind. Essek. His thoughts come slow and muddled, everything coated in molasses.
“Are you hurt? Where are you? I am alive, but—” A pause, and Caleb nearly slips under again. “Please, Caleb, are you all right?”
The spell expires early. Caleb squeezes his eyes shut, mustering the strength to respond.
“Essek.”
Concentrate. He’s taken worse beatings, though not without a cleric on hand. Pain blurs the edges of his mind in a murky vignette.
“I am alive. Bottom of the pit. Hurt, ja, very.”
He tests one arm, the one that had taken the least of the impact. Every nerve in his body screams as it moves, but move it does. He pats down the pouch where his emergency potion ought to be, swearing as his clumsy hand knocks against the bottle and sends it rolling. Blindly, he paws in the direction of the sound.
“I am pretty fucked, Essek.”
He doesn’t intend to let the spell go, but it unravels along with his concentration as the pain becomes overwhelming. Wincing, he lets his arm fall back to the ground. He’s been trained to take this. Nothing ambitious for a moment. Just breathe.
He blinks his eyes open, but finds the chamber utterly dark. The sound of shifting rocks above provides some explanation. The Reverser above had been indiscriminate with its blows; it must have taken out the last crumbling pillar holding up the great, arched doorway.
Caleb’s eyes fall shut again, face scrunched toward the center. Essek had been on the far end of the room, slinging high-powered spells from a distance. If the ceiling has truly caved in, they have more than likely been separated.
“Your potions?” Essek’s voice comes again, sharp with worry. “The ceiling has fallen. There is no safe path through. Perhaps a teleport, but…”
He doesn’t need to finish the thought. Caleb knows as well as he that magic has been even wilder than usual in this part of the city. The risk of a Sending or a high-level spell in a fight is one thing, but teleportation is tricky at Aeor’s kindest.
“Are there other exits? Do you see anything?”
A wave of nausea washes over him, and Caleb concentrates everything he has on holding onto the spell. Fleetingly, a dangerous thought crosses his mind: spill his heart before he no longer can.
“Too dark,” he sputters. “Potion rolled away. Leave, if you need to.”
He recognizes the blackout before it comes, breathing in as deeply as his battered ribs allow. He slips under, but keeps a fingertip’s hold on lucidity.
“Take off your amulet.” Essek’s voice hauls him back. His tone will bear no argument. “I will scry.”
Caleb gives himself no time to dwell on how painful it will be. He lifts his good hand, grunting as the movement shifts his broken insides, and closes it around his amulet. Lifting it up and over his head is out of the question; instead, he grits his teeth and yanks.
A snarled, wordless shout tears from him as the chain holds fast. Again, the pain pulls him under. Thoughts toss in the current: it is two minutes past eleven. This room smells of iron. Essek is alive, ‘but.’
The last one shakes him enough to focus. He breathes in slowly, keeping his chest as still as he can. He has had worse. He has had worse. One, two—
He tugs again before three, a high-pitched whimper swallowing the sound of snapping metal. The momentum slaps his hand back to the ground, the amulet clanging down beside it.
“Scry,” he says. In the haze, he has no idea whether or not the spell still remains to take it.
His part finished, Caleb allows himself to drift. There is a sound in his ears like a waterfall; he lets it draw his focus away from the pain. Somewhere in it, he hears his mother’s voice.
“To your left.” Not his mother’s voice, this time. Essek’s.
“Ja,” Caleb answers. He squeezes his eyes shut. The spell is not over; he won’t have heard it. Focus.
“Three-quarters your arm’s length. Take care; it is precarious.”
Following orders. That, he can do. Caleb inches his hand sideways, thanking any of the pantheon listening that it’s on his good side. Sparks of pain accompany every move, but at last his fingers brush against glass. He fumbles his fingers around the bottleneck. This time, they find purchase.
He brings it to his mouth, unstopping the cork with his teeth and swearing as a splash of liquid escapes onto his chest before he can properly right it.
“Caleb.” Essek again. Measured as ever, but with a tremor in his voice. “Answer me, please.”
“You are especially polite today,” he comments, and upends the potion down his throat. “I—”
A shudder rattles down his body as the magic begins its work. Caleb bites down on his collar as bones snap back into place, skin knits together, and blood replenishes. With luck, the Sending spell will not convey the way he cries out.
“I found it, danke. This is better.”
He still aches as though he’s been run over by a horse and cart, but it no longer hurts to breathe. He tests each limb in turn, finding them stable, and groans his way up until he’s seated.
“Save your spells. I am going to poke about a bit.”
Three words left. Caleb sends the spell on its way.
How many Sendings has it been? Caleb shakes the cobwebs from his mind, counting back. Five, since his spill down the shaft. That leaves a maximum of eight, though certainly Essek had depleted that number in their clash with the Reverser. Not for the first time, Caleb curses himself for neglecting to learn the spell himself.
He hates to worry Essek, but better to fret in silence now than to speak and regret it later.
Besides, the worry in his voice had been a balm far softer than the potion.
For now, there is still the issue of light. Caleb fumbles for his components, pulling out a bit of phosphorus. He murmurs the words for Dancing Lights, flicks his fingers through the somatics, and summons.
No light answers. Caleb frowns into the darkness. It would hardly be the first time wild magic had swallowed a spell, but it usually makes more of a show of it. He runs through the cantrip again, and again the darkness persists.
“Okay.” He takes a breath around a mouthful of wild magic bubbles. “Okay.”
Calling too much attention to himself is a risk, but perhaps one more worthwhile than wasting spells. He cups both hands around his mouth, craning his neck toward the top of the chasm. “Essek?”
Essek, Essek, Essek, his own echo replies. No other response comes—not from Essek, and not from whatever monsters might be lurking in the dark. Worth another try, perhaps.
“Essek!”
The sound of his own breathing comes too loud in the silence. He keeps it steady, swallowing the nerves that threaten to climb up his throat. He’d heard Essek earlier, even through the cave-in. Perhaps he’s moved since then. He could be doing some exploring of his own.
Alive. But.
Caleb runs his hands through his hair. It’s too far for a Message, and he’s fresh out of feathers for a Fly spell. Besides, with no light and wild magic rampant, he could very well do even more damage in the effort. Another fall like that one would finish him. He splays out the fingers of one hand, whispering the words to Produce Flame.
Warmth bursts over his palm, a telltale sign that the cantrip has worked.
The only sign. Not a flicker of light accompanies the feeling.
Calmly, Caleb lets the information slip into place. If there is warmth without light, the fire is there and he cannot see it. If Essek’s Scrying had found a visual, there is nothing cloaking the room.
Caleb is blind. From the wild magic or from the fall—they can work out the specifics later.
He flips through the options. He could attempt a Polymorph. If this is wild magic at work, there is no guarantee the blindness will not translate, but there are animals who see in other ways. Essek has risked wild magic surges with each Sending—perhaps it’s his turn.
He reaches down for his cocoon, and his hand closes on empty air.
“Scheiße.”
It must have come dislodged when he’d hit the ground, or perhaps during the fight. Caleb pats the ground around him, finding nothing.
Today has been entirely too long for this. He ought to be setting up the dome by now, resting his head on one of those fancy pillows Essek lugs about. His greatest worry should be whether or not Essek would allow him to fall asleep on his shoulder, instead.
As though it will change anything, Caleb shuts his eyes. He hadn’t had a long look down before he’d fallen, but he had had a look. He pieces the room together in his mind’s eye. There had been stalagmites—lucky that he hadn’t hit one. The space as a whole must have been a hundred yards or so in diameter, mostly circular. Littered with boulders and other debris, and what looked from a distance like a skeleton or two.
“Let me have a look at that wrist of yours,” he’d said, pulling away from the edge of the chasm.
Essek had pulled his nicked arm back into his cloak, uncertainty on his face. Caleb’s hand stopped short between them.
“I will be fine.”
Essek’s smile had been pinched. It fell entirely when he’d seen whatever was on Caleb’s face. The billowing outline of his cloak shifted, and his arm emerged again. Essek pulled his sleeve up just past the bumps of his wrist where the wound had begun to scab.
“It has been healing perfectly well,” he said quietly.
Caleb could swear he was meant to understand something more from the look on his face—apology, perhaps? For what?
“Good,” he’d replied. The tone had matched, but Essek’s eyes stayed wary; his message— I care, I want to know that you are safe, I want to take care of you if you are not —had missed the mark as well.
A queasy sort of weight had settled into his stomach as he’d turned back to the pit. It was so easy for the two of them to understand one another, exactly until the moment it was impossible.
It had only been two more seconds before the Reverser had plowed into the room with a roar.
Caleb flexes his fingers. Had there been a door? There must have been. The darkened blur to the left, perhaps. Gingerly, Caleb picks himself up.
Loath as he is to worry Essek on his behalf, it would be unwise for either of them to go exploring blind without sending word. Under the circumstances, waiting for Essek to Send seems equally foolish. But necessity has birthed lesser inventions than this, and the shape of an idea has begun to form in Caleb’s head.
He’s seen Essek’s spellbook many times now, from cover to cover. He flips through the pages in his mind, picturing the one he needs. The image is blurry and incomplete, but Caleb fills in the blanks. Here there must be a counterweight to the reaction on the left. There he needs a power source.
It could work. He has reverse-engineered a thrice-fucked Gravity Sinkhole; what is a Sending to that? Running through the process in his head, he can find no point of failure.
He pictures Essek in his head—handsome Essek, always so cocksure in his spellwork. The image of this spell in particular is one he comes back to not infrequently. Caleb is certain his own fingers move with less elegance, but there’s no one to see him mimic the proper gestures.
Invisible, the strands of power pull tangibly between his hands. Caleb allows himself a smirk. The circumstances are fraught, certainly, but replicating one of Essek’s spells always comes with a rush.
“Essek,” he says. The arcane thread buzzes between his fingers. “A bit of a wrinkle. I am blind.” He pauses, counting words. “I hate to take the risk, but if you’re able to scry, I will send for directions.”
His own stockpile is somewhat shallow, but fifteen is better than eight.
Essek’s startled reply takes a beat to arrive.
“Caleb, have you—this is a Sending, yes?” There is a pause during which Caleb would kill to see his face. “I will scry.”
Another pause, long enough that Caleb thinks the spell will expire.
“Take care,” he says at last. “The wild magic is very volatile here.”
“Ja, I’ve noticed,” Caleb says aloud to no one.
He waffles in place for a moment, allowing time for Essek to work his magic. Then he repeats the motions, another bit of copper wire consumed.
“Hallo hallo. Anything to report?” Tell me you are all right. Tell me you are unharmed.
“A bit unclear,” comes Essek’s voice immediately. “There is a stairwell to your left, I believe, and a passage straight ahead. Be wary of rubble.”
Stairwell sounds promising. Caleb holds his hands in front of him, shuffling leftwards. More than once, his toe bumps up against something solid, and he skirts a careful path around it.
There. His fingers brush cold stone. Caleb inches his foot out to the left, feeling for a drop or a rise. The floor disappears after a few short steps. He repeats the process to the left, this time finding his toe stopped short by a step.
A scrying spell lasts ten minutes. Would a Sending interrupt that, or might Essek still be watching?
“Onward and upward,” he says just in case.
In his head, Caleb visualizes every staircase they’ve climbed in their time here. The height of each step has been fairly consistent, as has the structure—within individual wards, at least. With luck, he hasn’t fallen to another quarter of Aeor entirely.
The going proves easy enough, though, so he quietly thanks his lucky stars for the sheer breadth of the city. He climbs ten feet, twenty, thirty—
“Stop. Now.”
Essek’s voice appears in his head sharply, and instinctively Caleb lurches to a halt. A monster in his path, or some other obstruction? He holds his breath, keeping every muscle still.
“There is a drop. Likely too far to jump safely. A polymorph, perhaps?”
Caleb grimaces. Essek cannot have known, but it smarts to lose a spell for this.
“The components are not on me. Have I passed a landing? I could double back, find stairs elsewhere?”
As he speaks, he edges his toe out in front of him. Sure enough, the ground falls away just one step further. A shiver runs down his spine. He owes Essek some very nice paper, after this—and a very tight hug, if he will accept it. He blinks into the darkness. The worry is much easier, knowing Essek is his eyes.
Essek, who is meant to be conserving spells for Scrying. Caleb swears under his breath, fumbling for the copper wire.
“You can reply to this message,” he says sheepishly. He spends a few more words vocalizing as Jester might, then cuts himself off as the gravity of the situation comes back to him. He clears his throat, letting the spell go.
It’s worth it immediately, for the shake of laughter in Essek’s voice.
“Indeed,” he says. “Fly, perhaps?”
Two seconds into the pause, Caleb realizes what he’s waiting for. He flashes a thumbs-down his shoulder, turning to show the empty loop on his belt where his feathers have run out.
A moment later, the message continues. “The boots, perhaps?”
He shakes his head. A good plan, but he’d expended their usefulness for the day much earlier. He can practically hear Essek chewing on his lip in frustration.
“There was a landing,” he confirms at length. “Twenty steps, about. Take care. I cannot see inside.”
Gingerly, Caleb counts out twenty steps back. Is Essek behind him still, or ahead now? He pictures the sensor squeezing politely by him in the stairwell, smiling at the image of an invisible Essek craning his neck to see past him.
Alive, but. But the voice in his head does not sound under duress. Caleb wraps himself in this small comfort as he steps onto the landing, stretching his arms out in front of him until he finds the doorway.
The room feels cavernous. The air here has space to move; when he scuffs his boot on a boulder, the sound echoes wide around him. Caleb draws his copper wire. The loop feels considerably thinner than it had.
Before casting, he speaks aloud. “I don’t imagine you can make out much detail, but if there is an easy way up, estimate the number of steps and point me there. North is to my left.” He chews his lip. “Are you safe, where you are? I imagine you must keep still for this.”
He pours his spell into the wire. “I am wagering a guess that this is the food court. There is probably a shitty bakery just over there.” He winks—likely in the wrong direction. “I will get you a cinnamon roll.”
“Ancient pastries,” comes the reply, dripping in fond amusement. Caleb allows himself to bask in it. “Perhaps you will find your cocoon, inside.”
Deadpan, Caleb throws up a thumbs-down.
Essek’s bubble of laughter carries into the rest of his message. “The floor seems safe. Nothing left here. South-Southeast until you reach the wall.” A pause. “I will be fine.”
All twenty-five words used, the spell falls away. Caleb takes a breath. Better not to let the worry show on his face; Essek is watching. South-Southeast until you reach the wall. Something is waiting there, he assumes—a door? An archway? An elevator, like the lift they’d passed before?
He doesn’t need to know to trust that Essek will guide him well.
They carry on this way for the better part of an hour, the frequency of their Sendings tapering off as each of them realizes their reserves are running thin. Caleb fills the long silences with mutterings to himself—and to Essek, should he be listening from the ether—about nothing much. When he runs out of thoughts to ramble about, he hums instead: little melodies his father used to sing over breakfast, kept low enough to avoid attention.
Essek says nothing of it in his next reply, but there’s a certain cadence to his voice that says he’s noticed. Affection, perhaps? Bemusement might be closer to the mark. Maybe a little of both.
“What have we got?” Caleb asks into a Sending. They’ve made decent progress, but it’s been too long without checking in. “Until you tell me, I will assume it’s a shop for adorable animal toys. I will grab you a rabbit.”
Again, the affection-bemusement seeps into Essek’s voice.
“An old library, perhaps? Empty,” he adds, knowing Caleb well enough to curb his excitement early. “Quite abandoned. Be mindful of the bookcases.”
It doesn’t sound to Caleb as though he’s finished speaking, but the spell runs out early. Something must have broken his concentration, or perhaps he’d paused too long while thinking of his next words.
Sure enough, not a moment has passed before Caleb feels a Sending spell connect. Then, just as quickly, it falls away.
Caleb’s stomach drops. Hastily, he stretches more wire between his fingers and casts the spell himself.
“Essek? That was a little bit worrying, are you all right?”
He lets it go. Again, he feels the spell connect—and again it dissipates with no response.
The sound of his own pulse rushing in his ears drowns out the echoing silence around him as all prior levity falls away. Caleb rakes his hands down his face.
Thirty seconds to panic. He takes them, squatting down and hiding his face in his arms. Every terrible thought washes over him at once. Four, three, two—
He straightens, letting his breath out in a rush. On task. Logic first. The spell had taken, so Essek lives. That is something to dig his fingers into. He holds onto it like a life preserver, running through the options in his head.
In the best case scenario, Essek has encountered some sort of wild magic that has left him incapable of magic. He’d spent an hour-long stint as a plant just the other day—it isn’t unprecedented. If that is the case, it might be prudent to hunker down in a corner and wait until either his blindness or Essek’s condition wears off on its own.
Of course, there is no guarantee that either his or Essek’s predicament is the fault of wild magic at all. And if Essek is hurt—even unconscious? That is not a chance Caleb is willing to take.
What does he have? He counts his spells. Enough to polymorph, if only he had the components.
Empty, Essek had called it. Abandoned. If luck is with him…
Caleb retraces his steps to the library, edges forward until his hands touch the wall, then drops to his knees. A smattering of dust kicks up with the motion. Promising. Caleb shucks off his gloves and begins to paw at the meeting between the wall and the floor.
There—a spiderweb clings to his fingers. Caleb waves his hand gently through it, searching. Here are the remains of the poor creature who spun this web, lost long ago to time. Here is the skeleton of some other insect, unidentifiable in his blindness.
There. He keeps his movements slow and delicate, afraid to crush his prize as he draws it from the web. A pod, half the size of his palm, hollow with age, but—yes. A cocoon. Caleb kisses the back of his hand closed around it.
He wills his racing heart to calm. Think clearly, now. Wild magic is fickle; perhaps the blindness will carry over to his polymorphed form, and perhaps not. Better to be safe than sorry. He reaches into his reserves for his very last higher-level spell, draws the proper pattern in the air, and shrinks into the form of a bat.
As he’d suspected, the blindness sticks.
Caleb tests his limits: a ping out into the darkness sends back a vague picture of the room in waves, pieced together like a puzzle in his mind. He repeats it in every direction until the picture is complete: the empty library is just as Essek had described. The adjoining room appears to be a dining hall, with two long tables down the center and one along the far wall.
Table, chirps the bat brain. Food.
Essek, he reminds himself. Essek. Alive, but.
He sends out another ping, rights himself with where he’s been and where he’s headed, and picks a door.
The next two hours are a blur of wing flaps and half-baked mental images. The bat’s brain can barely hold the whole picture; more than once, he finds himself doubling back to regain his bearings. The path is blessedly free of monsters, with only one creature in the shape of an Absorber that is easily avoided by skirting along the ceiling.
The image hits him with such gravity he forgets to flap. He alights on a stalagmite, calling Essek’s name as a wordless squeak. This is the part he had left out of the Sendings.
Essek sits slumped against the wall, head tipped onto his shoulder. His lower half lies buried beneath a mass that can only be the unmoving corpse of the Reverser, arcane focus on the ground beside his slack and open hand.
As his senses return to him, Caleb launches himself toward Essek. He lands on his shoulder, half-crashing into the side of his neck. His wings bat against the side of Essek’s face— sorry, sorry, sorry, he squeaks—as he tucks them away.
Warm, the animal part of him registers happily. Warm, soft, dear. He nuzzles into the dip behind Essek’s ear. Breathing, the rational part of him adds. Wake up.
Caleb chitters. Essek’s ear twitches, but he gives no other sign of consciousness. Caleb climbs around his neck to the front, dangling from his robes at the neckline.
“Essek Essek Essek,” comes out surprisingly correct.
Still no response. Caleb climbs his way down into his lap, braces himself as best he can, and drops the polymorph.
The oddly-shaped grey world disappears in a blur, replaced with nothing but blackness once more. At the same time, the Essek-shaped mass beneath him startles awake.
Hands find his arms in a vice grip, a buzz of arcane energy heralding an imminent casting, and then—
“Caleb?” There is a quiet rustling as though Essek is shaking his head. “What—Caleb.”
And there is the memory. The grip on his arms changes: no less firm, but many fewer nails.
“Ja.”
Under the circumstances, Essek will forgive him for a bit of familiarity. Caleb searches for his shoulders and pulls him close, pressing a kiss to his cheek—realizing only afterwards the risk he’s taken doing so without his sight. It makes his stomach turn, but this flavor of anxiety feels like relief after recent events. This danger is sweeter, with a softer landing.
“Do you need help?” he asks into the side of Essek’s neck. “We are not the strongest, but together—”
“Caleb, do you need healing?”
Without his sight, the shock of Essek’s hand running up his neck nearly shuts him down. He leans into the touch, grimacing as the pressure stings—a wound he hasn’t yet noted. It must look poorly.
“Don’t worry,” he murmurs. He smiles into Essek’s hair. “You should see—”
“I have a potion, if you need one.”
Caleb gives him a squeeze. “Truly, friend, I—”
Essek takes him gently by the shoulders and pries him off. Caleb swallows the rest of his sentence.
“My apologies,” Essek blurts before Caleb can get there first. “I, ah. Cannot hear.”
He says it with the hesitance of a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Caleb blinks uselessly.
He can’t hear. The wild magic has blinded Caleb, but it has deafened Essek. That is why he could not hear him calling. That is the rest of the but.
He can practically see Essek’s ears flatten when he can’t contain the first breath of laughter. He clamps his mouth shut as Essek’s hands remove themselves from his shoulders.
“We are quite a pair,” he says, then remembers too late and laughs again. He fumbles in the darkness, finding Essek’s hands and squeezing them in apology. “I am fine. I am okay.”
He mouths it as clearly as possible, then releases Essek’s hands to flash a double thumbs-up for good measure.
Essek makes a noise halfway between a hum and a snort. Caleb’s chest wells with fondness.
He lets his head tip forward until his forehead rests on Essek’s shoulder. For a moment, Essek tenses—then both hands come up to rest on Caleb’s back, feather light. Caleb fumbles for the copper wire at his belt, remembering too late the sorry state of it. Their journey through the ruins has left him with barely enough to seal a current, let alone cast a spell.
He runs a hand through Essek’s hair instead, hoping the sentiment comes across. The hands on his back flex.
“You are safe?” Essek murmurs.
Caleb nods against his neck. It’s funny—Essek cuts an abstract figure with his draping cloaks and mantles, but the shape in his arms is distinct, slim and sturdy. Here are his arms, wiry from casting, now cradling Caleb instead. Here is his ribcage, and underneath it a quick, steady heartbeat. A warm body. Caleb pulls him closer.
Essek puts such effort into his appearance, from his perfectly sculpted hair to the many artful layers he wears. The sight of him is so impressive as to distract from the reality of the man underneath.
The warmth of Essek’s breath brushes Caleb’s neck, and he lets himself shiver. The way he looks is striking, but Caleb has never been more acutely aware of the way he feels. It’s easy, like this, to imagine how he might feel in better kinds of darkness.
“Shall we wait?” Essek’s voice rumbles through his chest. “I have seen nothing nearby. If there is a chance that these effects will wear off on their own…”
Better than inviting yet more wild magic with a dispel that might do more harm than good, it’s true. It’s late, the reality of the hour crashing down around his shoulders now that he and Essek are together, and both of them will need a rest before they’re any use to themselves or each other. Caleb nods.
Today has been long and trying, and Essek is warm and soft beside him. Caleb lets his head fall onto Essek’s shoulder with a sigh. For a moment, Essek tenses as though afraid to move. Then a hand appears on Caleb’s shoulder, and Essek’s head tips sideways to rest gently against his.
At some fuzzy point between consciousness and sleep, Essek’s hand finds his hair.
“Sleep,” he murmurs. “I will keep watch.”
Half-aware, Caleb nestles closer. “Don’t strain yourself. I can—”
“I cannot hear you arguing.” The teasing tone is utterly endearing. Essek softens it with a run of his fingers through Caleb’s hair, pausing to untangle wherever they catch. “Sleep, Caleb Widogast.”
It’s hard to argue, under the circumstances. Caleb tucks one arm around Essek, savoring the rise and fall of his breathing. Solid and alive.
“I think,” he says into Essek’s coat, “maybe I am in love with you.”
Essek’s hand in his hair doesn’t miss a beat. His heartbeat stays steady and slow. Caleb rolls the feel of the words around in his mouth for a moment, testing the feel.
It’s his last coherent train of thought before sleep begins to seep through the cracks. Eight hours and seven minutes later, he blinks his eyes open to darkness.
Still blind. Dread curls in his gut.
He groans, turning over. Somehow, during the night, he’s managed to slump down halfway into Essek’s lap. Only after stirring does he notice Essek’s hand in his hair again—still?—pulling away.
“Caleb?”
His voice is quiet and rough with the night’s disuse. Caleb wants to roll in it. He buries his face in Essek’s cloak, finding the smell just as perfectly him.
“Good morning,” says Essek, amusement plain in his tone.
“Hmm, morgen.”
A pity that he has to disentangle himself. Caleb allows himself a few more seconds, then emerges from his burrow.
Wincing, he blinks his eyes shut against the light.
The light.
He opens his eyes, heedless of the white spots that sear into them. There is Essek, watching him with unbearable fondness in his face. There are his four floating diamonds of purple Dancing Lights, hung in the air around them like fireflies.
“Oh.”
The shock washes into relief in a flood. Caleb laughs breathlessly, first once then continuously. He can see. They have no need of a cleric, or of leaving Aeor, or of waiting for the magic to wear off. He can see.
“Hallo, hallo.” Drunk on the feeling, he reaches up to pat Essek’s face. “Can you hear me, friend?”
Essek tries to hide his smile—a piss poor job. Caleb’s own grin widens.
“Indeed,” Essek says primly. He takes Caleb’s hand in one of his own, lifting it gently away; too late, Caleb sees the grime on his palm.
“Hm.” He wiggles his fingers theatrically, prestidigitating away all traces of mud on his palm and Essek’s cheek. “There we go.”
The edges of Essek’s eyes crinkle adorably when Caleb reaches up to give his face two more pats. He does make a beautiful picture. A privilege to witness—one he won’t soon take for granted.
Together, despite every protest from his muscles, they manage to free Essek from the fallen Reverser. Caleb tries not to watch too closely as Essek rubs the feeling back into his legs.
“Well,” he says instead, examining his own gloves. “I hate to admit defeat as much as the next wizard, but I am thinking we may want to find a different ward to explore.”
Essek’s responding hum sounds the way Caleb feels.
“If you can retrace your steps—” Essek pauses, a sheepish smirk tugging up one side of his mouth. “You can, of course. Perhaps it would behoove us to go after your components.”
Caleb knows just what it feels like to fall asleep in those arms. He’d like to know what those lips feel like, too.
“Thank you for your guidance,” he says to avert that train of thought. “I would be a corpse at the bottom of that drop, if not for you.”
Essek’s expression tightens for a moment. “Of course,” he says. His fingers twitch in the way that Caleb has come to know means he’s thinking. “I appreciate your trust.”
Essek’s tone is casual, but his eyes stay deliberately fixed on his work. Caleb blinks.
“There was never any doubt.”
Essek makes a small noise of acknowledgement. Caleb feels suddenly compelled to draw it out of him again. He presses a kiss into Essek’s temple, his forehead, his cheek.
“Never a doubt.”
Essek’s fingers twitch at his side—shyer, perhaps, now that Caleb can see him—before tracing down his cheek to cup his jaw.
Fuck, those eyes.
It’s too early by far to say certain things out loud to one another—but perhaps this time he can speak in a way that Essek will hear. With a soft smile, he rests his hand atop Essek’s on his face.
“I trust you, dear.”
The way his expression crumbles and slowly restructures says it plainly: he’s heard it properly. Essek’s eyes fall closed with a deep breath. When they open again, they shine with emotion that hits Caleb full in the chest.
That is a language Caleb can understand. This time, he remembers his fluency.
He takes Essek’s hand in his, lifting it away from his face only long enough to kiss the knuckles.
“We should get moving.” His voice comes out low and gravelly. He clears his throat, noting the way Essek’s cheeks darken. “We’ve lost enough time to this ward, I think.”
He releases Essek, bracing both hands on the ground to stand. His first attempt fails with a groan. He had indeed fallen several stories the previous day; the night’s sleep has done wonders to heal him, but every inch remains terribly sore.
Essek watches with mild amusement, stretching his legs.
“Copy my gravity cantrip tonight,” he says. He waves off Caleb’s raised eyebrows. “Sending, as well. I’m certain your version is inefficient.”
Caleb snorts. “Pretty fucking good, considering.”
“I’m sure.”
With a grimace, Essek eases to his feet, several joints popping in the process. He straightens his clothes until the mantle obscures the shape of him again. Then one hand emerges from the mass of cloth, extended down toward Caleb. Caleb takes it, allowing Essek to pull him up with surprising ease.
Lightly, with all the dignity of a gentleman at court, Essek brushes a kiss to his knuckles before letting go.