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Elliot Nightray was exiled without too much fanfare, on a warm summer's day that left his sister’s blood sticky on his face as flies did their damnedest to bite through it and, despite the itching, he didn’t bother shooing them away. He was exiled in the afternoon, sunburnt, hollow aching grief screaming at him, silent as the grave his family rested in. He was exiled thirty minutes after he was found to be the Headhunter, fifteen days before anyone learned that he was the trial-run murderer for Jack Vessalius’s attempted coup, an eternity before he could even begin picking up the shattered pieces of his memory and making sense of what had happened to him.
He had been supposed to be a knight. He had trained for it near since birth, had read dazzling tales of heroes and ladies and swords and dragons, had dreamed of honor and nobility for as long as he’d had dreams.
And now here he was, blood-covered and hot and itchy, standing along with his shame in hand as the king exiled him. He had not thought himself a murderer. He had not known why his family was dying. He still did not quite know what was going on, as though he was underwater, or in a dream where nothing made sense. His hands shook as King Glen pronounced him in exile; when Leo, Elliot’s best friend and the bastard son of Levi, the former king, turned away without a word, Elliot’s legs nearly gave out on him, leaving him collapsed in the stiff summer grass. They didn’t, though—he still felt as though none of this were quite real, and so he hadn’t yet fallen, crushed under the grief and the guilt that was still teetering above him, waiting to fall. Instead, he looked at Leo’s back for a moment and a moment only before turning and walking away. If he walked far enough, he would be out of the country, a proper exile.
Elliot knew that that wasn’t what he would actually do. He still had some money on him; he could buy his place onto any ship leaving the port and be away by nightfall, and he was walking in that direction anyway. He didn’t think that he could get himself hired, though. He was the youngest son of the Nightray family—or what remained of it, at any rate. He would be recognized by any potential employers, and, somewhere deep deep down, he was aware that as soon as the deaths of his family—the deaths on his hands—hit him, really hit him, he would be totally incapacitated for who knew how long. His entire family was dead at his hands. Leo wouldn’t even look him in the eye anymore. Elliot almost wanted to lay down and die—but he still had his shame, so when he reached the docks, he sat down on a bench to wait out the night in order to get a ticket out of the country the next morning.
He was not sitting along for long, though. Sometime after the moon had risen and stained everything silver-white, a short boy around his own age, face hidden in a deep hood, came, sat next to him, and placed a book in his lap.
“...You finished it?” Elliot said, because that was what you were supposed to say when a friend returned a book you’d lent him.
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“I don’t remember.”
This wasn’t an atypical response, though Elliot was usually far more disappointed when he heard it. Tonight, though, he simply shrugged and passed the book back to the other boy.
“You keep it, and read it again,” he said. “I’m leaving tonight anyways.”
“When will you come back?”
“—Never,” said Elliot, his throat closing up. “I’m—” in exile. A murderer. A monster. “—moving away. My parents, you know.”
“Oh.” There was a moment of silence, and then, “You’re lying to me.”
“What do you know?” Elliot snapped. “If I asked you my name, you wouldn’t have a half a fucking clue, you stupid fucking idiot.”
“I don’t need to know your name to know that you’re full of shit,” said the boy next to him, affronted, and he passed the book back to Elliot. “I’m returning this. I finished reading it.”
“If I wasn’t leaving,” said Elliot, “I’d just loan it to you again next week, and you know it.”
“So we meet weekly?” said his friend.
“...Look, I really don’t have the energy for this tonight,” Elliot said heavily. “So—if you don’t know who I am or what you’re doing here, just take the book and go.”
“So I lose my memories often,” said his friend. “Do you?”
“No,” Elliot said, and then he remembered his sentencing, the blood still coating him, the convenient blanks where his family’s deaths were supposed to be. “...Yeah. I guess.”
His friend nodded, accepting the answer, and did not take the book back. Instead, he sat beside Elliot in silence until the sun began to stain the horizon pink, and then he stood.
“I’ll be back here next week, in case you come back,” he said.
Elliot didn’t bother repeating that he’d be leaving forever. This friend was smart—he’d figure it out sooner or later, assuming his memories weren’t stolen between now and then. Instead, almost against his will, he snatched the other boy’s wrist and held it tightly.
“What are you—”
“Come with me,” he said hollowly.
“What?”
“Please. There’s nothing left. Just—please come with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll buy your ticket.”
“It isn’t that,” said his friend. “I have to stay here. I can’t leave.”
“They’re destroying you,” said Elliot. “You know they are. Please just come with me. I can’t—I’m all alone now.”
He was humiliated even as he said it, but his friend didn’t have the presence of mind anymore to mock him, and wouldn’t for at least another month, and Leo wasn’t anywhere to be found. Leo didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Leo—
“I can’t leave,” said his friend. “You can stay? I can hide you. She won’t tell.”
“No,” said Elliot, shaking his head, tears blurring the sunrise. “No, I can’t stay. And I can’t ever come back.”
“I can hide you,” his friend repeated. “There’s a space under my bed—it’s dark—I have a cat there, and books—”
“I’ve been exiled,” Elliot said. “If I stay we’ll both be executed.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“...No, I will not assist you in your suicide, you stupid fucking idiot, so don’t even fucking ask. You fucking wannabe-Edgar. Stupid—”
“Who’s Edgar?”
“...Read the Holy Knight series,” Elliot said, and released his friend’s wrist. “You’ll love it. And—go back now. You don’t want to get caught sneaking out. I’m not gonna be around anymore to cover your ass.”
“I’m sorry,” said his friend.
“Don’t be. And keep the book. It’s a mystery. You’ll like it.”
Elliot let go of his friend’s wrist, and, after a moment, the boy hurried off and vanished into the early morning sunlight. This was as much a goodbye as either boy had ever given the other, though in happier times Leo had been known to brag that he’d managed to get a courtly hello and goodbye, complete with names, from their friend once or twice. Elliot had called bullshit—
—for the murders of Bernard Nightray, Bernice Nightray, Fred Nightray, Claude Nightray, Ernest Nightray, Vanessa Nightray, and William West; for the attempted murder of Prince Leo Baskerville—
The words had washed through him when the king had spoken them. Even now they sounded like so much nonsense, because Elliot would never hurt Leo, never ever in a million years, outside of fistfights and even then Leo kicked his ass near every time, but they were getting closer to sinking in. Leo had been beaten half to unconsciousness when Elliot had come back to himself all of a sudden, restrained by the king mere feet away from Vanessa’s headless corpse. Over the past year, Elliot had stumbled on the bodies of every single member of his family, dead on the ground without a head. He still had Vanessa’s blood dried stiff across his face. And Leo, nose broken and dripping with blood, hadn’t looked at him even once, though his eyes were red and raw with tears already cried when King Glen gave Elliot his sentence.
There was something there, something in that, something Elliot couldn’t remember. It was hard for him to even think when autopilot wasn’t guiding his actions, so he temporarily shoved it aside, and stood, and rubbed the blood off his face, letting it fall in clay-brown flakes to the ground as he headed towards the first passenger ship he saw.
Nightray money carried you far, even—especially—when you were the last living Nightray, he found, and in less than an hour Elliot was standing alone in his own cabin and discovering that the scabbard on his hip was empty of his black-bladed sword. He had his family’s crest in his pocket, and his wallet full of gold and silver, and his clothes were a nobleman’s finery, even now, stained with his sweat and his sister’s blood. He would not be destitute. But that sword—
He had loved his sword like he loved his mother, like he loved the honor of the Nightrays, like he loved the burn of his muscles after a good, hard workout. He did not love it like he loved Leo, like he loved the friend whom he lent book after lonely book in the hopes that they could argue about them—but that was because his sword was a tool to protect others, and Leo and their friend were numbered among those Elliot would do anything, anything to protect.
—for the attempted murder of Prince Leo Baskerville—
He had first kissed Leo on a day like this one, hiding from the heat in the palace library, behind a copy of Lancelot and Guinevere like the hero of one of those romance novels Leo loved so, though Elliot himself had never quite seen the appeal of them until that moment, and hadn’t really seen it since. That had hardly been the last time they’d kissed, either, but lately Elliot had found himself losing time, growing snappish in his confusion over finding himself sometimes hours or days away from when he thought he was. He could not recall a moment in the past month or so when they had kissed, or lain together on the library floor and read, or did anything, really, other than argue over whose memory of a day was right.
Elliot ached, and he ached, and he missed Leo, and he thought that Leo was probably better off with him gone, and when the ship finally cast off, he thought that maybe this exile was for the best, that they would all benefit from this and maybe, just maybe, he could count his family avenged now.
On his journey away across the sea, Elliot got seasick three days in and spent to rest of the trip in abject misery, doing his best to sort through his memories and actions and guilt and grief while he was lucid, and when he disembarked, pale and several pounds lighter than he’d been when he went off to sea, he sold his scabbard and bought simple traveler’s clothes, good enough to last him a few years of hard living, but certainly not the hallmark of a nobleman. Then he sold the clothes he’d worn on the journey over, though he kept his good leather boots, and then, using the contents of his wallet this time, bought himself a plain sword, and some travel rations, and a dagger to hide in his boot, just in case. He got a knapsack, and oil for his boots, and then, after a moment of consideration, spent the last of his gold on a good young horse and then rode off and away from the town.
He continued living on the road for quite some time, sending coded and secret letters back to his friend whom he’d lent the book to when he could, as the seasons turned from summer to fall to winter to spring and back to summer again, avoiding the larger towns and taking on commissions to defend villages and farmsteads from various monsters and bandit groups, taking in payment only food, shelter, and, when necessary, maintenance on his sword and his horse’s tack. It was during this time that he met Lacie and Levi, a duo of con artists who claimed to be father and daughter, brother and sister, or husband and wife as it suited them. They were never the ones Elliot was hired to drive away, and they came from the same country he did, and so, after a few encounters, they struck up somewhat of an acquaintance, though neither quite approved of the others’ actions. Despite this acquaintance, though, Elliot never sought the strange pair out, and they never looked for him, either—at least not at first. In the late summer a year after Elliot’s exile, he was stopping by a small village that he’d defended from a flock of wyverns some months back when he heard a woman’s voice calling his name.
He turned to see Lacie hurrying towards him, dressed today in simple villagers’ garb, her hair braided over her shoulder and a necklace with a gem on the end tucked under her shirt. Today she was playing a maiden, then—Levi her brother or father, thank fuck. It was always weird and deeply uncomfortable for Elliot when they were playing at romantic partners, if only because he had no clue of their actual relationship and feared that they were in fact actually related.
“Miss Lacie,” he said, bowing in her direction, because even now, a year into exile and his temper worse than ever, Elliot wasn’t really a fan of disrespecting women—and also because he’d once seen her rip a man’s heart out of his chest with her bare hands for speaking to her rudely, and Elliot rather liked his heart where it was, even if it was broken by his own damned actions.
“Hello, Elliot,” she said. “Are you on a job at the moment?”
Elliot shook his head. “I just need to pick up some food at the market,” he said. “How about you? And where’s your other half?”
“Oh, I haven’t spoken to Nii-sama in years,” she said, half-laughing. “Levi and I have a job offer for you, though, if you're interested.”
“I don’t do your kind of jobs,” he snapped, beginning to turn away.
“Oh—no, this isn’t one of our jobs,” she said. “Actually, it’s something neither of us can do at all. Levi’s son has run away from home, you see, and we only just heard of it—and he absolutely hates Levi, so we can’t go after him ourselves.”
“If I had a father like Levi, I’d run away too,” said Elliot. “Why’re you running around conning people if you’ve got a kid back home? —Also, you know I’ve been exiled. I can’t go back there.”
“Don’t worry, our sources say he’s left the country as a whole,” said Lacie. “Something about Nii-sama dropping the ball on keeping control of my ex, who ended up taking control of Levi’s son’s boyfriend’s mind and making him nearly murder Levi’s son—and then when he learned that his boyfriend had been mind-controlled into it and hadn’t actually been trying to murder him, he declared that he was going to fuck off and find his boy.”
Something in that seemed uncomfortably familiar, but Elliot did not chase down that particular path. Instead, he folded his arms and frowned and said, “So why me?”
“Well,” said Lacie, “for one, your competence with regards to little quests of this sort is truly excellent. For two, Levi and I trust you more than anyone else who might be hired to hunt him down, because of the aforementioned issues with my ex. You are quite possibly the only option who isn’t one of that man’s pawns at the moment, especially because the boy is—shall we say—rather extremely politically useful back home.”
“That’s vague,” Elliot muttered.
“Ears are everywhere,” Lacie said seriously. “You’ve only had contact with Levi and I from back home—right?”
“Yeah,” said Elliot, “due to the whole, you know, I killed my whole entire fucking family and then tried to kill my boyfriend, too, for literally no fucking reason thing.”
“Yes, that.” A small smile perched on Lacie’s lips. “Have your memories of those events gotten clearer since we last spoke?”
Elliot shrugged, uncomfortable. “Sort of,” he said. “I mean—the earliest one was, like, five years ago now, so I don’t remember it hugely well, but it’s like—it’s not like my head’s empty around those parts anymore.”
“Exactly,” said Lacie. “It’s been a year and the damage done wasn’t too severe—you’re a trustworthy source to send after the boy. And I can assure you that Levi and I pay well. What do you say?”
Elliot looked at his horse, and his now somewhat weather-beaten and ragged belongings, and his honestly pretty shitty sword. “...How well is well?” he said.
“Enchanted steel,” said Lacie, and then— “Custom enchanted steel, forged specifically for you and your needs.”
Elliot whistled. Even as the pampered youngest son of Nightray, he’d never gotten a custom enchanted sword. “You care a lot about this,” he said.
“I do,” Lacie said. “There’s a good deal riding on it. Do you accept?”
Elliot thought about it, but in the end, a custom enchanted sword was a custom enchanted sword. He agreed, and Lacie smiled as though she knew something he didn’t.
“Follow me,” she said. “We’ll visit the blacksmith first, and then you can be on your way.”
“You’re paying me up front ?” Elliot said, boggled. He had not thought Lacie the type—especially when the payment was as valuable as an enchanted weapon. He guessed you learned something new every day, though.
“Of course,” said Lacie. “Part of the enchantment is to guard you against any and all forms of magical control. It wouldn’t be safe to send you after the boy otherwise. And—there are certain debts involved.”
“Debts?” Elliot echoed.
“Yes,” said Lacie. She did not explain further as she began walking down the street, and Elliot led his horse after her, buzzing with anticipation over the new sword and deeply confused as to why she was offering this—and where Levi was. He had never before seen the one without the other, but Levi had not once shown his face during the conversation—even though it was his son that Elliot had been commissioned to find, and he’d probably be able to give Elliot more information on him than Lacie could, since Elliot wasn’t fool enough to assume that just because the child was Levi’s, Lacie had borne him.
He got no answers to these questions, though, the whole walk to the strangely empty blacksmith’s, and he didn’t get any more answers there, either, though he got a sword enchanted to protect him from any and all enchantment, and to never rust or grow dull, and to clean itself, and to restore the lost memories of anyone its blade cut, and to be able to teleport anyone holding the hilt of the blade when it had been bathed in fresh blood. Lacie handed him the blade—the finest steel Elliot had ever seen, still glimmering with fresh magic, worth at least as much as everything in the king’s vaults put together—and looked at him, her red eyes critical.
“Are you satisfied?” she said.
“I think I’m actually sexually aroused by this sword,” Elliot squeaked. “It’s—the coolest thing ever!”
“So you don’t require new books,” said Lacie, “or new clothing and supplies, or money, or anything else?”
“How fucking dangerous is this kid?” said Elliot. “This sword alone is worth an entire fucking kingdom. What the hell is going on here?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Lacie, producing an enchanted gemstone from the chain around her neck, “and please just say you’re satisfied with everything into this gem, without mentioning that I hired you.”
Suspicion that had been quashed by custom enchanted sword began to squiggle back into Elliot’s chest. “What the fuck,” he said, “why?”
“It’s no reason,” said Lacie. “Just part of the job.”
Elliot looked at the sword—the beautiful, fine, custom enchanted sword—and, reluctantly, handed it back to Lacie. “Yeah, fuck this,” he said. “I’m out. There’s no way this isn’t going to end badly for me.”
She handed the sword right back to Elliot. “It’s your sword now,” she said. “All I need you to do is say that you’re satisfied into this—”
“Look, this was already too much payment for just looking for a runaway kid, and now you’re offering to buy me books and clothes and supplies for the road?!” Elliot screeched. “This is a scam! You’re scamming me somehow and I’m going to end up dead or in prison!”
The gem around Lacie’s neck began to glow, and she swore. “Look,” she said, “just say you’re satisfied or ask me for—”
“No, I told you, I’m not taking the job,” Elliot said. “No way in hell you’d offer this much unless there was a serious danger you aren’t telling me about. I wish you the best of luck in finding Levi’s runaway kid, honest I do, but—”
The chain around her neck began glowing now, red-hot, and Elliot realized that he’d never seen this particular necklace on Lacie before. Her hand shot to her throat, and she screamed, the scent of burning flesh filling the still-empty blacksmith’s shop. As the necklace burned into her throat, she dropped to one knee, gasping and screaming, bracing herself against the doorframe. Elliot swore, and then removed the dagger from his boot and—like an idiot—began attempting to saw through the chain of the necklace.
It burnt his fingers badly, but he was able to get the blade through and drop both the necklace and the now-ruined knife on the floor, where he and Lacie stared at them, panting, her hands still on her burned neck.
“What the fuck, ” said Elliot, “have you gotten me into?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Lacie said grimly, her voice hoarse, as she picked herself up. “For now—take the sword and come with me. Levi’s life is in legitimate danger.”
“What the fuck, ” said Elliot. “What’s going on?!”
“In the shortest of all possible terms,” said Lacie, “time has been rewritten. You and I are supposed to be dead—executed for treason—and my eldest son is supposed to be being happily fostered by Oscar Vessalius, and Leo Baskerville, not Gilbert Nightray, is meant to be the Crown Prince, and Levi is supposed to be on the run from his many ridiculous debts incurred in whorehouses worldwide—though that last part is still happening, actually, but the debts are all wrong.”
“Gilbert—Nightray?” Elliot echoed.
“Yes,” said Lacie. “Your older brother—or, he used to be, in the original timeline. I believe he’s younger than you now, actually. Time got—squashed, rather, and he used to be a rather formidable threat.”
“...How did time get changed around?” said Elliot. “Or squashed, to use your language? And what does that have to do with that necklace you had on?”
“Nothing to do with the necklace,” said Lacie. “That was—insurance from somebody who stumbled upon the change in the timeline…the hard way, we should say. And believe me, if I knew who’d messed with time I’d already be far closer to getting it back in its proper place. But until then—Well.” She waved her arm around them. “You see the results.”
Elliot frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Elliot,” said Lacie, “did you really think that this blacksmith was completely closed in the middle of the day for no reason?”
“Honestly, I thought you bribed the blacksmith to step out while you made the sword, or something,” said Elliot. “I didn’t really think about it.”
“Think about it now,” said Lacie. “—Elliot. When was the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me or Levi?”
“Well—I—I take commissions to defend the towns all the time—”
“Yes,” said Lacie, “but have you spoken to any people when you did so? What were the people like? Describe them to me.”
Elliot opened his mouth to do so, and then paused. No identifying characteristics were forthcoming, though he was dead certain he’d interacted with dozens, maybe even hundreds of people over the past year, all things considered.
“Exactly,” said Lacie. “What about where we are? What’s the name of the country we’re in.”
“It’s—” Elliot began, and then closed his mouth, something cold curdling in his chest. “What the fuck. What the fuck. ”
“The lands of Yura,” said Lacie. “That’s what this country used to be known as. Now there’s nothing here but—memories.”
“Why?” said Elliot.
“Who can say? Maybe whoever rewrote time didn’t care enough to put anything here. Maybe they didn’t know enough. Maybe they purposefully wanted it gone…though that I seriously doubt, since Levi and I have been operating unnoticed here for quite some time now—such as it is.” Lacie smiled, somewhat bitterly. “As have you. And—as you’re supposed to be dead, and supposed to be ignorant of the changes to the timeline—I’ve given you that sword and am to offer you any other assistance I can until we split up at the city. —That’s where Levi and I will reunite, and you’ll be free to do as you please as far as I’m concerned.”
Elliot frowned. “So why the cock-and-bull story about Levi’s runaway kid?” he said. “I mean, what’s the point of it all?”
“Honestly? That was just for fun,” said Lacie, “and to make a quick buck off the unhinged idiot who gave me a bag of gold for your safe delivery and living expenses. That’s all.”
“Oh, if that’s all, ” Elliot muttered. He stood, and gave the mangled, cursed necklace a solid kick across the room. “Well, you owe me a new dagger. Also, if you got a whole fucking bag of real live gold for my living expenses, I want fresh goddamn food and to be sleeping in inns the whole way to the city.”
“And this is why I fed you the story about hiring you to find Levi’s son,” said Lacie, “though—everything I said about him was true. I just don’t need you to go hunt him down.”
“Best lies have a grain of truth in them,” Elliot agreed, following Lacie out of the empty blacksmith’s shop and leading his horse down the street after her. “Hey—are you related to the Vessalius family, by any chance?”
“I might have had a child with one of them, but I’m not entirely sure,” said Lacie.
“Not entirely sure?” said Elliot. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, one day I woke up and found myself pregnant,” she said shortly. “When I gave birth, the child bore a strong resemblance to the Vessalius family, though he’d inherited my talents for magic, right down to the eyes. I cut off my ex, another member of the Vessalius family, and Oscar Vessalius, the second son and the only one of the lot who I knew for a fact couldn’t have been the father, elevated to duke and had him foster the boy. In the end, it was the right move—he and Oscar adore each other, and I…couldn’t have been the mother he needed. But that is the extent of my relation to that family.”
“That’s…shit,” said Elliot. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“Thank you,” said Lacie. She began walking a little quicker down the street. “We should keep moving. The sooner we get to the city, the better—for all of us, but for my wallet specifically.”
“The person who put the cursed necklace on you—” Elliot started.
“Uninvolved,” said Lacie. “And the necklace wasn’t even too cursed. You saw how easy it was to remove, didn’t you? One cut with that cheap knife of yours—”
“Way more than one cut,” said Elliot.
“It was still a mundane and honestly incredibly poorly-made blade,” said Lacie. “That little curse was nothing—believe me. And I don’t begrudge a scared teenager his bad curses, anyway. At the moment, the only enemies on either of our trails are Levi’s creditors, and those guys are nothing you should be worrying about.”
“...Alright,” said Elliot, and then, “If there’s anyone you need me to kill for you—”
“That’s very sweet of you,” Lacie told him, “but I can commit my own murders, thank you very much.”
Elliot nodded—he’d definitely seen as much, an upsetting number of times—and continued following her through the countryside, pressing his thumb to his new sword’s blade and letting his blood bubble up along with the horrible, painful memory of killing his family, of trying and failing to kill Leo. It seemed as though they rode for a few days, staying in inns when they could and eating good, hearty food, but Elliot noticed that whenever those encounters were over he couldn’t quite fix the features of the people he’d spoken to in his memory.
“Stop looking for that, then,” Lacie told him when he complained of it to her. “This country has been—destroyed—but for everyday activity, everything keeps on going as per usual. You’ll only damage it and the time its in more poking holes in everything.”
This was easier said than done, but when they finally entered the city, still a bustling hub of activity, and Lacie bought Elliot a far nicer dagger than the one he’d ruined on her cursed necklace, he noticed that it was easier to forget—or to not notice—the opacity of the world he was in, and to interact with it as though everything was wholly normal.
“That’s that, then,” Lacie said as they left the market. “Well, Elliot, I wish you the best of luck w—”
“Elliot!”
Elliot froze upon hearing the familiar voice—turned, a half-forgotten instinct bubbling joy up in him even as his new memories of attacking Leo with his bare hands and with his sword doused icy dread to melt it. He did not have time to push through and sort his emotions, though, because only seconds after he heard Leo scream his name, his arms were full of warm teenager—Leo, his hair shaggy and shorter than Elliot was used to—and then, barely a second later, Elliot shoved Leo away and scrambled backwards, trying to get away before whatever had overtaken him last time came back and he tried to kill Leo again.
“—Elliot…?” said Leo, faltering, though he still grabbed Elliot’s arm to keep him from running away. “Do you—know me?”
Elliot used his free arm to throw his sword as far away from Leo as he could, and started working to kick off his boot to get his new dagger away, because he didn’t think that he could extract his arm from Leo’s grip without hurting his—ex. “Yes, of course I know you, stupid—stay back, I don’t want to hurt you!”
Leo’s grip, somehow, tightened. “You won’t hurt me—”
“I did—!” Elliot shouted. “I don’t—know why, I just—I couldn’t control it, and I forgot, and it just happened and you let me and you need to get away from me before I hurt you again!”
“No!” Leo shouted back.
“Do it, Leo, I swear to God—”
“You can’t order me around, you’re an exile!”
“Fucking watch me!” Elliot shouted, trying to tug his arm away. “I could have killed you !”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t!” Leo yelled. “And I had to watch you get fucking hung for it, so—”
“Do I look fucking hung to you!”
“Well, not right now, you’ve got your pants on,” said Leo, and, despite himself, Elliot laughed.
Leo grinned, and his grip on Elliot’s wrist loosened, and Elliot took advantage to tear his arm away and scramble off once more. He was not one for running away from things—that was more Oz’s purview (how did he know that? The boy he knew as Oz wouldn’t know agency if it hit him in the face)—but a year in exile had left him in good shape, and he was quicker than he used to be. Leo swore, and gave chase, and the two teenagers darted around the city until they were both well out of breath and Elliot had successfully rid himself of any and everything that he could use as a weapon to hurt Leo.
“Stop it, Elliot, you idiot,” Leo shouted after him as they ran. “Did you take your fucking shoes off—what the shit—”
“They’re steel-toed boots!”
“You paranoid fucking idiot!” Leo screeched. “You were mind-controlled! That’s why you fucking did it! You were mind-controlled! You’re not mind-controlled anymore, so—”
“And how do we know that for sure, huh?!” Elliot shouted, stopping in his tracks and whirling around to face Leo. “How do we know?! I had—no idea—until right fucking now there was any mind control going on, so—”
Leo threw Elliot’s new enchanted sword at him. “Because of this, dumbass!” he shot back. “I had Lacie enchant it specifically to protect you from mind control—and anyway, we get into fights all the time, so what are you so worried about?”
“Permanently injuring you, or killing you!”
“Three days after we met I hit you over the head with a bookcase so hard you went into a coma,” said Leo, “and I think you actually got stupider like permanently.”
“That’s fine!” snapped Elliot. “The problem comes when I’m hurting you permanently!”
“Weren’t you the one who bitched for three days about how unfair double standards are?”
“That’s different!”
“Oh? How so?”
“Because—because I tried to fucking kill you, ” said Elliot. “I actually, legitimately tried to kill you— and I killed my siblings, and my parents—and I don’t even remember all of that—and—”
“Actually, Prince Vincent killed your father, your uncle, and your brother Fred,” said Leo. “That was a frame job. You only killed Claude, Ernest, Vanessa, and your mother.”
“Oh, like that’s so much better!”
“I think it is,” said Leo. “For one, it’s four instead of seven.”
“Five instead of eight,” Elliot corrected. “I almost killed you, too.”
Leo shrugged. “I’ve almost killed you before,” he said. “Tit for tat?”
“No! This isn’t—look, you weren’t trying to kill me then, so it doesn’t count. Also, who cares about comas. Also, we have healing magic for a reason you fucking idiot. Also, my brother came home to look after me, and that was really nice, so—”
Wait. Which brother had it been? Waking up to find his older brother at his bedside, shifty and uncomfortable under the weight of the Nightray family’s disapproval but still there, staying with Elliot, stroking his hair until he fell back asleep and remaining in the house until Elliot had fully recovered—who had that been? It couldn’t have been Fred—he was away at work at the time, had shown up once or twice but left after Elliot was awake. It couldn’t have been Ernest or Claude—they were always around, until they died, and it was their mocking disapproval of the existence of Elliot’s older brother that had bowed his shoulders so. It certainly couldn’t have been Vanessa, who was his sister and who had suggested that killing the brother in question might be a fun afternoon pastime. So—who had it been?
“So—”
“What, it’s fine because you were pampered afterwards?” Leo mocked.
“No! That’s not at all what I meant!”
“What did you mean, then?”
“That—I—I’ll fuck your mom!”
“Good luck with that, she’s as dead as she ever was.”
“Yeah, uh, dead people don’t come back, not really,” said Elliot. “Necromancy’s a really dick move, Leo.”
“You died!” said Leo. “You died, and I watched you die, and now you’re standing right here in front of me.”
“I didn’t die,” said Elliot. “Not even once in my entire life have I ever died. Probably they hanged someone who just looked like me.”
“No,” said Leo. “I don’t think that’s what happened. It wasn’t—an accident, what happened to you, to your family. Somebody made you commit serial murder, and they made you try to kill me, and then you—you died, you were hanged for it but you were also exiled, somehow, and I—I remember both events and I don’t know fucking why, I don’t know what’s fucking happening, but I will not lose you again !”
“And what if you endanger yourself!” Elliot screamed back. “Do you really think I want to watch you die any more than you want to watch me kick it, you complete fucking loser!”
“Your mother is a loser and I fucked her last night!” Leo yelled. “And yes, I am fully aware that she’s dead!”
“Yeah, and I killed her! And I don’t want to kill you too!”
“You won’t!” Leo yelled. “The world is insane and broken and nobody stays goddamn dead anymore, and as long as you’ve got that sword nobody can take control of you and force you to kill me! So take a fucking chill pill and stop running away!”
“And what if you’re wrong?!”
“In the however the fuck long we’ve known each other,” yelled Leo, “when have I ever been wrong?!”
“Literally at least three times a week!”
“Then stick around and tell me that, dickhole!”
“I’m telling you that right now!” Elliot shrieked.
One of his own discarded steel-toed boots flew across the avenue and hit Elliot in the face, sending him stumbling back; the next projectile, his scabbard, knocked him to the ground.
“No!” Leo yelled, striding over to him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, and lifting him up so that they were nose-to-nose. “You’re being a damned coward, Elliot Nightray, and I’ve never known you to be a coward before.”
“If your life is on the line then maybe cowardice is worth it,” Elliot hissed. “If your life is on the line then I’ll damn myself, make myself a hypocrite, but I won’t let you die! And I won’t die either, you stupid idiot, so—”
“But you would!” Leo shouted, half in tears. “You would die for me—I know you would—for me, for Oz, for both of us—you would die for us, if there was no other option—and don’t you know we would die for you too?!”
“I’ve literally never died for anybody!” Elliot shouted. “And since when did fucking Oz have anything to do with anything?! That idiot can’t even remember his own name half the time—”
“I don’t know, but in the time when you were killed, he was engaged to—me, I think, or maybe you, I don’t remember clearly at all, and—and you died for both of us. We all loved each other. And I know you’d do it again, you dickhead—even if I don’t know how I’ve got this—this vague other set of memories, I know you’d pull the exact same bullshit as you did then!”
“Lacie…said that time had been ‘squashed’,” Elliot said slowly. “Do you think—that might be why you remember those things maybe?”
“Lacie Baskerville ?! Her Highness, the Traitor Princess?!”
“No, the Traitor Princess was beheaded over a decade ago, you dumbass,” said Elliot. “I’m talking about a conwoman I know. She runs around with her—friend Levi scamming people out of shit. I have no idea what their relationship is to each other, I’ve asked three times and I got siblings, lovers, and father and daughter, so I’ve stopped asking at this point. She was the one who got me to come to this city, actually, apparently she and Levi are scamming Levi’s estranged kid or something. I helped her out with it a bit, I watched her literally rip a guy’s heart out of his chest once and do not want to get on her bad side.”
“Yeah,” Leo sighed, “that’s the Traitor Princess, then. Apparently alive and with her head totally intact. —Levi is my father, the former king. He’s also supposed to be dead, but at least with him it’s more of a he faked his death thing rather than another damn botched execution. ”
“Wait, they’re scamming you?! I’m going to go kick their asses.”
“You’re acting like Edgar,” said Leo, which was the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to Elliot before in his whole entire life.
“How the fuck am I acting like Edgar?! Edgar sucks fucking shit!”
“You’re going off to do something stupid that’s totally going to get you killed while hoping for the happiness of those you love—me and Oz—and not thinking at all about how that’s going to affect us.”
“Oz doesn’t remember I exist anymore, probably,” said Elliot. “It’s been over a year and he has oatmeal for brains. Also why the fuck do you keep bringing him up.”
“I don’t know, ” said Leo, “it’s just—there’s something there. The three of us were something to each other, and it was something important. I don’t know when or why or how, but—and anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, listen to what you say about others and apply it to yourself, you nutjob. I know your brains are rocks, but you could at least get what you say through your thick skull, okay?!”
“Look—I—well—I’ve been exiled anyway, so I can’t go back with you, so fuck off!”
“Who said I was ever going back?” said Leo. “I’ve left. I’ve left, Elliot, and I want to stay with you. I know I’m not your valet anymore, but you wouldn’t deny me something I want, would you?”
As an heir to the throne, Leo had had to spend a few years in service to one of the noble families. Nobody in the Nightray family had known that the orphan boy Elliot had gotten into a fistfight with was in actuality a prince, and so a lot of them had treated Leo like absolute shit, but in that time both Elliot and Leo had learned that, if Leo asked or needled or teased in just the right way, Elliot would do anything for Leo, right down to scullery chores. Now, Leo smiled just like he had back then, and his eyes—beautiful eyes, kingly eyes—glittered and then softened to pleading kitten eyes, and Elliot gritted his teeth and bravely, bravely held out for all of three seconds before he looked away and muttered, “Fine, I’ll stop avoiding you.”
“I knew you’d come to your senses,” Leo said, and pulled Elliot up to kiss him on the mouth, and, in that moment, Elliot had no idea why he’d stayed away from Leo for so long in the first place.