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"Do you know what my power is?" Verus says.
When they met, Paris would have said he did. It was the first question Verus asked him, four years ago in Circe's jail for sorcerers, though answering seemed risky where someone like Verus was concerned. Sorcerers are rare, though; at the time, the inmates were just Paris and two minor magicians, so minor that they couldn't even part the veil, who talked all day like he might actually be interested in what they had to say. He really wasn't. He was interested in a jailbreak, though, more and more as more time passed, and they did come in handy for that. Yes, so the inmate count went down to nil in one fell swoop and only one man actually left, but he's not sure Circe wasn't planning their deaths anyway. She's one of the good guys, he supposes, technically speaking, but that doesn't mean that she's not somewhat unpredictable.
He doesn't remember those other inmates' names now, but he does remember Verus's. Verus whose power everybody knows, or at least everybody thinks they do: when people speak to him, they tell the truth. All you have to do to keep that from happening is not speak, and everybody knows it. It really shouldn't be difficult. Somehow, in the end, it always is.
"Do you know what my power is?" Verus says.
His eyes are so dark they look black in the moonlight. They look like all the stars reside in them, not in the sky above him. Paris knows he's made a mistake.
"No," Paris says. "I don't."
---
When he did the thing he did and had to pay the price for it, Verus wasn't his first choice for a saviour.
What he did first was try to make a deal to get out of it. He'd made a pact with a spirit on the far side of the veil, like he'd done so many times before; it's perhaps not how he got his power, because that's something he was born with, but it's how he's increased it over the years. Fulfilling the pact should have been simple, and theoretically it was, but even sorcerers have off days and so the bill came due. He owed his soul. And the one tiny issue he found with going over that spirit's head, making some new pact with some higher power, was the fact that he had nothing left to barter with. His immortal soul was already forfeit, after all.
The next thing he did was research. The first gift he'd asked for, the first pact he'd made, had been to grant him superhuman intelligence, so he'd outsmart the superheroes; the second had been the means by which to apply it, and apparently that meant being a superhuman researcher. He had access to the greatest libraries the world had ever known, and also not known, but nothing he found showed him even a hint a way out. The spirit had given him nine days to put all his affairs in order, and he'd already wasted four of them. So, that was when he swallowed his pride and went to Circe.
"I can't help you," she told him.
"You mean you can't or you won't?" he asked.
She looked at him. She was leaning over a cauldron, which really added to the effect of the rejection, or would have if she hadn't been wearing a t-shirt with Darth Vader on it and the chat app on her PC across the room hadn't been pinging her every twenty seconds. Of course, her specialisms are herbs and technology, the latter of which might as well be magic as far as some of her teammates are concerned, so Paris supposes it follows.
"I mean I can't," she replied. "You made a deal. Which was stupid, by the way. Seriously, who bargains with their soul?"
"Apparently I do." He sighed. He held his arms out wide. "Is there anyone who can help? I don't actually want to live in torment for eternity, you know. I might be willing to beg."
She shrugged. She dipped a spoon into the cauldron and tasted whatever it was she was brewing, which smelled quite nice but looked like a portal to a hell dimension; it's really quite difficult to tell the difference where Circe is concerned sometimes. She offered the spoon to him, cupping her hand underneath in case the livid purple liquid spilled, and he tried not to look alarmed as he shook his head. Though honestly, death by witch's brew before the spirit could take him was looking more and more appealing as every second passed.
"There's only one person I can think of," she told him.
"And that is...?"
"Can I ask why I should tell you?"
"Because you're a very good person?"
She scoffed. He made a face to concede the point. He wasn't sure she'd ever been good.
"Because we more than likely share a common ancestor and you have warm fuzzy feelings for family?" he said next.
"You know, I think we come from different branches of the tree."
He sighed. "Because I'll owe you one," he said. Reluctantly.
She smiled. It was toothy. You'd have thought she was descended from Lykaon, to be honest, not Helios or Hecate.
"You know, if your soul doesn't get eaten bit by bit until the end of time, that might actually be worth something," she said.
"So you'll tell me?"
She stirred the cauldron. She used the spoon to point to the door that wasn't really a door, which he'd left open because he'd known he wouldn't be there long. It wasn't like spirits could just come waltzing through the veil, after all, and where Circe was concerned there was always a possibility he'd need to make a quick exit.
"Talk to Verus," she said. "He's the only one that can help." And when he tried to protest that was the stupidest thing that he'd heard in his life, why Verus of all people, she just raised her eyebrows at him as she licked the spoon.
"Get out before I lock you up again," she said.
"Not that it would last for long," he muttered. "I've got less than five days left."
"Then you'd better get going."
He supposed he better had.
---
The place where Verus lives is completely unassuming: it's a small flat in the middle of London, above a vintage clothes shop that's popular with students. There's a decent Chinese takeaway down the street, and a pub that does a perfectly acceptable version of a Sunday lunch, not that Paris was expecting to see Sunday. He just really, really wanted to, and if Verus could help then he might treat him to a pint. He might even remember his wallet.
He made his way round the back of the shop and up the steps by the wheelie bins. Verus was leaning forward on the low wall at the top with his long hair in a long plait hanging down over his shoulder, like he was waiting for him. That was probably for the best, he thought: the last time he'd turned up at night, the neighbourhood watch had started sending burglar alerts till Verus had sighed and called him an old friend. Verus maybe couldn't lie, so maybe it was true.
"Circe mentioned you'd be coming," Verus said.
Paris didn't mention that he'd only just left Circe's place and the veilside time lag wasn't usually that bad; it's the quicker way to travel, if you're not tempted by the gifts the spirits offer on the way. Usually, popping back out in the local Tube station was actually more dangerous than the trip was, given proximity to the platform as a train went by, but things over the other side had started to look...hungry. Still, probably Circe had sent Verus a message on the superhero WhatsApp or some ridiculous thing while Paris had been on his way. Gods, the two of them made him feel old.
"Can you help me or not?" Paris asked him.
Verus shrugged. He stood up straight and swept his plait back over his shoulder. "Well, she didn't tell me what the problem was," he said. "You might want to start with that." Then he opened the door to his flat and he waved him inside behind him.
So, he sat down on Verus' sofa and he explained it all again: the pact he'd made, believing he'd fulfil it; the fact he most definitely hadn't done, meaning his payment was due. The fact he didn't think the thing he'd made the pact with was going to sit him down for tea and scones, unless he was the tea and scones. Then he said, "So, can you help or not?"
"Probably."
"Will you?"
"Maybe."
"You're reluctant?"
Verus smiled faintly. "Well, you did call me the most pointless superhero."
"I mean, you are. You can't fly. Where are the laserbeam eyes?"
"So why come to me?"
"Circe said you could help."
"Do you know why that is?"
"No clue at all."
"But you believed her?"
"Frankly, I'm too desperate not to."
Verus paused. He eyed him from across the living room while he was flicking through a stack of takeaway menus. "Let me think about it," he said.
"Oh, yes, do take your time," Paris replied. "It's not like we're on a schedule." Verus raised his eyebrows at him. Paris rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know, sarcasm's the lowest form of wit. Don't be awkward, Verus."
"That's not what I was going to say," Verus told him. But he didn't tell him what he had been going to say, so in the end it didn't matter.
Verus treated him to pizza from a place that also did kebab, which didn't exactly feel much like a treat. They sat in deathly silence while the television played a midweek repeat of Strictly Come Dancing, but neither of them seemed particularly interested in the Cha-Cha-Cha. Then Verus looked at him and asked, "Are you planning to stay until I've made up my mind?"
"Yes, actually," Paris replied. "This might come as a surprise, my continued existence is quite important to me."
"Were you planning to stay here?"
"You know, I seem to have left my bank card in my other trousers." Verus frowned, as if the concept of a sorcerer not having cash on hand to pay for an overpriced London hotel was entirely beyond him, but he supposed he was a bit that way sometimes. As if his ridiculous superhero team spent a lot of time counting coppers for coffee. Paris sighed. "Yes, I was planning to stay here."
Verus looked at him. He was maybe twenty-seven years old by then, which seemed like a lifetime ago to Paris - or maybe just last week - now that he was forty-two. He'd spent so long beyond the veil that time seemed sort of...stretchy. But Verus looked at him, and he said, "Do you know what my power is?"
It was a familiar question. Verus had asked him more than once, back in Circe's jail, and his answer had never changed. "Yes," he said. "Obviously. You make people tell the truth."
Verus smiled again. "That's part of it," he said. "When you figure it out, you'll know why Circe sent you here." Which sounded ominous, honestly, but Paris has had a long time to get used to things a lot more ominous than that. More ominous still was that when Verus stood up from the sofa and turned off the TV, he didn't say anything else. Paris had to ask where he was meant to sleep.
"There's only one bed," Verus told him, as something in the back of Paris's head seemed to itch a bit. "I expected you'd sleep on the sofa."
"Don't you have a spare room?" he replied.
"It's a one-bed flat," Verus replied, though Paris could've sworn there'd been two at some point. "I'm not made of money. We're in the middle of London, you're lucky I've got space for you to stay at all." He tilted his head. He narrowed his eyes at him. "Unless you're saying you want to share the bed?"
Paris sighed. He set his jaw. He shook his head, and he didn't answer, so Verus left him sitting there. Probably they both knew what that meant.
The only way to avoid telling the truth was not to speak to him. Paris was a little out of practice.
---
Time passed rather quickly.
There were herbs on the dim windowsill behind Verus's kitchen sink; he was whispering to them in the morning when Paris came in to find himself some coffee like he thought that was going to help it grow. He stopped whispering abruptly. They were very green herbs for a flat that never saw the sun.
Verus went out to the local shop to pick up something they could actually eat while Paris had a shower and borrowed some of Verus's clothes, because apparently packing hadn't been high on the agenda when working out how to make his escape from immortal service of a god-spirit's whims. Verus seemed to understand because when he came back in, he just raised his eyebrows at the too-long jeans he'd turned up at the ankles and the t-shirt that was a size too big, but he didn't say a word about it. It wasn't like they looked too out of place, after all.
When they'd met, Paris had been wearing a ridiculous green velveteen tracksuit that Circe had apparently found perfect for her prison, probably because it made Paris look like an idiot. It had felt nice, on the other hand, so it hadn't been a dead loss, but then Verus had walked in wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of hiking boots that had seen a lot of wear. He's never really looked much like his bright-costumed colleagues, like Zephyr and Aurora; he dresses a lot more like Paris always does. Back then, though, Verus had mostly looked young. Early twenties, long hair in a messy bun, quiet, unassuming. They'd sent him for the interviews.
For the first nine days, who knew why it was always nine that broke him, Paris didn't say a thing. He sat in his sad little cell with its sad little window he couldn't see out of, with its rubbish futon on the floor because apparently Circe was a hipster, and he looked at Verus who looked at him, and he said nothing. He looked at Verus, who just sat there cross-legged on a beanbag outside the bars of Paris's cell, which was maybe the most Circe thing of all. Verus asked questions that Paris didn't answer, do you know what my power is? like that was something people didn't know, but that only lasted for the first two days before he faded into silence. Unbearable, unending silence.
Then, day ten, he said, "Why Verus?"
Verus looked at him, like he somehow wasn't surprised that he'd finally spoken. "It's what Zephyr called me," he replied.
"But why?"
"He said it means true. He says he learned Latin at school."
"He says. What, you don't believe him? He's such a fine, upstanding citizen. Everybody's hero. He's even got a cape."
"I'm just telling you what I know. I know he said he did."
"So you really can't lie."
But all Verus did was smile at that, oddly, and then they faded back to silence.
"Why Paris?" Verus asked him, the next day.
"Because it's my name," Paris replied, because it wasn't like that wasn't public knowledge anyway. "My parents taught Classics. You know who Paris was?"
"Yes."
"So you know about Troy? Helen? Achilles? The apple of Discord? Aphrodite?"
"Yes."
"You know the apple's real?"
Verus smiled. He looked so different when he smiled, less serious, maybe even younger. He looked lit up in a way that couldn't be washed out by the terrible lighting in Circe's jail, but Paris was half surprised she hadn't just used strings of fairy lights.
"Yes," he said, "I know that." And for a second, Paris wasn't sure how to respond. People usually disagreed with him when he said that, no matter the overwhelming evidence. People liked to believe what they wanted to. Easy things. Heroes. Superheroes.
"And you know about the gods?"
"That they're real? Yes, I know that."
"How?"
Verus shrugged. "When you're not trying to end the world, you make a lot of sense to me," he said. "You say they're our ancestors. You say they're the reason we have powers, but that they only seemed to activate once in every few generations. It makes sense to me." Then he frowned. "Why do you do it? Try to end the world, I mean."
Paris knew he was trying to catch him in a trap, or at least get one question knocked off the interview list. But he told him, "Why not? Your friends always stop me."
Verus paused. He studied him through the magic bars of the magic prison. "They have so far," he said. "I don't know if they always will."
"That's alarming."
"It should be." He shook his head. He shook it off. And the odd conversations continued.
They talked about the gods in the days that followed, about how they'd never been benevolent, how they'd only become less so past the veil. They talked about that spark of the divine that gave them powers - Paris wondered aloud if Verus's powers came from Apollo, maybe Aletheia, but Verus wouldn't speculate. He said I don't know a lot, from what Paris could tell. He avoided straight answers, maybe because he couldn't tell a lie. It was strangely fascinating, honestly. Verus was, Paris thought.
Days turned into weeks, and Verus was still there. Paris called him the most useless superhero, because he really couldn't see much use for truth-telling; somehow it always seemed to work out in the end, of course, when Verus was involved, but Paris suspected that was really Zephyr or Aurora, maybe Circe when her heart was in it and not in a big bowl of noxious potion. But they talked more and more, for longer and longer. He found out Verus's mother had been from China, or so Verus had been told once, and when Paris asked why he hadn't just asked them for the truth, about who he was, about who his parents were, the conversation petered out. Turned out he had his sore points, too.
Weeks turned into months. The frequency of his visits started to decrease, but Verus still came by to talk, twice a week then once, then fortnightly, till it was down to once a month. Paris hated that he looked forward to it. To seeing him. To talking to him. To telling him things he didn't need to say but in the end, what did it matter if he did? His parents were dead and they had been for years. He'd always known that he was different, but active descendants of Hecate were few and far between; he'd almost been relieved when Circe had first shown her powers, but she hadn't been particularly interested in joining him, so now she was more like an annoying little sister. And he didn't understand why the most powerful people in the world were working with a man like Verus.
"Do you know what my power is?" he'd asked him, again, when he'd said that.
"Yes," he'd replied. "When you ask a question, people can't lie." He raised his eyebrows. "And neither can you."
Verus didn't only smile this time; he laughed. He bent double on the ridiculous pink beanbag and he laughed into his hands while Paris frowned at him, because he wasn't sure he'd said anything that funny. He asked, "Come on, am I really that far off?"
"I can lie," Verus told him. "I've always been able to lie." And something about the way he said it chilled Paris to the bone.
Months turned into years, and Verus kept on turning up. Circe changed the beanbag for an old-school piano stool that looked like something out of Paris's sixth-form music room, and Verus looked incredibly uncomfortable sitting on it, so he just sat down cross-legged on the floor instead until Circe brought the beanbag back. And every time, Paris asked himself if he was really pleased to see him or if this was just some strange kind of Stockholm syndrome. He liked to talk to him; he was well-read and intelligent, which didn't always go together. He liked to see him; he was six feet tall and moderately muscular underneath the trashy 90s rock band t-shirts that he liked to wear, apparently liked to swim and Paris would have liked to see that. Paris was shorter and thinner, blonde and pale and entirely unremarkable, except for the fact he'd almost ended life on Earth four times. Sometimes he tried to bring the gods back, but he didn't think he ever would. The irony was that demigods would be the ones that stopped him.
"Do you like me?" Verus asked him, sometime in the third year. The jail had been reconfigured around them at least twelve times by then, just to keep them on their toes, and that was the year that Circe had been reading too much fantasy; the back of the cell was open to the cliffside, with a hundred-foot drop to the river below. Of course, it was Circe, so it was all an illusion, but that didn't mean he wanted to fall. It was just odd that they only seemed to change when Verus came by.
"Yes," he replied, before he even thought about it. He winced, but Verus smiled that bright smile of his like everything would be alright. So he added, "I wish we'd met under better circumstances," but that turned Verus's smile into something sad.
"I would have liked that," he said. "Are you planning to escape?"
"Yes."
It might not have sounded like it, it might have seemed more like he'd been tricked into it, but he meant to answer the question and he meant to answer truthfully. He watched Verus bite his lip and frown at him, but it wasn't necessarily in disapproval. He just said, "If you ever bring them back, I'll kill you," and then he left it at that. Maybe he'd said he could lie, but Paris didn't think he was lying then. But he still felt a chill when Verus looked at him said, much quieter, "Please promise me you won't."
He considered it. He took a moment. "I promise," he said. He must have meant it.
Then, in the fourth year, he'd finally escaped. He'd used his fellow prisoners to feed the spirits, to pry open the veil and evade Circe's magic - she's always been stronger than he is, but he has more discipline. The first place he went to had been Verus's flat, in the night, while the neighbourhood watch had called his phone and told him there was someone trying to break in. So he'd come home and texted them that it was just an old friend who was visiting, but he hadn't invited him in. He'd just kissed him on the doorstep, like kissing him made sense somehow, then told him to go home. Honestly, stepping through the veil on the Tube station platform, alone and rather recently kissed, he hadn't quite known where home was. It had almost felt like Circe's jail, but in the end he'd gone back to Oxford. God, he hadn't been kissed like that in years.
Now here he was again, at Verus's flat, spending nights on Verus's sofa. He would've liked him to have kissed him again.
---
Day one ended with a pint in the pub where some of Verus's neighbours grilled Paris about his background, his politics, and then his favourite football team. He made up half his answers because his politics were nonsense if you didn't understand he was a sorcerer who'd tried to end the world on multiple occasions, and he really didn't like football. The part about his parents dying wasn't made up, though; he just omitted the part where that had mostly been his fault.
"I didn't mean to," he told Verus, on the way across the road back to the flat. "My parents. "It was the first time I opened the veil. We all went inside. Something took them. I never figured out what."
"But it didn't take you."
Paris smiled a wry smile, hoping it was too dark outside to see. "I made my first pact that night," he said. "I'd give it something that it wanted if it let me live." He held up his left hand; it was definitely light enough as they passed under a flickering streetlamp for Verus to see he was missing a finger. The little one was missing. "That was when I understood how careful I would have to be."
He didn't expect it, but as he dropped his hand, Verus caught him by the wrist. He rubbed the place where his little finger should have been like maybe he could give it back. Paris felt his face get hot, but he didn't pull his hand away.
Day two ended with a takeaway on the dining table, if you could tall a pull-down thing attached to the tiny kitchen's longest wall a table. It wasn't bad, though actually, Circe had sent them better food in jail - probably something to do with the herbs, and when he asked Verus if she was where he'd got the herbs that he kept by the sink, he told him that was true. He kept them alive, though, not her, because apparently she preferred her magic island to the middle of London. Once upon a time, Paris might have agreed with her, but London was starting to grow on him. Or at least one part of it was.
Then, when Verus went to his bedroom, Paris stretched out on the sofa. It wasn't comfortable. It had probably never been comfortable, and he was certain that it never would be. He could hear Verus moving around in his room, getting ready for bed, maybe undressing - he wasn't sure but he could imagine. He imagined a little too well, in the end, and found himself in the bathroom dealing with the result of that while feeling like the world's most disrespectful house guest. Not that he was really a guest when he'd basically invited himself, but he supposed the point still stood.
Day three ended with a walk sometime past midnight, when it was dark and cool and not so crowded on the streets outside. Their shoulders kept bumping together and when they paused on the bridge, looking over the river, Paris sighed and said, "You know, I've only got one day left. What are you going to do without me?"
Verus looked at him, in the moonlight. He caught one of his hands, the left one, fingertips brushing by that missing little finger.
"I don't know," he said. And maybe he'd said I don't know so many times over the years that it was almost something like a catchphrase, but the way he said it then...Paris understood. It made his chest feel tight. It made him take a step in closer.
"I don't want to die," he said.
"I don't want you to die, either," Verus replied.
"You don't have to let me."
And when it looked like Verus might say something else, Paris just leaned up and kissed him. It seemed like the right thing to do, or it did until Verus took him by the shoulders and held him there as he took a step back.
"I'm sorry," Verus said.
Paris's mouth twisted. He shrugged off Verus's hands. "It's fine," he replied. "I know I'm not the most stunningly attractive man on the face of the planet. You actually kind of are."
"It's not that." Verus made a face. "I find you attractive. It's just...you don't have to do that. It's not going to help make up my mind."
Paris sighed. "Good, because that's not why I did it."
"So why did you?"
He shrugged. "It's my last night on Earth," he said. "I wanted to do that at least once before I croak."
"At least?"
"More than that would be preferable."
"How much more?"
"You know, I don't actually know. I'd have to test the upper limit."
Verus laughed and they went back to the flat. Paris didn't sleep on the sofa. Honestly, as far as last nights went, it was kind of nice.
Now here they are again.
---
On the bridge by the river, Verus looks him in the eye.
"Do you know what my power is?" Verus asks, and Paris tells him, "No, I don't." Because he doesn't. All this time, he's only ever thought he did, and now he can feel the veil splitting with the force of the pact he made. He can feel it tearing, nearby, as something old and twisted, ravenous, prepares to take him to the dark. Circe sent him here, said the only one who could save him is this man, and somehow he believes that. If he believes that, then he doesn't know at all.
Maybe he finally understands it when Verus steps in close and says, "You're safe." The tear doesn't only mend; it's as if it never opened. Verus is not the useless superhero after all. Far from it.
"You saved me," Paris says. "You really can lie."
Verus chuckles. "Yes, I can," he says. "It's just not a lie for long. I have to be a bit careful."
He's never met anyone like Verus, Paris thinks, but he's living in a one-bed flat in London that maybe wasn't always that, with herbs on the windowsill it must take more than a green thumb to keep alive. And he's just saved Paris's life by saying it.
"Can we go back to yours?" Paris asks him. "I'll admit I'm considering ravishing you quite thoroughly." Because he honestly can't think of anywhere else that he'd rather be, if Verus is there. He wants to thank him properly, and not just with a pint at the pub after Sunday lunch. And then maybe, he thinks, he might want to stay.
After all, once upon a time he made a promise not to bring the gods back. But that doesn't mean there's not all kinds of other trouble for the two of them to get into.
Verus smiles. He takes his hand. They walk away together.