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“Why is he doing that?”
Elodie peered over at him, “Why is he doing what?”
Owain pointed, “He’s been standing like that for… at least twenty minutes.”
It did look odd. He had one leg stuck out, balancing on the other, his eyes shut tightly, tongue sticking out slightly in concentration. “No idea,” she said, sitting back down, a bundle of golden wunder climbing over her fingers like a tarantula.
“Should we ask him?”
“I mean,” she started sorting the wunder, weaving it into a dark piece of… something. It was still taking shape. “He looks busy.”
“Oh yeah,” they both jumped when they heard Mathilde speak. “He’s, ahem, trying to talk to his predecessors.”
Owain came to his senses first, “Sorry? That’s not-” he looked over at Elodie, who helpfully shrugged. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“It’s not,” she grinned. “But it’s pretty funny, right?”
“This was-” Elodie covered her mouth, clearly trying not to grin. “Your idea?” He was going to be so angry when he found out, and personally, she couldn’t wait to watch. Maybe she ought to get some Tempus practise in and make a looping Ghostly Hour of the thing, and watch it over and over whenever he annoyed her.
“My suggestion?” Mathilde’s eyes sparkled. “He’s believed me thus far though, please don’t ruin it.”
“We won’t,” he assured her, feeling the muscles in his throat and stomach struggle against his order not to laugh.
Owain was always the first one down to breakfast, then Ezra, then Elodie, then Odbuoy and the others after that, but when she and Owain made it down the stairs together. Ezra was already sitting at the breakfast table, glaring at his porridge as if he wanted to set it ablaze with his mind.
“Morning,” Elodie said, sitting down at her usual place. “May I have the paper?”
“I’m not done with it,” Ezra said flatly. He hadn’t even opened it. Owain wrinkled his nose. Apparently it was one of those days then where Ezra would snap and grumble and they got to put up with it.
Elodie rolled her eyes, and finished her breakfast with alacrity while Owain put up with the bowl that had obviously been at the bottom of the pot, mechanically spooning into his mouth, a method to stop feeling hungry more than to enjoy what he was actually eating.
Ezra dropped his spoon onto the table and shoved his chair back saying, “Excuse me.” before he was gone.
Owain waited until he could hear his footsteps going down the hall until he turned to Elodie, “Right, what is up with him?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s worse than usual, I think.”
“Maybe he had a bad dream?”
“There’s no reason to take that out on the rest of us.”
“No,” she agreed. “Maybe we could tell Brilliance?”
His jaw clenched, “We should talk to him first, maybe.”
“You can do the talking,” she put her spoon in her empty bowl and he gave up on his breakfast. “I am not getting my head bitten off by him this morning.”
He sighed, “Fine, fine. I can do the talking.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Elodie shouted at the closed door. “Can we come in?”
“No.”
She pushed the door open, “What about now?”
Ezra was scribbling at a bit of paper at the desk in his sitting room, “Fine.”
“Thank you,” Owain followed in behind her.
“Is this an intervention?”
“Do you need an intervention?” he clasped his hands. “We’re just here for… social reasons.”
“Both of you are being… odd.”
“You started it,” Elodie cracked her knuckles and both of them flinched.
“I hate that noise.”
“Me too,” Owain wrinkled his nose. “Must you?”
“It’s not essential,” she said. “But it will be if you don’t tell us why you’re being so grumpy?”
“It’s nothing,” he pinched the end of his nose. “Brilliance wants me to go to the meeting with the new Great Wolfacre government.”
She blinked, “You? Just you?” Why not us?
His jaw clenched, “Just me.”
“Because you’re from there?” Like that mattered? Owain was from the highlands and she from Prosper but it wasn’t as if either of them heard about it. Even thought about it very often. They were wundersmiths first and foremost. Everything else was secondary.
“Their new president requested it,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I would guess that it’s… yes, because I was born there.”
Owain’s jaw clenched, “Are you okay about it?”
“Does it matter?”
“ Yes!” Elodie threw her hands up in the air. “Obviously.” If he didn’t want to do it, he shouldn’t have to. They owed what they had to Nevermoor but that didn’t extend outside of their borders. If Ezra wanted to be selfish, she wasn’t here to stop him.
Ezra sighed, “I have no real issue about it.”
“But?”
“I don’t want to,” he picked up the piece of paper with notes on it - their weaving homework he hadn’t handed in yet, it looked like - and folded it over and over until it wouldn’t get any smaller, and then pulled it apart and started ripping it methodically, down the lines of each fold. “It’s juvenile, I know.”
“We could talk to Brilliance about it?” Owain offered.
“We?” He finished tearing the paper into shreds.
“Yes,” she said. “We’re coming with you.”
Brilliance frowned at the empty seat, “Does anyone know where Ezra is this morning?”
“He wasn’t at breakfast,” Elodie said. “We thought he was here already.”
She rubbed her eyes, “Alright, well, would one of you two mind-”
“I’ll go,” they both said in tandem.
Brilliance frowned, and then looked over at Odbuoy, “We can work on your weaving in the time being, I suppose.”
He grumbled briefly, but Elodie and Owain were already leaving, down the hall, “Maybe he slept in?”
“Maybe he’s trying to skip demonstrations today?”
“As if he would turn down a chance to show off,” Owain scoffed.
“True.”
Ezra was sitting up in bed when they walked in, his face shining, coughing into a handkerchief.
“You look terrible,” Owain said, staying at the door.
He tried to say something but only a strange croaking noise came out so he just gave him a rude hand gesture instead.
“Lovely,” she said. “We’ll go tell Brilliance.”
He made another choking noise and grabbed his covers like he was going to get out of bed, “I’ll freeze you if you try anything like that,” Owain said. “Lie back down.”
He did, grumbling, “Like I wouldn’t freeze you first.”
Owain snorted, “I’d like to see you try.”
“Fine.”
It was a Tuesday morning when Owain looked over at Elodie and said, “Why isn’t Ezra back yet?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought he was supposed to be back last night but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him this morning.”
“As if anyone wants to see his hide,” Owain snickered.
“Owain Binks,” said an imperious voice from the settee beside them. “You are twenty years old, act like it.”
They both jumped, having assumed Griselda to be napping. “Sorry ma’am,” he said.
She clicked her tongue, “If either of you must know, Ezra spoke to me on the Gossamer this morning. He will be staying in Great Wolfacre for another week to conduct business with them. Something about wunder as an energy source, I haven’t had all the details yet.”
“He’s spending a lot of time over there these days,” Elodie said. “I wonder if he’s even able to function in our time zone now.”
“He’s not, it’s just he’s nocturnal over there so you can’t tell when he’s here.”
She blinked a few times, “What?”
“I mean-” he waved his hand. “Whatever, we could probably call him though.”
She rubbed her eyes, “Later, I still have to finish my editing for this week. You’re so lucky you’re done with your dissertation.”
“I started before you did,” he said like it was obvious. “I’m older than you.”
“Are you five, perhaps.”
“That’s not- do you want help.”
She smiled and it was like the lights had come on in full force, “Yes please.”
“Ezra?” Elodie called, lifting up her hair with one hand and holding a necklace in the other. “Can you help me with this?”
“Can’t you do it yourself?”
She rolled her eyes, “Okay, fine.”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, and clasped the string of pearls shut across the back of her throat. “I don’t know why you’re trying so hard for this though. It’s not as if we’re going to be treated well there.”
“What gave you that idea?” she turned around so she could force herself to make eye contact with him. “We’ve never been treated as anything less than honoured guests when visiting with Silviana.”
He scoffed as she reached forward to adjust his bow tie for him, “It’s a farce. They haven’t trusted us in centuries.”
“Is that what you really think? Why?”
“Am I not allowed to ask questions?”
She frowned, “I didn’t say that, I just wanted to know why you thought it. I mean, you’re right that what Tyr Magnusson did was horrible and meant that it took a long time for Wundersmiths to be restored in the public eye but-”
“But it’s not just that,” he said. “It’s all of it. What are we going for tonight? Are we really the guests of honour or just some zoo unimals kept for entertainment? We’re here to solve all their issues but we don’t ask for nearly as much as we deserve.”
She pursed her lips, “I can’t have this conversation with you right now. We’ll talk later, alright?” With Griselda, Owain, Decima, Rastaban, Mathilde, Odbuoy, and Brilliance. There was no way she was doing this on her own.
He sneered and something flashed in his eyes that made her feel pure fear for a second, “Of course.”
Owain didn’t realise that his legs had given up on him until he was lying on the ground, looking right up at the fountain in the middle of the square, and full in the knowledge that something was very wrong with his body.
“Ezra!” He could hear someone screaming. It could have been him. It could have been anybody. “Squall!”
“Binks,” someone was standing over him, his white shirt stained red, soaked so deeply that it dripped onto his face. Pit-pat. Pit-pat. “How goes it? I hope you’ll die soon. It would really make my life easier if you could just… hurry up about it, honestly.”
“Get down here so I can kill you,” he grunted. “What are you doing?” Wunder was gathering around the lower part of his body, but it hurt so much that he couldn’t think about it.
“Just a little Ruination, to speed along the process. I’m on a tight timeframe, you understand. It just tidies away your essential organs so I don’t have to deal with them, I mean, I could feed them to my dogs, I suppose, but that would be so much work, wouldn’t it?”
“Ezra.” Elodie had said she wanted to stage an intervention about whatever he had been talking to her about but he had thought they had had time. A day at least. They could have talked. They could have fixed it before it came to this. Was he the last one left? Had any of them managed to get away?
None of them would leave. Owain would never have considered it, not with the people of Nevermoor nearby and vulnerable. But now it seemed like they were all going to die, and Ez- Squall would be able to harm them anyway.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel, just a collection of dancing black spots in front of his eyes, and peering down at him was the face of a boy who was a monster. A monster who was a man. A storm contained in physical form and-
Owain Binks knew no more.