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Essek Thelyss is in Astrid’s office.
She enters brusquely, holding up a hand like it will keep him at bay, and says, “I am not doing this with you right now.”
He’s sitting in her desk chair, folding his hands smugly up at her, eyes wide and serene as a doe’s. He says, “Hello, Archmage,” and Astrid says, “Get out.”
The sun is setting over Rexxentrum, casting her office in strange geometric lines of fiery orange through the propped-open window. Thelyss looks to be well, which is to say not dead. His hair is longer than when she had seen him last. She wishes that she does not notice this, because she saw him last two months ago and should have cleared her head for more useful things.
Thelyss does not move, but says flatly, “What a warm reception.” Astrid puts the palms of her hands against the wood of her desk and leans down into Thelyss’s space. “I apologize,” she intones coldly, “I was not told I would be receiving guests.”
“And what about receiving friends?” Thelyss smiles blithely up at her, seemingly unperturbed.
“Let me know when they arrive, and I’ll make my apologies.”
Thelyss laughs, but it sounds less like a laugh and more like someone just saying ha ha ha. Astrid would like to kill him, but instead asks; “Why are you here? Is...” here, the eternal agonizing question of how to proceed, what name to choose, which will be worse, which does she mean, “Caleb, is he alright?”
Thelyss carefully does not react, and shrugs one elegant shoulder. “He is fine. This is not about him.” This, unfortunately, piques Astrid’s interest, so she waves impatiently for him to continue.
For the first time, Thelyss seems unsure of himself, and takes a deep breath before speaking. “I have,” he begins awkwardly, “been hired by the Cobalt Soul. In an, erm, official capacity.” Astrid, who would like very much to laugh, can only bite the inside of her cheek and hate him.
“I have always known you were a fool, but I did not know you were quite this stupid, Thelyss.” Her guest, rather than shrinking down, puffs up like a nightblooming flower, or perhaps a very small and very mean prey animal. He says, “Beauregard is arranging an alias for me, but has asked me to convey a small favor to you.”
Astrid asks, “And why has Beauregard not come to me herself, and instead sent my least favorite carrier pigeon to chirp nonsense in my ear?” She would much rather be dealing with Beauregard, right now. She quite likes Beauregard.
Thelyss shifts and says, “She wanted me to exercise my humility. And I think that she must like the thought of me begging anyone for anything. Especially if it’s you.” His words are derisive, but he cannot disguise his fondness for Beauregard within them. It’s pathetic for a politician, though she supposes he’s disgraced for a reason.
“And what is this favor?”
“My alias must be airtight. Beauregard has a good amount of sway within the Soul, but they will still conduct a rigorous background check on whomever I become before enlisting me. It was suggested that a self-taught wizard would be under a higher amount of scrutiny than one educated at, say--”
Ah, she knows where this is going. Astrid concludes, before he can finish: “Soltryce.”
Astrid’s interruption hangs in the air for a moment before she exhales harshly at the affirmative drop in his shoulders. “You cannot be serious.” Thelyss holds up his hands in miserable supplication as if to say, this was not my idea.
Astrid scoffs, “In case you missed the placard on the door, I oversee Civil Influence. How could you expect me to--”
“The entire Assembly is afraid of you. If you made inferences to Margolin, asked him to alter the graduation records...” Thelyss trails off expectantly. Astrid pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers and imagines, vividly and with relish, defenestrating him.
“That is a very grand assumption for you to make.” Thelyss heaves an exasperated sigh and repeats, strained, “It is an assumption that Beauregard makes; my feelings on the matter are moot. Margolin was a pushover for Ikithon, and it stands to reason that he’ll be a pushover for you.”
Astrid grates out, low and monotone, “Speak that name again in this office and I will have a letter exacting every lurid detail of your so-called life on Leylas Kryn’s desk within the hour.” Thelyss stands from Astrid’s chair and buffs one of his nails against his robe, affecting boredom.
“You would not do that, Archmage, because you will not implicate Caleb. For someone so adept at subterfuge, in this regard you are fooling nobody, and least of all me.” He grimaces, and it looks, horrifyingly, like he believes them to hold a common understanding. He concludes, “It is an affliction that we share.”
Astrid stays as still as she has been and replies, “I have no idea what you mean.” Thelyss sighs, more outwardly frustrated than he has been, and shrugs. “Whatever you say, Archmage. I am at your mercy.”
There is an uncomfortable silence in which Astrid desperately wishes Thelyss will find an excuse to take his leave, but he’s stubborn. Of course he’s stubborn, whispers a treacherous voice within her, Bren wouldn’t waste his time on anything but.
“Archmage,” begins Thelyss again, and then in a recalculation, “Becke. We have our differences--” Astrid barks a mean laugh almost against her will, “but I will never darken your doorstep again, once this is done. You will be free to forget about me completely.”
How juvenile. Forget about him? She has people watching his every move, cataloguing his disguises, his lies. Even if this were not the case, she of course has people watching Bren, the little house, that lovingly tended garden. There is no world in which she will be able to forget Essek Thelyss, never mind how much she would like to. Astrid does not have that luxury.
She would like to make him squirm.
“The Master,” she begins, apropos of nothing, “spoke of you, occasionally. Mostly in concert with his incessant complaints about the Martinet, but you were sparingly mentioned. ‘That little Kryn wizard,’ he would say, ‘has been very impatient with Da’leth as of late.’ Or, ‘The upstart Da’leth has been spoiling is getting antsy about the research.’ And then he would laugh, of course. You must know that they never intended to give you anything.”
The courtier's mask has shuttered down over Thelyss’s face; he stands carefully unmoving. Astrid continues:
“Wulf and I, and Bren too, we were all tools, but you were hardly even that. If we were hammers, you were a nail.”
Thelyss’s voice is too even to be genuine when he responds, “You would have made an excellent Shadowhand, Becke.”
Silence stretches on around them, the setting sun losing its’ fire. Astrid finally sighs, resigned, and moves to sit behind her vacated desk, while Thelyss hovers aimlessly around the doorway. She begrudgingly says, “I will speak with Margolin. Though, if your plan was to claim yourself a wizard, I would caution you against it.”
Thelyss raises an eyebrow, asks, “And why not?”
Astrid thumbs through some loose paperwork and does not look up at him. “I have seen you cast.” She does not say, when Wulf and the Master and I fought you and Bren and everything broke. “Even if you use no dunamancy, your somatics cannot be mistaken as coming from anywhere other than the Dynasty. That sort of thing is hard to unlearn.”
Thelyss looks down at his hands, flexing them once. “So, what do you suggest?”
“Acquire a focus. A small one. And pose as a sorcerer.”
Thelyss laughs for real this time, not his stupid speak-laugh. “Now it is you who must not be serious.” Astrid licks her thumb and turns a page that she is not reading. “The last place that they will be looking for a world-renowned wizard is in a sorcerer’s robes,” she says. “Take Beauregard’s advice. Practice a little humility.”
Thelyss laughs a little to himself, but he is not amused. “I am not so sure if this is truly sound advice or if you would just like to see me humiliated.” Astrid replies, “The two are not mutually exclusive,” and Thelyss does that little laugh again. Astrid is getting rather sick of his laugh.
“Was there anything else, or am I allowed to return to my work, now that I’ve been of proper service?”
Thelyss shakes his head and smiles some little awful rueful smile just for himself. It makes Astrid indescribably angry.
“No,” he says, “but I appreciate the time. And the favor.” Astrid rolls her eyes and waves her hand. “Tell Beauregard that this was not a handout, if I need the Soul for something I will expect follow-through.” Thelyss nods as if to say, fair.
There is an awkward beat where she expects him to leave but he doesn't, so she figures that she might as well ask.
“And how is...,” oh, this again, “Caleb doing?”
Thelyss blinks in mild surprise before his face softens slightly, which lowers Astrid’s respect for him to even greater depths. “He is well. Very well. When he learned what errand I was heading out upon, he asked me to extend a standing invitation for dinner. To you and Eadwulf, of course.”
This invitation is one which he conveniently forgot to mention until she asked, but Astrid supposes that for just this once she cannot completely blame him. Who would want her in their home?
“Tell him that that is very kind. I will relay it to Wulf, as well.” Thelyss grimaces in a facsimile of a smile. Astrid will, for what it’s worth, tell Wulf. They will decide not to go, of course, but perhaps they can share a morose bottle of wine and feel sorry for themselves together instead. They have been too often apart, as of late.
Thelyss surprises her out of her reverie by clearing his throat and saying, “He speaks of you often, and well.” There is no need to determine the he that Thelyss means. “I can tell that he misses your company very much. I think that he would appreciate it if you three reconnected. He worries about you.” And then, in a calculated afterthought, “And you won’t have to deal with me. I know when to make myself scarce.”
Hardly, thinks Astrid, you are sitting in an office that you broke into. Instead of this, she says, “We will think on it. But I do have work to do.” She ruffles the stack of paper on her desk for emphasis, and Thelyss holds his hands up in a bid for peace.
“Of course. Thank you again, Archmage.”
“Thank Beauregard, Thelyss. I’m not doing anything for your sake alone.” She does not see but rather feels his bemused expression, as she refuses to look back up at him.
By the time that Thelyss has Teleported away, Astrid is blinking down into her work, feeling something terrible rise within her. She would like very much to laugh, so of course she begins to weep.