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I. Yard Work (I)
Spring is crisp. Qifrey leans over the radishes and lettuce of the small garden by the atelier, gloves crusted in dirt. His cape is draped on a clothesline, drying from the earlier wash of rain at dawn. When he kneels down to inspect the bulbous hammerradish, so much brighter in color than anything else, he must raise it close to his face. He adjusts his glasses. His thumb smooths over the round body before placing it in the woven basket by his leg. Inside the atelier, a candle is lit in Coco and Agott’s room, but if Qifrey has noticed he pretends not to. It is difficult to scold someone for an eagerness to learn.
Olruggio does what he does best: he watches.
The notebook in his hand is full of haphazard runes grouped together, notes running across the page spread in an attempt at a first draft. In the early light, the ink looks near reddish, warm despite the slight chill in the air. The woven blanket spread out on the ground barely deters the morning dew—Olruggio can feel it begin to soak through. Perhaps time to redo the spell on the lining, then. He lifts the notebook up to obscure the sun, squinting at his own writing.
Qifrey’s voice is closer than expected when he asks, “What should we make with these?” His body cuts the sun out of sight as he places the basket next to Olruggio’s head.
Reaching out, Olruggio picks up one of the radishes from the vegetable spread in the basket. There’s a strange discoloration at the bottom, and he spins it around before eyeing the rest.
“This one’s a bit odd-lookin’, oughta just toss it,” he says, and Qifrey’s hands tense while sorting through the harvest alongside him.
Then, after a pause, Qifrey agrees, “Let me go through them again,” before whisking the basket away into the kitchen.
Olruggio lingers outside for some time longer before gathering the blanket and making a note to test for longevity the next time he visits The Starry Sword for ink. Above, the vast sky is free of clouds. The warmth of the sun catches on his face. All is at ease.
II. Old Habits
“They are always so grateful,” Qifrey says, eye looking over his shoulder to the village they had just departed from. “Their eyes come alight.”
The leaves are drying on the branches. Fall hovers at the turn of summer.
Olruggio stops. Gravel crunches beneath his feet where the village roads turn to dirt paths. “Well, we came to help.”
“I know.” Qifrey’s eye is still distant, but Olruggio doesn’t believe he is focused on the village, anymore. He waits for Qifrey to turn back to him and continue walking, but when he doesn’t, Olruggio reaches for his shoulder and holds it. Qifrey stares at him, unblinking, and then covers Olruggio’s hand with his own. They are cold to the touch. “When we visited the Great Hall some weeks ago…”
“Yeah?”
Qifrey seems unwilling to let go of the words for a moment. “Beldaruit”—his voice strains around the name—”asked me if I had considered the Fifth Test.”
They stand together there, at the edge of unknowing, for some time. Olruggio imagines it, as he is sure Qifrey has done many times since his meeting with Beldaruit. An atelier, made of the home Qifrey had kept for himself on the rolling hills, away from the depths of the Great Hall and its suppressive, impending waves all around, the inevitable sense of drowning. An atelier would be busy. It would be loud. It would be full of a great many other things, too: warmth, dirty shoe prints, dining plates for more than two, the scent of fresh ink at any restless hour.
“And what did you say?” he asks Qifrey, whose hand is still covered by his own. Olruggio’s thumb strokes the length of Qifrey’s thumb, down to the tip of his index finger, tapping against his pinky nail. Both their hands are reddened by the weather. He should remind Qifrey to wear gloves at this time of the year.
“Well,” Qifrey hums, “I let him know I had to seek counsel. My home’s not only mine, unfortunately. I have a strange man who frequently swings by uninvited, eats my food, and sleeps in my bed, if not at my dining table, bringing with him all sorts of contraptions and complaints.”
“Ugh.” Olruggio brushes his hand off and begins walking again. “Very funny.”
Qifrey laughs. The light from the midday sun catches on the rim of his glasses, and it scatters across his face, the soft curves of his upper lip and chin, his pale lashes, the slight furrow between his brows. It is gone quickly, the laugh, but Qifrey’s slight smile remains for a little longer. Long enough for Olruggio to get one more glimpse in, a second, a third, even, before Qifrey’s frequent solemness overcomes it.
“Do you believe I would make a good teacher, dearest friend?” Qifrey asks, then, more sincere than usual.
And Olruggio, whose honesty belongs to only a handful of people, tells him, “The very best kind of teacher.”
Qifrey hums, eye on the road ahead of them. “What kind of teacher might that be?”
“A teacher who values joy,” Olruggio says. “And who accepts the help of a Watchful Eye when needed.”
“And where might I find such a Watchful Eye?”
“Well,” Olruggio fixes the cap on his head, the wind blowing stronger than before, “as you said, someone bothersome already lives with you. Perhaps he’d be better off if he had a more stable job.”
It doesn’t pull a laugh out of Qifrey, but it does make him smile again. Just that is enough, for now.
“Would you not want your own apprentices?” Qifrey asks.
Olruggio imagines that, too, but it’s not quite right. He scratches under his chin, over that one small patch that doesn’t grow hair, thumb pushing against the rough skin. After all, he needs his restless evenings and nights—they are when he works best. Yes, his evenings, evenings, evenings… There was a particular one, he’s sure. The memory of it eludes him, but it weighs in his chest nonetheless, eager to be recalled. What was it? Qifrey’s cloak draped over a chair, basking in the controlled warmth of the fireplace. The liquor in its homely brown bottle. Qifrey’s glasses placed on the table. His stinging eye. Olruggio’s fingers stroking the skin beneath it. His palms on the sides of Qifrey’s throat, moving up, slowly. His thumbs on Qifrey’s jaw. On his cheeks. The warmth, the warmth. And then, after that—what next?
A cold breeze drags more leaves off the branches, many still in their green.
“Qifrey, d’you remember the night before your visit to the Great Hall? What it was we…”
“Come,” Qifrey interrupts, his hand on Olruggio’s back to push him along, “let us stop stalling, or we’ll find it’s sunset before we take another step. Silver Eve is almost upon us—I am sure you have plenty of work awaiting you.”
If not for the fact that he is right, that they have other places to be, and soon, Olruggio would take Qifrey by the wrist. He would ask what he is forgetting. Perhaps they had been drunk, and Qifrey recalls no more than Olruggio does.
That is the easiest thing to convince himself of. Even though Qifrey, who is such a proficient liar, refuses to speak about it anymore.
III. Roots
Several events occur in this precise order: Qifrey leaves for a mission with a look of urgency as Olruggio is summoned north, a book that should never be opened lies flat on a girl-child’s table, Qifrey is overcome with a sense of foreboding, the world-spell’s clock hand wobbles, a mother contorts into unyielding stone, the Knights Moralis hear of it not much later, the world-spell finally turns another knob counter-clockwise toward the inevitable, returning past, Qifrey acquires his fourth apprentice, and Olruggio’s worst fears are spoken true.
It is not until late in the day after Qifrey and Coco return from The Starry Sword that Olruggio is able to get him alone. The girls have retreated into their beds, no light peeking through beneath the doors. All is quiet. All is not well.
“What of the safety of your other apprentices?” Olruggio asks Qifrey, who stands facing the kitchen window, hands folded behind his back. Even from several feet away, Olruggio can see how tightly Qifrey’s hands are clenched. His knuckles pale, his shoulder stiffen. “Not considering the fact you will have the Knights Moralis breathing down your neck at any given opportunity, what are the girls meant to think of this? You are meant to set an example for them.”
“They’ll understand,” Qifrey insists. He does not turn around. “I couldn’t leave her there.”
“Because she was all alone, or because of where she can lead you?”
When Qifrey does face him, his brow is so furrowed it cuts a sharp shadow across his eye. “She is just a child.”
“That is precisely what I mean! She’s just a child!” Olruggio forces himself to lower his voice, but it doesn’t stop the heat from building in his face. Even his neck must be red.
“Enough,” Qifrey says, raising his hand while turning his eyes to the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. “Must we speak of this now?”
Olruggio persists. “When else? You’ll just avoid it again!”
“Then let it be!” Qifrey says, moving his fingers to his temple. He presses them harshly into the skin there, rubbing slow circles. “Olruggio, please… Let it be.”
Shuffling sounds below them. They both turn in the direction of the stairs, quieting until the shuffling ceases and all other sounds with it, except for the purr of the fireplace. Olruggio sighs. It slopes his shoulder and runs deeper still, and he drags his cloak off his shoulders in hopes of easing the ache, only to find that it has taken itself to somewhere inside of him he cannot reach. When he looks at Qifrey, the ache flares. He holds his gaze steady.
In the light of the fireplace, Qifrey’s weariness is gilded. Even his eye’s blue is colored warm.
When they were much younger, when Olruggio’s magic did little but light floating fires and scorch paper, when Qifrey feared water even more than he does now, when they held each other’s hands beneath the bridge, when Olruggio found him curled in a dark hallway, face wet and red from crying, body shaking, when they first left the Great Hall not as apprentices but as witches and slept beneath the open sky, when Qifrey reached across the empty space between them—
“Olly,” Qifrey says, calling his name too tenderly for the aftermath of their fight. “You should get some rest, you look tired.”
“After all that gazing into the window, you should know you look just as bad,” Olruggio counters, reaching for his bag left unattended on one of the dining chairs. “You don’t need to divert my attention, you can ask me to leave. I know you better than anyone else.”
Qifrey does not deny it.
“Is it wrong of me to hold out hope, then, do you think?” Qifrey asks.
Olruggio closes the distance between them. What was it about evenings, again? Qifrey takes one step backward, only to be caught by Olruggio’s fingers around his wrist, reeling him back in. There’s a familiarity in this action. It cannot be the first time Olruggio’s felt warmer than candlelight, the heat dripping down his neck and into his chest, his fingertips, tingling with need for something, someone. Many known things in the world are beliefs, not facts. Olruggio’s love for Qifrey is not one of those—it is a mountain. It is this home. It will change, it will wear and shift, but it will not move. It will remain when the slow shifting of the world has rendered it unrecognizable.
“Must you tell me?” Qifrey raises his hands nonetheless, holding Olruggio’s face between his palms. “Is it not enough that the both of us know?”
That Qifrey knows this indisputable truth is also a reality of their world that will not change. When did he realize? When Olruggio crept into his bed and Qifrey pulled the covers over them, that one Silver Eve while they were still apprentices? When the rain poured heavy that second night at the atelier as they sat in the kitchen together, watching the storm outside the window? When Olruggio presented the glowstone path?
“What is it you’re keepin’ from me?” Olruggio asks. That phrase, too, feels familiar.
Qifrey traces the uneven line of Olruggio’s beard across his cheek, down to his lips. They kiss for the third time in Olruggio’s memory. They part, and Olruggio steals a fourth. His hands find Qifrey’s hips. Between them, the air is warm and wet, and the tension in Olruggio’s chest has not eased. It is simply overwhelmed by a different feeling. The last time they kissed was years ago, but Olruggio’s heart beat in his ears as loudly as it does now. This is how it should always be, this closeness. This ease with which they hold each other. Why have they waited? Why did he wait? Is this not where they have been heading all this time?
Qifrey’s hands move again, reaching for something out of Olruggio’s line of sight. His other hand cups the back of Olruggio’s neck and he says, “Don’t close your eyes. Kiss me one more time.”
Olruggio does. Qifrey unclasps the button on his hat.
Much younger than they are now, Olruggio often found Qifrey in the corridors of the Great Hall in the middle of the night. At first, it was by accident. Later, he began to wander out much later than his teacher approved of, if only to see if he’d discover Qifrey roaming the curving staircases like a spectre.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he asked, and Qifrey turned around, hands grasping the tiniest bit of light.
Between his palms was a crumpled piece of paper, and as quickly as the light had shown Qifrey’s face it blew out as the spell distorted. “I couldn’t sleep.”
They roam, one night, two, three, a dozen more, until the evenings blend together. I don’t like how dark it is, Qifrey told him once. Everywhere I look, there is the ocean. Before then, Olruggio had never imagined that the vastness right outside the Great Hall could be frightening. How often had he stood at the very furthest edge he could find, studying the movement of light as it reflected against the sea-mist bubble, his fingers testing how far the bubble would wrap around him before water touched his skin? When Qifrey turned his chin up to face what should be sky, all Olruggio could see was dread.
“Can’t you cast a spell on your room so that it ain’t so dark?” Olruggio asked. “There are hundreds of ways.”
Qifrey looked at him out of the corner of his eye, lips pressed together tightly. It was the first time Olruggio felt as if he’d said something that had upset him, and the feeling didn’t vanish for days. It was not until many months later that Qifrey told him, “Sometimes, even when I am surrounded by light, it is as if a wash of ink makes everything dark. I cast twenty floating lights over my room, and as soon as I laid down to sleep, all I could imagine was the ceiling above pressing down on me, obscuring everything except the stone bricks.”
They continued down another empty path, and occasionally, as if summoned by the sounds of their footsteps, a window would light up behind them.
“When I’m no longer an apprentice, I’ll live somewhere far from the Great Hall. Then, even if everything is dark, I will know the sky is above me. I will be able to see the stars.”
Olruggio cast a glance upward, to the ocean, and imagined the night sky there, instead, and all the uncountable stars. The wind. Grass beneath his shoes. If there was a way for the world to light up at Qifrey’s feet, would he feel the need to flee elsewhere?
“Let’s go back,” Olruggio finally said and offered Qifrey his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Go with him back to his room, which holds only a few belongings even though Qifrey has lived there for years. Then elsewhere and beyond, onward and onward, until being apart felt unnatural. Until they were no longer apprentices, Olruggio laid one stone on top of another and pressed them gently together, watching the light disperse from within as Qifrey sat across from him. Until he laid the stones down and leaned forward, and Qifrey did, too. That second kiss they did not speak of, only kept between them as they laid in Olruggio’s bed together, clothed but bare all the same, Qifrey’s head tucked into the crook of Olruggio’s neck. He felt warm and sturdy and like Olruggio’s and no one else’s.
Dawn came too early, and Qifrey quietly untangled himself from Olruggio and the blankets. Instead of words there was breakfast: eggs in thickened honeytree nectar and brunoise sword carrots, and strawberry tea spiced with basiwilt. A sweeter-than-usual morning meal, so early in the day the girls hadn't roused yet, dawn barely cracked open. There was no kiss either during those quiet hours, but Qifrey wrapped his arms around Olruggio’s waist and pressed his face into his neck, and Olruggio felt his tension in every deep breath. He tilted his head back, resting it against Qifrey’s shoulder, and let himself be content with it.
“Olly,” Qifrey says, voice nothing more than a murmur. He places his hand on Olruggio’s shoulder, and Olruggio rubs his eyes with one hand. He must have been more tired than he realized; it is a good thing the girls did not catch him sleeping at the kitchen table. “Do you want me to walk you back to your workshop?”
“No, no…” He waves his hand and moves to stand, Qifrey’s hand moving to his back for a second before pulling away. “My bad… Guess you were right, tellin’ me to get some rest. To think I’d fall asleep here… Hm.” Olruggio pushes his hair out of his face, only for it to fall back over his forehead. “We’re finishin’ this conversation another time, but we are havin’ this discussion… I just can’t get my thoughts in order when I’m this worn out.”
Footsteps on the floor below wakes the house to its typical ruckus, and Olruggio retreats to his workshop, making sure to avoid Qifrey’s wistful eye, worried it might reflect his own too well.
IV. Ink (I)
Someone has strung up wind chimes throughout The Starry Sword and left the windows open. The wind catches on the elaborate wooden shapes and the air twinkles from their sound. Olruggio reaches up, the tip of his finger stroking the bottom of a spiral chime, the bell clinking loudly at the touch. Qifrey has already wandered upstairs with Mister Nolnoa in search of new supplies, and the girls are busy rummaging through every contraption they can get their hands on, Coco the only one pacing the room with wide eyes, excitement barely contained. She is clutching her bag so tightly she might even rip the leather.
“Anything in particular you’re lookin’ for, Coco?” Olruggio asks, bending down so that he can look her in the eye. “Your notebook looked pretty full last time I got a glimpse of it, no? Maybe it’s about time you got a new one. My treat.”
Tetia appears in a flash. “What about me? Can I also get a new notebook? With a pretty design on it!”
Olruggio is already doing the math in his head by the time Tetia returns with Coco in tow, Richeh and Agott right behind them. Agott who, while clutching a deep green leather journal refuses to make eye contact, only flicking her eye at him once before lowering her gaze. As if she, too, hasn’t filled out at least a dozen of them in the last few weeks. Her discipline is unparalleled—Olruggio sees it in all of her empty ink bottles and pages upon pages of the same spell, drawn until close perfection.
Richeh holds a journal up for him to take. “It’s pretty.” And it is. The Starry Sword must have acquired them from a traveling merchant, because Olruggio cannot remember seeing them last time. Richeh’s journal of choice is a soft, powdery blue with colored stones sewn along the spine into the shape of flowers.
“I guess you’ve all earned one,” he says, holding his hand out for the others to give him their picks. Coco is bouncing on the balls of her feet when she gives him the simple, beige journal, decorated with pressed woolpuffs. “Alright, I’ll get these for you, but I better see every page full.”
Agott quietly hands her own, but only after the other three have left to look at ink wands. She meets his gaze this time, and he slips down on one knee in front of her as she says, “Thank you, Master.”
“Is something the matter?”
Agott shakes her head at first, but then looks around, and finds that there is no one else around. She clasps her forearm, rubbing her thumb in circles. Olruggio places his hand on her shoulder, and she finally asks, “Master Olruggio, if something was wrong with Master Qifrey, he would tell us, wouldn’t he?”
He tilts his head, trying to think of a time where Qifrey might have acted in a way that would have even his apprentices noticing, and comes up blank. “Did something happen?”
“No…” Agott says, looking toward the stars spiraling upward to where Qifrey and Mister Nolnoa are still speaking, their voices barely audible. Then, after a long moment of silence, she corrects herself. “I don’t know. But he would tell you, at least, wouldn’t he?”
“Don’t worry yourself too much over that stuff, okay?” Olruggio pats her hair, offering her a smile. He is not able to tell if she believes him. “Me and Master Qifrey’s top priority is always your safety.”
“That’s not…” She sighs, and the look on her face is too concerned for a young girl, Olruggio thinks. Full of worry she should not have to carry. Qifrey… Olruggio must speak with him, and soon. Alone, preferably. “I’m going to go look at the nib accessories that Tartah said came in.”
She’s off before Olruggio can protest, and in her absence he gets back on both feet and begins to climb the staircase. Would Qifrey tell him? Olruggio has always thought so, even as avoidant as Qifrey tends to be. The wind chimes catch the wind again, and for a second, everything in the world is accented by the sound of their bells as the Silverwood Tree’s leaves shift from the breeze.
“What’s that you got?”
Olruggio watches Qifrey unravel the paper wrapping. He has lit the stove and set two cooking pots out, only one over a low flame. The other is covered in a thick, black cloth. When Qifrey moves to the side, Olruggio finally catches a glimpse of what had been rolled into the brown paper. Thin and pale, half of the branches are immediately recognizable as a Silverwood Tree’s. The other handful are soot-colored and brittle-looking.
Before he can ask, Qifrey stands in front of him, wearing a faint smile, eye creasing. “Olly, do you think you could let me work alone, tonight? Ink extraction is a very particular process at times, and I would hate to waste this rare gift from Mister Nolnoa.”
“Are you callin’ me a bother?”
“Never,” Qifrey promises. “But I have been a little out of sorts lately, and some time alone might do me well. Say, we still have a bottle of that dewberry liqueur, do we not? What if I let you have the last of it?”
“You don’t have to bribe me,” Olruggio says, but stands up anyway, heading to the tall cabinet that is out of reach of curious students who are fond of things in pretty, sparkling bottles. “You can just tell me to get out of your hair if you need me to. But we need to talk, I was speakin’ with Agott today, and…”
Qifrey fetches a glass and slices azure lemons into delicate slices, layering honeytree nectar between them before pouring the liquor over the fruit, using a spicebark quill and an erbe twig for garnish. With the azure lemon at the bottom of the glass, the liquor appears purplish, only to fade into a lighter, golden color at the top. For an evening drink, it’s more than elaborate: it’s indulgent.
“Well, I won’t say no, but I mean it, Qifrey, we have to talk. You’ve got one of your students worrying about you, and that’s not right. If you’re sick, or tired, then let me know so I can help. I’m not just your Watchful Eye, I’m your friend—I’ll lend you a hand whenever you need it.” He takes the glass when Qifrey offers it to him, letting the rich taste of the alcohol combined with the sweetness lull him into a soft state, though exhaustion doesn’t grip him immediately. When the glass is empty, Qifrey has already placed the withered branches in the pot on top of the fire, steam rising quickly as the water within reaches a boil. It puffs into the air, clouding Qifrey’s glasses, and Olruggio reaches for them before he can think—only for Qifrey to slap his hand away, cheeks flushed red.
“Sorry—” Qifrey says. He pulls his glasses off and lays them on the table, far away from the light of the flame. Despite that, Olruggio catches a strange crack in the clear lens—no, not a crack, more like a carving. An engraving, a—“You surprised me. I’m… Everything is fine. She must have caught me staying up late these last few weeks. I’ll be more cautious about making noise so late into the night.”
Olruggio reaches for Qifrey’s face, holding his palm against Qifrey’s flushed cheek, and knows the concern must be evident on his face. He studies the furrow between Qifrey’s brows, his long, pale lashes, the pink scars over his lost eye. His skin is warm to the touch, and Olruggio imagines it is Qifrey’s racing heart pulsing against his fingertips.
“Qifrey,” he says. slow and steady. “You are my dearest friend. You know this.”
“Yes, yes,” Qifrey agrees, rushing through the words. “As you are mine.”
They stare at each other. The liquor warms Olruggio’s chest and stomach, and he finds himself having a difficult time looking away from Qifrey’s lips.
It is too familiar when Olruggio draws him in with a hand on his neck, as if he has done this countless times. He can count their kisses on one hand. He remembers each and every one of them in more detail than he should ever admit. It is the only one that has tasted so strongly of liquor; it is the only one that has lasted this long. Olruggio feels it on his mouth for hours after it is over.
V. Early Withering
Joy tastes not too different from that and many other shared meals. Each time a little changed, suspending all other emotions until the dishes have been put away and all the rights in the world are allowed to turn wrong-side up once more. Some months after Coco’s arrival, Qifrey is watching the girls through the kitchen window, and says, “How I wish they can always be this free,” right as Olruggio takes his heavy cloak off his shoulders and drapes it over a kitchen chair.
“Well, you can’t control that much,” Olruggio tells him, and Qifrey hums in reluctant agreement. “But y’can help them enjoy these years in your atelier the most they possibly can, and know you did all you could. They’ll come runnin’ back to you even when they’re received The Goodwill of Her Grace, I promise that much.”
Qifrey folds his arms and rests them on the windowsill. His heart is somewhere else—outside, in the sun. “They will be my last and only apprentices.”
Even though there’s no doubt that Qifrey would continue to excel no matter how many young witches came into his fold, it does not come as a surprise. While other witches might revel in leaving a vast legacy of students in their wake, Qifrey is much like his own master in his teachings. There is a love for magic unlike all else, a unique glimmer even for a witch, present in each student that has entered into his apprenticeship.
“Sometimes I start to think you make yourself lonely on purpose, Qifrey,” Olruggio says. “I remember you followin’ me around endlessly until Beldaruit tracked you down and dragged you back.”
Qifrey’s laugh softens his silence. It gives Olruggio hope he is wrong.
“Your excitement has always been infectious, dear friend.” Qifrey tilts his head, his pale hair brushing over his brow, the bridge of his nose. The light from the window cuts sharp angles across Qifrey’s face, carves the heart-shaped curve of his jaw to his mouth, the dip between his chin and bottom lip. “You’re staring.”
“Did’you ever tell me?” Olruggio asks. The heaviness in his chest spreads; twists into a new, strange organ. It pulses. It craves an answer. “What you found in the Tower of Tomes…”
All the gentle light from the sun does nothing to brighten the look in Qifrey’s eye. He purses his lips and turns away. “I must fetch the girls for their lesson.”
Olruggio shakes his head and grabs his cloak. “When you’re done runnin’ away from this conversation, come see me. I’ll be waitin’.”
Qifrey pauses with his hand on the doorknob, then escapes outside as Olruggio returns to his workshop, leaving the lamps on along the corridor between the atelier and his room. Not even the spells seem to do as he wants them to that day. When enough hours have passed that he can hear the night cicadas begin to stir and still no word from Qifrey, he leaves his desk and walks back into the kitchen, finding nothing except a lingering scent of wood sorrel halftea.
“Qifrey?”
One of the doors leading downstairs is slightly ajar, and Olruggio cannot help but take it as an invitation. Though a few steps down, none of the lamps have been lit—he can’t imagine Qifrey wandering downstairs in complete darkness. Even at the cusp of sleep, Olruggio has never seen Qifrey without at least a bedside lamp aglow.
“Qifrey, come on now.” He continues downward. He lowers his voice, worried it might wake the girls, but it still strains when he says, “It’s in the middle of the night!”
The stairs open up into a small room, the windowway at the very end of it, open to a view of the Tower of Tomes. Dusk sinks into the water, and Olruggio sees nothing except one shade of black enveloping another, the stars catching on ripples in the water somewhere out of reach. Qifrey sits in front of the windowway, his head leaning against the signs surrounding it. When Olruggio approaches, he doesn’t move.
“Y’could at the very least answer me when I call for you.” Olruggio slumps down across from him, his back against the wall. He has too many words in him to make sense of at this moment, and none of them are very kind. But they’re words Qifrey needs to hear nonetheless, and there’s no one in the world except for him who’s going to tell him. “We’re not kids anymore. You can’t just run away whenever you want to, y’hear me? What would the girls do if something happened to you? What would I do? We’re not apprentices takin’ off in the middle of the night. You’ve got four students who rely on you to act like the grown witch you are. The teacher you are and swore to be. That’s what it means to take the fifth test, Qifrey, and to take on students. Your life’s not just yours now. If you don’t wanna tell me what’s botherin’ you recently, fine, but remember who else relies on you in this world, now. It’s not just me.”
Qifrey’s not wearing his glasses, and by now Olruggio’s eyes have gotten used to the dark. Enough so that he can see how the skin darkens around Qifrey’s left eye from the scar tissue.
“I am here, aren’t I?” Qifrey asks, gaze returning to the Tower in the distance. “I haven’t left.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“I know.” Qifrey smiles softly. “Every time you come to me, I am reminded of how vast this world is. How many people there are… How much can be lost.”
Olruggio tucks his feet between Qifrey’s. “The lack of sleep’s got you delirious. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Just a moment longer.”
“Not a chance.” Olruggio moves to stand, only for Qifrey to wrap his fingers around his ankle, his thumb moving over the bone.
“It was a lot like this, wasn’t it? When you would leave the Great Hall with me to search for the brimmed caps. The two of us under the stars…”
Somewhat reluctantly, Olruggio sits back down, and Qifrey’s hand moves from his ankle to his knee. Before Olruggio can insist they go upstairs, Qifrey asks, “Can you draw me a spell? The pyreball spell…”
Though Olruggio grumbles, he doesn’t reject him. “I don’t have any ink on me.”
I haven’t left, Qifrey had said, but Olruggio cannot help but doubt him when he pulls both his ink and palm quire from a small bag on the ground, then his ink wand. Any witch has the good habit of keeping their tools on them, but in the atelier, at night, right as they are meant to sleep?
“Hand ‘em over,” Olruggio says, and Qifrey does. “A pyreball… Really… As if you can’t whip one up yourself…” He draws the fire sigil within the open circle, then each levitation keystone. “… Sittin’ here in the dark… There you go.” With a fwoosh, fire swirls up from within the ink, hovering over the palm quire in Olruggio’s hand, its warm light dazzling as it catches on the windowway, which is glistening mist rising up the cliffs. There is something comforting about returning to the very first spell he ever mastered, and if Qifrey’s humming is anything to go by, his heart rings the same.
“Beautiful.” Qifrey’s hand moves behind the flame, his fingers catching some of its stray light. “Your magic is always so comforting, Olly.”
Olruggio places the palm quire on the ground between them and opens his arms. “Come on.”
It’s not often they do this—get so close, that is. But Qifrey scoots around the spell and leans into Olruggio’s open arms, his back against Olruggio’s chest, and shuts his eyes, and lets himself be held. Olruggio’s hands move from Qifrey’s shoulders to his arms, rubbing his elbows with slow circles of his fingers and then placing his palms over Qifrey’s hands where they rest in his lap. He tilts his head against Qifrey’s and lets his eyes close, too, and for some time they are only two young men in the woods, feeding off each other’s flames. One in the shape of vengeance. The other a gentler geometry.
“Some nights, I believe I am still in that casket,” Qifrey murmurs. “I hear the rain. I feel its weight. The pain gnaws on me, renewed in spirit. Not even seeing the stars can convince me otherwise.”
Olruggio tightens his hold. “You’re home, Qifrey.” And he believes it with all his might. He believes, and believes, and believes, and hopes that belief is magic enough to convince Qifrey.
VI. Ink (II)
Dearest friend, Olruggio says. Qifrey tastes just how true that word rings. His breath shallows until it is rough in his throat, and the fumes rising from the pot sting his nose. This is the danger of allowing himself too much freedom: he will indulge himself. It will go beyond the boundaries they have built slowly over the years. The ones Qifrey himself has broken and reforged at his whim.
“It’s late,” Qifrey murmurs, lips still on Olruggio’s. His heartbeat slows. His thoughts clear. “Sleep, Olruggio.”
It might as well have been a spell. Olruggio pulls back, strokes Qifrey’s cheek one last time, and then retreats into his workshop.
Qifrey turns to the withered Silverwood branches in his pot, how the water is shifting in color until it is a deep, deep reddish purple, nearly black. Over the course of the night, the color darkens, and the liquid continues to thicken. The second pot he fills with water, too, but adds a vial of what could be milk if not for the shimmer to its off-white color. As it stirs into the water, it almost immediately begins to bubble, and Qifrey takes a knife to the still-white branches. He cuts them at a diagonal, then makes a vertical groove deep enough to expose the reddish color of the tree rings. He drops them into the boiling white mixture and lowers the heat. And then he waits.
Sunrise is not too far off by the time he takes the pots off the stove. The mixtures coagulate at the bottom, the black ink ready for use while the white is still far too thin. He takes the white mixture and spreads it evenly over a metal pan, covering it in fabric before placing it above a heated, thin slab of rock to help the warmth distribute evenly. Within minutes, the white mixture has turned crisp and dry, off-white as ash. Mortar and pestle in hand, he grinds it into fine dust and the powder into a jar, bringing both it and the fresh, black ink to his workshop. His bottle of zestgrass seed oil he takes from a tall shelf with other neatly labeled tools, and with it added to the grayish powder, eventually there is ink.
Neither bottle is by any means close to the quality he might acquire from the The Starry Sword, but they are both decent enough for his intentions. From his window, he can see the lights in Olruggio’s workshop are out, though the horizon is a faint shade of pink. It would be wise to wait for a different night.
He shuts the door.
Qifrey draws his ink wand from where he has tied it to his waistband, using the black ink for a simple water spell in his palm quire: a levitating spiral, not too unlike a miniaturized maelstrom. The ink is too thick, reminiscent of oil paint, and does not make for smooth lines. He wipes the nib of his wand and dips it in the white ink after adding more oil to it. It is difficult to make out his lines, the white of the ink blending into the white of the paper. A second maelstrom swirls upwards from his paper without noticeable changes from the first.
Qifrey lays his ink wand on the table and reaches for the slim blade to his left, the one he uses to cut paper. It cuts skin just as easily.
Ink entirely made of blood… It is too volatile. A single drop of it, however, or two… The first time he attempted it, the ink had hissed and puttered within its jar before settling, rejecting the intrusion of something foreign. But now…
Staring at the unmoving ink, Qifrey’s mouth dries; his heartbeat aches nauseatingly between his temples, becoming deafening; hands shaking as he wraps both of them around the white-ink bottle. One simple spell, if only to try, to see. Like before, the white ink is near invisible when used on his ordinary palm quire, and he positions himself with his back to the door in case the spell turns unstable, given the capricious nature of the ink itself. Wand nib hovering at the unfinished end of the circle, Qifrey wills himself calm. Steady, steady. He snaps the circle shut and the ink gleams before water surges upward and swirls around itself. But there is no great disturbance. The spell is nearly tame.
It is the worst outcome: for the ink to recognize his own blood as its own.
Long before the spell that keeps the world “balanced” was known, a tree with ashen branches; a silverwood; a man of silver armor; a man of white hair and grey eyes; a man and nothing more, loved very dearly; loved into contortion; loved his bones into brittleness; loved into the soil of the earth; loved into branches; into bloom; into rot. The witch left behind took its branches and made ink. Made magic. Made forgetting an art. And the spell that keeps the world “balanced” was born, and grew, and grew, and like all magic, spread unevenly across the world. It ate one memory and then another. It devoured half the world and more. It feasted and engorged itself until it held the world’s most sacred secret within its body. It reaped at the hands of good intentions and worse. It took on several shapes. It reached for bodies. It pledged itself to the preservation of the future. It offered itself to the unraveling of that future. It chose sides. It betrayed them. It is only a spell. It is only a spell. It is only a spell.
Qifrey stares at his witch’s cap in his hand, the pin keeping its flap stuck to the body in his other hand. He pulls new ink from its place on his shelf. He readies his pen. He draws without casting. The ink itself is a stark white. Against the dark background of the paper he carefully attaches to his cap, it is branches against the night sky. He’s seen that sight before, when he first came to as the witches pulled the casket lid aside to reveal his body. How many times has he drawn this spell, now? Enough to no longer need a reference. The realization sits with him like a sickness in his gut. The Memory Spell manifests itself onto the paper like a body: an eye, tree-rings of time, roots and limbs reaching down, eager to devour. It peers back at him, one more watchful eye—only this one knows everything he has done.
In the Tower of Tomes, Qifrey found very little. But he found enough.
VII. Yard Work (II)
Dirt beneath his fingernails. A scattering of white-dot scars from a stingbush, decades old, across his left wrist. The scent of mint sticking to his skin. Laughter that is not his own strung to the wind. Qifrey kneels in front of the garden plots and reaches for the ripened gem tomatoes. He has placed the woven basket to his right, carefully adding the gem tomatoes to the vegetables he’s plucked, making sure they’re not squished against the sword carrots. Over by the herbs, Coco is carefully picking out her favorites while Agott stands at her side with her hands on her hips, their voices drowned out by Tetia’s laughter. Their brushbuddy has wrapped itself around one of her ponytails, refusing to let go. Olruggio is fixing the button on Richeh’s left sleeve that keeps coming undone, his brows furrowed in deep concentration.
Qifrey wipes the back of his neck with his fingers, the sweat making the hair there curl. Though it is still early spring, the sun is relentless—on a day like this, with no clouds at high noon—he could almost believe it to be summer. He wants nothing more than a cooling drink and a cold bath. Perhaps he could convince Olruggio to join him for a glass later in the evening; their last drink together was weeks ago.
Richeh comes running past him, toward Tetia, and a second later Olruggio is at his side, squinting from the bright light.
Olruggio shields his eyes from the sun with one hand and shakes his head. “They’ve got endless energy, those four. I’ve got a river of sweat runnin’ down my back just from standing around.”
Qifrey smiles and stands up, wiping the dirt off his knees with one hand. “The joys of being young.”
“I don’t think I was ever that lively,” Olruggio says, shaking his head. He reaches out, touching the collar of Qifrey’s black sweater. “You must be burnin’ up.”
“The breeze helps.” Qifrey offers Olruggio the basket, and he takes it without complaint. “Without that looming deadline, how about you help me sort out lunch today?”
“Did you have anything in mind?”
Thinking for a moment, Qifrey eventually shakes his head. “No, but they did quite like the sandwiches last time, and it would be rather quick… How about we make use of the fresh fuzzbergines as well? If you were to mince them, you could work them into something akin to a meat patty. With the right erbe oil and a paste made from the gem tomatoes, Richeh might not mind it.”
“What happened to quick?” Olruggio asks, but he is already sifting through the day’s harvest, undoubtedly calculating what else he can make to accompany the sandwiches. “Well, I’ll whip something up. You stay out here and take a rest.”
He touches Qifrey’s elbow almost absentmindedly, his eyes already on the door to the atelier. Qifrey grabs his forearm, keeping him there. Olruggio raises a brow but doesn’t move away. Instead, after making sure there are no curious eyes watching them, he leans in to press his lips against Qifrey’s temple, squeezing his elbow once. “Don’t think I didn’t see your hands shakin’ this morning. It’s okay to rely on someone else to do the grunt work, sometimes, okay?”
He leaves Qifrey there in the garden with the girls. Qifrey, who should know better than to be surprised at his sharp eye. When was it he’d noticed? When they were sitting together by the fireplace, Qifrey demonstrating a set of nested glyphs. Olruggio had hovered at the corner of his eye, sipping halftea, but his presence is so common Qifrey hadn’t thought much more of it. When else? During breakfast, when he nearly dropped the omelette mixture as his right hand suddenly tensed unexplainably?
Coco waves her arms to get his attention, and all of his restless thoughts are pushed away.
“Master Qifrey, look!” She points toward the sky, eyes sparkling as the other three pause, too, to watch the young quadryphon stagger mid-flight where it circles above them, only to regain balance and swiftly head north. Her voice cannot contain her excitement. “Did you see? Did you see? A baby quadryphon!”
Qifrey follows the bird as it veers toward the mountains, eventually nothing more than a fleck on a very, very vast sky. With the wind against his cheek. His steady heartbeat. His worn hands. His collection of joys, gathered in one place. He turns his chin upward and imagines taking root;
then imagines the coffin, the water bearing down on him, the shape of the stars outlining the tree above him, the deep night, the eyes that found him and then did not let go. His remaining concerns quiet as his students point toward the baby quadryphons following in the path of the first, and Qifrey takes all his lingering aches and holds them close.