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Everglen wasn’t built to be silent.
(Everglen had been built to house evil troll children. Everglen wasn’t built to be a home.)
Fitz had grown up in a lively home, despite his parents’ busy careers, his own excursions to the Forbidden Cities and the massive age gap between him and—
Well. Everglen isn’t like that anymore.
The estate is already asleep by nine o’clock, despite the sun having barely set for thirty minutes. Through the wall he shares with Biana, Fitz can hear the faint noise of glass bottles clinking—her various serums and prescription elixirs, like most of them have been taking recently.
Fitz thinks of the sleep sedative sitting in his bathroom cabinet. He doesn’t take it.
For the few hours he can manage to find sleep, he dreams of Elysian. He dreams of wielded knives, and fields, and questions left unanswered; over and over, he dreams of the flash of light as the cloaked figure sent them light-leaping all the way to Eternalia. It’s the same dream he’s been having for the past week, after the six of them had awoken on the steps to Bronte’s castle, forced to admit that they had learned nothing of use—only that Lady Gisela is one step ahead, like always.
He hasn’t spoken to anyone but Biana in a week. He hasn’t spoken to Sophie in a week. Then again, he isn’t sure she even wants to speak to anyone. (Except Keefe, his mind traitorously offers, and the thought—against his will—makes him feel sick.)
Just past two in the morning, Fitz blinks awake, unable to remember the last moments of his dream but knowing that his breath is short and his palms have sweat enough to soak the silk sheets. The same pattern as always.
“You look disgusting,” a voice says from the shadowy corners of the room, and Fitz shoots up to a sitting position. He keeps his gaze on the vast expanse of darkness beyond his bed as his hand bats around his nightstand, searching for the knife he keeps per Grizel’s request.
“Who’s there?” he asks. His hand encloses around something cold and metal and he points it at the wall.
The figure sighs. “Don’t waste your breath. There’s only so many times you can attempt to kill me before it becomes embarassing.”
Now that Fitz is more awake, the voice sounds somewhat familiar, though it seems almost technologically distorted. “What do you want?” Fitz asks, shifting back further on his bed. He doesn’t process the figure’s words, only considering the best way to reach Sophie without waking her, or sounding like he’s crazy.
“Oh, Fitzy,” it says, and it steps into the moonlight.
Fitz drops the knife.
The only vibrant part of the creature is its eyes—cobalt blue, blinking at him in morbid curiosity. Everything else, however, is translucent, flickering in and out as clouds pass. “I can see you’ve missed me,” Alvar says, as a minute passes without Fitz saying a word.
He quickly gathers his thoughts and says, “Get out.” You should be dead , Fitz doesn’t say. But, of course, these are the consequences of Sophie and Keefe’s mercy. Fitz is living in a never-ending nightmare.
“Trust me,” Alvar replies, strangely calm, “there’s nothing I’d like to do more.”
Fitz can only stare at him. Finally, he says, “How are you alive?”
“I’m not.”
Fitz rolls his eyes. More games from the Neverseen. “How are you here ?”
Alvar raises a translucent eyebrow. “I’m not.”
That stops Fitz in his tracks. Through gritted teeth, he bites out, “Who am I talking to right now?”
Alvar looks around the room. “The wall, I think. Or maybe yourself.” He shrugs, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Or the ghost of your dead brother, whom you killed.” Suddenly, the translucent white of his body is tinted red, and Fitz can make out the lines of the clothes Alvar is wearing—a Foxfire uniform, he realizes with a sharp breath.
“Ghosts aren’t real,” he replies, though he obviously now has his doubts. He’s only ever heard about them in human folklore, since elves so rarely die without closure. But Alvar must have died in some random corridor, or perhaps in the middle of the woods where they could never find his body.
And now, he’s returned for revenge.
Alvar hums, returning to his pale white mist. “No, they shouldn’t be.” It’s frustratingly vague, and Fitz almost wants to tell him that he sounds like their father.
“If you want to kill me, go ahead,” Fitz concedes. “But it won’t help you. You did this to yourself. You brought our family down with you.”
Alvar’s ghostly form flickers between colours—red, blue, even green, before settling down to a pale purple. “This family was always doomed,” he says. “You and Alden were the only ones who couldn’t see it.” He wrinkles his nose. “This entire place is rotten.”
“You chose to come here,” Fitz says, carefully reaching for his knife again. Alvar hadn’t said what his purpose was. Kill Fitz? Torture Fitz? Or—if this was all another ploy from the Neverseen—get information out of Fitz?
But Alvar only laughs. “Arrogant as always, brother. You really think you’re the first person I’d seek after death? Even if I was on some twisted revenge plot—which, believe it or not, I’m not —I don’t care enough about you to make our reunion meaningful. Anyway, between the two of us, who has a history of being murderous?”
You literally kidnapped Sophie and Dex, Fitz thinks.
“Stop haunting me, then,” is Fitz’s only reply. He won’t take the bait. Alvar doesn’t deserve that.
“Again, I’d really rather be in human hell,” Alvar replies. “But I’m a part of you, so.” He freezes, suddenly, as a cold draft flows through the bedroom, despite the closed windows.
Fitz frowns. “What?” he asks, but it’s too late. His brother’s misty form is drifting away, vanishing as though he had never existed.
A fog settles over his room, and somehow Fitz finds himself in his bathroom, rummaging for Elwin’s sleeping elixir in the dark.
The next thing he remembers is his strangely cold sheets, and then the world goes black.
-
Fitz doesn’t see him again until the next afternoon, when he finds himself sitting in the gardens.
“Well, you clearly aren’t living an eventful life,” Alvar says, hovering beside a rose bush. Fitz—despite his best efforts—jumps, dropping part of his sandwich on the soil.
Alvar snorts. “Wow. Graceful.”
Upon waking up, Fitz had decided that his conversation with his brother’s ghost must have been an evil nightmare, conjured by the stress of the past weeks. This, unfortunately, proves that it was not.
“What do you want?” Fitz asks again, not bothering to keep his annoyance out of his voice. Perhaps in his week of isolation he’s officially lost his mind. That wouldn’t be impossible.
“I want to not be here,” Alvar replies curtly. “But we can’t all get what we want.”
That is the first thing Alvar has said in many years that Fitz can go along with. “No, we can’t,” he agrees, staring morosely at the remains of his sandwich.
At that, Alvar moves to sit beside him—or, as close as a ghost can get to sitting while simultaneously being made of mist. It strangely reminds Fitz of moments from his childhood, the last time he, Alvar, and Biana had spent time together, sitting outside and making up new names for the plants that surrounded them. Alvar used to tell them stories of the Forbidden Cities, though Fitz wouldn’t understand for many more years why his brother was so knowledgeable about humans. Looking back, he had been so young to be making the journey alone.
They had both been so young.
“You know, I really thought you had friends,” Alvar says, glancing around the empty garden. “Or did they all abandon you after you attempted fratricide?”
Fitz rolls his eyes. “I think you’re overestimating your importance in my life.”
“And yet I don’t see anyone else here right now,” Alvar counters. “Really, I’d love to know the drama. Did Keefe run away again? I’m sure Sophie must be sulking about that. You know, I always thought the two of them were so much better together—”
“Shut up,” Fitz snaps.
Alvar raises an eyebrow. “Touchy.”
“It’s really none of your business,” Fitz replies. “You would never have cared while you were alive. Even while you were still…” Good. A Vacker. My brother.
Alvar waves his hand. “Right, but back then I had better things to do. Now fate has stuck me with you, my brother who idolizes our stupid name and refuses to break a rule.”
Fitz is fairly certain the only person who can beat him in terms of rules broken is Keefe—and perhaps Sophie, if one takes into account actual elven laws. After all, he and Keefe had equally influenced each other throughout their friendship. Whatever pranks Keefe had played, Fitz had surely had some part in—whenever he was actually at Foxfire, that is. (He still isn’t quite sure how Alden had managed to excuse the sheer amount of absences on his record.)
“You don’t know anything about me,” Fitz snaps. “You haven’t cared since I manifested.”
“The entire world cared when you manifested!” Alvar shouts, and the mist around him is suddenly tinted red once again. “Do you really want me to feel bad for you? You’ve always had Dad’s unconditional love. You get to train your stupid ability with the best of the best. You’re the one who actually found her, so you get to be off the hook for all the crazy, illegal shit Dad made us do during the search. You get anything you want, all the time, because you’re just so perfect .” He spits out the last word as if he’s allergic, as if the concept is too disgusting to process.
For a moment, Fitz only stares at him.
Finally, bitterly, he says, “Again. You don’t know anything about me.”
Alvar scoffs, but the violent red of his body fades to a pale pink. “I’ve always liked Keefe better.”
And Fitz can only laugh at the irony. “You’re not the only one.” His brother regards him silently, appraising, and the sensation of the ghost’s eyes upon him makes him shiver, despite the warm weather.
But then Alvar’s gaze shifts suddenly to the empty air in front of him, and Fitz frowns before the space begins to sparkle, light warping around it. Then Biana steps forward, head tilted in question. “Hey,” she greets, apparently paying no mind to the ghost of their dead brother sitting beside him. “Were you talking to someone?”
Fitz glances between his sister and Alvar. “You can’t see him?” he asks.
He’s not sure how he’s expecting her to respond, but doubling over laughing wasn’t even remotely in the list of possibilities. She wipes a tear from her eye. “Honestly,” she says, through remaining chuckles, “you shouldn’t joke about going crazy. I might actually believe you.”
Fitz stares at her with wide eyes. “Are you serious?” He gestures to the literal ghost sitting next to him, who has a frustrating smirk on his lips.
“Um,” Biana says, laugh suddenly subdued, “yeah? Do you see someone there?”
It’s at this point that Fitz realizes he might actually be on the way to a broken mind.
Biana stares at him. “Do you need me to call Sophie? Because I’m pretty sure she’s still in bed, but, like, she’d answer if it’s you. I think.” Well, isn’t that reassuring.
Fitz forces a smile onto his face. “Oh, no, no, sorry. I was talking about”—he glances around, before his eyes land on a fluttering insect—“um, this butterfly. I named it…Elizabeth.” It takes a moment before he remembers where he knows that name from, and then he internally groans.
Her gaze softens. “Oh, Fitz,” she says, sitting down on his other side. “I know Sophie and Keefe being a thing is hard for you—”
“Okay, no, we are not having this conversation,” Fitz cuts her off, immediately guilty at the uncharacteristic rudeness. He’s been putting off this discussion with every single one of his friends and his parents—Alden had tried to corner him, upon hearing the news, but Fitz had luckily managed to escape. He’s not sure why everyone thinks that’s what’s affecting him the most, and not everything else that’s happened over the past few months.
“Alright,” Biana mercifully agrees. “Just…talk to someone, will you? I’m sick of everyone isolating themselves. That’s what they want.”
Fitz sighs. “Fine,” he agrees, if only to get her off his back, “I’ll hail someone.” He mentally goes through everyone in their friend group, trying to determine who would be the most likely to be open to conversation right now. “I’ll hail Dex.”
Biana hums. “Yeah. Do that.” And then she’s gone, vanishing into thin air. Fitz can hear her footsteps as she trudges out of the garden, hopefully satisfied.
Without even turning toward Alvar, Fitz mutters, “Thanks for that. Now she thinks I’m genuinely losing my mind.”
His brother only shrugs. “I’m personally convinced everyone in this family is on the verge of a mind break.”
Because of you, Fitz wants to say, but some part of his mind tells him to hold his tongue. He turns to Alvar—intending some other snippy remark—but is stopped by a sudden cold breeze, blowing through his thin tunic. He remembers this from last night, he thinks.
Through the mist, a pair of cobalt blue eyes blink at him, carrying some indecipherable emotion.
And then Alvar is gone.
-
The rational part of Fitz’s brain understands that something is very, very strange here.
He’s seen Alvar six times now, though for varying lengths. Sometimes, the ghost only stares at him, body tinted a deep blue. Every so often, he’ll carry out conversation—strangely, though, Alvar doesn’t always seem to remember what he’s said and done in appearances before. He’ll ask Fitz the same question, or repeat the same snide remark as if it’s novel, or stare at Della and Biana again and again as if it's the first time he’s seeing them.
And Della can’t see him either. Fitz takes a mental note of that—is he really the only person Alvar can speak to? They don’t even feel the cold draft that comes with Alvar’s exits, or the fog that remains for hours afterward. He’s so far only tested it with his family, mainly because he knows his friends wouldn’t hesitate to call Elwin if they thought Fitz was seeing things.
That, and there really isn’t a good way to explain Can you come over and test whether you can see the ghost of my dead brother who’s been haunting me for three days via message or hail. Actually, there isn’t a good way to explain the situation at all.
The worst part is that he can’t control when the phantom appears. Sometimes he wakes up and sees him lurking at the foot of his bed. Sometimes he shows up at breakfast, or when he’s attempting to read a textbook (and utterly failing). Sometimes Alvar will wordlessly point him to the answer when he attempts his homework.
The longer his haunting continues, the more Fitz mulls over Alvar’s words from their second meeting. I’m convinced everyone in this family is on the edge of a mind break. And isn’t he right?
Fitz considers the evidence.
One: he hasn’t slept properly in weeks. Not too damning—on its own, at least.
Two: he’s the only one who can see Alvar. At all. Any trace of his existence seems entirely confined to Fitz’s perception, despite his mother being a master of tricks of the light and vanishing. Surely, if anyone could see him, it would be Della.
Three: Alvar came back…strange. Different. He has the memories of the Alvar Fitz had last met, but his outfit comes straight from Fitz’s memory of him as a Level 6, and he flips between his older self’s endless anger and his teenage self’s kind guidance with no warning. Sometimes, he’s so much like his younger self that Fitz forgets his brother ever hated him. Then, in the blink of an eye, Fitz is forced to remember. Vividly.
The evidence, he thinks, does seem to support the conclusion of Alvar being a hallucination. But in all his study of telepathy, Fitz has never come across “seeing ghosts” as a symptom of a mind breaking. He knows from his father that a mind break is something that looms, something you can feel for weeks before it happens.
And yet Fitz feels…nothing.
It’s a physical sort of nothing. The kind that festers, that brings you down with it, that leaves you exhausted and unable to do anything but just be . These days, it’s a weight that presses down on him, that keeps him rooted in place and constantly wanting to help, trying to help, but unable to take that first step. It leaves him in an endless state of existence, of trying to find someone to be.
Purpose, Fitz thinks, is often a meaningless concept.
And so he sets out to find the one person who can tell him with certainty what he’s feeling.
“Fitz,” Alden greets as he slips into his office. “Are you alright?”
Fitz opens his mouth to speak, but realizes that he doesn’t quite know how to explain his situation. He can’t exactly tell Alden that he’s seeing the ghost of his dead eldest son, because then he’ll want to speak to him, and Fitz will act as conduit, and Alvar will hate him forever.
Alvar already hates you forever, a helpful part of his mind supplies.
Quietly, Fitz says, “Is there a Telepath equivalent to going numb?”
Alden’s eyes widen momentarily. “What do you mean?” he asks, careful.
Fitz lets out a small sigh. How can he explain this? How can he ask, am I losing my mind? without sounding…well, like he’s lost his mind? Instead, he asks, “Have you ever heard of ghosts?”
“The human folklore?” Alden replies, brows furrowing. “I know some. Why do you ask?”
“Do you think,” Fitz starts, then pauses. “Do you think it’s possible for our dead to haunt us?”
Alden lets out a breath, gaze shifting to the fish that swim in circles, endless. “I believe our dead haunt us every minute of our lives,” he says softly. “We, as a species, are not accustomed to loss. There is a reason why Ancients choose to forget. Sorrow, like guilt, twists your mind irrevocably.”
Fitz wonders if he’s speaking about Prentice. He chooses not to ask.
After a long, heavy silence, Alden asks, “Have you spoken to Sophie? As Cognates, she has far better chance of understanding your pain.”
Sophie.
Truthfully, Fitz should’ve spoken to her from the moment he first saw the ghost. After all, this is who they are to one another—each other’s deepest confidant, an anchor when their abilities seem all-consuming. But something prevents him.
Perhaps it’s the identity of the ghost; perhaps it’s his lingering worry that this is the first step to breaking. Or maybe it’s just his fear, a new beast that glues him to the ground—unable to move, to cry for help.
But clearly this conversation isn’t going anywhere, so he gets up and says, “Right. Sophie. I’ll go find her.”
Fitz ignores how the chair clatters to the ground behind him as he moves too quickly, too violently. Alden doesn’t say anything even when he closes the door a little too loud. Too fearfully .
“Did he help?” Alvar says, leaning against the wall. He’s red.
Fitz doesn’t even flinch. “No,” he replies honestly.
Alvar hums. “That’s usually how it goes.” He follows Fitz as he hurries up the stairs, back into his room and flopping onto his bed. When Fitz opens an eye to see Alvar hovering in front of him, he notes that the red is fading. “What’s wrong with you?” Alvar asks, strangely caring.
Fitz just stares at him, ignoring the painful sensation in his neck from his awkward position. “Are you real?” he asks, his voice cracking in the middle.
The ghost looks down at him. (Alvar was always looking down at him.)
“I’m dead,” it says, matter-of-fact.
“But are you real?” Fitz presses. He doesn’t even know what real means to him. He just needs a response.
Alvar seems to consider it for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally responds. “Do you want me to be?”
Do you want me to be?
Do you need me to be?
Fitz buries his face into his pillow. “I don’t know,” he says, forgetting how to breathe. “I don’t know.”
-
Fitz and Alvar are sitting in the kitchen when he remembers. “I have a question,” he asks, because this Alvar seems to be a lot more like his younger self, and is therefore far more open to regular conversation.
The ghost raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“You said—the first time you appeared—that I’m ‘far from the first person you’d visit after death,’” Fitz starts, and Alvar snorts.
“Right,” he says. “I don’t remember that, but it sounds like me.”
Fitz almost convinces himself that his question is a breach of privacy, before deciding that his curiosity overrides his morals. “So…who would you have visited? If you had the choice, I mean. Because I’m assuming you weren’t talking about Biana.”
“You Vackers are far too convinced of your own importance,” Alvar replies, rolling his eyes. “No, I probably didn’t mean Biana. Or any of you. If I had the choice, I’d never return to the Lost Cities, even in death.”
Fitz stares at him. “You’re telling me you would’ve gone back to the Neverseen?” Of course. Of course no version of Alvar could be different. Even at this age, he had already made the choice to be evil, though Fitz would never have guessed it.
“It’s not that simple,” Alvar replies. “They raised me. They were my home.”
“This was your home!” Fitz snaps, dropping his fork on his plate with a clang. “Everglen raised you. Vackers raised you.”
Alvar scoffs. “I forget that you’re still brainwashed. The Lost Cities aren’t all they seem—”
Fitz rolls his eyes. “I know that,” he says. “You forget that I also ran away and joined a rebel group. Just not the one that was evil.”
“Again,” Alvar says, “it’s not as simple as good and evil—”
“You kidnapped and tortured children—”
“You genetically manufactured them—”
“So did you!” Fitz shouts. “The Neverseen destroyed Keefe. You ruined his life. Lady Gisela ruined his life. You made him an experiment. At least the Black Swan had the decency to tell Sophie what she was.”
Alvar goes quiet at that.
“What?” Fitz goads. He needs to hear some kind of defense, something to remind him to hate his brother—
“I didn’t know,” is Alvar’s quiet, pained response. “When I joined, Fintan—he had a bigger purpose. We had reasons to act the way we did, even if they were beyond morals sometimes.” He pauses, then adds, “There was a time when the Neverseen and the Black Swan weren’t really all that different, Fitz. But you knew that already.”
Of course he does. They all do.
That’s why they keep fighting.
“Then why would you choose to go back to Lady Gisela’s Neverseen?” Fitz asks. He needs to understand. He may never understand.
Alvar levels him a look that’s almost indecipherable. It’s something akin to sorrow, to longing, to pain. “Ruy’s still there, isn’t he?” he asks, quietly. “I wanted to see him one last time.”
Fitz blinks. “Ruy? The psionipath?”
“Mm,” Alvar hums. “The very same. We were roommates.”
“So, what, you want to haunt him to make sure he takes out the trash? Makes the bed? Keeps dishes out the room?” Fitz frowns at his brother, but he only—strangely—smiles.
“Sure, all of the above,” he says. “It’s…complicated.”
Fitz is still trying to wrap his head around Alvar’s response. Why would he want to haunt his ex-roommate, of all people? Over his family, over the people he loves, or loved, apparently—
Oh.
Fitz tries to conceal his shocked, wide-eyed expression, and fails spectacularly.
“You and—and Ruy?” Fitz manages to get out.
Alvar sighs. “I can’t tell if you’re surprised that I have a life outside of this family, or that I’m gay.”
Both would be the honest answer. Both is what Fitz should probably say instead of gaping like a fish.
“Hmm. They really don’t teach you much around here, do they,” Alvar says, after a long moment. “Well. It’s a lot more common in the Forbidden Cities.”
Which Fitz knows. He remembers the first time he’d seen a rainbow flag while searching for Sophie, the first time he’d asked someone what the parade was for. The first time he’d seen two women kiss.
The first time he’d wondered if maybe some humans were far freer than elves could ever be.
“I know,” is all he can manage to respond. “Um. Congratulations?”
Alvar just looks at him. “On being dead and forever separated from my lover?”
Right. “Obviously not.” Fitz tries to find his words. “Just—on being able to accept it. You know.”
He watches, for the first time in years, as his brother’s face softens into something caring. Loving, even. “Oh, Fitzy,” Alvar says, gently. “You’ll find your peace. I promise.”
And somewhere, in some strange, optimistic part of his heart, Fitz believes him.
-
“You know, you never answered my question,” Alvar says, appearing behind Fitz in the bathroom mirror. Fitz drops his comb, then turns to glare at his brother.
“What question?” he asks, bending over to pick it up. He’s become fairly used to Alvar’s frequent comings and goings over the past few weeks. Strangely, he only ever appears in Everglen.
Alvar, a pleasant shade of yellow, leans back against the tiled wall. “Where are all of your friends?”
And Fitz can’t help but suck in a breath at that. “It’s…complicated,” he replies, echoing Alvar’s earlier statement.
“Right,” Alvar says, eyebrows raised. “I highly doubt it’s as complicated as talking to your dead brother every night and day.”
Fitz sighs and grabs his bottle of hair mousse. “Look, we’re all recovering. A lot has happened these past few months.”
“And you need to recover alone?” Alvar questions. “Tell me I’m not your only form of social interaction. That would be awfully pathetic.”
In the mirror, Fitz meets his brother’s gaze. “Sophie and I have been checking in,” he says, unsure why he’s defending himself to a phantom. “And I went to Mysterium to talk to Dex for a bit. Marella was there, too.” He hadn’t quite wanted her to be there, but he couldn’t exactly leave after being spotted.
“Hmm,” Alvar considers. “Fine. I’ll take it. Doesn’t really seem healthy, though.”
Fitz rolls his eyes. “Is it healthier to run away, join an evil organisation, and kidnap children?”
He’s met with a sigh. “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t know if I do,” Fitz replies, smoothing gel into his hair. “And I don’t really care about your opinion, to be honest.”
Alvar scoffs. “You’ve cared about my opinion since you were a kid.”
A glob of gel falls onto Fitz’s forehead. “You knew?” he asks. You knew and you still betrayed me?
But Alvar, of course, dodges the question. “Do you ever feel like you care too much about making other people happy? Doesn’t it drain you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fitz says, though he definitely does.
Alvar stares at him. “I really did want to be a role model for the three of you, you know,” he confesses, voice suddenly quiet.
Fitz pauses, moisturizer in hand. “I know,” he says, matching his tone. “That’s why it hurt so much when you left. For me and for—for him .”
Mercifully, Fitz’s meaning is understood. “I tried to help him in the Neverseen,” Alvar says. “He’s messed up, but there’s something fundamentally good in him.”
He locks eyes with Fitz through the mirror, and Fitz understands what he means. Unlike you. Unlike me.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are if you keep making the wrong choices,” Fitz mutters, washing his hands in the sink.
He hears Alvar step forward. “But he came back.”
Fitz freezes. “How did you know he was gone?” That had happened long after Alvar’s death, Fitz knows. And Fitz certainly hadn’t discussed it with him.
He sees his brother smile in the mirror. “He came back,” Alvar repeats, and there’s something mechanical about his voice.
Fitz splashes his face with water. When he looks up, the ghost is gone.
-
“I have a confession to make,” Keefe says to the group.
By the way he and Sophie are glancing at each other furtively, Fitz stands to think that he has several.
On the couch of Havenfield sit Fitz, Sophie, Dex, and Biana— The old group, Fitz thinks, one he hasn’t seen in a long time. In front of them stands Keefe, and Fitz doesn’t need to be an Empath to know that he’s nervous.
“I wasn’t entirely honest about what I did in the Forbidden Cities,” Keefe continues. Fitz wonders if they need to clean up a body.
Keefe bites his lip, and Fitz notices Sophie nodding, encouraging him to continue. How bad could this possibly be?
But then Keefe is talking, and staring right at him.
And Fitz feels sick.
Alive, Keefe is saying, Alvar alive—
Fitz almost excuses himself to go vomit.
“I’m sorry,” Keefe says, and he’s looking into Fitz’s eyes, ice blue sorrow. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you—”
Then Sophie is grabbing his arm, saying something he can’t hear through the screaming in his head, the realization that maybe something is wrong with him, maybe something has been wrong for quite some time.
Can a man who never died still haunt me?
“I didn’t want to keep it a secret,” Keefe assures both him and Biana, “but he asked.”
Fitz wants to protest, to say that Alvar’s desires don’t matter. Why should they, when he betrays them time and time again?
Then the front door creaks, and a man appears in the doorway. Fitz is ashamed to say he isn’t even fazed, at first. After all, he’s been seeing that face for nearly a month now.
“Hey,” is all Alvar says, eyes locked on Keefe and Sophie. He looks comfortable, Fitz thinks. More at ease with himself.
That is, until his gaze lands on Fitz, and his lips twist into a scowl. “You,” he spits.
Against his instinct, against every bone in his body that wishes to bare his soul to his brother, to find his support, Fitz snaps, “The feeling’s mutual.”
With each step Alvar takes, the floorboards creak—a reminder that this one is real. He greets Biana with fondness and Dex with polite indifference. He doesn’t pay Fitz any mind.
“I’ve changed now,” Alvar promises. Lies. “I want nothing to do with the Neverseen.”
“Not even Ruy?” Fitz cuts in, with a carefully crafted, innocent expression on his face. He knows it’s cruel. He doesn’t care.
Alvar whips around to face him with such force that he almost trips Keefe. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snarls.
Fitz just stares at him. “Don’t I?”
A tense silence hangs over the room.
Then Alvar turns to Keefe, a renewed fury in his eyes, and says, “I told you. You’re more of a brother to me than he ever was.”
Something deep inside Fitz is suffocated.
Something, feeling eerily like affection, is dead.
I don’t need you, Fitz tells himself, forcing his breathing steady.
(But I want to.)
He gets up, and he storms out of Havenfield.