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“Even? Are you awake?”
The gruff question made Even start at his desk, where he’d been splayed facedown over a pile of papers, half-asleep. A pen rolled off the edge of the desk and clattered to the floor as he straightened and rubbed at his forehead, blinking over at the open doorway in the lamplight.
“I’m sorry,” he managed. “What is it? Has the master called for me?”
“Not yet, but I’d wager soon. He’s finishing something tonight and will want your opinion. You’d best make yourself presentable.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
Tiredly Even fumbled with the disarray at his desk, stacking together papers that had been slid in a fan when he’d rested his temple on them. Dilan did not leave. He remained in the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the hall, and instead of turning away he stepped inside and set his back against the doorjamb, as if waiting. It made Even blink at him, rubbing his face with his cupped hands to try and scrub away exhaustion.
“Did you need something else, Dilan?” he ventured; Dilan folded his arms.
“A word, if you’ll spare it.” He sounded a bit annoyed, though it was hard to know if that meant anything—he always sounded a bit annoyed. “Exactly how long do you intend to flail about in here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know perfectly well what I’m about. All this moping is unbecoming.”
“I’m not in here moping.”
“Well, I don’t know what else to call it. You’ve hardly set foot outside this room since you returned, and it’s been a week, or nearly.”
“You must know that I’m busy.”
“Dare I ask what with? Or will you insist it’s beyond my ken as a layman?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll say it outright, because no one else has the wherewithal to confront you: you’ve had more than enough time to yourself. The rest haven’t brought it up only because they want to be respectful of your feelings.”
“And I take it you have no such qualms?”
“None. I’ll have you out of here by the collar if you won’t rouse yourself of your own accord.”
The threat was not quite in jest, and Even raised an eyebrow, pulling himself upright with some difficulty to sit back in his chair. A blanket had been haphazardly tossed over the back of it, and his movement made the blanket slide sideways and off, onto the floor; he spared it a glance, but didn’t retrieve it. The rest of the room had been so stuffed with books, papers, trays of half-eaten food, discarded clothes and research accoutrements that a single blanket hardly added to the confusion.
“What gives you the right to chastise me?” Even asked him.
“I’ve as much of a right as anyone else in the building. And furthermore, I’m the only one with the gall to exercise it.” Dilan glared. “Enough of all this, Even. You were missed. They’d all like to see you again for something other than meals.”
Even heaved a sigh and blearily surveyed the state of the desktop. He resumed arranging its contents into something slightly more manageable, and as he did Dilan straightened from where he’d been leaning against the doorframe, crossing to the desk. As the only other chair in the room was piled high with books and papers, Dilan half-leaned, half-sat on the far corner of the desk with arms still folded, the better to watch Even’s rummaging. He waited, saying nothing, and Even said nothing either, at least not until he’d shoved enough detritus out of the way to give himself some elbow room.
“I’m told,” Even said, not looking up, “that you and Aeleus went out searching for me at first.”
“High and low, for ages. We turned over every paving-stone in town and then some. It never came into that fine brain of yours to leave us all a note? I had other things I would have liked to have been doing with my time.”
“It couldn’t be helped.”
“You know full well it could have. What the devil possessed you, Even?”
Even sighed again, nudging a stack of papers in Dilan’s general direction. They threatened to teeter off the edge of the desk, and Dilan did nothing to prevent it, his arms remaining firmly folded across his stomach.
“I’ve told the whole story already,” Even reminded him. “I don’t think I have another telling in me.”
“I wasn’t asking for one. But I had thought you might have at least come up with a more respectable excuse.” Dilan shook his head slightly, swaying his long hair. “Tell me truly: what in blazes did you expect us all to do if the worst had happened? Carve you a headstone and move on?”
“Something like that, I suppose. I tried not to dwell on the possibility...”
“While none of the rest of us had that privilege. The others worried themselves sick over what might have become of you, talking in circles daily, and who do you suppose had to manage them all?”
“You, I take it. Is that what this reprimand is about?”
“Partly. And partly for my own sake. I haven’t yet given you the tongue-lashing you deserve.” He scowled at him, his violet eyes flashing in the lamplight. “You might have well and truly died, and none of us would have ever known the truth. You would really have put the boy through that, as the first test of his adult heart? Smashed the thing to pieces before he ever got a chance to use it?”
“Don’t start.” Even rubbed his face with one hand, wincing. “Aeleus has given me that lecture already.”
“And you must know how much foolishness it takes to earn a whole lecture from him.” Dilan paused, then admitted, “He had faith in you from the beginning, even when it was baseless. I didn’t share it, but nothing I said persuaded him.”
“You believed my ruse, then? You thought I had gone mad?”
“Stark raving. How not? The Even we’d known before could be single-minded in his pursuits, and stubborn as a mule, but he never would have abandoned us. I thought only madness could have driven you to such lengths—that recompleting had made your head finally crack.”
“You sound as if you’d expected it to happen.” Even rubbed the bridge of his nose, still wincing. “I thought you had some trouble with coming back together yourself. You were in as bad of shape as I was that first day.”
“The first day,” Dilan groused, “and for far too long thereafter. I don’t know if I’m through with it yet.”
“A physical problem?”
“Say rather a spiritual one. This business of feeling things is infernally troublesome. I had thought I was well rid of it before.”
He did not elaborate, except to growl faintly in the back of his throat. Even rifled halfheartedly over the messy desktop for a pen, found nothing, and gave up.
“And if the truth had never come down?” he ventured. “If you kept thinking I really had ‘finally cracked’…You would still have looked for me? Dragged me back?”
“And soundly thrashed you, for good measure. You’d have earned it, and Aeleus wouldn’t have had the stomach. Why didn’t you say anything, damn you? Why didn’t you explain?”
“I thought you all would be safer if I didn’t.”
“And what of your own safety?”
“What of it?”
“You might have given a single solitary thought to it before you went skipping off. It was never your duty to put yourself in harm’s way, you know that. What do you suppose this blasted uniform is for? Vanity? Fashion?”
He indicated the insignia on the front of his crisply-pressed tunic.
“Ah, so that’s what all this is.” Even propped his elbows onto the desktop, holding his head, as if he had a light headache. “I wasn’t trying to do your job, Dilan. I simply had no choice. The whole endeavor was something that only I could attempt.”
“Not alone.”
“Better alone. Safer for all of you.”
“And what right had I to remain safe, while you of all people went out and risked your scrawny neck? I swore vows for this uniform, Even. I’d rather like them to mean something.”
“Your vows aren’t to me.”
“They’re to lord and castle, and you touch on both. You’ve served him longest, you’re as much a part of this place as the plumbing. If you’d been killed—and killed doing some damn fool thing it was never your responsibility to do—how could I look the master in the eye and say that I allowed it to happen? What would my word ever be worth again?”
“You’ve given this a good deal of thought.”
“I’ve had the time. You left us plenty.” His considered, then added, disparagingly, “‘A royal guard’s duty is not to think. It is to protect the men who think for them.’”
Even knew him well enough to hear the sarcastic recitation in his tone.
“Was that something that I said once?” he guessed.
“Shortly after I joined the watch. I’ve never forgotten.”
“I don’t remember it, but that does sound like me when I was younger.” Even grimaced, stuffing some loose papers into a book. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. You weren’t wrong, though you could have phrased it more courteously.”
“Courtesy’s not a strong point of mine, I’m told.”
“Not so much, no.”
They exchanged a long look, and Dilan’s scowl finally lessened, if only a touch. Even slumped to set his forehead onto the desktop again, and the contrast between them was striking: one man tall and broad-chested and ferocious-looking, the other lean and haggard, older, weary now but haughty once. That contrast was not new. Since they’d met it had been there, and in better days long behind them, Even had at first been confident that his intellect placed him on a level far above the mere guardsmen, at least until one had come along with a tongue sharp enough to spar with him. Aeleus, with a saint’s patience, had always endured Even’s snobbery without offense; Braig, with a scoundrel’s glee, had regularly wound him up for sport. But Dilan’s had been the middle path, like Aeleus never deliberately antagonizing him, but like Braig, willing to give as good as he got if Even’s arrogance ever crossed the line into insult. Whether the two of them could have been called friends was a question neither had ever asked, and if they had, the answer would not have mattered much. It would have been like asking whether one was friends with the buttresses or the stained glass or any of the other permanent fixtures of the castle, things that had always been there and always should be in order for the place to function.
“You know, Dilan,” came Even’s voice from the tabletop, slightly muffled, “I’ve always admired your…social graces. They’re not something I’ve ever quite managed to cultivate.”
“A long effort on my part, and tiresome. To be frank, sometimes I’m envious of you for not being obligated to perform said graces yourself.”
“No one expects it of me?”
“No one with sense. You’re an odd duck on a good day, and worse otherwise.”
Even raised his head just enough to glare at him, though not sharply.
“I can’t help it,” he grumbled.
“Nor should you try. None of us would trade you for anything, however odd you might be.”
Even frowned, suspicious of such an admission from such a source.
“You’re being glib,” he accused, pointing, his elbow still fixed to the desktop. “You’re only trying to butter me up.”
“Obviously. Is it working or no?”
Now he had to laugh, if weakly.
“You can’t appreciate how odd it is to hear you attempt it. In the Organization, you had even less patience for other people than you did before, and that well was never deep.”
“Feh.” Dilan looked suddenly irritated. “Don’t remind me what a wretch I was. Bad enough to have the memories.”
“I won’t argue that. At least it’s behind us, for better and for worse. Well…I suppose it was only ever for the worse.”
“I deserved the end that came to me,” Dilan said grimly. “If anything, it came too late. I ought to have hanged myself long before and been done with it.”
“Don’t say such things. It’s not as if we knew the truth. Or ever could have guessed it.” At last Even discovered a pen hiding beneath a sheaf of illegibly scrawled notes, retrieving it. “How long did you keep around, anyway? After the rest of us had gone.”
“A year and a half, give or take. I wasn’t counting.”
“And I suppose it never troubled you that we had disappeared.”
“Not a whit, no. And even if I could have managed to be bothered by it, what was to be done? The three of you were together in death. I had no reason to hope for better.” He snorted. “A nasty business all around.”
“Indeed. Though…To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised you were ever defeated.”
“You fought the boy, didn’t you? You know his skill.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly a fair comparison. I’ve never been strong like you.”
“You have your own sort of strength. You've proven that lately to everyone but yourself.” Dilan uncrossed his arms and stopped leaning on the desk, as if making the first motions to leave. “Now, then—enough of this useless jawing. Are you going to start showing your face again, or aren’t you?”
“I suspect there will be consequences if I say no…”
“No more hot meals, for one. You’ll have to make do with your own cooking.”
“A dangerous prospect.”
“As ever, I’m sure. One would think there’d be room enough in your skull for instruction on how to boil an egg, but I suppose such trifles are beneath you.”
“I do seem to recall you banning me from the kitchens once upon a time.”
“And with good reason.” Dilan scoffed, but then his expression softened faintly, caught off guard by the sudden memory. “Odd to recall the incident, now. A lifetime ago…more than one.” He made a thoughtful noise, visibly digging through the cobwebbed attic stacked with memories that had not been dusted off in years. “I suppose you don’t remember the first time we all took you out drinking, do you? That was at least as much of a fiasco.”
Even shuddered.
“Oh, I do remember that. Unfortunately. Braig’s idea, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Doubtless.”
“But you enjoyed the outcome more than anyone.”
“The headache was worth it to see your high-mindedness knocked down a few pegs.” Dilan chuckled, though it was more of a rumble than a laugh. “As I recall, the finer points of whisky were lost on you.”
“Completely. Disgusting stuff.”
“I had thought it might put some hair on your chest. Though perhaps that’s a sight we’re all best spared.”
Even finally sat upright again, though he kept his elbows on the tabletop.
“If you’re going,” he told Dilan, “tell the master that I’ll be down soon.”
“And will it be true?”
“Yes.” He selected one of the myriad of books out of a stack nearby, setting it aside. “I suppose I really can’t stay cooped up any longer, can I? I have to face everyone.”
“The sooner the better. What’s kept you from it?”
This time Even did not brush off the question. He lapsed into thought, his gaze unfocused.
“Shame, I suppose,” he said. “Everything that happened was ultimately my fault. It was my curiosity…no, my insatiable thirst for knowledge that kept it all going. After all that’s happened, what right do I have to be here? To be again at all, when so little else remains?”
“Fate is a fickle creature. It’s clear the right or wrong of things doesn’t enter into her reckoning.” Dilan regarded him intently. “In any case, don’t flatter yourself. You can’t hoard all the blame on your own.”
“I can try.”
“And how do you think I feel about it? At least you’ve your curiosity as an excuse. What is mine? On what basis did I let it all unfold?” His voice grew hard—harder even than usual. “If the consequences had touched only the lot of us, that would have been one thing. A heavy punishment, but just. But things went further than that.”
He didn’t say the rest, and didn’t need to. Though it was Maleficent who had ultimately destroyed Radiant Garden with the Heartless, it was they who had given her the opportunity to do it, who had summoned the darkness in the first place. The city had once been a good place, a safe place, in a larger world that often wasn’t; chaos and strife were distant shadows cast by distant kingdoms, only ever visible in Radiant Garden on the edge of the horizon. The rot had come from within.
“I once swore to protect this place,” Dilan said, “and instead I had a hand in its destruction. If I have to drag myself out of bed every day and bear the thought of that, then so do you.”
Again the two looked at each other, and an understanding seemed to pass between them in the look.
“I suppose the question now is...how do we make things right?” Even wondered aloud. “Assuming that’s even possible. Where do we start?”
“You’ll start by acting like you live here, and that you’ve a grasp of your obligations. Lord and castle come first.”
The stack of papers near to Dilan that had been precariously balanced on the edge of the desk finally gave up the struggle and fell off, scattering loudly like a flock of birds, carpeting the floor. The noise startled them both, though Dilan hardly showed it; Even jolted in his seat. He assessed the damage, then stooped to gather up as many of them as he could reach from his chair, dumping them onto the one clear spot he’d managed to create in front of him. Soon there was no evidence that any part of the desktop had ever been clean.
Dilan made for the door, doing his best not to step on any papers that looked like they shouldn’t be stepped on, lightly kicking them aside with the toe of his boot.
“Are you coming?” he asked over his shoulder. Even stuck a couple of notebooks under one arm and his pen into a front pocket.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” He stood up, brushing off the front of his lab coat with his free hand. “You’re perfectly right, Dilan. Lord and castle come first.”