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"What am I supposed to do with this?" This was a contraption of porcelain and brass, mostly egg-shaped and ticking with concealed clockwork, which Xenk had handed to him when he strode in just a moment ago. It was actually a pretty restrained entrance, all things considered, and yet now Ed had a mysterious ticking egg in his hands.
Xenk took a seat across from him, reserved in a way he hadn't been even when they first met. On mere mortals, it might have even come across as nervousness. "I was hoping you might sing to it."
Ed looked the device over again, trying to understand. There was a sense of magic to it just under the surface--like it had been worked into the clay and metal before they were even shaped--but he couldn't tell what kind or how strong it was. "Is this a bardic thing? Because--"
"Sir, if you cannot be quiet in the library, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave." Ed and Xenk both turned to see a dwarvish woman of no small age glaring at them (well, mostly at Ed) from behind a tall desk; since it was the third time she'd reprimanded him that morning, Ed figured he should probably scoot before she decided to throw Simon and Kira out along with him.
But.
"Hey," he said as he stood, "you guys wouldn't happen to have a bard room here, would you?"
The librarian looked at him, then at Xenk, then at the egg thing Ed was holding. She sniffed and pointed to another part of the library. "Down that way. You'll see a sign. Be sure to leave your name so we know to check you're not dead."
"Thanks a bunch." Ed gathered his things as quickly and quietly as possible, gesturing at Xenk to follow. "Could you let the kids know if they come looking before I'm done?"
The librarian agreed, Ed apologized for the trouble, and then he and Xenk were off to hunt down a free bard room. Most libraries didn't have them--or any dedicated magical study space--but this library was attached to a ludicrously well-funded little school, which meant it had all the good stuff. The good stuff, in this case, being well-shielded, long enough to get some mid-range spells off while you were practicing, and carefully designed for the best acoustics possible.
"Now," Ed said while Xenk was inspecting the space, "like I was saying: Is this a bardic thing specifically? Because most of my spells are for talking people around or doing chores."
Xenk set a bag and his sword on the table, giving off that lesser-mortals vibe again. "It is somewhat dependent upon your being a bard, however the more pertinent qualification is that you are--or at least I hope you are--my friend."
Oh. Okay. So that was maybe more of a gut punch than Ed would have expected. "Of course we're friends," he said, half on auto-pilot. "I may be a huge dick sometimes, but I don't forget it when somebody helps me get my daughter back."
Xenk relaxed, beginning to smile. "Then the box will open."
Wonderful. Just... better all the time. Ed set the egg box thing on the table near Xenk's stuff (it wasn't an especially large table) and grabbed his lute. "Anything in particular, or should I just wing it?"
"Something peaceful would be ideal, I believe."
Peaceful Ed could do. He took a seat and began to play a soft, sleepy melody, singing a lullaby he'd picked up in the north about lights in the sky and faerie fire. It was an easy song, one of half a dozen he'd kept in heavy rotation for Kira when she was a baby, so he had plenty of attention to spare for the egg thing. It began to tick faster, portions of it rotating along seams Ed hadn't noticed before. Every rotation revealed another segment of brass where ceramic had been, shapes and alignments emerging to suggest some sort of lock box.
He was just beginning to wonder whether he should start a second lullaby when a little hook latch appeared and the ticking stopped. Ed finished his lullaby--it was only a few more words anyway--and then reached out without thinking. Xenk moved to stop him, but too slowly, lulled the same way Kira and even Holga got if he played one of these after a long enough day. The latch opened and the egg split along two seams, doors parting to reveal...
A stone.
It was a beautiful stone, clear and faceted like a cut diamond but flashing with color and throwing a little too much light against the padded interior of the box. Ed knew at once that he shouldn't touch it--not because it would harm him but because it was so fragile it might crumble into glittering sand if he wasn't careful--but it called to him so sweetly that he couldn't (or didn't) stop himself from plucking it from its bed.
The stone continued to shine in Ed's hand, bright enough now that it was obvious at least some of its light was internal. Xenk was still reaching for it, leaning over the table with such a stricken expression that Ed was forced to reconsider the wisdom of acting on impulse.
"Shit," he said, "what did I just pick up?"
Xenk lowered his arm, expression falling the tiniest bit further. "It is my heart."
Ed looked at the stone again and saw that it was, in fact, cut in the shape of a human heart. Which was terrible for Xenk, but really good for Ed. "Did Professor Eggheart do this to you?"
"I--yes." Xenk frowned. "You are familiar?"
"Yeah, man, he's been taking credit for a bunch of baby wizards' projects without any pushback and we're trying to figure out how to stop him. You stay here, and I'll go get--"
The door burst open, admitting Simon and Kira. "There you are," Kira said. Simon mage handed another chair out of the corner, dropped into it, and buried his face in his arms on the table. "We found a bunch of books that look like they might be useful, but they're all protected with arcane locks, the librarian's a hard-nose, and even if she weren't it would take a week for Simon to knock them all."
"Well that's fine, because Xenk had a run-in with Eggheart himself and can tell us exactly what he's doing."
Kira and Simon both perked up immediately, Kira lit up as she turned to see Xenk standing right there in full, gleaming armor. "Did you really stab a dragon in the face to save my dad?"
As strange as it had been to have Xenk in front of him looking like a normal, nervous guy, it was even stranger now to watch him slip back into paladin mode, an unyielding righteousness straightening his spine that Ed was willing to consider not entirely of the self-based variety. "Your father and his friends had come to me for aid. It would have shamed me greatly not to act in his defense."
"He's always like this," Simon added, pulling a notebook from his bag. "But if it gets us around trying to open all those books, I'll take it." He began to question Xenk, who answered with the same annoyingly knowledgeable precision he applied to everything.
When Simon asked how he was able to get away without Eggheart taking his heart, Xenk simply said, "It was not his to take."
Ed kept Xenk's heart in his hand the whole time, fingers curled oh-so-casually around it to keep the shiny and glitter from drawing attention to the fact that he had it at all. It was pointless, of course, but Simon pretended to be completely focused on gathering intel and Kira pretended to be dazzled by Xenk's presence, and everything was fine. Fine! Totally fine. Eventually the two of them retreated to ask the librarian some new questions, freeing Ed and Xenk up to deal with the more pressing issue.
"What the hell, Xenk?! Why would you give me your real, actual heart?"
Instead of relaxing into that uncertain guy who'd shown up out of nowhere earlier, Xenk remained stiff and distant, a paladin whose heart had nothing to do with the matter before him. "As I explained to Simon, the surest method of freeing me from Professor Eggheart's contraption is to break my heart cleanly and decisively. I trust you to do so gently and with a minimum of unnecessary harm."
And--there, no, it turned out Xenk wasn't keeping his shit together like Ed thought, he was averting his gaze and deflating just the tiniest bit, a real person begging to have his heart broken so he could move on sooner rather than later. Ed thought for one horrifying moment that he could already feel sand between his fingers, but when he checked the stone it was still gleaming brightly, warm and solid in his hand. Looking at it, though, he knew all over again how easily and thoroughly it could shatter.
He couldn't be the one to do that.
"Xenk," he said, "did it ever occur to you on your way over here that I might prefer your heart in one piece?"
"You yet mourn--"
"That was a year ago! I don't know if you noticed, but I'm actively trying to help people at the moment! I'm a different guy, and you are apparently made of tinsel and a stiff upper lip." Xenk ducked his head a little, still not looking at him, which Ed took to mean he was winning. Who ever would've thunk it? "Listen, I'm keeping your heart. If you really wanna not be in love with me so bad, you can do it the old fashioned way."
Xenk smiled and finally looked at him again, a little bit hesitant and a little bit sly. "I know I have a reputation for great heroics," he said, "but even I cannot do the impossible."
It was a good line, a real charmer, and if Ed weren't such an accomplished liar he'd be having a meltdown in the corner right about now. Instead he said, "Just for that, you're really not getting it back now." He made a show of slipping the stone that was Xenk's heart into an inner pocket of his jacket, the one that lay over his own heart. The egg thing, still sitting on the table, gave another tick out of nowhere, rattled violently, and fell to pieces. "See? Even Professor Eggheart gives up."
"Ah," Xenk said, looking at its remains on the table. "Perhaps we should...?"
"Yeah." They could hash out the details later. Right now they had a gnome to catch.