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The edge of childhood comes for them like the winter turns to spring, but Qifrey feels like his childhood is already gone, or maybe never existed. Like whatever youthful innocence he ever had, he only possessed because he stole it from Olly.
It’s almost time for them to take the fourth test, the thing that stands between them and adulthood. They should be studying, but instead Olly has dragged Qifrey through the window way and over the hills on sylph shoes to their place in the hills, the place where Qifrey once said he’d want to live.
They take a picnic there. Bread and jam, dried meats and cheeses, a carafe of apple cider. Qifrey is taller than Olly now by half an inch. They keep outpacing each other as they grow — shooting up like trees, Qifrey tries not to think.
It’s not like Olly to be the one to goof off. But this isn’t goofing off, Qifrey soon realizes. Olly’s expression is serious, calculating, like he’s working out what kind of sigil he needs to use.
“You wanna build an atelier here?” Olly asks.
It’s a nice place for a tree to grow, a small and vicious part of Qifrey thinks.
Olly frames the countryside in a rectangle with his fingers. “Over there would be nice,” he notes. “The land’s flatter here. We could build it in two parts with a little over bridge. One for you, one for me.”
“You’d come too?” Qifrey asks.
Olly rolls his eyes. “Obviously I’d come too, idiot.”
Obviously he’d come too.
It’s the burning shackle between them, the rope tied between the point of their caps, the promise Olly doesn’t remember and always keeps. Olly smiles at him, beaming with jam stuck to the corner of his lips, and Qifrey’s head pounds, eyes burning as leaves push their way behind them.
“If you’ll have me,” Olly says, suddenly shy.
The edge of childhood is here like the last frost, and they are not small anymore. This is the age that Beldairut gave Qifrey an awkward talk about, the age that has young witches looking at each other differently. Qifrey himself has had many girls stare at him in odd ways. He is still isolated there in the Great Hall but for Olly.
And within him, want still bubbles like air in the ocean outside the hall, reaching above itself for some vast expanse it cannot know. When he looks at Olly, he can’t tell what is the silver wood writhing a warning and what is something else, something sweeter.
It is the latter more and more, he thinks. Because it doesn’t hurt when Olly looks at him, but when he looks away.
“Of course I’ll have you, idiot.”
It’s not a perfect place to build an atelier. Who would even be crazy enough to build their own atelier, not live in the Great Hall or a place like Kahln, or make an addition to an existing workshop? There are plenty of old abandoned houses, even, farmsteads left behind as innovations in magic drew people to cities. Qifrey’s been on enough commissions at this point to know that even the most basic of construction is grueling work, even with the aid of magic. They’ll be spending many, many cold and aching months here to build anything worth having.
Fortunately, Qifrey needs things cold and aching.
He does not need Olly’s hand inching closer to his to lock their fingers together as Olly looks away deliberately, as if scared. This happens anyway, but Qifrey doesn’t feel the silverwood’s threat because his heart is pounding and his mouth is dry. He feels like he’s on the threshold of the Library, staring at a door with a thousand painful mysteries on the other side.
Olly is not looking at him, but even with the beauty of the fields stretched out like a blanket fluttering on the clothesline, Qifrey can look at nothing else but Olly’s profile, the flush brought to his cheeks by the chill, the way the barely-there wind fluffs his ink-black hair like the fur of a brushbug.
“It’s gonna be tough work, and you keep saying you’re tired after just a bit of carrying books around,” Qifrey teases. “You sure you won’t just head back after a week?”
Because I’ll be here too, without the barrier of other people. Are you sure I’ll be enough? Are you sure I won’t be too much? Are you sure you could exile yourself to the land under the open sky with nothing but a vessel with the core carved out, who’s taken your mind and stored it within that empty space to burn forever?
“Aw, hey, I focus better outside anyway,” Olly says. “It’s so hard to think underwater!”
He looks back at Qifrey then, with that sunny smile. Qifrey smiles back. It’s intentional, but it’s not difficult than it used to be. At some point when he wasn’t looking, smiling became more than just a tool to deploy under duress.
That is when Olly dooms him again.
Qifrey can taste the jam on Olly’s lips. It’s an awkward thing, kissing is — he doesn’t think either of them are doing this right, but nonetheless his heart beats at his ribcage like a panicking bird, and Olly’s hand fully curls around his, and he doesn’t want this to stop, and pain pierces his head.
He pulls back like Olly’s on fire with a choked noise, his hand going to his face, nails digging into his forehead.
“Qifrey?” Olly suddenly looks unsure, embarrassed. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t, um…are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Qifrey tries to summon a lie to his tongue. It would be easy. He’s lied to Olruggio before. He could say he’s not like that, he doesn’t like Olly like that.
“I-I…”
His hand is still holding Olly’s. Gripping it like a lifeline.
“Qifrey?” Olly’s voice is softer, less scared, and Qifrey realizes there are tears in his lone eye. “Hey, what’s going on?”
He always does this. Always worries for Qifrey and not himself, always presumes that something is wrong with Qifrey before he thinks it could be their friendship at fault. And he is always right.
Their fingers lace together and Qifrey leans in, resting his forehead on Olly’s shoulder. He can feel the wood awakening, writhing behind his skin, and he whimpers. Now that he has Olly in this moment, in this place, it’s only a matter of minutes…
Unless he could never have this again.
There are tears in his eyes. He forces his hand across his face, picking up the tears to drop in his ink vial. He hides his hand in his sleeve, draws the sigil he’s made himself practice.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The dream of the atelier fades into frenetic studying. More often than not, they study in silence, with Olly at his side, refusing to be driven off by Qifrey’s shell-shocked silence. Refusing to leave, even though it would be better for both of them.
Qifrey doesn’t want to erase his memory again. He doesn’t want to. He hates it. Every time Olly looks at him, the guilt chokes him like the silverwood.
That was, he supposes, the point. He no longer feels bark in his lungs when Olly hugs him. It doesn’t send him into a bout of migraines when they laugh together.
It worked, because Olly is very, very smart. Not that Qifrey will tell him this, but Olly might be the smartest person he knows, and he’s very good at fixing things that aren’t supposed to be fixed and saving things that aren’t supposed to be saved.
Qifrey and Olruggio take their first steps into adulthood at sixteen on the rolling hills, equipped with nothing but a windowway and a materials list.
Though they’ve long since passed their fourth test, long since been full members of witch society, they’ve still been children so long as the ocean loomed above them while they made preparations. But now they’re ready to seize something all their own.
Qifrey stands on a rise next to a struggling fruit tree, the ribbon on his hat undulating in the breeze. Below him, a collection of sticks and string lay out the land they’ve surveyed for their workshop. And there double-checking it is Olly and his papers.
“It looks good from up here,” Qifrey calls down.
Olly looks over his shoulder, annoyed. “You can’t tell that sorta thing by eye!” he yells back.
He is standing, carefree, at the place he sat when he kissed Qifrey for the first time — there’s still a patch of rubyrod there, a hearty wildflower that marks prime picnic spots because its roots leach an enzyme that wards off ants. Qifrey’s heart stutters in his chest.
Olly beckons to him, and Qifrey runs to him to look at the blueprints. He runs to Olly, and he runs from something else — from the things left behind in childhood, from the beasts lurking in Olly’s smile that dog his wood-grained steps.
“Where should we put the herb garden?” Olruggio asks. “Round the back would be more convenient, but I think over there would have better soil. We’d have to pull up the rubyrod, though.”
“Round the back,” Qifrey says. “I like the rubyrod patch.”
If there isn’t a reminder that sticks like a thorn in his chest, then it was for nothing.
One year in, and their atelier has largely taken shape — the basic living areas have taken place, they’ve got a sealed roof and the basic contraptions for livability, and the garden is starting to be more than a patch of wild grass. That means it’s time to procrastinate building apprentice quarters and finalizing the floors, and that means Olly’s started building a brick oven for bread. With Qifrey’s help, when he can spare the time from doing important and very structurally essential things like weaving a basket to keep crysanthonions in.
Qifrey watches Olly work, wicker in hand, from the top of one of their brick piles. They have a lot of material piles cluttering up the grounds, but there’s no one there to see them. No one but them and the occasional visitor from the Great Hall.
For all their proximity, Olly hasn’t offered any further indication that he has romantic feelings towards Qifrey. Which means the seal worked, perfectly excising memories of romance while leaving everything else intact. But Qifrey knows he can’t let his guard down. Because he hadn’t seen the kiss coming the first time, so he can’t rely on himself to see one coming again.
And he can’t rely on himself to pull away, to head off the disaster even if it made itself known. All he can do is damage control, working towards selfish survival.
“Just gotta lay the last ring on top!” Olly announces. “Wanna finish it off with me?”
Of course Qifrey wants to, and he does. They use their sylph shoes to place the final bricks on top, and a masonbond seal to attach them to the layer below.
They land together to admire their work. Qifrey is well and truly winning the height race, which many adults attribute to Olly’s tendency to slouch and not drink his milk.
“We should test it out,” Qifrey says.
Their pantry shelves are half-installed and groaning under the weight of supplies — out here there aren’t many witches, and that means most of the area’s requests come to them, and that means they’ve already got a stock of spare pantry staples and garden vegetables and cuts of meat. They barely use money these days, instead trading in favors and materials.
Neither of them are confident cooks, but they have a book of recipes, and that includes a simple recipe for bread. They spend a grueling half hour preparing it, and a lazy half hour cloudwatching while it bakes, and a panicked twenty seconds rushing back to the oven when they realize it was only supposed to be in the oven for twenty minutes.
The bread is slightly too black and hard on the bottom, and they got the proportions of the flour wrong, or maybe it was just an odd batch. But it’s theirs. Qifrey chokes down the dry bread made with ingredients they earned with their work and an oven they built with their own hands, and he vows to learn to cook properly so they’ll stop having moments like this ruined by their inability to manage food.
They get their lunch proper in Kahln, via the windowway, and quickly get distracted at the stationer’s so they don’t make it back till sunset.
When they step through the windowway back to their field, it’s raining.
Not too bad, just a drizzle, but it still makes Qifrey stiffen and shiver. Then he remembers that he is a witch, and pulls a piece of paper from his sleeve, completing the seal to make a bubble around them without rain.
Still, it’s not his best work, and they run together to take cover in their atelier before Qifrey’s unsure lines leave them drenched.
When they’re standing in the doorway, slightly out of breath and misted from the drops their feet kicked up by running, Qifrey thinks it’s the perfect time for a kiss.
So he quickly turns away and retreats into their atelier — their home.
The rain cannot make its way inside — Olly labored long hours over the water-repellent roof tiles, and Qifrey couldn’t think of a way to get him not to. But it still rages, and he’s awoken in the dark by a clap of thunder.
As his eyes fly open, the lightning cracks again, igniting his room in hellish clarity for a mere heartbeat. He’s paralyzed in that still moment even as it fades behind his eyelids, unable to breathe, unable to move.
He’s there for what feels like forever and several more flashes of lightning, the sound of water roaring in his ears, before he throws off the blanket and stands.
His legs itch with the urge to run, to hide, to retreat to the warm fire downstairs, the ever-burning source of warmth made possible by Olly’s clever seals. There’s comfort down there, away from the cold and wet.
Instead, he walks to the window and makes himself look the storm in the eye even as it jeers at him with every drop. He jumps and squeaks at every thunderclap and trembles at the sheets of water falling.
After a few aborted attempts, he finally grabs hold of the window latch and throws the window open.
The storm roars and lashes at him. Some of his papers go flying like birds, and the rain pushes in, spattering his face. He does not allow his eyes to close, even as his hair whips perilously close to them.
He feels like he is going to die.
Before long, his nightgown is wet and cold. He’s shivering in the dark, and the walls of his room no longer seem so different from the walls of a box deep underground, and the raindrops are like dirt clattering on wood far above him.
“Hey! What’re you doin’?”
The voice sends a jolt through him. Why is Olly awake? He usually sleeps like the dead.
He would say something, but his throat is blocked. So he can’t protest as Olly crosses the room and slams the window closed. The panic starts to fade with the noise. The storm retreats outside where it belongs.
“You’re gonna catch your death of cold,” Olly announces.
The rain is gone, but there’s still water streaming down Qifrey’s face. He’s crying, he realizes, breath coming in small hiccups. He hasn’t cried in front of Olly in a long time.
“I thought you were asleep,” he manages to choke out.
Olly’s not in his nightgown. He’s still in his shirt and pants. Olly grins sheepishly.
“I got lost in my work,” he says. “I was just about to go to sleep, and then I heard a window open upstairs.”
It’s work now, not studies, because they’re grown-up witches who shouldn’t be crying in front of open windows just because they’re a bit wet. In that moment, Qifrey feels small and foolish, and he lets that feeling linger as it burns back the silverwood. It’s hard to feel confident as a witch next to Olly, who draws seals like he can see them on his eyelids when he blinks. Another reason to stay by his side.
“I was fine,” Qifrey says.
Olly scowls at him. “No, you’re soaked. How long did you stand there?” Qifrey doesn’t say anything, and Olly sighs, aggrieved. “Well, at least you’re giving me some practice.”
He fumbles in his pockets for the seal he always keeps with him and unleashes a gust of warm air on Qifrey, drying him in a moment.
“I’m gonna make this into a contraption,” Olly announces. “I’m thinkin’ rings, one half of the seal on each hand, and you put ‘em together to complete it. I bet it’ll sell great in rainy places!”
“Market it for laundry,” Qifrey suggests, already feeling better.
“Y’know, not a half-bad idea,” Olly says. Then he smiles. He’s very easy with his smiles, giving them out carelessly. “You feeling better?”
Qifrey nods. Olly considers him for a moment.
“C’mon downstairs. I need some tea before I go to bed, and you’re the best at making it.”
As they descend, Qifrey indulges in a barrage of self-hatred. Olly is so patient, so kind, and what is Qifrey? A monster-thing that no one truly knows, a wood-eyed child who isn’t even that good at magic.
It helps, hating himself.
He makes the tea, and this helps less, though the silverwood is still dormant. These days, he only feels it as a phantom, and he’s pretty sure every symptom is just his own paranoia. Every ache and pain can be attributed to the silverwood when he’s constantly afraid of it.
The last time it truly rose within him was that day on the field, the day with the bread and jam. He has had comfort since then, has had moments of peace, but there’s always the truth in the back of his mind, behind Olly’s bright smile: that there’s a lie weighing Qifrey down, like lead in his stomach.
Olly really is smart. He beat the brimmed caps, and he doesn’t even know it.
He’s looking at Qifrey now with a contemplative gaze, like he’s trying to solve a problem. It makes the hairs on the back of Qifrey’s neck stand on end.
“I’m fine,” he insists. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I bet we could put seals on the inside of the window frame,” Olly muses. “Something like a rain ward, but flat instead of a bubble...hmmmm, what about puttin’ the seals on metal plates with screw holes so people could install them? That way a witch wouldn’t have to personally install them and risk revealin’ things…”
“They’d have to be really thin,” Qifrey can’t help suggesting.
But what Olly hasn’t said sits heavy between them: that Olly is only thinking of this because Qifrey opened that window and let the rain in. Because he was crying when Olly came.
Because Olly makes things to bring people joy and comfort. He’s perhaps the worst best friend Qifrey could possibly have.