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The deep sense of foreboding hit Evie from the very moment she opened her eyes.
Within an instant, she pushed herself upright in bed, scanning the shadows for danger. The fifteen long years she'd spent training to become an assassin had taught her well to trust her senses, and yet, this nagging in her gut was unlike any warning of danger she'd ever felt. It tugged at her heart, pooled her insides with dread, tickled goosebumps up her arms.
Upon finally deciding that danger was not the cause of the feeling, Evie only felt that dread grow.
Breathe, she told herself firmly, harshly, anchoring her fingers in her quilt. With her blankets pushed off, the chilled January air made her skin prickle beneath her thin nightdress. Breathe, stay calm. Think.
There was no logical reason for her to be feeling like this. Therefore, it counted as a meaningless emotion, and according to her father's teachings, it must be overridden, forgotten, before it affected things.
Taking a few more calming breaths, Evie succeeded in controlling the fear to some extent, her father's words inexplicably soothing inside her head. But, even so… as the pocket watch by her bedside ticked to three in the morning, she couldn't quite control the itch that told her she needed to get up, to be prepared. Prepared for what, she wasn't quite sure.
Still, given the line of work she was in, Evie had her suspicions. She pushed past the woollen skirts and cotton petticoats laid out in preparation for the coming morning and instead reached for the men's style shirts she had stashed inside her wardrobe, right next to her assassin coat and trousers. They were for mission usage only, considering how much they made her stand out in a crowd, but for tonight, she could feel that they were needed.
Tonight, things were different.
Unsurprisingly, Evie discovered upon decending the stairs that she wasn't alone in her dread. Beneath the dim candlelight, the shape of her brother's broad shoulders could be seen hunched over the dinner table, his fists clenched tight in front of him. A rare sight if ever she saw one— once he was down for the night, Jacob slept like the dead, scarcely rousing for anything.
She also noted that he, too, had donned what stood for his assassin's wear, his cowl tucked low over his brow. It was still far closer to casual wear than her own outfit, but for him to specifically choose to wear this was a foreboding sight indeed. Jacob Frye found no joy in flashy clothing.
The pit in Evie's stomach only widened further, but she forced it down, forced herself to stay calm. It could still be nothing. This wouldn't be the first time she had subconsciously picked up on Jacob's stresses, after all… he could merely be irritated over a lost fight, or dwelling unnecessarily on something rude that had been said about him. It didn't have to be anything big.
Unfortunately, the moment she met his eyes from across the dining room, she could tell that he'd been hoping for the exact same excuse.
Both deflated, but neither spoke. Silent, Evie pulled up the chair opposite him and sat down lightly, tugging at the tips of her gloves the same way he nervously flexed his knuckles. A few long moments passed, before he finally raised his head.
"You don't think he's-"
"-no." Evie's voice didn't allow for any discussion. Her tone was plain, flat, even as her eyes trailed to the empty seat at the head of the dinner table. Their father's seat.
They both knew it wasn't an answer to the question. It was a request for them not to cross that line until much, much later, or not ever, if possible. Evie would very much like it indeed if that were a line they never had to cross.
Thankfully, Jacob took the hint. She was pretty sure that was a line he didn't want to cross yet, either.
He gave a sigh, running his hands over his face roughly. "It's too damn early. Nothing good ever happens this damn early."
Evie gave a muted hum of agreement, the most she could manage over the lump in her throat. She was glad for her brother's voice to fill the silence, but she wasn't sure she trusted herself to join him without it melting into something embarrassing. Better that he nervously chattered the hours away than that she started to come apart at the seams with dread.
Good lord, did she wish that father would let them see him more often. Ever since his illness, he'd shut himself away in his room, forbid either of the twins from wasting their time looking after him when they should be focused on their work. An attempt to protect their feelings given his imminent death, most likely. It didn't seem to bother Jacob as much as her, of course it didn't, but Evie yearned for more time, more words to say. She had so much left to tell him, and so little time given to tell it.
"I'm going up to see father, when morning breaks," she told Jacob quietly, voice little more than a whisper. "Permission or not."
He made a face, but nodded slowly.
"Alright. I'll come with, then. Can't let you face the wrath of disobedience on your own, now, can I?"
A smile flashed onto Evie's face, quick, but genuine. As much as he could be a pompous, bratty ass sometimes, her brother was more often than not the best person she knew, and she so easily took it for granted.
The candle between them guttered beneath her exhale, shaky and slow. Knowing she could never find the words, she poured as much gratitude into her voice as possible, hoping he would catch on, like he always did. "Thank you."
Jacob smiled back, a small thing, far less grand than the winning ones she saw him shoot across bars and fighting rings, and pulled her hands into his own with a soft squeeze. It made him look so much younger, so much lighter than the twenty years they both knew.
Hearing a pair of quick, familiar footsteps descending the stairs behind them, Evie, too, suddenly felt much younger than twenty.
"Evie? Jacob?" Came George's voice, soft, almost fragile. Like he was trying hard to keep it together.
George, who had been looking after their father all throughout his illness. Who had fallen asleep in father's room, earlier that night.
And, there it was, harsh and real and dangling right above their heads. The worst-case scenario. The moment they'd been dreading for the last two months, ever since father had first begun to cough up blood.
All the preparation she'd done mentally, and Evie still felt her brain seize with terror.
No, no, please, just a little more time, just one more visit, just-
The footsteps grew closer, rounding the corner into the dining room. Evie's hands tightened around her brothers, as if trying to anchor herself, stop herself from turning around.
As if by not turning around, she might be able to escape the inevitable.
Evie should've known it didn't work that way. She could read Jacob better than she could read herself, at times, and could tell the exact moment he made eye contact with George over her head, gazes locking with a quiet sort of intensity.
Slowly, she watched the horrible realisation seep into her brother's face, and felt something within her own heart break.
No.
No, this wasn't it. This couldn't be it, it was so— so sudden, so soon— God, she wasn't anywhere near as good of an Assassin as he'd wanted her to be! He had so many lessons left to teach, so much wisdom left to impart. There was so much she had left to learn from him, and she was supposed to accept that it was all just… gone? Forever?
A breath hitched in her throat.
One more morning. She was supposed to have just one more morning, just one last conversation, something in which to tell him everything she hadn't told him yet. She had so much left to say.
Oh Christ, when was the last time she'd told him that she loved him?
Evie felt as if all the air had been punched out of her. Her shoulders crumpled, elbows hitting the hard wood of the table with a painful thunk, nails digging tight into Jacob's palms.
Jacob, her brother. The only family she had left.
It was as if the world had just been turned on its axis.
"I'm sorry," George seemed to be saying, and through the periphery of her rapidly spinning vision Evie saw him pull up a chair. He looked wrecked, which meant it must have been recent, that her father's body was still up in that attic room, possibly still warm- "I'm so sorry, both of you."
For the first time since their world had come apart, Evie let her eyes trail up, landing on Jacob's face. He looked shell shocked, eyes blown wide, mouth slightly ajar, but even despite all that, he was still somehow the only thing in the room that felt normal. She anchored her gaze to him, trying desperately to make her vision stop spinning.
After a few silent moments, Jacob's jaw clicked shut with a snap of teeth. His eyes screwed themselves closed, and the rest of his face was fast to follow, his entire body tensing like a coiled spring, fists balling as if preparing for a fight. The tight grip he had on her hands quickly became painful, but Evie didn't pull away. Instead, she squeezed back with what little strength she had left, let him know she was here. That he wasn't alone.
No words were spoken. The candle on the table burned down to its wick. Some small, broken part of Evie wished the dawn never to come, wished that she never had to face a new morning that didn't have her dear father in it, but of course, come it did. First, in the song of the birds, and then in the growing of the light, seeping in from behind the heavy curtains.
Hours, they must have sat there, contemplating how on earth they were supposed to go on. For Evie's aching heart, it felt closer to days.
Eventually, George rose, the noise turning both twins' heads. Beneath his eyes sloped two dark shadows, more visible under the thin January sunlight, but despite this his face was just as schooled as it usually was. Evie supposed Ethan Frye can't have been the first friend George had lost in this line of work— he likely knew how this was supposed to go, far better than either of them.
"I'll alert the brotherhood," he croaked, voice cracking with disuse as he donned the jacket he'd discarded at some point during the night. His dark eyes lingered on the two of them, just half a second longer than normal. On Jacob, they grew pained.
"I'll be back soon, to help. Please, take care of yourselves."
And with that he was gone, the front door clicking behind him.
Evie tried very hard not to dwell on what George was preparing to 'help' with. It was excruciating to think of anything beyond this dining table, beyond this frozen moment, beyond there having been a time when she'd known her father was alive. There was this horrible uncertainty that came with his death, as if she were walking along a roof top in the dark, barefoot. Like any moment she might plunge.
His body was still upstairs. They'd have to start dressing it, soon, to prepare it for its final rest. That thought, more than anything else, the thought of her fingers grazing the cold stiff skin of her previously soft and alive father, was what nearly threatened to spill Evie's stomach contents all over the dining table.
She pulled a hand from within Jacob's grip to press firmly to her lips, sealing them shut. No, stop. She couldn't fall apart now. She wouldn't, not when there was still so much to be done, and a brother she had to stay strong for. She was the elder twin, the dependable one, the brain and the voice of reason. Jacob's heart was just as broken as her own, and he was going to need her.
Jacob, the only family she had, now. Just one person left to tether her to this world.
The spots of light in her vision began to blur with tears.
Quickly, Evie tried to blink them away, but as fast as they left, new ones welled in their place. She bit down on her lips, hard, squeezed her eyes tight shut, and yet still her traitor of a body wouldn't stop its horrible shaking, choking on air with every breath she took. In a desperate, last-ditch attempt, she pulled her remaining hand from Jacob's and tugged her cowl up, hiding her from view.
She could feel her face burn with shame and anger. How dare this happen now, without her permission, without her say so? This grief was unlike any she'd dealt with before, an unstoppable force, resistant to all her attempts to quell or quash, and the sheer frustration of it only seemed to worsen her tears. Damn it, an Assassin should have better control of her emotions. She'd been taught so much better than this.
Father had taught her so much better than this.
"…Evie?"
Tentatively, Jacob's voice broke through the haze of quiet gasps, and Christ, he sounded so unsure. Of course he did, he likely hadn't seen her cry like this in years— so against her own will, so completely out of control. She needed to pull herself together, if not for anything else, for him.
Shifting her hood to better cover her face, Evie muffled another sob, shaking her head. It was a feeble attempt to let him know that she was sorry, that she knew this was selfish and unschooled of her, but with words clogging in her throat, it was the best she could do.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem like it was quite enough.
With a quick screech of a chair against floorboards, she felt him cross to the other side of the table, landing heavily in the seat beside her. Had she been a better Assassin, a better scholar for her poor father, she might've had the strength to resist the selfish comfort Jacob's embrace offered. As it was, she never had been the physically strongest of the two.
The very moment she felt her brother wrap his arm around her back her walls came crashing down, and she melted into the warmth as if she might freeze to death without it. Father had rarely hugged her since she'd hit adolescence, clearly trying to toughen her up, but even so Evie felt her chest ache at just how similar Jacob felt to him; they shared the same build, the same ridiculous scratchy beard, even the same texture of clothes.
And still, she couldn't quite find it in her to wish that it really were father comforting her. Not if it were to mean that Jacob took his place.
Guilt surged in her at the thought. Here her poor father was, so recently deceased that his body likely wasn't even stiff, and his own daughter sat just below him, comforting herself with the thought that at very least, it wasn't her brother lying dead up there. How utterly shameful.
Spurred on by humiliation, she felt the waves of grief grow, frustration overwhelming her. The helplessness of it was far, far too much to bear, and in one swift movement she buried her face into the collar of Jacob's hood, smothering her pitiful sobs in the warm, familiar fabric. This way, at least, she could be hidden, stashed away from all the eyes that wished to judge and peer.
To his credit, Jacob didn't comment once. His arms stayed firm around her through it all, even as her body shook and her tears drenched the expensive fabric of his coat. For once in her life, Evie felt content to be in the shadow of her twin, pouring out her soul until there was nothing left to pour. Crying herself spent, until the aching grief melted itself into a sort of harsh numbness.
Only then, with weary limbs and stinging eyes, did she finally pull back.
'Sorry,' was the first word that fell on her lips upon realising what she'd just done, but she swallowed it down immediately. Jacob didn't want to hear her apologies. More than anything else, right now, he just needed comfort, and after being so well comforted by him, it was the least she could do.
She let her heavy eyelids blink upwards to his face, feeling another surge of unwanted emotion twist her heart at how red his own eyes were. He, too, must have cried a little during her breakdown. Evie wanted to kick herself for not having been receptive enough to notice.
Gently, she reached up a hand and thumbed away his tears, the way she'd always done for him when they were little and he'd gotten himself injured at every turn. At the motions, his far-off gaze slowly shifted down to focus on her, but instead of pulling away or making a face like she'd previously learned to expect from him, Jacob merely stared. Sat quietly, pensive.
A wet, broken little huff forced its way past Evie's lips.
"Deep thought doesn't become you, dear brother."
Those affectionate terms by which they usually referred to each other were always sarcastic, or at very least, meant to poke fun. However, only after the words 'dear brother' had left Evie's mouth did she realise that she meant them more solidly than she ever had before in her life. Of course, Jacob seemed to notice this, too.
He blinked once, and then gently squeezed her shoulder with the arm he still had wrapped around her, schooling his face into something more Jacob-adjacent than the blank, terrifying stare from before.
His voice when he spoke was gravelly, and just as broken as her own, but held an intensity so unusual for him. It was laced with love, and fear, and everything else he couldn't say. "Dear sister. Never change."
Evie chose to focus on how exhaustion weighed his words, rather than on the fact that 'Never change' was spoken in the exact cadence of 'Never die'. Death was becoming a rather worn out topic, and she'd rather leave it alone for as long as they were able.
"You should know by now that I'm not one to be easily swayed," she promised, finding his wrist and giving it a fond squeeze. "You should follow my lead in that."
I won't leave you, so don't you dare try to leave me.
In response, Jacob merely held her tighter.
"Perhaps, for once, I will."