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It took too long for Beldaruit to notice, really. He was old, and with age came tiredness. Worrying for what’s right in front of you, instead of what’s stopped appearing.
And Riliphin worried him so much, with how he still moved through the atelier like he was afraid of making too much noise. Afraid of breathing too loudly. The scars on his arms made something ugly twist in Beldaruit’s chest.
His current apprentice still flinched when his hands faltered while drawing. Still went quiet and still when he made a mistake, eyes glassy and vacant. And it had been so long since Qifrey was that small child who woke in the night choking around the memory of water in his lungs, shaking like a leaf while Beldaruit ran gentle fingers through his hair; one of the few comforts the child allowed.
And Qifrey didn’t visit often, only dropping in occasionally to indulge an old man’s fondness. So it made sense that he didn’t—
Excuses, and he knew it.
Beldaruit didn’t notice when Qifrey stopped visiting him.
It was before the mess of Silver Eve, he was sure. Qifrey hadn’t given him more than a stiff farewell, something protective to the set of his shoulders as he led Coco away. Beldaruit had watched them go with a swirling confusion at his boy’s demeanor. It was a confusion that lingered even after he had departed the castle and returned to the Great Hall.
He mulled it over as he took his daily walk through the grove of silverwood that surrounded the atelier, relishing the feeling of his seal chair moving under him once more. To be able to move under one’s own strength rather than languishing in bed was something he always appreciated tenfold after visiting the castle.
When had he last spoken to Qifrey? The last time his apprentice had visited him for leisure had been months ago, a stop during his trip to pick up his new apprentice’s robes. He hadn’t lingered long, but had begrudgingly let Beldaruit fuss over his health while rambling about the goings-on of the other Wise. They’d played at guessing marktea flavors until Quifrey made his farewell.
Then after that…he still remembered the dread he’d felt when he got the news of what had transpired during the test in Serpentback cave. He’d summoned his apprentice right away. And instead of Quifrey…even now, knowing full well that his apprentice was recovered and looking after his own apprentices. Even now, the memory of seeing his son’s watchful eye stepping through the doors with a white cap clutched in his hands was enough to make him ill.
Even once Olruggio had seen the look of horror on his face and hurried to explain that Quifrey was in the hospital, gravely injured but still breathing, he couldn’t stop the racing of his pulse that screamed too late, too late, you let him keep his distance because you thought it would save him and now he’s gone.
He’d been busy trying to clarify the matter, and then trying to ensure his dear grand-apprentices wouldn’t have to wait weeks or months for a chance to test again. He hadn’t been able to stay beside his apprentice in the hospital, hadn’t even been able to see him until —
Ah. Until Quifrey was screaming at him for trying to poach his apprentice. When Quifrey found out that he’d offered Coco a place in his atelier, far from the surface and far from her current master. That was when Quifrey had stopped visiting.
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his temple. This had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated than his recalcitrant apprentice and his fickle moods.
…
Beldaruit sent a letter, first. It returned unopened.
He sent a messenger next. The messenger came back having been assured by the residents that no one was home.
He considered giving an official summons. But imagining having this discussion with a Quifrey still fuming from an exchange with the Knights Moralis…
Beldaruit did not often leave the Great Hall. Silver Eve had been a special occasion, more a rarity than anything routine. He did not make house calls.
Still, the air was fresh and the sun was warm on his face as he travelled the curving road to his apprentice’s atelier, nestled comfortably in the Naakiwan Downs.
It occurred to him, outside the door, that he had never actually been to his apprentice’s atelier before. And now he was here, not even as a mirage but as flesh and blood and the legs of his seal chair struggling on the uneven cobblestones of the front walk.
He raised a hand to rap it against the door. Wondered if he should have given a warning, even if it would have been ignored. They could be off in town or else having their lessons out in the fields somewhere. But then there was the patter of little feet, and the door flung open to reveal his most excitable grand-apprentice.
Pink hair bounced up and down as Tetia startled to see him, eyes wide in surprise. Then she squealed, leaning over his chair to throw her arms around his neck.
“Beldaruitiful to see you, Grandpa-master!”
“That’s a stretch,” murmured a quieter voice from behind her, and he could see the disappearing swish of silver-blue that was his Riliphin’s sister. So alike yet so different, those two.
Someone pulled Tetia back from the embrace, and he saw the little Arklaum girl wrangling her back in order to make a neat bow, pulling her fellow apprentice down into the formality with her.
“Lord Beldaruit the wise. To what do we owe the honor?”
He laughed brightly, hoping to help ease that solemn expression on her young face. “That’s quite unnecessary, my dear grand-apprentice. I’m merely here to visit my own precious former apprentice, and of course to see you girls as well.”
Agott led him into the sitting room of the atelier. If he were more polite, and less determined to see Qifrey, he might have waited to be invited in by the man himself, but it was unfortunately quite possible that he would close the door in his poor old master’s face, with how cross he seemed to be.
The atelier was warm. That was the first thing he noticed. Not warm only as a matter of temperature, but rather the whole place felt welcoming. There were cards from some game strewn across the carpet, and the smell of something delicious and buttery was wafting in from the kitchen. Loose pages of unclosed glyphs were stacked around the table where the girls must have been working.
The fourth of his grand-apprentices was hunched at the table, tongue poking out slightly and brow scrunched as she concentrated on her sigils. She looked up as he entered, golden eyes shining as she smiled.
“Master Beldaruit!” Coco greeted, and there was the sound of someone dropping something in the kitchen. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his kind and always-happy-to-see-him apprentice muttered half a swear word before cutting himself off.
“Coco my dear!” He accepted the hug she offered before pulling back to see her properly. Her injury from Silver Eve was fading, but there was still a splash of painful-looking pink across one cheek.
Her other cheek was decorated with a smudge of ink from where she smeared it during her lesson, and he licked his thumb to wipe it clean. She wrinkled her nose in complaint, giggling slightly. It was good to see her back in her usual spirits.
As the girls clamored, the atelier’s watchful eye–Olruggio of the Torch– poked his head in from the kitchen, surveying the scene. He gave Beldaruit a nod before rounding up the apprentices.
“Aye, girls, we might best be havin’ the rest of our lesson outside before lunch. You’ll show me where Master Qifrey left off, will you? Let’s see if we can make the spell even better to surprise him after he catches up with his master.”
Good apprentice-in-law, Beldaruit internally praised while outwardly giving the boy a grateful smile. If he’d upset his apprentice by meddling in affairs with his own apprentices, involving them any more probably wouldn’t help things.
Qifrey had emerged from the kitchen. For just a moment, he looked almost small in the doorway before he was smiling gently and tucking Coco’s palm quire into her bag for her, ruffling Tetia’s hair with his free hand.
“Now, be good for our dear Olruggio, girls! And Riche, darling, remember your cap!” He scooped up the apprentice’s cap from the sofa, setting it atop her tiny silver-blue head before helping to usher the children out the door.
The girls trailed after their watchful eye, all peering back curiously at their master standing there beside his own master. The door closed behind them, and Qifrey’s shoulders loosened slightly, an underlying strain of tension draining away.
Beldaruit blinked. Perhaps his apprentice wasn’t as upset with him as he had thought. Or perhaps—he reassessed the past few seconds, noting how Qifrey had placed himself between Beldaruit and the children. How he had ruffled Tetia’s hair to distract her from saying goodbye, how he had helped Coco pack her things to get them out the door more quickly. Not an apprentice dreading a tiresome private conversation with his master and wanting to stave it off another few seconds. A teacher placing himself between his students and something he perceived as dangerous.
Qifrey didn’t trust him with his students.
That stung. Qifrey had admittedly not been an easy child to raise—Beldaruit had weathered a thousand flinches from gentle touch, had endured a hundred nights listening to ragged breathing when he first woke the child from a nightmare.
He could count on both hands the number of times Qifrey had let him wrap him up in his arms, small fragile limbs curled close to him. He had known, of course, that these were wounds not of his own causing, but rather had been left upon his child even when the injuries themselves were forgotten.
This wound–this injury–was fresh. And he could not pretend it had been caused by any but himself.
“Qifrey–”
“Lovely to see you, master Beldaruit,” Qifrey greeted, perfect smile in place once more. “An unexpected visit, but quite a welcome one!” he lied serenely.
Sometimes Beldaruit wanted to strangle Olruggio for teaching his child to smile and lie and hide like that.
Qifrey moved to the kitchen, still talking of his apprentices and their progress since Silver Eve as he fetched a kettle and teacups. Beldaruit moved his chair to the table, where Qifrey joined him with a tray of small pudding-like snacks once the tea had been poured.
He looked down at his own cup. Took a sip and set it down on the saucer so that the glyphs at its base aligned perfectly–a small dragon made of liquid stirred to life, curling in on itself as it nestled in the cup.
He had his own tea cup with this spell upon it back home in the Great Hall. One of the first gifts his young apprentice had given him. A spell of his own invention, an everyday item turned into some small bit of wonder. His Qifrey’s magic really was a beautiful thing.
Qifrey was talking about Agott’s latest spell, as though nothing in the world was wrong. If he gave the boy space to lie, that was all he would do, so Beldaruit would have to speak plainly to give things a solid shape. Couldn’t be indirect, or his apprentice would dance around it.
“You’re upset with your old master for his worrying,” He started as Qifrey put a little putting snack on a plate for him. The man’s hands stilled, but he continued. “You must know I didn’t try and steal your dear apprentice away out of cruelty—as the wise of teachings, and as your own teacher, it is my duty to try and be sure every apprentice is as safe as possible, especially my grand-apprentices. I know you understand this…and yet you are upset with me.”
Qifrey faltered for a moment before that serene smile was back. “What?” he even sounded genuinely surprised. “Not so, master! I quite appreciate you looking after Coco. After such a troubled introduction to our world, the more people she has who care for her, the better.”
In a way, it had been easier to speak with Qifrey when he was a teenager full of sullen silences and furrowed brows.
“And yet you’re upset with me,” he repeated, watching something genuine briefly flicker in the man’s eye before being promptly snuffed out. “Which is quite strange…any good teacher should be glad for their student having more eyes to mind them, more minds fretting for their wellness.”
Qifrey’s serene smile looked a little bit painful on his face. “I suppose I must just not be a very good teacher, then.” He laughed a little, like they were having a joke together.
Beldaruit couldn’t keep the confusion from his voice. “You are an excellent teacher. I am–I have told you I am proud, before. You are doing well with the children.” He was rambling a little, but only because he was terribly confused about why Qifrey would say that about himself. “You mustn’t say that sort of thing about my own dear apprentice.”
A crack in the gentle expression. Something cold–no, something devastated–showed in Qifrey’s eye. “Oh? So I’m not unsafe to be around my own apprentices? That’s good to hear, I suppose.”
There was a slight sinking feeling in Beldaruit’s stomach. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. He had said that, hadn’t he? But not to Qifrey.
He tried for levity. “I was unaware young Coco relayed our full conversation.”
“It made her uncomfortable, and it frightened her, so she talked to me about it. They can come to me with anything. Mind, you did your best to make her think she couldn’t. What was I? Tainted irreparably? Entangled with the brim hats?”
There was an old bitterness, there. The same bitterness he used to hear when Qifrey was small, when he would shrink in on himself as people whispered about how he had been found. About the forbidden magics that might have been used upon him.
“I think I’m ruined,” He’d once overheard Qifrey say. Quietly, as though it were a secret. He’d been retrieving his apprentice for a lesson, and had happened upon him studying with Olruggio. His face had been so afraid in that moment, like an animal showing its jugular.
Beldaruit had stopped outside the room, unsure if he was welcome inside.
“Hey!” There was the sound of a book snapping shut as Olruggio shouted. “Don’t you dare say that!” He’d shaken Qifrey by the shoulders, his face flushed bright red with anger. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about! You talk about him like that again and I’ll mess you up!”
Qifrey had laughed, letting Olruggio play-shove him over in something that was pretending not to be an embrace.
Olruggio whispered something, voice low and soft, and Beldaruit had left before he could intrude further.
Now, he looked at his apprentice, grown and with apprentices of his own, and saw a slice of that same animal fear. He’d made Qifrey think that—
“No,” he said. “No, my dear boy, you’re not—it was a foolish fear for me to have. I only worried—”
“That I would put Coco in danger for my own gain,” Qifrey finished dully. “That this…” he gestured helplessly towards the atelier. The children’s game on the floor, the soft blankets thrown over the couch. The careful drawings displayed proudly on the walls in four different art styles. The six spaces at the table. “That this was just…”
A ruse. A lie. A manipulation. He, who had carried Qifrey home in his lap after he was unearthed with no memories. Who had guided his shaking hands through their first sigils, who had watched the innocent affection of his young crush on Olruggio. Who had felt his tiny shoulders relax as he finally leaned his head against Beldaruit’s shoulder in an embrace. Who had raised him. He had thought that Qifrey had feigned his care for the children he built his life around, all so that he could hurt them.
Beldaruit has to clutch his teacup to keep his hands from reaching out and pulling Qifrey close. He’d thought his apprentice was upset over being meddled with. He’d thought he could come here and smooth things over by explaining again how his interests were only in Coco’s safety. He hadn’t realized…
He did not feel the heat of anger or the coldness of hatred often. As the wise of teachings, responsible for the safety of young witches, those feelings had always been especially reserved for those cruel enough to mistreat their young charges. For the likes of his Riliphin’s former master, or else the scum who had left that sweet young boy Euini to perish alone in Serpentback cave. The lowest of the low.
Qifrey knew his feelings on the matter. Knew that these were the witches he beheld with disgust, the witches who didn’t deserve the bright young smiles of children looking up at them. The enormity of the hatred threatened to swallow him whole sometimes. No witch who harmed their own apprentice was deserving of the slightest respect, had no quality about them which could be redeemed.
It was why he had taken Qifrey in, after all. Even without memories, it was clear he had been hurt by those meant to protect him. It was why he had taken Riliphin in.
Beldaruit only took in apprentices who had been hurt by their former caretakers. Qifrey knew this. Everyone in the Great Hall knew this.
Beldaruit had tried to take in Coco.
Qifrey had fallen quiet, now, but the mask of the smile was completely gone. His shoulders were slumped, and he leaned against the table like he was very tired. His face was shuttered to keep most of the emotion from showing through, but it wasn’t enough.
“Qifrey…” His voice broke slightly around his apprentice’s name, because he didn’t know what could be said. There was nothing that could be said.
“I know I have my secrets,” Qifrey said at last. “I know I am…” He hummed slightly in lieu of being able to put a word to what exactly he was. “But I would never. You must know. I would never. The girls are...they are so much. With them, everything is so alive. I will admit I was selfish, at first, for why I started as a teacher. But they…there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.”
His voice was trembling, and Beldaruit wasn’t sure if it was from anger or grief.
Beldaruit dared to reach out, clasping one of Qifrey’s hands between two of his own and holding on tight.
“You love them,” he soothed his apprentice. “And I have gravely hurt you for implying…for believing even for a moment that you would harm them. A foolish, irrational fear. One that I should have dismissed. I’m sorry, my dear child.”
Qifrey did not move closer, but he allowed his master to hold onto his hand. Allowed him to sit there with him until his breathing had steadied and he had regained himself.
They sat in a tired but comfortable quiet, him squeezing his apprentice’s hand. They sat until the door opened and children traipsed back in for lunch, and he could see in real-time the transition of Quifrey putting on a fake little smile to a genuine joy lighting behind his eyes as his apprentices flocked to him.
Beldaruit stayed for lunch, the kids eating happily while Olruggio quietly checked that Qifrey was alright. The stew was thick and savory, fresh vegetables and meat and a warm smell that filled the whole atelier.
He knew, sitting in that room and listening to the kids laugh, that his apprentice had done well.