Chapter Text
Qifrey really thought he would have more time.
He’s known for a while now that he’s running low, of course. It’s not just that his sight keeps deteriorating, the world around him steadily losing color and detail, and his migraines becoming more frequent. It’s also the understanding that he’s grown greedy as he gets older. The bloom that resides in his eye has become a constant presence, rarely receding to an invisible form anymore no matter his contingencies. Neither water nor worry can keep it from slowly creeping out and entangling more and more of him.
He knows now that the life he’s built in pursuit of that decade old promise was always going to kill him: the balance was never built to last, because that's not how the human psyche works. Things Qifrey had originally done to increase his anxiety have slowly morphed into sources of comfort. Like the apprentices he’d sought to stress himself out becoming his greatest pride and joy, or the fear of being found out becoming a quiet, comforting inevitability. The guilt would eventually lose out to despair.
But he could never have imagined the sand in his hourglass would run out quite as quickly and suddenly as it does.
The morning is deceptively normal, if slightly nervous. Qifrey had gotten up early to prepare a special breakfast, taking care to make it both nutritious and filling but not too stuffy. He’d even prepared for the inevitable nerves that might keep some of the girls from eating. And he turns out to be right to have worried: Agott barely touches her plate, nose buried in a book in an attempt at some last minute studying, despite his gentle encouragement. Coco similarly only nibbles at her food, eyes sparking with stress. Even Tetia is more jittery than usual, completely forgetting her inside voice - much to Olruggio’s obvious chagrin.
Qifrey himself eats very little, suspecting he’s probably the most nervous out of them all.
Olly sees them off at the windowway. He imparts words of encouragement to each of the girls and a gentle squeeze to Qifrey’s shoulder. In hindsight, what Qifrey mistakes for butterflies in his stomach at that moment is the first sign of his impending doom.
Unlike the second test many moons ago, the Query of Qui Vive goes off without a hitch. Qifrey accompanies his students to the edge of the Gaping Maw and trusts them in the care of their proctor, a cheery witch by the name of Ariane. He can’t recall ever having met her before, but can sense that she knows him. Of him, at the very least, though few are the witches who don’t. However, her friendly face and demeanor betray nothing as she vows to him the four of them will be safe in her care. The reassurances are sincere enough, clearly given with at least passing knowledge of the previous incident. So Qifrey allows himself to be soothed, exchanging goodbyes with a genuine smile.
His confidence wanes as soon as the five figures disappear from his sight. Distress begins churning inside of him, bile rising in his throat. He finds himself pacing a ring in the ground as he waits, mind conjuring up the worst possibilities.
What if the Brimmed Caps show up again?
What if, once again, he’s not there for his girls when it matters most?
He should have insisted on additional escort. A second proctor, at least. Or perhaps Olly– no. Olruggio has enough on his plate as it is, drowning in commissions now that the winter has passed. The dwindling reserves of thornbark tea and the bags under his eyes as dark as fresh bruises are evidence enough. Qifrey couldn’t bear to add to that.
Finally, finally, after several agonizing clock marks - after he's worn a clear path in the sand, several feet from the waves though when he’d started the ocean nearly soaked his toes with every wave - Qifrey spots four pointed splotches of seafoam color in the distance. He holds his breath until they get closer, Ariane’s muted green beside them. Only when they land does he exhale, just in time to brace for the impact of four little girls crowding into him for a hug.
Relief replaces the coiled anxiety in his gut, washing over him like the tide. It makes way for the familiar writhing sensation of roots, creaking as they unfurl. Qifrey pushes it from his mind as best he can. He needs to focus on being present for the girls, here and now. Squeezing each of them back just as tightly as they cling to him, he ruffles their hair and joins in on the chimes on their laughter. He already knows what their results were, but just to confirm, Qifrey looks at Ariane over the girls heads, and finds her smiling. She congratulates him on having trained four fantastic witches. Each of them passed with flying colors; he should be proud, she says.
And oh, how very proud he is.
That elation will be his undoing. Qifrey feels the nausea building as the five of them head back to the windowway. His steps grow heavy with the budding pain and by the time he crosses the threshold back into the atelier - back home - he knows.
He's out of time.
As the girls hurry up the stairs into the atelier proper, the clamor of small feet so sweet in his ears, Qifrey lags behind. He waits until their excited chatter fades enough to be drowned under the creaking in his ears, transferred not by air but by vibration in his very bones. He braces himself on the wall, slipping his hand under the black lens and pressing his palm to the blooming socket. He has no desire to root in such a cramped space, but he may not have a choice.
“Master Qifrey?”
Qifrey tries to focus his swimming gaze, but it's no use. Still, he recognises the blob of green-gold standing above him, taller thanks to the stairs she's standing on. He flashes what he hopes is a reassuring smile, knowing it's more of a grimace. “Coco.” His mouth feels like it’s filled with sand, tongue sticking to his teeth. He does his best not to slur his words. “You should go celebrate.”
The child hesitates. Qifrey doesn't flinch from the hand that reaches to grasp at his coat. “Are you… are you alright? Is it…?”
Another painful lurch makes Qifrey groan and he drops to one knee, pressing down on his eye like that could do anything to stop the leaves pushing through his fingers. The creaking of wood drowns out his hammering heartbeat. “I'm–” He inhales a hiss of pain. Exhales shakily. Blinks away the gathering mist.
He can barely see out of his clouding eye, but he can feel the worry Coco regards him with. It tingles his skin, the uncomfortable sensation of being watched that raises his hackles and makes his instincts scream at him to run and hide. Not that he can fault her. He desperately wishes he could reassure her, that he could tell her it’s all going to be okay.
But Qifrey is done lying.
“I'm sorry, Coco.”
The implication takes no time at all to register. Coco leaps down the stairs and is by his side in seconds, using all her meager strength to help prop him up. Anxiety radiates from her like heat from a fire and oh, how Qifrey wishes he could share in it. “Master Qifrey! What can I do?”
Bless her soft heart. Qifrey allows himself to lean on her, into her, for once allowing himself to bask in the care directed at him. The silverwood burgeons in response, the branch creeping down his face. He feels it growing out of every old scarred over cut and scrape, enveloping him slowly but surely.
“Tell me! How can I help?”
He has no doubt that if there were a witch who could cure him, it would be Coco. The kindest, brightest witch of her generation. And if only they had more time, maybe Qifrey could be saved by that brilliance, like so many others have been. Like he knows so many more will be.
But he’s always had rotten luck, hasn’t he?
Qifrey reaches out to grasp her shoulder, hand falling heavier than he intends. The squeeze he means to be reassuring comes across more clingy than anything, but with his strength rapidly fading, he hardly cares. He instead channels what little he has left into his smile. “I'm so proud of you, Coco.” He swallows another gasp of pain, though it’s already begun fading, replaced with pins and needles. “You've become such a fine witch.”
He can't be sure, not with his spotty and dimming vision, but by the way the golden dots of her eyes glisten in the lamplight he thinks Coco may be crying. His suspicion is proven when a broken sob tears out of her along with her words.
“No! Is this my fault? Did I-” She chokes on the words, fingers digging into his cloak and grasping it like a lifeline. Her entire body shudders with heaving sobs. “We– we need to do something, to make you anxious again– We n-need…”
Qifrey raises his hand from her shoulder to hear head, patting the hair there. Gently pulling her forehead into his chest in an approximation of a hug, he shakes his head.
“I don't think that's going to work anymore, Coco,” he murmurs. The silverwood creaks in agreement, encroaching ever further. He doesn't have long left before he has to let her go, lest it swallow her too.
Coco opens her mouth, nothing but a high-pitched whine leaving her throat. Before she can form coherent words, another, more gruff voice comes down the stairs.
“Oi, what's takin’ you two so long?”
The sound of that voice momentarily tears through the warmth in Qifrey's chest, his branches recoiling. But only very briefly. He knows that the moment he gets even a blurry glimpse of that handsome face they will grow twice as far twice as fast. There’s nothing he can do but wait and listen while the steps get closer, each footfall a death knell.
“C’mon up, dinner is–”
A shadow falls over them. Qifrey looks up and is disappointed to realize he can no longer make out the blue lining of Olruggio’s cloak. There’s just a blurry mess of black and white where the man stands frozen on the stairs. Qifrey wonders what the sight must be like. Himself on his knees, hunched over, Coco pressed against his chest and shaking. Ugly silver branches coiling out of him, down his face and his arms. Have his roots begun to sink into the ground yet? Displacing the bricks they’d laid together so many years ago?
“Qifrey!” The sound is somewhere between an exhale and a cry, punching out of Olruggio like he’s been burned. “What the– What is this?”
Not even a second, and Olruggio has leapt down the stairs like Coco before him. Strong hands grab Qifrey's shoulders, stabilizing his trembling form. Despite himself, Qifrey leans into the touch. The silverwood in his veins sings.
“Didya get hurt? Cursed somehow?” Those hands are sliding along, patting his arms, looking for some sort of injury or origin for the tree. “What will it take for you to get through just one test without something–”
“Master Olly–” Coco starts, reluctantly leaning away from Qifrey to look at the other man. She wipes her face on her sleeves and hiccups, the whole blur of face now reddish and gleaming like her eyes had before.
“Olly.” Qifrey's mouth twists into a smile, rueful and ruinous. He finally moves the hand covering his eye and lays it on top of one of Olly’s still gripping his arm. “Be a dear and help me to the garden?”
Coco’s sobs grow louder, more inconsolable. Qifrey watches the smudge of Olly’s face flutter, feels him shaking with confusion and agitation. “What’re you–”
Qifrey closes his fingers around that hand, squeezing weakly. “Please,” he whispers.
Olruggio - his sweet, precious Olly - supports most of his weight through the short walk up the stairs and out the back door. It’s the longest, most difficult walk of Qifrey’s life: his feet want nothing more than to root into the steps and just stop, stay there and rest. The gentle squeeze of Olly’s hand on his waist is grounding in more ways than one, both weighing his steps down with silver bark and lending him the strength to move his legs just a little bit further.
When they get outside, Qifrey pulls his arm from around Olly’s neck and staggers forward on his own, determined to get to the far end of the garden under his own power. Olly hovers close, but does not stop him.
He hasn't asked about the branches, hasn't said anything but soothing little encouragements as he practically carried Qifrey upstairs. Qifrey knows he's noticed the way the bloom originates from his face, from behind the curtain of his bangs and the spectacles that barely hold onto his face. He can feel the anxious gaze zero in on that spot and return there, time and time again.
The girls trail behind them. Qifrey can hear their nervous whispering and hesitant steps, can sense the overwhelming anxiety radiating from them. He wishes they didn't have to see this - see him like this - but they deserve to know, too.
Especially Coco. Blazing, brilliant, brave Coco. Qifrey had been ready to tell her on Silver Eve, if she would've but let him. Although he does prefer it like this. No place in Ezrest can compete with the familiar expanse of the downs, this place that he'd worked so hard to carve into a place of belonging. It's hard to believe anywhere could be a home for someone like him. That a boy with no past and no prospects, meant to die in a rain-soaked coffin, could find a spot in the world just for him. But against all odds, he has.
Qifrey chooses his spot carefully. Not too close to the produce that his roots will swallow them nor steal their sunlight. But not too far either, wanting to stay close to his home. He imagines that perhaps his little family can enjoy a nice picnic in the shade cast by his boughs, or take a moment’s rest on a hot summer’s day while working in the garden. Maybe they can hang a swing from one of the sturdier branches and play on it. Though, he muses, the girls might be getting a little too old for things like that.
And they'll never want for conjuring ink ever again. Brushbuddy will like it, too, though hopefully it will stop short of eating anything. There's really no need for a second tree in such a small garden.
Yes. This will be a fine place to take root.
“Qifrey,” Olruggio starts. The apprentices are crowded behind him, held back by one arm of Olly’s extended. If Qifrey squints, he thinks he can make out the worry in all their eyes. He feels slightly guilty for robbing them of what should be an evening of celebration, but it's too little too late, not nearly enough to stem the bloom.
“Stay back,” he warns. The scar on his shoulder pulses as bark spreads freely and continuously now. The growth finally knocks the spectacles off his face, the glue no match for the pressure of the flowering branches. They fall somewhere on the ground and are swallowed up by the hungry roots. With them gone, the five figures become blurs of muddled color - black, white, assorted pastels - in Qifrey’s vision.
Within a minute the silver is everywhere, quickly rooting him at his chosen spot. And Qifrey allows it, surrendering to his fate.
“What… what is that?” Agott whispers, voice full of pure awe. Fear and wonder in equal measure. She has always been the most inquisitive of them.
Coco hasn't stopped crying, the poor girl. “Silverwood,” she hiccups.
“What?” Tetia looks at her. Qifrey can picture the way her lower lip trembles, like it always does when she's scared. He remembers many a time he'd sat and stroked pink hair until that wobbling finally subsided, usually taken over by the oblivion of sleep. “The thing we get ink from?”
“That's n– that's not possible,” Olly chokes out. The sound of it very briefly halts the tree’s stretching for the darkening sky, but the bark has cocooned Qifrey like armor. There’s nothing left that could break him out of it now. The thought is strangely comforting in its finality. “There's no way. Silverwood doesn't grow in humans.”
Qifrey is fully locked in place now, the trunk of the tree growing around him and thickening by the second. The bark envelops him on all sides, slowly lifting him from his feet and several feet above the others. It cocoons his body the same way it has his heart. In no time at all, only his face remains visible.
That sight appears to break Olruggio out of his trance. He jerks forward, clearly intending to climb up. Qifrey feels his roots poising to snare those ankles, longing to trap his dearest friend in the tree’s embrace. And to his horror, Qifrey finds himself wanting that too. Because that is the only way now that he’d be able to be as close to Olly as he’s always wanted to be, isn't it? Closer, even: close enough to intertwine their very beings.
The thought makes Qifrey’s branches first shudder and then spread, the silver's hunger apparent. That combined with the panicked look Qifrey casts causes Olly to stop in his tracks. Something in the blurry face shifts. “Please,” he whispers, voice cracking. “Talk to me, Qifrey. How do we stop this?”
Oh, Olly. It should break Qifrey's heart to hear his voice so small, so fragile. In a way, it still does, but he's too numb for it to matter.
He summons his best attempt at a smile, knowing it comes off as too sad, and hoping only that it's not bitter. “We don't.” He closes his eye. “Not anymore.”
“Bullshit!” Before Qifrey can look, Olly has closed the distance with running steps. He dodges the tendrils seeking to entangle him, climbing the roots more deftly than Qifrey would've thought him capable. A fist slams onto the bark near Qifrey's head and suddenly his declining senses are full of Olly; eyes the color of a starry sky; the woodsy smell of beard oil, tinged with the ever-present hint of ink and smoke; the uneven, ragged tone his breaths take when he gets angry. “There's got to be something!”
Always so kind. Far kinder than someone like Qifrey deserves. He’s never fully understood why, but Qifrey knows that Olly would kill himself to keep him safe - has killed parts of himself, time and time and time again. Hundreds of tiny little deaths at Qifrey’s hand, and if it were up to Olly alone, he would die a million more.
Qifrey had been thankful for that, for a time. Then resentful. And always, always guilty. He’d been angry and bitter even before he knew the full truth, but the guilt was what really pushed him over the edge. And Qifrey could never bring himself to hate Olly, so he’d hated himself instead. Hated the Brimmed Caps, too, of course, for doing this to him in the first place, for taking not only his past but his very future from him. And sometimes he'd hate even the Pointed Caps. For not finding him earlier, for not saving him, for not doing a single damned thing to help in two entire decades–
“How could this happen?”
Agott’s voice pierces through the moment, pulling Qifrey back from the labyrinth of his own mind. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he manages to shift his attention to the four seafoam-tinged blooms of color in the distance. From her silhouette, Agott appears to be holding the other three back. Probably looking at the creeping roots with a healthy mix of fear and fascination. “How does a silverwood grow in a person?”
Qifrey exhales. This is one last thing he can do, as their teacher. He'd hoped against hope that he wouldn't have to impart this knowledge to them, at least for many, many years, but even hoping he'd known the chances. So Qifrey summons his last strength and puts on that teacher’s mantle one last time.
“Silverwood is a parasitic plant,” he murmurs, eyelid slipping shut. He hopes his voice carries enough for the girls to hear, that his words are not too garbled to make out. “The way it spreads its seed is to hitch a ride in the stomach of animals. It lies dormant until the circumstances are just right - until the host, after a stressful event, finds safe haven and true tranquility…”
“…and then it blooms, feasting on the host’s body to fuel its own growth,” Olruggio finishes for him, voice strained.
The girls gasp. Qifrey is vividly reminded of the way Coco’s face had drained of color the first time she heard this, and knows the other three must now look similar. It makes him want to scoop them up in his arms and embrace them, to soothe and reassure. But even if he could move to do that, anything he’d say would only be a pitiful lie.
He tries to nod, but finds that his neck is too far fused into the trunk for his head to move anymore. Speaking feels like choking, but Qifrey tries. His words slur together. “Yes. Every silverwood tree was– was once a living being.” He coughs, spitting up silver leaves. “Their sacrifice is what we owe our magic to.”
“But how?!” Agott presses, growing agitated. “Surely you didn't– I mean, the beasts eat the fruit and that's how it happens, right? But this–”
“Brimmed Caps.” Olly cuts through her frantic questioning, low and thunderous. Qifrey looks at him and finds those eyes burning with something - perhaps rage, or maybe just pain - bright enough even for him to see. “This is what happened to you before the Great Hall.” It's not a question. It doesn't need to be. “They did this to you.”
Qifrey says nothing, which is answer enough.
Olly grits his teeth. “But you know an awful lot about this, which means it's happened before. And if it has– there has to be a way to stop it.” His eyes flash with recognition. “The medical spire in Ezrest. They talked about a tree suddenly blooming, then disappearing like it had never been there.” His too-short nails claw at the silver bark on either side of Qifrey’s head. “It can be stopped. Tell me!”
Qifrey tries to shake his head, remembers he can't, and smiles instead. This time he knows it's bitter, if only a touch. More than anything, it's tired. Just a little longer, he reminds himself. A few more moments and then he can rest.
“Not this time, Olly,” he whispers, putting as much finality in his words as he can.
Olly inhales, sharp and deep and frayed. It's a sound Qifrey had heard many times before. A sound that says I am so angry I can't speak, and why do you do this to me, don't you know that this kills me, and please let me help, why won't you let me help? It's the sound Olruggio makes every time he learns the secret, an influx of emotion as his face twists in anguish until finally, rather than shouting like he wants to, he pushes it all down and forgives.
It's the sweetest, most painful sound Qifrey knows, and he's glad this will be the last time he has to hear it.
“No.”
The small voice almost gets lost in the thrumming in Qifrey's ears. He shifts his bleary eye to look over Olly's shoulder again, unable to focus it on anything anymore. But it's enough to make out that the blot of color he knows to be Coco is moving.
“Master Olly is right!” The figure runs up to his trunk and Qifrey feels the muted sensation as she presses her hands to the bark. They shake like the silverwood’s leaves, but the touch is determined and firm.
She looks up at him and Qifrey's failing vision narrows to a pinprick, just enough to fit the green-gold that is Coco’s eyes. In the new narrow scope his view sharpens, allowing him to discern the gleam in them. It's familiar, too familiar. The fire of a child who won't take a no for an answer, because she hasn't yet been burned by the world to the point of growing numb. Because she still has her boundless spirit and refuses to be brought down by horror or hardship.
It makes Qifrey ache. He wishes he could remember the time he still felt that same spark. He wishes it didn't stir hope in him, that it didn't cause the seed in his eye to shudder as if struck.
He wishes that he wouldn't have to be the cause of that fire fizzling out.
“I’ll find a solution, Master Qifrey. I promise! Just hold on!”
And with that she takes off, green flashing as her sylph shoes speed her back into the atelier.
“Wait– Coco!” Olly peels off of Qifrey but stops a few steps out, turning back on his heels. Qifrey doesn't need to see to picture the open conflict taking place on his face, torn between his heart and his duty. He can only just make out the shape of Olly's arm raising to tangle a hand in his hair, the way he’s always done when stumped and frustrated by a problem. He wastes only a second hesitating, then he groans and turns his back on Qifrey. “Dammit! Coco, wait!”
“Wait, I’ll come too!”
Agott.
Without the oppressive yet grounding presence of Olly right there next to him, Qifrey begins to slip away. The voices grow quieter.
“No! You stay.”
Qifrey feels so warm.
“But–”
So warm and comfortable…
“Agott. I need you to keep him awake. No matter what, don’t let him slip away. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The next words jerk Qifrey out of the haze and back to awareness.
“You hear me, Qifrey?!”
His eye snaps open and he squints, assaulted by formless splotches of color that he can't make sense of until he finds an anchor point. Olly. Something glows beside him, and Qifrey doesn’t know if it’s a memory or an actual pyreball. He latches his gaze on it all the same, the brightness of it causing his sensitive eye to water.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes! Stay awake!”
Look alive.
Qifrey smiles, mind misting with memory.
I’ll be back before it burns out.
The dark shape of Olruggio disappears and the only thing that remains is three seafoam and white splotches and an achingly radiant ball of light.