Chapter Text
Dear Olly,
I write to you from the southern coast. Even having lived most of my life underneath the ocean has not prepared me for seaside life. Every inhale brings with it the scent of salt and brine; it is as though the air itself is different here, more substantial and bracing.
The world beyond the Great Hall is vast, Olly — sometimes overwhelmingly so. I had not expected my travels to first direct me here; you know how I feel about large bodies of water. Yet while wandering aimlessly, searching for adventure to befall me, I met a fellow traveler, and she told me that the cliffsides here were the best place to watch the harvest migration of the cobaltback dragons. So, I went.
The town I’m staying in is a stacked, ramshackle sort of place. The buildings here are built into the cliffs rather than beside them, so that the whole settlement appears, from the water, to be growing from the rock face like barnacles. Everything is white-painted and sun-faded, draped in fishing nets and hemp ropes. Occasionally, you will hear bleating from wild cliffside goats that apparently belong to no one and answer to no authority.
A witch is a rare sight in these parts, and the people of the town have been exceedingly kind to me. They have offered me free boarding and meals, even though I’ve been trying to get them to accept my coin. Yesterday, the owner of the tavern I’m staying in persuaded me to try a local dish of roasted coastal urchins steeped in a vinegar made from fermented plums. It was shockingly tart. I must have made a face, because the tavernkeep was struggling not to laugh at me.
There is a strip of black, volcanic shingle at the base of the cliffs where I spend my afternoons. The dark grit finds its way into everything — the seams of my coat, the lining of my satchel, even my inkwell, somehow. I sit just high enough to avoid the spray, watching the grey foam churn. It quietens the noise in my head.
I have not been the only traveler staying in the town; many weather-weary outsiders come to this town every harvest to watch the cobaltback dragons. There was a camaraderie amongst them, all so excited for this momentous spectacle. And a few days ago, it happened. I dressed quickly and went to the cliffs, where everyone had congregated. The townsfolk had brought blankets and warm drinks to share with everyone, for it was a particular chilly evening.
When the sky finally broke, words failed. Hundreds of sapphire gashes cut through the twilight, some no larger than a kestrel, others wide enough to blot out the moon. The flapping of their winds was louder than the crashing of the waves, the sight terrible and magnificent. I sat upon the cliffside until dawn, watching them vanish into the horizon, awestruck.
The entire time, I kept thinking about where they were going. What else there might be, beyond the peninsula. Beyond what the maps have bothered to name. Could someone survive out there? Do you think I could go there? Some place untouched by the horrors of our past, that does not carry the scars of magic…
Ah, but you would be very cross with me if I went there without you.
I trust Ghodrey is treating you kindly, and that your new workshop is keeping your hands occupied. I know how it soothes you, to have a problem and the tools to address it. You always did have a genius for making even the most lost causes regain their functionality. Now that our chaotic adventures have come to their natural end, you can finally focus on your own designs. They will help so many people. Soon, your name will be on everyone’s tongue, of this I am sure.
I miss you, but this is how it must be, Olly. I am more convinced of it with every league I travel. We had grown so tightly wound together, like two vines choking the same trellis, that I fear neither of us knew where one of us ended and the other began. Out here, I am beginning to find the edges of myself. I want that clarity for you, too. I want you to look at your creations in Ghodrey and know they belong entirely to your own genius, untainted by my presence.
Don’t overwork yourself, my friend, and don’t forget to eat before the sun goes down.
Ever yours,
Qifrey
The letter takes Qifrey three drafts to write.
The first one he burns by drawing an angry, uncharacteristically clumsy pyreball spell on it. The second he folds very precisely in half and then tears it down the crease, into smaller and smaller pieces, which he scatters out the window into the sea wind. They spiral up instead of down. He watches them go.
The third draft he copies out carefully, checks twice for anything that might show. Show that the truths he penned were enveloped with lies, with a tranquility he does not feel. Once moderately satisfied, he seals it with plain wax and sets it aside to dry.
Then he sits. Listens to the ever-ambient noise of waves crashing against stone.
And thinks of how he does not want to be here.
At least, not without Olly.
Three months ago, something had changed. Olruggio had found out about Qifrey’s secret, as he continuously kept doing, and the script played out, the cyclical story told once more. Qifrey had explained what was happening as roots sprouted from his eye and he unpinned the flap on his hat to reveal the memory erasure spell, his tone calmer than he felt, even though there were already the stirrings of an eerie, nearly apathetic calm that took over for him in those moments; he was beginning to harden against this event.
And then Olruggio had nodded, and smiled through his tears, and kissed him.
Something to agonize over, he had said, and Qifrey had been too shocked to respond. When sound finally returned to him, Olruggio had already put Qifrey’s hat on and collapsed onto the ground.
And Qifrey, being both selfish and a coward, had fled.
Olruggio’s love was a death sentence. To be understood by Olruggio, to be completely accepted by him, was the most beautiful executioner's axe in the world. He could not bask in the warm sunlight that was Olruggio’s affection while upholding his promise. The only way forward he could think of was to cut himself free from the strings that bound the two together, to hope the pain of having this negative space follow him everywhere he went was enough to sufficiently stave off the silverwood roots. To abandon his dearest friend.
Qifrey presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees pinpricks of stars, trying to blot out the memory.
Every time he wipes Olruggio’s mind, he feels like a murderer. He keeps hacking away pieces of the man who cares so deeply for him, turning Olruggio into a sieve just to keep himself breathing. Olruggio is a festering wound in his side, a beautiful, agonizing reminder of what he can never have.
The distance between them is metaphorically killing Qifrey, but in a very literal way keeping him alive. If he has to starve his own heart to keep Olruggio safe from the violence Qifrey is forced to inflict on him, he will gladly die of the hunger.
He steels himself and stands. He has a letter to post.
*****
Dear Qifrey,
Dragons, huh? Makes sense. You’ve always had a thing for those. I bet the next letter you send me, you’ll be telling me you’ve broken one to the bridle and are currently flying it among the clouds like the protagonists in that old book series you used to love.
I’m glad you’re enjoying your travels, and a little jealous too. Vast world indeed — a town built into the cliffside sounds crazy to me. How do they get around? Is everything just vertical? Are there pulleys and elevators? Don’t waste ink on explaining this to me, just tell me next time I see you.
You’re damn right I’d be cross if you’d disappear from the map. Don’t even think about crossing into uncharted territory where my letters can’t find you. If you get eaten by some weird, never-seen-before monster because you wanted to see what was ‘beyond the peninsula’, I will personally hunt down your ghost just to yell at you.
Oh, and don’t forget that you don’t have infinite money, you idiot. Beldaruit isn’t there to bail you out with a blank cheque anytime you need something. Accept any damn hospitality when it’s offered. Just make sure to do something helpful in return; that is what magic is for, after all.
As for how I’m doing, Ghodrey is fine. It’s a little strange, being back here. There were a few faces I remembered from before, older now, and they welcomed me back like I’d only been gone a season rather than over a decade. A woman at the market I never met before knew my name before I told her. I’m not sure if that’s charming or unsettling, but I’ve decided to call it charming.
The workshop situation I got assigned to is not what I’d call ideal. I’m sharing the space with an old man named Perret, who has been making contraptions in this city for approximately forty years and, quite frankly, he’s a mean old bastard. He disapproves of my methods, my materials, the way I organize my tools, and, I suspect, my face. He hasn’t said so outright, but I can tell. I also strongly suspect he disapproves of people in general, which makes me feel slightly less targeted. I dislike him, and yet I think I’m going to learn an enormous amount from him. He’s less interested in the magic itself and more interested in the architecture beneath it. How to close a circle with the weight of a lever, the press of a button. The spell does the work, but the mechanism determines when, and how reliably, and whether you need a witch on hand to trigger it at all. I have been watching him work until well past dark most evenings, and I keep having to stop myself from drawing out plans right there at his bench.
I haven’t received any commissions yet, so I’ve been tinkering on a few designs of my own. The one I keep returning to is something for the mountain roads — a contraption that could clear accumulated snow from the pass routes. Something that could be triggered by a non-witch, so the road crews wouldn’t need to ring the bell every time a bad snowfall cuts off the northern settlements.
Hah, I guess what I’m trying to do is make witches a bit obsolete.
Y’know, I always thought that the learning and studying part of witchery was over once I’d passed the fourth test. Done with the textbooks and ready to apply all that knowledge to the real world. But there’s always more, isn’t there? New ways to make things work, new puzzles to solve. I finally got the time to throw myself into this new pursuit. I love it, really.
I assume that’s what you’re chasing out there on your rocks, too. Looking for the pieces of the world that don’t fit into our old lesson books, discovering answers to questions you never even knew you had.
I do miss you, though. But I agree. It’s for the best, for now. Besides, we’ve already spent enough time together to last a lifetime. Little time apart won’t hurt.
Watch your footing on those cliffs. Write when you're somewhere interesting.
Warm regards,
Olruggio
The ink on the final signature is still wet, reflecting the sickly orange glow of a single lampstone. Olruggio doesn’t set the pen down; his fingers simply lose their grip on the wood, letting it roll across the workbench until it catches on a groove in the oak, leaving a thin, black trail in its wake.
He looks down at the letter he has just penned, and a bitter, hollow sound escapes his throat — a laugh that feels like choking.
Little time apart won’t hurt. What a spectacular, pathetic lie.
He’s miserable. Utterly and ruinously miserable. This ‘little time apart’ has hollowed him out, as if someone had used a core-drill on his chest and left the cavity open to the northern frost.
And it’s his own damn fault. Because when Qifrey had stood in front of him, eye averted, and suggested they should go their separate ways for a while, Olruggio had simply nodded.
Why. Why had he agreed? He’d known what Qifrey was doing, had seen his friend try to create distance between them a thousand times before and always stubbornly clung onto him like a fifth limb. But that had always been when they were still apprentices. They were adults now. Qifrey could make his own decisions, could abandon Olruggio if he wanted to. If Qifrey wanted to go on adventures without Olruggio, there was little he could do about it.
Besides. There was that thing his former master had said to him once, not unkindly. You rely on each other in ways that will not serve you when you are no longer students. You should be aware of it. Codependent, she hadn’t said, but Olruggio had understood the meaning. It was a sentiment Olruggio had never been able to shake; the fear that his relationship with Qifrey was wrong somehow.
Sometimes it was. Because sometimes Olruggio caught himself staring at Qifrey and forgetting how to breathe. Because sometimes the boundary between where his own life ended and Qifrey’s began felt so thoroughly eroded that a single sigh from the other man could alter the rhythm of his own pulse.
It wasn't just that they had grown up sharing the same mess hall, the same starry sky over their makeshift camp, the same late-night fever dreams of what they would build when they finally graduated. It was the terrifying truth that Olruggio had long ago stopped measuring his own worth by the success of his creations, and started measuring it by the small, rare moments of genuine peace he could carve out for Qifrey.
To care for Qifrey was to be a watcher at the edge of a crumbling cliff, constantly reaching into the dark to pull back a man who was halfway in love with the fall.
He should have just told him how he felt. Maybe then he wouldn’t be alone, right now.
Olruggio sighs and reaches blindly for the bottle of cheap, sour currant wine resting by his vice. He swigs from the neck, letting the acid burn his throat, ignoring the taste.
I want you to look at your creations in Ghodrey and know they belong entirely to your own genius, untainted by my presence.
He has been trying to decide, since the letter arrived, whether this is a kind thing to say or a cruel one. He cannot tell. He so often struggles to tell with Qifrey, which has historically been the problem and also the fascination and also the thing he has been trying to stop finding fascinating. Untainted by his presence. As if Qifrey’s presence had been contaminating him. As if fifteen years of friendship had been something Olruggio needed to be freed from.
As if he had asked to be freed.
Outside, the last of the daylight is making its exit, and a municipal witch wrapped in thick bear-fur is tapping the lanterns of the street lamps with a long rod, waking the internal illumination sigils one by one. He knows this sight. He grew up with this sight. Snow and furs and pine trees. Like no time has passed.
Olruggio is back exactly where he began, with just as many friends to keep him company.