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“I am not putting the fucking mask on!” Julien snapped at Thimble, who was floating much too close to his face.
His nails dug into the table they were all taking their breakfast at, courtesy of King Gus still. Even though he couldn’t remember why that was his first instinct, instead of just swatting the pixie away like the irritating bug that she was, he still refrained from lashing out with more than just his words.
But fuck, he was this close…
“Why?” Thimble flew even closer. “What happened to Bolaire’s the only one who gets me?”
“You will do well to not put in my mouth words I have never spoken.”
“Well, you sure are acting like it, so eager to have a gossip with him about how awful you both think Thaz is!”
Hot pinpricks raised the hair on the back of Julien’s neck. Honestly, he expected the pixie to bring this up way sooner. “Oh, I am looking forward to conversing with the only person who does not fully share your delusion about that bastard. That does not mean I am willing to get fucking possessed!”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic! You saw how he was with Misha…”
“Who’s Misha?”
Thimble shot him a look that was somehow furious and unimpressed at the same time. “You know Bolaire wouldn’t actually possess any of us.”
“Do I?” Julien laughed at this notion, the sound sharp on his tongue. “Do I really know that? Because if you don’t see that anyone apart from the bard is fair game for him, you’re lying to yourself.”
The pixie threw her arms up. “Would it fucking kill you to just trust someone for once?!”
The borders of Julien’s vision blurred as he felt a low snarl forming at the back of his throat. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. You want to lecture me about trust? The kind you learned from your traitorous bastard of a ma—”
“Julien, that’s enough.”
The words sounded so familiar they made Julien snap his mouth shut with a force of a command received countless times before. Only after that he realized neither the voice nor the tone did match and turned his head to the side to glare at the owner of this voice. Occtis met his gaze straight on, his eyes angry green and unblinking.
“You—”
“And Thimble,” Occtis added, not letting Julien get in another word, “leave him be.”
The pixie made a spluttering noise and only then Occtis moved his gaze to meet hers, leaving Julien’s head reeling.
“We’ll take Bolaire with us,” the boy continued, and Julien couldn’t help but notice how he straightened his back with that, for once not hunched over the table. “I don’t plan on running into anyone of… my family here, on a simple grocery run, but if we do—”
“Then you’re going to get the fuck out of there!”
Occtis’ expression softened, even allowing a smile to touch his lips. “Yes, Thimble, we will get the fuck out of there, I promise.”
The pixie grinned back at him and fluttered closer to hug the side of his head. It looked weird and awkward, yet Occtis leaned into the touch, his smile now blooming in full, and oh, right, this was why Julien refrained from grabbing the pixie and throwing her across the room.
Occtis’ family took everything from him, including his own life. Julien would never claim to be the smartest in the room, but he felt rather certain about the identities of both people who, as Occtis had claimed, still cared about him. Thaisha had fucked off to wherever, and the absolute devastation Occtis had shown when he finally agreed to leave Obrimus Manor, leaving Thimble behind, spoke volumes.
So no matter how infuriating the pixie had been, she was currently the only thing the dead boy could—and probably wanted to—smile about.
Ah, fuck.
Without a word, Julien stood up from the table and left for their room.
~
He was in the middle of putting on his gauntlet, almost ready to depart for the errand run through Timmon’s Rock, when the door opened. Occtis didn’t knock nor announce his presence in any other way, he just went inside and sat down cross-legged on his bed.
Tension gripped the muscles at the back of Julien’s neck and shoulders. Without checking, he could feel the weight of the other’s gaze on him, while Occtis doubtlessly prepared to tell him off. It was fine. Julien knew this game. He’d just have to wait him out.
The moment the last clasp of his armor snatched in place, Occtis finally spoke up. “All right, out with it.”
“Out with what?”
The boy might have been easy to fluster, but right now he refused to take the bait. He simply kept on waiting, seemingly content to stretch the silence into a breaking point, and how the fuck was Julien supposed to win a staring contest with a person who didn’t fucking blink?
Working his jaw to unclench it, Julien gritted out, “I’m not putting that mask on.”
Occtis nodded. “That’s fine.”
“I don’t care that it would be easier for everyone, I’m not doing it.”
“All right.”
“I don’t need any more unwanted passengers, I already have one too many.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
Julien frowned, because that’s not how this conversation was supposed to go. Why was Occtis simply agreeing with him? “It would make sense for me to wear the mask. Logical. I need a disguise and he knows how to make one.”
Finally Occtis blinked, and if not of necessity, then out of confusion. “Uh, I mean, yeah?”
“Then why are you not telling me to do it?”
“Oh for the love of—” Occtis pressed both hands to his face and made a high, frustrated sound. “Why—” He looked up, eyes a shade brighter than seconds ago, one hand roughly gesturing toward the door. “Why would I do that, when I just told Thimble to stop pestering you about it?!”
“Because obviously I wouldn’t listen to the pixie!”
“But you would listen to me?” Occtis said with a harsh, self-deprecating chuckle, and oh, wasn’t that a great fucking question. “Although…” he went on quietly, and suddenly Julien thought of a butterfly being pinned to a board. “I guess you did listen to me.”
Julien swallowed against the uncomfortable tightness in his throat. “You ordered me to shut up.”
“Ordered?” Occtis repeated like it was not perfectly obvious. “I can’t order you to do anything! I snapped at you for being an asshole to my friend,” he said with more than a hint of anger in his voice. “I’m not going to apologize for that, but you didn’t have to listen.” A beat of silence, then, “Julien. Was that whole argument only to piss off Thimble?”
He could lie. He should lie and get the fuck out of this conversation, because Occtis’ eyes were dissecting him like he was some exotic specimen and Julien had the wildest urge to lean into that knife. “Not… the whole argument. I was serious about the mask.”
“Right,” Occtis huffed, not surprised. “Could you please try to be less of an asshole to my friend?”
“She was that bastard’s right hand and—”
“Is Thjazi really so important to you that you’re going to use him as a measure of everyone’s worth from now on?”
With great effort, Julien managed to remain rooted in place, instead of taking a step back. “It’s not…” he tried, but Occtis’ words felt like an arrow plunged into his shoulder. Not deadly, not even close, yet precise enough to be maiming. But maybe that pretty Arcane Marshal was right. Maybe Julien did have a death wish, because for some insane reason he was still talking. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand,” Occtis said, lowering his voice to something deceivably softer. “I know he betrayed you—”
The growl that escaped Julien grounded him back in his resolve. “Not. Me.”
Occtis paused, taking it in. It took him less than a second to recalculate. “Your Lady Royce, of course,” he amended with a small nod. “Julien, I—ah, shit, how do I even—” He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it in a nervous gesture, before digging his fingers into the meat of his thigh. He wasn’t looking at Julien anymore, instead fixed his gaze somewhere on the floor before him. “Listen, I won’t—I’m not going to tell you that Thjazi was a good man, if only because I don’t know that.”
“I do,” Julien said roughly. “He wasn’t.”
Occtis sighed. “Why did I think you would let me finish…” Then his eyes were back on Julien, bright and sunken and cutting right into his soul. “Do you think my father is a good man?”
All at once, every pin holding Julien in place was gone, and every muscle tensed, preparing to strike. “The fuck kind of a question is that?!”
“For you? I would suppose an extraordinarily simple one. Do you think my father is a good man, Julien?”
“No,” he snarled. “He’s a monster.”
“Right,” Occtis agreed, but Julien could hear the click of another crossbow bolt being loaded. “I’ve been his son for the past twenty years, yet you told me yesterday you don’t want to kill me. That you’re not going to hurt me. Is my father less of a monster because of that?”
Shut up. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!
“How… do you mean?”
“If you can see me without seeing my father, could you—could you try to look at Thimble without only, specifically looking for Thjazi?”
Julien shook his head, less in answer and more in general plea for this to stop. “It’s not the same,” he managed after a breath. “You did not take part in… everything he did. You are not waltzing around claiming he was a fucking hero.”
“No, but I still wear his name. Ten days ago that was enough for you to point a blade at me with every intention of using it.”
“Because ten days ago you were nothing but that name to me!” Julien snarled.
“Yeah,” Occtis whispered and it sounded like a spell. “What about now?”
The question echoed against the spectral walls of the Obrimus Manor and joined another, uttered back there with all deserved rage.
Why do you care?!
He didn’t. That would have been the easiest answer, one that Julien should have offered there and then, no hesitation. It would also have been the most egregious lie. Because Julien couldn’t get his head around the why, and how, and what for, and to what end, but he did, he did fucking care.
The world Julien knew had been sundered. He was now on the run and on the hunt, without friends, without home, without a tether keeping him from unraveling. Knowing where his strengths lied used to be of help. Being a soldier meant he knew how and when to strike to deal the most damage. Focus, precision, swiftness—these were his elements and he wielded them with skill honed ruthlessly for years.
But nothing made sense anymore.
Everywhere he turned, mutated magic surrounded him, its scent so different from the magic of the place he thought he belonged to. There were demons, angels, half-angels, almost-angels, sentient masks, dead druids, fake resurrections, real assassinations, wild cultists and birds at every corner, and the only clear target for his weapon remained devastatingly out of Julien’s reach.
No, that last part was not true. There were notches on his belt proving he could do something still.
He had to cling to it, then, to the singular purpose he had to his name. If he allowed the lines to get blurred, even a little, there was no telling what else of his life’s remains was going to end up in the dirt, discarded and forgotten, until there was nothing left of Sir Julien Davinos, vassal knight of the House Royce.
House Royce. Sundered and decimated, but not fully destroyed.
If you ever can’t go home, if I still have one, it’s open to you.
A memory of a sentence not meant for Julien flitted uninvited into his mind. Those were Aranessa’s parting words to Occtis, before she left for the Golden Orchard, while the rest of them went to face the horrors of the Endless Night. Julien must have registered them, even if he didn’t actually listen in the moment.
These words were not meant for him, and it seemed like a petty theft to use them, but Julien grabbed them with both hands, holding tight, digging his nails in until they bled. The lines righted themselves, rewritten. Clear. His Lady had invited Occtis into their home. It was all right.
With a long, ragged exhale, Julien let the tension drop, the death grip on his rapier no longer needed. Truths larger than pretending settled on his shoulders—uncomfortable and impossible to explain, but truths nonetheless.
What about now? Why do you care?!
“I don’t know, Occtis,” Julien breathed, probably the most genuine confession he offered anyone apart from Aranessa. “I don’t know.”
Twin flames of light in Occtis’ gaze burned brightly, scalding Julien harsher than his cold touch did the night before. The boy knew how to school his face into a mask of noble indifference, but he let it slip again and again, leaving small proof of emotion boiling beneath. And right now, as the green embers in his eyes dimmed, he mostly looked tired.
…tired of pretending I give a shit about you.
“Right,” Occtis said and smiled briefly. Not much in this gesture resembled the one he offered Thimble earlier, yet it wasn’t unkind, just laced with quiet melancholy. “I suppose it’s not fair to keep asking you that, when I don’t know why I care about you, either.”
This sentiment, this… admission made no sense from when Julien was standing. None whatsoever. The boy’s earnest expression could as well have been a trick Julien was too tired or too confused to catch. And yet… They had spoken yesterday about trust. And somewhere underneath all the hurt and anger and fear that permeated his life now, Julien wanted to believe he could still recognize trust freely given and received, no matter how impossible the circumstances were.
Trust and care. What a deadly combination. How utterly compelling.
Julien took three steps forward, careful and slightly unsure, but the hand he extended toward Occtis remained steady.
“Come on,” he said, nodding his head at the door. “Let’s go get your supplies.”
Occtis regarded him for a good half a minute, probably testing his resolve, before he took the offered hand and let Julien pull him up. “I would still appreciate it,” he added, narrowing his eyes, “if you could just—try to be less of an asshole to Thimble, all right?”
Julien answered with a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, I will… endeavor to antagonize the pixie less.”
“Mhm. You can start by using her name.”
“Certainly. Remind me again, what was it?”
Occtis simply elbowed him in the ribs, hard, then turned to leave. Snickering like he’d just won something, Julien followed.