Archive of Our Own

Una swept, and mopped, and didn’t cry. She was a big believer in the value of a good cry, particularly while doing chores. Weeding was ideal, or wringing the laundry, or beating the rug. It was therapeutic to pull or squeeze or swing, and to let the tears flow. By the time she was done with the task, her petty grievance or unpetty sadness had usually run its course. It had alarmed Leofric at first, but within a few months he’d understood this was just the way she liked to handle such things.

But now, with her world upended, and more importantly with Bren’s life in very real danger, she could not manage a drop.

The terrible old man left her alone for hours through the afternoon. But Una could not run, or hide, or even think of a way to resist that might amount to anything, not even a drop of personal satisfaction. Whatever spell he had cast on her did not permit any of that. He had said “Make the house ready for your son” with a look of hungry glee that had chilled her blood.

And so she swept, and mopped, and shook out the rug, and tidied. She could move around the cottage at will as long as she focused on an acceptable task. She could go to the larder and consider dinner options, but she couldn’t crack open the front door to see if there was anyone nearby who might hear a shout for help. The desire to do it arose, and she intended to follow through, but her body reached for the broom instead and began diligently sweeping all over again. Una strained with every iota of her will. Drop the broom, walk to the door. No. All right, take it in smaller pieces. Swing her right foot forward, then pivot on it to turn towards – no. Not allowed.

She swept and swept, and did not cry.

The cottage was wrong in many ways, some subtle, some not. It had all the furniture in the right places, and many of the small details were also correct, like Frumpkin’s little bed by the hearth. But the collection of spices in the larder was missing several items, and the flour store was fuller than it should have been. And there were more disturbing . . . mistakes. Like a smooth table leg where there should be a long scuff from Leofric and Bren roughhousing five years ago.

But was it five years ago?

Was it her cottage?

It wasn’t. That, she knew. The memory of smoke and heat was not some terrible nightmare. It had been real. Her home had caught fire.

That part had come back to her quickly, in flashes rather than in smooth, continuous memory. Waking with her heart already pounding, Leofric’s grip on her arm, uncharacteristically rough as he shook her. The whoosh that must have been the roof going up. The heat. The glimpse of Leofric’s face when he slammed himself into the door for the third time and it didn’t budge. The way he had gone limp and silent first, so heavy atop her on the floor that she couldn’t breathe. But she couldn’t breathe anyway, so she held him tight. And she’d heard . . .

Her memory skipped forward from that moment to waking on the floor. Blinking through watering eyes to see the roof intact. Gasping, gasping clean air. Hearing a conversation taking place over her and only catching a few words. “—Got a live one, what are the odds,” and “Good, good. Try the other one.”

She kept poking at that gap. The transition from fire and terror to no fire but still terror. Some days when she woke in the morning, she could immediately tell it had been a long sleep, but sometimes she woke at midnight, convinced it was dawn and the roosters were about to go. How long a gap had it been?

Would Bren know? With his clockwork mind? He woke knowing the time every morning. She suspected he’d been able to do that even before he could read the clock, or tell her about it, for that matter. But if Bren had –

She swept with sudden violence.

The old man hadn’t paid any attention to her. No one had paid any attention to her. She’d just lain there on the floor and gasped and shook, while some sort of magic was cast. Much disappointment was expressed over the results of that, and someone had said, “Be grateful for what you have.” It would be hours before Una understood what that spell was supposed to do, and what its failure meant.

And then a number of people – three or four, maybe, though she wasn’t tracking very well – had stood around her kitchen table talking. She wished now she had been able to follow it. The emotional sense of it lingered, even if the words didn’t. It was one of those conversations that sounded cordial, but was all spikes underneath.

“I have much to do,” the man in blue robes said after only a minute. “A big day. You’re welcome, Trent. Do try not to squander all this effort.”

And everyone had left but the old man, who had said, “You let me rot for seven years, you fucking piece of shit, I’ll squander—” and several other things. All delivered in a weirdly polite tone, though he was ranting to an empty room.

Empty aside from her, abandoned on the floor. She had tried to speak then. And only rasped and gurgled. That did get his attention.

Which she decided, as soon as he came and stood over her, that she didn’t actually want.

“Ah,” he said, as if finding something pleasant in a shop window. “Bren’s mother.”

“What?” she had rasped, and mouthed, “happened?”

“Hmm?” he said, mind already elsewhere. “What’s that? Oh. You died. Burned right up. All very dramatic. But we’ve brought you back, don’t you worry. And as soon as we tell our dear Bren, he will come running. Won’t he just.” Then, as she was grappling with a sense of creeping horror whose origin she could not articulate, “Do stop making that noise. And go get dressed. You’re a disgrace.”

Which had made her realize that she had been naked this whole time. Una had never been called modest, but it was unbearable to realize she had been lying there exposed like that.

She stood up. Fell down. Tried again. Mostly succeeded. Half-crawled to the corner of the cottage where her clothes trunk was. And discovered one of the first wrong things upon opening it, with the awareness of the old man at her back: there were clothes in the trunk, but not as she remembered.

She dressed anyway, because what else was there to do. There was a chemise, and a frock that was almost familiar, and a set of house slippers that did not remember the shape of her feet.

When she turned back to the old man, he was humming quietly to himself, busy with a book at the table. She shifted from foot to foot, then cleared her throat.

“Oh,” he said, looking up in evident surprise. “The mother.” That was her first inkling that he was mad, the way he couldn’t seem to remember she existed. But before she could think of what to say, he stood in a sweep of robes and snapped his book shut. “Much to do, much to do,” he said. And he cast a spell, completing the final motion with a jab of two fingers in her direction. “I’ll be away until the evening, setting things in motion,” he said. A sort of giddiness possessed his face. “Bren needs to know. Bren needs to come. You, make the house ready for your son. Make him dinner. He’ll be here soon.” He strode out.

And Una had found herself obeying those instructions, no matter what else she tried to do.

She completed a second full sweep and grimly forced the train of thought to complete: if Bren had died, and someone had brought him back to life, would he know how long it had been? What was even possible? People could be brought back after mere moments, everyone knew that, though that was reserved for the wealthy or the extremely lucky. She pressed and pressed at that gap in her mind, but it gave her nothing other than a sense of not mere moments.

She began to cook. There was half a roast in the cold store, and celery and carrots and potatoes. She embarked on a stew, because she wasn’t a creative cook on the best of days, and today was something else entirely.

Her cook pot had the dent in the handle from when she’d dropped it on the hearth and ruined dinner back when Bren was a toddler. She spent far too long thinking about that as her hands chopped and added and seasoned. Why had some marks of their lives carried forward into this . . . whatever this was? But others had been erased? It was something magical, that was clear. Lots of people could do magic, but only small, workaday things like mending a ripped seam or growing a single flower. Nothing like this. Would Bren understand it, with all his book learning?

Would Bren come? She wanted him to, desperately. But that old man meant to hurt him, she knew that with unquestionable instinct. And that man was a powerful mage if he could do all this. Recreate a burned home, compel her obedience so completely that she felt severed from her own body. Bren couldn’t possibly fight someone like that. So what she needed to do was hope with all her might that Bren wouldn’t come.

Who was she kidding? That boy had broken his elbow trying to rescue Frumpkin from a tree, and laughed in relief when the cat jumped down on his own while Una was trying to stabilize the arm.

The old man returned after dark. “Very good,” he said, sounding surprised. His praise made Una want to destroy all her afternoon’s hard work. “It won’t be long now,” he said, smiling in an awful way. “He’s coming, he’s coming. Set the table for him.”

She did, realizing only then that there was no water in the house aside from the wash bucket she’d been using while she cooked. The drinking bucket was dry, as was the pitcher they poured from. She thought briefly about pointing this out. Perhaps he would let her go to the well, which would take over half an hour there and back. And maybe she could ask for help, or get far enough away to break his influence, or . . . something?

Before she could decide how to go about it, his head came up and he turned towards the front of the cottage. “Yes,” he breathed, with an ecstatic sort of fury. “Here he comes.” Oh no. Bren, no. “Sit down,” the mage said, looking at her with the most attention he ever had. Gloatingly, possessively. “Start your dinner. Bren will be with you soon. You will have family dinner. He’ll like that.”

She sat, of course, and began to eat. He studied her with upsetting intensity, and the whole room around her, making sure it was all just so. But it was all wrong, every piece of it.

He smiled in evident satisfaction, though, because apparently this sham house and sham dinner and sham Frau Ermendrud were exactly as desired. He cast something. She flinched, but the magic was directed at himself, not her. Then he went out, palpably eager, and shut the door.

Her body continued to eat. The food was like clotted ashes in her throat, and her stomach curdled. He had not told her she could vomit. But he had also not told her she couldn’t. Was she allowed? Could she interrupt the compulsory eating if it was literally impossible to continue?

This was not the sort of captivity where she could outthink him. He had seized control on a deeper level than that. If he commanded her body to vomit, it would; she was on her way to believing that if he commanded her body to die, it would do that, too.

There were noises outside. Talking, movement. Quiet, then louder. She could hear the tone of the old man’s voice but not the words. He always sounded like he was insinuating something awful. He probably sounded like that when he was placing an order at the butcher or – what mundane tasks would a man like him actually do? Giving instructions to a housekeeper, perhaps. He would say, ‘Clean up the parlor,’ and you would immediately ask yourself what unforgivable thing you had done to mess it up, and how he knew about it.

More voices now, and a feminine shout loud enough to make out, “—end this, you sick motherfucker.”

He hadn’t forbidden her to smile, so Una did. If Bren truly was here, he hadn’t come alone. Would she know Bren’s voice? A man did continue to grow and change, but surely he would sound something like he had at seventeen even if he was now . . . twenty, say?

A section of the back wall vanished. It happened in utter silence; she only knew because she saw it out of the corner of one eye. The opening was shaped like a door. If this were her real home, she would finally be able to see out into the back garden. They had wanted a window in that wall for over a decade, but glass panes didn’t come cheap, and there was always some other need that took precedence.

An elf stuck his head in. A full elf, she immediately guessed, though she’d never seen one up close in her life. Golden hair, bronze skin, leaf-green eyes.

“Ah,” he breathed. He whisked something up in front of his face, a little round spyglass. He looked intensely at her for a moment through it. Instead of seeing his eye in it, perhaps magnified, she saw only a swirling dark depth lit by tiny gray stars. “It really is you,” he said, dropping his spyglass and appearing to experience some profound reaction she couldn’t parse. “All right.” He inhaled audibly. “Please, I want to take you out of here. Come to me, as fast as you can.”

She kept eating. She tried to speak between bites, but could make only a low, wordless sound. The old man had not commanded silence in so many words, but perhaps it was implied, perhaps his disregard of her was so complete that he never contemplated she would have anything to say at all.

“. . . Ah,” the elf said after an awkward pause. “I see. The hard way it is.”

He came in, moving in a cautious cat slink. He scanned all around him, both hands up and ready. Another mage of some sort. One who was prepared to do things ‘the hard way.’ She didn’t have any room left for more fear, and yet.

He stopped several paces back and, incongruously, bowed. “Frau Ermendrud,” he said, speaking quietly. “It is my great pleasure to meet you.” She could not place his accent. Coastal, maybe? “I am Bren’s partner.” The spell she was under did not stop her from sitting up straighter at attention, and he nodded as if she had spoken. “Yes, I have the great fortune of sharing a life with him.” He glanced around again. “Is your husband here?” He looked at her expression, and his fell. “I see. All right. Bren is outside. I can end this spell on you, but the moment I do, Ikithon will know. I must take you out of here to safety, but I need your cooperation to do that. Please.” He took a breath. “If I end the spell, will you come with me?”

What choice did she have? Old sayings about frying pans and fires came to mind, but what if it was true? What if this person – this extremely beautiful person who was wearing fine clothes and enough jewelry to pay their rent on the cottage for months – what if this person was actually Bren’s partner? That was what they had hoped for him, wasn’t it? To live a life they could hardly imagine, to move in circles above theirs, perhaps even to mingle with the great and the good.

She ate another unbearable bite, and tried to convey yes with her eyes.

“Okay,” he breathed. He looked over his shoulder. The sounds outside were different now – bangs and sizzles and thumps and . . . a roar? “Let’s just hope I’m reading you right. I will do this quickly.”

He cast a spell, a wire flickering between his fingers as he pointed out front. “I have her,” he said, speaking so fast his words ran together. “Do what you need to do. I love you.” And in the tones of a command rather than a plea, “Come home safe.”

Then he whirled back to her, hands already in motion again. He finished his gestures with a decisive snip of the fingers and a single word. She felt the ping of something releasing in her mind, like a broken stitch.

The sounds outside abruptly escalated. The elf made a face that probably would have been several oaths if he wasn’t already speaking to cast again. His hands were an elegant blur.

The front wall imploded with a great grinding crunch. Una got a terrifying glimpse of a riot of motion as many people moved and cast and fought. There was smoke lit by flashes of colored light, and the thunderous footsteps of some sort of beast so large she could only see scaly ankles, and the swing of a sword that looked longer than she was tall, and the old man coming for them with his face twisted in rage, and--

They were abruptly elsewhere with a lurch of unnatural motion.

She was still sitting on a chair, but there was suddenly no chair. She fell with a bump onto a dirt path. She was dimly aware of the elf hissing something in distress. But mostly she was focused on turning away and spitting out the lump of meat in her mouth. She teetered for a moment on the brink of vomiting, but swallowed and swallowed it down.

A hand patted lightly between her shoulder blades. She flinched, and it withdrew.

“I’m sorry,” he said behind her. “That was not my most elegant Teleport.”

“That was my first Teleport,” she said, gagging a bit halfway through.

“Ah.” Definitely chagrinned. “I do not want to rush you, but we are safer inside.”

She staggered to her feet. “Inside where? Oh.” They were in a garden. A back garden in a town; there were high slat fences in three directions. And in the fourth was the back of a small house. It was dark but for a strange crackling light in the sky, but she thought she saw window boxes, and a table for two on a small back patio.

“This way,” he said. Then, “My apologies,” as she immediately stumbled. “Here.” A few globes of dim purple light popped into existence and began circling several feet over her head.

“Thank you,” she said. Yes, definitely window boxes. A bit messy the way these things could get in the fall. There was a sunshade over the little table, and someone had left a teacup out.

She was starting to entertain the hope that she had guessed right, and that this was not yet another mage bent on – the mind quailed – using her against Bren somehow.

He beckoned her forward, clearly in a rush. She followed him up two brick steps. He took several moments over the lock on the back door, turning a key a full 360 degrees as he cast yet more magic with the other hand.

At last, the door opened. He gestured her in ahead of him, looking anxiously back into the garden.

She slipped by him, and found herself in a narrow back hall filled with the sorts of things that accumulated in back halls: galoshes, a trowel, several baskets, an umbrella. One of the baskets meowed.

The elf sighed in audible relief as soon as the door closed. “I just won a Counterspell fight with Trent Ikithon,” he said, in a tone of controlled hysteria. “. . . Bren is going to be so cross.”

Ikithon? Could that be--?

“He won’t follow us,” the elf continued. “He’s busy at the moment. And anyway, we cast many abjurations – that is, no one can scry –” he scowled and muttered something in a language she didn’t know. “We are protected from magical spying in here. In parts of the garden, too, but that’s trickier. Ah, here’s trouble.” His tone changed as a tuxedo cat poked its head and front paws out of one of the baskets. It hopped out, stretched with a wide yawn and a flash of pink tongue, and came to rub at their shins.

“Hallo,” Una said, bending automatically to offer her hand. The cat skipped the sniffing stage and went directly for stropping its whiskers against her fingers.

“That is Kartoffel,” the elf said. “He might be smarter than a bag of kartoffeln on his good days, but I would not bet on it.”

Una blinked, taking several seconds too long to translate that. The sprinkle of Zemnian amongst the Common was enough to confuse her exhausted brain.

“Yes, I know,” the elf said as Kartoffel abandoned her and began twining about his ankles, haranguing him in a definite where is dinner? manner. “I will get it, terrible creature. This is Bren’s mother, show some respect.”

Una blinked and swayed on her feet. “Oh,” she said quietly.

The elf reached out both hands, visibly alarmed. “Madam. Are you hurt?”

“Nein,” she said, then wondered if that was actually the correct answer. She stumbled over her words, dragging the Common into order with a heroic effort. “I’m sorry, I just. You really are Bren’s partner.”

“Ah.” He was unoffended to discover she had doubted. “I am, yes. This is our home. Those are Bren’s work gloves right there. This is his ill-mannered cat. Oh, I beg your pardon, are you having trouble with—” He lifted his hands and began to cast a spell. And without any recollection of the intervening motions, Una found herself at the far end of the tiny hall, back pressed to a set of shelves. He dropped his hands at once, his eyes widening. There was a beat of startled silence; her pulse thundered in her ears.

“I apologize,” he said, at the same moment she said, “Es tut mir leid.” They looked at each other, mutually embarrassed.

“There is no need,” he said. He was speaking very slowly now, and holding perfectly still with his hands down at his sides. “That was thoughtless of me. I intended to cast spells that would allow us to each speak our preferred languages and to understand each other. My Zemnian is not up to standard, I’m afraid.”

“. . . Oh,” she said. Then, instead of anything sensible, “But you know some. Did you know it before, or is he teaching you?”

He smiled. It was the first one she’d seen on him. “I have picked some up from him, yes, but casually. So mostly I know, ah, rude words, and some foods, and the sort of sweet things one says to cats.”

This glimpse of the man Bren had become struck her harder than it should have.

“I mean you no harm,” he said, when she was silent too long.

“Ja, ja.” She breathed in and out deliberately. “I just . . .”

He nodded, as if he truly knew what the end of that sentence was. “Will you come with me? Sit down? Let me make you comfortable?”

“Ja,” she said. Then, in a flood of worry, “But we left Bren there. They were fighting, I saw. That man, he wants to—” she gestured “—he doesn’t want to hurt Bren. It’s worse. He wants to destroy him.”

“I know,” the elf said. “Bren is with friends, and they are all extremely capable. And I . . .” He rubbed a hand across his face. “For complex reasons involving my past mistakes, it is important that I stay out of this fight. But it was also vital that you were retrieved safely, and I could do that, so I did.”

“But Bren can fight that man?” she pressed. “It’s not hopeless? That mage. He’s powerful.” Terrible and terrifying. “Can Bren – will Bren --?”

“Oh.” He looked briefly surprised. Then he made steady eye contact with her and said, “Yes. Bren is a wizard of superb ability. I am afraid right now, but I do not doubt the outcome of that fight. You should not either.”

“Oh.” The question of how old Bren was recurred more urgently. She hadn’t known it was possible to be so frightened and so proud at the same time. “What are you afraid of, then?”

“Ah.” He grimaced, like he regretted saying that. “The aftermath may be . . . messy. I worry.” He straightened his shoulders. “But we can deal with that when he is home and safe.”

Hmm. He was good at being evasive. “Do you know how long that will take?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. The fight itself will be quick. It is likely over already.” Her heart tripped nonsensically, as if its spasms could change the outcome. “But he was casting earlier. He may have used most or even all of his arcane strength for the day. And even if he hasn’t, magical communications are disrupted right now.” He sounded like he was convincing himself as much as her. “He could Teleport into the living room in half an hour. Or it could be tomorrow before we receive word.”

She nodded. She knew how to wait for Leofric to come home from his stints with the Righteous Brand. She had cultivated patience, hope, expectation. But at least in those long waiting weeks or months, she didn’t have to know exactly when Leofric might be in danger, exactly what he might be facing. Generally not much, to hear him tell it when he came home. Certainly never a mad mage with terrible power and vindictive rage.

The elf – Bren’s partner – was still waiting, not moving. Trying not to frighten her further. Good gods, she was carrying on, wasn’t she?

“Where, ah.” Her throat was terribly dry. “Should I take my shoes off, or--?”

“Yes, please,” he said, and bent to remove his own fine boots as if in demonstration. She took off her slippers with distaste, and placed them on a low rack against the wall. Though she’d frankly rather see them destroyed.

“To your left,” the elf said, gesturing her through an open doorway into a kitchen that was half the size of her entire cottage. She heard him inhale through his teeth as he followed her.

“The house is a shambles,” he said, sweeping a pile of letters off the counter and out of sight. “Bren has been away, and I’ve been in and out.”

“It’s lovely,” she said. There was a bright blue teapot on the stove, and a set of three mismatched cups upside down in the drying rack. They had a window looking out over the back garden, with a fine pane of glass and a sill full of herbs. It was all as neat as a pin.

“Through here,” he said, and gestured her into a living room that combined coziness with a casual degree of wealth that took her breath away. There was a fireplace and several couches and the usual sorts of things, but also two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, both crammed with leatherbound tomes. She couldn’t even begin to guess at the cost of that. And there was art. The real stuff, not a child’s scribbles preserved for sentiment. The largest painting showed a house with a tree growing whimsically from the roof, its branches laden with glowing lights.

“Please, sit,” he said, hands fluttering. “You are certain you aren’t injured? We have healing potions, it’s no trouble.”

She and Leofric had kept one healing potion in the house for emergencies, particularly when Bren was young. They had saved for more than six months to buy it.

“I’m all right,” she said, sinking onto the end of a green velvet couch. “He didn’t . . .” She hesitated, because it felt untrue to say that the mage hadn’t hurt her. “He didn’t notice me much,” she settled on. “I have the idea that is a good thing.”

“Very,” he said. “But are you certain I can’t fetch you anything? I imagine you aren’t hungry?”

“No,” she said, grimacing. “But actually, could I have some water? I haven’t had any since . . .” She trailed off. Since she had drunk the last few sips out of Leofric’s cup after dinner, because it was hard work hauling it in, and she didn’t like to waste a drop. And later they had gone to bed, and gone to sleep, and they had woken up to –

She startled back to the present as the elf set a tray on the low table before her. It held a ceramic pitcher that was glazed a beautiful violet color and a plate containing two small cookies. The cups were made of actual glass, not tin. He poured for her, his eyes politely averted while she composed herself.

He had small, neat hands. Multiple rings sparkled and flashed. Not a farmer’s hands or a soldier’s hands, that was for sure. The sleeve of his tunic had lifted to reveal an intricate bracelet composed of woven chains of different hues. The only metal she could readily identify was gold, which might well be the least valuable of the lot for all she knew.

“That’s beautiful,” she said, gesturing to it.

“Thank you.” He set her glass down within reach, and retreated to perch on the edge of an armchair, a glass in one hand and a cookie in the other. “Bren made that, actually.”

“He did?” she said, astonished. Bren couldn’t sit still as a child to pick up whittling or sewing or really any handicraft at all. Unless he got hold of a book, in which case all muscle function ceased but for reading and page turning.

“With magic,” he clarified, which made a lot more sense. “It did require him to gain a reasonable proficiency with principles of metalwork and jewelry making, however.” He dipped his chin, looking almost bashful. “He takes a great interest in my jewel case these days. He’s very good at it, troublesome creature.”

“Yes, it looks like professional work,” she said.

He smiled ruefully. “Oh, yes. But I actually meant he is good at gift-giving.”

That, at least, made perfect sense to her. Bren had endlessly delighted as a child in bringing her gifts – posies of wildflowers, interesting rocks, anything he could find, really. He’d been like that even past the age where she stopped being the center of his world. It made sense he was still like that, with far more resources to spend on someone new at the center of his world.

Una made a hasty mental note not to be one of those awful mothers who was jealous of their child’s partner. Unbearable for everyone concerned, surely.

She took a sip of water – very cold, tasting a bit odd the way water from an unfamiliar well could. And she found herself draining the entire glass in a few swallows. Thirst roared to life, and she poured herself another glass. She didn’t slow down until the third, which she forced herself to sip. Her temples boomed with a dehydration headache. They’d been doing that for a while, hadn’t they?

“I know you aren’t hungry,” he said, gesturing to the second cookie. “But these are quite nice, and I thought you might like a pleasant taste to clear your palate.”

She picked it up mostly to be sociable, but a nibble produced such a delightful flavor that she took a proper bite.

“Bren loves those,” he said.

“Do you make them?” That was cinnamon, definitely clove, a hint of ginger, something she could not place but that might be one of the more exotic warming spices imported from Marquet. She could believe this house’s kitchen was stocked with such luxuries as those.

“Me? No. I have very limited kitchen skills, I’m afraid. A friend of ours makes them.” He polished off his own with a genteel pat to his lips. “She is an accomplished warrior, and a homemaker of great skill. Sometimes on the same day.”

“Like today?” Una hazarded.

“Yes. She is with Bren,” he confirmed. “Along with her extremely large sword.” Then, kindly answering the other question she was asking, “Today has been . . . challenging.” His lips compressed. “There is a powerful confluence of events occurring. Magically, politically. Cosmologically, perhaps.” She could believe he was a person who would have insight into events of all those sorts. “Ikithon escaped imprisonment in the chaos, and led Bren and many of our friends on a bit of a chase for the past few hours. During the course of which he taunted Bren with news of your return.”

“Ah,” she said, trying to match his factual tone. “I figured I was bait.” She hesitated. Her mind felt clearer with a moment to sit and rest. She had so many questions at this point, it was difficult to know where to start. “Why does he hate Bren like that? It was so . . .” she wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Obsessive,” he said knowingly. “I think he is quite mad, now, but it was that way even before.” He inhaled, choosing his words with visible care. “Bren was instrumental in proving that he had committed a number of crimes against citizens of the Empire. Ikithon lost his place in the Assembly and has been imprisoned for the past seven years.” His smile was wolfish. “That is partly why it is personal.”

So. It was the same Ikithon. Master Ikithon. Bren had spoken glowingly of him in his letters. He’d been more circumspect on his one visit home, but she’d understood why once Bren made it clear, in the way of a seventeen-year-old attempting to be subtle, that the work he was training for was not work he could speak of. She had been afraid for him, of course. It was a dangerous world. But she’d also been so proud, and vindicated to be right that her clever boy was meant for better things. She’d been relieved to think that there was a great man guiding Bren down whatever path it was.

And she had been trusting her boy to a criminal.

She swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she said, in an awkward change of subject. “This is terrible of me. I have forgotten your name.”

He even blushed handsomely. “It is entirely possible I neglected to tell you at all,” he said. “My manners are also a shambles today.” He bowed, still seated. “I am Essek Thelyss, at your service.”

“Essek,” she repeated. Was he from Bysaes Tyl? Uthodurn? Or somewhere farther afield? There was talk of a great elven city in Tal’dorei that could hide in another reality when threatened. Though really, such a mythical-sounding place might as well be Uthodurn for all she knew. Both just names on a page of the big atlas you could flip through at the post office. She had meant to travel the Empire, once upon a time, but the farthest she’d gotten was Rexxentrum.

Was it rude to quiz him on the origins of that accent? Maybe. It would definitely be rude to ask how old he was.

There was something in the formality of his speech, the way he carried himself. It said money even without the flash of gems in his rings or the sheen of silk to his asymmetrical black tunic.

He was still terrifying, but a different sort, now. And Bren’s partner.

“You should call me Una,” she said.

“I am honored,” he said quietly. “I feel I have the advantage here, as if I already know you.”

“It’s probably true, whatever he told you,” she said ruefully. What would Bren say of them?

She had wanted children, but the timing of Bren’s conception was not to plan. She had been on the brink of leaving Blumenthal, perhaps for good, with grief for her sister and mother still raw. She had intended to go even after she missed her cycle, and then missed it again. She could take a baby with her, people did that. But she’d felt it only right to tell Leofric, and he had begged for a year. For her to stay that long, give him a chance to show her what sort of partner and father he could be.

She had stayed for eighteen, and not regretted it. Not much. Not once she had birthed Bren, and she and Leofric had walked through those first challenging months together, and she had belatedly been moved by tenderness for this man, who had waited with such patience for her to notice his devotion and to give a damn. Ironically, it was Leofric who went to earn coin with the Brand, though he would rather not have strayed more than a mile from home. And she was the one to stay, and keep house, and rear Bren. That made sense – she was skilled with the crops and he was good with a sword. But it wasn’t the plan.

She had reared Bren to the best of her ability, though no one would ever call her a conventional mother. Her boy had a wild spirit and a brilliant mind; she would freely admit he had gotten the former from her, and she did her best to cultivate the latter. So what if there were few rules in the Ermendrud household, to the scandal of many neighborhood gossips with nothing better to do. So what if she did her best to answer Bren’s thousands of questions, even the far too grown up ones or the ones she was apparently supposed to discourage. So what if she was sometimes the one to bring him with her into a game of fancy or invention, rather than the other way around.

“He does speak of you often,” Essek said. “Both of you.” He hesitated. “Your loss was . . . difficult. It . . . left its mark.”

Well, of course. Grief did that, didn’t it? Her mother’s loss had eased with time, but her sister’s still stung to this day. Bren had gotten his intelligence from Janna, and in time Una had come to grieve that the two of them never got the chance to meet.

“Also,” Essek said carefully. “I apologize, but I must ask. Bren will want to know. Your husband was not with you . . .?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t come back,” she said, and looked away. “They tried. I don’t know why it didn’t work. I didn’t think it was even possible,” she added, suddenly unwilling to leave space for condolences. “You hear of people coming back after a minute or two, but . . .”

“Ah.” For once, Essek did not seem to pick up her implicit question about how long it had been. “You will meet two clerics after Bren returns home,” he said. “Either of them can explain much more about it than I can. But I was present for an extended discussion of that particular spell Bren had with our friend Caduceus, several years ago now.” He hesitated, clearly editing himself. “Bren had questions. According to Caduceus, the spell frequently fails. Its targets must consent to be returned, and most don’t, particularly after, ah. Years.”

“Oh.” So she had said yes and Leofric had said no, and now an unbridgeable divide lay between them. They had made it work for so long, her impulsiveness, his steady contentment. Until now.

“I grieve for your loss,” Essek said. There was something about him that did not lend itself to gentleness, but she believed he meant it quite literally. There was a brief pause; she could manage only a nod of acknowledgment. Further words on that subject were impossible.

Essek seemed to realize that, because he said, “Would you be more comfortable after a bath? I’m afraid we don’t have clothes that will fit you well, but I’m sure I can find something.”

“Oh,” she said, hesitating. A bath did sound wonderful, but she didn’t want to make a nuisance of herself. A house like this might have an actual tub, but surely he didn’t mean to take multiple trips to the nearest well, let alone spend an hour heating water over the fire? “I would, yes. Just a bucket will do for me.”

“Nonsense,” Essek said. “We can do better than that. Give me a moment.”

Within five minutes, she was alone in a small bathing room. They did have an actual wooden tub in the house, which Essek had contrived to fill with steaming hot water. He must have done it with magic. Una reflected, partway to quiet hysteria, that this was one of the most personally impressive feats of magic she’d seen all day.

He left her alone with a vanilla-scented candle burning and a basket full of soaps and scrubs and other things she couldn’t identify. She and Leofric and Bren had given themselves sponge baths out of a bucket most of the time. The bathhouse in town was nice, but a luxury reserved for special occasions.

She removed the horrible dress and chemise. The water felt incredible. Una tried to relax into the warmth, but couldn’t do it. Something in her seemed to twist tighter the moment her shoulders began to ease.

She tried, and failed, and twitched uncomfortably in the lovely bath that Bren’s lovely partner had gone out of his way to draw for her.

She sighed, and set to a brisk scrub. Could she scrub that mage out of her mind? He hadn’t touched her once, not physically. But the stamp of his control and his disregard felt like brands now.

There were five separate bars of soap in the basket, she counted. They were all different – one was a pearly globe, one a dense dark cake, one a pale gold bar with something gently abrasive mixed in. Were they each for different parts of the body? Or different people? Or different days of the week?

She spent far less time in the bath than it deserved. But once she was scrubbed and her hair washed, she simply couldn’t linger anymore. She had never been good at idleness, but this wasn’t that. This was a terrible jittery energy that probably wouldn’t ease until Bren was home.

Her hair smelled incredible, though. She’d made her own scented oils and soaps, but she’d never managed anything like this. Come to think of it, Essek also smelled very nice, something botanical she couldn’t identify.

The clothes he’d found for her consisted of wool trousers, clearly intended for wear around the house, a fabric belt, and a purple sweater. It was one of the softest things she’d ever touched in her life. The trousers were a bit short, so probably not Bren’s, though they seemed too big for delicate Essek. The sweater must be Bren’s, though. Its sleeves fell past her hands; Essek would have disappeared entirely into it.

There were also brushes and combs and several hair ornaments on the counter. He’d thought of everything. Una settled for her usual braid. She wasn’t even sure how to use some of the things he’d left, like a coil of glittering metal that might be for securing some sort of fancy up-do.

He was feeding the cat when she came back out. She could hear the importunate mews from down the hall, and Essek’s, “Yes, I know. I’m working on it. Here you are, awful creature. Yes, you are very nice to pet, you useless freeloader. Shame to waste those good looks on your empty head. Oh,” he said, straightening as she came in and pretending for all the world that he had not just been cooing insults at Kartoffel. He cleared his throat. “Done so quickly.”

“Ja. Thank you.” She tugged at the sleeves of the sweater. She did feel better, even if she hadn’t enjoyed the bath like it deserved.

Essek came to sudden attention, head cocking like a bird’s. “Someone has opened the front gate,” he said. Then, before she could speak, “Not Bren. Excuse me.” He drew a hand mirror from thin air and consulted it like a person checking their cosmetics. “Ah.” He disappeared the mirror with an absent gesture. “Our neighbor.” He dithered. “. . . I should speak to her,” he said, and on cue there was a quiet knock. He looked at Una with sudden focus. “I beg your pardon. I must show the face she is expecting to see.” He did something involving a ring, and suddenly instead of the intimidating elf, he was a bearded human with a very ordinary face. The sort of person she wouldn’t have looked twice at on the streets of Blumenthal. Even his clothes changed to casual trousers and a brown and russet sweater. “Please stay out of sight, just in case,” he said, and hurried out.

She blinked after him, boggled. Why would an elf need to hide his face in – where even were they? No, wait, she had that backwards. The neighbor expected to see this human living here, so the elf was the disguise. Yes, that made more sense. And it made her like him more, the thought that given the option, he would choose to disguise himself as someone so handsome and exotic. It made him seem much more real. And, by extension, made this mysterious adult Bren seem more real as well.

There were voices coming from a part of the house she hadn’t seen yet. If she went back into the living room, she could just make out what they were saying. An elderly voice – not Zemnian – was telling Essek about changes in the sky, to which he was making soothing noises. Yes, he said, lying fluently, he’d been here all night, and he didn’t know what it was about, but best she stay home. No, the professor wasn’t here, he was away visiting some friends. Yes, those friends, said in a tone of arch amusement in response to the neighbor’s eager query. He would be home soon, safe and sound, not to worry.

He got rid of her with the deftness of a local politician. Una listened with half an ear, thinking professor?

Essek closed the door and came back in. He paused behind his own chair, hands restless on its back, face set in thought. His jewelry had vanished with his elf disguise.

She was able to guess his age now. It had seemed impossible to tell with an elf, but now she thought mid-forties. Should she assume the same for Bren? She had been picturing him in his twenties, perhaps. Which option was less comfortable: imagining him taking up with a much older man, or imagining him being this man’s contemporary?

“I am,” Essek said slowly, “struggling with something of an ethical dilemma. This is not my forte.”

“Oh?” she said, startled.

His eyes returned to her from some distant contemplation. “I know you must have questions about him. About his life. I know you are having an unpleasant day.” His lips twisted over this understatement. “I want to set your mind at ease, but I cannot.”

She blinked, taking several moments to translate that, and then to realize he didn’t mean he couldn’t answer her. He meant the answers would not set her at ease.

“Why?” she said.

He stepped around the chair in an odd gliding motion. His feet were hovering several inches off the floor, she saw with a startled blink. Then he sat, and appeared ordinary again. “The problem I am having is that there are many things I think Bren would prefer to tell you himself. But he also . . .” He looked away. “Parts of his life have been difficult. Sometimes he is very unkind to himself about that. Sometimes he attempts to coopt others into being unkind to him as well. I want to lay the ground to try and prevent that. Very much.”

She digested this. “You think he will attempt to provoke me?” She knew she sounded incredulous, but honestly. Who did he think had weathered toddler Bren, not to mention teenaged Bren?

“No. More that he will tell you the things he must tell you in the way most calculated to set him in a poor light,” he said.

“Oh,” she said in sudden understanding. “Like Janna. My sister,” she explained at his blank look. “She died before he was born. She was an extraordinary person. Brilliant. We all thought she would go places, do great things.” And then she had shivered and convulsed to death in the fever that took hundreds in Blumenthal that winter. “She, well. Burned brightly. And sometimes, the opposite of that. Ach, I do not have the words in Common.” Her moods were intense, changeable, magnetic. But through it all ran a vein of self-loathing that Una had never understood. It had made her angry, sometimes, the things Janna said about herself. The sly little ways she had to hurt herself, or to make others do it. Before they could do it spontaneously, Una had realized years later.

Essek looked struck. “If I may make a suggestion? You should make that comparison to him. Hearing that he is not unique in this, that it does not arise wholly from the life he has lived, it may be salutary.”

She had no idea what that last word meant, and it suddenly seemed very stupid to be forcing herself to struggle like this. She took a deep breath. “Would you mind . . . you were going to cast a spell earlier, to help me understand you?”

“Of course,” he said, looking surprised. “You would like it now? I will cast on myself first.” He did so, with a flicker of fingers too fast to follow. “Now you may speak Zemnian if you wish, and I will understand.” He rose. “Excuse me, I must touch your hand.” He did so with a fleeting brush of fingertips. She couldn’t feel the magic, but she saw an ethereal shower of purplish gray light behind her eyes. She unclenched her jaw with an effort. There, that was all right. “Here we are,” he said.

After a beat of confusion, she reconciled the Zemnian words that had appeared in her mind with the definitely not Zemnian words coming out of his mouth. Bizarre.

“That’s better for me, too,” he said, returning to his chair. “It’s nice not to have to think in Common.” She could still hear the actual syllables he was speaking. What language included all those clicking sounds and glottal stops? She wasn’t like one of those ignorant folk who thought all humans spoke Common first, obviously. But that didn’t mean she had the faintest idea what his native tongue could be, now that she could no longer assume Elvish.

“We were talking about Bren,” she said, falling back into Zemnian with tremendous relief. “How old is he?”

Essek dipped his chin to her. “Yes, you are right, I am getting ahead of myself. I have not even told you the basic facts. We celebrated his forty-first this year.”

So, no, not the young man she had been picturing. “He’s older than me.”

“That troubles you,” he said. Then, as if to himself, “I suppose it would. If I may suggest?”

“Yes?” She said, doubtful that he could offer anything helpful. She had always taken comfort through life’s trials in the idea that nothing she suffered was unique. Yes, she lost her sister and her mother in a week. Yes, she had a baby out of season and then, later, when the time was supposed to be right, she could not bring another one to term, no matter how she tried. Grief and misfortune of various sorts touched nearly everyone she knew. That made it easier to bear; it was just how the world was. But she didn’t know anybody who had found themselves dislocated forward in time.

“I have some experience of, ah, noncontiguous relationships,” he said. “Lifelines that break, perhaps unexpectedly, and then reattach in a new place.” That did describe it, yes, but what on Exandria could he be referring to? “Those who do best with it are those like him. And like you, I think, from knowing him. Flexible. Resilient. You can have a new kind of relationship, if you want to.”

She didn’t want to, was the thing. She wanted her boy back, still gawky in the legs, his voice settled but his beard not much to look at yet. She’d let go of him at barely fifteen, of course, because that was what was best for him. And that wasn’t so very young. The Righteous Brand would have taken him at sixteen, and many were married by then, too.

She knew there was much more for her to learn about parenting a grown child. She’d had so little time with him at seventeen. Was he cocky and full of himself at forty-one? What had happened to derail the romance with the Becke girl? And whatever it was going on with the Grieve boy that she had not raised with him since he was working so hard to keep it secret? Would his secrets be so transparent to her now?

She didn’t want to stop mothering that boy. But that boy was gone. So yes, if this was what it was, then she would make something new. She would have to, whether she wanted to or not.

“He is a professor?” She said gamely. “At – where are we, please?”

“Rexxentrum. He teaches part-time at Soltryce.” His lips curved. “He is very good at it.”

She didn’t know what sort of money a professor made. A lot, surely, but enough to afford a house in the city on part-time wages? “Does he do something on the side, or . . .?”

“Oh, many things,” he said. “A wizard of his caliber is never idle, unless he wants to be. He creates spells. Freelances for friends and acquaintances across the globe. Most of his time for the past few years has been spent investigating some mysterious doings of a highly-placed person within the Assembly. The person who arranged for your return, I would bet platinum on it.”

How many unsavory persons were in the Assembly, anyway? Why did the king permit it?

Her mind skittered away from that. Essek still had all his teeth, she abruptly realized. That was odd in his otherwise ordinary face. He’d had them as an elf, too, but she hadn’t thought much of it because, well, elves. But for a human to have made it to his stage of life with all of them was practically unheard of. Una was missing three, which was pretty good for her age. Though she’d had an ominous pain in one molar off and on for a year.

One of the Schlauss sisters had been gravely ill as the result of a growth in her breast. The whole clan had banded together to sell their possessions and livestock to get the coin for the kind of clerical healing that required diamonds. She had come out of it whole and well, and with a mouthful of perfect teeth, like you saw on rich people. She’d been rather embarrassed about that part after.

Had Essek been ill at some point? Or merely vain? Did Bren have a rich man’s mouth?

“Would it help to see an image of him?” Essek asked.

“Yes,” she said, hugely relieved. She’d been bracing herself not to overreact to the sight of him. It would be much easier to get that over with now.

“I don’t have any more illusions at the ready today,” Essek said, standing. “But we have paintings. This one.” He directed her to a painting by the fireplace, but she had only a moment to study the image, which was crowded with a busy array of people, before he clucked his tongue and gestured her away. “No, that won’t do, he’s in the back, you can hardly see him. Come down to the lab, we have a proper portrait.”

She followed him back into the kitchen, and through a basement door and down a flight of stairs into a room of wonders. He made an array of lanterns suspended from the ceiling glow with a casual gesture, which illuminated an enormous space containing multiple work surfaces of various sorts, five times as many books as upstairs, and shelves and shelves of equipment and items. She was briefly dazzled by a row of jars containing glimmering dust of many hues, which turned out to be powdered gems, according to the neatly-written labels. There were bird feathers tied in bouquets, balls and other small objects made of clay or glass or wood, boxes of chalk in every color of the rainbow, and so much more. One wall was occupied by a slate at least twenty feet long, on which a sprawling network of numbers and symbols was written in at least two different hands. There was a bit of Common, too: someone had written cheating! with an emphatic arrow, and someone else had crossed that out and written Clever, and then the first person had written stet.

“Over here,” Essek said, gesturing her to a painting hung above one of a pair of desks sat catty corner to each other. “There he is.”

She took a breath, and looked. Her first thought was that he even resembled Janna. He hadn’t at seventeen, but there was something around the eyes now. Her second thought was that she was glad she knew his age, because she would have guessed he was even older. Was that what her grays would look like, when they came in properly? Her third thought was –

“He broke his nose.”

“Yes. Several times. I think it adds character. Not that he lacks that, in many senses.”

She widened her focus, studying the painting as a whole. It depicted Bren on his knees in spring green grass, framed by a wide blue sky. He was dressed casually but well, with the sleeves of his purple shirt folded to show bony wrists and his hair tied messily back. His face was set in concentration, and he was doing something magical, or perhaps gesturing to illustrate something. He was accompanied by a halfling boy, not yet a teenager, who was attending with great interest.

“That is Luc Brenatto, son of one of our dear friends,” Essek explained. “He and Bren are very close.”

“This is wonderful,” she said honestly. She’d been a little worried when he said ‘portrait’ that she’d be faced with something like the stiff, grim painted visage of the king in city hall in Blumenthal. More than that, she’d been dismayed to think Bren had become the sort of person to want to spend coin on such a thing. But this was painted with palpable tenderness and whimsy. She leaned in to squint at the scrawl of the artist’s name.

“Jester Lavorre,” Essek supplied. He had been studying the painting alongside her, smiling to himself. “Another dear friend. You will meet her.”

“You seem to have many,” she said, and was struck for the first time with the thought of hers, who would also be decades older now. She had never had the knack of befriending the people she was supposed to, the mothers her age, the other hausfrauen. Instead she had struck up a friendship with the two elderly ladies at the end of the lane – surely dead now – and some of the young men in Leofric’s regiment – some dead now too, probably, and others long gone to other parts.

“We do,” Essek said. “Or rather, he does and I came to, through him.”

“How did you two meet?” she asked. Genuinely curious, but also hoping this would shed some light on him, this restrained, mannered, magical person sharing Bren’s life.

“Ah.” He was floating again, she saw when she glanced back at him. Was this something that powerful mages just did? Did Bren float around now? “He spent some time travelling, adventuring, performing frankly alarming heroics, that sort of thing.” Yes, she believed that entirely of her spirited, starry-eyed boy. “He crashed rather explosively into my life as a result. They all did – there’s seven of them. I taught him some magic.” His lips curved. “I thought he was trouble. I was correct.”

“Tale as old as time,” she said.

“Indeed. I should say that I would have sworn at the time that I did not want or need his kind of trouble in my life. But he – all of them, though he did more than his share of the work. They corrected me on that, and many other things. Saved my life. Literally. Metaphorically.”

She peeked at him again, and found him gazing at the portrait with a look of quiet fervor. Devotion, even. It did her tired heart good. Which was perhaps why she said, “Partner, hmm? Why not husband?”

He was too self-possessed to stammer, but he did change color in a slow tide up his neck. “Ah, we have discussed that, but never seriously. I don’t mean to say that – please don’t doubt—” He broke off, eyes narrowing at her. “You are teasing me.”

“I am,” she said, and cracked a smile. Her face remembered how, after a hesitation. An insight struck her then, startling in its clarity. He’s is intimidated by me. Oh. He was, wasn’t he? Of course. He’d been assaulted with a surprise – well – mother-in-law would do. Apparently, there was no amount of poise and class to counter that.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said, his stiffness giving enough to roll his eyes. “He seems to think it’s his sacred duty to keep me humble.”

“Ah, it’s nice to see him carrying on a family tradition,” she said. “As long as you return the favor?”

He smirked with an arrogant tilt of the chin. “Do not doubt it.”

“Good.” She paused, considering whether her tendency for mischief had gotten out in front of her good sense, as it often did. “To be clear, your relationship is your business. I did not mean to imply criticism.” There, that sounded reasonable, didn’t it? She’d thought she had more time before being presented with this. There was the Becke girl – and the Grieve boy, maybe? – but there had been no talk of marriage when they’d come around on Bren’s brief visit. “Besides,” she added, “I would be a hypocrite to judge. I didn’t bother to marry Leofric until Bren was nearly two.”

Speaking Leofric’s name dropped the bottom out of her brief good cheer. She missed him so suddenly and powerfully that tears came to her eyes. Essek remained politely silent as she turned her face away and composed herself.

“Did he tell you,” she began, and paused to clear her throat. “I lost my family when I was nineteen. My mother and my sister.”

“He did not. We only discussed once that all the extended family is gone.” He sounded a little incredulous about that, as if it wasn’t the usual way of things. People of her mother’s generation were doing well to make it to their mid-fifties, and there was always catastrophe of one sort or another before and behind them: disease, famine, war.

“They are. But Leofric’s parents were wonderful to me and Bren, while they lived. I was curious – I don’t suppose you have family that has welcomed him?”

He pulled an extraordinary face. “Not . . . exactly. That is to say, my mother lives, but she and Bren have only encountered each other in passing and were never formally introduced. Which is for the best. My brother is fond of him, though,” he added hastily.

“Ah,” she said, quickly deciding not to press on any of that.

“He has made a family for himself, though,” Essek continued. “The friends he travelled with. The ones standing with him tonight. There were times when he was profoundly alone, but he is not anymore. Veth in particular, she plays at mothering him sometimes. Hang on, I think I have a sketch of them around here somewhere. There’s that painting upstairs, but I think . . .” He turned to rummage through one of the desks, then tisked at himself and moved over to a tall standing cabinet. “Just a moment. We really need to spring clean in here.”

She followed him, but quickly became distracted by the array of interesting items on a nearby shelf. She leaned in, nosily reading labels.

“Look at whatever you like,” Essek said. “But don’t touch anything without checking with me. There are a few magical hazards about.”

This seemed like good advice, so she tucked her hands behind her back and moved away from him to explore. They were both very neat, she thought, except for when they weren’t. One of the desks – Bren’s, she was pretty sure – was stacked with a tower of open books, with a half-completed woven bundle of string dropped over top. Essek’s desk held a sheaf of notes written in a language she didn’t recognize.

The nearby shelves contained books that appeared magical in nature. She saw such titles as Proceedings of the Aeshanadoor Society of Transmutation Adepts: 760-769 P.D. and Basic Principles in Phase and State Alteration, Volume II. These boys and their books.

There was a complex set of symbols drawn in a circle on the floor. She skirted carefully around the edge, examining the array of eclectic objects stored against the far wall. What did they need all that clay for? My goodness, that was a lot of pearls. And two small jars of actual diamonds, casually stored right there in the open. A label on one read for powder, and on the other not for powder, do NOT Fabricate, Caleb Widogast. Did they have an assistant?

There was a coatrack in the corner, holding a pearlescent gray silk wrap coat hung carefully to avoid wrinkles, and a more workaday purple wool coat flung casually over a hook. Una broke the rule without thinking about it, because there was a gleaming red hair caught on the collar of the purple coat. She brushed it away and then, because she couldn’t help herself, pulled the shoulders of the coat out and measured the span with her hands. He’d always been on the taller end, like her, and skinny as a rail. That hadn’t changed, it seemed.

There was another painting to her right, on the perpendicular wall. Una turned to look, hoping for another glimpse of Bren.

Her heart stopped before she had consciously processed what she was seeing. Her stomach bottomed out with a swoop of fear so sudden she gasped.

“Are you all right?” Essek called from across the room, somewhere behind a half-wall of shelves that bisected the space.

“Yes,” she answered , making her voice even with a will of iron. She took several hasty steps back from the painting. “Actually,” she called, turning towards the stairs. “Would you mind telling me where the privy is?”

His head popped around the shelf. “Right out the back door where we came in, and just a step to your left around the corner of the house. Do you need—”

“No, I got it,” she said quickly, and escaped up the stairs and to the back door. Her heart was pounding in her throat, her wrists, her temples.

The temperature had dropped, which she only noticed when the shock of cold stones struck her feet. She’d forgotten shoes. No matter.

The privy was where he’d said it would be. She ducked in, latched the door, and gave herself a full sixty count to panic.

She leaned her back against the door and pressed her fists to her eyes. She could still see every brushstroke of that painting. It was small, intimate. Beautiful in the way a shocking thing could be. It showed Bren dressed in black and gold finery, dancing at some evening event. He looked wonderful. He was in the midst of sweeping another man quite literally off his feet. And that man was a crick.

That man was also Essek.

She was certain of it. Essek’s hand was curved around Bren’s shoulder, turned toward the viewer, which meant that the artist had captured the chain bracelet on his wrist. And once you knew that someone could change their face on a whim, well.

Maybe the crick was also a disguise? Where could they possibly have been to make that a good idea?

No, of course that wasn’t it.

He’d been so careful in what he said, when the neighbor showed up. “The face she expects to see,” or something like that. What you might say if you were switching from disguise to disguise, not removing a disguise to show your real face. And if you were a crick, an actual crick from the dark depths of Xhorhas, and you were living in Rexxentrum, you would not show your real face, would you?

Living in Rexxentrum with a human partner.

Her minute was up. She considered going back inside, realized she absolutely could not, and allotted herself another minute.

Would he come after her if she was out here too long? She’d latched the door, but that would be nothing to someone like him.

All right, that was a hair too irrational, actually. He would probably come after her if she took too long. He almost certainly could open a door barred against him. But he was not a bestial monster of the Underdark.

Una trusted her judgment of people. It had always been good, and served her well. Except, ironically, in being very slow on the uptake in regards to her own damn husband. And her read of Essek bore no resemblance to what she had been told of his kind. Rather the opposite, when you came down to it. They said of the drow that they were beasts who ate the flesh of humans. Essek spoke like a schoolmaster and ate with the manners of someone taking tea with royalty while in his own damn living room.

And so. Bren had taken up with a crick.

She had just been thinking she was getting a handle on this adult Bren. Essek was helping her to do that, specifically. She was becoming less afraid by increments, because she was coming to believe that he could still be her bright-eyed boy, even if he was older than her. It would be hard, of course. It would take work. But she was starting to really believe that she hadn’t lost him, too.

But it had been twenty-four years. He’d lived more life with her gone than with her in it. He had changed. And there was no greater evidence of that than the fact that he shared his home and his life with Essek. Seventeen-year-old Bren would never.

She could not cry now, because if she started, it would be a long time before she stopped.

So she used the facilities, because Essek – the crick who her son loved – had brought her a lot of water.

There was a little shelf in the privy, right at eye height when crouching. It contained a few books. Of course. Romance novels, she guessed by the titles, and for some reason that little detail did almost undo her. One of them was called The Courting of the Crick, which made her cough a wild, pained laugh.

Was “crick” rude? It was what everyone said, but everyone said a lot of things, didn’t they? It was always said like an insult, but then again so was “drow.” She had never had cause to think about this before, and she had no way to know.

Oh, Bren. What was he doing? Who was he?

She washed her hands in the bucket when she was done, and patted her face until it seemed to be more or less the right shape, and went back inside.

Essek the disguised drow was in the kitchen, tidying things that were already tidy. She thought for a moment that he was talking to no one – “Be home soon, inserting yourself under my foot will not make it better” – but then Kartoffel came trotting out from behind the counter.

“Hallo,” Una said, crouching down. “Do you like cuddles?” It transpired that Kartoffel did, ecstatically. He let her pick him up and scritch his chin and pet him in long strokes from ears to rump.

“He’ll tell you I neglect him terribly, spoiled creature,” Essek said. “Do not believe a word of it.”

That’s Undercommon, he’s speaking Undercommon, Una thought. “Would you tell a lie? You couldn’t possibly with a face like that,” she said to Kartoffel.

Essek sniffed, but his heart wasn’t in it. “It’s getting late,” he said. He was hovering again, she could tell even though his feet were hidden behind the cabinets. “I think it’s safe to conclude Bren doesn’t have a Teleport left.”

Una nodded, scared and relieved. Scared because she just wanted Bren home and safe. Relieved because she had a few more hours to prepare.

“We have—” Essek began, then whipped around in midair. “Someone is teleporting into the basement circle,” he said. “If Bren –” Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Essek moved in a blur. One moment he was holding a stack of kitchen towels, the next he had inserted himself between Una and the basement door, violet sparks crackling at his fingertips. Kartoffel meowed, offended, and leapt away down the hall.

“If this turns into a fight, run out the back,” Essek said with such authority that she almost went right then. “I can handle—”

And then the basement door burst open and a halfling woman boiled out. “Where is he?” she demanded, wild-eyed. “I’m going to fuckin’ kill him.”

“Hello,” Essek said, just as Una was deciding that a run for the door might actually be called for. “Nice to see you too.”

The halfling opened her mouth, clearly intending to continue her tirade. Then she paused, frowned, and pointed at Essek. “Wait. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with him?”

“I am staying out of the way, as I was informed in no uncertain terms that my presence only added to the difficulties,” Essek said, visibly irritated. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” the halfling started, then her glance snagged on Una. “Hang on. I know you. Why do I know you?”

“Think back about three years,” Essek said, in a silky tone that Una immediately identified as dangerous. “Camping out on Rumblecusp. Casting illusions on the beach at night.”

“. . . Yeah?” the halfling said slowly. “Lebby got real down like he does. Buzzkill. And he showed us illusions of his—” she broke off and her eyes got huge. “What. The fuck?”

“I’ll make some tea,” Essek said with an audible sigh.

The halfling was Veth Brenatto. “Holy shit, you look like him. He looks like you. Call me Veth.” She had a number of profane and extremely informative comments to make upon the topic of Ikithon.

“They’re putting him down like a fucking dog this time, right?” she said.

“That was the intention, yes,” Essek said. “We only had a few seconds to speak at the Soul. He was rattled—” his eyes cut briefly to Una “—but determined.” His lips compressed. “Ikithon made some very specific insinuations regarding me, so—”

“Yeah, got it,” Veth said. Then, to Una, “Your boy snagged a sexy librarian. That’s what Seth does, if he didn’t tell you.”

Una blinked. “Who?” she said, at the same time Essek made an irritated hissing noise.

“Of course I told her my real name,” he said. “What do you take me for?”

Was he planning on showing her his real face, though?

Veth became visibly uncomfortable when Essek asked again why she was not with Bren, though through a chain of events Una didn’t entirely follow, her teenaged son apparently was.

“Which is why I’m going to fuckin’ kill him,” Veth explained. “Both of them. You can have a few minutes with him first,” she added to Una, in the tones of someone being extremely generous.

“Veth,” Essek began.

“Quite understandable,” Una cut in. Because actually, this whirlwind of maternal fury was soothing in a way so little else had been.

“Sorry, what?” Veth said, which was when Una realized she had slipped back into Zemnian. Her brain was swimming with exhaustion. There was a brief pause while Essek cast his language spell on Veth.

“I was just saying that I understand the impulse,” Una said. Then, doing her best to sound light, “I had a seventeen-year-old yesterday. I remember.”

“It’s the worst, isn’t it?” Veth said. “They eat nine times a day and never clean up after themselves. They roll their eyes if you say so much as good morning. They smell bad, and it’s not just because they don’t bathe.”

“They don’t bathe?” Essek repeated, looking baffled.

“No,” Veth and Una said simultaneously. “I bet you bathed as a teenager, though,” Veth continued to him. She made it sound accusatory, though she had just been complaining of the opposite.

“Of course I did,” Essek said. “Though now that you mention it, Verin did have a phase of smelling particularly . . . pungent.”

“There you go,” Veth said. “And don’t get me started on Lebby. I love that boy, but.”

“I’m sorry, who’s Lebby?” Una said.

Veth swiveled to stare fully at Essek. “Have you told her anything?”

“Many things,” Essek said, looking harassed. “There is a lot of ground to cover. And much of it I think he will want to explain.” Then, to Una, “Bren has used an alternate name for various purposes. Caleb Widogast. He teaches at Soltryce under that name.”

“Lebby,” Veth put in firmly. “I’m gonna make it stick one of these days.”

“She’s not going to make it stick,” Essek said.

“You owe Yussa a favor now,” Veth said to him. “I woke him up to take his circle, and made him cast for me. I told him to put it on your tab.”

“Of course you did,” Essek said wearily. He glanced between the two of them, a frown creasing his brow. “We only have the one guest room,” he began, as if this was a notable failing of hospitality.

“I don’t mind sharing,” Una said, with a quick glance at Veth.

“Sure, of course,” Veth said. “You can tell me about all the times Ca—Bren made you want to scream into the Abyss and then throw him into it.”

“He was a very well-behaved child,” Una said primly, but only managed to hold the expression for a few seconds. “No, he wasn’t, he was a menace. But generally very sweet, even when he was using my entire year’s supply of sugar in an experiment.”

“Checks out,” Veth said. “Come on, I know where everything is.”

She hustled Una off to a charming room containing a bed that looked far more luxurious than Una’s marital bed back home. Former bed. Former home. It must have burned to the ground; she couldn’t imagine any part of the structure had survived that blaze.

She rubbed her arms briskly to get rid of gooseflesh, and turned her attention back to Veth.

“You all right there?” Veth asked, squinting at her.

“Yes. It’s been a difficult day.”

“No shit. Lebby is gonna lose it, seeing you again.” She hesitated. “He, uh. He took it real hard, losing you. I mean real hard. It’s kind of better now, more settled. But this may be a bit rough, I’m just sayin’.”

The fact that two people had independently felt it necessary to warn her was troubling.

Una sat down and began to undo and re-braid her hair. “How did you two meet?”

“Umm,” Veth said, pulling a face. “We were kind of in the same jail together?”

Una blinked. Sure, why not. That hardly registered on the list of things concerning her right now.

“Best friend I’ve ever had,” Veth continued. “We’ve been to one or two hells and back, him and me.” She puffed out a breath. “I really should have gone with them. I felt sick the moment they left, and my husband was looking at me like ‘what’s wrong with you.’” She sighed. “That’ll teach me to get in my head about what all the camp kids’ parents think of me.”

“Oh, I know that one,” Una said. It was absolutely true, but her mind was elsewhere. “I’m sorry, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Veth said. “Though if Essek was talking shit, ignore him.”

Una couldn’t get a handle on the two of them. She kept changing her mind about whether there was genuine affection there or not. But either way – whether Veth adored him or hated him – she seemed in a position to provide information.

“About Essek,” Una said. “He’s . . . um. Wearing a disguise?”

There was a pause. “Uh . . . huh,” Veth said cautiously.

“Because he’s . . .” Surely all of Bren’s friends knew? “A drow?”

Veth looked at her face and said, “oh boy,” quietly. “I forgot about that.”

“You forgot he’s a—”

“No, not that. I forgot you might care about it.” She sucked air between her teeth. “Look. Okay. We lived in Xhorhas for a while, all of us. That’s where we met him. Xhorhas isn’t anything like what you’ve been told, okay?”

“Okay,” Una said, abandoning a half-formed notion of Essek escaping some savage crick society to come to civilization. That didn’t really make sense, did it? Everyone was made by where they were from, to greater or lesser degree. Not always to the best, and not always in the ways you liked, but it was inescapable. She couldn’t picture what sort of place had helped to make Essek, but whatever it was bore no resemblance to the stories she’d heard.

“And as for Essek.” Veth pulled a series of pained faces, like she was working herself up to something difficult. “He’s an asshole, for sure. He’s rich as fuck and almost as smart as he thinks he is, which is a shit ton. But he’s also a total fuckin’ loser.” She sounded dire about the wealth and intelligence, but more cheerful about the rest of it. This was not clarifying matters. “But the thing is, he loves Lebby like crazy,” Veth said. “They’re both really . . . individual people, you know? Won’t ever meet another like either of them. And they make it work. Jester says they make each other better, and I guess that’s right. And the important part is that he makes Lebby happy. He actively works at it, I mean. So he’s okay in my book.” She paused. “Though don’t tell him I said that.”

“I won’t,” Una said, tucking a lot of that away to digest later. On the most shallow level, she felt relieved that Bren had partnered his way into money rather than becoming so notably wealthy on his own. The rest of it would just have to wait.

“How’d you find out, anyway?” Veth said. “He was still wearing his boring librarian Seth face, so I figured he hadn’t told you.”

“He didn’t,” Una said. “I saw a painting.”

“You—” Veth said, and fell over backwards onto the bed. Una realized after a moment of alarm that she was wheezing with laughter, not distress. “Oh gods,” Veth gasped after a moment. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. Come on.” She bounced up to her feet with a terrifying amount of energy. “Tell you what, let’s rip the bandage off.”

“How so?” Una said, experiencing an odd mix of gladness and envy. Bren had as a friend and pseudo parent someone who could be described as impulsive and wild at heart, and it wasn’t her.

“Let’s go talk to him now,” Veth said. “He can take off his Seth face. He usually doesn’t wear that at home. You’re going to have to get used to him,” she added with sudden seriousness, making eye contact.

Right, yes. Message received. “I know,” Una said. “But will he have gone to sleep?”

“Nah, he does the elf trancing thing. And anyway, I bet you fifty gold he’s out there organizing the spice rack or something. He pines when Lebby’s gone. Are we doing this?”

“. . . Yes,” Una said. “Though I don’t have even fifty copper to my name, for the record.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Veth said, heading out the door. “Lebby’s got plenty. Put it this way, he’s got more platinum than he can spend on paper and ink, which is saying something.”

“Ah,” Una said. Damn, so much for partnering into it.

Essek was, in fact, fussily rearranging books in the living room, bobbing up and down in the air to reach the higher shelves.

“Hello again,” he said when they came in. “Do you need something?”

“Nope,” Veth said, popping her P and smiling in a truly terrifying manner. “Except for you to take Seth off.”

“I beg your pardon?” Essek said, with a flicker of a startle across the face.

“Yeah,” Veth said, waving at him. “You can drop it. She figured you out.” She paused, her grin acquiring teeth. “In, like, two hours, apparently.” Then, aside to Una, “Hey, did you know this guy used to do international espionage?”

“Oh?” Una said.

“Yeah. He was pretty terrible at it,” Veth said chattily.

“I will have you know I was quite successful,” Essek said. “. . . Until you lot came along.”

“We figured him out, too,” Veth said. “Then we made him cry until he ran away with us.”

“That’s not—” Essek began.

“I mean, where’s the lie?” Veth said.

Essek apparently had no answer to that. His glance crossed Una’s with caution. “How did you . . .?” he said.

“You have a painting downstairs,” Una said.

The force of his chagrin seemed to power him several inches higher in his float.

“Yeah, you walked her right up to it, basically,” Veth said. “Smooth fucking operator.”

“I’m extremely distracted,” Essek said, in the way of someone incapable of not taking Veth’s bait.

“It was very romantic,” Una said loudly over them. This was all somewhat entertaining, but she was getting the idea that Veth didn’t know how to quit when she was ahead. Also, it was true. That painting had depicted a scene straight out of a romantic tale.

Essek ducked his chin. “Jester took some creative license,” he said. “That was from her mother’s birthday a few years back.”

“Lebby looked great that night,” Veth said. “And you were serving up classic hot boi.”

The corner of Essek’s mouth tipped up. “A pleasant evening,” he said, though the drow in that painting had looked as though he was walking on air metaphorically, as well as literally. Essek glanced at her again, then did something fast with his hands.

His human self melted away, and there he was. A drow. They were expecting her to stare, so she let herself. Descriptions of the dark elves said they had gray skins, like dead things. Essek had a gray undertone, but he was predominantly a blue-inflected purple. He seemed to change clothes with his disguises; now he wore cuffed black leggings under a garment composed of many filmy layers in a rich burgundy. It floated from his shoulders to his knees. The jewelry was back, though she thought not exactly the same. The other elf disguise might have worn some of that, but now he also had an intricate wirework cuff winding up one pointed ear. Did Bren make that? Essek’s pale hair was gathered in a complicated style off to one side and secured with a glittering pin like one of the ones he’d offered her. His feet were bare but for silver polish on the nails; they floated a few inches in the air, looking shockingly delicate.

She needed to say something. “Were you going to a party?” Una asked, gesturing at his general sleek opulence. Several layers of his shirt included a shimmery thread that caught the dim light as he moved.

“No,” he said. “I was having what I thought would be a normal day. I do archival and investigatory work, sometimes.”

“He looks like that all the time,” Veth put in. “He can’t help himself, he dresses up just to put a disguise on.”

“This isn’t dressing up,” Essek said in the tones of someone revisiting a habitual argument. He hesitated, visibly drawing his dignity around him as he gave Veth a scouring look. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could keep this matter between us?”

Veth considered him, hands on hips. “You mean not telling Beau so she won’t give you shit for the rest of her mortal life? That’s gonna cost ya, buddy.”

“How much?” Essek said, eyes narrowing. Una was willing to bet he haggled like a demon.

Veth considered, lifting up her two hands in the air. “Holding the biggest possible favor over your head as long as I want,” she said, waggling one hand. “Or watching you suffer for the next fifty years,” waggling the other. “Hmm. Close call, close call. . . . Nah, I’d rather watch you suffer.”

Essek visibly deflated.

“Whatever,” Veth said, dismissing his dismay. She gestured between Essek and Una. “You two good? Can I go to sleep now?”

“Yes,” Una said hastily. She dipped her chin to Essek, feeling awkward. Not sure how to say, it’s fine, I’ll get over it in a way that didn’t sound kind of awful. She didn’t want to be afraid of him. She thought she might genuinely come to like him. He was Bren’s partner. But something habitual in her brain kept flinching at the idea of him.

What would Leofric – no. Best not.

They bid Essek goodnight for the second time and retreated to the guest room. Veth stripped down to some rather scandalous undergarments to sleep in, unconcerned. Una had no undergarments at all, but she belatedly noticed something folded up and waiting on the pillow. It was a nightgown of sorts, though in a style unfamiliar to her with long sleeves and a placket up the back. It was made of a shimmering green silk so lovely, she barely dared touch it, let alone wear it.

Veth went to sleep quickly. Una listened to her quiet mouth-breathing, and the sounds of this big, unfamiliar house. Bren’s house. The boy who was fully a man now. She loved him, sight unseen, but would need to relearn the intimate specifics of how to love him.

Essek’s house. The drow who had been so kind to her. Who – yes, she didn’t need Veth to tell her this – loved Bren very much. Good for them Una tried on herself, and found it not entirely unpleasant. Strange. A little viscerally frightening. But what wasn’t?

She was beyond exhausted, but didn’t think she would be able to sleep. Not in this strange house. Not under this terrible wait.

Veth turned over and muttered in her sleep. Veth did like Essek, Una decided. That was comforting. And so was the avalanche of mockery she had heaped upon him. Was she tender with Bren, or did she cut him down to size, too? Una sincerely hoped it was both.

Everyone needed both. She and Leofric had given each other that, even through the hardest of times. They had looked at each other in amazed bafflement when it became clear Bren was extraordinary in several ways. They had decided together that it was time to stop trying for another baby, because it wasn’t worth the risk to her again, and held each other while stoic Leofric wept over it. He had called her the most beautiful woman in the world and made ruthless fun of her inability to get through a neighborhood sewing circle without causing a scene. At the last, when they had realized they were trapped in the house somehow and the real terror set in, they had laid down on the floor together to get what clear air they could, and he had covered her with his own body pointlessly, bravely.

Una allowed herself to cry, at last, though she ratcheted it down and down and down into silent stillness. Veth would be kind, probably. But she had a living husband, she had said so.

Una only knew she had dozed when she woke again, tears drying on her cheeks and a terrible awareness in her thoughts. Was that right? It couldn’t be. It made no sense. Her mind must be making things up.

Except Essek had said, and Veth had said, how hard it was on Bren. Their loss. And she had thought yes, of course. Losing parents was that, she should know. But he had been an adult in most ways, like her, and he had lived a full life since, like her. These things hurt, but they eased with time. So she had worried at it, why they both had that particular look when speaking of it, as if they were saying I’m trying to tell you something.

She got up and fumbled her borrowed clothes back on in the dark. There was just enough light in the unfamiliar house to make her way down the hall. She meant to go to the kitchen, perhaps to stare out the window into the back garden for a while. But Essek was seated on the sofa, his legs crossed and hands resting on his knees, his face serene. A lamp burned beside him. Couldn’t he see in the dark?

Ah, the light was for Bren, just in case he made it home in the middle of the night.

She hesitated in the doorway, on the brink of going back to bed. But his head turned before she could, his eyes finding her.

“Una,” he said, abruptly alert and on his feet.

Oh. She probably looked dreadful. He extended his hands to her, but looked like he’d rather be doing anything else. Fair enough. His desire for her not to cry at him was probably equal to her desire not to cry at him.

“Just a moment,” she said, and hurried to the kitchen. It was half past four. She had slept maybe two hours, at best, and was even more tired now.

She contemplated a trip out to the privy in the cool fall pre-dawn, then gave it up and settled for a scrub of her face at the kitchen basin. That would have to do.

Essek was hovering when she came back in. Literally as well as colloquially.

“Can I assist in any way?” he said.

She cleared her throat. “Do you dream?”

A startled blink. “Not the way you do,” he said, going along without complaint. “I am mostly in control of the direction of my state of consciousness while trancing. But I dreamed as a child, and I have observed others since.”

Like Bren, presumably. “I was dreaming, I think,” she said. Of those last moments. The way the heat had made her whole body want to flinch inward into a smaller and smaller point, and then out of existence. The fear, and then the discovery that they could not get out, and then the real terror. The sounds of the flames consuming their home, and beyond that –

“Was Bren there?” she said. And saw, in the flinch around his eyes, that it was true. “No,” She said, sick to her stomach. He should have said no. She wanted him to say no. “I heard him. He was—” Screaming was inadequate to say. It was a sound of terrible, mindless pain. She probably would not have known it was him at all, but for some whisper of parental instinct.

“Sit down,” Essek said, a hand abruptly under her elbow. She let him tug her over to the sofa, distantly aware that she was not feeling quite right. As if she didn’t have enough air, though she could feel herself breathing.

Why was she still breathing? Why was she breathing again, when Leofric was not? What had Essek said, relayed from his cleric friend? Most refuse to come? Yes. The wise ones.

She was dimly aware of Essek moving around. Kartoffel appeared in her lap and then, after a minute, a cup was set before her. She petted the cat, and breathed in the scent of a flowery tea, and slowly calmed down.

The clock said five minutes had passed by the time she felt able to speak again. “You are very kind,” she said, addressing Kartoffel’s darling black ears, but meaning the words for Essek.

“I am not,” he said. “I am pragmatic.”

“Mmm?” she said, gently scritching the sensitive spot at the nape of Kartoffel’s neck.

“I am extremely invested in ensuring that you and Bren make it back to each other in the best state possible,” he said. “Bren is not here, but you are. So I am doing what I can.”

She was too worn to think more about that. “Why was he there?” she said, her voice rasping. “How was he there? He should have been at school.”

“Ikithon,” he said, as if that were a complete sentence. She looked up, expecting more. He was seated across from her, his hands clenched with visible force on his knees. “We are squarely into that ethical dilemma I was mentioning,” he said. “I shouldn’t. Except to say that it was Ikithon. Ikithon was the author of it all, from start to finish. Please remember that.”

“As if I could forget that man,” she scoffed.

“Bren can’t either,” Essek said heavily.

She swallowed. She had seen terrible things in her life, and remembered them. But what would it be like if she had to remember them like Bren remembered things?

“I’m sorry, I am being unfair,” Essek said quietly. “It is all unfair, every piece of it. Can you bear it until he comes home and can explain to you?”

“Of course,” she said. Realizing for the first time that she probably could get answers out of Essek if she really tried. She could probably get almost anything out of Essek. What a strange, uncomfortable power to have. Perhaps this was her own ethical dilemma. Easily solved with cowardice, though, because when push came to shove, her need to know was outweighed by her increasing dread.

“I never did find that sketch,” Essek said, looking visibly relieved. “And you’ve met Veth now. The rest of them are right up there, if you’d like to see?” He turned to point to the painting by the fireplace which she had briefly glanced at before. “Should I give you the who’s who?”

“Yes, please,” she said, leaning forward to look. “Oh, there’s Veth. And her little one.” Quite little, in this painting.

“And there’s Jester, the artist,” Essek said, fondness softening the lines of his mouth. “And her partner, Fjord. And . . .”

He fell into even, lecturing tones. She listened, and tried to remember names and details, and asked increasingly bleary questions.

She wasn’t aware she’d fallen asleep until she woke. It was Kartoffel jumping off her lap that had done it. Essek was gone, too, and the room had noticeably brightened.

Then she heard what the cat must have, a door opening and closing. And then a lot of footsteps, and what sounded for all the world like a herd of wildebeest coming into the house.

Essek’s voice cut across her growing alarm. She couldn’t quite hear what he said, but that was definitely a chiding tone. The noise converted to the sound of a herd of wildebeest all loudly shushing each other.

“Young man,” Essek said, moving closer to the kitchen door. “Your mother was asleep in the guest room. I imagine she is awake by now and lying in wait for you. Good luck. Do please refrain from bleeding on anything important.” There was a wordless sound of adolescent dismay. “And you, young man,” Essek continued in an entirely different tone. “Your mother is asleep in the living room.”

“Is she--?” Ah, so she did still know Bren’s voice.

“He frightened her and deployed enchantment, but little else, I am almost certain,” Essek said. “She will recover with rest and time.” A delicate pause. “And once she sees you.”

“Ja. Is she – you’re sure? It’s really her? It’s not a—”

“I took a Monocle of True Seeing from the Archive,” Essek said firmly. “I checked. I am certain. It’s her.”

“Hey,” someone else said. “Dude. Do you want us to come with you?”

“Or we could talk to her?” someone else put in. “We could tell her, you know, stuff for you?”

“Nein,” Bren said with some haste. “I can. I will. Essek, for the record, I am extremely angry with you. That was reckless. . . . And thank you. I do not know how to express—”

“Do not,” Essek said. There was a wobble to his crisp voice.

“Oh,” Bren said grimly, “I shall. We will be discussing this at great length.” Then, dropping the tone of someone preparing for a blazing argument, “Will you . . . could you come with me? Stay?”

“Yes,” Essek said. “I will be with you.”

Una, realizing at last what was about to happen, hastily sat up and scrubbed at her face and hair. She must look frightful.

But that was all right, because so did he. Tall, she thought, and not quite as skinny as she’d been picturing. His long hair was neatly tied back, but those were definitely yesterday’s clothes, and his face was creased with exhaustion and strain.

He paused in the doorway, then came quickly across the room. She wasn’t sure what he meant to do, so almost stood, then collapsed back down when he dropped to his knees at her feet.

“Mutti,” he said. He hadn’t called her that since he was ten, maybe, and switched to mama because he thought it sounded more grown up, or more Dwendalian.

“Bren.” She’d had a thousand nicknames for him, once upon a time. Little Flame, and Candlestick, and Fire Child, and, for one particular summer, Tadpole Toes. They would have all bounced off this grave, tall man. She reached out, hesitated, then committed and took his bearded face in her hands. “Look at you,” she said. “So handsome.”

“So gray, you mean.”

“It suits.” There was a streak of stark white just above his left ear. That hadn’t shown in any of the paintings. She gave in to impulse and tugged lightly on it. The delicate shifts of expression on his face collapsed all at once. She was dimly aware of Essek moving through the room, but couldn’t look up. “Sweet boy,” she said, because Bren’s distress moved him back into a realm where she could address him like that. “What is it?”

She thought he would pull a face. He would have at seventeen. But no. He leaned into her hand, something terrible and hungry in his expression. “I need to tell you,” he said, and audibly swallowed. “Did Essek . . .?”

“I did not,” Essek said quietly. He was speaking in Common, though they had spoken Zemnian. “I thought it best to leave it to you?” His voice lilted up uncertainly.

“Okay, ja.” Bren inhaled. He hesitated, then folded down all at once so his forehead rested on her knees. “I set the fire,” he said.

It was so absurd a statement that she almost laughed. “What?”

“I,” he said more slowly, “Set it. The fire. It was me.”

Essek made his presence known with a gentle rustle. “Context, Bren,” he said. “You cannot tell the end of the story without its beginning or middle.”

“Ja,” Bren said to her knees. His shoulders heaved once. And he told her, speaking to the floor. She hunched over to hear him properly. The sense of it barely penetrated. She would think on it later, all this talk of Ikithon, and residuum, and spells that could change a person’s memory. For now, she thought on the curve of Bren’s neck, and the rasp to his voice, and the fine tremor of his whole body. She automatically rested a hand atop his head, and gently squeezed and released the way that had always soothed him since before he could walk.

He wound down quickly. It was not a long story, for all the terrible things packed within it. She paused, waiting to see if there was more. Then covertly checked Essek’s expression. He didn’t seem about to intervene again.

Essek had tried to prepare her. But he couldn’t in any way that truly mattered, could he? Except for one. Don’t let Bren coopt her into being angry with him, he’d said that plain as day.

That, at least, she could do. It wasn’t hard. She was many things. Deeply and sickly horrified, most of all. Angry, too, yes.

“Did you finish him?” she asked quietly.

Bren lifted his head. He had not been weeping, though he looked to have aged another decade in five minutes. “Ikithon? He lives, in a manner of speaking. But he is entirely in my power, and he will never go free again.”

“That must have been frightening,” she said, feeling her way through this word by word. “Facing him again.” It had been twenty-four years. But Essek had specifically said Ikithon was imprisoned only seven years ago. Had he walked free all that time? Bren had cut his story off at the moment of the fire. Her skin crawled just to think of her brief encounters with Ikithon. What could he do to a person, given time?

“No,” Bren said. He still wasn’t looking her in the eye. “Not this time. Until he left us a message at the Soul. Said he had you. And then—” his throat clicked.

“Yes,” she said. “I can imagine. If I’d known he had you. If I’d known what sort of person he was when he did have you. I would have torn Rexxentrum apart with my bare hands to find you.”

“What?” Bren said, looking taken aback. Behind him, Essek smiled. He dipped his head to her in a gesture of respect, like a watcher honoring a hit in a duel.

“You heard me,” she said, tapping Bren’s cheek lightly the way she used to do when his attention wandered or he wouldn’t emerge from a book to do his chores. Why had she worried about parenting him? It didn’t seem to matter a jot that he was older than her, after all.

Somewhere in the house, there was a rush of footsteps and a bang. A pause, then a wail of “Mooooooom!”

Their eyes met, and they both smiled involuntarily. “It sounds like Veth has that well in hand,” Una said.

“No doubt,” Bren said. “I’m probably next on her list, though.”

“Oh, you are,” Una confirmed. She leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “But you’re my boy, too, so I will defend you, never fear.”

“But,” Bren said. “Don’t you – why aren’t you—”

It had been so hard sometimes, loving Janna. Una had been young, and naïve, and the ways Janna cut herself down made Una so angry, and sometimes she turned that anger on Janna herself. It was easy now, to see through it. Well. Easy to identify. Still hard to love, in its way.

“There is something I need to say,” she said.

Bren folded his hands, sitting back on his heels and going still. If he was on his feet, he probably would have stood in parade rest like Leofric had taught him. “Yes, mama?”

She hesitated, then decided there was no perfect way to say this. No matter which words she chose, it wouldn’t convey the depth of the sick shame in her. And it wouldn’t fix anything. But she had to say it. “I am so, profoundly sorry,” she said. Her voice caught. “I can’t – we failed you. We thought we were doing right by you, and we were wrong.” She swallowed. They’d been so excited by Bren, for Bren. Had that blinded them to it? Were there signs they had missed? There must have been.

He hadn’t said much about Ikithon other than an abortive description of something to do with crystals that she hadn’t entirely followed, and the talk of changing his memory. But things like that, they didn’t just happen, did they? There was a man in Blumenthal who had been caught molesting a neighbor child. And though justice was swift, the tail of it had dragged out for months and months, as more and more young people spoke up and it became clear how many crimes he had committed, and how many adults saw something a little off, or felt uneasy, and let it go.

“But—” Bren said again. He looked terribly upset now. “I---I---I—” he stuttered, then put a hand over his mouth and went quiet. His hand floated down eventually, and he seemed to almost sway on his knees. Una frowned. She’d never seen this before. She hesitated, unsure. Bren’s face was working with some terrible emotion she couldn’t name. It looked unbearable. And his eyes kept unfocusing, as if he were staring into another dimension, then finding her again, then unfocusing again.

She looked at Essek for a clue. He was sitting alertly on the edge of his chair, eyes intent on Bren’s back.

“Caleb,” he said evenly. “Can you give me the time, please?”

Bren blinked once. Twice. “It’s seven fourteen,” he said. Then, “. . . Oh. Ja. I am here, it’s all right, schatz.”

“Good,” Essek said. “Do you think that will be changing in the near future?”

Bren’s mouth quirked unhappily. “You know, I don’t think it will?” he said to Una’s feet. “There is too much. I didn’t know that was possible, for there to be too much so I can’t . . . go away.” He looked back up at Una, his face a picture of some great and raw feeling. “I murdered you,” he said. “I murdered Vati.” He sounded halfway to angry.

She couldn’t stop the shiver that wracked through her. She would be able to feel the way Leofric had gone still for the rest of her life. She didn’t remember much after that, mercifully. Except Bren screaming.

They were both shaking now.

The only words she had were the ones Essek had given her. Bless him, truly. “Ikithon did that,” she rasped. “That was him.”

It was hard to say. But easy to believe. She had felt what that man could do with magic.

“But—” he said, and she thought he might start stuttering again, stuck on this moment like a malfunctioning clock. But then, with an effort of will that seemed enormous, he said, “This is not going how I imagined it. Or wrote it.”

“You wrote about this?” she said.

“Ja. I wrote you letters. One every day for years.” The sentiment was sweet, but his expression was not.

“Can I read them?”

He appeared struck by this. “Ja,” he said slowly. “Of course. You know, I fully intended you and Vati to read them some day. But it is now occurring to me that some of them are maybe a bit, um. Upsetting.”

“All right,” she said. “So I will be upset. What of it? I can do some weeding in your lovely garden and have a cry, and that’s that.”

“Oh,” Essek said, then flushed up violet when they both looked at him. “Sorry. I’m just realizing you come by the idea of bad day chores honestly.”

“I had to explain the benefits of manual labor to him,” Bren confided to her, the lines on his face easing into a softer fondness.

Essek huffed. “And I had to explain the value of proper library organization to him,” he said. “While your parenting was exemplary in all other aspects, I’m afraid to say it was lacking in this one area.”

Not just that one. But nice of him to try.

She became aware of many other noises in the house. Whatever Veth and her child were doing seemed to involve a lot of dashing to and fro. Someone was in the kitchen making cooking sounds, and now that she was paying attention, it smelled like breakfast. Several other voices were debating something to do with a solstice and, oddly, transmuted dinosaurs?

That conversation broke off and someone shouted, “Caleb! It’s too quiet in there. Do you need me to come smack you until you start talking again?”

Bren sighed. “There are a lot of people who want to meet you, if you’re willing?” he said. “If not, I will happily kick the lot of freeloaders out,” he added, speaking loudly in the direction of the kitchen.

“Like to see you fuckin’ try,” the same person shouted back. “Oh, hey, babe, they’ve probably still got some of your jam. Where would they keep it?”

Essek rolled his eyes. “Back of the second shelf in the pantry,” he called. Then to Una, “Individually, they are more or less well-mannered. Collectively, they are barely housebroken. You should be warned.”

“I’d love to meet your friends,” Una said. She’d had her own in Blumenthal, but no one who would invade her house and casually take over her kitchen. And talking to people who didn’t feel as sad and desperate as she did sounded amazing.

“Yay!” Someone called from the other room. “We get to meet Mama Widogast!”

“You remember that’s not her name, right?” someone else said.

Essek sighed and floated to his feet. “I will go wrangle,” he said, and lightly touched the top of Bren’s head. “If you’re all right here?”

“Ja, go,” Bren said. He caught Essek’s hand and brushed a kiss to his fingertips. “Danke.”

Essek’s ears did something very expressive that Una didn’t know how to interpret. He floated away with the carriage of a person wearing sweeping robes, though he was not.

The silence in his wake teetered on the brink of becoming terrible. Una found strength she didn’t know she had, and leaned forward. “Goodness, he’s very handsome,” she whispered to Bren. “How do you stand it?”

He would have dimpled but for his beard. “I don’t,” he whispered back. “I just go around getting the wind knocked out of me multiple times a day.”

His face fell quickly. Una was getting the idea that it defaulted to a frown. That was strange and sad. Bren at fifteen had been full of changeable emotion, much of it intense, most of it charming.

“Essek said you aren’t hurt,” he said. “Are you certain? We have two clerics in the house who can see to you.”

“I’m all right,” she said. “A few meals and an actual night’s sleep will do for me.” She paused. “He didn’t notice me much. I think I was . . . set dressing. He did cast a spell on me, though.”

Bren’s shoulders tensed. “What did it do?”

“It made me obey him, whether I wanted to or not,” she said. “I tried so hard, but I couldn’t deviate an inch. I just cleaned the house for hours because he told me to.”

Bren’s mouth was a hard line. “Oh how the mighty fall,” he said, as if to himself. “He never would have stooped to that, once upon a time. He would have manipulated you into compliance, made you think it was all your idea.”

That was perhaps the most revealing thing any of them had said about Ikithon.

She kept checking her internal landscape. She’d said she wasn’t angry with him, and that was true. But true things could also be complicated things. What would this be? For the moment very little, aside from a tired blank place where the feeling would come later.

They would have this conversation again, she sensed. Bren didn’t seem like he’d really heard her, or understood her. And she wasn’t sure she’d really said what she needed to say. Whatever that was.

This loss – of her husband, of her own life, of her belief in her child’s bright and wonderful future. Perhaps it was unique, in the particulars. Una didn’t know anybody who had needed to grapple with the post facto knowledge that their child had caused their death. But loss was something she knew. Bren knew it too, clearly. So neither of them was alone in this, not really.

The conversation in the kitchen was increasing in volume. Una heard someone say, “What? Really?” with audible glee, and Veth said, “Yep. Behold, the mighty Shadowhand.”

It sounded like ten people talked at once, and there was a burst of laughter.

“If you are all quite done,” Essek said icily.

“Oh, dude,” someone said. “No. Come on. Nice try. I haven’t even gotten started. This is, like, Lord Nobody from Nowhere territory. You guys know what else? That monocle of True Seeing, that’s not supposed to leave the Archive. Ever.”

“No,” Veth gasped dramatically. “Essek stole something? How could this be?”

Bren’s mouth quirked. “I should go rescue him.”

“Of course,” Una said. “By rescue do you mean pile on?”

“Naturally,” Bren said. He pushed to his feet. His knees made the same crackling noise hers had just started to. “Let me introduce you, Mama,” he said, and offered his arm.

She went to take it, then hesitated. When he was four or seven, he would have climbed her like a tree for a hug. When he was fourteen or seventeen, he would have leaned into her for a moment then flushed and hurried away.

“Can I . . .?” she said, gesturing awkwardly.

“Oh.” His eyes were already bloodshot, but she thought she saw a glimmer of moisture before he ducked his head into her shoulder. They came together clumsily, she unfamiliar with his height, he unfamiliar with all of it. She pressed her cheek to his bearded one. His shaking seemed to escalate, so she squeezed harder, helpless, and it slowly eased down to a baseline tremor.

They swayed together for a while. She was unwilling to let go until he gave her a sign. But what he said was, “I can take you to where they, ah. Buried Vati. I go sometimes. We can, if you want.”

Una thought they? but set that aside. They must have buried her, too, whoever ‘they’ were. She set that aside, as well. “Yes,” she said into Bren’s hair. “Let’s do that.”

She eased her hold on him, stepping back. Bren looked harrowed, as if the embrace had been an ordeal, but he lingered close, allowing her to straighten his hair and fuss with his collar.

“I can’t—” he said. She had already concluded that she didn’t like the way he rarely looked her in the eyes. “You – I don’t know how to . . .” He trailed off, and she sensed he was circling back to that place where he kept getting stuck.

“Shh,” she said, wishing that Essek were still here. He seemed to have some idea of how to approach this. “We can talk later. We have time. Right now, you were going to introduce me to your friends. And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Ja,” he said, and shook himself. As she’d hoped, the task seemed to recenter him. “Ja, Caduceus is cooking. You are right. Come.” And he offered his arm again, a fragile smile coming to his face. He was still shaking. That wasn’t going to change, apparently. So she took his arm and went into the warm, bustling kitchen.