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Adults lie. They tell you that vegetables taste good. They tell you that you'll fit in perfectly fine. They tell you that magic is for helping not hurting. They say you'll get used to living at the bottom of the sea. They promise it was only a bad dream.
"Master Beldaruit is going to be just fine," the healer says, reaching like he's going to pet Qifrey's head. A strange expression crosses his face and he snatches his hand back as if he expects Qifrey to bite him. People do that a lot. Everyone but Beldaruit, who never acts like Qifrey might hurt him, even though Qifrey might accidentally hurt him if he's not careful.
(He's always careful.)
Qifrey knows that adults don't like it when you acknowledge their lies. So he says quietly, "Okay."
The man's expression softens slightly. There's still a pinch around his eyes though. "Are you sure?"
"Am I sure about what?"
The healer's lips flatten into a line. He looks over his shoulder at his colleagues who are busy with Beldaruit. But no one comes to his aid. So he turns back to Qifrey and straightens. "Are you sure you're all right?"
"I'm not sick." Qifrey's gaze darts to the bed. He can only see the shape of his master's feet under the sheets. They're long feet. Narrow feet. "He is."
"Right." The healer glances at the door. "Should you run off with your friends now? I'm sure you won't have lessons today."
"I don't have friends," Qifrey points out. He's surprised the healer doesn't know that. Lately, it seems like everyone knows that. They don't even bother whispering about it anymore. Only Beldaruit pretends that Qifrey is someone that people might want to be around. Because he, too, is a liar.
"I see. Well. You've been very good and very quiet, I don't suppose there's harm in you staying." This, for some reason, does make Qifrey want to bite him, just to show the man that he could. He feels his jaw tighten. He's very good at being quiet, but that doesn't mean he's good. Not good the way adults think children should be. Adults think children should be happy and grateful and interested in learning but Qifrey is either angry sad scared or sad scared angry or scared angry sad all the time, and it makes it very difficult to care about learning anything.
The man's eyes widen a little and he waves both hands in an awkward sort of farewell and leaves Qifrey in the corner where he stood for a long time before anyone even noticed he was there. Qifrey presses himself against the tall wardrobe, and his heart shoves around in his chest for a while as he thinks about how nice it would be to slip the wardrobe open and hide for a while if his body was the kind of body that liked hiding in small, dark places. He can't hide anywhere but in plain sight because otherwise he has one of the daydreams that scares Beldaruit. The daydreams that make it so he can't see or really breathe for a while because he's trapped again, and this time no one is going to come for him before the water gets in his mouth and he dies. He's thought a lot about what would happen next, and he's decided that bugs would eventually crawl inside of his body and eat it, leaving behind only his bones.
Something trickles down his face and he touches it, surprised. Oh. He's crying. He's crying because he doesn't want Beldaruit to be eaten by bugs, leaving behind only his bones.
"Qifrey." A weak but warm voice cuts through the sound of buzzing wings and scritching legs. "Oh, little one. Come here."
Qifrey wasn't hiding but the daydream still found him. What's the point of anything at all if he can't stay out of its reach?
"Qifrey." The voice is firmer now. Just commanding enough that Qifrey sucks in a shuddering breath and swallows down a wobbly moan and returns to the room that never scared him until now. "You're hurting yourself."
Qifrey looks down, surprised to see small wells of blood all across the back of his hand. He opens his fingers, gasping and embarrassed. There's dark red under his nails. Quickly, he tries to suck it away, but all that gets him is the taste of salt and metal and waterlogged wood. He doesn't like upsetting Beldaruit unless it's on purpose.
"Come to the bed, Qifrey," Beldaruit says. It's the exhaustion in his voice that makes Qifrey quickly move his feet, crossing the cavern of a room at a sloppy run. He slows at the last moment, forcing himself not to leap onto the bed as he sometimes does when it feels like he's being chased by something unseen and terrible.
Beldaruit is paler than he usually is, and there's a bandage on his hand. He's in a nightgown even though it's late afternoon and his policy, as he calls it, is to outdress everyone in the room at all times.
Qifrey tries to cover the marks he made on his hand. He swallows hard and asks, "Who is going to keep me when you die? No one else likes me."
All the breath rushes out of Beldaruit with a wheeze. Somehow, he grows paler. Qifrey scrambles up onto the bed — carefully — and perches next to his legs, feeling helpless. He doesn't know what to do or who to find if he's already made Beldaruit worse. "You don't have to tell me right now!" He wrings his hands harder, wishing he couldn't smell his own blood. "I'm sorry."
"Child." Beldaruit reaches for him with both arms. "Come here."
A miserable sound bubbles out of Qifrey. He inches forward, little by little, and becomes a small thing in Beldaruit's surprisingly strong hold. He's shuddering hard, like all his little shivers collided and became heaving ocean waves. "Sorry," he says again, hoping all the shaking isn't uncomfortable.
"Now who told you I'm going to die?" Beldaruit asks, sounding very much like himself. Airy and annoyed at the same time.
"I can tell," Qifrey says stubbornly, his voice muffled against Beldaruit's shoulder. He draws his knees up tighter, becoming a vibrating ball. This will be easier if they get the lying over with.
"I'm forty-seven, I'll have you know."
That sounds desperately ancient to Qifrey, who once overheard the healers trying to guess his age. They determined he was likely nine or ten — or maybe even eleven if his growth was stunted by malnutrition. It doesn't make for an easy reply when other children ask how old he is.
"People can die any time," Qifrey points out. He almost died at age nine, ten or maybe even eleven. Alaira's parents died and that's why she lives in the Great Hall instead of the town she was born in. They were so young, people say when she isn't listening. Taken too soon.
"That's true," Beldaruit says softly. "People can die any time. But that's not the same as dying, and I am not dying. I am ill. Sometimes that's the same thing, but oftentimes it is not. Do you know how old I was when I first became ill?"
Qifrey shakes his head.
"I was six."
Qifrey lifts his chin, startled into making eye contact. Beldaruit’s eyes are pale and warm, the color of wildflowers in picture books. "But that's little."
"I was very little," Beldaruit agrees. His fingers stroke patterns on Qifrey's back. "My parents were frightened, as you are now, that I would die. But I did not die. My body has limitations, just as yours does, my dear Qifrey. You cannot perceive depth easily, and I cannot walk with my own legs. You are lost, sometimes, to your daydreams, and I am lost, sometimes, to a temporary worsening of my illness. And neither of us is dying or broken."
Qifrey frowns. He wants to argue that of course Beldaruit is not broken. He wants to square up and hit whoever said that. But he also thinks maybe Beldaruit is trying to trick him into admitting that he himself is not broken and that would be another lie. He's very, very, very broken.
Beldaruit smiles at him. It makes the papery skin around his eyes crinkle pleasantly. "You'll be a fine witch some day."
"Why?"
"Because you're clever. I can see you trying to untangle your thoughts. Can I tell you a secret?"
Qifrey shrugs, feeling his face heat. He does want to know a secret, but he's also terribly embarrassed that Beldaruit caught him thinking hard. "Fine."
"You're not exceptional."
That sounds like an insult, but Qifrey isn't certain. "What does that mean?"
"Ah. Let's see. It means that you aren't as unique as you think you are."
Definitely an insult. "So?"
"So you think you're the only person who feels broken, who has bad dreams and big fears. You think you are so different that no one could possibly want to keep you or…" Beldaruit’s smug tone changes abruptly. He takes a breath before continuing. "Or love you. But you are wrong, my boy. We all have challenges, some easily seen and some unseen and unspoken."
It sounds like a lie. But it also sounds true. Qifrey squirms. "Then why doesn't anyone like me?"
"Oh, they'll come around. Or the right people will, at any rate. You see, you remind people of what they'd prefer not to see. Just as I do. We are similar in that. Special."
"You said I'm not unique or except… exceptional."
Beldaruit's smile returns. It makes Qifrey feel like he did something right, and that feeling loosens some of the squeezing grip on his heart. "Words can be inadequate, I find. Let me see… You are different. That is undeniable. But you are different in a way that's special. It means that—"
"You're not going to die?" Qifrey interrupts, tired of talking about himself. His words come out wobbly and wet. He's gotten blood on Beldaruit’s pale lavender nightgown. There's gotta be a spell to get the stains out. He'll learn it and practice and fix it. The shiver-shaking is coming back.
"Shh. Shh, now. Qifrey. I promise you that if I become so ill that my fate is in question, I will tell you myself, or ensure that you are told. You are my responsibility, and my dearest treasure. I would not abandon you. Breathe, sweet one. Oh, little one. Will you breathe for me?"
Qifrey remembers how to breathe but not how to stop himself from crying. Relief makes him feel like he's going to throw up in Beldaruit's bed. He hiccups, wanting to believe that in a sea of lies, this is one truth. One truth he can cling onto to keep his head above water. "I don't want you to die," he admits in a shuddering whisper. "Please don't." He sniffles and his whisper becomes a soft wail. "I don't like anyone else!"
Beldaruit tucks Qifrey's face back against his shoulder and pets his hair and laughs, very softly, for a long time. It doesn't feel like the mean kind of laughter, the way the other children laugh at him for being bad at drawing circles or for being too scared to take a bath.
The laughter lulls Qifrey like the songs Beldaruit sings him when he needs help getting to sleep, the ones he loves even though he knows the other children would laugh at him for that, too. A yawn makes Qifrey's entire body wiggle, and then he softens, suddenly very, very tired. It's been all day since Beldaruit didn't wake up on time and one of his attendants called the healers and everything got scary.
"It's a good thing we found each other, isn't it?" Beldaruit eventually asks, his fingernails combing through Qifrey's hair in slow, even strokes.
"I didn't find you," Qifrey mumbles, adjusting himself so he isn't squishing Beldaruit too much. He tucks himself against his side and under his arm and he yawns again. "You found me. In the ground."
"Oh, things aren't always as simple as that," Beldaruit muses in the sing-song voice that makes Qifrey feel like the sun can reach the bottom of the sea. He touches the tip of Qifrey's nose. "Shall you stay with me tonight, right here? That way you can be assured that I'm quite all right."
"Mmhm." It's been a while since Qifrey stayed in Beldaruit’s bed. He knows he's too grown for it, that only babies need to be held all night, that he's perfectly fine in his bedroom adjacent to his master's. But Beldaruit has a point. Someone should keep watch. "Wake me up if you're going to die," he demands, craning his neck to look at Beldaruit so that Beldaruit knows that this time, he is mostly joking, that the joke means he believes, or at least hopes, that it wasn't a lie and that tomorrow he won't be sent away to belong to someone else.
Beldaruit laughs again. "Of course," he murmurs, wrapping his fingers gently around Qifrey's, and drawing both their hands up. He leans over and presses their clasped hands to Qifrey’s forehead, and then presses his own forehead to their clasped hands. Qifrey can feel his steady, stubborn pulse. "I promise."