Archive of Our Own

Olruggio knows he’s being haunted, but for the past year he’s been averaging three unfulfilled commissions and four hours of sleep, so he has more important things to worry about.

It doesn’t seem like the ghost-or-spectre-or-wraith is harmful, at least. If anything, it’s strangely eager to please. He enters rooms to find his notes tidied or his haphazardly scattered dishes stacked neatly in the sink. On one occasion, he’d left his workshop after midnight to scarf down a loaf of stale bread only to discover all his semi-decaying vegetables bubbling into a stew.

He’s not foolish. The situation’s untenable, and even friendly ghosts tend to consume the souls of those who tolerate them overlong. Yet even after borrowing Alaira’s Intro to Exorcism, he can’t quite shake the impression that if he died tomorrow, he’d be one of the unlucky bastards left behind. What a singularly horrific fate, to be asked to endure the world’s loneliness twice-over.

Without thinking it through, or even overly thinking about it, Olruggio allows one season to pass into another in the new, silent company of his haunting, the crisp autumn air blowing away any lingering green.

In the burgeoning cold, his commissions pick up again.

There must have been more to his life than work, once, beyond the occasional drink with Alaira or Utowin, yet when he tries to grasp at that happier time in his memory the formless grief of squandering sits sore within his chest. When he catalogs his slide into this grueling semi-isolation, he can’t help but feel there was a certain inevitability to it.

The trickiest part to navigate, or to pull away from, are ways in which he’s truly satisfied. When he sees the fruits of his labors – a child dancing along a glowstone path, an order of heatcloth commissioned from a hospital, a stranger’s letter thanking him for the safety of a well-lit journey – the glow of purpose encompasses him. Hardly anyone’s fault that after that brief burst of heightened joy, it forever fades away. The usage of his body and mind are small sacrifices to place on the altar of the larger world.

Still, some part of him wonders, if he was less obsessive or egotistical or talented could he instead be content? Unnerving, to not even know if he’s capable of it. Perhaps there’s something broken down in his marrow, that the deepest reaches of himself must remain bereft so that others might live.

It’s inevitable, perhaps, that when his average unfulfilled commissions tick up to four and his hours of sleep drop to three, he starts talking to his ghost.

It starts simply enough. He works through the night until dawn, and just when the first beams of light slip their way past his shades a tea kettle hoots from the kitchen, loud and grating and unlikely to stop unless he moves from his desk. The spell he’s writing trickles away, frustrating when he needs to get this done quickly. Every night he delays the servants at Lord Orattev’s estate must endure another cold sleep, and once he finishes the lord’s true commission he’ll be barred access.

He says to the empty air as he stands up, “That’s just playing dirty,” and then freezes in realization of his mistake. As if in answer, his door creaks open and Olruggio can’t help but huff a laugh. Just his luck to get a roommate and they’re a nag.

When he goes to turn off the kettle, there’s a brew set beside it that he’d bought on a whim over a year ago, meant to aid with sleep.

--

He keeps thinking about it in the following weeks, this strange kindness from the creature in his home. What’s it like, he wonders, to have such set boundaries on the way one interacts with the world? How much of Olruggio, Olruggio’s work, does the spirit understand? The cheekiness of that kettle implies more than he’d assumed.

In his sporadic research, he’d been warned against interacting with ghosts directly. Unsurprising. Magic’s reactivity to perception is a peculiarity of spellcasting so integral as to be taught to novices. Assumptions are a powerful tool in his work – perhaps the most powerful tool. By swaying others’ understanding of the craft, one can solidify spells or unmake them.

The gruesome side effect is this: monsters exist in the world largely because people believe in them.

--

Yet once he’s begun acknowledging the haunting, he’s having trouble stopping. Sometimes he reaches for components to find them already on-hand and mutters out a distracted, “Thank you,” before he even thinks about it. Sometimes the components put forth aren’t the ones he’d assumed he needed, prompting him on a spellwriting path heretofore unseen, often very clever. On these days he finds himself arguing with empty air until he talks himself around to using whatever’s been set before him.

Sometimes, now, when he enters his home after a long commission, he finds a fire dancing upon his hearth, a mug of steaming cider set beside his worn-down armchair. The first time he’d cracked the door to the spicy warmth of that aroma he’d stood in the entryway for far too long fighting an absurd bundle of gratitude, grief, and hope wound tight around his lungs. He’d ended up whispering a gruff, “Aye, I appreciate it,” and then, “What do I call you anyways?” as if there was an answer.

It’s the first time he truly conceptualizes: this was a person, once. Strange and cruel to be unmade so entirely that you’re denied even a name.

The more these patterns of communication fall into place, the more he’s convinced: this isn’t some half-incomplete echo playing out imitations of life on futile repeat. There’s a dead person in his home, grasping fruitlessly at the meager pieces of life Olruggio can grant them.

Olruggio had never considered exorcisms particularly violent before, but he’s spending a lot of time rethinking that insidious ignorance now. This ghost is sentient, even kind. So then wouldn’t its destruction be murderous? A doubly ruthless choice, if his own interactions are solidifying the being’s presence.

The thought of willing a creature into the world to destroy it leaves bile on his tongue, acrid. And if he doesn’t believe the ghost dangerous – and he hasn’t for some time – why should he seek their destruction? He can’t quite believe someone who brews him tea will feast on the corners of his personhood.

Besides, he’s not entirely sure he has the worse end of the deal. There’s an ironic twist to his thoughts when he thinks about the reciprocal horror – being trapped with him.

--

When he hears a knock on the door, he’s not surprised to find Alaira on the other side. She does this sometimes, when his promises of weeks slide to months without granting her an evening audience. She ducks past the open door with a cheeky smile, pulls out two very fine bottles of wine, and says, “We’re drinking,” so of course he forgives her of all sins.

It’s been longer than usual since he’s seen her, he realizes, thinking back on the conversation where she’d lent him the exorcism handbook. Belatedly, he knows exactly why she’s come. She walks a casual, assessing circle of his cramped space, drawing one finger across his spotless kitchen counter. At the end of the trail, a well-manicured nail makes a satisfying tap-tap against the stone, and she raises an eyebrow at him.

“With all my boundless respect for you, Olruggio,” she says, an undercurrent of amusement in the rich consonants of her voice, “Truly only kindness in my heart, you’re doing far better than I expected. There should be two layers of grime over everything by now…” and her voice trails off, eyes on his face. There’s a cramping in his stomach, and he rubs a hand over the back of his neck and looks away. Her eyes narrow. She asks, “Were you being haunted?”

He clears his throat. “Ah. Yes. All sorted now.”

“Is it?” Her voice trails off again, a strange grimace on her face. She’s looking at him expectantly, still holding the wine hostage, so he lifts one shoulder, not sure what she’s wanting from him. She seems to find some answer, at least, because she breathes out thinly through her teeth and says, “We’re going to get absolutely shitfaced.”

This is quite agreeable, but Olruggio vaguely wishes that if she’d found an answer she was looking for, she’d at least tell him what it was.

He wonders what his ghost makes of this interaction. He wishes, with a listless ache, that they could all drink together.

--

Far later, when the world’s taken on a distorted quality and Alaira is draped over his shoulder, she says, “You lied to me earlier.”

He laughs. Everything’s funny right now, especially his own woes and fears. All things considered, he’s quite a small part of a far larger world. Somewhat self-important to stress overmuch about his role in it. There’s an absurdity to this accusation from Alaira in particular, someone who knows that Olruggio is always honest except when it’s especially convenient to lie.

What’s it to do with him, that convenience earlier tonight? He doesn’t think Alaira would snitch to the Knights, but more so he doesn’t want the Knights breathing down his neck. Protectiveness curls within his chest at the thought of someone trying to oust his ghost.

He wiggles, dislodging her from his shoulder, and pokes her in the forehead. “I caedn’t lie to you,” he says, “you’re too nosy.” His accent surprises him into giggling. It’s always stronger when he’s had a few drinks. She’s swaying back and forth hypnotically, so he sways with her, following the gold of her eyes.

She continues over his laughter, voice suddenly and strangely sober, cutting through him as cleanly as a serrated knife, “You’d never keep this place this clean,” and then, nonsensically, “You’re just hurting yourself.”

This doesn’t make any sense, so after a brief and painful grapple with sobriety Olruggio ignores it and begins to hum. Alaira continues, unflappable as ever in the face of the distress cording over him, “I won’t squeal.” The barest hint of a drunken giggle. “I’m no snitch. But you must know I need to keep an eye on this. Olruggio, you can’t disappear on me again.” And then, “It’s not him, you know.”

A biting, viscous pain tears through Olruggio’s skull. His stomach burbles, acid claws up his throat, and a beam of pure agony spears behind his eyes. It stabs through the fabric of his life to some unseen core of him, mad with an unnamable grief.

It isn’t supposed to be like this, he thinks, and then is puking on Alaira’s robes, the stale smell of the air replaced by rancid acidity. She clutches his shoulders as he sways into her, holds him against her despite the mess with an undeserved gentleness. The confusion and pain transform into ugly, gasping sobs.

She hushes into his hair, soothing and nonsensical noises against this wall of anguish. “I know,” she comforts, low, “I know. I miss him too.”

It’s a companionship so deeply kind that he almost wishes he’d remember this moment come morning. Alaira stays with him until the sobs become hiccups and the hiccups ebb into a restless sleep.

--

If the world was more humane they could both take tomorrow slowly. Instead, Alaira magics away the mess and whispers apologies as she slips away before the sunrise to do her vague but important governmental work. He manages to offer to cook her breakfast some other time in his hungover goodbye, and holds the guilt of how pleased and surprised she looks by the promise alongside a hundred other minute failures. When had he forgotten how to be a good friend?

When she leaves, despite the pounding in his head, he’s unable to fall back asleep. He feels exhausted, some bone-deep ache bypassing hangover, sleep-deprivation, and anemia. There’s been a tremor developing in his hands recently, which he’s trying not to think about the long-term implications of.

He curls for a while in his hammock and hugs the hand-knit orange blanket, twining soft yarn through his fingers. A golden, morning sunlight is beginning to crawl into his studio. He needs to get up and start working soon.

In the hazy depression of this thought, he says aloud to the air, “Do you get bored, watching me all the time? That’s the most excitement you’ve seen since you died, I bet.” He thinks on how he would feel watching two strangers get shitfaced and then pass out, and tacks on, “Or maybe not. I suppose it’s no fun to watch someone else get drunk if you can’t yourself. Did you like drinking, while you were alive?”

He still pauses after every question. He’d want the room to answer, after all, even if it went unheard. After politely listening to nothing but the rustle of leaves against his window, he continues, “I bet we could come up with some system to chat, if we worked between the two of us. I could pull out a book and a quill, and you can circle words or something. Or maybe…I guess I should just get you a notepad, huh? Sorry. I always go for the most complicated way first. It’s part of my charm.” He tries a cheeky smile at the air and then huffs a laugh at himself. He’s telling the truth; his work is often slow and convoluted until he arrives on a path forward. It’s the reason commissions take so long. So many assume his expediency, just because he’s good at what he does.

He shifts so that he’s lying on his back, stares at the beam of light passing through the branches outside his window to dance shadows on his wall. His body feels strange to him, sweaty and clammy, almost feverish. The unpleasant hangover works together with the dregs of alcohol lingering in his system, and he wonders if he’s still riding the last of his inebriation in this compulsive one-sided conversation.

“Alaira’s alright,” he says, unable to stop or not wanting to; he’s unsure. “She worries about me. But mostly she sticks around because of how long we’ve been friends, I think. Utowin’s in town too. I think he mostly drinks with me because we’re from the same hometown. And that’s…it, I suppose. You’re the person I’ve spent the most time with in years.”

He’s rambling. Is the ghost listening? Where do they even go when they’re not with him? He wonders, vaguely envious, what it would be like to slip into nothingness, but then has an intense vision of being forever, inexorably aware and recoils from the thought.

“I’ll set up a notepad,” he decides, against that wave of horror. “Don’t get me wrong, you do a great job with well-timed thumps and a creaking door, truly excellent work, but there’s only so much a falling object can get across.” He chuckles, a realization flashing over him, “You’re like a cat!” and then hurries to tack on, “But a person. A dead person cat.”

And now he sounds insane.

His burgeoning headache’s really starting to throb. It’ll be hell to work today. He closes his eyes against the ache and then opens them to squint at the dappled light on his wall.

Olruggio says, “If I don’t know anything about you, is it selfish to consider you a friend?”

And then, voice low, “You must know all there is to me, watching me like this. That you still care for me at all, with no reciprocity or reward; it’s–”

With the vertigo of waking up, he sees his ghost.

They’re floating in front of him among the golden dust motes in the dawn glow. A long, pointy figure, more human than Olruggio suspected. The sketches he’d run across showed some truly horrific distortions in shape and form, echoes of life stretched out and flattened in death.

Not entirely humanoid, though, the creature before him. Their arms and legs are too long, twisted up together in the knotty impression of a system of roots, conjoined into an amorphous, sweeping skirt. There’s an odd fibrous texture to the shadowy wisps of their skin, edges fading away to an unfocused haze. They’re present and not, human and not, alive and dead.

They look sad, his ghost.

They float before him, bending over him. In the arresting closeness Olruggio catches details, tiny clues to this person dead and gone. Unkempt fluffy hair, striking profile, engraved glasses, downcast turn to their lips.

One of their hands disconnects from the twisting base of branches with an odd popping sound, distorted and unreal. Their knobby fingers are jointed too many times. Touching ghosts is advised against, Olruggio remembers, even as he stills, waits.

It doesn’t feel like anything at all when the hand cups his cheek. It’s not even cold.

In the back of his mind, faint, rising like the crackle of sodden firewood, he hears, “I’m Qifrey, Olly. It’s Qifrey.”

--

Things change less than Olruggio expects.

His ghost – Qifrey – was already a constant, worming his way into every aspect of Olruggio’s life as if he’d always been there. The only difference, now, is that when the two of them work together, cook together, read together, the lingering shadows of Qifrey’s form shift in Olruggio’s periphery. Every once and a while his crackly voice, distorted but gentle, echoes at the back of Olruggio’s mind, half-chipped sentences pushing past some unseen barrier into the corners of his thoughts.

It’s quite pleasant having someone to talk to, even when Qifrey chooses to expend his energy saying such things as, “Goodness, you’re not working through the night again! Absolutely not.”

And “Frankly, Lord Dostit should apply the heating seals himself, if he’s going to continue to be such a nag about it.”

And simply, “Go to sleep, Olruggio.”

Rather posh, his ghost.

It doesn’t take long for Olruggio to notice that Qifrey’s ability to respond is dictated by convenience as well as effort. If Olruggio protests this well-meaning pestering, Qifrey, unruffled, goes silent, his non-solidity masking any expression beyond a slight smile.

It takes Olruggio longer to notice Qifrey’s also conveniently unable to manifest when Olruggio asks a question he doesn’t wish to answer. When Olruggio does catch on, though, he silently begins tracking these off-limit questions, lists them out carefully in the corner of his mind. Qifrey, it seems, assiduously avoids discussing who he was or how he died. He has no guesses, still, on why Qifrey chose him to haunt.

It’s annoying. Perhaps it should be concerning. The truth, however, is this: the future used to frighten him, a blank expanse falling away into some endless hopelessness. Now, when he finishes commissions, he no longer dreads coming home.

Hard to begrudge his ghost some secrets in that unlooked-for joy.

No, the physical manifestation of his ghost changes very little in Olruggio’s life. The true change occurs several months later, from a source totally unforeseen. If Olruggio’d sat down and dedicated days to thinking of what would most surprise him, he still wouldn’t arrive at this answer.

It starts with Olruggio taking a break to sit under the Silverwood dominating his apartment’s cramped courtyard. It’s an old habit, and even now one of the only ways he can encourage the constant deluge of his thoughts to quiet down. Almost meditative to close his eyes and lean back against the smoothness of the magical bark. The courtyard smells of dirt and herbs, a strange sweetness emanating from the Silverwood’s sap and lightening the air.

He’s reflecting on his old habit of carrying a conversation with the waving branches, the way he hasn’t felt the need to since Qifrey’s begun haunting him. He thinks of catching fireflies and frogs in the sharp summer air among the mountains of his home. Thinks, he followed me home, auntie, can I keep him? The air is bright and cool today, one of the last true days of spring before the encroaching summer heat, and he’s just drifting off into a fitful doze when he hears a clattering sound and quickly hushed laughter.

When he cranes to look, more surprised than anything else, he sees the end of a pink pigtail disappear through a re-propped board of the high, surrounding fence.

Vaguely curious, he goes to unprop the board and peek through. The revealed alleyway is empty.

Even then, he may have thought nothing of it, if he hadn’t been pacing his workshop in the subsequent days and happened to peer out past the branches of his circular window to see not one, not two, but four little heads of hair huddled together in a loose semicircle around the central trunk of the tree.

No, not the trunk. They’re quite calmly circling the now-familiar figure of his ghost. 

--

It’s not that Olruggio panics. No. Instead, he very calmly goes to sit down by the fire to speed-review his collected literature on ghosts. It’s not until the fourth volume repeats some version of what he’s read thrice already that he realizes he’s grappling with a layered and unfocused grief. The book, strangely blurred before him, reads:  

Despite their popular classification, by strict definition the phenomenon of ‘ghosts’ are, in fact, vampires. They subsist on energy rather than blood, sapping surrounding living persons to extend an illusion of life. This hunger is innate, insatiable, and unquenchable. Those living with ghosts may notice an increase in tiredness and body aches as well as decreases in motivation and appetite.

This author urges caution in the study of such creatures. Longterm exposure may lead to chronic headaches and pain in adults, and muscle and bone atrophy in children, the later a gruesome side-effect of leeching energy needed in natural growth. If you are aware of a ghost in contact with a child, arranging an exorcism is of the highest priority.

Olruggio watches, detached, as a tear splashes a small starburst at the end of these words.

He’s still sitting by the fire, books carefully returned to the dusty pile in the corner, when Qifrey settles next to him some time later. It might have been minutes or hours; Olruggio staring into the embers, imagining that they might set his grief alight. He feels strange, his newly constructed hope drooping in tired acceptance.

When a wisp of smoke stretches past him, the figure reclining across from him in a nonexistent armchair with a soft, pleased smile on his face, Olruggio says, “Where do you go when you’re not with me?” and watches carefully.

Not often does Olruggio remember the monstrousness in the creature across from him and he’s startled by how jarring revisiting that perception is, especially as Qifrey blinks at him in confusion behind his odd glasses, a vulnerably human gesture. Either Olruggio’s gotten better at reading him or there’s been some gradual change – more energy, supplies a voice in his head – because there’s a heretofore unseen solidity in the angles of Qifrey’s face.

There’s the usual pause and then Qifrey says, with perfect earnestness, “I’m always with you. I can’t go beyond the bounds of this house, and, well, I prefer to spend time with you, when you’re home.”

The lie is a sour confirmation. Olruggio doesn’t particularly want to fulfill his next responsibility, doesn’t want to push. He thinks about the gentleness he’s begun to ascribe to his ghost, the kind and attentive care that seems baked into his very roots. There’s a disconnect between the dead man sitting before him and the phantom monster described, the one who’d feast on children.

Yet, if he judges this ghost different and gentle and safe, who pays the price if he’s wrong?

He knows how he’s perceived. Olruggio of the Torch, with magic to light the way. He’s not Olruggio of the Torch, though. Not really. He’s not even that good of a friend. How damned would he be if he let his private wants run loose at last? Grasping hungry things, those desires, prone to take without giving.

He fears himself. He fears himself enough to say, “I saw you out in the courtyard, earlier. Tell me Qifrey, is my life-force not enough for you?” and turn a hand palm-out. An ugly gift, to this man who’s re-gifted him a life.

Qifrey says, “Ah,” in monosyllabic confirmation. There’s a crushing weight to it. Olruggio recognizes hurt in Qifrey’s voice as he whispers, “It’s not what you think.” It flares within him a vicious and unexpected anger, acid in his gut.

He bites out, “What, then? What am I supposed to make of this?”

Qifrey flickers and Olruggio’s rage dips briefly into despair at the thought that Qifrey might avoid this conversation by simply disappearing. When the voice wells, again, relief calms the tremor in his hands, followed immediately by self-effacing shame. The words are quiet, intense: “I was losing my tether, Olly, without you. I needed to stay sane. I’d promised. When they started playing in the yard – talking to them was the only thing I could think of. Do you know what it’s like? I was nothing, nothing at all and I couldn’t… They were the only ones I could interact with without…” Qifrey trails off.

Precisely zero of Olruggio’s questions are answered by this admission. He says, “What–” confused and frustrated and intending to push, when Qifrey rushes forward and hugs him.

The last time they touched was the first time Qifrey appeared. There’s a new solidity to his form, the mist embracing him dry and cold and sending shivers down his spine.

Without consciously thinking about it, some shameful hindbrain moving his limbs on their own, Olruggio clutches Qifrey close. It’s suddenly unthinkable they’ve been separated at all. He tucks his face into Qifrey’s shoulder, feels the fibrous texture of his skin. Everything’s too much: the long loneliness of years, the doubt running through him, and the squeezing pressure around his chest. A bubble of overwhelm rises through his lungs and throat and mouth to emerge a wet, hacking sob.

Then, in the decadency of holding and being held, pain comes. Pockets of agony burst and fade in his ribcage, reappearing in odd locales – the sole of his foot, his temple, the small of his back. He’s too cold, shivering before encroaching numbness, and he realizes what must be happening even as his knees buckle underneath him. Qifrey guides him down. He says, “I’m not taking energy from the kids, Olly. Just you,” and kisses him on the forehead. The headache travels radially outwards from that point, setting synapses alight with a sharp anguish.

He continues, “I’m sorry. Do what you will with me. Take care of the girls, won’t you? There’s only so much I can do, like this.”

It’s one of the most difficult things Olruggio’s ever done, forcing words out of his mouth against this torment. Something’s not adding up, pieces of Qifrey’s declaration nonsensical. He’s missing something. He sifts through and tries to search for what’s important, words gravelly against the sharp edges in his lungs. He finds, harsh against pain: “How long have you been haunting me?”

Qifrey leans over him, long, spiderous fingers twining through his hair. He says, “Fourteen years,” as Olruggio passes out.

--

Olruggio wakes at some point between midnight and dawn, collapsed on the floor in front of the fireplace. The last smoldering embers are choked with piling ash, stifling their lingering heat. It’s one of the last cold nights of spring and the chill’s deep within his bones. He feels sick, cotton stuffing his head and throat. The tremor in his hands spreads through him and he shakes against the wooden flooring. He curls into himself.

It’s a long time before remembrance comes.

Damn Qifrey. Damn himself.

He wishes he could be certain of Qifrey’s intentions. It’s a vague, useless wanting. But even as he wishes he cannot allay his doubt. Ten months – fourteen years? – since the start of Olruggio’s haunting, he drags his protesting body from the ground to begin an exorcism.

As he prepares the tools for distillation, he tries to catalog his own recollections of that time, yet the years keep running together into one long haze. In searching for clues of Qifrey’s presence in his memories, all that arrives is the slow stripping of himself, the breaking of his body and mind against the larger needs of a wider world. He’s done a lot of good during that time, things he’s proud of. He’s faded almost entirely, all his old hopes and joys dismantled to be regifted outwards. He remembers that he often laughed as a boy. He’d forgotten how often, until Qifrey.

Qifrey. 

How had he gone unnoticed? Olruggio may not be the most perceptive, but it seems a horrific oversight to miss an entire ghost.

He positions the flask, lights the small flame to set the water inside aboil, and grieves.

The window, next. The branches of the Silverwood wave through the panes and Olruggio thinks about the children. He’d known, abstract, that kids played in the small courtyard, sometimes. It hadn’t even occurred to him to be worried about the haunting. What had Qifrey said – they were a tether to sanity? In Olruggio’s own isolation, he’s uncomfortably sure he understands. And he’d manifested to them instead of Olruggio…why?

Surely Qifrey’s last vampirism was disproof of his intentions. The already-fading spasms of remembered agony are settling into a too-familiar ache along his back. He’s certain, now, that he’s been willfully ignorant of what’s causing the recent flares of his chronic pain. He undoes the latch, cracks the window open, and reflects that he doesn’t even know the names of the kids he’s trying to protect.

The dying branch lies out of reach. He must balance in the windowsill to sever it from its fellows. When he clambers upwards, the call to fall is sickeningly compelling. He focuses instead on a puff of hot, heavy summer air caressing his cheek. Hadn’t the night been cold? He shivers, even now.

Branches bend and snap around him in a brief, sharp wind, creaking in a phantom amalgamation of a laugh, or a sob. His long sleeves flap. He always forgets to tie them before he’s balanced already. One moment to breathe, one hand to steady himself against a branch, the other to saw dead wood away.

He’s never liked this part of spellcasting. He always thinks of the tree’s silent pain. As he carefully makes his way back inside, dark sap drips down to stain his skin. Death, wholesale, by his hands. He thinks, sickeningly, of Nauz.

Routine now. Place the branch in the boiling water. Extract the ink. For the first few hours after extraction, the remnants of life lingering in the freshly distilled composition will combat the magic of death. Simple, really, to kill his ghost. In the mindlessness of procedure, he thinks again, fourteen years.

What a horrifically long time to be alone.

What the hell is he missing?

Qifrey could have sucked him dry. Should have, to bring him one step closer to a permanent latch on life. If he was truly a danger to his strange posse of children, killing Olruggio would also be his surest way of continued access. In that story, Alaira discovers Olruggio’s hollowed husk when she arrives at their usual time next week and Olruggio’s added to the academic canon of why one doesn’t entertain ghosts. A sad, somewhat pathetic, cautionary tale.

Weren’t there stories of ghosts fighting tooth and nail to prevent exactly the type of methodical exorcism Olruggio’s currently enacting? Isn’t Qifrey, ultimately, still a haunting? The only sound in the workshop is the bubbling of crude ink. Qifrey’s nowhere to be seen.

When the answer comes to him, this crucial piece slotting the rest together, the absurd clarity is as painful as Qifrey’s terrible embrace. Why might Qifrey, caretaker and companion, play his hand with such cruelty?

Because… because energy siphoning is innate. Because Qifrey is leeching Olruggio’s lifeforce, unable to stop. Because Qifrey’s trying to scare him into doing exactly this, exorcising him at last.

It lands on him suddenly that the bastard’s trying to protect him.

Olruggio’s always been a fool.

The ink splashes among the embers of the fireplace, dousing them. Exhausted, he goes to sleep.

--

The next day, when a cautious black-haired girl peers around the loose plank in the courtyard, Olruggio says, “What’s your name?”

She startles, straightens as though called to attention, and unsubtly shifts to block the gap in the fence, through which another curious head is peering, round-cheeked, sharp-eyed, blonde hair almost green in the midmorning sun. Somewhere beyond, a voice hisses, “I thought you checked, Agott!” and another, softer, “I didn’t know you could be that big and still hide.”

The frontmost kiddo – Agott? – looks more frustrated by the commentary of her companions than she does at being caught. She doesn’t turn to acknowledge them. Instead, she squares her feet and jaw, and says with perfect sincerity, “I apologize, Mr. Olruggio. I’ve always been fascinated by the study of Silverwoods and was taking advantage of your courtyard. I’m,” a grimace, “sorry for not asking permission. I’ll leave if you wish.”

She shifts again to try to cover more of the gap, even as the kid behind her scrambles through and moves to step between her and Olruggio in reciprocal protective posturing. He’s baffled and charmed at Agott’s frustrated mumble of, “I don’t know why I even try.”

The new kid fidgets, then puts her hands on her hips. The long-suffering energy of the stance makes Olruggio think she picked it up from somewhere.  She says, with the stubbornness of a child wanting to seem composed, “So I guess Professor Qifrey told you about us, then? I told him he should,” and Olruggio lets out a breath.

Professor Qifrey?

--

The story comes out in bits and pieces. There are potent hints of heartaches in these girls’ lives, half-shielded by overlapping voices and the general excitement at getting caught. As Olruggio begins to learn these girls through their stories and their omissions, he also begins to piece together why an unassuming, lonely, gentle ghost might break his isolation to help them.

Richeh, who’s both dryly ironic and deeply suspicious of his questions, tells Olruggio enough to paint a picture of her hiding in the courtyard – unclear from whom – and being comforted by Qifrey. By Olruggio’s timeline, that was almost two full years before his own hauntings began. Eleven years in, a voice in his head supplies. The others chime in to make it clear Richeh brought them each here in turn. “Like an imaginary friend,” Richeh says, “Except that he’s dead and teaches us magic and tells us to leave you alone.” She looks significantly at Agott and says, “I always knew he was real.”

Agott’s the one who prompted Qifrey to start teaching, at least by her own interpretation. She doesn’t speak much about why she followed Richeh here beyond a glum, “Richeh said he’d believe me.” About what, though, she doesn’t expand.

Tetia is bubbly and kind, despite his second impression of her being a cheerful, “You have terrific eyebags! It looks like something died on your face. Have you tried getting eight hours of sleep?” The last sentence’s cadence is familiar enough to squeeze tightly around his gut. When she grabs the edge of his cloak and leans backward, trusting herself entirely to his weight, she’s chattering lightly about being pseudo-orphaned by the Knights in the horrific erasing of her entire family’s memory. Her added weight to his collar chokes him only slightly.

Coco’s the newest, having joined the courtyard lessons within the last year. She’s also the one prompting most of the answers, half-repeating Olruggio’s questions as if she’s a translator to her fellows. She’s intelligent and attentive and looks at Olruggio with a knowing expression in her eyes, even as she omits any and all information about herself. This and her smile are familiar enough to cut through to his heart, a slice so clean as to be unnoticed until the rising bubble of blood sparks pain.

At Olruggio’s concern that they’ve avoided his attention for so long, Coco simply shrugs and says, “I mean, he always knew when you were distracted. And you sleep through a lot of mornings,” which is a strange thing for a twelve-year-old he just learned the name of to know about him. He trusts he hides his embarrassment well.

They look healthy, at least, but their support systems are vague, their living situations unclear. He infers through some oblique comments that they all live together. Tetia mentions a ‘Custas and Dagda’ and Richeh stomps on her foot, which piques Olruggio’s attention immediately. He wonders if the names are enough for him to put out some feelers through his professional contacts.

Additionally, he scans carefully for signs of malnutrition, stunted growth, or other side-effects of long exposure to ghosts, and is far more relieved than he expects when he finds none. His head, it seems, needed more convincing than his heart.

Indeed, exactly how unaffected they are from Qifrey’s nature catches in his mind. Despite everything, despite Qifrey’s assurance, that safety should be impossible. He’s stumbling again over whatever the hell he’s missing in this picture.

Why can Qifrey choose whether or not to sap the girls, if he can’t choose regarding Olruggio? Is he taking more of Olruggio’s energy to compensate, to protect them? Neither of these answers would explain the long expanse of time before Olruggio was even aware Qifrey existed.

Qifrey begged, take care of the girls, expecting Olruggio to kill him.

Helplessly, Olruggio invites the group inside for brunch. No sign of Qifrey, that day.

The next afternoon the girls return, Tetia knocking at his window with annoying intensity, her sylph-shoes pressed together to reach the second story.

The girls don’t seem worried by Qifrey’s absence. Agott says only, “He’s trusting us to watch you,” which spurs Olruggio to read the inverse: that Qifrey’s trusting him to watch them.

Olruggio sees in Qifrey’s absence the continued attempt to protect him, but he also does suspect that a part of the man just doesn’t want to face him. He can’t even pretend Qifrey’s misjudging him, in this. Part of Olruggio, carefully sequestered, is blazingly angry at being used. Surely Qifrey knows him well enough to understand that success, there, would have broken him.

After two weeks of almost-daily interactions with children and no sign of Qifrey, Olruggio reaches out to Utowin and asks if he wants a drink.

--

“The thing is,” he says, and is overwhelmed by the fuzzy understanding that his last drink may have been a mistake, “I’ve never wanted to be a father.”

Utowin, who’d been saying something to do with Easthies, again, which Olruggio’d been trying to tune out, says, “You can’t just ignore me every time I talk about him, Olruggio, he’s an important part of my life,” which Olruggio waves aside in annoyance. They’re both pleasantly buzzed, having drunk a hefty amount of strong, northern mead, the type that knocks lowlanders flat. Yet after processing Olruggio’s declaration, Utowin shifts gears, unflappable as ever, “Actually never mind that. Why are we talking about fatherhood? Do you want to be a father now?”

Olruggio shakes his head, “Not really,” he says, “Except that I think I’d do better than most who’ve tried raising those kids. And maybe. Well. They deserve better. If we raised them together it wouldn’t be so bad; I bet he’d be great at it. If he’d talk to me.”

Utowin says, “He?” and then, with an amount of gleeful delight Olruggio thinks is entirely uncalled for, “Olruggio, are you dating again?”

The question doesn’t quite make sense, but they’ve talked past each other a lot this evening. Olruggio hasn’t drunk with Utowin since Qifrey appeared in his life last year. The first few drinks consisted almost entirely of comparing notes about mutual acquaintances in Ghodrey, after which they attempted some stilted life updates. The bar they’re in is loud and sticky. The red high on Utowin’s cheeks matches fetchingly with his hair.

In any case, Utowin’s assertion must ring truer than Olruggio wants to admit, because what comes out is a dour, repeated, “Not if he won’t talk to me.”

Utowin laughs at him.

Olruggio gestures in front of him, grasps one wrist to stop his fingers from shivering. The alcohol has dulled the other aches. He says, “Look, I don’t want to be a dad, right? But I could be like…a fun uncle. Or brother. Or something. The kids are great. Really damn clever. And funny. And it’s not like I could do worse at the parenting thing. So maybe.” It occurs to him belatedly that he probably shouldn’t tell Utowin any details of the kid’s situations. There’re lines he’s always carefully held in this obligatory connection.

Utowin’s still laughing when he says, “How do kids fit into this at all? He got an ex-wife? Is she hot? You can tell me if she’s hot,” and then, “How’d you piss off your new beau anyway?” Which is, firstly, far too many questions and, secondly, a rather good example of why himself and Utowin are only kind-of-friends.

He says, “This is a good example of why you and I are only kind-of-friends,” and then regrets it when the red in Utowin’s cheeks turns a shade darker. He thinks he probably meant it as a joke and is discomforted by the real flicker of hurt in Utowin’s eyes.

“Well,” Utowin says, “at least I ask questions about your life,” and turns away to take another sip of mead.

“I don’t…” Olruggio says and thinks that he used to be better at this. He tries again, “Sorry, sorry,” to Utowin’s semi-absolving waved hand. Forget it, that gesture says. It’s the guilt, maybe, that makes Olruggio answer honestly. He says, “I don’t even know where Qifrey found them all,” and glances away at Utowin’s sharpening of attention, embarrassed, “The kids. He’s collecting them,” and, softer, “He’s catching whoever falls through the cracks. The ones we all keep failing. Teaching ‘em and such. It’s quite sweet, really, once I realized what was going on.” There’s a bundle of warmth in his chest when he thinks about it. He’d fallen through the cracks too, until Qifrey.

Utowin says, voice mild, “His name’s Qifrey?” and at Olruggio’s confirmation says, simply, “Huh.” Olruggio takes cold comfort in that Utowin doesn’t understand what’s important to him either.

They don’t stick around very long after that.

--

Two days after Olruggio grabs drinks with him, he hears a precise rapping at his door. He opens it to find Utowin again, arms slung up around his spear. At Olruggio’s bafflement he shrugs one shoulder up, frowning. Beside him, lips twisted in their perpetual sneer, is Easthies.

Olruggio looks between the two knights, a sinking, portentous feeling in his gut.

Utowin’s voice is as light and airy as ever, even as his eyes settle at a point over Olruggio’s shoulder like he can’t quite bring himself to look him in the eyes. He asks, “Can we come in?”

“Is this a house call?” Olruggio replies, knowing it’s not, and then, to be annoying, “Is it finally time to dine with the in-law?”

Utowin’s too serious when he says, “No,” which is when Olruggio understands how dire the situation is. His heart picks up in his chest. The sun is beating high today, sky cloudless and too-bright. The figures before him are sharpened, not softened, in those unforgiving rays.

What gave Olruggio away? He’d mentioned Qifrey by name, yes, but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d been conscientious, even in his drunkenness, not to imply status – dead – or connection – haunting. How long did it take Utowin to go barking to his masters, anyway?

The amorphous bruise on Olruggio’s heart that lingers in his and Utowin’s misunderstandings blooms past grief to purple into a formless, indignant anger. Olruggio has no responsibility nor desire to make this easy for the Knights. Compliance would not lessen the danger. Through fear, they expect to be obeyed. Tough.

Olruggio flattens his voice and pettily makes sure to meet Utowin’s eyes as he says, “Do you have a warrant?”

It’s Easthies who replies, “Yes,” and then, “Let’s get on with this.” He holds out a scroll to Olruggio, tightly bound in a maroon ribbon and the seal of the Knights Moralis. The aches in Olruggio’s fingers and spine intensify, acid bubbling up in his gut to sting the base of his throat. He takes the seal, cracks it open, and reads:

By Order of the Knights Moralis

Through the will of the Council of Wise and the Five Rulers of the Zozah Peninsula in the Land of the Pact:

We hereby decree that the Order of Moral Spellcasting, otherwise known as the Knights Moralis, has the duty to investigate and destroy monsters decreed a threat to public safety and peace.

I, Dame Vinanna of the Knights Moralis, grant authorization for the search of the dwelling of Olruggio of the Torch (erstwhile Olruggio of Ghodrey), located at 423 Silvereve Ave, Kalhn due to suspicion of harboring a monstrous creature, likely a ghost. Should evidence of the foul creature be found, exorcise immediately.

Olruggio of the Torch is suspected to be under magical influence. Subdue by any means necessary.

Dame Vinanna of the Knights Moralis, Wise in Principles

The paper trembles in his grasp. This is very, very bad.

Numb, he steps aside to allow Easthies and Utowin to enter the cool darkness of his home. As they both walk into his kitchen, their slow, asynchronous spin of assessment is ridiculous in its mundanity. Neither of them have Alaira’s eye or intuition. They don’t have the context to quantify a spotless counter as odd.

There are magical means to detect monsters, he remembers with a jolt. Olruggio, if he’s to get Qifrey through this, must play his part perfectly, at a disadvantage, and with borrowed time. There’s a pulse of frigid cold down Olruggio’s spine, and he thinks, helpless, No. No, leave me. Let them do what they will. Stay safe. Stay away. He fancies he catches a glimpse of a silhouette bending down over his shoulder to read and rerolls the parchment hastily.

At least he has experience with taking on a persona. He takes whatever the hell his face must be doing and forces it into a smile. “A ghost?” he says, warmly, feeling cold. He goes to join them in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter and opening his hands wide. “Well you have the run of the place, but I’ll have you know that I live in all of two rooms. I’d be embarrassed to miss an entire monster under my bed.” For thirteen years, an ironic voice in his head supplies.

Easthies looks vaguely interested, as if a trained dog had opened his mouth to make an unexpectedly good point.

Utowin looks…how does Utowin look? He’s gone from scanning the room to scanning Olruggio, brows furrowed. Olruggio feels oddly exposed under that gaze, the green of Utowin’s eyes assessing and dangerously regretful. The regret cuts him to the quick, crumbles away his shallow performance. Utowin isn’t the type to regret pre-emptively. Regret comes from a decision made.

When Olruggio, panicking, gives him an elegant half-bow, Utowin’s gaze flicks away. He looks to Easthies and says, “I’m sure,” carried from a conversation Olruggio wasn’t privy to, solid and final in its condemnation.

Easthies doesn’t hesitate. He brings the spear to the ground in one, resonant clang, the pennants whipping through the air.

Before Olruggio thinks to struggle, they are binding his arms to his sides, thrashing up to cover his mouth, immobilizing him entirely. It’s alarmingly somatic amidst his rising panic and grief. The ropes squeeze him uncomfortably, the rankness of stale sweat and staler cleaner invading his nostrils and mouth. The scroll in his hand falls with a hollow thud.

He thinks he makes some noise, some twisted up question – how did Utowin know? How had Olruggio slipped up? – but the cords silence him with cruel efficiency.

Powerless, he watches as Utowin sets out a large square of parchment and begins to draw. The ink he uses is crude and viscous, freshly distilled. Olruggio tries to fight towards him, all his muscles straining. He manages only one small shift. He hears a garbled cry rise from his own smothered voice.

In the inevitability of the slaughter of his ghost, his friend, his…his Qifrey, he’d taken his eyes from Easthies. He’d forgotten to fear for himself.

Forgotten, until Easthies looms before him, slight figure made menacing by layers of cloak and corrupt authority and the palm quire in his hand. There’s a memory spell drawn on the topmost slip, the aberrant pre-pact atrocity which calls a horde of parasitic swarming monsters that feed on memory.

Surely this is too far, this is overkill. He’d known, abstract, the impunity with which the Knights worked, but that abstraction is made horrifically real with the skittering creatures swarming over Easthies’ forearm, reaching towards him.

Easthies says, “How much?” sounding bored.

Utowin replies, “Has to be since Qifrey died. That was…thirteen? Fourteen years ago? We’ll have to check the surrounding area for the long-term effects of hauntings. Olruggio mentioned kids.” He has the audacity, in this, to have an undercurrent of betrayal in his voice, like it was Olruggio who was betrayer, not betrayed. Utowin, pausing in his scrawling exorcism, adds, “Don’t– I can do it. I’ll be the one writing home, anyway,” and Easthies rolls his eyes.

“You’ve taken responsibility already,” he says, and Olruggio can only watch, wide-eyed, the teeming mass of inky wings and spindly legs and clicking.

In the midst, he catches on a thought – since Qifrey died? – and something adjacent to realization trickles down his spine. But it’s too much. It’s too much. He must choose, now, whether to think or to mourn. Olruggio imagines these creatures burrowing under his skin and eating through his thoughts and helplessly decides to steal the last moments of grief while he can. The past year of joy looms large over the rest.

He was supposed to have more time. They were supposed to have more time. What, if not that, was it all for?

Easthies chokes.

Between one breath and the next, Qifrey grasps his forearm all the way through Easthies’ throat. He manifests already half-inside his body, reaches one spindly hand towards Easthies’ wrist, and brutally twists it upwards. At points of contact, Easthies’ skin turns translucent and flays in long strips of muscle, fat, and blood. The droplets in the air speckle Easthies and Olruggio both. Rot rises, the putrefaction of decaying flesh.

Easthies gasps, “You…” and then writhes backwards in panic as Qifrey forces, inexorable, Easthies’ hand to cover his own mouth. The memory parasites, denied a victim, begin crawling inside.

Utowin abandons the exorcism to fling himself at Qifrey with a guttural shout of panic and rage. His pendant, held aloft, lights up in the glow of a dozen minuscule casting seals meant to aid with hauntings, and in that magic there’s a sickening crack as the long metal connects with the underside of Qifrey’s jaw and flings him backwards.

Easthies writhes on the floor, clawing at his face, and then goes still.

A hideous keen comes from Utowin’s throat as he hunches over Easthies to claw ink-parasites off his face. He’s scooping them off his eyes, digging them from his mouth. Decay is rising, the wood of Olruggio’s apartment floor decomposing in one, scarring line along the path of Qifrey’s skirts.

Olruggio can only watch, darting between the absolute blankness of Qifrey’s face and the half-drawn spell and Utowin’s mumbled, “No, no, no, no.” Qifrey’s body undulates, inhumane, a rubber band snapping back into shape. When he rises again, floating off the ground with rooted skirts billowing around him, the room rises too: silverware and glass dishes and Easthies’ limp body and Olruggio himself. Utowin’s weeping echoes, discordant, among this show of raw power.

There’s a moment of perfect stillness, an untethered suspension.

Qifrey flickers. Everything drops.

Olruggio lands painfully on his side, half-turned away. In his periphery he can see the exorcism spell float down, featherlike. He could reach it, tear it asunder, were he not still bound.

Into this awkward line of sight crawls Utowin, jerking. There’s a horrible mix of determination, resignation, and despair in the way he drags himself forward. Somehow, in all of this, he’s kept a hold of his pen. His eyes find Olruggio’s in total condemnation.

Yet before his eyes Utowin begins to change. His skin stretches flaccid. Thin lines of grey strand through his hair. He ages, passing through years in as many seconds. It’s incomprehensible until Olruggio sees Qifrey on the ground behind him, spider-like, grasping his ankle with ghastly strength. The creaking joints of Qifrey’s plant-like fingers crawl up his leg to bind him.

This – this pain – to protect him? Olruggio tastes bile.

He tries to say, “Qifrey,” but it’s smothered by the pendant. He can’t stop, though, once he’s started. He calls, “Qifrey! Qifrey. Please.” and the muffled noise draws Qifrey’s attention at last.

Staring into Qifrey’s eye, Olruggio sees the moment Qifrey realizes he’s afraid. The eye widens.

Qifrey disappears.

One long moment, where the only sound is Utowin coughing, weakly, against the ground. Then an honest-to-god frying pan, absurd in its mundanity, floats above Utowin’s head and clangs down to knock him out.

--

Qifrey helps him out of his binds in the aftermath, cutting through them with a kitchen knife, careful not to touch him. Olruggio’s shivering, hunched on the floor of the kitchen. He feels like a kid again, care and hope and the ability to help twisted to some cruelty instead. At some point a blanket drapes around him, the soft knitted orange one from his hammock. He finds himself clutching it to his chest, gathering the folds between his fingers and drawing it up under his chin.

At some point he whispers, “I don’t know what to do.” It’s a childish admission. Agott would know, he thinks, absurdly. Coco would know. How useless it is to grow up.

The voice in the back of his mind is a whispered, broken thing. It says, “Easthies’ memory is already erased. You must take Utowin’s too. Vinanna won’t be a problem; that warrant’s forged.” A dryly ironic, “I recognize the forgery. Easthies again. I doubt Utowin knew, for what it’s worth.” 

These comments are perfectly reasonable. Logical next steps to forage the corners of Olruggio’s life, his fading joy. Yet he wishes Qifrey’d said anything else.

He wishes Qifrey’s protection hadn’t hurt.

The sob bubbles up before he can stop it, a pathetic, wuffling thing. As he cannot stifle it, he buries it in fabric instead, snot catching between the knitted loops. It’ll be a pain to clean.

“Oh, Olly–” 

“I’ll do it,” he interrupts, choking over the words. “I’ll do it. I just– it’s a little bit like death, isn’t it, to erase memories? I’ll kill this Utowin who I– who I drank with just, just a few…” his cup of despair is too full to feel embarrassed by these broken, pathetic sentences. He sobs, “And I couldn’t even protect you. You. Who I…you who I…” and is grateful, almost, that he can’t quite say the words.

And then, “You’ll stay with me? You disappeared, you tried…Will you stay with me, Qifrey? I don’t know if I can do it. Without you.”

“I’ll stay,” Qifrey says. “I’m sorry, Olly. I’m so sorry. I’ll stay.”

It lodges somewhere, this sentence, and a piece of the puzzle clicks into place at last.

--

The night is very long, cleaning up the mess. He manages to convince an innkeep across the city to put Utowin and Easthies up for the night, while Qifrey undoes the damage to their home. When Olruggio returns, the room is spotless with the notable exception of a swathe of wood rot scarring the ground.

The next day, Qifrey and Olruggio are outside waiting when the kids return. The waving branches of the Silverwood dapple them in mid-morning light, fractaling through Qifrey to create small rainbows on the ground. Olruggio forgets, sometimes, these simple beauties of existence. He’s not always apt to notice them on his own.

For the first time he watches a lesson. Half-dozing against the bark of the tree, he observes through lidded eyes as Qifrey shows the kids marktea. Earlier, in the still-tender predawn light, Qifrey’d said, “It’s not like I could take things from the kitchen, before,” and graced Olruggio with a small smile. The marktea set carried an impressive layer of dust. Qifrey washed it clean.

The set doesn’t have an origin in Olruggio’s mind, like it’s always been tucked away in the corner of his kitchen waiting for Qifrey. Waiting for Qifrey’s return.

As the summer heat rises, he listens to the girls guess concoctions, hears Richeh say, “I wonder what happens if you use all the tabs at once,” and thinks, I could be happy, like this.

He’d known Qifrey, once. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He thinks of Alaira’s knowing gaze, of Utowin’s protective anger, of the gaps in his memory. The pieces sketch a shape and he’s beginning to recognize himself in its shadow.

Coco laughs, bright and surprised. She’s just taken a sip of newly-brewed Willowgrape tea. There are tears pricking at the corners of her eyes when she says, “Mum made this for me,” and Qifrey’s hand floats over the back of her hair, not quite touching.

Her smile is so similar to Qifrey’s. It’s not always armor. It’s not always a lie. Sometimes it’s defiance, bright and beautiful in spite of pain.

Qifrey’s hair tousles in a non-existent wind, and Olruggio thinks, I loved him.

And.

I love him.

--

The next lesson, Olruggio takes the opportunity to find wherever the hell it was he’d hidden his notes. The tremors are picking up in his hands again. This morning, when he slipped out of his hammock, his knees had buckled. Qifrey’d flinched away, something knowing and wretched in the twist of his lips.

True hauntings take a lot of energy, it seems.

The notes aren’t buried in his bound workbooks, aren’t hidden between sketches of brainstormed contraptions or half-finished carvings. He checks the places of the house that remind him of Qifrey, inspects kitchen corners and searches loose bricks in the fireplace. He ends up finding them tucked away at the very top of the pantry, a neat stack of information behind a false panel in the wall.

Comfortable in the chatter of voices rising through the open window of his workshop, Olruggio reads a fairytale:

Long ago there were two young boys, inseparable. They found home and family in each other, having none of their own. Together they set out on the journey of life, learning when to run and when to stay. When they settled down to build a home, it seemed a happy ending.

Yet like most fairytales, their paths grew dark. When they were young men, one was cursed, stolen away by those who’d tortured him as a boy and reseeded with an experiment. When he, aching, crawled his way home, he made it as far as the back door. There, his roots sunk deep into the ground, drawn out by the contentment of finding his lover again. The Silverwood remains – a tombstone marking the first and last place either boy felt safe.

It’s a sad tale. Familiar. Classic, really, in the absence of a happy ending.

Olruggio knows what happens next without needing to read it. Not so different, the young man he’d been. He’s not surprised to see the spell tying Qifrey’s life force to his own in these pages, the ways he intentionally gifted his energy to Qifrey to draw him back to life. Only right that they’re tangled together.

There’s a strange, aching hope in his heart. Qifrey, the true Qifrey, is entombed in that bark, Olruggio’s energy nursing him back to life. Perhaps there’s still a world in which they can have everything.

But where, then, are Olruggio’s memories? 

“It’s killing you.” Olruggio startles before Qifrey’s presence soothes him. The chatter from the window has fallen silent; he’s unsure for how long.

Qifrey says, “You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, but even you don’t have lifeforce enough to sustain us both. It’s a trade. It’s inevitable. One life for another.”

He says, “You won’t let me die.”

And then, “The first time, you said, ‘we can’t continue our journey unless we’re both alive. That means me as well as you. Let’s buy us some time.’ How much can we endure, Olly? How many times do you need?”

Olruggio says, understanding at last, “As many as it takes.”

--

After six months of Mr. Olly’s presence in their morning lessons, he retreats again. When Coco asks, Professor Qifrey says, smiling at her, lilting and light, “He’s just away on a commission. No need to fret. There’ll always be periods where he gets very busy, so he may end up needing to take some space when he gets back home, too.”

He doesn’t notice her noticing his unhappy smile when he turns away. She doesn’t think he realizes his root-skirt shrivels when he’s sad and it’s not like she’s going to tell him.

There’s been a lessening, too, in how much Professor Qifrey’s speaking to them. He’s redirecting the attention by encouraging them to teach each other, but even Tetia’s noticed. When Dagda had made enough from a show to bring them all pointed cap pastries last week, she’d whispered to Coco, mouth full, “When do ghosts end up fading?” voice laced all through with worry.

Today, Coco’d seen Mr. Olly up in his window, staring through the branches of the Silverwood and into the sky. She’d waved when he looked down, but he’d just startled, then chuckled, then turned away. That’s how she truly knows something is wrong: that Mr. Olly doesn’t wave back.

She hates it when Professor Qifrey lies to her.

Tonight, when she sneaks away, she asks Agott to go with her. Before the door to her teachers’ apartment she takes Agott’s hand, smiling when she startles. It’s a warm, comforting weight, the rub of callouses soothing in their familiarity.

She takes a deep breath, raises a fist, and knocks. 

--

END