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1
Eadwulf notices immediately. From the moment Bren—Caleb—removes his coat.
He doesn’t say anything. He lets Caleb run him through the documents he’s handing over to the new Archmage of Civil Influence. He even stays for a cup of tea when they’re through, and allows one of the cats to make biscuits in his lap.
Eadwulf's favorite tea is chamomile. In childhood, he’d once owned a little white kitten that Astrid had christened Mitzi. She hadn’t lived very long, but he had loved her, when he had her. He wonders if Caleb still remembers either of those things.
Eadwulf doesn’t ask.
Instead, he helps himself to the odd cupcakes that Caleb sets out. Black moss: not bad. Then he makes small talk like a proper house guest, just to show that even farm boys from Blumenthal are capable of possessing good manners. It makes Eadwulf smile to see Caleb fussing over the dirty dishes, the distinct lack of fresh fruit, the recent spate of bad weather. Maybe it’s a relief for Caleb, too. For both of them to pretend that this is nothing but a visit from an old friend to another.
The envelope with Caleb’s neat, spiky handwriting sits in Eadwulf’s coat pocket. It weighs almost nothing. Strange how the most innocuous of packages can contain so much devastation. Look at Caleb.
“I hope this will be enough,” Caleb says soberly.
“It’ll be a start, if nothing else,” Eadwulf answers.
“If there’s anything more I can do—”
“Don’t worry. Astrid won’t hesitate to let you know.”
Caleb manages a smile. “Yeah. You’re right.”
They stand in the hallway, looking at each other.
“I like your shirt,” Eadwulf says at last. Mitzi yowls in agreement, rubbing up against Eadwulf’s ankles before disappearing back into the kitchen.
Caleb glances down. Then his eyes widen. He clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says. “You… you still remember?”
It isn’t really a question. Caleb’s shirt looks just like the one he’d filched from Eadwulf all those years ago. Red and brown plaid, dark stripes of blue. This one, at least, sits well on his shoulders, though Eadwulf privately thinks it suits Caleb better to wear shirts a size too large.
“We all carry shit that we wish we could just forget,” Eadwulf says quietly. He reaches out and grasps Caleb’s shoulder. Squeezes once. Lets go. “But this isn’t one of them. Not for me.”
2
Here is a thing Caleb learns early on: Essek Thelyss isn’t a man given to spontaneous acts of service. Even now, he has to be gently prompted into helping around the house, whenever he has the chance to stay with Caleb in Rexxentrum. Caleb can’t blame him—he can’t imagine Essek has had much opportunity or reason to do anything for the people around him that would require his own two hands before he met the Nein.
But here is a thing that Caleb learns just as quickly: Essek is very enthusiastic about helping, whenever he is asked. Even if he doesn't always act like it.
“I told you not to attempt to carry the last box of books by yourself,” Essek says for the seventeenth time. “Of all the days for the apothecary to be out of healing potions—”
He pours more water over Caleb’s hair, rinsing it free of suds. The one good thing about his exasperation is that he’s forgotten to care that Caleb is naked in the bath.
“I’m sorry,” Caleb sighs.
“Tell me again why we can’t go to the Blooming Grove for Caduceus to heal your shoulder.”
“It isn’t necessary,” Caleb repeats patiently. “Beau and Yasha will be home tomorrow morning—we can ask them for a couple of extra potions then.”
Essek squeezes the excess water from Caleb’s hair before adding a sweet-smelling lather, running through the wet strands with his fingers. “But you will be in pain until tomorrow morning.”
Caleb can’t help but smile. “I have had much, much worse than an aching shoulder to deal with, and for much longer than a few hours.”
“My point,” Essek says emphatically, doing up Caleb’s hair into a neat knot with a single twist of his fingers, “is that it is the pain that is unnecessary, not the trouble it will take to get to the Grove.” He gets to his feet to refill the water basin. “Or to Port Damali, for that matter,” he says as an afterthought.
“The Nein Heroez left for Darktow yesterday,” Caleb reminds him.
The only response he gets is a stream of Undercommon, loud and sharp. Caleb stifles his smile as best as he can. He knows he’s being scolded, but it’s so hard not to laugh.
Essek pulls Caleb’s hair free of the leather tie in one tug. In the next moment, a basin of ice cold water is dumped over his head.
“I said I was sorry,” Caleb sputters out through trembling lips, once Essek decides to be merciful and deigns to warm the water with a cantrip once more.
“You should be,” Essek says tartly. But his hands are so gentle on Caleb’s face when they wipe the suds from his eyes. He carries on his scolding, all while smoothing yet another unguent into Caleb’s hair, this one scented like spice and wood. Then he helps Caleb out of the tub and keeps his face politely averted while Caleb dries himself off one-handed and tugs on a robe that Essek ties shut for him.
“Thank you, Essek,” Caleb says cautiously when Essek sits him in front of the vanity.
He sniffs, clearly still irritated. He begins separating Caleb's hair into even sections, combing each one out with slow fingers. Caleb is stunned to see that Essek has arranged his hair in soft, curling waves—he would have never called his own hair pretty before this, but he certainly thinks so now.
“They will think I am not taking care of you,” Essek murmurs, so quietly that Caleb thinks he might not have meant for it to be heard.
“Essek,” Caleb says, trying to tease him into a better mood. “No one takes care of me the way you do.”
“Exactly,” Essek says, annoyed all over again.
3
“Thank you,” Astrid says, rising to her feet. The rest of the Assembly follows suit. “I apologize that I must excuse myself early, but I have some urgent business—”
Eadwulf gets up, tuning out the rest of the requisite niceties, choosing instead to examine the others at the enormous table one by one. Particularly that useless creature Margolin. And the Martinet, who’s watching Astrid with gray eyes sharper than a hawk’s.
“He suspects you,” Eadwulf murmurs, in the relative quiet of the towers of the Archmage of Civil Influence. It would feel almost like home, if it didn’t make him physically ill. But it’s where Astrid belongs now, and by extension, so does Eadwulf.
“He would be unwise not to,” Astrid returns. “He… he—”
Without warning, she bends over and retches onto the rug, collapsing on her hands and knees with the force of her revulsion. When she’s done, she raises her fingers, beckoning for an unseen servant to attend to the mess.
Eadwulf kneels on the rug beside her. She wipes her mouth on her sleeve, not looking at him.
He rests his hand on his knee, palm facing up.
After a few moments, Astrid takes it. Her gaze is still fixed somewhere in the middle distance.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Eadwulf asks.
Two squeezes. No.
He nods. “Do you want to call a cleric?”
Another two squeezes, harder this time.
“Okay,” Eadwulf says quietly. “Do you want to go to bed for now? Forget about it until tomorrow morning?”
A pause. Then one soft squeeze. Yes.
4
Few things are as humbling as having immeasurable power at one’s fingertips, and being unable to channel any of it into the ability to heal. Essek sighs in frustration, inspecting his stock of potions for the third time.
“I am not dying,” Eadwulf says. His voice sounds like it has been scraped over gravel, but there is a smile hovering around his pale, cracked lips. “It’s just the flu or something. Perfectly normal for this time of year.”
Essek throws up his hands. “How is it that some of these could bring a person injured to the point of death back to full health, and yet none of them are capable of lowering a fever?”
Eadwulf lets out a rasping chuckle. “It’ll pass. I just need to get some sleep. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“If you say so,” Essek says. He hovers uncertainly by the bed, his fingers brushing over the embroidered duvet. “I will leave you to it, then.”
But he cannot help but linger, even after Eadwulf has dozed off. He refills the glass of water by the bedside. Fiddles with the lamp to dim its light a little more. Sits back down in the chair.
Light above, this is intolerable.
“I can hear you, you know,” Eadwulf says without opening his eyes.
“Sorry,” Essek mutters, abashed.
Eadwulf hums. “It’s difficult, isn’t it.”
“What is?”
“Feeling helpless,” Eadwulf says simply.
Essek’s fingers ball into fists on top of his knees. “It is a state of being I actively avoid, yes.”
Eadwulf’s head turns, just enough for him to look at Essek.
“It helps,” he says quietly, “to know that you're nearby.”
He never fails to catch Essek off guard, even now. For all Eadwulf is given to silence most of the time, he can be the most forthright of them when he chooses to be, and his affection is still a language so unfamiliar to Essek.
He struggles with himself for a moment before he clears his throat. “Then I will stay,” he says. “As long as you will sleep.”
“I’ll sleep as long as you stop fussing,” Eadwulf mumbles, already more than halfway there.
5
“You look terrible,” Astrid says by way of greeting.
“You should've seen the other guy.”
She expects Wulf to resist when she tries to get a hand on his forehead. But he leans into her touch instead, like a cat looking for pets. He's still a little warm to the touch, but not as much as he'd been a day ago.
“And here I thought you hated fussing,” she says. “Who are you and what did you do with Eadwulf Grieve?”
“More like, what did Essek Thelyss do to me,” Wulf says with a huff of laughter.
Astrid's eyebrows lift. “Was he here?”
“Yeah. The entire time you were gone.” Wulf tugs her down on the bed beside him and promptly puts his head down on her thigh. “Turns out it isn't too bad to have a literal prince of the Dynasty waiting on you hand and foot.”
“Too bad I'm not one of those, then,” Astrid says dryly. “Or is this your way of telling me that you had some seriously kinky sex with Essek in the last twenty-four hours? If so, I hate you.”
“You wouldn't,” Wulf says, and throws an arm around her waist. “But would you be jealous that I slept with him first? Absolutely.”
“Technically, Caleb's already won that round,” she says.
Eadwulf calls her bluff. “You know what? I don't think so. The bet's still on, as far as I'm concerned.”
Interesting. For one thing, Astrid isn’t entirely certain about what’s going on between Caleb and Essek at all. She’s going to have to think about that a little more.
“I'm surprised Essek stayed with you,” she says, changing the topic.
Wulf cracks an eye open. “Well. I may have dropped a hint here and there.”
“Shameless tramp,” she says, laughing.
He hums. “Why should I be shy about what I want? Besides, in my defense, I think he might have actually liked it.”
“Liked what?”
“Being needed,” Wulf says. He flicks a knowing glance at her.
Astrid glares at him. “Go to sleep,” she says sharply.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and closes his eyes.
6
As it turns out, Essek's diffidence is borne of inexperience, not a lack of desire. He lets himself be coaxed into Astrid's lap to be kissed breathless, rucking up her shirt with eager hands, his fingers greedy for her skin. Then he does something with his teeth that sends a sharp wave of desire all the way down to Astrid's toes.
She finds herself flat on her back on the bed, not long after that, a stinging red line of biting kisses etched all the way down from her neck to her collarbones. Her shirt drops from her fingers and onto the floor, but when she tries to reach for the buttons at Essek's neckline, he freezes.
“It's okay,” she says. “We don't have to.”
He stares at her, eyes wide. “But. You want to? Touch me. Or for me to touch you.”
There's something wrong. The way his speech has gone stilted, his accent thickening, as though he can't quite shape his tongue around his words. The way he's holding himself almost preternaturally still, suspended above her on his hands and knees.
But he makes a wounded sound when she tries to lift her hands from his slender waist.
Essek likes to feel needed, Wulf's voice echoes in Astrid's head. She wonders abruptly how many times Essek has given more of himself than he wanted to. She thinks of Ludinus Da'leth, his charming smile, his uncanny gift of manipulating others as though they're nothing but putty in his finely kept fingers.
A fleeting rush of wrath sweeps through Astrid, so intense that she has to shut her eyes for a moment to swallow it down.
“I am sorry,” Essek whispers.
“Don't be,” Astrid says. She keeps her hands light on his waist. The last thing she wants is for him to feel trapped. Their habit of doublespeak has its own place and time, and none of those are in her bed. “We go at your pace. Or not at all, as you prefer.”
His brow furrows. She watches him chew on her words for a few more seconds. “But don't you want this?” he asks quietly. Don't you want me? is what Astrid hears.
“What is the point, if what you and I want are two different things?” she asks. “If you don’t want it, then I don’t either.”
Essek turns this over in his mind. Then he nods. He reaches out and strokes her shoulder with his knuckles. “I am not sure about how I feel about being touched. But I like touching you,” he says quietly. “If that is alright.”
Astrid reclines against the pillows and pulls him on top of her, until his cheek is pillowed against her shoulder. “More than alright,” she says, and wraps her arms around him.
7
“You know what I’ve been wondering about?”
Astrid looks down and raises her eyebrows at Wulf. “What?”
“Whether residuum poisoning is a thing.”
She runs her fingers through Wulf's hair. She remembers when it was longer—she and Bren had been quietly devastated over the loss the day that Master Ikithon had made them shear off each other's hair. Wulf hadn't seemed to care much either way, but Astrid still misses his tousled mop some days.
“If it was,” she says at last, “then I’d have it too. And so would Bren.”
Wulf looks at her, his gaze steady and resolute. “We don’t know that you don’t. Or I might have it worse than either of you, and that’s why—”
“Don’t,” Astrid interrupts through clenched teeth. “Stop it.”
He reaches up and laces their fingers together. His skin is burning hot again, the rabbit-quick beat of his pulse pressing against her wrist.
“Astrid,” he says quietly, “we can’t put off thinking about it forever.”
8
There are only four people permitted to teleport within the walls of the Archmage Beck's towers without fear of disintegration: the Archmage herself, her sole annex, the former Shadowhand of the Kryn Dynasty, and one weary transmutation professor from Soltryce Academy.
“Never knew you not to use the front door,” Wulf comments, eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, well, that's more out of Essek's sense of courtesy than anything else,” Caleb says, smiling. “That, and I have a feeling he still doesn't quite believe he can teleport directly into the towers.”
Wulf snorts. “Can't blame him for playing it safe, I guess.”
Caleb puts a small box down on the kitchen table. The water in the kettle is still hot, and he knows by now how Astrid and Wulf like to keep the cabinets arranged.
“Smells good,” Wulf says, his eyes widening.
“It’s a new blend,” Caleb says, passing a steaming mug to him across the table. “I thought you might want to try it.”
Wulf studies his tea. “You came from the Blooming Grove, then?”
Caleb nods. He opens the box he's brought, and Wulf's gaze sharpens when he sees the little rice cakes inside. “And Nicodranas?”
“Port Damali,” Caleb says quietly.
Wulf contemplates the rice cakes for a moment. He takes one between his fingers and takes a bite, nodding in approval. “Essek's favorite. Did he go with you too?”
“No.” Caleb steels himself. “Essek is in Tal'Dorei with Jester.”
There's a split second where Wulf's jaw stills, then tightens, before he continues chewing. He eats a second rice cake with apparent relish, then washes it down with tea.
“So? What's the prognosis?”
Caleb takes a deep breath. “There are reports in a city called Whitestone of people experiencing similar symptoms: physical deterioration, elevated heart rate, sudden high-grade fevers, all suspected to be caused by long-term exposure to residuum. Mostly observed in the elderly.”
Wulf cracks a grin. “How dare you. I am in the prime of my life, Widogast.”
Caleb doesn't laugh. “None of them had residuum placed directly in their bodies the way we did, and you carried a greater amount of residuum for longer than Astrid or I ever did.”
For a moment, there's no sound but the chimes tinkling by the window. He's grateful that Wulf doesn't ask about a cure. Perhaps because he already knows there isn't one, not for people like them.
“I think,” Caleb says softly, “because you have always been so much stronger than us, the effect it has on you is much more noticeable. No one will think twice about me throwing my back out because I lifted a box of books, or of the Archmage developing a migraine from overwork. But the moment you come down with a cold, it throws everyone into a panic.”
Wulf doesn't quite manage a smile this time. “Are you saying this an overreaction, then?”
“Of course not. The exact opposite, in fact,” Caleb hastens to add. “We're going to try to undo the damage as best as we can; barring that, to arrest what damage has already been sustained. For all three of us. But we want to keep you our priority for now, Wulf.”
He doesn't say anything. He only stares at his mug, lost in thought. His fingers are worrying at the pendant he wears around his neck: the symbol of his goddess. The matron of death.
Caleb swallows hard. On impulse, he reaches across the table and covers Wulf's hand with his own. Wulf looks up, his eyes widening.
“We will find a way, I promise,” Caleb says. “Essek will never forgive you if he has even fewer years with you than he thought.”
Wulf lets out a huff that might have been a laugh, under different circumstances. “Gods forbid I disappoint Essek. He'll never let me hear the end of it.”
9
The stress of the weekly Assembly meeting is finally melting away, bit by agonizing bit. Astrid winces as Caleb rubs at a particularly sore spot in her neck.
“No wonder you get so many tension headaches,” Caleb says severely.
It's a nice thought, Astrid thinks, her eyes sliding shut. That the pain in her head is borne of nothing more than a hard day's work, and not from the remnants of ground residuum in her forearms. She sighs, submitting to his capable hands. This is one intimacy that he still allows himself to give her, at least—the same casual touch he would indulge in with any other friend.
“You have no idea what I have to deal with every day,” she mutters. “And on top of all that, you have to go and stir up seditious ideas among the younger students.”
“I was just giving them a less biased picture of current events,” Caleb says, indignant. His thumbs dig into a knot in Astrid's shoulder, making her gasp. “Anyway, you should be relaxing, not scolding me.”
“This is the most pain I've been in all day,” she deadpans.
Caleb laughs. “It will only hurt now. You'll feel better later.”
She blinks her eyes open and glances up at him. “What if I told you I found a way to heavily implicate the Martinet in Ikithon's crimes?”
He sobers a little. “You already know what I think,” he says. “Have you told Essek yet?”
“Not yet,” she says. “I don't know if I should.”
“Think it over,” Caleb tells her. “You know him best, after all.”
Astrid frowns. “You know him just as well, Bren.”
A pause. “Not the way you and Wulf do,” he says quietly. Then: “Breathe, Asa. You're tensing up again.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, then sighs. Better to prioritize which wounds should be reopened. What they are to each other will have to wait for another time—there are more urgent matters at hand.
“I will give this much to Ikithon—he trained us to understand politics well. Too well, perhaps.” She looks down at her hands. In some ways, being an assassin had been easier. Cleaner. Even when her hands had been stained red, more often than not, the weight she'd carried had been easier to bear.
“I want to think you would stop me,” she says, “if I started turning into him.”
Caleb sighs. “If there is one thing I've learned, it's that institutions, once toppled, will always be replaced out of necessity. The structure within which the world operates cannot function without them. I don’t know how else to change that, short of overturning the system entirely. And even then, wouldn’t the resulting power struggle simply create its own successor? What would make the supplanter different from the supplanted, in the end?”
It sounds like a tacit acceptance of Astrid’s work. No more children on the pyre, Caleb insists, but where would the Empire be today, without Astrid and Wulf and all their brothers and sisters? Would there even be an Empire at all? Astrid has no intention of running that risk. The Empire must be sustained. Only blood and bones can nourish its soil. Dismantle one training program, and another will take its place. A more humane one, perhaps, but a training program nevertheless. There is only so much that can be done, even by an archmage of Astrid's standing.
Her mouth quirks into something like a smile. “Maybe this is nothing but an exercise in futility then, since I am doomed to walk in my master’s footsteps?”
Caleb's hands still. She looks up at the mirror and sees the reflection of his face, troubled and sad, a faraway look in his blue eyes. After a long moment, his gaze finds hers once more.
“I can't answer that,” he says. “We'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.”
Astrid nods. To her surprise, Caleb bends down and wraps his wiry arms around her shoulders.
He carries more guilt than he should. They had been children. Everything they had done had been—is still—for the Empire.
“I wish it didn't have to be you,” he whispers.
Astrid feels it then, how much it costs him to admit it aloud. She shakes her head. “It's better this way,” she says, and leaves out the obvious: if you truly meant that, then it should have been you.
10
“What are you so busy with, hm?”
Essek blinks and looks up from the book he has been reading for the past two hours. “Apologies, I had not heard you come in.”
“I'll have you know I've been lying here for ten minutes being completely ignored.”
He smiles and gets to his feet, drifting across the room to sit next to the Archmage of Civil Influence, who is sprawled in all her red-robed glory across one of her innumerable sofas.
“Hello,” Essek murmurs, settling down on the edge of the seat next to her. “How was your day?”
“Monotonous, thank you. Which I much prefer to the alternative,” she says, her words punctuated by a theatrical yawn. “What are you reading?”
“I have been looking into some of the more practical applications of alchemy toward your… condition.”
Astrid wrinkles her nose. “No need to beat around the bush about it. The three of us are dying from residuum poisoning, yes. But aren't we all dying anyway?”
This is not a topic Essek is interested in pursuing. “As you would expect, Caleb has enlisted the help of the Nein. Which includes, well. Veth and her husband Yeza.”
“Huh. How's that going, then?” Astrid says, her voice so light that Essek suspects that it is entirely intentional.
His fingers tighten around the book he is holding. “It is… awkward,” he admits. A gross understatement. “I imagine Veth would be much less sympathetic to my cause if it did not involve Caleb in some way.”
“Yeza Brenatto has quite the mind, I hear.”
“He does,” Essek says, nodding. He had known this simply from the nature of the work Yeza had been imprisoned for in Rosohna. “We are fortunate that he is willing to assist us. His research has been invaluable. I had not thought of exploring conventional avenues for treatment prior to speaking to the Brenattos, and—”
“Wait. Are you telling me I have to take maintenance potions in my early thirties?” Astrid says, her voice flat.
“Would it really be so terrible?” Essek says, laughing helplessly. “I strive only to please you, master archmage, but at least consider this option in the interim; if only because Wulf will refuse any sort of treatment that is not also offered to you and Caleb.”
She makes a noncommittal sound. “Read the book to me.”
“It's in Elvish,” he says.
Astrid just gives him a look.
Essek shakes his head. He reaches toward her to cast comprehend languages, but to his surprise, his spell fizzles to nothing. He casts once more before realizing that she is counterspelling him with the hand she has tucked under a cushion. He grits his teeth and tries again. This time, he counterspells her, only for her to waste an unconscionable amount of energy to counterspell him right back.
“Astrid,” he says, exasperated beyond words.
“I can do it myself if I want to,” she says, lifting her chin.
The sudden pallor of her face and her overbright eyes make Essek hold back the biting retort on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he sighs and opens his book to the last page he had been studying before Astrid had spoken to him.
“Potions may be used to treat a wide range of diseases, but are often recommended as long-term treatment for chronic ailments,” he reads aloud in the original Elvish. “Though regular restorations may yield better results, patients and clerics alike run the risk of spell failure, a hazardous venture for those who cannot avoid to compromise their health.” He pauses for a breath, then adds in the same even tone: “Do you speak Elvish too? Your knowledge of languages never ceases to amaze me.”
No response.
When Essek looks up, Astrid has already fallen into a light doze.
11
Inhale, exhale.
Beauregard had tried to get Caleb into the habit of meditating, but it isn't something that works for him. He's spent enough of his time outside of his body against his will to want to do it voluntarily.
He’ll admit, however, that the breathing exercises are useful.
Inhale, exhale.
“It will be fine,” Caleb says.
“You do not know that.” Essek's lower lip is trembling visibly. “I could make a mistake. I might damage your nerves permanently. What if you lose control of your hands because of me? How will you cast then?”
The thought alone makes Caleb's blood run cold, but he braces himself. “I'm certain there are plenty of mages who have lived without the full range of motion available to them.”
“Yes, and I do not disregard their skill in any way,” Essek says, “but I would rather that you do not become one of their number because of me.”
Inhale, exhale.
“Come on, hot boi,” Veth says impatiently. “You really think I'd let you handle a knife if I didn't think you could do it?”
“I am proficient in both daggers and shortswords, thank you,” Essek mutters, just out of Veth's earshot.
“We can manage now, Veth,” Caleb says. A wordless glance passes between them, and Veth nods, closing the door behind her. She and Caduceus will wait in the other room, until Essek calls for them.
“I trust you,” Caleb says quietly. “We all do. You can do this, Essek.”
Inhale, exhale.
There's something poetic about this, Caleb thinks vaguely, that he was the first to be given the residuum as an enhancer, and now he is the first to have the last of it removed from his body.
Essek's throat bobs. He grips the blade more firmly in his fingers. “Our options,” he says, as though repeating a lesson to himself. “Prestidigitation first, to eliminate the most basic possibility. Then telekinesis, then the spell we combined from fabricate and creation; both of which would involve inserting a piece of residuum directly into your veins to extract the remnants that are already in your body.”
“Correct,” Caleb says.
Essek nods, as though steeling himself. “On the count of three, I will activate the sigils around your… your bindings.” His eyes flicker to Caleb's, remorseful. “I make the incisions in your left arm, then your right. Three counts between each incision. Three counts between each spell.”
“Just as we discussed,” Caleb confirms. He puts the leather strap in his mouth and bites down. Essek hadn’t wanted him to be gagged, but had been overruled by the possibility that Caleb might attempt to cast while bound.
For a moment, Essek's gaze darts to the ground, then back to Caleb's. His eyes are imploring, bright with so much unguarded emotion that it knocks the breath out of Caleb’s lungs, but with the gag already in his mouth, he can offer Essek no comfort.
Essek cups his cheek with a gentle hand, murmuring something in Undercommon, low and heartfelt. Then he tears his gaze away from Caleb's, his face smoothing over into an uncanny dispassion.
Inhale, exhale.
“Let us proceed, then," Essek says, all steel and sharp edges. "Drei, zwei, eins.”
Inhale—
In hindsight, Caleb might have anticipated how this would go. But in reality, it would have been impossible for him to predict just how violently he would react to being bound.
The cry that rips from Caleb's throat when the leather straps lock around his wrists and hands can only be described as inhuman, were it not for the gag already in his mouth. But that is nothing compared to the moment the edge of Essek’s dagger slices his skin open. Drei, zwei, eins. One arm, then the other. Caleb struggles against his bonds; his body pinned down in his chair by the unseen, unforgiving grip of Essek’s spell.
When the first chunk of residuum hisses against Caleb’s exposed flesh, he screams. Begs for mercy. But Essek is immovable, as relentless as his magic. Drei, zwei, eins. The pain is blinding, white hot, leaving gouges inside Caleb's chest, inside his head, somewhere deep within his stomach. An agony all the worse for the memories it claws out of his mind, carving anew the lines of long-ago torture in excruciating detail on the inside of his brain.
Drei, zwei, eins.
Master, please, Caleb beseeches, his pleading lost entirely to the gag, it is too much, es reicht, bitte, bitte, es tut so weh—
It ends as suddenly as it begins. A warm touch against Caleb’s skin, the smell of rain-drenched earth filling his lungs. He knocks the chair to the ground the moment the bindings release him, the incantation for his web of fire hovering on his lips. Adrenaline courses through him, thick and fast, putting something like strength into his trembling limbs.
“Caleb,” he hears as though from very far away, “Caleb, you are safe here, it is alright—”
“No,” he snarls. “Don’t touch me. Don’t… don't come near me!”
The slender figure before him crumples to his knees, his face streaked with salt. “I am sorry,” he whispers, “forgive me, Caleb. Bren. Please.”
It is another long moment before the screaming in Caleb’s head will quiet enough for the pieces to slot together. Before he sees the tall shape of Caduceus standing behind Essek, a watchful sentinel. Before his eyes find Veth, standing frozen in the doorway. Before he recognizes Essek on his knees, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Before he is coherent enough to remember who he is, and what he has asked Essek to do for him.
He looks down and finds two white lines, each bisecting the scarred maze of his inner forearms neatly in half.
Inhale, exhale.
“Essek,” Caleb whispers, his throat scoured raw from screaming.
A wounded sound escapes Essek. He crawls forward on his knees, arms extended toward Caleb in supplication.
“I am sorry,” he whispers, tears sliding down his face. “I… Caleb. I am so sorry.”
Caleb shakes his head wordlessly. He takes one step. Then another. Then he collapses against Essek, the echo of pain in his body soothed by Essek's embrace, holding him together at the seams. He can't seem to stop the broken sobs that are tearing from his throat. The final remnants of Ikithon's venom, pulled from his veins at last.
“I was so frightened. But you were so brave. So strong,” Essek whispers, cradling Caleb against him. “And now we will see how much more you can heal.”
“Thank you,” Caleb chokes out, clinging to Essek like a lifeline. “Thank you.”
12
“I’ll do it.”
Essek looks up from his book. “Do what?”
In answer, Eadwulf simply extends his wrists toward Essek. The universal gesture for surrender. Essek should be relieved. Instead, he finds that what he is feeling is much closer to fear.
“I never thought I would see the day you would willingly permit someone to approach you with a blade in their hand,” Essek says, keeping his words light. “Except for Astrid, of course.”
“Neither did I,” Eadwulf says, shrugging. “Guess you can add another exception to that list.”
Essek shuts his book, his fingers trembling slightly. It is a frightening thing, he realizes, to be so trusted by a man who has lived over half his life knowing that to trust is to risk a slit throat, or worse.
“On one condition,” Eadwulf says in afterthought. He sits up in bed and beckons to Essek. Essek obliges, sitting on the edge of the mattress next to him.
“What is it?”
To his surprise, Eadwulf's hand settles against his neck, the tips of his fingers placed precisely at Essek's pulse point, right beneath his jaw.
“Let me cut your hair,” Eadwulf says.
It has been decades since anyone has touched Essek's hair at all. An archaic tradition of modesty, or something equally ridiculous and unnecessary, especially since he no longer wears his hair in the customary braids of his den. But the thought of such an intimacy still makes him flinch from Eadwulf's touch.
“You have a small spot behind your ear that you always miss,” Eadwulf says softly. “May I show you?”
The gentleness of his touch tells Essek that he knows how deeply, painfully intimate his request is. Essek swallows hard. Then he nods. He shivers as Eadwulf's thumb rubs in light circles against the shallow dip directly behind his left ear.
“It must be in your blind spot,” Eadwulf says. “But it drives me crazy to see how perfectly you shave your own head, all except for this. Will you let me cut it for you?”
A favor for a favor. At face value, this moment of vulnerability weighs nothing in comparison to what Essek is asking of Eadwulf, to be strapped into a chair and laid open by his knife. But that is not true, and Eadwulf knows it. He knows exactly what he is asking of Essek. In the Dynasty, one’s hair is touched only by their nearest and dearest. Their most beloved.
Eadwulf is not only asking for consent. What he is asking for is a confession. Essek swallows, his throat bobbing against Eadwulf’s palm.
One blade for another.
“Yes,” Essek says simply. “I will allow it.”
Eadwulf exhales, long and slow. If nothing else, he would feel the truth of it in the hand still wrapped around Essek’s neck, in the rapid pulse beneath his fingertips. His dark eyes are soft and open, pinning Essek in place.
His thumb presses deeper, then brushes against Essek’s earlobe. Essek gasps, his hand flying to Eadwulf’s wrist. He does not know if he means to tug Eadwulf’s hand away, or to pull him closer. To tighten his fingers around Essek’s throat.
“You like this,” Eadwulf breathes.
His thumb runs up the line of Essek's ear. When the fine chain of his jewelry scrapes between his skin and Eadwulf’s thumb, a shiver goes up his spine. Light above.
A low sound escapes Eadwulf. “I never knew you were so sensitive.”
“Stop talking,” Essek gasps. Somehow, he is already halfway in Eadwulf's lap, his warmth bleeding into Essek’s veins. “Ah—Eadwulf—”
13
The architecture of Caleb's demiplane of a tower is so impressive that it annoys Astrid more than she wants to admit. Maybe it’s something about the way he designed the texture of the bedspread to be a near-exact replica of the blanket she'd once brought to Soltryce from home. Absurd that he even still remembers that.
“But you like it, don't you?” Caleb says, surprised.
“It's fine,” she says grumpily. She's spent most of the week planning precisely how to whip the rug out from beneath Da'leth's feet, and the uncertainty is setting her teeth on edge.
A cat comes and places a glass of her favorite white wine on the carved niche next to the hot tub. She reaches for it with grateful fingers and downs it in one swallow. There's already a second cat appearing out of nowhere with another glass before she can even put the glass down.
“You're buttering me up,” she accuses Caleb.
“Am not,” he says. He's sitting angled away from her at the edge of the hot tub, just enough that he can't quite see her, out of some absurd sense of deference for her nonexistent modesty. He's nursing his own stein of beer—dark and malty, the way he’s always preferred it. “Alright, maybe I am. Just a little.”
“I'm still angry at you,” she tells him, matter-of-fact.
“I know,” he says softly. “But we had to try, Astrid. And it worked, didn't it? We were never hoping for a total cure, but this is so much more than we could have hoped for.”
“Have you spoken to Wulf?”
“He's already agreed.”
She lifts her head, forgetting her irritation for a moment. “You actually managed to convince him?”
Caleb takes a long drink from his beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’ll have to ask Essek how he did it. I wasn’t there, and he hasn’t told me more than that.”
Astrid slouches back into the tub. “What I’m hearing is that you’re giving Essek the chance to spring the same approach on me.”
“He wouldn’t. You and Wulf are wired differently.”
She snorts. Gods forbid they ever stop manipulating each other, one way or another. She reaches for her second glass of wine and drinks it. Slowly this time, savoring the dry, tart flavor.
“Asa,” Caleb says. “Think it over. Please.”
“No,” she says.
She can feel his frustration building. “Why not?”
“How will I explain to the Assembly why I’ll be out of commission for at least a week?”
“Would you prefer that to having to explain your deteriorating health?”
“Perhaps I’m simply dying,” she says shortly. “No explanations necessary.”
“Don't be obtuse. You don't have to die this quickly,” Caleb says. His head turns in her direction by a fraction of an inch. “What will Essek do then? And will you leave Wulf bereft so soon?”
“You're the one being obtuse,” Astrid says. She sloshes over to where he's sitting, but he deliberately looks away. “Tell me. What will you do when I die?”
There's a stubborn set to Caleb's jaw. He takes a breath. “I've already had to live without you for a very long time.”
Astrid pushes herself out of the hot tub and stands before him, water running in rivulets down her limbs and hair, naked as the day she was born.
“How much longer are you going to hold us at arm's length, Bren?” she asks.
He lifts his glass and drains it. Says nothing.
14
Caleb blinks his eyes open from where he’s dozed off on the couch. He stretches luxuriously, yawning. Maybe he shouldn’t have made the seats in the salon so comfortable. This late at night, they’re far too conducive to sleeping.
He sits up, realizing that what had woken him was a sound like a low, pained murmur. His drowsiness abruptly vanishes when he finds its source: among the piles of books on one table, there is a small figure slumped, unmoving. Caleb is halfway across the room before he knows it.
“Essek. Essek.” His fingers are shaking as he checks Essek over for injuries. “Essek, are you alright?”
To his relief and utmost bewilderment, Essek straightens abruptly, nearly knocking Caleb aside. “Wulf,” he says in a voice much too loud for the tranquility of the salon, “where is Wulf?”
The pieces slot together suddenly. Essek’s wild, unfocused gaze, his coiffed hair all in disarray. He was asleep. That’s all. And he isn’t quite awake all the way yet.
“Essek, you fell asleep,” Caleb says, trying to calm him down. “It was just a dream, whatever it was. It wasn’t real.”
He stares at Caleb for a long moment without speaking, still caught in the daze of slumber. There’s a mirror image imprint of a half-finished equation on his cheek. It would be funny if his eyes weren’t full of tears. Caleb waits for him to rouse himself as he takes a ragged breath. Then another.
“I—I was dreaming?” Essek stares down at his notes, makes a sound that might have been a laugh under different circumstances. He buries his head in his hands. “I have not slept in over a century. I did not think I still could,” he says, his voice muffled.
Caleb kneels by his chair. “You’re overworking yourself, my friend. I know you’re worried about Eadwulf’s… procedure tomorrow, but—”
“Worried,” Essek repeats. “What a feeble word for what I am feeling.”
“I’m sorry,” Caleb says, helpless.
Falling asleep has disoriented Essek, jarring him out of his usual decorum. His speech is somewhat slurred, his accent thicker than usual. “The three of you are either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid,” he says, apropos of nothing. “Do you not fear that you have simply traded one master for another? That perhaps it is my hand that holds your leashes now, rather than your old master’s?”
“Don’t say that,” Caleb says fiercely. “Whatever faults you have, whatever sins you bear, that is not one of them.”
Essek lifts his face from his hands. “You have no idea how it felt,” he says without inflection, without looking at Caleb, “to see the look on your face when the leather straps fastened around your wrists. The way you screamed. The way you begged. And tomorrow I must do it all over again, but to Eadwulf this time. And maybe a third time to Astrid, if I am lucky.”
“The pain is necessary,” Caleb says, trying to reassure him. “It comes with drawing out the poison. Isn’t it a small price to pay, to be hurt momentarily so that we can be made whole once more?”
Essek turns his head away and stares with sightless eyes at the far end of the salon. “Are those your words, or Ikithon’s?”
15
“I'll only say yes,” Astrid says, “if it will be Wulf holding the knife.”
As it turns out, not even a bottle and a half of the Archmage's best plum wine can stop the trembling of Essek's hands. He blinks at her, forcing his gaze to focus.
“Did it hurt you,” Essek asks, “that he trusted me to do it?”
“Does it hurt you that I do not?”
“No,” Essek says wearily. “Yes. A little. Is there a correct answer to this question?”
The loveseat is not large, but neither is Essek. Nor is Astrid, thankfully, when she decides she wants to tuck herself against Essek's side. She is hot to the touch, her eyes bright to the point of delirium.
“I should get you in your cups more often,” she muses. “Pry a little more honesty out of you now and then.”
That is not a consequence of the alcohol, but Essek does not tell her that. It is stifling to be so close to her when her temperature is running this high, but perhaps her proximity alone is already tantamount to an admission of vulnerability. He looks at her for a long time. Her pale face flushed with fever, her heart racing where it is pressed against his chest.
He leans down and kisses Astrid on her ruined cheek. Her skin burns against his mouth.
“Da’leysen is the day you meet with the rest of the Assembly, no? You should be in bed, master archmage.”
She shifts restlessly against him. “In a while.”
“Wulf will sleep better if you are there.”
“Bren’s in the room with him.”
“You know it's not the same,” Essek says softly.
Astrid's mouth contorts. “Because Bren’s so fucking stubborn.”
“He is,” Essek agrees, and sighs. “But it was never so complicated with you and me, however it might seem to other people. Or with Wulf, for that matter.”
Silence falls. Essek almost thinks Astrid might have already drifted off to sleep, were it not for the way she is still clinging to him with considerable force.
“Astrid,” he says to the ceiling. “I will be happy to teach Wulf the spells to extract the residuum.”
“Oh?” She lifts her head a little. “So it really doesn't bother you?”
Essek lifts a hand, and finds it still shaking.
He lets it drop to his side and tries in vain not to think about the awful choked noises Wulf had made when Essek had dragged the residuum particulate out of his body. In some ways, it had been worse than Caleb's screaming.
“It bothers me,” Essek says softly. “But only because I know exactly how much it will pain Wulf to do it to you.”
16
It takes Eadwulf a few moments to remember where he is, and why every inch of him is sore and aching in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. He lifts one hand weakly and finds his arms wrapped in bandages from elbow to knuckle.
There’s a familiar head of red hair bent over on the bed, thin shoulders rising and falling in even measure.
Eadwulf’s mouth is dry as sawdust. It takes him a few moments to find his voice, but he manages it in the end. The bandages restrict his range of motion, but he manages to get his fingers on Caleb’s head.
“You’re still here?” he says, his voice a harsh rasp.
Caleb shifts under his hand. He sits up and rubs his eyes. “Ah, sorry,” he says, blinking hard. “I didn’t mean to drift off—do you want something to drink?”
He gets up without waiting for Eadwulf to answer and returns with a cup in his hands. He helps prop Eadwulf up against the pillows and holds the cup to his lips. The water is sweet and cool.
“How long have I been out?”
“Seven hours and nineteen minutes.” Caleb puts the cup down on the bedside table and stands by the bed with his hands tight on his own forearms. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I lost spectacularly at the fighting pits, then had my throat fucked for half an hour,” Eadwulf mutters.
Caleb tries to smile, but doesn’t quite make it. “It will pass in a few days. You need your rest.”
Eadwulf takes a breath. Forces himself to ask the question he’s been resolutely avoiding. “Did losing the residuum affect your casting at all?”
“Not that I noticed,” Caleb says after a moment. “And it is not a loss, Wulf.”
“Good,” Eadwulf says, sighing in relief despite Caleb’s words. “Come here.”
Caleb sits on the bed, noticeably confused. He stiffens when Eadwulf extracts his hand from the blankets, and, with some difficulty, pulls a lock of hair away from where it’s snagged in the loop of Caleb’s cheap gold earring.
“There,” Eadwulf says. “It was bothering me so much.”
Without warning, Caleb’s face contorts. It’s all the warning Eadwulf gets before tears start rolling down his face and into the thick beard he’s allowed to grow since he moved to Rexxentrum.
“Caleb?” Eadwulf says, surprised into uncertainty. “I… I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Caleb doesn’t answer. Or maybe he can’t. Instead, he swipes at his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. He folds himself against Eadwulf and presses himself close, until the front of Eadwulf’s thin linen sleep shirt is damp from his sobbing.
“Hey,” Eadwulf murmurs. He can’t quite get an arm around Caleb’s shoulders, but he damn well tries. “It’s alright. It’s done now, isn’t it? Essek did well.” He waits for Caleb to nod against his chest. “Were you scared?”
“Shut up,” Caleb says, and sniffles. “Yeah. Yeah, I fucking was.”
17
“You know what I just thought of?”
Astrid sighs, half-exasperated, half-fond. “I’ve told you so many times, I hate it when I’m about to fall asleep and you ask me a question. What is it?”
“It’s a real question, promise.” Wulf’s hand is moving up and down her back in slow, firm strokes. “What if Caduceus casts greater restoration on you, and it heals your eye?”
She snorts. “You really think our master would have punished me with something that a restoration could fix?”
“You never know,” Wulf says reasonably.
“You said you had a real question,” she complains.
“I do.” His hand continues, soothing the irritation out of her. “Have you told Essek about the Martinet yet?”
“Not yet,” Astrid says, sighing. She props herself up on Wulf’s chest. She tires so easily these days, but she forces her eyelids open. “Honestly, I’m surprised the Expositor still hasn’t mentioned it to him.”
“She’s waiting for you to tell him,” Wulf reminds her.
“I will,” she mumbles. “I will. Soon.”
18
“And when exactly were you planning to tell me about this?” Essek asks, incredulous.
“What purpose would it have served?” Astrid says, as though she has not been plotting to bring the Martinet to justice and clear Essek’s name in one fell swoop, all behind Essek’s back. “It would have only caused you worry. And you have enough to worry about as it is.”
It is an apology, couched in general terms. But Essek is too angry to acknowledge it. “Did Wulf and Caleb know about this?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Why did you not tell me, Astrid?” Essek bites out.
She only looks at him. “Does it hurt that I didn’t?”
It does. It stings more than Essek could have ever imagined. “Do you still not trust me?”
“Whose hand drew the residuum out of my body?” Astrid asks, her nostrils flaring.
“I thought we agreed not to lie to each other,” he retorts, ignoring this. “Did the rules of engagement change?”
“They have not,” she says through gritted teeth. “You saw me in the Blooming Grove, Essek. What it cost me to turn against my old master. Is it so hard to believe I wanted to spare you that?”
That stings. “You think I would have traded—” the sweeping gesture of Essek’s arm encompasses everything: his two former scourgers, Caleb, the tower with its cats, the Nein and their families scattered around the world— “all this, to stop you from ensuring the Martinet receives his due? For the sake of a petty infatuation I had when I was barely a hundred years old, and for a man over four times my age?”
Astrid takes a long breath. She jerks her chin toward the salon where Wulf and Caleb are, as if to say, look what I have to show for myself.
“Was it really so petty? For you?” she asks quietly.
This catches Essek off guard. It takes him a moment to find his voice. “How is this still relevant to the discussion?”
“Can you tell me that it isn’t?”
The denial sticks in Essek’s throat, but he refuses to give her the satisfaction of knowing she has won. He lifts his chin, holding her gaze. “Do you doubt that I wish to see him in chains?”
“You know as well as I do how complicated politics can be. That alone would have made it difficult enough.” Astrid falters, but only for an instant. “It was unnecessary for you to know,” she says again. “You would have only been distraught over it, and for what?”
“So you decided to take my choices from me instead,” Essek says flatly.
“I did not—” Astrid begins, then she stops. Bows her head.
“I don't regret that I did it. I thought only of you,” she says, the words jarring in their abrupt, stilted honesty. She takes his hand, her grip still strong despite the layers of bandages keeping her arms bound. “Emotion makes people incautious. Negligent at best, foolhardy at worst.”
That, Essek cannot deny. He has won this argument, but it gives him no satisfaction. Even standing toe to toe as they are, snarling in each other’s faces, he has already forgiven her. He’s mortified to discover that his eyes are smarting with tears.
“It was not you that I mistrusted. It was…” There is a long pause when her voice trails off. Then she looks up at him. The bright flare of residuum has waned, and now there is nothing but the steady burn of her gaze. “You make me more careless than I have been in a long time, Thelyss.”
19
“You look as handsome as ever, Archmage Beck.”
“I do,” she says absently, inspecting her new robes in the mirror. Blood red embroidered with gold and silver, a slash of rich midnight blue silk to emphasize the collar and cuffs.
“I'm glad to see you've made a full recovery,” Caleb says, smiling, "despite the ensuing pandemonium of Ludinus's arraignment and subsequent arrest."
"It was a relief not to have to resort to violence for once," Astrid says with a snort. “I have my devoted nurses to thank for keeping me upright, though I admit I wore Essek's patience dangerously thin.” Her eyes flick to meet Caleb's in the mirror. “And you?”
“Symptoms have dramatically improved,” he says, lips twitching. “Caduceus thinks it's safe to say we're no longer in any immediate danger of dying. Sufficient rest, healthy diet, regular exercise, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Oh, to live in a world where I have time for all that,” Astrid says grumpily.
Caleb laughs, then continues. “The potions, we take only on the days that we feel particularly run down. Also, Caduceus says to cast as much as we can, but not to the point of depleting our energy completely.”
“I'll do it because I want to, but not because Caduceus tells me to.”
“Cleric's orders,” he says, raising an eyebrow.
“Bren,” she says, “if you're only here to nag me, then get out.”
“I have nowhere to go.” Caleb's voice is plaintive, but his eyes twinkle at her. “I’ve been kicked out of my own home.”
Astrid glances at him sidelong. “By that, I take it you mean Essek has finally moved in properly and given that house the deep cleaning it deserves.”
“That too,” Caleb says archly. “Which is to say, I'll be intruding on your hospitality a while longer until I'm permitted to return home. Shall we give your new robes a try before the Academy’s graduation tomorrow?”
Astrid snorts, but she lets Caleb take her hand and lead her to the middle of her sitting room. Her towers respond to her with little more than thought and willpower, its magic an ever-present thing that thrums in her bones. At her bidding, the furniture moves aside, clearing a space for them. An old tune begins to play, quickening her blood in a way that is familiar and warm and aching all at once.
Caleb smiles at her. “I still miss that old dance hall.”
Even after so many years, he and Astrid fall into step together as easily as breathing.
One-two-three, one-two-three.
Caleb dances like he casts. His feet are light and precise as they make small circles about the room, their chests only barely brushing with every turn. Astrid was never as fond of dancing as he was—is—but she put up with it anyway, because she loved the easy pleasure it gave him; the simple joy of movement clear in his fluid, effortless grace.
“Just like old times, hm?” He grins at her. “Some things never change.”
Astrid's heart does an odd stutter in her chest. How mortifying. She's in her thirties, for fuck's sake, not a lovelorn teenager.
“You’ll set tongues wagging all over Rexxentrum if you dance with me tomorrow,” she warns.
Caleb hums. “The lowly new transmutation professor asking the great Archmage for a dance? We’d be a romance straight out of a book.”
“The last thing I need is more rumors about me.”
To her surprise, Caleb pulls them to a stop. The music plays on, but the only thing Astrid hears is the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
“Maybe I want those rumors to have truth in them, Asa,” Caleb says quietly.
She hates that he still calls her that. She hates that she has to tilt her head up to look up at him when they're standing this close together. She forgets that, for all he's so slender, he's nearly as tall as Wulf.
“What are you saying?” she asks.
A long pause.
“I think,” Caleb says, slow and measured, as though he's thought about this for a long time, “I've had enough of going through every day like I'm about to die, because I'm not. Not anymore. Now, I… I think I would like to live.”
Astrid's chest tightens with a strange, aching joy. When she cups his face in her hands, she finds her own emotions mirrored back at her. Happiness and sorrow brimming over in Caleb’s bright eyes, his even brighter smile.
“Good,” she says simply, and pulls him down into a kiss.
20
“Pay up,” Astrid hisses.
Eadwulf sighs and flips her a gold piece. She catches it with unerring aim despite the half-light of the hallway of Caleb’s house where they’ve ensconced themselves, hidden from sight.
“You know,” she says, “he was supposed to tell Essek how he felt before he asked him to move in.”
“How would you know when he's supposed to do anything?” Eadwulf says, amused.
“I mean out of courtesy, if nothing else. How could he keep Essek waiting that long,” she protests in a whisper. “He knows how we feel about him. If you ask me, he should have spoken to Essek before the two of us.”
“In his defense,” Eadwulf muses, “I don't think he intended to tell me when he did.”
Astrid hums. “Post-op isn't the best timing. But he improves with practice, I'll give him that much.”
That's true enough, given the way Caleb and Essek are kissing enthusiastically over Essek's enormous armful of sunflowers.
“Yours was plenty romantic too, Wulf,” Astrid says. Fuck, the way she can read his mind sometimes. “A tearful confession on your sickbed wasn't enough for you?”
“Shut up, they'll hear us.”
“I've known the two of you were here since you teleported into the house,” Caleb says without turning around.
Essek's eyes widen. “What—”
“Maybe I wanted to be heard,” Astrid says, grinning.
“I think I deserve flowers too, by the way,” Wulf says loudly.
Essek laughs, wiping his eyes. “I hate the whole lot of you.”
“You don't,” Caleb says with utter certainty, pressing a kiss to Essek's left cheek, the tip of his nose, his right cheek, “you don't, you don't, you don't.”
“Essek's made us all soft, huh?” Eadwulf says to Astrid.
“And I loathe him for it,” she says tartly.
Eadwulf chuckles and cups her face in his hands. He tries to imitate Caleb: kiss on the left cheek, kiss on the nose—but his forehead collides with Astrid's when he tries to kiss her right cheek, and they come away laughing.
“Yeah, I don't think I'm cut out for that,” Eadwulf says, feeling more rueful than he has any right to be. But then Astrid climbs right into his lap and grips his jaw in her small fingers.
“No,” she agrees. She rolls her hips down hard, pulling a gasp from his lips. “You were built for other things, Wulf.”
“For the love of all the gods.” Caleb suddenly appears, staring down at them—the ghost of the boy they had once loved still in his laughing blue eyes—and says: “There's a perfectly serviceable bed upstairs, please do not fuck in my hallway.”