Archive of Our Own

It’s one of the earliest memories Nero can conjure up. He’s maybe seven or eight, young enough that the memory is fuzzy but old enough that it comprises a full scene, a sequence of events, rather than snatches of sensory information or things he was told later that papered over the uncertainty of early recollection. 

In the memory, Nero is hiding. He’s at his childhood home, a one-floor house built on a shitty foundation that shook during storms, with a roof that leaked with rain and melting snow. His face is flush against the packed dirt floor, his body compressed underneath his sibling’s bed. He’s hiding under the bed because his dad just returned from town to find no food in the house, and he’s furious. Nero’s heart is pounding so hard he thinks his dad must be able to hear it. His blood, though it’s always hot when it spills out of him, feels like ice in his veins now. He presses his limbs tighter against himself, curling even his toes to be closer to his body, as if it’ll let him shrink so small he disappears. 

His dad is yelling something. It’s hard to hear over his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. Nero doesn’t know where his mother is. Maybe at the neighbor’s house. Maybe dead. Nero hopes he doesn’t die. Or maybe he hopes he does. It depends on whether his dad discovers him there under the bed. Nero didn’t eat all the food in the house by himself, but he ate some of it. What choice did any of them have? Food is hard to come by out here, and they’re hungry. One of his older brothers took a whole sack of grain and disappeared; an older sister boiled potatoes and carrots in what little well water they had left and scarfed the bowl down herself while it was still steaming. Nero’s stomach growls at the memory, and he presses his lips together tightly in horror. 

Nero’s dad doesn’t hear. He’s honed in on one of Nero’s siblings, a kid a little older than Nero, and is screaming in his face. Nero screws his eyes shut, as if that could block his ears, too. It’s not Nero’s brother’s fault there’s no food in the house. Nero’s brother is just a kid who wasn’t lucky enough to escape. Or maybe he wasn’t fast enough to hide. 

There’s a thud. Nero’s heart leaps into his throat. He can see the shape of his brother’s body on the ground, parallel to Nero’s body under the bed, and the world seems to freeze around him as his brother doesn’t move for an agonizing second. And then he does, one of his arms twitching. He lets out a whimper. Nero’s dad snaps something back to him, kicks at the floor where Nero’s brother’s arm lies, and then stomps back out of the house, his boots loud against the ground. 

On the ground, Nero’s brother starts to cry. Nero almost wants to cry too, but it’s not safe. His dad might come back. It might not be today, but his dad is never very far. 

The only thing Nero can hope for is to stay one step ahead of him. One ear to the ground, so he can run and hide before his dad crashes through the door. That’s the only difference between him and his brother, collapsed and sobbing in the middle of the room. Maybe next time Nero will be the unlucky one. 

—

It’s a day like so many others, in this weird new life that Nero has somehow gotten used to. He rises early and heads to the kitchen to make breakfast with Canaria. As the sun rises higher in the sky, the other wizards filter through the kitchen, some sweaty and ravenous from morning training, some still pajama-clad and wiping sleep from their eyes, some just ducking in for whatever portable snack they can grab en route to the day’s work, some parking themselves at the dining tables and nursing the same cup of coffee for half an hour. Nero is kept busy cooking dishes, filling plates, and washing pans until about eleven, when he sets down the dishtowel and loads a plate for himself. 

Between bites of toast heaped with melty eggs and crunchy bacon, he leans against a window, sunning himself through the glass. The Central sun is hot on the back of his neck. It gets so bright out first thing in the morning, and the glare only gets more intense as the morning progresses, until it’s noon and the sun bears down from the highest point in the sky, inescapable. In Eastern Country, at least its capital, the sun buries its gaze behind the clouds as if keen to spare the populace from its scrutiny. Nero has more memories of shielding his eyes from the reflection of sunlight in a puddle left after rain, or from the indomitable Calamity shining among the stars at night, than he does of squinting in bright sunlight direct from the source. In the North, the sun shrinks back in the sky, as if it’s unwilling to challenge the bone-deep chill, but its rays glint off the snow that smothers the ground, birthing a thousand tiny pinpricks of light that sting your eyes just as the bitter wind stings your skin.

In the dining room, Rustica and Chloe are finally on their feet, after a lengthy conversation Nero only caught a few threads of that he suspects he wouldn’t have understood even if he’d heard every word. The pair bid goodbye to Nero, Canaria, and the others still at the table: Riquet, Mitile, Lennox, and Figaro sitting together, and Heath reading a book across the room. As Nero finishes his meal and wipes his toast crumb hands on his apron, he tunes into the conversation the Southern wizards plus Riquet are having. He’s missed most of the content of the conversation, and what he notices more than anything else is the level of tension. Riquet’s mouth is pulled down in a frown; Mitile’s eyebrows are drawn together, uncomfortable. Figaro’s hands are up and his tone is placating as he says, “Well, that’s only what I think, anyway.” Lennox’s expression, as Nero often finds, is fully unreadable.

“Hey,” Nero says, sidling over to their table. Even as he moves away from the window, he can still feel the sun’s gaze, hot against his back. Mitile and Figaro look up as he approaches; Mitile gives Nero a tight smile, and Figaro gives a cheery grin that clashes with the tense grip of his fingers around his coffee mug. Nero doesn’t know what conversation these four were having that brought the mood down so much, so he tries to paper over it. “Any suggestions for dinner?”

Four pairs of eyes blink up at him, Lennox’s behind glasses but his gaze somehow the most calm of the group. Nero’s words are met with an awkward pause; it’s Lennox who speaks first. “Are there any ingredients you’re looking to use up?”

“That’s a real practical approach,” Nero says, considering. He does have a bunch of greens that are starting to wilt, brought back in a bag from Western Country by Shylock and Rustica returning from a wine-tasting and, apparently, community-garden-exploring event. Nero had sampled a few of the greens and found a mildly bitter, peppery taste. He’s not sure whether they’d be better cooked or raw; it might take some experimenting in the kitchen during the slow hours of the afternoon. “I guess I have some veggies. Oh!” He snaps his fingers. “I went to this butchers market yesterday in the city. I used some of the meat I got last night, but I still have a buncha great cuts of pork left. That’d be good for tonight...”

Lennox and Mitile are both nodding, their eyes going distant the way people’s eyes do when they’re imagining a delicious meal. Nero thinks the tension at the table is starting to dissipate, when Riquet’s voice cuts across it, a blade still unsheathed. “When did you go yesterday?” 

“Hmm?” Nero asks, turning a smile towards Riquet.

There’s no smile on Riquet’s face. His eyes blaze. “Yesterday afternoon, after lunch, I asked if you wanted to spend time together and you said you had lots of homework for Faust that you had to do as soon as possible.” 

A little chill traces down Nero’s spine, half from the intensity of Riquet’s eyes on him and half from the familiar physical response of being caught in a lie. “Oh, yeah. I actually finished the homework really fast,” he says, the words running right from his imagination out his mouth with no quality checking. “And then I couldn’t find you, so I just went out on my own.” 

There’s a second where Nero almost relaxes, not because Riquet looks mollified (he doesn’t) but because Nero at least thought of an excuse, and then from behind him he hears Heath’s voice. “Wait a moment, Nero, did we have homework?”

The chill that shoots down Nero’s spine is stronger now, almost a shiver. He turns to meet Heath’s gaze, which has the benefit of not having to see Riquet’s expression. As he turns, his eyes pass over Mitile, who looks anxious, and Figaro, who looks sympathetic, which makes the whole thing worse. Heath, ever a dutiful student (Faust’s only dutiful student, actually, though Shino has been surprisingly motivated ever since the sewers), looks genuinely worried that he might have forgotten some sort of homework for Faust. There’s a pang in Nero’s chest at the thought that he might have stressed Heath out with his lie. Hopefully his next lie can fix it. “You don’t gotta worry, Heath. I had an extra assignment just for me ’cause I didn’t do so great on the last test.”

“Oh, I see...” Heath doesn’t seem sure what to make of this. “Well...”

“So you did have homework, but you finished it really quickly?” Riquet says. Nero turns back to face the table. Riquet’s brows are drawn low over his eyes, his mouth pursed like he’s tasted something unforgivably bitter. “Or did you not have homework? It’s not kind to lie to me. And if you didn’t want to spend time with me yesterday, you should just say so, rather than making up excuses.”

“No!” Nero blurts out. “No, I mean, I do want to spend time with you. I just...”

“I’m sure it’s simpler when us younger wizards aren’t there, after all,” Riquet says, his voice tight. 

Immediately Figaro cuts in, clearing his throat. “That’s really not what I meant, Riquet...”

Before Riquet can respond, Mitile says, “Well, Doctor Figaro is always telling me I’m too young to do lots of things, Riquet. So I understand.” 

Figaro opens his mouth, his hands coming up over the table again in that same peacemaking gesture, and Nero realizes that they must have been talking about this when he approached them. No wonder the atmosphere was tense, and no wonder Riquet was already on edge. Nero was already not inclined to tell Riquet the truth about yesterday, and now, knowing that Riquet is already upset about not getting to do something because he’s a younger wizard, there’s no way Nero can explain himself. Before Figaro can actually say something, Lennox speaks, his low voice instantly more calming than any of Figaro’s hand motions. “Doctor Figaro and I were young wizards once,” he says. “Nero, too. But it may be that we don’t remember how it feels to be young and wanting to try things for yourselves, even if we think we do. Even if our intentions are kind, we can still disappoint you.”

The two teenage wizards look hesitantly from Lennox to Figaro to Nero. Mitile looks resigned; Nero thinks he’s more tired of fighting than actually in agreement. Riquet still looks angry, but the stormclouds have receded a little from his face. 

Nero takes a chance. “Hey, Riquet. I’m sorry about yesterday. I’ll definitely find you next time I go shopping. I’ll even treat you to sweets next time we’re in the city together.”

“Sweets, huh? Because I’m a kid?” Riquet snaps back, his eyes flaring. It catches Nero off guard. Riquet is blunt, but he’s a sweet kid, in part because the teachings of the church he grew up in guide his behavior towards some murky standard of goodness and nobility, and in part because he cares for others and doesn’t wish to hurt them. For him to be snapping at Nero like this, maybe his feelings are pretty hurt. Something twists in Nero’s gut at the thought. 

“No, because you like sweets,” he defends himself, keeping his tone calm despite the heat of Riquet’s gaze. Some part of him, an old instinct, hisses for him to find an exit, so he puts a hand on the cleaning rag hung from his belt. “Sorry, but I gotta finish cleaning up for now.”

“Fine,” Riquet says. “Make me a big helping of pork and greens for dinner, like a grown-up would have.”

“Me, too,” Mitile adds. Unlike Riquet, he doesn’t sound angry anymore, just dejected. Nero scans the rest of the table, and regrets it as he catches Figaro’s eyes and sees a glimmer of relief on the guy’s face. Like he’s happy that the heat was off him for a little bit. Nero turns on his heel and heads back to the kitchen. 

He can feel Riquet’s eyes on him, watching him busy himself with wiping down counters and sharpening cleavers, until the group clears out several minutes later. 

—

The air in the room is so tense it feels like if Nero breathes wrong he’ll set off a landmine. In front of them are the guild members from Western Country, guys so rich they could wipe their asses with gold bricks every day for a century and never use the same brick twice. Nero’s sitting on Brad’s right, and his job is to keep cool. Behind them, the five other bandits from their gang have the same job, but they’re not the bandit gang leader’s right-hand man, and the spotlight isn’t on them. It’s okay, though. Nero can keep a blank face. His heart is beating fast in his chest, but he knows these rich bastards can’t hear it. Not even Brad can hear it, even with their arms practically touching. 

Brad’s voice is calm as he speaks. He’s negotiating a deal for a shipment that’s passing through lands the bandit gang is controlling. If the guild wants the goods to pass through safely, Brad’s not asking for much. Just a sack of gold for Brad’s pocket, no sweat at all for the guild after how well they’ve been doing for themselves this year, Brad says, flashing a smile. His teeth glint in the light cast by the guild lamps, gaudy pieces of glass trimmed with gold and jewels. If this meeting goes south, Nero wonders how fast he could smash one of the lamps and pocket the jewels embedded in them. Brad’s red eyes are the same color as the rubies on the lamps, but his eyes gleam brighter. 

The guild master is eyeing Brad as he talks. His eyes are gray, the color of clouds, but as his gaze passes over Nero, it feels instead like being hit in the eyes with a sharp ray of sunlight. These guys aren’t wizards, but you can probe for lies without magic, if your insight is good enough. That’s what Nero’s job is here. The more guys who smile and nod as Brad talks, the more it looks like Brad’s being generous. Benevolent. The less it seems like the shipment the guild is hoping to transport through the gang’s territory is already sitting in the gang’s lair, unloaded and picked over and repacked and dressed up with magic to look untouched. 

The guild are valuable allies, at least for now. The shipment is supposed to be a day away, or at least, it is if you underestimate Brad’s reach. That part was Nero’s input. Let the blame fall on someone else down the road for the stolen goods. They’ll be long gone from the gang’s land by then, sold and shipped back out into the continent, but the gold will stay in their pockets. Always have to have a way out. Always keep a back door open, a lockpick in your back pocket, an excuse readied. As long as you stay one step ahead, you’ll be safe. And Brad had trusted him. Believed him. And now they’re here. 

The guild master looks at his colleagues, sitting on either side of him. He looks at Brad. He looks at Nero. He looks at the other bandits behind them. He’s met with calm looks, betraying nothing. As far as he knows, his shipment is still on its way. He knows the gang’s reputation, that they could make trouble for the shipping route if they wanted to. (They did want to.) It’s a small price to pay, really, for moving such precious goods through Brad’s territory. 

The guild master sighs, digs in his back pocket, and plops a small sack of gold onto the table in front of Brad. The coins clink against the wood, and the sound is just enough cover for Nero to breathe a sigh of relief. 

—

Heath leaves the dining area a little bit after Riquet’s group, catching Nero’s eye across the dining room and giving him a sympathetic look and a little wave goodbye. Even though Nero doesn’t want sympathy, he accepts this because Heath is being kind. He watches Heath head for the doorway out of the dining hall, and then he hears a thud and a few raised voices. He feels the presence of Brad’s magic before he registers Brad’s voice, raised first in surprise and then in chiding Heath for being overly apologetic. The feel of Brad’s magic is tactile; it feels like the creased canvas of his jacket under Nero’s fingers from all the times he’s grabbed onto him, usually hauling him closer to yell at him; he feels like snow melting on Nero’s face when he looks up at the dark Northern sky, the sun far-off behind the clouds and yet still managing to sting his eyes.

Brad crosses the dining room and heads for the kitchen, which is the opposite of what Nero wants to be happening. It’s just the two of them; Canaria left a little while ago, bidding Nero a cheery goodbye that suggests she either didn’t notice the tense conversation in the dining hall or she doesn’t think it’s her place to comment on it. If it’s the latter, it reminds Nero of the gentle Eastern sensibilities he grew used to over the last hundred years. No one here is really like that, not even the so-called Eastern wizards. Faust and Heath at least have the requisite thoughtfulness, so when they do speak up, it’s after having considered staying silent. Shino doesn’t consider anything; he wouldn’t know the art of holding your tongue to spare someone’s feelings if it slapped him in the face. 

Brad… is thoughtful; Nero can give him that, he thinks, as he watches Brad poke his head into the kitchen. But Brad and politeness don’t really fit in the same room. Or the same country.

“Hey, chef,” Brad says, flashing a grin. There’s no one there, but he keeps his voice low, maybe trying to invite Nero to drop the pretense that they don’t know each other. 

Nero feels himself frowning anyway. “What do you want?”

“Damn,” Brad says, “what’d I do? I haven’t snuck any bites of food, or spilled anythin’, or...” His smile drops into a frown mirroring Nero’s; it gives Nero another pang in his chest, thinking he brought Brad’s mood down. 

He tries not to think about it, instead hitching a smile up on his face. “You haven’t done anything yet. Come on, what do you want?”

“I was lookin’ for some coffee, and...” Brad trails off. Nero can see the gears turning in his head. “Did somethin’ happen with you ’n the Eastie noble? You both have the same mopey expression today.”

A jolt goes down Nero’s spine. He’s not caught in a lie this time, technically, but this isn’t that different. He feels like a dog who’s knocked something over, trying to usher his owner away from the mess. “Nah, nothing happened with Heath,” he shoots back. That’s true. Technically. 

“Okay,” Brad says. His brows are drawn together like he doesn’t believe Nero. “Did somethin’ happen? What kinda mood are you in?”

Some part of Nero, buried under so many layers of not thinking about it that it feels like trying to find a coin on the ground compressed underneath months and months of snowfall, twinges pathetically at the ease with which Brad can read him. Nero wishes he didn’t feel the twinge at all. He clears his throat, reaching for another knife he’s already sharpened and washed twice this morning, to start cleaning it again. Something to do with his hands. The knife his fingers land on is one of the big cleavers. As he wipes down the handle, the polished flat of the blade catches his reflection, the image sharper than Nero expects it to be; his mouth is twisted in a frown that warps as Nero moves the blade. 

“I kinda said somethin’ to Riquet that made him upset,” he blurts out. He avoids meeting his reflection’s eyes. “Lied to him, sorta. I know he doesn’t like that.”

“Aha!” Brad snaps his fingers, and Nero feels himself jump as the sound echoes around the kitchen. “Figures you’d be sulking about somethin’ like that. You’d always get all gloomy and quiet whenever you felt bad about something.” He lowers his voice further. “Not really a trait ya expect in a bandit, but hey. You made it work.”

Nero allows it, even drops his own voice when he responds. “Well, I was a liar before I was a bandit.” Maybe being a liar is the only thing about Nero that’s stayed true all six hundred-something years he’s been around. “And now, I’m just a liar.”

Someone else might’ve jumped to refute this, to heap praises on Nero that would leave him uncomfortably sweaty and inching towards the exit. Brad just grins, sharp canines catching the kitchen light and gleaming with it. “And not even a good one.”

You have no fuckin’ idea, Nero thinks, and the thing buried deep in him twinges again, curling into itself. 

“So what’d you lie about?” Brad prods. 

Nero finishes wiping down the knife and places it back on the rack. It lets him put his back to Brad, even briefly, and he continues the streak by starting to brew coffee. Setting water to boil, scooping some already-ground coffee beans from earlier in the week; it’s methodical, even though he can feel Brad’s eyes on his back. 

“You’re the last person I wanna talk to about it,” he mutters eventually. That’s not really true; Brad is maybe the only person here who understands that Nero isn’t the good guy people keep insisting he is. But whether the person Nero tells tries to reassure him he’s a good guy and meant well (he’s not, and it doesn’t matter if he did) or tells him he sucks (it’s true, but it’s not like he wants to hear it), he’d rather just stew over it by himself, at least for now.

“Aw, come on.” Brad’s eyes follow Nero’s hands as he packs ground coffee into a filter. “You’re always dodgin’ when I ask you stuff. Hey, was it somethin’ like that? You didn’t wanna tell the Central squirt somethin’ and he got mad?” Nero feels himself start to sweat a little at how easily Brad read him, again. “Those Central guys’re all about bein’ honest and never running away and all that. Gets ’em into all kinds of trouble. And it’s kinda the opposite of you. So if it’s that, it makes sense you’d butt heads over it.”

“Shut up,” Nero says. 

He knows Brad won’t listen, and Brad doesn’t; he just laughs, open-mouthed. “If you’re so upset over makin’ the Central kiddo mad, why don’t you try bein’ honest next time?” 

Brad might just be goading him; Nero’s not sure. These days, sometimes Brad seems to walk on eggshells around Nero, as if one wrong move might make Nero never speak to him again. And then, inevitably, some reason to piss Nero off comes along, way more shiny and tantalizing than playing nice, and Brad opens his mouth and says something annoying, or gets his fingers all over Nero’s cooking. Well, it’s not just to piss Nero off. Brad probably thinks he’s helping, or teaching Nero some life lesson. Or just being greedy about food. But all it does is make Nero want to use Brad’s face for target practice with his newly sharpened knives.

He sets the coffee filter on top of a large mug, takes the little pot of boiling water, and pours some over the coffee filter, listening to the trickle of coffee mosey through the grounds and drip down into the bottom of the mug. 

“It’s not as easy as just bein’ honest,” he says finally, and pushes the mug towards Brad, the filter swaying with the motion. Somehow, as it skids across the counter, it doesn’t spill, but Nero hears the liquid sloshing against the insides. “Here. And get out of my kitchen.” 

—

The bandit gang cleared another successful raid, in a month of several successful raids, and tonight is for celebrating. An eager group of new recruits dragged in crates of aged liquor from the storage rooms newly furnished towards the back of the lair, Ferris the artist type from Western Country painted banners to hang in the dining hall, and Nero himself cooked a grand feast, so labor-intensive that he’d woken up at three in the morning to start and cooked all damn day. His back aches from standing in the kitchen for so many hours, and though he’s seated now, and the cup of spiced rum he’s nursing is doing a lot to ease the pain, he can’t deny that it’s souring his mood. 

Still, it feels good to see everyone having a good time. The gang has all worked hard for this, from the newest recruits to the guys that were there before Nero himself joined. And no one’s worked harder than Brad himself, currently across the room toasting with some of the older members and laughing so raucously Nero almost feels the room shake with it. 

“Hey, chef, ya really outdid yourself with this food,” says someone from just outside of Nero’s peripheral vision. Nero’s heart jumps, though it’s hard to muster up a threat response in such a merry atmosphere. He turns to find Benji, a new-ish member, smiling at him over the rim of a  glass of what looks like wine. 

“Thanks,” Nero says back, returning Benji’s smile for a brief moment. 

He expects the guy to leave now that he’s paid his compliment, but Benji settles into the chair next to Nero’s, setting his wine glass on the floor. In his other hand, he’s got a plate of food: a big helping of stewed meat and potatoes, crusty bread with herbed butter, and grilled sausages (Brad gave a lot of input on the menu, so of course it’s meat-heavy), all of it homemade by Nero. The food steams pleasantly even sitting on the plate, wafting a rich aroma Nero’s way, and Nero spends a moment feeling proud of his work. 

“Seriously,” Benji says, making Nero jolt a little. He spears the sausage with his fork and, instead of putting it in his mouth, uses it to gesture at the rest of the plate. “I don’t know where ya learned to cook like this, but it’s great. Y’know, I grew up eating potatoes stewed just like this, but we never had meat to add. Too expensive, I guess. There’s finesse to just boiled potatoes, though. Not that I could do it, but somehow you brought out this nice flavor from them without makin’ ’em too mushy.” 

Nero nods, a placeholder while he debates how to respond. He’s reminded forcefully of his own childhood, of eating boiled potatoes and other root vegetables out of a dented pot, barely washed clean of scum from its last use. Those potatoes tasted faintly like the hard minerals in the well water, and sometimes Nero’s stomach hurt afterwards. It took Nero a while to like eating potatoes after he left home, and when he got a taste for them again, he dedicated several meals to learning to cook them, to know how long to boil them so that they got soft but not too dry or powdery. As a kid, he too rarely got to eat meat, and even when there was meat boiled along with the potatoes, it was bland and overcooked, so tough and stringy that half of it got left behind in his teeth. 

Nero’s pretty sure Benji’s younger than him by at least a century or two, by the feel of his magic. He’s Northern-born, like many of Brad’s gang. It’s possible he’s from around where Nero’s from. Nero doesn’t know the name of the village where he grew up; he’s not sure it even has a name. Nothing there is really worth talking about. If you’re unlucky enough to be born there, either you leave for someplace better, or you die there and rejoin the soil. Or, if you’re a wizard, you don’t. The thought of Nero himself turning to stone in that village, the shiny, polished surfaces of him robbed of bright sunlight to gleam with by the gloomy clouds always smothering the sky in that town, makes Nero a little sick. 

If Benji is from there, or somewhere like it—if he wants to talk about it like a nice, nostalgic childhood, that’s on him. Nero’s got no ties to a place like that. None worth talking about, at least. 

“Sounds rough,” he says eventually. “It’s thanks to Boss that we have such a variety of meat these days. All this, and the fried chicken I’ve made, too.”

“Yeah,” Benji agrees. 

The guy was so chatty before, going on and on about the potatoes. But now he just sits and eats, a vague smile still on his face. A moment like this is where Brad probably would’ve come back with an anecdote about his own childhood. Or a joke about something Benji said, teasing that bites just hard enough to be memorable but not so hard as to bruise the ego. Nero’s seen Brad do this so many times, winning over the trust and admiration of others like it’s effortless to know what to say. Or maybe it’s not just knowing what to say. Maybe you have to want to connect. If you want to connect to others, you have to be open. Nero is only a door left ajar, just enough to let the light leak in but ready to shut firmly at any sign of trouble. 

The food Nero’s eaten today has been cooked perfectly—he made it himself, after all—but as he sits there next to Benji, the silence stretching between them, his stomach starts to hurt.

—

“Okay,” Faust says, the word punctuated with a clink as he sets down his wine glass on Nero’s bedroom table. “Talk.”

Nero lets out an involuntary huff of a laugh. His hands are steady as he pours from the bottle of wine Faust had brought, arriving at Nero’s bedroom door twenty minutes after Nero closed down the manor kitchen for the night. Faust’s presence in Nero’s room is a welcome and unobtrusive one. The feel of his magic is like a leather glove, cool to the touch but protective. They’ve already each had a glass; it’s tasty, with notes of cinnamon and citrus. Nero refills both their glasses and replaces the cork on the bottle, and then eases back into his seat with a groan. 

That afternoon, the Eastern wizards had gathered for an impromptu lesson, and Nero’s heart hadn’t been in it. He’d thought he was masking it well, but after they broke for dinner, Faust had approached him and asked if anything was wrong. 

“Nah, Teach, I’m okay. Maybe I’m feeling a little down, but it’ll pass.”

“I’m sorry. I was going to invite you to a drink later tonight, but...”

“Ah... Honestly, if anything, I think I need a drink now to get through dinner.” 

“Nero... You know what, let’s have a drink together after dinner. Consider it a required homework assignment.”

When Nero first came to the manor, the prospect of having mandatory social time at the end of the day would have had him spiraling in anxious, sweaty thoughts all throughout dinner. Now, it’s something he idly looked forward to as he put together plates for the manor’s residents. He didn’t see Riquet, which made his stomach hurt when he thought about it, but he also didn’t see any of the other Central wizards, so he tried really hard not to read into it. (Even though usually Riquet would come tell him if he wouldn’t be there for dinner, even just to get a basket of snacks to take along.) 

Now, as he sits in front of Faust, a fire crackling in the little wood stove against the wall and a full wine glass in his hand, Nero feels comfortable. Rather than feeling wrung out, like frayed edges of a towel, he feels like warm laundry folded and placed up on a shelf. It’s probably the wine. Somehow, though, it makes Faust’s request (demand, maybe) that Nero talk feel achievable. 

“I made Riquet upset,” he confesses. “Yesterday he wanted to hang out in the afternoon, and I brushed him off.”

Faust’s eyes, shaded by his hat but still bright, scan Nero’s face. “You brushed him off?” he repeats. “That’s uncharacteristic of you.” 

“Yeah. Well, the truth is, I was plannin’ on going to this butchers market in the city.” He pauses, swirling the wine in his glass before taking a sip. This is the part he hadn’t wanted to tell Riquet, and even though Riquet isn’t here, it still makes Nero nervous, saying it out loud. “Problem is, it’s right down the road from the church where Riquet grew up.”

Faust nods slowly. “I see. You didn’t want Riquet to have to go by his old church?”

“I think he would’ve come with me,” Nero says. It feels like a plea, an allocution statement, trying to lay out his tangled thought process for the chance that Faust would understand where he was coming from, and absolve him of guilt. Stupid. That’s not going to happen. “That’s the problem, you know? If I told Riquet I didn’t want him to come because he’d have to pass by his church, he’d get upset with me for tryin’ to protect him. Or for implyin’ that his old church is a bad place for him to have to go near. But I know that if he went by there, he wouldn’t feel good.” Nero had imagined all kinds of situations yesterday as he’d ducked out of the manor, hoping Riquet wouldn’t see him leaving and demand an explanation. “Maybe he’d see someone he grew up with and they’d say somethin’ rude to him. Maybe he’d get nostalgic for the church and start questionin’ why he’s not in there anymore. Maybe he’d be totally fine, but then he’d come back here and tell Mitile or one of the Central guys about it and they’d say somethin’ that’d make him mad. Going by that place always messes with Riquet’s feelings somehow. He’s told me about it before lots of times. And somehow, he never believes it’s gonna happen. Because he doesn’t see his church as a bad place. He can’t see it as bad.” 

Nero’s voice breaks, forcing him to pause. He takes another swallow of wine and finds he’s a little out of breath. Faust doesn’t interrupt as Nero surreptitiously draws in a big inhale and lets it out, trying to steady himself.

“Riquet got mad at me earlier ‘cause I didn’t want to tell him why I didn’t take him to the market with me yesterday. He thought it was because he’s a kid and it’s easier when kids aren’t around.” Nero notices that his chest is starting to hurt. “It’s not that he’s young. I mean, it kinda is, since maybe if he was older he’d have learned more about the world and stuff. But some of us older wizards still make the same shitty mistakes. Goin’ back to places and people that make us feel bad. I just...” He swallows as his voice threatens to break again. His throat is dry from saying so many things in a row. “It’s not that he’s young. It’s that I don’t want him t’ feel bad.” 

He grinds to a halt there, having finally let the real reason slip off his tongue. It sounds like too noble of an excuse, to want to protect someone else from being hurt so much that he’d do anything—too noble for a good-for-nothing like him to get to claim. Even as the guilt washes over him, instead of giving in to the impulse to avert his eyes, he looks up and catches Faust’s expression, unguarded. There’s some of the sympathy he remembers seeing on Heath’s face earlier, but there’s something else, too, that only Faust would feel—a feeling of recognition. 

“Riquet got upset with you,” Faust says slowly, “but I think he would understand if he knew your intention was to be kind.” He smiles stiffly, as if the wine filled his mouth with a bitter aftertaste. “Though Central wizards aren’t fans of dishonesty.”

“Don’t I know that.” Nero’s breathing is slowly returning to normal after talking for so long. He drains his glass of wine, which probably won’t help, and reaches for the bottle to refill it. This is his third glass, he thinks; the wine bottle is nearly empty once he’s done pouring. “That includes you, at least sometimes, right? You’re not a fan of lying.”

“I won’t dispute that,” Faust sighs.

“What would you have done?” Nero asks, setting the bottle back down with a soft clink. “When it comes down to lyin’ to spare someone’s feelings or telling the truth even though you know they’ll be hurt.” 

He watches Faust’s eyes grow distant, like he’s slipping into the quicksand of old memories. It takes Faust a few moments to respond, a silence during which Nero listens to wood crackling in the stove, the wind outside tossing tree branches against Nero’s bedroom window, and the soft pull of his own breaths, in and out. 

“I don’t know,” Faust says. “I’ve felt a lot of ways about honesty, about sincerity, at different points in my life. These days, I treasure the times when I can speak freely, but it’s also important to me to be able to hide things. To keep things private that I don’t want anyone else to see. Even when I was a child, too, I had to hide things for my own safety.” He looks up at Nero, meeting his gaze briefly, his eyes smoldering like the remains of a bonfire burned down to coals at the end of the night. “So I guess I don’t have an answer for you. Except that you can’t single-handedly protect Riquet from being hurt. If he chooses to hold onto a naive view of his church, it’s his decision. Whether you lie to him or tell him the truth is your decision, and that matters more in your relationship with him.” He smiles suddenly, but the bitterness from before is still there. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself, at least. Try as I might, I can’t… make others abandon the causes, the people, that they care about.” Nero thinks of Lennox, who was waiting dutifully for Faust outside the door when the Eastern wizards broke for dinner earlier; he thinks of the resigned smile on Faust’s face as he looked up at Lennox’s. 

“Yeah,” Nero says, pushing away thoughts of another red-eyed, black-haired guy who won’t take no for an answer.

“Anyway,” Faust says, “that’s just me rambling. I’ve got no high horse here, considering the number of times I’ve lied when people ask me about that damn holy figure in Central Country who happens to share my name. I may have come clean to my students, but I’d prefer to maintain the lie to anyone else who asks.” He looks up at Nero again, eyes scanning Nero’s face before darting back down to stare at his wineglass. “I suppose you don’t have anything like that.”

Nero laughs, hoping it doesn’t sound as uncomfortable to Faust as it does to him. He spends a second investigating the twinge he feels in his gut. Does he wish he could be honest? Are there parts of him that are desperate to be laid bare for someone to look kindly upon? Or is he just scared that Faust will dig, that he’ll be caught in the lie that would rip the rug out from underneath this precarious, treasured thing they’ve built? 

After a second, the twinge subsides, and with it the desire to consider his options. Nero’s not ready to stop running yet. “Well, I did hide that I’m a wizard from my patrons in the City of Rain for all those years.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Faust agrees, and the moment passes.

—

It’s Saturday morning in the City of Rain, and although the name doesn’t come from rain being particularly frequent here, today it is raining. Nero sets the chalkboard displaying today’s specials safely underneath the awning in front of his shop so the chalk won’t get wet and run, flips the storefront sign to the side that says Open, and settles behind the counter. 

Given the rain, Nero doesn’t expect floods of customers, but people do trickle in as the morning progresses. A couple of regulars sit at the bar and chat over coffees; a family with young kids orders a couple of plates to share and the kids happily draw on their placemats with one of the pencils Nero uses to mark bar orders; a woman who avoids Nero’s eyes sits in the corner and picks at one of the brunch specials for nearly an hour. In between serving customers and preparing orders, Nero stays on top of the dishes, and tests out a new recipe he’s been working on. By afternoon, he has a couple of plates’ worth of attempts at getting the flavors right, and he pokes his head out of the kitchen and offers samples to the restaurant’s current occupants. 

Two regulars raise their hands; they smile as they accept the plates Nero hands them. The family with kids has headed out, but the lady in the corner is still there. She doesn’t raise her hand, but Nero heads over anyway, the desire for feedback winning out over his aversion to awkward conversations. 

He holds out the plate of food, little slices of toasted bread topped with cooked oysters, sweet relish, fresh herbs, and a garnish of big flakes of salt. “Hey,” he starts, “got any interest in tryin’ a recipe I’ve been tinkering with? Assuming you like shellfish.”

The woman looks up, a curtain of dark hair mostly hiding her face from Nero’s view. He can’t see her expression well as she appraises the proffered plate of food, but it must pass muster because she nods and reaches out a hand to take it. Nero hands it to her, and she brings it close to her face, examining the little toasts. 

“What is the sauce on them?” she asks. 

“Ah, that’s a house recipe,” Nero says. “A lil sweet relish. It’s got some tomatoes, some peppers, a little bit of spice. Made a batch yesterday just for these.” 

The woman nods, rotating the plate to get a different view. “And the... These are salt flakes?”

“Yup. They’re from this one Western gourmet...” 

The woman seems to light up, lifting her head enough that her hair falls to the side and Nero can see bright blue eyes, shining with interest. “Wait, could you mean the Salt Witch?”

Nero shrugs, going for nonchalant. “Maybe? I think the name on the bottle was somethin’ like that.”

“Wow,” the woman gushes. Something prickles at the back of Nero’s neck, a warning. “I’m a fan of hers! She’s been boiling down seawater and infusing it with herbs for centuries, but her stuff is really hard to come by! Especially the blends with a little bit of magic worked in...”

The prickle has become a full body chill. Nero meets this woman’s bright eyes, his mind racing. This guest clearly knows a lot about food—not just food, but wizard food. The Salt Witch is a famous gourmet in Western Country, but she mostly sells to other wizards, and this guest nailed the reason why: she doesn’t shy away from adding magic to her blends. In fact, from what Nero’s heard, it’s a key part of her process; she allows her feelings to consume her and spill over as she’s working on a particular product, until it takes on a little of that feeling itself. 

It’s the kind of thing that humans, especially the humans of Eastern Country, would fly into a panic at the very idea of. And if the humans thought that Nero, a human restaurant owner, was using wizard seasoning, lacing his food with magic...

The room feels cold around him, silent, as Nero’s regular customers aren’t speaking either. Maybe it’s just a lull in their conversation—but Easterners aren’t above eavesdropping, even though they play at having better manners. 

Nero swallows around a dry throat and tries to cover. How would a human feel hearing about a witch who puts magic in her salt blends? “Oh, really?” he says. “I didn’t know all of that. I just got this salt secondhand. Just saw the label on the bottle and remembered the name.” 

He starts to turn away, hoping he can cut off the conversation there and leave the woman to her plate of samples. But she starts to answer before Nero can get away. “That’s wonderful that you were able to get some. There’s a thriving scene in Western Country for food toppings that affect your experience eating the food. My favorite are these salts that supposedly draw out hidden flavors in the food! I’ve heard that those are the Salt Witch’s most famous products...”

Nero thinks of the seasoning rack in his restaurant kitchen, hidden from customer eyes. There’s a small bottle of flaky salt emblazoned with the Salt Witch’s seal and the blend name Magnifying Glass. It doesn’t get used very often, but when Nero’s testing out new recipes like today, he likes to sprinkle some of that salt on top, because it seems to help people tell Nero more easily if the flavors go well together. He doesn’t tell anyone that it’s magic. Of course not. He’d be run out of town, or worse. 

“Far as I know, the salt I’ve got is just normal,” Nero says. “No magic or anything.” He keeps his tone calm. It’s possible this lady’s from Western Country, where the attitude towards wizards is different, though it’s not that much kinder than here in the East. He wants to tell her to keep her voice down if she’s going to talk about wizards here, to curb the excitement in her tone. He wants to tell her to get the hell out of his restaurant before his regulars hear too much. There’s even a tiny part of him that wants to grab a seat and ask her everything she knows about the Salt Witch and the gourmet scene in Western Country. That part of Nero claws at him from the inside, but he doesn’t budge. He can’t let his guard down. He can’t ever think it’s safe—it’s safest that way.

“Ah,” the woman says. She looks a little disappointed, which seems to be enough to dissuade her from talking more about witches and magic salts. She takes a bite of one of Nero’s oyster toasts, and after a second of chewing her eyes light up again. “Oh my... It has a beautiful, subtly sweet tang to it.”

If this woman is a gourmet, maybe she could’ve discerned those flavors without the Magnifying Glass salt Nero sprinkled on top. He’ll never know. 

“Thanks for the feedback,” he says, and tries not to sound too relieved as he turns away.

As Nero heads back behind the bar, ready to slink into the kitchen for a few minutes to wipe his sweaty hands and takes some deep breaths, he notices his regulars sneaking glances at him, and a chill runs down his spine again. 

—

Nero doesn’t see Riquet again until the following afternoon. The night before, he didn’t see any of the Central wizards, so it was easier to pass off Riquet’s absence as nothing personal. But the next morning the first people into the kitchen are Cain and Shino, bustling in with sweaty faces and demands for protein. Nero keeps an ear out as he fries eggs and bacon for them, and hears Cain reference being out on a mission with the other Central guys that occupied them well past dinnertime. It’s a balm for his nerves. 

In the afternoon, the manor kitchen is emptier. When Riquet comes by, it’s actually empty, a few seats still warm from Chloe, Rutile, and Cain chatting after lunch. Nero notices Riquet’s presence before he sees him. Riquet’s magic feels like the lantern that is his magic item. It’s warm and bright, but sometimes so hot it feels like Nero’s skin will burn. 

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. Riquet’s head peeks into the doorway, and a moment later Riquet steps into the dining area, his eyes scanning the space. He spots Nero quickly, and Nero can see in Riquet’s expression as he wavers for a moment and then steels himself, walks decisively across the dining room, and enters the kitchen.

“Nero,” Riquet announces, “can we talk for a moment?”

Nero’s chest feels tense with nerves. But despite his anxiety, he likes Riquet. That’s what caused all this, if he’s being honest. He likes being with Riquet, and he likes when Riquet is happy. And he wants to keep his friendship with Riquet, and to be able to make Riquet happy in the future. And there’s really only one way to get there. 

“Hey,” Nero greets Riquet. “Yeah, go ahead. I have plenty of time. And,” he adds, “I was hopin’ you’d come by, so I left my afternoon open.”

That earns him a tiny smile from Riquet. “Okay. Well, first, I wanted to apologize for yesterday. Afterwards, I talked to Rutile and Mitile about it. And I realized that I was upset at something that Figaro had said first, and that made me angrier with you.” Riquet tucks strands of hair behind his ear, a fidget that betrays that he might be feeling some of the same nerves Nero is. Maybe even a guy as direct and willing to speak up as Riquet could feel nervous at the idea of a rupture in his friendship with Nero. It makes Nero’s chest hurt. “I also wanted to say that I was confused by whether you actually had homework to do or not. I think you should have been clearer. Ah, Rutile told me I should try not to tell you what to do.” He frowns, deliberating. “...Sometimes you’re not very clear about things. Or I think I understand how you feel, but then afterwards I’m thinking about it and I realize I’m not sure. I don’t like feeling like that. Like you’re far away, or like there’s a fog between us. Sometimes I think that it’s because I’m a kid, and you don’t want to tell me things because I’m too young. And I try to just wait and focus on growing up so that one day you can tell me things. But it’s hard.” He lifts his chin and meets Nero’s gaze. His eyes are bright—Nero thinks for a second that it’s because they’re full of tears, but it doesn’t look like it. “And finally, I wanted to say that you hurt my feelings, Nero. But I still want to be friends.” 

Nero’s chest aches. He thinks about the image of a fog filling the space between them, hiding Riquet’s hurt expression so Nero doesn’t have to see what he’s done. This is what being a coward got him, and he’s even too much of a coward to face it. He remembers sitting across from Faust in his room, choking on the confession that he just didn’t want Riquet to feel bad. He remembers the twinge he felt when Brad challenged him to be honest with Riquet, pointing out that lying is exactly what Riquet wouldn’t like. The words he could use to tell the truth, even just a portion of it, sit heavily on his tongue. Maybe for Brad it wouldn’t be this complicated; he’d just do whatever his heart told him in that moment. That’s why he’s strong. On the other hand, for Faust it would be just this complicated, but in the end he would choose something, and that makes him strong. Nero is weak. Stuck in the limbo of indecision, of not wanting to hurt Riquet while being made entirely of sharp edges. 

There are no words coming easily to Nero, but he opens his mouth again anyway. The silence stretching between them is a fog, and selfishly, impulsively, he doesn’t want to lose Riquet in it. “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he says. “I don’t ever want you to be hurt.” He can feel his heartbeat thudding in his chest. “Sometimes, I guess I’m worried that you’ll be upset by somethin’, so I don’t want to tell you. But I know you don’t like that, either.” 

He can’t bring himself to explain the truth of what happened the other day. The topic of Riquet’s church, how Riquet himself handles it and how Nero wishes Riquet would handle it, feels too heavy. He knows Riquet probably wants an explanation, as if knowing the full truth would help him understand. All Nero can offer is a half-truth, but he offers it, hoping it’ll count for something. “The other day when I said I was busy and then I couldn’t find you, that was true. But I could’ve looked harder for you. I’m sorry I didn’t. I do like spendin’ time with you. It’s not that you’re a kid. There’s plenty of stuff you’re more than old enough for. I’m happy to do any of that together. And—I still want to be friends, too.”

It’s hard to look at Riquet, but Nero makes himself meet Riquet’s gaze. Riquet’s brow furrows as he appraises Nero, but it’s contemplative rather than angry. Nero remembers that Riquet spent many years helping people, and likes to be relied upon. When you help others or ask them to rely on you, they come to you in need; you can’t expect them to be perfect. Knowing that, Riquet always tries to be kind. Nero thinks about yesterday when Riquet had lashed out at him, angrier than Nero expected. It makes sense that he was already upset before Nero came in, and his reaction to Nero had been affected by that. The Riquet in front of him now is calmer, more receptive to what Nero has to say. The gears in his head working, processing what Nero said, striving to be kind. 

It takes a moment, but finally, a smile breaks across Riquet’s face like the sun bursting out from behind the clouds, so bright it shines clearly through any lasting wisps of fog between them. “Okay,” Riquet says, beaming up at Nero. “I’m happy that you want to be friends. And I accept your apologies.”

Nero feels so relieved he feels like he could collapse. He puts one hand on the kitchen counter to brace himself. “Glad to hear it.” 

“I missed talking to you yesterday,” Riquet continues. “I was busy, but I didn’t get to come and ask you for snacks before we had to leave.” Nero remembers also noticing this. It feels good that Riquet thought the same. “I want to tell you about the mission we did yesterday. It was fun, but it took so long! By the time we were done, Arthur’s and my stomachs were growling. Cain made fun of us, but I think he was starving, too.” 

Riquet goes on about the mission, and Nero feels himself relax a little more minute by minute. He files away the little thoughts that occur to him, like making Riquet’s favorite for dinner (of course) and adding a side dish of one of Rutile’s favorites as thanks for apparently helping Riquet talk through his feelings. Nero felt the absence of the sound of Riquet’s voice and the warmth of his presence in the kitchen over the last day, and more than anything else, it feels like a relief to have Riquet back. 

Next time—there will definitely be a next time that he lies to Riquet, because Nero is who he is—Riquet will still be angry, and Nero will still struggle to decide what to do. Maybe he’ll be brave enough to tell the truth, or maybe he’ll panic and try harder to cover things up, digging himself into an even deeper hole. But that’s not happening right now. For right now, Riquet is talking to him with a smile on his face, and he’s happy. And that’s all Nero wanted in the first place.