I am dedicating this one to azuma, since it's about Cain. As for the reason for dedicating it, it's a thank-you for the pinned comment on AXIUM's KACB-R1 entry that recommended 'Luciform'. I saw that a long time ago, and never gave a proper thanks. So this is my very, very late thank you for what was a very nice thing to do and that meant a lot to me.

When were we ourselves?
eons and lives ago, a string of pearls.

-From Voices, from Certain Magical Acts by Alice Notley

The photograph had turned up again.

Cain didn't remember putting it in his pocket when leaving his apartment that morning, but then again, he never did. Each and every time he came across it, whether it fell out of a pocket or found its way into his paperwork or lay in a drawer waiting for him to open it the first thing he wondered was when did you get here? It was the same now, as he bent down to pick it up off the floor of his office and then stood there, blazer already draped over one arm and his bag still on the floor by his desk as he stared at it. Looked at all their faces, so familiar and yet so strange, especially when viewed through the sunset that streamed through the window behind him. Even his own seemed inexplicable-he couldn't remember how to arrange his face in the way that would create the smile that he displayed in this photograph. It was as if the person he was looking at was a completely different person.

Perhaps in a way they were.

As he studied each of their faces, echoes of the conversations that they'd had on the day the photo had been taken rang out in his head. It was funny, how once Oura had revealed their true face to them all, once the game had started, those memories had melted away, just like that. It had been all too easy to forget that once they had been like this. Not innocent, none of them had been innocents-not even Abel, who was possibly the closest thing to innocent that the six of them had had. Nonetheless, they had still just been young people. They had been polished and feral, they had been like the night sky brought to life but at the core of that they had been young and they had been normal. No doubt, his pre-Oura self would have bristled at being called normal, so eagerly had he strived for the extraordinary, but he had been.

And then Oura had come, and even now there was no clear indication as to why. Perhaps there never would be-this was the nature of Overseers, as he had learnt. But Oura had come, and just like that, it all changed. They stopped being just young and they'd all become something else, something that chafed at the edges of the world they had returned to. He'd become raw and sleepless, lacking words and with lips that would always tingle, a sparkling that would never let any of this fade even if he lost this photograph for good.

"Are you still looking at us?" he murmured.

At the center of the photograph, Oura smiled out, blushing and looking as if they were just like them-glamourous and idolised, but nonetheless ordinary. What a joke, Cain thought as he always did, what a joke. It was not one that he could laugh at, though. So instead, he asked again:

"Are you still looking, even though you finished with us long ago?"

Of course the photograph provided no answers, not to the question he voiced or the question he didn't. He sighed and bent down as if to put it in his bag and then paused. He flapped the photograph idly, memories edged in gold and silver and pastel blue echoing in his head, before he sighed and then tucked it into his shirt pocket. Then, he got up and left

…

Going into the bar was a semi-impulse decision. It was an unusually quiet evening for him, no performances to see or last-minute arrangements to make, so if he had been the going-home type he could have just gone straight home. But his apartment was not really home, it was just a place to crash out for a few hours, to wash himself and change clothes, and for the sake of having an address. Proof that he was still someone who belonged here. So as he did on most nights when he didn't have any duties relating to any of the bands and artists he was currently overseeing, he looked for somewhere to while away as many hours of the night as he could.

Hence, the bar.

As he often did when he found somewhere new, he mentally compared this bar to Room 777. This place had the same rich, warm autumnal colours and similarly wide windows that took full advantage of the now-rapidly-fading sunset, the same golden orb lights that would compensate for this fading once the night fell. But this place, whose name he hadn't even looked at before walking in, resembled something more akin to a tavern. There were candles in holders along the walls that alternated with the golden orbs, a stone floor that made everyone's footsteps click, tapestries on the wall that muffled those sounds and sturdy wooden tables and chairs that looked like they could have come out of the Age of Unrest or even before that. Only the bar and the shelves behind it holding the drinks and glasses had the slickness of modernity, but Cain decided he quite liked the place.

Most of the tables were at least half-full, but there was only one person at the bar and so he decided to go and sit there. As he wove his way around the tables, he noticed a few people wearing masks and he did a double take until he remembered that this was apparently a trend. Eve had become a legend of sorts over these decades, even with such an unimaginative label as 'The Travelling Gambler' and now all over the world, people wore elaborate masks to casinos and arcades, though they did not dedicate themselves to anonymity with as much vehemence as Eve did. Indeed, he knew that nobody realised that it was Eve who was The Travelling Gambler in the first place.

He wondered where she was now, what she was thinking and doing.

His lips tingled again, as if sparkling, and the chest pocket of his shirt felt warm. There was no actual spell on the photograph-he'd had the courage to get it checked a few years back, the last time it had turned up randomly in a drawer. He pressed a hand over the pocket briefly and kept going, silently cataloguing the different moods he saw on the faces of the bargoers, and the designs of the masks of those who wore them. One, all lace and silk roses in black and gold, gave him pause until he realised it could not possibly be Eve. It was not as if she'd ever told him so, but somehow he knew that the day Kawaakari had collapsed had been the last day she'd ever worn black and gold together.

It had been his last day too, after all.

Finally reaching the bar after having to swerve dramatically to avoid an inexperienced-seeming waitress carrying a tray overloaded with what looked like fruity cocktails, he saw that the person at the bar was a red-headed woman. She was wearing tight royal blue trousers and a matching waistcoat with curlicue patterns in a lighter blue over a white shirt. She'd rolled the sleeves up, revealing tattoos that shifted subtly every time she moved, looking different in every new version of the light. He could almost smell the spell off of them, but he had to admit to being impressed. Not many went for magical tattoos, preferring the once-and-for-all permanency of traditional ink. Her nails were painted a pearlescent non-colour; long enough to make clinking sounds as she tapped against her almost-empty glass of gin but not long enough to be excessive. He assumed her to be around his age, but it was hard to tell as she, too, was wearing a mask. A knife-dazzle silver, technically a half-face mask, but with trailing decorations that brushed her jawline, partially obscuring its angles. As he picked up a nearby drinks menu and perused it, he studied the woman as discreetly as he could, choosing a seat three stools away from her to do this. After a few moments when he was sure of what he had observed, he flagged down the bartender.

"A drink for me, and for the lady please." He said.

'The lady' turned, the decorations of her mask jangling, and her lips curled. Cain simply smiled back and then returned his attention to the bartender and said:

"A sidecar for both of us. Hers, without the sugar. Mine, with extra."

He smiled again as he felt 'the lady' startle and once the bartender had gone and he'd looked around to be sure that nobody was sitting anywhere that could be in reasonable earshot of them, he leaned forward and murmured:

"Hello, Eve."

She stared at him for a moment, and then her expression unfurled into a smile, a silent version of her shrill-bright laugh. When she spoke, tendrils of that laugh wove themselves through her voice:

"You did not come looking for me."

"I have better ways of spending my time, so no."

"Yes, I suppose you do. Yet here you are."

"Here I am. Must be fate."

Though, who's weaving the threads this time?

There was a moment in which they both regarded each other. The bartender came back with their sidecars and then discreetly melted away again. Eve reached out for hers and then stopped. She got up off the stool she was sitting on and pushed her drink down closer to Cain, before sitting on the stool right next to his.

"I suppose this means I can dispense with the usual disclaimers."

Cain raised his eyebrow in a question, and Eve smirked again.

"That is to say, to not expect me to go to bed with you just because you've bought me a drink and called me 'lady'."

"That's something you've had to say a lot?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I'm sure you of all people understand, considering that I'm sure you usually buy people drinks just for that purpose."

Cain bristled. Again with the laughter coiled tight under her words, ready to spring. Eve had liked eyes on her as much as they'd all liked it, but like Judas, she'd never had any interest in anything beyond being looked at. Unlike Judas however, she'd not just been disinterested in intimacy or romance, but contemptuous as though the very thought (not even the acts themselves, but the mere thought of them) were beneath her. With the cold clarity of his age, Cain knew that his own approach wasn't necessarily better but still, he was quite the opposite. He searched and he yearned for such things. Hair streaming against a pillow, toes curling into bedsheets, the specific closeness that came from pressing skin to skin and heartbeat to heartbeat. All he could do was scoop up specific moments like these as if gathering fireflies in jars-in hindsight even when he was normal that was all he'd ever been capable of and he knew what that made him, he knew. That didn't mean he liked it, this sneer of hers, infuriatingly unchanged. He didn't like it at all.

"Only as a way to open the conversation." He ground out.

"Oh, I'm sure. But still, even talking about such things bores me, so let's move on, yes?"

Eve sipped her sidecar, and Cain did the same, letting the graininess of the sugar ground him a little.

"You'd think that our paths would have crossed sooner, given that we must have frequented many of the same establishments." He said.

"Perhaps," Eve said. "I've seen plenty of you from a distance, over the years. I saw Zoe once, when she was on a night out with friends. Looked right at her, and I expected her to recognise me because for a moment I thought she was Del at that age."

"Zoe's never met you, all you are to her is a story." Cain said, oddly pleased to be able to taunt her. "What a stupid thing to expect."

"And what are you to her, hmm? You're starting to lean towards younger now, aren't you? I imagine that you would-the young are so good at fawning admiration of the type you like."

"And why, exactly, are you insistent on tearing apart my sex life if you find it boring?"

"I'm not, really. I was just curious to see if you were still defensive, and you still are. But I suppose now the reasons are different, aren't they?"

Cain blinked once and twice before answering:

"I know for a fact that you've been watching over our lives from a distance anyway, so I'm sure you know that I am not part of Delilah and Abel's close circle to know Zoe properly. Nonetheless, even if she has been of age for a good few years now, she's still someone I knew as a child. A child. Which is more than I can say for you."

It was true that he wasn't completely concerned with age gaps, but only as long as the other person concerned was an adult and had been for a little while at the least-no newly-of-age ones for him. The children of the 'core group' however would always be off-limits to him, even the ones who were currently of age and even once the rest had been of age for a while. He could not look at them and see people to potentially tangle limbs and soften empty endless nights with, not when he remembered them all as children, true proper innocents, one way or another.

This applied to Zoe, naturally, but with her things were different because she was Delilah's and Abel's, and it wasn't because she had that resemblance to Delilah. Cain didn't understand how everyone managed to look at her and see just that when her eyes were pure Abel. Abel's guileless and gentle eyes, in Delilah's saccharine-sweet face, the end result was something else completely, making her not the spit of a person but the spit of memory and regret. It only served to remind him of what he'd ruined with the both of them, something he couldn't even conveniently blame on Oura and all that had happened because of Oura. It was possible that in a different life he could have had something with either of them or even both, something precious and permanent and bright in the way that they now had that with each other. It was possible he could have had that, but he'd ruined both sets of chances for the sake of his own polish a long time ago. All that the death games had really done was wrap up the ruin in a neat bow, underline it and separate it out.

He was glad that they'd found each other though, in the wake of that ruin, that they'd made the precious and permanent and bright with each other instead. All the things he had thought made the two of them lesser, weaker than him-some had simply been things that could be grown out of, just as he'd grown out of certain habits and mindsets. But the rest, the rest of the things he'd looked down on them for-they were the things that made them good, better than he could ever be, without the need to be dazzling with it. Zoe was the sum of that, of all the good they were both as themselves and combined and he was glad that she existed because of it. He might have ruined both her parents so long ago, but he would not ruin her.

He wasn't about to tell Eve that though, so in the end he circled back to his original point:

"I'm not interested in people if I've known them as bawling infants."

Eve nodded at this and then said:

"Well, I'm glad you think that way where Zoe was concerned, because I'd find a way of stopping you, you know. If you had plans to chew her heart up and spit it out like you do with your other little gossip-magazine flings then I'd find a way."

"Lofty words from you, when she's got both her parents and a whole host of other 'aunts' and 'uncles' to do that job for her. Assuming she couldn't do it herself now, considering she's an adult."

"Doesn't matter."

"Well, good for you."

Still, Cain couldn't even properly bristle at Eve's lofty words because these, too, were correct. It was what he did, after all. It was what he had always done. Pre-Oura, it was just to brighten his own shine, just to be sure that nobody would see what he really felt, that underneath that shine he was nothing. Afterwards it was because he needed it, craved the comfort of such closeness in a way that he didn't know how to explain and wasn't even sure he deserved. Even when for the first time he'd started to feel proper romantic love for one specific person, he didn't think he deserved that either and even if he had he wouldn't have been able to pursue it. So he had his little 'gossip-magazine flings' and one-night stands and a variety of things in-between, because even fireflies in jars were better than no jars at all. But he had his lines of the type he wouldn't have the thought to have drawn as a teenager. He had his lines and he stuck to them as best as he could. He had his lines, and hoped that with those lines the worst he'd do to the various hearts he encountered was bruise, not ruin.

He did not want to be the ruinous, superficial thing he'd once been.

He was relieved when Eve had nothing more to say on this. Idly, he picked up the cocktail umbrella that had been in his sidecar and stirred it around and around, scraping some of the excess sugar off the rim and watching the granules swirl and disappear in the liquid.

"It is funny, that it is you of all people who'd be the first and only to really find me." Eve murmured softly. "You and I…well."

"Yes, well." Cain said drily, looking up. "How articulate."

Eve snorted, so utterly un-Eve that Cain found himself chuckling for a brief moment.

"I suppose what we were back then doesn't matter, but we're still so similar, aren't we? I hate it, especially since as at the same time you're so opposite it makes my blood curdle." Eve said. "Yet, that's the thing, isn't it? We were both extremes, the ones who were the most frecht of them all-no wonder you were such a natural rival."

Cain smiled at that, fondness and bitterness mixing oddly together deep inside him. He remembered that, the way they had always circled around each other, all side-eye taunts and simmering hatreds and thrill-white grins. Always seeking to one-up or tear down and enjoying every second until the moment it had actually become deadly.

"Yes, yes we were. I suppose, if things had turned out a little differently, then perhaps I might be living like you."

"Perhaps, yes." Eve said.

"Perhaps."

Another silence, in which they finished their sidecars. Eve flagged down the bartender and ordered two drinks whose names were utterly incomprehensible to Cain. Noticing the confusion, Eve clarified:

"It's absinthe based. That's more my poison these days-though, I'm pleased that you remembered my preference for sugarless sidecars."

"Really now?" Cain asked, ignoring her choice of wording.

"Yes, really."

Eve's mouth twisted, but not in the contemptuous way it had done through most of the evening. This was an altogether more melancholy downturn and something about it made Cain reach into his shirt pocket and lay the photograph down on the table, positioning his hand such that the bartender wouldn't be able to see the photograph when he came over.

"Don't suppose this keeps turning up for you every so often, does it?"

"There's no need for it to."

Eve stared at him mulishly with this admission, and for the first time since he'd walked up to the bar and realised that it was indeed Eve sitting there, he could see her eyes gleam beneath her mask. She didn't need to clarify what she meant. He knew she was telling him that she carried it with her, always. He wasn't sure what to make of this honesty, the pure clear note of it. Something deep in down screamed weakness, weakness, urging him to strike. But there was something else deep inside him too, the same thing that had been in him all evening. So he ignored the screaming of his past self and said:

"There's no need for this to keep turning up for me, either. Even if it's not something I carry with me, I can't forget. Not any more than you can forget no matter how much more of a legend you become."

"I'm a legend?"

"There are at least five young women wearing masks here because they're emulating you."

"One of them's wearing a black and gold mask, they cannot have been paying that much attention."

"So you are aware."

"Of course I'm aware, you idiot."

Cain was very glad that the cocktails arrived at this moment. He grabbed his and took a huge sip, only to splutter at the taste. Determinedly, he took two more large gulps and then set the glass down and tried to pull himself together.

"Do you ever wonder if Oura's watching?"

"Psh, no. Of course Oura is watching. I can't imagine that they're not-we vexed them properly, we did. Or rather, we didn't…"

Eve stopped meaningfully, resting her chin in her hands. The mask decorations jingled again, some brushing the sides of her hand as she stared at Cain, clearly waiting for him to finish her sentence. He swallowed, feeling the tingling sparkle of his lips stronger than ever, and finally he put his voice to the name he'd never spoken but always thought of over all these years. The question that he never asked whenever he wondered about Oura:

"Ariadne did."

"Yes." Eve said, simply. "So let me ask you-do you think she is watching? Making sure that we keep our promise to her?"

"And then…and then the last thing. The last thing. Will you remember me, please?"

Ariadne paused, and something hardened in her eyes, as if changing from glass to diamond. When she spoke again, though tears still thickened her voice there was resolve in it, too:

"I remembered you, after all. And I will remember you always."

Another sip of the gods-awful drink, and then Cain answered slowly:

"There was never any question of me breaking the promise. Did you have any intention of breaking it?"

"You know the answer to that one."

"I suppose I do. I wouldn't be surprised if even Judas found that he kept discovering the photograph in random places. If it's her…that means she might still be somewhere, right? Somewhere where she can see us."

"It doesn't mean that she's in reach, though."

"No, it doesn't."

Cain vaguely remembered a time from a while ago, when Howl had gone missing on one of his expeditions to search for her, he'd apparently claimed that it had been Ariadne who'd brought him back despite not having actually seen her. It would have been easy enough to attribute that to the effects of the mountain's mists, or from being tired and starved and cold, but Quiet had been accompanying him that time and had said the same thing. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, given that he'd heard the account fourth or even fifth-hand, but he knew that both men had been convinced that Ariadne had led them back down towards the Lantern Tree that stood in Riverlight for her. Yet she still had not been found, she still hadn't returned and he knew that Howl had gone back many more times since then, right up until he'd adopted the baby twins last year.

"I wonder…" he sighed. "Do you think there's a chance to get her back?"

"What would you do if she did?" Eve asked instead of answering. "What would you do differently? All the flaws you see in yourself, do you really think her return is enough of a spell to banish them forever?"

"Don't be stupid, of course not."

"Well, there you go."

Surely though, some things would have been different. A part of him wondered if maybe he would have tried to love her if she'd come back, if all his attempts to be better would have turned out differently if she was still in the world. Would he have had something precious and permanent and bright, instead of fireflies in jars? Maybe not. He couldn't imagine himself being quite that lucky. It was a consequence of being what he'd been before, and Ariadne had wanted that for them too, after all. Making do with fireflies in jars was better than other punishments that could have been meted out. It was the least he could do to live with it.

Sighing, he drained the rest of his drink and stood up.

"Well, I suppose I should leave. Wouldn't want anyone catching on to your identity because I hung around too long."

"Hmmm."

Eve moved her hands to her mask, flicking the dangling decorations idly before then going back to tap the surface's counter.

"You will not tell anybody that you saw me tonight."

The words were like a blade to the throat, and Cain swallowed. He had no doubt that Eve was still dangerous, in her own way. Just as he supposed that he probably would be, if the situation ever called for it. But he nodded, and Eve grinned.

"Then, you may as well stay. One more drink, some food."

Well, all I'll do is find somewhere else to go before I decide I need some sleep, he thought. Slowly, he sat back down and then looked at Eve.

"So, what drink this time?"

…

In the end, he stayed for two more drinks, and a tray of assorted snacks which they polished off between them in between the words they exchanged. None of them were gentle this time, no more vulnerability revealed that tugged at the heartstrings, but neither were they directly taunting. There was no shrill-bright laughter under Eve's word or honey-perfect taunts beneath his. Instead, it was the sharp, breathless back-and-forth about affairs of the world and matters of the mind, intellectual spars of the type they had once enjoyed with each other. One-upping and tearing down, none of it deadly.

They did not touch once, but still Cain gathered the moments to him, more fireflies for a new jar. But soon enough it was over and he knew he had to leave. So once he had paid-the least he could do-he draped his blazer back over his arm again and pushed his way back through the bar to the entrance.

About halfway there, he realised that he had never picked the photograph from the counter and his heart stopped. He turned around and began to push back through the increasing crowds when suddenly, he felt a warmth diffuse across his body. Confused, he stopped, wondering for a moment if it was perhaps an effect of the drinks-he was not so sure he did so well with absinthe-but then he realised that the warmth was coming from his shirt pocket.

Trembling, he reached up into it and almost froze when his fingers met the familiar, distinct texture of photograph paper. Carefully, he pulled it out and looked at their faces for one long moment. He glanced over his shoulder but found that he could not see Eve, so thick was the crowd between them. But for a moment he thought he saw a flash of soft pastel blue in the orb lights before it disappeared, the bar looking as olden-aged and gold as it had the entire evening.

"I remembered you, after all. And I will remember you always."

Cain smiled to himself, and holding onto the photograph tightly, he left.