The Earth Cave, Twenty-four Years Ago

Redden walked down the hill toward the cave as Cid ordered the men to form ranks, lining up four abreast as that was how wide the cave was in its narrowest places. Scarlet watched them with a curious, somewhat bemused expression. She looked up at Redden and smiled in such a happy, doting way that he worried she might be planning to do him some mischief until he realized the smile was aimed over his shoulder, where Sarda followed behind him.

But then her smile fell and Redden felt a tug on his sleeve. He turned, seeing that Sarda stood rooted to the spot, a look of horror on his face as he stared at the cave down below. "That's where we're going?" Sarda asked.

Redden nodded, though the hair on the back of his neck stood up as though the madman's fear was catching.

"No," Sarda said, his voice growing louder as he went on. "No, no, no, no, no! I've seen this before! The skull is always smiling, but its teeth are sharp!" He rushed over to his sister, framing her face between his hands. "You can't go in there! Not you! Not tonight!"

"She has to," Cid said. "There's no one else!"

"No!" Sarda screamed, crying now. "No! No! I've seen this before!"

Scarlet wrapped her arms around him, cooing soothingly as one would to a baby. "Shh, brother! Hush! Hush now. I won't go."

"You can't mean that!" Redden said.

"I do," Scarlet said, her eyes flat and emotionless over the top of her brother's head where it rested on her shoulder. Sarda's shoulders shook as he cried.

"Scarlet," Redden said, hearing the desperation in his own voice. "We can't go another month without casting the ritual again. The Rot… We've already lost the harbor! If it reaches the lower town-"

"I don't give two figs about the lower town, or the rest of the city besides. He's seen my death in that cave. I won't go."

"He said no such thing!" Cid argued.

"He doesn't have to say it. He reads the aether and I read him. Are you going to try to tell me you don't know your own brother nearly as well as you know yourself?"

Cid swore an oath, gesturing to the men nearby. "We don't have time for this," he growled, and Redden could see that he would drag her along if he had to.

Redden reached for her arm, hoping to talk sense into her before Cid did anything rash. "Scarlet, please-" He cut off abruptly, hissing as pain surged through his hand where he gripped her wrist. He recoiled from her, stumbling into his brother's men and rubbing his hand, now burning with white-hot agony.

"Don't come any closer," she said, her voice low and threatening. The light of the torches the men carried flickered against the Protect spell she called up around herself and the madman. She walked back up the hill slowly as her still-sobbing brother clung to her.

Redden stared after her, the words of the White Oath echoing through his head: "Harm no living thing." ...How? How had she done it? White magic shouldn't be capable of inflicting such pain...

"What do we do?" Cid said quietly beside him.

"We can't abandon the ritual. I have to cast it myself," Redden said.

Cid looked at him, a long, searching look, but his face didn't contain any of the doubt or fear Redden knew his own must be showing. "Can you?"

"I don't know, Cid. Gods, I don't know."

Melmond, Present Day

Kane sat with Gabriel and his brother at the table farthest from the door, on the far side of the raised platform that served as a stage. There were no musicians at the moment, but the Chocobo was noisy enough without them, filled with people stopping in for a subpar meal or a quiet drink on their way home from work. Gabriel was wedged into the corner, trapped behind the table but with the best view of the entrance. Kane, beside him, was less encumbered by the furniture but he couldn't see the whole tavern without turning his head. Should the Chocobo come under attack, he would have to trust Gabriel to sound a warning. Kane realized he trusted the sergeant that much, musing that, should such a situation occur, the two of them would make a great team.

Logan Quincey sat on the other side of the table. A muscular man, of a size with both Gabriel and Kane, Logan wore a short sword comfortably at his hip as though he were used to it, but Kane could tell he was not a warrior. He was far too open, too trusting: he hadn't hesitated at all before taking that seat, with his back to the rest of the bar and everything in it, nor had he hesitated to tell his brother and Kane everything they wanted to know. Namely, that Pollendina, who lived upstairs, claimed he had heard a strange noise one night coming from the storage room, to which he had the only keys. When he opened the door, the potions were already gone.

"Just like that," Logan said, snapping his fingers. "Twelve cases. And these weren't lightweight, either."

"Gone?" said Gabriel. "Just… Gone? Out of a locked room?"

"Locked and warded, from what I understand," said Logan. "Though where he found a mage to ward it is anyone's guess."

"Maybe he's a mage?" Kane said, wincing as Gabriel kicked his ankle under the table. "What? Don't tell me it hasn't occurred to you already?"

Logan chuckled, hiding his smile behind his mug as he sipped his beer. "Careful," he said. "Everyone knows there are no mages in the high families, black or white."

"You're right: that doesn't mean he isn't one," Gabriel said. "You just can't say something like that out loud."

"Is the stigma against mages here so great that even the nobles aren't safe?" Kane asked.

Logan shrugged. "It's more that the ideals of magic aren't compatible with those of the nobility. To be a mage is to be a servant. It's in those oaths of theirs."

Kane gaped. "How exactly is that incompatible with the ideals of nobility? You serve the people, don't you? Melmond can't be so removed from Cornelia that even that's different!" Even as he said it, Kane remembered what his father had told them the night they arrived there: Melmond was dying, and the high families knew it. If that's how they all feel, it's no wonder, he thought.

"It's complicated," said Gabriel, rolling his eyes. "Particularly where Lord Pollendina is concerned. None of the other nobles have a private police force in their pockets. Speculations like that are liable to get you in trouble with the inspectors."

"I notice you don't seem worried I'll report back to him later," Logan said with a wink, gesturing with his mug. "I do work for him now."

Gabriel said nothing, but the noise he made in the back of his throat said exactly how much of a threat he believed his brother might be. He lifted his own mug, looking toward the bar where Kane knew Harvey was entertaining a group of businessmen with his tales. From there, the sergeant's eyes flicked toward the door and he grimaced, setting his mug back down without taking a drink. "Aw, hell," he muttered.

Kane turned just in time to see his father entering the bar, accompanied by a half dozen guards. The murmur of the bar crowd subsided as the guards spread out, taking up defensive positions around the room's perimeter, but then the noise picked up again. Lord Redden looked right at Harvey, seeming surprised to see him there. His eyes scanned the room, and when they came to rest on Kane, he frowned.

"Oh, good!" said Logan when he saw who it was. He stood. "I wondered when you'd show up. You're later than you said you'd be."

Redden ignored the older Quincey, focusing instead on Kane and Gabriel. "Where are your guards?"

Kane kept his eyes down. He didn't think there was anything he could say to salvage the situation. Gabriel, though, gave it a try, looking boldly up at Lord Redden as he spoke. "There was another matter they needed to look into."

"Then you should have gone back to the house!" Redden said, glaring.

Gabriel held his gaze for a little while, but then abandoned the fight and looked down at his beer as Redden kept glaring.

Logan looked at Gabriel as well, but his face expressed more hurt than anger. "You mean he's not actually on duty?"

"Not even remotely," said Redden.

The sergeant shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his face red.

"Interesting," said Logan. "Gabriel, do you have anything to contribute to the conversation?"

"He can explain himself to Lord Leiden," Redden said, somehow turning the simple statement into a threat. "Later. In the meantime, were you able to get what I asked for?"

Logan nodded. "I have it upstairs. One moment." He took a step away from the table then turned back. "Brother, would you accompany me? I would like a word."

Gabriel nodded stiffly. Kane stood to let him out of the corner seat and watched as the two brothers wove between the tables and headed up the stairs behind the bar, their whispered conversation clearly growing more argumentative with each step they took.

Lord Redden slid easily into Logan's abandoned seat, motioning for Kane to sit again. "You're conducting your own investigation, I take it?"

"Only recently," Kane said, sliding into a chair.

"Don't."

"I can't just sit still, father! Following Harvey around day after day, pretending I'm…" He stopped, took a swig of his drink. "Pretending I'm some kind of idle lord."

Redden winced. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're stuck with him. But you're safe with him. Son, these people who have gone missing - do you know about that?"

Kane shook his head. "I know of it, but no details."

Redden sighed, looking behind him to see how close the next table was, checking for eavesdroppers. "Listen. Fifteen people have gone missing under strange circumstances since Midsummer. Those are only the ones we're certain of. There are at least half again as many that may be related. All gone from within a few blocks of each other in the lower town, all at night."

"So I won't go out at night," Kane said. "Seems simple enough."

"No, son. It's not that simple. Arthur's trying to keep it quiet, but the victims…" He looked around again to be sure no one was listening. "They're all young men. About your age."

"Gods…" Kane breathed. He could hear Harvey laughing from the direction of the bar, and suddenly things began to make sense. "No wonder Leiden insisted on so many guards…"

"That's not the whole of it." Redden sat back, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. "There's no rhyme or reason to these disappearances. Some of those young men weren't even alone when they vanished, but none of their friends remembers seeing anything. It's like the boys were there one minute and gone the next. It has to be magic."

"Then it has to be the Brotherhood!" Kane said.

"Keep your voice down," Redden hissed. "You leave the Brotherhood to me. I have a theory where they'll strike next."

"Then take me with you! " Kane said. "Why do you insist on leaving me behind? How am I supposed to be a Warrior of Light if you won't let me fight?"

"Keep. Your voice. Down," Redden repeated, looking around again. Logan and Gabriel were on their way back, but no one else seemed to be paying them any mind. Logan was carrying a large, earthenware jug with a wooden lid held on by a wire clasp. It thudded heavily when he set it on the table. Lord Redden popped the clasp and looked inside, wrinkling his nose at what he saw. "Did you have any trouble getting it?"

Logan shrugged. "Not really. We asked one of the refugees from the outer farms. When we told him it was for the son of Titan, he was only too happy to journey back to his homestead and fetch it for us." He looked uneasily at the jug. "Are you sure it won't spread to the city just from being here?"

Redden shook his head. "The Rot doesn't work that way. If it did, your refugees would have brought it to the city with them long ago."

"Wait," said Gabriel. "This muck is from the Rot?"

"It is the Rot." Redden closed the lid again, frowning as though the sludge smelled terrible. Kane hadn't been able to smell anything. "It will be useful against the Brotherhood. The Rot has strange effects on black mages." He stood, shifting the heavy jug to his hip.

He'll be fighting them tonight, Kane thought, feeling so restless all of a sudden that his skin began to crawl. He pushed to his feet. "Father-"

"That's enough, Kane."

"But, father-"

"No buts," Redden said sharply. "It's the full moon tonight and you're out without an adequate escort. I can't do the job Arthur's given me if I'm busy looking after you."

"You don't have to look after me!" Kane said. "I'm a trained soldier! I can help you!"

"You're no soldier," Redden snapped. "You're a peace-time guard with little more experience than sentry duty. You may be a capable swordsman, but I don't need you getting in my way." He stepped away, saying, "You boys head back to the manor before sunset."

He nearly ran into someone who had come up behind them. It was Harvey. Kane hadn't seen him come back over. The young Leiden stood with a foaming mug in one hand, smiled guilelessly at Lord Redden, and said, "Does it have to be the manor? It's just that Logan's invited us over to the Quincey house for cards later. I can ask one of my inspector friends to accompany us if you think we need a larger escort."

Redden nodded. "That's fine. But head out soon. I want you inside before dark." He turned to go, calling over his shoulder, "Keep an eye on each other tonight. Don't go anywhere alone." His own guards moved through the room, joining him at the door as he left.

Kane flopped into his chair again, too shaken to remain standing. He didn't know if his father's words had left him more angry or heartbroken. In the way… He can't really think that, can he? he thought, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He tried counting to ten. It wasn't helping.

The door had scarcely closed behind Lord Redden when Gabriel said, "What are you up to, Harvey? You haven't spoken to Logan since we've been here, and I know he hasn't invited us anywhere. Why would you lie to Lord Carmine about that?"

"It wasn't a lie!" Harvey said cheerfully. "Well, it was, but it doesn't have to be. Say, Logan, why don't you invite us over so I won't have lied?"

Logan frowned at his brother. "And what of your lies, Gabriel? You said you were on duty, and I believed you. Do you realize what kind of trouble I could be in for telling you what I did? You know I need this job!"

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said. He slouched into a chair, reaching across the table for the mug of beer he'd left there, hiding behind it momentarily as he took a long drink. "It wasn't my intention to cause problems for you at work. I just… Gods, I have so many questions. None of this is adding up!"

Logan growled, "'This'? This what? A half-assed investigation of your own? To what purpose?"

Gabriel slammed the mug onto the tabletop. "Because I can't just sit by and do nothing, damn it!"

Harvey pulled over a chair from another table. It scraped against the wooden floor with an ear-splitting squeak. Then he sat down across from the sergeant, nodding solemnly. "But you haven't been doing nothing, have you? You've been keeping tabs on the Brotherhood for at least the past four days, right? Longer, if I had to guess. You weren't really coming to town by yourself to look at possible rent houses, were you?"

Kane sat up a little straighter. This was news to him. Gabriel looked at Harvey, clearly surprised.

Harvey smiled. "Aha! I am right! I wasn't sure, you know. It's not often I solve the case!" He tilted his mug toward Gabriel's, tapping the brims together with a little click in a one-sided toast. But then his smile grew sad. "I'm no good at investigating, not like you. Hell, I'm no good at lording either. I know you're ashamed of me."

Both Logan and Gabriel started to protest, but Harvey went on. "You don't have to deny it to spare my feelings. I know I'm bad at it. But you're good at investigating, Gabriel. You're really good at what you do. So… So I'm ordering you to do it. Not as your friend, but as your lord."

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest, stared down at his beer. "Pretty sure your father's lordly commands supercede yours."

Harvey shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that! I did say I'm bad at the lording thing." He elbowed Kane, smiling infectiously. "What do you say, Carmine? Shall we launch an investigation of our own? Try to catch a few dark mages?"

Kane lacked the energy to smile back. "Are you sure I won't just get in the way? You heard what father said."

"Hmm," Harvey said, pursing his lips. "I'm pretty sure I heard him say you're a capable swordsman. That's high praise coming from a son of Titan. Besides, we'll be well out of his way at the Quincey house, won't we?"

"It's no good," Gabriel said, shaking his head. "So much has happened while I've been off duty. My friends on the investigation team have slipped me the odd report when they can, but I've missed so much…"

Logan drummed his fingers on the table. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped, shaking his head.

"Out with it," said Gabriel.

Logan sighed, seeming to come to a decision. "Would it help if you had a copy of the Avenue Inspectors' casefiles?"

"So they're both missing?" said Jack. He sat across from Captain Gabbiani at the big table in the captain's cabin. In front of him were maps: maps of the city showing the locations of the dark mage attacks, and maps of the countryside showing the spread of the Rot. The crew, it seemed, had been conducting their own investigations under Redden's orders. Redden, of course, probably knew already that both Felder and Cole had disappeared over the past two days. The rest of the crew had run themselves ragged searching for them.

"That's the way of it," Gabbiani said, emptying a glass of the Pravokan whiskey he favored.

"How am I going to tell Lena?" Jack looked down at his own glass, a half-shot of whiskey the captain had poured for him without asking. Normally, Jack kept away from anything as strong as that on an empty stomach, but at the thought of making Lena cry again, he knocked the glass back in one gulp, choking as it burned going down.

"Don't tell her," said the captain, pouring himself another drink.

He started to refill Jack's glass, but Jack waved him off. One had been enough to set the aether purring like a cat around him, hard to draw and harder to work. Any more and he might not be able to cast even the most basic spells. "I can't lie to her," Jack said.

"Didn't say to lie. Said don't tell her. Think I tell my wife half the trouble I get into while I'm away?"

Jack cocked his head, looking at the bald captain with his face like tanned leather. "You're married?"

The captain nodded. "Happily. For twenty-nine years."

"How can you be happily married if you spend so much time at sea?"

Gabbiani shrugged. "Because I spend so much time at sea."

Jack found Thad on the deck, sleeping in a pool of sunshine at the prow, in front of Oscar's pot as the afternoon sun gave way to evening. The ochu slept too, snoring like a beast ten times its size, a line of drool glistening out from its mouth and onto the deck.

Leo sat barefoot on a bench nearby, polishing his only pair of boots. He was the youngest of the pirate crew now. "Little man cried himself out," he said, nodding toward Thad without looking up from his task.

Jack squatted in front of Oscar to give the ochu a better look. He poked at the beast, trying to wake him, but the irascible plant only snorted in his sleep without rousing. He looked pale, and his vines seemed thinner than Jack recalled them being. "Has this thing been eating alright?"

"Not as much as it was, now that you mention it."

Jack worried about that, but before he could think too hard on it, Maxell, guarding the gangplank, called out a warning. Leo looked up from his boot polishing, toward the noise. "Is this a friend of yours?" he asked, pointing.

Jack stood, looking over the ship's railing toward the dock where a guard paced nervously, as though trying to decide if he would board the ship or not. "Hector? What are you doing here?"

Leo signaled Maxell, a "come ahead" gesture, then crossed the deck in his bare feet to knock on the cabin door. On the dock, the larger pirate spoke to the dithering guard, motioning him to come aboard. Hector - dwarfed by Maxell's not inconsiderable size - hesitated, clearly nervous about the prospect, but then hurried up the gangplank. "Master Carmine!" he said. "I'm to escort you back to the manor."

Jack looked westward at how low the sun sat in the sky. He looked at the guard again. "Now? It's nearly dark. I had planned to stay the night here."

Hector shook his head. "Do you know what they'll do to me if I let you stay out overnight? I could lose my job!"

"From what I hear, being out late on the night of the full moon could cost you more than that," said Jack.

"We're not in the lower town! We're both armed, and I'm in uniform. I'll risk it!"

"Hector-"

"The longer we stand here arguing about it, the later it gets!" Hector said, his voice growing frantic. "I'm prepared to take you back by force!" he added, though from what Jack could see, he seemed prepared for nothing of the sort.

"No need," Gabbiani said from the cabin door where he leaned casually against the frame. "He's all yours."

"Traitor," Jack muttered.

"Best you get going," the captain said. He nodded toward Thad. "But leave the boy. It's the full moon, after all. Ain't safe to go walking this late."

Jack glared at the man, then stomped down the gangplank and up the dock. Hector hurried after him. They stopped briefly at the registrar's table so the guard could show the old man there some kind of official-looking badge. The registrar had just waved them through when a man behind them called, "Wait!"

He was another uniformed guard, but not the regular kind - an Avenue Inspector. He walked right past the registrar's table without stopping; the registrar didn't bat an eye. The inspector stopped in front of Jack and bowed courteously. "I've a message from Captain Bayard." Jack looked uncomfortably toward Hector, remembering the threatening way Bayard had mentioned Jack being a black mage. The inspector went on, "The captain says he's sorry you didn't part on better terms. He's sent you this." Here the man passed Jack a satchel. "He also asked me to say should you find what he's looking for, he hopes you'll keep him in mind. As a friend."

The inspector bowed again, turned, and walked back down the dock toward the Strahl. Jack stared after him without checking the satchel's contents until Hector elbowed him and asked, "What'd you get?"

Jack reached into the satchel and pulled out a wine bottle with an elvish label. He viewed it through his aether sight, but it was only wine.

Nonetheless, Hector whistled admiringly. "You have rich friends."

"I don't know if 'friend' is the right word," said Jack.

He walked faster than he had on the way to the harbor. He told himself it was because he knew the way this time, but he knew it was really because the growing twilight made him nervous. It was definitely gloomy by the time they reached the west gate guardhouse, where a group of other guards were apparently waiting for him to turn up.

Corporal Clyne came out of a back office and barked, "Maurice, Lambert, send word to the patrols. Tell them we've found him." Then he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, scowling as he loomed over Jack.

As tall as Jack was, he was unaccustomed to being looked down on. He sighed, trying to school his guilty expression, hoping his scarf hid the worst of it. "Corporal," he said.

Clyne narrowed his eyes, flexing his fingers against biceps bigger than Jack's thighs. "Tie his hands," he growled.

Jack pulled his hands free as the other guards moved to obey. "Hold on! I can explain!"

"I thought you and I had come to an understanding," said the corporal.

"Nicholas-" Jack began, but the big guard talked right over him.

"I don't have to be nice! My orders are to guard you! I'm not required to let you leave the house! I thought you knew that?"

"I do, but-"

"How many times have I escorted you to Lord Unne's and back? How many times?"

"That was-"

"And despite that, you sneak off without me? Today of all days? Do you realize what a fool you've made me look? And just so you and your girl could fluff the pillows at the Beehive?"

Jack looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact with the group of guards, all of whom suddenly seemed very interested in the conversation. "That would be the name of Mrs. Gainsborough's establishment?"

Clyne put a hand over his eyes, shaking his head. "You really were there! I thought for sure those inspectors were mistaken! For Titan's sake, Carmine! It's not as if I would have tried to talk you out of it! It's not my place to judge your habits!"

Jack nodded, sighing, too relieved to be embarrassed by the situation. He'd been right: no one wondered what he and Lena had been doing at the brothel. They assumed they knew. Still, he didn't want the corporal to overthink the situation, or to wonder too deeply how Jack had escaped the manor unnoticed. He extended his arm, letting the satchel he carried hang between them.

"What's this?" the big guard said.

"Peace offering," Jack muttered.

Clyne opened the satchel, looking inside, and then he stared, dumbfounded. "This… This is… Are you giving this to me?"

Jack nodded again.

Clyne pulled out the bottle, tossing the empty satchel aside. "Hinton, get the corkscrew," he said, smiling.

"Shouldn't you wait, sir? Until you get master Carmine back to the manor?"

Clyne shook his head. "I've been off duty for two hours waiting for this bastard to turn up. He and I will drink it on the way."

"I will?" said Jack.

"Of course!" Clyne said, laughing. "No way you're giving this to me without drinking some!" He patted Jack's back so hard it stung.

They were halfway to the manor before the bastard started stumbling. Corporal Clyne, Nicholas to his friends, pried the bottle from Jack's unresisting fingers, took another drink himself, and passed it on to Chad. "Alright there, Carmine?" he asked.

"Fine," Jack said cheerfully, wiping his mouth on the loose folds of his yellow scarf. "Never better."

"I would have thought he'd have a better head for drink," Hector said, "the way bastards are supposed to carry on."

"Who you calling a bastard?" Jack said, punching at Hector's arm, missing it completely.

"Can I keep the bottle, Corporal? To show my dad?" Chad said. "He'll never believe me when I tell him we got to drink Elfheim Red." Chad and his young wife had taken in Chad's father recently, a former guardsman whose bad knees had forced him into early retirement. The man had taken to moping about the house, pestering his son and daughter-in-law about the prospect of grandchildren.

Nicholas nodded. "If we haven't emptied it first, you can save him the last sip." He looked over at Jack, who smiled up at the sky like an idiot as the light of the full moon glittered in his eyes. The scars he usually kept covered pulled his smile off-center. "So Carmine," Nicholas said. "I've got to know. How'd you sneak past us?"

Jack laughed. "It's not easy, you know! Though it's so much easier without dragging Kane along. Ramuh, nasgi gahgeduh."

"What was that?" said Nicholas.

"Hmm?" said Jack.

"I didn't understand that last bit."

"I said he was heavy." Jack yawned, stretching his arms above his head, stumbling again.

Hector steadied him. "Careful! Miss Lena wouldn't like it if you fell flat on your face! She might blame us!"

"That's the truth of it," said Nicholas. "If not for her, I would have pounded him within an inch of his life the moment he walked into the guardhouse. You hear that, Carmine? Miss Lena's the only thing saving you from a beating."

"She is?" Jack said wonderingly. "Gods, I want to marry that girl. I should tell her."

Hector grinned. "Oh, I think she knows, since you're betrothed and all."

"How'd she end up with you anyway?" Chad said.

"That's a little rude, don't you think?" said Hector, a hopeless romantic.

"What? I'm curious!" Chad waved at one of the guards patrolling the border of the estate, along the line where the old wall used to be before the last lord had had it taken down. The house loomed large ahead of them. "Come on, Carmine! Tell us!"

Jack spoke, but the words didn't make sense.

"What'd he say?" Nicholas asked.

"I think it was Leifenish, Corporal!" said Hector.

"I know it was Leifenish, dimwit! You studied Leifenish, didn't you?"

Hector shook his head. "Only in books! I can't speak it." Jack babbled incomprehensibly, swaying so much that Hector put an arm around his shoulders. The yellow scarf came undone and fluttered out behind them where Chad picked it up. "And I thought I was a thimble guts! How much of that bottle did he drink?" said Hector.

"Not so much, but he doesn't have your muscle," said Nicholas. Though Hector was one of the smallest men in the unit and - taking his temperament into consideration - least suitable for the job, he did put his required time in at the training yard and had some bulk to him, unlike the bastard.

When they reached the manor, with Jack cheerfully greeting the guards posted at the door, albeit in Leifenish, Hector wrangled him inside. "How are we going to get him to his room? I don't think I trust him on the stairs."

Nicholas chuckled. "Skinny guy like this? I could probably carry him one-handed."

Lena rolled over, putting her back to the window. The moon was so bright. She thought about closing the curtains, but she was too hot to even think about stifling the meager breeze that blew in. She kicked off the sheets, flipped her pillow over to the cool side, and tried closing her eyes, though the tactic hadn't been a successful one so far. She had so much on her mind.

She thought over her trip back to the manor with Lord Orin. It turned out that the cathedral guardhouse had not been able to spare them an escort. Orin hadn't been willing to stay in the lower town overnight - or, rather, hadn't been willing to let Lena stay there - and had insisted he was fit to travel back to the manor. He had not been fit; four times, they had had to stop somewhere, ducking into alleys or behind market stalls, so that Lena could cast Cure without being seen. She had thought if she could get him to the west gate guardhouse, she would find a guard or two there who would be willing to help them the rest of the way, but Orin would have none of that, and so they had plodded out of the city and down the long road to the manor on their own, which was just as well, since Orin had needed another Cure on the way.

She thought of Jack, wondering what he would say if he heard she had used healing spells out in the open. Then she tried not to think of Jack, but that was another area where success seemed to elude her. What could she think? He had kissed her! He had kissed her and it had been… exhilarating, that was the word. But only for her. It had been wonderful and beautiful and tenderly done, but for all of that, she had felt nothing from him. He had kissed her with the same emotionless control he used during his meals. And afterward…

Oh, she had felt him afterward, alright. He'd been horrified.

"I can't pretend to be more than we are…" He had said that to her once. She hadn't wanted to believe he'd meant it in quite that way. We're still friends, she told herself, though that was cold comfort on a sleepless night when she wanted… she wanted so much more.

She was still thinking of it when she heard noises in the hall, thumping footsteps and voices, loud enough to set her nerves on edge. One of the boys? she wondered. She thought at first that it must be Kane - Jack said he would wait at the ship if he wasn't finished at the harbor by nightfall - but then she heard a voice that wasn't Kane's, a man speaking loudly in Leifenish, loud enough that it carried through the door. Someone else shushed him, but he answered the shushing with another Leifenish phrase just as loud as the first.

She heard the doorknob rattle and she sat up, for she realized she'd forgot to lock the door. Kane would have words for her later if he heard about that. The guardsman seemed to think the Brotherhood would snatch her right out of the house if she wasn't constantly vigilant. The door opened. The light from the turned-down lamps in the hallway outlined two figures: one, tall and slender, being supported by another, taller and broad as a garden lane. "Corporal Clyne?" she said, rubbing her eyes against the dim glow.

The big man stopped in his tracks. "Oh! Miss Lena! I… I didn't know you'd be here…"

"Is that Jack?"

"Yes, miss," he said, dropping Jack's sword and belt with a loud clatter. She could feel his embarrassment. "Um, your… Jack seems a bit worse for drink." He felt guilty then, in such a way that left Lena little doubt about how Jack had ended up in that state.

"I see…" she said, standing and pulling the sheet around herself to cover her nightdress. "I suppose you'd better put him to bed, Corporal."

The corporal nodded, striding quickly across the room so that Jack's feet flailed uselessly, barely touching the floor. He grunted when Clyne dropped him unceremoniously on the bed, grumbling a few Leifenish words in a tone that eliminated the need for translation. Lena followed Clyne when he walked back to the door. Before she could close it behind him, he turned. "Don't… Don't be too hard on him, miss. I might have… encouraged his drinking."

She smiled then, pleased he had admitted his part in it. She felt it spoke volumes of his character. "Good night, Corporal," she said, shutting the door and flipping the lock. She waited until she heard his heavy footsteps retreating down the hall, then went over to the bed.

The mage was already asleep. She considered leaving him there and going through the connecting door to take the bed in the next room for herself, but then she imagined Kane coming in late and waking her up again. She further imagined Kane coming in drunk, escorted upstairs by Corporal Clyne or some other guard. She shuddered thinking of the scandal that would cause. While it was gossip hardly worth repeating for her to be found in one man's bed, the rumors would never stop if they found her in two.

She stood over Jack, bending to shake his shoulders gently, softly saying his name.

He was beautifully disheveled, stretched out with one arm above his head. His hair was mussed as always, but his scarf was missing and his collar was crooked. His eyes fluttered open. "Lena?"

Hearing him say her name when he looked like that, her cheeks suddenly felt hot. "Yes," she said.

"Dagona Lena." He smiled, sighing contentedly. He mumbled something else but his words were so low and so slurred that she couldn't make them out. She could feel how drunk he was, his emotions a dull, senseless blur that pattered against the inside of her skull with a noise like rain on water.

She shook her head, trying, for a change, to shut him out. "Drank on an empty stomach, didn't you? Come on. Let's get you up." She tried to get an arm under him, but the moment she'd done so, he reached for her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her across into the bed. She squealed, coming down beside him in a tangle of arms, legs, and sheets. "Jack!"

"Dagona Lena," he muttered sweetly at her. "Edoa. De dagona Lena, wu dagona da quodi. Edoa." His forehead touched hers, just as it had earlier that day before he'd kissed her. She thought for a moment that he would kiss her again, but his eyes were already closing, and the arm that draped across her was heavy and still.

"Jack?" she said again, not knowing why her heart pounded so hard. He smelled of alcohol and sweat, but underneath all that were the smells she most thought of as his: paper and ink and books. "Jack? I don't understand. What are you trying to say?"

He sighed in his sleep, breathing out one last word: "Stay."

Oh, how she wanted to. But such a thing wasn't proper. There was still the servant's room down the hall, the room that was meant to be hers anyway. Kane wouldn't like her sleeping so far from them, but… Kane can eat a toad, she thought, feeling much less charitable than she knew a white mage should.

"Jack?" she said, shaking him, but he couldn't hear her. She could tell by the way her sense of him - that drunken jumble of emotions - had faded to the muted hum of a man asleep. She tried to move, but she was too close to him and his arm pinned her down. She sighed, watching the moonlight play over his sleeping face, uncovered and completely at peace.

She wanted to reach up and let her fingers brush over his cheek, along his crooked mouth, down his jaw, but she knew he wouldn't like it, the thought of her touching his scars. Again, she thought of the kiss. She thought of how they were together, how easy he was to talk to. She thought of how she felt about him, but then she thought of that kiss and knew he didn't feel the same.

She knew sleep for herself would be a long time coming.

Author's Note: 1/5/18 - As of Christmas day, I've been working on this thing for two years. Two. Years. And we're not to the dang earth cave yet. I sincerely apologize for the length of this story. I wish I knew how pacing worked. Amateur authors write amateur epic fantasy novels. I hope you'll stick it out a little longer (or, given my track record, a lot longer). Bear with me; I'm trying!