this chapter is just a priam grimmalt shaped hole. sorry

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"And looking upon the shackled slave boy, Our Lady drew forth her golden shears and cut him free from his chains.

The wretch rose, his long braid of servitude falling away, allowing his filth-covered face to shine through, and all in Ash-on-Gully watched as he knelt before her and bowed his filthy head. The boy asked, 'My Lady, what can I offer you in exchange for my freedom? I am now eternally in your debt.'

'There is no price I would ask of you, but to live freely,' said the gracious Lady, for she desired for naught and reviled the possession of human lives.

The boy said, 'Then, would that you would gift me a name, for slaves are all born without one, and I know not how to live freely, lest I have my own.'

And the Humble One found this agreeable and so commanded him:

'I name thee Zerach Live-Free of Ash-on-Gully. Rise now, and inherit the light of the new world.'

And clever Zerach rose and said, 'Now, I invoke the law of life debts before the assembled witnesses. For the gift you have given me, I vow to spread your word until I am on death's door, and cannot walk another step in your service. This is my oath of oaths, this is my solemn vow.'

Steadfast Alana, best of knights, looked upon the slave boy and smiled favorably, for she knew the strength of a triumvirate. And Our Lady did, too, and was pleased, and she accepted the conditions of the oath.

And so it followed that the slaveborn Zerach joined the party as Her Ladyship's most loyal and devoted scribe, and began to chronicle what wondrous events unfolded henceforth.

~ Song of Tremors 7:13, from The Book of Purity

"You know, you don't have to do this if it upsets you. I mean, there's no law or anything."

Another snip of the golden scissors. Another lock of brunette hair scattered to the ground in a perfect splayed crescent. It was no more than an inch lost, but tears still welled up and spilled down Leda Kakos's flushed cheeks, pausing in their path to cling tremulously to her clenched jaw in fat pearls, before splattering down onto the backs of her folded hands, which were pale as milk and lovely like a china doll's.

"No, no," Leda insisted with a shaky smile, blinking away the tears that clung to her wet lashes. "I promise, I want to."

In the mirror, blue met brown as she locked eyes with her impromptu hairdresser for the morning. Although sweet Charis Novipax said nothing, and indeed could rarely seem to squirrel together the nerve to protest against anything very passionately, she didn't have to; the concerned furrow between her brows spoke volumes about the troubled contents of her mind.

"It's good for me," Leda assured her, when Charis hesitated just a beat too long, her mouth twisting unhappily. "Keep going, please. It's better for me to get it over with fast."

"If you insist," Charis said reluctantly. She snipped once more, and a few more inches fell away. Leda's chest was aching horribly as she reached for the handkerchief in her pocket and dabbed at her under-eyes.

Today marked the eighteenth year running that Leda had cried while getting her hair cut. It had been her personal tradition since observing her very first Emetalia, and although the amount she cut off each year varied, it was never without tears shed. This year it was only an inch, just for maintenance, and so she did not find it as bad as years past. If only her tear ducts had received the memorandum — Leda didn't particularly enjoy this display of sentiment in front of a respected colleague.

She consoled herself by studying the girl that peered back at her in the mirror, taking stock of her rosy cheeks and nose and the shine of tears that made her eyes glassy and blue like a lake, and thought that it was a relief she was a pretty crier. No sounds escaped her, other than the occasional hitched breath, which she was also very relieved about, since in her youth she could remember being scolded for the ugly, jagged sound of her sobbing. It had taken many years to gain this level of control over her tears, but god, wasn't she just beautiful at it now?

In the reflection above her, Charis' teeth were worrying her bottom lip raw as the scissors she wielded hovered uncertainly around Leda's right shoulder. The older girl was a knight, and so Leda had expected this blade to look natural in her hand, but the strength of her white-knuckled grip would have been better suited to subduing a venomous snake. Still, she would not have asked anyone else to undertake the task.

"Oh," Charis spoke up suddenly, as she circled around to the left side. She licked her lips, the bottom one now split and beginning to bleed. "I forgot to mention — I worked with one of your colleagues last Sunday."

"Really? Which one?" She hoped it was not Priam.

"A Sister Abilene?" Charis recalled, tilting her head. Leda thought despondently that that was not much better. "She met us during a breach event on her route here."

"Mm." Leda examined the rings sparkling at her fingers, each gold band inlaid with unique stone and engravings. At her index, a garnet as red as blood; at her pinkies, triplicate rose pearls; on her thumb, a simple braided circlet. "Abilene Grimmalt. Stationed in Saintshelm with Ariel Hesperos. She's a good exorcist."

"I thought so. Is she in good health?" Charis frowned slightly as she combed her fingers through the length of Leda's hair. "I didn't see her again after she went off to seal the mouth."

As it happened, Leda had been on her way out the door when the Grimmalts had returned from the breach, her red coat pulled half over her shoulders, her hair hastily pinned out of her face. The bells had been ringing non-stop for ages, long enough that she'd started to worry that Priam, who had been on-duty, had not gotten to the problem — or worse, that some horrible fate had befallen him.

But just as the big front door closed behind her, the night had gone suddenly silent. And on cue, Priam Grimmalt had appeared at the long end of the Abbey entrance like a phantom. She did not remember what he wore, or whether he was hurt or whole. Instead, she recalled that looming shadow, which slithered over the tiles before him like a black serpent as he approached with Abilene crumpled in his arms. She'd been less a person and more a mass of tangled brown hair and red wool and that one dangling arm which had looked so startlingly white in the moonlight.

In that moment, Leda had hated her.

She'd hated her, because Abilene was tall for a woman and her weight would not have been easy to bear after a while. Which was really to say, she hated her because no one would have ever known that, based on Priam's expression. His face as he brought his sister home had been totally alien to her as it came into focus. Leda closed her eyes now to picture it — serene, untroubled in a way she'd never seen him in all his years by her side. And when those golden-green eyes had finally landed on her, frozen at the door, feeling for all the world like a stupid child, he had —

He had —

He had smiled.

Leda said, "As far as I know, she's fine."

There was something gentle inside Priam Kill-Sin that she'd never once managed to draw out, and to know it was to know defeat.

Leda said, "She's already recuperated for two days — I'm sure I would have heard if it was anything more serious."

There was a love in Priam Kill-Sin that made him strong enough to carry a woman in his arms through half of Sacred-Palm. Imagine that. Leda wanted to find it funny and fell short.

She said, numbly, because she did not want to vomit, "I wouldn't worry too much, Charis."

Charis nodded slowly. Her mouth opened, as if she wanted to say something, and then snapped shut again. She nodded once more, for good measure. Snip, snip, went the scissors, flashing in the light.

Leda kept her eyes cast down as she waited for the question she wagered Charis had been trying not to ask all morning. And inevitably, it came:

"Leda."

"Yes?"

Charis' voice did not waver, but there was something lurking beneath the surface, a stark striation of worry running through her voice like a current. "Why have they brought you all here? To Sacred-Palm?"

Ah.

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? That was the great mystery to them all? In years past, it was not a question that would have warranted asking. But the Order of Scholars drew ever inward of itself, and shut the rest of them all out. The Pope and his cardinals moved in secret ways within the walls of their labyrinth, communicating only through chess pieces — whether it was the Steward of the Library, or Mother Clementis, or Priam's precious Bishop. And who could know what plans brewed behind closed doors?

"I'm not sure," Leda confessed. She liked being truthful. "The summons didn't mention any particular reason."

"But it must be something important," Charis said with a frown, "if you're all being called at once. Did you know they're evacuating the outer districts? Nadya says we're being mobilized to the fringes for the foreseeable future."

"The general said that?"

Admittedly, Leda found herself impressed. There was hardly a source more trustworthy than directly from the mouth of Nadya Novipax, Third General of the Order of Angels. She herself had never had much courage to address any of the generals without being spoken to first, and Nadya, with her towering, broad-shouldered build and close-cropped hair ranked high in terms of intimidation factor. Of course, it made sense that Charis often found herself in a unique position to access that particular font of information — sisterly ties did have their benefits after all.

"Yeah, but she won't say anything else." Charis shook her head. "All I know is they're weakening us here in order to send more squadrons out to the border districts. Covering for you guys or something, I guess."

Leda eyed her uneasily, surveying the tension at her brow and the tightness around her eyes. Her friend was skilled in many things, but the art of concealing her heart had always eluded her. Leda could individually count out the emotions as they flickered across that serious, guileless face like a card dealer counted bills: confusion, uncertainty, fear, frustration. And in turn, she selected her own words accordingly:

"Charis — I, well. I don't want to disappoint you, but I likely won't be able to tell you even after the meeting." And then when that didn't seem like enough, she tacked on, "I mean, you know the current standing of the Order relations. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I'm so sorry."

She'd chosen well — almost instantly, Charis huffed and shook her head sheepishly, that brilliant smile flashing, quick as could be. "No, I know, I know. Sorry. Don't worry about me, Leda. I'm just…" She exhaled and shrugged. "Just don't worry about it."

Unsure of what else to say, Leda fell silent, her eyes darting away from Charis' as she balled her hands into fists. For a few semi-painful minutes, the older girl simply shuffled around to a score of near-silence, making little cuts here and there and periodically huffing a private sigh to herself. And Leda let her nails dig deeper and deeper into the meat of her already-scarred palms as penance.

"I think," Charis said after what felt like an eternity, leaning back to eye her handiwork, "—I may be done."

"Oh!" Leda sat up a little straighter, pleased. She released her fists and wiped away the last of her tears, ignoring the rush of relief where her nails retracted from deep crescents in the flesh. "Really? That was fast."

"Well, you said only an inch off the ends." She squinted, her fierce brows furrowing above coffee-brown eyes. "Although…it might be a bit crooked. Sorry, I'm afraid I can only do my best."

"No, no, not at all," Leda rushed to say, pulling her hair over her shoulders to see for herself. If the cut was uneven, it was nearly impossible to see in the billowing waterfall of chestnut-brown waves. Honestly, she could hardly see any difference in what had been done. "I'm very grateful for your help, Charis, thank you for this."

"It's no problem," she said, shrugging. She set down the scissors on the vanity and glanced toward the clock on the mantle. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I should go, I think. I'll see you at mass, Leda, yeah?"

"Yes, of course!" Leda offered a close-lipped smile. "Really, truly, thank you, Charis."

The knight waved off her gratitude as she left, the fluttering tail of her elegant slate-grey tunic the last thing to disappear through the door. In the silence left in her wake, Leda turned her attention back to the mirror and rearranged her hair so it sat prettily, framing her face. She smiled at the girl in the mirror and watched her do the same, her fresh face glowing from her recent cry.

Pretty girl, she thought to herself, though the voice in her head did not sound like her own. Pretty, pretty girl.

With steady hands, she reached for the baby-pink ribbons on her vanity and began diligently braiding them into her hair as a finishing touch, the same way her mother had done when she was young. It held a certain nostalgia in her mind, much as it probably should have stung to think about. Was it wrong to long for it in some bruised place of her heart? The vivid memory of calloused fingers in her hair had not faded, even all these years later, the precise tug and yank as her long, tangled hair was briskly tamed into presentability.

Men like plaits on pretty girls, her mother had often said, over the soft, ugly sound of sobs. And pretty girls get what they want. Don't you want to impress your father's friends, Leda?

No doubt Pasiphae Kakos would have been proud to see her now. Leda had learned well the lessons her mother had taught her; she tied off the ends of the braids with a neat bow and did not wince where her scalp pulled. The finished product in the mirror looked like a doll, in her lacey collar and her velvety dress and her teardrop pearls. Two perfect twin plaits completed the picture, each tied off with ribbons the same color as those certain primroses that filled certain window boxes in town, the same color as those little painted triangles on inn signposts.

Everyone had always said pink was her color. Leda idly fingered the end of one looping ribbon, gazing into space.

Oh, but they didn't know how right they were.

The morning of the 499th Emetalia without God came to Sacred-Palm and found Haniel Avidan sleeping soundly through mass. One and a half hours after the day's sermon had begun, he finally opened his eyes and found himself briefly, utterly unsure of where he was. However, still being comfortably submerged in that soft liminal place between sleep and waking, he merely took a moment to observe his surroundings and see what he could deduce of his location.

Above him, a dark, low ceiling; beside him, a burned out candle on the nightstand; all around him, the unfamiliar scent of some strange quilt he had burrowed into.

Oh, right.

His eyes screwed shut. So swift and preoccupying was the disappointment Hani felt towards realizing he was at the Abbey, that in that moment, he forgot to be tired and instead sat up with a groan to rub the sleep from his eyes with stiff, aching fingers.

Not a day out, and the longing for Hallowclave was already sweeping through him like a storm as he took in his new space. He already missed the usual din outside his window — the chatter of hawkers and shopkeeps and the creaking of wagon wheels and horses chuffing as they clopped by. Here, there was only a sanitized Sacred-Palm silence and a barred window framing thin, watery sunlight.

There was a good chance that if these new quarters had been even marginally less odious, even an ounce more tolerable, that perhaps Hani would have been tempted by the idea of staying in bed and hiding away from the world. It wasn't as if he had the opportunity to take a break from his duties very often, plus his mountain of sleep debt loomed constantly over his shoulder on a daily basis. And there was very little out there to look forward to.

But as it was, with the silence compounded with the drudged up shadows, compounded with the fact that he was back in the fucking Abbey —

Well, he couldn't really get out of there fast enough.

…

The Abbey was eerily deserted as Hani ghosted through the corridors in search of a morning cup of tea; no doubt everyone had gone off to the chapel for mass. It wasn't that they minded being left alone — it really was at least a relief not to run into anyone who might look at them twice — but it did pose somewhat of an obstacle when it came to locating any kind of sustenance to get them through the morning. To make matters worse, it had been many years since they'd dared to step a foot into the Abbey at Sacred-Palm and they kept getting lost and turned around. They had passed a bust of Saint Marion at least four times by now and were beginning to wonder if the layout of the place had changed since they'd last been here.

Oh, but nothing new and good was ever welcome in Sacred-Palm, so then again, probably not.

Luckily, on Hani's fifth turn around Saint Marion (who was the patron of lost travelers, ironically enough), they caught sight of something through the window that interested them far more than finding the elusive kitchens.

Far below, a figure clothed in red was hunched over in the grass that flanked the long promenade up to the main entrance of the Abbey. From this angle, Hani could not see her face, but there was something to the set of her shoulders, the precise shade of her brunette hair, even the way she sat all curled, with one knee up. Whatever clue it was, they looked at her and knew with immediate certainty who she was. Without a second thought, they hurried over to the nearest set of stairs that would get them to her. Down, down, down the tight spiral staircase they went, following a dim memory of being a child sneaking down a servant's passage to get them out through a side door, which spat them out just a few meters away from their goal.

Abilene Grimmalt didn't look up at Hani as he picked his way through the overgrown scrub, not that he had expected her to. In fact, she kept her eyes solely on down on the ground, where she appeared to be sharpening her ironwood knife. So absorbed was she in her task that she didn't even pause to spare him a glance — right up until he came to sit a safe distance away from her in the grass and she couldn't ignore him any longer. And then those flinty eyes turned on him curiously and Hani found that there was nothing left to do but meet them.

"Well, well," Abilene murmured, her lips twitching into a small, surprised smile. Her gaze roved to his hair, his eyes, and the side of his face overrun with ropey, pink scarring, but she, bless her, said nothing. "Haniel Avidan. It's been ages."

She looked different, of course, but also completely the same which filled him with a kind of longing that was hard to describe. That endless river of hair she'd sported all through childhood had been neatly cropped to her shoulders, where it was tied into a scrappy little ponytail, and her formerly gawky frame seemed to have smoothed at the edges somehow. Her profile was the most familiar, still the same upturned nose and pursed pink mouth, with a dappling of residual summer freckles gracing the high points of her nose and cheeks. They were the same age, but she wore twenty-seven with a persistent girlishness that still lingered in her features as she eyed him expectantly.

"Abilene." By his sides, his fingers burrowed into the grass, tugging at the overgrown blades, and twisting them this way and that. "You look well."

She hummed. "And you've looked…better."

He mentally retracted his blessing, smiling grimly. "Well, I see your powers of observation are as astute as ever."

"Oh, you know me. They call me Abilene the Soft Touch," she said wryly. She resumed sharpening and the slick shrrk, shrrk, shrrk, of the grindstone sang over the lawn. "Well. From the looks of that hair, you've had a rough few years. Surprised you're still with us. How'd it happen?"

How indeed. He wanted his mouth to smile, and could not get it to do so. Where ought he begin?

With the light?

The heat?

The fire?

Fire

that purged him from the inside out. Flames that did not lick, but pierced and shredded and corroded; the stench of charring meat like an acid in the air. He could not breathe when he recalled it, could not speak, or move. All sensation had dulled to paleness, everything that had ever been important annihilated, until he had been left to know nothing beyond incineration, incineration from a light burning so fine and caustic that it could slide between the very molecules of his body, splitting particle from dying particle, reducing the fabric of him to a fine and fragile grain, thinning him to nothingness, to salt and sand and ash. And then —

"Hani?" Abilene prompted, her eyebrows raised.

Then

Mercy.

There had been mercy.

It had felt like a vessel of cool water broken over the crown of his head. Eidolic, ineffable mercy, like a mending, a darning, a gathering, a vow left on his lips, a hand on his shoulder.

Mercy had felt —

"All at once," Hani managed, though his mouth was dry and sticking suddenly. She was still watching him expectantly; he had taken too long to answer already, and so the words came out hurried and tripping. "A few years ago now. I don't even really…remember it. But I— yes, a few years."

Abilene stopped her task to look sideways at him, the set of her mouth softened by a degree. "Don't tell me that's why you won't go to the meetings anymore. Didn't want to debut the new look?"

Ha. He tried for a smile again, and was marginally more successful — though it felt strange and terse upon his face. "That's part of it. I certainly wouldn't call it my most fashionable choice. Why, did you miss me?"

A scoff from Abilene probably could have leveled hell's legions, what with such grace and derision did she wield it. The old ghouls back at the Abbey ought to incorporate it into exorcist curriculum, Hani thought dryly — even if no one could possibly master the art by age nine, like she had. Reflecting privately on the matter, he was forced to conclude having Priam Grimmalt as a brother would do that to a person.

"You know how those things are," Abilene grumbled, half-shrugging. She inspected the hair-thin edge of her knife, where the light streaming through turned that lustrous black nearly translucent. "And the company's only gotten worse over the years. Ariel is one thing, but god in oblivion. D'you know, I think the hellmouths have eaten nearly every decent and competent person to ever make it out of the Abbey?"

That was probably true. "And now it's just us."

"Just us and the crazies," she agreed with a sigh. Her brow furrowed. "And lovely Leda Pure-Heart."

Hani's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, that sounds promising. What about lovely Leda?"

"I don't know. What do you think of her?" Abilene countered, meeting his gaze.

He shrugged. "I've never met her. She writes a lot of letters, though. Nice penmanship. You don't like her?"

Abilene stayed stubbornly quiet for a moment, driving her blade into her grindstone with a ferocity that he knew from experience meant she was silently refiguring a bit of petty meanness into something slightly more civil. "She is young," Abilene muttered at last, grudgingly, and glared at Hani when he couldn't help but snicker.

"You can't fault the children for their enthusiasm. They can't help that they still believe this wretched place can be saved." He smirked. "All that Abbey garbage is still in their heads."

"When I was their age," Abilene began hotly, and then stopped again, her silent face of concentration reappearing. She started again after a pause, her voice decidedly more put-out: "Anyway, don't lecture to me about it, Haniel. It's not as if she's all that sweet on me, either."

"Well," Hani remarked, amused. "Knowing you, you won't have made it easy for her."

If they had been about ten years younger, the fallout to that jab would have played out exactly like this: Abilene would have pinned him with that trademark scowl, and exactly three seconds would elapse as she debated the merits of her next action. Then, she'd toss aside her knife and lunge for him with a snarl. Hani would do nothing to dodge, of course, because he never did, but he'd seize her wrists to prevent the rain of blows from her tightly-clenched fists, and ramble his apologies as she told him the precise manner in which she planned to dismember him.

As it was, present-day Abilene simply shrugged and said, tartly, "I'm too old to pretend to be nice. What's there in my life to be nice about?"

And wasn't that just the truth.

"What day did you get here?" they asked, changing the subject. With a groan, they stretched out their cramping legs and settled into a more relaxed position. "I heard you were the first — how uncharacteristically eager of you."

"I came on Sunday, if you must know," Abilene said, nose wrinkling. "Late on Sunday. Ariel insisted on staying late in Saintshelm to cover for as long as possible."

"Hm. Is anyone else is here yet?" Hani asked casually, squinting into the sun so they could avoid her gaze. "Other than Leda, and uh."

They didn't want to say the name. Though of course, in not saying it, the effect was just the same as saying it. To her credit, Abilene didn't seem fazed.

"Priam's around here somewhere," she confirmed tonelessly. "The bastard's around every corner I turn, seems like."

To Hani's great chagrin, their traitorous stomach dropped like a stone, a starburst of icy-cold spreading wintry fingers through their chest. They expected they did far poorer of a job concealing their flinch, but fortunately, Abilene wasn't looking at them to see it.

Hani had to force their hands to stay steady as they pulled up some grass and tossed it aimlessly down the hill. "Ah. I haven't seen him myself."

"Haven't? Or won't?"

"What's the difference?"

All of a sudden, Abilene's gaze was positively scorching in their peripheral vision. Against their will, Hani found themself suddenly very occupied with yanking out blades of grass, wishing they had something, anything better to do with their hands. Anything that would let them escape the lethal solar quality of those stone-blue eyes as they bore into the side of his head.

She asked, "Do you still love him?"

"Ha." Hani swallowed. "Against my better judgment."

A flicker of disappointment.

"Well," she muttered. "More fool you."

But she went back to sharpening her blade, which he took as some degree of forgiveness. She'd probably never forgive him all the way, he thought, but only because she hated seeing the two of them tangled in the same net. Abilene was good like that: begrudgingly, loathingly, sorrowfully. Always sorrowful — relentlessly, beyond her age and means. Maybe it was her curse, baked into her when her parents had chosen her baptismal name. Or maybe it was just all the rest of it that plagued her, the way it plagued them all. Maybe she just wore it better; less like something that had happened to her and more something that had come from inside her.

"By the way," he said, when she seemed disinclined to break the silence again. She glanced over at him and he found himself motioning to his shoulders, somewhat awkwardly. "I like the chop. Looks good."

She gave an uncouth snort and set down her whetstone. "My hair? You're over here, looking like God's least favorite shooting star, and you want to talk about my hair?"

"Fuck off," Hani replied, surprised, scrubbing at the thick mop of silvery-white curls falling in his eyes. But as he said it, he found himself laughing in a way he hadn't in what felt like years. It was a stretching, a widening, an opening of the drapes to let light stream in. It felt good.

"You know," said Abilene, when his mirth subsided. She cocked her head with a little frown. "I reckon I saw Miriam around here, I think she got in late last night. Not sure about her kid partner, though. where's your sidekick, anyway? I've certainly seen him at the meetings."

"I'm assuming you mean Artem," Hani said, clearing his throat bemusedly. "He's here somewhere — at mass, no doubt. But I don't even know when he arrived, we didn't coordinate when we left. We're not really on… close terms in general."

"'Course not," Abi snorted. "He seems like a piece of work. S'pose there's nothing to be done about that — pretty ones always are. "

"He is young," Hani parroted chidingly back to her with a thin smile. "And I expect I haven't been the most endearing colleague, if we've decided to be honest today."

Abilene shook her head, tutting softly to herself.

"When did we all become so difficult? You used to be nice, at least." She said it in kind of a way that normally would have made him want to argue against her. "Old age has made curmudgeons of us all."

They hated that phrase. Old age. They hated that it rang so true. Both of them were only twenty-seven, barely graduated from their young adulthood, and yet Hani felt five lifetimes had already transpired. There was no doubt in their mind that Abi lived with the same bone-weary exhaustion, the kind that never seemed to get better, only more and more numb, more and more seductive, more and more inescapable.

"Hm. Speaking of curmudgeons," Hani said suddenly, as a flash of light winked in the distance. The far-off sound of hoofbeats gradually seeped into the fringes of their awareness and Abilene slowed in her task, shoulders tense.

"Speaking of curmudgeons?" she repeated quizzically, tilting her head. She followed their gaze and they watched as understanding dawned on her. "You don't think it's…?"

Hani started to smile. "Don't you hear it?"

For as the carriage from Mormeral approached, between the melody of jingling hardware and the steady chug of the wheels making its way down the road, the indistinct din of raised voices could be heard weaving in and out of earshot.

"They only took one carriage?" Abilene looked very pained. "How unusually cooperative of them."

"Yeah, sounds cooperative," Hani drawled, grinning fully now. The raised voices were growing clearer now as they grew closer. Now they could make out the halting grind of Calyx's low bass voice clashing against Dominik's more insistent tenor — one an unceasing growl, the other a choppy staccato that leapt and dove with impressive agility.

"...and that's absolutely no excuse to throw out such accusations," Dominik could be heard protesting as the carriage rolled to a stop and a harried-looking driver crept down to check on the horses. "We agreed that the area around the wharf—,"

"We agreed to nothing," Calyx spat back with matching venom. "You wrote in your fucking letter and decided what you wanted to do about it, and I was generous enough to humor you for a while, but I'm telling you now—,"

"That's agreement! Going along with it is agreement! Nonverbal, but nonetheless! And the system has been working perfectly fine so far!" The door flew open with a loud bang against the side of the carriage and out came the radiant Dominik Nesterko in an indignant tornado of gold-embroidered scarlet wool. Head to toe, he seemed to shine in the light, from the glittering detailing on his cuffs and collar, to his perfectly-coiffed caramel hair, to the gleam of his polished boots as he stormed around to the back, where an ornately-masked Calyx Stemenos came skulking around to meet him with equal agitation.

"It was a show of civility," Calyx snarled in a tone that suggested they thought Dominik was burdened with a unique and remarkable stupidity. As expected of their most infamously combative colleague, they were getting right up in Dominik's face without any fear, their heavy earrings swinging with every movement. "Something you don't seem particularly acquainted with! But of course, you would presume —,"

"Oh, cut me a break, Stemenos, I have been nothing but cooperative and helpful, meanwhile you can't even be bothered to mention when you're going to go off traipsing to the border for your little field trips—!"

"See, you're not— look at you, you're not even listening!" Calyx shouted, tossing their hands up in despair. Although only their eyes were visible today, the twinkling rage there was more than enough to paint a picture of the fury that hid beneath."I genuinely can't conceive of how you call yourself a professional!"

"Good god," Abilene said to herself, amazed. Hani looked over and they shared a glance of pure wonderment. "Is it possible they've gotten worse?"

Precisely as soon as she'd posited the question, Mormeral's best caught sight of their wide-eyed audience and halted with equal surprise — Calyx's stormy eyes widening as they caught sight of Hani, and Dominik's scowl hastily smoothing out to a gracious smile.

"Ah, Grimmalt!" Dominik exclaimed, all traces of animosity fleeing in a single word. He was wearing that scarf he always sported, which was the same silky grey-blue as his eyes and made his gaze arrestingly lovely. "I didn't see you there, good morning. Sorry to let you see that. Who's your friend?"

"Has it really been that long, Nesterko?" Hani cut in before she could answer, eyebrows raising. "Or am I just that forgettable?"

Dominik blanched for a second, just the quickest flicker of disarmed uncertainty, and then that perfect cordial smile reappeared in all its glory as he chuckled. "Well, well. If it isn't Avidan. Back from the dead, then? I like the new look, it's very distinguished."

"Thanks," And then, with considerably more warmth, "Calyx."

"Hani," they acknowledged, their natural gruffness abating into mere discontent, which was about as close as Calyx got to giggling and jumping for joy. Hani rose to shake Calyx's hand — their grip was firm and cool and familiar through their black leather gloves. "How are you?"

"Been better," Hani admitted, ducking his head. "Been worse, too. How about yourself?"

"I think you can guess, based on present company," Calyx muttered, shooting a dark look at Dominik, who seemed to be animatedly discussing the weather with a less-stoked Abilene. "But I'm alive, anyway. I'm glad to see you."

Hani leaned in, frowning. "Any idea why we're here?"

"Not a clue," Calyx muttered back. They brushed their lank, brownish hair out of their eyes impatiently as they scanned the scene, gaze narrowing as if the answer might be spelled out in the topiary that lined the clearing. "They've made quite a bother over it, haven't they?"

"Must be important," Hani agreed grimly.

Calyx said under their breath, "We can discuss it later, if you've any theories. For now I need to decompress before overexposure to Nesterko makes me burst a blood vessel."

"By all means, take your time." Hani stepped back with a smile. "I'll see you for dinner?"

Calyx only shrugged as they headed in towards the Abbey. "We'll see."

That was likely a no, then, which he had sort of expected. Extroversion was not one of the traits Hani prized in their old friend, much less extroversion at the Abbey, which Calyx had already written to him about with abject dread. So Hani hung back and merely watched as that gangly, dark silhouette drew further and further away, the lines of their body tense as could be.

They were wearing one of the more intricate masks in their collection today, a gorgeously-lacquered black and gold thing, with twisting vines laced with thorns at the edges. That didn't bode well for their mood. In lieu of having access to Calyx's expression, Hani found it was often wise to examine what their chosen barrier to the world was for the day; this one in particular spelled only a white-knuckled determination to shut everyone else out. Which meant nothing he didn't already know about Calyx's enthusiasm for this homecoming.

Fuck the Abbey, Hani thought miserably, turning back towards Abilene and Dominik.

"Listen, Abi," he said, and they both turned to look at him curiously. Trying for a smile, he said, "I'm going to head back. I think someone mentioned something about needing to select chore duties today. I'll catch up later."

Retreating away from the pair, he heard Dominik turn to Abilene and say with complete horror, "Don't tell me they're making us do chores while we're here."

"You know Clementis." Her cold laugh carried easily across the clearing. "Labor is her favorite form of worship."

Alone now, Hani approached the great grey behemoth that was the Abbey, all hunched over the hill like some fat covetous beast, its seething stone sides wracked with flying buttresses and corbels and parapets until it was ill and overstuffed with ornamentation. And it filled them with hatred to see it, its horrible beauty, and that boundless despair it elicited in the big empty part of their chest. Twenty-seven years old, and how the mere sight of it reduced them to a skinny seventeen-year-old who would have given the world to save their best friend.

They did not go through the front door, mostly out of old habit. Instead, they circled around to the western side, where they could wade through the bushes to the arcades and simply jump the low wall to cross into the cloister. It was a path they'd taken many times as a trainee trying to evade the scrutinizing eye of whatever bishop or nun or deacon might have been haunting the entrances of the Abbey, just waiting for a victim that needed reminding of the fact that proper devotion ought to hurt.

At least there was something nice about the cloister, simple though it was. A manicured green lawn, a burbling fountain, a few marble benches. Hani found themself slowing to enjoy it, lingering by a bench for longer than necessary. The sound of rushing water filled his head, and their thoughts grew mercifully calm. How long had it been since they'd lived like this, with no patrolling that needed doing, no seals that needed doing, no bells chiming in the back of his mind?

In the corner of Hani's eye, something moved suddenly, and he glanced up at the windows above him on reflex. It was only a second he had to catch sight of his observer, not that it mattered. That silhouette was one he could have drawn from memory even fifty, a hundred years into the future.

Hello, Priam, Hani thought, staring up into the now-empty window. His heart was cold and quiet and still in his chest. Long time no see.

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im so unsatisfied with this one but bleh bleh bleh