Chapter Text
Angus McDonald notices things.
He has always been this way, as long as he can remember. Little details stand out to him, things that nobody else seems to notice or care about. And he's able to put those details together into pictures that seem, once they've come together, so obvious.
He's good at patterns, Angus is. Always has been.
What he's had to figure out is how to talk about them.
Angus learned from an early age that adults did not always like it when he pointed out the things he noticed. Sometimes, they got angry. Sometimes they brushed him off or ignored him completely. Sometimes they simply did not believe him.
No matter how many times it happens, or how used to it Angus thinks he has gotten, it always hurts a little when adults dismiss him just because he is small. He doesn't understand why it matters. His brain works just fine. But he has learned to take that hurt and set it aside, push it down into a corner of himself where he can deal with it later. And more importantly, he has learned that sometimes, he needs to come up to things sideways, to hint and suggest until he gets people to come to the same conclusion he has--but because they think they've come up with it themselves, they never question it.
It’s exhausting, but it gets results, and Angus is resigned to the necessity of it, at least for now.
And it's one of the reasons that he loves working at the Bureau of Balance so very much: since the Director recruited him, he hasn't had to do that once.
He actually feels useful here: a part of the team, rather than a child to be tolerated and humored. When Angus talks, the Director always listens to him. She doesn’t question him, or tell him he’s being silly, or brush him off. She listens and talks to him the same way she talks to all the other Seekers: like a person, like someone to be trusted. She has never once made Angus feel small.
No one other than his grandfather has ever made Angus feel this way, and he loves the Director wholeheartedly for it.
But as Angus spends more time at the Bureau, he begins to notice things.
He notices the way that Taako never seems to let the umbrastaff stray far from his reach, though he doesn't seem to do it consciously.
He notices the way the Director looks at the Reclaimers sometimes, with such sorrow and longing in her eyes that it hits Angus somewhere deep in the chest, reminds him of the way he felt the year his parents died, when all he could feel was the hole in the world where they used to be.
He notices the growing urgency in the way the Director talks about the relics, the way she stares at the sky at night sometimes when most of the base is asleep, like she's counting the stars.
He notices all these things, but he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't know what any of it means yet.
He's sure he'll get there in the end. He's good at patterns, after all. He files them away in his mind, building the patterns piece by piece, and he says nothing.
Then he has his magic lesson with Taako, and all the patterns he has been building in his head shift.
When the Director came into the dining hall that day and stopped dead at the sight of the letters on the wall, at first he thought she was just horrified at the violence of it, mystified as he and Taako was at what L-U-P might mean. But then she kept staring, and the way her face changed the longer she looked at those letters made him wonder if maybe there was more to it than just dismay at property damage.
By the time she left, stammering an answer to his question in a flustered way he'd never expect from her, Angus's mind was spinning with new questions.
He has always trusted the Director implicitly, believed everything she told them about the relics and the Bureau's mission. He is too young to remember anything about the Relic Wars, but from the stories the others at the Bureau have told him, they were just as awful as the Director says they were.
But he has seen the way that she looks at Taako and Merle and Magnus, and he has seen her growing anxiety over the search for the relics, and he saw, today, how shaken she was by the word that Taako's umbrella wrote on the wall.
And a sick, sinking pit starts to grow in his stomach as he wonders, for the first time, just how much the Director hasn't told them.
A week after their explosive magic lesson, Angus goes looking for Taako.
He looks in all the usual places--Taako's room, the training arena, the Fantasy Costco. Finally, he checks the residential wing's tiny staff kitchen--even though he rarely sees Taako in there. He doesn't know the details, but he knows that something happened to Taako, back when he was a chef, and that he barely ever cooks anymore as a result.
So he's a little surprised when he finds Taako standing at the table in the tiny kitchen holding an oven mitt, glaring at a filled baking tray.
“Hello, sir!”
Taako responds without looking up from the tray.
“Perfect timing, Ango. Taste this.”
Taako hands him a--well, Angus thinks it’s a cookie. It’s an uneven lump of brownish-greyish dough, so full of chocolate chips that it’s more chocolate than anything else. Angus cautiously takes a bite--and the chocolate part is okay, but the dough around it is tough and salty and Angus has to use every bit of effort to keep his expression even as he chews.
It's about as far from the macarons Taako made at Candlenights as you can get. Angus tries to think of something nice to say as he finally manages to swallow.
“It’s...it’s certainly interesting, sir.”
Taako turns to look at Magnus, who Angus now realizes is standing behind him at the counter, covered in flour.
“See? Even the kid can’t think of anything good to say about it.”
Angus looks at Magnus in surprise.
"You made these, sir?"
"Sure did, Mango," Magnus says. "I figure one of us should be able to cook. But it's a lot harder than it looks."
Taako snorts behind Angus. Angus ignores him, smiling up at Magnus instead.
"They're a good first effort, sir! But I think you used too much salt."
Magnus looks back at the counter, at the containers of sugar, flour, and salt lined up against the backsplash.
"Ooooh."
Taako gives Magnus a look. "Did you--did you seriously swap out salt for sugar by mistake?"
"Um...maybe..."
Taako barks out a laugh, throwing a dish towel that Magnus catches easily with one hand, grinning.
"Get out of here," Taako says, shooing Magnus towards the door.
"But shouldn't I help clean up?"
"Nope, I've got it," Taako says. "You've done enough damage for one day."
“I can help you clean if you want!” Angus pipes up.
"See? Agnes will help me clean. You get out of my kitchen. Go help Merle with his plants or something."
"Ew."
Taako rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."
"See you later, Mango," Magnus calls through the door.
"Bye, sir!'
Magnus disappears around the corner, and Taako and Angus begin the herculean task of cleaning up his mess. For a moment, they just work in silence, sweeping up the frankly astounding amount of flour that Magnus managed to get everywhere. It surprises Angus, how comfortable it is just moving around this little space with Taako, not talking. He wouldn't have thought that energetic, ever-moving Taako would be so good at companionable silence. It almost seems a shame to break it. But he came to find Taako for a reason, and he is too curious to just let the matter drop. He worries his lip as he helps Taako wipe down the tiny counter, trying to figure out the best place to start.
“Sir, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Agnes.”
“Where did you get your umbrastaff?”
If Taako is surprised at Angus's question, he hides it well.
“Took it off some dead cat in a red robe," he says casually. He smiles a little when Angus gives him a horrified look. “Chill, little man, they had been dead in that cave a long time. All bones, you know? And well, they weren’t using it anymore, so finder’s keepers.”
But the dead part isn’t what Angus was so horrified about. “But sir--a red robe? Like the people that made the relics?”
Taako shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“But they were evil, sir! How do you know your staff isn’t dangerous?”
“I don’t know, Ango,” Taako says. He picks up the staff--kept close by as always--and twirls it a little. He sounds more thoughtful than Angus has ever heard him. “It’s never felt dangerous to me. It feels...right. Like it’s looking after me. It’s gotten me out of some pretty tight spots.”
Angus considers that.
He supposes it would be possible to make a dangerous weapon that also protected its owner-- but that doesn't seem quite right. The umbrella belonged to the dead red robe, before Taako found it. Why would it protect Taako, the person who stole it?
"Sir, what do you know about the red robes?"
Taako shrugs again. "Not much, to be honest. Just what the Director told us. Weapons of mass destruction, danger to the world, blah blah. I never really looked into them. I'm here because the money's good, not to get back at some pack of dead wizards."
"But you didn't hear anything about them during the wars?"
Something strange happens to Taako's face, then. He opens his mouth as though he has an answer ready--then he stops, and his eyes go blank for a moment, like whatever he was just about to say has vanished before he could get the words out. For just a second, his expression is terrifyingly empty.
Then he furrows his brow and shakes his head, rubbing his temple. "I guess not. I don't really--I don't remember--it all kind of blurs together, you know? Being on the road, new places all the time..."
He trails off. It sounds, as he says it, like he's trying to convince himself of something.
Then he shakes his head again, and his face smooths out, a nonchalant smile spreading over his face that Angus is beginning to recognize. It's the smile Taako puts on when he's hiding how he's really feeling.
"It was a long time ago, right? And I wasn't exactly running in the same circles as world-ending warlocks."
"That's true, I guess," Angus says. "But--"
"Just drop it, Angus," Taako says sharply. But before Angus can feel hurt by his tone, Taako sighs. "Look, it's just not a fun topic to talk about, huh? War and all. Not a lot of good memories." He claps Angus on the shoulder. "Come on, let's finish cleaning up."
Angus says nothing, just obediently starts sweeping the flour on the floor into a pile. But his mind is whirring with details and questions as he does so.
Angus is good at patterns.
He thinks about the way that Taako always keeps the staff close, the feeling of safety it gives him. He thinks about the red robes, and weapons, and a war that nobody but the people in this base can remember--that Taako still doesn't seem to remember much about. He thinks about stories told to give a group of people a common cause.
And as soon as he and Taako are finished cleaning the kitchen, he goes to find the Director.
Stealing the umbrastaff has proven more difficult than Lucretia expected.
She supposes she shouldn't be surprised; Taako is canny enough, and has spent enough time on the road to keep a close eye on anything that is precious to him. And the umbrastaff is the most precious thing in the world to him, even though she knows he doesn't fully understand why.
She hates having to take it from him, even if she's doing it in order to get his sister back.
Figuring out how to get Lup out, it turned out, was the easy part. After a bit of research and some discreet questions to Leon, she knows how to free her. All she has to do is get the staff.
She thought about sneaking into Taako’s quarters to take it, but the risk of getting caught was too high--there would be no reasonable explanation for her being there, and given the conversation they had after the crystal lab about trust, and she can’t afford to do anything to make them question her.
She thought, briefly, about requisitioning it, using her power as the Director to take it by force. But that would raise questions of a different kind, dangerous questions of what she needed it for, and why. And she can’t quite bring herself to use her power that way--she has never been really comfortable with being seen as their employer; abusing her power to get what she wants feels impossible.
As she tried to figure out how to get it there was a moment--just a moment--where she faltered. Where she wondered whether getting Lup out was a good idea, whether it would ruin her plan. The thought only just formed in her mind before she pushed it away, horrified and ashamed of herself. She has done so many terrible things this last decade, in the name of saving the world. But now that she knows where Lup is, she can't just leave her there.
In the end, it’s Angus who provides the solution.
She's sitting in her office, trying to get through the stack of papers that have accumulated on her desk the last few days. All the time she’s been working out how to free Lup, the business of the Bureau has gone on, and there is only so much she can neglect before the others start to notice.
It's difficult, though, to focus on budgets and spreadsheets and even reports of possible relic sightings, when she knows that Lup is here, on the moon, trapped in some magical prison, when every day she waits is another day that Lup has to endure alone.
She is trying to wrangle her brain around a particularly dense report when her thoughts are interrupted by a small knock on the door. She looks up to see Angus standing in the doorway, looking nervous.
"Director, do you--do you have a second?" he asks.
She hasn't had a chance to talk to him since finding Lup's name on the wall. She can only imagine what investigating he's been doing in the meantime.
One problem at a time, Luce.
She sets her papers aside and folds her hands on her desk.
"Of course, Angus. What do you need?"
I need to talk to you about something, and I need you to tell me the truth."
Lucretia raises her eyebrows, pushing down a bitter laugh. The truth is a tricky thing for her, these days.
She wishes she could say that she would never lie to Angus, but that in itself would not be true. She can only hope that the truth he's asking for is something she can talk around.
“All right," she says.
Angus hoists himself into the chair across from Lucretia, folding his hands on the edge of the desk in a perfect mirror of her.
“You know something about what’s wrong with Taako’s umbrastaff.”
It's not a question. Lucretia supposes she shouldn't be surprised. A child half as sharp as Angus would have noticed her reaction to Lup's name on the wall.
“Yes,” she says.
“But it’s a secret.”
Lucretia smiles a little. Trust Angus to cut right to the chase. “Yes, it is.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Lucretia hesitates.
She wants to say that of course it's not dangerous. How could Lup be dangerous to any of them?
But she thinks again of the fireball that burned up Angus's cookies, of how long Lup has been in there, untethered, alone. She doesn't want to consider that what she finds when she breaks the staff open could be anything other than Lup, whole. But she can't help but admit the possibility.
"I...I'm not sure, Angus. It's possible. I wanted to examine it more closely, but...well. I understand why Taako is perhaps unwilling to let someone else tamper with it."
Angus looks at the desk, biting his lip--a sure sign that he is thinking hard.
"Taako says he doesn't think the staff would ever hurt him."
Something inside Lucretia gives a sharp twinge.
"He said that?"
Angus nods. "I asked because he said it used to belong to a red robe. And any weapon they made is bound to be dangerous, isn't it? But he's not afraid of it at all."
Lucretia swallows past a sudden lump in her throat. "Well, I--I suppose that's good," she says quietly.
"Is he right, though, ma'am? Is he safe? Even though the staff was made by a red robe?"
Lucretia considers. What can she say to Angus that is, at least, a version of the truth?
"I believe he is right that the staff would never hurt him," she says carefully. "But the...the reason it is behaving the way it is--it could lead to others getting hurt, without Taako meaning to. I want--I would like to fix it, before that happens."
Angus is quiet for a moment. He looks down at his hands, still folded on the desk. He rubs one thumb over the other, worrying at his cuticles.
Then he says,
"Would it--would it help if I got it for you?"
Lucretia is so surprised that for a second all she can do is stare at him.
"Angus I--what do you mean?"
This time Angus looks her in the eye. "If I got Taako to let me borrow the umbrastaff, and gave it to you? Would it help?"
There is more intensity in that look than any ten-year-old has any right to have.
"I--yes. It would be an enormous help."
"And it--it would help Taako? If you--fixed whatever is wrong with it?"
Lucretia thinks of Lup and Taako together, how they always balanced each other, made each other better. She thinks of Taako's emptiness after Lup disappeared, of how sharp and cynical he became once he forgot she existed. Of how much less he seems, without Lup by his side.
She had thought she would never see him whole again. Even after everything was over, after the barrier was cast and their memories restored, she had thought that Lup would still be gone. But now--now there's a chance for Taako to be truly happy again.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, it would."
Angus nods. He does not look at her. He's staring hard at her desk, worrying his lip with his teeth, as though he's coming to a decision.
Lucretia holds her breath. She shouldn't be doing this, she thinks. She shouldn't be taking advantage of Angus's relationship with Taako like this. But what else can she do? She has tried and tried to think of a way to get the umbrastaff from Taako that won't hurt him or arouse his suspicions, and she has come up empty.
Sometimes she wonders whether she will ever again have a life where she doesn't have to justify her actions to herself.
"Okay, then," Angus says finally. "I can get the staff for you."
Lucretia tries not to let her relief show on her face, instead giving Angus a warm, sincere smile. "Thank you, Angus."
"But I have a condition."
Lucretia hesitates. That's reasonable, she supposes.
"All right."
Angus's hands twist in his lap, and he will not meet her eyes. Lucretia realizes she's never seen Angus look nervous before.
Suddenly, he seems very, very young.
"I--I want to know if you've been telling us the truth."
Lucretia's brain stutters.
"The truth?"
"Yes. About the wars, and the relics, and the red robes. You seem to know so much about them--more than anybody else here. And you know about the umbrastaff, which used to belong to a red robe. I asked Taako about the wars today, and he could barely remember where he was when they happened. Something is going on here, ma'am, I know it, and I just--I just want to know if you've been honest."
It takes everything in Lucretia to keep her expression neutral.
She should have known this was a risk, when she brought Angus into the Bureau. She hired him because he was figuring out too much on his own, even before he was inoculated. She should have known that once he was on the base, he would keep making connections.
She wishes, in that moment, that she could tell him everything. That she could live up to the trust that he has put in her.
But the full truth is not a burden that she could ever place on his shoulders. This plan, these secrets--these are hers to carry and hers alone. As much as she might want to, she can't give Angus the answers that he is after. She can only give him what she has given all of them: the base truth of everything she has worked for here, the story she has kept telling herself, over and over, to reassure herself and help stay the course.
She makes sure to not avoid is gaze when she replies.
"Angus, everything I have told you about the relics is true. They are dangerous, and by reclaiming them, we are...we are making the world safer. I promise."
"But what about everything else?" Angus says, and Lucretia can see that he desperately wants to believe her. But she can also see the deep curiosity in him, the drive to know. "There is something more to all this, ma'am, and I--I want to know what it is. So that's my condition. If I get the staff for you, I want to know what's really going on."
Lucretia pauses, as though she is considering--even though there is, of course, nothing to consider.
"All right," she says finally. "I promise. If you help me with the umbrastaff, I'll tell you what I can."
Even as she says it, Lucretia knows she is lying. But what else can she do?
This is for Lup, she thinks. This is to save Lup. She will lie to Angus now, and she will lie to him more later, but if it means she can get Lup free from the umbrella, it will be worth it.
It has to be.
Angus proves as good as his word. Several days after their conversation, he comes into Lucretia's office and lays the umbrella carefully on her desk.
She doesn’t know what he said to Taako to get him to give the staff up, or if he found a way to sneak it out. She almost asked him when he handed it over, but then she thought better of it. Better that she not know.
Now, Lucretia stands in an open field far from the outskirts of Neverwinter, holding the umbrella in one hand and the Bulwark Staff in the other. The wind whipping through the grass sets the edges of her robe fluttering, cold enough on her face to bring tears to her eyes. She came down to the surface to avoid hurting Lup with the Bureau's lich wards, and picked as isolated a spot as she could find. Leon had warned that breaking the staff might prove...explosive.
She thinks about her promise to Angus, to tell him what is really going on. She isn't sure what she is going to say to him when she gets back. She’ll have to think of something.
One problem at a time.
She lays the umbrella down in the grass, resting her hand briefly on the intricately carved handle.
"Hang in there, Lup," she says.
She steps back, squares her shoulders, raises her hands and takes a deep breath. Then she brings the Bulwark Staff down in a swift slashing motion, and the umbrella splits neatly in two. For a split second, nothing happens--it's just two pieces of an umbrella sitting in the grass.
Then the staff explodes.
Lucretia is thrown backwards onto the ground, only instinct born of a century of danger keeping her from broken bones as she casts a shield below herself to cushion her fall.
She still lands hard, and she takes a moment to get her breath back, lying in the grass staring up at the sky, her ears ringing from the blast. The air is full of smoke and the smell of burnt grass. Through the ringing in her ears she thinks she hears laughter--a sound of ecstatic joy. She scrambles to her knees, looking back to where the staff was--
And she sees Lup.
Finally, after all these years, she sees Lup.
She is floating above the remains of the umbrastaff, a black circle burnt in a wide swath around her. Her face is a dark void in the hood of her red robe, her eyes two glowing embers. Her hands are coated in flames that twine and wrap themselves around her until she is wreathed in them. She is phantasmal and resplendent and utterly terrifying.
For a heart-stopping second, Lucretia is afraid she got it wrong. Did breaking the staff somehow break Lup, too? Or did she simply wait too long? Was Lup only just hanging on when she wrote her name on the wall, a last desperate attempt to let someone, anyone know where she was? In the time that Lucretia took between that day and now, has Lup lost herself?
Then Lup speaks, and it's not a ghostly rasp or echo. It's Lup's voice, exactly as Lucretia remembers it--although she has rarely heard her sound so angry.
She looks at Lucretia with her fiery eyes, and she spreads her arms wide, and she says,
"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, LUCY?"