Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Professor Widogast had always emphasized his being available for any questions or concerns during office hours, but Leelan still had to pause at the end of the hall to gather his courage. The question he had wasn’t even about transmutation, but Professor Antromini was so intimidating and Professor Ghunter liked to hear himself talk too much. Professor Widogast was…soft. He spoke loudly when getting students’ attention or emphasizing, but he never yelled at a student. But there was something else there, too, that intimidated Leelan.  

Leelan felt a bit blasphemous comparing his professor to a dog, but he reminded him of their childhood bulldog Dapple, who loved nothing more than belly rubs and snuggling next to Leelan. One day though, when Leelan was home alone, a strange, dark-cloaked man came to the door, asking about a family Leelan didn’t know, the Brenattos. Then he’d started to feel funny and dizzy all over, and before he could figure out why, Dapple came bolting through his legs, barking and teeth bared, lunging at the man’s ankles. The man ran off, bleeding. Soon enough Dapple was back asleep next to Leelan, whose head was clearing up quickly.

Dangerous . Leelan summarized. Professor Widogast was soft and kind and smart. But dangerous.

Like the moorbounder Father had, Ves’ran, she would always—

No. Leelan reflexively slammed the mental window shut on the thought. That was from the dreams. He’d never seen a moorbounder. He let his legs carry him to the cherry wood door and knock – before his anxious mind could stall him again.

”Ja, bitte – come in.”

Leelan reached up, opened the door, and looked around, subtly but eagerly, at Professor Widogast’s office.

It was smaller than some of the more established professors’ offices, but Leeland liked it right away. There was a small hearth on the right side, crackling and smelling homey (though Leeland noticed it was magical fire, with no actual logs present), framed by two small, worn leather armchairs with a low table in between. On the back wall was a round window with a couple of panes cracked. Floor to ceiling, every spare inch of wall was covered in bookshelves, which were filled to the brim with books, some two rows deep, some stacked sideways. Stuck among the books or pinned to the shelves were folders of parchment, odd scraps of paper with doodles, several wooden crossbow bolts, large seashells, carved stone cat figurines, spare mittens.

Professor Widogast was sitting, scribbling away, in front of the window at a large cherry wood desk likewise piled with parchment, books, and knickknacks. He looked up when Leelan came in, and Leelan noticed, unlike most taller people, Professor Widogast looked at his eye level right away, instead of in the air above his head at first.

“Ah, Leelan! Welcome, please sit down.” Professor Widogast smiled and got up, moving from his desk to one of the armchairs and gesturing to the other for Leelan. “What can I help you with?”

Leelan didn’t miss this gesture either. If he’d sat in one of the wooden chairs in front of Professor Widogast’s desk, he wouldn’t have been able to see over the stacks of parchment, though a taller student would have.

“Well, I hope it’s okay,” Leelan started, pulling his Evocation papers and textbook out of his bag. “It’s not exactly about your class, but I did have some application combination questions, too. It’s my Introduction to Evocation assignment and Professor Antromini is just…”

He didn’t know how to continue, because no truthful adjective seemed polite. Thankfully Professor Widogast smiled a small, conspiratorial smile that said he understood. Leelan had forgotten the professors all knew each other.

“I have told all my students I am always happy to help with anything, and that remains true. Please, show me what you have questions on.”

He waved a hand and the half-drunk teacups and scattered notes floated off the table between them over to the desk, leaving it clear for Leelan to set down his assignment work.

“Well, we’re supposed to be researching unique scenarios for applying magical darkness. I thought I would write about range or maybe duration since I’m really interested in permanent and semi-permanent spells.” He pulled out his latest page of notes, where the equations had many strikethroughs and frustrated scratches, suddenly a bit shy about showing his struggle to someone who could probably invent three new spells yet today if he wanted to. But he sighed and set it out. “I was trying to do some calculations to show how you could apply semi-darkness to a small village, but kept getting stuck on the duration variable…”

Professor Widogast was listening closely and looking over Leelan’s notes eagerly, which made the halfling boy blush with pride. It was too rare he felt…an equal.

“Yes, that variable can be a pesky one in any school of magic,” Professor Widogast murmured, reading. “Let’s see where something may have gotten off track.”

“I thought at first it might be the intensity factor of the darkness,” Leeland said, searching for another earlier page. “But I estimated it around 85%, which should work, considering a place like Rosohna uses the Keystone at the Marble Tomes to—”

He froze. Oh no. He hadn’t meant to say that. How embarrassing , what was he doing, bringing dreams into these equations—

Professor Widogast’s eyes snapped over to Leelan’s as soon as he choked into silence. There was a beat between them in which only the crackling magical fire was heard. In his frozen panic, Leelan oddly noticed there was even the sound of a settling log worked into the enchantment.

“It’s alright, Leelan,” Professor Widogast said softly. “Our war with the Dynasty has passed. You can speak about Rosohna freely.”

“I’ve…No, I’ve never been there.”

“Ah. Read about it then?”

“Um. A little, yeah, I think.” His face was uncomfortably warm.

“Which books? I may have some others that would interest you if you’d like to learn more.” Professor Widogast was speaking, softly, neutrally, like he always did, but Leelan sensed something in the air between them, a whisper of that danger he’d been thinking about on his way to the office.

“I don’t…I don’t really remember, I guess. I read a lot, with all my classes…”

“Of course, that’s good.” Professor Widogast stood up and walked to his desk, and began to fix two fresh cups. Leelan slumped in the brief relief from the man’s keen gaze.

“Have you travelled outside the Empire before?” Professor Widogast asked, returning with the tea. Leelan eagerly took it for something to do with his hands. It was steaming only slightly, and tasted almost like mint, but tangy, too.

“Oh no, we…my family… I grew up pretty poor.”

“Where did you grow up? I don’t recall hearing.”

“Um, a very small village called Brownstone. The closest town was Pride’s Call.”

If Professor Widogast had frozen before at Leelan’s slip about Rosohna, now he was stock still, his cup halfway back down to the table. Leelan recognized the far-away look in his eyes. He was thinking fast, thoughts stumbling over each other to race to the front of his mind.

“Pride’s Call,” Professor Widogast repeated.

Leelan nodded. “Um, have you been there?”

“Once, a few years ago.” Professor Widogast resumed moving, setting his tea down and sighing. “Leelan, is there anything else you remember…reading about Rosohna and the Conservatory?

“Am I in trouble?” Leelan asked in a small voice. Why had he come here? He should have just taken poor marks on his homework, or braved Professor Antromini’s office!

“No, no,” Professor Widogast said, relaxing back a bit from how he’d been leaning towards Leelan. “Not at all. There is nothing to worry about. I only wanted to offer to hear more of what’s on your mind regarding the Dynasty. I have actually spent a lot of time there myself. I have heard all the rumors, good and bad, and I have seen for myself which are true – which is nearly none of them.”

Leeland nodded. He knew about rumors. He’d heard terrible ones about halflings, which hurt even if people were supposedly trying to compliment him about how he must be extra lucky. “Like how I’ve heard some of the students say all dark elves float instead of walk, but I never saw any of us—”

Leeland’s heart started beating faster, thick, heavy beats in his chest. His limbs felt hollow, weightless. What was he doing ? He never talked about the dreams, never! Barely even let himself write things down, but now all the thoughts were breaking through the window he’d tried to shut and latch so tight. Thoughts of being taller, with dark gray skin and long silvery hair, of doing incredible long-lasting enchantments to keep the other residents of his city safe from the sun. Of the time the Dusk Captain invited him personally to be the one to create a portable Keystone of Darkness for the Bright Queen. He’d been so proud and he could almost even remember how he’d done it, could probably do it again—

Too much. It was too much. The window wouldn’t shut. Oh please. Oh god.

“Leelan. It’s alright. You’re safe.” He knew that voice. Professor Widogast was kneeling next to his chair and holding his small hand between his two human-sized ones. And someone else, some small voice was whimpering “Oh god, oh god,” and the voice was breathing fast.

“Listen to my breath,” Professor Widogast said calmly. In. Out . He breathed through his nose slowly. 

The small whimpering voice stuttered, tried to match those breaths. “That’s it. Listen to the fire.” Inoutinoutinout oh god oh god. “I’ve made it so it smells like a real fire too, can you smell it?” I-in, oh god, in. O-out . “And can you smell our tea? It is a special herbal blend from my dear friend Caduceus.” Inout in out . “These chairs are nice and soft and worn in, too, can you feel that?” In. Out-t-t . “One of my friends is a very keen thrift shopper and found them for me.” In. Out. “Perhaps she will visit my class sometime, I would like for you to meet her. She is the bravest halfling I know.” In. Out.

Leelan clumsily pulled his hand away from Professor Widogast’s to wipe the tears off of his face. He was too shaky, too tired, to feel embarrassed. He stared dumbly at his evocation homework forgotten on the table.

“I’m sorry, Professor.” His voice sounded far away and mumbling. “I don’t know what…happened…”

“Leelan.” He said it firmly, still kneeling next to Leelan’s chair, and Leelan met his eyes. “You have nothing to apologize for. I am no stranger to moments like the one you just had. They are miserable, but they are not immoral.”

Leelan nodded, his mind still feeling slow. Professor Widogast, panicking and crying and shaking? It was hard to imagine. But Leelan oddly did believe him. He’d spoken so seriously about it.

Professor Widogast moved slowly back to his own chair and sat down. “Can you tell me…what it was that we were talking about that upset you?”

Everything , Leelan answered sharply in his head. “The Dynasty… I have… dreams . Sort of. I don’t know what else to call them.” And now that he’d started to speak, started to say the terrible things, he just kept falling down that hill, terrified, but also beneath that, a thrilling feeling of lightness —

“They’re like...dreams of memories or memories of dreams, I don’t know. But they’re…I’m in Rosohna, in the Dynasty, in them, and I can do all kinds of magic and there’s dark elves and goblins and Undercommon and royalty and…” He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed until he saw stars.

“In these dreams…are you yourself?”

“Yes,” Leelan answered automatically, because he was , that he knew so truly, but… “Well. Kind of. I’m… I feel like me but I’m… I’m a dark elf.”

Professor Widogast nodded slowly. He was fiddling with a silver ring on his finger, Leelan saw. “Professor – am I – am I going crazy?”

“No!” He was serious again. “No, not at all. I have a theory of what might be giving you these…dreams. But I may need to check with a knowledgeable friend of mine. If that is alright with you? If you would like to pursue learning more about this?”

Leelan’s instinct was to say “No, absolutely not” and gather up his homework and flee, maybe all the way home to Brownstone.

“I do,” he heard himself say. “I always want to learn. What kind of friend though? I’ve just…I’ve never told anyone any of this before today and now it’s all coming out and – I’m just very overwhelmed.”

“I understand.” Professor Widogast stared at the fire for a minute then, while Leelan began to sip his tea again. It was still hot. “My friend is from the Dynasty actually. I met him during my travels there several years ago. He is a good egg and would listen as kindly as I have, I can assure you.”

“And he might know…why I have these thoughts and dreams?”

“Yes,” Professor Widogast answered at once, a small smile warming his face. “I am certain he will.”

 Leelan wanted to be brave. He nodded. “Okay then. I would like to meet him.”

“I will Send him a message to visit us here, he shouldn’t be long.”

“ Now? Oh! Okay.” Maybe it had been stupid to choose the brave route.

Professor Widogast froze partway into the somatic components for Sending. “Unless you would rather postpone this of course?”

“I think if I postpone, I’ll end up just not talking about it ever again and dropping your class and going home to Brownstone.” Why were his eyes crying again? “So no. Now is fine,” he finished in a small voice, sniffling.

Professor Widogast really did have kind eyes. “I would hate to lose a student for any reason. So I will go ahead with our invitation, ja?” He finished casting, clearly an often-casted spell for him.

“Hallo, H.B. Please come see me at my office. No danger, but very urgent. My student Leelan and I need your expertise. See you soon.” He paused, gaze distant – listening to the reply, Leelan was proud to know. Something in the reply made Professor Widogast giggle for a moment before he suppressed it.

Nearby in the countryside outside Rexxentrum, Essek Theyless froze in his transcribing of Control Weather and started preparing to Teleport to a secluded garden near the Soltryce Academy that he knew well. Yes, I will be there momentarily. You are a lodestone for danger and urgency, Then’dra, but I should not be a hypocrite about such things.

“Now. While we wait for our guest, we should return to your evocation work. I think I did notice a factor affecting your calculations.”

It felt nice to have something to focus on. Something besides the butterflies battling each other in his stomach. Leelan wrote quickly as Professor Widogast showed him his error – using the formula for range based onto a sphere instead of a dome. Even despite the butterflies, he was getting excited about this idea again. He stubbornly wanted to impress Professor Antromini, as strict as she could be.

Perhaps twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door. “Caleb?” called out an unfamiliar accented voice.

But the accent was familiar. Leelan had heard it in his thoughts of Rosohna.

“Ja, come in,” Professor Widogast answered, smiling fully now and standing up to arrange his desk chair nearer to them for their guest. Leelan stood up too, disappointed to lose the height, but not wanting to appear impolite.

A slim, short deep-skinned half-elf man walked in – one hand, Leelan saw, was halfway through casting something, but he let it fizzle away quickly. Had he not believed Professor Widogast’s message of there being no danger? Was it a usual thing for Professor Widogast to be in danger?

The half-elf man was wearing simple long blue robes and dark leather gloves. A large woven-hemp sunhat was hanging down his back by a decorative braided cord around his neck. He locked eyes with Professor Widogast as he sat down in the chair pulled out for him. Leelan felt goosebumps prickle his skin as some silent energy seemed to pass between the two adults. He looked down at his feet instinctively, feeling like he had just witnessed something not meant for him to see.

“Leelan, this is my good friend Heian Birel.” Leelan looked up and sat back in his chair to mirror Professor Widogast. “Heian, this is Leelan, one of my promising students. He is taking my Principles of Transmutation seminar, but I believe you are choosing to specialize in evocation, is that right?”

“Yes, sir. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Birel.” Somewhere, Leelan knew his mother would be proud of his manners.

“A pleasure to meet you, young master Leelan. Evocation magic is endlessly applicable. It is a well-chosen route of study. Have you a favorite spell you’ve learned so far?” Heian’s accent was familiar in that slippery way of old memories. It was like a melody that as Leelan listened, he found he had known each time what the next note was going to be.

“Oh, um. Maybe it’s silly but Darkness is really interesting. I’ve loved learning the calculations behind a spell’s range of effect.”

Mr. Birel was nodding along politely, but he kept shooting glances at Professor Widogast. Probably wondering what was so urgent about talking with a halfling boy about a second level spell.

“Do you - are you a wizard, too, Mr. Birel?”

“Yes,” he answered, taking the teacup Professor Widogast handed him. “A bit of transmutation, a bit of other things.”

“Do you know any dunamancy?”

Mr. Birel was not as good at hiding his reactions as Professor Widogast was. His whole body twitched in his chair in surprise. He looked concernedly at Professor Widogast, who looked back with an expression Leelan had seen his parents exchange many a time. “What did I tell you?” it said.

The half elf man closed his eyes and took a long deep breath, then sighed it out. When he opened his eyes again, he was fixated on Leelan, who felt his stomach quiver with nervousness. 

“Yes. I, in fact, know quite a bit of dunamancy. It is my specialty. It is, however, a school of magic still almost exclusively practiced in the Dynasty. So I am curious how you know anything about it.”

Leelan looked to Professor Widogast, who was looking sad and serious again. The man nodded encouragingly at the halfling boy to go on.

“Well. It’s hard to explain.” Leelan was holding his copy of A Young Wizard’s Guide to Evocation in his lap and began to fiddle with a bit of peeling leather as he spoke. “Professor Widogast and I were talking about something else, about my evocation work, and I guess it came up about these...dreams that I have. I call them dreams because I guess I don’t know what else to call them, though they don’t happen when I’m sleeping. It’s almost like really vivid daydreams, or memories but they’re…” His hands were shaking. But it was getting easier to talk about now, now that it wasn’t the first time anymore. “They all take place in the Dynasty. In a city called Rosohna, which I’ve looked up, and it’s a real place, and certain stuff I’ve dreamed matches things there, like the Marble Tomes Conservatory is a real place. And I’m kind of myself but also not myself because I’m a dark elf, like my body is. But I can still do magic. Lots more magic that I can do now actually.” He smiled sadly then, remembering the early days of the dreams a year or two ago, when he could easily chalk them up to wild daydreams of being a powerful wizard.

He looked up at the two men then, unsure how to continue. Professor Widogast was watching Mr. Birel’s expressions, but the latter was looking at Leelan with a still, unreadable expression, though his slightly pointed ears kept twitching.

“Mr. Birel?”

That snapped the half-elf back to the present. “Yes?”

Leelan fiddled with his book cover again. The piece of leather had torn off. He shouldn’t be doing such things to his textbooks, he knew, but maybe Sybil who was good at Mending would help him later. “I know it’s not very polite to ask, but I’m trying to learn, and I’m...interested in what kinds of different people live different places… Are there lots of half-elves in the Dynasty?”

For some reason, Professor Widogast smiled a proud smile at Leelan for this question. He felt relieved, because he knew it was just on the edge of rudeness. This thrilling opportunity - two highly trained wizards, one from the Dynasty, talking to him like a peer about a terrible, mysterious, powerful secret! - had him acting more recklessly than he usually did.

“There are not, no. There are not many humans in the Dynasty. At least not in the major cities. There are some, perhaps 5% of the Dynasty’s overall population, which naturally lowers the numbers of half-elves as well.” Mr. Birel grimaced slightly. “There are...more divisions of class and location among the races in the Dynasty, especially in Rosohna, that result in fewer of the, ah, mixed races.”

Leelan nodded, thinking about that. He liked that Mr. Birel had given an actual percentage. “Are there many halflings?”

“No, very few.”

“Oh. Alright.”

Leelan was quiet for a while then. He wasn’t sure if he should ask straight out now if Mr. Birel knew what was happening to him. He also had a hundred other questions - magical darkness related ones included - unrelated to his dreams jostling to be first to come out of his mouth. 

“So, H.B.,” Professor Widogast said quietly. “Do you think I am on to the right conclusion?”

“Yes,” Mr. Birel replied. “I do.”

Leelan felt scared then, and a little angry. He felt talked over - literally and figuratively - and he’d had much too much of that his whole life. He looked up at the two men, chin held high, trying very hard not to cry more. “I want to hear the conclusion.”

Mr. Birel and Professor Widogast exchanged another loaded look. Leelan felt a few pieces clicking together in the back of his mind about Professor Widogast’s ring and these significant looks.

“Leelan,” Professor Widogast started carefully. “Have you ever heard of consecution? Either in your recent readings or your...dreams?”

The word rang a distant, echoing bell in Leelan’s mind, but some remainder of the walls and windows he had built between him and the dreams kept it from resounding through him fully.

“No, I don’t think so. Maybe? I don’t know what it means.”

“Consecution,” said Mr. Birel, in the familiar tone of lectures that made Leelan feel a little less frightened, “Is the process by which souls are bound to a greater force - some call it a deity - referred to as The Luxon. From this process, souls are given the opportunity to be born again when they die. They are held by the Luxon in precious relics known as beacons, and then released into newly born people.”

Another immaterial log settled in the immaterial fire as Mr. Birel paused.

“The known beacons all are under the watch of the Dynasty. And proximity is important for consecution - a person must be within a certain range of a beacon when they die or are born, to access its store of souls. So you can see our surprise that you--”

“Pride’s Call,” Professor Widogast said simply.

It was almost like something struck Mr. Birel. He slumped in his chair, pain flashing across his face. “Ah. Yes. I didn’t...yes. Oh. Oh my.”

“You’re saying,” Leelan said, feeling himself detached from the fact that this was him they were talking about. It was just a lecture. Magical theory. He liked magical theory. “You’re saying there was a relic, a beacon, near Pride’s Call? Near where I was born.”

And he remembered then. A vague memory, his own memory, that his mother once told him that she’d given birth to him in Pride’s Call . Not Brownstone. Because she’d been sick and there was a better midwife there in the larger town.

“I was born in Pride’s Call,” Leelan said, almost whispering. “I remember now. My mother told me. So I’m…”

“Leelan, we think you might be a consecuted soul.” Professor Widogast was watching Leelan carefully. Ready, it seemed, for whatever might happen.

“Oh.” His voice was very small. Several bits of leather were scattered in his lap now. The textbook would need a lot of Mending.

“In the interest of honesty…seeing where this conversation has gone.” Mr. Birel waved his hand and suddenly a different man was sitting there. He wore the same clothes, but he was, he was--

“You’re a dark elf!” 

“I am. You can understand, I’m sure, why I do not walk around the city in my true form.” He looked sternly into Leelan’s eyes, and he slowly realized he was being told a secret. And Mr. Birel was right. He did understand. He understood people looking at you differently.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, Leelan,” Professor Widogast said, and he snapped his fingers and the white furred cat that graced his classroom from time to time appeared suddenly on the fireplace mantle. The cat leapt gracefully down onto the arm of Leelan’s chair and began to nuzzle at his face. 

Leelan was scared. He was overwhelmed. His hands were still shaking. But he was also curious. He was lighter. He was ready to learn - and Professor Widogast had done a nice thing to summon his cat, now purring near Leelan’s neck. 

Mr. Birel got up from his chair to make more tea and to Leelan’s shock he saw that one rumor was partially true. There was at least one dark elf from Rosohna who floated.

Chapter Text

The familiar didn’t apparate every time Caleb snapped his fingers and summoned him. Years ago, yes, it had worked every time. And he’d been more than a cat. He’d been an octopus, a bird, and - most deeply - a lifeline.

Now, Professor Caleb Widogast saw Frumpkin for what he really was: a fickle fey creature with his own paths and desires. He sometimes showed up in the classroom without being summoned. Weaving between students’ legs, batting at the ankles of those trying to peek at their neighbor’s quiz parchment, or curling up on the lap of someone particularly quiet to take a quick nap.

No, Frumpkin followed his own whims these days. But the need for an occasional lifeline had never left Caleb. He had learned to swim through the memories of his fraught past and present, but still the waves could get too strong. He had Essek though. And the rest of his friends were never too far. He had the safety of his carefully warded country home. 

But night still came after every day and some nights he was alone when the storms of the past struck. And when he snapped for Frumpkin then, desperately flailing...in those moments, the cat appeared without fail or protest.

Caleb had hoped for similar results with Leelan, and was relieved he was right. Frumpkin was purring away now on Leelan’s lap, replacing the tattered textbook. Caleb smiled a sad smile to himself at how much he related to that tiny, impulsive destruction.

Leelan Kairen. Caleb mentally recited the known facts, an old soothing strategy. Bright, shy first year Soltryce Academy student. Specializing in evocation. Halfing boy around 13 from the countryside near Pride’s Call. Liked cats but favored dogs. Quick to pick up magical calculations.

Likely a consecuted soul originally from the Dynasty, now reborn into a child of the Empire.

It was now 4:47 in the afternoon, and Caleb’s open office hours ended at 5:00. “Excuse me for one moment,” he told Essek and Leelan, and went to set up his silver thread at where the hallway turned into the alcove before his office. It would give them time, at least, to stop speaking about anything problematic, and for Essek to recast his illusion.

When he returned, he couldn’t tell who looked more anxious - Leelan or Essek. Probably Essek, who had no cat in his lap to distract, only a cup of Caduceus’ tea. Delicious as the blend was, it wasn’t enough to soothe Essek through this jarring news. 

Leelan was petting Frumpkin, but also kept half opening his mouth, then snapping it shut again, while eying Essek carefully. Caleb may not have had tenure yet but he could recognize when a student was burning to ask a question.

“What is it, Leelan? As I said, I’m sure you have many questions. We will try to answer them the best we can.”

“Caleb, I am not an expert on consecution…” Essek protested gently. 

Caleb waved a hand dismissively, smiling at Leelan. “Do not listen to my friend here, he underestimates his abilities.”

“Was that...was that an illusion you were doing before, Mr. Birel?” Leelan asked Essek eagerly. “To look like a half-elf?”

Ah. He had questions for Essek . No wonder. Likely the boy was coping any way he could, to avoid settling into the troubling realization.

“Ah! Yes. A very handy spell to know. I have...developed a more advanced type of illusion to avoid being detected by common detection.”

“Is it illegal to be a drow in the Empire?”

“ Illegal - no,” Caleb answered, sitting back down. “Unfortunately the end of a war does not mean the end of racism against a previous enemy, though. There are still too many in Rexxentrum who might lash out at a dark elf visitor because of old tensions.”

Leelan stared into the hearth for a while at that, thoughtful. Caleb reminded himself again he should invite Leelan with him to lunch next time the Brenattos visited. It would do the boy good to be around some fellow halflings. He couldn’t imagine it was easy being such a minority at the Academy. Caleb was the member of several initiatives to provide scholarships and outreach to non-human students. He wasn’t positive, but he thought one such scholarship had made it possible for Leelan to attend the Academy. He made a mental note to look into whether the initiatives were neglecting areas of high halfling population.

“So these... dreams ,” Leelan said, still looking at the arcane fire. “They aren’t really dreams then, huh? They’re...memories? Of a past life?”

Essek nodded. “That’s correct. It is common, I believe, for young people to chalk them up to dreams or vivid daydreams at first. Though, in the Dynasty, consecution is more well-known and rather quickly identified. Did you say...how long have you been having these memories?”

“About…” Leelan tilted his head side to side, thinking. “Two years or so? It’s hard to remember because they sort of...trick my mind? You know when...there’s something you sort of realize you’ve always known and now just remembered? That’s how I felt when I heard you speak actually, sir.” He nodded shyly at Essek. “Your accent. I...recognized it.”

“Very astute of you. Two years ago…” Caleb was intrigued to see Essek blush. An expert he was now, at seeing that indigo flush move across his partner’s dark cheekbones. “Forgive my impropriety in the name of research - is that around the time puberty would begin for a halfling male?”

Leelan swallowed. “Um. I guess so? Kind of?”

Essek nodded. “Yes, that is the usual timeline for emergence of memories. Or rather, I should say, the latest it will typically begin to manifest.”

“Is everyone in the Dynasty consecuted? Are you?”

“No!” Essek laughed humorlessly, old bitterness still touching his words after all this time. Caleb’s hand twitched, wanting to reach out and touch him in comfort. “No, I … left the Dynasty before that honor could be bestowed upon me. And no, it is rare to be consecuted. It is newly given most commonly to those in upper echelons, but souls are reborn without discrimination for race or class.”

“That’s--” Leelan’s mind was clearly throwing many descriptors at him and none seemed right. “There’s something I like about that, I guess. It’s like a second chance.”

Essek caught Caleb’s eye and the cool breeze of an old memory flowed between them. Old but vivid - set in amber. A creaking ship, tear-filled eyes. Maybe you and I are both damned. But we can choose to do something and leave it better than it was before.

“Some do see it that way, yes,” Essek replied. “Much of the religion of the Luxon focuses on self improvement, ideally achieving a state of great wisdom or perfection.”

“But...it sounds like you don’t believe that?” Leelan asked.

Caleb smiled - part pride at his student’s insight and part playful delight at Essek’s letting his distaste for the Luxon worship sneer on his face.

Essek sighed. “No, young man, I do not.”

“So why do you think it happens, then? Consecution? If it’s not the...Luxon doing it?”

“There are many questions I have regarding the magic of the beacons and the Luxon. Endless questions. I do not know the answer to your question because it is a question I have myself.” He looked at Caleb, his crooked smile starting up the left side of his face. “As I said, I am not an expert.” Caleb nearly rolled his eyes.

“ Are there experts?”

“In the Dynasty, yes, several.” Essek set down his tea. “In all politeness, Caleb, I have a new admiration for you doing this all day.”

“What - sitting? I usually teach standing up.”

“No, answering questions.”

Leelan shrunk into his chair at this. Schiesse. Caleb knew Essek’s tone was joking but Leelan didn’t know the elf well enough to detect that. He gave Essek a sharp look of be nice please and turned to Leelan.

“It’s alright, Leelan, trust me. It’s important to ask questions to understand. Heian here just has a … complicated past with his homeland and some of this might be bringing up difficult memories.”

“I’m sorry to be so much trouble, Professor,” Leelan said very quickly. “I probably shouldn’t have even told you, it was silly, I can go.”

Essek looked a little panicked around the eyes. He was awkward with children, Caleb knew, and it was true this was all difficult for Essek to process.

“You may go if you wish, we won’t keep you,” Caleb said kindly, “But you do not have to go by any means.”

Leelan’s eyes looked red and glassy again, and he sniffled. Frumpkin - danke, alter Freund - began making biscuits on Leelan’s lap which was enough to allow the boy a deep shaky breath.

“So,” Leelan sniffled again, but then raised his chin, pushing through it. “So what do I do now? Do I have to...leave the Academy and go live in the Dynasty?”

“No!” Caleb insisted at the same time Essek said “Not necessarily.” That made Leelan smile a little at least.

“No, I think I may need to...think more on the best course of action to make sure you are safe and well,” Caleb said with a look towards Essek, who nodded. I am with you , it said. “You were concerned earlier you were ‘going crazy’ so please maintain assurance that you are not . This may not be normal for the Empire or even common for the Dynasty, but you are not the first person to experience consecution.”

“First halfling in the Empire perhaps,” Essek added. Not helping , Caleb’s raised eyebrows at him said.

But surprisingly it was these words that made Leelan sit up a little straighter and wipe his eyes. “I was the first halfling from Brownstone to attend the Academy. Some people came through and gave lessons in magic and watched for people who were good, and then came and talked to our parents and gave them papers and stuff. They let me come because I picked things up quickly, and they gave me a scholarship. My parents got to come see the Academy too, so they knew where I was going. They liked that and were really proud.”

That had been another of Caleb’s initiatives. No more secrets. No mystery of where anyone’s children were going.

“Do you write to them much about how your studies are going?” Caleb asked.

“Some, yeah. My mother always writes back that she wishes I would write more.” Leelan looked sheepish. Consecuted soul though he might be, he was still a teenage boy.

“Do you want to write to them to tell them what you’ve learned today?” Caleb asked gently.

Leelan froze. “I don’t know,” he said automatically. “I never told them about any of it. I was...always pretty creative as a kid and played by myself a lot and made up stories. So maybe, I don’t know, I mentioned some odd things here or there before I sort of...decided to keep it secret. But they probably just wrote it off as funny pretend stories.”

“Well, if you wish to tell them, I won’t stop you,” Caleb said.

Essek shifted in his chair at that. “Caleb,” he said, leaning towards him, effectively cutting off Leelan from the conversation. “Is that wise?”

A deep, hot flicker of anger pulsed in Caleb’s stomach reflexively. “Yes, it is. He has every right to tell them. ”

“This needs to be handled extremely carefully, you know that. Keeping it between the three of us-”

“ Heian .” Caleb raised his voice and Essek’s eyes flashed. They rarely fought. It was brief and bright when they did, though. “It’s not right . I won’t do it. A teacher should not ask a student to keep a secret.”

That did it. Essek hung his head. “Forgive me. I see now.” He sat back again, opening up the circle again to Leelan, who looked pale and small - even for a halfling.

“I won’t tell if it’s bad to tell, I-”

“I meant what I said,” Caleb interrupted, speaking sternly but trying to keep any coldness from his words. “This is a complicated situation, but I will not control who you speak to. And you can continue to speak to either of us about it at any time. I’m sure we will continue to see more of each other as you decide what course to take.” Not looking up from his lap, Essek nodded once in agreement.

A quiet moment passed between the three of them. Caleb felt, as he had so many times before, an unfolding of many paths before him, endless possibilities, so many choices. The part of his mind that had brought him through all his political dealings with his head still attached was whirling furiously, calculating outcomes and likelihoods. But he had to stay present. He had a scared child here with him and that took precedence. Hadn’t that been the whole point of all this, of all his and Beau’s and the rest of the Nein’s work? 

No more children.

“How are you feeling, Leelan? Do you need more tea, anything to eat?”

“Um.” Leelan looked down at his mostly full teacup and took a large gulp. “No, I’m alright. I guess I’m...still processing mostly.”

“Understandable. Tell you what. What if this coming weekend you come to lunch with me and my friend Veth and her family? I will arrange for them to visit. I would like for you to meet them. And her and her husband are bright minds themselves, with experience traveling to the Dynasty.” Essek flinched just slightly. “If you don’t wish to have anyone else know yet, too, then we can just have an enjoyable time together.”

“Oh! The … this is the halfling friend who bought you these chairs?”

“Yes - and bring that up to her, I’m sure she’ll be delighted.”

“Okay. That sounds nice.”

“I will send you a note to your dormitory with the details once I have them settled.” Caleb paused. “Do you have anything else on your mind you’d like to talk about? We can stay here as long as you need.”

“I think… I think I’d like to go back to my room actually. Just...to rest. Unless - you said earlier you might have some books on the Dynasty, is that right?”

“Yes, I certainly do!” Caleb made to stand up but Essek beat him to it, floating over to the bookshelves.

“Allow me,” he said. “I have a few ideas.” Caleb saw what he was doing - making up for his earlier harshness.

He knew Caleb’s organizational system of course and picked up a few tomes. The Dynastic Voyage of the Darrington Brigade. Bright Past, Brighter Future: A History of Dynastic Royalty from the Reign of Sadine Kryn to Present. And A Brief Overview of Magical Education in Rosohna. 

He handed them to Leelan, who scrambled to take them reverently, Frumpkin leaping lightly to the floor. “Are...are you sure, Professor?”

“Absolutely sure. Please tell me what you think of them. And take some of what that top one says with a grain of salt.”

Leelan put the books, along with his own textbook and notes, into his satchel and stood up. He looked unsteady on his feet for a moment, but took a deep breath to still himself.

“Thank you, sir,” he said respectfully to Essek. “It was nice to meet you, and I asked you a lot of questions, and if I was rude about anything, I’m really sorry.”

“You were not rude, I was,” Essek replied. “I have forgotten how disorienting consecution can be, even for someone in the Dynasty.”

Leelan bit his lip and then continued. “And even if I do tell anyone about - about consecution, I won’t tell them about you, about how you really look, I mean. I promise.”

Caleb saw Essek freeze at this and smiled to himself. Even after all this time, pure kindness and goodness could stop his partner in his tracks.

“That is very kind of you, Leelan. I appreciate it greatly.”

“I will have Frumpkin walk you home,” Caleb said, standing up. He saw Leelan about to assure him that it was unnecessary, but he continued, “So he knows where to deliver the note about the lunch, of course.” That worked.

“Right. Thank you, Professor. For the books and the homework help and...everything.”

“Anytime. I mean that.”

Leelan took another deep breath and headed to the door. “Have a good evening, Professor, Mr. Birel.” And then the door was shut behind the halfling boy and his footsteps were fading away.

Essek dropped his levitation and sank down into his chair, putting his face in his hands. “Oh, Caleb. What are we going to do?”

Caleb stepped next to Essek and pulled the elf’s head into his stomach, hugged him awkwardly there. He didn’t know. But he didn’t have to say that to Essek. He just held him and stared into the arcane fire, mind full of the branching paths racing ahead of them.

Chapter Text

Caleb stood for a long while, drifting in a sea of possibilities, feeling not much more than the warmth of Essek’s back under his hands, Essek’s hands on his own hips, Essek’s shaky breath pressing into his torso. 

He sensed Essek about to speak the moment before it happened. The elf’s body solidifying, like a spell broken, his mouth opening, still against Caleb’s robes over his stomach--

“Do you think he’s going to tell anyone?”

Caleb’s mind shuffled rapidly through the points of the last conversation with Leelan, sorting out Essek’s antecedents best he could. “About you or about consecution?”

Essek’s fingers twitched on Caleb’s hips and he sat back into his chair, mouth twisting. “Well, I was referring to consecution, but--”

“Because he definitely won’t tell anyone about you.” Caleb knew Essek disliked being interrupted, but this was a special case of stopping a spiral of anxious thoughts before it could go too deep. He sat back down in his chair, but pulled it closer to Essek so their knees bumped together. “He is a quiet and shy boy, and one of only three halflings here at the Academy. He understands...being different.”

Essek’s expression changed, hardened. He shifted in the chair. Caleb knew his partner well enough to identify guilt. “I know it was my own risk to take, dropping the illusion like that. It just…felt like the right thing to do.”

“I agree wholeheartedly.”

Essek sighed loudly, frustrated. “You know you are so much better at this – this, children thing than I am! I feel like I never know what to do. There isn’t a lot of … warmth and care towards children in the Dynasty. Not like this. There it’s a lot of … coddling, yet coldness? Especially in my own experience, precocious little prodigy that I was.” Essek spoke of his younger self with a sneer, staring into the distance.

Caleb reached out and held his hand, smiling. “I’m sure I would have loved you,” he said playfully. “You think I don’t have precocious little prodigies among my students? They are usually the most insecure ones when you break through that façade.”

Essek laughed and shook his head. “How do you know so much about me from a time when we didn’t know each other?”

“Good hypothesis from pattern recognition is all.”

Essek squeezed Caleb’s hand, and they sat in companionable silence for a moment, as the playfulness’ light slowly faded from the room, replaced again by the solemn cloud of dilemma that faced them.

“As far as telling anyone about consecution…” Caleb began, picking up the conversation from earlier, knowing Essek would follow. “It’s hard to say, but perhaps he won’t? I’d imagine at least we have some time to … make a plan. He will probably need to process for a little while. And if I have any of my guesses right, dig into those books we leant him.”

“And this...plan. Do you have any ideas yet?”

“A thousand. Which is as useful a number as zero.” It was Caleb’s turn to put his face in his hands, the noise in his head growing. How many are there, we have to track them down, have to make sure no one gets to them, but we’re not “getting to them,” we’re helping them, Verdammt Widogast what makes you an expert at helping, we can’t let any of them end up like me, years gone, no more children, no more children, no more children on the pyre, but this is different, did any of us predict this, no more children, no more, who can help, Beauregard, who in the Dynasty, so many burned bridges, no more no more no more no--

Essek’s gloved hand on his cheek broke him from the spiral. “Caleb. We will think of something.”

“I’m worried.” Caleb was staring at the mother of pearl button on Essek’s robes, trying to find the tiniest ledge of the physical world to grip. The top half of the button had shades of blue and indigo. The bottom half reflected the arcane fire just barely, fiery orange. “I’m terrified there are more children like him out there -- and in worse spots than he is. Confused. Alone. Locked up. Kept in -- in -- in terrible places. We have to find them.”

The rattling of the teacups on the table told him he was shaking, his knee spreading seismic force through the furniture.

Essek lowered his hand, pulling Caleb’s desperately clawing hands along, until they were resting on his lap. “We will find them.”

Caleb laughed. It sounded like a sob. “I have no idea where to begin. You said yourself you are no expert on consecution. … Tell me this -- are there records kept in the Dynasty, of which souls are kept in which beacons?”

Essek’s face twitched at Caleb’s words and the latter felt his stomach clench. “Ah, Schiesse, I know I may be using sacrilegious terms here--”

“You are apologizing to a known sacrilegious seditious traitor to the Dynasty,” Essek cut in drily. “I understand your question and appreciate no attempts to dance around it. Yes, as far as I know, such records are kept, but under strict lock and key of course, lest someone use that information to … tamper with certain souls’ abilities to be reborn.”

Caleb swallowed, nodded. “Did you ever … have access to the records of the souls in the beacon you … brought to the Empire?”

Essek sighed, shifted again in his chair, and fiddled with the front of his robes, which Caleb knew hid the amulet preventing divination. “No, I never had that. They are … while the Dynasty is a religious-based government, the religious powers are still separate somewhat from the state. Parallel. Those records were something the clergy of the Luxon kept extremely under wraps.”

“And do you know much about anamnesis, the memory recall? Have you ever seen it performed?”

“It is typically a private affair. But I know...some. It is a guided meditation. A long, careful process of encouraging the soul to become fully alive once more. To merge with the current body of memories and become whole.”

Caleb thought vaguely of Veth and Yeza’s alchemical experiments that had blown up in their faces -- to no lasting harm, so he could chuckle at it now. “That does not sound like something an inexperienced pair of fugitives should try on their own.”

“High potential for negative outcomes, yes.” Essek was beginning to relax a little, letting his analytical side come out and protect him from the shivering emotions that colored this unfortunate reality. “As far as I know, very little study has been done on those consecuted who do not undergo a guided anamnesis. Again, the awareness of consecution throughout the Dynasty makes that scenario rather moot.”

“And now here we are.”

“Here we are,” Essek echoed.

They sat in that rippled echo for a moment, both feeling their memories drift through past iterations of those words. Of goodbyes, hellos, I love yous, I’m sorrys, more. Things that couldn’t be said in words other than “here we are.” A mutual acknowledgment of an enormous, crafted present, reached together through a shared past.

“Well,” Essek said, breaking the silence. He was often the first one to break. “We both know who certainly can’t find out before we’re ready.”

Caleb grimaced. He knew. “Anna.”

Anna Dalazar held the newly forged position of Archmage of Continental Education. A position only a few years old and whose establishment Caleb had supported. A position that promoted education for all races and classes across the Empire, as well as promoted sharing of ideas and students across its borders, taking advantage of the peace with the Dynasty in particular.

But he’d been newer to the deceiving slog of politics then, and hadn’t been able to stop Anna’s election. She was outwardly bright, warm, and determined, with a glowing history of tutoring and ambassadorship.

Privately, she used the sluggish, crooked wheels of Empire bureaucracy to stall advancement every chance she could. The Archmages could not stop the position’s creation. Caleb had had enough clout for that, with the help of Astrid and others. But they’d kept the upper hand by electing someone they knew could play the part of promising politician who in the end accomplished little.

Caleb pegged Anna as someone just power-hungry enough to cause trouble, while being content to never rise too high. A mansion, servants, staff, the chance to stall progress in the name of her closely held racist values…what more could she want?

“The more I dwell on her, the more of a fan I become of the ‘Brenatto Method,’” Essek said, voice becoming tentatively playful again. “How did it go? ‘Hide, shoot, run’?”

Caleb laughed, thinking fondly of Veth’s screeching voice yelling these words over the din of delighted crossbow-wielding campers. “She is wise, but I think this requires more subtlety than a well-placed bolt can provide. Speaking of -- I should Send to her and invite her and the family here for the weekend. I was serious about Leelan having lunch with them, I think it would do him some good.”

“I would bet Veth will take to him quite well,” Essek said.

“That is quite the understatement, Schatz. She has a known soft spot for wizards.” Caleb stood and started absent-mindedly packing up the work he would take home. “Come. If there are more tough conversations to be had, I’d rather have them in our garden.”

Essek’s wordless smile agreed. He recast his disguise and donned his sunhat. They left the way he had arrived, blinking out of existence under some crumbling Rexxentrum eaves and blinking into it once again in their familiar low-ceiling cellar atop their transportation circle.

* * * * * * * * *

The next morning, the tower bells tolling their mid-morning chime, Leelan managed to catch Sybil in the busy brick-walled corridor before their Practical Application of Evocation lesson. 

“Could you do me a favor? You’re just so much better at Mending…” He let his words trail off and just held out his textbook.

“Of course!” Sybil was a large, copper-skinned human girl with voluminous curls of dark hair. Leelan had befriended her early in his time at the Academy. She was warm, giving, and fierce. He helped her with her magical equation homework. She made sure he only ate meals alone when he really wanted to. He could tell she had started to agree to his favor before he’d even finished speaking it.

She took the book, tilted her head, bit her lower lip with one canine, and began casting. Slowly the peeling leather inched back across the spine, smoothing and healing. “What happened to it?”

“I guess I was just picking at it and just, you know, got distracted and carried away.” Students and professors were surging past them on their way to and from lessons. It was the kind of crowd that provided perfect privacy.

Sybil nodded kindly as her hand moved over the brass corner pieces on the cover, which now shone brighter. “When I was little, I used to twirl my hair into these terrible knots, just an impulse kind of thing. Once we were at dinner at some friends’ place, and I managed to make this wicked knot right on the top of my head. And I panicked -- and cut that chunk of my hair completely off -- as if that would make my mom less mad!”

They both laughed and Sybil handed back Leelan’s book with a light “tada!”

“Thank you.”

“Any time.”

Leelan made a moment of putting the book carefully into his bag to let Sybil walk ahead in the classroom. The corridors were getting quieter. Those who walked down them hurried, the pressure of lateness growing. He wanted to cry. 

Crying -- over a cantrip? 

That sounded like a silly village saying.

But no one in Brownstone could do a cantrip but me. 

It wasn’t the cantrip, of course. It was the kindness, compounded with the nearly sleepless night, and the books on Xorhas and Rosohna hidden on his bookshelf. And the fact that he’d impulsively imagined just then what it would be like to tell kind, helpful Sybil his secret. Would she back away wide-eyed in fear -- or would she give another understanding nod, taking all of Leelan’s neuroses in stride?

He wasn’t sure which would be more unbearable.

From across the courtyard, the bells chimed again, and Leelan’s legs walked him into the classroom, across the floor, to sit beside Sybil. His legs remembered that Professor Antromini detested lateness, even if his mind was busy thinking of white fey cats, everlasting darkness, a weekend lunch with halflings, and an indigo-skinned queen with three horns on her opalescent regal crown.

Chapter Text

“Veth. Can you and family come visit this weekend? I have a halfling student I’d like you to meet. You can reply to this message.”

Other semi-practiced wizards would have been offended and prickled at Caleb’s inclusion of the reply explanation. Veth Brenatto was not other semi-practiced wizards.

Meanwhile, in a cozy, sun-bright apartment in Nicodranas, a fierce-looking halfling woman stopped her alchemical reading and smiled ear to ear. Across the table, a shaggy-haired spectacled halfling man spotted the smile and recognized it immediately. Passing by them, a halfling teenager picked up the glass vial and experimentally sniffed the blue liquid within without second thought.

“Lebby! Of course. Luc, don’t-- I will bring all of us. Does this student need a summer camp? You cannot reply to this message.”

Caleb Widogast, sweeping calmly in the kitchen of a small cottage in the Rexxentrum outskirts, smiled to the empty room.

He was cleaning up and preparing their...safe house of sorts. A carefully and modestly crafted vacation home for the Mighty Nein to use for their sporadic and sometimes chaotic reunions. Veth knew their usual routine. It would be noon lunch here on Saturday. There were many cobwebs to dust away before then, but it was nothing Caleb hadn’t cleaned up before.

*************************************************

The school’s matriculation in recent years has increased, due likely to new social programs providing test prep to previously excluded student populations. Some donors to the school, primarily Den Ysdra, have spoken out against such initiatives, claiming they “risk diluting the high caliber of student body [the school administration] has crafted.”

These were the last words Leelan Kairen recalled reading before dozing off, the plum leather-bound tome Professor Widogast leant him sprawled out on his chest, which slowly rose and fell in a much needed sleep. His dreams were sticky, mixing with the book’s descriptions of Xorhasian educational structures, with childhood memories of his mother swinging him around and around in pride at his magic, with deeper blurrier memories of bursting out of the tunnel of research frustration to have a marvelous breakthrough--

An unfamiliar thumping scratching noise at his dormitory door jolted him awake. His thoughts felt like pulling taffy, slow and reluctant. The light outside the window was pale grayish blue.

He sat straight up, book tumbling into his lap. What had happened to the dome of magical darkness, had something failed, he’d been sure to account for--

No. He wasn’t there.

Oh gosh, Professor Widogast’s book, oh no--

The pages were thankfully unbent. He closed it reverently and set it aside on the quilt and rubbed his eyes vigorously. He was in Rexxentrum. It was Saturday. It was early morning. Likely before six. He’d heard a sound. The staccato thoughts helped steady him.

He got up, went to the door, unlocked it, and looked out. The corridor was empty, and tingling with the same still morning light as his dormitory. Jammed under the baseboard was an envelope.

He opened it eagerly at his desk, quickly recognizing Professor Widogast’s handwriting.

Leelan,

I apologize for the late notice on the details of our lunch together. Can you please meet me at the old horse racing track in eastern Rexxentrum shortly before noon? From there we can walk together to my friend Veth’s home. 

Sincerely, Professor Widogast

Leelan read the letter over and over, to sooth the quivering in his limbs. He’d agreed enthusiastically to this lunch when first meeting with Professor Widogast, but now that the event stared him in the face he hesitated. 

But the note offered no option to refuse, and Leelan bet that if he failed to show up at the horse track, Professor Widogast would come knocking at his dormitory door solely to make sure nothing had happened to him. 

Tears were blurring his eyes. He rubbed them away, sighed, and began to dress.

********************************************

It was a hazy, heavy sort of day as Leelan approached the horse track, his shoulder aching from the heavy bookbag he carried. Within a few minutes from home he regretted bringing all the Dynasty related books with him, but his stubbornness to turn back kept him stomping forward. The sky was a smoky, universal bright gray, and the still air suggested a storm to come later. 

The horse track was a mess of weeds, half-fallen fences, and boarded up food stalls. It was kept oddly clean of garbage or graffiti though, thanks to local cleanup efforts, who were trying to prove to the city authorities the space would benefit by being officially turned into a regional park.

Leelan got nervous as he approached the track, without a more specific meeting spot provided, but soon spotted Professor Widogast sitting and reading on a bench under a couple of amber-colored trees. The Professor heard him approach, shut his book, and sprang up with a smile. 

“Leelan, good morning.” Professor Widogast was dressed slightly more casually than Leelan had seen him in the classroom, with a messy ponytail and dusty khaki pants.

“Hi, Professor. Thank you again for inviting me. I don’t get to do much of, you know, family-type gatherings, with Brownstone being so far away…”

“It is no trouble. This way,” he said, nodding towards the path that led further eastward into the fields. “My friends and I have a … ‘vacation home’ sounds rather expensive but I don’t know what else to call it. A shared cottage we use for when we visit the area, since we are so scattered.”

“I had wondered…” Leelan admitted as he fell into step with Professor Widogast, curiosity kept perilously in check. “If we’d be at your home or...somewhere else.”

Professor Widogast smiled and paused to watch a hurrying grouse dash across the path in front of them. “For various reasons, I keep my home a bit private. But rest assured we are welcoming you most heartily to this one.”

The walk was around forty minutes Leelan estimated. They passed an orchard, crossed a crumbling stone bridge, and spoke comfortably of Leelan’s school work and the Dynasty books he started reading. Leelan’s tight-chest anxiety of what he would possibly talk about with Professor Widogast slowly released.

As the two crested a slow hill, Leelan heard what sounded like a small, wet explosion beyond. He started, but Professor Widogast only chuckled.

“That will be Veth’s son Luc I’m sure. He is a rambunctious young arcane practitioner too bold for his own good. But in the end, a good head on his shoulders. Come on, almost there.”

The cottage had a thatched roof and was set in a small yard surrounded by a bucolic wall of old stones. A wild and flourishing vegetable garden grew out front, with kale and cabbage that grew frighteningly large, almost covering some of the low, dusty windows. The path that led to the front door meandered lazily with heavy slate stepping stones, and a sputtering stream of gray smoke poured out of the leaning brick chimney. 

Leelan felt his heart swell at it all.

The front door banged open and Leelan saw only a small, halfing arm throw open the door, then vanish. A young, male voice yelled in the house, “ Yeah, they’re here, it’s FINE!”

Another, screeching but warm female voice replied, “Lebby! Come in, come on, Luc is just being a well-timed disaster as always!”

Leelan felt his stomach shake a little. As if Professor Widogast could feel it too, he looked at Leelan -- but never down, even if he was below human eyeline, Leelan never felt beneath -- and said, “That is nothing to worry about, I assure you. I will lead the way.”

The narrow hall of the cottage was chaotic with new voices. Yeza Brenatto, Leelan liked immediately, with his quiet bookish demeanor and straightforward way of speaking. Heian Birel was here too, unapologetically drow today, in a simple but somehow fancy-looking outfit of black silk. Luc Brenatto was a distracted, shaggy-haired halfling teenager who Leelan instantly felt shy and babyish around, though he knew logically it was his own anxiety and no unkindness of Luc’s. Luc, who had a crossbow strapped to one hip and several well-used strange-looking tools to the other. He gave a cursory greeting to the new arrivals before trying to slip past them into the front yard, but a halfling woman appeared further on in the hall and hollered--

“Luc! You be polite to our guests -- no, look at me, stop and look at me, please!”

The boy called Luc stopped and turned -- with some unnecessary flourish, Leelan saw. “Yeah?”

“I want your best behavior. That means no crossbow, no stealing, no money pot , no trickery, no ring of water walking! Got it?”

Luc grumbled something, but apparently it was enough, because he scooted out the door, and the halfling woman was in front of Leelan now, taking his hands and talking enough for him to freeze every other anxious feeling.

“You must be Leelan? I’m Veth, welcome welcome. Don’t worry about Luc, he really won’t shoot you and if you he does, you tell me, got it? Or, I don’t know what Lebby teaches you in those classes, but a little zap of this or that couldn’t hurt, teach him a bit of fun retaliation. You just set that bag down right here, it looks heavy. You’re just like Lebby, carrying too many books for your own good!”

Leelan found himself swept along by the tide of his manners, ending up on a comfortable bench in the backyard, watching Luc and a large old hound lope around chasing each other, the hound blinking out of existence here and there. Veth had forced a bowl of some fresh potato salad into his hands, which he was eating politely -- though no pretending was required. It was so close to his aunt’s traditional potato salad he almost teared up.

He shyly followed the rapid conversation between Professor Widogast and Veth. Mrs. Brenatto? She’d introduced herself as Veth, but Leelan felt his throat close up at the thought of addressing an adult by their first name. Thankfully he avoided any of it for a while, mirroring the stoic yet relaxed Heian Birel, also nibbling delicately at potato salad and watching Professor Widogast and Veth argue and catch up with a knowing smile.

During a peaceful lull in all of it, Leelan shyly chirped up, addressing Veth clearly to avoid the fumbling of her name, “Professor Widogast mentioned you helped him find the furniture for his office. It’s very nice...and you got it secondhand?”

“So few things are worth getting new!” Veth scolded to no one in particular, but Leelan could see her preening with the compliment, patting the arm of her own wicker chair.

“Did you get a lot of your things on secondhand deals?” Leelan asked.

“Nearly all of it!” Veth replied. “Almost everything in this house, found secondhand, in ditches, old basements, estate sales. I spent a lot of my earlier years stealing, and my wonderful disastrous friends have moved me away from that, but I still have my bargains and only the grave will take those from me. Speaking of graves, if Caducey had his way, I’m sure this place would have been furnished with nothing but flowers and some random rugs! And I’m sorry but Yeza and I need more than that.”

Professor Widogast chuckled at that. It was disconcerting to see his enthusiastic but stoic professor act so open. Just when Leelan was satisfied with not knowing the origins of Veth’s odd nickname “Lebby,” Luc skidded over and called out “Hey, Uncle Caleb, do you have any phosphorus?” 

Leelan blushed vicariously at the forward statement, but Professor Widogast only feigned at patting his pockets. “Perhaps. What for?”

“Just spells, you know.”

“Yes, what spell in particular?”

“I haven’t taught you any spells with phosphorus!” Veth said, sitting up straight.

Luc looked around at all of them. “Never mind.” And he was off again, firing small, ribbon-trailing decoys out of his crossbow for the blink dog to chase after.

Veth stared after him for a moment, then swiveled her eyes suddenly on Leelan. “So! I hear you find yourself in a unique predicament, Leelan, is that right?”

Here it had come. Leelan felt naked without his books to clutch to his lap and pick at. “Um,” he started, trying to stall. Professor Widogast and Mr. Birel’s eyes were on him, too. Yeza still watched Luc and shuffled around cleaning up the lunch meal, but Leelan felt his ears turned his way.

Leelan chose to meet Professor Widogast’s gaze. It was warm. Go ahead, it said.

“Yes. I … Professor Widogast and Mr. Birel helped me realize that I’m … Um, I’m … consecuted. From the Dynasty. A soul from the Dynasty reborn.”

Leelan could see right away why Professor Widogast had brought him here. There was no shock, no screams. Yeza did not drop and shatter the bowl of potato salad he was holding. Veth and Yeza locked eyes for a heavy moment, a communication Leelan easily recognized from his own parents. Yeza shrugged. Veth nodded.

Then she turned back to Leelan. “Go on.”

Chapter Text

The breeze was picking up, forcing the small group of old friends on their patio to tuck their napkins underneath their empty potato salad bowls and tighten the ties on their sunhats -- those sensitive few who wore them. The breeze carried disjointed bits of conversation from the two teenage halfling boys on one side of the yard over to the patio. The older was showing the younger how to wind and fire a crossbow with a rubber decoy bolt loaded up. Rolling around in the long grass nearby was an old dog, occasionally blinking out of the current plane into another, before returning to a nearby grass hollow to snuffle around, waiting for the bolt to be fired and chased.

Caleb sat between Veth and Essek while Yeza gathered up the last of the dishes into a pile. The heavy truth Leelan had told all of them was like its own galloping blink dog. It bounded silently between them, heavy and destructive and only ignorable for so long. 

Essek wasn’t disguised today. The cottage had several protective enchantments, and everyone present knew his true appearance anyway, if not his true identity. But still Caleb knew Essek preferred to keep their relationship as private as possible, lest his partner be used against him by powers in the Dynasty who had long, bitter memories. 

So it meant a lot when Essek risked a gesture of comfort, reaching out and squeezing Caleb’s hand fiercely just once, while Leelan was sufficiently occupied with the crossbow. Veth had only agreed to Luc teaching Leelan to use it when Yeza assured her they had healing potions on hand. 

Putting his hands back in his lap, Essek said softly into the tense silence, “I am sorry. I know I have said that many times over the years and been forgiven each time. I know you may tell me it no longer needs to be said. But this … I did not predict this. And I am furious and ashamed I did not predict it. I was so blind to so many things, I…”

The breeze rattled the soft bamboo chimes Caduceus and Jester had crafted and hung in the trees. The calming tok-tok sound was only slightly ruined if you happened to glance at one of the more phallic-shaped chimes.

“We don’t ever know all the results of our choices.” Veth replied. She was still slightly cold with Essek on the topic of the beacons. But, to Caleb’s surprise, her voice went shy and small next, as she stared across the afternoon yard towards her son, now balancing on the old stone wall. “Sometimes I still get caught up thinking about...what if I hadn’t stolen that bottle of wine in that town. I stole wine all the time back then, but it had to be that bottle in that town, that night, so I could meet Caleb. So I could be here now, looking at my son and husband, back to my own body…”

From the Western horizon, towards Rexxentrum, the first low growl of thunder echoed across the hills.

Veth sniffled defiantly, daring anyone to comment on the tears she quickly wiped away. “We’ve all looked in the dodeca-doo-hickey. We’ve all seen the crazy fate spiderweb. You can’t know .” She pointed sharply at Essek, whose eyes were tight and pained. “You can’t have known all of it. You probably should have known it was wrong but not every piece is on you that has happened since.”

She scoffed and shook out her shoulders, looking more like herself. “I swear I have to give you wizards the same speech every year about not hating yourselves for your whole lives.”

“For which we are very grateful,” Caleb answered, half joking, half as serious as serious could be.

“If anyone has demonstrated both the ‘tough’ and the ‘love’ of ‘tough love’ over the years, it is you,” Essek said formally. He sighed and straightened his head. “I will try to focus instead on what we can and should do from here. Now that we know what we know.”

Caleb nodded. “My main concern. Well.” His mind whizzed through a long list of anxieties. “ One of my main concerns is the logical conclusion that there must be other children like Leelan. Those who were born in Pride’s Call during the time the, ah, stolen beacon was present and unprotected.”

“Unprotected?” Yeza asked.

“Yes,” Essek replied. “Do not take this as prideful, but I took many precautions. Lead boxes, other anti-scrying measures. The intent was not to prevent souls from leaving the beacon, but to prevent it from being found or detected. No research has been done of course, but one could hypothesize that such protections would have the result of ‘locking in’ the souls. However, it was impossible for me to keep such protections up constantly.”

“I have no idea of the local government of Prides Call,” Caleb said. “They may have birth records during that time, they may not. If they have them they may be very incomplete.”

“Do many people move far from the area?” Yeza asked. “If not, maybe we don’t need to be looking at birth records, but at current children. Children and young people demonstrating these symptoms.”

“That could be promising,” Caleb said, his voice getting dark. “I am very worried about that. I am worried about young people exhibiting these problematic symptoms in a place with no mental health support or understanding. Or even if there is some understanding, certainly not for what exactly this is.” His hands instinctively came up to rub his face. There was too much to do , did they even have a snowball’s chance in the Nine Hells…?

“You know who we need for this?” Veth piped up.

“I am guessing you are about to say ‘Nott the Best Detective Agency,’” Essek said.

“No, not them. I mean, yes them, too, but that’s NOTT ...what I was going to say.” She turned to face Caleb. “We need Beauregard . We need the Cobalt Soul. Birth records, young people with weird mental stuff at risk from two previously warring nations, this is right in their wheelhouse!”

Caleb blinked. “I think I might be losing my touch. I did not think of them right away.”

Veth waved a hand at him. “Oh, you’re just tired and dealing with uncovering what has the potential to be an international crisis, go easy on yourself. Have another cup of coffee.”

“I’ll make another pot!” Yeza leapt up and hurried inside.

“Isn’t he the best?” Veth said dreamily.

“Mm, yes,” Caleb answered without hearing the question. Beauregard. The Soul. Yes! This could work, this felt like hope. The Soul could help and would want to know. And they would know how to handle it without … well, without restarting the entire war.

“If I could share one of my main concerns…” Essek said.

“Go ahead,” Veth answered.

“Our relatively new Archmage of Continental Education. If she hears about this phenomenon, she will snatch it up and use it to her advantage, to hell with the soul of any child, Empire or Dynasty.” Once a corrupt government official himself, Essek detested such bureaucrats these days.

“Oh, she is the absolute worst. My offer stands, Caleb, you said the word and I’ll work out an assassination plan.”

“I would really prefer to keep ‘taking down an Archmage’ in my ‘once in a lifetime’ category if possible,” Caleb replied, smiling.

“Alright, you just let me know. My main concern, if it’s my turn now… I mean, besides Leelan being kept safe of course. My other main concern is we just...don’t know enough about any of this! I mean, what if, for all we know, people who don’t go through this anam... anam-banana-rama business, they end up really going crazy or just drop dead or something!” She glanced worriedly over at Luc and Leelan, who were thankfully fully occupied, splashing with Nugget in the koi pond. “We need information .” She pointed her finger forcefully into her palm. “Knowledge is power. Essek. You’ve got to still know somebody in the Dynasty who could help us out. Someone we could go to in disguise even, or who could steal us some books.”

Essek looked down into his lap. “I’m afraid I…”

“Don’t you have a brother?” Veth asked, taking the cup of coffee Yeza had returned with.

Caleb sat up straighter. “Veth, please understand…”

“I can speak for myself this time, my dear,” Essek interrupted. He looked right at Veth. “I do have a brother. I haven’t seen him for over a decade. We were close growing up, but my choices drove us apart. Through the whispers I receive, I know he is alive and well, a high-ranking military-government liason. He likely thinks me dead. And if not dead, a fugitive traitor. With that knowledge, I ask you, genuinely curious, how would you suggest he could help us?”

Veth was silent for only a beat. “See, this is the kind of knowledge I’m talking about! High-ranking, he’s got to know something then, or know someone who does. What better time for a family reunion than a crisis?”

Essek covered his face with his hands and sighed. 

“Have you ever even sent him a letter? Anonymous note? A Sending?” Veth asked.

Face still covered, Essek shook his head.

“Well, that’s tricky then. We could always ask Jester to Send to him, you know she’ll Send to anybody .”

“Yes, this I do know.” Essek’s voice was muffled, but talk of Jester’s inescapable positivity was enough to make him sigh and sit up straight again. “I know we don’t have a lot of time, but...if I could think about it. For even a day or two.”

“Of course, Schatz, take your time” Caleb said, at the same time Veth said, “A day sounds fine I guess.”

“I think Mr. Clay would say something like ‘Even in the best of times, family is complicated,’” Yeza said, handing cups of coffee to the rest of the group.

“That it is,” Caleb agreed, accepting the cup gratefully. The wind had a new urgency to it now, though the stormclouds were still only a smudge on the horizon. 

“What do you honestly think your brother would do if you Sent to him?” Veth asked. “Like, are we talking he’ll just tell you to piss off? He’ll want to come and kill you? Just start crying and be like ‘I love you, I’ll come be a fugitive too, where you at?’”

“I sincerely don’t know,” Essek said, getting agitated. “I have thought many times about it. Imagined it. Thought through so many combinations of the twenty five words… but it’s hard to tell what is logical prediction and what only seems more likely because I am more afraid of it happening.”

“What is the fear?” Caleb asked softly. 

They had talked about Verin over the years only a few times. Or rather, Essek had talked and Caleb had listened. He had been deeply tempted sometimes to push the subject. In his darkest most selfish moments he’d wanted to slap Essek, scream at him for not reaching out to a living brother, such a precious thing to be had. But that would have done nothing but push them both back down the slopes of their own self-hatred and regret. So he spoke softly now, honestly surprised at Essek’s openness in front of the Brenattos. Leelan’s reveal, though only a few days past, had lit a fire of urgency in his partner. It was a dangerous thing, that fire, but glowing with potential.

“Honestly?” Essek looked up into the sky, at the high altitude clouds racing eastward. “Indifference. I can imagine the anger. It makes sense. Once in a while, I let myself imagine the happiness once in a while. But indifference… not caring whether I was alive or dead at all. That is the worst. That is the fear. Even if he was hateful, it would still mean...I mattered, in a way.”

The wind carried over snatches of laughter from Luc and Leelan, cheering for Nugget as he leapt over the stone wall to chase a fleeing groundhog. Leelan’s bookbag was leaned against Caleb’s chair for safekeeping. The boy’s hair was a tangled mess, his rolled up pant legs splashed with pond water. Caleb’s heart swelled in his chest. Not for the first time, he felt, so distinctly, that this moment was what he worked for. This -- the hills and the cottage and the boys and the heartfelt conversation and the family and the laughter and the warm coffee and the old stone walls -- this was the Empire he had dedicated himself to saving. 

And Leelan was uniquely Empire and Dynasty. Fully both, whether he liked it or not. 

Caleb looked over at his drow partner of nearly ten years. Privacy be damned. He reached out and took Essek’s face between his hands, held his silver gaze, as he had countless times before.

“You matter very much to me. To all of us. And together, we have done impossible things many times. We will do this, too. Protecting these children of our homelands. We will find a way.”

Essek leaned his forehead against Caleb’s. He didn’t say anything.

From across the yard, Luc yelled, “Mom! I just saw some crazy lightning!”

Caleb pulled back, letting Essek compose himself. “That may be my cue. I should help Leelan get home without getting drenched. All these years later and the dormitories are still terribly drafty.”

Hurried goodbyes overlapped each other, with hasty plans to meet again the next day before the Brenattos returned to Nicodranas. Leelan got several messy licks on his face from Nugget and an awkward, sweet handshake farewell from Luc. Veth prompted Yeza to wrap up several sandwiches and some cold-curing potions and some of Luc’s wool socks that were too small for him now and handed the package to Caleb to carry, since Leelan already had his hefty bag of books.

Essek, half-elf disguise now in place, walked with Caleb and Leelan to the crest of the hill, where the three turned back to wave once more. 

“If it’s alright to say,” Essek began carefully, looking towards the building gray stormfront, “You were very brave today, Leelan.”

Leelan looked up at Essek in surprise, still a bit out of breath from the whirlwind sendoff. 

“I have known these wild exuberant people for many years now. I have never known their equal, in all the lands I have seen. They are … a lot at first, I know. But believe me when I say you can trust them. With secrets, with your heart, with your life. They will take care of you.”

Leelan stared towards the storm as well, as if looking for whatever sign or substance Essek saw there. “I liked them,” he said simply after a moment.

“I do, too,” Essek said, looking back at Caleb and Leelan. “Very much.” To Caleb, he said, “Until later then?”

“Until later.”

Essek nodded, and walked a few feet off, before teleporting to -- Caleb knew -- their home.

“I hope I didn’t say something wrong, Professor.” Leelan said, as the two remaining figures began walking quickly toward Rexxentrum against the wind. “Mr. Birel is...hard to read.”

“That is putting it simply, but yes, you are right,” Caleb replied. Seeing Leelan lag a bit under the heavy load of his bag and an afternoon of running around a backyard, Caleb cast a quick levitation spell on the bag and the care package, making them bob along beside them as they walked on. “He is a very private person. It has taken him years to come more out of his shell. Which, as you can see from today, is quite the contrast to some of our other friends.”

“Did you...did you talk more about what we’re going to do next about my consecution stuff?” Leelan asked, his voice now getting tossed around somewhat by the wind.

“Yes, we did, and I will fill you in on everything tomorrow. If it’s alright with you, I would like to contact another friend of ours named Beauregard, who I believe has resources that will greatly help us.”

“I trust you, Professor,” Leelan answered, ducking his head to shield his eyes from the rain starting to fall. 

The two hurried home.

Chapter Text

The storm that had been threatening crashed against Rexxentrum like a tidal wave. Essek stayed up later than Caleb, listening to his husband toss and turn in the next room. Caleb got up to get an extra blanket from the hall closet as Essek scoured their library for more information on consecution that he knew wasn’t there. 

The storm faded. Another wave rolled through. 

Caleb slammed the window shut on the preceding breeze as Essek, bolstered by a glass of whisky, opened up the locked chest that contained his journals from more than a decade before. The journals of a man hungry for what his country couldn’t give him. The journals of a man who decided to take it for himself, consequences be damned. 

Essek had not looked at these journals since he’d written them. He ran his dusk-purple fingertips over half-finished ideas for equations, over mad scribbles that raged against the theocracy of the Dynasty, over cold sentences smeared with long-dried teardrops that described fights with Verin. This man wasn’t him. It wasn’t him.

But also it was. There was his handwriting, his barely closed vowels and heavy-handed accent marks. There was his hunger, his curiosity, still alive today, but with other targets. This man was him, and it frightened him. This man was inside him, locked deep in the past, like a poured foundation. Essek—like every humanoid to ever live—was like a Xorhasian doll, every second lived creating change, almost inseparable. Only looking back could he see all the different versions of himself stacked inside each other. Only looking back could he stare in wonder and horror.

On his second glass of whiskey, Essek reached his journal that detailed his time bringing the stolen beacons to Pride’s Call. He bitterly cast the decoding spell, somatics feeling slimy on his hands. He’d received word from Ikithon that a beacon had been unearthed in the Pride’s Call dig, and might he come and bring the beacons to do a comparative study? 

In his current journal, Essek scribbled, Beacon found in Pride’s call dig — Aeor contemporary?

He chewed on the end of the quill. He hadn’t written extensively on the studies done in Pride’s Call. Past Foolish Essek had trusted Ikithon to share his full notes, which had never happened. How long had the stolen beacons been out of their lead cases? How long had the discovered beacon been without one? In the new journal: Lead, stone, metal arcane divination blockage study on beacons - conclusive?

Was Leelan’s soul from one of Essek’s stolen beacons—or from this older, mysterious Pride’s Call beacon? Leelan was someone . He was a consecuted Dynasty soul, someone important. He had been a drow. He had been involved in Evocation, and was interested in magical darkness. 

Essek stared into his own reflection in the dark window glass, lit ominously by his candle and the sporadic lightning. It couldn’t be…

“Caleb.” Essek shook awake his husband, perhaps too roughly.

“Vas!” Caleb startled awake, hands halfway through the somatics for Fireball.

Essek, instead of slicing with a Counterspell, grabbed Caleb’s hands in his own. “I’m sorry. It’s alright, it’s me. It’s just—I’ve thought of something.”

Caleb took a few seconds to blink rapidly. Essek lit the lamp with a flick of his hand, and Caleb slurred out, “What is it, Liebling, it is three hours till sunrise.”

“I know and I am sorry, but I was looking at my old journals and…” Essek sat on the bed and took a deep breath. “I could be completely wrong, but I have a hypothesis for who…Leelan’s soul…is.”

Caleb suddenly looked much more awake. “You do? Who?”

“There is a historical arcanist named Kotos Viell. He was a drow wizard who created what is called the Keystone, the magical artifact that controls the magical darkness surrounding Rosohna. It has been whispered about in recent years that perhaps he was lying about being consecuted.” Here Caleb squeezed his hand. “Because he has not yet been reborn.”

“Kotos Viell,” Caleb said to himself, trying out the name on his sleepy tongue. Essek was distracted momentarily, by the sight of his husband warm and shirtless, and he himself tipsy and frightened and vulnerable. He shut his eyes for a moment. Stay on task, Thelyss .

“Again, it is only a possibility. I am also stuck wondering if Leelan’s soul is from one of the, ah, stolen beacons, or from the one unearthed at Pride’s Call. If he is Thiell, that would be a stolen beacon. As for the other… after Aeor, the implications of that beacon are much more complicated. But with the age of the city unearthed, and some of the memories Leelan has described of Rosohna…”

Caleb was nodding along, taking the mental steps two at a time right alongside Essek. “It sounds improbable his soul is from the Pride’s Call unearthed beacon. It sounds possible he could be Thiell. The question remains what actions we take now that we suspect it.”

Essek smoothed the sheets under his hand absentmindedly. “I have been thinking about the message I might send to Verin.”

“Ja?”

“Mm.”

Distant thunder, just strong enough to rattle the window panes. They would need to clean up fallen branches from the garden tomorrow.

“I am stuck between the adages of ‘sleep on it’ and ‘just go for it.’”

“Ah yes,” Caleb said. “The old Caduceus vs Jester methods.”

“Shall I Send to them and get their opinions?”

Caleb smiled. “I doubt that would help your indecision to be honest.”

“Caleb?”

“Yes?”

“I think I need to do it now. Before I’m too scared to.”

“Then I am here for you, Schatz.”

Essek took Caleb’s hand, squeezed it once, almost painfully tight. Then he lifted both hands and drew out a quivering silver line, thinking of the morning light just beginning to shine over Xorhas, far to the East.

“Verin. I know this will be a shock. I hope I am not too late to make up for lost time. Can we please meet?”

Hundreds of miles away, in the Asarius Military Outreach Administration Building, in an office too small for him, Verin Thelyss stood up from his chair so fast the wooden legs screeched terribly and his inkwell fell to the floor and shattered. His brother’s voice—after all these years—what was happening, what was happening ? He nearly forgot of the existence of the Sending spell, then panicked, worried he had missed the window. 

“You’re alive! How even - where are you? You idiot genius, where are you after all this time? Where can I meet you? When should we—” 

Verin could feel the spell release but he kept speaking into the stale air. “...meet? Why now, why now, you idiot? I’m going to kick your ass, after all these years, after they’ve finally stopped grilling me for any idea on where you are.”

Caleb was searching Essek’s face for an indication of the response. “Good? Terrible? Neutral?”

Essek swallowed, still processing. To have the thing he dreaded come to pass, and now… he didn’t know what he felt. “Not…terrible,” he said. “Though I felt like he was ramping up to yell at me. But he wants to meet.”

Caleb just kept his hand quietly on Essek’s knee, in no rush.

Essek’s fingers trembled through the second casting, but still the spell took. “A small shrine to the Wildmother on the western edge of the Vermalock. Five miles south of the Sfirin River. Midday on Yulisen. ... Thank you.”

Through the slowing patter of rain on the roof, came Verin’s reply, resolute.

“I will be there.”

***********************

After a chaotic, hurried breakfast with the Brenattos, and a hasty Teleport of them back home to Nicodranas, Caleb put on his best robes for his visit to the Rexxentrum Cobalt Soul Archive. He nodded at the entry desk guard Dana, and their glasses flashed in the sunrise light, nodding as they waved him through. They recognized him. Expositor Lionett’s revolutionary professor friend. Ex-adventurer turned bright-eyed bureaucrat who often dropped off pastries for all the support staff.

“Son of a bitch, Caleb, I mean fuck . Come on! Ioun’s left tit!” 

It was nearly an hour later, and Caleb had debriefed Beau on everything he could remember—which was everything—about Leelan and the troublesome reveal of his probable consecution. 

“I agree, the situation is definitely not the right tit of the venerable Ioun.”

“You know what I mean, man!”

Caleb did know what she meant. He gave Beau time to pace. He was surprised her office didn’t have a trench worn into the stone behind the desk by now. Beauregard’s office was grander than his, and starker, with stone walls and dark bookshelves mostly filled with document boxes, carefully labeled. A tall narrow window let in the early daylight, now a dim quadrilateral shape creeping across the woven rugs. Caleb sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair in front of Beauregard’s immaculate desk. A plate of banana bread, baked by Yasha the day before, sat between him and Beau. He took another piece.

“Essek and I would like for you to join us on this meetup with Verin.”

Beau slapped her face twice, punched the fighting dummy in the corner nine times in quick succession. “Okay. Good. Good. We can do this. When is it?”

Caleb gave her the details.

“Wow. Your husband must be losing his mind. Is he losing his mind?”

“He is … struggling with it, yes.”

“What do you think of his hypothesis? That Leelan is this…” She looked down at the notes she had rapidly scrawled, in huge lettering, during their talk. “Kotos Viell? I’ll look him up after this by the way. Fuck, I’ll look all of this up! On the down low, yeah yeah, you know I know.” She added the last after Caleb opened his mouth to argue.

Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know enough about Dynasty history to say. I planned time today to join you in research.”

“Have you thought about just…saying the name to Leelan? Seeing if it, I don’t know, awakens something?”

Caleb grimaced. “I have thought of that. But I worry about if we are right, and it… triggers something we cannot undo.”

“Oooh. True.” Beauregard chewed on the end of her pencil and rocked back and forth, heels to toes, heels to toes. She sighed, threw the pencil across the room. “It’s never gonna end for us, is it?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not until we are in the ground, I would think.” 

She nodded. “Let’s go read some fucking books.”

***********************

The shrine was a small one that Caduceus had built in one of his wanderings around Wildemount. Never the preachy sort, there was no overt statue of Melora or other distinct iconography. It was a small, three sided wooden structure built of cobbled together deadwood, encouraged to keep shape by ivy and vines. Inside was a rudimentary clay oven for heat and a few low benches. Impossibly, wildflowers grew from the ceiling, the outside walls, the floor, the top of the oven, the path to the door from the rarely used road. White, starburst-like daisies, long multi-blossomed purple things, tiny splashes of blue, and garish golden lilies. Inside the door, leaning against the wall, was a motley collection of walking sticks.

“A ‘rest stop,’ Caduceus called it,” Beauregard said as she, Caleb, and Essek entered. “To help weary travelers. I kinda like it.”

It was just past dawn on Yulisen. Low clouds of fog clung to the fields extending east from the ragged edge of the Vermalock. The trio could see their breath in the air, but the bright sun now rising promised a warmer day. 

“It’s beautiful,” Essek said, gently touching a few of the blossoms. “What are you doing?”

Beauregard was looking underneath the benches, feeling around inside the cold oven, poking her boot into the dim corners. “Checking for traps. That’s why we’re here so early, isn’t it?”

Essek looked back at Caleb, seeking help, but Caleb only shrugged, agreeing somewhat with Beauregard, and cast Detect Magic. Objects on himself and his two companions began to shine, as if illuminated by an otherworldly lantern just now lit. He ran his eyes over the walls, ceiling, floor, and found only the coal-like glow of something long maintained by magic, nothing flashing bright.

“Nothing magical that stands out. We should do a perimeter search as well.”

They spread out, circling outwards, searching for footprints, for the scent of arcana, but there was nothing but the cold grass and the occasional disturbed dirt marking the home of a vole.

“Do you know how your brother is getting here?” Beau asked as they met back up at the rest stop, jogging in place to stay warm in the cool morning. “Also what does he look like? Your brother.”

“I…” Essek stopped short, looking desperately at Caleb. 

“We hadn’t discussed the transportation part,” Caleb answered.

“Eh,” Beau said with a wave of her hand. “You said he’s some hoity-toity military guy? He can do what we all have done and bum a Teleport or buy a moorbounder. I just wanted to be prepared.”

“Verin as I last knew him, is more the type to do the latter.” Essek said. “But I’m not sure, as Caleb said. As for looks, he is taller than me, also a drow. He wears his hair long and braided. He is … muscular.”

“Oh, man,” Beau grinned. “Is he the jock brother? Are you the nerd brother and he’s the jock brother?”

Essek rolled his shoulders and flicked his ears in a prickly gesture that always made Caleb grin. “That is very reductive… but probably generally accurate.”

Beau punched the air. “Jock Thelyss! Alright, now I’m excited.”

“Speak of Baphomet,” Caleb murmured, as on the hazy northern horizon appeared the silhouette of a galloping giant cat. A moorbounder, carrying a single rider.

The three turned to meet them.

Chapter Text

The storm that had chased Leelan and Professor Widogast home from the Brenattos rattled the dormitory building through the night. 

Leelan had always struggled to sleep during storms. The charged air and booms of thunder made him want to pace. He paced his tiny dorm room: from bedside table, five steps to the door, then turn, and back again. He tried doing a few situps and pushups like he’d learned in Calisthenics. He tried laying back down, now slightly sweaty, but still his legs twitched and wouldn’t settle. He sat up again. Maybe he should get some assigned reading done if he couldn’t sleep anyway. Scanning the bookshelf over his desk, he spotted his journal and, on an impulse, pulled it down and sat down to write.

He’d started keeping a journal when he’d first entered Soltryce Academy. His father had kept one. A few times through his childhood he’d peeked into the pages, intrigued. His father had written about a wide array of topics: dreams he’d found foreboding, gardening successes, difficult funerals of distant family, ideas for inventions, frustrations with the magistrate. Most of Leelan’s journal entries were exploratory and banal. On slow weekends or during quiet lunches eaten alone, he’d written about the weather, about the quilt his mother had sent him, about the high grade on his Conjuration 101 essay. 

The next blank page stared up at him, hopeful and intimidating all in one. Leelan tapped his pencil on his desk in time with the jittering of his knee. He had never written down anything about the memory-dreams, had never made physical evidence of this hidden shameful mystery. Fear of someone finding it had stopped him. Fear of making the thing more real had stopped him. 

It’s already more real , he said to himself, somewhat bitter and somewhat comforting. Ever since you told Professor Widogast and Mr. Birel.

He picked up the pencil and hurried into the first sentence that sprang to his mind, before he could convince himself otherwise.

Sometimes I have dreams about being a dark elf except they aren’t dreams and it scares the hell out of me.

He stared down at the sentence. He was breathing fast. His penmanship was terrible, and his mother would not approve of him cursing. He dove in again.

Some of the dream-not-dreams — memories maybe, my professor just told me they are memories because I used to have a different soul or maybe my soul used to be alive before? Anyway some of them I like because they’re me or him or whoever doing amazing powerful magic and it’s like I can almost remember how to do that magic, and I want to remember fully so bad even though that’s really, really scary. I could probably ace all of my tests if I remembered!!! But would I be me or this other person if that happened? That’s what’s really, really scary, probably the most scary. I don’t want to lose me, I like me. But what makes me, me? Am I my soul or am I my brain? Am I my body? How do I know I’m me at all???

Leelan sat back and roughly rubbed at his wet, blurring eyes. His handwriting had gotten near illegible. He gripped the sides of his head, wanting to fling all the thoughts out of his brain in one enormous splat onto the page, and not have to wade through them all, frantically scribbling down whichever one jostled to the front of the line the fastest. There were too many thoughts in his brain. Most of them were too frightening or too complex or too fleeting to put into words. They were faces of dark elves that he knew and didn’t-know. Complex arcane artifacts held in his hands with a surge of unmistakable pride . His own halfling mother hugging him goodbye and crying when he climbed onto the horse that took him to Rexxentrum. They were filling up his brain, past the high water mark of panic. 

Another memory, definitely his own — his current own? his true own? his halfling own? At a traveling show outside the bucolic village of Brownstone, he’d once seen a cow brain preserved in a vat of liquid. The lantern light had been flickering in the dark tent. The distant delighted laughter of children chomping down candy was incongruent with the slimy, yellow-gray mass in the oversized jar before him. The surface of the brain was a tangle of squiggles, like the twisting tunnels of insects revealed after turning over a rock. And like at the sight of a turned over rock, Leelan had felt his stomach churn. Between him and the brain, his troubled eyes reflected back at him in the glass.

The Leelan in his Soltryce dorm room shook his head and shivered. Alone in the dark, there was nothing to distract him.

What would his brain look like in a jar? Would someone be able to see the consecution in his brain? Would it be like a filmy extra layer surrounding the physical organ of his mind? Would it be a tumor, dark and twisted and poisonous? Would it be a regular brain, but still wrong ? The brain of a dark elf somehow compressed into his halfling skull?

Professor Widogast and his companion had spoken of a soul. Where was the soul in his body? Leelan looked down at his shaking hands, flexing and unflexing them. He was controlling the movement but he felt strangely far away from his body.

Was his soul in his body at all? Was it in his brain? His heart? Was it somewhere else entirely, outside him? Did he have two souls? The soul of the dark elf body from his memories, plus the soul of Leelan Kairen, Brownstone halfling?

How on Exandria was he supposed to write any of this down, condense it into letters and words? How was he supposed to sail through this storm? It was too big, and he was much, much, much too small. 

He shut off his desk lantern with a jerky motion that nearly knocked it over, crawled back into bed, and did not sleep.

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In the crisp still air, Essek could hear the panting of the approaching moorbounder, and the rhythmic galloping of its paws. 

Beau was looking in every other direction. “I don’t see anyone else. Just the one. Caleb, you?”

“Same here,” Caleb replied, pressing a component to his lips and casting Tongues. “Essek, are you sure that’s him?”

Essek didn’t have to think about his answer. Even from a distance, even swathed in chitinous armor, he knew. “That’s him.” 

Verin Thelyss skidded his moorbounder to a halt several yards away, and leapt off before the dust had settled. He strode towards the group purposefully, yanking off his helmet and tossing it behind him. His hair was in a long simple braid, dingy and frizzy from travel.

Caleb took a half step in front of Essek.

Essek opened his mouth to say anything and the first words to his brother in person after many long years were: “You’re early.”

Verin didn’t stop walking until he reached Essek, stepping around Caleb as if he were an inert piece of landscape. 

He threw his arms around Essek, shoving his face into his neck.

“Oof.” Essek said, and his voice cracked. Verin smelled like sweat and moorbounder shit and an unnamable smell of home . Essek put his arms around him. It was like hugging one of the huge ancient trees in the Blooming Grove, but made of metallic plates that were squeaking slightly as Verin shook in Essek’s arms.

Then he stepped back, and took Essek’s face into his dirty gloved hands. “You fucking idiot , I’ve missed you so much,” he said in Undercommon.

“Same to you,” Essek replied. His mother tongue tasted like rust.

“Why the fuck…? How the fuck…? Where have you been , shit! ” Verin couldn’t seem to finish a sentence as he held Essek at arm’s length, looking him over.

Over Verin’s shoulder, Essek saw Beau nodding approvingly.

“It is a very long story.” Essek swallowed. “Also, first things first. This is my husband.”

“ ...What? ”

“Hello, my name is Caleb Wido—” His surname was cut off by Verin’s crushing hug that nearly lifted Caleb off the ground.

***

Tucked away now into the edge of the Vermaloc, sated with some of Beau’s reliable pocket bacon, Verin rubbed the heels of his enormous hands into his eyes. “A consecuted kid from the Empire that might be Kotos Viell ? Luxon’s ass , what a mess… I mean, yeah, I know some people I can ask more about anamnesis without it being real obvious, but word will get around, and I don’t know what that will do. Do you know the new Shadowhand’s people still come around sometimes asking if I know where you are?”

“Who is it?” Essek asked before he could stop himself. He felt ashamed of the vain curiosity. 

Verin rolled his eyes, and it felt so familiar Essek’s heart swelled painfully in his chest. “Kriskella Den Vestry.”

Essek could feel Beauregard next to him memorizing the name, could practically hear her metaphorical pencil furiously scratching across the page of her mind.

“Is it really unknown to the Dynasty that I have attached myself to the Mighty Nein?”

Verin threw up his hands. “I mean… no? I don’t know! Look, I only know what I know! I know they’re looking at them, too, yes.”

Essek looked at Beauregard, then at Caleb. Their gazes never moved from Verin. Why did that make his stomach go cold?

They already knew .

Essek knew he had a quick mind. A quick, calculating mind that had earned him the position of Shadowhand in the first place. He saw others’ actions spinning their four-dimensional spiders’ web and knew after only a few minutes of examination where exactly to pluck or snip , to cause the greatest pain, the surest advantage. And now his mind fell back on those old habits, racing effortlessly through the spiraling layers of if/thens.

If they didn’t look surprised, then they already knew the Dynasty was still delving them for information about him.

If they already knew that, then something had happened to clearly lay that out. Something like the Dynasty repeatedly contacting them.

Something they hadn’t told him about.

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Leelan’s next day in class was agony. He struggled to keep his eyes open, struggled to keep his hand writing legible notes and homework lists. He spoke up little in group discussion. He ate a bland lunch of toast and creamed spinach, every bite tasting like dust.

But that night, too, he journaled. Sleepy and exhausted and harrowed though he was, he scrawled into the waiting pages his worries and fears. Fears of Archmage Dalazar’s upcoming visit to observe certain classes. Fears of disappointing the Dusk Captain when his latest invention, a darkness parasol, failed miserably, despite being so simple . 

I don’t know why it didn’t work, since the essential calculation is the same as the previous experiments. Perhaps the shape of the stone truly does affect the shape of the projected darkness, despite what our past arcanists have observed. Encasing the stone in the cylindrical handle affects the enchantment - the physical and the magical are intertwined, I must remember that.

And the next day followed and the next and the next. Classes were a blur, but the calculations on the chalkboards were oddly sharp. 

Professor Antromini was teaching them Light. Leelan found himself only half-listening, sketching in his notebook instead. He was trying to recall the odd device from his memories a few nights before. A wide, flat stone — or maybe it was glass? — inscribed with runes.

“Master Kairen, why don’t you demonstrate what I’ve just shown?”

Leelan looked up, felt in his peripheral vision the room full of faces turned towards him. Instead of blushing in panic, he stood up on his chair, head rising just above his taller classmates. With the two fingers of his right hand held together, he drew a line in the air, binding a seam between the physical and the magical. With both hands palms up he let the magic bloom and his eraser shone like the noon sun. 

Several students gasped. Professor Antromini raised her eyebrows, then caught herself and scowled. 

“Good to see you are paying attention. Who is next? Miss Bitters?”

Leelan sat back down, eraser aglow. He was still being watched by a few neighbors. There were whispers. What was all the fuss about? It was just Light, he’d cast it hundreds of times before. 

His hand twitched. His pencil lead snapped, smearing the sketch of the device. Leelan stared at the page, hearing, as if through a tunnel, the voice of Professor Antromini correcting his fellow students on their somatics. 

Something wasn’t right.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. He opened his eyes, flipped to a new page, and started a new sketch.

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The sun was setting and Verin had ridden away, with plans to find information on the anamnesis process from his contacts, and the date of their next meeting. 

Before he’d mounted up, he punched Essek just once in the shoulder, slightly too hard.

Essek winced and scowled. He considered casting Ray of Frost.

“Don’t go years without talking to me again, dumbass.” Verin squeezed Essek in a quick hug, kissed his temple roughly, and then swung himself onto the moorbounder, whose name, Caleb had found out, was Undercommon for Pickles.

Essek blinked away the glare of the setting sun, watched his brother turn into a small distant dot, then nothing. Now .

“Caleb. Has the Dynasty been contacting you trying to get information on my whereabouts?” 

Beau and Caleb locked eyes. 

Essek hissed a sigh. “That is a yes. Why didn’t you tell me?” He pointed at Beauregard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“ I wanted to, for the record,” Beau replied, looking at Caleb, who had frozen, staring into the middle distance. “I mean, at this point… May I?” She sounded like she was about to regardless of his answer.

“Yes, well, the cat is out of the bag, so…” Caleb’s voice was strained.

“Yeah, it is.” Beau sighed, then took on her familiar tone of information briefings. “It started about three years ago. Most of us have been contacted in various forms, primarily Sendings. I think Cad got a letter at one point. I have it back at my office. ‘Did we know anything about the Dynasty fugitive Essek Thelyss? Have we heard from him? Did our friends have any mysterious friends? Would we consider re-establishing our alliances with the Dynasty?’ Basic cold case stuff. Three years ago is when that new Shadowhand was—elected? Were you elected? I never asked.”

“Shadowhands are not elected. They are appointed by the Bright Queen and her council,” Essek answered rotely.

“Appointed then, yeah. She was appointed about three years ago and sounds like she’s cracking open the dusty Thelyss file to see if anything shakes out.”

Essek rubbed at his face. His brain felt too large for his skull. “And why did you all think I didn’t need to know this?”

Beau smiled humorlessly at Caleb. “Yeah, Caleb, why did you?”

Caleb scowled at Beau, before his face crumpled again, turning to Essek. “I am so sorry. It is apparent I made a poor choice. I shouldn’t make excuses but…”

“Just tell me what you were thinking, and I’ll pretend not to hear the excuse of it.”

“You were doing so much better .” Caleb’s voice cracked and Essek saw tears shining in his blue eyes.

Essek was brought up short by that. No excuse was good enough but… he remembered three years ago. They’d gotten married three years ago. Their garden had begun to thrive at last. Yasha and Beau had adopted another child. Everything in those memories was vibrantly colored.

And now he had to reconcile that underneath it all, the whole time—

“You had finally stopped looking over your shoulder every minute,” Caleb went on. “I didn’t want to do that to you again. Not without concrete evidence that the danger had actually increased.”

“Sendings were not ‘concrete evidence?’”

“Not enough!”

“And—” Beau said, “not to jump in on your fight or anything here but we did , as in the Soul, as in me, I did start a bit of an investigation to watch for extra shady stuff, of which there was none.”

Essek breathed through his nose, eyes shut tight. He did not want to be angry. There was no time to be angry. “I just wish,” he said, eyes still closed, “you would have let me make that risk assessment for myself.”

“Yeah, that was my opinion, too,” Beau said.

“Beauregard, we get it,” Caleb said, “You disagreed with me then, you disagree with me now.” 

“This is what I can live with,” Essek said with finality. “Beauregard, you will show me everything you have in that investigation file. And both of you — you can relay this to the rest of the Nein, too — you will tell me as soon as someone from the Dynasty messages asking about me going forward. Yes?”

“You got it, man.”

“Of course. I am… I am sorry. That was a grave error.”

“Well, you and I might discuss it more at another time. But right now we are focused on a grave error of mine in the past, so let’s continue with that.”

Caleb sighed. “This is not all your fault.”

“Why are you so insistent on absolving me from blame?”

“Why are you so stubborn about taking all the blame?”

Beau’s eyes darted between them and she backed away, suddenly absorbed in picking wildflowers. Caleb’s face was pained.

“Ah,” Essek groaned. “We are going to be doing this same dance until the end of our days, aren’t we?”

Caleb huffed. "Is THAT what this is really about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our lives. Our time . Is THAT what you are thinking about?"

"I'm always thinking about that, someone has to," Essek spat.

"Always." Caleb's eyes were dangerous. "Always? When we are laughing in the garden together, you are thinking about it? When we're in bed together catching our breath, you are thinking about it? Here, now, as a child's soul and possibly others are at stake, you are thinking about how one day I am going to die?"

Essek’s face was hot. "That's not fair," he whispered.

" None of it is!" 

Essek’s vision was going blurry with tears. “I am never going to be free of these mistakes. Never . I am never going to get to live a day with you where I am only happy , and not also a broken, twisted man. I just wish I could have one day .”

Caleb’s eyes were shining, but resolute. “I used to wish that, too. But I have given it up, to have this here now instead.” He gestured between them. “This is all there is, Essek. If this is how it will always be, how long will you stay and keep trying? A month? A year? Five? Make up your mind. Because I will keep trying, but I can’t wait forever for you to decide.”

Caleb turned and walked back towards the wooden hut. Beau looked back at Essek once, but said nothing. She followed Caleb.

Essek stood there a long time, watching the sky go dark. Clouds had moved in, and there were no stars.

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Walking through the sea of chattering students, Leelan planned his device. In the library next to Sybil, he scribbled out his Illusion essay as fast as he could, and still the pencil wouldn’t move as fast as his mind. He read Sybil’s essay, marked it with corrections, handed it back to her, and cracked open a copy of Datum Arcanum: An Elvish History of Magical Runework . 

“What class is that for?” Sybil asked, tilting her head to read the spine, curls falling onto the table over her marked-up essay. “It looks rough !”

“Oh, it … it just interested me is all.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, you must have found some other time to study. I don’t know how you finished your essay so fast!”

“Mm,” Leelan answered, absorbed in some rubbings of artifacts found in the Ashkeeper Peaks. That one looked promising.

He became the first one finished with the daily Enchantment quizzes. They were laughably easy, after all. He found more books on runes, on glass, on shaping stone. The librarians gave him odd looks that he didn’t notice. 

And every night before he slept he wrote. His skin no longer crawled when he wrote “I” and meant the dark elf man. The next line might say “I” and mean Leelan Kairen. The antecedents flipped, changed, blurred.

****

Leelan awoke when he was already halfway out of bed. He had the distinct inexplicable feeling someone had just called his name, yet he could not put his finger on the sound of it. He scrambled at the memory of the sound, feeling like the more earnestly he reached out to touch it, the more it slipped away from him.

He remembered a class at an observatory, being taught that, for dim constellations, you could see them better when viewed out of the corner of your eyes. Like dreams freshly awoken from, the drow professor had said, white braided hair wrapped in an elegant bun atop her head, dim stars slipped away from you if you looked at them directly.

This momentary distraction was enough for the sound of his name to sneak up on him and click into place. His name and not-his-name. He scrambled over to the desk, grabbed the pen before the stars of his memory dimmed, before they lost their grip on the words shouted in his dream, familiar and unfamiliar all in one.

He scrawled them in a script he’d never written, hand moving as easily as breathing.

Kotos Viell.