Those Who Favor Fire

by marywhale

Summary:

Lup goes missing. Taako goes looking for her. If people would stop befriending him it'd probably go a lot faster.

Notes:

This fic is complete. There are two more main parts and an epilogue, which I'm in the midst of editing. Part two should be up by the end of the week, followed shortly by part three and the epilogue, which I think will be posted together. Title is from Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice.

I haven’t written a fic in a long time but TAZ pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go! Comments/kudos are super appreciated. :)

Chapter 1: Missing Person

School is Lup’s idea. She decides she wants to get an education and Taako follows. He’s just humble enough to admit that most of their best life choices start with Lup, and university turns out to be one of them.

The University of Neverwinter has that good magic shit—the biggest Department of Magicks on Faerûn—with highly regarded specialists in both evocation and transmutation, and also it’s in Neverwinter . Taako and Lup have been on the road their whole lives. They’ve experienced living in (or at least seen) every kind of community, from small towns to big cities to once, miserably, a cave. If Taako were ever to settle down, he would definitely lean towards a city like Neverwinter with its bright lights, good weather, killer shopping, and recreational obsession with gossip rags documenting every movement of the most fashionable lords, ladies, and celebrity bardic-types.

It’s his kind of town.

Lup knows this, which is probably why she didn’t suggest they head to Rockport’s Magic Polytechnical Academy or something. Taako’s always grateful for the things they don’t need to say because they’re inherently understood, because they know each other deep down in their bones.

Still. Taako’s vision of their glamourous life in Neverwinter hadn’t involved shitty student housing, professors who thought 8am classes were reasonable—yes, technically Taako doesn’t need sleep, but what the fuck 8am—or breadth requirements.

“You’re taking necromancy.” Taako’s voice is flat as he stares Lup down across the scarred, too small table of the coffee shop. It’s Taako’s favourite. The barista, Ren, is a slightly-misguided drow woman with a crush who's constantly giving him drinks on the house. Free shit is the best shit. In retrospect, he should have suspected Lup was buttering him up when she suggested it.

“I know I said I’d do some transmutation credits so we could hang out, but hear me out—necromancy is rad as hell.”

“Yeah, if you want to hang around old dead dudes all day.” Taako has no interest in that. Less than no interest. He’s so very good out here, chilling with the living. “Lup.”

“Taako.” Lup leans forward, hands cupped around her mug, expression earnest. “I want to stretch my boundaries. I know transmutation shit already. Not like you do, obvs, but it’s not new , and necromancy is on the cutting edge of weirdness. There’s so much we don’t know.”

Taako is perfectly aware of how much isn’t known about necromancy. Not just by the two of them, but by the world in general. That’s the problem. Necromancy’s bad reputation exists for a reason . Practitioners went mad, disappeared mysteriously, turned up dead, or turned out to be way too into dead bodies. Taako has some eldritch shit up his sleeves, but even he thinks some of the stuff necromancers get into is too kinky.

But Lup looks so sincere and hopeful sitting in front of him, trying to appeal to his better nature. Taako knows that if he says he doesn’t want Lup taking necromancy, she’ll drop the issue. She’ll be disappointed and grumpy about it, but if he insists she’ll stick with their plan and take some transmutation courses with him.

He sighs, leaning back in his chair, and waves a dismissive hand. “Fine. It’s weird and I don’t get it, but if this is what you’re into, then go for it, bubelah. Just know that I’m going to kill at evocation after this semester and you’re going to be jealous that I’m better at your school than you are.”

Lup grins. “Do your best. I’ll just sic my cool ass zombie hoard on you.”

The subject gets dropped. The new semester starts with Lup taking necromancy courses and Taako tagging along to evocation. They still spend more time together, because he’s in some of Lup’s classes with her, and even if Taako’s skin crawls thinking about hanging around with dead bodies and dipping his hands in blood or whatever it is necromancers do, Lup is happy and Lup being happy is one of Taako’s favourite things.

It turns out later, though, that Taako was right. That Taako really should have put his foot down. And Lup isn’t even around to hear him say “I told you so.”

 

*

 

The Neverwinter militia comes to the door hours after Lup is supposed to be home from class. It’s the middle of the night, but Taako is awake and baking cookies. Something has been bothering him, keeping him from slipping into a meditative state, although he couldn’t have pinned the feeling down if you pressed him. He just felt—off. Ever so slightly wrong, like maybe he was starting to come down with the flu or something.

The militia turns up, and Taako opens the door wearing an oversized University of Neverwinter sweatshirt over his favourite pair of leggings, purple and soft with little diamonds screenprinted on them. His hair is being held in a messy bun by his wand and his mascara and eyeliner are definitely clumping because it’s been about eighteen hours since he applied them. There are two officers, one an older, stern looking human, and the other a halfling woman with way too much sympathy on her face.

The older of the two officers looks at Taako like he’s not sure what to do with his look, which puts Taako’s back up before anyone even opens their mouth.

“Taako Taaco?”

Taako looks down at the woman and then crosses his arms over his chest. He and Lup don’t have the best relationship with authority. Taako is somewhat infamous on campus for driving Professor Leon in the artificing department to take a sabbatical. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m Sergeant Hurley. This is Captain Bane. We’re with the Neverwinter Militia.”

“Never would have guessed,” Taako drawls, raising an eyebrow. He can’t think of anything he or Lup have done recently that would bring the militia—

And that’s when Taako realizes what this is about. Why Hurley is looking at him with such careful sympathy and why he’s felt off all night. He realizes why they’re here and how terribly, achingly awful it is that they’ve shown up. His nonchalance drops and he straightens, ears pricked upwards in high alert. “What happened?” he asks.

Sergeant Hurley takes a deep breath. She reaches out to touch Taako’s arm and he flinches back from her hand.

“Where’s Lup? Is she okay?”

“There was an accident at the university,” Hurley says. “Your sister’s class was… we think they were attempting a summoning. The professor should have known better.”

“Is she okay?” Taako doesn’t know if the halfling is even listening to him. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest he thinks the sound might be drowning out his words. He can hear his blood throbbing, his heartbeat stuttering.

“Son, I’m afraid she wasn’t among the survivors,” Captain Bane says. Taako hears Sergeant Hurley asking increasingly concerned questions as the sound of her voice, as even his heartbeat is drowned out by an overwhelming ringing in his ears. Taako’s vision narrows and the last thing he’s conscious of before the world goes black is feeling himself tip forward into surprisingly strong, halfling arms.

 

*

 

Taako wakes up on his couch. His hair is loose and someone has covered him with a blanket. There’s a small, cool hand on his forehead. His first thought is that if he fell asleep waiting for Lup she’s going to give him so much shit for worrying about her; his second is that Lup isn’t going to ever give him shit again because the militia says she’s dead.

He sits bolt upright and nearly sends Sergeant Halfling flying, knocking her hand away.

“Geez!” She rubs her wrist and gives Taako a look that is annoyance tempered by concern. “Don’t sit up too fast. You fainted.”

“I didn’t faint,” Taako protests, although yeah, he definitely did. Fainting sounds too—Taako definitely didn’t faint. Temporarily blacked out.

“Is there someone I can call for you?” Hurley asks. “Friends? Your parents?”

Taako swallows around the lump that has suddenly appeared in his throat. He takes a breath. Friends. Family. Taako never needed them. He never needed anyone except Lup, and she didn’t need anyone except him. That was how things had always been, ever since they were little. A matching set. More than that. Taako without Lup isn’t a whole person. She is—was—his everything.

He can’t tell a stranger that so he just sits on the couch, ears drooping, and curls in around himself. “No.”

“You really shouldn’t—be alone. There must be someone?”

Taako shakes his head. He feels ashamed of it, with Hurley looking at him so pityingly, but before tonight, before this moment, there hadn’t been a reason to look for anyone else. Not for any kind of permanence. People left. That was what they did. He and Lup were—they’d always promised, always, that they were different and they would stay. Them against the world.

Turned out, sometimes the world won.

“Could I have a cookie?” Taako asks, after a long moment of uncomfortable silence. “I made them. They’re really good.” He pauses. “You can have some too.”

Hurley gets up and heads to the kitchen. Captain Bane, Taako notes, is nowhere to be seen. Taako’s good at reading people most of the time and he did have kind of a dick vibe to him, so that makes sense. Hurley’s too kind, but Taako can deal with too kind because too kind is easy to take advantage of, and now is the time for survival mode.

He rearranges himself on the couch for best effect, and allows a small, false smile to creep across his face when Hurley returns with a plate full of cookies and two glasses of milk.

“Thank you,” Taako says, reaching for a glass and a cookie. He’s surprised to find his hands are shaking. Maybe acting pathetic will be less challenging than he thought.

“No problem.” Hurley sits again, in the chair she pulled up beside the couch. Taako and Lup’s apartment is small, but cozy. A basement suite only a ten minute walk from the university. The furniture that came with the place was drab and uninspiring, but Taako is a god damned transmutation genius so changing the colours of the walls and couches hadn’t been difficult. It’s a lot of red and purple now—red for Lup and purple for Taako—which is maybe not the most relaxing colour palate, but it’s home. It’s been home for a year.

“What happened?” Taako asks, because he needs to know. He can’t believe Lup is just gone.

“We’re not sure yet,” Hurley says. It’s a lot more honest than Taako expected her to be. “The investigation is still ongoing. We have one witness, but his memory is… not great right now. It was a small class. Five students, the TA, and the professor.”

That was such a small number of people and Lup wasn’t stupid. If someone was getting into some really dark necromancy shit, she’d back off, right? She’d at least tell him about it.

“How many survived… whatever?”

Hurley reaches for another cookie. “Only the TA, but like I said, his memory is addled.”

“Fuck,” Taako says. “It’s him. He’s guilty. He killed them. Case-fucking-closed. Can I help with the punishment? What is the punishment?” If Neverwinter has the death penalty, Taako is down for that. Lup wouldn’t have been, which is ironic considering fucking necromancy, but she’s not—Taako’s brain cuts him off before he can finish the thought.

“We, uh—it’s—I really shouldn’t be talking about this.” Hurley takes another bite of her cookie and frowns down at it like maybe it holds the answers she seeks. She looks back up at Taako and he lets his ears droop, makes his eyes wide and sad.

“Oh, all right,” Hurley says. “Since you’re trying so hard with the doe eyes. It’s… more complicated than that. We need to bring in an expert to understand what they were doing. There aren’t any… bodies. It’s just—the room is scorched. That’s unusual too, for a necromancy case. The have spells that use fire, and usually there’s a lot of candles involved in rituals, but this is—like something exploded. But there’s—like I said, we haven’t found the bodies yet. I’m sorry. This is too much.”

Taako stares at Hurley as some of the misery he feels uncurls from around his heart. A room that looked like something exploded inside it. A lack of bodies. A feeling like hope bouys up inside him and Taako finds himself relaxing back against the couch, lips forming a genuine smile, one that seems to throw Hurley off.

“Oh,” he says. “Good. Okay. That’s fine then.”

“Fine?” she repeats, eyebrows arching high.

“Yes,” Taako says. “Everything is going to be just fine. Lup’s not dead.”

 

*

 

Sergeant Hurley decides Taako is in denial and goes to get his landlord. Taako doesn’t know what she thinks Merle is going to do, but then again she’s probably angling for a way to get home and away from the crazy elf without feeling guilty. That’s fine. Hurley seems pretty okay for a cop and all, but Taako’s cool without the militia hanging around.

“So. Your sister, huh?”

Dwarves aren’t exactly known for their physical beauty, but Taako’s pretty sure Merle is rough looking even by dwarven standards. One of his arms is a tree and he’s got an eyepatch with an owl on it that he’s pretty sure isn’t a fashion statement, since Merle also wears a pair of over-sized, wire rimmed glasses.

Merle’s also a cleric, but probably the shadiest cleric Taako has ever met, and Taako and Lup met a lot of shady characters in their wild, elven youth.

“She’s not dead.”

Merle holds up his hands, one of which holds a cookie. “Not saying she is, kid, but you’ve got to admit—doesn’t look good.”

Taako frowns. He’s sitting at Merle’s kitchen table, in a room half-filled with plants. Hurley suggested it might be best for him to not be alone and although neither he nor Merle were thrilled about it, there was a definite mutual desire to send Hurley on her way. Taako brought cookies, because he currently has lots, and Merle made weird, hippie tea that tastes like chewing a mouthful of grass with a faint aftertaste of mushroom and dirt.

Taako takes another sip because he’s pretty sure it’s special tea. He feels more relaxed.

“I didn’t say it looked good. I said she wasn’t dead. Lup’s smart and her specialty is evocation. The room was all burned up. That means she fought back, and there—hey.” Taako stops, abruptly, because none of this is stuff he planned on saying. “What the fuck?”

Merle smiles and takes a bite of a cookie. “Truth tea,” he says. “It’ll help you get it all out. Works on my kids every time.”

It’s no wonder Merle only sees his kids a couple times a month, if this is the shit he pulls as a parent. Taako opens his mouth to make a quip about how he’s glad he and Lup never had to deal with shitty parent stuff, but no sound comes out and he clams up quick before he can say something he doesn’t want anyone to know.

“So you think your sister fought back against whatever attacked them,” Merle says, taking a sip of his own tea, which seems like a bad move from where Taako is sitting, but maybe you get used to getting high on your own supply or something. “What makes you so sure she’s alive?”

“I’d know,” Taako says, the words out of his mouth before they’re even fully formed in his mind. And it’s reassuring, being able to say them out loud while under the influence of Merle’s stupid tea. “If Lup was dead, I’d be able to feel it. She’s the other half of my soul.”

“Wish I had that kind of relationship with my family,” Merle says, which probably eliminates the chance he’s immune to the effects of the tea.

“Are you ever going to fix the drip in our sink?” Taako asks.

“I’m hoping you’ll move out before I have to.” Merle shrugs, seemingly at peace with compulsive honesty, although he’s been leading them on a chase about the sink for weeks now. “Damned thing never stays fixed and I’m pretty sure the plumber is ripping me off. Besides, you have magic powers. You could fix it.”

“You’re a really shitty landlord.”

“Nah.” Merle grins. “I like you two. You’re rambunctious. Reminds me of my Mookie. I undercharge you rent, so we’re even.”

Well, shit. Taako’s not good with nice gestures, so he stays quiet and curls his legs up onto his chair so he can rest of his mug on his knees. Lup and Taako only moved into Merle’s basement suite because student housing was sad and drab and the Felicity Wilds Student Residence, where they’d been rooming, was in such rough shape it had been literally condemned over the summer. It was a last minute choice neither of them was happy about. Taako’s had literal dreams about moving to a place where their landlord doesn’t live directly above his head. He feels kind of bad about being shitty to Merle now, which is weird and gross.

Taako takes another sip of tea and then reaches for a cookie. There’s one more thing he needs to say out loud. One more thing he needs to feel is true. “I’m going to find Lup,” he says. “I’m going to get her back.”

Merle reaches out and pats Taako’s hand with his wooden arm. There’s a flower blooming on his thumb. “I believe you, kid.”

 

*

 

Taako is not an adventurer. He’s curious and bold and really not fucking shy, sure, but he’s not a rush into danger and save the day kind of person. There are plenty of people like that at the University, and they’re all—without exception—idiots.

That said, Taako’s not going to trust the militia to do their job when they’ve already fucked up by writing Lup off as dead.

So Taako thinks about what Lup would do. He thinks about what the right version of what she would do is, and he stays up all night in Merle’s kitchen, long after the dwarf gives up and goes to bed. He makes a plan.

Taako shows up at the militia headquarters dressed head to toe in black. Black pleather leggings and a black crop top with a sheer, floor-length black dress layered overtop. He spells his pointy hat black and dons sunglasses for dramatic effect. He pulls on his favourite, thigh-high black leather boots. Taako looks good. Taako looks he just rolled out of a high-fashion funeral parlour. His hair is done in a complicated braid and his wand is tucked behind his ear.

He sweeps into the building, plants his clutch on the desk of the first official-looking person he sees, and demands to be taken to the crime scene.

The tiefling spoils the effect of this entrance just a little. “Um. Which crime scene?” he asks, clearing his throat. “There are… a lot of them.”

Taako slides his sunglasses down his nose so he can give the dude a dirty look. “The one from the university, obviously,” he says. “The one where my sister was killed. With the necromancy shenanigans.”

“I—uh—can’t just… take you to an active crime scene,” the tiefling says. “We have protocols. There’s—I could get the officer in charge? Of the case? She could explain this better than I can, and maybe if you have… questions?”

Taako is pretty sure Hurley is too smart to be tricked into letting him see anything, but that’s fine. That’s why Taako has a plan.

“Yes,” he says. “If you’ll just show me to her desk I’ll wait for her.”

“Well, she—I mean, I don’t know if I should just leave you unsupervised. Let’s see if she’s here.”

Hurley isn’t there because Taako very specifically waited until Hurley wasn’t there before making his grand entrance. Taako isn’t nearly as foolish as he likes people to think. He follows the tiefling down the hall to the bullpen, which is full of officers. They walk to a tidy desk in the corner with a couple toy battlewagons perched on it. There is a distinct lack of Hurley.

The officer turns back to Taako, a doubtful look on his face. “I should take you back out front to wait.”

“Listen, my dude, I just want to know what Hurley’s found out about my dead twin sister,” Taako says, slipping the sunglasses off and giving the tiefling the most mournful, tragic look he can muster. Which is pretty fucking tragic. “I’ll wait here for her. You can tell her Taako’s here as soon as she gets back. I’ll just… cry. For a bit.”

The officer might not want to leave Taako unattended, but he’s also clearly not interested in comforting a grieving family member.

“I’m in a room full of militia members,” Taako points out, gesturing around the room. “It’s not like I can get into any trouble.”

That does it. The tiefling nods and gives Taako’s arm an awkward pat. “Of course,” he said. “You’re—yes. I’ll tell Hurley you’re waiting for her here as soon as she gets back. Feel… better?”

Taako waits for the tiefling to leave, then drops into Hurley’s desk chair and casts mislead. A visible version of himself sits sedately in the chair, looking woeful and generally like the kind of person that should be avoided lest you end up with a weeping elf on your hands. His invisible, real self starts to rifle through Hurley’s things as subtly and quickly as he can. The militia definitely employs magic users, but how many people are ballsy enough to steal paperwork from the middle of the bullpen at peak work hours? That’s just how Taako do.

He finds the file on the university necromancy case pretty quickly, because it’s new and Hurley’s pretty organized. The file is disappointingly slim, but does contain helpful information. Skimming it, Taako learns a few things: one, Hurley’s writing is almost as bad as his and Lup’s; two, the lab that went bad happened in room 0119 of the necromancy building; and three, the TA who survived and claims to have no memory of the incident is improbably named Barry J. Bluejeans.

Taako collects his double and ghosts out of the militia headquarters after replacing the file where he found it. Hurley will undoubtedly figure out he was peeking at her notes, so it’s a good idea to get a head start on her while he still has the chance. Taako may not know much about police work, but he’s see enough trashy fantasy procedurals to know that the first few hours of Lup being missing at the most crucial if he wants to find her alive. And Taako is going to find her alive.

If the militia wants to waste his fucking time insisting she’s dead, that’s their problem. Taako is going old school. He’s taking the law into his own hands.

 

*

 

Taako has never actually stepped foot inside the necromancy building before, although he’s walked Lup there for her classes sometimes. It’s not that he’s scared , thank-you-very-much Lulu, but whoever designed the building knew exactly who they were designing it for and went hog wild. The architecture’s Gothic and moody. Anywhere they could decorate with a tasteful raven-and-or-skull motif, they did. Even peeking inside the building isn’t really possible. The arched windows that line the walls of the building would probably let in lots of light and give passers-by a nice view in if it weren’t for all the wrought iron filigree plastered over them or the heavy, blackout curtains drawn shut in most of the classrooms, but necromancers like their dark corners, apparently.

Taako takes a deep breath, reminds himself that this is for Lup , and opens the door. Inside, the building still has a definite creep factor, but it’s toned down significantly by the extremely average looking students milling around and the bulletin board by the door, which has roommate wanted flyers and crappy, handmade posters for a band called Johann and the Voidfish.

Taako timed his investigation for the top of the hour, so he watches as the hall gradually empties of most of his fellow students, then starts down the hall in search of room 0119. It becomes apparent almost immediately that 0119 in the basement because of course it is. Every room on this floor is 1000-something.

Grumbling to himself, Taako heads downstairs. The doors to the basement are sealed with police tape and a notice informing students that all basement classes are being held elsewhere on campus until further notice. But Taako is a wizard and he may play if like he’s slow, but he’s a good one. He casts Passwall and a convenient hole appears, allowing him to walk right through all that police nonsense. He leaves it open behind him, which is risky, but he just burned a fifth level spell and he’s not going to do that again today if he doesn’t have to.

The hallway on the other side of the door is unlit, which is fine. Taako is an elf. If his ears are twitching and trying to pick up on any little sound, that’s definitely because he’s on some detective shit, not because he’s worried about being snuck up on in the basement of this horror show of a building. Taako is pretty. That increases his chances of being tragically murdered by, oh, a billion.

Room 0119 is at the far end of the hall. Taako pauses outside the door, listening for any sounds inside the classroom, then covers his hand with the skirt of his gauzy dress to keep from leaving fingerprints and pulls it open.

The first thing that hits him is the smell. The room reeks of ozone and fire, like there was an inferno of magical flame in here before everyone disappeared. The walls are streaked with soot and the iron candle stands around the room are half-melted. Taako steps inside, smiling to himself, because that was Lup. That had to be Lup, who was a fucking expert at spell-shaping and couldn’t have burned up herself and her classmates in this nightmare room. The way the scent of whatever explosion she’d caused lingering in the room probably shouldn’t comfort him, but it does.

The soot from the flames absolutely destroyed the floor. Given the placement of the candle stands—five, evenly spaced where you’d expect the points of a star to be—it’s not a stretch to think there were some runes or something on the floor before Lup had her way with it. Taako doesn’t know shit about necromancy, but this seems like a safe assumption, especially since some dude with his back to Taako is crouched over on the far side of the room, rubbing his fingers over the stone floor. He’s got broad shoulders and he’s wearing a black cloak with the hood pulled up, over his head, like a fucking drama queen.

Taako weighs his choices and the slim chance this dude works for the militia, spends a moment regretting burning a spell getting in the door, and clears his throat. “Well, this is hella suspicious.”

The man whirls, rising to his feet smoothly as he does and extends an arm to his side. Something starts to appear in his hand and then abruptly stops materializing as the—stupid handsome, what the fuck —man stops and stares at Taako with an expression of utter confusion on his face.

“You’re not the militia,” he says.

Taako takes in his new friend, who looks human and is wearing pretty much all black, even under the cloak, in the form of a sharp suit. He has flawless, dark skin and gorgeous dreadlocks beneath the cowl of his robe. His eyes are red, which is a little disconcerting, but he has a small skull earring dangling off one ear and they are in the necromancy building and holy shit, this man is a giant nerd who is way too committed to his theme.

Taako relaxes. “Neither are you, handsome,” he says, grinning and stepping further into the room. “Which begs the question, what are you doing here and why do you think rubbernecking at a crime scene is a cool thing to do?”

“I’m not rubbernecking.”

It’s always reassuring when Taako can throw handsome strangers off their game. Especially weirdo handsome strangers who like to hang out in supposed-murder basements and apparently have some kind of soul-bound weapon at their fingertips. Taako bets it’s a staff with a skull on it. Probably a raven skull just to put the whole getup over the top.

“You got a good explanation for what you’re doing here then?” Taako looks down at the ground too, scuffing the soot with the sole of his boot as he begins to walk around the room, hands clasped casually behind his back. Taako’s ears are trained on the man though. He can be smart about this interrogation.

“I’m investigating a—I don’t have to explain myself to you. You’re trespassing on a crime scene.” Taako’s new friend probably means that to come out more authoritative than it does.

Taako looks up at death boy, smiling in a way that’s really about him bearing his teeth. “So are you, my dude, and I at least have the excuse of having a sister caught up in this crime scene, so you should really start talking because I’m not afraid to burn a spell slot on you.”

“A sister,” the man repeats, frowning. “She was involved in this incident?”

“Listen, I know human hearing isn’t all that great, but isn’t that what I just said?”

The man blinks at Taako, looks down at himself, and then looks back up, somehow amused now, which is not what Taako was going for at all. “Human?” he repeats, and then there’s a clatter in the hallway and the sounds of several booted feet running through the hole Taako left in the door and fuck , Hurley had definitely figured him out faster than Taako was expecting.

He looks at the man in front of him, who at least has the decency to seem disgruntled again, and then casts motherfucking Blink and winks into the ethereal plane because fuck if he’s going to go down with tall, dark and nerdy.

It’s a bit disconcerting, though, that as Taako moves away from his new friend and towards the door he feels like the man is watching him, even though he’s definitely on an entirely different plane of existence. Taako ducks out of the room as Hurley and a couple other militia members reach the door. He thinks he hears a tearing sound from inside just before they make their way in, but Taako is too busy booking it to the opening he left in the door to stick around and watch death boy get arrested.

 

*

 

Taako doesn’t know why his first instinct is to go to Merle’s place and not his own, but it is. He’s a bit flustered and his outfit is ruffled, but when he knocks on the door Merle opens it and steps aside to let him in.

“What’s up?” Merle asks, dusting dirt onto the front of the floral patterned, short-sleeved button-up he’s wearing. It’s yellow with bright blue and green flowers. Kind of a nightmare, kind of Taako’s jam. “You look spooked.”

“I may need an alibi,” Taako says, in lieu of an explanation. “I’ll cook you dinner if you say I’ve been here since this morning.”

Merle is a cleric. He fed Taako truth-tea. He probably doesn’t want to be an accomplice in Taako’s crime, even if Taako’s only investigating what the militia won’t. Taako holds his breath.

Merle tilts his head to the side, looks Taako over, and then nods. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got some fish that should get eaten.”

Taako hesitates, which isn’t like him at all. Merle isn’t even asking for details. This is one case where he should jump on the opportunity in front of him instead of playing it cool. “You… don’t want me to tell you why I might need an alibi?”

Merle shrugs. “Figure it’s something to do with your sister,” he says. “Why would I want you to get in trouble for that?”

He meanders out of the room and Taako, after a moment, trails after him. Merle’s house is full of an alarming number of plants. Merle picks up a watering can for himself, finds another for Taako, and proceeds to walk him through his daily plant routine. It involves Taako sticking his fingers in more dirt than he’s into and chipping his nail polish, but there’s something soothing about it. It calms Taako more than he’s expecting it to. Plus, bitching about the chipped polish gives him something to focus on.

The knock on the door comes a good twenty minutes later than Taako was expecting, given how obvious it is that he broke into the crime scene. By the time it comes, Taako’s removed his gauzy dress and boots in favour of bare feet and an apron to protect himself from dirt as they make their rounds with the plants.

“I expect that’ll be your friends from the militia,” Merle says, setting his watering can down. “You stay here and check the fichus by the window.”

Taako has no idea what a fichus is, so he goes to check all five of the plants that could conceivably be said to occupy the space by the window, listening in on the conversation at the front door.

“Cleric Highchurch,” Hurley says. “Would you happen to know the whereabouts of your tenant? There was an incident at the crime scene today and I have reason to believe Taako was present.”

“Well, sure.” Merle sounds like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, which has Taako stifling a snicker. He isn’t supposed to think Merle’s funny . Lup being gone is really fucking with his mind, obviously. “Taako’s just helping me out. He’s been here most of the day though. Don’t see when he could have caused trouble. Taako!”

Taako sets his watering can down and makes his way to the front of the house. “Sergeant Hurley,” he says, propping himself up against the hallway wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “This is a surprise. Have you got news about my sister?”

“We had a break in at the crime scene,” Hurley says. “A wizard tripped the alarm spells on the door. I understand you came to see me at the office earlier today?”

Alarm spells. Shit. Taako probably should have thought of those. “I did, but you weren’t around so I came back. I wanted to know if you had news. Leads.”

“Nothing we can share at this time,” Hurley says, which Taako supposes is nicer than admitting the militia has nothing. “Cleric Highchurch, can you confirm Taako’s story? He was here all afternoon?”

“Oh sure,” Merle agrees, waving his wooden hand. “He’s been helping me tend my plants. Good for the soul, you know? Pan’s always looking for new followers and I’ve always been good at connecting with troubled youth.”

Taako can’t help but snort at that. Merle, in a very un-Cleric move, steps on his foot. Taako has to bit the inside of his cheek to keep from reacting because bare feet old man .

“Right.” Hurley gives them both a suspicious look. “Breaking into a crime scene is highly illegal. Doing so could contaminate any evidence we have that might lead us to the person responsible for the—incident.”

Taako can’t decide if Hurley has also decided nobody died in the necromancy lab or if she’s trying to humour Taako. Whatever. Taako doesn’t need the militia to solve the case. He’s on it. “Look, I see what you’re accusing me of, but I wouldn’t jeopardize the investigation like that,” Taako tells Hurley. “I want my sister found.”

Hurley obviously doesn’t believe him, but Taako’s okay with that. Taako doesn’t need her belief as long as she can’t prove he was in the lab. And there’s Mr. You-Think-I’m-Human to consider. He’d been there longer. He had to have left more clues behind than Taako.

“I’ll be in touch with any new developments,” Hurley says, after a long moment. “In the meantime, I’m keeping my eye on you, Taako. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Me?” Taako presses a hand to his chest, all feigned surprise and innocence, dripping sarcasm because he can’t quite help himself. “ Never .”

Merle snorts beside him and Taako finds himself abruptly feeling affection for his weird, old landlord. Standing together, staring down Hurley, it’s like they’re a team.

You know, if Taako was the kind of elf who did things like join teams.

 

*

 

Taako is suspicious of the fish in Merle’s fridge, so he opts for turning it into a curry. Coffee creamer becomes coconut milk. Spring onions from Merle’s garden become lemongrass. Merle actually has fresh ginger and garlic, which is nice, and Taako ducks down to his and Lup’s place to retrieve some hot peppers. He doesn’t let himself think about how lonely and empty the place feels already.

White rice becomes jasmine. More of the spring onions turn to bean sprouts and Taako transmutes a virtual parade of spices out of Merle’s salt and pepper because apparently that’s all he’s got for flavour, but Merle’s also growing gorgeous heirloom tomatoes for Taako to steal, so it breaks even.

Taako tunes the world out while he cooks. He tries to piece together what he knows about Lup’s disappearance, but it doesn’t seem like the visit to the crime scene actually yielded useful intel. There were no obvious clues, other than the fact that Lup had fought back against what or whoever disappeared her, but Taako had been sure of that already, the way he’s sure she’s still out there somewhere.

Merle eats the curry with an enthusiasm Taako would normally bask in, but his own stomach is in knots and he’s distracted. A blackened room is useless to him, which means he needs to talk to the TA, but Hurley hadn’t written down anything about where Barry J. Bluejeans is being kept. All of which means Taako is now more or less at a dead end.

He jumps when Merle touches his hand and brings his attention back to the real world.

“Hey. Kid.” Merle’s expression is too concerned for an old hippie who was supposed to be fleecing Taako and Lup for rent. Taako absolutely hates it. Maybe Merle sees this on his face because instead of spouting some platitudes about trusting in Pan’s divine plan or some shit, Merle just nudges Taako’s bowl. “You going to finish that?”

Taako looks down at his curry. He’s barely touched it, but there’s no way he’s getting more down tonight. He pushes it towards Merle. “All done. Takes a lot of work to keep up this fine physique, my dude.”

Merle is kind enough to laugh as he picks up his spoon and digs into Taako’s leftovers. “I don’t doubt it. I see the whole fashion thing you and your sister have going on.”

It’s nice, actually, that Merle doesn’t talk about Lup in the past tense. Taako lets himself relax into ribbing the old dwarf about the truly terrible fantasy Hawaiian shirts that Taako kind of wants for himself.

 

*

 

Taako doesn’t need to sleep, which is some bullshit. Merle tells him he should stay the night and makes a big deal out of wanting breakfast. Taako doesn’t really want to go back to his empty place, so he lets the thinly veiled excuse slide and settles in on Merle’s couch again after exchanging his dirty apron for his dress. He tries to meditate, but his mind keeps looping back around to Lup and her insistence on taking necromancy and how he had a chance to stop this and didn’t.

Taako needs to sign up for more divination credits.

He lays on his back and stares at the ceiling. If he’d been a dwarf too, or a human, or if he’d actually managed to slip into a trance like he’d planned, then he wouldn’t have heard the sound of the door to his place creaking opening and swinging shut below him.

Taako sits bolt upright, ears twitching into high alert mode, and grabs his wand from Merle’s coffee table. He closes his eyes to listen, to be sure he’s not imagining things, but no, there are definitely footsteps in the apartment below him.

Taako has burned too many spell slots without resting today. Taako could be walking into a trap, to people trying to get to him to stop his excellent (if momentarily stalled) investigation into the truth behind Lup’s disappearance. But he has the element of surprise on his hand and fuck anyone who thinks they can just barge into his place.

Taako casts Levitate and pushes himself straight to Merle’s back door. He eases it open and then uses the railing to haul himself down the steps, to the door to his and Lup’s place, and peeks through the window. Whoever is in his place doesn’t have dark vision because there’s a light swinging around inside the apartment and they are in Lup’s room .

Taako drops the levitation spell, flings open the door to the flat, and races over to the bedroom, wand at the ready. “What the fuuu—” The words die in his throat because Taako, if he’d taken the time to picture the scene he’d come across when confronting whoever broke into their place, had definitely pictured some ugly old necromancer with a trashy goatee or maybe handsome deathboy from earlier. He had not anticipated an actual child .

Taako drops his arm so his wand is actually pointing at the kid. He’s looking up at Taako, wide-eyed, from under a hat with a fucking feather in it and wearing a little suit. Ths kid has nerdy, wire-framed glasses perched on his nose, freckles on his dark skin, and fucking curly hair and shit and it’s just—very not what Taako anticipated.

“What the shit, kid?”

The literal child in front of Taako clears his throat, looking mildly embarrassed but not actually that worried, and adjusts his glasses. “I’m sorry, sir. Did I wake you?”

“Did you wake me… breaking into my apartment and going through my sister’s things?”

The kid looks around the room and then back at Taako. “Yes?”

Taako probably shouldn’t be taken in by the whole kid thing. Maybe this is some powerful necromancer who’s really good at Disguise Self. Taako drops his wand anyway, reaching up to rub his temples. “Look, it’s been a long couple of days and I’ve already dealt with a lot of shit. Why don’t you get the fuck out of my place and get your kicks somewhere else? Go steal a plant upstairs. Old dude’s got lots.”

“I… I can’t do that, sir,” the kid says, and then, ridiculously, adds: “I’m looking for clues.”

Taako is having a week , man. He flicks on the lights in Lup’s room, since this kid is definitely human and doing his… whatever he’s doing by the light of an orb enchanted to glow in the dark—the kind of thing parents buy for kids who were scared of the dark—and leans against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest. “Look, pumpkin, this is a really bad time to play whatever game you’re playing, so—”

“My name is Angus MacDonald,” the boy says, standing up straight, chin tilted upwards in defiance. “And I’m the world’s greatest detective.”

Taako… Taako isn’t sure how one is supposed to react to that. Taako does what any sane person who is as mentally exhausted and frayed around the edges as he is would do. He laughs. He starts laughing, and he slides down the wall, and he can’t stop laughing because what the fuck kind of tea did Merle slip him this time?

“Oh shit,” Taako gasps out. “Holy shit. What the fuck is happening to my life right now?”

Angus MacDonald looks offended, which is probably understandable, but it doesn’t help calm Taako’s hysterical laughter any.

“Sir,” Angus says. “Sir, I’m not—it’s not a joke.”

“You are a tiny boy ,” Taako says, gesturing at Angus’s whole… Angus. “In a little suit .”

Angus brushes off the front of his jacket and then holds up a red binder. It’s one of Lup’s from school. “Sir, I’m investigating the incident in the university’s necromancy department. I have reason to believe those involved were not killed.”

“Well, holy shit, pumpkin, you just detectived better than the Neverwinter militia,” Taako says, wiping tears away from his eyes as he regains some self-control. “Of course Lup wasn’t killed. She’s the one who burnt that place to a crisp and Lup’s got to be the best spell shaper the University of Neverwinter has ever seen.”

Angus looks momentarily put out by Taako’s lack of surprise at his… reveal, maybe? Taako senses a fellow fan of fantasy procedurals. “Then, sir, you have to understand—I only came here tonight to see if there were any clues in your sister’s notes. To see what the ritual they were planning was. The fire burned up all evidence of what they might have been planning before things went wrong, you see.”

And fuck if that isn’t a good idea. One Taako should have thought of. He isn’t known for taking especially good notes, but Lup is better at that kind of thing. She’s the one who was more into the whole school shtick.

Taako frowns to himself, reaching for the binder in Angus’s hand. “Let’s take a look at it, then,” he says. “If anyone can read Lup’s handwriting, it’s me.”

“I’m actually a very good palaeographer, sir,” Angus says, but hands the binder over all the same.

Taako has no idea what palaeography is, but he sure as shit isn’t going to tell some overly precocious baby that. He flips the binder open, skipping to the last few entries. Lup has a lot of notes about undead companions—which, ick—and on the last page, a drawing of some kind of spell circle that includes five big, black dots which could very well be candlesticks.

“Shit,” Taako says, staring at the drawing. “Lup, what were you doing ?”

A little brown hand reaches out and tilts the binder slightly. Taako glances down an Angus, who has gotten way too close and is peering down at the diagram too.

“Some kind of summoning spell, I think,” Angus says. “The five points are similar to the pattern the Raven Queen’s followers use to try and commune with their goddess, but I doubt that was the purpose here. The Raven Queen isn’t known to be especially fond of necromancers.”

“You’d never know it from the ravens they plastered all over their stupid creepy building,” Taako says, then remembers that this child detective—seriously, what the shit—broke into his apartment and was planning on stealing Lup’s notes without ever talking to Taako about any of this.

“Okay, Agnes, this is all very cute and all, but I’ve got this and if you leave now I won’t turn you into the militia as a little creep who was sneaking around my place in the middle of the night.”

“My name is Angus.”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Taako agrees, snapping the binder shut. “Do we have a deal or what, kid?”

Angus clears his throat. “No, sir. The Neverwinter militia knows me and they know I wouldn’t break into a house without a very good reason.” He pauses. “And if you turn me into them, I’ll turn you in for breaking into the crime scene earlier today.”

“I was not —”

“You have soot on the hem of your dress and I bet you have a pair of shoes somewhere with the same soot on the bottom of them,” Angus says. “Even if you clean them off, the militia probably still has boot prints. I could point them to you and I bet they’d be able to find a match.”

Well, shit. Taako thinks back to dragging his foot through the soot on the ground to try and see the floor underneath and wilts a bit. Angus knowing the militia sounds fake, but the rest of it is definitely plausible. Especially because Hurley already suspects him.

“I, um, I couldn’t get in to see the crime scene myself,” Angus says, after a moment of dejected silence on Taako’s part. “I don’t have to cut you out of my investigation entirely, sir. I believe you’re innocent.”

“Of course I am,” Taako snaps, affronted, and then stops. “Wait, does the militia think I disappeared my own sister and five other people?”

“I believe your name is on their list of suspects.” Angus at least sounds a tad apologetic about this. “I didn’t think you seemed like a likely candidate, and now that I’ve met you I’m even more certain you had nothing to do with this.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

Angus holds out a hand to Taako, far too serious and official for a little kid. “Shall we meet in the morning to compare notes then, sir? My notebook is at my grandpa’s house.”

Right. Because Angus is a child.

Taako weighs his options. On the one hand: baby. On the other, this kid is so far the only person to make a real break in the case. Taako would never, ever admit that in a million years, and Angus doesn’t know that the trip to the crime scene turned up bupkis, but he doesn’t need to know that until he’s shared all of his work with Taako.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, why not?” Taako shakes Angus’s hand. “If it gets Lup back, I’ll work with a child.”

“You won’t regret this, sir,” Angus says, beaming at him.

There’s a sinking feeling in Taako’s stomach as he looks at that bright smile. He shakes his head. “It’s too late, Agnes. I already do. But for my sister? I’ll let you tag along.”

Chapter 2: Meddling Kids

Notes:

This chapter went up sooner than expected! Thank you everyone who left such kind comments on the first part of the story. This section is, uh, a little bit longer. A wild Magnus appears! Part 3 and the epilogue will likely go up this weekend.

Comments and kudos feed my soul. ❤

It’s not until the next morning, halfway to his favourite coffee shop, where he’d agreed to meet Angus, that it occurs to Taako that he should maybe have objected to sending Angus out into the night on his own. The kid seemed like he could handle it though. Taako and Lup had definitely wandered around at night by themselves at his age. The elven equivalent of his age. Together, but still. They’d been children too.

Taako orders a salted caramel mocha from Ren and then, almost as an afterthought, a hot chocolate for the kid. He carries them to a table in the corner of the shop and tells himself there’s no way he’s going to be stood up by a ten-year-old.

Angus turns up precisely at ten, which, yeah, of course he’s exactly on time. Angus is wearing more or less the same outfit he wore to break into Taako’s flat, with the addition of a brown leather satchel. Taako raises a hand and wiggles his fingers at the kid, who beams as he makes his way across the shop to clamber onto the chair across from him.

“Hey,” Taako says, after a moment, as the thought occurs to him. “Shouldn’t you like… be in school or something, Agnes?”

Angus frowns. “You know my name is Angus, right Mr. Taako, sir?”

“I may not be the world’s greatest detective, but I can sure as shit detect a question being avoided, pumpkin,” Taako says, pointing a finger at Angus. He nudges the second drink in Angus’s direction. “I got you a hot chocolate.”

Angus blinks, frown clearing, and gives the hot chocolate a look of surprised delight which is—kind of sad, honestly. Taako loves free, but the hot chocolate at the shop is store-bought syrup and steamed milk with canned whipped cream on top. Not exactly a culinary masterpiece. His mocha is only better because the addition of espresso, salt, and caramel drizzle nudge it towards palatable.

“Oh, um, thank you,” Angus says, and busies himself taking a sip of his drink. “I’ve finished grade school. I’ll be starting at the university next year, but I decided to take a year off to focus on honing my detective craft, and I—I think it would be very useful to know magic, so I’m working on teaching myself wizardly magicks.”

“Okay,” Taako says, after staring at the kid for a long moment. He’s not sure how much to believe. Obviously, Angus is precocious as all hell, but Taako and Lup had been precocious and nobody had offered them a place at a university until Lup decided they should have one and forced Taako to study with her for their fantasy GEDs. “Cool. So you said something about telling me everything you know about Lup’s disappearance?”

“Oh yes! It’s a very interesting case! I haven’t seen much necromancy before,” Angus says, opening up his satchel and pulling out a notebook. He flips it open and pulls out a pen. “One of the militia officers I work with pointed me towards the case out because it’s so weird. If it’s really a case of spellwork gone bad, there should be bodies, or the traces of bodies, and there isn’t. And why was Mr. Bluejeans left relatively unharmed? They found him in the room, covered in soot, but he wasn’t burned at all. Not even his clothing.”

“Lup’s a fucking master at spell shaping, that’s why. I don’t know why I keep having to repeat myself. If she didn’t want Barold to get burned up, then he wouldn’t get burned up. Duh.”

Angus writes something in his notebook, which, shit, Taako hadn’t meant to actually give the kid useful information. “I see. That would explain his lack of injuries. The other weird thing is that nobody in the class could tell me what the lab was for. It wasn’t part of the curriculum, as far as I can tell. I asked other students if they knew what was going on, but nobody does. It was a special section for advanced students.”

“Wait, what?” Lup hadn’t mentioned anything about doing extra credit in necromancy. “Someone has to know what they were doing. People aren’t that good at keeping secrets. There were seven of them. Somebody had to let something slip.”

“If they did, it wasn’t to any of the people I talked to,” Angus says. “I spoke with all the close friends and family I could find, but they were clueless too. According to some of their classmates, Professor Jenkins hinted at the seven of them doing something big, but nobody knew exactly what. Like I said last night, I think it was some kind of summoning spell. Probably meant to include a binding.”

“Binding… something undead?”

Angus nods. “I was reading up on necromancy after we talked, and—this is just speculation based on the notes I saw at your apartment—it seems to me like they were trying to, um, summon a powerful undead being and bind it to them the way most necromancers would bind an undead companion to them? But a very powerful creature of some kind in this case. Not just an animal.”

Taako stares at Angus and tries to wrap his head around Lup wanting to summon and enslave some kind of undead being and just— “What the fuck, Lup?”

Taako drops his head into his hands, rubbing them over his face. “I told her necromancy was a bad idea. She got in a fight with a hell beast and it dragged everyone back down into the—the fucking astral plane.”

“I, um, don’t think that’s right, sir.”

Taako looks up at Angus, who is staring at him very intently for such a small boy.

“I mean, I do think whatever they summoned was more than they bargained for, but if an undead being of the sort they were trying to call had been summoned and overpowered them, then according to everything I’ve read it likely would have just taken their souls. Not their… everything.” Angus shrugs. “So I don’t think that’s it. But it would be very useful to have a firsthand account of the crime scene so I can figure this out!”

It takes Taako a moment to realize that’s supposed to be his cue. “Oh, right,” he says. “Well, it was very… burnt and black. Lots of soot everywhere. Floor, walls, ceiling—the whole shebang.” Taako is wavering in his resolve to hold stuff back. He doesn’t know why. It’s not like some child is actually going to help him find Lup, but also nobody is doing any better than the kid and he can’t just sit on his excellent ass and do nothing while Lup is missing. “Some melted candleholder things.” Including the handsome stranger in his description of the crime scene is only a brief mental battle. The more Taako thinks about him, the more the dude seems guilty as hell. “There was some dude there, too. Not militia. All in black with a creepy skull thing going on. Some kind of soul-bound staff, I think, which is just too dorky. You know what people normally bind to their fucking souls ? Weapons. Not staves .”

“Right,” Angus agrees, nodding with a serious look on his face. “Like Jess the Beheader.”

Taako’s entire train of thought is completely derailed because the world’s dorkiest detective is into Battlefest . “Oh my God, if you like Jeff Angel I am going to literally throw you across this coffee shop. I don’t care that you’re a little boy, Agnes. If I’m going to let you work this case with me, you can’t be a chump.”

Angus blushes which means he’s for sure into Jeff Angel, but shakes his head. “N-no, sir! I’m no chump! I like—I like Moonbeam!”

“That’s what I like to hear, pumpkin.” Taako holds his hand out for a high-five and feels so bad about the thrilled expression on the kid’s face that he actually lets Angus’s hand hit his instead of following his original plan through and too slow -ing him. Sometimes he’s a goddamn saint.

“So, um, there was someone else investigating the scene when you arrived?” Angus adjusts his glasses and picks his pen up again. “Can you describe him?”

“Oh, sure. Black suit. Black hooded robe. Dark skin. Dreadlocks. Super handsome face.” Taako crosses his legs and take a sip of his mocha. “Stupid little skull earring. Red eyes. Pretty sure he was human, but he did a whole—you know, foolish elf, you think I’m human thing right before I ditched.” Taako waves a dismissive hand. “Super dorky.”

Angus is looking at him in concern. “Are you, um, sure he was human, sir? If he said he wasn’t?”

“Well, he looked human. I don’t know what the necromancy department gets up to in their spare time, bubelah. He was the kind of creep who sniffs around crime scenes. Who knows what he likes to call himself? I mean, he had to decide to make his eyes red himself, right? That’s creep-tastic.”

“So… you think he’s a student at the school?” Angus looks down at his notes, frowning. “That would make sense. Maybe he had a friend who disappeared as part of the class. We should run his description by some of the necromancy students and see if any of them recognize him.”

“Wait—you want to tell more people about this?” Taako frowns. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea. The militia is already on me about poking around. Hurley definitely knows I was at the crime scene yesterday. She just can’t prove it.”

“I wasn’t going to tell them why we were looking for him, sir. I find people sometimes give you the best information when you’re not entirely honest with them.” Angus smiles brightly. “And besides, I’m just a little boy. People underestimate me all the time.”

Taako pauses, gives Angus a suspicious once over. “Agnes,” he says, leaning over the table to get in his face. “Are you playing me?”

Angus blanches, which is gratifying. Taako likes to know that he can intimidate people even when he’s wearing sparkly eyeshadow that he’s probably smudged to hell and back rubbing his face. “No! No, sir! I think we’re going to work well together as a team!”

“Good,” Taako says, pointing a finger at Angus. “Because if I find out this has all been a ruse—”

“Ango!” A large shadow falls over their table. Taako looks up—way up—into the smiling face of an overly large, entirely too cheerful human with terrible facial hair. He’s wearing camo-print cargo shorts and a shirt which says ‘RUFF BOI!’ on it with no apparent irony.

“H-hello, sir!” Angus darts a relieved look at his human friend and Taako straightens in his seat. “I’m just having a business meeting.”

“Cool, cool.” The man ruffles Angus’s hair, knocking his hat off his head, and then holds a hand out to Taako. “I’m Magnus Burnsides.”

Taako looks at the hand and then at Magnus, who screams frat boy from every pore in his body, and reluctantly takes it. “Taako,” he says. “Hail and well met, my dude.”

“So Angus is solving a mystery for you?” Magnus pulls up a chair, despite a distinct lack of invitation to do so, continuing to smile at both of them like an idiot. “Angus helped me out once. I lost my fish and he helped me track Stephen down.”

This is weird enough that Taako can’t help himself. “Your fish?”

“Oh yeah, he’s got this little enchanted ball, so I like to take him out sometimes so he can get some fresh air and sun, you know?” Magnus says, like this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with a pet fish. “But I was playing fantasy ultimate frisbee with my buds Avi and Carey and someone stole my bag. Angus helped me track them down.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Angus says. “There were actually a lot of thefts occurring on campus at the time and I’d almost tracked them down by then. It was a ring of pickpockets operating out of the student union building kitchens.”

Taako apparently needs to read the school paper. He’s missing out on all sorts of grade A weirdness. “I’m letting Agnes team up with me to find something a little more important than a fish. Isn’t that right, pumpkin? We’re a team on this one?”

Angus nods immediately, which is good. Taako really didn’t want to have to burn a spell slot seeing if Magnus would rush to Angus’s aid when Taako threatened the twerp. “Right, sir,” Angus says. “It’s a missing person’s case. Missing, um, people, actually. Six of them.”

Magnus’s smile melts into a concerned frown. “Isn’t that—don’t you think the militia should handle something like that?” he asks. “That’s much bigger than a goldfish, Ango.”

Taako didn’t come to grab coffee with a ten-year-old while Lup is missing to have his choices questioned by a hunk of muscle. “The militia thinks Lup is dead,” Taako says, voice flat. “They’re not looking for her , they’re looking for her murderer. Angus is the only person who’s made any progress on the case because he’s the only one smart enough to realize she’s still alive. The militia won’t listen to reason, but Angus will, so we’re working together and we’re going to find my sister. And the other five missing people. Whatever. I don’t really give a shit about them.”

Magnus holds up his hands defensively, leaning back in his seat. “Okay, okay,” he says. “I wasn’t questioning that Ango could do it, just—it seems dangerous.”

Taako flourishes his hand as he casts prestidigitation and a small, blue flame erupts from his hand. “We’ll be fine,” he says. “I have magic powers.”

Magnus looks fucking delighted , even though it’s just a cantrip and the kind of spell a child could cast. Taako could probably have Angus doing the spell by the end of the day and he’s fairly certain he’d be the world’s worst teacher because patience? Not Taako’s strong suit.

“That’s so cool,” Magnus breathes, grinning at the flame in Taako’s hand. “You’re a wizard!”

Taako closes his hand around the flame and then gestures to his pointy hat. “This isn’t just for show.”

“Oh right, yes.” Magnus nods as he looks at Taako’s hat, and then straightens his shoulders. “Still, you might need some help. I mean, you’re both—you might need someone who knows how to fight melee style? Like with their hands? You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I’m sure you’re very good at rushing into bad situations, my dude, but I really don’t think—”

“Magnus might have a point, sir,” Angus says, betraying all the trust Taako has put in him in the last ten minutes. Taako shoots him a dirty look and Angus shrinks a bit in his seat. “I just—I just mean Magnus is good with people! People like him! So that would… come in handy… asking questions.”

Taako pauses. Raises an eyebrow. “Are you saying people don’t like me ?”

“I like you, sir!” Angus says, far too quickly. “It’s just—you’re a bit—I, um, and Magnus is…”

Taako snorts at the terrified expression on Angus’s face. “I’m just kidding, little man, I know what you mean. Taako isn’t for everyone.” He looks at Magnus, tilting his head. “What’s in it for you?”

“What do you mean?” Magnus asks.

“I mean what do you get out of this?” Taako asks. “I’m looking for my sister. Agnes is doing his whole… kid detective schtick. But you, my dude? You just come over and offer to help for no reason? Why?”

“Well, it kind of seems like you two might… need someone like me helping you out?” Magnus says, after a moment. He’s got a look on his face like Taako is talking nonsense by questioning his motivation. Taako is definitely the sensible one here.

“Right, sure,” Taako agrees. “But what are you after? Money?”

“No! No, of course not,” Magnus says, shaking his head. “I just want to help ! I mean, that’s—I’m an only child, but that’s really sad, you know? If I had a sister I would be really sad if she went missing and I’d want to know there were people out there who wanted to help me, so… I’m trying to be a good person. The kind of person who offers to help out.”

Taako gives Magnus a suspicious look. “You’re just… trying to be a good person.”

“Right,” Magnus agrees, and smiles at Taako. “You get it.”

Taako very much does not get it. He’d offer Lup his help for free—in most cases, as long as he didn’t have anything else on his schedule that day—but other than that he can’t see himself volunteering like this. Certainly not to help a stranger. “Sure,” he agrees. “You’re just doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Exactly.” Magnus beams at him.

Across the table, Angus McDonald clears his throat. “Excuse me, sirs, but I believe the militia is on to our investigation.”

Taako and Magnus turn to Angus. “Why do you—”

Angus points towards the door of the coffee shop before Taako can finish his question and sure enough, there’s Sergeant Hurley, stepping inside and scanning the crown until her eyes land on Taako.

“Shit,” Taako says. “Is she tailing me?”

“It’s well known you frequent this coffee shop,” Angus says. “That’s why I suggested we meet here. When I was investigating your sister, you came up a lot. Everyone said this was where I was most likely to find you.”

Taako shoots Angus an unimpressed look. “Stalking is not cool, pumpkin.”

Hurley makes her way across the shop, stopping by their table and studying each of them in turn. Her eyes settle on Angus. “Angus, I didn’t know you knew Mr. Taaco. What a strange coincidence.”

“I’m giving Agnes here magic lessons,” Taako says, flashing Hurley his best smile. He plants his elbows on the table and leaned forward, just oozing natural charm, thank you very much. “He wants to learn some basic magic before he starts his classes here next year. Isn’t that right, pumpkin?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Angus says. He looks surprised, which isn’t exactly going to help sell the lie, but Taako knows he does a good job of playing like he’s not paying as much attention to his surroundings as he usually is. He can’t really blame the kid. “That’s true.”

“They were doing a thing with fire!” Magnus says, a little too loudly. He wiggles his fingers at Hurley. “Fire you can hold !”

“We’re working on prestidigitation.” Taako casts the cantrip again, for Hurley’s benefit. “It’s good to get my mind off Lup for a bit. Don’t you think, Sergeant?”

Hurley definitely doesn’t believe a word coming out of his mouth. She looks like she wants to press further, but settles for a very heavy-duty frown. “As long as you’re keeping out of trouble.”

“Oh yes, no trouble here,” Taako promises, batting his eyelashes at Hurley. That’s definitely too much, but still. What’s she going to do? She’s got nothing on him. “I hope you’re not spending too much time worrying about me. I’d hate to think resources were being directed away from finding my sister and the other people who’re missing.”

“I hope you’re not doing anything that means we have to redirect our resources,” Hurley says. “I’m just getting a coffee and checking in. Are you going to be staying with Cleric Highchurch for the foreseeable future?”

Taako and Merle haven’t talked about it, but when Taako rolled out that morning to shower and change at his own place, after breakfast, Merle had definitely mentioned something about dinner. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so. There or at home. I’m not going to leave town or anything.”

“Good,” Hurley says. She gives them all one last, suspicion-laden look, and then leaves to get in the line for drinks.

“Okay, that’s our cue, pumpkin,” Taako says, getting to his feet. “We are blowing this joint before more cops show up to have a friendly chat with us.” Taako picks up his bag and looks Magnus over again, thinking about undead creatures and necromancers with a flair for the dramatic. “You too, beefcake. We’re going to go the last place she’ll expect—exactly where I said we’d be.”

 

*

 

Merle isn’t entirely on board with Taako bringing Magnus and Angus to his place, but his protests are half-hearted and ineffectual enough that Taako easily ignores them. “I’m thinking pasta for lunch,” he says, breezing into the kitchen with Angus, Magnus, and Merle bobbing in his wake. “I’ll make meatballs and garlic bread. We’ll crack the case wide open before you can say oregano.”

Merle eyes Angus with an absurd amount of suspicion, but allows them all to settle in his kitchen, moving a couple of his plants to the floor to make room around the table.

“You’re teaming up with Tweedle-dee and Tweddle-muscle here to find your sister now?”

“Apparently,” Taako says, pulling the ingredients he needs or can at least work with out of Merle’s fridge. He begins to explore his cupboards. “How do you not have pasta ?”

“Just—you know—magic it up,” Merle said, wiggling his fingers like he’s not a cleric who definitely also has magic spells up his sleeves.

“Spell slots, my dude.” Taako closes a cupboard. “I have pasta. I’m going to change into something more comfortable and get Lup’s notebook.” He pauses, then points a finger at Angus. “You, don’t drink any tea the dwarf makes you. Magnus, you’re good.”

Taako splits out the back door, heading down to his and Lup’s apartment. Maybe it’s paranoia getting to him, but something makes him lock the door behind himself, even if he’s got three pairs of ears listening upstairs. He’s already had one break-in, and even if it was by a literal child, Taako is feeling on edge about the safety of his humble abode.

He changes out of grown-up clothes into a pair of pizza-patterned leggings and his giant University of Neverwinter sweater, then gathers his braided hair into a bun, sticking his wand through it for safekeeping. He pulls on a pair of fuzzy socks and walks to the kitchen to get the pasta he knows is in the cupboard and to fish out a frozen batch of homemade tomato sauce to make the whole lunch thing easier. As nice as Merle’s tomatoes are, and as much as Taako wants to distract himself from the physical ache of Lup being gone, he’s only one elf and it’s just lunch.

Taako has a box of pasta in one hand and the container of frozen sauce in the other when he steps back out into the living room and comes face to face with Deathboy McGoodFace sitting on his fucking couch.

Tall, dark and handsome stands. He’s sans cloak today, but still in a crisp black suit, and he’s still got the stupid skull earring. “Taako Taaco? We need to—”

Taako doesn’t think. He just throws the container of sauce at this fucking stalker home invader , and watches as it— of course —misses him and hits the wall by the door with a loud thump .

Deathboy gives him a disgruntled look. “Did you just—throw tupperware at me?”

“Yes,” Taako says, and then reaches up to fumble his wand out of his hair because of course the second time he meets this dude it’s when he’s in his chill-time clothes and not dressed fucking impeccably like he was the day before. “What’s your name, thug? I’m about to tentacle your dick.”

“ Excuse me?”

“I’m about to create some tent porn with your body. I want to be able to properly credit you,” Taako says, but before he can cast Evard’s Black Tentacles, somebody throws themselves against his door and makes him and his stalker both jump.

“Taako! Taako, we heard a loud noise, are you okay?” Magnus calls from the other side of the door, hitting it with—by the sounds of it—his fist. “Ango said your apartment was really easy to break into!” The doorknob rattles.

Taako and the intruder exchange equally perturbed glances. The spell components he needs have completely fled Taako’s mind now, which, great. Thanks Magnus.

“I should go.” The man holds out a hand and the thing that materializes in it is not a staff, as Taako predicted, but a fucking scythe , which is simultaneous much scarier and much nerdier than anything Taako could have imagined.

He lifts the scythe, pauses, and turns to Taako. “My name is Kravitz,” he says. “This has been… interesting.” And then he cuts a hole in fucking reality and his handsome face melts away into a skull as the black robe and cowl unfurl over his form out of nowhere, and suddenly the Grim fucking Reaper is in Taako’s living room, stepping through a warped purple wormhole thing, which seals up behind him.

Taako, on shaky legs, walks to the door to unlock it and is nearly barreled over by Magnus rushing in.

“Are you okay?” Magnus asks, planting his hands on Taako’s shoulders. “I heard someone else talking. Where did they go? What happened?”

Taako lets out a laugh that is only slightly manic. “I just told the Grim Reaper I’d like to make tentacle porn with him.”

 

*

 

Turns out, Magnus requires more of an explanation than that. Taako lets himself be led back upstairs to Merle’s place, and sits down at the kitchen table, cradling the box of pasta to his chest.

Merle makes him a cup of tea. Taako should probably think twice about drinking it, but he could really use something herbal right now. He takes a sip and tries to ignore the fact that his hands are shaking.

“What happened?” Magnus asks, slowly, like he’s talking to a spooked animal.

Taako takes another sip of Merle’s tea. “So hey, Agnes? Remember the nerd I told you about? The one who also broke into the crime scene?”

Angus nods. “He had a super handsome face and wore all black. Had some kind of soulbound staff.”

“Turns out that was a scythe, so my bad,” Taako says. “Also, his face melted into a skull and then he opened an extradimensional portal in my living room. Basically what I’m saying is the Grim Reaper was in my apartment just now.” Taako pauses to drain the rest of his tea. “Also, his name is Kravitz.”

Everyone stares at Taako, silent. He frowns at them. “You don’t believe me?”

“No, uh—there was definitely a second person in there,” Magnus says. “But—are you sure it was the Grim Reaper? Maybe he was just… a powerful necromancer? Or wizard?”

That explanation does make more logical sense than the Grim Reaper chilling in his apartment, but Taako met the dude. He saw his face melt. He knows deep down in his bones that he wasn’t just some wizard with a skeleton fetish.

“Nope,” Taako says, popping his p. “That was the Grim Reaper.”

Angus flips through his little notebook. “That makes sense,” he says, although even Taako, who met the dude, knows it clearly doesn’t. “Do you remember when I said the Raven Queen doesn’t like necromancy very much, sir?”

“Vaguely.”

“Right, well, if the Raven Queen is—upset about the work a necromancer is doing, then there are stories in some of the texts I read about her sending emissaries to… restore the natural order of things. Which could mean the Grim Reaper, don’t you think?”

“Fuck, pumpkin,” Taako says. “Are you telling me the Grim Reaper wants to kill my sister?”

“Well, we don’t know that for sure,” Angus says. “Maybe he just wants to talk.”

Taako thinks about the scythe in the dude’s hands. “He didn’t seem like the chatty type.”

“I think we can safely say whoever this person is is bad news,” Magnus says, frowning. “He broke into your house.”

Taako and Angus exchange a look, but keep silent.

“Right,” Merle says, clapping his hands together, which mostly sounds like someone slapping a tree. “I think we’re getting distracted. Taako, you promised us pasta.”

Taako’s hands have stopped shaking and doing something other than sitting at the table drinking questionable tea does sound good. Taako rolls his eyes and stands. “Yeah, yeah. I know what I’m good for.”

Cooking helps. Cooking makes Taako focus his attention on transmuting some of the ground beef into pork, on turning salt and pepper into oregano and basil and fennel and chili flakes. He grates some of Merle’s sad, orange cheddar and it becomes Parmesan as it hits the bowl. The bread goes stale in his hand and is crumbled into bread crumbs, soaked in milk and then added to the meat mixture with an egg. Taako shapes the meatballs and fries them off in a pan while his mage hand slices a newly conjured loaf of French bread in half and slathers it in butter and garlic and parsley, ready to go in the oven later.

When he and Lup had lived in their shitty dorm, with its shitty beige walls and shitty, homemade posters, not being able to cook was one of the things Taako hated most. The lack of kitchen access had practically killed him, although it wasn’t as bad as the two weeks he and Lup had had to be in separate rooms before they convinced Dean Davenport that life would be easier for everyone if Taako and Lup were allowed to share.

Taako’s audience watches him from the kitchen table, talking quietly while Taako goes through the comforting routine of preparing a meal that is probably too big for lunch, but which will be fucking spectacular, so.

He thaws his frozen sauce with a touch and then pours it into the pan he fried the meatballs in, leaving it there to simmer, covered, for a bit, as he fills a pot with water and adds some salt. Taako cranks the heat, sticks his bread in a low oven, and flops back down at the kitchen table.

Magnus claps.

Taako looks up at him, startled, and then smirks and does a half-bow from his seat because fuck yeah he deserves some applause. Taako’s food is the stuff dreams are made of. “Thank you, you’re too kind.”

“That was amazing,” Magnus says, leaning forward in his seat. “Do you cook like that all the time? That’s so cool !”

Taako grins. “You should see me and Lup,” he says. “We’re a fine-tuned machine. It’s a ballet up in here when we get going, homie.”

“I look forward to seeing it,” Magnus says, with a level of sincerity and confidence that is extraordinarily kind, really.

“Me too, kid,” Merle says, clapping his wooden hand on Taako’s shoulder. “You two can raid my vegetable garden any day as long as you include me in the spoils.”

“All we have to do now is find out where Lup is and then it’s a deal,” Taako agrees. He looks at Angus. “Any ideas?”

Angus looks up from going through Lup’s notes and turns the binder around triumphantly, so the three of them can see what he’s found. To Taako, it looks like nonsense. A bunch of letters and a number scribbled on the top right of the page: BJ 14 6, SMN 14 8

“We need to talk to the TA,” he says. “Your sister met with him the night the spell went wrong. Two hours before they tried to perform their spell and failed.”

Taako exchanges a look with Magnus and squints at the scribble. “Are you sure that’s what that means?”

“Bluejeans, the fourteenth, at six. Summoning, the fourteenth, at eight,” Angus says. “Trust me, sirs. I am the world’s greatest detective.”

Merle snorts, but when Angus says it like that it does seem pretty apparent that that’s what the scribble means.

“Do we know where the TA lives?” Magnus asks, glancing around at everyone else gathered around the table. “Can we eat the pasta first?”

Taako waves a hand to add the pasta to the water, now that Magnus mentions it. “We’ll eat first,” he says. “Because if we’re going to speak to Barry Bluejeans then we’re going to have to get past the militia officers watching his hospital room and I don’t know about you, but I suspect that right now I’m on their no-fly list.”

“Hospital?” Merle repeats.

“He claims he lost his memories or something,” Taako says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t believe it. What a cliched excuse, right?” He gets up to pull the bread from the oven and take out plates for everyone. “But he’s managed to convince some people he really did lose it.”

“That does sound suspicious,” Magnus agrees. “Maybe we can sneak into his room through the window? If we know which one it is?”

“Nah, no need,” Merle says, leaning back in his seat and giving them a smug look. “I’ll get you in.”

“How?” Taako asks, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell them about your love for Pan until they walk away to get a break?”

Merle shakes his head. “I’m a cleric ,” he says. “I have hospital access and if he’s really faking memory loss than he can’t exactly protest that he’s not one of my flock, can he? I’ll be a concerned cleric checking on one of his charges who was in an accident.”

“How is that going to help the rest of us get in?” Taako asks. He is not allowing himself to be left out of this interrogation. “They might let you visit him, but they’re not going to let you bring a posse and what about the militia member they’ll inevitably send in with you? What are you going to do about them?”

“You’ve never been a cleric,” Merle says. “You have no idea of what people will do to avoid having to talk about religion. Don’t you worry. This plan is going to go off without a hitch. Now can we eat or what?”

 

*

 

Walking into a hospital and just… wandering around is distressingly easy. Or it would be, if it wasn’t currently working to Taako’s advantage. He’d assumed the combination of an elf, a dwarf, an overly large human, and a tiny child wandering around the halls would raise some kind of red flag, but nobody stops them. Maybe it’s because Merle changed into full cleric regalia before leaving the house. Taako hasn’t ever seen him in robes before, but Merle’s all dressed up and has even tamed his beard with a few braids and stuck some flowers in it. The whole look is very dedicated follower of Pan.

Taako is still in his big sweater and pizza leggings. If he can face the Grim Reaper dressed for comfort, then he can take on a few measly militia members and some fool named Barry Bluejeans.

They step out of the elevator onto the fourth floor—also, coincidentally, the fourth floor they’ve tried exploring—and are immediately aware that they’re in the right place because there’s a man in a militia uniform leaning against the nurses station, trying to flirt with a very long-suffering looking halfling woman.

She glances at them, but walking around with a cleric really is like a magical hall pass. She raises no alarms as Merle leads them past her station, down the hall.

“This has to be the right floor,” Magnus whispers, glancing over his shoulder at the station.

“No shit. And I thought Anugs was the world’s greatest detective,” Taako mutters back, carefully not turning around and broadcasting that they’re trying to sneak around.

“Hey.” Magnus pouts at Taako, which is ridiculous because he is a grown man .

“There’s no way we’re all going to be able to wander into Bluejeans’s room,” Taako says. “I told you the cleric thing was a bad idea, Merle.”

“Sirs. I have a plan,” Angus says, stopping in his tracks. “I know how to get us all into the room.”

They stop walking, looking down at Angus, and Angus points to a room across the hall, one labelled Staff Only: Break Room .

“What we need,” Angus says, “are disguises.”

Taako grins and strides forward, pulling open the door to the break room. “Fuck yeah. Undercover work.”

“Is this—we can’t steal someone else’s clothes,” Magnus says, rushing to follow Taako into the room, Angus and Merle close on their heels.

“It’s not stealing. It’s borrowing,” Taako says, and then pauses because there actually is someone already in the breakroom, a half-elf by the looks of it, with his eyebrows raised practically to his hairline.

“Can I… help you?” he asks.

“Yes, you certainly can,” Taako says, and casts Charm Person.

The half-elf struggles for a moment and then, slowly, he smiles. “Sure,” he says. “I’d love to help. What do you need? A back rub? I give a really good back rub.”

“I’m sure you do, my dude,” Taako agrees. “Maybe later. For now, I think we’ll stick to the basics. Break me off a piece of that uniform of yours. We need to slip into something a little more comfortable up in here.”

“Oh yes, of course,” the man says, beginning to take off his shirt.

“Hold up,” Taako says. “Doesn’t have to be your uniform.”

The man looks disappointed, but nods, walking over to the lockers and opening one of them. “Of course.  I have a spare uniform you could use. Do you need some for your friends too?”

“Ideally, my man.”

The man nods and gives the lockers a considering look. “Nan is an orc. Her spare uniform would fit your human friend,” he says, pointing to one of the lockers. He looks down at Angus. If he thinks it's weird Taako wants to dress a kid up as a medical professional, he doesn’t say, just points to another locker. “Derrick is a dwarf, so his would probably fit.”

“Cool. Would you go wait in that closet for me?”

“You… want me to stand in the closet?” the half-elf repeats, frowning.

“Yes.”

“O...kay.” He turns on his heel and walks over to the closet, pulling it open and stepping inside. “Like this?”

“Door shut.” Taako smiles his best smile, waving goodbye. The half-elf closes the door and Taako drags a chair over from the breakroom table, wedging it under the door handle. “Thanks, homie!”

“You’re welcome!” the half-elf replies, voice muffled by the closed door.

Taako turns to find the other three staring at him.

“What… did you do to him?” Magnus asks, looking at the closet in concern.

“Charm Person?” Angus guesses. “I didn’t know it was so… effective.”

“Depends on the person and the spell,” Taako says, waving a hand. “I’m very charming.”

Merle snorts. “Can you charm those locks open?” he asks, gesturing to the lockers. “Because I don’t know about you fellas, but I don’t know how to pick a lock.”

“I, uh, I do,” Magnus admits, a bit sheepishly. “I mean, I’m a bit slow still, but I can do it.”

Angus has already walked over to the dwarf’s locker and pulled out a set of lock picks. “Every good detective knows how to get through a locked door,” he says, looking back at the rest of them. “This is nothing.”

Taako contemplates casting Knock, but spell slots. He gestures for Magnus to go ahead. “It’s all you, my dude. Two pairs of hands is better than one.”

Angus opens the dwarf’s locker in a hot minute, while Magnus struggles. Taako changes out of his sweater and into the weird, bad, red-brown scrub shirt. The pants he puts on over his leggings. After a moment of consideration he casts Leomund’s Secret Chest because fuck if he’s going to give up his favourite chill time sweater for this magical mystery tour,  even if it is for Lup.

“You can put your clothes in here,” he says, gesturing. “So you don’t lose them.”

The dwarf nurse is much stouter than Angus, which kind of gives him a kid-in-his-dad’s-clothes vibe, but Angus adjusts his glasses on his face, looking determined. “The key to a successful con is confidence,” he says. “We can do this.”

Magnus finally gets the orc’s locker open and pulls out an over-sized, bright pink pair of scrubs covered in a cartoon puppy pattern. He blinks at them and then grins. “They have dogs !” He scrambles out of his clothes to pull them on, back turned.

“So we’re in disguise,” Taako says, once Magnus is dressed. “We’re all just going to walk into the room?”

“Like I said, sir, it’s about confidence.” Angus turns to Merle. “Can you distract the militia long enough for us to get in the room without them looking too closely?”

Merle waves a dismissive hand. “Easy, kid. I won’t even have to charm anyone to do it.”

“Okay. Merle will distract the militia and we’ll walk into the room pretending to be nurses. Merle will come into the room once we’re in, after he’s convinced the militia to let him in without an escort.” Angus looks at them each in turn, expression serious. “You understand the plan?”

It would be condescending, except Taako is actually fairly certain they need the extra guidance.

“I got it,” he says. “Look like a nurse, walk in the room. Easy.”

“Um, sir,” Angus says, after a beat. “You should maybe take your wand out of your hair.”

“Oh right.” Taako reaches up to pull his wand from his bun. It sends his hair tumbling loose onto his shoulders, but whatever. He’s a stylish nurse. Taako pockets the wand and then closes his conjured chest, letting it pop into the ethereal plane. “Let’s do this, homies.”

They walk down the hall, back towards the elevator and the militia officer failing to win over the halfling nurse. Taako is careful not to look at either of them as they drift towards the second militia officer, who is standing beside a closed door.

Taako strides forward, since he’s pretty sure he’s the one who looks the least out of place in his borrowed uniform. “‘Scuse me,  we’ve got this cleric who says he’s here to see Bluejeans? Thought we’d run it by you.”

The officer looks at Taako, then looks down at Merle, who has produced a bible from somewhere inside his robes and his a serious look on his face. He looks startlingly cleric -like, all of the sudden, which is certainly a change from the skeevy landlord who’d served Taako drugged tea.

“Nobody said anything about a cleric.”

“Cool,” Taako says. “You work it out while we check on the patient or whatever, ‘kay? Your problem now, my dude.” He drifts by the officer, reaching out to push the hospital room door open, a little surprised when the officer doesn’t even mention that Angus is obviously a child.

“Have you heard the word of Pan , my son?” Merle asks, and then the door swings shut.

Taako stands there, Magnus and Angus behind him, and looks at Barry Bluejeans in his hospital bed.

Barry J. Bluejeans is a human man, slightly overweight, with a hairline that is just starting to recede. He’s asleep in the hospital bed and his skin is red-pink, like he got a really bad sunburn a few days ago that’s just started to heal. That’s concerning. Lup’s spell shaping is better than that. When Taako calls her an expert and the best, it’s not hyperbole—she’s the best he’s ever seen.

There’s a pair of thick glasses on the table next to Bluejeans’ bed, along with three sad looking cards and a single vase of flowers. Either the rest of the world is already convinced Bluejeans murdered his class, or the dude really doesn’t have any friends.

Taako walks over and pokes him with his wand. He’s not feeling especially generous right now.

Barry Bluejeans wakes with a start, turning his unfocused gaze to Taako. A complicated mix of emotions pass over his face as he fumbles for his glasses. “Lup, you’re okay! I was so worried when they told me—” He cuts himself off after jamming his glasses on, suddenly wary. “You’re not Lup. You’re—Taako?”

Taako doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. Bluejeans knows who he is. He’d looked ecstatic when he thought Taako was Lup. Obviously there was a lot that Lup hadn’t told him.

“Yeah, that’s right. This is Taako. Lup’s brother.” Magnus steps up behind Taako, looming over the bed. Despite the pink, puppy-patterned scrubs he still manages to look intimidating as he glares down at Barry, lying prone in a flimsy hospital gown on starchy sheets. “So you better start talking, or I’m going to start punching.”

Bluejeans manages to go pale despite the redness of his skin and shakes his head. “Please, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t do anything to Lup. To any of them. I would never .”

“Really, my dude? Because I was told you don’t remember anything about the night Lup and the rest of them went missing. How do you know you didn’t do anything if you don’t remember what happened? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you look suspicious as fuck right now. Especially because we know you and Lup met up two hours before whatever the fuck you did that night.” Taako leans in close to Barry and gives him a smile that is more a baring of teeth than anything else. “You keep saying my sister’s name like you know her, but I’ve heard fuck all about you, thug. And me and Lulu? We’re real close.”

The door to the room opens. Everyone except Taako tenses and turns to see who it is. Taako stays stooped, his face close to Barry’s, glaring at him. He isn’t going to give him a chance to wiggle out of this. If Berry even thinks about tattling to the militia, Taako will Magic Missile him to hell and back and make sure he’s in the hospital a lot longer than originally planned.

The door closes. Merle clears his throat. “How’s it going in here?”

“Taako’s being bad cop,” Magnus says.

“Taako’s being angry cop,” Taako corrects. “Bluejeans better start being helpful soon or Taako’s going to start burning spell slots.”

“I think I can help with that,” Merle says, and raises his hand. “I cast Zone of Truth.”

Taako feels the spell settle over the room like a thick blanket, pushing its way into his head and clearing out the foot-thick walls of self-defence he’s built up over a lifetime of trusting one person and one person only—a complete dismantling of every self-preservation instinct embedded in his brain.

It’s a really fucking strong spell.

“What the fuck kind of cleric are you?” he asks, blinking as his attempt to fight off the spell utterly fails. Magnus and Barry have a dazed look on their face that shows they couldn’t fight it off either.

Angus, on the other hand, is looking at Merle with clear eyes. “That’s clever, sir.”

Merle just nods, waddling over to join them at Barry’s bedside. “This isn’t my first interrogation, kid. Let’s have the story unless you want my friend Magnus here to beat it out of you.”

“I don’t know how I feel about punching a dude in a hospital bed,” Magnus admits, expression sheepish. “I don’t think I could do it.”

“I will Magic Missile your ass if you don’t start talking,” Taako says, pulling back. “That’s the goddamn truth.”

Barry looks at the four of them, crowded around his bed, and nods, once. “I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t think you would believe me,” he says. “Taako, I didn’t hurt your sister. I would never hurt Lup. I—” He cuts himself off, flushing, which is not a good look when he’s already this side of a tomato.

“Keep talking.” Taako doesn’t care about Barry Bluejeans’s feelings. Other people’s feelings aren’t high on his priorities at the best of times, and certainly not now. Besides, Taako isn’t some naive teenager. Thinking you care about someone doesn’t mean you won’t hurt them. Sometimes it’s the driving force behind the hurting.

Barry nods. “We have—had—a group. For the advanced students, you know? Professor Jenkins put it together. He’s not my favourite professor, but he’s not bad. More focused on his research than on teaching, but that’s kind of—I mean, that’s academia, you know? If you can’t publish than you’ll never get tenure, so I got it.” Bluejeans pauses, twisting the blanket around his hands. “We put together the tutorial out of a few of the classes. Lup is—I mean, she’s brilliant and she’s—just amazing. But she’s not a major. I had to push Professor Jenkins to let her join, but he wanted five students for the experiments, so it’s—she was the perfect candidate. She just gets the theory, you know? She’s so smart. And she’s got the power to back it up too, so of course she had to join. I think Edward and Lydia resented it a bit. They’re majors. Fourth year. Jenkins already offered them research assistant jobs if they apply for the grad program. I think they’re probably going to. I don’t—I mean, they’re smart and powerful and everything, but I think they’re a little too interested in some of the darker theory, you know?”

“That’s three,” Angus says. He’s got a notebook out and he’s writing stuff down, which is—yes, a smart idea. Taako knew there was a reason he’d agreed to team up with the kid. “What about the other students?”

“Brian and Cam,” Bluejeans says. “Brian is… a little weird, but he’s an exchange student, so maybe it’s a—I don’t know, maybe I’m just being judgemental? He’s nice enough, but very focused on power. Like Edward and Lydia. Cam’s cool. I mean, everyone who majors in necromancy is a bit—there’s a lot of time spent focused on how to not die, you know? I guess people probably study healing for a lot of the same reasons. It’s just the other side of the coin. I know we have a bad reputation, but most necromancers are really just—fascinated by the astral plane and what comes next.”

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Taako says, voice flat. He has a reputation for being flighty, one he maybe plays into a little bit, but he’s not all about goofs. He’s also an expert at wiggling out of things he doesn’t want to do, and he can sense Barry trying to avoid the meat of this conversation by talking around it. Taako has a sharp mind when he decides something is worth caring about, and there is nothing in the world Taako cares about more than his sister. “Don’t try and wait out the spell’s duration. Talk. What were you trying to do in that basement? Even if you really don’t remember the night things went bad, that wasn’t your first meeting.”

Barry grimaces. “We—this is going to sound bad,” he says. “It’s—Professor Jenkins had this idea. He thought maybe if you had enough power, you could bind something more than the usual undead companion to you. The theory was pretty sound. It was—I mean, I think he could have published the paper based just on the theory, but Professor Jenkins wanted to try the summoning. But we were safe about it! That’s why he invited some of his students to help with the experiment. If we had five people to perform the summoning for us, then we could—we could be their safety net. We could shut it down if anything went wrong.”

Taako is furious . It catches up with him all at once, how angry he is about this—and not just at Barry Bluejeans and fucking Jenkins, at Lup too. At everyone stupid enough to think this was a good idea, to think they could summon some powerful undead being and not face any real consequences. “Let me get this straight. You and your professor decided to sit on the sidelines and watch while your students tried to summon and bind a powerful undead being without your help?”

His voice sounds distant, which is weird. Distant and eerily calm. Taako is impressed, beneath the irrepressible fury burning through his veins like fire. If he was Lup, his hands would be aflame by now. Taako is better at hiding his feelings than she is, if not at actual self-control.

Something about his voice or the look on his face must give away how he’s feeling, though, because Barry leans as far away from him as he can while still in bed.

“I didn’t think it would work!” he says, the words coming out in a rush. “Professor Jenkins wasn’t—I know why he makes the decisions he does, but he thinks he’s smarter than he is. He thinks he’s always the most powerful one in the room and he’s been doing this for too long. His theories assumed too much about the strength of the powerful undead to resist a summoning. It didn’t work. The first few times we tried it, it didn’t work, and it shouldn’t have worked this time. Lup didn’t think it would work either. We talked about it. When we met before the summoning that day, we were trying to figure out how to alter it so it could work, but we couldn’t. It was nonsense. The whole thing. That night, when we tried the summoning again, I was standing near Lup. Professor Jenkins was yelling that it was their fault, that they weren’t putting enough energy into the spell, that they didn’t understand his theory well enough to perform it. Lup looked at me and rolled her eyes and then—and then everything goes fuzzy. There was a flash. I got blasted back, into the corner. Then there was fire. So much fire, but it didn’t touch me, it just—I could feel the heat on my skin and then it was gone and so was everyone else. I passed out and when I woke up I was here.”

Bluejeans gives Taako a desperate look, reaching out to grab his arm. “Taako, please. I didn’t hurt your sister. I wouldn’t have put any of them in harm’s way. The summoning shouldn’t have succeeded the way it did.”

Taako opens his mouth to say something. Stops. He’s not sure what he can say. Barry is telling the truth. He has to be, because of the spell, and the truth that he’s telling isn’t the truth Taako wanted to hear.

“Is that what you were trying to do?”

The voice comes from nowhere and then Kravitz materializes in the far corner of the room as the illusion he’d cloaked himself in faded away. He’s dressed in a suit with his human face on. Taako mentally curses himself because he’d already set off one set of militia alarm spells. He should have thought to check the room before starting his interrogation.

Tall, dark and deathly cocks his head, studying the five of them as a cloak settles over his shoulders and his scythe appears in his outstretched hand. “Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very useful. I’ll take it from here.”

“Now hold on.” Magnus steps in front of the bed, frowning at the literal Grim Reaper. “Who, exactly, are you and what are you doing here?”

Kravitz smiles and his handsome features fade until his face is just a skull. “I’m a bounty hunter for The Raven Queen. I have many names,” he says. “Death. The Grim Reaper. I prefer Kravitz.”

Magnus’s attempt at intimidation is… maybe falling a little flat. “Oh,” he says. “Uh, okay. Well, I think we’ve got this under control, so…”

Barry Bluejeans’s grip on Taako’s arm tightens. “Professor Jenkins. He was trying to bind a reaper,” he says. “That was what his spell was for. He thought if he could bind a reaper than he would have mastery over life and death. Eternal life.”

Before this exact moment, Taako would have said it wasn’t possible for a skull to have facial expressions. Kravitz manages to look amused as he gazes at Barry with flaming eye sockets. “He was very, very wrong,” Kravitz says. “The Raven Queen doesn’t take kindly to people trying to break the rules of life and death. Barry J. Bluejeans, your soul is forfeit to The Raven Queen.”

Kravitz moves towards the bed and Taako has a split second to make a decision he’s probably going to regret. He pulls a face and then squares his shoulders and stands beside Magnus, in Kravitz’s way. “I don’t think so, thug,” he says. “Finders keepers. He’s ours.”

“Yeah,” Magnus agrees, crossing his arms over his chest. “What he said.”

“I guess, sure,” Merle says, and steps up beside Taako, which is a little less intimidating than it could be, considering he comes up to Taako’s hip.

Angus clears his throat. “Um, I don’t think you have a right to Mr. Bluejeans’s soul at all, sir.” He moves to stand in front of the three of them and Taako reaches out to grab his shoulder before he can because, okay, he’s not the best person in the world, but Angus is a kid.

Kravitz looks down at Angus for a long moment, then glances up at Taako, in a way that manages to ask “ Why did you bring a child to an interrogation? ” despite the lack of face.

Taako shrugs. “I’d listen to the kid. He’s the smartest one in the room.”

Amusement is practically rolling off Kravitz in waves, but he gestures for Angus to continue. “Please. Explain.”

“You said The Raven Queen doesn’t like people attempting to break the rules of life and death,” Angus says. “And Professor Jenkins was trying to do just that by binding you to his command with the ritual. But Mr. Bluejeans wasn’t part of the ritual casting, and Mr. Bluejeans wasn’t the one who came up with the idea for the ritual. He didn’t even think it would work.” Angus cocks his head to the side, looking up at Kravitz. “He hasn’t actually done anything wrong.”

Kravitz stares Angus down for a long moment, and then his face reassembles itself. He’s frowning as he banishes his scythe. “Technically, you may be right.”

Taako gives Angus’s shoulder an approving squeeze and Angus looks up at him and beams, which is—okay, Taako is going to have to get whatever this is under control.

“There we go,” Taako says, deliberately keeping his voice light and breezy. “No eating anybody’s soul today, handsome.”

Kravitz looks up at him, surprised, and then hides it badly by clearing his throat. “There’s still the matter of Professor Jenkins and the students involved in this ritual.”

“Nobody is going to touch my sister,” Taako says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not you or That’s So Raven or anybody else.”

Angus tugs gently on the hem of Taako’s borrowed scrubs. “Sir, this is good news!” he says, which earns him a skeptical look from Taako because really ? Someone wanting to collect his sister’s soul is not his idea of good news. “If Mr. Kravitz is looking for your sister, that means she’s not in the astral plane. She’s alive.”

Taako blinks because— oh . He’s been telling himself from the beginning that Lup is fine, that he’d know if she were dead, but maybe some doubt had crept in, around the edges. A knot tension he hadn’t realized was there is suddenly gone.

“Thank gods,” Barry says.

The look on Kravitz’s face says he hadn’t quite thought through the information he was passing on before speaking. Maybe he hadn’t been able to resist the effects of Merle’s spell either. Knowing the Grim Reaper was also overcome by his crunchy landlord’s Zone of Truth made Taako feel a little better about the fact that Angus MacDonald, boy detective, wasn’t the least bit swayed.

“Yes, that… is true,” Kravitz agrees, after a long moment of silence. “You’re a very intelligent young man.”

“I’m the world’s greatest detective,” Angus says, with absolute certainty. “And we should leave or the militia is going to get suspicious.”

“You make a good point, pumpkin, but we still need to deal with this reaper thing.”

“And Barry,” Mangus says, jerking his chin back in Barry’s direction, but keeping himself in Kravitz’s way. “He could blab to the militia the second we’re gone.”

“I won’t!” Barry promises. “I don’t want Lup getting in trouble and what we were doing—well, maybe I didn’t technically try to break the laws of the natural world, but that kind of necromancy is definitely against the university’s ethics code. I’d be expelled at the very least. Please. I won’t tell them a thing, just—find her. Find Lup. Tell her I’m sorry.”

Taako really wants to hurt someone. He’s had a simmering rage burning inside him since Lup went missing, an urge to burn spell slots like it’s going out of style. He’d even take punching someone in the face to scratch this itch and he doesn’t have Magnus’s problem of not wanting to punch a guy because he’s in the hospital.

He turns to Barry again, pathetic and desperate and looking like he might cry if Taako doesn’t say he believes him.

He thinks about what Lup would do if she was there.

It would be better, really, if he was the one who was missing. They’re both stubborn beyond belief and powerful—of-fucking-course—but Lup knows how to be selfless in a way Taako doesn’t. She thinks big picture. Thinks about other people, how her actions affect them, and how to be the kind of person she’d like to be friends with. Taako isn’t like that. Taako would let the world and everyone in it burn if it meant he got Lup back at his side.

Lup would be happy to see him. Lup would still love him, if he did something like that, but she would be disappointed in him too.

Taako takes a breath.

He shrugs.

He lets the anger drop from his shoulders for now and promises himself that he’ll pull it back again the second it becomes useful. “You can tell her yourself,” he says. “I’m nobody’s messenger.”

Barry Bluejeans’s shoulders sag in relief. “I will,” he promises. “Thank you, Taako.”

Taako uses his hand on Angus’s shoulder to steer him towards the door. “Let’s bounce, homies. Agnes is right. The militia’s going to get awfully curious about what three nurses and cleric are doing in Barold’s room pretty soon.” He pauses, glances over his shoulder at Kravitz and looks him up and down. Suits aren’t Taako’s thing, but Kravitz wears his well. “You too, nerd,” he says. “I know you know where Merle’s place is because it’s directly above mine. Meet us there and we’ll figure this out together.”

“Taako, is that—uh—a good idea,” Magnus asks, giving him a concerned look. Bless him, he’s still standing with his chest all puffed out directly in Kravitz’s path.

“He’s going to look for Lup anyway. We might as well pool our resources,” Taako says, shrugging, and then gesturing to Merle in his full cleric regalia. “Besides, where better to meet with the undead than in a holy man’s home? Merle here can send him straight back to the astral plane if he tries anything funny. Right, Merle?”

Honestly, Taako didn’t know if that was true or not, but it seemed like the kind of thing a cleric could do. Judging from the wary glance Kravitz shot in Merle’s direction, he wasn’t wrong.

“Right,” Merle agreed, crossing his arms over his chest and fixing Kravitz with a stern look. “Best behaviour, reaper-man.”

“This is—unusual.” Kravitz looks at Merle for a moment longer, then at Barry on the bed and Magnus in front of him. His gaze drifts down to Angus and then up to Taako’s face, where it lingers. Natch. “Yes, all right,” he agrees, stepping back as his scythe appears in his hand again. “I’ll meet you there.”

Kravitz cuts a rift in the fabric of reality itself and steps through it. The tear closes up behind him and everyone in the room except Taako relaxes.

“He’s going to kill us all the second he gets a chance,” Merle says, frowning. “And you invited him into my home.”

“Mr. Taako, sir, I don’t think we can trust him.” Angus looks up at Taako. “Even if he didn’t take Mr. Bluejeans’s soul.”

Magnus nods in agreement. “Did you see what he was wearing? He had gold lapel pins shaped like skulls . That’s a bad dude.”

Taako snorts at that. He wishes he’d paid more attention to Kravitz’s sartorial choices. Skull lapel pins sounded tight as hell. “Nah,” he says. “He’s a giant nerd. Come on. The longer we’re in here the weirder it seems.” He glanced at Barry again. “You—mouth shut. Got it?”

Barry mimes sealing his mouth with a zipper and nods.

“Good man, Barold. Let’s roll out. I need a large pepperoni and pineapple from fantasy Pizza Hut and we need to figure some shit out.”

The four of them rolling out as a singular unit definitely catches the militia officer’s attention, but Taako pays him no mind. They’ve gotten what they need from Barry now and it’s not like the militia can wipe their memories, even if they do catch on. Hurley’s nowhere to be seen and so far she’s the only one who’s any good at her job.

“Shouldn’t we take the scrubs back?” Magnus asks, once they’re out of earshot. He gives his puppies a mournful look. “Someone is going to miss these.”

“We’ll bring them back later.” Promises are easy to make when you have absolutely no intention of keeping them. “If someone borrowed your clothes you’d want them washed and shit before they got returned, wouldn’t you?”

Magnus pauses. Nods. “That makes sense.”

“Easier to conveniently forget to return them that way too,” Merle adds.

Taako flicks Merle’s ear. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.”

Merle reaches up to rub his sore ear. “I’m just saying .”

 

*

 

Back at Merle’s place, Magnus orders them a mountain of pizzas on his stone of farspeech. They change back into their own clothes and then hunker down with Lup’s notes, looking at them with fresh eyes now that they know what her class was up to. Taako’s stomach twists in a way that hints that maybe the pizza isn’t going to go down well. Lup may not be dead, but she’s out there somewhere, and just because the stupid ritual Jenkins came up with couldn’t summon and bind Kravitz doesn’t mean that it didn’t accidentally grab someone else from the phantom zone or whatever. Taako doesn’t know enough about necromancy to know whether or not that’s a possibility.

There’s a loud ripping sound outside Merle’s front door, a pause, and then a polite knock. It’s a nice change from all the breaking and entering in Taako’s life these days.

Magnus gets up to answer the door, frowning at Kravitz as he steps aside to let him in. Kravitz does, indeed, have lapel pins in the shape of little skulls. They’re adorable.

Taako sits on the floor in front of the coffee table, leaning back against the couch. Merle himself is fussing with a row of potted plants by the fireplace, and Angus is across from Taako, intent on Lup’s notes as he tries to decipher them.

Kravitz hovers uncertainly in the doorway for a moment, Magnus looming behind him, and then walks over to the couch and takes a seat near Taako so that if Taako leaned over a bit, he’d touch Kravitz’s legs.

Magnus gives Kravitz one last suspicious glare, then walks over to flop down on the floor, at the end of the coffee table. “So what do you think, Ango?”

Angus looks up from the notes, spreading the sheets he’s been paying particular attention to across the table. “I think these are the notes Mr. Bluejeans and Miss Lup made trying to fix the ritual,” he says. “I don’t know enough about necromancy to tell for sure, but they’re certainly different from the other diagrams.”

Kravitz bends over to take a closer look and his knee brushes against Taako’s shoulder. “This is the modified ritual?” He searches the diagrams until he finds the original. Lup has drawn a thumbs down in the top corner. Kravitz glances it over, clearly amused. “I see. Well, nothing based on this was ever going to work. They might have been able to get in touch with my stone of farspeech if they’d tweaked their version of it a little more.”

Taako glances at Kravitz. “You have a stone of farspeech?”

“We’re a very modern operation.”

“The question isn’t what they were trying to do. It’s what they actually did,” Merle says, walking to the couch. He takes a seat beside Kravitz. In a semi-inspired move, Merle opted not to change out of his robes. His cleric-ness is on full blast.

“With the original ritual?” Kravitz held up the diagram. “Nothing. Nothing that could explain the damage in that room. This spell couldn’t successfully summon a bat from the astral plane.”

Angus pulls his own notebook out again, frowning as he flips through it.

There’s a knock on the door and Magnus bounces to his feet. “Pizza!” he says, losing his whole intimidating warrior thing instantly. He goes to answer the door.

Taako keeps his eyes on Angus. “What are you thinking, pumpkin?”

Angus looks up. “I think we’re all getting distracted,” he says. “It seems like the ritual should have something to do with what happened, so we’re focusing on it as the cause of their disappearance, but what if it isn’t?”

Merle frowns. “You’re saying something else happened in that room?”

Angus nods. “Maybe it was a coincidence that it happened in conjunction with the ritual. Or maybe... maybe someone figured out that if anything went wrong while there was evidence that a bunch of students tried to summon a powerful undead being, everyone would assume the ritual was responsible. Just like we have. It’s the perfect cover up.”

“That’s possible,” Kravitz admits, still frowning. “But whatever happened in that room left a powerful necromantic energy behind. I could feel it. If they were able to fool me into thinking it was the ritual that caused the problem—”

“They’re very powerful,” Angus agrees, adjusting his glasses.

Magnus comes back into the room with four large pizza boxes in his arms. “So… does this mean we’re done investigating?” he asks, disappointment clear in his voice, despite being the one who’d suggested they should let the militia handle everything earlier in the day. “We just made a breakthrough in the case!”

“Let’s be real, Angus made the breakthrough,” Taako says, snorting. “And hell no! We’re not handing this over to the militia. We are rescuing my sister.” He reaches over and pats Kravitz’s knee. Even through his pants, he feels cold. It’s a little disconcerting. “We’ve got the Grim Reaper on our side now. What the fuck are some nerds from the necromancy department going to do?”

“I don’t think we should underestimate whoever is responsible for your sister’s disappearance, sir,” Angus says. “They did fool us all.”

“Not for long,” Taako says, waving a dismissive hand. “We’ll be fine, boy’chik. Hit me with that pizza, Magnus. We’ve got all the clues we need now and we’re going to rock this motherfucker.”

Magnus hands everyone their pizza of choice—pepperoni and pineapple for Taako, plain cheese for Angus, an anchovy-ridden seafood monstrosity for Merle, and meat lovers for Magnus himself—and settles down on the floor again.

Taako looks up at Kravitz, who looks awkward as fuck sitting there in his suit as the rest of them dig into pizza, and raises an eyebrow. “Hey bonedaddy, you eat?”

“I—what?” Kravitz flushes at the nickname which is very important information. At the end of the coffee table, Magnus chokes on a bite of pizza.

Taako lets a slow grin form on his face, leaning towards Kravitz. Which means leaning against his legs. Taako props his chin on Kravitz’s knee. He is very handsome and not trying to kill them. Also, he may be super powerful or whatever, but the dude is a giant nerd who flusters easy and Taako enjoys the fuck out of making super attractive men stammer and blush around him. “Do you eat? Food, I mean, not souls.”

“I don’t—I don’t eat souls,” Kravitz says. “That’s not—” He glances at Taako’s open pizza box and then back down at Taako. “I can eat.”

“Excellent.” Taako leans back and gestures towards his box. “Help yourself, my man.”

Taako picks up a slice and turns back to the rest of the group, smirking like a cat who just caught a lifetime supply of canaries. Kravitz reaches over and tentatively takes a slice of pizza.

Angus is looking very studiously down at his pizza. A piece of sausage drops off of the slice in Magnus’s hands and onto his lap as he stares at Taako, mouth agape now that he’s not choking.

Magnus glances down at the sausage, up at Taako again, and then clears his throat. “So,” he says, a little too loudly, “I thought you were, like, a super talented chef, but you’re eating pineapple on your pizza?”

It breaks the ice.

“You can fuck right off,” Taako says, pointing his pizza slice at Magnus. “Pineapple is delicious on pizza and I will transmute every topping on your meat monster into tasty tropical fruit to prove my point if you’re not careful, my dude.”

They eat their pizza. Magnus manages to put away both his and half of Angus’s, but then they’re all fed and although Angus’s theory about using the ritual as a distraction for something else seems sound, they’re no closer to figuring out what that something else is.

It’s frustrating. Taako wants his parlour scene. He wants to sit down in a room full of suspects, Angus at his side, and point a finger at the guilty party and have them try to make a break for it, try to escape his brilliant deductive reasoning, only to find his trusty sidekicks Magnus Burnsides and Merle Highchurch waiting in the hallway, ready to catch them before they get too far away.

Kravitz would be in a fine-ass suit, dapper as hell, perched on a sette and ready to be impressed by Taako’s critical thinking skills and also the daring dress he’d be wearing—a hot little flapper number with plenty of beads and bling. They’d find Lup tied up in the attic or something. Set her free. She’d be grateful and join Taako in making eyes at his new piece of maybe-undead man candy.

It was a nice fantasy.

Too bad that’s all it was.

“You got any reaper magic that could track the people who left the room?” Merle asks, as the five of them stare down at Lup’s notes for lack of any other clues to go on. “Follow it to wherever they took the kids and their professor?”

“If I did, I would have used it when I visited the crime scene yesterday,” Kravitz says, frowning down at the notes. Lup, when she wanted to emphasize something or just got bored, sketched flames in the margins. “Your sister really likes fire.”

“She’s an evocation major,” Taako says, tapping a finger against the table. Something about Merle’s statement nags at him. “Hey, Agnes. You said you interviewed a bunch of people in the class?”

Angus looks up from his notebook and nods. “I did,” he says. “They weren’t especially helpful.”

“Because nobody knew what the experiment was, right?” Taako asks, wheels turning. “Jenkins hinted, but Barold said it was on the down low. Something about ethics and getting expelled?”

“Yes, they didn’t—oh!” Angus straightens up where he’s sitting. “I see!”

Taako thinks he does too. “Nobody else knew what they were doing,” he says, slowly, working it out as he goes. “Nobody who wasn’t in the group knew they were trying to perform a ritual, so how would they know it would be a good cover up for snatching six—seven, assuming leaving Barold was a mistake—people? So that means—”

“It was one of them!” Magnus shouts, excited. “Of course!”

“Thanks for stealing my thunder there, fella,” Taako says, rolling his eyes. “But yeah. That makes sense, right? Someone in the group also figured out the ritual was a bust and they used it as an opportunity to—do something else.”

“And your sister fought back,” Kravitz murmurs, looking thoughtful. “She fought hard, if she was the one responsible for the fire and smoke damage in the room, and managed to protect Mr. Bluejeans. She’s very strong.”

“Natch,” Taako agrees.

Kravitz looks down at Taako. “You realize how dangerous this could be?”

Taako shrugs. He’s not one for putting himself in danger, but this is Lup. This is the one person in the world he’d sacrifice anything for. “They took my sister,” he says. “They wanted me to believe she was dead. When I’m done with them, those fuckers are going to see just how dangerous I am and wish they’d killed me first.”

Kravitz’s gaze is locked with Taako’s. His eyes are red and creepy, but there’s something like understanding in them. Something strangely like respect.

Merle stands up, jostling the couch and breaking the moment. “I’m going to put the leftovers in the fridge,” he says. “The rest of you should figure out if you’re going home or staying the night. Even if we crack this tonight, we can’t rush out before we rest up. I, for one, could use the chance to regain some spell slots.”

Magnus looks at his watch and makes a distressed sound. “I need to get home to Jules and Stephen,” he says. “She’ll be wondering where I am. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.” He looks down at Angus, who’s stifling a yawn. “You want me to walk you home, Ango?”

“I should keep going over the notes,” Angus says, shaking his head. “There must be something else here. I’m just not seeing it yet.”

“He’ll sleep over,” Taako says, waving Magnus off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll set the kid up with PJs. I need to get stuff from my apartment anyway.”

Taako gets up from the floor and stretches his back and cramped legs, then looks down at Kravitz. “What about you? You staying the night?”

“I don’t require sleep,” Kravitz says, rising to his feet. “I should return to the astral plane and make a report. The Raven Queen will want to know what I’ve learned.”

“As long as she doesn’t want my sister put in ghost jail.” Kravitz might be cute, but Taako’s not that easily swayed by a pretty face.

Kravitz smiles at him and his expression is strangely soft. “No,” he says. “I daresay she’ll make an exception for everyone but Professor Jenkins and the responsible parties. This is turning out to be a rather unusual bounty.”

“That’s life with Taako, babe. Never a dull moment.”

“Should we… leave you two alone for a minute?” Magnus asks, glancing from Taako to Kravitz. “I feel like maybe Angus is too young for this?”

Merle snorts in amusement and Taako flips Magnus off. Kravitz, Taako is pleased to note, is blushing again. And also not denying that they were totally flirting. If it wasn’t for Lup’s absence being a constant, physical ache in the pit of Taako’s stomach, this would be a good end to the day.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Taako. Everyone.” Kravitz steps back and his scythe appears in his hand. His face, Taako notes, does not melt into a skull this time. He swings the scythe and it cuts through the air, opening a deep purple rift. Kravitz steps through and it seals up behind him.

“Flirting with death seems like a bad idea,” Magnus says, after a moment.

“Flirting with death seems like a bad ass idea,” Taako corrects, sticking his tongue out at Magnus. “You’re not my mom.”

Magnus holds his hands up in surrender. “No, I know. I’m just saying. Be careful, okay? I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I wasn’t a little bit concerned.”

Taako wants to point out that they’d only just met and that Taako only agreed to let Magnus tag along because he seemed like he’d be good at punching—something they so far hadn’t required. He wants to say that he and Magnus aren’t friends. That Magnus doesn’t know him. That Magnus shouldn’t assume anything about their relationship because, as far as Taako’s concerned, they don’t have one.

He doesn’t say any of those things. He just shrugs. “You better be here early tomorrow or we’ll solve this case without you.”

“Noted.” Magnus grins and Taako finds himself walking Magnus to Merle’s front door. “I’ll bring some snacks tomorrow. In case we go on another trip for clues. We need power bars.”

Taako makes a face, but his current energy level precludes the making of homemade bars. “Yeah, all right. If that’s what you want to inflict on us. Go see Jules and your fish.”

Magnus nods and steps outside. “Night, Taako. Try and get some rest, okay? We need your A-game tomorrow.”

Taako watches Magnus disappear down the dimly lit street and thinks about how unlikely rest seems. They’re close . His gut tells him they’re finally looking in the right direction and now they’re all just calling it a night. He doesn’t want to rest, but he knows Merle and Magnus are right about needing it. He needs the spell slots he burned back, and that’s not going to happen if he stays up all night pacing and trying to figure out where Lup’s kidnappers took her. Plus, a baby human like Angus is useless without sleep.

He goes back to the living room and finds Merle tucking a blanket around Angus’s slumped over, sleeping form. He’s already placed a pillow under his head.

Merle gives him a stern look, daring him to say anything.

“I remember when I was young enough to sleep on the floor and not feel it in the morning,” Taako says, in lieu of something sappier.

Merle gives Taako an amused look. “Given how elves age, I’m inclined to believe that was a couple centuries ago, but you still look about fifteen to me, kid.”

Taako rolls his eyes and follows Merle into the kitchen, where there isn’t a sleeping boy. “If I was a human I’d be in my twenties,” he says. “I can’t help it if I’m beautiful, old man.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep picking on your elders, kid.” Merle takes a seat at the kitchen table, gives Taako a look that is far too perceptive. “You holding it together?”

Taako only briefly considers blowing Merle off before replying. “I guess. It feels like we’re getting somewhere. Angus is a smart kid and Magnus isn’t as bad as I thought he’d be. Not very helpful, but he ordered the pizzas for us, so—there’s that.”

“And Kravitz?”

“Yes, I think the Grim Reaper is hot. This has been well established,” Taako says, rolling his eyes and extending a leg so he can kick Merle’s shin. “Go to bed. I need peace and quiet to meditate.”

“All right, I know when I’m not wanted,” Merle says, getting to his feet, an unrepentant grin on his face. “Lock up after you grab your clothes.”

Taako waves Merle off and waits until he hears him walk upstairs to make his way out the back and down to his and Lup’s place. He unlocks his front door and nearly jumps out of his skin when he finds Kravitz there— again —standing in the middle of the room, looking sheepish.

“What the fuck, homie?”

“Sorry,” Kravitz says, reaching up and rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I wasn’t—I just wanted to catch you alone briefly. I thought you’d be down sooner.”

“I’m getting really tired of people breaking into my apartment.” Taako walks past Kravitz, into his messy bedroom. Usually he’d tidy before having a guest he’d maybe like to trick into thinking he wasn’t a slob over, but it’s too late now. He starts digging through the clothing on the floor for something to sleep in and a couple outfits for the next day. “What’s up?”

“The—flirting.”

Taako pauses, turning to look at Kravitz. He’s going to be so disappointed if Kravitz was here to tell him he wasn’t into it. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Well, yes, but not—that’s—” Kravitz cuts himself off, looking flustered and frustrated. “I just—do you mean it? Because I’m… death, Taako. I’m the Grim Reaper. You realize that, don’t you?”

Taako raises his eyebrows and straightens up. “Ye-es?” he says. “I’ve seen the whole skull and crossbones deal. The cowl.” He waves a hand towards Kravitz’s general face area. “The bone structure under those killer cheekbones.”

Kravitz flushes again, and then abruptly his face melts into the skull and Kravitz takes a step towards Taako. “This, you mean?”

Taako surveys the skull and Kravitz’s burning eyes and then nods. “Yeah, that. It’s a good look. Into this.”

Kravitz tilts his head to the side, looking down at Taako. “You’re not intimidated by me at all, are you?”

“Nah.” Taako shrugs. “Do you want me to stop flirting? Because I know I’m a jerk, but I respect boundaries. I’ll hold back.”

Kravitz’s face slowly reforms. He doesn’t move away from Taako. “Oh,” he says. “No, that’s—quite all right. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah?” Taako can’t help smiling. Kravitz is a dork and he’s still blushing.

“Yeah.” Kravitz glances down, briefly, at Taako’s mouth, and then he’s pulling back. “Perhaps, after we find your sister we can—”

“Oh, for sure,” Taako agrees, before Kravitz can finish his sentence. “We are definitely going on a whole bunch of dates once we find Lup, my dude. Don’t even worry about it.”

“Good.” Kravitz nods. “I look forward to it, Taako. Until tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Taako agrees. “Bright and early, thug. Taako is making pancakes. Now beat it. Some of us have meditation to do to be ready to face the motherfuckers who took Lup tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Kravitz says. He hesitates for a moment, then reaches out to take Taako’s hand in his. It’s cold, and when Kravitz brings Taako’s hand to his lips and kisses the back of it, they are too. “Goodnight, Taako.”

Taako should be making fun of Kravitz. Who kisses someone’s hand like they’re in a fantasy Jane Austen novel? A dork, that’s who. He doesn’t, though. He just smiles wide, vaguely guilty that he feels this pleased when Lup is in danger, and tells himself he’s not blushing. “Night, Kravitz.”

Chapter 3: Into the Fire

Summary:

Lup lends her brother a hand. Magnus rushes in. Shit gets real.

Notes:

Thank you for the comments and kudos on the first two parts of this fic. They mean so much! As promised, part 3 and the epilogue are being posted simultaneously. Jsyk, the epilogue is about ~2000 words, so significantly shorter than the first three parts of the story, but I wanted it to stand alone.

Warning: I added a body horror tag for this chapter for mild, uh, body horror. Shit gets real, y’all.

Taako starts the night meditating on Merle’s couch, but at some point meditation morphs into real sleep. He doesn’t sleep often and when he does, dreams are a rare occurrence because dreams are even rarer for elves than sleeping is.

Tonight, Taako dreams.

He’s standing in the burnt out ritual room. He’s panting, flames licking at—no, leaking from —his fingertips. The world is grey with smoke and ash and there are bodies on the floor. Two forms, crumpled where they fell, within the ritual circle. He glances behind himself and sees Jenkins struggling to get to his feet. Barry is motionless in the corner.

Taako’s heart seizes up and he gets stuck on that, on the denim-clad, chubby human lying on the ground. Barry is—

Something hits him, hard, and Taako screams as a powerful spell causes his body to convulse. It hits like thunder and leaves trails of magical energy sparking around him. He goes down, vision blurring.

Two figures drift towards him, cloaked and hooded in black. They lean over his body. They have no faces. They have—

Taako wakes up to Angus shaking his shoulder, glasses askew, looking fearful. “Sir, sir, it’s okay—you were having a nightmare.”

Taako’s body is tense and his heart is pounding hard. He struggles into a sitting position and tries to calm himself because, yes, it was just a dream. He can still feel the after-effects of the spell he’d been hit with—Witch Bolt, his brain supplies, cast at a really fucking high-level. He is sore in a way he shouldn’t be sore, chest and ribs aching with phantom pain.
Taako lets out a shuddering breath and tries to wrap his mind around the dream. “Fuck. Haven’t had one of those in a long time. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like sleeping.”

Angus adjusts his glasses and sits on the coffee table. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nothing for you to worry about, pumpkin. Just a nightmare about Lup being kidnapped,” Taako says. “Fucking Lup.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I can’t believe she’s into that nerd.”

Silence, for a moment. “Nerd?” Angus repeats.

“Barold.” Taako pulls his hand away from his face, waving a dismissive hand. “She was so worried about him she dropped her guard and the two losers who—” Taako stopped, ears flicking into high alert as he stares at Angus, wide-eyed. “Holy shit. Holy shit, Angus. That was Lup. I saw Lup. Actual Lup.”

Angus looks confused. “Sir?”

Taako scrambles off the couch and grabs Angus’s notebook, flipping to a clean page so he can write down everything he remembers before it slips away. Angus hovers anxiously beside him.

“What do you mean, you saw Lup? You saw where they’re holding her?” he asks. “I’ve heard of twins having a bond before, but—”

“Not a bond, a spell,” Taako says. “Well, it’s a bond too, but it’s—look, Lup and I are rad wizards, pumpkin. Trust me on this. That was a spell. That was Lup sending out a fucking flare into the universe. Why didn’t you just tell me where you are , goofus?” Taako scrawls out what he can remember about the two robed figures looming over him. “Because you don’t know. You don’t know where they took you. You don’t know that I know you’re still alive.” Taako shakes his head. Ridiculous. “Of course I know.”

“Sir, should I get Cleric Highchurch?” Angus asks. The distress in his voice finally gets through to Taako and he looks up from his notes. He’s got everything down now anyway.

“No. Angus, I’m okay,” Taako promises. “It’s a spell called Dream. Lup and I fooled around with it before, when we first learned it. You can shape the target’s dream if they’re asleep. Project messages. Have conversations, sometimes. It works best when you have a lock of hair or something from the target. It doesn’t work very well on elves. Not at all, in most cases, but Lup and I—we’re like an echo chamber or something. We’re twins. Identical twins. That’s a kind of bond, a genetic similarity, that you don’t get anywhere else. We haven’t been able to do a conversation, but if we’ve got a strand of the other’s hair or something then we can project into each other's’ dreams. It’s been awhile since we played with it, but that’s—Lup’s alive and she’s reaching out. Lup is trying to help us find her.”

Taako laughs, head dropping down to rest on his palms. Lup’s okay enough to cast fifth level spells and she’s waiting for him, somewhere.

Angus’s little hand rubs his back, tentatively, and that’s when Taako realizes his laughter has turned into crying.

“Oh fuck.” Taako wipes at his face, deliberately not looking at Angus. “God, this is not--this is not a good look.”

“It’s okay to cry, sir,” Angus says. “I do too, sometimes.”

That’s just sad. Both the thought of Angus crying over… whatever, probably bullies—and Taako being comforted by a baby. He sniffs and scrubs at his eyes, taking a deep breath to get himself under control. He has notes on the dream. They’ll help find Lup. She’s okay. She’s going to be okay. Taako will raze all of Neverwinter to get her home.

“I’m fine,” Taako lies. “Just got something in my eye.”

“Okay, sir,” Angus says. He’s pretty good at not sounding too obvious about humouring Taako. He pats Taako’s arm and then, hesitantly, hugs him.

Taako stiffens, ready to shrug Angus off, but it’s—not the worst thing. Being hugged. Slowly, he wraps his own arms around Angus, returning the gesture. Taako relaxes back against the couch and they sit there for what feels like a long time. Taako’s eyes start getting heavy and Angus’s breathing evens out. When Taako looks down, he finds Anugs asleep with his head on Taako’s shoulder.

Taako should nudge Angus awake and put him back on the floor. Instead, he carefully removes Angus’s glasses and uses Mage Hand to send them to the coffee table, then covers them both with a blanket and lets his eyes drift shut.

 

*

 

When Taako wakes, Merle is watering his plants and Angus is a heavy weight on top of his chest. Taako lies there for a long moment, trying to figure out how to shift Angus without waking him, then sags back against the couch, giving up. He lives here now.

“How did this happen?” Merle asks, amused, as he sets his watering can down beside the empty fireplace.

“Bad dreams.” It has the advantage both of being true and sounding like Taako means Angus’s bad dreams and not his own.

Merle nods and walks over to help free Taako. He shifts one arm under Angus’s shoulders, another under his legs, and lifts so Taako can slide out sideways and off the couch. Angus is skinny, but has at least half a foot on Merle, so it’s a pretty impressive move, all things considered.

“Parenting skills,” Merle says, placing Angus back on the couch. “Still got ‘em. Kitchen?”

Taako smothers a yawn with his hand and nods, following Merle. He needs to make himself presentable before Kravitz shows up to begin the day’s sleuthing. Coffee will help. “I promised to make pancakes today,” he says, as Merle starts up his coffee maker. “You got any fruit?”

“Strawberries in the back garden. I’ll pick them. You have some coffee and get dressed.”

Taako takes his coffee into Merle’s bathroom and has a quick shower. He dries his hair with a spell and braids it so it’ll stay out of his face. Today’s outfit is edgy-adventurer chic: black leather leggings, cut to resemble motorcycle gear, an off-the-shoulder blouse that hit him at mid-thigh, nipped in at the waist with an elaborately embroidered corset belt, and a pair of leopard print combat boots. His wizard’s hat and a healthy sprinkling of jewelry ties the whole look together. Taako’s looking hella rad as he steps out of the bathroom, draining the last dregs of his coffee.

Angus is up, sitting at the table in yesterday’s clothes, nursing a cup of juice. “Morning sir,” he says. “I’m sorry I fell asleep last night.”

“That’s cool, pumpkin.” Taako circles back to the living room to grab the clothes he’d picked out and resized to fit Angus. Someone has to start teaching the kid about fashion. “Here. You should change. Pancakes are on their way, so prepare to be amazed.”

Before university, Taako and Lup made their living cooking for wagon convoys. It’s something Taako doesn’t normally tell people because if people knew they were semi-professional cooks, their culinary prowess would be less impressive. And when you cooked for a lot of people on the road, you got breakfast down to a fine art fast. It was the most important meal of the day. Convoys traveled on their stomachs, so the first meal of the day had to rock .

Taako can poach an egg with one hand while making flawless, fluffy pancakes with the other and have his mage hand take care of the hollandaise. Today, he focuses on the pancakes.

Taako transmutes milk into heavy cream and a green bean into a vanilla pod. He uses Mage Hand to whip it up for him. He heats a skillet to a nice, even medium. His pancake batter is fluffy and light and he only just brings it together because nothing killed a pancake faster than over-mixing. When Merle returns with his strawberries, Taako slices them and tosses them in a bowl with a pinch of sugar. A dash of white vinegar turns to balsamic, thicker and sweeter, and joins the berries and sugar to really bring out their natural flavour and juices.

Taako is frying up pancakes and stacking them high by the time Magnus knocks on the front door. Merle gets up to answer it and the two of them come straight back to the kitchen.

“It smells amazing ,” Magnus says, taking a seat immediately. “I haven’t had pancakes in forever.”

Rather than burn a spell slot, Taako carries a plate full of pancakes over to the table, along with the strawberries and cream. “Help yourself. No point in letting those go cold while I’m making the rest.”

Merle grabs plates and mugs for the five people who are supposed to join them and he and Magnus set about making a dent in the pancakes.

Taako is starting to wonder what’s taking Angus so long when he comes back into the kitchen.

“Uh, sir,” Angus says, looking down at himself. “Are these… your clothes?”

Taako turns to take in Angus’s full look and fucking beams . “Hell yeah they are. You look great.”

Magnus turns to look too and chokes on his pancake. Merle snorts into his coffee, which—rude.

Angus is wearing a leopard print t-shirt with sequined shoulders. The golden hues in it really bring out the warm undertones in his skin, Taako thinks, and the black jeans Taako shrunk to fit Angus are very understated. There’s a rip in one knee, but no other embellishment. Angus’s shoes aren’t super coordinated with the outfit, but there’s a kind of normal-core meets geek-chic vibe to his brown oxfords and round, gold-rimmed glasses that Taako’s digging.

Angus looks skeptical.

“Ango, you look… nice,” Magnus says, which at least means Merle isn’t giving them all truth tea because it’s very clear he thinks he’s lying.

Taako rolls his eyes. “Don’t listen to these nerds, Ango. You look fly as hell. They’re just jealous. Sit and have some pancakes.”

Angus looks like maybe he wants to object to the outfit a bit more, but does as he’s told, taking a seat and helping himself to pancakes.

Taako finishes cooking the rest of the batter and is just sitting to feed himself when a rift opens up in the kitchen and Kravitz steps out, dressed in a black three-piece suit with burgundy accents. The suit means Taako doesn’t have to be ashamed to be seen with three-fifths of their party, which is a good start.

“Ah,” Kravitz says, looking at the pancakes on the table with surprise. “You were serious about the food.”

“I don’t know how things work in the astral plane, but over here an elf’s gotta eat,” Taako says, pulling a couple pancakes onto his plate. He points to the empty seat between Magnus and Angus. “Sit. Eat.”

Kravitz does, and when his eyebrows raise and he looks up at Taako with the first bite of pancake and syrupy strawberries in his mouth, surprise and awe on his handsome face, Taako feels appropriately smug.

Breakfast gets them every time.

“I’m a very good cook,” Taako says, because Kravitz’s mouth is currently too full to praise him, but the sentiment is written on his face plain as day. “Stick around, thug. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried my croque monsieur.”

 

*

 

After they eat, Taako tells everyone about his dream.

“Elves aren’t affected by sleep-based spells,” Kravitz says, frowning as he looks down at Taako’s notes. “I was under the impression that elves don’t dream at all.”

“We dream. Sort of.” Taako waves a hand. “And we can sleep, it’s just that stuck-up elves don’t because it’s too human for them or something. Look, put it down to a twin thing, okay? Trust me when I say Lup and I can do this. We used to use it to prank each other.”

“Dream is… a fifth-level spell,” Kravitz says, after a moment, as if that should have some significance. “You used it to prank each other?”

Taako looks down at the notes in front of him, then back up at Kravitz. “Yes?”

“So, wait. Lup sent you a dream message and showed you what happened in the room?” Magnus taps his fingers against the kitchen table. “And all she showed you was two figures with no faces? But everyone else was passed out?”

Taako nods, reaching over to draw a rough diagram of where everyone in the room had been in Lup’s message. “Right. I saw two bodies in the sigil on the floor. Jenkins outside it. Barold in the corner. She got distracted by Barold, thinking he was dead, and the dudes in the robes got the jump on her.”

“So when you say dudes, do you mean they were men?” Angus asks, studying Taako’s poorly drawn diagram.

“Honestly, pumpkin, all I really saw was robe. They had their hoods up. Couldn’t see their faces, so I couldn’t tell you. Not that I could say for sure what their pronouns were just by looking at them. I’m not going to assume.”

“Maybe it wasn’t someone from the tutorial after all,” Merle says. “We assumed everyone was telling boy detective the truth when he interviewed them. He didn’t have a Zone of Truth going. I’d lie.”

Angus looks ever so slightly offended by the implication that the problem is his detective work. “I’m very perceptive, sir.”

“No, I think Taako was right last night,” Kravitz says. “The room was heavy with necrotic energy. I couldn’t make sense of it until now, given the shoddiness of the ritual otherwise.”

“Taako and Magnus were right,” Magnus intejects.

Kravitz ignores him. “If my suspicions are correct, this is where we should part ways.”

“Uh-uh, no way,” Taako says, shaking his head. “My sister is wrapped up in this and I’m seeing it through. This is my investigation. Mine and Angus’s. The rest of you are just along for the ride.”

“I think we’re dealing with liches,” Kravitz says, voice flat as he looks at the motley group gathered around the kitchen table. His eyes settle on Taako. “Powerful, undead magic users, usually mad from stripping their souls from their bodies. My job is to hunt down beings like this, beings who defy the natural order of life and death. I think you’ll find I have jurisdiction here.”

“I think you’ll find I don’t give a shit,” Taako says, leaning forward. “If I’m not going to listen to the militia when they tell me to stay out of the investigation, I’m certainly not going to listen to you. That is my sister . I’m won’t sit back and eat bon bons while you try and take out a couple of liches on your own just because you’ve got a cute face and a nice suit.”

“I’ve taken out liches before, Taako. It’s my job. I know how to do this,” Kravitz insists.

“Still doesn’t change the fact that my sister is in there and I’m going.” Taako stabs a finger against the table. “Lup is the only family I have. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me without a fight. She is everything and she’s expecting me to come and get her. So I’m going. No matter what you say. Cut your way into the astral plane and try and find them on your own if you want to, but you’ll just be following in my footsteps because Taako is on the case and he’s making this happen.”

Silence. Taako keeps his eyes locked on Kravitz’s face. Stubbornness and spite will fuel him all the way to Lup’s rescue.

“Yeah,” Magnus says, after a moment. “Me too. Lup’s not my sister and I don’t know any of the others, but I said I’d help Taako out and I’m going to help.”

Beside Taako, Merle sighs. “Yeah, sure, me too. It sounds like you’ll need a cleric on your side.”

“You’re the weirdest fucking cleric I’ve ever met, old man,” Taako says, glancing at Merle beside him. He looks over at Magnus who, as far as Taako can tell, has no reason to volunteer himself for this. “You sure? You didn’t sign up for liches and you’re not a wizard or a cleric.”

Magnus shrugs. “I can take a hit. Don’t worry about me.”

Kravitz is rubbing his temples with two fingers. “Fine,” he says. “We’ll go together, but I am not dragging a child to face off against liches.”

All eyes turn to Angus and he flushes a little. “Oh, um, no,” he says. “No, I don’t think it would be a very good idea for me to go with you, but I can provide support through my stone of farspeech! If you need any research help or questions answered, I’ll guide you!” He holds up his stone and smiles.

Taako looks around the table and tries to work out when, exactly, this happened. How had he managed to team up with the literal Grim Reaper, a boy detective, his skeevy landlord, and a so far relatively useless, but attractively muscled and surprisingly tolerable, human dude-bro?

“Well, fuck. I guess we have to come up with a plan now,” he says. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a find undead spell up your sleeve, Merle?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Merle says, frowning as he gets up to retrieve his bible from the kitchen counter and flip through it. “I can turn undead. Speak with dead. If you really need it, I can resurrect someone for you.”

“Nobody’s dead yet,” Magnus points out.

“No one is resurrecting anyone,” Kravitz says, giving them all a stern look. “Once again, that’s the kind of thing I’m tasked with preventing.”

Magnus looks at Merle. “Have you got a weapon of some kind I can use? A bow or a sword or something lying around?”

Merle thinks it over. “I’ve got an axe in the garden.”

“Perfect.” Magnus bounds to his feet. “I’m good with an axe. I’m a carpenter.”

Taako frowns as Magnus heads out back to the garden, looking at Angus. “Does the university teach carpentry?”

“Oh, Magnus isn’t a student. His fiancée is,” Angus says. “Julia is focusing on abjuration, but doing a lot of classes on healing too. Magnus just spends a lot of time on campus with her.”

“Abjuration and healing,” Merle repeats, perking up. “She wants to be a cleric? Who’s her god? Do you think she’d be interested in hearing about Pan? I have some pamphlets somewhere…” Merle puts down his bible and starts opening drawers.

“No, um, a paladin.”

Magnus comes back into the house with an axe over his shoulder. Taako, Merle, and Kravitz turn as one to stare at him. He pauses. “What?”

“You’re engaged to someone training to be a paladin?”

“Oh, yep. Jules is great.” Magnus grins at them. “Angus was telling you about her? She can kick my ass.”

“Yesterday we stole scrubs, broke into a hospital room and illegally interrogated a suspect under a mind-altering truth spell.” Taako is completely okay with that. His moral code is firmly in the messy, grey zone and prioritizes his desires over everything else. Magnus, though, is marrying a paladin .

“Uh-huh?” Magnus glances at Kravitz and Merle, then looks back at Taako, quizzical. “I was there?”

“Nope, nothing. Forget I brought it up,” Taako says, because fuck, if Magnus is okay with yesterday’s events than he isn’t going to stir up shit. “All good.”

Magnus takes his seat again after propping the axe against the wall. “So what’s the plan?”

“We were momentarily distracted,” Kravitz says. “But I think I know of something that might work.” He turns to Taako. “Taako, you and your sister are twins, yes?”

“Identical twins,” Taako agrees, nodding.

“I think, perhaps, I can use that,” Kravitz says. “Unless you’re proficient in scrying?”

Taako really does need to do his divination credits at some point. “No, can’t say I’ve ever even tried it.”

Kravitz nods and turns towards Merle. “Could I trouble you to bless some water?” he asks. “I’ll return momentarily. I need to fetch something from the astral plane.” Kravitz gets to his feet, scythe appearing in his hand. He cuts a rift in the air and steps through it, then lingers there, outlined in faintly purple light as he turns to look at Taako. “This will work. I’m sure of it. We’ll find your sister, Taako.”

 

*

 

Merle fills a jug with water at the kitchen sink and blesses it. Magnus volunteers to wash the dishes, so Taako, Merle, and Angus move into the living room where the seating is more comfortable. Angus searches Merle’s meger book collection and Lup’s notes for information on liches.

“Unless they’ve got a secret soft point that makes them vanish when it’s hit, I don’t think you’re going to find anything that’ll do us much good against crazy wizard ghosts,” Taako says, lounging on the couch and doing his best to project that he is fine and definitely not freaking out. Kravitz is taking too long to return. Taako shouldn’t have trusted him. What if he’s gone off to find Lup on his own? What if he had bloodhound-like reaper powers that could sniff out a lich ten miles out?

There is a tearing sound, a pause, and then Kravitz and Magnus both step out of the kitchen and Taako’s forces himself to relax.

Kravitz is carrying a large bowl that seems to be made entirely of obsidian. It looks like it should weigh a metric ton, but he lifts it like it weighs nothing. When Kravitz sets it down on Merle’s coffee table, the table groans in protest.

“I apologize for the delay. The Raven Queen required some explanation before she would let me take a bowl from one of her temples.”

Merle pushes the water jug over to Kravitz. “As long as it doesn’t break my stuff.”

Kravitz pours the holy water into the bowl and undoes the buttons on his suit jacket as he kneels in front of it. “I believe I can use your connection to your sister as a conduit for the spell, Taako,” he says. He lays his hands, palms up, on either side of the bowl. “Join me?”

Taako slides to the floor and takes Kravitz’s hands in his. They’re cold to the touch. Kravitz closes them around his and squeezes gently. It’s nice. Taako meets his eyes, then glances down at the water in the bowl. “What do you need me to do?”

“Close your eyes,” Kravitz says. “Concentrate on Lup. Concentrate on finding your sister. She was able to reach you in your sleep. You’ll be able to reach her too.”

Kravitz’s voice is a low, soft murmur. Taako lets out a breath and closes his eyes, forcing himself to focus on the sore spot he’s been avoiding since he cried on Angus. On Lup. Lup, who trusts him to find her; Lup, who is out there alone right now; Lup, who is Taako’s ballast, his better half, his heart.

Lup, whose voice is suddenly echoing out of the bowl on Merle’s coffee table.

“—that I’m not having fun with you cats, but how long do you think you can keep this up? Really?”

“Oh, I think we’re doing just fine so far,” a voice drawls. Female, probably. Cocky.

Taako’s eyes snap open and he looks down into the bowl. On the surface of the still water he sees Lup, facing off against two very stylish elves. They’re floating in the air above her. Lup looks a little worse for the wear. Her clothes are torn and her hair’s a mess. Standing beside her there’s an equally dishevelled, long-haired drow propping themselves up on a ridiculous looking staff topped with a spider, and a human man in rough shape, half-propped against against Lup’s side. Her arm is slung around his waist, keeping him upright. It takes Taako a moment to register that this is because he’s missing a leg.

“Mm, yes. You may think you’re being clever, trying to get around our little games, but we designed these just for you,” says the second elf, who is maybe male. If they weren’t grinning down at his sister like they wanted to eat her, Taako would admire their panache. They’re wearing sequined, gold, green, and purple bodysuits and they look fabulous .

“Edward and Lydia,” Angus says, peering into the bowl beside Taako. “They’re the liches.”

Taako has no recollection of what the other two students were called, but he assumes that means they’re the ones Lup has teamed up with. Their professor is notably absent.

“Professor Jenkins is getting help,” the human says stubbornly. “He’ll be back and then you’ll be sorry.”

Edward and Lydia laugh. It’s in sync and very creepy. “Jenkins isn’t coming back,” Lydia says. “He’s abandoned you. Why would he want to save students who could incriminate him?”

“He’s coming back!” human-man insists.

Lup and the drow exchange a look that says they highly doubt Jenkins will return anytime soon.

“Are you going to try and kill us or what?” Lup asks. “I’m getting pretty tired of these games. Love to see what you’d look like with your skeleton done up extra-crispy style.”

“Oh, no. We don’t want you to die . How awful!” Edward says, pressing a hand to his chest in mock-horror. “We just want you to suffer .”

Lydia beams and raises a hand, snapping her fingers. The room they’re in shifts suddenly, morphing around them. Colourful squares of light flash over the walls and floors and a massive wheel forms in front of them.

Just before it all settles into place, Taako has a stroke of genius—of inspiration. Taako, sharp-eyed, clever elf that he is, recognizes the room they’re in. Not the illusory one Lydia and Edward have shaped with their magic, but the real room, the one that was visible for only a moment as the illusion flickered and loaded in place—a glimpse of beige cement blocks and the corner of a faded, homemade poster.

Taako tightens his grip on Kravitz’s hands and jumps up, nearly yanking Kravitz into the bowl of holy water between them. The spell breaks.

“Fuck yeah!” Taako looks around the room, at the rest of Team Taako, fucking beaming . “I know where they are.”

“Well, don’t leave us in suspense, kid. Spit it out,” Merle says, leaning forward. “I didn’t know you were that familiar with dungeons.”

“I’m not, but I’d know that hellhole anywhere,” Taako says, pointing to the scrying bowl, which now contains nothing but clear water. “That’s the Felicity Wilds Student Residence. Lup and I used to live there.”

“Are you sure?” Magnus is frowning because Magnus isn’t really a student and hasn’t ever experienced dorm life. He didn’t know how the horror show of institutional beige got imprinted on your brain. “Wouldn’t dorms be too populated to keep kidnap victims in?”

Taako shakes his head. “The whole Felicity Wilds complex is condemned. The rooms are gross, soggy, and cold. We got the fuck out of student housing when they decided they were going to tear the place down because we couldn’t take being crammed into another cell block. They never even left campus.”

“Where are the Felicity Wilds buildings?” Angus asks, pulling a folded up campus map from the back of his notebook. He’s circled the library in blue and the bookstore in red. Nerd. “I don’t know the non-academic buildings on campus well yet.”

“Northwest quarter,” Taako says, pointing. “Inside the wooded area. Nobody liked living there because it was the furthest walk from the main quad, on top of everything else. It was shitty and cheap, so they’re tearing it down to build something they can charge people more money for. This is all incidental. We know where they are. We can go get Lup back.”

Kravitz stands and a cloak forms around his shoulders, settling around him with a flourish. “I’m more than ready.”

“Let me grab the axe from the kitchen,” Magnus says, getting up from the couch. He ruffles Angus’s hair on his way by.

Merle grunts as he rises. “Yeah, I’ve got my bible. I’m good to go.”

Taako looks down at Angus. “What about you, pumpkin? Got your stone?”

Angus holds it up and nods, a determined expression on his face.

“Good,” Taako says. “Lock the door behind us when we leave. Don’t burn the place down. I don’t care about Merle’s junk, but all my stuff is downstairs.”

“I won’t, sir. I promise,” Angus says, grinning up at him. “You can trust me.”

The weird thing is, Taako does. Taako kind of trusts—not totally, because Taako is not the kind of person who ever totally trusts someone—all of them. He trusts them enough to know they’re not going to bail on saving Lup now. It’s a startling realization. He masks it by tossing his braid over his shoulder and raising his chin. “Natch. If anyone betrayed my trust I’d summon all the magicks at my disposal and rain down hell on them.”

“Cool,” Magnus says, coming back into the room, axe in hand. “Should we see how far we get before someone asks me why I’m carrying an axe around campus?”

Taako pauses and cocks a head as he looks at the axe. “I could cast minor illusion. I mean, it’s a fifteen minute walk so I’d be casting it a lot, but…”

Kravitz whistles something short and haunting, then reaches out and touches Magnus’s shoulder. He disappears from view.

“Uh,” invisible Magnus says. “This is… effective.”

“It should hold,” Kravitz says. “I’ll keep it up until we reach out destination. Try not to accidentally hit anyone with the axe.”

“I can’t believe the Grim Reaper is a bard ,” Taako says, grinning because what has his life become? “I knew you were a dork.”

Kravitz flushes. “I’m not strictly a bard anymore, but when I was alive… yes. I was.”

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Merle says, clapping his hands together. “For Pan’s sake, and for mine. I think my house has seen enough sleepovers to last it a while.”

“Magnus, put your free hand on my shoulder,” Kravitz says, as Merle leads the charge out of the house. “I’ll clear a path. Taako can try and keep people from bumping into you from behind.”

Taako lets Kravitz and invisible Magnus proceed him out the door, then turns to Angus, whose determined expression has started to betray some concern.

“I’ve got my stone,” he says, tapping the stone looped around his neck. “Taako doesn’t rush into danger.  Don’t worry about us. We’re going to be fine.”

 

*

 

They probably weren’t going to be fine.

Lup had looked rough in the vision. Taako isn’t sure if human-man had gone in without the leg or if that was new. He hopes it’s not a new thing. Lydia and Edward seem like the kind of dicks who’d think taking away someone’s prosthesis was a good goof.

They haven’t met yet, but Taako really doesn’t like them.

The Felicity Wilds residence is a twenty minute walk from Merle’s place. Merle is a tad out of breath when they get there and has fallen behind to bring up the rear with Taako.

“Next time warn me we’re walking to the far side of campus. I’ll ride my broom,” he says, stopping to lean up against the locked fence wrapped around the building. “Give me a minute.”

“I said it was the rez no one wanted to live in.” Taako looks the fence over. It’s about eight feet high and the wire along the top of the fence looks sharp. “Should we try to hop it?”

Kravitz ends the spell keeping Magnus invisible and Magnus points to the fence’s gate. “We don’t have to climb the fence. We can just open the door,” he says, leading the way.

There’s a fairly formidable padlock looped through a thick chain, keeping the door closed. Taako makes a face at it. “I can cast Knock if we want to be fast.”

Magnus waves away the offer and drops to his knees, pulling out his lockpick set. “I practiced with my buddy Carey last night. I can do it. I was just a bit rusty yesterday, that’s all.”

He hums to himself as he sticks a couple thin wire things into the locks and twists them around for a bit. He still takes longer than Angus had, but eventually it pops off. Magnus tucks the lockpicks away and stands up, smiling. “See? No need to burn a spell.”

Merle looks at the open lock, hanging on the chair, and then back at Magnus. “Your future wife is a paladin?”

“Yeah. She’s cool.” Magnus unhooks the lock from the chain and pulls the chain off. “Why?”

Merle exchanges a glance with Taako. Taako has so many questions about Julia. “No reason.”

The gate swings open. No resistance, no creaking, no alarm. It feels… very trappy. Taako frowns and pulls his wand from his belt, where it’d been tucked. On the one hand, the elf-liches probably don’t suspect anyone is on to them. On the other, this is too easy.

“There’s definitely a trap here, right?” Magnus asks, voice low as he creeps forward. “Like, something is definitely going to jump out and grab us at some point?”

“For sure,” Taako agrees. “But let’s keep our voices down in the meantime, hm? Maybe delay setting the trap off for a while?”

Taako’s stone of farspeech crackles to life, Angus’s voice coming from it. “Please be careful, sirs.”

Kravitz presses a cool hand to the small of Taako’s back. “Perhaps I should go first,” he says. “I don’t have the same... mortality issues facing the three of you.”

Magnus shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good,” he says, and opens up the front door to the main residence hall.

This door does creak, loud and long. All four of them wince and freeze in place, listening for the sound of an alarm or footsteps running towards them—something to indicate they’re in trouble—but nothing happens.

Magnus edges his way into the building, glances around, then turns back to Taako and nods. “All clear.”

Angus lets out a sigh of relief on the stone. “I’ve been thinking about the liches motivation,” he says. “I think they may be feeding off their classmates and Professor Jenkins’s powers. Or… their life energy. Something. The information in the books Cleric Highchurch has is vague. I’ll have to do more research to be sure, but I think—”

Angus’s voice cuts off as soon as Taako steps in the building. He stops and looks down at his stone as Kravitz and Merle follow him inside.

“Well,” Merle says. “So much for the kid.”

“They must have a spell up to stop their victims from calling for help,” Kravitz says. “Clever.”

Taako tucks the stone into his shirt. “We’ll deal with it later,” he says. They’re too close to stop now. “Angus will be fine.”

The Felicity Wilds looks more or less exactly how Taako remembers it, minus the students napping in odd corners. It’s very beige, very boring, and everything looks worn down—more so now than before, because nobody’s cleaned the place in months. There’s dirt and dead leaves on the floors and the posters that once lined the walls—advertising keggers, bake sales, and conflict resolution sessions with “your RA and buddy Brad”—are either on the floor or hanging crooked, the tape holding them in place in the midst of giving up. It’s creepy as all hell, but not particularly sinister.

Somewhere above them, someone screams.

Taako nearly jumps out of his skin, grabbing hold of Kravitz’s arm. Kravitz’s face melts into a skull and he raises his scythe as Magnus swings his axe into the ready position.

Merle stays chill. Merle adjusts his hold on the bible in his hands and rolls his shoulders back. “Guess we’re on the right track, then. Time to get to it.”

“Seriously. What kind of cleric are you?” Taako mutters, easing his grip on Kravitz and then giving his arm a pat. “Sorry, my dude. Taako’s not a fan of jump scares.”

It’s hard to tell if Kravitz is smiling or if it just looks like he is because his face is a skull, but when he speaks his voice is soft and fond. “That’s quite all right. I don’t mind in the least.” He turns his attention to the vast emptiness of the building laid out before them. “Now we know they’re somewhere upstairs. Any ideas?”

Taako really doesn’t want to lead the group. He grimaces, but this is for Lup. She’s probably fucking up the liches who were stupid enough to kidnap her, but fuck. Taako can help out at least. He knows the building. He’s pretty sure he even knows where the liches are holed up now that they know they’re not on the first floor.

Taako nods towards the hallway on their left. “I think they’re in the dining hall,” he says. “It’s a big enough room to match the one we saw in the bowl and it’s upstairs. There’s only one way in, but we can get there from here. There’s a set of doors on the right of that corridor that leads to a staircase. I don’t remember them squeaking, but I do remember that there aren’t doors at the top of the stairs to the dining hall, so if they’re up there, we’ve got to be careful about being spotted.”

Magnus leads the way, which admittedly is what Taako was hoping for. Magnus seems like the kind of guy who rushes into things—helping people, friendship, danger—indiscriminately. It’s cool by Taako.

Taako is all good with Magnus leading, except as Magnus reaches for the door to the stairwell Taako remembers the last scary school building he broke into and Kravitz waiting in Barry’s hospital room. He jerks forward, grabbing Magnus’s arm. “Stop!”

Magnus gives Taako a wide-eyed look, freezing in place, and, okay, Taako definitely could have been a little quieter while saving their lives.

“ Traps ,” he hisses, lowering his voice. “The door could be alarmed.”

Magnus slowly pulls his hand back. “Good point. Have you got… magic for that?”

Taako pauses. Looks at Kravitz, who shrugs. Getting around via interplaner portals probably means locks aren’t really a thing for him, now that Taako’s thinking about it.

“Wizards and bards. Too busy with the flashy shit to think about practicalities,” Merle says, stepping up beside Magnus and holding his bible to his forehead. He wiggles the fingers of his soulwood arm at the door. “Pan, find me those traps.”

There’s a pause as they wait to see if Merle’s spell works. Taako doesn’t see anything change, but Merle lowers his bible, looking pleased. “Yep. There’s a trap all right. Something nasty and loud by the feel of it. I’d say they’re not that worried about being found out though. Can’t feel anything but the one nearby.”

“What is it?” Kravitz asks, looking intense as his flesh face creeps back onto his bones.

“Not how the spell works,” Merle says, shrugging. “All I can tell you is that it’s an alarm and it’ll be loud and it’ll fuck us up if we set it off.”

“Great.” Taako glares at the door. “The university rez crew are controlling fuckers. There’s only one way into the dining hall. It’s supposed to cut down on theft or something. They got very shirty about people taking plates or chairs out. Lup and I practically had to recreate fantasy Ocean’s Eleven to get our dishes.”

Which was absurd. They’d paid to live there, therefore Taako and Lup were totally entitled to a full set of plates, bowls, glasses, and assorted cutlery. Their spoils were being put to good use in their basement suite at Merle’s now.

“Dispel Magic?” Kravitz suggests, looking down at Merle. Which is insulting, frankly. Taako can cast Dispel Magic, thank you very much, but also this is an elaborate alarm spell with bonus traps set by dangerous liches.

“You really think that would work?” Merle asks. “I’m guessing liches don’t worry much about spell slots, but we should.”

“Good point,” Kravitz says, sighing. “Setting the trap off when we know it’s there is foolish. There must be a way to disarm it.”

Magnus cocks his head as he looks at the door, then takes a step back, looking at the wall beside it. “Hey,” he says. “Any of you got a silencing spell?”

Kravitz and Merle look at each other, then both raise a hand.

“Cool,” Magnus says. He knocks his fist against the wall in a few places, then turns and gives Kravitz an expectant look. “Cast it right here, would you? Will it go through the wall to the other side?”

“Well… yes,” Kravitz says. “What’s the plan here?”

“I’m going to chop through the wall.” Magnus lifts up his axe. “Merle said the door was alarmed. We’ll go around it.”

Taako stares at Magnus. “That… is genius,” he says, after a long pause, during which they all take a moment to appreciate the brilliant simplicity of just knocking a hole in the wall to avoid dealing with trap bullshit.

“Yeah. Julia’s always saying people who rely on magic for everything don’t really think about the non-magical ways of getting around their spells,” Magnus agrees. “It always seems like common sense to me. Can you do the silence, Kravitz?”

Kravitz hums a tune that starts off loud and fades into nothing and suddenly they’re smothered by a thick blanket of quiet. Taako’s ears twitch and he makes a face. Silencing spells are always disconcerting. Silence leaves him feeling too vulnerable, too easy to sneak up on, and Taako hates not being able to cast verbal magic. He’s got great verbal spells.

Magnus brings his axe up and crashes it into the wall. It should be loud, but makes no sound at all as the blade cuts through the plaster and drywall like paper. Taako saw enough drunk undergrads punch holes in the rez walls to know they’re not made from the sturdiest material, but it’s still impressive. Brute strength has its place and yes, okay, they probably would still be standing around trying to figure out how the fuck to get into the place if it wasn’t for Magnus.

Taako is going to have to thank all these chucklefucks after they get Lup back and it’s going to be terrible.

Magnus makes a hole big enough to stick his head through and then does just that, which makes the hair on the back of Taako’s neck stand up. Magnus has apparently never even been in the same room as a sense of self-preservation before. Taako reaches out, yanking him back by the collar of his shirt, and glares. As clearly as he can, because they’re still under the silence spell, Taako mouths, “What the fuck?”

Magnus shrugs sheepishly, then gestures for Taako to step back so he can keep swinging his axe.

Merle pats Taako’s hip when Taako lets go of Magnus. Merle looks far too amused. It’s easy for him to find this funny. He’s a cleric. Taako’s never seen him heal anyone, but he probably knows how to do it. Taako’s used to injuries being more serious than that.

Magnus gets the hole gets big enough to fit through and leads the way. Taako lets Merle go through next, then follows, with Kravitz bringing up the rear. They move towards the stairs and some of the tension leaves Taako’s shoulders as soon as they’re out of the bubble of silence.

“I don’t hear anything from upstairs,” Magnus says, keeping his voice low. “You said you couldn’t find any more traps, right Merle?”

Merle nods, eying the staircase warily. “Nothing I could sense. Doesn’t mean there aren’t creaky steps to worry about.”

“Guess we just hope the liches are too busy to notice a bit of creaking, right?” Magnus looks over his shoulder at Taako and Kravitz. “You two ready?”

If Magnus has no self-preservation instinct, Taako has too much. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to turn around and run. He could report this to Hurley. The militia could probably handle liches. If they believed him, and if they didn’t need to waste time getting a warrant or something.

If Taako reports this, things might be simpler—safer—but it will also mean he doesn’t get to tell the liches who took his sister to go fuck themselves.

He gives Magnus a determined look and nods. “Lup is up there. I’m ready.”

“It’s not my first time dealing with liches,” Kravitz says. “Shall we?”

As cool as the moment of shared resolve is, they don’t actually rush up the stairs. Magnus ducks his head as he creeps up the steps and Taako even, in deference to the sneaking, takes off his hat so it won’t loom over them like a shark’s fin. The stairs wrap around a corner before going up to the dining hall. Magnus glances around the wall, waves them on, and then stands up straight.

Taako is about to hiss an admonishment when he realizes why Magnus stopped ducking. Although there’s still no door blocking the stairs, the dining hall itself has been sealed off with a plywood wall. There’s a chained, padlocked door—also plywood and not especially sturdy looking—with a neat little sign pinned to it: DANGER - CONSTRUCTION ZONE.

“Son of a bitch,” Taako says, scowling at the door as he jams his hat back onto his head. “ Really ?”

Magnus rubs the back of his neck, hefts the axe. “Should I… hit it? It’s just wood.”

Kravitz shakes his head. “I wouldn’t risk it. I can feel the necrotic energy on the other side of that wall from here. It’s been shored up. It’s likely cursed.”

“Of course it is.” Taako glares at the door for a moment more, then gestures to the lock keeping it closed. “Can you pick it?” he asks. “You picked the one outside.”

“Is the… lock cursed?” Magnus asks, giving it a wary look. “Or just the door?”

“No traps except the one downstairs, remember?” Merle asks. “Should be good to go.”

“Right,” Magnus says, and reaches for his lockpick set again.

There’s a wordless yell from the other side of the wall. This time, Taako recognizes the voice. It’s Lup. Lup, sounding frustrated and angry and fuck this. Fuck everything .

“Fuck these liches.” Taako raises his wand and casts Magic Missile.

All three darts hit the same spot, blasting a hole in the wall and disrupting the illusion spell immediately behind it. Taako gets half a glimpse of some kind of fucked up, glowing board game before it blinks abruptly out of existence, leaving the room looking like exactly what it is—a dingy, dirty school dining hall. There are overturned tables blocking out the light from the windows and most of the ceiling tiles are gone.

Lup is in the middle of the room, her hands wreathed in flame, half-turned towards the hole Taako just blasted in the wall. A wicked grin spreads across her face.

“Took you long enough,” she says, and the flames get brighter. Her lip is split and there’s blood on her teeth. Her clothes are all torn up and already she looks rougher than she did in Kravitz’s scrying bowl.

“Next time I say don’t take a class, don’t take the fucking class,” Taako says. His heart is full of joy because Lup is okay . She’ll be okay once they get her out of here. And he’s angry too. He’s fucking livid . The angriest he’s ever been.

Taako cracks his neck and steps through the hole he made in the wall. At the far end of the room, the liches are lounging on a pair of dining hall chairs as if they were thrones.

“Oh, have you come to play our game too?” the male elf—Edward?—asks, and suddenly he’s in front of Taako, resting his chin on a finger as he looks him over. “We could use another set of players. We’ve got delightful ideas for pitting you against each other.”

“We’re not playing games,” Magnus says, stepping up beside Taako.

“We’re here to put a stop to this,” Merle agrees, coming up on his other side.

“Taako, did you bring our landlord ?” Lup asks, from across the room.

“I’ll explain later,” Taako promises. “We’re doing a thing right now, Lulu.”

“Sure, sure. Don’t let me interrupt. Not like I’ve been having a rough week,” Lup says, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously,” says the female elf, who Taako’s pretty sure is named Lydia. She pops up beside Magnus, pouting at him. “Don’t you want to play our game?”

“No, thank you,” Magnus says. “We’re here to rescue Taako’s sister and her friends. And to deal with you.”

“Just the three of you?” Edward asks, looking them over skeptically. “Professor Jenkins and his best students couldn’t take us on, but you think you can?”

“Not just—” Magnus pauses, glances back at the hole in the wood and then looks down at Taako, doing something confusing with his eyebrows.

Taako frowns at him for a moment. Magnus jerks his head back towards the hole again, which is when Taako realizes that Kravitz isn’t with them. Kravitz hasn’t followed them into the room. Maybe he disapproved of Taako blasting his way in. Maybe he’s waiting in the wings to do a deus ex machina thing. Maybe he’s in on this and it’s been a fucking trap all along.

That would be about on par with Taako’s usual luck in relationships.

“Something wrong?” Lydia asks, fluttering her eyelashes at them.

Taako is done with this place and these liches and he only just got here. He’s rested. He’s full of spell slots. He’s ready to go.

“Yeah, it’s getting hot in here, don’t you think?” Taako asks, and hits them both with Elemental Bane—slamming it into them and smirking when he feels them both try and fail to shake it off because maybe they’re good at necromancy, but they can’t beat him at his own school and nobody can beat him and Lup when they work together.

Lup casts two Fire Bolts in quick succession, with a wordless grunt of effort. If she’s using cantrips when Taako’s made the liches more vulnerable to fire damage, she’s running low on spell slots. Something to keep in mind.

The spell still hits the liches harder than either of them is expecting.

Edward staggers and then whirls around, his disguise fraying as he becomes instead a black-cloaked figure,  floating in the air, a deep red glow emanating from inside his robe. “You’re not playing fair.”

“I don’t think you know the meaning of the word, darling,” drawls one of the classmates Taako had, if he’s honest, completely forgotten about. The drow’s hair is mostly gone and so is one of his eyes, but he looks very satisfied as he points his staff at Edward and casts Scorching Ray. “Let’s see how you enjoy a little suffering of your own, yes?”

Edward dodges one of the beams, but the other two hit him and he cries out in rage and pain.

Lydia whirls away from the three of them, throwing out a hand and hitting the drow with a powerful wave of thunder that sends him flying back across the room, into a pile of chairs. He doesn’t get up.

Magnus takes the opportunity. He brings his axe down, hard, on Lydia’s back, but the weapon passes right through her. She looks down at where the axe passed through her body and slowly turns to look at Magnus. “Naughty boy,” she says, elf form flickering out of existence as she joins her brother in full blown lich mode. She knocks Magnus back with another wave of force, slamming him into the plywood wall. “That wasn’t very nice, now was it?”

“Neither is this,” Merle says, and raises his bible in the air.

A large, spectral form appears in the middle of the room. Its outline is vague, but it looks like an older, dark skinned woman, hair pulled back, holding a gleaming sword and a shield emblazoned with the symbol of Pan. The angel rotates the sword in her hand and stabs it through Edward’s spectral form.

It hits hard. For a brief moment Edward lights up like a Candlenights bush, a whole body glowing with a warm light, and then he’s shuddering and black, shaking at the edges as bolts of lightning shoot off his form. “Lydia!”

Lydia turns towards her brother. As she does, the floor beneath her goes up in flames. She screams in anger and pain and writhes as Taako’s still-going spell makes the sudden bonfire hurt more, do more damage.

In the corner of the room, propping himself with one arm and pointing his wand at Lydia with the other, is the human man from Lup’s class, now missing both legs below the knee. “It’s not much fun, is it, Lydia?”

Taako lurches towards Lup while Lydia is fighting her way out of the fire because he hasn’t seen her in too long. He needs to touch her. To hug her. He doesn’t know what the liches did to her, what they took from her, but he’s going to make sure they die real slow once he finds out what it is.

Edward takes advantage of Taako trying to get to his sister. He points a spectral finger at Taako and sends a nasty looking spell flying, one that crackles with black and green fire as it heads straight towards him.

And then the bolt glances off the scythe suddenly thrust between Edward and Taako, grasped in a skeletal hand. Kravitz is there, in full reaper mode, his cowl pulled up over his skull, glowing eyes focused on Edward.

“I don’t think so,” Kravitz says, looming over the lich. “Normally I offer souls a chance to come peacefully to the astral plane, but I think in your case I’ll make an exception.” He raises his scythe and slices it through Edward’s form. Unlike Magnus’s axe, the scythe hits home. Edward evaporates in a shower of sparks, a vibrating ball of white light the only thing left of him. Kravitz twists his scythe just-so in the air and opens a small portal, which sucks in Edward’s soul.

Lydia wails . She leaps forward, out of the bonfire, shaking and senseless with rage as she raises her arm to lash out at Kravitz, dark magic gathering between her spectral hands, around her whole lich body.

Merle’s guardian brings Lydia to an abrupt stop by running her through with its sword.

If Edward evaporated, then Lydia explodes —sending a blast of necrotic energy and wrath hurtling directly at Kravitz and Taako, loud and furious and unstoppable.

There’s no time to get out of the way. Taako throws his arms up to cover his face and squeezes his eyes shut, tries to brace for the hit. He hears the roar of Lydia’s magic, her death knell, bellowing around him, can feel its residual heat and the overwhelming pressure of her dark power, but cool arms wrap around him, yanking him close as his hat flies off his head. When the heat and the sound die down, Taako is unharmed and wrapped in Kravitz’s arms, the reaper’s cape half-covering him.

He glances up as Kravitz’s face becomes handsome again and his expression concerned.

“Are you all right, Taako?”

Taako looks at Kravitz, who just took Lydia’s entire last-ditch hit like it was nothing, who doesn’t even appear to have been ruffled by it, and is suddenly very glad for Kravitz’s cold touch because sometimes an elf just needs help cooling off, you know?

“Peachy, my dude,” Taako promises, bringing his arms down to rest against Kravitz’s chest. He smooths his hands over the lapels on Kravitz’s suit. “You?”

“Yes. Quite all right,” Kravitz agrees, smiling down at him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t intervene sooner. They had spells to ward off reapers. I had to cut through the planes to get here.”

Which explained Kravitz appearing out of nowhere, at least. He’d ducked into the astral plane. “You had good timing.”

Lup clears her throat. Taako turns to find her standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding his singed hat, and her eyebrows raised so high they’re practically in her hairline. “Well, this is interesting,” she says. “I get kidnapped for a few days and you start dating the Grim Reaper ?”

“We’re not—dating.” Kravitz glances down at Taako, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m still… holding you.”

Taako isn’t really big on PDA, and this is definitely not the right place for it, but it feels pretty good. “It’s cool,” Taako says. “I have that effect on people.” He pats Kravitz’s chest once and pulls away. “I don’t know why you’re mad at me for flirting, Lup. You should be telling us how you didn’t mean to try and summon and bind Kravitz to your shitty professor’s will right now. What were you thinking ?”

Lup wouldn’t be Lup if she shamed easy. She shrugs off the admonishment and barely twitches when she hears Taako call Kravitz by name. “I get it. You’re mad at me for getting kidnapped. Can arguing about who flirted with death more this week wait? I could really use, oh, a hospital, and I don’t know if you noticed this, but Brian is knocked the fuck out and Cam has no legs, so…”

“To be fair,” the human man who must have been Cam says, “I do have my legs from the knees up.” He looks around the room, then back at Taako and Lup. “A hospital sounds great, actually.”

“Fuck, fine. Hospital now, fight later,” Taako agrees, rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to be such a baby about it. We should call the militia, I guess. I might not have kept them up to date with my investigation.”

Which reminds him that he really needs to call Angus and figure out how to explain to the kid that the whole final part of the mystery is wrapped up and got solved mostly by hitting things.

Lup brings Taako out of his introspection by throwing her arms around his neck, squeezing him tight and nearly knocking him off his feet.

“I knew you’d get the dream,” she says. “I burned a lot of slots, but I kept sending it. I knew you’d figure it out.”

Taako hugs Lup back, hard. “I did. I was rad.” He glances at Merle helping Magnus to his feet and dusting him off, at Kravitz. Thinks about Angus, waiting for them at Merle’s place. Taako was awesome and he had marched in to save Lup, been willing to do it on his own if he had to. Still. “It was kind of a team effort.”

Lup pulls out of the hug and grins at Taako, wide and happy with just a little blood still on her teeth. “I’m running on adrenaline and relief right now. Let me get healed up and you can tell me all about it.”

 

*

 

Outside, after Kravitz makes certain Lydia really is gone and heads back to the astral plane to do paperwork or have a soul-snack or whatever it is he does after collecting bounties, Taako calls the militia. They come in battlewagons with ride-along clerics and take Lup, Cam, and Brian to the hospital. Merle heals the bruised ribs Magnus got when he was thrown against the plywood wall enough that the clerics don’t insist on taking him too.

When Hurley arrives, she surveys the three of them with a distinctly unimpressed look on her face.

“One of the nurses at the hospital on Barry Bluejeans’s floor reported being charmed yesterday afternoon,” she says. “By an elf, a dwarf, a human, and a small boy.”

“We solved your case for you. Shouldn’t you give us a break?” Taako would much prefer to be at the hospital with Lup right now, thank you very much, but apparently being questioned about being smarter and more competent than the militia takes precedence.

“You found your sister and two of her classmates, but the two students you say committed this crime are missing and so is Professor Jenkins.” Hurley crosses her arms over her chest. “Dare I ask what you did with Angus MacDonald?”

“We didn’t bring a baby to rescue kidnap victims, oh my gods,” Taako says, grabbing the stone of farspeech around his neck so he can call Angus. Which he probably should have done straight after calling the militia, now that he thinks about it. “What kind of monsters do you think we are?”

“Sir! Sir, are you okay?” Angus picks up Taako’s call immediately, sounding like he’s on the verge of tears, which, okay, isn’t the best look. “What happened?”

“Hey, Agnes. Things popped off a little faster than expected, but we’re okay,” he says.

“Honestly, I forgot the kid was waiting for us,” Merle says, and looks at Hurley. “You mind if I make a call, Sergeant? We’re entitled to one, aren’t we?”

“Oh yeah,” Magnus agrees, nodding. “I should call Julia and let her know everything went fine.”

“Sure, why not? Not like this is the middle of an interrogation or anything.” Hurley throws her hands up in frustration as Merle and Magnus both pull their stones out to make their own calls, although Taako has no clue who Merle could be calling. Does Merle have a fantasy lawyer?

“Is your sister okay?” Angus asks. “I heard Magnus and Cleric Highchurch.”

“Yeah, she’s good,” Taako promises. “Everyone’s fine. Well, there were some injuries, but none of our people are dead so… it’s all good, Ango. We’re just getting interrogated by the militia and then we’ll be back. I’m sure it won’t take long, seeing as how we’re completely innocent parties and all.” Taako says this last bit while looking directly at Hurley.

She rolls her eyes. It’s definitely not a professional reaction.

“Okay, sir,” Angus agrees. “Just—as long as you’re okay.”

“Taako’s good,” he says. “Taako’s just working on not going to jail. Be back soon.” He ends the call and turns his full attention back to Hurley. “So when can we leave?”

“When I get a satisfactory explanation of what happened and where half our missing persons went.”

Merle finishes his call and waddles over to join Taako’s standoff with Hurley. “Haven’t you ever made foolish choices out of love?” he asks, peering up at her.

Surprisingly, there’s a moment when it seems like the question hits home. It’s quickly masked by Hurley gesturing towards the militia officers searching the grounds around the Felicity Wilds residence. “Not choices that left two criminals in the wind and a professor missing.”

“Maybe we should just tell her?” Magnus asks, popping back in. “Julia says hi. She wants us all to get dinner soon so she can hear the full story.”

Taako is pretty sure what they did to Edward and Lydia is technically murder, so he’s not on team truth right now. “We did tell her. We found out where Lup and the others were being kept because we used a divining spell. Then when we came to rescue Lup we had a scuffle and Edward and Lydia fled.”

Hurley stares daggers at Taako. The first officer on the scene had accepted the story without question. She’s much harder to fool.

“Are all three of our kidnap victims going to corroborate that story?” she asks.

Taako’s no fool. They’d coordinated while waiting for the militia to show and Lup promised to fill in the drow when he woke up. He grins at Hurley, which probably doesn’t help her believe him, but fuck it. She doesn’t have to. She just has to let him get on with his life. “Yep.”

Hurley and Taako have a long staring contest.

Hurley blinks first. “I don’t believe a word coming out of your mouth, but fine. I’ll let you off the hook for now. I have your addresses and I’m going to be keeping an eye on you. Don’t leave town.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sergeant,” Taako promises, the very picture of sincerity as he presses a hand over his heart. “Besides, my sister’s in the hospital. Where would I go?”

 

*

 

They head back to Merle’s place. Taako feels grimy and tired, like he needs a shower, a change of clothes, and possibly a nap before he faces the hospital again. He doesn’t know how hospital rumour mills work, but he’s pretty sure the nurses aren’t going to be very happy to see him. In retrospect, instructing that nurse to stand in the closet was maybe a bit much.

Taako opens Merle’s front door, ruined hat in hand, and is almost bowled over by Angus flinging his arms around his waist.

“I was so worried!” Angus says, into Taako’s stomach. “I thought the liches had killed you!”

Taako scoffs. “As if, pumpkin. I’m a baller wizard and if anyone says otherwise they’re lying liars who lie.” He tosses his hat onto the couch and ruffles Angus’s hair. “Cha’boy needs to freshen up and head to the hospital though.”

“Oh, right. Of course, sir. I didn’t mean to keep you.” Angus pulls back and straightens out the sequined shirt Taako loaned him. “Case closed?”

“Case closed,” Taako agrees, and magnanimously holds his hand out for a high-five.

Angus beams so big that this time Taako doesn’t even contemplate pulling his hand out of the way. He’s two-for-two on guilt high-fives.  Taako’s going to have to start worrying about his reputation soon.

“Me too!” Magnus says, mustering way more enthusiasm than anyone with recently-busted ribs should be able to. He holds up a hand for Taako, beaming, and Taako rolls his eyes, but high-fives him too.

“I’m surrounded by children,” Taako says, sighing. “Merle, you’re old. Come here and make me feel young again.”

“You’re an elf,” Merle points out, pulling the front door closed. “You’re probably the oldest person in the room.”

Dwarves live a long time too and Merle looks old, but he may technically be right. “Elves age differently,” Taako says, with a disdainful sniff. “I’m showering at home.”

“Sure, sure,” Merle agrees. “No need to run up my hot water bill.”

“I guess I should head home too,” Magnus says, rubbing the back of his neck. He grins at Taako, at everyone. “This was fun. I mean, not the part where we were worried about your sister and what might be happening and if people would die, but the rest of it? I had fun.”

Taako has spent the last few days feeling sick to his stomach, worried, crying, and scared shitless. But, in the privacy of his own mind, he allows himself to admit that feeling that way around other people was better than the alternative. He reaches out and pats Magnus’s bicep. “Lup and I will cook,” he says. “For the dinner with Julia. I said we’d give you a show, didn’t I? Merle will host. I’m getting used to his kitchen.”

“Cool,” Magnus says, and then looks down at Angus. “Well, Ango, should we head out?”

Angus looks up at Taako with big, sad eyes. “I’ll give Magnus the clothes you let me borrow after I wash them,” he says. “So they’re clean when they’re returned. Like with the scrubs.”

Taako is riding high on finding Lup still. That’s the only explanation for how nice he’s being. “Nah,” he says. “Bring them to me yourself when you come for your magic lesson, kid. People in that coffee shop heard me say I was tutoring you. Can’t have you sucking when you show up for school next year.”

Angus’s sadness morphs into awe. Taako kind of regrets making the offer already, just based on that, but having someone look at him like he hung the moon in the sky is—kind of nice.

“You mean it?”

“Yeah, sure.” Taako shrugs. “I mean, why not? I have a reputation to protect. See you here bright and early Tuesday. By which I mean one, because Taako needs his beauty sleep.”

Angus flings his arms around Taako’s waist again, but the hug is mercifully short this time. “Thank you, sir! I’ll be here right at one!”

Taako rolls his eyes, but can’t quite repress the smile that fights its way onto his face. “Yeah, all right. Get yourself a wand and come prepared to learn.”

Magnus takes Angus home. Outside, he hefts the kid onto his shoulders and nods along to Angus babbling about magical theory as they walk down the street. Merle and Taako lean against the front window and watch them go.

Merle pats Taako’s hip. “You did good, kid.”

“Kid?” Taako repeats, eyebrow arching. It’s an echo of their conversation the night before and Taako kind of likes that. The comfortable familiarity of it, like how he and Lup bicker for fun. “What happened to me being the oldest person in the room?”

“Nah, pretty sure I’m older. More experienced.”

“Please don’t make a sex joke.”

Merle barks out a laugh and gives Taako a good-natured push towards the back of the house. “Go shower and see your sister. Come up when you get back from the hospital.”

There’s no more mystery to solve and no more reason for Taako to avoid his apartment. He nods anyway. Merle’s place gets more light, not being a basement, and the abundant plants are growing on him—no pun intended. Taako undoes the tie on his braid and begins finger combing his hair loose as he walks towards the kitchen and the back door. “Yeah, okay, Dad.”

As soon as the word slips out, he freezes. Taako stares, wide-eyed, into the kitchen, ready to welcome death. He does not turn around to look at Merle. He isn’t sure he can ever look at Merle again.

There’s a long moment of mutual, silent understanding followed swiftly by a silent agreement to never speak of this again.

Merle clears his throat. “Later,” he says. “After the hospital. I’ll make us tea.”

The last thing Taako needs right now is truth tea, but Merle is being kind so he just nods. He risks glancing over his shoulder, giving Merle a tight smile before he flees downstairs, where he can wash away the sticky feelings of affection overwhelming him.

 

*

 

Lup isn’t in her assigned room when Taako arrives at the hospital. He has a bag with a change of clothes for her in one hand, a box of his cookies in the other, and she’s nowhere to be found.

Taako frowns at her empty bed as a dark suspicion coming over him, then turns around and heads up to the fourth floor.

The half-elf he locked in a closet is manning the nurses station because sometimes life just isn’t fair. His eyes meet Taako’s as Taako steps out of the elevator. Taako tries smiling. The nurse scowls.

Taako looks at the box of cookies in his hand, weighs his options, and decides it serves Lup right for fucking off out of her room.

“Just the man I was looking for,” Taako lies, striding over to the station. “I made you cookies.” He sets the box on the counter. “As an apology for locking you in the closet. I was trying to save my sister’s life.”

“I was in there for four hours ,” the half-elf says. “I’m claustrophobic.”

“They’re really good cookies.”

This doesn’t seem to sway the half-elf like it should. Taako pats the box. “Cool,” he says. “I’m going to go now. My sister’s being gross.”

The militia is no longer stationed outside of Barry Bluejeans’s door, which Taako figures means he’s been cleared. It’s nice that Hurley’s efficient, but Lup wouldn’t have been able to get into his room if the militia were still around and Taako might not have had to sacrifice the cookies. Or see whatever’s waiting for him on the other side of Barry’s door.

He sighs and flings the door open. It’s worse than he thought. Lup is sitting on the bed and instead of sticking her tongue in Barry Bluejean’s mouth, she’s just… holding his hand. She and Barry are leaning towards each other, foreheads pressed together, and they’re smiling.

“Gross,” Taako says, making a face. “Mushy stuff.”

Lup laughs and pulls back, but doesn’t let go of Barry’s hand. “Hello to you too, dingus. What do you want?”

“I brought you a change of clothes,” Taako says, holding up the bag and walking to the bed. He hops up beside Lup. “So I guess this means Barold’s going to be around more.”

“My name’s not actually—”

“Barold is definitely going to be around more,” Lup confirms, grinning. “As if you can talk, Mr. Date-with-Death.”

“Mine is way cooler than yours.”

Lup turns her head to look at Barry, who goes pinker under the weight of her attention, but smiles back at her helplessly. It’s really fucking cute.

“Yeah, mine’s a nerd,” Lup agrees, then leans down to give Barry a kiss. “But you wear it well, babe. Don’t even trip.”

“No, I’m okay with it. You like nerds.”

“I like a nerd.”

Taako makes a gagging noise and leans his head against Lup’s shoulder. “I’m going to go into a sugar coma here,” he says. “I suppose you’re invited to the welcome back dinner party blowout we’re having once everyone’s all healed up, Barold.”

“Dinner party?” Lup repeats. “Who all—”

There’s a ripping sound, the sound of planes being torn asunder, and a rift opens up at the foot of Barry’s bed. Kravitz, human-faced but dressed in a long, cowled robe, steps through, his eyes on a large account ledger in his arms. “Barry J. Bluejeans, the Raven Queen has—”

“Krav?”

Kravitz’s head jerks up, startled, and he blinks at Taako in surprise. He smiles. “Taako?”

“Sup, Ghost Rider?” Lup says, giving Kravitz a nod. “Why are you paying my man a visit?”

“I’m your man now?” Barry looks at Lup like she hung the moon and yeah, okay, maybe Taako can get behind this nerd being with his sister if this is how he’s going to be with her.

“I didn’t waltz through the hospital in this extremely fetching hospital gown because I don’t want you to be my man.”

Kravitz clears his throat. “As I was saying,” he says, focusing on Lup and Barry. “I’ve argued your case before the Raven Queen. In her great wisdom, she’s seen fit to grant you a pardon due to your assistance in the apprehension and removal of the liches Edward and Lydia. Your soul is your own, but let this serve as a warning on the dangers of meddling in necromancy.”

“Well, she had no right to his soul anyway, but that’s nice,” Taako says, giving Kravitz an amused look.

Kravitz makes a couple marks in his ledger and snaps it shut. It vanishes in a puff of black smoke. “I might as well do your sister too, while I’m here,” he says, and looks at Lup. “You have also been pardoned.”

“Okay.” Lup arches an eyebrow. “I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, but cool. If that’s what gets you off.”

“Taako, while I’m here can we… talk?” Kravitz asks.

“I don’t mean to sound rude, but this is my hospital room,” Barry says.

Taako levels an unimpressed look at Barry and is comforted by the way he shrinks back in bed. At least he hasn’t gone completely soft.

Lup punches his arm.

“Hey!”

“Go do your mushy stuff in the hall,” she orders. “I need to put on decent clothing.”

Taako grumbles, but slides off the bed. “Come on, Krav. We’re doing this outside.”

They leave the room. Kravitz gets some funny looks from the half-elf and the dwarf, orc, and halfling who’ve joined him at the nurses station. Then again, Kravitz is dressed in a cowled black robe in a hospital, so they’re kind of justified in looking at him like he’s a nudist at a funeral. Kravitz pushes his hood back, which tones down the reaper vibe a bit, although he still cuts an intimidating figure.

“Talking doesn’t sound good,” Taako says, leaning against the wall outside Barry’s room. “Is this the part where you tell me your goddess-mom doesn’t want you seeing me?”

“What?” Kravitz blinks at Taako in surprise, then shakes his head, stepping closer. “No, Taako. Not at all. I just realized I have no way to contact you except by just… showing up at your door.” Kravitz draws a stone of farspeech out of his robes. “I wanted to ask… if we could attune our stones?”

Kravitz looks weirdly vulnerable asking for Taako’s digits. Kravitz stepped in front of a blast of necrotic lich energy to protect him without batting an eye. He raided a temple for one of the Raven Queen’s holy relics so he could help Taako track down his sister. Kravitz can travel between planes of existence with a flick of his scythe. He’s an undead, shapeshifting bounty hunter. And Taako makes hims nervous.

Taako looks at Kravitz and grins, wide and easy. He’d been completely wrong when he said Kravitz was cooler than Barry. “You’re such a dork.”

Taako reaches up to grab Kravitz by the back of the neck and pulls him in for a kiss. When their lips meet it’s cold and it’s weird, but it’s also so nice . Taako doesn’t mind Kravitz’s cold mouth on his one bit.

Their lips part and Kravitz exhales a shaky breath, closes his eyes like he needs a moment to collect himself. There’s a smile playing on the edge of his lips. “So that’s a yes to attuning our stones?”

Taako laughs and doesn’t care at all that all the nurses at the station are glaring at them, even the halfling, who has one of his cookies in her hand. He nods and pulls Kravitz in for another kiss. If he gets thrown out of the hospital, Lup will forgive him. “That’s a yes.”

Notes:

Please comment/leave a kudos if you have the time!

Chapter 4: Epilogue

Summary:

Dinner and a show.

Notes:

Comments and kudos fueled me through editing this and are amazing fuel to keep the fires burning. (Who needs to write a style guide for what I am and am not going to capitalize/make friends with a nice person who likes to beta shit like this? Me. I do.)

Taako and Lup cook like they’re dancing. They weave around each other in Merle’s small kitchen, passing off ingredients. Lup takes over monitoring the sauce bubbling on the stove as Taako ducks past her to check on the doneness of the yams in the oven. His mage hand tosses hazelnuts, toasting them off in a frying pan, while Lup’s pulls butter from Merle’s fridge so they can brown it later.

With ten mouths to feed and her freedom to celebrate, Lup cajoled Taako into preparing her favourite, their aunt’s roast turkey. Now it’s all about the sides: buttery, freshly baked rolls; candied yams with a pistachio crust; cranberry sauce enriched with wine and thyme; cheesy corn pudding, spicy enough to make eyes water; roasted cauliflower with brown butter, pumpkin seeds and a squeeze of lime; celery root puree with toasted hazelnuts; and a wild rice salad with roasted squash. For dessert, there’s bourbon pear pie cooling on the counter and homemade vanilla ice cream sitting in Merle’s freezer.

Taako and Lup cook, and their guests drift in and out of the kitchen, watching them work and helping themselves to wine or, in Angus’s case, apple juice. Merle’s got music going in the living room, something twangy with a lot of crooning about tractors, but Taako finds it easy to tune out when his hands are busy and his focus is on feeding the masses.

It’s a lot of food, and none of it’s simple, but he and Lup are showing off. They’ve never hosted a dinner party before; they’ve never had people to invite to one.

Lup levitates a handful of diced parsley over to Taako, who twirls his fingers and sends it spiraling upwards in the air while simultaneously transmuting it into sliced scallion. He sprinkles it over the corn pudding—the finishing touch on their monumental feast.

Lup and Taako turn as one to bow and are greeted with a round of applause from their current audience: Barry, Kravitz, Magnus, and Julia, all seated around the table.

“It smells amazing,” Julia says. “Magnus couldn’t stop talking about your cooking, Taako. Please tell me we can eat? I’m dying.”

Taako flashes her a grin and bows again, because Taako loves his praise. For a future paladin, Julia is surprisingly chill. “Dinner is served.”

There’s so much food that the dishes end up covering Merle’s counters and most of the kitchen table, so they eat buffet style. Everyone fills their plate and takes them to the living room, where there’s space to spread out. Taako transmutes a couple kitchen chairs into more seating and casually bumps the record player with his hip, turning off the music while Merle is busy fixing a plate in the kitchen.

The whole thing is… nice. Homey.

Barry and his apparently omnipresent blue jeans are off in a corner with Cam and Brian, who Lup insisted on inviting. The human is still missing his legs, and the drow is still missing an eye. The things that the liches took can’t be brought back. Lup’s missing a pinky finger and her darkvision is gone. She shrugged off both losses, saying it wasn’t like she played piano and, since fire is kind of her jam anyway, darkvision wasn’t a big loss either, but it nags at Taako. He can’t help feeling like he should have rescued her sooner.

Lup falls into conversation with Julia and Magnus. Taako leans against the wall, watching her, with a plate of food in his hands.

“You got her back, sir. That’s what’s important.”

Taako looks down at Angus. “Anyone ever tell you you’re too perceptive, pumpkin?”

Angus just grins up at him. “I like your corn pudding.”

“Barold’s face went redder than it was in the hospital when he tried it,” Taako says proudly, picking up his fork to try some. “I’m a culinary wizard, what can I say?”

Angus laughs. His appreciation of Taako’s bad jokes is one of the reasons Taako finds this whole... apprentice thing he’s apparently doing bearable.

Angus and Taako eat in companionable silence. Taako doesn’t get why Angus imprinted on him like a duckling, especially when Magnus is clearly a much better choice, but Angus is equally eager for magic lessons and to follow Taako around explaining his Caleb Cleveland novels. Angus is a strange kid, no doubt, but he’s not so bad. Wicked smart, to the point where Merle clearly finds it intimidating, but hey, Taako’s got several feet on the kid still—he refuses to be intimidated by someone half his size.

“Hey Taako, do you think I’d make a good paladin?” Lup asks, joining him and Angus at the wall. “Because Julia makes it sound like you get to hit a lot of people.”

“You’d be a terrible paladin,” Taako says, even if he’s not entirely sure it’s true. Lup has a much stronger moral compass than him, although obeying the law isn’t something either of them is great at. “All those rules? No way.”

Lup hums in acknowledgment. “You’re probably right. I’ll just steal Julia instead.” She bumps her shoulder against Taako’s. “Hey. Cheer up, okay? I’m all good. Drink more wine. Tease Merle. Poke Magnus. Talk to Brian, even. You’d like him.”

Taako rolls his eyes, but nods. “I’ll socialize. Introspection isn’t really my thing, Lup. You know this.”

“I know you,” Lup says, giving him a look. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to mack on my boyfriend. At the very least, go make out with Skeletor.”

Taako watches Lup creep up behind Barry and leap onto his back, who yelps and then breaks into helpless, fond laughter. Kravitz and Merle are talking on the couch—the actual couch, which is definitely more comfortable than the transmuted ones. It would be easy to walk over and join them. Taako pushes himself off the wall and is about to do that—mostly to avoid admitting he’s not 100% sure which classmate is Brian and which one’s Cam—when there’s a knock on the door.

It’s not his house, but Taako gets the door anyway. Hurley is outside, a longsuffering look on her face.

“Really? Now?” Taako asks, frowning. “We’re in the middle of a ‘good thing Taako found us and we’re not dead’ party.”

Hurley levels an unimpressed, borderline hostile, look at Taako. It’s definitely not professional, and despite the fact that he towers over her, it makes Taako bite his tongue. Which doesn’t bode well for the whole “I’m taller so it’s all good” thing with Angus.

“I’m off duty,” Hurley says. “But I thought I’d let you know your sister’s case is officially closed. As far as the militia is concerned.”

It’s almost good news, except for the weird emphasis on militia. “As far as the militia is concerned? Does that mean you’re still investigating?” Taako asks. Threats are not what this party is about.

Instead of answering, Hurley asks, “Is Cleric Highchurch here?”

Merle is, in fact, there, and has apparently been lurking and waiting for his cue. He smiles at Hurley as he shoulders his way past Taako’s legs, into her field of vision. “Sergeant. Are you here to tell us we don’t have to worry about being the subjects of any further scrutiny?”

“I’ve been informed that the investigation into Professor Jenkins’s research and his two lich students has been taken over by another agency,” Hurley says, giving Merle a meaningful look that Taako doesn’t at all understand.

“Excellent,” Merle says, nodding. “It’s good when things get wrapped up so neatly, isn’t it? Satisfying.”

“Not the first word that comes to mind for this particular case,” Hurley eyes Merle a moment longer, then looks at Taako. “You and your sister try not to get into trouble again anytime soon, okay? I’m not sure my career can take it.”

Taako gives Hurley a lazy salute. “Promise to do my best. Can’t speak for Lup, but I’m hoping not to have to form a ragtag team of adventurers to rescue her again.”

There’s a hint of a smile on Hurley’s face as she steps away from the door. “I guess that’s all I can ask for. Have a good party, boys.”

Hurley jogs down the front steps to a sleek black motorcycle parked at the kerb. She climbs on behind a tall, slim woman in a matte black helmet, visor down, whose long, dark hair tumbles down her back. Hurley pulls on a helmet of her own, one with little ram’s horns painted on the sides, and wraps her arms around the woman’s waist. The woman starts the bike and they take off down the street, for sure faster than the posted speed limit.

“Hurley’s got some hidden depths,” Taako says. He looks down at Merle. “Why was she looking for you, specifically, to say the militia’s wrapping up their investigation?”

“Oh, no reason,” Merle says, waving his wooden hand dismissively as he closes the front door. “I called in a few favours from an old friend at the Bureau when it was obvious the sergeant had a bee in her bonnet about us lying to her face. Had a few things massaged away. Hurley must have figured out who got those strings pulled.”

Taako stares at Merle.

Merle raises an eyebrow, amused. “Yes, Taako?”

“An old friend at the Bureau,” Taako repeats. “The Bureau?”

“Lucretia’s the Director now. I taught her everything she knows about shielding spells when she first joined up. She’s a nice lady.” Merle pats Taako’s arm. “I’m going to go get some more of that celery root stuff before it’s all gone.”

Merle leaves Taako in the entrance way, reeling from the revelation of the hidden depths and high-powered connections his crunchy landlord apparently has at his wooden fingertips. Kravitz finds him standing there, trying to wrap his mind around it.

“Taako?”

Taako drags his attention off trying to picture what Merle’s life even is, looks at his maybe-boyfriend. “What’s up?”

“You okay?” Kravitz asks, his handsome face all sweetly concerned. “You haven’t spent much time socializing.”

“I talked to Angus.”

Kravitz raises an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, jeez.” Taako rolls his eyes and lets himself flop against Kravitz’s side. Between him, Angus, and Lup Taako is apparently not going to get away with avoiding his feelings today. “Lup’s home, but she was still kidnapped and tortured. I’m a little messed up about it still, is all.”

Kravitz wraps an arm around Taako, pulls him closer. “That’s all right,” he says. “You’re allowed to be, but don’t pull away from the people who care about you because of it. You found Lup. She’s here and she wants to spend time with you.”

“She wants me to be friends with Brian. I don’t even know which one Brian is, but his name is Brian so I doubt it’s going to work out.”

“Brian’s the drow,” Kravitz says, and nods to the far corner of the room where everyone’s congregating. “Shall we join them?”

Taako looks over at Lup. She’s perched on Barry’s lap. Barry looks delighted and surprised by this development, by Lup. She’s laughing at something Julia is saying, all flushed and happy in his arms. Julia has her arm slung around Magnus’s shoulders while Angus sits on the floor, leaning back against Magnus’s leg, and Magnus is just smiling, content. Even hanging out with Cam and Brian doesn’t seem so bad from here. The shiny purple sweater Brian’s wearing over his white jeans does kind of suggest that Lup’s right about him and Taako getting along. It’s a solid look.

Merle comes back from the kitchen with a heaping serving of celery root on his plate and heads straight for the knot of people, elbowing his way onto the couch beside Cam’s wheelchair and holding out his wooden arm for Cam to admire. He’s got a couple pamphlets with Pan’s sigil on them, tucked in the front pocket of his loud shirt. Cam will probably require rescuing later, if Taako’s feeling generous.

Taako doesn’t know when he started to like these chucklefucks, but here he is. This is his life now.

“Yeah, all right,” Taako says. “I can do this.”

Notes:

Thank you SO MUCH for the amazing, encouraging comments and all the kudos?? I’m trying to reply to everyone because honestly, thank you guys, it’s amazing. I’m so glad I decided to write and post this fic and that people enjoyed it. I do feel like I owe Hurley an apology, but I hope the epilogue helped. The TAZ fandom is the best. I hope you found the conclusion satisfying. I would love to know your thoughts on the fic!

Also, I maybe have a Stolen Century fic I’ve been poking at? and a strong desire to write a high school AU? (Thanks Griffin) So… check this space??

Come say hi to me on tumblr! @marywhal