Chapter Text
Part One: Vengeance
“Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream.”
Euripides
The stench of woodsmoke and cheap perfume clinging to the brothel's papered walls was nearly overpowered by that of his rainsoaked leathers. Octavian's trespassing footsteps left wet smears on the windowsill he'd climbed in on, quick to dry once he wicked them with a nearby curtain. Flicking rainwater off his shoulders and hood, he scanned the second-floor turret he'd snuck into.
He was tucked away amongst chaise lounges, upturned tables and chairs, and stacked paintings. From beyond the little alcove, he could see into the hallway: its high, buttressed ceilings were garishly Nevarran, and they painted the broody, macabre silhouette he'd seen in the charcoal sketches of architectural manifests. Candelabras spilled yellow firelight into every corner but the cobwebbed, shadowy storage space he crouched inside.
A set of voices drew near; Octavian tucked himself into the shroud of old curtains, blending into their frilly, red-orange taffeta and watching their silhouettes pass by. They chattered something quickly, quietly: one of them hissed something and the other, whispering back, produced a foppish giggle. Whether by accent or dialect, their words fell clumsily past Octavian's ears and he gained nothing from the snooping except for a deserted hallway.
It was just as well. He peered out from the darkness, measuring that emptiness, watching the way the hall of many doors loomed out beyond him, the dome of the ceilings hazy where candlesmoke accumulated. He crept down a hallway in the direction the aristocrats had come from, every other footfall eliciting a scant peep from the floorboards. His eyes shifted from the wet gleam of his metal-capped boots to the sparse decor lining the hall to the sun-bleached runner that seemed to continue forever. He passed doors both open and closed: through some, the occasional murmur, moan, or giggle; those that lay ajar gave gloomy glimpses into equally-sparse bedrooms, ready to be filled by lust and laughter by whomever deigned to occupy them. He caught sight of his reflection in a blackened window and nearly startled at the grim profile of his mask: a grimace painted in plaster and fabric. A flash of lightning blanched the hall, hid his appearance, and reminded him of the landscape beyond those four walls.
He approached the gilded room at the end of the hallways and produced a key from an inner pocket. Another lightning strike flashed across the walls; he caught a muffled laugh through a far door before the ensuing rumble. The key turned in the lock: chk-chk! With bated breath, he slipped inside.
Soothing the door shut behind him, the warmth and welcome of the rest of the place—its sweet-smelling perfume, the sallow glow of candlelight—died instantly. The brothel's finest room, with its ceilings splayed by frescoes, massive wrought-iron windows, furnitures of fine walnut and bedding of softest silk, was black and blue in the darkness: bruised by a lack of light. The bed, shrouded in its drapery, was piled with a mass of snoring bodies. The air was hot, thick with the smell of sex and alcohol.
Octavian paused, drawing two vials from inside his jacket. With the flick of a thumb, he uncapped them, then measured the fluid from one vial into another, hands controlled in aching precision: it crawled forth, a vile sputum. To it, he added a pinch of ashen powder from a tiny envelope.
Another lightning strike shuddered its way down the windows and ignited the room in colour for only a moment: the green bedsheets, the purple pillows, the blood-red rugs spilling across the herringbone floor. A loud snore cut the air in the interim between cracks of thunder. His glass implements whispered sweet nothings to the silence: tink-tink-tink!
The floorboards groaned under his feet as he crossed toward the bed. Upon it was a tangled mess of sweat-slicked limbs, bodies in all states of undress, their stagnant breath heavy with the metallic twinge of tainted wine. From the knot of this hired company, he uncovered individual faces and sought out his target; here, along with his guests in the same death-like sleep, Lord Vespasian slumbered. His moustache had been crumpled by his rumpussing, but he was otherwise intact.
Octavian grabbed his jaw in a pinched hand. His physical description was not perfect by any means. His hair had grown longer, his beard had been styled strangely... on insistence of his mother, the dowager, no doubt. She had been wise to heed rumours of her son's jeopardy; had he heeded her, there would not be a stroke of lightning displaying his limp-handed signet ring to confirm his identity. There would be no alchemical salts hovering beneath his nose; no immediate, wide-eyed gasp for consciousness; no hand grasping his face, trapping his skull against bead-embroidered silken pillows; no blade slicing through the stubbled skin of his throat, flooding his startled inhales with blood. If the young Magister had listened to the rumours at court, he might've had a chance to stand and fight instead of clawing fitfully, helplessly, at his kiss-smeared chest as he drowned in his own cruor, writhing in the sweat-stained bed of a cheap brothel somewhere in the Nevarran back-country.
Octavian peeled away, wiping his blade clean on the leg of the Magister's half-open trousers. His Lordship's scantily-clad company still slumbered, unbothered in their medicated dreaming. Octavian moved to the bureau along the wall where trinkets and jewels glimmered under another lightning strike, blinking at him as he went rifling, then as he eventually escaped with a hefty coin purse. He left it on the bedside table, reimbursement for the loss of their highest-paying customer.
He dumped the rest of the tainted wine into the wastebucket and cracked open one of the old windows, sloshing a fetid soup of discharge and alchemical evidence all over the cobbled street below. Another crack of thunder sounded, more raw this time without the glass to stifle it, and he watched the mixture wash into the gutter amid the downpour.
Footsteps lumbered outside the door. Voices neared, almost obscured by another stormy rumble. Octavian threw his hand toward the other side of the room. Just as the latch of the door clicked—the voices sharpening as they found their way inside—Octavian yanked on a fistful of the Fade and felt himself dissipate into the air. Gone was he from the bedside: the visitors took their time, chortling and tittering, before noticing the carnage on display.
At once, their cordiality turned to shock, then rage. These two young men, messy-haired, suited in their frilly blouses and fine trousers, rushed to the bed to wrench their murdered friend from his resting place. Octavian, precariously balanced on the thin plaster trim of the wall, legs spread on two adjacent corners—hoping to be well enough shrouded in darkness—readied himself to be spotted in the next flash of light—
—Lightning shocked the room alive. The young men threw themselves onto the bed, still trying to rouse their brother from his slack-jawed, bloody sleep, too grief-stricken to look anywhere else but his pallid face.
Octavian's hands crept slowly up the hem of his jacket, breath bundled tight in his ribcage. His fingers slid beneath the leather. He thumbed for one of the straps atop his chest. Another flash of light. Still, they missed him; not long now, though, until they would cease this earache, fetch their swords or staves—whatever it was the young Altus were using now—and go searching for the culprit.
Once more, Octavian reached out a hand; this time, toward the open door. Just in time, it seemed: one of the wailing fops managed to look up in his bleary-eyed state and notice (finally) the threatening silhouette stationed plainly in view above the washbasin. Before the Altus could breathe a word, Octavian wrenched at the Fade. He appeared in the doorway, a glass ampule in hand, which he threw at the feet of the two young men. He slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind him to the sound of anguished screams.
Twists and turns faced him as he fled. At a branching corridor, a pair of incoming men—more young lackeys—caught sight of him, and he leashed his own panic, taking cool, relaxed strides for a moment.
"Wicked mask, that!" One of them called out from behind him; ten, fifteen steps away. Octavian spared a wave over his shoulder and turned the corner before quickening his pace.
A loud howl found them from the depths of the brothel; evidently, the men who had walked in on the aftermath of his crime had finally fumbled their way to the door. Octavian took off at a sprint, followed closely by shouted protestations—orders to halt, and to show his face—and the thundering of clumsy footfalls. He slipped out of a window under cover of a deafening thunder-strike and the violent lashing of rain, which, upon his exit, whipped at him like shards of glass. More footsteps, drawn in by the sounds of screams, accompanied the song outside. Octavian slip-tripped up the slick roof tiles and dodged behind the inky silhouette of an old brick chimney just as those they came coursing down the hallway, fluttered by the window, and lost him entirely.
Through a combination of careful Fade-steps and slippery climbs, Octavian made his way back to the ground. He stashed his mask inside the folds of his cloak and ran for shelter from the continued downpour, the same as a half-dozen other strangers passing him on the street.
As he dug his knuckles into the loamy earth, mites and beetles went scrambling. He squeezed fistfuls, the tendons in his wrists trembling. The damp soil clumped into a jagged shape, then crumbled apart. There was something holy about the dirt, he thought: the richness it held; the unfettered potential for life. The dirt saw only his hands and knew him as a farmer, and he knew, when all these facades and machinations inevitably came to their conclusion, that the dirt would be there to subsume him. There was a comfort in that, he found: knowing that there was a piece of home to go back to.
Twisting aside, he grabbed a clump of burgeoning poppies and nestled them into the pit he'd dug with his fingers. He gathered the earth around it to make its bed and tucked it into place with all the gentleness he still could muster, thinking at once about the one he planted the blossoms for, hoping the gesture might transcend time and distance and leave him feeling warm.
Octavian sat on his heels, resting the ache of his lower back and casting his eyes up at the sun-silhouetted windows of the old mansion. The roof still loomed, and the front stoop still had the gnarled faces of dragons peering from the tops of the columns, but the specks of red and purple he'd worked into the front garden did something to alleviate its foreboding air. The jasmine had taken off gleefully, and now bushed its way up toward the propped-open window where he took his morning tea. The bougainvillea, in its pink and purple blossoms, had come with the place, and he'd taken shears to it violently in the first week when the darkness of his thoughts pervaded his sleep. Now it clung to the rocky siding with renewed vigour.
"Lovely home." Although Octavian had heard the stranger's footsteps approach at a distance, he had elected not to look his way; it seemed conceited, perhaps, to believe with certainty that a stranger would have something to say to him. Least of all a magister. And, upon a clearer look over his shoulder, not much of a stranger at all. Octavian rose to his feet, brushing his dirt-stained hands on a spare rag hanging from his hip.
"Your Lordship." He greeted, bowing his head.
The man who'd come wandering up his drive returned the pleasantry, though there was a facetiousness to it. "Rather formal." He said, putting the crease of his grey-speckled cheek into words. His eyes wrinkled along with the smile, aging him.
"Forgive me." Octavian replied, hands on his hips. "I find it hard to contain the enthusiasm I have for my peers."
A laugh broke the air. The magister stood off his cane, which had been partly obscured by the drape of his jacket, and traversed the pebbled walk nearer to the manor's front stoop. He gestured toward the door, rings glinting in the mid-morning sunlight. "Well, if you have some to spare, I'd be remiss not to take advantage of it."
Octavian's gaze shifted to the door. The magister's smile stuck to him just the same as the forget-me-not seeds peppering his trouser legs. It was polite, though there was something needling about the intensity of his gaze.
"If you insist." Octavian acquiesced: before he could make a proper welcome, the magister strode straight for the entrance.
"Naturally!" He swung the door open, waiting only briefly for Octavian to scurry in before him. He cast his cane on the bench beside the door and sloughed off his jacket to dump in a pile. "Now, humour me: I'd like to discuss business. Horribly unpleasant of me, I know, but I'm afraid it's necessary."
"Right." Octavian put up the cane and jacket properly before pittering along to the sitting room, where the magister already made himself comfortable on the sofa.
"Tea?" Octavian asked, snapping his fingers before his guest even gave a reply which, when it came, was an aloof nod. One of his servants sped around the corner to the kitchen without a word.
"First, I believe I ought to congratulate you. It seems you've managed to domesticate the place." The magister extended his arms along the back of the sofa and peered up at him with a sweet simper. "I'd nearly thought it impossible after all these years spent in repose. The brambles must've been a formidable enemy."
"A testament to my stubbornness." Octavian sat on the settee across from him, careful about his relaxed posture.
"Indeed." The magister curled a ringed finger around his chin. "I always appreciate that in a man. I am biased of course; my mother always told me I inherited my own from my father."
Octavian watched him through drooping eyes. "Your bias?" he verified.
"No, my stubbornness." A tray of tea appeared on the table between them. The magister unfolded his legs to grab his cup. "Though I'm certain there's a fair share of bias in my bloodline as well, as bloodlines are wont to do. You know how it is."
"Indeed." Octavian pursed his lips together, unease piqued at the hint of intentional condescension. "I'm sure your bloodline is wont to do plenty of things, my Lord."
"Please, no need for the formality. We're neighbours, after all. Call me Dorian." Dorian's smile twitched, turning into something trickier. "Now, what of your bloodline, hm? The seat you filled was vacant for some time, I hear."
"Yes." Octavian cut himself off before he used a title again. "He was a distant relative; the only child of my great-uncle's second marriage, I believe it was. By the time I'd been contacted, no other relatives had claimed the seat."
"I hear you took his surname. Grand idea; the Magisterium's too bloated with bureaucracy to change it on any plaques within this lifetime." Dorian took a sip of his tea, relaxed except for his pinning stare.
"It was more sentimentality than anything, I'll admit." said Octavian, lying through his teeth. "As well as a political move. I'm a newcomer, and I thought it might endear me to people to hold onto the name... if only to preserve some normalcy."
Dorian's expression remained empty until he finished speaking. Then, it burst into a tight-cheeked smile, rigid like clockwork. "How very thoughtful." He swallowed down the words with another sip of tea. "Now, I'm a devil for gossip, so you'll need to humour me: there's all sorts of curious rumours about you."
Following a pull of his drink, Octavian set it on the table and leaned back. "Such as?"
"Well, for one…" Dorian traced the rim of his cup with the flat of his thumb. "You spurn every invitation that comes your way."
"Not every one." Octavian scoffed. "I admit, I'm not one for partying, but I know it's my duty to attend. Whenever I can't, it's because I have prior engagements. Surely, you can't fault a man for trying to be honest?"
Dorian let out a measured chortle. "No, no, of course not. Quite right. I've also heard you share some animosity with Magister Hesspasian. Do share."
Octavian shrugged. "I wouldn't call it sharing, seeing as I hold no ill will for him. Whatever he feels for me is his own business."
"Hm." Dorian's eyes flicked over him. Octavian couldn't shake the feeling of disapproval Dorian seemed to be sending out. Regardless, he moved on: "A diplomatic view, anyway, even if it's unpopular. Now, arguably the most scandalous rumour at court—if you'll allow me—is that there's not a single slave in your employ. Surely, that can't be true."
"Hypocritical of you, isn't it?"
Dorian perked up, a false face of gullibility on. "Is it?" he echoed.
Octavian scoffed at the charade. He stitched together the quickest alibi he could muster. "Yes, it's true." he said. "I'm a foreigner; one must have their unimpeachable beliefs."
Dorian leaned forward, elbows on his knees, a sneaky smile creeping. "But surely that's not the entire reason."
"Fine." Octavian rolled his eyes. "I refuse to entrust my security to those who owe me no allegiance. It's a foolish gamble to be making in a place that is not my home."
Dorian let out an intrigued sound. "How very strategic of you."
"One can only hope." Octavian said. He pressed his lips into a thin line.
"And how does a strategic mind view the greatest threat to the Magisterium?" asked Dorian.
"Which one?"
"That masked vigilante, of course." Dorian swatted a hand. "Sod all that other tripe. What do you think about our little villain?"
"A vigilante, is it?" Octavian asked, folding his legs at the knees and interlacing his hands atop one of them. "I would've expected a magister of your station to speak more partially."
"Well, if you recall, I did just call them a villain." Dorian's brows raised with tempered amusement. "Now, enough splitting hairs. Indulge me."
"Whomever they are," Octavian made a dismissive gesture, "as long as they're caught before they get to me, I'll be content."
"What, no concern for your peers?" Dorian gawked animatedly. "What if I'm next? Your dearest neighbour? What would you do then?"
"Burn Minrathous down in search of answers, clearly." Octavian squinted at him. "What do you think? I'd leave the god-damned country."
Dorian let out a louder laugh, this time much less curated. "I appreciate your honesty, in any case."
Octavian picked up his tea from the table. "And as much as I enjoy your stimulating banter, my Lord—"
"—Dorian."
"Right. Shall we dispense with the pleasantries? Let's talk business." Octavian took a short pull of his tea, ignoring Dorian's poorly put-together facade of naivete.
"Whatever do you mean?" Dorian splashed a bit more milk into his tea. "This is the best bit, the pleasantries. It's in the name."
"Yes, funny. You know, when you came up to me at that last parliament and wouldn't leave me alone, I had assumed it was for some sort of short-term self interest, but now I'm starting to believe you just have nothing better to do with your time." Octavian said, aiming his disgruntled scowl at the finely-shaved, dark brown sweetener he added to his tea.
"More the fool, you. A magister's always working, even when he's faffing off." said Dorian. Octavian squinted up at him wordlessly, prompting him to continue. "Now, let's not pout. There's no shame in being inexperienced at all this." Dorian lowered his voice to a conspiratory whisper and leaned closer. "You're very direct. I like that. Allow me to give you a modicum of advice, hmm?"
"If you must." Octavian replied, mirroring his posture and intonation.
"You're far too tense. Play the newcomer all you like; it'll work on some people, I'm sure. But you're making the game far too easy for me."
"I don't know what you mean." Octavian purposefully cleared his expression.
Dorian tsked his tongue at him. "Let this be a lesson for you, hm? I'm more perceptive than most, and your charade isn't enough to fool me." He caught the slightest quirk of displeasure on Octavian's upper lip. "Now, now. I don't say all this in jest."
Dorian extended a hand across the table, catching Octavian's wrist in his grip and squeezing it. "I like you. You have a great deal of potential." As he spoke, Dorian tried to express as much genuinity as he could. "You find yourself in a very dangerous position. Believe me when I say that your inexperience is going to get you killed." The sofa creaked when Dorian leaned closer still. "But you seem like a kindred spirit, so I wanted to extend my help to you."
Octavian's eyes flicked between his hand and his face. "What is it you're suggesting?"
"I'd like to mentor you, if I may. Now, obviously you're too clever to accept that outright, because you know I'd never do that out of the kindness of my heart. So consider it an investment: I'll help you play the game a little more deftly, and you will entertain my invite to join my political party. What do you say?"
Octavian leaned back, weaseling his hand out of Dorian's grip and folding his arms over his chest. He regarded him with his head canted to one side, mulling over the offer. "You're scheming." he accused, lukewarm.
"I am." Dorian nodded.
"What's the party represent?" Octavian asked.
"Oh, you know." Another dismissive swat of the hand. "Strategic minds with common interests. I'd hate to spoil the soup, so you'll have to forgive a bit of ambiguity." said Dorian.
Octavian rose from his seat with a short sigh. "Fine." He extended a hand to shake. "We have a deal; teach me, and I'll consider joining."
Dorian hopped to his feet, smoothing the material of his shirt out of habit, and grabbed his hand in a tight grip. "Delightful news."
"Shall we?" Octavian tilted his head toward the door.
Along the way, Dorian twisted to keep talking to him. "It's been a wonderful chatting with you outside of court. If you'd be so kind, I'm hosting a dinner party next week, and I would love for you to attend. I'm sure some of my co-conspirators would be keen to meet you properly, without all the glitz and glamour." He waves his hand. "It will be a veritable feast."
"Of course, Lord Pavus." Octavian replied, allowing himself the formality while he could get away with it. He did his best to subtley shoo the magister through the exit, but Dorian was determined to linger.
"Joy. I'll be sure to tell the others." Dorian, one foot on the porch and the other in the doorway. He smoothed out his jacket and caught his cane at its midsection to dip in a polite and theatrical bow. "Lovely home." he repeated. "And very fitting. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Magister Alexius."
Dorian's stare lingered on him in a patently strange, unfriendly way, but it was only for a moment before he turned on his heel, threw out his coattails, and marched back down the drive again. Octavian watched up until the silhouette of his visitor became a blurry splotch in the distance. He remained at the door, hands resting on its frame, as a gentle gust of spring wind crept in. His became seized by a different form. A child stood at the end of the drive, barely distinguishable from the hedge row. They stared at one another, unmoving. The cold gales washed the smell of jasmine over him and stung his numbed cheeks.
"Who the fuck was that?"
A voice behind him made Tavi snap out of his trance. He shut the door and faced the sitting room again, blinking through the green-red cast the sunlit sky had made on his vision. "Another magister." he replied, rubbing at his eyes. "One of the big ones."
"A big one, eh? Look at us, moving up in the world. Next, you'll be telling me the Archon's coming to visit."
"Ugh." Tavi brushed past his manservant, carding a hand over his plaited hair. "If we get a surprise drop-in from him, it'll be your fault."
"No skin off my taint. As long as I don't need to sit down and giggle with him, you can blame me all day." Antoine followed a few steps behind as his employer traversed the house, eventually coming to his office at the far side. "What'd you think about this one? Is he a goodie or a baddie?"
"Neither, so far." Octavian held his palm up to the nondescript door. He mimed a twist of his wrist and a sprawling set of runes, previously invisible, glowed along its surface. The door fell open before him.
Antoine slipped in behind and the door soothed shut of its own volition, sealing them off from the rest of the house. "Not one to do away with, then? I admit, that's a bit of a relief."
"Agreed." Tavi proceeded to the desk and crouched at its edge. He peered through his half-dozen flasks, measuring by eye the crystal formation on a waxy thread dangling precariously above their clear fluid contents. He donned a pair of gloves. Then, he carefully removed the string of the most productive one and, with a pair of fine forceps, worked the crystal growth into an empty jar for storage.
Antoine, who had grown used to the earfuls he'd earn for traipsing too close to the alchemical equipment, remained at the back of the room; he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and watched the back of Tavi's head while he worked. "So, he invited you to a dinner. What do you think that'll entail?"
"Eating." Tavi replied. "Drinking." After rinsing his forceps in distilled water, he replaced them on the drying rack. "Giggling at unfunny jokes." He removed his gloves and hung them on their customary hook. "Dinner things."
Antoine regarded him, as he turned, with a look of secondhand disdain. "Dinner things." he repeated. "Lovely. Wonderful. I'm sure it'll be a hoot, but hear me out: stay at home and be a recluse."
"I'm already disliked enough as it is, Antoine; I don't need to add that to the pile—"
"—I mean it, Tavi. I don't have a good feeling about any of this. I'm worried you're walking into a trap."
Octavian mulled over the suggestion with pursed lips. "So am I." He confessed. "We'll get more information wherever we can, but this is something I might need to face head-on."
Antoine let out a withering sigh. "Right." he said. "Well. You know best, I suppose."
Tavi clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll keep you out of it, Antoine; you know I will." He earned a brief nod. Gesturing for the door, the pair left the sealed room and returned to the house.
The moment he uncorked his concoction, it walloped him with the unforgiving, acrid stench of bile. Staring into the middle-distance, hardly even wincing, Tavi took it back in one swallow. The newer formulation had little latency: as soon as the vile mixture slithered down his throat, a sensation of mindless, pleasurable exhaustion fell over him. With trembling fingers, he replaced the empty flask on his bedside table. He moved to his vanity, sank into the chair, and got to work smearing shaving cream over the stubbled edges of his beard.
The movement of his straight razor was purely instinctual. It smoothed the skin of his cheeks and the scratch of his throat with a rhythmic shhk-shhk-shhk. The man in his reflection had sleep-beaten eyes. They hung half-lidded, barely watching the lick of the blade lave over him. There was little to recognise there, in that image, except for the hands doing the work; calloused beyond his age, and beyond the fortune that allowed him to sit at this fine chestnut table with a polished silver shaver and the silken, lilac-scented lather on his cheeks. His hands remained foreign even if the rest of him had been made to resemble someone who'd been born into such a life.
He wiped himself clean with a damp cloth and followed it with a cloying hyssop-scented oil. He saw the way his brow creased and wondered if it had always done so. He watched the curve of his nose and supposed it seemed familiar. In his periphery, there was a silent movement. His eyes flicked to the corner of his reflection, where a young boy stood, staring at him. Tavi's attention wandered to the empty flask on his bedside. Blood and bodies lay on the floor, summoned by his drifting mind as the drug unfolded it; machinations, all. He blinked it away and looked in the mirror once more.
There, the boy stood. Tavi took the time to memorise the boy's curved nose, his wide brown eyes, the cherubic upturn of his baby-fatted cheeks. He wore cheap linen clothes; hand-me-down scraps hand-sewn together, a forget-me-not embroidered on his chest. Tavi tried to remember what his voice sounded like, but it eluded him. The boy stood still, just an image. He could not know of its accuracy, but he savoured it all the same.
Then, the boy was gone, replaced with some other stranger his sleep-encumbered mind clung to. Tavi descended to his cold, blanket-covered floor and slotted his shoulderblades against its hard surface. His eyes grew heavy, beleaguered and beholden to the events of the day. Soon enough, he submitted to a dreamless, medicated sleep.