ā¢ tags: master x apprentice relationship, eventual exmaster!qifrey x brimmedhat!reader, ambiguous age gap, reader's age is undefined, qifrey x olruggio being gay for each other, qifrey having inappropriate thoughts towards his apprentice, lowkey codependency, reader is kinda manipulative if you squint, spoilers for manga
"The selfishness behind my reason for taking on pupils made me ill. But they'd never have to know that. So I decided that I would put every fiber of my being towards becoming a good educator. Only now do I realise just how foolish that, too, was."
Qifrey takes on an apprentice to keep the silverwood at bay. It works, until it doesn't.
ā¢ chapters: one | two | three | four
III. AND THE HOUND
Among the handful of villages scattered across the Downs, Azmar is the liveliest by far. But on the eve of the autumn equinox when the harvest festival begins, the place swells with life in earnestāvillagers gathering to celebrate the fields' bounty before the colder months set in, filling the square with music, dancing and enough food to feed the village twice over. As usual, you and Qifrey have been invitedāthough the invitation seems especially enthusiastic this year, after he'd retrofitted the village's water wheel with a levitating spell that'd doubled its milling speed.
The atelier's windows are dark at your backs as you head out together. The lowland winds are strong tonight, so Qifrey decides against sylph shoes; the journey on foot is pleasant enough, with Olruggio chatting easily about some recent commission while you walk quietly at Qifrey's other side.
You never did quite warm up to Olruggio despite Qifrey's early hopes, though perhaps expecting otherwise had been unfair of him. But you seem to have grown accustomed to him at least, your initial wariness sandpapered and buffed down to something almost resembling tolerance. Sometimes, you even answer his questions without Qifrey's prompting, though you continue stubbornly referring to him as Mr. Olruggio despite how loudly he complains about it.
Despite the years, Qifrey finds that Olruggio has slipped back into his life with startling ease. There are evenings where Olly appears in the atelier's kitchen uninvited, sometimes to discuss spellwork or steal food from the stove while Qifrey swats at him half-heartedly with a spoon. His work as an artificer takes him far from the Downs at times, to distant towns and villages scattered across the peninsula, but he always circles back eventuallyāmuch to your resignation and Qifrey's amusement.
The three of you arrive to find the festival already in full swing. Lanternlight spills across the village square in warm swathes of gold and amber as music drifts through the crisp evening airālute and drums and the uneven rhythm of clapping handsāmingling with laughter and the crackle of open bonfires. Qifrey locates the village chief almost immediately, one hand on your shoulder as he guides you through between the long tables laden with roasted meat skewers and honey cakes. Out of the corner of his vision, he catches Olruggio eyeing the steaming decanters of mulled wine with great interest. Typical Olly.
You make your greetings to the village chief while Qifrey introduces Olruggio. The chief's face brightens almost immediately upon hearing about his affinity for fire magic.
"Ahh! You will be a very popular man once winter comes around," he guffaws warmly, clasping Olruggio's forearm with both hands. To Olruggio's credit, he accepts the praise with only minimal fumbling.
Once the greetings and pleasantries are finally over, the three of you drift back towards the noise and chatter of the festivalāor rather, you and Qifrey do. Olruggio makes a beeline straight for the mulled wine.
"This smells heavenly," Olruggio exclaims when the two of you catch up with him. He's already hunched over a table, sniffing appreciatively as spiced steam wafts thick through cold autumn air. Qifrey's just about to remind him about the dangers of drinking on an empty stomach when Olruggio knocks back a generous mouthful, right before coughing out a wheezy sputter. "Woah. That's some strong stuff."
Qifrey snorts softly. He normally prefers to indulge only in private, but tonight's atmosphere is lively enough to ease his usual inhibitions. "I'll have a cup."
Olruggio grins, already reaching for the decanter again. "Tonight, we drink till we drop," he promises.
"Who's going to get us home, then?"
Qifrey takes the goblet from Olruggioāhalf-filled, but still heavy in his hand. The corner of his mouth lifts when he notices your eyes lingering on its contents, stirred by quiet curiosity. As far as he remembers, you've never had the opportunity to imbibe before.
"Apprentice, do you want toā"
Before Qifrey can finish, you're already leaning across the table to pick up a decanter. Both men fall silent as you begin to pour carefully into an empty goblet.
"Um." Olruggio starts, visibly alarmed when the level of liquid continues creeping higher and higher. "That might be a little too much..."
You ignore him. Only when the goblet is filled nearly to the brim do you set the decanter back down, deep red swishing dangerously close to the rim as you lift it to your lips.
You take a cautious mouthful. At first, there's no reaction from you at all. Qifrey's about to gently prompt you when your face scrunches up ever so minutely.
"Euh."
Without another word, you push your goblet into his empty hand before ambling off into the festival crowdāpresumably in search of water to wash the taste from your mouth. Qifrey sighs softly through his nose and looks down at the two drinks he's now holding, though the fondness tugging at the corner of his mouth ruins any real attempt at exasperation. He raises your abandoned goblet to his lips instead.
Olruggio stares after you until you disappear amongst the throng, before glancing sideways at Qifrey. "You spoil them," he says, after a while. Qifrey smiles faintly into the rim of yourāhis now, he supposesācup.
"It's hard not to."
Olruggio watches him for a moment longer. For a second, Qifrey thinks he might speak further, but whatever is on his mind ultimately goes unvoiced. The two of them drink silently side by side beneath the flickering lanternlight instead, arms brushing ever so often, and Qifrey is starting to feel the faintest hum of warmth unfurling in his fingertips when a passing villager suddenly recognises him.
It's not long before Qifrey finds himself pulled into conversation. He barely manages a glimpse of Olruggioāgrinning, goblet lifted teasingly in farewellābefore an over-eager farmer tugs him further from the table, insisting he hear about this year's harvest. Another villager he vaguely recognises comes up to thank him profusely for removing a boulder that'd been damming the river upstream. A young couple insists he share a toast with them, while an elderly woman presses yet another cup of wine into Qifrey's hands and refuses to let him leave without trying her granddaughter's honeycakes.
By the time he manages to extricate himself and circle back to the wine tables, the powdered sugar from the pastries still clinging faintly to his tongue, he finds Olruggio sprawled face-first across the wood, snoring faintly. Qifrey stares at the two empty decanters next to him before slowly reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.
He's drooling.
"ā¦Unbelievable." Qifrey unclasps his cloak with a quiet sigh. The heavy fabric slips from his shoulders, and he gathers it carefully in his hands before draping it over Olruggio's slumped back. The man barely stirs, mumbling something utterly incomprehensible into the tabletop.
Qifrey shakes his head and goes to find you instead.
Ā He spots you eventually, near one of the smaller fires scattered along the edges of the square. It's quieter here, far enough from the heart of the celebrations that the festival clamour softens into a distant hum. You don't notice his approachāseated cross-legged with your back to him, next to a girl roughly your age. The flickering firelight washes over you both, casting your silhouettes in shifting glow and flickering shadow, outlined against the dark.
And the two of you are alone.
His steps slow on instinct. Even from a distance, Qifrey recognises her as the baker's daughter. He cannot make out your face from this angle but hers is plainly visibleādark curls pulled back from a heart-shaped face, a smile designed to put people at ease. Her eyes shine bright as polished amber as she speaks, hands moving expressively while the fire crackles warmly between you.
It hasn't been long since you passed the Pentacle's second testāhe needs to ensure you don't accidentally let slip the secret behind magic. Qifrey lingers a few paces away, remaining just close enough to stay within earshot.
She's asking about your spells now. About the magic you've learned and yet to, the villages you've helped as a witch. Her fascination is written openly across her face, her smile bright at every answer you give. You're responding in your usual toneābrief, practical, somewhat curtābut she seems delighted to listen to them regardless. Even as Qifrey watches, she shifts closer gradually across the mat, until her shoulder bumps lightly against yours.
Quite suddenly, Qifrey realises what he's looking at. This girl isn't interested in magic. She's interested in you.
The thought lands strangely, oddly shaped and ill-fitting, a square cube shoved through a round hole. For a moment, Qifrey can only stand there half-hidden in the shadows, watchingāand realising, with faint disbelief, that somewhere along the way, you've stopped being a child.
And he hadn't noticed. Not until now.
The baker's daughter is still talking animatedly beside you, chin propped in one hand as she rambles on about how exciting it must be to be a witchālearning magic, seeing things ordinary people never will. Every so often she laughs at one of your short replies, smiling as though your reticence only encourages her further. Eventually, her expression softens slightly.
"But it must get lonely sometimes, doesn't it?" she asks, tilting her head to look at you so that her dark hair spills over her shoulder. "Living all the way out there in the atelier?"
You shake your head. "I have Master," you say, plainly.
The words strike him with embarrassing force. Catch him off guard, soft and aching all at once, fingertips rolling over old bruises that have yet to fade. Qifrey still remembers what you'd said that day, by the fountain.
Master is the prettiest.
"No, I meanā¦" The girl blinks, then laughs softly under her breath, before nudging your shoulder lightly with hers. "Do you have someone you're interested in?"
You stare at her blankly. "What does that mean?"
Her smile widens. "It means someone you think about a lot," she explains patiently, leaning in with one hand cupped around her mouth, the ends of her hair tickling the curve of your shoulder. Qifrey can barely catch what she's saying from where he stands. "Someone whose smile makes your heart beat faster. Someone you want to kiss. Someone you like more than anyone else in the world."
Your brow furrows, before your gaze drops to your lap. From the shadows, just out of reach of the firelight, Qifrey feels a faint frisson of guilt stab through him; perhaps, he has kept you too isolated all these years as his apprentice. You should not have to learn about these things from a village girl beside a bonfire while he lingers awkwardly in the dark, hiding from your sight. As your master, Qifrey should have explained such matters himselfāor at the very least, asked someone more experienced in these conversations to guide you through them.
You are frighteningly skilled in the domain of magic. You are quick to learn and quicker to understand, your mind sharper than most young witches your age, and you can navigate spells even some adults would struggle to grasp. It is his failing, then, that this conversation is leaving you afloundeā
"Oh. Then yes."
Qifrey stills.
The baker's daughter brightens at firstāonly for disappointment to flicker almost immediately across her face a second later. It's subtle, but unmistakeable. She leans in closer, echoing the question hovering in Qifrey's thoughts.
"Who is it?"
Qifrey should leave. This is not a conversation he ought to be listening in on; he should have walked away minutes earlier instead of lurking like a thief, making flimsy excuses for himself. He's just about to make a hasty retreat when, for some unfathomable reason, you suddenly look up and glance over your shoulderāeyes landing directly on where he stands just beyond reach of the firelight.
"Master."
Qifrey's heart vaults into his throat. Caught. "Sorry," he finds himself saying before he can think better of it. "Olruggio passed out from drinking too much, soā¦"
So what? His explanation trails off uselessly. The words feel awkward and clumsy in his dry mouth, slipping from his tongue without direction or purpose. Under your gaze Qifrey feels painfully transparentāas though you are picking apart every half-formed thought behind his fumbling excuse with ease. It is a deeply unsettling feeling, considering you are simply looking at him the way you always do.
Before Qifrey can scramble for another excuseāor perhaps, to flee entirelyāyou rise to your feet, brushing the dust from your clothes.
"It's alright. I can go."
Behind you, the girl's expression deflates with poorly concealed disappointment. It's quickly smoothed over with a smile, however, when you offer her a polite nod in farewell. Manners obliged, you cross the short stretch between you, grass crunching softly beneath your feet and fall into step next to Qifrey, the motion as easy and natural as drawing breath. Qifrey tries his best to keep his gaze from wandering as he leads the way back to the village square.
By now, majority of the festivities have begun to wind down. The two of you retrieve Olruggio from the wine tables; his friend is too drunk to do anything beyond mumble incoherently, much less offer any assistance. Qifrey quickly inks a levitating spell onto a stretcher you assemble from spare canvas and poles, and Olruggio moans tragically when you roll him onto it together.
"I'm never drinking again," he mumbles.
Qifrey sighs, one hand pressed to his forehead. "You say that every time."
"This time I mean it."
You snort softly under your breath, reaching down to cajole the stretcher into the air. "Mr. Olruggio can tell himself that tomorrow morning."
In response, Olruggio only groans.
Despite the sorry state Olruggio is in, it's a leisurely walk back to the atelier. Normally, Qifrey wouldn't mind the trekāembedded glowstones illuminate the winding path with soft pools of warm light, and the autumn wind is pleasantly cool against his cheeksābut tonight, his thoughts eat away incessantly at the edges of his mind. The question circles endlessly, its grip unrelenting, no matter how hard he tries to dismiss it.
There is someone.
Qifrey thinks hard, as you walk through the dark fields with Olruggio's stretcher floating between you, his soft snores accompanying the steady crunch of your footsteps on gravel. Who? Who have you been watching when Qifrey wasn't paying attention, thinking about, wanting to kiss? A few faces come to mind, but none feel right. And worse still is the uncomfortable realisation that he hadn't noticedāanything at all.
"Master?"
He nearly stumbles over his own feet. Qifrey's arms flail for balance, windmilling wildly, before he manages to catch himself at the last second. Faintly mortified, he glances overāonly to realise belatedly you've been observing him the entire time.
"Master seems deep in thought," you say, unhelpfully.
Qifrey feels like an insectāpinned to a display card, positioned beneath a viewing glass, exposed to your wordless scrutinyāthis feeling, again. He swallows and glances away, throat dry all of a sudden.
"Sorry." The admission slips out eventually, awkwardly. His own voice is oddly startling amidst the quiet rustling of wind in the fields. "Iā¦ overheard, earlier. What you and that girl were talking about."
You eye him for a moment before shrugging. "It's okay. I don't mind."
Now Qifrey just feels silly. The conversation lapses back into silence after that and Qifrey must bite his tongue to keep himself from prying furtherāyour private life is your own, and if there are matters you've chosen not to bring to him, then he's no right to interfere. Yet on the other handā¦ as your master, is he not also responsible for your wellbeing beyond magic alone? For guiding you through all the fragile, complicated parts of adolescence no spellbook will prepare you for?
Unfortunately, Qifrey's own experience is painfully lackingāwoefully inadequate for someone attempting to act as a proper mentor in this regard. He fights back the urge to scrunch his face up in frustration in front of you and drops his gaze to the path beneath his feet instead. Beldaruit had shoved a stack of books into his arms before he'd left the Argentgardābooks about apprentice raising, books he hadn't so much as glanced through before abandoning them at the door. In hindsight, a mistakeābecause now, Qifrey hasn't the faintest idea how to broach this subject.
"Well," is how he ends up doing it, anyway. "The one you're interested inā¦ what kind of person are they?"
You glance up and your eyes meet. Qifrey has to hope that the faint light of the glowstones are too dim to illuminate the desperate curiosity on his face.
"Master wants to know?"
"Of course." Your matters are Qifrey's matters, and the thought of you miserable or hurt over some unworthy fool makes something unpleasant tighten low in Qifrey's stomach. But you hadn't told him, and remembering that leaves behind a faint, irrational sting that Qifrey immediately tries to strangulate with both hands. "But if you don't want to tell me, that's alright too. I promise not to pry."
Olruggio snuffles loudly between the two of you. He'd fallen asleep before you'd even stepped foot out of the village and hasn't stirred since. Without looking, you reach over for the loose edge of his cloak and yank it carelessly over Olruggio's face.
"They're kind," you begin, after a few contemplative paces. Your voice is barely audible beneath the night wind, and Qifrey has to lean in to catch your words. "Gentle. Everything I do, they're always encouraging me, no matter how I perform. And when I'm standing by their sideā¦" You inhale quietly, then push out a soft breath before continuing. "It feels like being under the shelter of a big treeāas if nothing can touch me there."
Qifrey searches for something to say in response and finds himself strangely empty-handed in the face of your frank response. An emotion he can't quite put a finger on twists like gnarled roots beneath his ribs.
"They sound like an amazing person," is what he says, at last.
You smileāmore to yourself than him, cradling a secret you're not quite willing to place in his hands. It's soft-edged, quiet, so achingly sincere that Qifrey finds himself caught somewhere between looking away and simply staring. Terrible as the thought is, he's never imagined you capable of looking at someone that wayāso unbearably tender Qifrey feels as though he's intruding simply by witnessing it.
Yet, he's been proven wrong. Someone has managed. Who? Just who managed to put such an expression on your face?
"Yeah." You nod, completely oblivious to his inner turmoil, lacing both hands behind your back as you walk. "They are."
Something sour settles against the roof of Qifrey's mouth but he swallows it down before it can fester into something uglier. Qifrey should feel relieved that you've found someone who makes you feel safeāit's what he wants for you. What he needs to do is trust your judgment.
"Do they know?"
You tilt your head at him like the answer should be obvious. "No."
"Oh. Wellā¦" Qifrey coughs lightly, unsure. "If they're so important to you, then maybe you should tell them?" It seems like the next step in the natural order of thingsāor, at least Qifrey thinks it is. He doesn't know. His gaze flickers down to the snoring lump on the stretcher, one arm dangling limply over the side before he looks away again. You frown.
"How?"
Qifrey immediately regrets bringing up the subject at all. "Well, Iā¦" He falters almost at once, flounderingāfingers steepling together before he starts absently wringing both hands instead. It's an impossible struggle, scrambling desperately for words that don't make him sound completely inane while you stare. "I think it shouldā¦ probably be somewhere private? With only the two of you?" Qifrey offers uncertainly, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "A good moment when the other person isn't busy or distractedā¦ and all their attention is on you."
"Oh," you say, far too seriously. Qifrey can feel his face growing warmer by the second. Stars above, he wants to pluck off his hat and shove his head face-first into it until this conversation passes. But you are looking at him attentively, still awaiting your master's advice, and so Qifrey forces himself to continue.
"I don't think you need to prepare anything elaborate," he adds on, weakly. "The important thing is to be sincere when you do it."
"Sincere," you repeat.
"Yes. Even if they don't share the same feelingsā¦" Qifrey clears his throat lightly. He desperately needs something to distract himself but has nothing. "If what you say is genuine, then I believe the other person will understand that."
You're silent for a moment. There's a thoughtful expression on your face that makes Qifrey wonder whether you are truly turning his disastrous advice over in your head.
"What about Master? Is there someone you're interested in?"
For the second time that night, Qifrey nearly trips over his own feet. He lurches dangerously for a second, gravel crunching sharply beneath the soles of his boots before he glances over with a light chastisement on his lips; certainly, you must be teasing him. But it doesn't seem so. You only regard Qifrey with those familiar, inquisitive eyesāand heat crawls slowly up his neck. It's moments like this that make him even more grateful for his collar.
"Youā¦" Qifrey reaches out before he can think better of it. You startle, eyes darting up when his hand comes to settle atop your head.
"Master?"
"I don't have time for romance," Qifrey says, with a lightness he doesn't entirely feel. "My hands are already full with an apprentice like you."
"So Master is blaming me?"
Your disgruntled expression almost makes him laugh despite himself. "Perhaps." Qifrey doesn't elaborate, offering no further explanation before his hand begins ruffling through your hair instead. You let out a startled yelp and try to duck away, glaring up in poorly concealed offence while Qifrey smiles properly for the first time that night.
"Master!"
One day, you will leave the atelier behind. You will become a fine witchāfar finer than Qifrey ever wasāand perhaps you will travel farther than he's dared, to lands past the peninsula and beyond. Or perhaps you might follow in his footsteps, taking on apprentices of your own with kinder intentions than he did you, and maybe you will build a life with the person you spoke of so warmly tonight, your future unfolding slowly beside theirs instead of his. There are infinite prospects, such countless possibilities, yet the one thing Qifrey is certain of is this: that one day, inevitably, you will surpass him in every way, just as a sapling eventually outgrows the shade of the tree that sheltered it. And that dayā¦
Qifrey finds himself looking forward to it.
The spring weather here possesses a notoriously fickle mind; one moment the sun hangs bright and warm overhead, turning the hills of the Downs golden with its lightāand the next there's rain scattering across the grassy slopes in glittering sheets. Olruggio's out today, on another job at some nearby lord's castle, and Qifrey is in the kitchen taking stock of the pantry staples when the first droplets begin pattering against the atelier windows. Frowning faintly, Qifrey glances up from baskets of legumes on the counter to peer out of the glass, just in time for the drizzle to abruptly thicken into heavy rain.
The laundry, Qifrey remembers suddenly, just as you exclaim, "The laundry!" from somewhere near the door.
"Apprenticeā" he starts, intending to tell you to leave it and wait for the rain to pass, but you're already out before he can get the words out. Sighing softly through his nose, Qifrey crosses the atelier to where you've left the door hanging half-open instead and looks outside.
You've already made it to the clothing lines strung up beside Olruggio's workshop somehow. You're reaching up on your tiptoes, struggling to to tug down one of the larger bedsheets he'd hung earlier that morning, arms already laden with gathered laundry. Even as he watches the rain steadily soaks the darkening fabric of your robes, trickles down the strands of hair plastered to your cheeks.
Before he can think twice, Qifrey steps outside. The cold spring rain splashes across what little bare skin he has exposed, droplets scattering unrelentingly across his senses, but it's still enough to make him cringe. Qifrey ignores the discomfort, hurrying across the grass towards where you're wrestling with the sheets.
"Apprentice."
"Master?" you blurt, visibly shocked to find him standing beside you in the rain. "What are youā"
"Focus on getting the sheets down," Qifrey says, already reaching out to take the bundles of damp fabric from your arms while you tug the clothespins free. "I'll hold these."
You hurry obediently. Rainwater trickles unpleasantly down the back of Qifrey's neck in rivulets, but he exhales slowly through his mouth and keeps his attention of you instead. With your hands free, you dart quickly from line to line gathering the remaining laundry before shoving them into his arms. Qifrey is just about to take your wrist and make the mad dash back to the shelter of the atelier whenā
"Wait!"
You tug at his robe before he can move. Qifrey blinks in confusion, droplets of rainwater catching on his lashes as you yank your palm quire from your inner sleeve, hunching protectively over the paper amidst the downpour. In your other hand, your wand. You set the nib against the page, sketching with quick, practiced strokes as the spell takes shape beneath your handāsigils and keystones instantly familiar to Qifrey. Then you're rising onto your tiptoes again, leaning in close, and Qifrey's breath hitches when your fingertips brush over the bare column of his throat.
A slip of damp paper slides neatly into the folds of his collar. Qifrey glances up just as the rain parts above his head, as though held at bay by an invisible hand. Water continues pattering steadily against the grass, the atelier's shingles, your dripping sleevesābut not a single drop touches Qifrey.
"I've always wanted to do that," you say.
Qifrey looks down at you, frowning. "What about you?"
You shrug lightly. There's rainwater dripping from your wand, and your palm quire is soaked through. "I'm already wet. Doesn't matter."
Qifrey clicks his tongue softly at that, but before he has the chance to admonish youāor simply drag you beneath the shelter of his own arm insteadāyou're already turning on your heel. Qifrey huffs, fondness and faint exasperation mixed together, and follows after you, easily catching up with his longer stride.
"You've gotten good at that spell, haven't you?"
"It's my favourite."
Qifrey glances at you over his armful of laundry in mild surprise. You've always shown to be partial to water magic, but this is a simple spellānothing more than practical utility, the sort of magic most witches learn early and rarely think about again. An odd choice, considering how much of your talent lies in far more complex magic. "Why that one?"
"It changed my life," you say, simply.
It's hard to keep the smile from his face when you slip past him and through the atelier's open doorway. It's a small thing, really, but the thought that you've kept that spell close all this time makes him absurdly happy. Qifrey shakes his head, warmth settling in his chest despite his damp clothes, before he follows you inside.
There is already a trail of water dripping across the flagstones. Qifrey pauses briefly to inspect the topmost sheet bundled in his arms, rubbing absently at the drenched fabric between his fingers. Despite your efforts, it looks like the whole lot will have to be rewashedāa pity. He'll toss them into the washing barrels later after he's drawn you a hot bath.
"Apprentice," Qifrey calls as he ruffles his damp hair roughly, glancing around the mess of the kitchen counter. He'd been sketching a moisture-extraction spell earlier before the rain interrupted things. The water on his glasses makes it difficult for Qifrey to spot his own quire and he tugs them from his face, but he can still hear your footsteps pattering about near the hearth. Qifrey swipes at the lenses with a sleeve before he finally finds what he's looking for, quickly flipping to a fresh page. "Come here. I'll draw a heating spell toā"
His throat abruptly closes around the rest of that sentence.
You're standing by the hearth, back half-turned to him as you wring water from the hem of your robe. It's soaked through, rainwater falling in steady drips from the sleeves, pooling at your bare feetāyou must have kicked off your boots in the doorway earlierāand the wet cotton clings to the shape of you. It is what allows Qifrey to see: the water beading at the ripe peach-flushed skin of your nape, every divot of your spine beneath sodden cloth, where fabric gathers at your thighs and pulls taut at the small of your back. More than he should have ever allowed himself to.
Heat roils low in his gut, a long-starved beast rearing its headāfamiliar in its shape but frightening in its intensity. Desire.
Qifrey wrenches his gaze back to the kitchen counter, heart suddenly hammering hard and fast in his chest. What is wrong with him? You're his student. You're his apprentice. You are so young, still barely just aā
ābut you haven't been for a while now, have you?
Dread, cold and tinged with something uglier Qifrey doesn't dare name, curls its claws viciously into his stomach. How can he be having these thoughts? Worse, how can he possibly still be lingering on them at all, instead of recoiling outright from sheer shame?
"Master?"
Qifrey's head snaps up. You've turned toward him, brow furrowed faintly in concern. Your hair is still dripping, and the firelight catches maddeningly on the droplets clinging to the tip of your nose, your upper lashes. He tightens his grip until the quire's bronze edges sink like fangs into his skin.
"The spellā" Qifrey tries, his voice sounding strained, strange to his own ears. "I need toāI forgot theā"
"Master?" You're too close all of a sudden, frowning openly now. "Are you feeling alright? You're acting strangeā"
He turns away before you can come any nearer. There's a faint rushing noise in Qifrey's ears, so shrill it's almost a scream, rising to a fever pitchāloud enough that he can barely hear the rain outside.
"I forgot I have something urgent," Qifrey says abruptly. "Dry yourself off. And put on something warm."
He leaves before you can respond. His footsteps ring sharply down the hallway, too quick and uneven against the floorboards to be anything but fleeing. When Qifrey reaches his room he shuts the door firmly behind him before slumping back against the wood, breathing hard.
Master?
Qifrey groans and squeezes his eyes shut, digging the heel of his palm harshly against his good eye as though he might somehow scour the image from his mind. What is wrong with him? He's washed your hair before, when you'd broken your arm chasing quadryphons down the hillside just outside the atelier. It was him who'd changed your bandages and tended to you after Kestrel's Maw, applying creams and salves gently to your wounds as you'd tried not to wince and hiss. He's even shared a bed with you on nights when bad dreams left you sleepless and in need of a warm presence. And not onceānever onceāhad he looked at you the way he just did.
Qifrey lets his hands fall between his knees. His palm quire slips loose from his fingers, clatters to the floorboards. On the page where he'd started sketching the heating spell for you, conjuring ink smears wet and crooked across the paper, dark stains blooming through the unfinished spell. Ruined.
When did this happen? Qifrey thinks despairingly to himself. When did Iā
Qifrey cannot bring himself to finish the thought. The very idea makes something twist violently in his chest. Qifrey cannot put a name to it, because naming it would make it real, and making it real would make him a monsterāeven more of a monster than Qifrey ever thought he could be.
Qifrey throws himself desperately into avoidance after that.
Dangerous thoughts thrive when left in stillness, and so Qifrey gives himself none. He starts taking on jobs he normally wouldn'tāones that take him far from the atelier, some of them for days at a time. It's easier to exhaust himself into numbness than risk thinking too deeply at all. And when he cannot escape the atelier outright, Qifrey buries you beneath increasingly difficult assignments under the guide of preparing you for the Pentacle's third testāresearch work, spell reconstruction, transcriptionāanything that will keep you occupied in your room while he locks himself away somewhere else.
But at night, alone in his bed, the thoughts come anyway. Memories twisted into sick, perverted fantasyāthe way your spine would feel under the curve of his palm through wet cotton, the warm press of your body against his in the dark, bare legs tangled with his. The soft whisper of your breath against his throat. Master. Master. Times before he can catch his thoughts they slip from his grasp, and he wonders what it would sound like if you said it differentāif the word would catch on a moan, if it would break apart with a sigh against his mouth.
Master.
It's a futile exercise. Qifrey runs all the much harder, anyway.
In a desperate attempt to curb his thoughts, Qifrey turns towards safer, uncomplicated things instead. Olruggio's visibly surprised the first time Qifrey asks to accompany him on a job, but welcomes him with the same thoughtless warmth he does most things. And it's easierāeasier to sink into the familiar steadiness of Olruggio's presence and gentle eyes, to lose himself in the long evenings spent shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the stars, to share spells and wine and laughter that doesn't ask anything of him. Easier than thinking about you.
You notice, of course. It would have been an insult to assume otherwise. But you've never been particularly forthcoming about your own feelings, and so you still call him "master" and do the work he assigns and prepare tea for him in the mornings. Tea that Qifrey now drinks steaming hot instead of lingering at the kitchen table with you, before leaving the atelier on yet another week-long job. You're upset by this new arrangement, that much is obvious, but at least Qifrey is spared the small mercy of having to confront it directly.
You'll grow accustomed to it eventually, Qifrey tells himself as you watch him tug on his cloak by the door, one hand already on the latch.
It'll pass.
You catch him one summer evening, vespertine insects chirping softly outside while the sun pulls and stretches at the atelier's shadows. Qifrey hears your approaching footsteps but does not turn around, busying himself instead with packing his satchel at the kitchen table, the light from the window staining his hands saffron-yellow.
You're quiet for a while, hovering silently behind him like a spectre. Eventually, you work up the courage to speak.
"Master, about dinnerā"
"Hm? Ah, there's soup in the perpetual cookpot." Qifrey cuts you off before you can continue. He'd spent most of the afternoon preparing a fresh batch of shorecumber yoghurt soup while you were shut away in your roomāas though feeding you properly could somehow compensate for everything else Qifrey's failed to do lately. "I also made some carapace and mountain apple salad, if you'd like."
"No, I'm notā" He catches the faintest edge of frustration creeping into your voice before you stop yourself. "I don't want perpetual soup."
Qifrey blows out a quiet breath between his teeth. The conversation is already slipping towards dangerous territory, toward questions he does not want to answer. He lowers his head to rummage through his satchel instead, pretending to check for an ink bottle he doesn't really need.
"Oh. Well then, there's some bread in the pantry that needs clearing, andā"
"Actually," you interrupt softly, "I was thinking I could cook for Master, tonight."
His fingers slip on the rounded glass. Qifrey barely catches the ink bottle before it can tumble from his hand and shatter across the table; the Qifrey of a few months ago would have accepted immediately, probably with an embarrassing amount of enthusiasmābut now the thought of sitting across from you at the dinner table feels almost terrifying. Your eyes are always watching, always observing; Qifrey is suddenly terrified you might somehow notice the ugliness festering behind his own.
The thought alone turns his stomach. No. No, he cannot.
"Sorry," Qifrey says, still refusing to turn around. "I'm helping Olruggio with a project tonight. I'll be late, so don't wait up for me." He gathers the loose papers scattered across the table, shoving them carelessly into his satchel as the pages crumple beneath his fingers.
"You're always late now."
Qifrey's thumb falls still against the clasp. Your words are quiet but the accusatory note in them pierces him cleanly, a bolting deer felled mid-flight. He turns slowly. You are standing behind him with your expression carefully blank, but Qifrey knows you too well by now not to recognise every little sign and tellāyour shoulders held stiffly, hands clenched within the sleeves of your robe.
"Doesā¦" You falter, voice lapsing briefly before you force out the words anyway. "Does Master not want me anymore? Because he has Mr. Olruggio now?"
All the air flees Qifrey's lungs at once like a rushing wind. What?
"Apprenticeā" He hurriedly sets his satchel down on the table, but even with his hands freed Qifrey still does not dare reach out and touch you. You're not looking at him now, your gaze fixed stubbornly on the ground between his feet. His fingers curl helplessly into fists at his side, panic crawling up his throat like bile. "No. No, that's notā"
But it has been, hasn't it? Suddenly, horribly, Qifrey's reminded of the story you'd once told himāof the cliffs, of the sea. The way your parents had decided there were too many mouths to feed and chose yours to abandon because you'd been the smallest. And in his frantic attempt to bury his own shame, it dawns on Qifrey with terrible clarity that he has been doing the same thing to you all over again.
The realisation makes him sick all the way to his stomach.
"I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I'm so sorry. IāI've been an idiot."
You look up at him then, and Qifrey's breath catches painfully in his throat. Your eyes are stubbornly dry but rimmed faint red, shadowed with exhaustion. Your cheeks seem thinner, too. Questions strike him one after another in sickening succession: Have you not been sleeping properly? Eating as you should? Questions Qifrey would haveāshould haveābeen able to answer easily, had he paid you more than a passing glance these past few weeks.
He takes a step closer, then another, before Qifrey fully realises what he's doing. "I didn't mean to make you feel that way. I was justāI was just being selfish. Caught up in my own things. I forgotā" Every word that passes his lips feels empty, and his explanations sound like nothing more than excuses even to his own ears. Qifrey reaches out and gently loosens your fists from their white-knuckled grip on your robe, one finger at a time. Your hands are stiff in the cradle of his own. "I forgot you needed me to be here. I'm sorry."
You don't respond; you only look at him with those quiet, uncertain eyesālike the ones that had stared up at him in Havso all those years, dulled and wary all at onceāas though weighing whether you can still trust the things he says to you. Please, Qifrey wants to beg. Please tell me I haven't already broken something I can't fix.
"I'll make it up to you," the words tumble out of him now, wobbly kneed and hurried, tripping over each other on the way out. "I promise. No more late nights, no more disappearing for days. AndāI'll cook dinner. And make any dessert you like." Qifrey squeezes your fingers gently, almost desperately, trying to make you believe him in ways he doesn't know how. "I'm not going anywhere. Understand?"
You stare at him for what feels like an eternity. Slowly, you nod.
"Okay," you say.
Relief hits Qifrey like a blow to the gut. He wants, all at once, to pull you into his armsāto feel your smaller frame against his chest and hold you there until that bright-eyed certainty returns to you, to reassure himself that he has not yet destroyed whatever fragile thing exists between you beyond repair. But he is weak and a coward, too aware of himself now in all the wrong ways, and so Qifrey settles for simply holding your hands, his thumb stroking carefully over the faint ink-blot stains along your knuckles.
"What do you want for dinner?" he finally asks.
Your brow pinches. "You're not going to Mr. Olruggio's?"
"Olly's smartāI'm sure he'll figure the problem out without me." Qifrey reluctantly releases your hands to undo the clasp of his cloak. He hangs it carefully on its hook by the doorway before turning back to you with the best smile he can muster. "I'll stay in tonightāit's been a while since we've had dinner together."
Finally, something flickers across your face. Thenā
"Stew," you say. Qifrey blinks.
"Stew," he repeats. "You mean, the one with the squash vegetables?"
"Yeah."
A quiet laugh escapes him before he can stop it. It's such a painfully simple request that Qifrey cannot help the sudden rush of fondness that swells in his chestāhe would have cooked anything you'd asked for after all this. But you asked, and so Qifrey turns toward the kitchen instead, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows.
āStew it is, then.ā
That night, a knock comes at his door again.
Qifrey knows who it is before he opens it. It's been a while since you've sought the comfort of his bedāyou haven't since he started pulling awayābut you've always had the habit of reaching for him on nights you are frightened or too troubled to sleep on your own. And after today, Qifrey supposes he should have expected this.
"Master," you say quietly, when he nudges the door wider with a tentative hand. Part of him knows he should tell you noāhowever innocently this ritual started, it is surely inappropriate now, especially with the way his thoughts have muddied as of late. But you don't ask, and by the time Qifrey opens his mouth you are already slipping past him and into his room.
His refusal lodges itself in the back of his throat as he watches you from the doorway. You're already seated on the edge of his bed, bare feet tucked under his blankets while you reach for the pillow he keeps for you. It's routine, now; you arrange his bed to your liking and lie down once satisfied, and eventually Qifrey settles beside you with deliberate distance kept between your bodies. Sometimes he reads compendiums aloud until your breathing evens out, others he talks about whatever spellwork occupied his day. But most nights end the same way: you, tucked against his side, one of his hands absently combing through your hair until sleep finally absconds with your consciousness.
His presence comforts you, Qifrey supposes. The same way a baby suckles on a pacifier, or a frightened child reaches for a familiar blanket. You are not thinking of anything improperānot of the way the dim lamplight catches against the bare slope of your shoulder, nor the way his eyes lingers on the exposed sliver of skin for a second too long before he tears them away.
He's the only terrible one here. Perhaps Qifrey should gouge out his other eye, too.
"Master." You're watching him from the bed, knees drawn up beneath the blankets, waiting. "Are you coming?"
Qifrey has already been terrible enough of a master to you these past few weeks. The thought of rejecting you yet again because he cannot control his own mind is unbearable.
You turn down the lamp as Qifrey climbs carefully into bed next to you. The mattress dips beneath his knee in the dark, and he lies stiffly atop the blankets with his hands folded over his chest, squeezing his eye tightly shut. Even with his poor sight this close proximity is too much; he cannotāwill notālook at you.
"Go to sleep," Qifrey says quietly.
You remain still at first. He can hear your soft breathing beside him in the dark, and for a fleeting moment Qifrey thinks you might have already drifted off.
But suddenly, you move. The mattress creaks as you turn on your side, blankets rustling, and then your arm is sliding around the curve of his waist. Qifrey's breath shudders out, lips parting in a soundless gasp. You pull yourself close, the entire line of body pressing flush against his own, and bury your face against his throatānose barely skimming the sensitive stretch of skin just beneath his jawāand Qifrey can feel can feel your heartbeat, thrumming against his ribs like it belongs behind them instead. Every place your bodies meet burns as though his nerves themselves have been doused in oil and set alight.
Sparks race down the length of his spine, flint striking steel in his belly. A feeling slips down his throat, thick as honey, sharp as glass. Qifrey cannot do this. He can't, he can notā
"Don't leave," you murmur, breath curling against the naked hollow of his throat. "Master can't ever leave me."
Your words are small in a way Qifrey has never heard before, fingers trembling faintly where they're twisted tightly into the fabric of his sleep shirt as though he might disappear the moment you let go. You're afraidātruly afraidāand Qifrey loathes the fact that he was the one who made you feel that way. So despite the quiet part of him still insisting this is wrong, that the line between master and apprentice was never meant to blur like this, Qifrey carefully threads his fingers through your hair and pulls you closer against him.
"I'm not going anywhere." His voice is barely a whisper in the dark. "I promise."
"Really?"
"Yes."
His answer must have finally reached that quiet, terrified child inside you, because not too long after that your grip on his shirt loosens and your breathing begins to even out to soft, damp exhales against his skin. You must be exhausted from todayāor perhaps you simply haven't been sleeping properly for a long while, now. It shames him that he doesn't know the answer.
The shadows stretch and settle against the far wall, pale moonlight washing silver across the blankets at the foot of the bed, the tangled line of your legs beneath them. And Qifrey holds you in the dark and lets himself pretendājust for a little whileāthat this quiet, aching hunger within him is not something so terrible after all.
It's a good morning when Qifrey's worst headache yet hits.
The morning starts off pleasantly enough. Sunlight unfolds slowly in a corner of his room, warm and sleepy in a way that demands nothing of him, and Qifrey wakes to the sound of you pattering carefully about the kitchen. You're likely on your tiptoes, a valiant attempt not to rouse himābut a futile one, unfortunately; his left eye has always left him a sensitive sleeper. Qifrey tarries in bed for a moment longer before finally pushing himself upright, and fumbles blearily across the nightstand for his screwtop tin of glueflower paste.
There's already a steaming cup of erbe tea waiting for him on the kitchen table when he steps outside. It sits beside a half-finished piece of buttered toast, whose owner seems to have become distracted; you're standing at the sink with your back to him, attempting to wrestle a particularly fat willowgrape from your brushbuddy's grasp before the greedy creature can choke on it. Qifrey very pointedly ignores the stirring behind his ribs as he slides himself into his usual chair.
Your eyes find his over your shoulder, regardless. "Morning, Master."
The brushbuddy chirps, emboldened by your momentary lapse in attention, and instantly makes a grab with its tiny paws. Despite himself, Qifrey finds it difficult not to smile. A good morning, he thinks quietly to himself as he reaches for his cup. A perfect one, actually.
The pain strikes without warning. It is sudden, blindingāas though someone has driven an iron spike through his head and is now deliberately twisting it, grinding its point deeper into the soft tissue of his brain. Qifrey's vision swims. The cup slips from his spasming fingers, and then he feels the scalding splash of tea across his fingers, blistering hot. He groans into the heel of his palm, the sound muffled strangely, ringing in his ears as if he's underwater.
"Master?"
Your hands are on him all of a suddenāhis shoulder, his waist, and then his forehead, damp and clammy with cold sweat. Qifrey register your touch only in fragments, words reaching him as though from some distant shore; the next moment he's half-collapsed on the couch, worn cushions sagging beneath his weight as you lower him carefully. He catches a glimpse of your face for less than a secondāpale, jaw tight, lips pressed in a thin lineābefore you're gone, footsteps hurried and shouting for Olruggio.
Qifrey barely manages to make out the hushed snippets of your exchange before Olruggio's rushing out of the door. He squeezes his eye shut against the pounding in his skull. Part of him wants to protestāthat it will pass, that calling for the doctor is pointless, that there is nothing they can do for the ailment that plagues himābut the words barely make it past his lips.
Suddenly, your hands are on the sides of his face again, slapping his cheek lightly to rouse him when his head lolls. "Master. Master." Your voice is gentle, but even in this state Qifrey can pick up the undercurrent of worry bleeding through. "Drink up."
Something presses against his lipsāthe blunt edge of a wooden spoon. Qifrey parts his mouth obediently without thinking, swallowing whatever you offer him.
The tincture is sharp and metallic like cold moonlight on his tongue, slipping down his throat. But its effect is immediate. The pain does not vanish but loosens its grip with alarming speed; the muggy fog over his thoughts lifts, his nausea easing, and the pressure behind his eye recedes.
Too quickly.
Qifrey grabs you by the wrist before you can pull away. You startle in his grip. "Did you use forbidden magic?" His voice comes out hoarse. "Tell me."
"Masterā"
"What did you use?"
His gaze drops instinctively to your hands, searching for the telltale traces of fresh spellwork. Qifrey has spent years wrestling with these painsāyet no physician, tincture or elixir has ever managed to cut through one with such frightening speed. How could you haveā
"Tell me, Apprentice," Qifrey repeats, and this time the fear seeps through despite his efforts to hide it. "You didn't use healing magic, did you?"
You look at him, and for a second Qifrey feels dread warp, cold and heavy, in his stomach. Then, slowly, you shake your head.
"No."
Qifrey blinks. "No?" But howā
"I didn't use healing magic." You glance down at the wrist still caught in his hand, before continuing. "I used magic during the extraction processāthe spineneedles are delicate, so I used a preservation spell to stabilise the active compounds while the toxins boiled off during heating." You hesitate. "I've been researching it for a while, now."
Spineneedles. Relief floods through Qifrey, so suddenly he nearly sags back into the couch. Not forbidden magic. Just careful study, patient experimentation, and far more thought than any apprentice should be devoting to a problem like this.
"Perhaps my apprentice shouldn't be a witch after all," Qifrey mutters tiredly, tipping his head against the cushions. It's like all the tension has gone out of him, leaving only fatigue in its place. The ache in the back of his skull has lessened to a distant throb. "With your talent, you should be a doctor instead."
"If it'll cure Master, I'll be anything."
Your words are spoken matter-of-factly, but Qifrey's breath lodges thickly in his throat. Something about it feels dangerous, precarious, like he's standing on a sheet of ice so thin he can hear it cracking beneath his feet. Qifrey is suddenly reminded of another conversation similar to this oneāone that had drifted too close to unspoken territory for comfort. You'd not been particularly satisfied with his answer then, but he had not possessed a better one to give. "Apprentice, we already had this discussion about why healing magic is forbiddenā"
"I love Master."
You say it so matter-of-factly that Qifrey barely registers what you've said at all, until he does. Everything inside him seems to go still at once. Slowly, disbelievingly, he lifts his head.
You are still watching him, wrist resting within the loose cradle of his fingers. Surely, he must have misheard. But there is no embarrassment in your expression, nor nervous laughter, no frantic attempts to retract your words. Only certainty.
"Youā"
"Master said confessions should be done sincerely," you interrupt quietly. "When it's only the two people involved, and all their attention is on me." You hesitate, just for a moment, and then: "I just wanted to Master to know he'd be worth it. Master is everything to me."
It's as if time has lapsed into nonexistence for a second. Qifrey can hear the soft rustle of the morning breeze stirring the kitchen curtains, the faint squeak of your brushbuddy as it slinks about the raftersābut all of it feels impossibly far away. Because you are still looking at him with that earnest, unwavering gaze, admitting to the same feelings Qifrey has spent months convincing himself belonged to him alone, and yetāyou are his apprentice.
You are his apprentice.
You'd been little more than a child when he'd picked you up in Havso; young and impressionable back then, his to protect and care for. And now a terrible thought reaches deep into his chest, a worm burrowing into the rotten core of an appleāhad he done this? Mistaken possession for care somehow, shaped your innocent devotion into something it was never meant to become? Every lesson huddled over spellbooks, every time he'd reached across the cluttered kitchen table to guide your hand, every reassurance whispered into your hair in the darkāsuddenly they rearrange themselves into something more disgusting, grotesque beneath his scrutiny.
The possibility that he might have been cultivating this unknowingly all along sickens Qifrey to his stomach. The only thing that frightens him more is this: how desperately he wants, anyway.
You are so painfully ignorant of it allāthe warped thoughts he has harboured of you, the nights he's lain awake, hand fisted in his pillow to keep it from wandering someplace it shouldn't. You don't know about the ways he's been slowly driving himself mad in the dark. You have no idea what kind of monster you have just confessed your love to.
"Apprentice," he manages at last. "You can'tāyou don'tāthis is only infatuation, andā"
Your hand closes around Qifrey's before he can drop your wristāgently, like you're approaching a spooked stag, poised to bolt. Nausea rolls unpleasantly through his stomach.
"I know my feelings. Master needn't try convince me otherwise."
Your certainty is what unspools the remainder of his repudiation. He's helpless, Qifrey thinks ashamedly, to stand before it. For one treacherous second he imagines what it would be like not to pull away; to turn his hand beneath yours and weave your fingers together, to close the distance he's spent months desperately maintaining. He imagines allowing himself the same foolish hope he'd once indulged in with Olruggioābefore knowledge, before loss and guilt had hollowed him out and taught him the price of wanting something he could never have.
The fantasy dies almost immediately.
"I don't see you that way." The lie scrapes against his throat on the way out, self-mutiliationāif words could cut, they would leave his pharynx in ribbons, a bloodied mess. But this must end here and now. "You're my apprentice, and I care for you a great deal, but nothing beyond that."
Silence settles between you, quiet folding in on itself. Then, softly, you say, "That's alright with me. I just wish Master would be more honest with me."
Qifrey has heard those words beforeānot spoken in exactly the same way, but close enough. Close enough that for one dizzying moment he is in two places at once: here, your wrist still caught in his grasp, and somewhere years ago, watching someone else he lovedāstill doesāoffer up everything for a wretched, unworthy cause.
All I have left to say isā¦ just go easy on me, okay?
For a strange, terrible moment, Qifrey thinks he would have preferred anger. Hatred he could have endured. Tears he would have tried to comfort. Instead you place something infinitely more fragile in his hands and ask for nothing in returnāand Qifrey wants to weep from the absurdity of it all. Who is he to deserve such grace, such senseless devotion?
You deserve better, Qifrey thinks, despairingly. But still he cannot bring himself to speak those words aloud, in the same way he cannot seem to release your hand and so they remain, lingering like ghostsāeverything he wants to confess but can't ensnared in the silence between you.
The smoke reaches them before any messenger doesāa dark, greasy plume unfurling against the pale morning sky. It is visible even from the atelier's window, though Qifrey does not notice it until Olruggio bursts into the room without warning, already yanking on his cloak as you glance up from your books.
"Fire," is all Olruggio needs to say, breathless, for Qifrey to understand. His hand closes around Qifrey's upper arm, drawing his attention toward the horizon. "It's coming from the direction of Hearthglen Village."
Qifrey is on his feet even before Olruggio finishes speaking. Despite the dry spells of summer, Hearthglen is protected by enough fireproofing spells to withstand far worse than a stray spark or lightning strikeāQifrey has full trust in Olruggio's magic, in this regard. Small fires could happen. But infernos capable of producing a column of smoke like thatāthick and black enough to stain the horizon from miles awayāare impossible.
Should not be possible.
"Apprentice," Qifrey calls over his shoulder as he strides urgently towards the door, pulling his hat onto his head along the way. "Stay here."
He doesn't wait to see if you listen. He and Olruggio are out of the door in the next second, sylph shoes flaring with green light as they take to the air, hurtling straight towards the smoke billowing upwards into the morning sky.
Qifrey should have trusted his instincts.
The fire is not naturalāQifrey knows it the instant they crest the hill and the village comes into view, fire licking at the thatched roofs, dragging barns and homes alike into its insatiable maw. And there they stand amidst the carnageātheir white hat and trailing veil a stark smear against the smoke-charred skyāa single painted eye staring back at Qifrey from where their face should be. For a heartbeat, the years collapse inward and hate rises in the back of his throat like bile, acrid. But answers can waitāand people cannot.
Olruggio doesn't hesitate. He banks sharply left, already racing toward the line of burning buildings, shouting for the villagers to flee. Qifrey launches himself at the Brimmed Hat, water surging from the village well in a roaring column in response to his spell.
The Brimmed Hat laughs. They're infuriatingly talkativeāthey make several attempts to strike up a conversation in the middle of the fight, chattering away as though this is some pleasant afternoon stroll rather than a village burning around them. Qifrey ignores every word. Water tears through the square at his command, rushing in great swells to smother flames and strike at his opponent, but the Brimmed Hat dances around each strike, veil fluttering in the heat haze, that ominous painted eye seemingly able to see Qifrey's every move before it happens.
Out of the corner of his eye, Qifrey glimpses Olruggio moving through the smoke and chaos. Olruggio disappears into a burning building and emerges with a wailing child tucked carefully in the cradle of his arms, depositing them into a frantic mother's embrace before he turns back to the flames. Again and again he does thisāvanishing into the smoke and reappearing with another villager in tow. The fire continues to spread, racing from rooftop to rooftop with unnatural hunger.
And then Qifrey sees it. Olruggio runs into another house, already half-consumed by flames. But one of its support beams has already begun to bow beneath the strain and the building is tilting dangerously; already Qifrey can hear the groan of timber in his mind under the strain. But before Qifrey can say anythingāso much as do anythingāit gives way. The entire structure collapses onto itself with a roar, disappearing beneath a shower of firebrands and burning debris. For a single, terrible instant, it resembles a funeral pyre.
It's only a momentary lapse, but it is enough. The spell catches him squarely in the chest.
Qifrey is on his hands and knees even before he registers the fall. He hunches over, scorched ground hot beneath his palms, and tries to clear his throat, but the damage presses heavily up his windpipeāwet and viscous. Blood. Qifrey chokes. The taste of copper floods his tongue.
"Oh dear." The Brimmed Hat drifts closer. Their veil flutters lazily behind them as they hover just in the corner of Qifrey's periphery. "Not so threatening now, are we?"
They raise their hand again. Qifrey tries to move but his body will not obey him, his wand slipping from between his fingers, viscid with his own blood. The cobblestones beneath him spin into dizzying tesselations. And thenā
A blade of water cuts through the air. It hits the square with enough force to split stone, carving a deep furrow into the ground where the Brimmed Hat had just been standing just a second ago. Both Qifrey and the Brimmed Hat look up at the same time.
Qifrey almost doesn't recognise you at first, hovering above the town square, framed against the smoke-darkened sky. The hem of your cloak flaps in the wind, your wand and quire just barely visible beneath it. The Brimmed Hat's visage is concealed behind that painted eye, but Qifrey can tell that they're surprised. They turn toward you, hands lifting as if in greeting or surrender.
"Now that's intereā"
Another spell hurtles down. The Brimmed Hat vaults backwards, vanishing into a cloud of smoke before reappearing atop the remains of a collapsed building several yards away. Your magic obliterates the ground they had been standing on, stone and dirt exploding outwards in a violent spray.
"You're serious!" They sound more delighted than alarmed, laughter echoing through the ruined square. "What terrifying killing intent, for a Pointed Hat so young!"
You ignore them. The moment your feet touch the ground you are already running to Qifrey's side, dropping to your knees next to him hard enough to tear the fabric of your trousers. Your hands are on him immediately, one bracing his shoulder while the other presses desperately against the wound in his chest. Qifrey struggles to lift his head to, pain lancing through his chest with each ragged breath he drags into his lungs. The edges of his vision blurs every time he inhalesāhis ribs are definitely broken.
"I thoughtā¦" He coughs, the words coming out rasping and wet. "I told you to stayā¦ at the atelierā¦"
"Master can punish me all he likes later." Blood continues seeping stubbornly between your fingers despite the pressure, but that isn't the problemāit's the fluid slowly accumulating in his lungs, the way his breathing has gone thick and rattling. Qifrey can see the moment realisation dawns behind your eyes as you listen to each uneven breath, and with it comes panic. When you meet his eyes again you look frighteningly young, your fingers slick and red with his blood.
"Master." Your voice catches. "Master, what do I do?"
The answer is supposed to be there; behind his teeth, on the tip of his tongue. Qifrey is your teacher, your masterāhe should know what to say, how to fix this. But the only thing staining his mouth now is blood.
"Master," you say again, and this time you almost sound like you're begging. "Please. Tell me what to do."
"Oh, how touching." The Brimmed Hat drifts over, knees tucked loosely against their chest. Their painted eye is now fixed entirely on you, and when they speak again, their voice seems to have softened into something coaxing, almost kind. "Such devotion. I haven't seen such an adorable master-apprentice pair in years."
You don't react. Your attention remains fixed wholly on Qifreyāone bloodstained hand pressed against his chest as you desperately rifle through the contents of your satchel, searching for something, anything that might help. The Brimmed Hat laughs, a little pitying.
"It's admirable how hard you're fighting to save him, little Pointed Hat. A shame that even if you succeed today, he'll be dead soon enough, anywayāthough I suppose dead isn't quite the right word for it."
Qifrey's stomach drops.
"No," he chokes out at once when your hands go completely still. Blood flecks his lips as he struggles for breath. "Don't listen to themā"
"What do you mean?"
At your question, the Brimmed Hat tilts their headāand though their face remains hidden behind their white veil, Qifrey is suddenly, horribly certain that they are smiling.
"You haven't told them?" They click their tongue softly, delighted, almost sympathetic. The gesture is mild, mockingly gentle. It makes hatred surge through Qifrey so fiercely that, for a moment, it eclipses even the pain. "You should be more honest with your apprentice."
"Shut upā" Qifrey tries to force himself upright and immediately regrets it. Agony carves a white-hot line through his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. A violent cough doubles him over, sends fresh blood bubbling between his lips and splattering across the cobblestones. "Apprentice, they're lying. Don't listen toāurgkāa word they sayā"
But you are no longer looking at him. Qifrey feels a wave of panic surge through him, overwhelming, drowning him beneath it. He knows that look, is familiar with itāthe expression you wear when confronted with a puzzle you cannot solve, when every thought narrows around a single question like a predator's jaws clamping around a prey animal's neck.
"Master," you say, very slowly. "What are they talking about?"
"Iā"
The Brimmed Hat cuts across him with a low hum of amusement. "Little witchā¦ did your master ever tell you about how the silverwood propagates before?"
Whatever remaining blood Qifrey has drains from his face.
"Unlike other plants, the silverwood spreads by lodging itself into animal hosts... even humans." They tilt their head at Qifrey, and he very briefly catches the flash of a sharp grin beneath their veil before they continue. "Gradually, it takes over the host's body bit by bit, until there is nothing left but a very beautiful silverwood tree." They spread their hands with a flourish, a theatrical gesture. "That is the fate awaiting your master, dear apprentice."
The words land like stones, sinking silently into still water. Qifrey dares not look at your face. He cannot. He is afraid of what he will see thereāthe dawning horror, the terrible understanding, the slow realisation of his deception.
Then the Brimmed Hat laughs.
"But do not despair!" They throw their arms wide, head cocking as they look at you. "We are witches, are we not? Magic exists to challenge the impossible, to overturn fate!" They hover just a little closer, voice lowering into something almost conspiratorial. "As long as you are willing, you can save your master. I'll even give you a nifty little spell to preserve his life until you can find a better solution." One hand, bare-skinned and terrifyingly human-like, slides up to curve around the shape of their mouth. "All you need to do is cast it yourself."
"Apprenticeā" The word comes out mangled with fresh blood, thin and watery with his spit. "Apprenticeādon'tāyou cannotā"
Qifrey tries to push himself up, to reach for you, to do anything to stop what he sees coming. His arms shake violently beneath him before they give way altogether, and he crashes back against the cobblestones hard enough to drive what little breath remains from his lungs. He needs to move. Why won't his body listen to him?
Slowly, you get to your feet. You move as though caught in a dream, entranced by some spell, hands hanging at your sides, stained with the drying streaks of his blood. And your face, your faceāwhen he finally forces himself to lookāis bloodless and set, and yet, so very terrifyingly calm.
A little bit more about this painting if anyone gaf; I used masking fluid on the stark highlights like the eyes and hair, I used a little white gouache for her outline and a few very small highlights in the eyes. I also used a pen to do her eyelashes because I donāt have a brush that small lol, I also used just 4 colors for her skin, I tried to layer or mix on the page so I just changed the opacity on my palette, it was pretty fun to try messing with warm colors and cool colors to get the right tones
ā¢ tags: master x apprentice relationship, eventual exmaster!qifrey x brimmedhat!reader, ambiguous age gap, reader's age is undefined, mentions of attempt at child murder, trauma dumping and subsequent trauma bonding, qifrey x olruggio being gay for each other, lowkey codependency, reader is kinda manipulative if you squint, spoilers for manga (please let me know if there are any more tags i should add!!)
"The selfishness behind my reason for taking on pupils made me ill. But they'd never have to know that. So I decided that I would put every fiber of my being towards becoming a good educator. Only now do I realise just how foolish that, too, was."
Qifrey takes on an apprentice to keep the silverwood at bay. It works, until it doesn't.
ā¢ chapters: one | two | three | four
II. HELLO MY OLD HEART
The night is too quiet, and sleep does not come easily.
Qifrey lies awake for longer than he cares to measure, and despite his repeated attempts rest continues to elude him. It hovers at the edges of his consciousness, just out of reachāleaving him suspended in that uncomfortable interstice between fatigue and wakefulness. Each time he turns, the sheets twist around his legs; when he shifts, the pillow creases uncomfortably against his cheek. And worse is the silenceāit lingers, persistent, pressing in from all sides like the bottom of a cold, dark well.
Qifrey only manages to endure it for a few moments longer before he concedes defeat. He pushes himself upright in the dark, the thin blanket slipping down to his thighs, and swings his legs over the side of the bed.
The staircase creaks softly as Qifrey makes his way upstairs. There is no need for a lampāhe knows the path well enough to walk it blind. Each step carries him further down the corridor, the way unfolding beneath his feet in the dark, until he reaches his destination.
The door's been left open a crack. Qifrey eases it wider, careful not to make a sound. Faint light spills through the gap in the windowādistant starlight and the thin glow of a half-veiled moonābarely enough to make out the dark shape beneath the blankets. You're curled on your side with your cheek pressed into the pillow, hands tucked loosely to your chest. Fast asleep.
Good. That's good.
Qifrey doesn't know how long he stands there in the hallway, a restless spectre in the dark. Only that by the time he manages to pull himself away his feet are aching, and his breathing has slowed to the same steady rhythm as your own. He lingers for only a moment longer, still reluctant, before turning and making his way back down the hall.
His feet carry him over to one of the windows without thinking. Outside, the sloping hills reach for the edges of night's canopy, unfurling like a rug of silver-sheened fox fur toward the distant coast. And if he squints, Qifrey can just make out the scattering of mountain apple shrubs in the dark; its fruit he'd picked with you this morning chartreuse-yellow and not quite ripe, still carrying a faint, tart edge on the tongue.
The bandages on your arms had been clean when he'd changed them after dinner. Whatever other wounds you'd earned from your little misadventure are healing as well, smaller scabs darkening and already flaking at the edges. You're still young, your body more forgiving in ways his is less so, and Qifrey is thankful for that. More than he can put into words.
But thankful isn't enough anymore.
He's been selfish. Qifrey had taken you in to save himselfāto keep the silverwood repressed dormant, to give himself sufficient worry so that the parasite in him wouldn't kill him. Somewhere along the way he'd convinced himself that this careful distanceāthat feeding you, teaching you, keeping a roof over your headāwould be enough. And in doing so, he'd unintentionally made you the receptacle for all his fears, his neglect, for every single one of his cruel words.
He's a poor excuse of a master. You deserve better.
Qifrey tries to remember what he needed once, as an apprentice. The recollections emerge in faint remnants. The stone floors of the Great Hall, his master's breezy voice weaving between the columnsāthey blur together like the night fog, each memory dissolving into the next until none stands clearly apart from the rest.
None except Olruggio.
They had snuck out together once, after passing the Pentacle of Proving's third test. Qifrey can still remember the thrill of it: the night wind in his hair, the dark plains of the Naakiwan Downs stretching endlessly into the night. The hut had appeared abandonedāperhaps once a shepherd's shelter, left to the slow mercy of timeāits stairs half-rotted from rain, sagging dangerously under their own weight.
They'd taken to the roof with their sylph shoes instead. There, Qifrey had looked properly at the night sky for the first timeāimpossibly clear, strewn thick with stars, as though some divine hand had cast a scatter of diamonds across the velvet dark. And with nothing else around for miles to hem them in, the heavens had felt so very closeāclose enough for Qifrey to believe he could reach out with his hand and pluck the stars from the sky himself.
In that moment, even his dreams had felt within reach. Qifrey had once believed that if he could recover the past he'd lost, his joy might become something realāsomething worthy of standing proud beside Olruggio's without feeling like a poor facsimile of it, a shoddy imitation. A foolish ambition, perhaps, but it was his.
A child can dream, after all.
Qifrey exhales, a sigh catching between his teeth as he pulls his gaze from the window. There's no point dwelling on what-ifs and has-beens. He slips a hand into the pocket of his robes, fingers pushing into the spelled space folded within. The envelope he withdraws is slightly crumpled, edges creased from the many times he's folded and unfolded it again.
It's an official summons to the Great Hall, a request for his presence to discuss the status of his atelier. The tone employed is courteous, but there's no mistaking it. This is not an invitation he can refuse.
Qifrey's thumb lingers at the corner of the page, letting the edge catch against his skin. The Great Hall. He's never been fond of it despite its grand resplendences and easy conveniences. There's a reason he came all the way out to the quiet edges of the Downs, to build something that belonged solely to him.
But youā¦ you must be bored here. The atelier is so far removed from everything else, the quick, lively rhythm of other witches and apprentices. Even with the windowway, it is not the same. Here you only have him for company, the same brick and limestone walls day after day.
You've never complained, of course. You never do. Still, you should have others your age. Other witches. Friends.
Qifrey folds the letter one last time and makes up his mind.
The next morning, Qifrey takes you to the Great Hall with him. The windowway deposits the two of you somewhere at the edge of Deepwater Castle, the world within its rings shifting as stone and sky give way to sea. Qifrey steps out first, taking a moment to steady himself on the slick platform. The air here is differentāheavier and wetter, saturated with salt and a faint tinge of magic, and sunlight filters down in pale, weaving ribbons, catching on fish whose scales flash like scattered coins. Beyond the boundary of sea-mist, the ocean presses in on all sides, held at bay by complex spells written long before Qifrey was even born.
Qifrey turns, one hand already lifting to help you from the windowway. Despite his feelings towards the Great Hall, the sight of Deepwater Castle never quite loses its ability to take his breath away. Some quiet part of him hopes see the same wonder on your face.
But you aren't looking. Not at the fish, the shimmering barrier, or even the mighty castle rising from the ocean floor. Instead your eyes are fixed on him, and your face is pale. Paler than he's ever seen it, even when he'd plucked you from the cliffside with serpentines coiling overhead, ready to tear you apart.
At some point you've grabbed hold of his sleeve. It's almost as if you're afraid he might vanish if you let go. Qifrey frowns, concerned.
"What's wrong?"
You shake your head. Qifrey waits, but nothing follows. You remain where you areāpale and wordless, knuckles stark against the dark fabric of his sleeve. Above, fish glide past with slow currents, a myriad of light and shadows shifting across your cheek, the flagstones. A bell tolls in the distance.
He doesn't want to push you. Not in this unfamiliar place, at least.
"Alright," Qifrey decides at last. "Come on."
The shopping gallery is a long corridor of shops, located somewhere within the lower levels of Deepwater Castle. It's just as Qifrey remembers itācrowded, lively, storefronts overflowing with eclectic wonders. Some hawk candied kelp and enlarged bunches of willowgrapes, others display glowing components in transparent jars, contraptions that whir and tick and occasionally emit small puffs of smoke. One roadside stall even offers miniature glass orbs no larger than a palm, each containing a captive, miniaturised sea creatureāharmless, Qifrey knows, carefully calibrated spells etched into the glass to keep them comfortable and happy.
He walks slowly, careful to stay close by your side. You haven't let go of his sleeve, though your grip has loosened somewhat since entering the castle. Qifrey isn't sure if the gallery or countless unfamiliar sights is reason, but he's grateful, whichever it is.
"The baths are down this way," he says, gesturing down at a side corridor. "They have spells that mimic the ocean waves, and water sculptures enchanted to move like living creatures. Oh, and past that fountaināthereāis the dining hall I used to eat at as an apprentice."
Qifrey glances at you as you walk. He'd brought you here to see the witches' stronghold with your own eyes, to experience its strange wonders the way he once had long ago. But watching you from the corner of his eye, he is unsure whether you are truly enjoying any of it.
"They served the best yam and horncap soupāfilling and perfectly seasoned. I still dream about it till this day. Do you want to take a look?"
You don't answer immediately. Your eyes drift, a rudderless boat caught out at sea, though you meet his when Qifrey looks at you. Your gaze dips after a moment, however.
"If Master wants," you say.
Qifrey's frown deepens though he keeps it from his face. The last thing he wants is for you to think he's displeased with you. Qifrey likes to believe he knows youānot perfectly, of course, but enough to recognise the differences between your silences and your hesitations. This one, though, he cannot place. He doesn't know if your answer means you're unsure how to say no, or if you are uncertain about saying yes.
He considers pressing. But you've given him nothing, and Qifrey has learnedāif a little slowlyāthat there are moments when that is all you're willing to offer.
"Perhaps later," Qifrey answers, keeping his voice light. "We'll see then."
You only nod.
The corridor eventually opens into a vast indoor courtyard. The high walls of the Argentgard rise steeply before you like the sides of a pale mountain, old sigils carved deep into stone. It's quieter here, removed from the bustle and chatter of the shopping gallery, as though even sound knows better than to linger. And for good reason: flanking the arched doors stand the Knights Moralisātheir backs straight and rigid, clad in black and crimson ceremonial armourāholding on to banners that manage to look proud even when they're hanging still.
Qifrey stops at the threshold. He knows what awaits him on the other side of these doors. He's never much cared for these proceedings, the careful scrutiny dressed in civility. They unmoor him less than the grove of pale trees lying just behind these walls, anyway.
He slips a careful smile into place before turning back to you, bending slightly at the waist so that the two of you are eye to eye. "There is a courtyard just through that archway," he says, with a nod towards the columns on his left. It's outside one of the libraries he used to frequent as an apprenticeāyou might run into a few younger witches coming and going. "There are some benches for you to sit on, and a little fountain that sings. You can wait for me there. Orā" He reaches into his robes and draws out a small leather pouch. It clinks softly when he places it into your hand. "You can explore the shopping gallery. Spend this on whatever you wantāfood, books, even one of those glass orbs, if you like. Anything."
You glance down at the pouch, unblinking. After a while, Qifrey reaches for your hand and cups it in his own, gently folding your fingers over the worn leather.
"I won't be long," he says, softer this time. "It'll be an hour, two at most. You'll be fine on your own."
Your other hand tightens its grip on his sleeve. Then, slowly, you let go.
"Okay."
Qifrey hesitates. For a fleeting second he considers taking you with himāmaking you sit through the council's dry questions and pointed looks. He can already foresee it: their relentless probing into your past, the dogged interrogation about your origins as an unknowing. No, no. It is better to leave you here.
"Don't wander too far, alright?" Qifrey says gently as he straightens, glancing over his shoulder at the looming doors. "I'll be back soon."
He manages a few steps towards it before he looks back at you. You simply nod, like you always do.
"Okay."
The Argentgard is cold.
Not in terms of temperature, so to speak. The Great Hall is kept comfortably warm year-roundāthe same spells that generate sea-mist threaded carefully with seals to trap heat and prevent the place from feeling like a tomb. Perhaps the lingering chill comes from someplace else: the measuring and the weighing, the unshakeable sensation of being observed by eyes that see too much and miss very little.
Still, the gardens themselves are pleasant enough. Qifrey sits while the council members regard him across the table from their high-backed chairs, expressions unreadable as they scrutinize his files.
It isn't long before they begin their line of questioning. Have you been adhering to regulation? Of course. How many apprentices do you have? Just the one. Have you noticed any irregularities with the unknowing as of late? None. These interrogations are nothing new to Qifrey; he's learned to keep his voice steady and his answers brief, to offer nothing more than what is required.
When they've finally exhausted their endless list of questions, they move on to other matters. The council informs him of the Watchful EyesāPointed Hat witches tasked with overseeing ateliers too distant from the Great Hall, ensuring compliance and reporting any irregularities deemed worthy of concern. Qifrey doesn't like the idea of being monitored, but knows better than to push. The Council's decisions are never only suggestions, and resistance will only further invite the very scrutiny he'd prefer to avoid.
Yet, the meeting stretches on for longer than he'd expected. Questions are followed by more questions, which are in turn followed by discussions of revised protocols. By the time they start on the topic of procedural adjustments, Qifrey's mind is already beginning to driftāaway from the council's murmurings and the silver trees of the Argentgard, back to the corridor where he'd left you.
Are you doing alright? he wonders. Did you find the courtyard? Did anyone approach you? Have you eaten anything?
The conversation drags. Each topic bleeds into the next, until Qifrey starts to think words themselves are beginning to lose all meaning. And thenā
"One final matter," one council member says, pushing her glasses further up her nose to squint at the papers in her hand. "For your atelier's Watchful Eyeādo you have anyone in mind?"
He's too tired to care, and eager to leave. "Choose whoever."
They exchange glances. A scribe sitting to his left jots down a few words, and thenāthankfully, mercifully, finallyāthe meeting is adjourned. Qifrey is already halfway to the exit, perhaps a touch too quickly, when a familiar voice halts him.
"Qifrey. A moment, please."
He knows who it is even before he turns. Qifrey looks back, reluctantly, to see himāperched elegantly in his sealchair, hands clasped loosely in his lap, wearing that familiar half-smile of his. Briefly, Qifrey wonders whether it is truly him or merely another of his smoke clones, though the distinction stopped mattering years agoāsometime around the third occasion Qifrey spent twenty minutes arguing with one, before realising the real thing had never been there at all.
"I have other matters to attend to."
"Nonsense." The ram legs of Beldaruit's sealchair tread lightly through the grass, carrying him over to Qifrey's side. "You have time for tea. I insist."
"I really don't."
"Not even a few minutes to spare for your poor old master?"
At least the old man's fondness for theatrics hasn't changed. "No."
"That's so cruel, you know. I take you under my wing out of the kindness of my heart, raise you with all the care and devotion of a loving master, only to receive this kind of gratitude in my old ageā¦"
He ends up following Beldaruit deeper into the Argentgard, albeit unwillingly. Here, in one of its more secluded groves, the silverwoods grow oldest and thickestābranches twisting towards the high, arched ceilings, their pale leaves gleaming softly like moonlight caught over the surface of a still lake. Qifrey sits across Beldaruit at a small table already set with a silver tea service, delicate porcelain cups and a plate of untouched pastries waiting neatly between them.
Qifrey pours, the same way he used to when he was an apprentice, and Beldaruit was still his master. They exchange the usual polite niceties: updates on mutual acquaintances (Qifrey hasn't kept in contact with some in years), comments on the weather (it never changes down here), and mild inquiries regarding the atelier. Qifrey answers in monosyllables, counting down the minutes until he can excuse himself without appearing discourteous.
"So," Beldaruit hums upon finishing his third pour. He sets down his teacup with a soft click. "Tell me about your new apprentice."
Qifrey's hand stills on his own. He should have known better than to think being confined to the ocean floor would keep anything from reaching Beldaruit's ears. "Word travels quickly."
"Can you blame us? There is very little to be excited about, under the sea." Beldaruit waves a hand vaguely through the air. "The fish are lovely, I suppose, but they make for dreadful conversationalists. One grows desperate for interesting news eventually."
Qifrey sighs. Suddenly the tea in his hand appears far less appetising than it did a moment ago.
"What do you want to know?"
"I want to know what they're like, of course. I'm curious as to what sort of student my apprentice is raising."
"Ex-apprentice."
Beldaruit dismisses the correction with an airy flick of his fingers. "Same thing. In my eyes, you're still the same old rascally apprentice." He leans back in his sealchair, ram legs dipping slightly, before he scratches thoughtfully at his chin. "Ah, I suppose that makes them my grand-apprentice, doesn't it?" Beldaruit's smile curls slightly at the edges. "I rather like the sound of that."
Qifrey fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. That, or do something equally childishālike pour the teapot directly into Beldaruit's lap, the way he might have done if he were still an apprentice.
"They'reā¦ clever," he begins slowly, if somewhat reluctantly. "They're exceptionally talented at complex spellsāthey can decipher the logic behind circles some fully fledged witches might struggle with. They learn quickly, tooāthey memorised every glyph in the foundational textbook by heart within a matter of weeks." Qifrey remembers the sight of you hunched over the kitchen table, tracing spells over and over until the bowl of water in front of you had run dry. "The only problem is that they work too hard. I have to remind them to eat, sometimes, and if there's a spell they can't master immediately, I know I'll find them awake in the middle of the night, still practicing it over and overā"
"Bāoāring." Beldaruit interrupts, dragging out the syllable out like a man enduring some unbearable inconvenience as he props his chin onto one hand. "Wow. That is all so terribly boring."
Qifrey stops talking to glare across the table. "Well, you asked."
"Spellwork this, textbook that." Beldaruit waves a disparaging hand, his sleeve rippling. "That's the sort of thing you put in an educational report to the Council. What I want to know is: what are they like to you?"
The question catches Qifrey off guard. And its answer drifts in, like incense smoke carried on the wind, without conscious thought or contemplation. He remembers the pale set of your mouth when you'd looked up at him from beneath his cloak for the first time. How wavering firelight reflects in your eyes when you're practicing spells late into the night. The dark, rust-coloured stain of your blood, drying slowly across his fingers.
The quiet cadence of your voice, and the faint upward lilt whenever you call, "Master".
Beldaruit is watching him differently now. The sharpness in those pale eyes has not fadedāif anything, it has only grown keener, the edge of a blade freshly drawn across its whetstone. He appears to enjoying Qifrey's hesitation immensely. Qifrey isn't sure he prefers to know whyāthe inner workings of his former master's mind are a mystery to him.
"Let me make things simpler for you," Beldaruit says. He leans forward in his sealchair, fingers interlaced when he sets his hands on the table. "Do they surprise you?"
This time, his answer comes out without hesitation.
"Every day."
For a moment, Beldaruit looks almost surprised, himself. Then his expression slips into something softer, almost pleased, and for the briefest instant, Qifrey catches the faint shadow of the man he'd once called masterāthe man who'd sat beside his bed in the dark, distracting him from nightmares of suffocating darkness and unceasing rain with dancing figures shaped from smoke.
He doesn't push further. Beldaruit simply nods, and picks up his teacup once again.
"Good," he says. "That's what I wanted to hear."
The fountain is warbling a sweet, silver-bright melody when Qifrey finds you in the eastern courtyard. That's expected. What he wasn't expecting, however, is to find you amidst a handful of other witches your age.
He ducks behind a pillar before you can spot him. Qifrey should probably collect you, begin the journey home, but you lookāwell, not happy, exactly. You rarely ever look happy. But you look less solitary, at least, and that alone is something worth staying hidden for a few more minutes.
The young witches are talking about their own masters at the Great Hall. Qifrey catches fragmentsāfamiliar names he knows in passing, scattered mentions of the Three Wise. You wouldn't know any of these thingsānames and histories and hierarchies that carry weight and sway within the magical worldābecause Qifrey had never thought to teach them to you before. Now, he's wondering if he should have. Still, they speak with such easy enthusiasm it hardly seems to matter, their voices overlapping in excited bursts and trills.
"So, who's your master?" A girl with a tumble of chestnut curls asks you, eyes bright with curiosity. Qifrey stiffens suddenly before he can help it.
You answer simply, the same way you always do. "Master Qifrey."
The apprentice witches exchange glances. For a moment they look puzzled, until realisation ripples visibly throughout the small group.
"Oh," another pipes up. "You mean Beldaruit the Wise's apprentice?"
"Is he?"
"Yeah! What's he like?"
Qifrey's heart stumbles oddly in his chest, a brief, uncomfortable slip in rhythm. He should probably step out from behind the pillar, announce his presence before he overhears something not meant for his ears. But his feet refuse to move.
You seem to think about this for a while. Thenā
"The prettiest."
Qifrey nearly chokes. The witches standing closest to you seem to echo his thoughts. "Huh?"
"Master Qifrey is the prettiest," you continue, matter-of-factly, as though clarifying something that ought to have been obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.
A ripple of laughter breaks through the group. "That's not usually a word people use to describe their masters," the girl who'd asked says between giggles, looking amused.
"Is that so?"
Qifrey's face burns so hot he fears he might combust like an overcast pyreball spell. He's suddenly grateful for the pillar concealing him from sight. Pretty. You could have said knowledgeable. Wise, kind, inspiringāany number of descriptive words more befitting of a teacher, a mentor, a master. Why would youā¦
He drags a hand down his face in an attempt to gather the scattered remains of his composure. It's painfully futile. When it becomes clear that the effort is hopeless, Qifrey steps out from behind the pillar, fixing what he hopes passes for a smile across his thoroughly frazzled expression.
"It's time to go," he says.
You look up at him. Your expression doesn't change in slightestāno flicker of embarrassment, no trace of awkwardness at the fact he might have overheard what you just said. You simply nod, offer the other witches a polite "goodbye", and cross the courtyard to stand at his side once more.
"Goodbye!" one of them calls, waving enthusiastically. "Hopefully we'll see you around again!"
You raise a hand in response, but nothing more.
"I'm sorry for taking so long," Qifrey says as the two of you walk away, leaving behind the chatter of the courtyard. His face still feels slightly warm. "But I think I needn't have worriedāit looks like you made some friends."
You shrug. "They were nice."
It's not disagreement, though not quite agreement eitherābut Qifrey supposes that's simply how most first steps go; small, uncertain things, too fragile to name outright. He decides to count it as a victory all the same.
"I'll cook something nice for dinner." Qifrey glances sidelong at you. A carapace mash, perhaps, or the grilled vegetables he's noticed you favour. Judging from your empty hands, Qifrey doubts you've spent a single coin in the pouch he gave you. "You barely ate before we left this morningāyou must be starving."
"Okay." You shift a step closer to his side. "Let's go home."
Your hand brushes his sleeveānot gripping, just touchingāas though the proximity comes as naturally as breathing. Qifrey's breath catches softly in his chest.
After a while, he nods.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "Let's go home."
It rains that night.
True storms are rare out on the Downs, but a few times each year the weather falls into moods unpleasant enough to shake even the inland hills. Qifrey lies awake, listening to the wind howl across the moors surrounding the atelier while rain lashes relentlessly against the windows. He'll be getting no sleep tonight, he knowsāhe abandoned the attempt hours ago, resigning himself to counting the cracks in his ceiling and waiting for morning to arrive.
Thenā
A soft knock sounds at his door.
Qifrey startles slightly amidst his tangle of blankets. For a moment, he eyes the faint shape of his bedroom door in the dark, wondering if his ears are playing tricks on him in the storm. But then the knock comes againāquieter, more hesitant this time.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed, hurriedly shrugging a loose robe over his shoulders. When he pulls open the door, Qifrey finds you standing outside in the hallway, absently smoothing over your nightclothes beneath the muted amber glow of the lamps.
There are only two people living in this atelier, yet Qifrey is still oddly surprised to find you standing at his door as you are now. You've never sought him out in the middle of the night before.
"Did something happen?"
You look faintly surprised to see him despite being the one who knocked. After a moment, you shake your head.
"I thought Master would be asleep."
Qifrey's lips twitch upwards slightly. He waits a little longer, expecting you to continue, but you say nothing more. You don't leave either. The two of you simply stand there, the door held ajar between you, rain clamouring noisily against the windows.
"It's, um," Qifrey coughs lightly, after an extended period of silence. "Rather late, isn't it."
Ā The observation hangs somewhat uselessly between the two of you. Still you nod solemnly, as though he's said something of grave importance.
"Mm."
"Do you need something?"
A shake of the head.
"Can't sleep?"
A pause. Then, slowly, you nod again.
"Oh."
His mind leapfrogs to a hundred possibilities at once. Is it the storm? The thunder, perhaps? Are the heating spells in your room inadequate? The questions crowd together faster than he can decide which to ask, but by the time he's settled on one, the silence has stretched long enough that interrupting it feels strange. The space between the two of you lapses into awkward quiet once again.
"ā¦Can I stay here for a while?"
The request catches him off guard. This seems to be becoming a night of firstsāfirst the knock at his door, then this. You rarely ask anything of him at all. Qifrey steps aside quickly, holding the door wider for you.
"Of course. Come in."
You step over the threshold somewhat tentatively. Qifrey lets the door swing shut and ushers you towards the bed, where he carefully sits you at the foot of it. You're dressed only in your nightclothes, feet bare, so he quickly slips his robes from his shoulders to drape it around yours instead. It takes a few adjustments to ensure it sits properlyāit's far too large on youābefore Qifrey decides he's satisfied and settles next to you, mattress creaking softly beneath his weight.
The two of you sit in silence, accompanied by the steady patter of rain. When the quiet eventually begins to fray awkwardly at the edges, Qifrey clears his throat.
"Is there a reason you couldn't sleep?"
You don't respond immediately. Your fingers knit loosely in your lap, absently picking at a loose thread with your nails. Qifrey is beginning to suspect you don't actually want to answer it at all when you suddenly speak, your voice barely a murmur beneath the storm.
"ā¦I had a bad dream."
Oh. "What about?"
"Drowning."
Qifrey goes very still.
"I think being in the Great Hall might have reminded me of it," you say. "Being surrounded by waterāor maybe being so far beneath the surface."
Qifrey suddenly remembers the way you'd clung to his sleeve, when you'd first stepped out of the windowway. A quiet sense of dread coils unpleasantly in his stomach. "You've had a bad experience with the sea before?"
You nod.
"My parents tried to drown me when I was little." Qifrey's head snaps violently to look at you. The horror crashes through him with the force of a physical blow, the words a knife shoved viciously into his gut. "They had too many mouths to feed and I was the smallest, so they took me to the cliffs and threw me in. I guess they hoped it would look like an accident."
You say this with the same calm, thoughtful tone that you might use when explaining a conjecture about spell theory to him. Qifrey opens his mouth but nothing comes out.
Nothing will.
"I don't remember much," you continue, when he doesn't say anything. "Just that it was cold and dark and water would fill my mouth whenever I tried to scream. A fisherman found me eventually, so I survived."
"How old were you?"
"I'm not sure. Five, I think. Maybe six?"
You were just a child. The image his mind conjures is unbearable: small hands grasping helpless over dark water, frightened cries swallowed by the wind and waves. Your hands. Your cries.
Qifrey finds himself thinking, suddenly, of rain. Silver-fingered and relentless, falling in chilly sheets over Havso and youācrouched beneath that poor excuse of tarp, thin and soaked and frozen to the bone. They way you'd looked at him when he spelled away the rain above your headānot with wonder or gratitude, but the hollow-eyed stare of someone who'd learned never to expect anything from the world.
He can't stand it. Qifrey wantsāneedsāto say something. To find the right words to comfort you, or at least make it hurt less, or better yet, cast a counterclock spell and rewind time itselfāback to that cliffside, years ago, so that Qifrey can pull you from the water long before the sea ever touches you. But there are no right words, no spell capable of undoing what has happened so long past, only thisāyou and him, now in this moment, everything Qifrey wants to say but can't snared in the silence between you.
Because what can he say in response to that? What words does he possess that could possibly be worth speaking?
"I'm afraid of water, too," Qifrey finds himself saying, eventually. "But not because of the sea. Rain."
His confession takes even him by surprise. You blink at the admission, glancing up from beneath your lashes, and Qifrey has to look away; instead, he fixes his gaze on his own feet, dangling over the bed next to yours.
"My old master found me in a box." The words trickle out slowly, like water leaking from a cracked vessel. "Buried in the ground and left for dead. I didn't have any memoriesāof my parents, where I came fromāall I remembered was the rain. Pounding on the lid, seeping through the cracksā¦" He laughs once under his breath, though it's devoid of any humour. "I thought I was going to drown eventually. It felt like hell, waiting for death in the dark."
He hears you inhale softly.
"Beldaruit dug me up." Qifrey continues, more quietly now. "He took me in, taught me magicā¦ but I never really got over my fear of water. It's why I worked so hard to master it." A faint smile touches the corners of his mouth. "Well, that, and to get out of the washing duty Beldaruit would assign me to whenever I mouthed off at him."
That doesn't make you laugh like he'd hoped it would. You kick out your feet idly, gaze lowered to where your hands are gathered in the too-long sleeves of his robe.
"I wonder if it would be better to forget," you say, finally. "All those unpleasant things."
Qifrey looks at you. Despite your words, there's no bitterness in your expressionāan utter lack of anger or resentment Qifrey finds faintly unsettling. The question escapes him before he can turn it over in his head.
"Do you hate them?" he asks, more softly now. "Your parents, I mean. For doing that to you."
You barely hesitate.
"No." Your answer comes out certain. "If they hadn't, I would never have met Master."
In that brief moment Qifrey feels entirely stripped of words once again. The rain continues its persistent pummeling, thunder snarling overhead like some ancient beast, but all of it suddenly feels so very far away. He feels vaguely sick. There is no world in which Qifrey would ever consider what happened to you a fortuneāno world in which a child should have been thrown into the sea simply that fate might orchestrate some so-called fortuitous encounter with him. None.
And yetāselfishly, horriblyāthe thought of never having met you at all leaves him painfully bereft.
"ā¦That's not how that should work," Qifrey manages, at last. His fingers take an extended moment to release their death grip on the edge of the mattress. "Someone should have protected you long before you ever needed to meet me." Cared for you. Treasured you. Loved you.
"I have Master now," you shrug. "That's all that matters to me."
Qifrey wants to argueāto tell you that what your parents had done was unforgivable, that you deserved so much more than the scraps of kindness the world had handed you. But you seem so strangely at peace with it all the words die before they can leave his mouth. And who is he to condemn them, when he's been equally selfish in his own ways?
It's silent after that. The rain continues to pour, until Qifrey exhales through his nose, breaking the stillness.
"We should head to bed."
Your shoulders curl inward ever so slightly. "Oh."
"You can sleep here," he adds on hurriedly, before you can think he's urging you from his room. "In my bed, I mean. So you don't have to be alone."
The words come out stilted, somewhat awkwardly, in a tangled rush. You blink at him, visibly surprisedābut not unpleasantly so. After a moment's hesitation you nod, and move slowly to crawl beneath the blankets. Qifrey rises to his feet and immediately busies himself with the covers and pillows, smoothing down a wrinkle in the blanket that's barely visible at all.
When there is nothing left for him to fuss over, Qifrey sits back down at the edge of the bed. You watch him from beneath the blankets where he'd tucked you in, quiet eyes following his movement amidst the dim amber glow of the bedside lamp. He can feel your gazeāwarmth prickling along the side of his face like a thousand fine needles. He's about to fetch a book from one of the shelves to occupy his hands when he feels you tug lightly at the back of his shirt.
"I would feel better if Master were closer."
Every sensible instinct in him attempts to immediately object. You're tired, shaken from the nightmares, emotionally vulnerable from old memories dragged back to the surface. As your master, Qifrey is responsible for your wellbeing and safety above all else; it falls on him to maintain some semblance of proper distance, no matter the circumstance. And yetā
He cannot say no to you. He's never been able to say no to you.
Qifrey slips onto the bed beside you before he can think the better of it. He stretches himself out carefully atop the blankets, making sure to leave a respectable amount of space between your bodies. But after only a moment, you shift, body curling inward, until the crown of your head brushes lightly beneath his chin. He can feel the slow rhythm of your breath, each exhale whispering through the thin fabric of his nightshirt, where your face rests inches from the center of his chest.
Qifrey goes very still. This entire moment suddenly seems encased in thin glassālike one wrong movement, no matter how slight, might shatter it completely.
"Meeting Master was my greatest fortune," you whisper, so softly he almost misses it. "I'm the luckiest person in the world."
Qifrey's chest constricts. It's as if all the air has been squeezed from his lungs. His fingers flex once at his side, hesitant, suddenly aching. Slowly, he lifts a hand to your head. The angle is strange, the motion clumsy, but he threads his fingers carefully through your hair anyway, stroking as gently as he can.
"Sleep," he murmurs. "I'm here."
He cannot see your face, but he can tell the moment your eyes close when you curl a little more firmly against him, the way your entire body seems to soften. Your breathing gradually slows, and evens out into sleep. Qifrey remains awake. At some point, your hand shifts unconsciously beneath the blankets, drifting until your knuckles brush lightly against the center of his chest, directly over his heart.
Qifrey closes his eyes. You think that you are the luckiest person in the world. You are wrong.
It's him.
Time passes quietly after that.
The days flow past in their slow, gradual ways, likes ivy creeping over stone walls or sand grains slipping soundlessly through an hourglass. Summer deepens across the Downs, the hills surrounding the atelier growing thick with crocuses and millflowers before they fade gold beneath the heat. And somewhere, amidst it all, the shape of life revolving around the two of you changes once again.
Qifrey begins teaching you more advanced spells. Compound sigils, inverted glyphs, circles layered so delicately they resemble lacework more than magic. He half-expects you to struggle at first, but you take to it with astonishing ease. Some evenings end with the two of you still seated at the kitchen table long after dinner has gone cold, debating back and forth over spell theories while the heart burns low, and Qifrey finds himself sometimes deliberately taking opposing stances simply to watch you continue.
You speak more, now. You ask questionsāsmall, ordinary things entirely unrelated to magic. When he is too absorbed in his work to notice you, you tug at his sleeve to get his attention rather than silently staring holes into the side of his face. And you laugh more often, too. It's still sporadic, rarely unrestrained, but the sound no longer catches Qifrey by surprise.
The headaches are worse, some days. The silverwood continues to grow in silence, patient as rot spreading beneath bark. And yet when Qifrey recalls the old mythsātales of men who cast aside kingdoms, futures, entire worlds, all for the taste of a single fruit beyond compareāhe thinks he understands them now. Never has he been so glad to grow accustomed to something so sweet.
And if there is anywhere in this world, anywhere at all, that Qifrey would choose to put down his roots, it would be hereāin this quiet atelier he calls home, beneath the open sky, and the sound of your laugh still ringing inside it.
Qifrey hears the pegasus carriage before he sees it.
He's in the kitchen preparing lunch when the rush of distant wings cuts across the quiet of the Downs. It's not a common sound out here; very little ever flies this far across the peninsula except for the occasional courier and migrating ash-mottled dragons. Qifrey pauses with his knife hovering over some vegetables, half-chopped, before setting it aside, wiping his hands absently on a dishcloth.
The sound grows louder then abruptly fades, followed by muffled whinnying. Qifrey frowns. He crosses the atelier and pulls open the front door, squinting against the late afternoon sun, only to seeā
"Olruggio!? What are you doing here?"
The man in question looks exhausted. His travelling cloak hangs crookedly from one shoulder, wrinkled from travel and pinned askew. There are several overstuffed bagsācrammed to the seams with all sorts of magical trinkets and inventions, no doubtāabandoned by his feet next to the carriage platform. He drags a hand through his already disastrous hair, one eye twitching faintly in a manner Qifrey is all too familiar with.
"'What are you doing here', he says," Olruggio grumbles with a shake of his head. The pegasi whinny impatiently behind him, stamping their hooves in the grass. "I fly halfway across the peninsula by pegasus carriage to come here and this is the kind of welcome I getā"
Qifrey sputters, scrambling for something resembling a coherent response. He still hasn't the faintest idea what Olruggio is doing on his doorstep. "IāI mean, how was I supposed to know you were comingā"
Olruggio raises a dark brow.
"I suppose you don't know that I've been assigned as Watchful Eye to your atelier either?"
This time, Qifrey can truly do nothing but stare. Surely he's misheard. But the pegasus carriage, the luggage piled beside it, Olruggio himself standing here on his doorstep, arms folded across his chestāall of it says otherwise.
"The Council assigned you as my Watchful Eye?"
"Yes, and you'd know that already if you actually took the time to go through your correspondenceā"
"You know I don't read most of the Council's letters!"
"And whose fault is that, exactlyāoomf!"
Qifrey throws his arms around Olruggio before he can finish the sentence. Olruggio staggers back a stepāwords cutting off abruptly as Qifrey buries his face in his shoulder, taken by surpriseābut only for a moment. Then strong arms close around Qifrey in return, tightening instinctively, drawing him into the safety of their embrace.
Beneath the scent of wind and travel dust, Olruggio smells of pine and woodsmoke. It's strangeāQifrey had almost forgotten what it felt like to stand this close to him again; how easily Olruggio's warmth still manages to disarm him, like some long-held vice he'd nearly convinced himself he no longer carried.
He's happy. There are too many emotions within him, sharp and tangled and colliding and overwhelming, but Qifrey chooses to focus on only one in this moment. He's so happy it hurts.
Eventually they part; Qifrey forces himself to pull away first, though his fingertips linger for a moment against Olruggio's arm, reluctant to surrender this closeness so soon after just getting it back. He's just about to open his mouth again when Olruggio's attention suddenly shifts over his shoulder, and his entire posture seems to stiffen at once.
Qifrey frowns faintly. He traces Olruggio's line of sight with his own, only to see youāstanding in the doorway, staring openly at Olruggio. The brushbuddy hanging from your shoulder lets out a small, curious "pweee", before it wriggles free and plops onto the floorboards next to your feet. It circles your ankles once and scampers off into the atelier a second later, apparently deciding this situation no longer concerns it.
"Apprentice." Suddenly, absurdly, for no reason at all, Qifrey feels as though he's been caught doing something he shouldn't. He pretends not to notice the faint heat still clinging to his cheeks, stepping aside slightly so you can see past him as he gestures you closer. "This is Olruggio, the new Watchful Eye for our atelier. He's a dear friend of mineāwe were apprentices at the Great Hall together."
You make no move to shift from the doorway. Behind him, Olruggio coughs awkwardly into his fist.
"Uhm. Hello."
You continue to stare at him in complete silence.
Olruggio's hand lowers slowly. "ā¦Right," he says, after a beat. "Tough crowd."
Qifrey lets out a quiet huff. Normally, he's accommodating of your reticence, fond of it, even, but this is beginning to border on plain unfriendliness. "Apprentice," he reminds you gently. "It's rude not to greet people when they introduce themselves. I taught you manners, didn't I?"
Your gaze flickers toward him before it returns, reluctantly, to Olruggio.
"ā¦Mr. Olruggio," you say, after a long pause.
Olruggio looks painfully out of his depth, mouth twisting uncomfortably as though he's not sure which shape best to put it in. "That's too formal," he mutters, in that brusque tone he always seems to default to whenever he's feeling awkward. His hand rubs over the back of his neck. "Look, you can just call me Olruggio, y'know. I'm not really one for all that honorific stuff."
"Mr. Olruggio," you repeat.
Qifrey presses his lips together, trying his best not to laugh despite the situation. Olruggio points accusingly at him, clearly flustered.
"Don't encourage this!"
He holds up both hands. "I'm not encouraging anything."
You stare between them for another long moment, expression unreadable as ever, before your gaze settles back on Qifrey. "Then, if there's nothing else, I'll go back to my room and finish my readings on recursive spells, Master."
Before either of them can respond, you turn and disappear back into the atelier. They watch you in silence until you're out of sight, footsteps fading up the stairs before Olruggio sighs heavily.
"I think they dislike me."
"Nonsense," Qifrey responds half-heartedly, still staring at the bannister. "They're justā¦ well, shy. Besides, you're the most kindhearted person I know. There's no reason for them to dislike you."
Olruggio chokes on air. Qifrey glances over, frowning. "What?"
"Nothing." Olruggio coughs roughly, dragging a hand over his face before he meets Qifrey's eyes again. There's a faint flush dusting his neck, just visible beneath the rumpled collar of his shirt. "I justāya sure you're alright with this? Your apprentice clearly isn't thrilled about me showing up out of nowhere."
"They're wary of strangers." Qifrey looks back at the hallway. He wonders if you're struggling with the idea of suddenly having to share the atelier with someone new. "I'm sure they'll warm up to you eventually."
"You know what? I'm not sure I believe you." Olruggio grunts as he stoops to gather his bags. Qifrey just laughs, putting a hand on Olruggio's shoulder to steer him towards the atelier door.
"Come on," he says. "Let's get you settled in."
After showing Olruggio to the atelier's side wingāthe rooms he'd cleared out weeks ago in anticipation of the Watchful Eye's arrivalāQifrey returns to the kitchen. The vegetables still sit halfway peeled and chopped on the counter, knife exactly where he abandoned it earlier, but he finds himself oddly distracted now. Part of him still can hardly believe it's Olruggio, of all people. Fate has always possessed a strange, if somewhat twisted, sense of humour.
It's too late for lunch and still too early for dinner, but Qifrey busies himself tidying the counter for the sake of occupying his hands. This won't be enough, not when there's three to cook for, now. He's halfway through setting the vegetables aside when he suddenly notices you lingering in the doorway like a ghost.
Qifrey fumbles and nearly drops the carrot in the sink. "Apprentice."
"I finished my readings." There's a brief pause before you step properly into the kitchen, bare feet nearly soundless on the flagstones as they pad across the room. You hover by the table first, fiddling absently with his half-finished teacup, then linger near the pantry shelves before finally drifting over to the far end of the counter. Qifrey keeps you in the corner of his eye as he retrieves two more carapace yams and some onions from under the sink, watching your eyes move cautiously around the room.
"Is he gone?"
Qifrey picks up the knife again. "Olruggio's unpacking his things in the side wing. He'll be staying with us for the foreseeable future, as the atelier's Watchful Eye."
Your eyes flick briefly to the side, shoulders tightening a fraction. The corner of your mouth dips ever so slightlyāsubtle enough that most would never have perceived the shift in your expression. Qifrey does.
"Olruggio's a good samaritan at heart," he says, deliberately keeping his voice light as he resumes cutting the vegetables. "I've known him for years. He's not going to do anything to you."
"I didn't think that."
"Then what's wrong?"
You're silent for a while.
"Nothing," you say, eventually. "I just don't know him."
"You'll get to," Qifrey promises. "He's not so bad, once you get past the grumbling."
"Master sounds fond of him."
Qifrey's hands falter. You are merely making an observation; yet for some reason your words leave him feeling uncomfortably exposedāas though they have reached into a locked box tucked away in some dark corner of his heart and dragged it into the light, intruded upon something even he rarely allows himself to examine. He tries to think of a suitable response but comes up empty; anything honest feels too stripping to confess aloud, yet anything less feels woefully inadequateāa disservice to all that Olruggio means to him.
"He's a very dear friend to me," is what he says, eventually.
The conversation lapses into quiet after that. Qifrey finishes chopping the carrots into rough cubes before moving on to peeling the yams. The knife works steadily beneath his hand, rising and falling to strip away their tough outer layers to reveal the pale tuber flesh within. Beside him, the weight of your gaze followsāevery shift and movement of his hands as he works.
And thenā
"Can I help?"
That catches Qifrey off guard. He has to pause to make certain he's heard you correctly. "You want to cook with me?"
You hesitate for a moment before nodding. Surprise, warm and pleasant, flickers through him like the afternoon sunlight spilling in from the window. He shifts aside to make room for you at the counter. In all the time you've been a student in his atelier, you've never shown even the slightest interest in cooking. And more often than not, you neglect your own meals entirely unless he places food directly into your handsāa poor habit that seems to have carried over from your early years of living on Havso's streets. It's something Qifrey has yet to successfully change.
He hands you the knife. You hold it awkwardly at first, grip uncertain as you lower the sharp edge to the yam. Qifrey hurries to stop you before you can nick your fingers.
"No, no. Like this." Qifrey steps in behind you, gently adjusting your hand around the handle. "Careful. Keep the fingers of your other hand tucked inward, always resting against the flat of the blade." He guides your knuckles into place over the yam. "Just like that. That way, you'll never cut yourself."
You remain still for a moment. Then your fingers curl slowly beneath his, obediently taking on the shape he guides them into.
"Very good." The praise comes naturally. It's as if he is simply teaching you another spellāyou've always been a diligent student, and it is easy to praise you. For a second Qifrey is reminded of a moment much like this one, though far longer agoāof the first time he'd placed a wand into your grasp and held his hand, guiding you carefully through lines and circles. Your fingers had been almost entirely swallowed by his own, back then. But now, they curl easily against his palm, and when he leans over you like this, your shoulders brush closer to his chest than he remembers.
"Master?"
Qifrey startles. He hadn't realised he'd gone still. He looks down just as you look upāeyes bright and intelligent and touched with the faintest trace of concern, as though trying to decipher where his thoughts have wandered.
"I justāI was just thinking about something," Qifrey fumbles to say, quickly smoothing it over with a smile. He starts to pull away just as you bring the knife down hard against the cutting board, and the sound startles him into grabbing your hands again on instinct. "Not so hard! You'll cut a finger off."
"ā¦Sorry."
"No, no, don't apologise." The fault is hisāit's your first time using a knife, and just because you're good at drawing spells doesn't mean you will instinctively know how to cut and slice. He guides your hands through the motions again, patiently correcting the angle of the blade, and soon enough you pick it up with the same speed you seem to do everything else. Eventually Qifrey leaves you to slowly cube the yams on your own, while he moves on to peel the remaining vegetables in the sink.
For a short time, only the soft rhythm of chopping fills the kitchen. Then, Qifrey asks, idly. "Should we invite him over for dinner?"
You don't look up from the cutting board. "I think Master should give Mr. Olruggio some time to settle in."
Qifrey blinks once before deciding you're probably right.
"That's true," he concedes. I'll bring him some food later, then."
He does just that a few hours later, after you've helped with the dishes and retreated back to the solitude of your roomāto further practice magic, no doubt. Qifrey ladles a portion of the leftover stew carefully onto a tray, alongside a fork and spoonābecause he knows Olruggio well enough to suspect he's neglected to pack a single item required for actual daily livingāand covers everything with a cloth to keep it warm. The bridge connecting to the side wing is only a short walk, and it isn't long before Qifrey is standing outside, knocking on Olruggio's door.
Olruggio answers looking mildly disastrous, soot smeared across one cheek. "One of my warming devices exploded while I was unpacking earlier," he mutters in explanation before Qifrey can even ask. Olruggio looks exhaustedāhe must be tired from the long travel, the unpackingābut his expression softens ever so slightly when he sees the tray in Qifrey's hands. "You cooked."
"Knew you wouldn't have remembered to eat, otherwise." Qifrey steps inside as Olruggio holds the door wider, setting the tray down on a stoolāthe small table near the window has almost vanished entirely beneath piles of oddly-shaped knick-knacks and loose papers. "Cream stew with roasted yams. My apprentice helped."
Olruggio raises an eyebrow. "They did?"
"Yeah."
"You sure it isn't poisoned?"
Qifrey snorts softly when his friend reaches for the spoon, anyway. He watches Olruggio scoop up a generous helping of stew, thick and creamy and dribbling over the side, only blowing over it once before he shoves it impatiently into his mouth. Olruggio practically moans.
"You shouldn't have become a witch," Olruggio mumbles around the spoon between his teeth. "You should have become a cook in some castle somewhere. You would've been loaded."
"Don't be ridiculous."
The two of them end up sitting on the floor while Olruggio decimates the stew with barely any pause between bites. The bowl's nearly empty by the time Qifrey notices the yam pieces gathered at the bottomāhis neat cubes sitting amidst uneven, slightly misshapen chunks. His line of mouth softens, fond, even before he realises it.
When he looks up again, Qifrey finds Olruggio's eyes on him, over the rim of his spoon. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing, justā" Olruggio huffs softly through his nose, expression gentling in the low light. "You really adore your apprentice, don't you?"
Qifrey's mouth parts. Of course I do, he wants to say. They're my apprentice. Any master would. The words ruminate, strangely defensive on his tongue all of a sudden, but in the end, all that comes out is only a simple, quiet:
"ā¦Yeah."
Olruggio's face cracks into one of those rare smiles. The sight makes Qifrey's chest ache faintly.
"I'm glad."
Qifrey blinks. "Why?"
"I dunno." Olruggio leans back slightly, one hand braced against the floor while the other rolls the spoon, licked clean, between his fingers. "You justā¦ you stopped contacting me for a while, after the Tower of Tomes. I thought it was because you were giving up on searching for your past, soā" He blows out a breath, dark hair on his brow stirring faintly. "So I tried to give you your space, but you never really reached out after. I wasā¦ I guess I was just worried about you, this entire time." He shrugs, cut-sapphire eyes softening to a summer-sky hue. "But seeing you like thisāan atelier of your own, an apprentice who's clearly territorial over you, by the wayāyou're doing far better than I'd hoped. I'm happy for you."
Qifrey's throat closes. He glances down at the tray sitting between them, feels flayed open by Olruggio's gaze, his unbearable kindness. Olruggio is so coarse with his words and yet tenderness spills out of him regardlessāhis actions, his spells, in everything he does and considers.
Qifrey had run from it. After Olruggio had excised his own memories, Qifrey could no longer bear to look his friend in the eyeācould not bear the constant reminder of what Olruggio had chosen to sacrifice in his stead, nor the agonising knowledge of knowing he would never be able to confess. The separation had brought him comfort, for a whileāenough solace for the silverwood buried inside him to begin growing once more, forcing him to take on an apprentice.
But perhaps that brief period of selfish respite had been enough. It has to be. Qifrey cannot run forever, and at the very least, being near Olruggio once again means the silverwood in him will halt its growth once more.
Thank you, I'm sorry, Qifrey doesn't say. Instead, he swallows the words thick in his throat, and smiles.
ā¢ tags: master x apprentice relationship, eventual exmaster!qifrey x brimmedhat!reader, ambiguous age gap, reader's age is undefined, mentions of self-harm (reader), allusions to vague qifrey x olruggio, lowkey codependency, reader has subtle yandere-ish tendencies if you squint, spoilers for manga (please let me know if there are any more tags i should add this is my first time writing content like *gestures*)
"The selfishness behind my reason for taking on pupils made me ill. But they'd never have to know that. So I decided that I would put every fiber of my being towards becoming a good educator. Only now do I realise just how foolish that, too, was."
Qifrey takes on an apprentice to keep the silverwood at bay. It works, until it doesn't.
ā¢ chapters: one | two | three | four
I. THERE BENEATH
drag path (n): a visible, often continuous trail, mark or disturbance left behind on a surface by an object or person being dragged
Qifrey had told himself it was fine.
The memory-erasure spell Olruggio concocted had worked beautifully, despite the circumstances. His friend's eyes had gone blank for only a moment, and in the next, they'd been taken ahold of by a deep sleep. The sort of sleep that was gentle and kind, even as the silverwood's pale branches writhed and recoiled in remonstration. And when Olruggio awoke, the sun was setting over the lake, and there was no evidence of what had transpired; only the familiar tilt of Qifrey's hat, a dark ribbon rippling in the wind, and the frayed ends of his tassel brushing Olruggio's shoulder.
That had been three years ago.
Now, Qifrey stands at the window of an unfamiliar room in a newly built house that will one day be his atelier, somewhere out in the Naakiwan Downs, east-northeast of the Kahln. The land stretches endlessly before himāopen plains rolling into each another until they dissolve into the distant horizon, vast swathes of pale grasses beneath a blue sky that seems to go on forever. It rarely rains out here, on the Zozah Peninsula. An atelier, of his own, under the open sky.
One part of his promise, kept.
But he's not foolish enough to hope that his distance from the Great Hallāfrom Olruggioāwill not give rise to problems of their own. Traveling alone had done nothing but proven that even that minute solace was enough for the silverwood to take root once more. And Qifrey would rather die than let his dearest friend's sacrifices have been made in vain.
He needs to stay on the edge. Unsettled. Uneasy. The moment he stops feeling as though the world is pressing in on him, so will the silverwood.
Beldaruit used to hover. For some reason, Qifrey remembers that with uncomfortable clarity. The sage's pale smoke-grey eyes would track him wherever he moved through the magic workshops of the Great Hallānever overt or intrusive, yet always there. And greater than his control over conjuring magic was his talent for conjuring nonsensical excuses, ones that he would use to check on the condition of Qifrey's health and mind.
You work too hard,Ā Beldaruit would say in that airy, almost absentminded toneāso lighthearted it could almost be mistaken as jest. And Qifrey would roll his eyes, dismiss his concerns, and Beldaruit would worry anyway.
Perhaps that's what he needs. Someone to worry about. Someone whose concerns and matters would keep him tethered to the present, too busy to fall into the quiet where the tree could spread its roots.
An apprentice, then.
He finds you one afternoon as ordinary as any other. It's raining when he reaches the port town of Havsoāa steady patter that turns the cobblestones slick and darkens the wood of every dock and doorway. For all the precision Qifrey has honed over water, getting wet remains an irritation he's never quite outgrown, and the sound of rain prickles at his awareness like a thousand fine needles, impossible to ignore. He hurries through the narrow streets, searching the shopsāfor a new cast iron pot to replace the one that had cracked last week, some twine for binding dried herbs, other small sundriesāwhen he sees you.
The canvas awning you're huddled beneath is doing almost nothing at allānot to protect you from the cold spring rain, or from the sharp, biting winds sweeping in from the coast. Water drips steadily from the hem of your smock, your hair plastered in wet strings to your narrow cheeks. Despite this, you don't move.
Qifrey doesn't mean to stop. But he does.
You look up when his shadow falls over you. He takes the edge of his cloak, the water dispelling spell inked discretely beneath its hem, and sweeps it in a gentle arc above your head. The rain above you curves away. Your eyes widen ever so slightly, your gaze tracing the water trickling off the air as though sliding off an invisible dome, before you look back at him again.
"I don't like getting wet," Qifrey says, in manner of explanation.
You simply stare. For a moment, Qifrey wonders if you speak the common tongue at allāit's not uncommon for sailors from foreign kingdoms to abandon unwanted children in port towns like thisāor if you're simply mute.
"You're soaked," he tries again, more gently this time. "Do you have anywhere to go?"
Silence stretches in the space between each of his heartbeats. The rain patters, fingertips dancing along the boundary he's drawn. Then, you shake your head.
So you do understand him. Qifrey should have guessedāchildren like you are a dime a dozen here, orphans, strays, the overlooked and unclaimed. No one would notice if one or more vanished from the edges of the docks.
Convenient,Ā a colder part of him supplies. You are old enough to comprehend, young enough to be malleable, and compared to an apprentice born into a family of witches, you won't know enough of magicāand by extension, the silverwoodāto ask questions that he doesn't want or know how to explain.
He takes you in.
The first few weeks are easier than he expects. You come to him with no poor habits to unlearnāno stubborn rune-drawing tendencies, no theoretical 'shortcuts' circulated by some of the lazier professors in the Great Hall. Teaching you is like working on a blank sheet of parchment. You simply watch what he does and try to do the same. And when you failāwhich is oftenāyou do not seem to be affected or frustrated. You simply do it again.
The only real issue is that you have never learned to write. Qifrey watches your hand wobble across the parchmentāleaving dark splotches in some places, lines breaking off in others. Your fingers wrap around the ink wand like a stick you've picked off the ground, all knuckles and no finesse.
Qifrey lets out a quiet sigh.
"Your grip is wrong."
You look up at him, uncomprehending. Qifrey sighs again and hesitates, just briefly, before he steps closer and leans down. His hand slides over your fingers, carefully adjusting each one until the wand rests properly between them, the tip hovering just above the parchment.
"Like that."
The moment he releases you, however, your grip tightens again reflexively. The wood of the ink wand creaks faintly in protest. He quickly takes your hand again.
"Gently," he murmurs. "Like holding a robin's egg."
Qifrey guides your hand across the parchment. A straight line. A square. A circle. Your hand relaxes under his, just a little.
"Just like that," he says, and lets go. You look at the ink wand in your hand. "Now, try again."
You practice until the sun goes down.
He teaches you the basics. The three basic components that make up every spell, the five elemental sigils for fire, wind, water, earth and light. The keystones that govern a spell's direction and strength and purpose, how the sizes of the rings can affect its range and potency. Everything he says, you memorise. And everything he teaches you, you practice until you can reproduce it by heart.
After only about a few months of training, Qifrey dares to say that you've reached the standard that most witches your age who've grown up around magic would be at. The rate at which you're learning isā¦ unexpected, to say the least. He should be pleased. Any decent teacher would be.
Qifrey tells himself this as he watches you inscribe a heating spell along the belly of a copper kettle. It's a reasonably complex problem for a beginnerāthe spell must conjure heat but not fire, be stable enough to maintain an even boil, hot enough to warm but not so fierce as to warp or melt the metal. It's a careful balance of precision and power that tends to elude most newcomers to spellcasting.
You hand him the kettle when you finish. Qifrey pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and lifts it up to his good eye, turning it slightly in the flickering light coming from the fireplace. The dispersion keystones are neatly drawn, arranged around the central fire sigil in two concentric circles. The limiting keystones sit where they should, tooābalanced on either side, ready to dampen the spell the moment the heat climbs too high.
"Good," Qifrey says at last. The word feels thinner than it should be. He lingers a moment longer than necessary, as if searching for some flaw to justify a correction, but finds none. "We'll be able to use this to brew tea in the mornings, now."
You nod once at his assessment from where you're watching him by the kitchen table, then ask, "What next?"
There is no flicker of pride. No satisfaction in your work, no pause to take in what you've done. Just a simpleĀ what next,Ā as if each perfected spell is nothing more than a marker on a long road you don't care much to tread on.
The first thin root of worry pushes through the soil of his chest.
Qifrey tries to keep his distance at first. He really does. A master-apprentice relationship only needs to go so deep for one to learn and the other to worry, and too much closeness would be counterproductive in his attempts to keep the silverwood at bay. He buys you all sorts of magical books and supplies you with wands and ink when you need it. He cooks, too, warm and filling meals that nourish the body and are rich in nutrients, until the hollowness in your cheeks softens, replaced by a healthier, rounded plumpness. He corrects your glyphs when he spots mistakes and guides your hand when your lines falter. It barely assauges the guilt in his chest.
You don't make it easier for him. Through no fault of your own, he knows, and yet somehow, that only makes it worse. You don't seek him out for any needs outside of your magic studies, never ask for anything, and eat exactly what he puts in front of you without comment. You wake up at dawn to start the tea kettle, and from there you start practicing magic without ceasing until he has to firmly tell you to go to bed.
There are no tantrums, no complaints, no childish demands for attention or affection. Surely, even children must have their preferences. Trinkets they like, foods they refuse to eat. But you are quiet and serious andĀ wrongĀ in a way that he cannot name, and Qifrey finds himself watching you much the same way Beldaruit had once watched him.
"You don't have to keep doing that," he tells you one evening. You're hunched over the kitchen with a half-empty cup of water, the parchment in front of you crowded with dozens of identical glyphs. The fire sigil that you'd just traced over in water glistens for a moment, then fades as the parchment slowly dries. You must have drawn the same glyph at least a hundred times now.
You don't look up, dipping your wand in water again. "My circles aren't perfectly round yet."
"You don't have to master everything in a single day. You could take a break."
"Why?"
Qifrey doesn't have an answer for that. Or rather, it's perhaps that he has too many.Ā Because you look tired but refuse to admit it. Because your hands will cramp if you keep going. Because watching you work yourself into the ground makes me feel something too similar to what I used to feel for Olruggio, and that scares me.
"It was only a suggestion."
You consider it for a moment, and then turn back to your parchment. Qifrey sighs, pushing aside his robes to lower himself into the chair across from you.
"Do you have any reason for learning magic?"
You rotate your wrist once in the air before setting the wand's nib to parchment. "You asked me to."
"That's my reason, not yours."
"It's the only one I have."
Qifrey watches your hand move across the paper, and something in his chest tightens. This arrangement is supposed to be simpleāselfish, yes, but simple. You are supposed to ask things of him, to need him in small, manageable ways that keep him worried just enough about your progress and studies without causing him too much concern. You have done exactly just that.
And yet here he is, worrying about you constantly for a completely different reason.
He thinks of Beldaruit's gentle gaze, the soft curl of smoke illusions coaxed into being on nights when sleep proved treacherous, when the memories of darkness and rain pounding unceasingly against metal and claustrophobia set in. He remembers Olruggio's warm smile and even warmer eyes, the ribbon on his hat that Qifrey still touches sometimes in the dark, tracing the multiple preservation sigils he's inked onto the silk.
His reminder to never forget, to never grow complacent.
"Take a break," he says again, and this time, there's something in his voice that makes you stop.
You look at him for a long moment, head tilting slightly to the side. It reminds Qifrey vaguely of a sparrow. Finally, you speak.
"You're worried," you say, as though you're making an observation. Qifrey forces a smile.
"I'm your master. It's what I'm supposed to do."
You glance down at your parchment once more. For a moment he thinks you might refuse, ignore his words and go right back to practicing, but then you set your wand down next to the paper and push your chair back, legs scraping along the slate flagstones.
"I'll continue tomorrow," you announce, without looking at him.
"Good," he says in response, and the two of you sit in silence at the kitchen table, undisturbed except for the crackling of the fireplace, and Qifrey has to remember how to breathe without counting the spaces between each one.
Hearthglen Village is about a few furlongs from the atelier, more often than not in need of small, persistent fixes, and thusly, the ideal place for you to practice using magic after passing the Pentacle of Proving's second test. Qifrey walks beside you through the small handful of thatched cottages scattered through the patchwork quilt of farmfields, returning the villagers' greetings with easy familiarity. It's always good to maintain good relations with the unknowing, especially those living nearby.
Eventually, the two of you arrive in front of the client who'd requested Qifrey's services. The problem is simple: a farmer's irrigation ditch has gone haywire somehow, and now his turnips are drowning in mud. Qifrey could fix it alone in ten minutes, but that isn't the point. He nods towards the field, giving you an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
"Go on."
You hesitate only for a moment before you go, hovering tentatively over the knee deep muck with your sylph shoes as you float out to the irrigation ditch. Your expression is reminiscent of a wet cat'sāvaguely displeased, faintly affronted, as though the world has committed a personal offense by being this unpleasant. Qifrey has to hold back a smile.
In the meantime, Qifrey chats with the farmer as you workāsomething about the summer heat this year, the stubbornness of the soilābut he makes sure to never let you slip from his sights. You're already at the ditch, hat bobbing as you hover over the mud. He can almost picture your hand beneath the shelter of your cloak: fingers wrapped around the wand, drawing those precise lines that you'd practiced over and over again with unswerving confidence.
He's listening to a rundown of this year's cabbage harvest when a faint rumble echoes across the field. The earth shifts, groaning as though rousing from a long slumber, and then the water starts to move. Mud loosens and starts to drain from the fields, revealing the green leaves of the turnips peeking out through the soil once more. It's quickly replaced by a steady stream of clear water.
The farmer's face brightens with relief. He claps his hands together with a delighted laugh, already turning to call out his thanks as you drift back over to the solid ground of the path, the hem of your cloak splattered with drying mud. You don't smile back; instead you wipe the faint sheen of sweat from your brow and look to Qifrey for approval.
He pushes his glasses up and nods once. "Well done."
You accept his verdict the same way you accept everything elseāquietly, without visible pride or disappointment. The farmer tries to press a basket overflowing with all variety of squash into your hands and your eyes find Qifrey's like you aren't sure what to do with gratitude. He takes it for you.
"They're a natural," the farmer nudges Qifrey as he moves to leave. "Where'd you find a talent like that?" Despite the surge of pride that races through him, he hesitates.
"They found me," Qifrey says, instead.
More villagers request your help over the course of the afternoon. A family's goat wandered into a small ravine, a child's kite got stuck in a tree. You lift the frantically bleating animal to safety with a levitating spell, and coax the wind into tugging the kite loose from an elm's tangled branches while the village children gather to watch you work with eyes full of wonder. The girl bounces on her heels as the toy finally drifts down into your waiting hand, and you hand it over without a smile.
She hugs your legs anyway. You stand there awkwardly, arms glued to your sides, and Qifrey has to look away before he laughs.
Hours later, after the last request has been fulfilled and the sun is low enough to turn the clouds a warm ombre-ochre, you and Qifrey decide to walk home, the path stretching before you like a pale ribbon through the fields. You walk next to him in silence, as you always do, fingers stained with smudges of black ink and clay soil.
"You did well today," he says.
"Thank you."
"But."
You glance at him then. Just a slight flicker of the eyes, darting sideways and upwards. You've learned, by now, that your master is far from straightforward around topics that are necessary but difficult to broach.
"But?"
"But magic doesn't seem to make you happy," he finishes.
You neither deny nor confirm it. Your steps just slow slightly against the gravel scattered on the path, stones crunching beneath the soles of your boots. For a while, there is only the sound of the wind moving through the wheat fields.
Eventually, you speak.
"Does it have to?"
Qifrey thinks about that. About the way you've perfected every spell he's taught you but never once asked to learn any out of your own desire. About how you can spend hours,Ā days,Ā drawing circles and lines over and over again simply because he tells you to. About how quickly you've becomeĀ goodĀ at magicāand how little of it seems to belong to you.
"It doesn'tĀ haveĀ to," Qifrey says, at last. He's cast all sorts of magic in his life, spells that have burned and hollowed, ones that have scarred and pained him beyond what any physical wound can. Not all of it was joy. Not all of it was kind.
Yet.
"But you should find a reason. To desire magic, I mean."
You glance at him, eyes briefly searching, as though weighing the shape of his words, their meaning. He licks his lips, suddenly dry.
"Magic is meant to grant wishes of the people," he says, more gently now. "To bless them. That includes yourself." His lips press together, smile half-formed before faltering, and the wind moves through the fields, rustling restlessly through the long grass. "IāI hope you can learn magic not because I tell you to, but because youĀ wantĀ to."
The last sentence escapes him in a rush, as though forced from his lungs with some sort of wind dispelling spell. The thought settles heavy in his chest again, the silverwood shuddering. For all his careāfor all the effort he's poured into teaching you properly, responsiblyāone truth remains unchanged: Qifrey had taken you in because he needed an apprentice. Not out of kindness. Not out of any noble intent he can comfortably name.
He doesn't know what he would say if you ever asked him why. Any lie would feel too great a disservice to the one person he'd thrust this fate upon, and the truth feels brittle, insufficientāsomething that would fracture the moment he speaks it aloud.
But you never have. Sometimes, he suspects that you already know.
The remainder of the walk back passes in silence. The sky fades from sienna to lavender before deepening to a dark indigo. One by one, the first stars emerge at the very top of the firmament, their light faint and trembling. You say nothing, and Qifrey tells himself to give you timeāyou need space to process things, and pressuring you would only make you retreat further into yourself, like a snail hiding in its own shell.
The atelier comes into view at the end of the lane, its windows dark. Qifrey steps ahead, undoing the sealing glyphs on the door. It swings open with a soft creak, and he pauses, holding it ajar for you to step through.
You don't.
He turns back to see you standing a step behind the threshold, gaze lowered to the path at your feet, as though something he cannot see there has snared your attention and taken it captive. Qifrey frowns, head tilting.
"Apprentice?"
You don't answer immediately, hands in your pockets, the tip of your boot scuffing the ground. Then, quietlyā
"I want to cure Master."
For a moment, Qifrey forgets how to breathe. He can only stare at you, mouth slightly parted. The words fail to catch despite him having nothing to say. Your voice had been small, carefulālike you'd been turning the words over in your mouth for miles, smoothing their edges so they wouldn't cut your tongue on the way out. Of all the things he'd imagined you might say, this had never even been within his considerations.
He grips the door handle a little more firmly for support. The brass carvings bite its patterns into his skin of his palm.
"Cure me," he repeats, dumbly.
"Yes." You nod, the movement slow, as if hesitant in your admission. "The headaches that you try to hide from me. And your right eye, too," you add, pointing at the side of his face covered by his hair, as if he might not know the one. "You touch it when you think I'm not watching, but it seems like it hurts."
Qifrey didn't realise you'd noticed. He thought he'd been careful.
"I thought I asked you," he says, more quietly, more unsteadily now, "to want something for yourself."
"I don't like seeing Master in pain."
Qifreyās grip on the door falters. Something tightens in his chestāperhaps the silverwood, perhaps something else, so sharp it cuts him open like a blade, and yet he doesn't know whether he wants to let go. For so long, he's been waitingāfor you to want something, to reach beyond instruction, to claim even the smallest piece of magic for your own.
And you have.
Qifrey exhales slowly, the sound thin against the quiet of the evening. For once, there is no ready answer waiting behind his teeth. He thinks of Olruggio's face, the path to salvation he'd offered Qifrey paved with the pieces of his own memory. He thinks of the tree growing inside of him, its roots tangled in his ribs, its branches seeking the sun through where his eye once used to be.
Healing magic is a direct alteration of the body, and every form of body alteration is forbiddenābanned on the Day of the Pact, enforced by the Knights Moralis with iron and fire. And even if it wasn't, the silverwood is not merely an illness. There is no cure for what grows inside of him.
But you don't know any of that.
So Qifrey smiles softly. Releases his death grip on the door, pulling away to rest a hand on top of your head, the same way Beldaruit used to do for him.
"That's very kind of you," he says.
Your expression doesn't change, but the tautness in your shoulders loosens just a fraction, as if you'd been bracing for him to laugh at you, to dismiss your dream as a fool's flight and fancy. Instead, he pushes the door open wider and gestures you inside.
"Come on," Qifrey tells you, swallowing the sudden thickness lodged in his throat. "Wash up. I'll make squash stew for dinner."
You nod and disappear up the steps to the second floor. Your footsteps fade quickly, and soon Qifrey's ears pick up the sound of running water, of the bath being filled.
He remains in the doorway a moment longer, one hand braced against the frame, the other liftingāalmost unconsciouslyāto brush over where his right eye used to be, featherlight. The motion is familiar, thoughtless. Almost habitual.
But he's been exposed, now. A deprecating laugh escapes him, the wisps of it slipping between his teeth. It's only now, Qifrey thinks, that he's beginning to realise just how foolish he'd been.
He's fallen into the pit that he'd dug with his own two hands.
Sleep eludes Qifrey that night.
He lies on his back, one arm thrown over his forehead, the other resting on his chest. Beneath skin and bone, the cage of his ribs, the silverwood pulses its slow, patient rhythm, waiting. The ceiling above him is indistinguishable in the dark, but he's stared at it so many sleepless nights that he can recall to memory the grain of every plank, the small water stain in the corner that faintly resembles a bird in flight.
Just above him, in the room upstairs, you are sleeping soundlyāor he hopes so, at least. Belly full of squash stew, dreaming of pleasant things. That you are warm and resting, and that, for once, you are not pushing yourself past the point of sense simply because he asked it of you.
I want to cure Master.
Qifrey turns onto his side, facing the wall. His pillowcase smells faintly of lavenderāscented sachets you'd made last week, making use of some aromatics a village herbalist had given you for your help. He'd accepted one when you'd offered it, almost without thinking, assuming that it was thoughtful but practical gesture.
Now, the scent lingers like smoke.
Beldaruit used to say that the best apprentices were the ones who could surprise you. Qifrey always assumed he meant talent, insight, some brilliant intuition that no one else could replicate. Someone who could make teachers lean forward in their seats and think,Ā that's the one.
But here, lying in his bed, your words from hours ago still sitting warm in his chest, he wonders if the old man had meant something else entirely.
Qifrey pushes out a breath, the tip of his tongue pressing behind his teeth. You will learn about the forbidden magic, eventually. Every witch doesāand as your master, it will be his responsibility to teach you about it.Ā Some things are too dangerous. Some lines cannot be crossed. All magic that is drawn on the human body or affects the human body is outlawed.
And that includes healing magic.
You will learn that, and then you will not ask too many questions about why his eye cannot be fixed. Eventually, you will move on and find another, better wish.
But for now, Qifrey takes your words and folds them carefully, tucking them away into the furthest corner of his heart where the silverwood cannot reach. He closes his one good eye and waits for the sun to rise once again. And when it does, Qifrey will greet you in the kitchen downstairs with a cup of hot tea and a smile, he will teach you combination sigils and binding spells, and he will never bring it up again.
Because some wishes are too heavy to be said aloud, and some teachers are too selfish to let them go.
Summer slips unnoticed into autumn, and autumn, in turn, yields to winter. Qifrey teaches you to crochet, then to knitāawkward at first, fingers too stiff around the slumbersheep yarn until Qifrey takes your hands and guides you through the movements, much in the same way he does when teaching you spells. He shows you how to tend to the heating spells that keep the house warm without burning it down, how to summon precise gusts of wind to blow snow off the atelier's sloping roofs. And the months pass just as the weather changesāgradual, inevitable, marked only in hindsight by the shift in the air, the thinning of light.
And as you grow older, Qifrey finds the distance he once tried so carefully to maintain eroded by the same unrelenting tide. Bit by bit, day by dayāuntil one morning he wakes up and realises he cannot quite remember what it feels like to not have you there.
It's not something that changes overnight. Instead, it is a thousand small, mundane thingsāthe way his hand moves without thinking to drop two cubes of sugar into your teacup, the copper kettle with your heating spell whistling behind him on the stove. You're at the basin with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, washing a skillet faintly smelling of bacon while a brushbuddy dozes on your shoulder. Everything is good, and everything is warm.
This is dangerous,Ā Qifrey thinks. And then he thinks it again, because the first time hadn't been enough to make him stop.
The morning he's forced to confront it comes without warning. Quietly, unassumingly, a thief in the night.
Qifrey notices that something is different the moment he steps into the quiet of the kitchen. The kettle is cold, and the matching cups that a travelling potter had made for you sit upturned on the counter, untouched from where you'd set them aside to dry last night. He stands in the doorway for a moment, listening. The atelier breathes around him like an extension of his own bodyāthe soft creak of timber settling, the low whisper of wind along the eavesābut beneath it, nothing. No quiet patter of footsteps in the floor upstairs. No water running in the washroom.
Perhaps you're sleeping in,Ā he tells himself. The idea is almost pleasant. You never do; you're always awake before him, tea already steeped, moving around the kitchen to prepare breakfastāpresence slipped so easily into his morning routine that he'd stopped noticing it altogether.
Qifrey sets the kettle to heat, before rummaging for the battered tin of tea leaves in the overhead shelf. He prepares a cup for you, placing it at the chair that has become yours in all but name, and sits across it with his own. The brew's a little more astringent than he's used toāsteeped a touch too long, perhapsābut he drinks it anyway, idly sorting through the neglected stack of mail from the council.
The sun climbs higher in the sky. Light spills through the kitchen window, between the gap in the curtains, inching slowly across the table to catch on the rim of your untouched cup. Qifrey looks through the latest spell you've been working on: an attempt at replicating his Palm Dragon Teacup. He makes small suggestions in the margins, noting down more efficient arrangements and combinations of keystones, ideas for refining its precision. Still, it's good work. Your work is always good.
More time passes. He finally completes drafting a letter to the Great Hallāsomething about independent ateliers and watchful eyesāand sends it off before picking up a book about complex fire spells. Qifrey thumbs through the pages slowly, more out of idleness than focus, pausing every now and then when something catches his eye. A variation making use of the stabilising keystone. A more efficient heat-dispersal glyph. He dog-ears about six different pages with the intention of showing them to you later, when he looks up and realises that your tea has long gone cold.
Qifrey closes his book, sets it aside, and heads for the stairs.
Your bedroom door is closed.
That isn't surprising to Qifrey. You've always been a private person by nature, and you're even moreso protective of your few possessions, your personal space. Qifrey learned early on not to intrude without invitation or cause.
But your diversion from routine isā¦ odd. Surely you will forgive his worry.
Qifrey hesitates, knuckles hovering over the wood of your door, before he knocks. "Apprentice?"
No answer.
He knocks again, a little sharper this time. "It's past noon. If you want to sleep in, just let me know, alright? You deserve the rest."
Still no answer.
The thin thread of unease tightens around his chest.
"I'm coming in."
The door swings open easily beneath his hand. The room that he steps into is familiar and empty. Your blankets are carefully folded at the foot of the bed, your traveling cloak absent from its hook by the window. And your sylph shoes, the ones that he'd helped you mend just last week, are missing from their place next to the dresser.
Qifrey stands in the center of the room, the air suddenly going very,Ā veryĀ still. The silverwood in his chest trembles.
Calm down,Ā he tells himself firmly. Your bed is madeāyour absence must be deliberate. There must be some sort of explanation. Perhaps you wanted a taste of mischief, to act your age for once. Perhaps you snuck out to one of the nearby villagers, Hearthglen or Azmar, to meet people, make friends. Be normal. You mentioned the daughter of Azmar's baker last week. He recalls a girl your age with flour on her apron who'd been fascinated with your magic. Perhaps you've gone to pay her a visit.
He turns slowly, forcing his gaze to move along with him. Your ink wands are in a little cup on your table, textbooks sitting in rows on the shelf where they belong. Encyclopedias, histories, grimoires he'd deemed safe for for your learning. Nothing out of place. He's about to leave the room, fetch a guidance orb just to make sure that you're alright, whenā
Something small and furtive shifts between a gap in the books. The brushbuddy's tail twitches into view before it darts back into the narrow space behind, as though caught somewhere it shouldn't be.
Qifrey frowns.
He reaches up and pulls the entire front row of volumes aside, setting them down on the table with a heavyĀ thump.Ā Dust stirs in the air. Behind them sits another, shorter stack of books, tucked neatly out of sight. Aside from him, there isn't another occupant in this atelier for you to hide things from. Which means you meant to conceal this deliberately. From him.
Why?
Qifrey ignores the cold uncertainty in his chest, picking up the first book.Ā Medical journal.Ā Second.Ā Herbal remedies of the Southern Continent.Ā Third, an encyclopedia on human anatomy, although only the section on ophthalmology is bookmarked, annotated so densely that barely any margin is left untouched. The rest of the books are of a similar vein.
Only the last one is differentāa notebook, worn pages filled with a cramped but script that he would recognise anywhere. The rest are filled with sketchesāplants that even he doesn't recognise at first glance, roots and leaves and bulbs rendered with careful attention to detail.Ā Analgesic properties. Toxic in high doses. Antispasmodic. Causes hallucinations.
He flips through more rapidly, pulse quickening, but the later pages only get worse.
Burn, left forearm. Applied tincture from ground monoceros horn and milkwort. Moderate pain reduction, mild nausea. Bruise, right knee. Poultice from steeped elderwood and nightpoppy. Significant pain relief, but results in complete loss of sensation and movement in area. Lasts three hours. Burnā
Qifrey's vision blurs. His other hand grips the edge of your chair, knuckles white, breath coming out sharp and shallow as he forces himself to breathe. You've been hurting yourself. On purpose. Testing remedies forā¦ forā
He doesn't dare to let that thought complete itself. He turns the pages quickly, skimming past entries until he reaches the last one. The ink is smudged where the parchment presses together, as if you'd jotted it down and closed it in a hurry. It's still faintly wet.
There is a rough sketch of silvery stems and thin, needle-like leaves.Ā Spineneedles,Ā you've labelled them. Your notes crowd the margins:Ā potent pain-relieving properties. Possible long-term restorative effects. Grows only in steep valleys inhabited by winged serpentines, venom necessary for germination.Ā And below itā
Kestrel's Maw, eight furlongs north of atelier. Serpentines least active at dusk and dawn.
Qifrey feels his blood turn to ice in his veins. Outside the window, the sun hangs high in the cold winter sky, almost at its zenithālong past dawn, past any reasonable margin of safety. It's far too late. You should have been backĀ hoursĀ ago. No,Ā worseāyou should have never gone at all, risking your life for such foolish, pointless endeavours. You should have been in this very room, sleeping soundly beneath the blankets, unharmed and safe and under Qifrey's protective eye. Insteadā
He'd flown over Kestrel's Maw once, years ago. He still remembers the way the cliffs drop away into nothing, wind screaming through the narrow ravines, strong enough to throw even an experienced witch off balance. And the serpentines there are especially aggressiveāgreat, winged creatures with beaks like drawn swordsānesting in the crevices where the spineneedles grow.
And that's where you've gone.
I'm responsible for this,Ā Qifrey thinks numbly, and the words are a realisation as much as an accusation aimed at himself.Ā I did this. I made you this way. I wanted someone to worry about, and nowā
The image comes to him, unbidden: your body, broken at the base of the ravine. Impaled by sharp spikes at the bottom, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Cloak ripped and dark with blood, flesh torn from your bones by monstrous beaks. And your faceāthat quiet, serious, earnest faceāpale, chest still, eyes open yet blank and vacant and unseeing andā
No.
No.
Qifrey runs. He doesn't think. He doesn't allow himself to. The door is too farāhe shoves your shutters open and throws himself out of the second floor window, into the harsh midday sunlight. For a second, wind rushes up to meet him, flailing,Ā fallingābefore the sylph seal beneath his feet flares. And then he's airborne, rising too fast butĀ not fast enough, the wind tearing at his hair, the fragile control he's forcing himself to hold together.
Please, not them,Ā is all he can think as he hurtles through the sky.Ā Not my apprentice. Not them. I'll do anything. Please, please, pleaseā
He doesn't know who he's begging, only that he'll beg anything, bargainĀ everythingāif it means that you're still alive when he arrives.
Even from a distance, the ravine makes for an unnerving sight. The karst pinnacles spear upwards as though they seek to pierce the sky, like the vicious teeth of some enormous, long-dead beast. Qifrey had forgotten how sharp they were, every edge honed to something hostile. Even the light falls strangely, splintered by stone so that shadows fall where they shouldn't, fractured into shifting planes that make depth and distance difficult to judge.
He clears the plains beneath him with unmatched speed, wind tearing past himā
āand then, he sees you.
You're clinging to a narrow outcropping perhaps fifty feet below the cliff's edge, body pressed close to the rock wall as though trying to become one with it yourself. Your sylph shoes are missing from one foot, and there's a long rend in your cloak. You aren't movingāonly holding on, just barelyāfeet perilously close to the edge of a fatal, yawning drop below.
Above you, three winged serpentines circle patiently in the air. Their beaks hang slightly open, tongues flickering you as if tasting the airāyour blood, your fear, the inevitability of what's next. The only mercy here is that they're not attacking. They are waiting, drawing it out. The same way a cat toys with a mouse it already knows cannot escape.
Qifrey doesn't stop or slow. He dives.
The wind screams past his ears, rising to a fever pitch as he plummets. His palm quire slips into his hand by instinct alone, wand flying over the paper in sharp, practiced strokes before he can even spare a thought as to who might be watching.
The spell takes shape in a single breath. Water wrenches itself from the air, the thin moisture caught in wind and stone, surging upwards into a coiling mass until it takes shapeāa great, fluid dragon, its body twisting through the open air with a roar that echoes throughout the entire length of the gorge.
Two serpentines are caught in its jaws almost immediately, their cries cut short amidst the sound of snapping wing and bone. The third shrieks, veering sharply away before wheeling back, beak gaping in furyābut Qifrey is already moving, one arm wrapping around your waist and tearing you off the cliff face, hauling you bodily into the open air. You make a quiet sound in the back of your throatāthe closest toĀ afraidĀ he's ever heard youāfingers gripping at the front of his shirt.
"Masterā"
"Don't call me that right now."
The serpentines shriek behind him, rallying. Qifrey presses the sylph seal on his boots together, the weight of you unwieldy and palpable in his arms, and flies home.
You don't speak on the way back. Neither does he.
The atelier rises into view at the edge of the fields, its familiar shape cutting through the blur of wind and motion. He lands harder than he intends, knees buckling for a second before he forces himself forwardāhalf-carrying, half-dragging you through the front door. Your cup remains where he left it, untouched on the kitchen table, and he sets you down onto the chairāthe same one he'd been sitting in just an hour prior, drinking tea and so, so obliviousāmore roughly than he intends.
You don't complain. You never do. The same way you never protest, never ask, never tell himĀ anythingā
Qifrey turns away. His hands are shaking. He wrenches open the drawers, rifling through them with none of his usual care, yanking out bandages, salves, clean gauzes. Something clenches in his chest like a fist, squeezing, tight,Ā so tight.
"What were you thinking?" he snaps. He almost doesn't recognise his own voiceālow and taut and cutting. "Going to such a dangerous placeāaloneāwithout telling anyoneāwithoutĀ askingā"
He finds the antiseptic, shoved into the back of a drawer. His fingers slip on the stopper, trembling faintly.
"You could have died. Do you understand that? You could haveĀ died.Ā Those creaturesāthey could haveā"Ā Sent you plummeting down the cliff. Eaten you. Torn you to pieces.Ā He can't bring himself to finish the sentence. The images they conjure are too much to bear.
He whirls around again, still not quite looking at your face, and takes your left arm. The cuts are worse up closeālong, ragged scratches that split skin, dried blood flaking at the edges. Your palms and fingers are raw and abraded from where you must have clung to the sharp rock.
Qifrey dabs at them with more force than necessary. You flinch just once, before going still again.
"Rash. Reckless.Ā Stupid." The words spill out of him like water from a broken dam. They're sharp enough to wound, meant to hurt, and he knows this even as he says them but cannot bring himself to stop. "I didn't teach you that. I taught you to think, toĀ assess,Ā not throw yourself off cliffs forāfor worthlessĀ plantsā"
"Masterā"
"I saidĀ don't." Hearing that title alone makes him want to scream. "Don't call me that now. You don't have any right to when youā"
"It's Master's fault."
The words land like a slap. Qifrey turns to look at youāone hand frozen over a roll of bandages, the echo of them stingingāonly to find your mouth drawn taut in a stubborn line. And your eyes, those quiet, watchful eyes that have always followed him so carefully, are hard with something he's never seen in them before. Not guilt. Not shame. Something closer toĀ accusation.
As thoughĀ heĀ is the one who has wrongedĀ you.
"Oh, it's my fault," he repeats, his voice rising sharply on its own, an unpleasant mixture of anger and incredulity. "I didn't tell you to sneak out without telling me. I didn't tell you to seek out winged beasts you have no experience fighting. I didn't tell you toā"
"Yes, because Master never tells me anythingā"
"For good reason!" He throws his hands up, the dishclothāstained with your bloodātwisting taut between his white knuckled fingers. Qifrey wants to shake you. Maybe tear his hair out. Another part of himāa smaller, quieter partāwants to lock you in this atelier and throw away the key forever, just to make sure that you are safe. "There are things I don't tell you because they are dangerous, things that I am tryingāI have been tryingāto protect you fromā"
"I don't need to be protected like a childā"
"Then stop acting like one!" Qifrey is shouting now. He knows that he is shouting. He can't stop. "Sneaking around behind my back, hiding books in your room, burning and cutting yourself, putting yourself in mortal danger for a cure that doesn't exist!"
Your obstinate expression only darkens further. "Master can't know for certainā"
"I do!" His hands come down hard on the tabletop, and you flinch. Your teacup jumps, porcelain clattering as it tips. Cold tea spills across the gingham patterns. "I know becauseā"Ā Because he's already been to the Tower of Memories, and he knows that what ails him is no illness or curse.Ā "ābecause I've already read every book, tried every remedyāI know that there is no cure! There is no cure, and there will never be, soĀ stopĀ trying to throw your life away for something soā"
"I won't!"
Something in Qifrey snaps.
"If you're so unwilling to listen to me," he says, his voice suddenly cold and flat, in a way that doesn't belong to him, "then maybe you should no longer be my apprentice."
The moment those words leave his mouth, Qifrey knows at once that he would do anything to take them backātear them out of the air, swallow them whole even if they cut his throat to ribbonsābut the damage is already done.
You go very still. The anger doesn't leave you, not entirely, but something beneath it fracturesāhairline cracks spiderwebbing across thin river ice. Your mouth works soundlessly, shaping around words that don't make it out, before pressing into a thin, bloodless line.
When he dares a glance up again, your lashes are wet. You're not cryingāyou never have, not in front of him, at leastābut your eyes are bright, too bright now, in a way that feels dangerously close. Your lower lip wobbles only once before you sink your teeth into it and force it still.
Qifrey hates water. The sound of rain makes his chest tight, and the feeling of being wet makes his skin crawl. He hates the way it blurs the fading remnants of his vision, the way it soaks through his clothes and leeches the heat from his bones, the way it reminds him of things he's forgotten and things he wishes he could forget.
But thisāthisāis worse.
Qifrey's hands falter, then drop back to his sides. Why had they even been raised in the first place? The kitchen is too quiet now, empty except for the phantom ghosts of your anger and his, the steady drip of tea from the table's edge, forming a puddle on the flagstones beneath. He feels exhausted all of a suddenāwrung dry and scraped hollow.
It's only then that he notices the bag. Your handāthe other one, still dirty and bleedingāis curled around a small pouch of cloth, pressed so tightly against your chest that your knuckles have gone white. Even after everything, you are still clinging to it. Still trying, desperately, to keep it safe.
"Give me the bag," he says.
Your eyes jump to Qifrey's face. You glance down at the bag, as though just only remembering thtat it's there, before your fingers tighten around it again, spine curving over it protectively. Hesitation flickers across your expression for a brief second, before you give a small, stubborn shake of the head.
No.
Qifrey sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, patience fraying, before he reins himself in forcefully. He's done more than enough damage, today. "I won'tāI'm not going to do anything to it," he says, trying to sound reassuring, more gentle. He doesn't know if he succeeds. "Justāplease. Give me the bag."
You stare at him for a moment longer, as though wordlessly weighing whether you can trust his words. Then, slowly, reluctantlyāyou loosen your death grip on the pouch and hold it out.
It's surprisingly light in his hand, once he takes it. Almost as though it holds nothing inside at all. His fingers, still faintly numb and tacky with your blood, fumble with the drawstrings as he pulls them loose. He looks inside.
A handful of silver leaves lie scattered across the bottom of the pouch. Thin and gleaming, each one shaped like a sewing needle. Spineneedles. Carefully gathered, but so few of themābarely enough to brew a single thumb-sized vial of tincture.
Yet the mere sight of them is enough to strip all the anger from him in an instant. Qifrey stares down into the pouch, the thin scatter of silver leaves there glinting faintly like stars in the night sky, and feels something inside him give way.
He isn't angry with you. He's never been angry with you. The one whom Qifrey is so unbearably angry with, so deeply ashamed ofāis himself. Because the only reason you did any of thisāpushed yourself to such lengths, put yourself in harm's wayāis because he let you believe he could be cured. He'd smiled and selfishly kept the words you'd uttered that day close to his heart, like a precious treasure, and in doing so, he'd unwittingly sent you hurtling straight into danger's embrace.
A slow, quiet breath escapes him. Qifrey slowly lets himself sink to his knees in front of your chair, suddenly weary in a way that he cannot quite name.
You shift at the movement, glancing down at him with something uncertain in your expression, unsure of his moods.
"ā¦Master?"
He sets the pouch on the table and carefully takes your hands in his. You try to tug them back to your chest on instinct but he holds on to your wrists, gentle but insistent. Qifrey turns them over, palms out, your fingers curling slightly, and looks at the small, round marks he's never looked close enough to notice before. Burn scars. Old and new, layered together, a wordless record of every time you had pressed pain into your own body in search of something that might help him.
His throat closes around the words he doesn't have.
"Thank you," is all he can say, in the end. Even then, it feels inadequate. "For trying to cure me. For going to such lengths to ease my pain." Qifrey pauses, his thumb brushing over a half-healed scab on your knuckle. "But itā¦ it won't work."
You look at him, then. The defiance has receded from your eyes, leaving behind a thin, wavering uncertainty in its place. "How can Master be so sure it will not work?"
Because I've already tried everything. Because I read about it in the Tower, and I know the truth. Because the problem isn't my eye or the headachesāit is the tree growing inside of me, the parasite that will kill me if I stop worrying, if I stop hurting, if I let myself be happy for even a moment.
But Qifrey cannot say that. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. His fingers drift down unconsciously to brush the ribbon trailing from the top of his hat.
"Because, like I said, I've tried every remedy in existence." He shakes his head with a defeated smile, squeezing your hands. "Nothing works. And it only hurts me moreāmore than my eye or any headacheāto see my beloved apprentice put themself in danger for my sake."
You go still, fingers curling loosely under his own.
"I should be the one protecting you," he continues. "Not the other way around. Thatāthat's the whole point of having an apprentice." Qifrey almost laughs at that, the line of his mouth twisting into the shape of a half-formed, self-deprecating smile. Oh, he was so, so foolish. "I'm supposed to keep you safe. And yet, here you are, throwing yourself into danger for me."
His gaze drops back to your hands, the small scars scattered across your skin.
"I'm content," Qifrey says quietly. "With what I have now. The atelier. You." And as the words leave him, he realises that they are not merely for your sakeāthey are true, plain and simple. "The pain is small in comparison."
You don't speak for a moment. The afternoon light has shifted, turning golden and syrupy, pooling on the floor between you like liquid honey. Qifrey can hear the sound of his own heartbeat in the silence, a slow, steady march in his ears.
"But I don't like to see Master in pain."
Your voice is small, but matter-of-fact. You say it in the same way you might state an obvious truth, such as fire is hot and water is clear and the sun rises in the east. As if it's simply a fact of the universe that you dislike seeing him in paināand therefore, you must do something about it.
Qifrey's heart clenches, a sharp and sudden thing. Before he can think better of it he's already leaning forward to gather you into his arms. It's the first time he's ever hugged you, he realises distantly. He's held you when you were learning to use sylph shoes for the first time, guided your hand and wand through careful strokes, rested a light hand on your head once or twiceābut never anything like this. Never returned even a fraction of the quiet comfort you've given him simply by being there. Some master he's been.
You go stiff for a moment against his chest, caught off guard by the suddenness of the gesture. A few breaths pass before your shoulders loosen, ever so slightly, and then your forehead dips, coming to rest slowly against the line of his collarbone. And your hands, one half-bandaged and the other still dirty with smeared blood and dirt, come up to grip tentatively at the back of his shirt.
When had you become so precious to him?
He closes his one good eye and presses his face into the top of your head, ignoring the way his glasses push up on the bridge of his nose. Your hair smells faintly of lemon verbena and soap. "Don't do something so dangerous again, alright?" His voice comes out muffled, even to his own ears. "Promise me."
There's a long pause. Then: "I don't want to give up, Master."
Qifrey sighs, something between an amused sigh and weary acceptance. Clearly, it'd been wishful thinking at best to hope otherwise, and the fault for it lies squarely with him. He draws back just enough to look at you. Your fingers tighten in his shirt.
"If you have any ideas," he says at last, the words coming together with reluctant resignation, "tell me first. Before you do anything. We'll experiment togetherāhere, in the atelier, where it's safe." His eye narrows slightly, a faint edge of sternness threading through the softness. "I won't stop you from trying. But I'm not going to lose you to a cliff face or anything else, and there will be no forbidden magic. Do you understand?"
You hold his gaze. For a moment your expression is unreadableāeyes too much like mirrors, reflecting too much of him back at himself, too clearly, too honestly. Then, slowly, you nod.
"Okay."
"Good." The word leaves him more easily than expected, as though some heavy weight has finally been lifted from his shoulders. Qifrey pulls you in again, a brief but quieter second embrace, before he lets you go and leans back. Even with the space between you now, the residual warmth of you lingers, settling into the hollow places between his ribs like sunlight.
"I'll make dinner tonight," he announces, getting to his feet. "You should get some rest. But firstālet me finish treating your arms."
"Okay."
You hold your arms out obediently. He takes them, careful as though he's handling some priceless, irreplaceable magical artifact, tutting softly under his breath at the state of you. The cuts, the burns, the bruisingāhe tends to each with attentive hands, and insists on drawing you a bath of milk and herbs as he works, all while you squirm and offer half-hearted rejections in protest.
Somewhere in his chest, the silverwood stirs.
a/n: i cannot believe that some of my best writing this year might have been for yet another white haired man voiced by joshua waters in en who is also competing in the depression olympics. the only difference is that qifrey is a twink and i only found out about him three days ago before proceeding to bash out ten thousand words for him despite not really blorbo-ing him. am i denial or do i need the asylum š n e ways i hope you enjoy! please don't crucify me for the age gap or the eventual problematic student teacher relationship </3
6. What is your favourite gender? not your gender. your favourite.
7. What is your least favourite colour?
@incognitostunner @woman-offical @stagefrightbaxter @callofwinter @holymolyitssam @tagging-officals-offical @archangel-gabriel-offical @eric-cartman-offical and open tags. ok? answer my questions. DO IT.
2. Crashed at 21:30, but i woke up multiple times during the night
3. 4:10 am and i started doing homework
4. NO
5. ofc i do i have one big teddy, then one small teddy, then my first plushie ever which should be a dragon but looks more like a donkey so we called it "ciucciodrago" (ciuccio is dialect for asino which is donkey) then an autism creature i made, two kitties i made, harethur Lester which i also made and then a hermit crab my mother gifted to me
I DON'T KNOW maybe like... 12:45-1:00... I was tired
ooughh like. 9:00 (eight full hours of sleep !!!!! this is so rare for me)
YES ::(
YEAH I have three on my bed rn š„° duck (matching with my best friend), corgi Thing (qlsooo from her) and this freaky long cat thing from my other friend, her name is Debby
dunnoo if they have specific names for specific sets of neopronouns but ? neopromouns usersss ooo... I rememeber seeing big long comprehensive lists of neopronouns and thinking they were so epic
y'know the color of those butter or snot flavored jellybeans. ickkyy color and icky candy I do not like
@hauntieannes @entity-system @howardisawkwardlyexisting @jadealaide anndd anyone else I am not great at remebering usernames
Well thereās: Willoughby the Buffalo, Mimikyu, A white cat with pink wings that @featured-the-creature gave me, a plush dog that looks like and is named after my childhood dog: Stryker, Luffy and two Laboons (one big and one small) that mom crocheted, and a couple of others I canāt remember rn
I quite enjoy the people who looked at gender and said: āNo thanksā like Agender, Nonbinary, Voidgender, etc.
Uhhhhh Iām not sure I actually quite like most coloursā¦ But if I had to pick then like the colour of cat puke, yk? That dull greenish-yellowish shit.
@thetravelingfrogwizard, @featured-the-creature, @ramdomassaccountname, @blinddetective, @churchedcannibal, @urfriendlyneighborhoodbiderman + the ones who scroll now past this post (open tags)
honestly cloudgender and colourgender. But the thing is im genderfluid so sometimes those are mine. There are no genders that are not occasionally mine.
orange. I quite emphatically dislike orange
@myphycopharmacologist @ink-stained-ambition @hyyl18 + open tags!
