❝You didn’t show up. I kept waiting.❞ Mael spoke with his deep voice, respectfully keeping his distance but making himself known as if Avicus would not have heard his heartbeat.
The rhythm of the busker’s music was beating in the air like a heart, his open-mouthed hat eagerly swallowing tossed silver. Avicus’ eyes remained trained on thrummed strings, perplexed and engrossed by their vibrations and how they at different pitches translated themselves into song. He was sunken, entranced. And then, suddenly, grabbed by the throat, rattled.
His head snapped up, ancient eyes inhuman in their understanding, their laser-point focus. Avicus’ features were gentle and honest, betraying surprise and shock the way old paint flaked off a ceramic mask.
“Mael,” His lips barely moved when he spoke, softly sighing the name that was so little to him beyond a long-lost prayer. How far he stood, how strange. A stranger. Dust coated his tongue, some ash he could not swallow.
“We have been looking for you.”