Ilya sits at the piano and plays, his eyes shut as he sways back and forth, glasses clink as Oksana cleans them to busy herself.
Mischa sits in one of the booths and writes, clicking the pen repeatedly as he thinks. He’s so engrossed that he doesn’t notice someone slide into the booth opposite until he sees said figure lean on their elbows; he has enough grace not to jump, and enough tact to simply copy the move until his eyes settle against a stranger’s.
“Hello,” he says, his voice warm and eyes crinkling, “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“I think you can,” she answers softly, leaning forward across the table conspiratorially.
Mischa smiles in return and does not mirror her movement.
“If that was flirtatious, I’m afraid I’m not interested,” he says, not unkindly, “I hate to be so blunt, but I don’t wish to lead anyone on.”
She giggles, drawing back and placing a stack of cards down next to her. Mischa looks between them and her eyes, tilting his head to the side ever so lightly.
“It was, and I appreciate your honesty,” she replies, tone changing like a chameleon, “But honesty isn’t what I’m looking for.”
“You’re a gambler?” Mischa asks, surprising himself as he closes his journal to give her his full attention.
“Astute observation,” she teases, shuffling the cards in hypnotic, fast movements.
“A-ha, yes,” Mischa replies, happy to poke fun at himself, “I have good eyes, no?”
The smile doesn’t meet her eyes. That’s alright. It wasn’t a very good joke.
“Do you play?” she asks, snapping the cards back into a perfect stack.
“On occasion,” he answers, fingers interlacing as their eyes stay locked.
“On this occasion?”
“Would you like honesty?”
“Honestly, no.”
Mischa laughs at that, and gets up, forfeiting his work for good. He doesn’t usually interact with strangers- they don’t usually come to him, for one. It would be nice to talk to someone new, do something fun for once.
“Let me get another drink- can I buy you something? Oh, my deepest apologies, I didn’t catch your name yet…?”
He holds out his hand to shake hers- she grasps it. Her skin feels cool and crisp.
“Sarnaso,” she says, “And you’re too kind.”
When she hands him her empty glass- empty?- he feels a sharp prick against his fingers. He draws back sharply but doesn’t drop the glasses.
Something flashes in his mind, and then it’s gone
What was it? Something like whispering, a dozen voices. Someone says something. Someone-?
“What’ll it be, Misch?” Oksana says, and he doesn’t remember walking up to the bar. His feet must have moved without him, too engrossed in his own mind. That’s not unusual. He’s walked into enough walls in his life, at least he didn’t knock over one of the bar stools.
Too bad he didn’t even ask what Sarnaso was drinking.
“Uh,” he says, but Oksana is already filling both the glasses up. He internally exhales, relieved to save face. Impoliteness is just terrible.
“You’re lucky,” Oksana says as he picks both glasses back up, slim and ink stained fingers stark against crystalline flutes.
“Why do you say that?” he asks.
“I don’t usually lose,” Sarnaso answers.
Sat back down, glasses both nearly empty again. When did he sit down?
More to the point, when did they start playing? Sure enough, there are cards, and he’s won.
His fingers feel odd. He rubs them together and they feel slick. They’re still bleeding, beading blood. The ink has gone. Did he wash his hands at some point? Wait, what? He’s barely even drunk anything.
The alarm must show on his face, because Sarnaso slides into the booth next to him. It doesn’t help. She must note his visible discomfort, because she says, “I don’t bite.”
“Of course not,” Mischa says, politely, clearing his throat because it feels full of cotton, “What do I win?”
He pauses, and grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck. It feels like anointing himself with more blood. But it can’t be. He barely even cut himself.
“That was rude,” he amends, “My apologies.”
“You don’t remember what we were betting?” she asks, full of shock.
He swallows and looks at the table again. The cards have moved. No, he lost. He glances up. Where did Ilya go? Oksana’s still at the bar, but now she’s chatting-
He lost?
“You’re not very strong, are you?” Sarnaso says, voice now full of fake pity. “Poor fragile thing you are.”
He can’t think of a response to that. Fight or flight pierces his brain but fight or flight from what and who? Why? For whom?
“I’ll share something with you anyway,” she says, “Fragile little boy.”
Her hand curls around his thigh and she leans into his ear. The hairs on the back of his neck raise, like her breath is full of static.
“You should know, your elder twin? He killed your sister. Go ahead and ask him about it.”
Mischa blinks.
“Misch?”
He sits up in bed. In bed? Where is he? What time is it? What day? Time?
It’s morning. The light streams through the window and Koschei leans in the doorway with a familiar expression; fond admonishment is on his lips, and he pushes away from the frame to step into the room.
“My dear, what is wrong with you? I haven’t seen you drink that much in a long, long time,” Koschei says, with a chuckle, “You’re not as young as you used to be.”
He stops at the head of the bed and flicks Mischa in the forehead with a gloved hand.
“Do we have a sister?”
Koschei’s expression looks like he’s been slapped. His hand slowly recoils back to him.
The tension in the room is stifling.
“I don’t feel well,” Mischa says faintly, raising a hand to his forehead. It feels slick. Slick and warm and wet.
Koschei’s eyes are too wide, not full of alarm, not alarm- what is that?
“You should get some sleep,” Koschei says, and the alarm is gone, replaced by kindness.
Ever so gentle, he pushes Mischa’s hair away from his eyes, easing his younger brother back into bed and tucking him back in. Koschei inhales as Mischa exhales, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep. Koschei’s hand stills against Mischa’s brow- the image as vivid as the day it happened. The noise, the movement, the smell-
Their fight comes to blows. Both so full of youthful rage. But he’s bigger, and he pushes her, and she trips on the hearth, and the piercing crack of the back of her skull against the brick, the way her body crumples like a marionette without strings, dead before she even hits the floor. The blood against the pale bricks. The smell of it.
Inhale exhale.
He pulls a glove off with his teeth and his bare flesh meets the fluttering pulse in Mischa’s neck.
He plucks the secret back.
Mischa doesn’t need to know that. More to the point, neither does whoever told him. It must have been a fluke, a very lucky guess, for there is no way anyone who knows would be here undetected.
No, Koschei thinks, pulling his gloves back on, the Urusovs would burn his kingdom down sooner than sneak in like rats to disrupt.
Rats he can find. Rats he can eliminate.
But which rat can read minds? Which rat steals secrets?
Koschei feels the shadows behind the curtains flicker.
He’s three bottles deep when the new woman raises her hand. There are already five hands of cards thrown and discarded, and several chips have been used as projectiles; a few rings plucked from overzealous fingers join their ranks.
She’s been sat there all night, sipping her drink. It’s not unusual for tradesmen or lone mercs to pass through Thanatos territory. Anyone who sees the Cathedral glinting on the horizon would be forgiven for changing their route to investigate. Ice-born hospitality (when a blizzard could kill everyone you love, letting strangers in for the night is a given) has always won out, so she has drawn little attention. A note of her shadow eyes, fine and expensive jewellery which seems draped over her face like a second skin, and gloves that seem to brim with brambles.
“Would you like to play a more interesting game?” she asks, uncrossing one leg to cross the other.
Gabriel glances at her sidelong. He flicks one of the poker chips with his thumb before catching it, pausing to sip his drink. It stopped burning hours ago.
“Mm,” he says, noncommittally. His head tilts to the right ever so slightly; just to make sure Bastion is still sprawled out over the nearby sofa.
He is. And snoring softly.
The woman’s eyes seem to follow his, and it makes him uneasy.
“I have something more interesting to gamble with than chips,” she adds, leaning forward conspiratorially.
Gabriel hasn’t gambled tonight, nor does he ever. He has terrible luck, and whilst he has no qualm cheating against strangers, he won’t cheat against his clanmates. But it’s such a strange statement that his brow furrows, and his gaze slides back to her.
Her eyes-
She hasn’t spiked his drink, has she? No. He never leaves his drink alone long enough. And he’s accustomed to most common drugs regardless of that.
“You’re interested in him,” she says. It is not a question.
Gabriel snorts ungracefully; she seems surprised by that, and chuckles.
“I meant-“
“Who are you?” Gabriel interrupts.
She doesn’t answer immediately. Gabriel slides his weight forward and stands up, taking a few ambling steps until he stands in front of her chair. Those eyes don’t betray any fear at such a large and imposing figure stood mere inches from her.
“You can call me Sarnaso, if you want,” she answers, lifting a hand to tuck it under her chin.
He grunts in response, unblinking.
“You’re not going to offer your name?” she prompts.
“You heard it already,” he answers simply, backing away- without turning his back to her- to sit back down.
“I suppose I did,” she agrees, just as simply.
Gabriel places both arms on the armrests of the plush leather chairs that circle their poker table. The rest of the participants have already dispersed- to the bar, for more liqueur; to the sofa, for a nap; to their rooms, to pass out.
With a stranger, he is less inclined to worry.
“We don’t gamble property,” he rumbles, eyes fixed on Sarnaso. It’s a shockingly hard task. His eyes try to move away. He’s sure he hasn’t had more than normal.
She laughs at this. It sounds innocent; which puts him, at least, a little more at ease. He’s still paranoid enough he’s prepared to slit her throat and field a bar fight in less than a second, but such is the way of an assassin.
“As if,” she shoots back, and then, with great reverence, “I have secrets.”
He arcs a thick brow in both surprise and disbelief- or perhaps, disapproval. He shakes his head, left to right.
Her smile widens.
“Don’t you know the currency of your home?” she says, and for some reason the words strike a nerve. He is not easily rubbed the wrong way, nor do his buttons push easily. There was no weight, and he cares not for the thoughts of a stranger.
But a nerve it does sting. He tries to think about the cool, loamy earth of the Woods. He tries to think about-
She notices his scowl, and her expression turns apologetic.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she assures.
It doesn’t sound genuine.
With a callous and surprisingly petty movement, he reaches out and pushes all of the poker chips in arm’s reach off the table. They clatter against the seat, onto the floor, a tinkle of metal.
A few people look over, but none move to intervene. This is Gabriel. Not only he is high ranked, he’s Gabriel. Unapproachable, unmovable, terrifying.
“Game on?” she asks, and she seems to slide closer to table rather than move her chair. It should be a sign he has, in fact, had too much. It isn’t.
“Straight flush,” Sarnaso notes, taking the loss gracefully.
She leans back in her chair and, as she has noted everyone else has, throws her hand elsewhere. Whoever is on the cleaning rotor is going to hate the whole bar, Gabriel thinks, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. He lays his cards down.
“Secrets,” he says, repeating her earlier words, “Better be valuable.”
She rolls her eyes, and he feels the pang of judgement again. Like his blood runs red, not purple- but it is, as deep as his eyes. Despite this, when he looks at her again- when did he look away?- she’s smiling softly, and it oozes pity.
Usually that would raise his hackles further, but instead he can’t muster it. Sarnaso raises from her seat. Her jewellery makes no noise, nor do the feathers on the cloak she wears. If he were a different man, he would think her beautiful.
Two, three steps over to him, she rests the heel of her palm on the crest of his chair and leans down to whisper into his ear. He catches, through the smell of alcohol, a whiff of something so close to home that he feels his entire heart squeeze, as if trapped in a vice. She smells like the Tangled Wood came to life.
With her free hand, she raises an index finger. He doesn’t have to turn around to know she’s pointing at Bastion.
“He’s waiting until you stop checking in on him,” she whispers, and moves her finger to elegantly motion- a cut across the neck.
Gabriel feels his heart stop squeezing and instead plummet. Where the question of how she could know that, how she could phrase it in such a way to convey exactly what that means, and why she would say it- all lost because his heart screams.
“Bitch,” he spits, standing up; the chair clatters back with force and squeals against the floor.
She jumps back, light on her feet, as Gabriel stalks over to where Bastion sleeps on the sofa.
He places a hand against Bastion’s shoulder and shakes it, receiving a groan and one bleary orange-and-black eye opening.
“Mm,” Bastion groans, “Wh-“
“No,” Gabriel says, simple, but with all the force of a command.
The air in the room drops dead in an instant. The Shadowbinder’s chosen one stares down at the Tenkubashi prince and Bastion blinks, struggling to sit up, adrenaline spiking because that stare is serious.
“What’s going on? What’s that look for?” Bastion manages, a little hoarsely. He sits up, swinging his legs until they rest against the floor, gently, because as the blood rushes back, the ankle braces don’t fully stop the sting of muscles which still haven’t recovered. Gabriel continues to stare down, unblinking.
“Seni asla birakmayacagim,” Gabriel repeats. His eyes glow, an ebb and flow that matches the steady beat of his heart.
“I don’t know what that means,” Bastion says, confused.
“I know,” Gabriel answers.
“Uh,” Bastion says, with an awkward chuckle, “Okay? Cool your jets, big guy, no one’s dying.”
Gabriel continues to stare. It should make Bastion’s skin itch- Gabriel’s full attention is like a spotlight, after all- but for some reason, it feels oddly comforting.
Bastion pats the spot next to him, and after a moment, Gabriel sits. The silence ebbs around them, the air heavy not with anticipation but with the intensity of something Bastion is too drunk and tired to understand, and too enormous and filled with heartache for Gabriel to label.
“Need me to carry you?” Gabriel asks, finally blinking, looking at Bastion out of the corner of his eye.
Bastion elbows him in the side before tipping to lean against him, pointedly not saying anything about how nice and solid his giant of a best friend is.
“No,” he says, petulantly. “Just gimme a sec.”
Gabriel raises his head to check, but the trickster is gone.
He won’t look for her again, but he will carry Bastion back to bed.
