⢠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.
⢠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 earnestâvillagers 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 invitedâthough 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 eventuallyâmuch 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 airâlute and drums and the uneven rhythm of clapping handsâmingling 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 festivalâor 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 Olruggioâhalf-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 toâ"
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 muchâ"
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 crowdâpresumably 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 yourâhis now, he supposesâcup.
"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 Olruggioâgrinning, goblet lifted teasingly in farewellâbefore 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.
"âŚUnbelievable." 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.
 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 approachâseated 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 instinctively. 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 visibleâdark 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 testâhe 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 toneâbrief, practical, somewhat curtâbut 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, watchingâand 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 witchâlearning 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 meanâŚ" 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 himselfâor 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 afloundeâ
"Oh. Then yes."
Qifrey stills.
The baker's daughter brightens at firstâonly 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 shoulderâeyes landing directly on where him, standing 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, soâŚ"
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 transparentâas 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 excuseâor perhaps, to flee entirelyâyou 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 trekâembedded glowstones illuminate the winding path with soft pools of warm light, and the autumn wind is pleasantly cool against his cheeksâbut 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 noticedâanything 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 overâonly to realise belatedly you've been observing him the entire time.
"Master seems deep in thought," you say, unhelpfully.
Qifrey feels like an insectâpinned to a display card, positioned beneath a viewing glass, exposed to your wordless scrutinyâthis 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. "I⌠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 furtherâyour 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 hand⌠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 lackingâwoefully 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 Argentgardâbooks about apprentice raising, books he hadn't so much as glanced through before abandoning them at the door. In hindsight, a mistakeâbecause 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 in⌠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 sideâŚ" You inhale quietly, then push out a soft breath before continuing. "It feels like being under the shelter of a big treeâas 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 smileâmore 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 wayâso 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 safeâit'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. WellâŚ" 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 thingsâor, 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, IâŚ" He falters almost at once, flounderingâfingers 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 should⌠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 distracted⌠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 feelingsâŚ" 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 eyesâand heat crawls slowly up his neck. It's moments like this that make him even more grateful for his collar.
"YouâŚ" 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 witchâfar finer than Qifrey ever wasâand 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 dayâŚ
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 lightâand 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.
"Apprenticeâ" 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 youâ"
"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 whenâ
"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 handâsigils 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 sleevesâbut 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 youâor simply drag you beneath the shelter of his own arm insteadâyou'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 spellânothing 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 rewashedâa 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 toâ"
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 feetâyou must have kicked off your boots in the doorway earlierâand 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 headâfamiliar 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 aâ
âbut 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 spellâ" Qifrey tries, his voice sounding strained, strange to his own ears. "I need toâI forgot theâ"
"Master?" You're too close all of a sudden, frowning openly now. "Are you feeling alright? You're acting strangeâ"
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 pitchâloud 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 your wounds after that incident at the Kestrel's Maw, applying creams and salves gently 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 onceânever onceâhad 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 Iâ
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 monsterâeven 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'tâones 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 testâresearch work, spell reconstruction, transcriptionâanything 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 fantasyâthe 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 differentâif 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 easierâeasier 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 dinnerâ"
"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 roomâas 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 notâ" 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, andâ"
"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 enthusiasmâbut 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 tellâyour shoulders held stiffly, hands clenched within the sleeves of your robe.
"DoesâŚ" 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?
"Apprenticeâ" 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 notâ"
But it has been, hasn't it? Suddenly, horribly, Qifrey's reminded of the story you'd once told himâof 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. IâI'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 haveâshould haveâbeen 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 justâI was just being selfish. Caught up in my own things. I forgotâ" 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 eyesâlike the ones that had stared up at him in Havso all those years, dulled and wary all at onceâas 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. AndâI'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 armsâto 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 smartâI'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 a smile. "I'm staying in tonightâit's been a while since we've had dinner together."
Finally, something flickers across your face. Thenâ
"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 chestâhe 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.
âStew it is, then.â
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 bedâyou haven't since he started pulling awayâbut 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 noâhowever 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 improperânot 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 cannotâwill notâlook 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 throatânose barely skimming the sensitive stretch of skin just beneath his jawâand 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 notâ
"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 afraidâtruly afraidâand 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 todayâor 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 pretendâjust for a little whileâthat 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 himâbut 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, blindingâas 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 suddenâhis 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 secondâpale, jaw tight, lips pressed in a thin lineâbefore 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 protestâthat it will pass, that calling for the doctor is pointless, that there is nothing they can do for the ailment that plagues himâbut 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 lipsâthe 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."
"Masterâ"
"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 painsâyet no physician, tincture or elixir has ever managed to cut through one with such frightening speed. How could you haveâ
"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?" Butâ
"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 processâthe spineedles 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 you 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 oneâone 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 forbiddenâ"
"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.
"Youâ"
"Master said confessions should be done sincerely," you interrupt quietly. "When it's only two the people involved. When 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 raftersâbut 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 yetâyou 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 appleâhad 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 darkâsuddenly 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 allâthe 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'tâthis isn'tâthis is only infatuation, andâ"
Your hand closes around Qifrey's before he can drop your wristâgently, 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 Olruggioâbefore 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-mutiliationâif 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 beforeânot 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 lovedâstill doesâoffer up everything for a wretched, unworthy cause.
All I have left to say is⌠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 returnâand 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 ghostsâeverything he wants to confess but can't ensnared in the silence between you.
The smoke reaches them before any messenger doesâa 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 strikeâQifrey has full trust in Olruggio's magic, in this regard. Small fires could happen. But infernos capable of producing a column of smoke like thatâthick and black enough to stain the horizon from miles awayâare 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 naturalâQifrey 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 carnageâtheir white hat and trailing veil a stark smear against the smoke-charred skyâa 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 waitâand 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 talkativeâthey 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 thisâvanishing 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, this one 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 anythingâso much as do anythingâit 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 windpipeâwet 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 thenâ
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 intereâ"
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 inhalesâhis ribs are definitely broken.
"I thoughtâŚ" He coughs, the words coming out rasping and wet. "I told you to stay⌠at the atelierâŚ"
"Master can punish me all he likes later." Blood continues seeping stubbornly between your fingers despite the pressure, but that isn't the problemâit'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 masterâhe 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 Qifreyâone 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, anywayâthough 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 themâ"
"What do you mean?"
At your question, the Brimmed Hat tilts their headâand 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 upâ" 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 toâurgkâa word they sayâ"
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 itâthe 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?"
"Iâ"
The Brimmed Hat cuts across him with a low hum of amusement. "Little witch⌠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 thereâthe 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."
"Apprenticeâ" The word comes out mangled with fresh blood, thin and watery with his spit. "Apprenticeâdon'tâyou cannotâ"
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 faceâwhen he finally forces himself to lookâis bloodless and set, and yet, so very terrifyingly calm.
music theory people please explain why Solasâ music sounds heroic. It sounds exactly like some grand heroâs song thatâs turned sad, it doesnât sound like itâs naturally sad. I feel like thereâs a version of it with different chords that would sound as adventurous as the Inquisitorâs theme. I know in my bones his theme is related to the Inquisitorâs theme musically, but I want to know more
I actually have a bachelorâs in music and 16 credits specifically in theory and would love to answer this but I have a dr appointment this morning and canât do it right now but Iâm gonna come back to this later!
Alright buckle up everybody because I spent $30,000 on this music degree and itâs my time to shine
Letâs start with the Inquisitorâs theme. First and foremost, it is in a major key. Major keys have a bright, happy sound to them. It begins slowly, with a feeling that it is out of time (no pulse, or beat). This is a sensation used by composers to build suspense, but also to ease you into something more dramatic.The chords and pitches grow dissonant and higher as we lead into the A theme (first âsection,â if you will). The piece comes off a highly dissonant chord into loud, intense percussion, using large, deeply pitched drums. These drum beats get rhythmically faster. I would argue that this is still the exposition, and we have still not reached the A theme. However, we have now set the tempo and meter. While it is rhythmically fast, the tempo is actually moderate. The meter is whatâs important - this piece is a march (2 beats per measure). Marches automatically give a militaristic feel, and are associated with parades, heroes, battles, etc. When we finally reach the A theme, the music soars with large leaps between pitches, and the chosen instrumentation (full symphonic orchestra, by the sound of it) really fills out the chords. The driving drums and strings are ever-present, and the choir provides a feeling of mysticism and drama, a staple in fantasy compositions due to being reminiscent of itâs chant-like origins. In summary, Inquisitorâs theme is suspenseful, grandiose, driving, and features an interesting juxtaposition of an expansive, beautiful melody and a militaristic undertone. Overall, very adventurous!
Solas, on the other hand, has a clearly different sound. This also begins slowly, but this time in a minor key, which is often associated with a darker, more somber sound. However, this is immediately paired with a bright, percussive instrument (Iâm not sure exactly what it is, but itâs clearly barred, similar to a metallophone, or likely the bells, its orchestral cousin). The upper strings are holding long, high pitched (suspenseful!) notes, while the lower strings contrast with a moving line. The most interesting thing I hear in this part is the percussion - please listen to this carefully, itâs actually really awesome! The percussion in the beginning has this repeated motif of pitches that are, in general, descending. The repetition of this motif is intended to create a dreamlike effect, like falling asleep or a hypnotic trance. This is perfect for Solas and his connection to dreams and the fade! Well done, Bioware music team!Â
Solasâs theme builds, but the dynamics (changes in volume) never get very loud. There are changes, but they remain in the very soft to moderately soft range for most of the beginning of the piece. Mostly, pitch is used to heighten the sense of drama, reaching dramatic highs. This gives an âunder the surfaceâ effect to the music, in my opinion. Basically, if inner turmoil had a sound, this is it. I hypothesize that the Inquisitorâs theme sounds how the world perceives them, and Solasâs theme sounds like his swirling inner thoughts and internal conflict. The meter of this theme is 4/4, common time, which is the most used meter in western music and does not have the same drive as the march.Â
In what feels like a sudden change, there is a sudden intrusion of loud low brass, the volume increases drastically, and that dreamlike percussion theme is now louder, more frantic. Uh oh, somethingâs wrong! Solas has a huge inner conflict here! The Inquisitor is dying, time is running out, he misses his friend/lover so much but he has to go. In addition, this can reflect the climax from the Inquisitorâs perspective, who has found him. The Inquisitor is coming for Solas and demanding answers, is fighting through the pain, is determined to stop Solas. This part of the music is literally screaming CONFLICT, and also TIME IS RUNNING OUT!
Interestingly, there is also a return of the lower strings after this big loud section, mostly on their own, and much quieter. This, to me, is reminiscent of a love theme, though it sounds sad. This also builds with the strings, but still screams love theme to me. Strings are very romantic instruments, and big sweeping lines scream love - see James Hornerâs âTitanic Suiteâ for a great example. This is a punch directly to the gut for maximum feels.
In summary, Solasâs theme, much like his romance, is designed to be emotional and rip your heart out and stomp on it. Itâs all about inner conflicts, duty, love, compassion, fear, danger, sadness. It has hints of all of the conflicts of the hero - duty, love, fear, danger. Does the Inquisitor not experience all of the same things? This piece is centered on Solas, he is the hero of this piece of music, but a hero thatâs at their breaking point. This theme isnât designed to introduce you to Solas, itâs designed to make you understand him. I feel the Inquisitorâs theme is an introduction, or a recount of their amazing deeds, much like a plaque at the Winter Palace - beautiful, interesting, but not very deep. To make Solasâs sound more heroic (which the Inquisitorâs theme does, due to the reasons listed above), one would have to change the key to major, remove some dissonance, use longer phrases, and build sooner. Also, I find this percussion motif to be very anxious sounding, but a change to major could fix that. An adjustment to a march, while unnecessary, would likely also give more of a âheroâ feel. As a final thought, this theme does not scream âvillainâ to me - rather very desperate and emotional. As it is, the piece is designed to bring about an emotional response, and Iâd say it succeeds.
Thank you for indulging my love of both dragon age and music theory!
⢠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 had 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."
Or, Qifrey takes on an apprentice to keep the silverwood at bay. It works, until it doesn't.
⢠chapters: one | two
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 himâopen 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 Hallâfrom Olruggioâwill not cause him problems. 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 Hallânever overt or intrusive, yet always there. And greater than his control over conjuring magic was his talent to conjure nonsensical excuses, ones that he would use to check on the condition of Qifrey's health and mind.
You work too hard, Beldaruit would say in that airy, almost absentminded toneâso 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 quite 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 Havsoâa 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 shopsâfor a new cast iron pot to replace the one that had cracked last week, some twine for binding dried herbs, other small sundriesâwhen he sees you.
The canvas awning you're huddled beneath is doing almost nothing at allânot 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 allâit's not uncommon for sailors from foreign kingdoms to abandon unwanted children in port towns like thisâor 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 guessedâchildren 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, 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 magicâand by extension, the silverwoodâto 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 unlearnâno 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 failâwhich is oftenâyou 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 parchmentâleaving 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 lets go, 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 is⌠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 beginnerâthe 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, tooâbalanced 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 simple what next, 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. 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 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 night falls and 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 and wrong 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. 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 simpleâselfish, 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's. Qifrey has to hold back a smile.
In the meantime, Qifrey chats with the farmer as you workâsomething about the summer heat this year, the stubbornness of the soilâbut 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 is 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. "Well done."
You accept his verdict the same way you accept everything elseâquietly, without visible pride or disappointment. The farmer tries to press a basket overflowing with all varieties 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, 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 is bouncing on her heels as the kite finally drifts down into your waiting hand, and you hand it over without a smile.
The child 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 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 he finds 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, days, perfecting circles and lines simply because he tells you to. About how quickly you've become good at magicâand how little of it seems to belong to you.
"It doesn't have 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. "IâI hope you can learn magic not because I tell you to, but because you want 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 careâfor all the effort he's poured into teaching you properly, responsiblyâone 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 who he'd thrust this fate upon, and the truth feels brittle, insufficientâsomething 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 an indigo reminiscent of crushed velvet. 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 timeâyou 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, quietlyâ
"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, carefulâlike 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."
Qifreyâs grip on the door falters. Something tightens in his chestâperhaps 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 waitingâfor 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 forbiddenâbanned 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 liftingâalmost unconsciouslyâto 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 soundlyâor 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 lavenderâscented 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 chest and think, 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 doesâand as your master, it will be his responsibility to teach you about it. 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 knitâawkward 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 changesâgradual, 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 dayâuntil 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 thingsâthe 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, 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 bodyâthe soft creak of timber settling, the low whisper of wind along the eavesâbut beneath it, nothing. No quiet patter of footsteps in the floor upstairs. No water running in the washroom.
Perhaps you're sleeping in, 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 breakfast, presence slipped so easily into his morning routine that he'd stopped noticing it altogether.
Qifrey sets the kettle to heat, 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 toâsteeped a touch too long, perhapsâbut he drinks it anyway, idly sorting through the neglected stack of mail.
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 Hallâsomething about independent ateliers and watchful eyesâand 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 is⌠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, very still. The silverwood in his chest trembles.
Calm down, he tells himself firmly. Your bed is madeâyour 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, whenâ
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 heavy thump. 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. Medical journal. Second. Herbal remedies of the Southern Continent. 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 differentâa notebook, worn pages filled with a cramped but script that he would recognise anywhere. The rest are filled with sketchesâplants that even he doesn't recognise at first glance, roots and leaves and bulbs rendered with careful attention to detail. 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. Burnâ
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 for⌠forâ
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. Spineneedles, you've labelled them. Your notes crowd the margins: potent pain-relieving properties. Possible long-term restorative effects. Grows only in steep valleys inhabited by winged serpentines, venom necessary for germination. And below itâ
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 zenithâlong past dawn, past any reasonable margin of safety. It's far too late. You should have been back hours ago. No, worseâyou 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. Insteadâ
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 aggressiveâgreat, winged creatures with beaks like drawn swordsânesting in the crevices where the spineneedles grow.
And that's where you've gone.
I'm responsible for this, Qifrey thinks numbly, and the words are a realisation as much as an accusation aimed at himself. I did this. I made you this way. I wanted someone to worry about, and nowâ
The image comes to him, unbidden: your body, broken at the base of the ravine. Impaled by sharp spikes at the bottom, limbs twisted wrong. Cloak ripped and dark with blood, flesh torn from your bones by monstrous beaks. And your faceâthat quiet, serious, earnest faceâpale, chest still, eyes open yet blank and vacant and unseeing andâ
No.
No.
Qifrey runs. He doesn't think. He doesn't allow himself to. The door is too slowâhe 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, fallingâbefore the sylph seal beneath his feet flares. And then he's airborne, rising too fast but not fast enough, the wind tearing at his hair, the fragile control he's forcing himself to hold together.
Please, not them, is all he can think as he hurtles through the sky. Not my apprentice. Not them. I'll do anything. Please, please, pleaseâ
He doesn't know who he's begging, only that he'll beg anything, bargain everythingâif 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 himâ
âand 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 willing yourself to become one with it. Your sylph shoes are missing from one foot, and there's a long rend in your cloak. You aren't movingâonly holding on, just barelyâfeet 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 airâyour 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, from the thin moisture caught in wind and stone, surging upwards into a coiling mass until it takes shapeâa great, fluid dragon, its body twisting through the open air with a roar that echoes throughout the gorge.
Two serpentines are caught in its jaws, their cries cut short amidst the sound of snapping wing and bone. The third shrieks, veering sharply away before wheeling back, beak gaping in fury, but 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 throatâthe closest to afraid he's ever heard youâfingers gripping at the collar of his shirt.
"Masterâ"
"Don't call me that right now."
The serpentines shriek behind him, rallying. Qifrey presses his feet together, the weight of you unwieldy 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 forwardâhalf-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 chairâthe same one he'd been sitting in just an hour prior, oblivious, somethingâmore roughly than he intends.
You don't complain. You never do. The same way you never protest, never ask, never tell him anythingâ
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, so tight.
"What were you thinking?" he snaps. He almost doesn't recognise his own voiceâlow and taut and cutting. "Going to such a dangerous placeâaloneâwithout telling anyoneâwithout askingâ"
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 have died. Those creaturesâthey could haveâ" Sent you plummeting down the cliff. Eaten you. Torn you to pieces. 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 closeâlong, 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. 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 it even as he says them but cannot bring himself to stop. "I didn't teach you that. I taught you to think, to assess, not throw yourself off cliffs forâfor worthless plantsâ"
"Masterâ"
"I said don't." Hearing that title makes him want to scream. "Don't call me that now. You don't have any right to when youâ"
"It's Master's fault."
The words land like a slap. Qifrey turns to look at youâhand frozen over a roll of bandagesâonly 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 has never seen before. Not guilt. Not shame. Something closer to accusation.
As though he is the one who has wronged you.
"Oh, it's my fault," he repeats, his voice rising on its own with 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 toâ"
"Yes, because Master never tells me anythingâ"
"For good reason!" He throws his hands up, the dishclothâstained with your bloodâcaught between his fingers. Qifrey wants to shake you. He wants to tear his hair out. Another part of himâa smaller, quieter, darker partâwants to lock you in this atelier again and throw away the key forever, just to make sure that you're safe. "There are things I don't tell you because they are dangerous, things that I am tryingâI have been tryingâto protect you fromâ"
"I don't need to be protected like a childâ"
"Then stop acting like one!" Qifrey is shouting now. He knows that he is. He can't stop. "Sneaking around, hiding books in your room, burning and cutting and throwing yourself off cliffs for a cure that doesn't exist!"
Your face darkens, expression obstinate. "Master can't know for certain that a cure doesn't existâ"
"I do!" His hands come down hard on the tabletop, and you flinch. Your teacup jumps, porcelain clattering, cold tea spilling over the tabletop. "I know becauseâ" Because he's already been to the Tower of Memories, and he knows that what is ailing him isn't an illness or curse. "âbecause I've already read every book, tried every remedyâI know that there is no cure! There is no cure, and there will never be, so stop trying to throw your life away for something soâ"
"I won't!"
Something in Qifrey snaps.
"If you're so unwilling to listen to your master," his voice comes out 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 immediately he would do anything to take them backâtear them out of the air, swallow them whole even if they cut his throat to ribbonsâbut the damage is already done.
You go very still. The anger doesn't leave you, not entirely, but something beneath it fractures, hairline cracks spiderwebbing across thin ice. Your mouth works soundlessly, pressing into a hard, bloodless line.
And when he looks up again, your lashes are wet. You're not cryingâyou never have, at least in front of himâbut your eyes are bright now, too bright, and your lower lip trembles just 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 what remains of his vision, the way it soaks through his clothes and leeches heat, the way it reminds him of things he's forgotten and things he wishes he could forget.
But thisâthisâis worse.
Qifrey's hands drop to his sides. Why were they even raised in the first place? The kitchen is too quiet now, silent except for the remnant ghosts of your anger and his, the steady drip of cold tea from the table's edge. He feels exhausted all of a sudden, wrung dry and scraped hollow.
It's only then that he notices the bag. Your handâthe other one, still dirty and bleedingâis curled around a small cloth pouch, pressed so tightly against your chest that your knuckles are bone white. Even after everything, you are still clinging on to itâstill desperately trying to keep it safe.
"Give me the bag," he says.
Your eyes jump to his face. You glance down at the bag, as though just only remembering that it's there. Your fingers tighten. You hesitate for a brief second, before you shake your head.
No.
Qifrey sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, patience fraying, before he takes ahold of himself forcefully. Heâs done more than enough damage today. âI wonât do anything to it,â he mutters, trying to sound reassuring, more gentle. He doesnât know if he succeeds. âJustâplease. Give me the bag.â
You stare at him for a while longer, as though weighing something you canât put into words. Your fingers slowly loosen their death grip. Reluctantly, you hold it out.
Itâs surprisingly light in his hand when he takes it. Almost as though it holds nothing at all. His fingersâstill tacky with your bloodâfumble with the drawstrings as he pulls them loose. He looks inside.
A handful of silver leaves rest scattered across the bottom of the pouch. Thin and gleaming, each one shaped like a sewing needle. Spineneedles. Carefully gathered, but so few of themâbarely enough to brew a single vial of tincture.
Yet the mere sight of them is enough to strip all the anger from him in an instant. Qifrey stares down at the pouch, the thin scatter of silver leaves glinting faintly, 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 ofâis himself. Because the only reason you did any of thisâpushed yourself to such lengths, put yourself in harm's wayâis because he let you believe he could be cured. He'd smiled and selfishly kept the words you had uttered that day close to his heart, and in doing so, he'd unwittingly sent you into danger.
A quiet breath escapes him. Qifrey slowly lets himself sink to his knees in front of your chair.
You shift at the movement, glancing down at him with something uncertain in your expression, unsure of his moods.
"Master�"
He sets the pouch on the table, carefully, gently, and takes your hands in his. You try to pull away on instinct, but he holds on, insistent. Qifrey turns them over, palms up, and looks at the small, round scars he's never noticed before. Burn scars. From your experiments, the remedies you've tested on your own skin.
His throat closes around words he doesn't have.
"Thank you," is what he says, in the end. Even then, it feels inadequate. "For trying to cure me. For going to such lengths to ease my pain." He pauses, his thumb brushing over a half-healed scab on your knuckle. "But it will not work."
You look at him, then. The defiance has left your eyes now, replaced by an almost brittle uncertainty. "How is Master certain it will not work?"
Because I've tried everything. Because I read about the truth in the Tower. Because the problem isn't my eye, or the headachesâit 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, almost unconsciously, to touch the end of the ribbon trailing from 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 hurts me moreâmore than my eye, more than any headacheâto see my beloved apprentice put themself in danger for my sake."
You go still in his chair.
"I should be the one protecting you," he continues. "Not the other way around. Thatâthat's the whole point of having an apprentice." He almost laughs at that, the line of his mouth curving into the shape of a faintly self-mocking half-smile. Oh, his foolish, foolish past self. "I'm supposed to keep you safe. And instead, here you are, throwing yourself off cliffs for me."
His gaze drops back to your hands, the small scars scattered across your palms. A wordless record of what you were willing to endureâhave already enduredâfor his sake.
"I'm content," Qifrey says quietly. "With what I have now. The atelier. You." And as the words leave him, he realises that he is not merely saying them for your sakeâthey are simply true. "The pain is small in comparison."
You don't speak for a moment. The afternoon light has shifted, turning gold and honeyed, pooling on the floor between you like syrup. Qifrey can hear his own heartbeat in the silence, slow and steady in his chest.
"But I don't like to see Master in pain."
Your voice is small, but matter-of-fact. As though you are stating an obvious truth, the same way you might say fire is hot or the sun rises in the . As if it's simply a fact of the universe that you dislike seeing him in pain, and therefore, you must do something about it.
Qifrey's heart clenches, a sharp and sudden thing, and before he can think better of it he leans and gathers you into his arms. It's the first time he's hugged you, he realises. He's touched your hand, guided your wand, resting a hand on your headâbut never something like this.
You go stiff for a moment against his chest, caught off guard by the sudden contact, before the tension that you always seem to carry in your shoulders seeps out slowly. Your forehead dips to press against the line of his collarbone. And your hands, one half-bandaged and the other still covered in little cuts, come up to grip tentatively at the back of his shirt.
When did you become so precious to me?
He closes his good eye and presses his face into the top of your head, ignoring the way his glasses jostle on the bridge of his nose. "Don't do something so dangerous again, alright?" His voice is muffled into your hair. "Promise me."
There's a long pause. Then: "I don't want to give up, Master."
Qifrey wants to sigh. Clearly it was too much to hope for otherwise, but perhaps that is entirely his own fault. He pulls back, just enough to meet your determined eyes with his own.
"If you have any ideas," he says reluctantly, "you tell me first. Before you do anything. We'll experiment togetherâhere, in the atelier, where it's safe." Qifrey narrows his eye at you. "I will not stop you from trying. But I won't lose you to a cliff face, and strictly no forbidden magic. Do you understand?"
You look at him. Your expression is unreadable for a long momentâthose eyes are like mirrors, mirrors that reflect too much of him too clearly back at himself. Then, slowly, you nod.
"Okay."
"Good." Something in his chest loosens. Qifrey pulls you in again, squeezing you again briefly before he lets you go. There's a warmth, settling into the hollow spaces between his ribs. "In the meantime, let me finish treating your arms."
You hold your arms out obediently. He takes them, tutting at the state of your skin all the while, and proceeds to insist on drawing you a milk bath while you squirm 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 đ n e ways i hope you enjoy! please don't crucify me for the age gap or the eventual problematic student teacher relationship </3