soothsayer

Grace forgets sometimes that Lucien is a therapist, and is viciously reminded of it at times like these, when his keen eyes seem to see straight through her and hit on the weakest parts of her with only a few well-meaning words. She smiles, shrugs, goes through the motions as she settles once again at the table. “They’re mostly healed,” she says of her fingers, resisting the urge to peel back a bandage and show off the new scar. “You’re perfectly alright. I got here early. Sometimes it’s good to just - sit, you know?” She makes a strange, half-hearted gesture to the general space of the cafe, the low bustle around them.

She realizes then that she has nothing to say, only bland niceties rising to the tip of her tongue. Maintaining smalltalk is the last thing she wants to do at the moment, so she takes a second to breathe, to study Lucien’s face. “Can I be frank with you?” She asks, leaning forward a bit onto the table, dropping her voice. It’s a wildcard, even for herself, but the festering bubble of love and grief in her chest drives her forward, and she continues without really thinking. “What is it that keeps you and Ronan together?”

She’s seen less of Lucien and more of Ronan than ever this past year, and it’s only served to highlight the differences between the two. It’s always been a strange interest to her, how they make it work - how any couple with only one tie-in to the mafia does it, truly - and there seems to be varying levels of success throughout Verona. There’s something simmering underneath this relationship, she can tell, something she absolutely should not stick her nose into but that she will anyway, heart as raw as it is and steering her like never before.

“I’m sorry for jumping on you when you’ve just arrived,” she says, a beat too late, excruciatingly aware of how stupid it is to have brought something like this up, “I just - There’s been a lot going on, and you were the only person I could think of that might - understand.”

He understands the sitting thing, people watching. It’s a cherished pastime. The bandages  though - he doesn’t like those. But he’ll draw out answers more concrete about them later. 

“It’s alright, happy to jump into it, I’ve always been very bad at small talk.” Lamprius says, as he settles into his seat, offering a balm for her quick apology. He tugs the menu closer, and keeps his eyes trained on it as he answers her initial questions. 

Can I be frank with you? “Always,” What is it that keeps you and Ronan together?

Lamprius blinks. Opens his mouth and is quick to say, as he flips the page of the menu: “It’s easier to keep an eye on him when I know where he sleeps.” It’s supposed to be a joke, mostly, but this is possibly the last thing he’d expected to discuss.

He needs to stall, because he doesn’t really know where to begin. 

Truth is, he and Ronan have been dead in the water for a while now, but like the marsh of a bog, it will not let them go quite yet. Truth is, there was a love once, and if that love still persists it’s a new moon in an pitch sky, eclipsed and shadowed by everything around it. Truth is, a red string connects them, but at some point it’s moved from being wrapped around his ring finger to becoming a noose around his throat. Now, in the face of the question, Lamprius cannot be truthful he wants to be. He wants let Grace know that sometimes it is far easier to let things fall apart than to purposefully break them. That love, pretty as it is, is rarely enough on its own. It’s a selfish instinct to want to tell her these things, more catharsis for him than comfort for her, and Lamprius recognizes it as such. He has enough experience in such lines of questioning to know that Grace’s question stems less from a need to solve his own failing marriage and is rather seeking to use it as a lens to process whatever it is she is facing. He looks up and pushes his menu aside. 

“We’re incredibly forgiving of each other’s flaws,” Lamprius finally says, as if he’s carefully considering his words - instead of offering up vague advice from a university 101 class he’d taken somewhere along the way to his doctorate. “We allow each other to live our separate lives and trust the other will come back.” There’s a beat as he looks for words that aren’t a downright lie. “I have to hope that’s enough to keep us together as I keep working at it.” 

His eyes continue to search her face, dark pools certainly belaying more than his words do. Besides, the ambiguity of what he’s said allows him to cut to the bone of the conversation quicker. Gives her a few ways to approach this and allows him to dress whatever wound she’s bleeding far more swiftly. 

‘You still look tired,’ he tells her and she flinches despite herself. Vivianne knows exactly what he’s doing by echoing those words back to her; her own words, her momentary vulnerability as she lowered her cards in their last conversation, and let the Witch take a peek at her hand. But his perceptive sympathy (if indeed it can be called that), does not comfort Vivianne now. Instead, it grates against her pride, makes her feel like a wild animal that a hunter tries to cow into submission. 

‘You still look tired’, Lucien tells her, and it’s ‘weak’ that Vivianne hears instead; ‘malleable, vulnerable, overripe and fit for bruising’…

She lifts her chin and gazes at him, hard. “I’ve slept quite well, thank you.” She lies, playing dumb, pretending she doesn’t know what he’s alluding to. And when he mentions the Cathedral, the Capobastone keeps her expression carefully immutable; remembering all the while the piercing stare he’d given her across that crowded room… Judgment or condemnation, keen understanding or unsurprising disappointment. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure how to label the mystery in his eyes, and yet all the same she felt he’d been able to read the questions in her own. What are we doing here? What am I permitting? How much humanity can one sacrifice before there’s nothing left to salvage? Is there something left to salvage?…

‘How many do you think exist in the city these days that are unbugged or untapped? I doubt you want our conversations getting out. I certainly don’t.’

“Mi stai minacciando?” She demands, his words a lit match to a translucent pool of gasoline; are you threatening me?… Surely he isn’t so stupid, so reckless. It’ll put a premature end to this meeting if so, the Capulet Underboss decides, the barrel of her Glock still trained on the Witch.

“And how do you know I want a conversation with you at all?” Vivianne scorns him, eyes glinting with contempt. “You certainly have a funny way of engaging a person, Lamprius…” That she uses his title now, is not meant to signal respect. Rather, it’s a method of putting distance between them; of desperately looking to reclaim her defenses, the ones she’d briefly, mistakenly, let him through, two weeks ago. “Unfortunately for you, I find I don’t like your brand of humor.”

“If I was threatening you Vivianne, I assure you, you wouldn’t have to question it, you would know. Vague threats aren’t really my cup of tea.” Neither were bad jokes, he thinks in response to her comment about his humor. Lamprius likes to think that if he were actually joking, she would be laughing. But this is neither the time nor place to grow defensive about his humor especially when there is a gun pointed at his chest. Odysseus still navigates the stormy seas of Poseidon on the pages between his hands. 

Her contempt is starting to boil, he can tell her pride is taking blows. If she shuts him out, he won’t get anywhere. Lucien the therapist has seen it a million time in clients, and so knows he Lamprius has this small window of time to work with. And if that window closes..... well, he doesn’t dig his heels in for anyone. Always forward. He’ll leave the words here for her to examine so that she can reflect on them later. 

And how do you know I want a conversation with you at all?

“Sometimes we don’t always know what’s in our best interest. But I’m here because I know I want a conversation and I think, truly, you want one too.” Lamprius continues with that steady certainty, fully confident she’ll be able to catch up. He does believe his words, and whether Vivianne knows it or not she will want this conversation, if not today, then in a few months time. He will not cater to her myopia, though he’ll feel disappointed to learn that it exists. Lamrpius is focusing on the future and is trying to draft his plans with as much responsibility as possible. He remembers his exchange with Vivianne at the Cathedral with vivid clarity and Lamprius cannot shake the feeling that a Capulet regime under Juliana and Vivienne would be a different beast than it currently was under Cosimo Capulet, more muscle and sinew than scintillating scales that purported a bigger bark than bite. Still, Lamprius wants some sort of confirmation, thinks she deserves the chance to defend it, before he plans his own path forward. 

Boris is unsure which idea he dislikes more: the one that poses that everything’s changed, or the one that poses it’s all stayed the same. That they’ve stayed exactly the same, a decade later, frozen in time, forced to look one another in the eye and reckon with it. It’s not true, of course. Boris is still conniving at best and manipulative at worst, with a dash of cruelty to go along on the side. Lucien is –

Best not to go there, maybe, before he thinks himself into circles. Lucien proposes that they leave – it’s getting loud in here, except the volume hasn’t changed at all and the crowd hasn’t even begun to push in. Boris is holding a tupperware container of borscht in his hands, all the way from Russia, and the last thing he is thinking about is dinner, or going back to the library and the stack of paperwork sitting on his desk, ordered into neat yellow folders. He is thinking about Would you make it feel better if I texted him to tell him? (a decisive no) and staring at Lucien’s mouth.

Чёрт, подери.

Against his better judgment – against any judgment, he looks over his shoulders, sees that no one is coming to bring him his takeout, and makes a decision that he will probably come to regret later down the line. When he is held up against his tapestry of numberless mistakes to see how he sizes up, he hopes whatever God is up there doesn’t pick this one. He’s done worse things. Several, in fact. “Alright,” Boris acquiesces. “A walk doesn’t sound so bad.” He moves away from the bar, between the gathering throngs of people getting down with their days and gathering for an evening together. He doesn’t want for Lucien to tag along because this is the way it always was: Boris led, and Lucien followed. All the way through Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, and the countless train stations and airports in-between destinations. Boris first, every time, and Lucien afterward, eyes wide as saucers. 

He’ll never say it out loud, but he misses it, sometimes. Better days. Simpler ones, maybe, when he thought the world was on his side and all it took to knock a man from his throne was power of will. You need more than that. You need hunger, too, the kind that won’t let you feel guilt when you pluck the bread that might let them live another day from their grasping fingers. Bread, being gold, being the motherland, being the hard work of the masses, being victory. Bringing something home. He’d been a fool then. He’s still a fool, just a different one.

They break out into the chillier evening air and Boris is glad for the relief of it. He hadn’t realized how close he’d been to strangling, in there, weighed down for reasons he has no want or particular need to explain to anyone, much less himself. Here, he can rationalize with himself. Lucien had accepted his substitution: someone else. Anyone else.

Except there is no one else with the sort of contacts he has, the resources, the downright idiotic ability to get to them. Well, no one except Calina, maybe, but Boris would rather think of anyone else right now. Lucien knows it. Boris knows it. They are move-for-move, match-for-match, and Boris has chosen to continue this tête-à-tête with no rhyme or reason why. He could leave now, call Lucien later, make this as short and to the point as humanly possible. 

There’d been – the phone call – a long time ago, and as much as Boris would like to think it’s tissue that’s scarred over by now, it isn’t. Sometimes, if he’s bored, and he wants to torture himself mindlessly over something that isn’t his wanton and moreover blatant betrayal of the people he’s supposed to protect, and then feeling guilty about not feeling guilty, he’ll think of it. T In the evening, a phone cradled to his ear, listening, cotton-mouthed, as Lucien had broken the silence with something like I want you to be there, and Boris had said no.

He wishes he’d ended it there. No, and hung up the phone. But he likes to talk. It’s his profession. So he kept going.

Boris watches as Lucien exits the restaurant, puts his free hand in his coat pocket, the other holding the borscht, and then picks a direction and starts walking. Maybe they’ll cut through an alleyway, or work their way back around, but he’s already made it up in his mind that he’s not going to be returning to work this evening, so he’s trying to map the route back to his car out in his head. He clears his throat. “We haven’t spoken in a while. How’s Apollonia?”

“Dead.” The word is out of his mouth before he can stop it. Lamprius couldn’t stop the truth if he tried. He’s thankful for the sudden burst of cold night air that hits him as he steps into the alleyway; Verona will always be his distraction of choice. Especially when Boris goes around picking at old wounds. What’s Boris doing, going about asking him about that? Lamprius shouldn’t have expected any less. He’s so very tempted to add on ‘So about as well as Sasha,’ and put a little bite in his words -- though in the end he doesn’t. The Witch doesn’t make a habit of showing what he knows in a conversation, only plays his cards when he needs then, no matter how good Boris is at draws a specific kind of pettiness out of him. 

He swallows and finds his heart in his throat. Like it’s trying to jump out of him, make its way back to the other. 

“Happened a few years ago. I was going to move to Sicily to take care of her but - ” 

He shrugs. That same ‘I don’t know’ Boris so often commits to. He can see why. It’s convenient. Imagine a life where you just didn’t provide answers when you didn’t want to. Lamprius really doesn’t believe in that sort of lack of accountability even though Boris clearly does. The heart that’s stuck in his throat yearns to speak of a life that no longer feels like it belongs to him. Of long evenings in hospital rooms, of sickness and health, and that bone-tired wake that he had been late to because he had gotten into the habit of willing every sleep into being a sort of personal death. That’s a box Lamprius won’t open, he’s not even sure if he has the right key for it anymore. 

He keeps walking, through this silence, in this dark. He wraps it around himself.   

Feels like old times, cutting through a city in the night, when there are fewer eyes to watch them make their way. Lamprius is the one leading here, at least his feet are picking the well-known paths. Russia belongs to Boris, Verona belongs to Lamprius. He leads and Boris follows. He turns his collar up against the night sky of Verona, hands dive into pockets. His feet will know where to take him, Lamprius trusts muscle memory to kick in quickly enough. 

“I think there are more pertinent issues at hand.” He ties a knot at he the loose end of that conversation. “I’d rather not talk about my mother.” A clear: Don’t mention her again. Lamprius looks forward, always. They exit the alley, round the corner and Verona opens up in front of them. He doesn’t know how to tell Boris he really isn’t the kind of person to play catch up and talk about family members or turn the spotlight on himself. He’s terrifyingly focused on business. Not to mention, time’s ticking, not for him but for the city, and each fallen grain of sand in an hourglass might as well be keeping count of the bodies of innocents caught in the crossfire. 

“Those men you introduced me to, in 2010, I need to see them again.” 

There. The request.  

“But as you correctly pointed out, I doubt I could get a meeting with them without you.” There’s too much at stake here to be risking crawling through windows. Besides, he doesn’t know the windows of St. Petersburg the way he knows the windows of Verona. 

They walk next to a line of windows now, and Lamprius tugs Boris’ jacket to move him two centimeters to the left so that he narrowly avoids the leaky air conditioner he knows is there, before returning his hand to his pocket. He has a very vivid, very brief after-image of their last trip to Russia, of bare skin that had finally shifted from cold to hot to the touch after time spent under the steady work of warm fingertips. All he gets is the fabric of the jacket on fingertips right now, though he won’t think about the chasm of difference between these two tactile senses until later. 

“My other three points of contact are suddenly dead - a fate that I was curiously spared. Your friends can’t help but see this as suspicious.” He gets it. The smirk that tugs at the corner of lips says this. How strange that they were dead and he was not. “The only other person they know in relation to me is you. They need someone to vouch for my character, say I am who I still say I am. And much as I would love to do this without them, it’s becoming incredibly apparent that I cannot.”

There. His hand. He grows quiet, allowing Boris to reflect. This is how Lamprius’ has always conducted business: with a quiet firmness. He’ll show the steel of his spine if needed, but he doesn’t see that need now. The ask is pretty clear, he thinks, including the unsaid: ‘Fly to Russia for me, put a pause on your alliance, put your neck on the line for me.’ Lamprius is entirely aware of what he’s asking for. 

Hands still in pockets, he looks at the cracks in the pavement, not sure what he’s expecting to find, because reading them like they’re the lines on the palm of this city is kind of passé this time this year, and (to the surprise of many, all things considered, despite the fact that he literally calls himself a Witch), Lamprius is not that superstitious. 

After a moment of silence, he decides to add one more thing, because he knows that time has passed between him and Boris. “I also feel the need to say: if you can’t speak to the person I am now, speak to the person I was a few years ago. I assure you when you get down to it, not much has changed.” 

Dead child haunts house and begs for an explanation, forces their parents to look deep into their soul that is no more — it is how his return aches like. Bellamy half-lives, half-wanes, and it feels earned. He has discovered too much in under five days; it is both a corpse he has chosen to ignore and numerous lies he has been fed. He is not sure if his core shakes in horror, or in absolution. There might be something to be done, but all might as well be irreparable — and the more he observes Lucien, the more he finds himself unsure of what to think. He has discovered his own body once more, resuscitated the creature that has been born under the shadows, and he now finds his own heart is beating for two — for the human and the monster. 

His stare is one that bears the weight of the world. Bellamy has always been Atlas, more mythological retelling than human, and it shows on the simplest of movements, as the tips of his fingers graze Lucien’s lips and leave a path of glittering, vanishing stars. There is tenderness in this smothering of ashes for, although his hands are scarred from blunt-edged blades, there is still warmth seeping through them, as if the sun was inside of Bellamy’s rib cage, as if it shone hard enough to power this entire city with renewed hope. For a split second, there is a drowning in wishful thinking, as he finds Lucien’s emptied eyes once more — Bellamy desires to burst at the seams, a vicious enough action that can form new life, all in the name of the angel that stands in front of him, lost in grief  &  in terror. It is perhaps self-serving, to hold him closer, to kiss the soft flesh of his cheeks, to be so young and dare to think he understands this destruction, this silent cataclysm in which there are no tears to be shed and no violent cries to be dislodged from one’s throat. The mutilation of Lucien’s wings is one story Bellamy knows by heart, for it is ingrained in the grounds of Verona, the city in which all of Vatican’s holy creatures come to die. There is a deep breath they share, and the Santo Domingo is still enraptured by the dull shine that still lives under the surface of the Ivarsson’s eyes. He swears another promise to the God he serves (and he has made plenty upon his return, the skin of his knees suffering from the penitence of endless prayer) — there must be a corner of Lucien’s heart he can still protect, and he will do so, even if his only strength to push forward his the distant idea of a radiating smile gracing his lips.

—— There isn’t. —— he confirms, melancholy delineated on his words with subtlety. He does not argue back, for he knows standing up against the other at a time like this would be quite a low blow. Bellamy is determined not to leave, but Lucien doesn’t need to be privy to such information just yet — first, there must be a softening of his edges, a relaxation to the stern aloofness sedimented into the older man’s features. It is one precious skill Bellamy possesses, and he isn’t ashamed to admit he shall use it to its full capacity, if only it means Lucien will find some sliver of sleep. He follows the doctor into the kitchen, guiding him to sit down before he can even rationalize the preparations of a cup of tea. —— Where do you keep your herbs, carissimo? —— he murmurs, tone as soothing as the smile he makes sure to keep alive on his lips. —— I shall prepare the best drink of your life, and then you must rethink kicking me out. —— Bellamy keeps his teasing light, feather brushes against the skin of Lucien’s mind, as he settles a full kettle over the stove. Before the water boils, he makes sure to hold onto Lucien’s hands, another kiss pressed to his forehead. —— You have always cared for me. I beg of you to allow me this one repayment, my darling. 

Before he can really protest, Lamprius is being guided to sit in his own home. Whoever says there isn’t a sort of violence to kindness doesn’t know true kindness. The sort of kindness that erodes mountains requires its own kind of force, something that slips between the cracks and cripples  it from within. Bellamy is determined to slip between the cracks of Lamrpius’ stone exterior now, don’t think he misses it. Bellamy’s words are far too compliant; it's clear they don’t give any power to the law Lamprius has laid down. Bellamy better come to terms with the fact that Lamprius will hold him to it. But….Lamprius allows this all to happen to him - being guided to the chair, having tea made for him - because he misses him. It’s a sun peeking out from behind a cloud cover, It’s strange for him to be a cold one, usually cold hands sought out Lamprius for warmth, and he wants nothing more to bask in that sun, regain that warmth. For twelve days he thought it impossible - and now there is a kiss to his forehead. 

“Left cupboard above the stove.” He finally says, can’t help but frown a little at the comment about caring for him. There were plenty of people for Bellamy to care for in this city, Lamprius shouldn’t have to be one of them. “Your father needs your attention more than I do.” While he is not pleased for the young man’s return to the city, his own mother’s sickness haunts him. He would never wish such ghosts on Bellamy. ‘I’m going to move to Sicily for a few months, to be with my mother’ Lamprius tells his husband — doesn’t know how to say ‘she’s dying, I know it.’ He doesn’t have to in the end. His mother passes before he can make it to the south of Italy and it damn near breaks Lucien. Lamprius wants justice, he just doesn’t want to pull it from Bellamy’s father in this manner. “Is there anything I can do for him? ”

Secure Bellamy’s father’s health and get Bellamy far away from all of this as quickly as possible. Perhaps that is the best course of action. It’s been twelve days without the Witches, Verona stands to descend into madness without its usual system of checks and balances before long if it hasn’t already. And Lamprius really doesn’t know if it has already. He hasn’t looked out the window in the last hour, he half expects to pull back the curtain and see a plume of smoke, spiraling from the center of the city.  

From the window, there’s soft meow, peeping out from the corner of the room that makes Lamprius turn. A silvery grey cat slips into the house, leaping from windowsill to table to bookshelf with ease, as if he’s lived here his entire life. Of course even Free Cat returns for Bellamy. Lamprius gives the cat a look as it slinks up to him across the table top and rubs a face against his shoulder. Free Cat gets a reluctant pet and a scratch behind the ears. 

Regina does not concern herself with Verona as much as the rest. She does not allow this city or its political conflicts to become her identity. While she is not part of it, it is not so much a part of her as it is the gateway towards the only thing she allowed to become part of her, and that was the gun that felt as if it were an extension of her hand. Perhaps this conflict shaped her in ways she did not recognize, but she also didn’t do enough digging to discover this. Who cared if the conflict shaped her? Of course it impacted her life — she had been wading in the deep waters of corruption and blood and war for the past few years. Of course it’s shaped her — while a certain sense of darkness had always made a home of Regina and while Regina had found shelter in it, as well, it was not until she joined the Capulets where she found the darkness tinted with the dark, deep red of blood, and found that she thoroughly enjoyed it, more than she had ever come to enjoy anything else. She had always been void, but this war made that void deadly. She had always been a serpent, but this war showed her she was the venomous kind.

Lucien is a man who sits at the edge of this war and toys with the loose ends. Regina might be inclined to curiously pull at any strings she saw loose upon the bloody tapestry, as well, but unlike the Witches, she knew not how to weave those strands back together, to craft something new with the fragments of what’s been frayed. Perhaps she, herself, is a thread, her question drawing his attention as his fingers curiously reach out to test how strongly she is weaved into this war.

“Is something rattling to get out or hoping to invite us in, instead?” Regina mused, entertained by the thought of something hoping to escape through the moon to their kingdom below. “Do you think this side of the door is that much better than the other side?” After all, Regina is not one to resist temptation. While Lucien’s idea does not invoke fear in her, the opposite can be just as provoking, but in a more tempting sense: does the moon spike the waters with this sort of violence to tempt mankind through its door? Does it beckon, come, child, see the blessings the other side brings? Or perhaps it’s a trap. The moon was too mysterious to reveal its true intentions. Regina liked that about her.

She removes herself from her seat in one fluid motion, standing and expectantly looking at Lucien. “All buildings have roofs. We simply have to find the access point.” It’s not a question of if they were allowed to access the roof or if they should access the roof, it’s if they could, and Regina believed so, for she could do just about anything she wanted with little resistance most of the time. The greedy expectancy began to move her feet towards the back, where she assumed rooftop access was, and she looked over her shoulder to see if Lucien had decided to follow.

He follows. 

Lamprius follows the woman who is a slave to her impulses, because Lamprius would be a fool to fight them. The Witch truly believes that, at the end of it all, most people will do what they want to do, no matter what the world tells them. He understands that just because you build a dam, a river will not stop existing. He sees the Montagues and the Capulets as two truths that will struggle to exist, and the concept of eradicating them completely from the city is a fool’s errand. People will always want more for themselves, will seek to build a greater legacy for their children and their names, will pursue love, seek fame, want power. They will continue existing, continue to be the river that flows, and all Lamprius can do is build a dam. There’s a memory that lingers in his mind, of a time he, Hecate, Medea, stand in a mansion on the outskirts of the city - a decrepit building that’s been dying more years than it’s been living - a moment in time where a motion is proposed and Lamprius raises his hand to cast a vote in favor of La Purga. He believes in his vote then, like he still believes in it now. This woman is going to do what she wants to do and find that roof. He might as well follow her and observe because casting true judgement. 

Besides... he knows this place has a roof. Ever since the night at the theater, lamprius doesn’t walk into any building in this city without knowing every way to get out. The stranger walks towards the back and he follows her - only to turn before he reaches the back of the room. There’s a hallway that sprouts off to the left, and he slips into it, making a sharp turn off course. Lamprius clears his throat so she knows he’s veering away, before stepping out of view. There’s a few unassuming doors in this thin strip of room, and the third one on the left opens up to a space no bigger than a closet. Inside, it has a ladder to the roof that goes up and up and up. It’s not quite the stairway Led Zeppelin sung about, but will do. Lamprius waits next to it patiently, till his new friend appears and then, ever the gentleman, he allows the other to go first.

Like mariners surfacing from a submarine they push onto the roof. Now in the cold night air, Lamprius takes a second to look up at the moon. He gestures, as if to say ‘there’s the object of your affections.’ He’s spent an evening speaking a language that is not his mother tongue, making war-time plans for a war that should have ended long ago. But now he he breathes in the night air and it sweeps him clean.

“If it’s inviting us in, I’m going to have to decline. Don’t mistake this for cowardice but... I love this city too much to leave it behind.”

Or even, watch it from above. It’s always been the way of the Witches, to look down on the chessboard, but Lamprius believes in setting himself at the center of the city. He looks to the other, gaze looking past the dark hair that falls into his eyes. He offers up a small smile. His hands, tempted to be the devil’s play things, go to his pockets. 

“But if you step through, write a letter back to me won’t you?”

Not unlike the letters he shared with Bellamy... and further back, the one she shared with Everett. Like a strange habit Lamprius begins to walk the perimeter of the roof, to get a good understanding of it and measure it with his footsteps. Just because he knew existed, doesn’t mean he’s ever stepped foot up here before. There isn’t a piece of the city that Hecate, Medea and Circe didn’t know by heart. Lamprius tries to get a little bit closer to that understanding every day.