#*after midnight

“You’re a disgrace, Widogast,” the voice says in disgustedZemnian.

“What did you do to me?” Caleb demands, lunging up—and beingkicked again, in the ribs this time, to drive him back to the ground.  “What–”

What did I do?

“Get him up,” Astrid orders, and Caleb is dragged ungentlyup to his feet, every muscle screaming in protest.  He doesn’t fight it as they drag him inside.  He’s too busy trying to catalogue the otherinjuries on his body.  That gash to histhigh—could that be from Yasha?  Thesplash-burn on his shoulder must be Eldritch Blast, from Fjord, and the achingbruise that throbs over his ribs in time to his heartbeat…Beau.  It has to be.

Please, gods, Archheart,if you ever gave a damn, let them be okay. Caleb has that gutted, scraped-thin feeling of having burned through alot of magic in a very short time.  Allof it, maybe.

All of it, at—who? His friends?

His family, again?

He comes back to himself when he’s more or less pushed down aflight of stairs into a familiar dungeon. It’s lit only by magical glowglasses, spaced between the cells down thecorridor.  They cannot account for thesmell of smoke.

“Put him with the quiet one,” Astrid says.  “We’re a bit crowded, but don’t worry, yourroommate is very…cooperative.”  Then shehesitates.  Astrid, of all people, whowas always so sure and confident.  Whotook Caleb’s mind from him with one word—whatwas the word—and didn’t think twice.

She walks up and rests a hand on his cheek, using her gripon his jaw to force him to meet her eyes. Caleb learned to do that here, meet eyes.  If he was going to be the pride of the Empire,Ikithon always said, Caleb had to look honest and reliable, diplomatic, and hecould just have dinner when he could look his teacher in the eye and askpolitely.

Astrid’s eyes are still blue and clear and cold, and she easesher grip on Caleb’s face a touch as he stares back at her.  She strokes his cheek, almost gentle.

“Don’t worry, Caleb,” she says, still in Zemnian.  “You’ll be with us again, just as soon as you’rebetter.  It’ll be okay.  We’re going to make it okay.”

Caleb is frozen for a long moment, half in terror and halfin shock.  He can’t even articulate itbecause—because he just wants her to stop touchinghim, to stop looking at him.  Whatever she did, to take him away fromhimself and drag him back here, it left a feeling of bone-deep contamination inits wake, as if every small crevice he’s eked out clean of Ikithon’s influencehas been dirtied all over again.

Then he hears Nott’s voice, all the way back when they firstmet, saying frankly, “Everyone thinks they’re real scary until they’ve got goblinteeth in their leg.”

Astrid runs her thumb over his chapped lower lip, idle andpossessive, and Caleb opens his mouth and bitesher as hard as he can.

It’s worth the beating, to spit her own blood back at her,and for a moment all he can think is that Molly would be proud of him.

“Widogast,” Astrid pants, clutching her freely bleeding handto her chest and looking down at him where he’s all but hanging by the armsfrom the grip of her two guards.  “I’vebeen waiting to have you back with us for twelve years, but I have to say I’mlooking forward to making you pay for running, first.  Throw him in the cell.  He’ll live.”

Being mandhandled into the cell hurts so much that Calebgoes away again, a little bit, in a much more familiar way than before.  He lands on the ground and drags in threeslow breaths, just like he was trained to, and then rolls onto his back to takestock.

He’s in rough shape, he decides.  He’ll live, certainly, but he won’t enjoy it muchin this state.  At least one rib isbroken.  He thinks his ankle might be aswell, but he’s having some numbness that should probably worry him even more.

Maybe, he thinks grimly, he could fracture that rib properlyand punch a hole in his own lung to suffocate quietly through, before she comesback.

Because, of course, he’s going to die here.  That was a given from the moment he saw thedoors again.  Even if the Nein decided tocome after him—and gods, why would they, he’s a monster, a rabid dogwho finally turned on them—they would doubtless scout it and conclude that ahalf-decent wizard with a cat and homicidal tendencies isn’t worth riskingtheir necks for.

That’s assuming they’re all still alive.

Gods, he wishes he had his cat with him.

Caleb doesn’t know how long he’s been lying there, when hefeels the hand on his shoulder—an exploratory sort of poke, as if seeing if he’sbitten the metaphorical big one since rolling over.  He raises a hand feebly, trying to say not dead yet without trying to actuallyspeak.  Speaking seems a bit outside his capabilitiesright now.

His cellmate—the ‘quiet one’, whatever that meant—clears theirthroat and says softly, “Wa-ter?”

They sound rough and ragged, like they’ve been silent a longtime, and they shape the word like someone learning a completely foreign tongue,hitting every consonant too hard and muddling the vowels.  

Caleb sits up so fast he feels something in his chest crunch,and narrowly misses crashing headfirst into a magnificently curled horn.

Kneeling over him is a tiefling with skin that shows lavenderand scarred in the dim light, loose shirt maybe white once.  The eyes throw the light back, reflecting redall around, without a trace of pupil, and the hand being held up as if to warnCaleb off has—oh, it has a tattoo, Caleb can see it curl around the wrist, asnake, and on the neck, peacock feathers and a hidden red eye.

“Mollymauk?” Caleb rasps.

He’s feeling a little hysterical.  Gods, maybe Caleb’s died already and this is his own personal chamber of the Nine Hells.  That sure would save everyone some trouble.