#apprentice anatole

“The least you could do—”

“Don’t tell me how to handle this Cassiopeia—”

Cassiopeia snorted. “You handling anything would be the real surprise here.”

“You have no idea what I’m going through, so why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?”

Recognition danced around Anatole as he feared the owner of the voice would slam the door shut. By the whisking sound of cut air, he was about to, but decided against it on the last minute. Anatole felt eyes on him, but when he tried to turn to look, all he could see was the door closing very carefully, with a quiet click. If Anatole was more awake he’d say it sounded like someone who didn’t want to leave. He wasn’t, however, so instead he focused on sitting up.

The voice that stayed, Cassiopeia, brought a chair close to Anatole’s bed, the legs of it scraping against the floorboards. She was a handsome woman, with a wide smile, deep brown skin with a bronze undertone; had there been more light in the room, Anatole would’ve been able to see the freckles on her face very much resembled his own. She had expressive eyebrows, and her tight curls were put together in an up-do, with jewellery accents clipped on the side of her head. 

Anatole recognised her as the woman he had seen in an echo the day he arrived at the palace, the one wrapping her arm around a younger version of himself in encouragement. She had looked happier there; now she looked tired behind her welcoming, warm, smile.

She offered him water. “I figured you would like something to drink, does this happen often?”

Anatole accepted the drink, taking tiny sips from it. “It hasn’t happened in a while. I live with it just fine, most of the time…” 

“There’s no need to be embarrassed. Now, I’m not trying to trespass any boundaries, so you don’t need to explain anything you don’t want to, Toly— I mean, Dear, but if this happened to my daughter, or say, a nephew of mine, I would ask them if there’s any medicine I could procure for them.”

“How did you just call me?”

“Hm? ‘Dear’, is that alright by you?”

“No, you called me ‘Toly’. My, I know... there was someone who called me that, but I can’t remember.”

Cassiopeia acted none the wiser. “Dear, you’ll make yourself indisposed once again.”

Anatole stared at her, until he begrudgingly accepted his defeat and drained his glass. “You needn’t worry, I promise I can handle it myself, I’ve already interrupted you enough.”

She insisted, her voice resonating with fondness Anatole didn’t know how to receive. “I know you can, but I care, we care. The Council is at your disposition, you know? Even if the Consul—”

Anatole grimaced as he remembered his confrontation with him. It had gone the opposite of how he wanted to. Running his hands through his face, he groaned into them, though he soon regretted it as the sound didn’t please his headache. “The Countess is going to be so angry at me.”

“I don’t think she will, and either way, I would gladly vouch for you. He shouldn’t have done that, even if he’s carrying a terrible weight, it was wrong,”

she paused, looking towards the curtained windows, focusing on a tiny beam of light that came when the outside breeze moved the drapes. “I closed them for you, I didn’t know if light was something you’d appreciate it or not right now. Would you like me to open them?”

“Please. Sunlight makes me feel better.”

Anatole thought he heard her say that she knew it did, but he didn’t acknowledge it, suspecting Cassiopeia would deny it again.

 “I’m not trying to justify my cousin, but Valeriy has been through a lot lately. He isn’t the same man he was four years ago, and the Gods know we have our hands tied.”

As recognition dawned on him, his headache became worse. It moved right between his eyes, a piercing pain accompanied by the laughter of a child hanging from a tree branch as they threw themself into the arms of a man with long, soft hair.

He hissed in pain and before he could stop her, Cassiopeia was preparing him a migraine tonic. Later, when Anatole was left alone once again, he would realise he never had to explain to her his late Aunt Paris’ recipe for migraine tonics. Cassiopeia already knew it.

Right then, however, the knowledge slipped from his mind.

Before he could strain himself any further, Cassiopeia told him to lie back and drink his medicine, compelling him to rest. Anatole insisted it was fine after taking all of the concoction with one swift chug. 

“I’m used to it. I promise it’s fine. Asra has always been there for me since this happened to me,” he said with a vague hand gesture, avoiding any further explanation about his memory loss, migraines were safe enough, memory loss? He wasn’t sure. “But I’ve also been well, mostly on my own. With Antu. Asra does what he can and we fend for each other.”

Anatole petted Antu’s fur; Cassiopeia told him the Raccoon, whom she affectionately called “little beast” refused to leave his side.

They sat in silence as the tonic began working it’s magic, until a sob came out of Cassiopeia. She promptly excused herself, trying to calm down. Anatole was almost reminded of himself and the echo of a woman about his age, that looked a lot like Cassiopeia only both her eyes were green. Her name danced in the tip of his tongue.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“No,” Anatole apologised.

“That is most alright, you ought not to apologise, Anatole. I am Cassiopeia Cassano, councilwoman of this City, and know that if you ever find yourself in need of a friend, I am here for you.”

Cassiopeia looked at him with sorrow. He could feel it too, inside himself, as something told him these people had once been very important to him but remained unable to recall how, why or when. Not knowing was going to drive him crazy, so against his common sense telling him not to do things that would make his headache worse, he asked:

“The person who was with you when I was waking, was it… was it the Consul?”

She hesitated.

“Yes, that was Consul.”

Anatole felt like he did after he had talked to Asra in the fountain and that man had called his name — those feelings of sorrow and disconnection taking hold of him again, as whatever had happened to him slipped through his fingers once more. “I knew him, didn’t I? I knew both of you.”

“I shouldn’t,”

“Cassiopeia, please. He looks like me when I’m angry, and, and I keep seeing echoes of myself when I was younger, a being younger that I don’t remember, but you’re both always with me and we look—”

“Happy?”

“Proud. I walked into the Palace and everyone knows my name, but acts like I shouldn’t be here and I saw you both walking me in and you looked so, so proud of me. This is not the first time I’ve had a dèja vú like that.”

“We were” she said with a defeated sigh, tears once again threatening to overflow her waterline. “When it came to the Court, you were our rising sun.”

Cassiopeia stood up. “You ought to rest, I have talked too much. I’m sorry, I know how much you hate not knowing but I need some answers for myself, too.”

He didn’t know what had compelled him to speak, which he was used to by now even if he hated it —he liked knowing what was about to come out of his mouth, thank you very much. He didn’t regret it, though, because he could tell Cassiopeia wouldn’t think ill of it, nor use it against him.

Anatole could do little more than thank her, taken aback with the intensity and sincerity of her words. Yet, despite her original word, Cassiopeia betrayed herself and said:

“Is there anything else you almost remember?”

“So many things I cannot name, nor place, nor put to shape. How am I supposed to carry out an investigation, if I myself barely know where I came from?”

Councilwoman Cassano walked back to the side of Anatole’s bed like he was on fire and she had to put him out. Forgoing the chair completely, she kneeled by the bedside and took his hands in hers. She was crying now; Anatole found himself crying to.

“The moment you feel overwhelmed you stop me, is that clear Young Man? Good. Your name is Aelius Anatole Radošević De Silva, you were born in Bgraz, in the Federative District of Ilvaska, in Balkovia, during a Civil War. Your family is as Blakovian as it is Vesuvian, but also have blood from the Alzoreños because that is where your mother was born. And you will be able to do this because you’re not alone, and because we will not leave you alone, and because you have always, always found your way.”

She left the room shortly after, leaving Anatole to realise that his name on her lips felt the same way it felt when Asra said it: full of sorrow but also full of love. Nadia arrived not five minutes after, so Anatole would have to think about that later. 

Cassiopeia couldn’t go home yet, she had worked to do. She did try to find Medea, but she was nowhere to be found. She remembered her and Anatole were almost attached at the hip when he had first been alive, so perhaps she would know something. Some dreadful feeling found its way to her gut, because that was indeed her nephew, the one who had died. She knew it in her heart, she knew it like she’d known the guidance of the Moon and the protection of the Sun.

She didn’t know enough about resurrections and necromancy, but Valerian did. She’d have to speak with the old Cassano patriarch as soon as she was home, maybe he’d know what to do, and it would all sort itself out. For now, though, she continued her day knowing that at the very least, her wonderful nephew was alive. 

At the other side of the City, Doctor Louisa De Silva was going through her day. It was one of those days when she simply had to move, unable to tolerate being cooped up inside. Seeing people, talking to people, anything to feel like a real human again.

She had to admit those weren’t the only reasons. Walking and running errands helped her think, and she had much to think about.

Amparo was hiding something from them. Call it motherly intuition on Louisa’s part, but she knew she was. She might be depressed, and she might have been incredibly absent from the world around her for longer than a year after Anatole had died, but Louisa had never been stupid. She had suspected it for a while, snippets of conversation and certain behaviours drawing her attention. Then, Antu had gone missing almost permanently and whenever he came back, the raccoon seemed oddly chiper. Too chiper for a creature that had been wallowing in it’s own sorrow. 

Then, certain things went missing from Anatole’s rooms. Books, clothes, quills, beddings, his harp. How Amparo had managed to relocate it without anyone noticing, Louisa didn’t know, but she knew her son’s harp was gone and it seemed suspicious that both Amparo and Valerian had had an explanation for it. Lastly, there was the issue of Vlad having claimed to see Anatole two days ago. 

Louisa knew about magic like one knew of history. While she could’ve learnt, she had never felt the need: Paris was the magician out of the two of them, and there was always Vlad, even if, as an alchemist, his tether to magic was different than for most people’s. Be that as it may, Vlad had been “seeing” their son for a while now, even if recently it had stopped. It began with sleepwalking, Vlad covering lengths of the Palazzo, because ‘Anatole needed him’.

Once he made it to the street, crumbling when he was told what he had done. He thought he was losing his mind, something Louisa understood. Nothing would ever compare to the pain of losing Anatole, but Vlad’s sleep walking seemed like a cruel twist of the universe. Her husband acted as if compelled, saying he could hear Anatole in his dreams, needing to go find him, because his boy needed him. Louisa thought it was just nightmares at first. Now, she wasn’t so sure. 

Someone bumped into her in the South End apothecary she was in, pulling her out of her thoughts. 

There were plenty of Apothecaries around Vesuvia of varying qualities and exclusivity, though Dr. De Silva had her favourites, this being one of them. Today it was particularly busy, the humdrum and talk in both accented common, and half-and-half (the way Vesuvians called the back and forth change between Dialect and Common tongue) hitting her with full force now that she had become aware of them, people’s voices around her and the sounds from the streets no longer white noise. 

A middle aged lady was gossiping with another of the Apothecary’s clients. 

“So I told the wife, you wouldn’t believe whom I saw Maz’ Ilya with, and bet you what, she didn’t believe me. Remember the Radošević boy?”

“Who?”

“You know, the Cassano’s blond new blood, whatever was his name… the one who worked with Mr. Stick-up-the-ass— Councilwoman Cassano’s nephew, you know the one… Aleli, Anar??”

“Anatole?”

“That’s the boy!”

“Are you sure you weren’t drunk? He’s fucking dead.”

“Tell you he isn’t! He’s alive as the two of us, walking around with Ilya D—”

“Don’t say his name, you idiot.”

“No one’s listening, relax, anyway— he was walking around with… you know, just like they did before the plague. I know surviving that made us all a little loose up here, but I know what I saw. Alive as you and me, I tell you. Nothing mortal can kill the bastards they said, and I’m starting to believe it.”

“And what? You’re going to tell me you reached the fucking Cassano so you knew him personally, and that’s why you’re so sure? They’re better than most of that lot, but they left the ‘Grave long ago. You’re imagining things.”

“Listen, my brother knew him. I described the guy to him, and he said that was either Aelius Radosevic or someone who looked a lot like him. He’d know what I was talking about, he’s part of the union—”

“You know the ‘Nothing mortal can kill a Cassano’ is just a saying right? They’d have to be witches or something.”

“How do you know they aren’t?”

“How do you know a dead man went around walking?”

“I bet he was never dead, and they had to hide him from the Goat voiced fuck we had for a Count.”

“Take out the ‘o’ and you’re spelling him right out. If you were in the Raven you were drunk as hell, am willing to bet. No other witnesses, I fucking bet.”

“The chainmails got in, the bird sang.” 

“Of course, Tilde,” the person the lady, Tilde, was talking to said. “Tell you what, if the man’s alive I’ll eat my shoe, but be ready to take a fall about that because I am willing to bet he was just like every other Up the Steps bastard in the end, if he is in fact alive. Chickened out, like his coward uncle and—”

“Hey!” Louisa yelled. If she didn’t startle herself with the volume of her own voice, it was only out of how angry she was, the more she heard this person go on. “That’s my son you’re talking about. Anatole was my son.”

She acted on impulse, anxiety and anger making her blood shake and her pulse rise up. There was a lot she could understand from others, but not this. Not the defamation of her son’s character, not when Anatole had given his life away for Vesuvians, not when Anatole had arrived shaken and yelled at by the Courtiers so many times, not when she could remember how his shoulder bled that one time Pontifex Vulgora dug their gauntlets on his skin. 

Not when Lucio’s neglect had murdered her son. She had already lost enough to tyrants to withstand this. 

The shop around her went quiet as the middle aged lady recognised her. 

“You’re Doctor De Silva! You’re that woman who—”

The person she had been speaking to before interrupted her. “Was he? So is he dead or is he alive?”

Louisa’s reply died in her mouth. Did she really know the answer? She thought she did. She thought that awful letter from the nurses of the Lazaret had been enough proof of the death of her son, but if he was alive, then how? Anatole would never run away, she knew her son, running away from love and duty was not something her son would ever do.

Something broke inside of her as she remembered how Anatole had fit between her arms. Angry, hot tears began rolling down her cheeks. Whatever way she looked, it made the person backtrack. 

“Lady, are you okay?”

“What kind of question is that? How dare you offer me pity after you have the audacity to speak of my son that way. You should have more respect for those who gave their lives to save others amid the Red Plague.”

“Oh, is this about gratitude? Isn’t it always with you high and mighty bastards?”

“Hey!” Someone else intervened. “The Cassano are on our side, and you know that, leave the Doctor alone, she heals our children for free. Aren’t you going to apologise?”

“No,” the person said. 

“I don’t need them too,” Louisa added, shooting them a deadly glare before turning to the other lady, Tilde. “You must have been mistaken, my son is very much dead and buried in the Lazaret, but it is nice to know someone still thinks about him.”

“I don’t mean to poke, but are you sure, Miss? There’s talk about him working directly for the Countess now, so it made sense to me. About your height, scar over his nose, looks a lot like the Consul and a lot like you too. Same front teeth.”

The other person scoffed again. “You saw his teeth now?”

“Shut up,” Louisa barked at them. “Sorry, Tilde, you might be mistaken.”

“I know I’m not, you should look into it, Miss. Ask my brother about it, he has a shop three streets down.”

As the argument ended, the shop’s awkward silence gave way to the same humdrum as before. Louisa received her order and left the place, not without stealing a look at Tilde’s direction, who was offering some leeches to the Apothecary to examine. They swung their head towards Louisa, making Tilde turn: with her thumb, she pointed left, in the direction Louisa could only assume was her brother’s shop. With so many things in her life, Louisa’s body knew what the right thing to do was before her brain could catch up, and only like a mother who knew the right way to love her child could, she asked on every shop three blocks to the left of the Apothecary until she found Tilde’s brother. 

Amparo would have so much explaining to do. 

* * *

He no longer knew who he was. After Amparo came forward to all her family and his nephew’s friends, per theirs, Milenko’s, Cassiopeia’s and Louisa’s insistence, he had seen Milan summon Asra Al-Nazar from the pond in the Winter Garden. Well, not “summon”, that was a strong word, but rather called, and Al-Nazar had answered. 

He had to listen to them confirm what he had been dreading: that the apparition in the shape of his Anatole, the one he had thrown wine to under the hawke-like gaze of the rest of the Courtiers, and who then had confronted him, knowing information about Valeriy who no one outside their family knew, was not an apparition. He wasn’t witchcraft. He was real. Real as they all were.

Asra Al-Nazar, against everything Valeriy thought the magician would consider forbidden, made a deal with an entity to give half his heart to Anatole, so he could live once again. The cost had been his memories, locked away deep down into himself. 

Yet, Asra had crumbled into Milenko’s arms as he explained how somehow he remembered, but he couldn’t make him remember. “I only make it worse,” he had said. 

Instead of staying in the room, Valeriy had walked away. When there was nothing more to say and Cassiopeia asked him if he saw it now, he had felt his throat close. As fast as he could he got away from the scrutinising weight of his family, as the man he used to be and he had wanted to bury resurfaced. 

Valeriy Radošević had begun agonising with his nephew’s death. The last tendrils of control he had slipped away. So when the Devil offered him a way out after years of looking at him over the shoulder, waiting for him in the lonesome hours and cold dead-ends, he had struck the final blow to the man his family expected him to be, and the uncle whom Anatole had once loved.

He had always been a difficult man, but what he had become now, if his family knew… they would never forgive them. It seemed easy before, when Anatole was dead: what a better way to self-destruct, what a better way for his life to slowly end. Let the grief that had always been part of him eat him up and spit back the cruel carcass of the monster he was starting to become. 

Now, as the realisation that Anatole was indeed alive, Valerius realised this mask he had crafted for years, the mask which was nothing but the coffin of the man he once could’ve been, was starting to break. Out of it, Valeriy Radosevic began to resourface, like an overflowing well, a spring, or a reminder of dawn. 

Did you name yourself after the Sun?

Yes, Uncle Val. Do you think it’s fitting?

Very much so, Lily, darling. You’re my favourite sunrise.

He found an empty remote room, slamming the door behind him. In the room there was a mirror and when Valeriy looked into his own reflection, he didn’t see his eyes but Matilda Cassano’s. Instead of the sandy-grey eyes he had inherited from one of his grandparents, he saw the unforgiving yellowish of his dead biological mother. 

Though he was four when she died, part of him could remember enough: the abandonment and the constant tension between Matilda, Valerian and Iovanus, or between Matilda and Mircea and Florentino. The former was a Radošević, the brother of Matilda’s husband, Valeriy’s biological father, Kresmir. The latter was a Cassano, Matilda’s first cousin. They had married each other and only a year older than Matilda herself, had stepped up where Vlad’s and Valeriy’s biological parents had failed. 

Though he was four when both of them died, he knew enough. The cruelty, the anger in his brother’s eyes. His brother, the father of his nephew, had taken better care of him as a baby than his parents ever did. If Valeriy had survived during his first infancy when no other adults were around, it was because of Vladislav and Vladislav alone. 

In the mirror, a cruel half-ram creature with the eyes of his mother smiled back at him. It spoke back to him in his own voice: “Proud, at last, of what you chose to become?”

“Leonore, wait! Anatole’s dead.” 

They began bickering about it, Octavia trying to stop Leonore from head diving into a wild goose chase, not realising Selasi, the Baker, was listening to them. 

“Excuse me, forgive me for overhearing, but are you talking about Anatole Radošević? The magician from Moonstone and Jasmine?” 

“Yes! His aunt owned that shop,” Leonore said, jumping to talk to Selasi, who inspected him with a careful eye. 

“I don’t know what prank you’re playing, but he’s alive as can be. I opened a little after the plague subsided and he and Asra have been getting bread from me for three years, almost. They’re attached at the hip, so if you know Asra—“ 

Leonore leaped to shake his hand. “I do know, Asra! Thank you, thank you so much.” 

Selasi tried to tell him Asra wasn’t around, that he was on a journey, but that he could tell him where to find Anatole if he promised he was a friend, but Leonore sprinted towards the shop without letting him finish. Sabine set off to follow Leonore as Octavia called to both of them, which left her standing alone with Selasi. She made some apologies, and Selasi told her not to worry. 

“Where did you say you knew him?”

“Leonore went to University with him,” she said, thinking the least she could do was to assure the man they were Anatole’s friends, not some random people with weird motivations. “I know him through his cousin.”

The baker hummed. “I didn’t know Anatole had any family besides his late Aunt and Asra.”

Something about the way he said it, the casual certainty of it, gave Octavia a chill. She thanked him, and tried to catch up with Sabine and Leonore, not wanting to say anything Selasi might not know. She risked him stopping them, or worse, telling Anatole, which she didn’t think would be a good idea. Octavia just had a bad feeling about it: she didn’t expect people to just know who Anatole was, or had been, that could be conceited. Anatole himself hated being anticipated by his job, wanting to have the opportunity to present himself and do the best he could do. 

Yet from there to the sureness Selasi had had when he said he didn’t know Anatole had any family besides Paris and Asra? It was weird. The Radošević-Cassano weren’t meant to be separated; if Octavia knew anything about them from Milenko, it was that they were very close knit. The only people in their families that Octavia could think of as not being regarded ever, were Matilda and Krešmir, Vlad’s and Valerius’ late parents, who hadn’t even raised the siblings. All she knew about them was that they were neglectful and Matilda had the idle ennui of someone who was too used to having everything, and was used to using cruelty for fun. 

Milenko had only talked about them a couple of times, and she had never heard the Consul even mention them, let alone Vlad, Anatole’s father. One way or another, the Cassano didn’t detach themselves from their family, nor did the Radošević, and Anatole had only ever been extremely proud of the people who had raised him. That had been their way since the days of Cassano Arianamenzi, the first of them, and she could testify that legacy had not washed away with time. If anything, it had become stronger. So why would Anatole not speak of it?

Unless he didn’t remember them. She had read about such a thing once, doing research for one of her most early plays. A shiver went down her back, making her hug her arms around herself and walk faster.

When Octavia reached the Moonstone Leonore and Sabine were talking to a tall man who seemed to guard the shop. None of them had seen him before, but he seemed to know them; he called them ‘people from before’. 

“You used to give Anatole clementines, which he doesn’t like—” he said. He was tall, covered in a cloak, and had moss green eyes, though they were barely visible.

“He says they taste fake,” Leonore completed.

“So he gave them to me, before— it doesn’t matter. You won’t find him here.”

The only thing stranger than the stranger was that none of them could remember him as they tried to piece their afternoon together. However, Octavia had heard Selasi say Anatole was occupied in the Palace, and perhaps they could try their luck there. 

“Then let’s go,” Leonore said, already standing up. “Maybe Medea knows something we don’t.”

Medea Pryce was the daughter of two archaeologists and the granddaughter of another one. Both her father’s and her mother’s family had settled in Vesuvia some generations ago because its cultural diversity and rich history was good for the archaeological craft. Anatole wasn’t the first Radošević-Cassano she had met — her Grandmother was acquainted with Bastiste Cassano, one of the Cassano elders, and thus with Consul Valerius, whom Batiste called her spoiled grandnephew. Medea’s parents, on the other hand, were acquainted with Atanasie Radošević and Aurora Tesfaye, uncle and mother of Anatole’s cousin Milenko. 

So when she met him at University, which she had begun in Prakra, just as he had done, the surname called to her immediately. Discovering they would course the exact same program, even if they had different aspirations and goals, another pleasant surprise. It would be nice to have someone to know, as Medea liked making friends.

What a friend she had made of him and Leonore, who shared housing with them. Anatole was one of those people who had the energy of a handsome stranger one shared enlightening conversation with, yet then never saw again. Debonair and hopeful, he was passionate and inspiring, a devoted friend and nothing if not extraordinary. He had his shortcomings, like everyone, but that wasn’t the way one measured their friends. 

Seasons came and time passed. They both studied and apprenticed in Balkovia for six months, and then they moved on into Vesuvia, Leonore following them, to their surprise. They laughed and hurt, they fell in love with their own people, they held each other, and Medea and Anatole drafted their plans for the future. It would be a great future, they were sure of it. Anatole’s self-introductory speech for the Vesuvian Court was a gem, Medea believed it so. They liked to fantasise about one day becoming Consul and Head of Staff, with all the things they thought they could help with, working together for the people of their City. 

No matter the crashes and reality checks, the hardships or how many times Medea had seen Anatole stand up to the Count and the new Courtiers, they held hands through it and continued onwards: The World and it’s calling of completion met its perfect match in Anatole’s Ace of Swords coloured Strength.

Then the Plague came and Anatole died, and Medea was left with all their plans, and no one to implement them with. 

After his death, things only got worse. She could tell something was going on with the Consul, but she wasn’t close enough to him to know what. She was somewhat closer to Councilwoman Cassiopeia, but she didn’t seem to know what was going on with her cousin either. The Courtiers hadn’t done anything of value for the City in three years, and all that Valerius ever seemed to do was to keep it afloat. The Court was destroyed, and with the Countess as lost as they all were, Medea didn’t know where they would end.

When she heard the Countess had found a new advisor she was thrilled. Fresh air was what the Court needed, and by the first weeks of this advisor around the Countess, it was clear they were doing her good, even if she had heard the advisor had had a rocky introduction with the Court. It seemed like it, because she knew from first hand experience that the Consul had come in furious to his office, refusing to speak to anyone, except to Cassiopeia, whom Medea was sure forced him to speak rather than him wilfully giving her any information.

He had only said something about something in poor taste, and how had he let the Countess know he would not tolerate it, but he didn’t say anything else. 

Her turn to meet the advisor came the next morning. It happened by accident, when she was delivering some documents to the Council of Vesuvia. Meet was a lax word for it, ‘seeing’ him, was much more appropiate: with his light golden blond hair, and bespoke clothes. The same unmistakable black eyes and the scar across the bridge of his nose. The same stride, the same height, the same face, the same looks. 

Her friend, her own dearest Aelius Anatole had walked into the Consul’s office seeking for an explanation about the way he had been received in Court. From there on, the morning was mayhem, absolute mayhem, and only now that Medea was sitting alone she could finally process it. 

“Anatole” had introduced himself fully, his name the right name, but the Consul wouldn’t hear it, immediately throwing himself at the throat of the “second-rate witch” for daring to use that name. Anatole continued to insist that was his name. The more the argument extended, it was clear to everyone involved that that was Anatole, even to the headstrong Consul — his panicked eyes gave him away.

Medea knew her friend, her friend had always had a presence, even if he wasn’t always aware of it. He still had it, he still stood in the same way the Consul did, he still turned his eyebrows in the same way, and the way he spoke. 

What he spoke of, too. 

The breaking point came when the Consul grabbed him from the shoulders, demanding to know what he wanted from him. Then, Medea saw him do something he hadn’t done in years: she heard the Consul speak Balkovian in public. Medea’s grasp with the language was enough to know he asked two things, two crucial things, that anyone who wasn’t Anatole couldn’t answer. 

Anatole answered the first one, something about a sword’s name, in his perfectly native Balkovian, looking pale and sickly-greenish. Cassiopeia tried to interject, but the Consul wouldn’t listen to anyone. Then the Consul asked his second question, something about ‘what was the tree’, or ‘what was the name of the tree’, and nothing else. Medea wasn’t sure. 

Anatole replied both of the questions: His first reply being ‘grapevine’, followed by a choked up ‘cult of Dionysus’; the second reply was ‘a beech tree’, looking like he was about to vomit after the words left his mouth. 

“Valeriy?” He said, as the Consul looked at him in horror, still holding him by the shoulders. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

Anatole did pass out, and the Consul, blushing cherry red as he realised the whole scene had been in front of half the Court office at his care, yelled at them to know what the hell were they doing, if not call for someone to take this boy to a bed. After it, the Consul stormed off, Cassiopeia power-walking behind him as she demanded an explanation from her cousin, an explanation the Consul refused to give, waving dismissively at her.

“Don’t you wave like that at me, Valeriy, unlike you, I know my own damn nephew when I see him.”

“Don’t call me that here.”

“Valeriy Radošević, I will call you however I damn please! Come back here!”

Medea didn’t stay to watch the rest. The Court was in unrest, it was so much that it had stirred the four other weirdos into watching and making the oddest commentary for anyone to hear. Medea didn’t need an in with them to know they knew something they all didn’t, and simply thought of the Court Staff too inconsequential for them to spare them half a thought.  

As if possessed by a thunderbolt, Medea stood up from where she was sitting as she ruminated. She needed answers, and she needed to talk about this to someone. She had an idea: if anyone she was close enough knew a considerable amount of death and ghosts, it was Amparo Cassano, but first she needed to talk to Leonore. They had supported each other in these 4 years Anatole had been dead, or presumed as much. Anything she did, it would be with Leonore. 

As she turned around after grabbing her coat, Leonore was calling her name. 

“Sabine is waiting for us at our place, they wanted to ask some questions first so I ran here. Octavia is trying to find Amparo, or anyone really. There’s something I need to tell you.”

Second came the turning. Anatole was a restless yet restful dead. He didn’t come back to deliver any messages, he didn’t come to sit in anyone’s dreams. Both of them could tell it wasn’t because he didn’t want to do it, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to turn and tell them something they could only imagine. Anatole was still searching for something, and they both knew him enough (one saw him grow, the other grew up with him) to know Anatole would keep going, even if he turned his head to look back, until he found what he was looking for. Giving up was not in his vocabulary: if it were, he wouldn’t be dead. 

Third came the jump. It would take both of them a while to realise what had truly happened. Valerian had never witnessed it before like this, Amparo had never witnessed it at all, used to the energy of those who were gone and came back as ghosts, or sometimes, never left, changing into something which shouldn’t walk their world. Those were the kind of changes in the dead that she was used to. This was different. It felt as if Anatole’s presence had jumped and relocated somewhere to never be found, somewhere which wasn’t the realm of the Dead. 

In the magical realms, the person known as Aelius Anatole Radošević De Silva had climbed to the highest peak of the Fool’s realm. There he could see a dragon fly above his head, getting lost in the horizon while he stood alone in the overgrown island. The words had been clear: We will look after you, and then the Fool’s: When you’re ready, all you have to do is jump, I will be waiting.

Waiting for what? For whom?

For him, of course, he knew that. But where? And most importantly why?

He stared at the horizon as darkness faded, and the greyish first tints of sunrise left way to an explosion of colour, and as if the shoe he was waiting to drop finally hit him on the head, he laughed. The conclusion came to him like a realisation, and on top of a building that was once shaped like the Lazaret he cried. He only hoped his mother would forgive him for making her weep for however long. He would walk the clouds again, he would see the faces of the people he loved again, he would step on the cobblestones of Vesuvia and breathe again. 

Giving up had never been in his vocabulary. All he had to do was jump.

“Am I dead?” He had asked, a year ago.

“Yes,” he had been answered. “But I do not think you’ll stay dead for long.”

He recalled that conversation as he drew a breath and, like a lover running to the arms of the subject of their affections, he ran to the edge of the precipice and jumped. 

It took Amparo and Valerian about eight months to piece together what had happened and to dare say it to each other. The first clue came in the shape of energy, picked up by Amparo before Valerian could; energy which reassembled Anatole’s, was Anatole’s, but faded like a fire which stubbornly fights against its nature to be lit. Or perhaps, like a fire which does not have the right conditions to do so. Amparo had promised herself she would leave the dead alone, but she guessed that if the energy of the dead felt so alive, then she was allowed to look. 

She didn’t do it immediately, too hurt, too scared for all of it to be wishful thinking. But what if it was him? What if it was him and he needed someone who knew how to transverse energy and life and death? Amparo felt she was justified enough to ‘create a tether’ between that energy and herself, a way of keeping tabs on her dead cousin. 

That energy disappeared suddenly after three months, and reappeared two weeks after that just like it had gone: with no warnings. This was when Valerian picked it up too — the distinct energy of someone who had died and come back to life, someone who, against all odds had come back as themselves but didn’t know who they were yet. Valerian had never witnessed such a thing face to face, instead he had seen the results of it once when he was in his twenties. Most of the time necromancers did not interfere with the natural order of things, and when they did, it usually was for their own selfish reasons: a necromancer who did not understand that everyone eventually had to die was either a very incompetent necromancer, or a very dangerous necromancer. 

It took both of them some time to raise the topic with each other. When they did, they felt like they could breathe again, like there was someone else to bear this weight with; Valerian was old, older than most, and while he had no intention of dying yet, he didn’t know if he could bear something like this alone again. 

Their plan was to track the energy so they could come to the bottom of it, with Amparo doing the tracking and neither of them doing the talking, too aware of the negative consequences this could have. If they were wrong, they’d break their families hearts for nothing and they couldn’t do that to them, especially to Anatole’s parents, Valerius, Amparo’s own mother, Milenko or his friends. However, if they were right, Valerian had advised Amparo to tread with caution. 

“Death is not a pause, but often a reset. How people come back, or how they remember who they are — if they remember at all — is a very delicate matter, my dear.”

Amparo now was one of the few living people who knew Valerian Cassano, former darling of Vesuvian theatre and window of Iovanus, former Consul, was a necromancer, but it seemed like a light secret to keep in comparison to the possibility of Anatole being alive. Without saying it, they both knew the secret would be their responsibility to keep, theirs to carry until they knew more of the situation. How had he come back, had there been side effects, was it really, truly him? Valerian explained to Amparo that there was a possibility the person who came back would look like Anatole without being Anatole: his entire personality and everything that made him himself misplaced, lost, as something new and alien took its stead. A new personality, for a new person. 

Amparo hated to admit it made sense, even though she insisted this had to be Anatole, it felt too much like him. Even if it felt like he was coming from behind a veil, or from underwater. With a determination not even Valerian’s well-meaning advice could temper (though she accepted it, as she knew he cared deeply about Anatole) Amparo swore she would find her cousin. She owed it up to him. 

“Valerian?” She said one day, after much thinking, finding the old man in the winter garden. “I think I know how to find him without being seen. I think we have to wake up Antu.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, Lele, darling.”

Valerian stood up with the help of his walking cane, moving towards the closest bed of flowers; Amparo rushed to help him kneel down, but he shook his head telling her to save it for when he had to stand back up. He ungloved one of his hands, handing the garment to Amparo as it revealed a perfectly youthful hand in its absence, the skin looking more like it belonged to a 20 year-old than a centenary, and counting, old man. When Valerian had stopped practising necromancy for his own reasons, all that pent up magic began working its way through the magician himself, or affecting his immediate surroundings. 

One of those side-effects had been his abnormally young hands. The magic regenerated them on its own accord, the instrument it had been one casted with. 

He cut a handful of flowers, and in their place new ones began to grow in a blink. “Here,” Valerian said after Amparo helped him up, “if I cut them, they will last a little longer.” 

It was three o’clock, the Palazzo moving to the rhythm of its afternoon shift. Amparo would have to go through most of it in order to reach the small external garden it had, and from there she’d have to descend to the family’s mausoleum. Of course, Anatole’s actual body was missing. Or rather, it was nothing but charred bone so there had been no body to bury. As she made her way, no one from the staff stopped her, nor asked if she needed anything, the flowers on her hand were telling enough. She prayed to the Sun in high-heaven and the Moon looking after her that no one would.

Amparo also prayed she didn’t run into Anatole’s parents. Nothing would ruin her tries more than running into Louisa, or even worse, Vlad. Valerius was a different matter entirely, she was angry at him over some argument he had had with her mother in the Council, so while she had no desire to cross paths with him, he was relatively easier to get rid of. One would think Louisa would be the hardest, but Anatole’s mother grieved her son in different ways which luckily involved staying as far away from the mausoleum as possible. 

Dr. De Silva, as a former war doctor, was no stranger to Death, nor she was unevered by it or the rituals the living had to reminisce on those they have lost; however, Louisa De Silva would not cry tears to an empty coffin. She said her son was in other places, not there, so she didn’t need to go as often as her husband did, even if she still went down to leave him flowers once a week. 

Vlad, on the other hand, had practically become as part of the family’s mausoleum as the dead themselves. 

Like Anatole’s father, his familiar had also become a permanent fixture in it. After Anatole died, Antu kept going back to the East Docks on his own, waiting for him to come back, trying to throw himself into the sea to swim all the way to the Lazaret. He was too smart of a creature to stay doing that forever, so sooner rather than later it sunk in that his magician, his companion, his saviour and protector was well and truly dead. Amparo wasn’t sure what sounds Racoons made when they were sad, strangely, she had said they must’ve sounded a lot like dogs, or perhaps, howling foxes. 

She had never expected Antu’s outward noise (a sad little series of chirps) to be nothing in comparison to the wailing cacophony that would echo in the mind of whomever could communicate with the raccoon. Would’ve she been able to drink enough alcohol, drink whatever potion, undergo whatever spell to not hear it, Amparo would’ve done it.

But if anyone could track Anatole it would be Antupillán. Luckily for Amparo, he was the only thing in the mausoleum, except of course, for the Dead, but the Dead were always everywhere.

Antu came back two days later. 

The magician didn’t reply, changing the topic instead like he always did when Anatole guessed too close to the truth about things Asra did not have the means to explain to his pupil. Instead he gave him his tarot deck.

Anatole can’t remember a time Asra’s separated from it. Normally, when Asra’s gone and Anatole had to a do a reading he used his own deck. It used to belong to his aunt, his connection to it jumping to his tongue before Asra could ask him if he knew, or remembered, whom it had previously belonged to. His cards were different from Asra’s — they were quiet, they gave him analytical and interpretational leeway. Asra’s were... too alive.

He took the Deck as Asra handed it to him, looking at the cards. “You trust me with your deck?”

“I do, Nana, I’d trust you with anything.”

Anatole decided to ignore the charged nature of his words. He had discovered within the last six months he was often able to call for the intention behind people’s words, how they were feeling in the moment, or if they were being dishonest. While most of the time it was useful, sometimes it was wildly disconcerting, others exhausting, or inconvenient. Like right now.

He was witness to the in-between-the-lines of communication whether he wanted or not, being too much information to handle at times. When it was too much, it could feel from invading someone's privacy to being overstimulated.

Instead of asking Asra if he had done that on purpose, he said: “You think I’m ready to use it?”

“You know I can’t answer that for you.” 

“I did it again, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay to need validation, Nana.”

Anatole knew that, in theory. Though he couldn’t deny Asra was right: he knew he still needed confirmation that he was doing things correctly, that he was doing a good job, that his efforts were meriting. Even when he had something completely figured out. Out of all the things Asra had thought Anatole would carry back from the dead, his tendency to overcompensate wasn’t one he’d accounted for.

Alright, that was a lie, he hadn’t accounted for Anatole’s entire personality to barrel through death to assert itself over the blank canvas of whom he had come back as. He should’ve foreseen Anatole to manage the impossible, twice. 

“Do you think you’re ready?” Now it wasn’t the time to allow his anxieties to govern over his capacities. Breathing steadily twice, he managed to give Asra the debonair smile with an inquiring, raised eyebrow the magician adored to see on his face. He hated not knowing, and the only way of knowing was to ask.

Asra found himself smiling too. “Why don’t we ask the cards?” 

✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎ 

As Asra said his last goodbyes, a knock on the door interrupting them both, Anatole thought he ought to ask where had he gotten his feathered hat. Another time.

Anatole wasn’t surprised Asra had already left when he went to the front of the shop to get the door, having slipped he High Priestess and her foreboding messages back into the deck. She’d have to wait for whomever had decided ‘after-hours’ wasn’t a real shop-keeping concept. Customers, Anatole swore. He really couldn’t blame Asra for leaving now. He himself hated being delayed or interrupted when he was focusing on something, and while Asra wasn’t quite the same (or didn’t have the same reasons) it was the same outcome. 

After-hours was the time he spent on himself and tonight he wanted to tackle his Zadithi. He had only just began picking it up again.

Again? That couldn’t be right.

A second, more impatient knock pulled him out of his thoughts. Anatole lunged forward to open the door, only to be met with Countess Satrinava, out of all people. He didn’t even know their shop had reached the Palace’s radar. For some reason he couldn’t pinpoint right then, he didn’t know if he liked it.

“Countess. Welcome to Moonstone & Jasmine how may I help—”

“Please,” she said, paying him little mind, “you must read the cards for me.”

Like he had said before, customers.

However, Anatole didn’t need to pick up on her words to notice the Countess was genuinely troubled by something, her comment on sleepless nights confirming his suspicion. So he decided to give her the benefit of doubt, instead of pinpointing the hour she decided to come at as a display of nobility’s entitlement.

The talk about his reputation was what shocked him the most, however. The temptation to dismiss her words as hyperbole was strong, but she sounded  too honest — a by-product of her state of necessity, Anatole thought, people tended to be worse at lying under pressure (How did he know that?).

When the Countess mentioned Anatole looked different in a dream she had, he speaks as if something had possessed him, having no idea he would speak until he did. “Do you possess any sort of clairvoyance, your Highness? I have a cousin who—”

He stopped as a throb made its way through the back of his head. As far as he knew, he didn’t have any family, he didn’t have anyone but Asra and a dead Aunt, but saying he had a cousin felt right in a way he couldn’t ignore. He had never been very good at lying to himself. Once he knew something was true, it cemented itself in his head, unshakable. He preferred it that way: falsehoods, even if lasting, crumbled. When you built with what was true, you built steady.

This felt like the truth, but was it? Was it a wish, or was it a lost piece of whomever he had been before? In the before he couldn’t remember?

Pushing his thoughts away, he said: “Excuse me, Countess. I forgot myself.”

“No matter. I come with a proposal.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Come to the Palace, and be my guest for a short while. You will be afforded every luxury, of course. I ask only that you bring your skill… and the Arcana.”

His first thought was ‘no’. His second, ‘absolutely not’. He had things! Plans! The only luxury he wanted right now was to be allowed to fill his after work hours as he saw fit. But this was a customer. They could use the money for supplies, and something told him — something he couldn’t pay any attention to right now, something inside of him he could only trust — the Countess was indeed in trouble. The kind of toruble where if he refused to help right now, he’d end up in the Palace anyway.

Sometimes it is better to cooperate with the universe; he had heard that somewhere, or perhaps from someone he couldn’t remember. Perhaps he read it. One way or another, now was not the time to mourn his plans.

“It’ll be an honour.”

“I will alert the guards to expect you tomorrow, but before that...”

Of course, she had come with a tarot inquiry, so Anatole redirected her to the backroom where readings and private consultations were held, finding himself face to face with Asra’s cards again.

He’d have to get used to their liveliness, sooner or latter. Unlike his own card, these spoke to you completely at random, compelling you to deliver their message, so you never knew if you were doing the reading or if the cards themselves were. Anatole didn’t love it, if he was honest. Nothing to do with the cards, though. It had everything to do with having asked Asra why do his cards work like they do, and Asra not giving him an answer which had fully made sense to him. 

He didn’t know what to make of the Countess as she talked to him about other times she had had her fortune read. His headache had moved from the back of his head to his temples. Familiar wasn’t the word for it, but she felt trustworthy, in an inconsequential sense. Like a coworker with good intentions but not enough turn out for his liking. He saw her out, opening the door for her, after her reading was done, still having not the faintest idea where on earth did he get such an impression from the Countess. He must’ve been reading too much, that was certainly it — too much politics before bed made Anatole a very imaginative man. 

As Countess Satrinava left, Anatole wondered if he should’ve told her anything about fees, at least as a joke. He wasn’t sure she’d appreciate the joke. 

He decided to brew something for his headache, worrying it might grow too big to sleep. Potions and brews had never been his strongest fort. He always needed to spend extra attention on them and their instructions, coming less organically than other forms of magic. Like languages. Languages were easy, even if messy sometimes. He still remembered one day, years ago, when he could speak nothing but a gibberish mess of Balkovian, Vesuvian and a very distant variation of Nopali. 

Still, it would keep his mind away from all the reputation talk the Countess had brought with her. He wanted to be convinced she must’ve been thinking about his aunt — Paris, that’s all Asra had told him — but Paris had been dead for even before his accident, so maybe... He took a breath, he was overthinking his way into a migraine again so he went back to his brew. 

He was missing enough of one ingredient, which meant he had to go to the Shop’s storage quarter, accessible only from outside and through the backdoor. As if anticipating his need, Antupillán, his familiar, fetched the keys for him and climbed onto his shoulder as Anatole made his way outside, looking for the sweet relief of willow tree bark. A victory which came at the price of getting his storage key stuck, fumbling for five minutes to unstuck it so he could go back inside. 

With all ingredients in front of him he could finally make himself a headache remedy. 

“Strange hours for a shop to keep,” said a muffled voice coming from somewhere, interrupting him.

If he got mugged, in his own house, he swore to everything he thought mattered in this world he’d spend the rest of his life finding whomever had come into his shop and making their lives miserable. He was sure no one had been around when he went retrieve the willow bark, Antu would’ve told him if there was someone. He was sure he had locked that door the moment he came in.

The thought that someone could’ve been staying in his own house, waiting for the right moment to strike made him sick, but mostly, angry. He knew he had a dagger somewhere in one of the drawers, if magic was not enough.

“Whomever it is, come out of where you are, and tell me what you want.”

“Behind you.” Anatole jumped back, giving himself more distance between this person, levelling a look to the red glasses the mask had for eye-sockets.

“So this is the witch’s lair… and who might you be?”

“Who’s asking?” He tried to sound as surefooted as possible, but the eye sockets of the mask were so vividly red, like a halo of auburn hair under the noon sun. His headache threatened to get stronger.

“I’m asking. I’d rather not do it again.”

The person lifted their hand, Anatole’s brain springing into action as it remembered the dagger was in the third drawer to the left. He lunged forward, he was quick with his feet he could just grab the dagger and protect himself with a shield if he— 

Instead of grabbing him, the stranger threw the mask to the floor. 

The flash of pain between his eyes, right where his nose begins was so intense it burned, making him wince. He patted the front table of the shop to hold onto something, fearing he will lose his balance and fall. He’s— he’s— he swears there’s a name on the tip of his tongue.

“As I suspected, shock, horror—”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s etched on your face! The gruesome reaction of facing the murderer himself. Fear not, I do not care about you, I only want information, so if you stop fooling around and tell me where is the witch.”

“The whomst?”

The man blinked, confused for a flash before he scowled again.

“Where is the witch?”

Something inside Anatole clicked. He was too tired to deal with any of this. If the intruder wanted to attack him, he would’ve done so already.

“Listen,” he said, barking back at this person who had interrupted his evening. “I have a migraine right now, so I will need you to be a little more specific. Secondly, you come into my shop, demanding things without exaplanation, manifesting behind me, and I do have to tell you, even with a migraine, I’m probably better with sharp things than you are so stand back and give me a bloody fucking second, alright?”

It wasn’t a lie. Anatole had always been good with blades. It worried Asra, for a reason he had never explained, but Anatole didn’t think it was a problem.

“You know, if you’re really feeling ill, I’m a medically trained professional—”

“Did you seriously just offer me medical help after you tried to intimidate me for information.”

“I—I, look you don’t look well… wait, did it work? Are you telling me where he is?”

“What? No, no it didn’t. There’s a lot of people who go by ‘he’ this City.”

“Not even the murderer part worked?”

Anatole shot him a death glare that made his uninvited guest look away. After finally retrieving that damn dagger, which he did just in case, he set himself to prepare his migraine remedy.

“You’re the guy who’s wanted for murdering the former Count, right?” He asked as he worked.

“Yes?”

“Wasn’t the guy a bit of an incompetent despot? Created a sanitary emergency and ran the city’s coffers dry? I’m neither of those things, nor I plan to rat you out before you try that line of intimidation, because I’m not a snitch. So please, if you could be specific.”

The intruder did not reply, instead he looked at Anatole like he was the weirdest person he had ever met. He shook himself from it. “The witch, I’m looking for him and I know he lives here...”

“Since you have no clue who I am, I will reckon you’re talking about Asra. He left. Don’t know when he’s coming back, don’t know where he went.”

“But if you don’t know, and I don’t know… why don’t you ask your magic cards?”

God, this man didn’t give up. Normally, Anatole would appreciate that, give him at least some credit as an interesting enemy to run into in the night, but right now? Right now he wanted him to go away. “Because the shop is closed.”

“That’s what the backroom there is for, right? Look, I’m already inside.”

Despite himself, Anatole couldn’t find it in himself to say no, so with a hesitant nod, he left his conoction on the counter and showed his night-time guest to the backroom, but he insisted on Anatole going first. He did, as he didn’t have time for plesantries, though he had to admit, for someone who just broke into his home, he was being very polite.

As he dropped himself into the reading chair, Antu climbed onto Anatole’s lap, sitting there, a comforting presence amid his very annoying evening. He had been his constant companion for almost two years. Antu came in one day unannounced and hadn’t left Anatole’s side since.

“Is that a Raccoon?” The stranger asked, with eyes wide open as he tried to pet him. Antu bit the air in front of him before he could come too close. 

Not forgiven yet, Antu said at the stranger, though only Anatole could listen. 

Anatole smiled to himself, making a mental note to give him extra grapes later. “His name is Antupillán.”

To Anatole’s surprise, the stranger pronounced the name perfectly. “What does it mean?”

“Not many people pronounce that correctly, look at you. People accent it wrong,” he paused, in all honesty Anatole didn’t know what it meant. Yet, once more, he found himself speaking without knowing what he was about to say. “A ‘pillán’ is a spirit, an embodiment. Antu means sun in Mapudungún, so Antupillán is the spirit of the sun.”

Anatole felt his stomach drop as he awaited for the migraine that would inevitably blotch his vision with black spots. However, it never came, the misplaced information settling into him like a homecoming he was not yet able to process.

As Anatole shuffled the deck, the stranger looked friendly, almost awkward in an endearing way. 

“Go on. No need to be shy.”

“Says the man who refuses to give out his name. I need to know it for the ‘magic card reading’, you know?”

“Julian, you can call me Julian,” he said after some stammering and a scarlet blush on his cheeks. His eyes followed his movements as closely as they could, a nervous anticipation to them.

Anatole pulled Death. It was, in Asra’s deck, a particularly quiet card. The horse skull was quiet like someone who opened their mouth to speak, but couldn’t articulate any sound. He wondered if the card in his own Deck — Anatole’s Death major arcana was a moth person holding a mask and a scythe — could hold any answers, other than white noise. It was cheating, technically, but Julian called them ‘magic cards’, Anatole didn’t think he’d mind.

Before he could do anything, Julian laughed. “Death? That means nothing to me. Death cast her gaze upon this wretch and turned away! She has no interest in an abomination like me.”

"What? Julian this isn’t how—”

He stood up abruptly, his mouth seeming to run on automatic pilotwith fatalistic statements and Julian’s hunch that Asra would come back. Which he would, Anatole knew he would. Asra always came back.

Instead of Julian’s advice about seeking him out when Asra did come back, for ‘Anatole’s own good’, whatever that could mean from a fucking stranger, he thought he ought to have accepted the medical help. Perhaps that way, Julian would’ve left earlier and his headache would’ve been dealt with.