#elletalks

No one had ordered it to do this—to hinder her movement, to come between her and the scholar, to keep them apart by threat or by distraction—but to its shame, instinct had taken hold of it again. The last hours had worn it down until it felt like nothing more than a ball of instinct and bare nerves; it could not have said what it feared as Quirrel stepped closer, only that it could not bear to see it happen.

He had been unwise to approach her. It had felt the winding tension in her limbs, the subtle quiver in her claws. The anger in Quirrel’s voice, clenched inside his fists, had nearly matched her own.

Its options were few. It refused to hiss or bare its teeth at Quirrel again—not after he had stayed by its side, spending hours in its company as the fear slowly, slowly left it.

Still, it was a monster. A construct of blade and spell, a creature of death and the endless dark, wielding the weapons that had formed it. Metal and void, tooth and claw. It could not disarm itself, could not make itself harmless, even for him.

But for him, for what he had done for it, it had tried. It had tried the only thing it could think of—putting itself in his way, warning him back, while pleading with its gaze, its curled shoulders, the tilt of its horns.

Do not.

Do not come closer.

Do not hurt her.

And, inexplicably—

Do not let her hurt you.

Even more baffling, he had listened.

He had heard, somehow, what it did not have the voice to say.

Something was humming inside of it, some uneasy note ringing through its void. Its sister was back, its world set right at last, destroyed and then restored within hours. She was here, her back pressed warm against it, so close that it could wrap itself around her, shielding her with its own shell.

…so close that it could pin her down, with just a shift of pressure. Could keep her here. Could keep her from leaving again.

Those thoughts were traitorous. Mutinous. Such a thing should never have entered its cursed mind.

But the fear—the fear was still there. Muted, nearly silenced, though ringing loud enough to clash with the relief of her return. Enough that it did not move, though the danger had passed.

It would move, if she wished. If she asked it to. It would let Quirrel approach. Both of them had calmed now, and he had asked to tend her injury. It saw no reason to warn him away.

“It’s fine,” she said, but it could tell she did not believe that. “It’s—I’ll live.”

“I’m sure you will,” Quirrel replied, somewhat drily. “But wrapping or splinting may help with the pain and prevent it from becoming worse.”

Her hand tightened on its horn. “I heal quickly. It’s not likely to last more than a day or two.”

“And I’m sure that fact has enabled you to develop any number of bad habits.” He tilted his head, staring, intent on her. “Just because your limits are higher than others’ does not mean you should attempt to ignore them. Let me see.”

Hornet slumped further, sighing. Then she extended her leg, setting her heel gingerly on the floor and pulling the hem of her wet cloak up.

Before it could do more than glance at the injury, Quirrel’s attention returned to it. “Hollow. May I come closer?”

That was—

That was strange.

He knew that it had not been ordered to do this. That was an action it had taken on its own, an expression of will, though the tattered remnants of its knight’s oath had guided its decision. It was meant to protect the weak, and as strong as its sister was—as strong as Quirrel was, to survive both the wilds and the mindless brutality of the decaying kingdom—they were weaker than it. By design. It had been built into something stronger than anything natural.

Its ultimate purpose had failed, but it was able to do this much. It could still protect her. Protect him. Protect this fragile peace that they had forged.

Hornet had not reprimanded it. She had not taken offense at the notion that she might need or want the service of a thing so broken. She even seemed to welcome it, if the way she leaned into it and stroked its face were any indication.

And more confusing still, rather than order it to move aside, or ask its wielder to do the same, Quirrel deferred to it, about what it might decide to do. As if its will were equal to his own, its actions as valid as another’s.

Nothing had happened when it spoke to him before. When it used the signs it had been taught for one specific purpose in another way entirely. Its hand was trapped beneath it, and it could not move without leaving its sister unshielded—and she wanted it there. When she bade it answer him, that was the only option it could think of.

So it answered again. Two taps. Its claw made no noise on the blanket, but his eyes dropped to follow the motion as it spoke.

Yes.

Yes, he could approach. Yes, he could assist her—he was able to do things it could not. She was hurt, weakened, and afraid, though it did not quite understand why. And he—

He had spoken kindly to it. To her. He had attempted to help it, to keep it from deepening the wounds that still throbbed beneath the dressing. He had not run, even when it threatened him, had not left it alone. He had not gone away, though its sister had ordered him to.

Beneath the still-settling unease that swirled in its breast, it was… glad.

He nodded back at it. “Thank you.”

That, too, served no purpose. It had never been thanked for performing its duty. But this was new territory, someplace uncharted. No one had ever behaved toward it like he did. Perhaps this was simply who he was: someone who gave of himself, always, even for those who did not deserve it.

He moved carefully, as if he half-expected that he might need to run. His steps were slow, his hands slower still, as he knelt and reached out to touch its sister’s leg.

Hornet sat stiffly, one hand clenched around her cooling cup, while he examined her knee, the swelling that had pushed her plates apart, the way the skin between had darkened with gathered fluid. When he pressed his thumb beneath the joint, she hissed, and it felt a tingling rush run up its spine and into its jaw, a sudden, compelling urge to bristle, to bite.

No. It must not, must not lose control—it was dangerous, deadly, a single strike could tear off a leg or an arm, it must stay still.

It was restraining itself so tightly, all its concentration focused onto holding itself back, that it nearly twitched when she spoke. Her voice was fractured, airless, as if the words were dragged out of her unwillingly. “Quirrel, I—”

“Later,” he muttered. She stiffened even further. He glanced up, met her eye, and looked down again. “When we both mean it.”

A breath broke from her throat, heavy and strained. Anger? Or something else? What had she been about to say to him? What was it he had not wanted to hear?

Quirrel’s fingers pressed somewhere new, and the next hitch of her lungs was undoubtedly pain. Her hand squeezed its horn more tightly, seemingly unaware she was doing so, using its presence to help her endure.

Did she need a distraction? Did she need it to help her in some way? It had never had anything to hold onto, aside from the desperate curl of its claws into its own palms. It did not know what she needed, what might aid her.

It hesitated, then bumped its face against her side, fighting the instinct to press itself still. This, too, was an action it had not been ordered to take, but she rewarded it by breathing out a troubled sigh through her teeth and relaxing.

Her head eased back, bit by bit. She let go of its horn to slide her hand down between its eyes, claws moving in tiny half-circles across its cracked shell. When she flinched again, it was half-hearted, smothered by exhaustion, and the humming note of its relief grew louder, its shade nearly purring within it.

Quirrel did not say anything. His hands were moving in tiny, shifting motions that its eyes could not interpret, not this close. There was a stony quietness about him, something its mind couldn’t help but worry at, like a beast with prey between its teeth. Was the injury worse than she had thought? Was he loath to speak of it, for fear she’d be displeased?

It shifted its head again, this time to get a better view—it did not need to see, it knew that, this was information it did not need but it wanted—and Quirrel halted, turning minutely to look it in the eye.

“Nothing is broken,” he said. To it. He had noticed its interest, and… and he was answering questions it could not even ask. It had only had to look. “I think it’s a sprain, though a fairly bad one. It should heal with no complications.”

“As I said,” Hornet mumbled without looking, sounding as if she could not quite get her mouth to work correctly. “It’ll heal quick enough.”

“Yes, it will.” The scholar sighed, resuming his inspection. It could see now that he was shifting the joint slowly side to side, watching the motion while applying only the barest pressure. “If she can manage to stay off of it for a few days, that is.”

Hornet raised her head at this, looking between it and the cricket, but whatever she found there, she did not comment on it. When she spoke again, it was softer. “I can manage that.”

“Good.” He set her foot back on the ground. “From what I recall, most spiders would prefer to sacrifice the limb and induce a molt rather than suffer through the healing process.”

“If you recall, I have fewer limbs than most spiders.”

Quirrel shrugged. “True enough.” He rose, tiredly, bracing one hand on his knee. “Stay put. I’m getting the bandages.”

Hornet half-tensed, uttering the beginning of a protest, then slumped again when he disappeared into the kitchen, ignoring her entirely. He should not do that—she was of much higher rank than he—but, strangely, it found that it did not mind, not if she continued to object to having her wounds cared for. She deserved that far more than it did, and it did not know why she would deny herself this, except to prove something that did not need proving.

Quirrel returned with several rolls of linen and set about wrapping the injury, saying nothing more as he did so. Hornet watched him with heavy-lidded eyes; her head was leaned back against its side, her hand falling still every few moments as her focus slipped. It had not seen her so tired since the last time she left the house, since the last time she left it alone.

It had not been alone, not this time. It had had Quirrel. He had listened. He had helped it. He—

He had apologized. He had seen it broken, utterly, had witnessed it losing hold of every scrap of its control, and still, he had said—

Oh, my friend. I’m so sorry.

And its sister’s voice echoed the words—

I’m here. I’m so, so sorry.

For what?

For what?

They spoke as though wrong had been done to it. How was that possible? Any distress it experienced must be a result of its own hidden flaws, its own weakness that it had failed to stamp out. From the moment the Temple opened to show it the one who would replace it, all the way back to watching its older sibling dwindle and fade before its eyes.

Dead. Its sibling, dead.

Not merely returned to the Sea, like so many others. Not merely a shade, a lingering imprint of instinct and will. Unmade. As if they had never been.

Its kin, its siblings. First and last. Dead and ever-living. And the vessel itself was somewhere in between, a shattered thing, fit for neither its duty nor the grave.

It was certainly not fit for the sympathy it had been given. For the desperate grief in Quirrel’s voice as he stayed near it while it cried, or the breathless sorrow in its sister’s as she begged forgiveness for leaving it behind.

And yet, something within it reached out toward the words. The same twisted, ravening thing that grasped and clung on to every scrap of praise, growing stronger each time the vessel failed to deny it what it wanted. Some lingering hunger that the void had instilled in it, a shameful need that had at last been its downfall.

It would not have retained the memory that the Radiance used to break it, otherwise. It would not have cared. That moment would not have mattered, any more than any other moment in its life.

A single glance had been enough to ruin it.

But still, the thing inside it dared to hunger.

It fed on soft touches, soft words. It sank its teeth into its sister’s guilt, into the fearful way she clung to it, into the broken desperation of her promise, that she would come back for it. That she would always come back for it.

What had it ever done, to be valued so? How did she see anything in it worth returning for? What purpose could she have for it—for she must have one—that would bring her back, exhausted and injured, fighting through the cold and the pain just to be here with it?

“Try not to move it.” Quirrel’s voice broke through its thoughts. He had finished his task, wrapping its sister’s knee in a layer of bandages, finished with a neat knot. “I can find you something to use as a crutch, if you like.”

“Fine.” Hornet sounded utterly flat, defeated, in a way. Though if it meant that she did not protest being cared for, perhaps that was for the best.

Quirrel went and rummaged in the shelves until he pulled out one of her spare cloaks. He placed it, wordlessly, in her lap, then busied himself elsewhere in the room. Hornet grumbled and hissed to herself as she peeled her soaked garment off and exchanged it, movements stiff and halting.

An awkwardly placed elbow caught the vessel in the face. Hornet mumbled an apology, but did not move away, toward her comfortable nest on the hearth. In fact, she burrowed in closer to it, tucking the dry fabric over her feet and resting her horns on its neck, breath coming in warm puffs against its throat.                                                                              

It did not stir, either, though its shoulder was beginning to burn. That was only one more pain to ignore, just like the phantom ache of its left arm, the pressure in its chest, the dull throb in its mask.

No, it would not move. To move would be to disturb something precious, something delicate, a moment of unutterable peace. She was so small, so light; the weight of her hardly added to its pain.

This… must be like dreaming, but it knew that it had not fallen asleep. It had never dreamed in all its long un-life; even its time spent trapped in that realm had been unnatural, twisted and manipulated by the goddess in order to hurt it however she could.

It had heard others speak of their dreams, including those that preceded the early stages of infection—sweet and warm and bright, filled with unutterable longing for something unfulfilled. A heart-deep wish, a need long unmet. The yearning hunger of someone deprived of what they needed most—of a goddess whose worshippers had fallen away.

They had sounded exactly like what it felt now. The soft-sharp ache in its chest, deeper than any of its wounds. The warmth spreading over its shell, centered where it held its sister close, as if she were a light and the vessel her clinging shadow.

It did not seem possible for this to be real.

But it was no longer with the Radiance. And vessels did not dream.

Quirrel finished tidying the room as the light waned, putting away his tea supplies and hanging its sister’s cloak to dry. He brought in more sticks of shellwood and piled them on the fire, then crouched down to nudge them into place with the iron. He took so long about it and accomplished so little that it began to question whether he was watching what he was doing.

Its sister stirred, then slowly turned her head. Her voice was rough. “You’re staying, then?”

The scholar half-turned his head, the gleam of one bluish eye just showing through his mask.

Four eyes. Eyes behind masks.

It blinked, attempting to clear the images away. The tightness in its chest was back, and it struggled to breathe quietly, to not betray that it was snared in its own past once more.

Would it ever stop seeing the emptiness of its sibling’s eyes? The void draining down the table to envelop its feet? The scholar standing over it, its father’s knife melting away in his hand?

It had smothered those memories. It had not even known that there were any to unearth from its brief time as a nymph. It was not the Radiance’s influence, or a mind broken by infection, that had prevented it from remembering; this had been sealed away before the vessel itself had been, and just as thoroughly.

Had its sister not left it here, it may never have remembered its missing sibling at all.

They had no relevance now. It ought not think of them.

It did. It would. It knew that.

Quirrel did not answer Hornet’s question directly. Instead, he let out a deep sigh and lowered the fire iron. “You’re sure you wish to have this conversation now?”

Its sister uncurled further, but still did not move away from it. Could she be drawing some kind of comfort from its touch, or was she merely trying to keep it calm? Either way, she did not seem inclined to leave.

She did tense again before she spoke. Pulling inward, spines beginning to bristle against its side. “Yes, I am.”

He nodded, but said nothing more. Not until he had jabbed at the fire a few more times, then hung the poker in its place by the hearth. “If you insist.”

After snagging a pillow from the pile in the corner, he approached the bed and lowered himself to the floor with another sigh and a muffled creak of chitin. He wrapped his arms around his knees, staring at the floor in front of his feet. He did that for a long minute, seeming to hunt for the words he wanted.

He must be tired. Nearly as tired as its sister. He had sung to it for hours, melodies and words it could barely remember now, except as a constant presence in its awareness: one song braiding into another, one verse into the next, giving it something to hold onto as it climbed out of panic’s maw. He had sung until his voice began to crack, and then he had kept singing still, pausing only to sip water from a bowl he’d placed at his side. He had sung until it lay still with rapt fascination, rather than frozen, trembling in terror that had made it hiss and snarl at him. He had sung until it could hardly hear him at all, and now every word that left his throat was rough, rasping, much like the sounds from its own.

It wished that she knew of that, somehow. She was still afraid, still staring him down as if he might strike out at her. But he had not tried to defend himself from it, or even retreated to safety. He had done something utterly unexpected—something that was able to guide it out of the dark.

It thought he might do the same for her, if she would let him. It thought that he might intend to try.

“They panicked when you left.”

Ah.

He—

He meant to tell her of its failures. Of how it could not help reacting when he came close. Of the way it had threatened him. A sliver of that panic pricked at it now, both at his words and at the shaky breath its sister took.

She should know. She should hear that it could not keep itself in check, that its fractured mind made it a danger to those around it. She should not even be here now, so close to it, so soon after it lost control. It could not be sure it wouldn’t do so again. It could not.

“Nothing I said could reassure them, though not through any fault of theirs.” His gaze shifted to meet its eyes. “I am not the one who saved them. I am not the one they trust. You are.”

Hornet didn’t reply, didn’t shift against its side, did not move at all except to breathe a little faster.

Quirrel clenched his hands tight around his wrists. “I don’t think I need to tell you what damage was done. Or that it could have been far worse.”

She shook her head minutely, whispering, “No.”

He…

He would not tell her, then? She deserved to know, and he—

Quirrel deserved to be safe from it. He was kind, and gentle, and had not in any way earned what it nearly did to him. Would it not be punished for that? Would it not have to hear the words that would make its sister lose faith in it?

It was unfit, in every way—unfit to live, to serve, to exist when so many others no longer did. Its fault, its fault. People had died. Many, many people. The infection had crushed its father’s kingdom like a landslide. Another sibling suffered now in its place. And before any of that, before it had known it was impure, before it had been proven faulty, it had stood before another, and watched their darkness drain away.

Many, many.

It had nearly added one more to that tally. Not one left to plunge into the Abyss, or driven mad by the whispers of the goddess. Merely too close at the wrong time, too fragile to survive a blow from its hand.

He knew that, surely. He knew what it had almost done. He feared it, and rightfully so.

And yet—

“I do not know you well, Hornet.” Quirrel lifted a shoulder, then let it fall. “I thought you would keep your word. But I could not say for sure.”

Hornet turned away, tucking her chin into her cloak collar. Her hands were moving under the fabric, twisting, claws scraping over chitin. “I didn’t—” she started, then scrapped it and started again. “I wouldn’t—I won’t—”

“Don’t tell me you will not leave again.” Quirrel’s voice was harsh, suddenly. The vessel suppressed the urge to curl more tightly around its sister, as if it could protect her from the things he said, the way they seemed to sink into her shell like drops of acid. “I promised the truth to them, and I promise the same to you. And if I’m to assist you, I must ask for the same. Do not lie to me.”

Hornet was shaking. Anger, fear—it could not tell the difference. The scholar did not flinch as she snarled at him, even when she bared a glint of fangs under her mask. “I swear it, cricket.” Her words were garbled, half-lost in a growl. “Do not call me a liar.”

Quirrel tilted his head to stare at her from another angle, his antennae twitching. “I will call you nothing you do not deserve. That, I can also promise.”

Its sister scoffed, turning aside again, shoulders hunched tightly. Offended, as she should be. Who was he to speak of her in this way? How could he imply this—and why was she allowing him to?

She had not disputed any of it. Not a word.

Was he being truthful? Was she…

Had she really lied to him? Had she really said—

You said you would not leave them.

You swore it.

The vessel was as lost now as it had been before, in the face of a new kind of pain it did not know how to bear. It felt… pulled, in tension between two extremes, though it lay there helpless, unable to interfere. Putting itself between them was not warranted; there was nothing it could do.

It should not interfere. It had no right. That was not its place.

“If,” she said finally, the word grinding out through her fangs. “You said if you’re to assist me.”

Quirrel sighed, tipping his head back. “You seem to recognize that you were in the wrong. That you should not have left the way you did.”

Silence.

“If so, you must also recognize that I have a right to feel wronged. Betrayed, even.” He waited, but when he got nothing more than the sound of Hornet’s claws scratching over her wrists, he sighed again. “I do, Hornet. I am hurt, and I’m angry with you. That is why I had decided to wait before I spoke to you about it, until you decided otherwise.”

Hurt. Wronged.

These were words that should have had no meaning to it. But—

It did hurt. Always, now. It felt its hand twitch, invisibly, felt its fingers start to move through the memory of the sign. Hurt.

The fear had hurt, deep within it, when it realized its sister was gone. The despair had hurt, when it thought she was not coming back. The memories of its sibling hurt, hurt, hurt, like a knife sinking void-deep into its shell.

Its claws had hurt when they pierced its chest. Its throat had hurt as it cried. Its whole body hurt now, an all-consuming ache that seemed to drag its limbs deep into the cushions.

I am hurt.

He said it like he had been wounded. Did his throat burn, too? Did his joints ache? Did the betrayal he spoke of sting like the point of a blade?

Surely, that was not what he meant. It did not understand. It could not know what that might feel like.

I’m sorry, she had told it once. I’m sorry. I know it hurts.

That hurt had been physical. That had been something it was well-equipped to endure.

If she had not left it now—if it had not been alone with Quirrel—if its memories had not ambushed it after she was gone—

It was hurt. It did hurt.

You were wrong—I am hurt—I’m sorry, sorry, sorry—

“What is the point of this,” Hornet snapped, jarring it out of its spiraling thoughts. “I know this. You’ve said enough.”

“Have I?” Quirrel’s forefinger tapped against his knee. “I still don’t think you understand.”

“I—you said—”

“What I said in anger was true.” He looked down, briefly. “But I believe you heard something more than I intended.”

Its sister choked out a sound. A splintered laugh, perhaps. “What does it matter?”

“It matters a great deal.” There was something else in his gaze now, a softness that looked almost wounded. “I am here because you asked me to be. Because I could see that you needed help. Because… when you found me, nothing else in my life seemed to matter.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “For the most part, those things are still true.”

When you found me.

The blue haze of the crossroads flashed before its eyes, its body growing heavy with the memory. Heavy with exhaustion, with infection, with the clinging, smothering certainty that there was no use going on. That it would be better served to fling itself into oblivion, to fail one final time and then no more.

She had saved it. The red of her cloak. The sound of her voice. The threads of her silk, binding it.

Had she saved Quirrel, too?

Hornet looked on in silence, still with tension quivering in her arms where her claws were clenched. It smelled a trace of blood, hot and sharp. Alarm kicked its heartbeat higher. It could not stop her—it did not know how. The only thing it could do, it had already done: offer itself as support, as something to hold onto, to lean on.

Oh, it wished she would stop.

It had once been a knight. A protector. If it must protect her from herself, put itself in the way of her anger, give her something else to sink her claws into, it would. It would.

Quirrel noticed, too. He stopped, mouth open to speak again, and seemed to reconsider what he’d been going to say. “Hornet, I… no, I am not leaving.”

She twitched, briefly, halfway to flinching. It fought not to respond, fought not to break from its stillness. Every breath she took was high and fast, and with the tang of her blood in the air and her smothered shudders against its shell, its every instinct called for it to shield her, to pull her away somehow, to take her pain upon itself, as it was meant to.

“Do you need some time?” Quirrel asked, gently. “I don’t have to—”

“Say what you need to say,” she interrupted.

For a moment, it thought he might protest. When he resumed speaking, it was slow and halting, as if he worried he might put a foot wrong. “What I said before was this. If I’m to assist you, I must ask you to tell me the truth. To tell me what I need to know. If you cannot do that, I will find it hard to help you.” He sighed, and it sounded world-weary, full of exhaustion that a single day had done very little to add to. “It did not mean that I am looking for an opportunity to leave. Or that what you did, or what you are, or what you think you are, has given me reason to.”

Hornet swallowed, and it felt the barest amount of her tension release, her spines creeping downward an inch.

“I don’t understand why you left,” Quirrel continued. “But I understand that you felt you needed to. I am hurt, and I am angry with you. I do not need an explanation, but I do need you to listen to what I’m saying, and only that. Not what you think you might hear.”

Hurt. I am—

Hurt, hurt, hurt.

A moment ticked by, measured in the rattle of the raindrops. Then its sister nodded stiffly. Her voice was a mere whisper. “Agreed.”

“Good.” Quirrel shifted, crossing his legs and leaning forward, hands laced together before him. He was silent for a moment. “I cannot promise that I will always be here. There may come a time when our paths diverge, when I can no longer stay, for one reason or another. But if that happens, I will tell you. And I will tell you why.”

Its sister looked at him. Stared at him, really, as if there were more to him than a single cricket scholar with an earnest gaze and the warm glow of firelight spread behind him.

“This is what I’m asking.” He lifted one finger for emphasis. “The next time you need to leave, you will tell me first. You will tell me where you’re going, and how long you’ll be gone. No argument. And, if you can, I’d like an hour’s notice.”

A long exhale, which seemed to leave its sister smaller than she had been. “Agreed,” she said again. “I—I swear it.”

She spoke with a slump to her shoulders and a tilt of her horns that it recognized. Much like its own, a feeling it was faintly surprised that she shared with it.

Shame.

You were wrong.

Did she agree with him? Did she believe, too, that she had done wrong?

Even if her actions constituted a failure, she could never fail as thoroughly as it had. It should hurt. It should burn for what it did. It would never wish such punishment on her. Never, never.

She did not seem to wish that for it, either. She did not want it to hurt. She had said so, over and over.

I know it hurts.

I’m sorry.

Its next thought was feather-light, a whisper. Weak. Cringing. The shade, the void, at the core of it, corrupt. Impure.

Desperate.

It… did not want to hurt again.

“One thing more,” Quirrel said, before it could turn this concept over. “You will do the same for them. They deserve to know, as much as I do.”

For—

For it?

Its tired mind filled with static. It—

Surely it had not heard that correctly. It blinked, waiting to understand, to piece together what he had really meant.

Hornet turned to look down at it. It found itself tense, suddenly, painfully so, and its breath had snagged somewhere around the hook in its guts. It had done nothing to draw her attention, there was no reason for her to regard it now, unless…

It had heard right?

They deserve to know.

She had already made it one promise it did not understand. She had already given it far more than it had ever dared to want. Without reservation, though she had little to give, and without condemnation for what it needed.

It wished it did not need this at all. What it would not do to be what she once thought it was, to be the perfect void that its father had intended. That she had told it of her plans before was generous, to be sure, but it could not expect—

They deserve to know.

Quirrel was looking at it, with a tired softness in his gaze.

Deserve. It did not deserve anything. It had earned nothing but a traitor’s fate. He had no right to ask this of her, especially not on the vessel’s behalf. He was mistaken.

He—

He had called it friend. Sat with it. Sang to it.

It had never met anyone like him.

A gentle hand touched its face. It smelled the fresh blood on her talons, the scratches she had opened on her wrist. “Hollow?”

It had not been breathing. It was worrying her.

It made an effort, though its first attempt was too short, shaky, doing no good to reassure anyone at all. It was spent, mind and body, frame aching in ways that it had not felt since the very first days in the mansion, muscles sore and throat rubbed raw with sobbing. But it tried, tried to please her—nudging its muzzle into her palm, into the firm touch that seemed to send warmth racing down to its very core.

Hornet gazed into its eyes, into the lightless void there, and did not flinch. Without looking away, without so much as a quiver in her voice, she whispered, “I swear it.”

○

Even after it had excised all memory of them.

Even after the numb, cold horror of that day blended into all the numb, cold days that followed.

The void was willful. The void was angry. The void would ruin it, if its control slipped for an instant, if it allowed such a thing to happen. It had not remembered how it knew that, but it did, it did.

The void would ruin it. As the void had ruined them. As it had shaped them into something impure, unfit, a wretched, terrified, desperate thing that had not even dared to lash out in their last moments.

They had held—held tight—to the hope that they could be useful, that their resolve would save them, even when every gasping plea said otherwise.

Despite all its efforts, the vessel itself was no different. It could not help but see the similarity.

Ruined. Ruined, both of them.

And all for nothing, its sibling had died for nothing, and it had stood by and watched—

Thinking itself pure. Thinking itself somehow better than they were, when it had begged, had pleaded, just as desperately as they had, the first time the goddess sunk her claws in and pierced it through to its foul, rotten core.

It sucked in a breath, as much air as it could hold, before another sob rose from deep within and seized it, shook it, mercilessly.

Its throat burned. As it had when the infection surged and poured from it, every guttering breath drowned in liquid fire. As it had when her screams ripped it in two, the pliant shadows of its form no match for her brilliant fury, soft structures of void shriveling away until she made of it something to cry her suffering, something that she could use.

The goddess—she was anger incarnate. She was fury undimmed, wrath burst aflame, all the brighter for having been smothered so long. She had learned that that was one of her best weapons against it, that her rages terrified it, and she had pushed that advantage with every endless, terrible hour. She had known how to reduce it to a cringing, cowering thing, withholding the worst of her power, withholding the pain, until the moment she could see the cracks forming. Until the moment she brought down the full force of her fury.

Fury that it shrank from, fury that it refused to counter with its own. It could not. It could not do that; it was not capable. It could not, it could never.

Beneath the façade, beyond the vast distance that it placed between itself and the world, it had been terrified. Terrified that—

That it might be as corrupted as its discarded sibling. That it might ever have the urge to lash out against its masters, that it might wish to rend and tear like a beast loosed from its leash.

This was all it remembered from them, all that it took from their example. It must never, never let itself be angry.

That feeling had been locked away from it, far too deep for its conscious mind to recognize, even after it had grown wild with grief and fear and agony. Even when it realized that it was over, that she had won, that she was right, that it had become everything it feared—even that could not make it feel this thing that it had forbidden itself. This thing that its sibling had died feeling, that had signified failure as clearly as a glyph chiseled into stone.

No good no good it was no good, it was just as flawed as they were, except that it had been compliant to the very end. Holding its hands out for the shackles, baring its neck for the blade. Deceiving even itself with its charade of purity, until it could deny its own weakness no more.

No more, no more no more—

Its lungs squeezed tight again, its throat constricting, and from its slack jaw came a long, grating keen, silent as it always was, save for the grinding of the air over its damaged, light-lanced flesh. For a wild, terrible instant, it thought that it might wish to have her back, if only it could scream again with the voice that she had forced upon it. It was not meant for that, but something in it wanted, wanted to unleash its grief upon the world, and only the Radiance had seen fit to give it what it was never meant to have.

No. No, its sister had given it far more. Far, far more—

Before she left it.

○

There was nothing he could do. There was likely nothing anyone could have done. He had pictured this clearly: Hornet’s absence stretching from minutes into hours; Hollow growing frantic, panicked, without her—

And there’d been nothing, not a single thing, he could do to prevent it.

They were choking now, nearly gagging with the force of their sobs, taking in only sharp, stabbing gasps in between. They would have to calm, eventually, he knew hysterics could not last forever—and yet he still winced every time their breath stopped, and then every time it ground to life again, another sob tearing free with a sound like it should leave a raw, bloody hole in them.

“It’s all right.” His mandibles twitched. He couldn’t stop talking; a nervous habit, one which, like the knuckle-biting, he’d identified but been unable to break. “It’s all right. It’s all right. I promise.”

If only he could ask them what they feared. If only they felt safe enough to answer. He had half an idea that they might be nearly as terrified of their own reaction as they were of what had caused it. The frantic pace of their lungs when they clawed out a moment to breathe, the frenzied fits of void in their eyes—they seemed almost manic, each painfully long minute only heaping fuel on the flames, rather than allowing them to die down.

Oh, what should he do?

“I know,” he whispered, crouching down and clenching his hands on his knees. Eye level—there was no other way he knew of to connect with them, to attempt to break them free of whatever it was that was dragging them down. “I know, it’s… it’s awful.” He swallowed, his own throat aching in sympathy. “But it’s all right. You’ll be all right.”

Should he try to calm them down? Nothing he did was working. Did they need to exhaust themselves? He thought that might take hours at this rate, if they did not faint from lack of air first. Was this likely to actually hurt them?

Crying was one thing. Outright hysteria was another. This was the latter.

He slipped his knuckle between his mandibles, clenching, twisting it. If this was anyone else, he would suggest moving—from the room, from the house entirely. Even briefly going out into the rain might shock them out of it, but they were nowhere near able to stand on their own, and he’d never be able to coax them anywhere like this. It would be the easiest solution, but even that was denied to them.

Out of the house might have helped, if they were able. Out of the kingdom would be better. If only he could take them away from here. Somewhere else. Anywhere other than this haunted ruin, where fear and guilt and shame must follow their every step. If he felt the burden of it, minor as his role had been, he could only imagine what a crushing weight it must be on their shoulders.

And yet all he could manage to do was sit and wait with them, repeating the few weak promises he felt sure he could safely make. Trying to find new ways to phrase it all, in hopes that something would sink in past the fear.

Only a short time had passed, and he was already running short.

And his promises might mean nothing at all to them. Nothing that mattered, nothing that could cut through the fear that entangled them. He did not like to accept that he was powerless, but—

Hollow choked again, shoulders hunching, and dragged their limbs inward even tighter, clutching weakly at their chest as it refused to rise. He winced, his own breath hissing. “Breathe,” he whispered. “Breathe, please. Please.”

A gasp rocked them, then another. But their claws only clenched tighter, grasping, bearing down on—

On the silk that filled their chest. That filled the wound, still open, where their shell had rotted away.

○

Its claws spasmed, their tips sinking into silk.

Silk that she had placed there, to keep it from harm. Silk that she had spun from her own close-guarded soul, that she had bound into its palm and its chest, with every squeezing, scraping breath a reminder of her claim on it.

It… kept on disappointing her. It could offer her nothing but the fractured pieces of itself, of a mind and body too broken to be useful. It was a liar. It had stolen its place in the world; it had stood by and allowed others to suffer, to die; it had damned its kin, damned the entire kingdom to a never-ending nightmare.

Whatever it was now, it could never be what she wanted.

There was nothing left for it, then. Truly nothing. It deserved—it deserved the fate its sibling had received. It deserved to die.

It did not realize its claws had shifted, from grasping emptily to bearing down on its own shell, until it felt void well, cold and sluggish, to the surface. Felt the pain, fresh and new and sharp, sharp amidst the haze. Its hand was clenched over the wound in its chest, silk sliding over silk, except for where its foreclaw had pierced the edge of the dressing, cutting through to the scarred black flesh beneath.

Could it claw the bandage free, rip its sister’s silk from its body? Did it dare?

“Stop. Please.” Quirrel, his voice barely audible beneath its hideous, scraping sobs. “Please, don’t do that.” He sounded—desperate, almost, with a waver in his throat that nearly matched its own.

Desperate? Why was he—what did it matter—

It blinked, eyelids fluttering shut twice over before it could discern the cricket’s blurry shape.

It had nearly forgotten he was there. Nearly forgotten that he existed entirely, with its world awash in pain, what was left of its mind drowning in its own misery. He stood halfway between its bed and the fireplace with his hands stretched out, as if he had lurched toward it when he noticed what it was doing. His breath was harsh, unsteady. His mandibles gaped, then clicked emptily, and he glanced again toward the door, as if he expected its sister to rush in and save him.

Afraid of it. As he very well should be.

“I—I swore I would not allow harm come to you,” he whispered, repeating his words from before. He swallowed, glanced at its hand, and spoke again, stronger this time. “Any harm.”

It shivered, caught between dread and despair like two halves of a vise, grinding tighter, crushing it. It was not beholden to obey him. He was not its wielder or master, nor had he been given any authority over it. It wanted—which did not matter, of course, nothing that it wanted mattered­—to listen, to believe him. To forget what it knew: that it was alone, and that it deserved to be.

But that was the reality of it. Perhaps he did not understand the full extent of its disgrace, or the reason for its downfall. He knew of vessels, its sister had said—he should know why it was created, then, and what purpose it was meant to serve. He should know that it was damned now, just like the others.

It had damned its older sibling by its very existence. By being judged pure, when neither one of them had been.

And now it had damned a second, by failing to live up to what it was meant for. As impure as the rest of its kin, the lie of its existence unexposed until far too late.

Far, far too late.

It choked again, the scratching heave of its breath going silent for an instant. The sobs were unrelenting, inescapable—no sooner would it attempt to regain its breath than yet another would wrench loose and deny it. Would it never stop? Having let its control slip, it was helpless, swept away by the storm that raged within it.

It had allowed itself to break, given itself over to the whims of the godless dark. Its shade had always been the weakest part of it, its desires instinctual and profane: its hunger was the hunger of an open pit, its silence the rotten silence of a grave.

Its shade wanted. Wanted release. Wanted relief from the pain. Wanted to break loose from its body, to surge outward in a headlong rush, to draw and draw upon itself until it was whole again, until it was free to rejoin the shadows it was birthed from.

That desire could not be granted. If it bled out now, its shade would seep away into nothingness, into dead stillness like a lakebed drained dry. Those seals that its father had placed on its sibling’s mask now marked its own as well. To keep the Radiance from killing it, to keep its void where it belonged, wrapped round her in an eternal embrace.

It had no function, now. It was a danger to its sister, and even more so to her mortal ally.

If it was dead, it could not hurt them.

Its lifeblood was a toxin, yes, a creeping poison that would wring the warmth from his veins—but he had the sense not to touch it. As soon as it drained enough of its void to lose consciousness, he and its sister would be safe. There would be no returning, no shade to merge with its shattered shell. And there was no goddess to remake it. It would—

It would be free.

He should let. He should let it tear itself open, ruin its failing shell with its own claws. He had no cause to stop it.

But when it trembled and forced its claws deeper, curling, tearing through silk and skin alike, he stepped forward hastily, heedlessly, reaching out toward it with a frantic cry. “Please, don’t—your wound—”

A flash of terror tore through it, a bolt of electricity. please please nonono—

His mask flickered in its vision, eyeholes doubling, wrapped with the blue of a scholar’s kerchief. His hands reached for its throat, holding a blade of its father’s make. And it flinched away, cowering, back hunched, horns laid flat, with a sound coming from its throat—a long, ugly, gurgling hiss.

He froze. It froze in turn, even its convulsive sobs ceasing for the span of a moment. Its entire mask was throbbing, from the crack through its eye out to the tips of its horns. Its chest ached and stung, from its talons, from the lump of silk caught between its ribs.

This was—this was not then. Its memories were deceiving it again. This was not the Palace, and he was not that long-ago scholar with its sibling’s void drying on his hands.

This… this was its sister’s ally. This was Quirrel, who had only ever been kind to it. Quirrel, who had stroked its horns and spoken softly and told it to breathe through the pain.

Even if he had intended to end it—if he was the one who would punish it, his blade the one that would finish it—had it not just wished for the same?

Your sister has entrusted you to me.

Perhaps this was what was meant to be. Perhaps this was what its sister wanted. She should not have to strike the blow herself—she had surely seen enough of violence, living in such a world as its flaws had brought about. She, like her father, need not sully her shell with its lifeblood, need not burden herself with the thankless task of a vessel’s final death.

Was it too much to hope? That being the one to strike it down might bring her sorrow?

Leaving its fate in the hands of her ally, in hands that had proven so capable with it… that was only fitting. A scholar had disposed of its sibling. Another could dispose of it now.

It should let him. It should banish this faithless urge to punish itself, to bring about its own inevitable downfall. It should make itself submit, let go of the willful scrap of itself that still desired to fight, as it had fought against the Radiance, as it had fought against its own damnable impurity.

It should let go. Loosen its claws. Bare its throat to the blade, one last time.

Its back was still curled. Its teeth were still bristling. Like something feral. Like a beast, loosed from its leash.

Let go.

It… did not know if it could.

○

Leave.

Leave, now.

Quirrel had cultivated a careful awareness of his instincts. Refined his understanding of them, over years and decades spent alone. He had learned, early on, that the spellwork on the mask he wore would protect him from much that he encountered, though not from poor decisions made in ignorance, exhaustion, or plain stupidity.

Instincts filled the gap. They hadn’t failed him yet, if his continued existence was any measure of success.

He no longer wore the mask. His nail was out of reach. And his instincts were screaming to be anywhere but here.

It had been all he could do not to run at the sound Hollow had made. A sound he had not known they could make. Every heaving breath was threaded with that rumbling hiss, emerging from deep in their throat and buzzing in their dense, fractured chest-plates. They had curled tight on the bed, legs drawn in and horns pressing down against their back, and their open mouth was a glaring threat, each spiny tooth needle-sharp and glistening black as oil.

Those were the teeth of a deep-sea thing, teeth to sink in, to hold fast, to never let go.

And their eyes—

Their eyes were a storm. A cyclone churning through a darkened sky. Violent. Volatile. Merciless.

This—this was terror, not the wariness that they had previously regarded him with. He’d been a fool to assume otherwise.

He might also be a fool for other reasons.

His legs were shaking and his hands were shaking and his empty stomach turned over like a bad egg dropped into water. He did not move.

Hollow was equally motionless, still panting through their gaping, thorny mouth, still staring at him, wild-eyed. The expression was literal; he could see that their vision was focused on him, but only because the point of greatest turbulence was fastened in his direction, every writhing motion spiraling outward from that origin.

He had no idea what they might do. He wasn’t sure they knew either. They were enthralled, somehow, by his presence, as someone might stand petrified in front of a charging beast, unable to move even to step out of its path.

Oh, he very much did not want that. He did not want to stay here, far too close for his own safety, taking advantage of their fear to keep them distracted from something much worse.

But he did not see that he had much choice.

They had not unlatched their claws from the bandage. But they had also not tightened them further. There was already void soaking into the silk, tiny motes of it rolling up their knuckle and wicking away into the air.

They could do serious damage, if they continued. He had no doubt they knew that.

He should move. He should do the smart thing and step back, out of their reach, away from those bristling teeth.

He did not do that.

“I’m sorry.” His voice seemed thin and watery. Hardly enough to startle anyone, and yet they twitched, another rumble sputtering to life in their chest. “I-I’m sorry. I did not wish to frighten you—truly.”

No reply. No reaction. A cut-off gasp interrupted the burgeoning hiss, halfway to becoming another sob. Pity sank through his gut, alongside the nausea.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t. Not if it kept them from tearing their chest open while he watched. Not if it kept their attention off of whatever it was that made them wish to hurt so badly.

“I will not touch you,” he said, low, fervent. “I’ll come no closer, I swear. Here—”

Quirrel bent his knees, lowering himself to the floor. Squatting on his heels, folding one leg under, then the other. Still with his hands spread, in plain view.

The stone was cold beneath him. He suppressed the urge to shiver. “I’m staying right here,” he assured them. “Right where you can see me, see?”

They could see him. Their eyes followed him down. The next hiss was quieter, and interrupted again by a silent hitch of their shoulders, their sobs not yet burned out completely.

His shell crawled, cold tingles skittering down his back. He might not have been able to rise again even if he’d wanted to. Even his composure had limits, when facing the fixed gaze of a creature who could easily tear him apart.

Not just a creature. Not a beast. This was someone who could kill him, yes, but who would almost undoubtedly regret it.

This frozen silence would not last forever—it couldn’t. They would likely slip back into their despair, into the pit where he could not reach them.

He needed something, anything, to occupy their attention. To fill time, to keep them here with him, instead of lost in their own mind. Talking had not worked. What else was there? What else did he know to do?

He had often volunteered to entertain when other wayfarers shared his fire, on clear nights when the smoke drifted clear up to join the stars, or when they huddled beneath a hanging tree or cavern roof to escape the pouring rain. Stories had not seemed to soothe Hollow, but he wished, firecely, that he could show them the way the world could fall away, the way tales and song had filled those hours until nothing else seemed to matter.

Quirrel paused, on the cusp of an idea. He could not give them that, not in full. One cricket was a poor substitute for a camp full of cheer and laughter. There was no fire, he had no cards, and they could not answer riddles.

But he could offer something else, if they would take it.

The first lines of a melody twined through his thoughts, summoned by a turn of phrase he had almost forgotten. A chorus only, though he guessed that the rest would fall into place once he began.

Part of him recognized that this was a desperate venture, grasping in the darkness when his lantern had gone out. He had no clue whether this would make a difference—but, if they reacted badly, he could always stop.

Watch them. Closely, yet not too closely, while he hummed the first bars. Their eyes followed the motion of his hand as it tapped on his knee, their gaze transfixed somewhere between fear and fascination.

Nothing else changed, for better or worse.

Desperate as this was, he might as well try.

“March no more, my weary soldier,” he began. “There is peace where once was war. Sleep in peace, my weary soldier… sleep in peace, now battle’s o’er…”

It was a lilting, far-flung melody: rousing if sung loudly, but just as suited to the quiet, gentle way he sang it now, the words growing wistful and pleading, as tender as a breeze at dusk.

“I returned to fields of glory, where flowers and green grasses grow. Where the wind still tells the story, of those brave souls long ago…”

Hollow wheezed through a long exhale, nearly drowning out his voice. Still, that was a breath, and not a sob. He would take it.

“March no more, my weary soldier… there is peace where once was war…”

He had been to kingdoms where there was magic in the music, where sung spells cast enchantments both beautiful and strange. It was a feat he’d never performed, a closely guarded secret and difficult for an outsider to learn.

“Some returned from fields of glory, to their friends who held them dear. But some fell in that hour of glory, and were left to their resting here…”

If his voice could weave a spell, he thought, let it be a spell of peace. Let it be the peace that they so desperately needed.

“March no more, my weary soldier…”

They did not stir when the first song ended. And so he sang a second, a pretty tune of longing for a lover to return, the words falling miraculously into place as he felt his way forward through the dark. And then, as he thought he saw the whirling of their void grow a fraction slower, a third: a travel ballad that guided the singer over miles of sprawling countryside, pointing back toward a half-remembered home.

There were tales woven through these songs, tales that he had never heard the whole of—battles he had not fought, people he had not met, native lands he had never known. The places named were unfamiliar, every long-lost love a stranger. Victory and defeat, grief and joy, despair and hope alike were all swept away by time, by distance, until all that remained was a core of shared memory, bright and smooth as a piece of polished stone, flashing as it passed from hand to hand.

“Keep right on to the end of the road… keep right on to the end.” He swayed gently, caught in the melody, steady gaze still meeting Hollow’s turbulent one. Trying to seem welcoming, to invite them to join him, in spirit if not in reality. “Though you’re tired and weary, still journey on, ‘til you come to your happy abode… all the love you’ve been dreaming of will be there, at the end of the road…”

He chose songs of peace, of happiness, of deep winter passing and spring dawning again. He chose songs that he’d clung to on long, dark nights, when his exhaustion threatened to pull him down like a current under the sea. When the hole in his memory seemed ready to swallow him whole, when he could not find a reason to take one more step, save for heeding the spell that drew him always on.

He felt his voice and his resolve both strengthen as he went, shored up by fond memories that did not hurt as much as they once had, and by a yearning he could not quite shake—not for the simplicity of who he’d been then, or for the knowledge that he’d lost when he stepped into the Wastes, but for something indefinable, something that never could have been, that he mourned the loss of regardless. Someone who knew who he was, and where he’d come from. Someone who knew that, one day, he’d have something to return to.

This was nothing like what he’d imagined, in the times when he’d dared to imagine such things.

But was there not significance in this all the same? In the thought that there was some use to be found, even after the end of his usefulness? Even if it had to be scraped up from the dirt, sifted through stiff fingers? Even if it was only singing, to pass the time?

He was rewarded, somewhere in the middle of the fifth ballad, by Hollow’s mouth creeping closed, hiding away the thorn-patch shadows of their teeth. He very carefully did not react to this, only a faint quiver in his voice betraying him before it steadied of its own accord. Their breathing was more regular now, less strained, though still interrupted by stray hiccups and weak heaves of their shoulders as their sobbing calmed and faded.

Much as he wanted to praise them, or even to cry a little, himself, out of relief, he did neither. He moved on into a simple love song, changing the lyrics a touch as he went—he’d rather not give the wrong impression. “The half-moon westers low, my dear, and the wind brings up the rain. And wide apart we lie, my dear, with seas between the twain…”

Their eyes were spinning far more slowly now, that wire-tight tension in their limbs relaxing bit by bit. The void had stopped dripping from their wound. Quirrel had been told that he had a pleasant voice, nothing special, nothing that should have made them seemed almost… enchanted, their gaze going lax and faraway. His voice, the music, something was pulling them free from whatever horror—real or imagined—had them in its thrall.

He hadn’t dared to hope that his desperate gambit would be this successful. He almost didn’t dare to hope now.

Until their claws unlatched from the wound in their chest, hand falling half-open on the blankets.

Quirrel nearly forgot the next verse of the hymn he was singing. Nearly faltered, nearly stopped, the very thing he should not do.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even drop his gaze to the void-stained bandages, or to the feeble twitching of their fingers—likely cramped from the tension in their grip. He kept his focus on their eyes, on the occasional erratic motion that still seemed half-fearful, weak, frantic jerks fading out to slow, steady whirling.

Calming, but not calm. They still wavered on the edge, unable to back away—every breath was slight and thin, threaded through the tautness of their throat. There was still a tremor in their shoulders, a tightness to their spine. They likely could not relax completely—not until their sister came home.

He could only hope that she returned before his voice gave out.

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