I get back to Allan’s place about an hour after dark. Unfortunately, the servants inform me that he has left for the night – rendezvous with one of his many lovers… Of course he has. I don’t know what I was expecting… It’s my fault, of course. We could have had the talk anytime in the last couple of days, but I delayed it just so I could feed the sense of indignation with all those little acts of rebellion. The gambling and acquiring my own place… Actually, I have no idea how he’ll feel about my getting the place qua place, but I expect he won’t be happy about my ‘tower’. Regardless, now I’ll have to spend the whole week under the knowledge that our conversation is still waiting.

  Sighing, I look about indecisively. I should just go back to the dorm. The carriage from Allan’s house doesn’t take that much longer than just walking, but I won’t be able to walk over with Ser Terry… Still, maybe Allan will be back in the morning before I leave. Unlikely, given how early I’ll have to go, but there’s still a chance.

  So, I just go up to my room, take a quick one hour bath and collapse onto the feather mattress. I can’t sleep though, despite the eventful day. Odd, I thought I learned how to lull myself into slumber no matter the circumstance – a vital skill for when one’s life is constant hard travel with enemies on your heels. Yet something about this pending conversation has me more on edge than attacking an imperial garrison.

  Fortunately, this unusual wakefulness proves fortuitous as perhaps a half hour later I hear a carriage roll up and the night servant rush to open the front door. Curious, I cast concealment and creep down the stairs, where I spot Allan in conversation with one of the servants who greeted me.

  “He’s still here?” Allan asks as he hands over a cloak.

  The servant nods. “Yes, my lord, he arrived perhaps an hour after dark.”

  “Did he seem alright?” Allan asks, strangely eager, as if some desperation is creeping out through his voice despite his constant control.

  Even the servant seems to notice, as they take a hesitant step back before nodding. “He seemed hale and whole, my lord. No visible injuries at least.”

  Allan scowls, causing the servant to wince before he controls himself. “I meant emotionally. Did he seem distressed in any way?”

  “I… My lord, I could not say. He’s always so expressionless. Distant. He’s not one to show us servants emotions… if he has them at all.” The servant mutters the last part, withering under Allan’s assessment, though recovers quickly upon Allan giving them a reassuring smile.

  “He has them, whether he wants to…” he says, half to himself as if in reassurance, but trails off as he turns towards the stairs and his gaze lingers where I’m peeking around the corner.

  Sensing that he’s about to see through the spell, and not wanting to explain it, I end it. “Hey,” I say lamely, stepping into sight, startling the servant, but eliciting no more than a raised eyebrow from Allan. “You’re back early.”

  “Yeah,” he shrugs, “I told the servants to send me a message when you came back.”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Yeah… look, I didn’t think you’d be up. We can talk in the morning if you…”

  “Can we talk now?” I interrupt him. “…If you’re okay with it, that is.”

  I tried to ask calmly, but by the look of his face, it’s clear there’s some eagerness to my voice. “Of course.” He says warmly. “I didn’t mean to suggest it’d be an inconvenience to me to talk now, I just thought you’d get more sleep if we talked about it over breakfast.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep …heh. Weird, right?”

  “Um… Not really. Come on, let’s go to the study.”

  We enter the study where he received Fluemhal and I find myself staring at where I shattered the brandy filled glass. I half expect to spot glass shards embedded in the books, the pages wrinkled by the liquid, but everything is as orderly as before I threw it. The servants must have cleaned it quickly. Maybe Allan used clothes enchanted with a self-cleaning function to soak it up… though then again, there really wasn’t that much liquid. Mundane methods would have probably sufficed.

  Allan activates the silencer and gestures for me to sit, but I choose to remain standing. He regards me and sighs, then sits down on the couch lining the side wall in a continually inviting manner. He doesn’t seem comfortable being the only one sitting, but perhaps he thought it would be even more awkward if we both stood. More confrontational, at least.

  “So, what do you want to talk about?” he asks, his smile comforting.

  “You don’t know?” I ask, a little bit too much edge.

  He nods. “It’s better to have it explicitly stated, don’t you think?”

  I nod back, glance aside, shake my head to myself and stare directly at him in the most confrontational manner that I can. “Why are you helping me if you don’t care about the mission? About Caethlon?”

  He locks his gaze on me impassively for a moment, then closes his eyes with a sharp inhale, which he releases slowly over the course of seconds. Opening his eyes, he resumes his calm but direct gaze and says, “I don’t care about the mission, but I do care about you. I want the best for you, Malichi. For you to live a good life, for your own sake.”

  I stare at him, dumbfounded, my mouth ajar. What? Care about me for my own sake?... I suppose maybe that’s in line with all those little insights I gleaned over the past few days. But even with that, I assumed my presence must be benefiting him somehow. After all, the insights were from people who don’t know the truth.

  Yet I don’t sense deception from him… though would I even? More and more has been slipping through his constant mask. Not a mask of silence, like the servant observed on me, but of constant cordial yet seemingly genuine expression, yet a mask all the same.

  “Why though?” I manage after a while. “We’re not actually relatives. You don’t owe me any duty, and we’ve barely known each other three months. So why would you care about me out of the untold masses if you don’t have any reason to?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He shrugs, slightly embarrassed, but in a way hoping to proliferate amusement where none previously existed. “Guilt, at first. Then proximity, I suppose.”

  “Guilt?” I question in a most bewildered way. “Over what? You’ve never harmed me. No reparations needed be made.”

  His smile turns thin-lipped, forcing his mouth shut in an uncomfortable indication. “You’re not going to like hearing this, but when I met you and you told me about all those things from the fighting and what you did during it… Well, I thought I was doing the right thing, you know. That even without my, heh, ‘high minded intellectual aesthetics’, that your side was obviously in the right. But hearing you talk about it, so boldly saying all the things your side did so matter of factly. That’s when I realized I was wrong. That somewhere along the line, the obvious ‘right side’ had become the wrong one. I thought, perhaps stupidly, that if I could fix you, that I would absolve myself a little of that mistake.”

  I stare at him, anger building again. “Wrong side? We were defending our homeland. How could that be wrong?”

  He chuckles inwardly, ruefully, disarmingly. “Perhaps that was stating it too simply. Supporting the cause was still right, but supporting the people who supported it became wrong… I did say you wouldn’t like it.”

  “…I don’t understand.”

  He nods, sadly. “I know you don’t. You were too immersed in it. You can’t see things from a more… let’s call it neutral perspective. But that’s fine. Understanding can build bonds, but fortunately it’s not necessary for it. Just know that I care for you, and worry about you… and am terrified of what you might become… or remain.”

  “…You’re talking about the sacrifices,” I say after a moment.

  “Yeah, I’m talking about the sacrifices… Look, is that what you want for your life? To be constantly hunting, always on the lookout for your next fix until the day you get caught? Because I don’t have the heart to watch you do that.”

  I look him in the eyes, I feel my shoulders droop and my gaze quickly follow. Shrugging, I finally take the suggestion to sit, taking the couch next to him and staring at the wall in front of us. There’s a heavy weight to this, as if all my reactions are being muted, as if I can’t even muster the vitality to look at him.

  “I don’t know,” I say, admitting it to myself as much as to him, my voice flat and steady. “Sometimes I’m terrified too. The lack of control I feel when some young noble is helpless before me, and all I can think about is tracing the runes and plunging the knife. But only after. In the moment, I can’t help but wonder what my objection was. What does control even mean? Whether I sacrifice or not, surely the control comes from me. The command is my own.”

  “No. The command comes from Anar. The control is his.”

  I smirk and shake my head, some small liveliness creeping into my voice. “It doesn’t work like that. It’d be so much simpler if it did. Easier. If he were really controlling me, I’d do everything I could to quit just out of spite. But I know, I know that the drive comes from in me. All he does is provide the opportunity.”

  “Then perhaps control is simply the wrong word,” he counters gently. “Maybe ‘impeded rationality’ would be better. At least it doesn’t run into the same metaphysical quibble.”

  “…Yeah, maybe. I don’t think it hits as hard for me, but maybe it is a more stable way of thinking about it… I do want to stop, I just… Will you help me with my mission?”

  He pauses for about a second longer than I would have liked, but he does finally nod. “Yeah. Of course I will. I mean, I’d rather you just quit it. Just live the rest of your life as Malichi and ignore all the risky opportunities I’m sure you’ll find. But I know I’ll never convince you of that. So, I need to help you so you’ll stay alive… Well, that and so that I’ll know what you’re doing. I was a lot more anxious during your little trip than I let on. You don’t know what it’s like to have someone you feel responsible for be in danger when you’re too far away to do anything.”

  “I know,” I say solemnly, “at least a little of it.”

  “Oh, right… Sorry, I guess, you encountered that situation a lot in Ceethlon.”

  I shake my head. “No, I was never the leader, so I never felt responsible for the detached forces. Sure, they were often dependent on my divinations, but at least there I was able to actively participate, even from a safe distance. I meant more recent developments.”

  “Oh?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah… Um… I didn’t tell you, but I took on some clients that Greg suggested. A um… a ‘tower’, if you understand me.”

  “Oh,” he says, tides of emotion wash beneath his usual mask, seen but understanding still obscured. “I guess it’s not surprising that Gregg would suggest that... You care about them, though? Enough to be worried for their safety?”

  “…Yeah. I guess I’d rather not lose them, if that’s what you mean. I um, might be sending them into a fight soon. I felt a sudden panic when I gave the order. It was unlike me. I did think about you then… about me. You know.”

  “Yeah… Maybe this is a good thing then.”

  “You’re not upset?” He shakes his head. “I thought you’d disapprove for some reason.”

  He shrugs. “I probably would have if you had told me beforehand, and I’m still worried about the violence that you’ll doubtlessly be part of, but maybe experiencing people underneath you will be good for you… I don’t know. But I do know that I won’t tell you to get rid of them or anything now that they’re already your responsibility. That would be disastrous. Just don’t be too intense about it. Don’t bring Caethlon to the streets, even if it would let you take the whole section.”

  I look at him silently, then nod. “Viscount Monroe said that the reason you got upset about me gambling was because you were worried about who I’d become after I became good. Is that instruction related to that?”

  “You talked with Monroe again? When?” His voice has a bit of alarm.

  “…I gambled a bit. Greg’s suggestion… You know, I was still mad at you and all.”

  “Huh… you know, I talk about you to… well, I get advice about you from some of my lovers who have children.” I give him a panicked look that results in a hasty amendment. “Within the context of your cover, of course. It’d be suspicious not to. Anyways, a lot of them mentioned that I should expect rebellion from you at any moment. Drugs, gambling and whoring. You know, the standard trio of the restless youth. I just thought they didn’t know you. I guess they were right after all. But yeah, Monroe was probably right. Same for this thing. It’s no life to be constantly taking from others with nothing to give in return.”

  “… I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.” I want him to be right, so I can just bring myself to do things his way and we can get along.

  “Yeah… maybe,” he says, seemingly unsure of what to make of my reaction. “Look…” he exhales sharply and looks away. Standing up, he goes over and pours us both a drink. Staring at the amber liquid turned brown in the unlit room, I choose to take a single sip before looking straight at him, prompting him to continue, his voice cracking. “I… I know that nothing I can say will make you accept how horrifying the things you do are. You’re too invested in it to think of it as anything but justified, and if you stop now just because I tell you to, you’ll have to seriously question what you did then. But maybe you don’t have to come around to my view. Because you seem to have your own reasons for wanting to stop, and maybe once those become pressing enough, you’ll have cause to accept the truth of the matter… Though maybe it’ll be better if you don’t, so long as you do stop for your own reason. Not understanding might be necessary to survive. Just, promise me that you won’t sacrifice anyone else, at least while you’re here with me. Can you do that at least?”

  I open my mouth but silently close it a few times before finally shaking my head. “I can’t promise to show self-control that I don’t have. It would be a lie, even if I never sacrificed again. But…I will try… and I do promise that if I sacrifice someone, then I’ll tell you afterwards. That I won’t try to hide it again.”

  “I suppose that’ll have to be enough…” he says, staring at his drink before taking a big gulp and turning to me with a pained smile. “Good night, Malichi. Sleep well. You have to get up early in the morning. I hope I can sleep too.”

  “…Yeah,” I say, looking at him, feeling like there’s something more I should do, but ultimately just stumbling out of the room feeling better than when I stumbled into it. Feeling relieved and hopeful that things will work out between us.